Last Wolf Hunting

by Rhyannon Byrd

  Taking a long swig of an ice-cold Corona, Jeremy nodded his bottle toward Mason before setting it down. “So now that Jillian and I have shared our news, what did Brody have to say?”

  Mason placed his sandwich on his plate, then leaned back in his chair with a tired sigh. “It isn’t good. We found out about the body from a member of the pack. Dawson’s youngest daughter, Sophia. She’s been hanging around down in Covington for kicks, mixing in with the rave scene. Enjoying the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.”

  “Christ,” he muttered under his breath. “The more Lycans we have prowling around down there, the greater the risk of discovery. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before everything blows up in our faces.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll get no argument from me on that score,” Mason grunted. “Anyway, Sophia dropped by the vic’s house to score some weed and found the body. She’s pretty much a mess right now, but was able to keep it together enough to know that she should call us. Brody and Cian were already down in Covington, following some possible leads on where the rogues might be hiding, so they were able to act quickly. Once they arrived on the scene, they got Sophia calmed down and took her to the Doucets. Michaela’s going to let her hang out with them for a while, until she’s ready to head back up to Shadow Peak.”

  Michaela Doucet was Torrance’s best friend, and Jeremy knew that Jillian had met the friendly Cajun at the Dillingers’ wedding, since Mic had been the maid of honor. She and her brother Max had been put under Bloodrunner protection after Simmons had made his first attempt on Torrance’s life, and later trashed Michaela’s business. Jeremy’s friends Wyatt Pallaton and Carla Reyes were the Bloodrunning team who had been assigned to the Doucets’ protection, and they would remain with them in the city until the threat had been eliminated.

  “So the vic was found in her home?” he asked Mason.

  “An old Victorian house that’s been renovated into studio apartments, all artists and musicians. Brody said the music’s so loud, it’s not surprising the cops weren’t called. You wouldn’t have been able to hear her scream, and he probably took her throat out first.”

  From the corner of his eye, Jeremy watched as Jillian and Torrance both turned green, pushing their plates away. With a sigh, he shoved his partner in the arm. “Watch it, you idiot. They’re trying to eat.”

  Mason glanced at the women, and immediately apologized. “Damn, sorry about that.”

  “That’s okay,” Torrance murmured. “We know this is important.”

  “Uh, so that’s all we have so far.” Mason picked up his beer, but he didn’t take a drink. Instead, he turned the bottle around in his hand, and Jeremy knew he was thinking about the killing and what it meant. “Last I heard, Brody was on his way to the Alley with the body. He left Cian down at the scene until we get a unit in to clean up. Last thing we need is one of her neighbors stumbling into her apartment and finding all that blood.”

  “So then the killer left her body to be found by…anyone,” Jeremy said quietly, not liking where his own thoughts were taking him. “He had no way of knowing that the vic would be found by a Lycan. That had to have been pure coincidence, which means that the killer doesn’t give a crap if the humans discover our existence. He’s playing with us, screwing with our heads.”

  “Either that,” Mason muttered, “or he’s so messed up he doesn’t realize what he’s doing.”

  Blowing out a hard breath, Jeremy said, “Whichever one it is, we’re screwed.”

  “No shit.”

  Jeremy lifted his beer, then paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth, cocking his head to the side. “I think I hear Brody’s truck.”

  Without a word, everyone pushed away from the table and headed out of the kitchen. Mason opened the front door and they all filed outside, waiting for Brody’s truck to make the last bend and come in to view. No one said anything, but then, there didn’t seem to be anything to say.

  Moments later, the dark blue Ford appeared, pulling to a slow stop in front of the Dillingers’ cabin. “Drive seemed as if it took forever,” Brody grunted, climbing out of the cab, “but I didn’t wanna push my luck and go over the speed limit.” Wearing a grim look that only made the childhood scars slashing across his face seem more prominent, he jerked his chin toward the tarp-covered bed of his truck, where the victim’s body had been placed. “Can you imagine coming up with a good excuse for something like that if a state trooper pulled me over?”

  Jeremy moved forward to give the giant auburn-haired Runner a welcoming slap on the shoulder. “That took some balls, man.”

  “Didn’t have much of a choice,” Brody explained, beginning to undo the hooks that secured the tarp. “We had to get her out of there so that the clean-up crew could get in before anyone gets suspicious and goes to check up on her.”

  Taking a step toward the bed of the truck, Jillian asked, “What are you going to do with the body?”

  “We burn them,” Jeremy said as gently as possible, noticing how pale she was, but it didn’t help. She still flinched, looking as if she’d been slapped. And suddenly, he realized just what it was costing her to be there, coming face-to-face with the ugliness of his world. He wanted to pull her into his arms and take her away, shelter her…protect her…But as Brody peeled back the tarp, revealing the bloodied remains of the victim, he knew it was too late.

  * * *

  The smell of death hung over the body with the darkness of a shadow, close and damp, like a slick palm clasping the back of your neck. It made Jillian shiver from somewhere deep inside of her, the trembling slowly spreading outward, until her skin was covered with chill bumps, her teeth chattering from the frigid sensation of cold.

  “Are you okay?” Jeremy asked by her side, his voice soft while Brody stepped away from the group, one finger stuck in his ear while he answered a call on his cell.

  The sharp scent of marijuana still lingered on what was left of the girl’s clothes, mixing with the thick smell of blood, and her stomach roiled.

  “I’m fine. I’m just not…”

  She’d been about to say that she wasn’t used to seeing death, but that wasn’t true. As the pack’s Spirit Walker, she knew death well, from illness, injury and old age. It was part of her job to know death—to use her powers to prevent it—and when unable to heal her patients, to give them the proper rites that would lead them into the afterlife. She even knew violence and bloodshed. No one living within a Lycan pack could be shielded from the more physical side of their natures.

  But she didn’t know murder. She didn’t know cold-blooded butchery; the kind that made your skin crawl. And now she stood beside blatant proof that such evil existed, that it had reveled in this poor girl’s violent death.

  “I didn’t mean for you to have to see this,” Jeremy said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, while his dark gaze studied the blond victim, taking in every detail. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she whispered, the words shaky, since she couldn’t seem to keep her chin from trembling. “And as much as I hate it, maybe it’s something that I needed to see. I don’t think I would have truly understood how this was affecting you, if I hadn’t seen for myself what this monster is capable of.”

  Brody rejoined the group then, flipping his phone closed. “Sorry about that,” he rumbled, shaking his head, the sun-lit strands of his auburn hair shifting across his shoulders. “We found a flyer from one of the local raves, and Cian went to check it out once the cleaning crew showed up.”

  Jeremy sent him a sharp look. “Find anything?”

  “It’s in the warehouse district,” Brody told them, rolling his shoulder. “That’s all we’ve got so far.”

  “The warehouse district? Isn’t that where you suspected Simmons was hiding out while he was in Covington?” Torrance asked.

  “Yeah.” Glancing at the body, Brody’s expression turned to one of barely restrained fury. “Her living room was covered with bongs and beer bottles. D
runk and stoned makes for one hell of an easy victim.”

  “She never even stood a chance, did she?” Torrance whispered, while her husband pulled her into his side, pressing a tender kiss to the top of her head.

  “We’re going to get him, sweetheart,” he told her. “I promise you.”

  “I’m worried about Michaela,” the petite redhead murmured, and Jillian didn’t blame her. If she’d had a human best friend living in the city that was slowly becoming a killing ground, she’d have been concerned, too.

  “Don’t worry about Mic and Max,” Mason murmured, his deep voice lowered to a warm, gentle rasp. “Pallaton and Reyes aren’t going to let anything happen to them. I promise, baby.”

  Torrance nodded, and put her arms around her husband’s middle, and it was like watching a miracle, seeing the look of love on the imposing Runner’s face as he cuddled his wife, offering her his comfort.

  It made Jillian feel…alone. Bereft.

  “Jeremy,” she said unsteadily, taking a step back from the truck. She couldn’t do this, not now. Her emotional reserves had been sapped from the constant push and pull with Jeremy since he’d walked back into her life—and now she was caving in on herself.

  “Jillian?” he rasped, his voice cut with concern. One big, capable hand curved around the back of her neck, as she struggled to draw in a deep breath of air.

  But she was choking on the scent of death…of madness.

  “I’d like to go home now,” she croaked, and without a word, he pulled her into his chest, one strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, and led her away.

  Chapter 12

  He was an idiot.

  That was his only excuse. Jeremy knew he should have considered what it might do to her to see something like that. Jillian dealt with hope and healing. Yes, she knew how to deal with loss, but for the most part, the darkness of his world didn’t touch her.

  And that was as it should be; protecting those within the pack was the true reason for the existence of the Bloodrunners.

  Opening the passenger side door of Jillian’s car, he tucked her into the seat and pushed her hair back from her face, giving her a small smile. “Hold tight for a few seconds and let me go grab some things from my cabin, okay?”

  “No prob,” she said with a wobbly attempt at a grin, but he knew she was freaked out. Her brown eyes were huge within the hollows of her face, lips trembling, skin as pale as the silvery moon now slowly rising in the evening sky, the blood-orange sun finally vanishing on the distant horizon.

  “I’ll be fast, I promise,” he told her. Shutting the door, he lifted his hand to Brody as the Runner drove by. Brody would take the truck onto one of their private dirt roads, until he found a good spot to burn the body, then return to the city to help his partner look for clues. Jeremy made a mental note to call them tomorrow, just to make sure they were doing okay. They were both tough bastards, but they’d had to deal with some really messed up shit in the past few weeks. He knew too well how easy it was for stuff like that to screw with your head.

  Jogging up to his front door, he was fishing his keys out of his pocket, when something made him pause. He lifted his head, eyes closed, and drew in a deep breath of air, searching for the faint trace that had snagged his attention. The wind had shifted for just a brief second, and then resumed its strong westerly flow, but he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

  Lycan musk. Thick and rich. Which meant only one thing.

  A wolf was near.

  He was already yelling at Mason as he ran back toward the car. “Someone’s in the woods. Get the women inside. Now!”

  Ripping open the door, he yanked Jillian out of the car, practically shoving her toward Mason as his partner shouted for Torrance to get the hell inside of the cabin.

  “What’s happening?” Jillian demanded breathlessly, at the same time Mason muttered, “You’ve been shot, Jeremy. You should let me go.”

  “The shift will do me good,” he grunted in a hard scrape of words, the anticipation of the hunt already burning through his veins, roughening his speech. “This bastard is mine.”

  Mason must have agreed, because instead of arguing, he gave him a sharp nod, then grabbed on to Jillian and began pulling her back toward his cabin, where Torrance stood in the doorway. “Just watch your back and don’t do anything stupid,” his partner growled.

  “Stupid? This whole idea is stupid! Jesus, Jeremy, you can’t face a rogue on your own!” Jillian shouted, struggling against Mason’s hold, but unable to break away. She stared at Jeremy with a wild look of outrage, as if she wanted to get her delicate little hands around his throat and throttle him. “You’re still healing, you idiot!”

  “It isn’t a rogue,” he told her, and then he forced himself to rip his gaze away from her ravaged expression, knowing that he had to trust the man he loved like a brother to keep her safe.

  “You’re crazy!” Jillian shouted after him as he set off at a loping run toward the woods, relying on his instincts to lead him to his prey. The late afternoon had already given way to early evening, darkening the forest with long, purple shadows as the moon climbed its way into the stormy, cloud-mottled chaos of the sky, and the wind shifted again, just for a second, but it was enough. Jeremy raced into the trees, and let the primal, visceral surge of energy riding beneath his skin break free. Denim and cotton ripped with a hissing wail of sound as muscle and bone expanded, the surface of his skin prickling as thick, golden fur rippled over his body. The smells of the forest exploded into sharper focus as he took the powerful shape of his beast, his senses heightened in full Lycan form. He could hear the heartbeat of the forest; feel its movement, its breath.

  His prey was running about two hundred yards to the east, already slowing from fatigue. With a burst of speed, Jeremy sprinted ahead to the north, the heavy muscles in his thighs and calves flexing and pumping as he sped over the forest floor, then cut back, bursting through a copse of birch trees and taking the lumbering Lycan in a head-on attack, pinning its body to the moss-covered ground.

  “Son of a bitch!” he snarled, shaking his hulking head with disbelief, his words guttural within the muzzled shape of his mouth. “I thought that beer-soaked scent was yours. What the hell are you doing at the Alley?”

  Magnus Gibson stared back at him through a pair of glowing, bloodshot eyes. His breath rattled in his chest, and like the air being slowly released from a balloon, the mangy body of his beast melted away. Knowing the heavy weight of his wolf would crush the idiot in his human form, Jeremy lurched to his feet.

  “Don’t freak out,” Magnus croaked, shifting himself into a sitting position, his dark hair tangled around his ashen face, eyes so bleary and red, they looked painful. “I c-can explain,” he mumbled, wiping the back of his wrist under his nose, reminding Jeremy of a petulant two-year-old.

  “Explain when we get back to the Alley,” Jeremy growled, reaching down to curl his claws around Magnus’s thick arm and hauling him to his feet. Whatever explanations the guy had to make could wait until they got back, since he knew Jillian would be going out of her mind with worry.

  * * *

  He allowed his own wolf to slip away as they walked, retaking his human shape, and snuffled a soft laugh when he thought of what Jillian’s reaction would be to two naked men walking out of the woods. He figured it’d be funny as hell, but couldn’t embarrass her that way, especially not in front of others. So when they came across the clothes he’d shredded when he’d shifted, Jeremy reluctantly snatched them up. He was able to wrap the tattered remnants of Jillian’s Pearl Jam shirt around his waist, ordering Magnus to hold what was left of his jeans over his groin.

  It wasn’t much, he thought with a crooked smile, knowing they looked like idiots, but at least they were more or less covered. He only hoped Jillian appreciated the gesture.

  As they broke through the edge of the forest, Mason opened his front door, a sardonic smile twisting his hard mouth while Jeremy dragged Magnus toward the Dillingers’ cab
in. “Well, well, well,” his partner drawled, “what do we have here?”

  Jillian shoved her way past Mason, then immediately came to a screeching halt on the porch the second she set eyes on him. “What happened to your clothes?” she demanded, pointing a finger at the ruined remains of her shirt.

  A gruff laugh broke from his chest, and he shared a smile with Mase. “After everything that’s happened, Jillian, you’re worried about my clothes?”

  “What clothes?” she hissed, waving her hand at his bare torso and legs. “You’re practically naked! And you destroyed my favorite shirt!”

  “You act as if you’ve never seen a naked man before.” He chuckled, clucking his tongue.

  She glared a blistering look at him that would have shriveled most men, but Jeremy prided himself on being made of sterner stuff than most. “I’ve never seen you naked, you oaf!”

  The corner of his mouth tipped in another smile. “In that case, I guess I understand,” he rumbled with a dose of wry, velvety arrogance. “But in my defense, I did try to conceal the more shocking parts.”

  “Stop teasing her and just cover yourself,” Torrance called out as she came through the front door and tossed a towel in his direction.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jeremy laughed, releasing Magnus so that he could tie the length of soft, white cotton around his hips. His chest and calves were still bare, but at least he no longer looked like some demented version of Tarzan in a loin cloth.

  “So,” Mason rasped with a hard smile, “what’s his story?”

  Crossing his arms over his bare chest, Jeremy looked at the man standing beside him, who was quickly covering himself with the towel Torrance had just tossed his way. “I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone,” the Lycan grumbled, sending him a belligerent glance from beneath his heavy brows. “I was just supposed to keep tabs on you and the witch.”