Page 50 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

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MILO

“Weshouldhavegonewith her,” I say, looking up at the setting sun. “She should have been back hours ago. We shouldn’t have let her go out on her own.”

“You ever try to stop Emlyn from doing something she wanted to do?” Nate asks. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the steps leading down to Giuseppe’s, and I know for a fact he isn’t nearly as calm as he’s letting on. “She insisted on going by herself. There wasn’t anything we could have done about it, short of physically holding her down.”

“Well, maybe we should have done that,” I say.

Nobody bothers to dignify that with an answer, which is fair enough. Of course none of us were going to physically restrain Emlyn from doing what she wanted to do.

“Do you think something happened to her?” Wilder asked.

“It’s not like her to fuck around and keep us waiting,” Nate says. “Em takes safety seriously.” He sighs. “I think we’d better go out looking for her.”

Wilder bites his lip. “I’m not sure how much help I can be to you.”

“No help,” Nate says bluntly. “You can’t keep up with Milo and me in wolf form, and you’re no use as a tracker. You should stay here in case she comes back.”

Wilder takes this in stride, to his credit. I don’t think I’d have handled it as well if I were in his shoes. I would have probably insisted on coming along. But Wilder seems to accept his limitations in a way I’ve never been able to.

Maybe it’s a wolf thing. Maybe that’s why I—and Nate—never seem to know when to sayenough.

“All right,” Wilder says. “I’ll wait here. But don’t you two disappear too.”

Nate shakes his head. “We know her scent,” he says. “We won’t be long.”

“Yeah,” Wilder says wryly. “That’s what Emlyn said before she went missing.”

Nate’s already stripping down, tossing his clothes toward the stairwell. “C’mon,” he calls to me.

I follow suit.

Once we’ve let our wolves out, things are easier. The wolf’s natural instinct is to hunt, not to sit and worry. Noses to the ground, we set off in search of Emlyn’s familiar scent.

It’s always interesting going out in wolf form with Nate. I’m still not used to having other wolves around me at all. And I always assumed that if Iwasaround other wolves, some kind of natural hierarchy would form. That hasn’t happened, though. Neither Nate nor I is in charge here. We’re fully equal partners.

Hunting together has taught us to branch out away from one another a little. We know how far away we can range while still being close enough to call one another if we need to. So Nate isn’t in my line of sight when I come across the familiar scent.

I let out a few soft yips so he’ll understand that I’m summoning him but that I’m not raising an alarm. A few moments later, he comes jogging around a corner.

I jerk my head in the direction the trail is leading.

Nate gets a whiff of the scent and sets off at a run, which I take as agreement. I run after him, falling into step on his right flank.

Emlyn’s scent leads us to a department store, which I figure is probably the one Wilder told her about. So we know that she made it here, at any rate. But before we make it to the door, Nate grinds to a halt.

Before my mind can even form the question, I know what stopped him.

Wolves.

The scent of other wolves is all around this place.

It couldn’t have been like that when Emlyn got here. Emlyn would never have walked into a building that smelled like this!

Except…Emlyn would have been human when she reached this place. Her sense of smell wouldn’t have been as keen as mine is now. Is it possible she would have overlooked this smell, if her mind was too focused on other things?

It could have happened that way.

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