Ethan crossed his arms, kept his stare bland. “Didn’t we just do this yesterday?”
“Nessa killed our cousin,” Niall spat. “We have evidence.” Without taking his eyes off us, he gestured behind him. “Come here, Darla.”
Darla walked forward. Jeans hugged her very thin legs, and a black T-shirt seemed almost blousy on her thin frame. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her eyes were bright and held that same predatory gleam as Niall’s.
She pulled a sheaf of papers from her pocket, extended them to Ethan.
“What is this?” Ethan asked, unfurling and perusing them.
“A divorce petition,” she said, narrowing her gaze at Nessa. “She was filing for divorce. She was going to leave him.”
Divorce papers, Ethan silently confirmed to me, before handing the papers to Nessa with an obvious question in his eyes.
“Where did you get these?” Nessa demanded, but Darla ignored her, casting back an ugly sneer. “You’re not denying it?”
Nessa swallowed, gaze flicking from the papers to Ethan. “It was months ago. We had a rough patch. I couldn’t get him to talk to me; he was so absorbed in his work. I was frustrated, and I talked to a lawyer. But we got through it. We started talking again. Prioritizing our relationship. Things were getting better, so I didn’t pursue it. I focused on fixing my marriage.”
Darla looked entirely unconvinced. “That doesn’t explain the fight you had with him at school three weeks ago.” She looked at Ethan, clearly believing he was the one she needed to convince. “She screamed at him, right in front of the library.”
Whatever Ethan thought about the admission, his expression stayed neutral. He glanced at Nessa, whose eyes had gone very, very wide.
Her gaze flew to Ethan, pleading in her eyes. “It didn’t mean anything. It was just an argument. Just a stupid disagreement. I swear to you—things were getting better.”
Darla either wasn’t convinced or didn’t care. “You’re not one of us. You never were, and you never will be. He could have done so much better than you, and we all know it. You couldn’t even give him children.”
I winced at the shot, and the bolt of magic—horrified and grief stricken—that burst from Nessa. She jolted forward, and Damien wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from launching off the patio toward the shifters.
“You little bitch. I didn’t murder my husband! I loved him, and he loved me.”
“He was one of us!” Niall said. “He should have stayed with us. This is precisely what happens when shifters stray from their kind.”
“He’s dead, and now there are even more bloodsuckers in the valley,” Darla said, looking at me and Ethan. “Taran didn’t want you here, you know. He didn’t want her to let you stay here.”
“That’s not true,” Nessa said, but the expression on her face said it was at least a little bit true. “He was just busy and tired. He didn’t want to deal with company.” Tears streamed down her face. “I thought it would be fun to have you stay—that we could all go out together, just like a normal goddamned couple.” She sobbed in Damien’s arms, looking utterly miserable . . . and to my mind, utterly innocent.
Ethan looked at his weeping friend—a vampire being comforted by an honorable shifter—and then back at Niall and Darla.
“I don’t pretend to know what was between Nessa and Taran. Their relationship was their business and their concern, and certainly none of yours. You’ve brought nothing here today that suggests this woman killed her husband. You’re eager for a fight—that’s clear enough—but you’re looking in the wrong place. We’re on our way to talk to Sheriff McKenzie. If you’ve got evidence you think he needs to have, you’re welcome to bring it up with him.”
Niall made a dubious sound. “You know where talking gets you? Nowhere fast. We’ve talked and talked and talked some more”—he made talking motions with a hand—“and we’ve lost good people along the way.” His eyes hardened. “Talking does nothing. Trials do nothing. Jail does nothing. It’s time to put an end to it.”
“I notice Rowan isn’t here,” Ethan said. “Does he disagree with your approach?”
“Rowan is kissing Gabriel Keene’s ass. Neither one of them has anything to do with this.”
“Oh, I suspect Gabriel would disagree, but we’ll let him tell you that.”
“Enough fucking talk.” Niall pulled a handgun, aimed it at Ethan. “You give her over, and the rest of you can go.”
Even that was an obvious lie. He won’t let us go, I quietly said. He wants blood on the ground.
Ethan kept his gaze steady on Niall. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“Then suffer the fucking consequences.”
Shifters, a dozen more, emerged from the perimeter of trees, filling the air with the buzz of magic and anger. Half were in human form, with very large automatic weapons. AK-47s, if I remembered Luc’s weapons training accurately. A single bullet wouldn’t kill a vampire, but the sheer firepower in all those magazines would do some pretty serious damage.
The other half dozen shifters were their own weapons—they were in animal form, large, sleek mountain lions, golden ears flat against their heads, fangs bared in warning. They padded forward on feet big enough to knock me down, strong enough to keep me there.