Skin Heat

by Ava Gray

  “I know you’re tired,” she said desperately. “But get up, Luke. Please.”

  Moonlight emphasized the new lines of pain and exhaustion etched into his face as he pulled himself up. God, he was a shadow of his former self; down in the dark she hadn’t realized. Neva pushed aside the pity also. It wouldn’t save them.

  As a lone coyote howl split the night, they broke into a run.

  Zeke nearly blew up his truck getting from Harper Court to Julie’s house on Ringer Road. He didn’t think she’d be there. But maybe Julie knew something. She generally left the clinic before Neva, who had gone missing at some point between work and Julie’s place. Mrs. Harper had called the sheriff after she rang up her husband. Raleigh found out for them right away that Neva’s car wasn’t in the lot.

  And then her mom just kept moaning, It’s happening again, just like Luke, over and over, her dread scaling up until the whole house stank of it. He’d stayed until Harper himself got in and then he took off at a dead run. Let them do their own thing and go through channels. He’d use his godforsaken curse to find her.

  As he got out of the car at Julie’s, he still had a sense of Neva, but it was vague and impossible to follow. Not like he could just put his nose to the ground and run. He wasn’t a dog, though that would be fucking handy right now.

  Another smell blazed in the dark. If it had a color, it would be red: coppery and darkly sweet. Surely not. Surely this was just like the owl and the mouse. He couldn’t trust himself. Zeke ran up the front walk, raised his hand to knock, and then froze. The front door stood open, light streaming onto the porch to reveal smears on the tile. Carols played merrily on the stereo; somebody was singing about a white Christmas while he stared at the blood.

  He backed away as lights blazed up from behind. Another car was pulling into the drive behind. Fucking Hebert. He didn’t waste any time.

  “Got a mess in there,” he said as the agent opened his car door. “Didn’t go in. Didn’t touch anything. Know Neva is missing, I guess?”

  If the guy listened to police chatter on his radio, he knew. That was doubtless how he’d gotten here so fast. Raleigh had been lighting a fire under every deputy, on or off duty, for the last hour and a half. They all knew if they didn’t find her before dawn, chances went way down they’d find her at all, at least, not living and breathing. She’d become a murderer’s toy, all painted and posed. A roar built behind his eyes; he could actually hear his own heartbeat inside his skull.

  “I thought you’d lead me to her,” the agent admitted.

  “Sure gonna try.”

  “No,” Hebert said. “Not like that.”

  Zeke had neither the time nor the patience to sort through what was in Hebert’s head. They could have a beer later, if the guy really felt bad about pegging him for it wrongly. “Know you thought I was the guy. But I’m not and he’s got her. Maybe grabbed her here?”

  “Could be. If he did, then he’s got Julie, too. I’ll call it in.”

  “You do that,” Zeke muttered.

  Thinking hadn’t gotten him a damn thing. Now it was time for something else. It made no sense on the surface, but he left his truck parked and took off for the woods at a run. Huge stretches of them grew around here, from a small copse of trees to a darker tangle of forest that ambled toward the national park.

  Behind him he heard Hebert call out, but he didn’t hear the words. He knew the other man didn’t understand where the hell he was going—or why. But he was beyond caring what anyone thought of him. The only thing that mattered was finding Neva before it was too late. And so he was done cursing this gift that made him different. If it could help him save her, then he’d be grateful for the rest of his days, even if she never spoke to him again.

  As he covered the ground in long strides, he heard rustling around him: animals curious about the commotion. He touched their minds in glancing contact, gaining all they knew. Sadly it didn’t amount to much. They told him of good places to hide and acorn stashes, nothing he wanted to know. Even farther back, he heard signs of the agent trying to keep pace with him. Good luck.

  Her scent floated before him, but he couldn’t track it. Eventually he stopped, clothes torn and his skin ripped from his flight through brambles. He still had no better sense for where she was, and he was only wearing himself down. Despair sank its claws deep into his guts.

  As if the emotion called to sound, a howl rang out—and he knew it. Not just any coyote. His coyote. The pitch, the notes, the feeling; they were all familiar. Zeke cast outward, eyes closed, drifting on the wind. His old friend was miles away, but still within range. They’d run together; that made them pack. Zeke had introduced him to his woman.

  Surprise and then welcome blazed through him. The coyote remembered him. It was still alone, still cold, missing the heat of its kin. But it got by, hunting and running and staying away from human farms. Except his. In a rapid wash of images, it told him it had pissed all around his property so nothing else would come near. He couldn’t help but laugh at that, despite the serious situation.

  Next Zeke sent a sense of Neva. Remember her? Find her. Promises of piles of juicy steak accompanied the request, along with the promise of a cozy straw den in his barn. Home. Pack. Our territory.

  Another howl rang out across the miles, this one affirmative instead of lonely. The coyote had a job to do. It loped off, happy to be helping. Animals craved a purpose, almost as much as people did. This one was used to being needed to hunt meat for the young and protect the old. They both ran in tandem, bonded but separate, and he didn’t fear or hate what he had become anymore.

  Smell her. Close. Not words but the surety this was the female its brother wanted. Zeke reacted. Now, a new thing: one he’d never tried before, at least not on purpose. When it happened with the owl, it had been accidental. God, it had never mattered so much. He opened the link slowly, widening it like a throttle until his vision receded some and he saw what the coyote did. It was fucking nauseating, like trying to watch two TV shows at once, and he didn’t even like TV.

  He saw a flickering image of two people, running. So she was in the woods, and she had someone with her. That couldn’t be good. Except for crazy Zeke Noble, nobody came out here to run around for fun. If they came out, they brought weapons and hunting permits.

  As best he could, he concentrated on closing the distance between himself and his four-footed partner. But miles lay in between them and he’d already run a long way from Ringer Road. Though he was stronger and faster than most men, he had limits, and he hadn’t been sleeping or eating well since Neva had left him.

  The coyote paced her as she raced through the dark trees. She kept glancing over her shoulder as if she heard it, and Zeke wished he could tell her not to be afraid. He might not be there but he was with her. But no.

  That wasn’t what she feared. Not one small coyote.

  He heard what the animal did: something big crashing through the undergrowth after her. And it was gaining, because she kept stopping to support the man with her. He wheezed in the night air like each breath might be his last. Neva pushed him onward. Damn, he wished the coyote spoke English, but through its ears, the words were only noise. But it knew the thing chasing these humans sounded angry.

  It also recognized the sound of a hunting rifle. One of them cried out in pain.

  They pushed onward, zigzagging. Lower to the ground, he could see the way the terrain shifted. But trees disguised the drop off, and they spilled down the gully, rolling head over heels, and then landing hard. More blood scented the night air. The coyote shared the idea they were done, and Zeke shook his head fiercely, putting on more speed. If he pushed any harder, his heart would explode.

  But he wasn’t going to make it. He knew he wasn’t. He was just too far away. He wouldn’t be there when the bastard caught up to her. He’d failed to keep her safe.

  Rage powered him through the unthinkable. He let his own body fall—it was just meat; he didn’t need it—and wen
t sailing along the link he’d formed with the coyote. It tried to fight him at first and he soothed it with soft whispers.

  It’s all right, brother. Let me in. I won’t stay long.

  The animal yielded to gentleness when it would’ve fought force even to its own death. It took him a few tries to get used to driving and then he bunched his muscles to spring. Neva was down at the bottom, trying to pull the man to a standing position, but he could tell by the way the ankle bent, he wasn’t going any farther. He was also bleeding, a distinctive smell.

  “We’ll find a place to hide,” she whispered. “Come on. You can’t quit on me now, Luke.”

  Her brother. Oh Christ.

  “Grab me that stick. I’ll try to slow him down. I think the fall bought us a little time, so you can find help. I don’t hear him right now anyway.”

  With his sensitive ears, Zeke did. But he was moving off in the opposite direction, at least for now. He wanted desperately for her to agree. He’d guide her out of the woods.

  But as he’d known she would, she shook her head. He knew how much she loved her brother. Hell would freeze before she left him. “If you’re fighting, so am I.”

  Brave, brave woman. My woman. Without thinking about it, he slipped out of the brush to stand beside her. She jumped back a foot, and then froze, peering down at him. He raised his ears and wagged his tail. Sharing headspace with him, the coyote complained about being out in the open. Was this smart? They should forget this troublesome female and go catch a rabbit.

  Mmm, rabbit . . .

  “Is that a goddamn coyote?” her brother asked. “Could things get worse?”

  She smiled, and the sight like to broke his heart. Even the coyote forgot that he wanted some fresh meat for a minute. “Don’t say that. It’ll start raining.” Then she knelt, her movements slow and deliberate. “Dear God. I recognize your markings.” Neva glanced at Luke, as if self-conscious about what she was about to say. “Did . . . Zeke send you?”

  He still didn’t have fine motor control of his canine body, but he managed to raise and lower his snout in a fair approximation of a nod.

  “He knows I’m in trouble then?”

  Another nod.

  “Holy fuck. You really do have a way with animals.”

  “It’s not me,” she said. “And it’s a long story.”

  She fetched a couple of stout branches, as Luke had asked. If the crazy chasing them had a gun or a knife, it wouldn’t help a whole lot, but maybe they could take him down in sheer numbers. Zeke wished he had a wolf body or even a bear, but this little coyote would have to do.

  He planted himself in front of Neva, bared his teeth, and braced for battle.

  CHAPTER 22

  This was not one of Hebert’s shining moments. He’d followed Zeke Noble into the woods, knowing that waiting for backup might mean hauling a whole bunch of dead bodies out of the woods, come morning. That decision might make Marlow accuse him of having a death wish, but he hadn’t expected the man to take off like a fucking deer. He’d never seen anybody run like that, and these days he just couldn’t keep up. Truthfully, he never could have, even if he hadn’t spent the last few months in the hospital. By the time he stopped trying, he had a stabbing pain in his side. Just a pulled muscle, he hoped, and nothing worse.

  Now he had no idea what—or who—might be out here with him, but his gut said he was looking for the guy who had been killing women and dumping them in these woods. Hebert didn’t even know if he could trust Noble. This might’ve been his last mistake, but at this point, he could only keep moving forward, because he couldn’t find the way out to save his life. He stopped and listened.

  In the distance, he heard the sound of people crashing through the trees. He wasn’t a woodsman by any means, but he angled in that direction. A flicker of movement in his periphery some distance off had him spinning but it was too late. Fire slammed into his gut, just like before, and he staggered back against a tree. Instinctively he covered the wound with his left hand and in the same motion whipped his gun from the holster. He emptied his magazine in the general direction of the fleeing figure, and he nailed him at least once. A muffled cry of pain floated back on the wind, but the footsteps receded, stumbling into the distance.

  With shaking, blood-slick hands, he replaced the cartridge in case the son of a bitch came back. Then he got out his cell phone and prayed for a signal. One bar. Good enough. He dialed Sheriff Raleigh and slid down against the tree trunk, palm back on the wound. Slow the bleeding. Hang on until help arrives.

  “Where the hell are you?” the older man demanded.

  “Woods, east of Julie Fish’s house.”

  “You don’t sound good. What’s up?”

  “Call the cell carrier and have them activate the tracking. Need help. Been shot. Think it was our guy. Nailed him at least once. He’s got the Harper girl.”

  “I’ll get rescue to you ASAP and flood those woods with my people. Just hold on. He won’t slip the net.” Hebert heard Raleigh barking orders; the man hadn’t cut the connection in order to start the trace, so he must be using another phone. “Pickett, we’ve got an officer down out there. If he dies while you’re eating that sandwich, Son, you won’t be able to get a job collecting tolls in this state. I said move.”

  But Raleigh’s voice was getting fainter, as if through a tunnel. Soon the words didn’t sound right anymore, some other language, and it came in distorted. The phone slipped from his fingers, but he could still see the light. Slow blinks. The tree branches overhead wavered in and out of sight as if they were waving good-bye.

  And then he saw Rina, coming toward him in a white dress. Which was all wrong because she hated skirts. She claimed she’d gotten married in slacks over at the courthouse. Her feet were bare despite the cold, and they didn’t seem to touch the ground. In death, she’d come to see him home. He gave the mental finger to her husband since he couldn’t seem to move his hands.

  Fuck you, Preston. We’ll see who spends eternity with her after all.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” she said.

  “You’re not here.”

  She smiled. “No. It’s probably just the blood loss. You don’t believe in an afterlife, remember?”

  “No.” But their religious differences hardly mattered now. “I always loved you, you know.”

  “I know. But it wasn’t the kind of love that you build a life on. If it had been, you would’ve told me. You wouldn’t have been able to keep it in.”

  “I didn’t want to ruin our working relationship. Your friendship meant too much to me, and I knew it would be awkward—”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Hebert. But one of these days you’ll meet her . . . and you’ll know. You won’t be able to stop yourself, not for a husband or children. Not for anything. Because she’s meant to be yours.”

  Romantic crap. He felt vaguely ashamed to have it roiling around in his unconscious, a remnant of the young idiot he had once been, who studied the meaning of flowers to pick the perfect bouquet as a secret message of love. Rina faded then. Or everything did. He fell into the dark hole he remembered from before, and it was full of tooth and bone, a mass grave full of murdered souls whose names he did not know.

  He spent eternity there. Then, overhead, a white and terrible light shone down.

  Zeke smelled the murderer before he heard him. The wind carried the scent of human blood. And so he listened, pinpointing the approach. Since he couldn’t tell her what he intended, he loped away to scout.

  “Guess it’s bored,” her brother said.

  “No. I think he’ll be back.” But she didn’t sound sure. She sounded scared, and it killed him he couldn’t take her in his arms.

  Zeke located him quickly, following his nose. That coppery trail might as well glow in the dark. The man was limping, more determined than strong. But he was also armed. Bad, bad news. Her brother had a broken ankle, and he’d taken a bullet somewhere. Luke Harper might be beyond stoic but he cou
ldn’t walk out of here on his own. They had to kill this bastard. The coyote cringed away from that idea; it hadn’t experienced good luck tangling with mankind. He soothed it before fear could take a deep hold and it started fighting for control. Not yet. He couldn’t leave with the job half done.

  Zeke paced him as he drew closer to the gully where the other two prepared to make their stand. When he broke from the trees and started sliding down, Zeke launched himself, knowing he’d only have one shot. He sank his teeth into the arm holding the rifle and tasted his meat and bone. Horror surged through him, but the coyote part of him didn’t mind at all. He dodged the kick and clamped his jaws around the rifle and towed it away as fast as he could. If the man hadn’t been injured, it wouldn’t have worked. As it was, the weapon went banging away down the ridge, lost in the dark. Zeke growled and lunged, but this time the kick landed, solid in the ribs. His body went flying, and he landed hard, dazed.

  The coyote whined and fought him. It wasn’t ready to die here. Its instincts surged harder than spiritual kinship. He wrestled, but he didn’t want to hurt the brother who had already helped so much. His control slipped, and the animal floundered, trying to get to its feet. Wanting to run. But the pain overwhelmed it; that kick had certainly broken bones.

  The killer closed. If he died in this coyote body, what did that mean? Would that be it? Somehow he didn’t mind, regardless. She was worth everything. Worth dying for. It might even be the best thing he’d ever done. He bared his teeth and snarled.

  But Neva surged into view in the dark, scrambling up over loose dirt and rocks. She had a stick in one hand she was using as support. The bastard wheeled away and went after her.

  His voice sent a chill through Zeke, raising his hackles. “You’re gonna pay. I’m gonna make you hurt for such a long time. Oh, I’ve got a different playroom for you, and you won’t get out this time.”