Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
We sat together then, eating the meal that Dietrich’s staff prepared for us. It was good, but once again different than what I was used to. I think that I was just getting homesick for the food that I was used to having on a regular basis. The last time that I was away for this long I had been in France. Well, there was also the time that I was in the underworld, but I didn’t eat any food while I was there. I didn’t even know how long I had been gone until I made it home.
Once we had eaten and our things were packed, it was time for us to get ready. No one was really talking about what was going on. I think we were all just in a state of shock at the moment. These murders were so close to home. We were already devastated by what had been happening, but now there were more murders that were happening in our own backyard. What the hell was going on here.
We were preparing to head to the first murder. It took place in Waterton, California. It was a smaller city that was on the coast about an hour or so from Los Angeles. There had also been murders in Crescent City, Shelter Cover, Elk and Davenport. Those were also cities that were along the California coast. All the murders had, apparently, taken place on the beach and the bodies were left on the sand. They had found the bodies this morning, all except for the one that we were going to first. That one, apparently, they had found the body last night. Someone had seen the victim moments after they had been killed. Maybe, just maybe, they had seen the killer as well.
We were going to open the door into the office of the local vampire clan’s leader. Her name was Veronica and she was about thirty minutes away from Waterton. It was the closest that we could get to the scene though, unless we wanted to be seen by a lot of other people.
The door was ready, thanks to an image that Jackson had made sure that I had. And once it was opened, we said our goodbyes to Shawn and Dietrich before walking through. Joaquin first then me, and of course we were followed by the others.
Veronica’s office was old fashioned but also sleek. That was hard to pull off in my opinion. It was also done in all pure whites and dark blacks. They completely contrasted with each other as I looked around. It was difficult on my eyes, but I managed it.
“Welcome, Queen Riviana. I am happy to welcome you.” Veronica smiled as she bowed to me.
“Thank you, Veronica.” I nodded at her. “I am sorry that you cannot meet Dietrich. He had some business to attend to in Germany. Perhaps he will come along at a later time.”
“That is quite alright. I have met my King already.” She seemed nice enough, but I didn’t really get the feeling that she was happy to have a room full of wolves in front of her. “Mr. Jackson is waiting outside. He will guide you all to the crime scene. My people are offering as much assistance as we can.”
“Thank you.”
With that, we left her office and found Jackson and Rawlynne waiting for us outside.
“Riviana!” Jackson came running up to meet me and Joaquin. “I am glad that you are here. We need to get a move on soon. If we can, I would like to visit all of the scenes today. I have not met with any of the other local leaders, but I did bring the helicopter here. I hope you do not mind. With that, we can fly from scene to scene without the doors. And without stepping on any toes.”
“That is fine, Jackson.” I nodded at him. “Thank you for thinking of the things that needed to be done.”
“David.” Rawlynne, who clearly missed her husband, saw him finally coming out of the office. He was near the back and only just made it to her line of sight.
“Rawlynne, sweetheart.” He hugged her as he caught her in his arms.
“I am glad that you are safe. That you all are. It has been quite stressful for everyone involved. We need to end this as soon as we can. If we don’t, they will break more than a hundred with their victim count.”
“I know.” David pressed his forehead against his wife’s as he spoke. “We are working on it. Shawn and Dietrich are investigating a mysterious mansion in Germany tomorrow morning. Well, tonight for us now. And when that happens, we are hoping that we will find some more information.”
“Good. Because this is getting to be ridiculous.” Rawlynne shook as if the anger, frustration, and heartache was getting to be too much for her. It wasn’t a shiver or anything. It actually looked more like she was trying to shake off the feelings that were bothering her.
“We don’t have a lot of time to waste. Let’s get going.” I changed the subject back to the topic at hand.
“Yes. Come now. We need to hurry.” Rawlynne agreed.
“You will know why we called you here first. There is something that happened here that didn’t happen at the other scenes.” Jackson seemed angry about something. That was off. I didn’t know what was up with him, but I knew that he, like the rest of us, was not having a good time with all of this.
“Go on, lead the way.” I nodded at him.
We followed the two of them out of the house and to the waiting vehicles. We didn’t have a place to leave Talia and her guards right now, and we were heading straight to the crime scene, so she was coming with us. I guess it wasn’t that bad, all things considered. She had been to crime scenes before. It was just investigating that house that Dietrich was taking us to that I was worried about. I had a bad feeling about that place.
“Out of curiosity, is there a place that we will be able to sleep tonight?” Shane asked from the back of the car that we were riding in.
“Well, if we were staying here, there might be an option.” Joaquin answered. “Some council members have a house in Waterton, but I don’t know if they are home right now. However, there was a murder in Crescent City. We know the Alpha there. In fact, we are related to him. We will ask to stay at his place. That is assuming that he and his kids aren’t filling every room that they have.” Joaquin laughed as he thought about something.
“Hmm.” I tried to think about who he was talking about. “Oh, yeah!” It finally hit me. “Star and Artem are from there aren’t they. I guess we will finally be able to see them again. It’s been a long time. And we’ve all been so busy with our own lives. We haven’t seen any of their kids in so long. How many do they have now, seventeen, eighteen.” I thought about how large their family was.
“Eighteen. Thirteen adopted boys, two biological sons then triplet girls. They will take a while to beat if we keep having more.” Joaquin laughed at me, and I wanted to smack him.
“I can cut that thing off, Joaquin.” I glared at him. “I am not saying that I won’t have anymore kids ever. I am just saying that we do not need to be rushing this.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Now, behave yourself, Horndog. I am going to send a message to Star. I want to let her know that we will be there later today to investigate and that we will need accommodations for eleven people.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I will be quiet.” Thankfully, he kept his word and I was able to make the preparations that I needed to. It was all set and the rooms that we needed would be ready before we got there to investigate tonight. It pays to have connections.
****
Riviana
****
It was almost like those convoys from years ago. All these big SUVs moving together. All of them are uniform black and sleek. It was clear that 鈥榳ealthy’ and 鈥榠mportant’ people were traveling in this large group. They weren’t the large black SUVs that Joaquin had used when we were investigating the disappearances of the kids when we were getting married, but it was close enough. For one thing, those SUVs were twenty years old now and they were considered 鈥榦bsolete’ with how the technology had advanced.
There were a lot of things about cars and their features that had improved, but I was glad that one thing didn’t become the societal norm. Those self-driving cars, while still popular among some people, weren’t as widespread as their creator had intended for them to be. Not everyone was comfortable with a car that was taking the control out of their hands. This might say more about us as people than anything else, but that sense of security from that control was a necessary thing.
Other than the self-driving feature though, things had come a long way with cars. They were a lot more environmentally friendly, they had a lot of safety features to make them virtually impossible to crash unless you were trying to smash into something, and they were a lot more comfortable than I remember them being when I was a teenager. Does that make me sound old? I feel like it does.
Anyway, the new tech aside, the SUVs were all traveling together in a long convoy just like they did back then. Joaquin and I were in the same SUV with Shane and some of our luggage. Talia was driving with Alexio and Rudy. And Gabriel, Vincent, and David were in the last one. Jackson was driving for us, Rawlynne was driving for David and the others, and Alexio was driving for Talia. I guess it was pretty good at least we were all together in a way.
…..
We drove right up to the beach in the vehicles. There was a parking lot that was roped off and signs stating that the beach was closed. I knew the reason for it, and clearly the public did too. All of the gathered crowd were trying to see past the police line as they gawked at the scene.