Sadie Hart (3 page)

Where he could keep them safe.

Where stuff like a wolf going missing didn’t
happen. Caine closed his eyes against the sharp stab of guilt. But
he couldn’t very well keep them all on lockdown. Curfews and
check-ins maybe, but he hadn’t wanted to do that either.
Regardless, it was something he’d have to start now.

“You going out again?”

“Yeah.” The Hounds might have given up, but
he still had time before the full moon. Time to try. He’d be damned
if he’d sit around with his thumb up his ass just waiting. “So I’m
going to swing by the Balljoint again, see what I can find.”

Trey just nodded. Thankfully, he seemed to
know better than to point out the obvious. Like the fact that every
other night Caine had been up there he’d found nothing. Sure, the
first day after the attack he’d managed to catch Claire’s scent and
that of a wolf’s. It’d started by the building and led out into the
parking lot. At the third spot down the row, the scent had died.
Vanished inside a car that he couldn’t track.

“Leaves you in charge again tonight.”

His second shrugged. “Go find our girl.”

Caine slipped into his shirt and grabbed his
keys. The Balljoint wasn’t more than a thirty minute drive from
Sanctuary Falls, all highway and trees. He flicked on the radio to
pass the time, but, even under the pulse of music, he couldn’t
shake the certainty that they wouldn’t get to Claire in time. And,
damn, but he didn’t want to have to bury her.

She was twenty-one. A kid. Too young to die.
The thought of telling her mother made his stomach clench. His
hands tightened on the steering wheel as a growl rumbled from him.
He eased onto the gas a bit more and let the car speed down the
highway, shaving a few minutes off his travel time. The parking lot
was already beginning to fill up and dusk stole across the sky by
the time he arrived.

The Balljoint could serve a mean burger, and
was one of the few non-shifter joints to draw a large section of
the furry crowd. Caine took a spot in the back of the lot and slid
out of his car, knocking the tension from his shoulders with a
shake before he tugged on his leather bomber jacket and headed up
the parking lot. Not to the front door. There was nothing inside.
Even from day one, the place had had too many people inside, too
many different smells, and he hadn’t been able to pick up a good
trail.

He might have been able to pick up more if
it’d been a shifter bar and he could let the wolf out, but that
hadn’t been an option. Instead, he strode up to the parking spot
where he’d lost Claire’s scent the day after she’d been taken. He
crouched, one jean-clad leg brushing the pavement as he inhaled. A
hundred or more people had crisscrossed over the pavement since
then, and her scent was already faded and nearly gone, but he could
still catch the faintest whiff of it. There was something
more...

He frowned just as nails clicked over
pavement and he turned to see a large, shaggy gray dog standing at
the edge of the lot. The Irish wolfhound circled the Balljoint’s
back door, nose to the ground, and then, as if sensing he was
watching, she paused, lifting her head. Her ears pricked forward
and the dog shimmered to reveal Holly Lawrence standing on the
sidewalk in front of him.

Her long black hair was tied up in a knot
behind her head, drawing out all the angles in her face. Harsh. Her
cool gray eyes sharpened on his. “I thought I smelled you nosing
around here.”

He stiffened. “I wasn’t aware that was a
crime.”

Holly started at that, momentarily confused,
and suddenly she looked soft. Almost vulnerable. “It’s not. I was
just stating a fact.”

Her expression relaxed, the harsh angles
easing as she approached, and he could see the dark circles under
her eyes, the hollow, almost defeated look visible now that she was
closer. “You weren’t kidding about wanting to catch him,” he said
softly and watched as her jaw tightened, teeth grinding as she
looked away.

“Every time he kills, it’s another person I
could have saved.”

“That’s an awful lot of blame to put on
yourself.” He winced a little at that. Pot meet kettle after all,
but still. “No one else has gotten anywhere near this guy. You at
least did that.”

“And I had his gun in my hands; he still
managed to get away. I know a lot about blame, Mr. Morgan.”

“Caine,” he corrected softly. “And so do
I.”

She looked surprised at that, and he
shrugged, bracing one hand against his knee as he shoved himself up
to his feet. “You forget. She’s my wolf. My responsibility. She
asked me to come here that night, for a night on the town.”

“You couldn’t have known—”

“And you were lucky you got away from him
alive. I’d be thankful for that. You get another shot to catch this
son of a bitch. That’s more than you’d have had if you died that
night.”

She watched him for a moment, those cold,
gray eyes unreadable in the dimming light, the murky hover of dusk
casting half her face in shadow. She nodded. “Fair
enough...Caine.”

He found himself grinning at the tentative
way she said his name. Wolfhounds and werewolves weren’t typically
on the same side. Normally, Hounds arrested wolves and wolves did
their best not to piss off the law. Or, at the very least, not get
caught doing it.

He tilted his head back towards the bar. “Any
luck?”

“No. The bar is dimly lit, it’s packed, and
when he grabbed her, he did it somewhere private and she went
peacefully. I couldn’t catch much of a scent in there at all, nor
could our bloodhounds. But he walked her straight from the back
door to his car and then drove away. If she fought, there’s no sign
of it.”

“He picked her up himself. It’s part of the
hunt for him, isn’t it?”

That surprised her. He saw it in the quick
flash in her eyes, the slight way her eyebrows raised, then slanted
in hard, angry lines again. She wasn’t impossible to read, he
decided, just difficult. Subtle. Her anger and frustration over
being bested covered every inch of her face, but surprise, warmth,
friendliness, that all came in smaller increments. Quicksilver
flashes in her eyes, a slight twitch of her lips, a brief crinkle
in her forehead.

The wolf in him picked up on them all.

“Yeah. It’s all part of the hunt. He likes to
cull them from the herd. You’ve done your research?”

He ignored the question in that statement.
She could ask if she wanted; if she didn’t, that was fine with him
too. Instead he stepped around the small blue car parked in the
slot and leaned down to scent the pavement again, his lips curling
at the familiar musk of wolf. For as faint as Claire’s was, the
Hunter’s was just slightly heavier. “He might have come back.”

“The day after.” Her mouth was open as if to
say more but the moment he looked up she seemed to catch herself,
her lips thinning into a hard line again.

“Let me guess, a detail you’re not supposed
to reveal.” Her head tilted once. A nod.

Caine wanted to ask, demand, but it was
obvious she wouldn’t budge. He was surprised she’d shared as much
as she had, actually. Caine couldn’t think of a time when a Hound
had worked with a wolf. He turned his attention back to the smooth
gray concrete, as unyielding as the woman standing behind him. The
bastard had come back and he’d missed him.

“I knew he was coming and I missed him,” she
whispered, her voice an odd echo to his thoughts as she sank down
to the curb beside him. The exhaustion spilled over her face
then.

“You were here, waiting.” It wasn’t a
question. Holly Lawrence wasn’t the kind of woman to leave this
stuff to chance.

“We all were. Lennox had the whole pack
here.” Her jaw tightened. “Somehow, he slipped right past us.”

“He’s good. You have to be to kill seventeen
women, shifters, and get away with it.” Impatience clawed up his
spine. Seventeen. He wondered if this was how she felt. Helpless to
save anyone while this bastard plucked them off like apples from a
tree. Cane started to rise when she stiffened, one hand lashing out
to catch his shoulder. A growl started low in his gut, dark with a
threat, but it died on his lips when he turned to face her.

Her nails dug into his shoulder right before
the rich scent of wolf hit his nose.

Son of a bitch.

***

He was here. Ollie recognized the scent of
the Hunter instantly, and she twisted to get a look at the forest
surrounding the Balljoint, one hand still on Caine Morgan’s
shoulder. The last thing she needed was for the wolf to decide to
play hero and go charging into the woods. She tightened her grip on
him. “Don’t move. You follow my lead on this, you understand
me?”

She fished the phone out of her pocket as she
started to stand, one hand still on him, still holding him down.
His muscles flexed under her touch and she knew he was thinking
about bolting. Caine was more than strong enough to wrench his way
loose and do whatever he damn well pleased. She wouldn’t be able to
do anything to stop him until it was too late.

“Trust me,” she said, her voice soft, an ache
to it she instantly regretted. Dammit. She hated sounded weak,
sounding like she was begging. But in a way, she was. Ollie didn’t
want someone else to die because they couldn’t bring themselves to
trust her. “I know him.”

“Let me up,” Caine whispered, and she looked
at him. It was stupid, her eyes should never have left the woods,
but she turned to see what kind of man could hold such danger in
his voice and yet still wait for permission.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t. Unless I see him, I’m following
your lead.” His lips twitched into a quick flash of a snarl. She
let him go.

“Thank you.” Ollie held the phone to her ear,
unholstered her gun, and started moving towards the woods,
breathing deep to inhale past the heavy scent of pine needles and
leaf litter, past the booze and greasy food smells coming from the
building. The scent of the Hunter still hung in the air. Very
recent.

A cold thrill touched her spine. He was still
there. Still watching. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
Intuition, perhaps. Instinct, more likely. Survival instinct. The
same one that had a deer lifting its head even if the wolf hadn’t
made a sound. Some days it just kicked in better than others. Hers
had been running on overdrive since the day he’d caught her.

She’d been jumping at cars backfiring, odd
shadows on the wall, and the squeak of her dog moving across her
ancient kitchen floor. Now every sense in her body was sharply
attuned to the forest in front of her.

“Ollie?” Lennox’s smooth voice came over the
phone. The woman sounded relaxed, content. A pair of men laughed in
the background.

Lennox had told her to go home, get some
rest. Instead, she’d gone straight back to work. It’s this kind of
obsession that’s going to force me to remove you from this case,
Ollie. Don’t go there. Don’t make me have to reassign you. “I went
there,” she said. “Went back to the bar.”

If her boss was angry, Lennox didn’t show it.
If anything, the ridgeback’s attention seemed to sharpen. “You find
something?”

“He’s here.”

“Shit. Did you spot him?” She heard Lennox
scramble on the other end, the sound of a screen door swinging
open, but Ollie’s world had narrowed on the forest, on the scent
coming stronger on the night breeze. “Don’t do anything until I get
there. You need backup. Don’t fucking go after him on your
own—”

“I’m not alone. The Sanctuary Falls alpha is
here with me.”

An engine revved, and Ollie took a step
towards the woods, Caine right behind her. “Still, Ollie, be safe.
Stay with the werewolf and don’t go out on your own. You’re the
prey that got away; don’t give him a chance to get you back.”

“I won’t.” Her voice came out hard, icy.
Calm. She’d never give him that chance again. Ollie hung up,
scanning the forest around her, the haze of twilight yielding
nothing to prying eyes.

“Ollie?” Caine asked, his voice oddly
distant.

She couldn’t help the sudden smirk. Somebody
liked to eavesdrop. She pitched her voice low, but she couldn’t
resist teasing, “My, my, what big you ears you have.”

Caine gave a soft, sudden exhale, like a
restrained laugh and the tension strung out between them eased. It
steadied her, so she kept on talking. “Holly, Ollie.” She shrugged.
“My grandmother calls me Ollie. Now everyone else does too. It
stuck.”

“We’re not waiting.” It wasn’t a question,
and she smiled, the certainty in those words an echo in her gut.
No. They weren’t waiting.

“No. We’re not. Don’t do anything stupid, and
know he’ll be armed.”

He gave her a lopsided smile, flashing a fang
in the low light of the moon. Feral, brutal. He screamed of
impatience, power, the need to go find what was his...and that was
one hell of a soothing balm to her nerves.

“Then let’s go.”

Gun braced in a two-handed grip, muzzle
pointed down at the dirt in front of her, she headed into the
woods. The forest was quiet around them and even with her inner
dog, only the occasional bird and the soft crunch of their shoes on
the forest floor reached her ears. Swallowing quietly, Ollie called
up the magick given to Hounds when they passed through the STE
Academy. It filled her, leaking out as she searched with both
canine senses and magickal.

Caine snarled at the first touch of her
magick, but he didn’t flinch away. Hounds were the only shifters
who had magick. They didn’t have the full powers of a witch, but
they were given a slight magickal talent, enough to give them a
one-up on the shifters they were sent to arrest. She could scry,
erase her tracks, and heighten her senses, among other talents. It
was the first she needed now.

Her dog half flinched as she let the magick
stretch out, her inner canine never thrilled by the touch. It
wasn’t natural for shifters, and Caine’s snarl said as much. But
other than that soft sound of disapproval, he didn’t seem deterred.
Instead he paced along at her side, and she could smell his wolf
just under the surface, waiting to break loose.