Read Deceiving the Protector for Free Online

are still out there. A remaining male, who turned northeast, and the female, who headed south. The others turned out to be dead, once we found enough pieces of them for the guides to ID.”
    He held in the growl, but distaste still curled the corners of his mouth. So much for ignoring the all-powerful Sibile fortune-teller and her tip that the person hunting their travelers wasn’t what they thought he was. “Great. Just fucking great.”
    “Hey, I didn’t cut them up.” Betha shrugged before reaching into one of the many pockets on her leathers and pulling out a paper-wrapped piece of jerky. She ripped a piece off with her teeth with a relish that was a little disconcerting, given the topic. “All the bodies were close to the safe houses. Found them by smell in the afternoons when the sun and the winds kicked up. I’m guessing they died after each stop so the guides could count them first, buying the killer more time. The strange thing is that all of them were killed by a bullet to the head.”
    “What’s strange about that?” Humans preferred to use guns on shifters and it wasn’t like they were impervious to holes in their heads.
    “Well, I can’t quite figure out the point of shooting a shifter clean in the head, point blank to the forehead, then dismembering ’em and spreading ’em around the trees like a kid who hates his spaghetti dinner.”
    That was…vivid. Tate laughed, despite himself. “You should write children’s books. You could traumatize millions at a time.”
    She smiled, transforming herself from ruthless killer to a scrub-faced sixteen-year-old, complete with the sprinkling of freckles over her cheeks. You’d never guess she was twenty-three and had already survived two death squad attacks of her own.
    “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t come up with the shit I’m seeing.” The lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes deepened. Not with humor, but confusion. Maybe even horror. “I’m not kidding, Tate. He cuts them up the way we’d clean a fish. It’s clean. Clinical, even. I mean, humans use power saws to cut through meat like that, but there’s nothing clinical about the violence afterward. It’s all been stomped and crushed, torn apart, thrown all over the place. I won’t even go into all the blood every-fucking-where.”
    He turned again, eying Lia a little longer. Still no movement. Still safe. He’d known there was a killer out there. Even known the killer was somehow connected to Lia—the oracle had said as much.
    Death hunts the Wanderer, only with the Hunter can the treasure be protected.
    That had been reported by Jade, the Sibile his brother had taken for a mate. She hadn’t said anything about sick motherfuckers stringing up people parts like Christmas decorations. Carnage like that—carnage that could affect Betha, of all people—was nothing to shrug at.
    But if he didn’t remind Betha to stay emotionally distanced, they’d never find answers. She had to push past the unsettling and see the facts. “Why not? You’ve gone into everything else.”
    Betha shook her head, the dark thoughtfulness clouding her expression only settling in deeper. “Whoever’s killing them is a single person, not a squad, or there’d be a hell of a lot more tracks in the woods. I’m barely finding anything but the victims’ trails, and you know I’m almost as good as you at tracking. But how the hell does a single human take down a shifter running for his life, at close range?”
    They didn’t. Humans weren’t as fast, weren’t as strong. That’s why they moved in teams for that kind of thing. He frowned down at his protégé. “What makes you so sure it’s not some shifter playing against the rules? Just the gun?”
    When she met his gaze this time, he saw something he really didn’t like in her dark eyes. A hint of fear. He resisted the urge to check Lia again, reminded too well of the same expression on her face.
    “These guys weren’t small. The victims were