by C. T. Adams
She found herself nodding unconsciously, agreeing with Will’s assessment. “You know, I hadn’t thought of that… but you’re right. While the punctures are large, had I not been able to smell that raptors attacked the men, I wouldn’t have even thought of it. And by the time Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows up, the cause of death will be unrecognizable. Okay, let’s just wait and see what happens on this end. Since it’s probably not going to be reported as a homicide, it’ll just quietly disappear into the files.”
“No, they’re not homicides.” Will’s eyes flashed angrily as he stared at the mangled body. “But they’re definitely murders. And it’s our job to find out who did it.”
Chapter 7
“MAN! SLOW DOWN for a second. I need to take a break.” The mid-afternoon sun was baking the limestone underfoot and the still air burned when he inhaled. Even in the shade it must have been a hundred degrees. Adam’s tongue was lolling out as he struggled to draw in enough breath. It amazed him that Cara still looked fresh and ready for anything. He didn’t think he was out of shape at all, but being in the heat in animal form was like… well, like wearing a fur coat in a tanning bed.
He plopped down unceremoniously in the shade of a tall bush and lowered his muzzle to his front paws, trying to slow his breathing so his head would stop pounding. He smelled her approach first, sweet honeysuckles and peaches that cut through the chalky dust that had already coated his fur. He opened his lids a crack. Cara’s bright white muzzle pointed down under concerned golden eyes.
“You okay back here? Heat getting to you?”
“No, I’m not okay. My God! How do you stand this temperature? Is it like this all the time?” He closed his eyes again, shutting out the intense light. He longed for a lake to jump into, or even a tall glass of cool water, or… lemonade! Yeah, that’s what he should be doing right now—drinking lemonade in front of an air conditioner. But, instead, he was running over rocks in the desert heat, getting cactus spines in his pads, and searching for a freaking attack bird!
She flicked her gaze behind her and then sat down on her haunches. “Actually, I hate to be the bearer of bad news—but this has been a fairly mild spring. It’s not even ninety out here. That’s a little below average for recent years. It just feels hotter because the rock reflects the heat. You’d think that being white rock, it would be cooler. But it’s not.” She stood up and shook herself, flinging bits of dust and rock from her fur. “We don’t need you to get heat exhaustion, though, so you might just hang out in the shade for a few minutes, or walk back to the car for a drink. You may not realize it, but you’ve actually climbed quite a bit in elevation.”
He raised up his head in surprise. “We have? I thought Texas was low and flat.”
A sharp bark was followed by a quick swing of her tail, causing the sunlight to highlight the white tip. He’d never seen fur of her color before—russet with black underlay, even though her face was solid white. It was a really striking effect. “Hardly. You’re in the hill country, our limited version of mountains. Santa Helena is eighteen hundred ten feet above sea level, and right now you’re probably sitting at close to two thousand. By the time we get to the top of the cliff, it’ll be about twenty-two fifty. What’s Minneapolis… a thousand?”
He shook his head with effort and it started to throb again, so he rested it down between his paws once more. “Not even. I think it’s about six fifty.”
Wind rushed over him, combined with the peculiar spicy scent of feathers and he heard Cloudsfall’s—no, make that Will’s—taunt from above. “Wussing out on us, Mueller? Daylight’s burning, man.” The volume rose and fell as he circled around them, looking for a place to land.
Adam pulled back his lips from his teeth and growled low, glaring up at the massive eagle. He was just about to make a snide remark when Cara did instead. “Leave him alone, Will. The heat and elevation are getting to him. I don’t feel like carrying him back to the car if he passes out, and I doubt you want to walk naked over the cactus to do it either. If you want to do something productive, why don’t you fly back to the van and grab the water jug? I was so riled up after arguing with Billy that I forgot to put on my backpack.”
A pause and a flap. “Shit. Forgot about that. Okay, be back in a second.” With another swoop of feathers, which stirred a brief, delightful breeze, Will disappeared into the distance.
“Will’s a fast flyer,” Adam said with a nod. “He’ll be back in less than a minute.”
Cara dropped to the ground nearby, taking advantage of a small patch of shade next to a boulder and started to clean her muzzle with the side of one paw. He abruptly noticed how long her lashes were when she blinked and sneezed lightly. “I know. We’ve had races in the past—him in the air and me on the ground.”
That deserved a twitch of ears. “Really? Who won?”
She huffed out something very close to a laugh. “It depends. I sliced and diced him the first time on level ground, so he changed the terrain to make it tougher on me. Then I did the same back to him, making him fly through canyons with strange air pockets. I had to pore over weather maps for our last race to find just the right spot. So far, we’re even—two wins each, one tie.”
He looked at her with a new appreciation. Will was damned fast and if she smoked him bad enough for him to pick the next course, that was…well, impressive. Adam wasn’t quite sure what to say about it, so he picked a different topic after a few moments of silence. “For what it’s worth, I thought your deputy was an ass. My watch commander probably would have laid him out if he’d mouthed off to him like that. Hell, I thought about it myself, except my paws don’t bend into very good fists.” It had been a great idea of Lucas’s to show up on site in wolf form so Cara and Will could say the three of them—Lucas, Vivian, and himself—were all tracking dogs, sent to look for more bodies. It hadn’t taken hardly any illusion magic to make them all appear to be German shepherds to the asshole deputy.
She moved one forearm in a close approximation of a shrug. “It doesn’t matter. Billy’s just… Billy. He’s not a bad cop, overall—but he’s got some serious issues about working under a woman. He thinks we all ought to be chained to a stove or popping out babies. He was livid to the point of resigning when the governor appointed me to fill Carl’s slot until he’s back on his feet. And I gotta tell you… I was just as surprised as everyone else. Hell, I can’t remember hearing about a governor doing that unless the sheriff died, and even then… well, he normally doesn’t get involved in local stuff. But when the letter arrived, I expected Rick Seguin’s name to be on it. He’s got the name recognition. The Seguin family goes way back. There are towns and streets named after his ancestors. I still don’t know why I got tapped.” She paused and looked at him, almost apologetically. “Family background means a lot down here, just so you know ’cause… my argument’s got nothing to do with, well, y’all. I don’t want you to think—”
He waved it away with a word. “Don’t. Really, I was a little annoyed at first, but once you got your sister on the phone, it made perfect sense. It’s a lot like the neighborhoods in my beat. Everybody knows everybody, so new faces stick out like a neon sign. It means I’ll be spending some time at the library, looking up old surnames to see if I can match up the rest of my people.”
She nodded and lifted her nose to a slight breeze that made the tiny leaves of the tree he was under flutter lightly. “Try the museum first. It’s a really good one and the curator knows the history of just about every town in the hill country. She’s just the sweetest thing and has a mind like a steel trap. But be careful, ’cause she’s a tricky one. She’ll try to pull every ounce of information out of you. That’s why she knows the history of every town!”
He’d just opened his mouth to reply when he heard the flapping of wings overhead. Adam wondered what someone would think if they saw an oversize eagle flying across the landscape carrying a gallon jug of water with a bowl tied to the handle. When Will reached them, he rear
ed back and tilted his wings to hover briefly before lowering the jug to the ground with a series of short flaps. He reached down with his beak and removed the short rope attaching the jug to his leg.
“Lucas said to take ten. Vivian’s having altitude sickness symptoms, too. I’ll fly up to the top of the bluff and see if there’s anything worth taking a closer look at from the ground while you guys hang out. So far it looks like the perps made a clean getaway. Not a track, a drop of blood, or a feather in sight and I’ve been looking hard.” He flapped once, just to keep in the air as he circled around them.
Cara nodded, her eyes tracking his slow flight. “Sounds good. I’ll stay here with Adam until he’s ready and then we’ll head west, toward the cliff face. Oh, y’know, you might check out Ten Bears’s cabin. With him on his way to the powwow, someone might have decided it was a good place to hide out.”
Will twisted his head in mid-flight and gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Good point. I’ll head there next. Don’t worry about waiting for me if you guys give up or Lucas calls you back. I can fly to my car later. I have to get back to Austin before shift tomorrow anyway.”
With a hard flap and a piercing screech, he rose a dozen stories in seconds and was nearly out of sight before Adam could take two breaths. Both he and Cara stared at the water jug greedily, but neither made a move toward it. His dry tongue screamed for a taste, but something held him back.
And I know what it is.
After a hanging pause he finally gave up. “So, who does the honors? I guess we might as well get used to being naked in front of each other if we’re going to be pack members. I can’t open a screw top jug with my claws.”
Cara nodded. “Pouring’s a bitch, too.” He was getting accustomed to her Southern accent, that made pouring sound like poe ’in. Another long pause and then she snorted lightly. “Okay, we might as well do this. Now I’m getting a headache. Just promise not to gawk at the scars on my leg. I don’t feel like using extra magic to hide them and… well, they’re part of who I am.”
She stood up and shook once more, before he could reply, and then transformed slowly, rising up to her feet until she was fully upright. Golden skin with curves all in the right places replaced the fur with definite alpha-level speed. He hadn’t realized how much of the same russet flowed through her hair, now loose and shoulder-length around her heart-shaped face. The sun highlighted the red strands until they were the color of expensive red wine. He found himself staring at her for a long moment and getting more excited than was appropriate. She sneezed and snorted several times, as though her nose was plugged, but seemed to get over it quickly.
Moving his gaze down didn’t help lessen his arousal any as she knelt down next to the water jug, opened it, and started to pour water into the bowl. Her breasts were full and nicely formed and her waist slender. And her hips… they were just perfect, firm and muscled. The skin just begged to be stroked, slow and easy.
What would she do if I turned human right now, slid up behind her, grabbed those hips, pulled aside her hair, and nipped the back of her neck?
It was probably a damned good thing he’d remained in wolf form… and was lying down.
He dropped his eyes lower. Okay, that fixed his little erotic image. Ouch! She wasn’t kidding about the scars on her leg. Two narrow strips had been carved nearly all the way down the thigh, and had never properly filled in. He could only think of one way that could have happened.
“Had a strip of hide taken, huh? Who’d you piss off?”
She sighed. “Two strips, if you’ll notice.” She reached forward with bowl in hand but then her nostrils flared—probably catching his new, muskier scent. Well, he couldn’t help it with her kneeling there, looking all naked and gorgeous. But it made her stop and blush lightly before she placed the bowl down in front of him. She didn’t comment, but she did turn her back to him before raising the jug to her own lips. He kept his eyes on the rocks, watching a long line of tiny ants crawl toward the base of the bush. But what he wanted to do was watch the muscles play under her skin, follow beads of sweat rolling slowly down, see her chest move as she swallowed, and—
Damn! Get a grip, Adam!
He fought down his attraction with effort, and lapped up the entire bowl. He kept his eyes on the ground as she leaned over and filled the bowl again while he continued to drink. She paused and her scent filled his nose. Oh ho! He wasn’t the only one aroused. Wow, did she smell good—sweet and sultry, spicy and… hot.
Magic washed over him in a wave as she turned back to her wolf form right next to him. He could feel her warm breath in his ear and it made him shiver, despite the heat. Maybe this new pack wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.
He raised his head from the bowl, licking the last bit of water from his muzzle. She was standing so close that if he lifted his head too fast, he’d hit her jaw. They were frozen for a moment, each of them just breathing slowly in the hot shade. Her neck was right there, almost inviting him to nip the skin, feel the fur brush across his tongue. A shudder passed through him as he imagined what she’d be like under him… but then he pushed the thought away. Not the right time or place.
Pulling his head back a bit, he rose to his haunches and locked eyes with her, just inches from the tip of her nose. “So, what’d you do?”
It took her a few seconds of staring blankly at him but she finally blinked, startled. “What?”
His lips pulled back in a quick, amused pant. “What’d you do to earn two strips of hide out of your leg? It must have taken some… skill to piss off someone that bad.”
His casual tone broke the spell and she blinked a few more times before stepping back to her own patch of shade.
“Long story, and sort of… personal. Let’s just say Fiona and I didn’t agree on the things I should do to become an agent in Wolven. It’s why I never finished training.”
Damn! Fiona Monier did that? He’d never found her to be a particularly difficult woman to work with, although he knew a lot of agents complained about her. “Okay. Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up bad things.”
She shook again and carefully picked up the handle of the jug in her teeth—placing it next to the boulder in the shade. It wasn’t a bad idea. While it probably wouldn’t help much in keeping the water cool, at least the plastic jug wouldn’t explode. “No big deal. But if I’m going to be forced into the agency again, I can’t say I’m sorry it’ll be working for Lucas. He seems decent enough. At least he listens.”
Adam stood up and found his head wasn’t pounding anymore so he could nod without pain. “Fer sure. I don’t know much about him, either, but I trust Clou—I mean, Will’s instincts. If they’ve known each other as long as Lucas claims… well, that’s good enough for me.”
Cara paused and then looked at him, her thick antifreeze scent of curiosity beating at his nose. “Could I ask… I mean, about the coin? Why was Will so mad at you?”
Shit. He knew that was going to come up. With a light kick of his front leg, the pale blue bowl flicked across the ground, neatly clearing a small barrel cactus to land right next to the water jug. “Sorry. Not my story to tell. You’ll have to ask him. But actually, I think it’s sort of cool. I don’t know why he gets so annoy—”
A woman’s scream suddenly filled the still air, coming from the direction of the cliff face. Without even thinking, he found himself racing toward the sound, with Cara at his heels. Ignoring the cactus spines that slammed into his feet from below and the spiked branches of the trees that tore at his fur, he surged forward, only to be passed by as though standing still by the smaller red wolf.
What he saw when he broke through the last batch of trees was a massive owl, equal in size to Will in every way, pulling at a small, dark-skinned girl who was screaming and shouting at the bird in an unknown, guttural language. It seemed to be trying to lift the girl into the air by the arm.
And it was wearing… gloves on its talons.
Chapter 8
THERE WAS
NO time to lose. There was no time for Cara to do anything at all but react. The giant owl had managed to get a sufficient grip on the girl’s arm, and it was taking off, flapping hard. But it was rising slowly because of the burden it was carrying, so there were still a few precious seconds to change the situation.
She raced forward and threw herself into the air… but only came back with a mouthful of feathers from the bird’s tail. Something was very different about the taste of the feathers, and the scent. She just couldn’t put her finger on what, but she was careful to spit the feathers into the center of a spiky agerita bush so she could check them out later.
Losing the tail feathers in the gusting wind was enough to throw the owl off balance, but now it knew it was being pursued and put extra effort into gaining altitude. A hard flap made it and the screaming girl rise by a dozen feet, and there was no way Will could get back in time.
Looking around, she saw one hope. It was tricky and Adam or Will might wind up scraping her off the cliff later, but it was all there was time for. She turned around and raced back the way she came, nearly running into Adam as he arrived.
“Cara, wha—”
She spun around and got her bearings and then ran back toward the cliff, throwing an answer over her shoulder. “No time to explain. But be ready when I bring down the bird!”
She was pleased he didn’t ask any more questions. He just nodded and followed her. The girl was doing her best to pry open the owl’s talons, using pressure points near the center of the foot as she might do to a chicken. And it was working—the bird almost let go and had to readjust its grip in mid-flight… giving Cara the split second she needed.
Pushing herself to run faster than she had in years, she streaked toward an old, weathered mesquite tree, growing from the ground at the angle of the constant winds near the bluff. She clawed her way up the trunk of the tree, forcing her way through the spiked branches, which ripped into her skin with brute force. The tip of the tree loomed before the bird was in position. But like a motorcycle on a ramp she couldn’t stop. She jumped forward the last few feet, landing hard on the branch. It bowed under her weight and then, as she’d hoped, sprung up again like a diving board at the pool.
