He focused on keeping his breathing steady and face impassive as they followed the Alpha around to the back doors. The whole back of the house was dedicated to the kitchen and that was where Lilith liked to spend her time. Of course she would have been there when she died. The thought hitched his breathing and he couldn't remember how to get it started again.
He worked to get his lungs to inhale and exhale at a steady rate, the effort and lack of oxygen building into a headache. He had almost managed to normalize his breathing when they reached the back. The scene of murder thrust itself upon him without warning and he lost his breath again. The kitchen doors had been left open, exposing her slumped body inside. At least that was what he assumed the dark figure on the ground was.
Then everyone's wands lit the room with erie blue light and he immediately could tell it was her body. He could see the blood and the scratches. His eyes skittered away to the rest of the room as he fought the bile coming into the back of his throat. The wand light didn't do much for the rest of the kitchen either. It left the corners of the room in darkness, tricking his brain into thinking there was still something lurking there. That maybe her killer was still there, hiding and watching.
Everyone crowded forward and their wands lit up the space brighter now, glinting off of the blood that splashed across the floor and cabinets. It lit up Lilith's body too, obviously naked, in a glinting pool of blood. Teddy had to close his eyes for a moment just to reign his stomach contents and the overwhelming conviction he had failed her.
They had broken up last year but it had been a relatively amicable one and he still felt protective of her even if their relationship jumbled. He had run with her in the woods last night, her wolf happy and free and alive... and now she was dead. How? He couldn't even understand the abrupt ending of someone so beautifully alive.
There was a hand on his shoulder and Teddy looked up to see Harry. The dull roaring in Teddy's head was back but he could make it out the words when Harry asked, "Can you do this?"
Teddy shook off Harry's hand and forced out the words, "Of course I can, it's my job." He stomped towards the kitchen where the rest of the Aurors had entered. He shoved down everything. He could think about all that later but now it wouldn't help. He needed to see this clinically. He had to find her killer and the only way he would do that was by finding the evidence.
There was a kitchen knife on the ground with blood on the handle and a dented skillet farther away. There was a carton of orange juice on the cabinet and several tins of cocoa powder in the trash. She must have been stressed lately, hot chocolate with cinnamon was her comfort food because it reminded her of her father.
Some of the splashes on the cabinets were actually smears that stopped abruptly. There weren't any visible footprints on the ground, he wasn't sure if it just was because there was too much blood or if the killer had just managed to clean up after himself. Teddy couldn't smell anything other than blood here. Lilith's blood. That meant scenting the killer would be impossible without his wolf's nose. Even then he probably wouldn't get anything due to how contaminated the crime scene had become. Had the Alpha been able to scent anyone before he brought in the Aurors?
Teddy assumed he hadn't. Why else would the Alpha bring in the Aurors? He glanced back at the Alpha, who watched impassively, and then redirected his eyes back to the bloody cabinets, hoping for a distinct fingerprint or maybe some hair. He circled the kitchen a few times, first looking at the cabinets and then the floor.
By the third pass he had to admit he was stalling. He had to look at her body eventually.
That was where everyone else was hovering. Her near-black hair was splayed around her head, soaked dark red in the drying blood. Her swarthy skin had paled a little with death and was covered in many shallow cuts already starting to congeal. The cuts looked like claw marks- three or four lines about equidistant from each other. The death wound wasn't obvious. Her throat had been sliced but the intent appeared more the voice-box than the carotids. Also, there were deep cuts right below the elbows. Teddy was familiar enough with anatomy to know that cutting those tendons would make her hands nearly useless.
It was clear that the bastard had enjoyed this kill and Teddy was overwhelmed by a thirst for their blood. The wolf, already so close to the surface, called for the hunt. It wanted vengeance and death. It didn't help that Teddy wanted just about the same things. He inhaled deeply and was caught by a scent. There was blood, yes, but something else. He leaned over one of her splayed arms, and examined it. The wound was oddly dark along the edges and there was a shred of green cloth. He took another deep breath, focusing hard to stop himself from gagging, and it smelled it again. Magic.
