by Sadie Hart
Lennox froze.
A witch wouldn’t be able to smell.
She should have known. A gruff laugh tore from her, ripe with betrayal. Back at the killings in Idaho, the witch had been able to wipe a scene clean, leaving the forest around Caro’s house still smelling like a forest, but hiding his scent. Only a Hound could do that. That narrowed her suspect pool quite a bit; there were very few Hounds with that level of magick. Torres and her, maybe Bree, and a handful of other Hounds scattered across the country.
Relief made her heart pick up speed. This was the first real lead she’d had since this had all begun. Lennox glanced around the woods, jaw tense as she took in the picnic table propped up against a tree, the empty chip bags, cups, and condom wrappers on the ground. It had teen hang-out written all over it—both visually and in the ripe layer of scents left behind.
“Lennie,” Mel whispered, voice taut with fear and every hair down Lennox’s neck lifted. She heard the soft shift of weight against the leaf litter and had to fight not to snarl.
She turned slowly on her heel, ready for a fight. A black nozzle was pressed against Mel’s temple, the gun no doubt carrying silver. Her gaze followed the darkly tanned skin up a muscled arm and felt her heart squeeze, even when her mind couldn’t quite grasp it.
It made no sense.
“Torres...”
He tilted his head towards the backside of the little forest, towards the little white car parked in the circle drive just out of view of the crime scene. The gun gave a sharp nudge into Mel’s head and she whimpered, stepping forward obediently. Lennox turned and led the way, mind reeling. It made no sense.
Her chest squeezing tight with betrayal she looked her partner and pack leader in the eye. Were both her bosses in on this? “Does Bree know?”
God, did anyone know?
“No,” Caesar Torres said. “Now hurry up. Let’s go.”
She felt the pulse of his Hound magick, covering their tracks and Lennox had to fight to hold hers back, to keep it from helping him. She refused to help him.
She wanted him weak.
She reached the car first and for a split second she tried to come up with a better plan. But the click of the safety coming off froze any thoughts on that.
“It’s unlocked,” he said.
Lennox glanced up and met her partner’s gaze. For the first time, she saw the hardness and determination as something other than a hard ass partner. It was the same look as a killer. And she hadn’t known.
Lennox opened the door, biting back a cry. Of all the people, she should have been able to tell.
And she hadn’t had a clue.
Chapter Fourteen
Something was wrong. Unease prickled down his forearms, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The air felt damn near electric, dangerous. They’d been gone two fucking hours to make a ten minute drive over to a crime scene they wouldn’t even able to get near. It shouldn’t have taken even half this long.
Kanon blew out a frustrated breath, his gaze locked on the bay window overlooking Mel’s porch and the quiet neighborhood she lived in. A boy bounced a basketball in the driveway across the street. So fucking normal and all he wanted to do was go roaring down the street.
“Easy,” Tegan said, but he sounded every bit as much on edge as Kanon felt.
Two hours. Two hours to do something that should have taken thirty, forty five minutes tops. Maybe an hour, but that was pushing it. Kanon shoved a hand through his black hair, the ear length strands cascading back down to skim his temples. A few brushed his chin. Longer than they should have been in this body.
He was damn close to losing it and sprouting claws.
Kanon clenched both hands into fists and took a deep breath, the knot in his stomach only coiling tighter. Tegan stepped up behind him, hip bumping his. “We don’t know for sure that it’s the same guy.”
Kanon shot him a look. They didn’t know for sure? Fuck that. They knew. There couldn’t be that many witches running loose, killing people, and framing lions all the while hiding their tracks well enough that Hounds couldn’t trace them. Tegan winced under the glare.
“She should have been back by now.”
Tegan shrugged. He was trying for calm, but one look at his partner, and Kanon knew Tegan was faking it. The other man’s hands trembled a little as he shoved them in his pockets. “Maybe, maybe they found something. A clue. Had to investigate.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
But that’s not what it felt like. His gut screamed at him that there was something wrong. That they needed to go, find her, help her. Damn it. He didn’t like sitting in a house waiting for the okay. Everything about this had been Lennox taking care of them, Lennox playing heroine, Lennox saving their asses.
Kanon was sick and tired of it.
He wasn’t helpless, damn it.
Sharp pointed nails nicked his palms and he forced his hands to unclench. Breath hissed out of between his teeth as he fought down the beast scrabbling for control inside him. If he let the lion loose, whoever was framing him wouldn’t have to work so damn hard anymore. And everything Lennox had done so far would mean squat.
He wasn’t about to fuck that up. Kanon closed his eyes and sucked in another breath, shaky, and he leaned into Tegan. “Maybe.”
“She’ll be okay. We have to trust her enough for that. Lennox, fuck.” Tegan shook his head and gave a short laugh. A wicked glint in his amber eyes that warmed Kanon a little. Yeah. There weren’t words out there to describe Lennox Donnelly. But she could definitely take care of herself.
“Why isn’t she back?” Kanon groaned, his head tilted back to stare at the drop ceiling. “Why is this driving me nuts?”
“Because you, hell, we care about her.” Tegan wrapped his arms around Kanon’s waist and held him. His thumb played over the ridge of his jeans, burrowing under his shirt until it found skin. Kanon gave a small shiver. “Because she drives us both wild, nuts. Because we want her to stick around. Correct me if I slip off base.”
He felt Tegan’s lips quirk into a smile against his neck and Kanon felt himself grin too. Nah. Tegan was spot on. “Don’t really see her in our kitchen though.”
“No kidding.” Tegan pressed his forehead into the back of Kanon’s neck and shuddered. “I want to go find her, but we’d be stupid to leave this house.”
Kanon nodded. He’d thought about it, several times in the past half hour. Just driving out, looking...but if a Hound spotted them. They just couldn’t. “She’d whoop our asses.”
But if anything happened to her...
Kanon didn’t want to think about it. In just three weeks, Lennox had become permanent. Tegan sighed against his neck. “I’d been hoping that all this was over. It’d been a few weeks, no news back in Idaho, nothing here, and nothing back home...”
Kanon nodded. He’d been hoping so too. Had planned on starting to talk Lennox into heading back so they could pick up the pieces of their lives. Hell, Tegan and him were probably already up on violations for abandoning their pride and turning rogue again. Shifter Town Enforcement demanded rogues give a standing address or belong to a pride.
They had to be in violation of that by now.
Not that it mattered now. At this rate, they’d be in hiding for forever.
“I’m gonna call her again.” Kanon untangled himself from Tegan’s arms and fished out his phone, dialing Lennox out of sheer habit. Nothing. Damn it. He tried Mel, but bile already touched the back of his tongue. His nerves were frayed. His hand tightened over his phone.
Nothing. Damn it. Kanon cursed low under his breath, the words fast turning to snarls and he felt the prickle of the shift start to touch him and shoved the lion back down deep under his skin. That was the last thing they needed. Something was wrong.
And there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.
***
Lennox woke groggy, the muscles in her shoulders aching painfully. Her fingers were numb and it took her a second to
realize her hands were tied behind her back, snugged tight to her ankles. No wonder she hurt. She shook her head, trying to erase the lingering tug of magick. Normally Torres wouldn’t have been able to knock her out, but with a gun to Mel’s head, she’d damn near helped him.
Mel.
Oh God. Lennox blinked into the darkness, straining. She turned her head and felt the weight of a blindfold skim her nose. Damn. Flexing her hands to keep the blood flowing through her fingers, Lennox inhaled, scenting. Blood. Male. Lion. Lots of blood. Her heart slammed against her chest, like a rabbit’s hiding low in the grasses.
She breathed it in deeper and relief hugged her close. She didn’t recognize the man behind it. But whoever it was, he was a lion-shifter and he was hurt bad. She could smell the silver poisoning in his blood. He was dying.
Lennox tilted her head and scented again. Mel was somewhere off to her right, scared. The heavy scent of sweat against her skin told Lennox as much, but she didn’t smell injured. “Mel?”
No answer. She was probably still under then. Lennox twisted her head back around in the direction of the lion. “Hello?”
A low, pained grunt answered her. The sound tugged at her heart. She could so easily picture Kanon or Tegan in his place. Bleeding out, silver eating up their veins... Lennox had to fight back the whimper in her throat. “We’re gonna get out of here,” she whispered.
His breath wheezed out in answer.
Lennox stretched back, trying to get her fingers on the rope. She needed to feel the knot, see if she could work out of it. The itch of silver against her skin told her what she’d already suspected; Torres had wrapped silver wire through it to keep her from shifting. He wouldn’t underestimate her.
She struggled, wiggling her hands against the rope for any sign of slack. The ropes tightened over her skin. Damn. Lennox let out a frustrated growl and she heard something scuff against the wooden floor.
“You won’t be able to get out...” The voice was low, broken. A smoker’s cough racked the end of his words and she flinched against the sound. “He tied you up good.”
“You can see then?”
The lion made a low moan in his throat. Assent probably. His heavy breathing came slow, pained, but she waited as he gathered the strength to speak again. “Her bonds though. She might be able to...”
The words broke off and Lennox didn’t push him. They had a shot with Mel then. A damn good one, Lennox decided, scenting the air again. The place smelled of hay and the faint, lingering touch of horses. Old, rotting wood tinged the air and beyond that, she could smell a forest. Leaf litter, pines, open flatlands of grass.
If they had to run through woods to get out of here, Mel was the best shot in a race with Torres, the lion coming in last. Mel could turn into a four-legged Ferrari of the dog-shifter world. Her saluki form was sleek and built for speed and endurance. Rhodesian ridgebacks were fast, but they weren’t designed for coursing like a saluki.
The lion was going to be the tricky part. As injured as he was, Lennox wasn’t even sure he’d be able to walk. “What’s your name?”
He grunted again, his breath wheezing out of him. “Best not to get attached. I won’t be going with you.”
Screw that. She wasn’t leaving him either. “Your name.”
“Rulon Reyes.”
Lennox couldn’t help her surprise. Kanon’s brother. Half brother, whatever. He was also one of the top lions in the Boulder Pride, as well known as the mega-sire of them all—Gaston Reyes. How the hell had he ended up here?
“How’d a ridgeback end up trussed up over here?”
She was surprised he couldn’t already tell. A smile tipped her lips. “Your nose damaged?”
Rulon gave a strangled laugh. “A little, yeah. A little hard to breathe much through it.”
Oh. Lennox winced and he gave that low, chuckling sound again. “It’s all right, am I supposed to smell something?”
She swallowed. “It’s a long story, but I guess the short version is well...” Lennox shivered a little. It felt odd to say it aloud. As if she was admitting to a crime. Then again, in ridgeback society, wasn’t it? She didn’t know what it meant for her job, her life. “I’m kinda sleeping with a lion. Lions. Two of them, actually.”
The barn fell silent other than the heavy rise and fall of his breathing. Lennox felt her heart speed up. Her stomach knotted. A low huff of breath sounded, kind of like a snort and then he said softly, “Sleeping with a pair of lions. Damn.”
She grimaced.
“Never thought I’d hear that.”
“Guess it explains me being all trussed up though.”
“You think?” Rulon gave a low, pained hiss, maybe a laugh. Something hard slid over the wooden floor. The scent of fresh blood spiked in the air. The sickening scent of silver rotting in his flesh ripened. He didn’t have long. A day or two maybe. A week max.
She opened her mouth to say something and froze. Footsteps approached outside. A twig snapped under the weight of someone who didn’t care if anyone heard. Torres. Her nose picked him up the moment the barn door opened, the creak on the hinges the only sound to let her know he was inside before his shoes slapped against the wood.
Rulon gave a muffled cry, the wet, slick sound of blood followed by the thud of a body hitting the wood. Lennox stiffened, fear sliding straight down her spine like hackles lifting. “Torres.”
He didn’t answer. Just moved around her, the slap-slap of his tennis shoes over the barn floor allowing her to track him. He moved towards Mel and Lennox thrashed, nearly knocking herself over as a growl slipped out of her. Low with warning. Dangerous. “Caesar, you leave her alone.”
The footsteps paused and she could picture him, rust red hair cut short, cropped so close to his skull it looked almost military. He was big, bulky. Nowhere near the size of a lion-shifter male, but the weight of his muscles made him thicker than a normal man.
He would also smell the fear on her in an instant. Lennox forced herself to breathe easy, her heartbeat to calm. The muscle in her jaw flexed as she stifled back a growl. “Caesar, I know you’re there. Answer me. What is Bree going to think when she finds out?”
“She’s not going to find out.” His voice came out a rasp, furious. She almost didn’t recognize it. He’d always been a hard ass, but this? He sounded crazy.
“You’ve killed people; you really think she’s not going to find out when you get a silver bullet between your eyes? This is going to destroy her.”
Hot breath washed over her face and it took everything inside her not to flinch. Shit. She hadn’t realized he was that close. “She’s not going to find out. Everyone is going to think the lions killed all these people.”
Lennox held her tongue. She didn’t know what he had planned for her, but she couldn’t risk pissing him off. Not until she’d gotten Mel free.
“Why?” she said softly.
He pulled away, but she could feel him staring at her, watching. When Torres went silent it was never a good thing, at least not for whoever he was targeting. It meant he was planning and right now she was a sitting duck in front of him.
They all were.
***
Caesar stared down at her, long red hair framing her face. She had a dirt smudge high over her right cheekbone, another across her temple. He could smell the monsters on her, so thick they’d damn near slathered their shit in her pores. She’d lost it, lost her damn mind. Hounds didn’t fuck lions. He fisted his hands and debated punching her. Knocking her head so far back her teeth would click and her head would bounce on her shoulders like a child’s toy. She deserved that.
He started to pull back, rage coiling in his chest as it locked around his heart but he forced himself to stop. No. He’d spent so long training her. She was good. His best. If he could just get Lennox to see then maybe he could still salvage her.
Caesar glanced at the monster on the floor. He’d loved ripping that beast up. Cutting him, making him hurt. It was payback. Payback for what th
ey’d down to Arianna. This time, he’d left the Hounds clues. Sprinkled enough of Rulon’s fur and blood over the dead Hound’s body on Boulder Pride territory that even the newest rookie in Shifter Town Enforcement would be able to know a lion did it. And anyone who knew Gaston’s pride...
A grin split his face. He’d worked so hard to pin it all on Kanon, but Rulon? Rulon had been so simple. He’d pumped him full of silver, knocked him under with a little magick and dragged him out here, covering his tracks. Caesar held up his hands, watching as they shook. He was tired.
Exhausted.
But it had all been worth it and now he was nearing the endgame.
The kids would have enraged the Colorado Shifter Town Enforcement, and with the MO being the same, he knew they’d be putting the pieces together with the Utah murders. And soon, the Hound they’d sent into Boulder Pride would miss his report, wouldn’t pick up his phone and they’d find him too. And this time, they’d have a suspect.
He just needed more lions to break. Which meant he needed to hold it together a little while longer. Eat something to settle the shakes and go nab himself another monster. Kill someone else. Soon, so soon, it would look like the whole Reyes family had lost it.
As if lion-shifters in general were losing it.
By the time he was done with them, they’d be shot on sight.
And Arianna would have her revenge.
Caesar looked down at Lennox. Having her on his side would help. She was good enough to cover her tracks—hell, he’d seen her tampering with one of his crime scenes. She’d erased the link to Kanon in that one. Caesar shook his head, an admiring smile tugging at his lips. He knelt in front of her, his jeans pulled tight over his thighs as he leaned in to breathe the words across her face.
“They’re monsters, Lennox, you know this.” Her lips tightened but she didn’t say a word. She knew. Caesar touched her cheek, gentle. Soft. He loved her. Like a daughter to him. The daughter Arianna could have been. “You know this.”