Free The Severed Thread by Dione C. Suto

their intense social hierarchy and over-the-top dominance displays.  Neither of those qualities boded well for anyone not conforming to the traditional social structure of the pack.  Corbin was fortunate that the local pack, led by Jonathan Wilder, was more modern in its attitude towards alternate lifestyles and non-traditional roles than most.
    I was going to try very hard to keep Corbin on the fringes of this whole mess.  He was a lawyer, and while I trusted him to have my back, he didn’t need me dumping things on him that could compromise his ethics.   If I had to get Samantha involved to help save all our lives, so be it. 
     “Can we wait until we are in the car to talk about this?” I asked.
    Corbin and Samantha exchanged an uneasy look but acquiesced to the request.  Not sure where the car was parked, I followed them on autopilot, trying to come up with something plausible about this evening’s events to tell my friends that would also not put them in the position of having to break any laws. 
     “Alright, now spill,” Samantha said as soon as the doors closed on her Volvo sedan.  I was in the front passenger seat, and Corbin was in the back leaning forward between the seats.
    “I just want to go home,” I muttered leaning my head back against the head rest.  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put them off but I really, really wanted to.
    “That is so not happening without an explanation.”
    “Alright,” I said in defeat.  “When I got home after my interview with the agents at the Interspecies Bureau, three of McCallister’s people were waiting in my house.  They invited me to a little meeting, at which attendance was not optional.”
    “What did he want to talk about that couldn’t wait for a more appropriate time?” Samantha asked.  Yeah, good question.
    “He thinks Jason took something that belonged to him, and now he wants it back.”  My words fell like a bomb in the car.  The shockwaves had my friends sitting with their mouths hanging open in stunned silence.
    “Jason stole something from Liam McCallister ?” Corbin asked incredulously.  Apparently I was not the only one that thought you would have to be bat-shit crazy to even consider it.
    “That is what he tells me,” I replied dryly.
    “And he asked you down here to talk about something Jason had taken?  Today? ”  Samantha asked in confusion, and then gasped as something occurred to her.  “Did he kill Jason?” she whispered in horror.
    “He denied it when I asked the same question,” I told them.  “He pointed out that daylight hours are not a great time for vamps to be out and about killing people.”  Not that McCallister would have ever used the derogatory slang, vamps.
    “He could very easily have hired someone,” Corbin said.
    “My thoughts exactly and,” I paused, “he had motive.”
    “What did Jason take?” Samantha asked.
    Here was where things got sticky. “I can’t tell you,” I said apologetically.
    “Illegal?” Corbin asked.
    “I don’t want to drag both of you into this if I can avoid it,” I sighed while running my hands through my hair.  It seemed like days ago that I took that quick shower before Joshua drove me to the Interspecies Bureau. 
    “Okay,” Corbin said slowly.  “What did he want from you though?” he asked, wrinkling his brow in puzzlement.  “I can’t imagine that you were involved with anything illegal, and it seems odd that he would point out to you that he had a motive to kill Jason.”
    “He’s holding me accountable for Jason’s debt,” I dropped the second bomb in less than two minutes.
    “That is not fair!” Samantha burst out.  Corbin and I just gave each other a commiserating look.  We both knew from personal experience that politicians and criminals, many times indistinguishable from one another, very rarely cared about fair.
    “How?” Corbin asked after a few moments. 
    “How what?”
    “How is he holding you accountable?”