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“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Luther grumbled. “We’re going to track that guy back to his lair and find out exactly what we’re dealing with here. You up for a stealth mission, grizzly?”
Espie nodded. “Of course.”
***
“I can barely scent him at all anymore,” Espie grumbled, lifting her nose high in the air with a scowl. Sure, it would have been easier to do this in her grizzly form, but for once, she didn’t trust her usually calm and complacent inner self not to go into full murder rampage as soon as they happened upon the cougar lair.
Because where else would this creep be going? Smack dab in the middle of the mountain range, beyond the hiking trails, there were several caves similar to those the clan used. No others were sacred, and as far as Espie knew, they didn’t sink deep into the heart of the range as theirs did. And Will had disappeared inside the mouth of a rather jagged cave about fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t been seen since.
“Just try to stay downwind,” Luther whispered, then he slowly inched forward. Her eyes flickered to the ripple of muscle on his bare arms, stomach fluttering with want, but she shook her head firmly and reminded herself to stay focused.
They had finally tracked the cougar shifter through the trees to his final destination. Twice over the last fifteen minutes she’d heard laughter coming from inside the cave, but Espie looked to Luther to decide what they should do next. Clearly he was less of a hothead than her—unless it actually came to her and her safety. Espie could get behind that.
Holding a finger to his lips, he crawled along the edge of the tree line. Espie followed closely, knowing it would be best if their scents melded together, should the cougars inside somehow catch wind of them.
Was it smart to encroach on a cougar lair? No, not really. But this was bear territory. Cougars belonged down in the forests, not up in the mountains. Espie had every right to storm the keep, technically, but then they’d never have the chance to solve the mystery.
They wanted to listen in, collect information, and report it back to Miguel as soon as possible. She and her big brother may have had a fight, but Espie figured getting valuable details on cougar activity and delivering it to him ought to smooth things over.
While it was not necessarily in her nature, Espie hung back while Luther approached the mouth of the cave, still downwind and out of sight. For once, her inner grizzly didn’t put up a stink, instead remaining silent but alert within, clearly trusting Espie and her mate to get the job done right. When he beckoned her forward, she picked a path that mirrored his, careful not to disturb so much as a pebble along the way. Closer to the cave, they were both able to peer in unseen.
She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from gasping.
The sight was similar to something she might see in her cave on a Saturday afternoon. A bunch of people were sitting around a bonfire, all in various stages of undress. Will had taken his jacket and shirt off since arriving, cracking open a beer and taking a swig as the shifters chatted around him.
“Don’t forget to scent down, bro,” one insisted, tossing a spray bottle full of pale green liquid Will’s way. The shifter barely managed to catch it. Espie rolled her eyes. Clumsy idiot.
“Come on, I don’t smell that bad—”
“We could smell you coming up the mountain,” another snapped. “The only way those fucking bears don’t find us is if we camouflage our scent. How do you think we’ve survived out here this long?”
“Yeah, man, don’t fuck it up for the rest of us.”
Will hastily set his beer down amidst more jeers and sneers from his fellow cougars. “Okay, okay…God.”
Espie watched, her frown deepening, as he sprayed himself down with the green substance. And just like that, his shifter scent disappeared. In fact, now that she thought about it, the only way she and Luther knew there were other people in the cave was because they’d heard their laughter—not because they’d picked up on their scent.
Did they have a compound that could hide them in plain sight?
Espie’s eyes widened. No wonder no one within her clan had detected the cougar shifters. If the cats could mask their scents like that, they might have been hiding here for months without anybody being the wiser. And if Will wasn’t such a twit, she and Luther never would have figured it out.
That thought frightened her down to her core. Shifters relied so heavily on scents. It was how they could identify friend from foe. It was how they found their fated mates. Purposefully and blatantly covering one’s scent in a situation that wasn’t life or death—it was like breaking some unspoken law in the shifter community.
And it was cowardly.
“Any idea when Vesper is going to be getting more of this stuff in?”
“Like a shipment?”
“He doesn’t ship it in, you idiot. He brews it himself in his basement.”
“Seriously?”
“How you think he’s been hiding himself all these years? He invented that shit.”
“Oh my God,” Espie whispered.
Luther clamped a hand down over her mouth, followed shortly by a warning look. She gave a slight nod, knowing they could have been detected. However, it seemed the cougars were too busy chatting amongst themselves—hell, one was asleep in the waning sunbeam that stretched in from the mouth of the cave. In cougar form, the shifter stretched and arched, his paws flaring, before settling back down, totally happy. Cats. Such weirdos.
