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“Told you it wasn’t much.”
“I agree.” He slipped his hand in hers and gave her a gentle tug when she started in the direction of the office. “Let’s handle this ourselves.”
They headed up, and Sakura kept a lookout while he jimmied the lock. He had the door open in minutes and stepped inside. Myriad scents assaulted his nose, included among them some kind of cleaning agent. Adam frowned and shoved a fist against his nostrils. Sakura stepped in behind him and looked at him.
“You okay?”
“This doesn’t bother you?” he said, voice muffled.
“It stings a little. I think they cleaned it recently, like in the last day or two.” She turned to press close to him and raised her chin. He found his attention arrested by the sight of her soft lips, and she tossed him a saucy look as if she knew the reaction to his libido. “I guess that means your bear outdoes my fox.”
“My bear will do your fox any day,” he quipped.
“Ew, you’re gross.”
&nb
sp; He chuckled and moved out of her hold in case he gave in to sudden urges, and tossed her on the narrow bed. After circling the small room a couple times, mentally preparing himself, he lowered his hand. The cleaner still burned, but he endured it to try to pick out anything else. “Humans,” he murmured, “a cat, maybe two.”
“Shifters?” Sakura said, surprise in her tone.
“No, housecats. Probably. Weird I never thought I could pick one out, but these scents are stronger. There are others that seem thinner, barely there.”
“Older,” she supplied. “I think maybe new ones overpower them or they fade with time. I can’t believe you’re picking them out like this. I can smell it, but I just don’t know what I’m picking up. You’re pretty impressive, bear.”
Adam strode past her on his third circle of the room and smacked her ass. She let out a yelp that made his bear raise its head. For an instant, his vision changed, and all he saw was Sakura in his sights. Although he blinked, it was as if the bear didn’t care about anything else except claiming her. Her scent and hers alone filled his nostrils, tantalized him, driving him to follow when she zipped away nearer to the bed. Adam put his hands out about to push her down on the soft surface and lay atop her.
“I just want to know what really happened to my mother and put this behind me for good.” Her words, filled with hurt she worked to hide, stopped him cold.
“We’ll find out. I promise.”
She moved away, and he breathed a sigh of relief. His head began to clear, and he saw the room again. This time, a subtle scent tickled his nose, and he crouched by the bed, going still so he could concentrate. “Deveron,” he growled, and Sakura gasped behind him. He dipped his head and shut his eyes, allowing himself to breathe a bit deeper, ignoring the cleanser. “That big guy. I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Savino? What do you know? I do remember.”
He turned to look at Sakura. “You’ve met him?”
She nodded. “He brought me back to the hotel after they let me go. I don’t know what he is, but he’s not a fox.”
“Neither is he a bear.” He turned back toward the bed and shut his eyes again. “I smell one, maybe two, of Deveron’s men, plus the leader himself and Savino. They’ve all been here. What I don’t smell is a bear, but I’m not entirely sure I’d recognize all species of bear. Laila told me there’s a similarity in all same species, such as any type of bear, and I have no reason to doubt her.”
“Of course not.”
Adam pressed his lips together, amused. His sweetheart was jealous. She had no reason to be. “So it looks like Deveron’s people wanted to give the impression your mom was killed by a bear. They knew the Keiths would never be fooled this wasn’t a shifter attack. Now all we have to do is crack a few heads to find out which one of them did it.”
He stood and faced Sakura. She’d removed the knife she carried in a holster on her thigh. “Crack heads? Please, I’m going to gut a fucker and ask questions afterward.”
Chapter Eleven
Sakura had lectured herself the whole time they sat with the medical examiner. She teased Adam while they were at the motel, taunting him, knowing it would drive him nuts and make him want to go back to her hotel room and get a little afternoon fun in. None of it made any difference to her state of mind—worse, the emotion caused a lump, which felt like the size of a baseball in her throat. From the moment she saw the pictures, all the memories and the hurt, the confusion, and anger came flooding back. Sure, she let the anger drive her to do her job, but getting lost in the maelstrom that they were could drain a person faster than anything. Exercise, medication, and just self-talk helped her through it all five years ago, and now here she was, about to meet with the man who might have been the cause of her mother’s death.
Her stomach stirred, and when Adam suggested they stop for lunch, she had turned him down. She’d seen the way he looked at her, suspicion in his eyes, but she had forced a smile and said something joking. He had offered a courteous chuckle, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anybody. In the way her lover held the steering wheel and the tension around his sexy mouth, she figured he understood how close she was to falling apart.
“Think he’ll see us?” she asked, as a way to distract herself from her thoughts.
“He’ll see us.”
She touched Adam’s arm and sensed everything he felt. Not that she could smell it or read his mind. She just knew. The two of them felt connected on a level she never even heard of, let alone experienced, and something told her Adam knew everything she felt, too. She drew her hand away as if he’d burned her and turned her head to look out the window. Familiar street signs met her gaze along with landmarks that said they neared the building Deveron brought her to that first morning after she woke as a shifter. Savino had knocked on her door, and when she answered, he explained his mission. Sakura had known this giant of a man was not human, and while she guessed he could crack a man’s jaw with one hand, she somehow sensed he wasn’t there to hurt her. Wanting to get answers and find out the name of the bastard that turned her, she’d gone with him. Who knew the change would almost break her mind and exhaust her body before she gained a semblance of control. In the end, Deveron had told her he’d sent the man who attacked her away, probably to keep her from killing him. With that experience, she wondered if he would cooperate now. Why would he?
