That was enough to garner my attention.
“Sun’s gone down,”Chance said sometime later.
I nodded and gave the directive for him to breach the property from the west side while I took the east. Pines still hadn’t returned home. Wherever he was, I knew it was best to shift under the cover of darkness and the trees to avoid detection.
Chance and I went in opposite directions, scaling down the cliff trail and into the wooded area surrounding Pines’s home. I undressed and gave in to my wolf, feeling his strength course through me as I changed from my human form into my animal form.
My skin rippled when the dark and light-gray hairs sprang out from underneath it, coating my wolf’s body. The muscles along my legs and back popped and bulged with renewed energy. My eyesight sharpened, allowing me to see a mile into the distance, even with the sunlight extinguished for the day.
I rose up to my full height on all four paws and surveyed the area with my animal senses instead of my human ones. A deep inhale found several scents, both familiar and foreign, invading my nose.
“Do you smell that?”Chance’s voice pushed through my consciousness.
“Yes.”I glanced from side to side, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. The scent of trees, dirt and small game animals surrounded me, which I expected. But, I caught the faint smell of menthol and another odor. The stench of death lingered in the air. It was faint, exceptionally so, which was why I hadn’t caught it in my human form. But my wolf sensed it.
“Death,”Chance said.
The fur on my back stood on end.“Approach with caution,” I told my brother.
He didn’t respond, but I knew Chance well enough to know that he would be careful.
I crept up toward the east side of Pines’s home, observing for signs that he may be returning or that something was amiss. I mentally cataloged all scents, views, or sounds that felt out of place. Chance, I knew, was doing the same.
About two yards from the east side of Pines’s home, there were unmistakable claw marks in one of the trees. I stopped to inspect the scratches. They weren’t from an animal, they were too small. A human had made those marks, and from what I could tell, it was likely a woman.
I leaned in closer and sniffed. The acrid smell of dried human blood caused my wolf to shudder. Something very wrong took place out here.
“Scratches in a tree,” I told Chance.“And blood.”
“On this side as well.”
Fuck.
What the hell was that all about? None of the other trees in my immediate vicinity had any other markings, but there were a few broken branches.
“Were there storms in this area recently?”
“Not that I recall,” Chance responded. “He’s replaced oneof the windows on the west side of the house recently,” he said.
“How can you tell?”I asked.
“The paint’s only about a week old,”he answered. Chance could smell nuances that even I would overlook. His super sharp abilities made up for his deficiencies in other areas.
“I’m coming around,”I told him. The problem was that the east side of the home provided less covering than the west side. Chance’s position allowed him to get right up next to the house without having to expose too much of himself.
I was at a disadvantage on the east side, as I had to step out from the trees and make my way around the front of the house to make it over to where Chance was.
I became distracted with memorizing everything about Pines’s home that I could. It was a one-story home, but it had a basement. I bet anything nefarious that’d happened took place in the basement.
“We need to find a way to get into that ba—”I yelped in pain, jumping back in time to avoid the rusty metal trap from fully closing on my right front paw. As it was, I had been too late, and the sharp teeth of the web sliced into my leg. I narrowly avoided having my bone crushed by the damn thing.
That would’ve hurt like a bitch.
“What happened? Brother?”Chance’s panicked voice reverberated in my ear.
I sensed him moving closer to where I was.
“Careful. There are wolf traps out here,”I said, breathing heavily from the pain still coursing through my limbs. I licked my wound to help stem some of the blood flowing from it. That eased the pain a bit, as well.
