Hunter's Rise (20 page)

“Hmmm. I can do that.”

“So can I.” He reached for the hem of her shirt, stripping it away. “Pretty, pretty Angel.”

White lace dotted with red cupped her breasts. Nice. But in the way. He opened the front hook and tugged the straps off, tossing the bra to the side. “You weren’t there when I woke,” he said, kneeling down and raking his teeth down the curve of her breast. “I didn’t like it.”

“I know.” Her hand came up, curled over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

“I hate this.” Frustration, fear for her burned inside him. Impatient, he dealt with her jeans and panties and tumbled her back onto the bed— it was a simple affair of white painted iron, with a blue comforter and white pillows. Nothing like their bed, the heavy, oak four-poster they’d picked out together. He wanted her back in their bed.

But as he levered himself up on his elbows and stared down into her face, he saw her eyes. He could hate it all he wanted. But she needed this. A fist wrapped around his heart. “You better stay safe, Angel,” he whispered.

“I will.” She stroked a hand down his chest, tugging at the cloth of his T-shirt. “You’re still dressed.”

“I know.” Biting her lower lip, he muttered, “But you’re not and that’s good enough for me.”

Angel chuckled, slipping her hand lower. Freeing him from his trousers, she watched him from under her lashes as she wrapped her fingers around his cock and stroked. “And what if I want you naked?”

“Then I’d say you better be the one in a mood next time.” He shifted between her thighs and pressed against her. “I don’t want to wait.”

“Then don’t.”

Their mouths met. As he sank inside her, she sighed and her arms came around him, tight and strong.

And for the first time since he’d woken that day, he felt complete.

“H

Toronto had the feeling Sylvia was biting back something pithy as she shot him a look. “Yes. I noticed that.”

“Most of what I smell around here is human.” And it wasn’t even that easy to smell that. Frowning, he rubbed his nose and had to fight the urge to sneeze. There was something in the air, and if he tried to drag it in, filter through the scents, he’d end up gagging. “I can’t tell if there’s anything else or not.”

“Hmmm.”

She didn’t sound terribly interested. She’d already been checking the air in the same careful way he had. She’d also been checking the windows, searching the grounds. Just like he was doing. Sylvia didn’t wait for him, she didn’t ask his thoughts— she very much didn’t want to be working with him.

But then again, they’d already established that fact.

Too bad.

Barely into this Hunt and he was getting bad vibes. There
was a connection between this place and Pulaski. They already knew that. But what was the connection between Pulaski, this place and the witch?

Abruptly, Toronto caught the sharp edge of a scream, cut off after not even a second, off in the distance.

Sylvia heard it as well.

It made him smile. Slanting a look to the west, he said, “Rafe’s got our witch now.”

“You sure it’s him?”

“Yeah.”

She stared out into the night, her eyes unreadable. “What will he do to the witch?”

“Knowing Rafe? Whatever it takes.” He shrugged. “It’s what I’d do.”

She slanted a look at him and to his surprise a faint smile curled her lips. “Good.”

Thirty seconds later, a text popped up on his phone.
We have him. I’ll let you know when I get more information from him.

Not
if
.
When
.

Rafe would get it. It might involve removing body parts and other bloody crap, but Rafe would do what he had to do. The sad thing with witches… they wouldn’t grow those body parts back. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that and Paul could just die a quick death.

He texted Rafe back the address of the house.
Find out who owns this place. There’s a connection here. If he won’t talk
and give up names, see if Ex can send a witch. One of ours can probably track this back to anybody connected.

Without waiting for an answer, he tucked the phone away and looked back at the house. Rafe wouldn’t like it, but if Paul didn’t— or couldn’t— give the right answers, they might need a witch to help untangle this. Toronto wasn’t going to be able to track for shit here.

“What in the hell is with the scents here?” he muttered, crouching down on the ground. He went low, until his nose was just a few inches above the closely cropped blades of
grass. It was stronger there, but only faintly. A trace of something.

Chemical.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out why my nose isn’t working.” He flicked her a glance. “What do you smell?”

“Human. And something that smells almost like mint.”

“Nothing else?”

Sylvia jerked a shoulder. “Nothing else. What do you smell?”

“Something I don’t get. Yeah, it’s not mint. Close, but not quite. Chemical, almost. But again, not exactly. It’s like it’s… eating the scent.” He took another scent of it, rolling it around on the back of his tongue, but it just lay there. He couldn’t name it, couldn’t place it. Couldn’t even understand it, although his wolf didn’t like it. That mintlike scent was the strongest and he couldn’t get past it to pull the other scents apart.

“Eating the scent.”

“Yeah.” Rising, he shrugged restlessly and prowled around the grounds once more. He still needed to go inside, but that was going to be a damned waste of time, too. Just like out here. “It’s not covering it up. You know that nasty crap people spray in the air to hide a smell? That covers things up. This isn’t covering it. There’s something that’s been
erasing
a scent. Eating it. Whatever. I smell just the faintest trace of something.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see her watching him for a minute. Then she shrugged and turned away. “Sounds like Febreze for werewolves.”

“Febreze.” He frowned. That… that wouldn’t work.

Unless—

No. Not right now. He tucked that puzzle in the back of his mind. Something to think about later. Right now, they had to finish up here and get out before they were discovered.

Maybe they’d luck out and find something.

If not, they still had several hours left of the night. He’d just see where Sylvia led them. Once she was down for the
day, he’d follow his own leads. He’d need some sleep soon, but an hour or two would do for now.

“Come on. Let’s head inside.”

She stared at him. “I doubt I’ll be able to enter.”

“And I bet you will. Whoever owned this place… it wasn’t a home.”

S

“It always hit like that?”

“Harder, probably.” Toronto rested his hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Oh. Just peachy.”
Just peachy keen.
She shrugged his hand away, reminding herself she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be very elsewhere. Well, she’d be here if it had something to do with Pulaski, but she didn’t want to be here with Toronto.

“Just keep moving. The more you’re on the move, the less the house will fight you. It doesn’t have much resistance in it anyway or you wouldn’t have made it through the door,” Toronto said.

She nodded and forced herself to take that first step. Then another— shit, it was like wading through quicksand. The very air seemed to drag at her, pulling her back.

Yet each step got easier and by the time she’d made one circuit around the kitchen, that odd resistance began to melt away, like ice under the spring sun. As she slipped into a short hallway that led to a formal dining room, she just felt faint dregs, like something from a nightmare.

“We need to find out who owns this place,” she said quietly.

“I’m already working on it.” Toronto padded across the plush silver carpet, pausing by the big window that faced out over the backyard. Moonlight shone down, painting the world in streams of silver light.

Room after room came up empty.

Room after room, she smelled human. Just human. And the stink of blood, which had led them here. Although it hung in the air, she didn’t see so much as a drop anywhere. Considering the pale décor— all silver and whites— the blood would have stood out rather glaringly.

“The smell of blood in the air is thick enough to choke on,” she said as they climbed to the third floor.

So far, all of the rooms were empty. Not even appliances had been left. Only the shades and the curtains. She hadn’t seen so much as a stray eyelash, a scrap of paper.

“Yeah.” Toronto grunted. “It’s all human, though.”

She knew that. He might know scent, but she knew blood. And one thing was really, really weird. “If there was that much blood being shed around here… why haven’t we seen even a drop?”

Blood and sex. That was what she smelled, and the two of them didn’t go neatly together. The smells permeated every damn room of the house. Blood would have spilled
somewhere
, she thought. They couldn’t be that neat, could they?

Was it possible?

She didn’t know.

“Okay, we need to think it through,” she said, shaking her head. “If there’s something that’s covering the scent—”

“It’s not covering it. It’s
erasing
it,” Toronto cut in.

“Covering. Erasing. Whatever. You can’t track it. If it’s doing that to
some
of the scents, why not the human scent?” She frowned, hands on her hips as she studied the room.

“Easy. Whoever it was that wasn’t human hasn’t been here in a while— they did this and then left and haven’t come back. The others have.” He continued to prowl the room.

Eyeing him, she asked, “If you walk in enough circles, do you think the walls will start to talk or something?”

“Wouldn’t that be handy?” He flashed her a toothy smile and then stopped, completely still. His lids drooped low over his eyes and his nostrils flared. “I smell…”

They both heard it— a faint brush of sound, the scrape of a shoe over concrete. Yards away. But in front of this house.

She dashed for the stairs.

Toronto didn’t bother for the quiet approach. She heard glass shatter before she’d even managed to clear the first flight. And by the time she was outside, he had a man dangling from his hand, the mortal’s feet a good twelve inches above the ground.

“Sylvia, can you grab his mind?”

As the mortal struggled to get enough air to breathe, she glared at Toronto. “And if the answer is
no
, what are you going to do?” she demanded.

Toronto smiled. “His smell is all over this place. What do you think I should do?”

Slanting a look back at the mortal Toronto held, Sylvia eyed him narrowly. He stank with fear. Yeah, his scent was familiar. And recent— matter of fact, it was one of the stronger scents. Like he’d been inside the house within the past day or two.

“Do you know something?” she asked him softly, moving closer.

“Let go of me,” he squealed.

Something massive and dark rolled through the night. Sylvia closed her hands into fists, her nails tearing into her skin. Blood— her own— scented the night air. Focusing on that, she ignored the fear Toronto brought to the night. It was something the high-level weres could do— inspire fear— mind-shattering fear.

Shit. She’d faced that once before, but it hadn’t been from a wolf on his level. She really didn’t want to have that directed at her, she decided. Not at all.