Free Alpha Knows Best (Wicked Good Witches Book 2) by Starla Silver Page B

question.
    “No. Okay. We haven’t seen her since this morning and she left her phone at home. Emily went looking for her but she just called and said she didn’t find her. We’re getting a bit worried. K, thanks, Mack. See you in a few.”
    “She seen her?”
    “Nope.”
    “So help me God if something’s happened to her…”
    William inched forward and touched his shoulder. “Focus on the task at hand, Charlie. Control your emotions.”
    Charlie nodded. William was right. He could not afford to lose control. But of all the days for Melinda to run off...
    “Here’s the turn,” Michael pointed out.
    Charlie pulled the jeep off the road and parked. “Mack said she’d meet us just over the hill.”
    “How is she planning to explain our arrival at a crime scene?” asked William.
    “It’s Mack, she’ll think up something,” said Michael.
    Just then, an exhaust backfired as a hefty cargo van pulled up alongside them. The man behind the wheel waved, smiled and kept driving up the road.
    “Police vehicle?” asked Michael.
    “I smell human food,” William noted.
    “Mack,” the brothers said simultaneously.
    Sure enough, as they approached the hill, they saw the driver get out and prop open a door, proceeding to set up a few tables. They heard Mack shout “Lunch” and watched as everyone at the crime scene eagerly made their way to the truck. As they gathered, Mack gave a short speech.
    “I just want to thank all of you for your hard work today. I know this hasn’t been an easy one. So let’s all take a much needed break, have some food, some coffee, and then we’ll get back at it, okay?”
    Mack walked to the other side of the van where Charlie, Michael, and William waited just in the woods, out of sight.
    “Keep hidden as much as possible. You’ve safely got twenty, maybe thirty minutes. My guys get antsy to get back to work pretty quickly,” she added proudly. 
    Charlie tossed her a half-hearted salute, and they headed toward the crime scene. They kept to the edges of the wood line until out of sight of Mack’s team.
    They saw the body, a bloody sheet wrapped over it.
    William suddenly gagged, a low hiss echoing in his throat, his fangs dropping.
    Horrified by his reaction he spun around, trying to hide it. But the brothers had already seen. “Too much blood,” he admitted, forcing his fangs to retract.
    “Maybe there’s more than one monster in the house that cannot handle his poison, after all,” Charlie mumbled sardonically. 
    “I’ll go do a perimeter sweep and check the out-skirting areas,” William retorted flatly.
    “We’ll meet you back at the jeep,” Michael said as the vampire sped off in a daze, leaving behind a whirlwind of dried leaves and forest debris. “Does William seem a little off his game lately?”
    “Have any of us been on our game lately?” Charlie countered.
    Michael could not argue the sentiment and supposed the vampire was allowed to have a bad day now and then, too.
    Charlie and Michael proceeded to creep around the crime scene, looking for anything the werewolf, and possible shapeshifter, might have left behind.
    “Why don’t I just do a death reading?” suggested Michael.
    “I don’t know, it’s going to be a vicious thing to watch, and chances are you won’t see anything more than we already know.”
    “Believe me! I don’t like the idea either but what if I can see something helpful? I think it’s worth trying. We’re running out of options. And time.” 
    “Okay,” Charlie relented. “But if it gets too intense, just stop.”
    Michael sat next to the body and reached out his arm. He flexed his hand, preparing himself.
    Charlie didn’t like it. Michael’s ability could come in handy, but what a terrible magical inheritance. A witness to death. Sometimes he thought he understood how magic worked and sometimes he felt like he didn’t understand anything. His parents had always told him that magic worked in mysterious ways, and would