AllFreeNovel
Share Us
To Hermione—who I can sense just behind me—I say, Follow me and help comb the area for more explosives.
I leap over the ruined remains of the first few rows of seats and race up a narrow chunk of wood that’s separated from the apron of the stage. Reaching the top, I peer over the edge into the smoking pit, gut twisting as I spot several bodies—including our orchestra director, a major talent and one of my father’s dear friends—lying still in the wreckage.
I tilt my head back, mentally calling for a medical team to get here ASAP, then pick my way through the rubble to the source of the blast.
The epicenter is easy to spot.
The far wall of the pit sports a hole the size of one of the tubas lying on the ground. I’m guessing someone planted the bomb in the instrument storage lockers. If they’d detonated the device during the show, every single member of the orchestra, as well as a good portion of the front few rows of the audience, would be dead.
We’re “lucky” to get away with a handful of losses, though I’m sure the dead wolves’ family and friends won’t feel that way.
But right now, I’m thinking as a warrior, a battle strategist.
And my warrior gut is screaming that this was a warning, not a full-blown attack. And then I get close enough to the source of the blast to find red powder all over the ground and what’s left of the back wall.
Venom. I would know the popular Parallel street drug by sight, but in wolf form I can smell it, too, the faint, sickeningly sweet scent that should warn any shifter worth their fur to stay far away from it.
Venom smells like a corpse cloaked in violets, rot spritzed with perfume.
Beneath the sweetness is a smell that warns this shit will kill you—quickly.
You don’t hear many stories about Venom addicts causing trouble, but that’s only because they go from addicted to dead so fast, making selling V a stupid, unsustainable business decision as well as morally bankrupt and downright villainous.
But the Blood River pack’s leaders don’t care. They figure there are always more addicts where the last batch came from and care very little for the lives of anyone outside their pack.
Their pack…
Willow.
The chances that the first bold-faced Blood River attack on my pack’s territory came within twenty-four hours of granting Pax’s mate refuge can’t be a coincidence.
I reach out with my mind again, calling for security forces to surround and protect Willow, who was last seen in my private box in the second level balcony.
Behind me, I hear Hermione growl low in her great white wolf’s throat.
I turn to her with a snarl on my lips, telepathically alerting her, Blood River did this. Find Willow, help protect her. I’ll see if I can track the person who planted the bomb.
Without a beat of hesitation, Hermione spins and leaps back toward the top of the pit. I turn in the other direction, jumping over the red powder to land on the other side, near the door to the musicians’ green room.
The doorway is mounded with rubble, but there’s still enough space for my wolf to squeeze through at the top.
Inside, I see the room already cleared—the wolves who play in the orchestra have their own emergency protocols—and no trace of the red powder on the ground.
But I can still smell it in here, and, as I hoped, the sickly scent gives me a trail to follow.
I cross the room to the door leading even farther beneath the stage. The heavy, soundproof door is closed, but I’m able to open it by shoving a paw against the lever handle without shifting back into human form.
Good. I still need my wolf.
My human nose wouldn’t notice the faint scent of Venom continuing down the dark hallway leading to the rehearsal rooms, prop storage, and theater director’s office deep in the bowels of the space.
But my wolf easily follows the scent through the winding hallways, past the shuttered snack bar where the actors often grab lunch and toward the garage/warehouse where larger set pieces and bulk building materials are delivered and stowed.
I prowl through the open cargo bay door, nostrils flaring as the smell of gasoline quickly overpowers the Venom stench.
It’s far more intense than the scent of spilled fuel or a leaking gas tank. It burns my nose, making my eyes water as I circle around a pile of lumber to see a petite scrap of a shifter in black jeans and an oversized black t-shirt cowering on the concrete in front of the parked delivery trucks, reeking of gasoline.
Fur bristling into spikes across my back, I let out a warning growl, but the intruder—I can’t tell if the person is male or female, or what species of shifter, only that he or she can’t be more than eighteen and might not be wolf—only shivers harder.
