Devi: Matefinder Book 2 (2 page)

                Kai’s eyes turned brown. “Trust me, Meri Pyari.” He kissed my nose and smelled my neck. I growled softly. Why the hell was he keeping me in the dark? He thought I was fragile, that I couldn’t handle things. I didn’t like secrets.

                Kai gave me a look that said don’t be mad.

                “I have a self-defense class to teach at Safe Haven,” I reminded him with just enough sass in my voice to tell him I was upset.

                He closed his laptop. “I will come along.”

                “Now I can’t be alone? I need a bodyguard?” I grabbed the keys to the new car Kai bought me. Why was everyone trying to protect me all the time? I could take care of myself. Kai grabbed my wrist and turned me to face him.

                “Aurora, you are the Matefinder, the most rare and hunted wolf. Excuse me if I seem over protective. It’s because I love you.”

                Okay. Dammit. He knew just what to say. I kissed him long and deep and left a growl in his throat when I turned away. He followed.

                The moment we pulled up to Safe Haven, I immediately knew something was wrong. The front glass door was shattered, sirens could be heard in the distance, and it smelled like vampire. Without thinking, I struggled out of my clothes and shifted into my wolf form.

                “Aurora! We’re in public,” Kai scolded me.

                It was instinct, I couldn’t help it. If I was going to run into a vampire, I wanted to be a wolf; not a hundred and thirty pound human girl with no weapon.

                I ran to the open doorway, whimpering as glass cut my paws. Kai followed behind me in human form, gun drawn. The entire pack carried weapons ever since the vampires had waged war on our kind by trying to poison our water supply with liquid silver. Kai held the gun, loaded with silver bullets, in his outstretched hands. The sound of a scream came from the gymnasium, the fur on my coat stood, I ran back there. I nudged open the gym door with my snout. When I smelled it, I howled.
Death. Blood. Human. Vampire.

                Safe Haven was a shelter, a safe place for women and children to come and escape their abusive lives. The woman that lay before me, was gutted like a fish. I gagged as rage built up inside me. It was a horror show, purposefully meant to send a message. Our wolf, Andy, who was supposed to be on guard duty, was unconscious in the corner. Smart. If they killed him, we would have felt it through the pack bond, but if they quickly knocked him out, it wouldn’t raise alarm. Two women were sobbing and shaking in the corner. I could hear footsteps and saw other women and children coming out of their rooms.

                ‘Kai don’t let them see! They have seen enough blood,’
I urged him through our bond. The women were supposed to feel safe at the shelter. However, one was murdered before me and two were traumatized in the corner. Livid didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I wanted every vampire alive to be a pile of dust!

                Kai quickly turned to address the women. “Ladies, there has been an accident. Please go back to your rooms while I talk to the authorities. The gymnasium is off limits.” Kai shut the gym room doors. All of the women knew Kai; they trusted him. Damn, he was good with public speaking, an Alpha trait, I guess.

                ‘Aurora, shift and change. Cops will be here within minutes. I don’t smell any vampires near. They’ve gone.’

                Kai approached the two women who stared at me with fear.

                “Is that a wolf?” one of them asked with a shaky voice.

                “Yes, I breed mountain wolves in partnership with the wildlife and gaming commission to help the endangered species. She broke out of the cage in my truck. She won’t hurt you.”

                ‘Whoa, you’re a good liar,’
I told him. Interesting. I might have to look out for that.

                I padded over to the women’s locker room and nudged the door open with my snout. I cringed at the smell. Sweat. Old Socks. Body odor. I shook it off and shifted quickly. Kai and I had the same ability to shift instantly and be super-fast. In this moment, I was grateful. It was stupid of me to have shifted in public in the first place. Rookie werewolf move. I looked down at my naked body and then across the room to a pile of smelly, old gym clothes. Yikes. I quickly grabbed the grey sweatpants and large black shirt and threw them on.
Yuck
. I reeked.

                I popped open a small window on the far wall and slid out. I was at the side of the building and could hear the sirens screaming. They had arrived. I ran super-fast to the front of the building just as the cops were about to turn the corner. I leapt across the broken glass and through the front door.

                A few women were gathered outside the gymnasium doors talking in shushed voices.

                “Who is in charge here?” I heard a booming voice from behind me.

                I turned around.
Cops.
I had a love-hate relationship with cops. When my father would get drunk and beat my mother up, I would call the cops. They would come to the house and my scared mother wouldn’t press charges. The cops would look at her shaking hands, bruised face, and split lip and leave. Sometimes they took my father in for a night to dry out, but they never really intervened. I guess they couldn’t legally. I needed to keep reminding myself that the man I grew up with wasn’t my real father. Sylvia had shown me that. I was put with my parents for safe keeping, but I didn’t share his blood. It was oddly comforting.

                “I am the owner.” I raised my hand.

                The cops looked me up and down. No doubt wondering why I was dressed so poorly, with no shoes.

                “Please excuse my appearance. My name is Aurora. I own Safe Haven. I was just about to teach a self-defense class when we saw the broken glass and the body. My boyfriend is in the gymnasium right now trying to calm the women down. Follow me.”

                I walked toward the doors.

                ‘Boyfriend?’
Kai spoke into my mind. He seemed disappointed. So he had heard me. Damn werewolf hearing.

                I smiled.
‘Mate sounds weird to humans.’

               
I opened the doors just as the officers came up behind me. I couldn’t tell before because of the stink on my clothes, but I smelled a witch. One of the cops was a witch. We entered and upon seeing the dead, mutilated body, the cops drew their weapons. The two women were sitting up and facing away from it all. Kai had calmed them down. I breathed in again.

                ‘One of the cops is a warlock,’
Kai confirmed.

                ‘Good one or bad one?’
I asked. Sylvia had taught me a little about dark witches and light witches, but I didn’t know how to tell them apart yet.

                ‘You tell me,’
Kai responded.

                “What happened here?” An officer barked at me and had his gun drawn on Kai.

I thought of something.

                “We should call our friend Sylvia. She will want to come down here and make sure the other women are okay.”

                The darker-haired cop locked eyes with me. His pupils shifted white for the slightest second. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small velvet spell pouch.

                “Sleep.” He threw powder in his partner’s face and eased him to the ground as he crumpled into sleep. He walked over to the two women who were looking at him with fear and did the same.

                Kai’s wolf was out. His eyes were yellow. I could tell he was ready to shift at any second.

                “Friends of Sylvia’s are friends of mine, even if they are werewolves,” he remarked, eyeing Kai.

                He pulled out a pendulum, and spun it over the dead woman’s body. I saw a fine mist hover over the pendulum. It was white mist, my sign of a good witch.

                “Vampires,” he declared.

                “We could have told you that,” Kai offered, tapping his nose. He didn’t need to be rude.

                ‘Be nice,’
I pressed him.

                The cop looked at Kai for longer than what was usually considered polite when making eye contact with an Alpha. “You will have to excuse me, I’m not keen on taking the word of a werewolf.”

                This was not going good. I needed to do something.

                I extended my hand. “I’m Aurora. I’m Sylvia’s new clan member.”

                His eyebrows shot up at my declaration.

                “Yep. Witch
and
werewolf. Unheard of and not possible, but here I stand,” I told him. He shook my hand and then delicately turned my palm up and looked at the lines in it. This was a witch’s way of checking me out. Kai growled, but I shushed him with a glare.

                “I’m Adrian. I have heard stories of your kind, but never have I met one. You’re the Matefinder they speak of, aren’t you? Half witch, half werewolf. You can find the mated pairs for your kind?”

                I didn’t think he would know so much about me. I cleared my throat and pulled my hand back. “That’s me. I trust that you won’t broadcast that around.”

                Adrian looked at me with intrigue. “The entire supernatural community already knows about you, sweetheart.”

                ‘If he calls you sweetheart again, I’m stuffing that sleeping powder down his throat.’
Kai seethed and stepped closer to me.

                I stifled a laugh.

                “Why would the vampires be so brazen and attack a public place leaving a mutilated body? They are no stranger to killing, but they don’t usually do so to catch attention. The last thing they want is their food source finding out they exist and fighting back,” Adrian commented.

                Something in Kai’s expression changed.

                “We don’t exactly have a great relationship with the vampires right now. I think this was done to send me a message,” I admitted.

                “Officer Navarro, report on the disturbance at Safe Haven,” the walkie talkie on his belt squawked.

                “I have an idea,” he told us.

                Adrian grabbed the walkie off of his belt loop and pressed a button. “Officer Navarro here. We have one body. Two witnesses saw a rabid wolf attack the victim. It’s gone now, requesting back up.”

                He switched the walkie talkie off and looked at Kai who was eying him with distrust. “Can you shift and walk around in the blood to make paw marks then break through the window and trot off to create a trail? Make sure to leave some fur near the body.”

                Kai looked at me. I nodded. It was a good idea. The last thing we needed was an open murder investigation and for the women at Safe Haven to think they were in danger with no one caught.

                ‘I’ll be okay. Do it. I will pick you up down the street,’
I told him.

                ‘Now we will have every hunter in the Pacific Northwest looking to kill a rabid wolf!’
he roared.

                ‘It’s our only option. How else do we explain a body this messy?’
I asked him.

                I could hear sirens again.

                “The sleeping powder won’t hold much longer. Have you done a memory spell yet, Aurora?” Adrian asked me as Kai shifted and walked around in the victim’s blood.