Page 47 of Shadow Bound

Sifting through my memory, I go through all his targets. They were all young and female, but that’s the normal victim description for a rogue wolf. Their faces blur together in my mind. Closing my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the bodies we’ve come across over the past few months, something becomes clear. They all had light brown hair and hazel or green eyes.

They all looked like, or similar to, Zoe, and the girl before me. “Holy shit,” I breathe. “They’re all the same.”

“Rogue serial killer?” she asks, frowning.

“Rogues don’t have the ability to single out victims like that. They’re opportunists. They’re not picky about who they attack. Their MO is to just go after whoever is close or easy.” Rogues don’t give a shit about hair color or eye color. They just want a female to mate with, to take away the pain they’ve found themselves in. Even if they were able to force a mating bond on a female, the pain would never go away. Once we turn rogue, there is no going back. “This wasn’t a rogue.”

“The wolf you’ve been hunting—the one with Nessa—isn’t a rogue,” she repeats slowly for clarification, clearly having trouble wrapping her mind around it, just like I am. “That doesn’t make—”

“Sense?” I finish for her. “Wolf shifters cherish their women, protect them with their own lives. No normal shifter would become a…” I trail off not wanting to say it.

“Serial killer?” It’s her turn to fill in the blank.

I scrub my hands over my face, my stubble scraping against my palms. “Yeah, but what kind of wolf shifter would do this to women? Could it be one of Sterling’s men?”

Sterling is a sick fucker and is constantly doing horrific things to women. All in the name of science and creating the strongest species the world has ever seen. I’m not sure what drives him, what his motivation for starting his breeding program is. Isabeau might know, but she hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with information as it is, and I don’t want to push her. She’ll open up to me when she’s ready. If it becomes absolutely necessary, I’ll ask the hard questions.

“Sterling needs women to bealiveto make his hybrid babies. He has no use for a woman slaughtered and slashed into unrecognizable, bloody bits.” I wince at her bluntness. She doesn’t mean it in a malicious way, I know this. Empathy is new to her—she’ll learn.I’ll teach her. “There is no reason for him to do something like this. I’d understand if bodies were just randomly dumped places after Sterling got his use out of them, but these girls” —she points a slender finger down at the victim— “the wolf who did this killed them just to kill them. Other than that, there was no point…” She opens her mouth to say something else, but quickly clams up, pressing her lips tightly together.

“Beau,” I urge.

Now is not the time for secrets.

Her fingers tap on the side of her thigh, while she contemplates what to say. “The reason Nessa has been working with the wolf is because she’s been using him to hide behind. He gets to attack the women—kill them—but Nessa follows close behind, and while the blood is still fresh in their bodies, she feeds from them. That’s how she’s been hiding from me. She knew I’d been tracking cases of victims being drained of blood or hospitals reporting missing bags of blood. The coroners would report the lack of blood in their body as exsanguination from their wounds. Nessa would feed from the cuts already on the body so there wouldn’t be fang marks. It was a smart plan and it took me a while to figure out, but I finally did. When I found out you were hunting the rogue, I decided to use you to get close to Nessa. If she changed up her MO, I would be back at square one and if I’m getting to Sterling, I need her out of the way.”

I ponder her words for a second, the missing pieces starting to fit into place. “She was tracking you the same way, that’s why you were starving,” I deduct. “Can’t you just bite someone and takesomeblood? Don’t you have something in your fangs that makes them forget it even happened?” I’d heard some of the vampire lore from Esme and my mom, Margot, over the years.

Her eyes flash crimson for a nanosecond as they narrow at me. “No Ransom, if I sink my fangs into someone, there will be nostopping meuntil every drop of blood in their body is consumed. There is no walking away from me, letting them live—even if I wish that were the case, I’m well past that point. Blood bags are my only option now if I don’t want to kill someone every time I’m hungry.”

She keeps doing this, trying to scare me off, but I’m not afraid of her. It doesn’t matter what she tells me she’s done; I’m not going anywhere. Something in me has latched itself to her. Since the first time I met her, these strings have been forming, tying us to each other. Those strings are so knotted and twisted now it’ll take some serious effort and time to untangle them.

“Alright, so we stick with blood bags for now.” I make a point to saywe,so she understands that for the first time in her life, she’s not alone. She doesn’t have to tackle the world by herself this time.

Her icy eyes search my face, for what, I’m not sure, but whatever she’s looking for she doesn’t have time to find because abruptly her head snaps to the side and her pupils dilate as she locks onto something behind me. An angry hissing noise slips through her teeth and the tips of her fangs show through her parted lips.

“What are—” I turn to search the area around the frozen river behind me. The wind picks up around us, blowing through the trees and that’s when I smell it.

The wolf.

He’s fucking here.

My own angry rumble grows in my chest, my claws and fangs making their appearance.

Isabeau doesn’t wait for instructions or me, she takes off through the snow, her hair flying behind her. She moves so fast; her body is just a blur of black hair and clothes. I realize that she’s been holding back for me, keeping pace with me so I don’t fall behind. This time, she’s not holding back. She barrels ahead at full speed without looking back at me.

I push my body as hard as I can, but she makes it past the tree line before me. Panic and concern fill my chest when I’m not able to see her anymore. She’s strong and more than capable of taking care of herself, but this innate need to watch and protect her has somehow engraved itself into my soul. The rogue is also a mystery, I have no idea who or what we are facing anymore.

Following her scent of honey, I’m led through the trees to where the river bends, situated with two mountains on either side of it. The river itself is about twenty-five feet wide, the surface of it partially frozen.

I round the corner just in time to watch Isabeau launching herself across the frozen water, easily clearing it. The flash of silver in both her hands tells me she has both of her blades drawn. She doesn’t hesitate, her body coils back before attacking the man dressed in head to toe black, a dark hood pulled over his head. They’re turned at just the right angle for me to not be able to make out his face. He’s large, way bigger than Beau, but that doesn’t stop her. Her blades slash at him as his clawed hands try to grab hold of her. She’s too fast for him though, easily evading him. I watch on in desperation, trying to figure out how to get over to them. I don’t know if I can clear the river with such ease as she did. In my wolf form with a running start, I could, but I’m not sure I have time to shift.

Before I have a chance to make a decision, Beau whirls around, sending a roundhouse kick to his chest. He stumbles back from the force of it, landing on his ass for a second. As he falls, the hood from his jacket drops and I get a look at his face.

Like I’d been dropped into the freezing river, my blood and body run cold and my muscles freeze. For a second I don’t believe what I’m seeing. It can’t be him.

It just can’t be.

But no matter how many times I blink, I can’t get his face to change.

---