CHAPTER 434: THE BODY

Erik froze.

For a moment, it felt like the world narrowed into that one image, Rudy’s lifeless body, swaying gently from the rafter like a hanging toy.

The rope hung and the atmosphere was stagnant with the small of deaths

Fiona gasped behind him. "Gods..."

Erik took a shaky step forward, instinct kicking in even as dread shook his entire being.

He reached out and grasped Rudy’s ankles, trying to steady the body as his other hand fumbled to cut the rope. It took longer than it should have.

His fingers trembled. His mind raced.

And as he did it, he thought about how he didn’t want to be here.

How he wished he was anywhere but here even if it meant being in the same space as Anna.

Why was it now Xaden wasn’t here that everything was going into complete chaos.

How would Xaden handle such atrocities committed in the pack?

The boy’s body fell into his arms with a thud that knocked the breath from his lungs.

He lowered Rudy to the floor, cradling him as if that could still make a difference.

But Rudy was cold. Limp. His mouth hung open in a silent scream. His eyes still wide with something Erik recognized.

Terror.

He didn’t look like someone who expected suicide.

He had seen enough eyes of death to know.

He looked like someone who truly feared.

Fiona knelt beside him, one hand covering her mouth. "Oh noo... oh, Gods..."

"He’s gone," Erik said, barely recognizing his own voice. It was hoarse. Hollow.

He barely knew Rudy.

Just the few things that he has moved to the pack four years ago and was so good at the horses, he had preferred to be a ranch boy than pursue a rank in wolf hierarchy.

"But why?" Fiona whispered, eyes darting around the barn. "Why would he? Oh my Goddess he was just a boy."

Erik scanned the shadows, his wolf sharp and restless under his skin. "I don’t think he did this."

Fiona’s gaze snapped to him. "You think someone... murdered him?"

"I think someone wanted him quiet." Erik gently shut Rudy’s eyes, but it didn’t help. The image would be burned into him forever.

He stood, wiping his hands on his trousers like it would somehow rid him of the weight settling on his shoulders. "He was supposed to answer questions. About the horse. About who gave it to him. How convenient is it that just when I was about to ask he wound up in a supposed suicide."

Fiona slowly rose to her feet. "But if someone knew you were going to him...."

"They moved faster." Erik’s jaw tightened. "They’re covering their tracks."

"Oh my Goddess. Oh my Goddess." Fiona said as she raked her fingers through her hair in anguish.

Then she turned back to Erik and took a shaky breath. "What do we do?"

Erik looked at her then, really looked.

Her cheeks were pale, her lashes wet, but she stood there, unwavering.

Her hair was wild and unbraided, loose strands hung from her front head.

Despite everything.

She looked beautiful

"We will tell Nia and Loren." He said trying to take his mind off her. "But we can’t tell Jasmine."

Fiona nodded, but her eyes remained fixed on Rudy’s body. "Do you think she knows? Whoever’s doing this?"

Erik shook his head. "Not yet. But they’re getting bolder."

The barn door creaked in the wind, the sound making both of them flinch.

Erik turned toward it, nostrils flaring as he tried to scent anything... anyone. But the trail was muddled smoke, hay, fear.

And beneath it... something metallic.

"Blood," he murmured.

Fiona blinked. "What?"

He moved to the side wall where the hay had been disturbed.

Pushing it aside, he found a smear of dark red on the wood. Not much, but enough to make his heart stutter.

"There was a struggle," Erik said. "He didn’t just climb up there. Someone helped him."

Fiona looked back at Rudy again, and her expression crumpled. "Gods, Erik, how deep does this go?"

He met her eyes. "Deep enough that even the stables aren’t safe anymore."

A silence stretched between them. Fiona’s shoulders trembled. "This has to stop. Before someone else dies."

Erik stepped closer, his hand brushing her arm. "I’m not going to let anything happen to you."

Fiona looked at him, eyes glassy but sharp. "Don’t make promises you can’t keep."

And then he knew.

He knew what she meant by that statement.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Fi."

Her lips trembled, but she shook her head. "Not now."

And then she got up to her feet.

A show that she had no intentions on having that conversation with him.

He didn’t push her.

Instead, he crouched again beside Rudy’s body, lifting him carefully.

"We’re not leaving him here."

Fiona hesitated, then moved to help, wrapping Rudy’s cloak around his shoulders as Erik carried him out of the barn.

And as the sun dipped lower behind the trees, casting the yard in golden shadow, they both knew something had shifted.

This wasn’t just a threat anymore.

It was war. Quiet. Shadowed. Lethal.

And someone inside the pack was playing gods with lives.

Erik adjusted Rudy’s weight in his arms as they stepped out of the barn, the boy’s limbs hanging lifelessly, his head lolling against Erik’s chest. The sunlight hit them in jagged streaks through the trees, but none of it felt warm.

Fiona walked beside him in silence, her fists clenched and jaw tight. She kept looking around, like the forest itself might lurch forward and swallow them whole.

They didn’t speak again until Erik veered off the path, toward the grove behind the stables—a quiet, shaded place that hadn’t been tended in years.

"Where are we going?" Fiona asked, her voice low.

He didn’t answer until they reached the edge of the grove. He laid Rudy’s body down gently on a patch of soft moss, brushing the boy’s hair from his forehead before standing again. "We’re burying him."

Fiona froze. "What?"