“How do you know that’s the right cabin?” Titus asked, so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. I had to concentrate to keep my focus on the task at hand.
“I don’t.” I jotted down the coordinates, then panned around on the map a bit, but only found one other cabin nearby. “Okay, these are the only two they could have gotten to without having to cross a river. It’s a good starting point.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
I set Justus’s laptop on the glass coffee table and Titus reached down to pull me up from the couch, his gaze locked on mine. His grip on my hand loosened and lingered until he was just…holding it. Renewing the connection.
That sweet, innocent contact—his hand warm against mine—should have been nothing, but it felt like…something.
Something that I wanted, for the first time since the night I’d been scratched.
I slid my free hand up his arm and around his neck, then I stood on my toes and kissed him. Before I could talk myself out of the impulse.
Titus made a satisfied sound deep in his throat. His hands found my sides, then roamed up my back. I sucked on his lower lip, tasting it, then slid my tongue into his mouth. He groaned.
Then, suddenly Titus was gone. I opened my eyes to find him four feet away, staring at me in a pained mixture of desire and guilt. “I really wasn’t supposed to do that.”
“Why not? Because the council told you not to?”
Titus frowned. “You overheard my phone call?”
I shrugged. “Just the part where you promised Faythe you had no intention of ‘seducing’ me.”
He exhaled slowly. “I didn’t say that because the council doesn’t want us together. I said it because they’re right. You’re young, and new, and vulnerable. And I’m an authority figure. It’s wrong.”
“You’re not my authority figure anymore.” Not officially, anyway.
“Robyn…”
“No, seriously. You’re not the boss of me, and I have no intention of following any order you try to give. Ergo, you are not my authority figure. You’re not taking advantage. You’re not even instigating this.” I stepped forward and kissed him again, and this time when he tried to pull away. I gently bit his lip.
“Robyn, you can’t—”
“Fuck that.” I stepped back, anger firing in my veins. “I was starting to think you were different from the other Alphas, but here you go, telling me who I can and can’t kiss. If you don’t want to kiss me, then make that decision for yourself. As a man turning down a woman, not as an Alpha using a position he doesn’t even hold anymore as an excuse. But don’t you dare say you’re doing this for me.
“I can damn well make my own decisions.”
FOURTEEN
Titus
The highway was dark, the asphalt still slick, though the rain had ended an hour before. My phone buzzed in Robyn’s hand, and the call interrupted the map app, obscuring the latitude and longitude we’d been navigating by.
“It’s Faythe again.” She held the phone up for me to see as I drove slowly along the shoulder of I55. “I assume you don’t want me to answer?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Maybe I should, though. She might quit calling if she knows I’m okay.”
“Then text her from your phone. It was your idea to put off talking to her, and I don’t feel like being bitched at again.”
“I didn’t bitch at you.” Robyn rejected the call on my phone, and the map reappeared, lighting up the interior of my SUV.
“I didn’t mean you.”
But she made no reply as she set my phone in the dashboard mount, so I could see the map, then dug her new phone from the pocket of the black wool coat I’d lent her. She was still mad, and I couldn’t blame her.
It had taken every bit of willpower I’d had to stop kissing her, and though my head had told me I’d done the right thing, my heart was far from convinced. As was my body.
You’re not the Alpha anymore. I had no authority, and I probably never would again. Kissing Robyn would constitute no conflict of interest or abuse of position. And she clearly wanted to be kissed, almost as badly as I wanted to kiss her.
So apologize. I could stop the car, right there on the side of the road, and kiss her. I could tell her how much it meant to me that she wanted to help my brother and the other disenfranchised strays. And me. I could fix things between us, because knowing I hurt her feelings, when all I’d wanted to do was kiss her, made me feel like an ass.
I glanced at Robyn and found her typing a text to Faythe.
Hey, this is Robyn. I’m fine. Titus is fine. We’re safe, and he’ll call you as soon as he can.
“Okay, we need to turn left as soon as you find a way into the woods,” she said with a glance at the map, but there was a distance in her voice. A distinct lack of warmth. “We’re coming up on the coordinates.” Her phone buzzed in her lap, and she glanced at the text. “It’s Faythe. She wants us to call her. I’m going to put it on do not disturb,” she said as her fingers tapped the screen, then she turned to the road without even a glance my way. “I think I see a dirt path up there. Do you see it?”
I squinted into the darkness. “Yeah.” I glanced at the rearview mirror, then turned across both lanes of the highway onto the small road cut into the woods. The headlights shined on several sets of tire tracks in the dirt.
“I don’t suppose you recognize any of those tracks?” Robyn asked, squinting at them through the windshield
“No. I’m better at recognizing paw prints than tire tracks, and I doubt I’m as good at that as most natural-born toms.” Who were practically born tracking prey in the woods.
After a bumpy mile and a half of watching our progress on the GPS map, Robyn told me to stop. “We’re half a mile away. If we go much farther in the truck, the light and engine noise might spook him.”
She was right. And I was impressed, especially considering that her somewhat illicit tracking skills were self-taught. However… “If he’s out here in cat form, he’ll already have heard us,” I said. “Looks like we’re walking from here.”
Robyn nodded. “You want to shift, or should I?”
I glanced at her again in surprise, and she rolled her eyes. “I’ve spent the past two months surrounded by enforcers. I know that two-man patrols work with one person on foot and one on four paws, so the team has access to advantages in both forms—a cat’s eyes, ears, and nose, and a human’s thumbs and cell phone. But…” She sighed. “I haven’t exactly totally mastered my instincts in cat form. And by instincts, I mean bloodlust.” The face she made suggested that the admission actually tasted bad on her tongue.
I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll shift. But if you’re going on two legs, you have to carry this.” I leaned across her to open the glove box, and she shook her head before I even got it open.
“I don’t know how to shoot a—”
“It’s a stun-gun.” I pulled out the blocky plastic pistol with a clunky square barrel and dropped it into her lap. “Just in case. You point and shoot.”
“Okaaay.” Robyn slid the gun into the right pocket of her borrowed coat.
“Did you really think I’d let you shoot my brother?” I asked as I got out of the car.
“No.” She laughed. “Though that would hint at an interesting family dynamic.” Her teeth began to chatter the moment she opened her car door—even in Mississippi, February was a cold month—so I rounded the front of the vehicle and folded the collar of my coat up over her neck and chin.
I didn’t realize what I was doing, or how intimate a gesture that was, until she looked up at me from inches away. Evidently surprised that I’d voluntarily touched her.
When I inhaled, her scent mixed with mine from the borrowed coat, and the combination made my heart beat harder. That moment felt…right. As if it could have been removed from our current mission—plopped down in any time or place—and I could be bundling her up in my coat on a snowy day on vacation in Europe. Or for a
brisk afternoon walk on our own property.
And suddenly I wanted both of those things. Moments with Robyn that weren’t overshadowed by danger and stress. By the possibility that I had permanently lost my Pride and that my brother might soon lose his life.
Startled by that realization, I cleared my throat and stepped back.
“So, what’s the plan?” Robyn asked while I rounded the car again and took off my coat. “We’re going to walk around and hope we run into your brother?”
I folded my coat and set it on the driver’s seat. “We’re going to walk in the direction of the cabin and, yes, hope we find my brother. Or at least some trace of his scent, to confirm that he’s been out here recently.” I pulled my shirt over my head, and I was unsurprised, but definitely pleased, when she studied my chest with no hint of shame or timidity.
I’d been pursued by women before—most were more attracted to the me they read about in Forbes “30 Under 30” list than to the actual me—but Robyn was uninhibited and confident in a way few of the other women had been. She wasn’t arrogant, or presumptuous, or coy. She was just…open. Honest about what she wanted, not just with everyone else, but with herself.
“What if we don’t find Justus?” she asked, casually watching me over the hood of my car while I unzipped my pants. “Or any trace of him?”
“Then we go back to the apartment and get some sleep, and tomorrow we stake out all of his classes and try to get ahold of Ivy Lowe.” I stood fully naked and goose-pimpled in the moonlight and was suddenly glad that the front of the car shielded me from sight from the hips down—no first impression of an intimate nature should ever be made in sub-freezing temperatures.
I opened the rear driver’s side door and took a backpack from the floorboard. “I need you to carry this,” I said as I stuffed my keys and clothes into the bag, then tossed it to her over the hood of the car.
While I shifted, Robyn turned off the car lights and locked the doors, then she leaned against the hood and studied the GPS map until I finally stood on four paws.
“Wow, that was fast.” She settled the straps of my backpack higher on her shoulders. “Will I get faster with experience?”
I bobbed my muzzle at her. Then I tossed my head toward the east, in the general direction of the cabin. Corey Morris had told us he was attacked within fifty yards of the cabin. I was far from convinced that we’d find Justus out in the forest, but he wasn’t at home, and he had to be somewhere.
“Yup. Let’s go.” She headed into the woods, to the east, and I padded alongside her.
Her human footsteps were clumsy and obvious, at least to my cat’s ear, but she was clearly trying to be stealthy.
“Sorry,” she whispered the third time her boot snapped through a twig.
I gave her an amused snort. It didn’t matter how loud her steps were. If Justus was out there in cat form, he would hear her coming even if she could manage not to stomp on every crisp fallen leaf. Unless, like Robyn, he hadn’t yet mastered the art of listening without conscious effort.
A light blinked deeper in the woods and I froze, my frame tense. I inhaled deeply, but caught no out-of-place scents.
“What? Do you smell him?” Robyn took an exaggerated whiff of the air, but I could tell from her frown that she smelled only the same woodland inhabitants I had: skunks, beavers, raccoons, and somewhere nearby, a very nervous deer.
I shook my head and stared straight ahead, trying to direct her gaze in the right direction, absent the ability to speak. When she only squinted into the woods, I realize we weren’t close enough yet for her human eyes to register the light. So I kept walking, and she followed as quietly as she could.
Twenty yards later, she gasped softly. “A light. Is it the cabin?” The light had a yellowish hue, but lacked the jumpiness or warm look of a flame. “It’s dim, at least to my human eyes, but according to the GPS—” She held the screen out for me to see. “—it’s coming from the direction of the cabin.”
So we pressed on. “Still no scent of him?” she whispered as we continued.
I shook my head.
The closer we got to the cabin, the more detail I could see. It was old and small—probably only one room—with a rusted metal roof. The windows were grimy, but both of those facing us were lit by what appeared to be a single dim bulb.
At the top of a set of warped wooden steps, the front door stood ajar.
“Shit,” Robyn whispered. “No one over the age of eight leaves the front door open.”
She obviously hadn’t spent much time with Brandt. But her point was valid.
My muzzle bobbed as I scented the air in several short sniffs.
Death. Decay. Rot. Feces.
My pulse exploded into a frantic rhythm, and I took off for the cabin as fast as I could.
“Wait!” Robyn called as she raced after me, all caution abandoned. She obviously couldn’t yet smell what I’d scented, but she could tell something was wrong.
She burst into the cabin a moment after I did, then pulled up short, one hand covering her nose when the smell hit her. Then she gagged and staggered onto the porch.
Unpleasant scents are weaker in human form, but much more difficult to tolerate. Especially if you’re unaccustomed to them.
While Robyn gulped breath after fresh breath through her mouth, I stared up through the wooden railing at the second-floor loft directly over the cabin’s small kitchen, breathing deeply to analyze the details of the tragedy I smelled upstairs.
“Sorry,” Robyn murmured as she stepped into the cabin, clutching the straps of my backpack, her teeth clenched against an obvious gag reflex. She sucked in another long, slow breath and I could see her fighting to control the impulse to flee the stench. “There’s a corpse?” she asked, and I nodded, still staring at the loft.
She glanced over the worn living room furniture, the small, grimy kitchenette, and a fireplace full of ash, but found no obvious source for the stench of death. And finally, her gaze traveled up toward the loft, where my feline nose had already pinpointed the source. “It’s up there?”
I padded toward the threadbare couch, where a woman’s purse sat on the edge of the left-hand cushion. Reaching up, I nudged the bag with one paw, and it fell, spilling makeup, tissues, and assorted other belongings across a wood plank floor worn smooth by years of traffic. I sniffed the contents, familiarizing myself with the trace scents of the owner.
“Is it Justus?” Robyn whispered, dragging her gaze away from the loft.
I shook my head. Then I lay down on the floor and began to shift, because there wasn’t much more I could tell her—or that I could do—in cat form.
While my body tore itself apart and slowly, painfully reassembled itself in a human configuration of muscle and bone, Robyn set my backpack on the floor next to me, then crossed the small room toward the narrow staircase.
I wanted her to wait for me—she shouldn’t have to find a decaying corpse by herself—but until my shift was complete, I could only listen to the wood creak as she climbed the stairs.
As my shift wound down with a few soft, gristly pops and deep bone creaks, Robyn gasped. I sat up to find her standing hunched over in the loft, because of the valued ceiling, which only reached its eight foot height directly above a full-sized bed, the end of which I could see through the railing.
I dumped my backpack on the floor and scrambled to pull on my pants, then raced up the steps two at a time. The smell of decay was distinctly weaker in human form, but immeasurably worse, because my human brain processed not just the facts—rot equals death—but the more complex and devastating emotional reality.
Someone has died.
Someone female, whose purse still sat abandoned on the floor of the cabin.
The dead girl lay on the bed—the only piece of furniture in the cabin loft—atop the rumpled, old-fashioned bedspread. She was fully dressed, her sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Though the stench was terrible, there was no visible sign of decay. Her
identity was clear. We’d found Ivy Lowe.
But someone else had found her first.
Chunks of flesh were missing from Ivy’s left calf. Something had been eating her. There was relatively little blood on the blanket beneath her, which meant her heart had stopped beating before the meal began.
Still… “Son of a bitch,” I whispered.
“I don’t… I can’t…” Robyn’s words seemed to get lost on their way out. I wrapped my arms around her and turned her to face the stairs. Slowly, her hands found my back, until she was squeezing me in a desperate hug. “Someone was eating her, Titus.”
“We don’t know that it was a shifter.” Please, God, don’t let it be Justus… “The door was open. Anything could have gotten into the cabin.”
“How did she die?” Robyn’s focus was glued to my face as if she couldn’t stand to look at the body anymore.
“My guess would be scratch fever.” I stood and lifted Ivy’s arm, where an inflamed but visibly shallow set of scratches marred her flesh. I repositioned her arm at her side, and when I backed up, my heel hit something. “She had a rifle.” I knelt to pick it up, then slid back the lever on top. “The round is jammed.” I thought for a moment. “Okay. So maybe Justus came to the cabin after he infected Corey Morris. Which could still have been an accident,” I insisted. Robyn didn’t argue. “Ivy got scared, obviously, but her rifle didn’t fire.” Miracle of miracles. “Maybe she swung it like a bat and fought him off, or maybe she dropped it. Either way, he infected her.”
“You don’t know that,” Robyn pointed out. “She never shifted, and her wounds are too shallow to get much of a scent out of, so we can’t be sure who infected her.”
“We can make a reasonable assumption. Justus was the only shifter out here that night, and we know he infected Corey Morris. Who was here with Ivy and…” I frowned. “What happened to the other guy? Morris’s roommate at Ole Miss. What was his name?”