“Once the crime scene guys are done working, I might not find this track again. It’s faint. He’s masking his scent somehow. I honestly doubt that a regular shifter would have picked up his trail.”
“How does one mask their scent?”
He shrugged. His best guess was wolfsbane. If the killer rubbed the plant on himself, it would mask his scent from other shifters, but Blain kept this to himself. Wolfsbane wasn’t something they discussed with humans. Still, he didn’t like keeping secrets from Sonya. If she was going to be his mate, she would eventually need to know everything.
She helped him untangle the brush so he could stand. “I have to call the team and let them know about the new lead. Give me a minute to make a plan.” She plucked a twig from his hair, her fingers lingering a few seconds longer than necessary.
He took the time to reorient his position in the forest from his point of entry. He hated when his wolf nature took over in his human form. It was like being in a dream.
Dirt caked his hands and he brushed them clean on his filthy pants. Nice, very professional, but it brought them one step closer to saving the girl.
Sonya returned from her call. “The team is on their way. William says to let you run with the tracking. Finding the girl is top priority—doesn’t matter if it connects with our case or not.”
“Good.” He took off his jacket and tossed it on the forest floor.
“You changing shape again?” Her feet shuffled in the dry leaves as she turned her back.
“I’ll track her better this way.” He smirked as Sonya’s pulse pounded louder in his ears. Faster and faster, the more he undressed. “Shifters learn not to be shy about their bodies very quickly. It’s that or tear through a lot of clothes when we change.”
He started the process of shifting, gritting his teeth through the pain so he wouldn’t frighten Sonya.
“That’s nice.” Her sarcastic tone came through loud and clear. “But since I’m human, I’m not used to men stripping at the drop of a hat.”
The change ended and he trotted toward her position. He nudged her hand with his nose.
She startled at his touch then slowly reached out her hand. Sonyastood so still only the sound of her heartbeat was evidence of her presence. He felt her fingertips brush his back just as she sucked in a breath. “You’re softer than you look.”
He leaned into her touch, forcing her fingers into his fur. She shouldn’t fear him. He’d never harm her in either form.
“You’re such a flirt.” She gave him a playful push. “Go do your thing.”
Wagging his tail, he followed the faint scent of the killer to the edge of the woods. It grew so thin here he couldn’t follow it any farther. This spot should have a perfect view of where Tracy and her friends had stood behind the equipment building, though.
The killer had watched her from here and most likely followed her home. Blain had lost the trail, but maybe he could take it up again if he followed Tracy’s scent.
He crossed the open field and sniffed the ground by the building until he could track Tracy’s movements. She’d stayed here for about twenty minutes before returning to the bleachers. From there, she moved toward the exit with three other females.
“What are you doing?” Sonya jogged next to him. “People can see you.”
He tilted his head and leaned his ears forward. Did she seriously expect him to answer? He pointed his nose toward the street.
“The last thing we need is a riot over a werewolf loose on the streets in this small town and don’t give me those ears. You don’t look like a big dog. You look like you could swallow a four-year-old whole.”
He put his nose back to the scent trail—the pull to hunt was strong. This could be Tracy’s only chance. Sonya would just have to trust him and his judgment.
Pausing, he listened to Sonya’s footsteps following him. He continued from the busy Main Street into a neighborhood.
“It’s okay,” she spoke to a couple ahead of them. “He’s off-leash trained and doesn’t bite.” She stroked his back.
He lowered the front half of his body so his hindquarters were higher than his head then wagged his tail in the universal stance of let’s play. Leash trained his ass, but he needed the public quiet so he could focus on finding Tracy.
“Don’t run, Blain, I can’t keep up.” Sonya’s booted feet pounded on the ground.
Blain slowed to a trot. He hadn’t noticed his change in speed. His pulse drummed in his ears. If he didn’t lose this trail, they could save her.
Sonya jogged next to him, hand on his spine. “Easy,” she whispered as if sensing his urgency. “Don’t frighten the locals.”
Claws clicking on asphalt, he scanned the trail with his nose. Something had changed. He ranged back and followed more slowly. Tracy had broken off from her friends. He paused under a tree and caught his breath. Panting sometimes polluted the scent. Maybe he had made a mistake.
Sonya knelt next to him. He could smell his clothes in her arms.
“I wish we could talk. I have no idea why we stopped here.”
The wind grew stronger and he heard her hair whip free. She probed his fur with her icy fingers. He wished she’d touch him this much when he was a man.
Nudging her, he waited for her to stand before moving on to a dirt path.
“Wait.” She moved past him. “I recognize this neighborhood now. That’s Tracy’s street on the other side of the field. She must have used this shortcut.”
She wasn’t the only one. He’d caught the scent of the killer, no longer faint as at the football field, either. Ears forward, he pushed into the slumbering brush.
“Blain, stop.” Sonya grabbed his scruff. “There are drag marks. This must be where he nabbed her. Stay right here. Don’t move.”
Blain heard her unholster her gun and blocked her path. Better for him to go first. He would sense the killer’s presence before she did and he could heal faster if attacked.
She attempted to push him out of the way but failed. “Don’t argue with me. I’m the agent. Stand down.”
Blain moved aheadwith supernatural speed and followed the scent trail, leaving Sonya behind. He couldn’t see the evidence—he’d leave that to Sonya—but he knew exactly the path the killer had tread as he’d carried Tracy.
Blain smelled no blood so he hadn’t hurt her. Yet. He smelled no semen either—not that there’d been evidence of assault on the other girls. There hadn’t been much evidence, period. Most of all, he didn’t smell burnt flesh.
The scent led him through a copse of trees where his claws clicked onto asphalt. The trail ended here in a mixture of faded car exhaust. The scents were hours old and he had nowhere else to go.
Sonya caught up. “We need to have a chat about procedure.” She dropped his clothes by his feet. “Shift while I call this in so the area can be processed as a crime scene.” She stormed off and spoke quietly to Sean on her cell phone.
Blain retreated to the trees, dragging his pants by his teeth. Pushing the shift to go faster hurt more than usual. He grunted as his jaw snapped back into his face and bit his tongue that hadn’t quite shrunk at the same speed.
They were so close to catching this deranged shifter. Maybe if they moved fast enough, they could save Tracy. He couldn’t get her mother’s grief stricken voice out of his head.
What was this killer doing? Like humans, not all shifters were good at heart, but they policed their own people tightly to avoid bad publicity. Fear could drive the masses to do unspeakable things. Like it or not, humans outnumbered them. They had to play nice. The Vanguards pack had helped change shifter reputation enough for the FBI to ask for help—something previously unheard of. This killer would set their relations with humans back to the dark ages.
Blain pulled on his pants and stalked out from the trees to his clothes, which were lying on the side of the road. Sonya’s gaze burned over his bareback like a caress and he resisted the urge to preen. He made sure to don his socks and shoe
s first so she could have a good, long look.
“Aren’t you cold?” She put her cell phone away
“I’m hot blooded.” He finished dressing. “Tracy walked home with her friends.”
“I know. It’s in the report.”
“They smoked a joint behind the equipment shed at the pep rally before walking home. That’s where the killer spotted her, I’m sure of it. I lost his scent at the football field and picked it up here. He knew Tracy took this shortcut ahead of time.”
“He’s been following her.”
“We should talk to Tracy’s friends again. Maybe they forgot to mention something.”
Sonya gripped his hand and led him from the field. “I’m more concerned about the van that just pulled up in front of Tracy’s house.”
“Who is it?” He breathed in deep, smelling suits and gunpowder. “William and the team?”
“Homeland Security.” Her hand tightened on his.
“Your team has a leak.” He had to call Eric ASAP. The alpha had to be prepared for the backlash this would cause.
Sonya pushed him toward her car. “Get in. Quick. Before they spot you.”
He followed her orders.
She slipped into the driver seat and pulled away. “No leak. William has to report any suspected paranormal crimes to Homeland. It’s their jurisdiction. We just didn’t think anyone would read the report so damn fast.”
He sighed. “If your team informed them, why are we running away?”
“They don’t know what we know and as long as we keep ahead of them, they won’t get in our way.”
“That the killer is a shifter.”
“The only proof we have is your nose. That’s circumstantial evidence and not admissible in court.”
“Why are you doing this?” There was no love lost between law enforcement and his kind.
“You’re not the only ones who don’t like how Homeland works. While they are busy hunting every shifter in the county, the killer will get away. I won’t allow that. I’m good at my job and I’m going to do it. You’re Tracy’s best and only hope. We’re close.”
“I know. I can smell it.”
Chapter Nine
Sonya slipped the key card into the hotel room’s door slot. When the green light flashed, the door unlocked. Her lower back ached and her feet throbbed. She swung the door open and leaned against the frame. “All yours.”
Blain stepped across the threshold, moving his hand over the wall to lead him inside. They’d interviewed all of Tracy’s friends again. Nothing like spending hours with distraught teenage girls.
They all seemed to open up to Blain quite nicely. Who could blame them? Look how she’d partnered herself to him so fast.
She chewed her bottom lip as he moved from wall to dresser, hands caressing the surfaces. Under that sweater lay a finely-tuned male body. She’d glimpsed those chiseled muscles. No doubt about it, Blain was right up her alley.
His foot caught the edge of the dresser and he stumbled.
She lurched forward, the door closing behind her, but he caught his balance.
He stood in the center of the room as if listening. “Sonya?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you lead me around the room?” He held out his hand in her direction.
“No problem.” She crossed to him, feeling chagrined. “I just got so used to you moving around freely. I sometimes actually forget—” She cleared her throat and took his hand.
“I’m blind.” He smiled softly. There was no anger or accusation in his expression. “Hotel rooms are difficult. There’s lots of smells, old and new. The furniture is usually squeezed in tight.” He shrugged. “I could feel my way around, but I’d rather hold your hand.” He pressed his lips to the back of her hand.
“Wow, you’re smooth.” And she didn’t mean it in a sarcastic way. He didn’t have to work so hard at flirting with her. Blain was exactly her type, but she wasn’t his. He just didn’t know it yet because he couldn’t see.
“I’ve been known to flatter a woman or two.” He ran his hand up her arms, resting them on her shoulders.
Tingles ran over her flesh even with two layers of clothes on.
“You’re tense.” He found the knots around the base of her neck where she carried all her stress. “Take off your jacket.”
“Aren’t you tired?” She did as he asked. Well, he hadn’t really asked, had he? More like nicely ordered. She wasn’t in any hurry to spend time alone with her thoughts. She tossed her jacket on the bureau next to the television.
“Not physically tired, but I haven’t spent so much time around humans in a long while.” He gave her a shy smile. “I guess I miss the pack.”
Her heart sank a little. She understood the feeling. She missed having someone to come home to. Maybe that was why she didn’t go to her apartment that much.
“If you want to get some sleep, don’t let me stop you.” She didn’t know what to do with her hands. If she’d kept her jacket on, she could have stuck them in her pockets. “Maybe I should—”
He moved around her, kneading his strong hands into well rooted knots.
She moaned and leaned into the massage. “This is good too.” They’d run into a dead-end with the interviews. Unless William uncovered something new at the crime scenes, they were shit out of luck.
Again.
“I don’t know how you do this for a living. It’s so frustrating. I feel useless.”
Sonya touched his hand, resting on the back of her neck. “The good we do is worth the evil we are exposed to. If you weren’t hunting this murderer, how many girls would he kill? Without you, we wouldn’t have gotten this far.”
He maneuvered her to sit on the edge of the bed. “Enough talk.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he settled behind her and continued his massage. His body heat enveloped her, soothing and comforting.
He leaned closer, running his nose along her neck and inhaling. A satisfied rumble rolled in his chest.
“I bet you have all the shifter girls wrapped around your finger.” Like he had her. She wouldn’t deny him anything.
He stopped. “Why would you say that?” His hands dropped away.
She twisted to face him. His expression had grown dark and somber.
Great, Sonya the mood killer strikes again.
“I just meant you must have girlfriends waiting for you at home.” Yes, she used the plural because he was charming and so fuckable. She glanced at her jacket, calculating how much time it would take her to grab it and escape before she died of embarrassment.
His hands clamped her shoulders, preventing her flight. “No girlfriends.”
The tension flowed from her legs as she melted back onto the edge of the bed. “I find it hard to believe.”
“I’m flattered.” He pulled her against his chest. “My old pack saw me as a liability. Weak.”
“Seriously?” She glanced over her shoulder. His eyebrows were drawn together, his full lips thinned while he was lost in memory. “You’re so gifted the Vanguards sent for you.”
“My new pack has been helping me realize my gifts. They’ve been helping me see things much clearer. I actually had to bargain with my old alpha so I could attend this bootcamp I’m involved with.”
“What did you give him?”
“My word that I never come back. See, he hadn’t expected me to survive the change from human to shifter. When I did, it made him responsible for me.”
“Is that how you became blind? During the change, I mean?” She didn’t know details about the process—only what she’d learned in Quantico, which basically was don’t get bitten.
“I was born blind.” She could feel his frown against her cheek. “My parents are human and my dad never let me use my blindness as an excuse for failure. He was tough on me and I learned to use other senses to their fullest because of him.” He kissed her cheek and let her go.
The world suddenly seemed empty and huge without him pressed agains
t her. “And when you became a shifter, your senses became even more acute.” She twisted around again, not wanting this moment to end. It had been so long since she’d made a real connection with anyone.
He cupped her face. “Yes.”
“Is that why you became one?” Anyone could apply to become a shifter. Not many did, since the survival rate was so low.
Why would a packed accept Blain if they saw him as a weakness?
“I made a deal. I had hoped that becoming a shifter would cure my blindness. It’s happened before. What I didn’t know was those disabilities that could be healed excluded birth defects.” He hung his head. “I paid the alpha my college fund. He saw it as a way to make a quick buck.”
Blind Wolf Bluff: Shifter Romance (Vanguard Elite Book 3) Page 6