“Greenwald Park to Scorched Earth, got it. I’ll meet you there.”
“We’re supposed to be on the trail together. You don’t have a scenter’s nose. He may not be all the way into Scorched Earth, just in that direction.”
Giuliana didn’t want to admit it, but Pasquale was right. She’d need his nose in order to find Heath and get to the bottom of what was going on. She didn’t like it, but she knew she didn’t have a choice.
So she’d do what she always did—escape.
Into her head.
Into the mission.
Into the shell.
She wasn’t about to deal with this shit and what it meant.
“Lead on, hound. Let’s see where my errant packmate has gone.”
He lifted a brow at “hound” and glared at her use of “my errant packmate,” but she didn’t soothe his ruffled feathers. He had Fabiana for that. The spineless prick.
Fabiana was everything Giuliana should have been. Soft and delicate, something in need of protecting, and yet sexy and all woman at the same time.
Giuliana couldn’t compare.
“Stay downwind of me and follow. A scenter retraces a target’s movements until they reach them.”
She only nodded, still too angry, too bitter, too fucking hurt to give him any words. He lifted one hand to reach for her, but she jerked away. No, there wouldn’t be a repeat performance of earlier. She’d had her blinders ripped off, and the sting would remind her not to fall again.
“She—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“You think I’d—”
“I said I don’t.”
Pasquale went silent, a mulish expression on his face. Good for him. “This isn’t over. Keep up.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Pasquale was gone, streaking out her front door with mind-blowing speed. She got her wits about her fast enough to follow, stopping long enough to lock her door and clip on her go bag.
Giuliana may not be a scenter, but that didn’t mean her wolf’s nose wasn’t good. She picked up on Pasquale’s scent and followed behind him as fast as she could. Traveling from the inner sanctum of their lands to the gates took a dizzying short amount of time, and her lungs labored from the abuse.
She wasn’t built to run like a scenter, to track tirelessly in the night. She could maintain her top speed for thirty minutes before she had to slow down, but trailing Pasquale had pushed her beyond that. At his pace, she’d have maybe only half her usual top-speed time.
How the hell is he so quick?
She didn’t know, but she was through the gates in record time, sliding out at the exit and heading right. The Greenwald rose in the distance, massive trees just on the other side of the thorny rose bushes that twisted and covered the borders of pack lands. They’d never been able to remove Romano’s and Zoey’s Miracle Grow magic and now had a second barrier of defense around the walls. Where there had once been a wide expanse of no-man’s land between themselves and the Greenwald, there was now only a thin strip of open area about two car lengths wide.
She sucked in a deep breath, rushing oxygen to starving cells as her lungs labored to sustain her and sweat beaded down her forehead. She should have brought the damn car.
She could fool herself into believing she’d left it because exhaust fumes messed with a scenter’s nose when they tracked, but she knew she’d done it because Pasquale couldn’t stomach being in one. Even when she was fucking pissed at him, she still thought of what would bring him comfort.
If this was what mating did to a wolf, they could count her out of it.
Giuliana wanted to fight him, to get to the bottom of things instead of thinking of him and wondering why. As much as she acted like she did, she didn’t actually interact with others on an emotional level very well. Even Zoey and Kalinda looked at her as a babysitter who could make them laugh when the time called for it and protect them when needed.
She’d never had a friend like the way they were together. And she had to admit she was sort of jealous that Silva—a freaking Fae queen—had blended in so well, even being new to the group. Giuliana always seemed to be fighting for a place to belong, to be accepted completely for who she was.
