Hunted (Auralight Codex: Dakota Shepherd Book 2)

by Shei Darksbane

  Suddenly my senses were all sharper, body language made a lot more sense, and I was noticing the difference in my physical prowess as well. I felt like Peter Parker, waking up and not needing glasses, flexing in the mirror and feeling all buff; I felt like a superhero suddenly coming into her powers.

  I guessed that most werewolves didn’t really feel this way because they came into all of it more gradually, but Nan’s blocks had robbed me of any natural progression that a werewolf might normally have. I guessed I could forgive her for that; feeling like a superhero was pretty cool too, after all.

  Raelya dropped me off at the museum with a promise to pick me up around sunrise. I thanked her again for the ride and hurried inside.

  7

  The Night Watch

  Joe was on shift with me that night. I clocked in and got to work, doing my perimeter checks and initialing the security log to give the all-clear when I was finished. Joe came out to chat with me at the side door for a bit here and there, and otherwise I had enough on my mind to keep me occupied; the pack, my girlfriend, leaving my old life behind.

  I checked my phone periodically, hoping for a text from Amorie, but she had only sent one, a response to the message I’d sent her just after sundown saying “Good morning.” Her text said simply, “So busy today, unlikely I will have time to talk, but I love you, my little wolf.”

  I tried to put the idea of seeing her out of my head after that. I knew it would be a few days at least before she had time, and well, I had a job to do too. And a new one to get ready for, for that matter. I pulled my e-reader out between perimeter walks and read a few lines in my SII training materials, then spent the next walk-around thinking about what I’d just read and trying to commit it all to memory. It was a lot easier for me to memorize facts than it was to keep reading the handbook as a reference.

  I was walking the outer perimeter of the parking lot when a mild breeze carried a foreign scent to my nose, startling me out of my thoughts. I glanced around covertly, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t trust that to mean that nothing was there, however; my nose was certain that something was.

  I decided to meander closer to the building. If something was out here, it was best to have my routes of escape planned out before they became a necessity. I scanned the edges of the parking lot, the front approach to the museum, and the level field across from the front drive, but I couldn’t see anything out of place amid the lush flora of the museum’s gorgeously manicured perimeter.

  I was still smelling something, though. I edged around toward the front approach where I could at least put a pair of solid red-brick walls to my back if I couldn’t make my way back inside quickly enough to evade whatever might be out there.

  A bush rustled to my left and I couldn’t stop myself from whipping my head around to see what had caused the disturbance in the otherwise peaceful plant-life. I stared for a few beats at the bush. The leaves were still trembling from where something had brushed it. I trailed my eyes upward along the leafy-green branches and took note of the height of my stalker. Whatever was after me, it was moving low to the ground. The branches above my waistline were relatively still, save for the faint reverberation of motion from below.

  I inhaled deeply, and noticed the same scent flowing out from the bush, but fading as its owner moved away-toward the parking lot, I realized. There was a great deal of greenery to the left of the museum’s entrance, so it seemed likely that if my small stalker wanted to avoid detection, they might make for that bushy green path ahead. My nose told me they were on ahead of me now, however, so I had to choose my next move quickly if I didn’t want to lose them. I made up my mind and jogged after the scent, toward the front approach.

  As I came flush with the front of the building, something darted out from the bushes to my left, making for the bushes to my right, just as I’d predicted. I was ready for this. I lifted my flashlight, catching the intruder square in the eyes since I knew to aim low. The flashlight’s beam felt like a tiny sun erupting into the quiet dim, and I had to blink once against the brightness, but the intruder was taken off guard by the sudden blinding light and stumbled just long enough for me to get a look at a fuzzy black face haloed closely by a dim purplish aura. The aura was too colorful to belong to the Unawakened, not that an Unawakened human would come in the form of a furry quadruped, but that only meant that the stalker had been suppressing their aura purposefully.

  The intruder shook its head, blinking against the light, then sprinted for the greenery. I charged forward enough to keep it in my sights until it disappeared into the trees. “Yeah, you’d better run!” I shouted lamely. My heart was pounding. What had I just seen? It looked like a werewolf, or a wolf I supposed. But why would a werewolf be stalking me?

  My nose told me it was no werewolf that I knew, however. And my instincts assured me it wasn’t pack. It had looked a bit larger than any normal wolf I had seen, but then, maybe werewolves could be larger like that? I had seen Ralof’s wolf shape, and a few others, and they did seem to run the gambit from my relatively small Mexican-wolf shape to Ralof’s wolf that I might have mistaken for a small bear in bad lighting.

  “All clear?” I jumped as Joe’s voice on my radio startled me right out of my skin. A flashlight’s beam raked across the ground near my feet, catching my attention. I glanced up at the glass front doors to see Joe peering out at me, flashlight in hand. I snatched the walkie-talkie from my belt.

  “Yeah, just thought I saw something. Turned out to be a dog.” I hooked the radio back on my belt as Joe lowered his flashlight and moved away from the front door with a quick ten-four.

  I took a few deep breaths and calmed my heart rate, then edged closer to the bushes and trees wrapping the side of the building. My nose could still detect the particular scent of the wolf on the ground in front of me, a strange, woody scent mingled with utterly foreign information my nose had no idea how to make sense of.

  I pulled my phone out and tapped Raelya’s icon. She answered after a couple of rings. “Hey.”

  “Hey. Where are you?” I asked quietly, knowing she’d still hear me with her werewolf ears.

  “Home. Are you off early? Do you need me to—”

  “No. Is Ralof there?” I lifted my flashlight again and raked the treeline with its beam to see if anything was still out there watching. If I’d blinded it before, maybe I could startle it into moving again.

  “Yes. What is wrong?”

  “I just saw something at work. I think it was a werewolf, but I don’t think it was pack. It seemed to be stalking me.”

  I heard Raelya moving on the other side of the line, pushing a door open, starting down the stairs at a quick pace. “Hold on, I will get him.”

  The phone passed into the living room where the television was on, and the sound got closer, so I could picture Raelya approaching the couch. I heard her tell Ralof that I’d seen something at work. His rumbling bass came through the phone just after. “Dakota? Are you safe?”

  “I think so. Whatever it was, I ran it off with a flashlight and a strongly-worded scolding.”

  Ralof barked out a sound that seemed somewhere between humor and pride. “Good. What was it?”

  “I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling you. I would have thought it was a werewolf, but it doesn’t smell right. Something is just off about it. Not pack, my wolf is certain.” I had no idea how my wolf was so certain about that fact; I didn’t think I’d met any werewolves who weren’t pack to know the difference. But somehow, I was sure about it anyway. “Beyond that, I have no idea.”

  “But it looked like a wolf, I take it?” I heard him getting up from the couch and moving away from it, toward the back door, I thought.

  “Dark, fuzzy, relatively wolf-shaped, yes, but it had an aura.”

  “That certainly sounds like a werewolf. If your wolf is certain that this wolf was not pack, then we may have a stray. It could be that it is not stalking you, but trying to approach you for help.” I hear
d the glass back door open, then close again.

  “What do we do about it? It seems to have gone now, but I still have its scent.”

  “I will send Andrei out there to pick you up and check on it.” Ralof replied.

  I heard Andrei respond, “You will?” I snorted, amused.

  Ralof directed his voice toward Andrei. “Dakota saw a wolf at work, possibly a stray. Drive out and see what you can smell.”

  Andrei must have been sitting near the firepit; gravel crunched as he stood. “You got it, boss.” Gravel crunched a few more times as he went to the back door.

  Ralof turned his voice back to me. “Do you feel you are in any danger?”

  “No, not particularly. But I can go inside until Andrei gets here if you want.”

  Ralof hmph’d. “Do that. Do not take any chances. It is likely just a stray wolf who needs our help, but there is no reason for unnecessary risks.” Ralof sighed faintly. “I will be happy when you are finished with this week and can move on to your new career.”

  “Why? It’s not like I’m going to be working with pack and you can have another werewolf there to look after me all the time.”

  I heard Ralof sit down on the bench Andrei had vacated. “No, but you will be working with SII and at least I will know that you will have someone capable working alongside you at any given time.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Don’t worry about me, boss. I can take care of myself.”

  Ralof laughed gently. “That you can, Dakota. But it never hurts to have backup. In the supernatural world, few can truly stand alone.”

  8

  Sniffing Around

  I spotted Andrei pulling into the parking lot, and I trotted over to the curb to greet him as he got out of his truck. He wore a pair of board shorts and a muscle shirt, which didn’t surprise me in the least; I’d seldom seen him in anything else. Andrei obviously preferred comfort to fashion, not that he looked bad. For a guy, he was pretty cute even; shaggy black hair that he’d recently tipped in crimson, a strong body covered in black and red ink that I knew covered most of his torso and arms, and a sort of jovial kindness that lived in his eyes. I felt that was the most attractive part, but I was biased.

  Andrei raised his hand in greeting as he strolled over from where he’d parked his truck. I waved back and smiled at Andrei’s lopsided grin. I couldn’t help it. Andrei was awesome, infectiously happy-go-lucky, and funny. He felt like the older brother I’d never had.

  To add to that feeling, he’d taken to calling me “little sister”.

  “There you are, little sister!” Andrei spread his arms as he hopped up onto the curb and since I put up no resistance, he all but picked me up in a hug.

  “Hey Andrei. How’s your day been?” I squeezed him back until he set me back on my feet.

  “Pretty good. Not as exciting as yours I hear.” He grinned.

  I glanced toward the trees and bushes across the way. “Yeah, about that. I should show you where to sniff before it gets any colder.”

  Andrei dropped an arm around my shoulder. “No worries, kiddo. My nose has a little more practice than yours. It’d take it more than a few hours to fade enough to hide from my super-sniffer.”

  I chuckled at that. “Right. This way then, Super-wolf.”

  Andrei followed me over to the spot where the scent was strongest: the place where the wolf had paused under the glaring scrutiny of my flashlight. Andrei dipped his head toward the ground, nostrils flaring. “Oh yeah, I smell something.” He sniffed a couple of times then padded forward, head still ducked low, following the path the wolf had taken. “Went this way, right?”

  “Yeah, you’ve got the right one.” I knew because he was right on the trail I’d sniffed out after the wolf had vanished.

  “Well that does smell like wolf, kinda, I guess. But it’s not a werewolf.”

  I blinked. “What? But—”

  Andrei shrugged at me. “Trust the nose, little sister. Take another sniff. Does it really smell like werewolf to you?”

  I thought I’d sniffed at this scent fairly thoroughly, but if Andrei felt there was something to be learned from sniffing again, I was going to trust him. I knew he was at least four times older than the twenty-something he looked and acted, after all. I leaned down a bit and inhaled again.

  The scent was still there, still solid, even if slightly fainter than it had been the last time I’d checked. It was hard to miss it though because Andrei was right. It wasn’t quite like any werewolf I’d smelled before. Earlier, I’d figured that was because I honestly hadn’t been around enough werewolves in the few days since my wolf had been freed from Nan’s spell to really know what a werewolf smelled like in the broader scope. I mean, I knew the scents of the packmates I’d met, but I figured I’d need more experience to be able to tell the difference between “werewolf” and “particular werewolves I knew” with any consistency.

  But with Andrei’s confidence on the matter, I was able to solidify the difference in my mind. This smelled of wolf, kinda, like he said. But only kinda. It smelled like wolf in that it smelled of fur and flesh, trees and dirt and adrenaline. But I wasn’t getting that particular “other” component that made werewolf different from wolf alone.

  At the same time, this was no mere wolf-scent either. I hadn’t been around any of our less-shifty cousins to know for sure, but I had seen an aura around the creature that had been stalking me and normal animals didn’t have auras. I didn’t think. I glanced up at Andrei. “You’re right. It’s not werewolf. But it was wolf-shaped.” I tilted my head a little. “Animals can’t be Awakened can they, Andrei?”

  Andrei shrugged. “Why not? Haven’t you seen stranger things in the world already?”

  I blinked. That wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. “Okay, yes… I think I might have been stranger things in the world already.”

  Andrei grinned a wolfy grin. “So why not? I’ve heard of it before, though never seen it myself. Some of the Indians in the pack have talked about things like that before, especially the ones that live out toward the Res.”

  He meant the Cherokee Indian Reservation that was literally just over the mountain from the pack house in Cherokee, North Carolina. I’d had a friend in school who’d grown up on the Res, so I was vaguely familiar.

  Andrei gestured down at the trail ahead of him. “I don’t think that’s what this is, though. Wish I’d seen it. My nose is saying wolf and something else, but hell if I can place it exactly.” He paced along the trail to where it met the trees then knelt down to examine the ground. I padded over and knelt down near him. “How good of a look did you get? Did it have any odd features? Anything at all?”

  I closed my eyes and brought up the memory of the creature I’d seen before me. One advantage of being Dyslexic is that we’re very visual people; reading sucks, but visualizing and visual memory are right in our wheelhouse. “Black, like… really black. No obvious markings that I noticed. Its fur was thick, thicker than most wolves, especially up around the shoulders.”

  “What about the muscle structure?”

  “Hmm. Lithe, slender flanks, and it did that curvy-uppy thing—”

  Andrei snorted. “Curvy-uppy thing?”

  “Like greyhounds?” I gestured in the air to mimic the shape of the wolf-thing’s body. “But not as slender as that. Just, kinda shaped that way. Kinda. Though its frame was fairly sturdy-looking overall. Its forelegs were a little thicker than I think is strictly normal for a wolf too.” I opened my eyes, tilting my head curiously at him.

  “Hmm.” Andrei glanced over at me. “Could be a Warg I guess.”

  “A Warg? Like in The Lord of the Rings?”

  Andrei grinned his lop-sided grin again. “Tolkien took many ideas from reality.”

  I blinked. “I thought he took it from mythology?”

  Andrei pressed his lips into a thin smile, his eyes touching at the edges of sadness, if just barely. “Well, that’s what people believe these days, isn’t it?”


  I sighed. “Hence all the Unawakened.”

  “Yep.” Andrei clapped me on the shoulder. “But whatever this was, it wasn’t a werewolf.” He straightened back to his feet and I followed. “So, it could have been a Warg, or maybe something else. Either way, it’s gone now.”

  “So what do we do?” We paced back over to the front approach to the museum.

  “Nothing really. I’ll give Ralof a call and let him know, but most likely, it’s gone now. It probably just got curious about you.” Andrei pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Maybe its regular stomping grounds are somewhere nearby, or maybe it’s passed through a few times before. Either way, it might just be curious to see you suddenly showing your true colors, so to speak.”

  “So you don’t think it’ll come back?”

  Andrei shrugged as he tapped Ralof’s icon on his phone. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t smell aggression, hate, or even fear. If it was out to get you, I would expect at least one of those.”

  I nodded more to myself than to Andrei as he got an answer on the line, Ralof’s bass rumbling out a querying noise. “Heya, boss. Not sure what it was, but it’s not a werewolf. Warg maybe.”

  “What do you think?” Ralof’s voice carried through the phone’s speakers.

  “Passing through maybe? I didn’t smell anything that worries me.”

  “Is she safe?”

  Andrei smiled at me as he responded. “I think so. I’ll nap in the truck and stick around until her shift is over, just in case.” He reached out and ruffled my hair. It’d have been annoying if I didn’t love him so much. I straightened my hair back to its usual state of ordered chaos as I glared at him playfully, failing to suppress a smile the whole time.

  “Sounds good. You will bring her home then?”