Page 17 of Shadow Bound

The sound of a car horn honking at me draws my thoughts back to the present. The light has turned green and I’d been sitting there thinking of Isabeau again, not paying fucking attention.

“What if it wasn’t?” I ask as I drive us toward the place where Zoe’s body was left. The boring South Dakota landscape on either side of the road. I miss the trees and lake of my hometown.

Sawyer’s green gaze slides to mine. “I’m not following.”

“What if it wasn’t the first body that was drained of blood? What if like Zoe, the coroners didn’t add it to the reports? Or they simply thought the victims had bled out from their wounds. What if the other bodies were drained by a vampire?”

He’s quiet, pondering my theory for a second. “The other bodies we’ve come across had the scent of a wolf on them.”

Shit. He’s right. “Something isn’t adding up.” I scrub my hand over the couple days’ worth of stubble on my face, thinking. “I’m going to drop you back at the motel. Get in contact with Whisper and have him double-check those records, see if any competent coroner’s mention if the blood was missing.” I don’t know what we’d do without Winslow’s hacker friend. He’s been a godsend.

Now if only he could find Sterling. If he could do that, I would fly to New York and bow at his feet. Winslow had him try last year, and he couldn’t find jack shit about the evil mastermind.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go sniff around where the body was left. See if I can get a lock on the killer’s scent. If we’re lucky, it’ll be our missing rogue.”

“And if you’re right? And it was a vampire who did this, how will you be able to tell. We never hunted a vampire before, we don’t even know what their scent is.”

Shifters don’t socialize with vampires. For the most part, vampires are solitary creatures, preferring to be alone. There is also a distrust when it comes to vampires, they’ve obviously gained an unpopular reputation. Shifters are notoriously family-oriented and overly protective of their pack. Bringing a creature known for their struggles with uncontrollable bloodlust around a pack doesn’t seem wise.

Sawyer is wrong. I know what one vampire smells like and it fucking calls to me like a drug.

My paws dig into the earth as I cut through the trees and brush. Needing to let my wolf out, I’d shifted once I’d made it to the spot where Zoe was dumped. The backroad she was left on isn’t a busy interstate, there hasn’t been a single car in the time I’ve been here. It’s the perfect secluded place to dump a body. The sun had already started to set when I dropped Sawyer off at the motel and by the time I arrived here, the sun was already gone. Luckily, my shifter enhanced vision allows me to see everything I need to.

The spot where the poor girl was left alone still smells of her blood and the perfume she wore. I recognize it from the T-shirt I’d found in her bedroom, it’s a sickly-sweet scent, almost like cotton candy. Reminds me of the crap Remington used to dowse herself in before going to middle school. Ranger and I used to give her so much shit for it. I swear she used to wear more of it on purpose just to piss us off. We would drive to school with the windows down, gasping for fresh air. She of course would just laugh hysterically at us.

Little sisters.

Behind the scent of the candy perfume, is the telltale scent of our missing wolf. My wolf instantly perks up, knowing we have found his prey. He doesn’t like unfinished jobs any more than I do. With a true target in mind, he settles. A determined, focused energy coming from him.

Validated that it really is our rogue, I head back to my truck. The wind picks up around me, a storm brewing in the clouds above, the brisk hair blows through my thick silver and gray coat. Shifters, by nature, have warmer body temperatures and it takes a lot to make us cold. We are even more resilient against the cold when in our wolf forms.

Beneath the scents of pine trees and damp earth, another smell fills my lungs. My wolf bristles at the smell, instantly recognizing it.

Honey.

I’ll be fucking damned.

She’s here.

I thought I was imagining it earlier today in front of Zoe’s house, but there is no mistaking it now.

Locking onto the scent, I charge into the forested area behind me. Weaving between the trees, I follow the scent of honey farther into the trees, until the road and my truck are far behind me.

Zoe’s missing blood comes to mind as I stalk her. Was she the one to take Zoe’s blood? I’ve never heard of a vampire feeding from shifters, but after the year and a half of crazy shit, I wouldn’t be surprised. At this point, I don’t think anything can shock me. Once you learn prophecies and curses are real, nothing really rattles you. Someone could tell me tomorrow that aliens and time travel exist, and I’d probably just nod and crack a beer.

I didn’t think people could come back from the dead, but then came little Winslow and her necromancer bloodline. She proved us all wrong when she brought back Ranger.

The scent grows stronger and when I reach a tall pine tree, the honey scent is so strong, I feel like I’m drowning in it. My wolf is raging, wanting to attack her. He sees her as a threat, andshit, for all I know, I could be walking into my execution.

She might have helped us save Pruitt, but that doesn’t mean I exactly trust her. No matter how you cut it, she’s still a product of Sterling’s.

Peering up at the trees, I search for her, but it’s pointless. She’s made of shadows and there is nothing but darkness out here at night. I know she’s out here though. Just like at the clinic, I can sense her presence. It’s like a faint humming in the air, making my hair stand on end.

My wolf growls as I push him down, forcing the shift. Reluctantly he pulls back and after a few seconds of cracking bones, I stand once again as a man.

Sliding my gaze around, I look for her, but not surprisingly, she’s nowhere to be found.

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