Gray Bishop by Kelly Meade Read Free Book Online

but his nose was shocked by the decay around him. Here was the message.
    His skin prickled with awareness of someone behind him.
    “Shit,” Rook said.
    “What did you find?” Jillian asked from a few yards away.
    Bishop stood, his nerves jumping, and held up the chess piece. Jillian narrowed her eyes, her thin mouth puckering in disgust. Rook glared at it like he could make the thing combust if he hated its meaning enough.
    “Your choice. Daddy.”
    Fiona’s hateful words hit him like an arctic wind. The blue ribbon could mean everything, or it could mean nothing. Only one person knew that for sure, and he wasn’t talking to any of them about it. But surely Knight wouldn’t conceal something so important . . .
    “You were there in that trailer with him,” Bishop whispered, careful to make his words only for Rook. “Does the blue ribbon mean something?”
    Rook’s expression was gut-wrenching. “I don’t know for sure. Not for sure.”
    “Fuck.” His instinct as the Alpha’s son told him that he needed to take that chess piece straight to the Alpha so he could sort out its meaning. The scared older brother who wanted to protect Knight demanded he go to him first.
    As the future Alpha, he needed to make good decisions, always in the best interest of their people. Sometimes that meant considering the run as a whole, and sometimes it meant considering the needs of a single member. He would have to show the discovery to their father eventually, but not right away.
    This was too fucking personal. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Bishop said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
    As Jillian joined him and Rook, he said, “The chess piece is between us three until I say otherwise.”
    “Are you sure that’s wise?” Jillian asked.
    He glared, but she didn’t even flinch. “No, I’m not sure. We know the triplets did this. We didn’t need the chess piece to tell us that.”
    “So why conceal it?”
    “I’m not concealing it, Jillian, I’m going to investigate it.”
    “I think it’s a mistake.”
    “The Alpha will be angry I didn’t go to him right away, but I’ll take responsibility for that. You’re on record as disagreeing with me.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Oh good.”
    They walked back through the woods to their separate cars, the same way they’d come. Jonas fell into stride beside him, clearing his nose frequently as they walked. Bishop didn’t blame him. Even as they put nearly half a mile between themselves and the slaughter, the odors clung to him. He waited for Jonas to shift back and get dressed, then turned their car toward home, windows down for desperately needed fresh air.
    “That was beyond . . . just . . .” Jonas struggled for the words.
    “Yeah,” Bishop said. “They had to have been killed yesterday for all scent trails to disappear.”
    “Agreed. Never seen anything like it.” Jonas’s voice cracked, and Bishop didn’t fault him the emotions that must be pummeling him. Jonas had lived through an attack that left over a hundred of his run members dead. He’d seen slaughter up close, at a devastating level that Bishop would not wish on his worst enemy.
    And more than anything else, he did not want that devastation coming to Cornerstone.
    The drive home was silent, and the six of them trooped upstairs to report to Father. He sat behind his desk, nose never wrinkling at their combined stink, listening with perfect attention as they all took turns narrating what they had seen and smelled. Jillian uploaded the photos she’d taken, and at the first image, Father’s breath caught in a strangled gasp.
    “My God,” he whispered.
    “They’re messing with us,” Rook said. “Letting us know they haven’t forgotten their objective, even though they probably don’t have half a brain between them to figure out how to succeed.”
    “Which continues to give us an advantage,” Bishop added. “Reckless people are dangerous, but they also take risks. They act