Torment (Primal Progeny Book 1) (23 page)

Chapter 24

Tobias and Audra had travelled to the scene of the murder in a deep, uncomfortable silence. Neither particularly liked the other and Tobias knew that any efforts to try and perk Audra up would fail miserably. She was not his idea of the ideal travelling companion, but he couldn’t go against his alpha’s wishes and so he would have to put up with her.

Audra viewed the male beta as a waste of space, a lupine joke. He was far too easy going for his position in the pack as far as she was concerned, and his joking attitude was hardly appropriate for the situation they were in. She also knew that he did not like her, which made the situation even more uncomfortable for the both of them. Each was equally aware of the others disdain, and neither wanted to draw attention to the mismatch by making awkward idle chitchat.

Eventually they had reached the old deserted barn and the silence was broken by the grating sound of the handbrake being applied. Audra snapped out of her stubborn silence and glanced at the beta who had driven them to the area, waiting to be given an order.

Tobias opened the drivers side door and stepped out of the car, instructing her as he did so ‘out you get Audra, we need to have a good look around and we’ll get it done faster if you help.’

Audra complied and got out of the vehicle, looking unhappy about the decision though, she questioned him ‘I thought perhaps you might have wanted me to stay here and keep watch in case of police?’

Tobias curled his lip at her, not happy about her verbal response even though physically she had done what he had asked and gotten out of the car. ‘No. We will hear any approaching cars long before they get here, unless your hearing is failing you…?’

She shook her head ‘no, I suppose you’re right… Where do we start?’

Tobias motioned towards the barn. ‘I’ll go inside, you start round the back and have a look at the outside of the building.’

She nodded ‘ok’ and began to walk towards the building, followed closely by the beta male who entered the gloom of the building without checking to see if she was following what he had said. He could hear her moving off to the right so there was no point in visually affirming her actions.

Tobias slunk into the barn in silence, the shadows of the dilapidated buildings interior swallowing him like a starving animal. His blue eyes roamed the inside of the wooden structure, searching for any signs of change since his last visit. For a moment he toyed with the idea of turning on the lighting system Varulv had installed but quickly decided against it. His eyesight was sufficient that he didn’t need the help really. As well as which he had no desire to leave fingerprints at the scene of the crime. Even though the initial investigation had obviously already taken place if they were to do another sweep they would certainly be dusting the light switch.

It was obvious that an investigation of the scene had been carried out. Besides the police tape outside the building there was also white tape on the floor, and the place reeked of humanity. On top of the smells of fear and pain and death were layers of interest, concern, nausea and confusion. Lifting his head a little, Tobias swept his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes and sniffed delicately at the stagnant air. He could smell Varulv, his victim and at least 5 other people. It had been busy there in their brief absence, as evidenced by the footprints that littered the floor.

As he looked around and followed the scent of the old shape-shifter he had been sent to track, he took in all the details he had missed on his first visit. There was a lot of blood on the floor now that the water which had previously swum about had sunk into the earth. More blood than he had thought. Much more. It stained the ground so completely that it looked as though somebody had planned to paint the floor with it. The equipment which had been rigged to hold Varulv’s victim still stood ominously in the centre of the building. The chain that hung from the rafters swinging slightly in the winds which blew through the barn. The metal plate in the ground still covered in the drying blood, and the ankle cuffs hanging limp and looking broken and grotesque.

Tobias followed his nose to the grisly structure, being drawn to it by Varulv’s scent, which was heavily concentrated there. He did not wish to scrutinise it but he had to follow the scent as it aged. He moved around the chains and cuffs without looking at them, following only his sense of smell and even closing his eyes to focus himself. The old beast had circled the poor girl for hours, and had done unspeakable things to her. The musky scent of semen clouded the air and mixed with the sharp tang of blood. There was no evidence that he had violated her in any traditional sense of the word… No heavy scent of the female sex organs lingered in the air. There was just blood. Blood and semen. Tobias shuddered; he did not wish to imagine what the poor girl had endured.

Still following his nose the male beta moved away from the spot where the murder had taken place. He followed his nose through the deeper shadows at the edge of the building and found Varulv’s hiding spots. Again he could smell semen and the old monster’s excitement. He had enjoyed watching and allowing the poor woman’s fear to escalate before he had begun his attack. This drew a snarl to Tobias’ lips. He had never felt so much hate for a single being as he did for Varulv.

*****

Outside the building Audra paced quietly along the edge of the wooden wall, her nostrils flaring as she went. She was careful to avoid stepping in the taller grass, not wishing to sink into the earth as she was still wearing heels. She could clearly hear Tobias moving about inside the building and for some reason the sound of his footfalls irritated her. She told herself it was because he should have been more mindful to be quiet in case Varulv had re-visited the area… But in actual fact it was more likely to be down to her resentment of his even being with her in the first place. She wanted to be dealing with the endeavour herself and was less than thrilled that Tobias was accompanying her. At least if she’d been sent with Courtney she could have used her superior rank to her advantage. There was nothing she hated more than feeling below the others in the pack and Tobias was quick to use his status as Beta to put her in her place. That didn’t sit well with her despite the fact there was nothing she could do about it.

Trying to re-focus herself she stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, followed by a long draw of air into her nostrils. She carefully dissected the olfactory information she received for a moment. The first thing that hit her was the rich smell of blood from inside the barn, mixed with the evidence of Varulv’s excitement at his crimes. Then the undertones of the human officers who had been sent to investigate the crime scene, and the fading smells of all the emotions which had been inside the wooden building in the past 48 hours. Unsatisfied with this limited information she took another deep inhale and found something that surprised her. Varulv had returned but he had not entered the building. She followed this fresh new trail of scent to its source, rounding the back of the barn where she found a patch of disturbance in the foliage. This spot had been carefully tended to in order to attempt to eradicate the evidence that somebody had recently been there, but there was no fooling the nose of a werewolf. The grass was flattened here and there and the bushes leading up to the side of the building were dotted with small broken twigs. As well as all this there was a partial footprint in the earth, partly hidden by the mud and clearly that of a werewolf. She scuffed it away prissily with the shiny toe of one of her expensive heels. She could not leave it there to be discovered, but she loathed dirtying her shoes.

Varulv’s scent was very dense there, and as she looked around, Audra’s rich brown eyes even picked up some small catches of fur snagged on a nearby bush. He had been back, and he had been rather careless. She was surprised that he had risked returning in his lupine form. But then supposed perhaps he could have passed off as a stray dog… If he had taken his fully lupine form and not one of his more monstrous ones.

Without any thought for Tobias she began to follow the trail that the old werewolf had left, carefully picking her way between thorny bushes and low-slung tree branches as she went. She frowned as her heels dug into the earth but continued on her way regardless, following her nose. The trail was not old, he had returned some time in the small hours of the morning. She suspected he must have come back to re-live his enjoyment of Lucy’s murder.

A smile cracked Audra’s lips as she moved further and further away from the barn. Varulv’s scent was getting stronger and stronger the further away she moved, and she smelled no evidence of a vehicle. He must have padded there on his own four paws, which meant that she would easily be able to follow his scent to its source. For a while she followed him in human form, musing to herself as to what he would look like when she eventually found him. She had heard so much of him across her lifetime; about all the trouble he had caused her kind and the murders he had committed. She could not help but be curious as to what the infamous Nikolai Varulv would look like. She could not deny that he smelled attractive even if he was a monster. He was in peak physical fitness and he smelled so strongly alpha that it had her inner wolf swooning like a love-struck schoolgirl.

Shaking her head to dispel these thoughts she continued to follow his trail for a while, finally stopping about three miles from the barn and glancing back. There was no sign of Tobias, which was a welcome surprise for her.

Bending forward she carefully removed her shoes and put them to one side, then quickly slipped out of her clothes and folded them up beside her cast off footwear. Finally she reached around her back and unsnapped her bra dropping it onto the growing pile of clothing before stepping out of a matching pair of lace knickers. For a brief moment she stood naked in the sparse woodland of the greenbelt that backed onto the barn Varulv had chosen. She enjoyed the feel of the cool breeze on her naked skin and a smile warmed her usually cold features. She did not allow herself to dawdle for long though.

Bending down Audra carefully folded up her underwear and shoes inside her outerwear and then slowly lay down in the grass beside them. Closing her eyes she cleared her mind and called her inner lupine self, letting the wild side of her free… Giving it permission to take her over and force a transformation. It needed no second bidding.

All of a sudden the desire to change surged forward and filled her whole conscious mind, filling up every cell in her body with the desire to transform. She rolled slowly onto her side and allowed the prickling heat that signalled the beginning of the change to take over her naked and vulnerable body. Pain began to spark into her limbs until she was so overcome with it that she couldn’t think straight, and yet she somehow managed to remain silent. Her limbs bulged and stretched and fur began to sprout from her sweat slicked skin as she writhed in silent agony. Her transformation was mercifully quick after years of having honed the skill, but that did not make it any less painful for her.

When her physical form had finally totally shifted, Audra lurched to her paws and shook herself vigorously. One of the pitfalls of the change was that the sweat caused by it became trapped beneath the thick lupine pelt, with no ability to sweat as a wolf it would then remain trapped there and become incredibly itchy and uncomfortable. Shaking would help to dislodge some of it but she still found herself stopping to scratch frequently, sometimes up to an hour after the transformation.

Lowering her chocolate-furred head Audra sniffed at her clothing and mused what to do with it. In the end deciding that she could not leave it so near to the scene of the crime in case it were found and assumed to belong to a victim. Or even worse that it could be found and was known to be hers; which would implicate her in a crime she had nothing to do with. Hiding them was also out of the question, as she suspected that they might still be found. After some deliberation she finally decided the best option would be to take them with her.

Scooping up the parcel of clothing in her mouth she turned tail and began trotting down the trail that Varulv had left in his wake. Soon she broke into a run, moving with the steady lope which carried lupine kind hundreds of miles a day with minimal effort in the wild. Pleased with herself that she had evaded discovery by Tobias and was on the trail of Varulv alone.

*****

At the barn Tobias had spent a good half an hour carefully examining the area and mentally storing all the information it was revealing to him. He had carefully inspected the apparatus that Varulv had erected to torture his victim, as well as the surrounding area. Due to the water which had washed over the floor he had been unable to determine exactly the manner in which she had died. Though he could clearly smell the spot where she had spent her final moments, it reeked of death.