"You have to control it, babe, we have to control it. We're getting closer to the truth and we cannot let our emotions get the best of us." "It could work," he thought almost wistfully. "Not by itself. Sure it has their blood on it, but can you prove it was in his hand? Maybe with something else, sure, but not with what we have now." I kissed his forehead then his lips before sitting back and smiling a little sadly. "I'm sorry, baby." He flickered his eyes to me and let out a long sigh. I gave him a half sad smile and leaned my forehead against his. "What else was in there?" he breathed out. I leaned back and reached for the other piece of paper that I hadn't looked at along with the bundle of letters. Ethan took the one piece of paper from my fingers while I undid the bundle and started to go through the letters. They were interesting, to say the least. There was no name on them. No name to or from, no date, no nothing; just a message. One said, "It is done, don't forget to hold up your end." I felt my mind stir as I thought about what that rogue had said to Thomas. I looked through another that said, "Play your part and we'll play ours. You know how." Ethan was studying the piece of paper carefully in his hands. I looked at it a little and saw the figure he was staring at. It was a circle with an x in the middle of it and three small dots on the left all in black ink on the worn cream paper. "What the hell is that?" He shook his head. "I have no idea." He looked at the letters curiously. "Those?" I shrugged. "No name just a message. This one–" I said while holding out one to him. "Mimics a little of what we saw that one rogue say to Thomas. I have a feeling these are between the two of them." "Ya, but there's no name..." his voice trailed off as he looked at the cloth covering the knife, the picture, then the letter in his hand. "There's no name Charlotte." My eyes flickered to his that started to fill with dread and fury. I felt my mind swirl a little as I looked at the box then back to the letter when it clicked. "Shit," I hissed. "It could be anyone, there's no name which means it could be anyone's name. These have been here, they haven't been moved. That and this place, the treehouse, it was never really mom and dad's place. It was more for the kids until–" "After the attack," I finished. "It's my place, it's been that way ever since then." "But the picture?! Your face is scratched out too," I rushed out in mild desperation that what I was thinking was not actually true. "Baby there is a bloody knife with my family's blood still on it and suspicious ass letters with no name in this treehouse, my place. It wouldn't matter." "Oh my God," I bit out. Before I knew it, it was Ethan the one pulling me back from the door. I was clawing out and thrashing wildly as pure raged poured into my body. I was the epitome of fury. My beast snapped out and let out a growl of cold wrath in the back of my mind as my tendrils of chilling vexations grasped at our bond. My beast and I wanted to end him, end the one who dare frame our mate for this. Framed. He was rotten and needed to be tossed out. Surprisingly, though, Ethan wouldn't let me. He eventually got a hold of me then tossed me over his shoulder and marched us back to the couch with me growling out furiously. He threw me down on my back against the couch then pinned me down before I even had a chance to move. I was fuming. I was fuming as his eyes bore into mine. His fingers were gentle as he pushed hair out of my face before he slowly kissed my cheek. My body settled a little, but I was still simmering with anger; that is until he placed another feather kiss on the edge of my jaw. "What are you doing?" "Remember when you told me something like, 'we have to have a handle on our emotions?'" I let out a frustrated breath and closed my eyes as he kissed me gently again. It was hard not to melt little by little, like an ice cube sitting in a room just above freezing. "I'm not going to apologize," I breathed out as I drug my beast back. She was wrestling with me until I pushed her back hard. This wasn't the way to get what we wanted, what our pack needed, even though we were certainly entitled to doing it. "I wasn't asking you to," he breathed out before pulling back and loosening his grip on my arms a little. "You were what? Sixteen back then? Christ, he did this when you were still a damn teenager! What kind of a path–" His hand covered my mouth while his conflicted eyes bore down at me. "I know baby, you don't have to tell me how much of a bastard he is." "Do you think there's more?" I asked after he removed his hand. He looked at me a little warily. "Shit. Hold on, let me link Evan." I sighed and looked back at the table as he laid his head on my chest while he furiously linked Evan. His brows would furrow every now and then, and sometimes a low growl would rumble off of him. I tried to push my anger out as best I could. I found that playing with his hair helped, it didn't take it away, but it did alleviate it. He let out a hot breath then looked back up at me a little tiredly. "Evan's searching our cabin now. He's going to look around your place and our's after, he has Ryder on it." "Do you think he planned on using this soon?" Ethan looked over at the table and mused for a bit. "It's been here undisturbed for a while, so I don't think so. This was his insurance. He was probably going to use it in the case that I threatened him or–" "Challenged him," I said as our eyes locked. "Shit," I hissed. "We need to tell Levi," he said.