Sadie Hart

by Cry Sanctuary

  Caine’s lips found the hollow of her throat and he nipped gently, rasping over her skin, drawing a soft, startled gasp from her. Her body stiffened, completely and utterly attuned to the man holding her. How he could do with one kiss what other men hadn’t been able to accomplish with a whole night in bed, she didn’t know.

  It was more than desire or simple arousal. It was understanding, a deep, empathetic connection. He knew when she needed comfort, sympathy, or someone to argue back. “No one,” he murmured. “We’re not him, we don’t get to choose when she dies. We just have to try to prevent it.”

  “You’re not a Hound.”

  He laughed, a rich sound, loud in the sudden stillness of the night. “Hey, if your lioness buddy can be one, I’m sure I can, too.”

  His hands wrapped in her hair, and he pulled her head back, exposing her throat. Baring his teeth, his eyes met hers, more wolf than man. Without releasing her gaze, Caine tilted his head and nipped over her throat again. Her knees trembled. That was it. Caine made her feel vulnerable, emphasized it with everything he did, but at the same time, somehow, she felt stronger. And safe. She trusted him. Implicitly.

  He’d forged her trust in the fire of his gaze, the unyielding inferno that had demanded she tell him, trust him, have faith in him right from the word go. It was the alpha in him. The man a whole pack relied on.

  She swallowed and Caine grinned, more wolf than man. The shadows around him were broken only by the slivers of starlight and the glow of a half moon. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the case.”

  This time his tongue wet a warm line up her throat, twirling over her pulse before he laid a kiss over it. His growl triggered the racing jump of her heart as it picked up speed. “You started it.”

  But even before she’d finished, he was shaking his head. “It was all over your face, sweetheart. The guilt, the blame. Do you ever stop blaming yourself for getting away?”

  Ollie didn’t know how to answer that, so she said nothing. Let him interpret the silence however he wanted, because whatever he came up with, that was probably closer than anything she could have brought herself to say out loud. She’d wanted so badly for Rosalie Myers to live that day. To stop the Hunter then and there. To have been enough.

  But that was the thing, wasn’t it? She was never enough.

  Not for any of the men she’d dated, not for her father, not even as a Hound trying to save just one goddamned person from this monster. After a while it just started to feel like one giant self-fulfilling prophecy, where all the things she’d heard as a child, what the niggling voice in the back of her head still told her, were true. Good grades, putting herself out there, and working hard, none of that changed the fact that she still would never be good enough.

  Caine’s eyes narrowed on hers, so intense and intimate that she wanted to look away, but something in his eyes wouldn’t allow it. Then his attention turned downwards, to her lips, her neck, her breasts, and he leaned back to take it all in without letting her go. His hand tightened in her hair when he looked back up at her.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

  The change in topic was jarring, and Ollie found herself unsure how to respond. Her lips parted but the words never came. She’d never been beautiful, not even to herself. Caine leaned in, his breath mingling with hers. “Drop dead, fucking gorgeous.”

  The beat of her heart felt fragile, out of control. He skimmed one hand over her hips, around the pudgy fullness of her gut. “I love this, you know.” His smile reached his eyes, satisfaction gleaming back out with all the brilliance of the stars above them. “And definitely these.”

  Knuckles brushed over her breasts, teasing small circles around her nipples until she felt them perk, straining for more, and she whimpered. She started to step into him, but Caine’s firm hand in her hair held her back, and the inability to move left her quivering. Caine brushed a kiss against her mouth, feather light.

  “If you’d died that night, I’d never have gotten to do this.”

  He tweaked a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and the breath she’d been holding slid out of her in a low moan that he breathed in, and then he proceeded to kiss her until she couldn’t stand any more, and the only thing that held her up was the hand that slid around her back and pressed her to him.

  When he pulled away, Ollie wanted nothing more than to drag him back. Instead he nipped over her bottom lip, eyes on hers, wolf to wolfhound. “Let’s go eat, Ol. And stop regretting the fact that you didn’t die. Because one night very, very soon, I don’t want to have to stop with a kiss.”

  Caine turned her back in the direction of their forgotten picnic before she could ask him why he stopped now. The answer, she realized, lay somewhere in the unreadable scrutiny of his eyes, eyes she couldn’t seem to understand but which understood her so well.

  Whispering against her ear, one hand still around her waist, Caine proved again how well he read her thoughts. “Not here, not where the ghost of someone else haunts you. I want you guilt free, Holly.”

  He nipped her neck. Possessive.

  “Mine.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ollie kicked the vending machine in the Enforcement office, trying to bully it into yielding the candy bar she’d already paid for. “So you’d be going undercover?”

  “In a lion pride,” Sawyer said, reaching up to give the machine a good shake. “Lennox is still working out the details with the Arizona alpha, but Enforcement hasn’t exactly gone out of its way to broadcast that they hired a lion-shifter as a Hound.”

  Sawyer gave the stubborn machine another shake, Ollie kicked it one last time for good measure—and the candy bar finally tumbled to the bottom of the machine with a solid thunk. “About damn time,” Ollie muttered and snatched it up, peeling back the wrapper with practiced ease. “What would your assignment be?”

  “Serial killer.”

  “Damn.” From one to the next. It was never ending. One right after the other. There was always going to be someone out there hacking up victims. She caught sight of Sawyer’s face, the same knowledge running rampant in her friend’s eyes, and Ollie felt her shoulders slump. “How many has that one killed?”

  “They’re not sure. Somewhere around five known victims. But they know it’s a lion, suspect it’s from one particular pride, but the Hounds haven’t been able to get shit on the case. Whoever it is, they’re too careful, and they don’t leave much behind on the scene. But they think sending someone in undercover might get them the lead they need.”

  “Good thing you’re a chick.” There was no way another male would be let into a pride, but a female? Especially if they moved Sawyer in close to her heat cycle, no pride male would turn her away. Not with a body like that. Ollie shook her head. “Just don’t get your ass killed.”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m taking it or not. Everything is still under discussion.” She shrugged, suddenly looking unsure of herself. Hesitant.

  Ollie clapped her on the back. “Hey. You rock at this job.”

  “And this could be my way to really make a difference, do something no one else can.”

  “And if you choose to take this one, girl, I have no doubt that you’ll do something none of the rest of us could ever even dream of doing. Besides, you survived a rogue Hound turned killer, grew up in a pride of lions with more members than I can keep track of, most of them your older brothers. What’s one lion after all that?”

  Ollie’s phone rang and she turned aside to answer it. “Holly Lawrence, Shifter Town Enforcement.”

  A familiar male voice spoke. A human cop, she’d worked with him a time or two. “Holly, this is Detective Dan Carwell. Think I have a body for you.”

  That was never what she wanted to hear. She pinched the bridge of her nose. It couldn’t be the Hunter, but then again the Hunter wouldn’t be the only shifter to kill a person in Idaho. “What makes you say that?”

  “I know it’s not your normal time schedule, but y
our office registered a missing persons report on a Lydia Marks?”

  Damn. The full moon wasn’t even for another four days.

  He’d never killed early.

  Stomach twisting, Ollie reached for her jacket, juggling her cell as she slipped the leather on over her shirt and holster. She waved to Sawyer, and the lioness snapped to attention, following her down the hall. “Who’s on scene now?”

  “I am. Few rookies in the beginning. The moment they saw the ID on the body they called for backup.”

  “Where?”

  He relayed the address, and Ollie snapped her cell shut just as she slid into her car, Sawyer easing into the passenger seat beside her. Peeling out of the parking lot, Ollie dialed Brandt, cursing low as it took her brother multiple rings to pick up. Lennox had the day off for her ultrasound; she’d left Brandt as alpha in her stead. “We may have another body. The cops on scene found Lydia Marks’s ID on the body.”

  “Hey,” Brandt said, voice low. Firm. “Don’t get hooked on a theory yet. We might have it all wrong. The Hunter might not have even been the one to pick her up—her disappearance and now death could still be unrelated.”

  She knew that, but something in her gut told her it was the Hunter. There were plenty of other shifters in Idaho, anyone else could have done it, but deep down, Ollie already knew the culprit.

  “Still,” Brandt continued. “I’ll call Lennox and pick up your wolf.”

  Sawyer tilted her head, eyebrows lifted; her lion’s hearing obviously picking up the conversation, but Ollie just shook her head. They so weren’t having this conversation now.

  “You just get to the scene and see what you can find out.”

  Ollie nodded. “We’ll know the moment I’m there.”

  She turned the car up onto a dirt road, weaving through the forest. “Shifters can’t kill clean. There’s always at least a scent behind. I’ll know if it’s him.”

  Because she’d never forget the smell of him, the look of him, the way he talked and breathed. It was all burned into her brain like the mark of a branding iron scorched into her scalp. One sniff and she’d know. Hanging up the cell, she tossed it into the cup holder.

  “So—” Sawyer started and Ollie rolled her eyes.

  “Two dates, that’s all it’s been. He’s not my wolf.”

  “But you liked him enough to see him a second time.”

  Oh, she had. More than enough. They were already planning their third. Caine Morgan, wolf or not, made her feel comfortable, at ease. When she was with him, she forgot she should be stressing over the next person to die. Then again, maybe if she weren’t with him Lydia Marks would still be alive.

  “Yeah, I did. Can we just drop it?” Her voice came out testier than she’d meant, sharper, and Sawyer flinched, glancing out the window.

  “Sure. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  And now she felt like the world’s biggest ass. Ollie bit her lip and swallowed back the urge to let out a frustrated growl. Sawyer had just been doing what friends do, and she’d gotten all huffy about it. “Sorry.”

  Ollie angled the car around a bend as the dirt road broke into a large circle. Police cars were already on scene, and now a handful of Enforcement vehicles as well, all parked haphazardly around the perimeter. Ollie jammed the car into park and hopped out, inhaling the rich pine air in deep gulping breaths, scenting.

  “Ollie! Sawyer!”

  Ollie recognized the Detective Dan Carwell, who was standing between two pines at the edge of the dirt circle. He waved them over, so she picked up to a jog, hurrying past the pair of bloodhounds already shifting to see if they could get a track. She recognized the bloodhounds as members of her pack. Brandt must have been quick to get them here already. She glanced around for her brother, but when she didn’t see him, she honed in on the sandy-haired detective in front of her.

  “Since when do you cover shifter crimes?”

  Dan grinned at her, his mustache nearly burying the bottom of his nose with the movement. “Since a pair of hikers called her in, not knowing what she was. The rookies on scene saw her license and called me. Figured it was the work of your serial killer.”

  “What makes you say that? Besides the ID.”

  “She was torn up pretty nasty by a good-sized animal. My guess? The claw marks look too small to be a lion. And I’ve seen enough werewolf attacks, looks about the right size.”

  Ollie nodded but clamped her jaw shut, glancing towards Sawyer to see the other woman’s eyebrows drawn in a slightly puzzled frown. Werewolf attack, she could buy that. But the Hunter had never killed with tooth and claw before. He preferred clean kills, a gunshot every time. His shots were always at close range, and he didn’t miss. He always started as an animal for the hunt, for the chase, but the moment he caught them, he shifted.

  The trail had read the same on every case. He’d proved it once again when he’d killed Rosalie Myers. It was why the larger shifters had never had a chance. They couldn’t fight a bullet. He didn’t even have to use silver. A shot through something vital and an ordinary bullet worked just as well. Unless he wanted to draw it out.

  The woman found dead in Ollie’s yard. Claire Rawson. He had bitten her, probably at the end of his chase.

  Maybe it had triggered something in him? Maybe the animal side was beginning to win out?

  Maybe he’d get sloppy.

  After all, he’d never killed outside of a full moon, either.

  As Dan led them into the woods, accompanied by the crack of branches underfoot and the noisy call of a crow in the trees, Ollie felt the sinking twist of her intuition kick in. This was him. She could feel it all the way down to her bones, but that just meant he’d tossed out the rulebook. Please just let him have made a mistake.

  Dan lifted up the crime scene tape and let them into the small clearing. A woman lay in a tangle of thorny vines, her hair matted with blood. He’d ripped into her. There were teeth marks on her arms, claw marks all over her face; her entire stomach had been ripped open. Ollie forced herself to breathe slowly, rousing her inner dog to help process the scene. The scents came sharper, stronger, but without the emotion or the swirl of vomit in her stomach.

  “Oh God,” Sawyer said and took a step back, head tilted up towards the sky as she breathed in through her teeth. “It is him.”

  Ollie nodded, confirming the dread that had been building in her heart ever since she’d gotten the call. The area stunk of him, under all the heavy scent of pine, broken leaves, and upturned dirt, was the overwhelming odor of wolf, and not just any wolf. There was the lingering tinge of citrus and gunpowder to him that clung to his wolf half every bit as it had to his human half. The scent she’d never forget, not from the night in the shack, not from nineteen crime scenes.

  Damn, but he was never going to stop. There would be victim after victim if they didn’t catch him, and nineteen was an overwhelming number already. Ollie stared down at the broken, ripped-open body of Lydia Marks, doing her best to ignore the blood and the brutal savagery of the scene. There was the white glint of bone peeking out under crimson, a cracked rib from the impact of his jaws. Postmortem?

  She swallowed. She hoped so, but that would be for the ME to figure out. Ollie licked her lips and took a step closer to the body, forcing herself to think past the horror of what Lydia might have endured, and what her death meant—the breaking of his timetable, the change in methodology. There were so many ramifications she couldn’t afford to think about, not right now. Right now she needed to be objective, and to look at the scene with the eyes of a professional, not those of a guilty party.

  Lydia had fought back, she thought, noting the blood under the woman’s nails, the way her lips had curled in a snarl. Her heart beat a little faster as she gestured to Sawyer. “She fought back. If he’s in the system, we might be able to ID him.”

  But somehow she doubted it. Everything about the Hunter said he’d been doing this for a long time. Longer than any of them dared to even think. Olli
e found it hard to believe he’d ever made a mistake. Until now. Maybe.

  “If only we could get that lucky,” Sawyer murmured, obviously not holding out any more hope than she did.

  Ollie leaned in closer, spotted the clump of silver-gray fur on the ground next to Lydia’s face. Inhaling, she sniffed delicately, and plucked the woman’s scent easily off the fur. She’d shifted? Or tried to. If Ollie pushed back her lips would she see fangs? Or the blunt, square teeth of a human? Would they be white, or stained red? Her fingers itched to check. But she mustn’t. Not until after the medical examiner had done an exam and the scene had been completely catalogued.

  Sawyer squatted down on the other side of the body, head cocked as she took the scene in herself. “He really went at her.”

  It would have been a horrific way to die. Torturous, slow, unbelievably violent. Ollie had once taken a trip to Wolf Haven, a park dedicated to behavioral research on wolves. She’d seen the way they’d torn into a hunk of raw meat, watched the video where wolves in the wild had ripped down an elk, gutting the poor thing while it was still alive. That had been nature, survival.

  But looking at Lydia Marks, all she could see was the wild brutality of it. This woman had died fighting, but in no way had it been an easy or a quick death. There’d been prolonged agony and terror. This was nothing like a gun to the head. Ollie rocked back on her heels and turned her face up to the sky. Thick, dark branches crisscrossed the pale blue. Red and gold leaves still lingered on branches, despite the fact that the majority had fallen.

  The occasional pine tree gave the forest a distinct scent, something she could focus on. Breathe in and out slowly. One breath, then the next. She had to get a grip. This kill could signal so much. A faster death rate, more violent kills, his eventual outright targeting of her, but it could also signal the first of many mistakes. And, God, how she hoped it did.