“I got a call to make.”
Chapter 4
Slade pocketed his useless phone in disgust. Joseph Edgewater’s spread was way the hell too desolate for cell service. It had taken another tense and awkwardly silent half hour to show up at the small single-story farmhouse with a wide, sagging, covered front porch and collection of outbuildings that looked like they’d been around since the turn of the century. The roof on the barn had been patched so many times it resembled a crazy quilt.
He could try to talk to Achilles with his mind, but about now he imagined his commander was sleeping deeply beside his wife and wouldn’t appreciate the wake-up call by conventional or unconventional means. The questions zipping around in Slade’s brain had waited this long, and could wait a few hours more. In particular the ones about how he’d come to the clan and if they’d known his mother. But regardless, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something Raina was still hiding from him.
“How long do you think this’ll take?” he asked as he pried himself out of her little car.
Raina got out, closed the vehicle’s door and looked around, her eyes narrowing, then shifted her gaze to him. “Depends on how good a tracker you are.”
Slade gave her a confident smirk. “Why didn’t you say so? Hell, we might make it back to Seattle for a late dinner.” It sounded cocky, he knew, but then he had a right to be. While his kind were known for having highly developed senses, his abilities were off the charts even for a vampire.
He started to scan the trees, sniffing the air and looking for anything to give a hint that the Weres had been present.
The screen over the front door slapped shut and a man in his mid-fifties, dressed in worn denim overalls, a red plaid shirt and tan hunting boots, came lumbering down the steps of the wide covered porch toward them. Raina waved in greeting. “Afternoon Joe!”
He nodded, halfheartedly returning Raina’s wave. A ratty blue baseball cap shaded the man’s face, but even through the shadows Slade could see the wariness in his dark eyes. Slade wondered if it was his presence or that of a police officer.
“Who’s your friend?” Joseph asked as his attention swiveled back to fix on Raina. Clearly, Joe was just fine with the police officer.
“A wolf expert.” She made introductions, and Slade shook the man’s hand. Joe smelled of strong coffee, bacon and a hint of fishing bait. But underneath those stronger smells, the scent of fear, metallic and coppery like a new penny, clung to the older man, as well as the musty scent of sorrow. Slade would bet he’d lost someone recently and by deduction guessed it was to the wolves. Why else would she bring him way out here first?
“Have those wolves been back to bother you again?” Raina’s tone echoed her concern.
Joe, obviously a man of very few words, just shook his head in reply and stared past Slade’s shoulder to the tree line. Slade turned and tried to pinpoint the place that fixated his interest. A shadow of movement at the edge of the trees caught his attention. He telescoped his vision, able to pick out individual pine needles and ridges in the fat hanging pinecones from five hundred yards away. There in the dirt among the detritus of dried needles and grasses was the impression of a paw print.
A print far bigger than a normal timber wolf or cougar, and closer to the size of a bear—or a Were.
Slade inhaled deeply, catching a faint whiff of wet canine mixed with pine pitch and the metallic bite of blood—dried but there nonetheless. Joseph Edgewater was a sitting duck this close to Were territory. His fear said he knew it.
Raina’s touch on his arm jerked Slade’s attention back to her. “Did you see something?”
“Just my imagination,” he replied smoothly. There was more going on here than Joe was saying. The place reeked of Were. As much as Slade hated to do it with Raina right there beside him, he spoke slowly and deliberately to Joe, sending out a glamour to muddle the man’s mind so he could infiltrate his thoughts. “Tell me what you know about the wolves, Joe.”
Joe’s pupils dilated slightly, growing round as the glamour took effect. “They took Robbie. Police say it was animal attack, but Robbie’s not dead. I know he’s not dead.”
Slade sifted through the images in Joe’s mind. His teenage boy’s face. A frantic search over the property. The open door of an old pickup truck abandoned and still running. “But you think he’s lost or been taken.”
Joe nodded, his eyes growing shiny with unshed tears.
More images pelted Slade now. A trail of blood on the ground. A single hunting boot, half torn apart, lost among the brush. “And you’re afraid he’s not coming back.”
Joe pulled on the rim of his hat then sniffed hard, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. “He won’t come back. They made sure of that.”
“The wolves?”
Raina inserted herself between them. Instantly, Joe’s eyes cleared and the wariness was back. His lips paled as they pressed firmly together and the glamour faded. Slade decided right then and there that Officer Ravenwing was not only interfering but also an annoyance he’d be better off without.
“Look, I’ve already talked to him about all of this,” she said firmly. “Can’t you see it distresses him? All we need to do is find out if there’s anything left to track.”
“Don’t know what the point of you being here is,” Joe muttered. “Like I already told Raina, no matter what we do now, he ain’t coming back.”
“Has this happened to anyone else?” Slade asked, determined to get some kind of straight answer.
“Nobody’s said as much.”
Slade speared Raina with a questioning glance: why were they even here?
“You mind if we look around a bit?” she asked, her voice upbeat and professional.
“Go right on ahead, Whisperer. If anyone could talk to Robbie, it’d be you.”
Slade nodded at Joe then set off for the tree line. Raina turned quickly, right on his heels. There’d been something slinking around the spot recently. In fact, he’d bet it was still somewhere on that mountain. As fast as Weres could be, they couldn’t transport like a vampire. To move, they had to run, and if they ran, they left prints and scents that could be tracked.
Slade reached out to his commander, knowing he’d be concerned about the extent Weres had already infiltrated the mortal community.
This had better be important, Achilles answered his voice curt.
They’re taking people in the community.
Are you sure it wasn’t voluntary?
Hard to tell until I talk to one. I’d have to track down the boy. And Achilles—we need to talk. I know you’ve been holding back about my past.
The silence was deafening and set Slade on edge. Achilles?
We’ll talk when you get back. For now, see what you can find out about the pack’s activities. If they’re on the move, I want to know why.
Slade glanced at Raina as she trotted along beside him. The sound of her slightly uneven breathing, and the elevated pace of her heart as she tried to catch up with him, was very similar to how she’d sound during lovemaking. Slade ruthlessly pushed the thought away, but couldn’t get the image out of his mind of her breasts moving beneath her shirt as she jogged.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little too focused?” she said with slight asperity. “I’m guessing you’ve already got a place in mind you’d like to start.”
He slowed his pace slightly to adjust to hers, realizing while he was slow for a vampire he was moving too fast for a mortal. “There was something in the trees that caught Joe’s attention.” He didn’t go into detail. There was no reason to pull her deeper into this potentially lethal situation.
The light changed as they reached the big trees and were cast into shifting shadows. Late-summer heat brought out the fragrant resin of the trees and heated the oils in the needles, making the forest smell like a cross between a Christmas tree lot and newly cut lumber. A perfect blind for whoever, whatever, was moving ahead of them. Their scent was
harder to track with such strong smells overpowering them.
Crouching, Slade touched the hand-span indentation in the earth of a paw print. “You say the big wolves haven’t been around in a long time. Just how long?”
Dappled sunlight filtering through the branches high overhead highlighted her ebony hair, making her dark brown eyes glow with vitality. She was a pretty woman, with fine skin and an athletic feminine frame, but that uniform did little for her. “About twenty-five years.”
Just about twenty-five years ago he’d woken up in a Dumpster in Seattle, without a clue who he was or how he’d gotten there, his foot bleeding and injured. He’d lived on the streets long enough to develop a healthy aversion to cops. “Last time they were here, were there other disappearances similar to Robbie’s?”
“I don’t know.” She tucked the sweep of her hair behind her ear. “We could ask Auntie Mo. She’d remember.”
He’d save that as a last resort. Slade stared up through the maze of tree trunks. There wasn’t nearly the amount of understory on this side of the mountains as there was in the woods on the western face of the Cascades, allowing him to see much farther.
About two hundred yards up the mountain a brief flash of brown fur caught his attention. It moved too close to the ground to be a deer or elk and it was too big for a coyote. The wind changed direction and the smell of wolf filled his nose. Just how close to the pack’s main den were they?
“You’d better go grab your supplies. We’re going in on foot from here on out.” For the moment he was profoundly glad nature girl knew how to put her boots on and rough it. It would have made his job so much harder to have a girl in strappy little heels who needed bottled water just to walk a flight of stairs.
He kept an eye on Raina as she jogged back to her car and pulled out her trusty hiking pack, stuffing some of the food and a gallon of the water into it before she slung it onto her back. By the time she made it to the tree line, Slade was down on one knee examining the earth closely. The thought of helping her with her gear flitted across his mind. But then, given their uneasy partnership, she’d probably take it as a sign he thought she couldn’t do her job. He’d wait until she really needed his help.
“Found a trail?”
He pointed to the large paw print outline. “Whatever made this was here recently.” He looked at her. “When did Robbie disappear?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Slade’s jaw flexed and tightened. He touched the center of the print with his fingertips, then sniffed them. Dirt heavy with iron, a fast-flowing stream and saxifrage plant that only grew in high alpine conditions. “The thing that made this print was here in the last two hours.”
A shiver shimmed down Raina’s spine, making her skin pebble. He could almost hear the small downy hairs lifting on her arms.
As much as she wanted to protect her friends and discover more about the wolves, she was still ultimately unsettled by them. Score one for his side. Wary was better than foolish.
“So are we just going to scout up the hill until dusk?” she asked as she readjusted the loaded pack on her back.
“No, I was planning on heading out. Wasn’t it you who said we’d be wasting time if we didn’t get here sooner than later?”
“But it’s only a few hours until dark.”
“You afraid of the dark?”
“Hardly, but if we’re going overnight camping, then we’re going to need a tent and sleeping bags.”
“You have them in your car?”
She nodded.
“Go ahead and grab them.”
“What about you? I know you didn’t bring that kind of gear and I’ve only got one sleeping bag.”
Slade gave her a bone-melting smile and materialized at his feet his military pack from the car. “Don’t need a sleeping bag or a tent, babe. Vampire, remember?”
Raina resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “So what’s in there?” She pointed at his black bag.
“Weapons. Explosives. Toothpaste. The usual.”
“Wait!” She made a grab for his bag, but he swung it away from her reach. “Explosives? What on earth makes you think we’ll need that kind of hardware?”
“Luck favors the prepared. You should know that better than most. Wolves aren’t the only ones out on state land. Ever met a pissed-off bear? Not anything you want to tangle with hand-to-hand.”
Raina harrumphed. “Bears,” she muttered as she turned on her heel and marched back to her car. “Poachers are more dangerous than bears. I’m going to get my overnight camping gear and see if Joe minds me parking for a night or two.”
Fifteen minutes later she was ready to go again and the shadows of the trees were beginning to stretch and grow longer as the day began to wane.
The overnight hiking pack weighed close to fifty pounds and was half as large as she was, extended up above her head. A bedroll and lightweight tent, as well as some freeze-dried supplies, a water purifier, a first-aid kit, a few utensils and extra ammunition. He contemplated asking her if she’d like him to carry it. Given the stubborn tilt of her chin, he’d bet she’d take it as an insult.
Slade eyed the pack. “You sure you didn’t bring the kitchen sink?”
“Why, did you think we might need one?” she threw back at him, matching his sarcastic tone. “At least I didn’t pack explosives.”
Slade chuckled. “You’ve got spunk, Officer, I’ll give you that. What about jelly beans. Got any of those?”
“How would they help?”
“Sweet tooth.”
Raina rolled her eyes, checked the heavily padded shoulder straps and made sure everything was adjusted correctly, then smiled. “Let’s go find the big, bad wolf.”
Chapter 5
She could make light of it all she wanted to, but Slade knew the reality. Every step they took into the wilderness sent them deeper into Were territory, which meant he needed to be on full alert to every smell, scent and sound.
He just couldn’t tell her that. Mortals had been skittish enough discovering vampires lived among them, and the Council had decided information about other supernaturals, like the Weres, was to be kept strictly on a need-to-know basis. And they didn’t need to know.
Not yet, anyway.
They climbed farther through the trees continuing up the slope of the mountain. The early evening sunlight spilled through breaks in the evergreen boughs like spears of gold casting their path into a tangled mix of light and dark. Night would be on them in a matter of hours. The days were getting shorter as summer slipped into fall. He inhaled and caught the scent of frost, sharp and clean, coming on the night air mixed with the fading wet-dog scent of Were and the salty sweetness of the perspiration on Raina’s skin.
Slade relied far more on scent than sight or hearing when he tracked. Hearing anything was a challenge when Raina’s rapid, rhythmic breathing and the blood rushing in her veins sounded like a fast-flowing river to him. Tracking tonight was more difficult than usual with the increasing tightness starting in his muscles. The first sign of moon sickness. He was focused on sorting through the array of sensory input he picked up, when her voice distracted him, putting him on edge.
“As long as we’re headed up the ridge, we might want to drop by and see Auntie Lee.” She was only slightly breathless, and certainly holding her own. But how long would that last?
That made Slade hesitate a step as he turned and gave her a wry glance. “Auntie Lee?” He wasn’t absolutely positive he wanted to know the answer.
“She’s a retired midwife. Her cabin is about a four-hour hike in this direction.”
He bet it lay smack in the middle of Were territory. “How about you do that another time.” His voice was a little gruff, even to his own ears, but he was gritting his teeth against the firelike heat beginning to spread through his limbs. The sun hadn’t even fully set yet, and already the moon’s pull was strong.
“Fine. I just thought you might like to talk to her. I wasn’t going to suggest it before,
but since it looked like we were headed by her place regardless, and seeing as how she delivered you—”
He whipped around and grabbed her upper arm hard enough to cause her to jerk to a stop. “She what?”
“She delivered you. She was the local midwife when you were born.”
Slade shook his head. “How do you know this stuff?”
“She’s Auntie Mo’s sister. In a town this size it’s not hard to find someone who knows something about everything.”
Strike two against small towns, Slade thought.
She paused just long enough that Slade knew she was holding something vital back. “And?” he demanded.
“And she was named on your birth certificate.”
Ding. Ding. We have a winner. And a little good news for once. Maybe this aunt knew something about what caused his moon sickness. About who his father had been and why he’d been dumped in this place. More importantly, if she’d been around that long, maybe she knew what the hell was going on with the Weres and how to stop it so they could all get back to their normal lives.
An hour later they reached the rocky crag atop the mountain only to find it was a foothill to a larger ridge. Down below the forest spread out in a dark, fragrant carpet of evergreen. The dying rays of the sun threw the gathering clouds in a pastel-rippled rainbow of orange, reds, pinks and purples as it set in between the jagged peaks of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.
He was deliberately moving slow, letting her set the pace, but the delay in getting to wherever this Were trail led was killing him. Normally he enjoyed the fall of night, but not tonight, not with the waxing moon five days away from being full. He glanced back at Raina to make sure she was still keeping up.
Raina shifted her weight from one foot to the next. The pack was digging uncomfortably into her shoulders and her lower back was already beginning to ache. It had been a long time since she’d packed a full camp more than four hours into the wilderness. “We really should make camp for the night before it gets full dark.”
The Half-Breed Vampire Page 4
