Switch morphed into a brown wolf, and Wyatt hopped back a step.
“If you put one fang on me, you’re toast.”
Switch’s wolf peeled back his teeth in a grotesque smile before turning his head away and lifting his nose to the air. After a beat, he trotted off and searched the perimeter.
Wyatt grumbled as he trudged through a dense grove of trees. His ass still hurt, and if he didn’t have so much work to do, he’d smoke a little cannabis to deaden the pain. Shepherd had taken all the Neosporin and peroxide for his trip, leaving Wyatt with nothing but bandages and alcohol.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Niko?”
Too bad they weren’t situated near a cemetery. Gravewalkers could pick up on the living in a cemetery, but it only seemed to work around a number of dead bodies. Some had heightened abilities to detect a living body no matter where they were, but usually that wasn’t how it worked. It also helped when there were ghosts on-site who could point in the direction of someone who didn’t belong. Even the dead were picky about who they wanted in their neighborhood.
“Niko!” he yelled, his voice swallowed up by the open space. A few birds scattered from the trees, and the next time he yelled, he stretched out all the vowels.
Barking snagged his attention, and he jogged toward the sound. Wyatt weaved around thick trees and hopped over twisted roots, the jacket tightening with every step as if reminding him that Gem was missing.
He tripped over a rock and windmilled his arms before regaining his balance.
Switch’s brown wolf blended in with their surroundings, so it took Wyatt a minute to spot him.
Wyatt strode up and looked at where Switch had pawed through the leaves. He knelt down and studied the deep mark in the mud, which wasn’t a typical footprint. It didn’t look like a struggle but more like the heel of someone’s shoe digging up the earth as they pivoted around.
Wyatt stood up and shouted with urgency, “Niko!”
Switch’s wolf trotted around the area, sniffing everything in sight. When he began barking again, Wyatt hurried over. He lifted a leather hair tie from a small twig poking out of a tree. It was intentionally placed, and it belonged to Niko. Wyatt didn’t recall him wearing his hair up earlier, but Niko often carried one in his pocket.
That hair tie was a message that he’d left of his own free will.
“Blast! You justhadto go and do it, didn’t you?” He flicked the tie on the ground. “This is superb. Two people missing, and one of them I let walk right out the door. Niko, if you don’t find Gem and bring her home, I’m dead meat. I might as well reserve my spot under the bridge, because that’s where I’ll be living for the rest of my life. Like a troll.”
Switch shifted to human form and gave his surroundings a cursory glance. He didn’t seem to recall the shift. “What happened?”
“Niko’s gone, that’s what happened. Gone. Poof.Sayonara.”
“How do you know?”
“I found one of his hair ties over yonder,” Wyatt said, pointing at the tree.
Switch gave him a skeptical look and pursed his lips. “You did, huh? All by yourself? That’s amazing. One tiny hair tie in all this forest, and you happened to—”
“Do me a favor and shift back. Nobody wants to see all that,” he said, waving a hand at Switch’s privates.
Switch ignored him and pulled a leaf off a tree as they kept walking. “Are we outside the property line?”
“Yup. And your wolves didn’t rescue him.”
“They were instructed to stay away. Did your friend go willingly?”
Wyatt jumped ahead of Switch. “Why don’t you send a few of your friends to track them down?”
“No can do.”
Wyatt turned and cast him a sharp glare. “And why not?”
“News flash—you have a child in that house and a helpless woman. Whatever Viktor has planned for you is nothing compared to what Shepherd would do if his kid went missing.”
Damn, he had a point.
Switch halted and looked skyward. “You hear that?”
