Page 9 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
How could I stay?
So I drove faster, the gas pedal slammed down on the floorboard.
The wolf paced and howled inside me, a frothing-mad beast. For the first time in many years, I struggled to control my gift. I’d learned at a very early age that I needed to prevent the wolf from coming out of me at will, or I’d end up chained beside my father. I was a king, an Aima male who could shift without a queen’s bond to control me. That made me wildly dangerous and uncontrollable.
For the most part, I could control the wolf, mostly because I limited the amount of time I spent near people. The only time my hold sometimes weakened was in moments of extreme stress, like if I was attacked. The wolf liked to come out in a fight, because it wanted the taste of blood and meat in its mouth. Even then, I had to be extremely careful. I couldn’t leave evidence of a wolf kill in civilization without too many questions.
So I’d gotten pretty damned creative.
Hands clenched on the steering wheel, I focused on the road and the other cars I blew past like they were standing still. Eventually the challenge of weaving in and out of cars at such a breakneck speed helped quiet the wolf. I needed another challenge. Something to occupy my mind, so I wouldn’t keep circling back to thoughts of her. Alone. Unprotected.
Fuck.
A big challenge. So I decided to embrace my investigative skills.
The reason Detective Joseph Harris didn’t like me much was because I did a lot of private investigative work on his turf. I didn’t give a fuck about human laws, and I broke the rules as often as I could. Breaking and entering, petty shit that really wasn’t worthy of the detective’s time. He couldn’t understand why I could always find someone, even if they were trying very, very hard to disappear in a city famous for its lawlessness. Or why bad guys kept ending up dead, bleeding out from wounds delivered by a weapon the coroner couldn’t identify.
I only took on two kinds of cases. Finding and rescuing someone who was missing—mostly kids or women who’d been kidnapped off the streets for human trafficking. Or delivering justice when the human justice system failed to do so. I’d taken on cases as far away as Alaska, but mostly stuck to the northern Midwest. My home turf, so to speak.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Karmen had been held captive somewhere. That she’d been injured and mistreated. I’d seen the scars on her body before she’d healed them. I’d seen those motherfucking skeletons. The fear in her eyes, though she’d done her best to hide behind that calm facade. If there were more of those creatures coming after her, I’d find them.
And I’d eliminate them. With glee.
Plus it wouldn’t hurt to do a little reconnaissance. Who else might be looking for her? Had we left any traces behind that someone else could follow?
I drove back to Northwestern Memorial and parked in almost the exact same spot where she’d found me after fleeing the ER. Even now, almost twenty-four hours later, I could still pick up her scent. Closing my eyes, I opened up my wolf’s nose, whuffing deeply to take in as much of her scent as possible.
She didn’t smell like flowers or perfume, none of that bullshit. There was a hint of brightness, clean and warm. If sunlight had a scent. Almost like fresh laundry hung outside at noon on a bright, sunny day. White sheets blowing in a summer breeze. Then put on the bed. Smooth. Soft. Still smelling of outside.
Fuck. Jamming the door open, I climbed out of the car. As I opened my eyes, I could see traces of her scent floating in the air like gentle golden sunbeams. A very clear map to follow, for anyone who wanted to trace her. Hopefully these sunfires didn’t have the same kind of gift that I did. So far, no one had ever been able to disburse and wipe a scent enough to lose my wolf, other than when Helayna had been taken to the underworld.
I followed the faint trace inside the busy hospital. If I’d had any reason to doubt her veracity, the trail proved she really had been in the ER. Room 23 to be exact. It was dark and empty now, but there was a heavier trace of her scent here. She’d been in this room for at least an hour or two. Breathing. Sleeping. Whatever they’d done to bring her back.
“Can I help you?”
I turned, ready to tell the young man to buzz off and mind his own business, but I could see a glimmer of her golden scent was on his white coat. Enough to tell me that he’d been close to her, probably in this very room. “Hey, doc. What happened to the woman who was brought in earlier? I think she was in this room.”
“Are you with the police?”
I glanced at his name tag. “No, Dr. Mason. I’m trying to help her. Find out what brought her to the hospital in the first place.”
Eyes narrowed, the doctor didn’t look convinced.
“I’m the one who found her and called the police.”
His face transformed in a rush and he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “How did you find her? Did you notice anything unusual around her? Anything… not explained?”
I hadn’t met too many humans who knew about our kind, but he clearly had some suspicions about Karmen’s origins. Did I play interested human too, or would it pique his interest more if he knew what I was?
“Well, well, well. Here’s our lady’s savior,” a different voice echoed down the hall, which made my decision for me. I turned to face Detective Harris. “Imagine that, the two people I most want to talk to, right here, together. Do we need to go to the station, or can you two gentlemen spare a few minutes for me now?”
“We can talk in the lounge.” Dr. Mason sounded as excited for this interview as I felt.
Silently, I followed him down the hallway, my mind racing with angles and alternatives I could toss out to the nosy cop. He wouldn’t be easy to shake off Karmen’s tail. I knew how annoyingly tenacious he could be. The last thing she needed was a cop hunting her down. Worse, the trail would lead to Helayna. Her nest, our childhood home. What if…
My mind was so embroiled that it took a second for my nose to break through the thoughts crashing around in my head, but the wolf was insistent. I finally listened, drawing in another deep breath.
Yeah. Something smelled burnt. Not like ash or even charred wood, but definitely heated, like melted metal. I stopped in my tracks, head tipped, and cracked my mouth, breathing in that strange scent. It wasn’t earthly, or at least, anything I’d ever smelled before.
