Which made Jackie even more suspicious. Whoever took her best friend knew she would follow the trail here.
She took another breath, searching…seeking… “Damn it.” She couldn’t detect Del’s scent at all in the putrid odors hanging heavy on the night air. It was all just muddied smells now.
She gave Rourke a level stare. “Are you sure?”
Sharp ice-blue eyes stared back at her, their intensity almost hidden in the growing darkness. “Yes.”
The word sent a shiver down Jackie’s spine. “How do you know?”
“I’ll explain later, I promise.”
Biting back a muttered curse, she turned back to the track, taking another breath. If she could just get a lock on Delanie’s location herself she could knock Rourke out and deal with the situation without being distracted.
Distracted? Don’t you mean turned on?
“Can you detect her?”
Rourke’s voice seemed strained. She looked at him, noting the tightness around his eyes, the flaring of his nostrils. Her stomach knotted. Something didn’t feel right. “No.”
He turned his attention back to the track. “Building at three o’clock. Two different scents—one male, one female. Both very weak.” He licked his lips, as if tasting the air. “He’s tried to conceal their location. I smell fresh blood—rodent.”
Jackie frowned, staring first at Rourke and then at the dark shape rising above the fence to her right. It looked like the old bar and cafeteria. Her stomach twisted again. How could Rourke detect Delanie’s scent when she couldn’t?
What was he to have such a highly developed sense of smell?
And why did she feel so aroused by the fact?
Her animal stirred, sending her pulse into an erratic tattoo. Her nipples pinched into hard peaks and her sex grew heavy. Her teeth pointed. Her flesh began to itch. Ripple.
Jackie drove her nails into her palms. Damn it. Not now. Not now.
“Let’s go.”
Rourke’s growled command jerked her body back under control. He moved, long, lean frame somehow folding into the deepening night, crossing the graveled clearing in front of the track’s gaping entryway on silent feet. Every step he took made the pit of Jackie’s belly twist. The way he moved was almost familiar. It was like watching a foreign film without the subtitles. The story ensnared her but she couldn’t fully comprehend it.
It pissed her off.
Casting the surrounding darkness one last look, she followed the Texan across the clearing, making no sound at all. Her palm itched for her gun. Her muscles itched to transform. Her animal growled for release. She fixed her eyes on the black shape looming up behind the fence, drawing an image of Delanie into her mind.
Her friend. Rescuing Del was all that mattered now. After Del was safe, then she would turn her attention to Marshall Rourke. Pin him down and extract his secrets.
Until then, he was just someone in her peripheral vision.
Stepping past the broken gate into the racing track’s grounds, Rourke but a few steps in front, Jackie pulled another breath. Every scent she detected was old. Faded. She dropped into a crouch, touched her fingertips to the cracked concrete beneath her feet and then raised them to her nose.
Canine. Blood. Urine. Saliva.
Human. Urine. Sweat.
Bird. Shit.
She bit back a curse. No hint anyone had been here recently, let alone Delanie.
Straightening to her feet, she continued toward the building Rourke insisted her friend was in.
So why can’t I smell her?
A soft scrape sounded to her left, shattering the silence.
Heartbeat tripling, she stared into the darkness, her animal vision seeing everything.
Which was nothing.
No indication anything had been—
A powerful stench hit her. Wild. Angry.
She gasped, the distinct scent of an alpha canine flooding her senses. Spinning about, she looked for Rourke.
Gone.
She was alone.
Sucking in another breath, she searched for the animal. The ghost of its scent tainted the sweet night air, ribbons of refuse and excrement twisting around the odor. Jackie frowned, her throat squeezing. Was it an animal? Maybe she was mistaken? Too much filth coated the scent to be certain. Made it difficult to taste.
She clenched her fists, her gut churning, her skin tingling.
Run, chase, track, hunt, kill.
Her thylacine surged upward, growling for release. She sank her nails into her palms, forcing control through her body. Just.
Something moved behind her.
She spun about, ready to—transform—attack.
A massive black blur darted behind a small brick building—a toilet block by its foul odor.
Jackie’s pulse pounded in her ears.
She took a step forward, tasting the air again.
And smelt Delanie.
“Detective?”
The deep murmur at her ear made her jump. She struck out, her elbow connecting with something hard and hot.
“Oof.”
Fists ready to strike, she snapped around, her stare locking on Rourke’s face but an inch from hers.
“Damn, you’re fast.” The muttered exclamation slipped past his lips as he rubbed his hand over his abdomen.
Jackie ignored him. “I’ve found—”
“Delanie,” he finished. Sharp blue eyes flashed silver in the moonlight. “Let’s go.”
He turned and loped away, heading for the derelict bar and cafeteria, fluid and graceful and fast. She followed, zeroing her senses on the almost nonexistent trace of her best friend.
Track, hunt.
The square building sat silent, its rust-blemished roof reflecting the waxing moon’s glow, its serving windows covered with weather-bleached boards. A door at the back of the structure hung on a single hinge, the entry a light-devouring rectangle that seemed to mock Jackie. She’s in here. Are you brave enough to come in too?
Jackie curled her lip. Don’t be bloody ridiculous, Huddart.
Rourke veered left, his stride slowing somewhat. He shot her a quick look over his shoulder, indicating she should go right. Jackie frowned, a ripple flowing over her flesh. Her animal didn’t like it. She didn’t like it. Was it a perimeter search? Taking their foe by surprise? Or a tactic to divide and conquer?
Keeping her senses locked on Delanie’s weak scent, she approached the cafeteria. The smell of burnt sausages, stale beer and vomit assaulted her, tried to overpower her friend’s trace. She wouldn’t let it. Pressing her back to the cool brick wall, she steadied her heart. This close to the open door, Delanie’s scent was stronger, but not by much.
Jackie’s heart smashed against her breastbone. Her hair stood on end and she wriggled her fingers.
Hunt, track, hunt, hunt, hunt.
She shut out the alluring, feverish want and inched closer to the black entryway.
A noise, like velvet rubbing against stone, whispered behind her, but she didn’t look. There was no new scent, just the ghosts of dogs and humans long gone. Nothing to draw her attention from the inside of the cafeteria. Delanie. She needed to keep her focus on Delanie.
She drew closer to the door, the sour stench of human vomit and rotting meat slipping into her breath. All old. All tired.
Hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt.
Her pulse tripled.
The bricks rasped against her palms as she moved along the wall, tearing minute wounds into the pads of her fingers.
The noise came again. Closer.
She froze beside the doorway, ears straining.
Silence. Not even the sound of scurrying cockroaches.
She drew another breath—pinpointing Delanie’s scent. Four metres inside the building, to the left. Her chest tightened. This close, it should be stronger. This close, she should be able to hear her friend breathing. This close, she should know Delanie was there.
But she didn’t.
Tr
ap, trap, run, hunt, kill, kill.
She closed her eyes for a split second, wriggled her fingers and stepped into the blackness.
Moonlight streamed into the building, pouring through a section of roof where the ironing sheeting no longer existed, illuminating the gutted kitchen and vandalized benches. Rubbish was strewn everywhere. Decayed rat carcasses littered the floor, discarded food wrappings and empty beer bottles blanketing them in refuse.
Jackie stood motionless, her blood roaring in her ears. Not a sign of Delanie. Not even a clearing of rubbish where she may have once been.
She scanned the filth. Nothing indicated someone had been here recently, let alone two someones. One of whom, Jackie was certain, would have been putting up a damn good struggle.
That’s assuming Del’s conscious.
Jackie snarled at the dark notion. She took a step deeper into the cafeteria, pulling in a long, deep breath. Something with Delanie’s scent was here. The floral note of happy cheekiness Jackie had known most of her life whispered on the air, teasing her. Taunting in its fragile existence.
Closing her eyes, she shut everything in the derelict room out but the allusive hint of her best friend.
So faint. So faint.
She let her animal surge closer to release, closer to control. It was dangerous, but she didn’t care. She needed to find her friend. Her body tingled. Her heart hammered. She felt a million pinpricks of icy fire raze her flesh. She felt every hair follicle thrum with ancient magick.
Hunt, track, run, kill, mate.
Her sex grew heavy, her breath short. She wriggled her fingers, controlling her Tasmanian tiger as it came closer to freedom, its heightened senses tasting the cool night air, feeling the vibrations of the earth, the shifting of the planet. Hearing the frantic heartbeats of petrified mice hiding in the refuse. She opened her eyes, scanning the moonlit debris under the far window, near the cafeteria’s old freezer room. Delanie’s scent tickling, mocking, teasing…
Track, run, kill, mate.
Mate, mate, fuck.
A glint of something gold caught her eye. Something tiny like an earring. Cast aside in the rubbish and filth. An earring just like the pair Jackie had given Del for her eighteenth birthday.
An earring on which Delanie’s scent lingered, like beads of mist on a spider’s web.
Delanie’s scent and someone else’s. Someone ancient and powerful and—
“Fuck.”
Rourke’s muttered curse smashed into Jackie’s ears. She jumped, spinning around to stare at the man standing directly behind her, her pulse pounding, her thylacine growling.
Face etched in a frown, Rourke ignored her, raising his hand up to his face, fingers spread to study something on his palm.
Jackie’s thylacine tasted the blood on the air before she saw it. A crimson trickle of pure male life force seeping over Marshall’s wrist bone and down his arm from a wound she couldn’t see somewhere on his hand. A trickle of blood ripe with potent pheromones and virulent power.
Her animal tasted the man’s blood on the air. Tasted it and detected something different about it. Something ancient. Animalistic.
Fire erupted in Jackie’s core. An ice-storm of primeval power followed. Her thylacine howled. Shift, shift, mate, mate, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Her body trembled. She staggered back one step, her stare snapping from Rourke’s hand to his face.
Transform, shift, mate, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Rourke’s frown deepened, his eyes unreadable silver discs in the room’s cool light as he moved his gaze to her. “What’s wrong?”
His voice—low and gravelly and far too sexy—stabbed into her core, a wicked blade of carnal stimulus. Her Tasmanian tiger clamored for release, its base instincts surging for control. Forcing the shift. Forcing the transformation from human to thylacine. From woman to bitch. A bitch in heat and wanting to mate.
Icy fire consumed her. Flooded her sex—mate, mate, fuck, mate, fuck, fuck—and she did the only thing she could to stop the shift claiming her.
She threw herself at Marshall Rourke, her hands fisting in his hair, her mouth crushing his, her tongue invading his mouth before the savage transformation could begin.
Chapter Four
Marshall’s body exploded. The second Jackie’s tongue plunged into his mouth, her sweet taste filling his breath, his being, the small gash in his palm from the building’s broken window, were forgotten.
From the moment he’d opened the email with Detective Huddart’s file, he’d become hooked. From the very first instant he’d smelt her soft, delicate scent, he’d become addicted. She was an enigma. Unique. And now here she was. Here they were. Bodies mashed together, hearts hammering in unison. Christ in a handcart, he was in trouble.
A whimper sounded in Jackie’s throat, soft and animalistic and she pushed her hips harder to his, all but shattering his tenuous hold on his desire.
His cock flooded with hot lust, painful in its straining hunger. A burning vice squeezed his chest, stole his capacity for rational thought. There was a desperation in her actions he couldn’t miss. He felt it in the heat of her body. A burning wildness that unnerved him. What she was doing now wasn’t contemplated or restrained. But holy fucking Christ, did it make his blood hot. Did it make his beast stir.
He raked his hands up her back and buried them in her hair, snaring the coppery-chestnut strands in fists so tight he felt his knuckles pop.
Jesus, she tasted good.
So fucking good.
A low gnarr rumbled in his chest and his blood thickened. Fuck. This was not the plan, not the course of action he’d set out to follow, but he couldn’t stop. Not when she tasted so good.
Then fuck her. Mount her. Claim her. And then get on with the job.
The callous thought shot through his head, icy cold and vicious. He stiffened. God, what was he doing? He couldn’t—
Jackie’s hands tightened in his hair. She shoved her hips forward, grinding the soft hood of her sex against his dick, and scalding lust surged through Marshall. Destroying him. He plundered her willing mouth, his tongue mating with hers in frenzied desperation. Already it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. His wolf wanted more. Dragging his hands from her hair, he grabbed her arse, squeezing each firm, toned cheek with brutal force as he yanked her harder to his hips.
She whimpered again, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip.
Sweet pain licked through him and he growled. Or was it his beast. He didn’t know. Didn’t care. He drove her backward, ramming her shoulders against the wall even as he shoved her legs apart with his knees and ground his erection to her soft heat.
Jackie tore her mouth from his, throwing back her head to offer him her throat. “Fuck, yes.”
Her raw cry stabbed into Marshall’s chest. Flooded his balls with molten need. He closed his lips around her neck. Bit into her flesh. She cried out again, arching her body into his, tugging on his hair as she did so. The heat of her sex scalded his straining cock, even through the material of their clothes.
He shoved his hips upward, dry-fucking her, his hands on her arse, his mouth on her neck, her jaw. He flicked his tongue into her ear and bit the soft, fleshy pad of her lobe. She groaned, one leg hooking around his calf, squeezing him closer to the junction of her thighs. “Yes.” The word burst from her lips in a hoarse shout, bounced off the graffitied walls and came back to him tenfold.
His wolf snarled and a ripple of hot ice shot up his spine. It was ready to mate. It was ready to come.
Marshall jerked his mouth from her neck, staring into her face. Her eyes burned with primal lust. He sucked in a sharp breath and the musk of her pleasure coated his tongue. Fresh blood flooded his cock. Christ, he was too close. His beast was too close. If he didn’t stop now, he didn’t know who would penetrate her. Man or wolf.
Does it matter?
As if sensing his hesitation and wanting none of it, Jackie yanked her hands from his hair, snared the collar of her prim black shirt and tor
e it apart. “Suck,” she ordered. “Now.”
The pale moonlight painted the smooth flesh of her breasts in a silvery glow, the black lace of her bra a stark contrast to the creamy colour of her skin. Marshall’s mouth filled with saliva. His cock jerked, his balls lifted. Jesus, she was beautiful.
He lifted his stare to her face, his blood roaring in his ears. “I won’t be able to stop.”
She stared back at him, the wild hunger in her eyes incinerating any other emotion there. “I don’t care.”
Each word rang with desperate need. Each syllable with raw want. It was too much. He couldn’t fight any more. Why had he to begin with?
He shoved her legs farther apart with his knees, grinding harder to her pussy as he let go of her arse and cupped her breasts in his hands. Immediately, Jackie’s nipples pinched into hard points. He dragged the pad of his thumbs over each tip, his beast growling at the keening noise the contact elicited from her throat. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she arched her back, rolling her damp sex harder to his dick. Her hands raked up his arms, her fingers tangling in his hair. She held him tight, her breath coming from her in ragged, shallow pants. Beads of perspiration glistened on her forehead, her chest. A tiny trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. The sound of its path over her skin—mist on velvet—sent a scalding wave of liquid electricity through Marshall’s body. Into his groin.
He dropped his head, catching the trickle with its tongue. Salty sweetness exploded in his mouth. Her taste. Her sweat. His cock pulsed and he growled again. She was as delicious and unique as he suspected. And as addictive. He wanted more.
Without preamble, he hooked his fingers under the lacy edges of her bra and pulled them aside.
Her nipples popped free and he captured one with his mouth, closing his lips over the distended nub. Jackie gasped, the sound turning into a moan as he suckled hard, his fingers twisting and pinching her other nipple in perfect sync with his mouth.
Savage Transformation: Savage Australia, Book 2 Page 6