Nature of the Beasts (13 page)

“How did you end up here with them?” he asked.

Sarah recited the lie she’d memorized upon coming here. “Dastan was friends with my father. When he died, Dastan was the only family I had left, even though we’re not blood related. He’d promised my dad he would watch out for me, so when he and Dmitry decided to buy this place, I came with them. I didn’t want to be back home alone.”

“And where is back home?” Mike asked.

“New York.”

“Seems kinda strange… New Yorkers buying a ranch.”

Sarah shrugged. “It’s something Dastan has always wanted to do. It still bugs you that your friends sold this place without telling you, doesn’t it?”

Mike sat back with his cup. “Yeah, it does. That’s not like them. Not at all.”

“They wanted to be with Keegan. Keegan introduced them to Dastan, and that’s…” Sarah shrugged, “how it all came to be.”

Mike didn’t say anything, he just watched her. His stare made Sarah uncomfortable, and she began to squirm. “Do you know who that girl is…or was?” she asked.

“No.”

“Did she die like the other one?”

Mike nodded.

Sarah swallowed. This wasn’t good. Not at all.

“You seem nervous,” Mike pointed out.

“Of course, I’m nervous,” Sarah snapped. “There’s a man out there killing women and dumping them on our ranch. How do I know I’m not next?”

“How do you know it’s not one of them?” he asked as he nodded toward the front porch.

Her eyes widened as anger tightened her stomach. “I know it’s not them. Dastan and Dmitry would never do that to someone, much less a woman.”

“You seem pretty sure about that,” Mike said, still watching her.

“I’m very sure about that. I thought you wanted to ask me about the woman.”

Mike pursed his lips briefly. “What were you doing up there?”

“I went for a walk. I do that often.”

“Did you hear anything? See anything?”

Sarah shook her head.

“You just missed him, Sarah,” Mike said softly. “She hadn’t been up there long. He may have even been in the brush close by, watching you.”

Sarah shivered as she realized just how right Mike was.

“I didn’t see a thing.” And she hadn’t. She hadn’t seen anything, smelled anything, heard anything…nothing. “I’d just turned around, and there she was.”

Whoever had done it hadn’t been there. He was long gone, using magic to disappear as soon as he’d prepared the body. He’d come and gone in a flash, leaving only the poor girl behind to let them know of his presence.

Mike pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table. “This has my office number on it and my personal cell number on the back. If you remember anything or just need to talk, you can reach me at one of those.”

“Thank you,” she whispered as she picked up the card.

Mike stood and put his hat back on. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Sarah watched him go. Worry snaked its way up her spine to lodge in her chest. Mike obviously didn’t trust Dastan and Dmitry, but did he think they were doing it? God, she hoped not. She would hate to see them have to leave this place. She would hate to have to leave as well. She’d grown to love it here, and if she left, she’d leave a piece of herself behind.

“Well,” Dastan said as he dropped tiredly into one of the dining room chairs. He couldn’t remember ever working this hard, but it felt good. He’d grown soft as a council guardian. He enjoyed all the physical labor the ranch required. “I think I’m about beat.”

Sarah smiled softly at him from her spot at the island. “Did they get the body?” she asked.

“Yeah. They’ve taken her off, scoured the land around her. They found lots of tracks, but nothing that helps them.”

“Did you see any more of the shifter tracks?”

“Yeah and so did they.”

“What did they make of them?”

Dastan shrugged and twisted his lips in agitation. “Who knows? They seem to believe it’s the same breed that had attacked Keegan when she was here, but no one seems to know where they come from.” He snorted. “Can’t imagine why.”

“Do they still think the girl was mangled by a wolf?”

“Nope,” Dastan replied. “I need to find that shifter.”

“How?” she asked.

He pulled the small piece of fabric from his pocket that had the girl’s blood on it and turned it over in his hands. “I’m hoping this will tell me something.”

There had been enough blood still wet to get just a dab. It really wasn’t what he needed, but she knew Dastan would try anyway. “I can help…”

“No,” Dastan said firmly.

“You’re so damn stubborn!”

“Of course, he is,” Dmitry said as he strolled into the kitchen. “He’s had over a thousand years to perfect it too.”

Sarah rolled her eyes but still didn’t miss the little thrill of excitement that always raced through her body whenever she saw them all sweaty from a hard day’s work.

“I just got a call from the insurance company,” Dmitry said as he opened the refrigerator door. He grabbed a can of soda and went to sit at the table. “They’ll be out here tomorrow to take some pictures of the damage. In the meantime, we’ll throw up some boards to block the broken glass.”

“Can we just use magic for that?” Sarah asked, already worn out from the day’s work and all the other issues she’d been dealing with.

Dmitry grinned. “Yeah, once we know the hands are in for the night.”

“Thank you,” she whispered and dropped her chin into her hands. “Is anyone hungry?”

Dastan’s look was so intense as he stared at her, Sarah felt herself melt. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since earlier,” Dastan said. “Are you okay?”

Sarah nodded. “I’m okay.” She sat up and rubbed the back of her neck. “I just don’t have much of an appetite. I keep seeing that girl.”

Dmitry stood and walked over. He placed a sweet kiss on the top of her head that made her heart skip a beat. She reached out and touched his hard stomach through the material of his shirt.

“Don’t worry about Dastan and me. You go take a long bath or shower. Relax. We’ll just snap something up for dinner.”

Sarah smiled at the image of him snapping up anything. “Would you snap me up a glass of wine?”

Dmitry chuckled and snapped his fingers. A glass of wine appeared before her on the island. “One glass of wine for one very tired witch,” Dmitry whispered, then kissed her temple.

Sarah wanted to just sink into him and let him hold her until she felt normal again. Would that ever happen? Would she ever feel like herself? Would she ever feel safe or unafraid?

She glanced through the window toward the hill where she’d found the body. Was he there now? Was he close? What did he want? Why was he doing this? They were all questions she doubted they would ever find the answer to.

Dmitry put his finger under her chin and turned her away from the window. She met his concerned gray-blue eyes. “Don’t think about him, Sarah. Put him out of your mind for now.”

“How can I when we know how close he was?”

“He won’t hurt you. I promise you that.” He softly kissed her lips, then smiled. “Go.”

She reluctantly moved away from him and headed for the door. Dastan joined her at the space that separated the living area from the kitchen. He touched her cheek, and Sarah felt her skin tingle beneath his fingers.

“Dmitry and I have a few things we need to take care of. Then we’ll be up.”

Sarah licked her lips, slightly uncertain. What did he mean by up? And more importantly, what did she want it to mean? “Let me know when you’re done,” she whispered.

Dastan studied her for a brief second and then nodded. Her wineglass appeared in his hand, and he passed it to her. “Don’t forget this.”

Sarah snickered low in her throat. She had a feeling she would need that. It would help to calm her rattled nerves. “You guys aren’t going far, are you?”

“From here on out, one of us will always be here.”

Sarah felt more relief than she’d expected to. Protection was what Dastan and Dmitry did. It was what they’d done for centuries. They were good at it. Unfortunately, this time she didn’t think the target was her. She believed it might be one of them.

DASTAN WATCHED HER go and fought the desire to send her back to the protected dimension where she would be safe. As much as he would miss her, she was in danger here. Unfortunately, he also knew her well enough to know she would never go for that.

“Money says this is all about you. Who in your past did you piss off?” Dmitry asked.

Dastan snorted. “Who haven’t I pissed off at one time or another?” He turned to face Dmitry. “I can count on my hands the number of us who are still left. There were fifty in the beginning. One by one, they’ve died, been killed.”

“What happened to your sire?”

With a sigh, Dastan strolled to the kitchen island and, with a wave of his hand, conjured up a pizza. “He died in Persia over a thousand years ago. Lord knows how many of us there would’ve been if he hadn’t been killed.”

“If you were to create another shifter, would they have the white tips?”

Dmitry joined him at the island and grabbed a slice of pizza. Dastan took a bite and chewed slowly. He’d never created a shifter, so he couldn’t answer that question for sure, but he knew others who had, and the white tips had not transferred down. That was a trait apparently only passed from the original sire. “I don’t think so,” he finally answered around his bite.

“So it has to be one of the original fifty that he created.”

“Probably.”

“You said there were less than ten left?” Dmitry asked.

“I think so. To be honest, I’m not sure. Persia was so long ago, and I haven’t seen any of them since the night the assholes left me for dead.” Dastan stopped chewing and dropped the slice of pizza down onto the counter.

That night… There was only one person he knew of who hated him enough to pull something like this off. He’d tried to kill Dastan twice, so this little stunt shouldn’t surprise him. “Son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“Razeen.”

Dmitry frowned. “Who’s Razeen?”

“He was a sick, evil fuck. He mistreated the females of the pack. I banished him when I was alpha. He was behind the group who beat me to within an inch of my life and wormed his way back into the pack. A few hundred years later, I ran into him again, and again, he tried to kill me. I heard through the grapevine that they eventually kicked him out again. He dropped out of sight. I assumed he’d died, that someone had finally put him out of his misery, but maybe not.” He picked up the piece of cloth and studied it again. “I need to know for sure.”

Dmitry inclined his head toward the cloth. “Is that going to be enough?”

Dastan shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. I have to make it work, though. It’s all we’ve got right now.” He raised his gaze to meet Dmitry’s. “Stay with Sarah. I’m going to go check things out. Roam the grounds for a while.”

“Be careful. It’s not dark yet, and some of the hands are still out. I would hate for them to shoot you as the wolf, then have to explain to them why you have a bullet wound as well. Why don’t you wait until it’s dark?”

Dastan sighed. “This is important enough to risk it. The longer I wait, the colder any trail might get.”

“I doubt that there’s any trail at all,” Dmitry grumbled.

“There may not be, but I have to try.” He held up the piece of material. “Later tonight, after Sarah’s in bed, I’ll do this.”

“You might want to hide that until then. Sarah seems determined to be a part of casting that spell. What do you suppose is going on there? Why does she want to do it so bad?”

“I don’t know. See if you can find out.”

Dastan didn’t wait for Dmitry’s agreement; he just turned and headed out the back door. The only tracks he’d seen earlier were the ones around the body. There weren’t any leading up to the top of the hill or away. The shifter was using magic to cover them and unfortunately doing a damn good job of it.

But maybe, just maybe, he may have missed something.

He would have to look close to find it, which meant he would have to keep his mind clear. Something that was becoming harder and harder to do, especially with Sarah so close by.

* * * *

Sarah sank farther into the warm water and stared at the candlelight flickering on the ceiling. Was her hunch right? Was this shifter the same one who’d attacked her mother? The same one who fathered her?

Closing her eyes, Sarah prayed that it wasn’t.

Please don’t let me be a part of something so vile.

“Sarah?” Dmitry called softly from the doorway.

Sarah screamed and sat straight up. Water sloshed over the side of the tub, hitting the floor with a splash. She put her hands over her beating heart and turned to glare at Dmitry. “You scared the crap out of me! Don’t do that!”

Dmitry chuckled as he came in and leaned against the bathroom sink.

“How can you be so quiet?” she asked as she settled back into the water. Her fingers were still shaking slightly, and she clenched them to get them to stop.

“I wasn’t that quiet. I think you were just deep in thought. What were you thinking about?”

Sarah stared up at him. She liked the way the candlelight made his tan skin look even darker. The way the light played along the gray in his black hair. He had it pulled back at the base of his neck, and she frowned, realizing she liked it much better down and around his shoulders. Had she never noticed how sexy he was? Or was she just too determined to hate him to realize it? Well, she definitely realized it now.

She licked her lips and turned her attention back to the water and the ripples she created with the slow movement of her hand. The attraction she felt for Dastan and Dmitry was still there, the need still coursing through her. Perhaps it was the events of the day or perhaps it was time that had lessened it somewhat. It wasn’t quite as overpowering but definitely still a part of her. At least now she felt that she could control it and not let it get away from her.

“Sarah?”

Startled, she looked back at him and realized he’d asked her a question. “I’m sorry, I’m just… Do you think there’s a connection between this guy and the one who attacked my mother?”