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This place was isolated, situated in the heavily forested mountains beyond Durham-Starfell. Some of the pack lived on the edges of the city while others made their homes in the mountains themselves.
She could scent the packmates, along with the humans who were part of the pack, through marriage or other bonds. But their scents were layered with that of pack members.
It allowed her the scents of other humans, those distinctly human.
Intruders. And they were both afraid and determined. The ripe sweet-sour layer caused by adrenaline, with a spike of fear, bitter with the ugly rawness of hate, made them stand out to her heightened senses like a neon trail in the darkness.
“There are more ahead,” she murmured.
From her left and slightly behind her, she heard Analise’s sharp intake of air before the woman murmured, “Yeah, I thought I caught something.” She paused, then added, “You’ve got keen senses.”
Zee didn’t respond, too busy trying to untangle the convoluted knot of scent layers the breeze brought their way, and this time, it carried something new.
Blood.
Sweat.
The cloying miasma of organs exposed to the air.
Somebody else was dead, or close to it.
Her wolf howled in her head, outraged.
Because they knew.
All parts of her knew.
But she stayed silent and ran.
This was about more than just her.
* * * * *
NIKO KNEW THE WOMENhad picked up on something that still eluded him.
He’d become acclimated to not have a sense of smell as strong as many of his wolves, even those who were weaker than him.
He made up for it with a cat’s slyness, something most wolves didn’t have. Cats were simply more cunning than wolves and their Therian counterparts.
A wolf might be stealthy and deadly, but a cat would crouch in the dark and hold position for hours, watching its prey, bypassing several ways to attack—successfully—all because the feline enjoyed stalking its prey.
Niko knew—not just because he’d seen it played out among his own pack and wondered about some of the small differences. He’d felt the differences between the cat and wolf who lived inside him, under his skin.
Already, the feline and man were working the puzzle in his mind, putting the pieces together while the wolf rose to the fore and took control of the hunt.
Grady. Brandon.
Zee found him trying to kill Shale.
Niko had updated Boone after Zee told him about the syringe.
A day had passed since then. It seemed impossible, that only a day had passed since he threw Grady’s miserable ass into a car for Saint and Etan to deliver to Boone, along with the syringe.
He’d been called back to the city by Brigid, his help needed to help stabilize Shale after the big male had been poisoned.
It had been dark when he’d returned, dark and late, and he’d been worn thin. Although he wanted to deal with Brandon, in his state of mind, he would have been more likely to rip the man’s guts out. As much as he wanted to do just that, he’d left Brandon for later, when he had more control.
Would there be a later? There was a growing darkness in Nikko’s mind—an awareness—that built even as he processed the pieces of a puzzle he was only now seeing.
