Desert Blood (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 2)

by Anna Lowe

  Cody stepped forward, catching sight of her face. His hand splayed on the table to keep his knees from buckling at the sight of champagne-colored hair and startled green eyes trained lifelessly on the ceiling.

  “What’s the matter, Officer Hawthorne,” Kyle goaded, “seen a ghost?”

  Now that the first shock was past, Cody could see it wasn’t Heather. But the resemblance was close. Too close. He shot a mental roar off to Kyle to put him in his place and took grim satisfaction in watching the man wobble at the unexpected force of it. Didn’t hurt to remind the man who held rank here.

  “This is the unusual part,” the coroner explained, oblivious to his audience. “A puncture wound, underneath.”

  Cody froze. It was a worst-case scenario, if it was what he suspected. He forced a neutral expression over his face as he listened to the coroner go on.

  “Most of the wounds are too deep and rough to ascertain if there are more puncture marks. But this one bears a trace.”

  Cody followed Kyle’s eyes to the victim’s neck. “Nowhere else?” Kyle asked, voice a forced calm. His fingers scraped through his short, spiky hair.

  “Nowhere,” the coroner said and continued with his report. “Evidence of rape…” His flat monotone only made the word uglier.

  Cody slipped behind Kyle to lean in over the woman’s neck. He sniffed, close. Nothing but the last traces of a cheap perfume mixed with the acrid smell of fear. No trace of what he was looking for. He shook his head at Kyle.

  “Whoever bled her, he was a thorough son of a bitch,” the coroner added. “Bled her completely dry. Not a drop left.”

  Kyle shot Cody a meaningful look. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

  Cody wished he didn’t. But he nodded. Vampire.

  # # #

  An examination of the crime scene, out on a remote stretch of highway, affirmed their fears. The ashy scent of vampire was all over the victim’s car. To Cody, they all smelled the same. Like death. Like evil. Something that was there, but not there, like the last trace of ammonia overpowering the stink of something unclean. But even keen wolf noses couldn’t track them. Vampires only left a scent when they fed. As far as a trail was concerned, the killers had vanished into thin air.

  “Vampires,” Kyle muttered on the long drive east. They were headed over the state border to confer with investigators working on the previous murders. “From New Mexico? Texas?”

  Cody didn’t care where they came from. He wanted them dead.

  “Must have been a couple of them, feeding on her at once,” Kyle speculated.

  Cody sucked in a breath to fight the bitter taste in his mouth. A lone vampire could be a handful, even for a wolf. His father still bore the scars from a fight with a vampire he’d only barely overcome, long before Cody’s birth. Vampires were quick and very, very hard to kill. A fight with more than one vampire promised a high body count on both sides.

  “Then they covered up by slashing her,” Kyle finished.

  A long pause filled the car while their imaginations filled in the rest.

  “Think Zack and Rae could track them?” Kyle asked.

  Cody immediately shook his head. Zack was the pack’s best tracker and Rae, a master hunter, but even they wouldn’t be of any help with this kind of trail. “Like Zack would let his mate get anywhere near vampires,” he added with a snort. As if any good mate would allow that.

  The thought cued an image of Heather, and his pulse jumped with the urge to protect. He checked his watch, calculating the hours since he’d last seen her. Already much too long. If this threat of vampires hadn’t pushed everything else aside, he could be with her now.

  “When I get my claws on those blood suckers…” He left the threat hanging.

  The investigators in New Mexico were just as baffled by the crimes, but hours of poring over maps and police records revealed nothing.

  “Hell of a way to spend a Saturday night,” one of the investigators said.

  Or a Sunday morning, because Cody and Kyle ended up spending the night in New Mexico, following what turned out to be false leads. By the time they got back to Kyle’s Arizona headquarters, it was late on Sunday. Another two hours of checking records also failed to turn up anything. Cody huffed into his coffee cup and tossed it aside.

  “How do you do this all the time?”

  “What?” Kyle raised an eyebrow.

  “The deaths. The unsolved mysteries. The fucked-up shitheads responsible for them.”

  Kyle’s eyes traveled along the office wall, landing no place in particular. His brow furrowed, and suddenly Cody wished he hadn’t asked. Because his packmate’s eyes showed pain then gritty determination. The man was a cop for a reason, even if he didn’t reveal much about his past.

  Kyle swallowed, and then pulled back into focus. “This is the hard part—waiting, thinking, messing with false leads. But catching the bastards—that feels good.” He looked at Cody, his eyes burning with resolve. “We’ll solve this case. I promise you that.”

  “We’ll get the bastards, all right,” Cody replied, thumping his tilted-back chair back to the floor.

  At that moment, though, there was nothing to do but to call it a night. Cody headed to Kyle’s place, where he planned to bunk for the night instead of driving all the way back to the ranch. The house—the old blacksmith’s house, out on the far edge of Twin Moon territory—was as messy as Kyle’s life had once been. But he’d gotten himself together remarkably well for a human inadvertently turned wolf in a messy biker brawl that included a rogue shifter. That the cop even survived his wounds was a small miracle. Only the strongest humans survived those kinds of wounds and became shifters.

  Kyle joined Twin Moon pack shortly after recovering and slowly found his way into a new life. Still, it was obvious that the man had a long way to go before he was comfortable in his own skin—both skins, to be precise. He spent too much time on his own, staring off into space, studying the ghosts of his past. Or maybe he was dreaming of something forever out of reach. Whatever it was, the man seemed more empty shell than soul. The girls loved it, though. Kyle had that wounded warrior aura they just couldn’t resist.

  Cody threw his friend a sidelong look and wondered for the first time if he got tired of it, too. Tired of loose and empty hookups instead of… Instead of the steady rightness of a mate’s company.

  And off his mind went again on another round of imagining something that couldn’t be.

  Cody brooded throughout their pizza dinner and the first half of the football game running on the TV, unable to shake the image of the dead woman’s startled eyes. Eyes so much like Heather’s. His legs twitched with the impulse to go check on the schoolhouse. Except Heather would be home today. His pulse jumped at the idea. He could track her down. She lived somewhere in town, didn’t she?

  Right. He’d show up unannounced and say…what exactly? Hi, Heather. I needed to check that you’re okay. I need to hold you close.

  Like that would get past her armor.

  Or maybe a different tack. I can’t forget our kiss. Want about a million more like it. The kiss echoed in his mouth now, taking the edge off the acid taste that still clung there after the morgue. And, by the way, I want you to be my mate. He could just imagine how well that would go over.

  Cody tried shaking off the feeling. He shouldn’t, couldn’t think of Heather now.

  Kyle pointed the remote at the TV. “Hey, Code.” He hit mute but kept his eyes on the game.

  “Yeah?”

  “Want some advice?”

  Cody worked his jaw from side to side. “No.”

  Silence filled the room until Kyle hit the sound button, flooding the space with cheers.

  Cody let another tackle go down before giving in. “Okay, what?”

  “Let it go for tonight. We need clear heads for tomorrow.”

  Cody shot Kyle a hard look, reminding him who beat whom in that fight they’d had shortly after Kyle joined the pack. It had been a hard-fought e
ncounter, and even in defeat, Kyle had earned high standing in the pack.

  Right now, though, Cody had to admit Kyle was right. He should clear his head. But how? The vampires were out there. Who knew who their next victim would be? And Heather… He just couldn’t clear his mind of her. It was as if the part of his brain responsible for breathing had taken her on, too.

  The wolf leaped to attention and started pacing. Mate! Mine!

  No, no, no. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. Not when so much was on the line.

  His wolf growled disapproval just as something beeped. Kyle leaned over the side table. “Fax from Tina for you.”

  Cody sighed; his wolf whined. Tina probably had some errand for him to run tomorrow. More likely, an entire series of errands like hauling fertilizer and tracking down hard-to-find parts. She loved torturing her little brother like that.

  When Cody read the fax though, he broke into a wide grin. Need you to bring this to Heather, Tina wrote. Beth’s library orders. Does Heather want to add anything before we put the order in tomorrow morning? Below that, she’d jotted Heather’s address. P.S. Hope you don’t mind.

  Nope. He didn’t mind one bit.

  But showing up at Heather’s place unannounced with a sheaf of papers seemed a little lame, so Cody stopped by a store on the way. He wavered between the aisles, plagued by indecision. Wine seemed a little too forward. Beer, a little too crude. He settled on two pints of strawberries instead.

  Thoughts of the murder case flitted away, replaced by images of her. A mile away from her address, his nostrils were already twitching. When Cody took the final turn down her quiet lane, he immediately recognized that late model orange VW of hers, so out of place here in the west. The car had seen better days and the tiny rental bungalow, too. But it was quiet out here on the edge of town, and she’d done her best to spruce things up with potted plants and a bird feeder. In them, he saw the color of hope, of determination to make a new start. Which only made him more curious. What brought her to Arizona, anyway?

  Destiny, the desert whispered.

  He sniffed. She was home, all right. Everything in him skipped and lurched, and Cody nearly laughed at himself. Other men came home sniffing for dinner; he came home sniffing for her.

  Then he caught himself. Home wasn’t here.

  She’s here, his wolf said. Home.

  He locked the beast back into its cage and knocked, knuckles rapping beside a braid of garlic. Funny, most people hung strings of chili peppers on their doors. Heather was different. Different in so many fascinating ways. Cody knocked again and stepped back, prepping the words he’d been rehearsing all the way over. But the moment she opened the door, he froze. Not so much at the T-shirt and shorts she’d changed into as at her hair, finally let down. Light filtered through it, accenting every soft strand that went down nearly to her waist in long, golden waves. Gone was the teacher; before him was someone between girl and woman, innocent and sensual all at the same time. Like her scent—a light, fruity scent, as if she’d just stepped out of the shower in anticipation of his visit.

  Her scent filled him and words vanished. Everything disappeared, replaced by a roar in his ears, a twitch in his veins.

  Mine! screamed his wolf. Make her mine!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A knock on the door on a Sunday night should have set off every alarm in Heather’s body. It should have had her cowering, hoping that whoever it was, they’d please, please give up and go away.

  Part of her did cower. But the other part was drawn forward—bold and unafraid. Reckless, even. As if her dog Buddy were there, one step ahead, tail wagging in eager anticipation of a trusted friend. That’s what the night air was signaling now: friend, not foe.

  Slowly, carefully, she turned the lock and cracked the door open, bracing to bash it closed, just in case.

  It was him. Cody. More than a friend; her heart knew that already. Each time he walked her to her car, another section of her heart caved in. And two nights ago, that kiss had sent the rest crumbling. She could still taste him on her lips, still feel his hand on her hip. She’d been bumping into her own furniture, pouring tea into her cereal, watching the clock for some unknown appointment.

  Now, standing before her, Cody’s eyes sparkled gold behind the brown, like coins in an ancient well. In faded denim and a beige shirt, the man was all dry tones, but his hands cupped something succulent and red. Behind him, the desert was hushed, leaning in to eavesdrop.

  They stood staring at each other for a minute, or maybe ten, bathed in silence except for the hum. It was very faint, like a power station radiating electricity, but it came from between them, out of thin air. Or maybe it was from the thirsty earth below, thrumming with the beat of a primal drum.

  The lazy, lusty heat of it wrapped around Heather’s legs and clambered up her frame. Soon she’d be engulfed with that thumping need. Did he feel it, too? She stood silent, wondering what it was that tore at her gut with a curt, urgent message: Cody! Cody! It might have been the call a hibernating bear gets to wake up or a flower to bloom. Every scrap of her was being pulled in his direction.

  “Hi,” he breathed. His voice, normally so smooth, had a bit of sandpaper in it tonight.

  “Hi,” she said, or at least mouthed it while her pulse hammered in her ears.

  Warning bells sounded in her mind. Don’t trust him! Don’t trust anyone!

  His lips parted as if to speak then closed again. She could taste the kiss forming on them as he took her in. Not the way some men did, appraising and crude. No, his gaze was gentle, sincere. Hopeful, too. But he was holding back, giving her the power to choreograph what happened next.

  Danger! Danger! You don’t know what he will do!

  Heather shoved the spinster aside and swung the door wide. “Would you like to come in?”

  Grinning like a boy offered a cookie jar and trying to remember his manners, Cody stepped over the threshold. “Tina asked me to give you this.” He handed her a limp sheaf of papers. Meanwhile, all his focus—his hopes—were pinned to his other hand. The one that held out strawberries. Juicy. Sweet. Begging to be devoured.

  Temptation, there for her to take or reject.

  She was shaking inside, her mouth dry, her pulse racing. To take meant risk—risking her heart, maybe even her life. To reject meant locking herself away from a life worth living.

  She took. It was sheer instinct; the inner voice had no time to intervene. Only to react once it was too late. I hope you know what you’re doing.

  But she had no idea what she was doing, just this crazy instinct to trust him. She rinsed the berries and covertly watched Cody make a loop through her living room. He was taking it all in, from the second-hand couch to the desert scenes she’d cut out of an old calendar to decorate the walls. Everything was improvised, like the scrap of cardboard evening out the legs of the rickety table. God, what would he think?

  He leaned over a framed photo. “Nice dog.”

  A trick! A trick! Be careful!

  “Buddy,” she said, smiling automatically.

  “Buddy?” he laughed.

  “Hey, I was nine when I named him!” Her hands went to her hips, prompting Cody to throw his palms up in surrender. “He was the best.”

  He studied the picture more closely then shot her a skeptical look. “Him?”

  That dog had been closer to her than most of her family members. A shoulder for her to cry on through her parents’ divorce and subsequent remarriages to partners who gradually pushed Heather away. From her ninth birthday until that awful day a decade later when Buddy died, he’d always been there for her.

  “The absolute best.”

  Cody’s eyes danced. “Better than Lassie?”

  She laughed. He’d chosen the right moment to lighten things up. She was much too tense. “Way better.”

  “Better than Rin-Tin-Tin?”

  “A totally different class.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What about Benji? Benji c
ould solve crimes, you know.” His eyes sparkled at some inside joke.

  She shook her head, unimpressed. “Buddy didn’t need to solve crimes; he was so good at keeping trouble away.”

  “Big dog.” Cody shook his head skeptically.

  “I like big dogs.”

  His head tilted to one side. “How big?”

  “Big.” What was this, some kind of Freudian analysis? She moved from the kitchenette, holding out the bowl of strawberries, willing her hand not to shake. “Dessert?”

  Cody grinned, and she immediately felt her face heat in a flush.

  Never trust any man! the fearful voice cried. But this time, the voice came from a distance, as if it had been grabbed by the scruff of its neck and was being escorted out the back door, fading away into the night. Don’t trust anyone…

  Cody snagged a strawberry and continued his inspection, tilting the photo of Heather and Cathy to the light. The two of them in uniform, hockey sticks crossed. “Field hockey, huh?”

  She forced a light tone even as her gut clenched at the memory of Cathy. “I played in college.”

  “Let me guess. Defense.”

  Heather frowned. Did she really come across that way? Wary, on guard? She shook her head. “Midfield.” The ones who covered the most miles. Like she’d done her whole life.

  “You look dangerous with that stick.”

  “You better believe it.” She faked a chuckle. “It’s still in my car, actually. I never get around to taking it out.” She left out the rest—how it filled some of the emptiness of the backseat with Buddy gone. Buddy, with his long ears, flopping in the breeze.

  “I’ll make sure to be good.” He looked at Heather like she was the next photograph to study, and then snagged another berry.

  Pulse spiking, she ducked around him and slid the patio door open with a screech. Normally, she kept herself locked up at night, but some irrepressible urge called to her. Mesquite from the neighbor’s barbecue wafted in along with the nutmeg-vanilla flavor of the night-scented flower. It was the scent of a vast space. The scent of possibility.

  “Scorpio’s up,” Cody said, a whisper at her shoulder. His scent joined the others. Distinctly Cody, it was like the beach at midnight: warm and inviting. But danger wasn’t far off, not with this man. She could feel the coiled power in him. Around him, almost. Like a force field. Maybe if she stood close enough, it would protect her, too.