Chapter
Seventeen
Ididn’t throw up this time. Progress.
Caelan reached out and caught me as I lurched in. I swayed and pressed my hands against his lean chest to steady myself.
“Like a damsel in distress,” he said with a glint in his eye.
I got myself to rights and stood on tiptoe to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Where do you want to check first?”
“His house.”
I’d never been there. “What’s the address?”
I pulled it up online and formed a good picture in my head, then reached in and unwrapped one of the bottles. Caelan took it and whistled.
“How in the hell has she been able to source so many of these?”
“Trade secret,” I said. “You’ll have to ask her.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t press. “We should leave soon. We’re on a break and there’s only a few minutes left.”
I held out my hand. “Mine is still active. Drink it, holding the picture of Ben’s home in your mind. We’ll have about two hours.”
Caelan nodded and tipped the potion into his mouth. I slid my hand into his and thought of Ben’s house.
A moment later we stood before a well-kept manor home, less than half the size of Caelan’s. Maybe even smaller. The place had a large, wraparound porch with several empty hanging baskets. A large swing sat off to the side, the seat covered in snow.
“No one’s here,” Caelan said quietly. “Check the land, and I’ll go inside and see if I can spot anything.”
I nodded and waited as he cleverly picked the front door lock. I’d have to ask him about that later. I could break through a lock using my magic, but his skills made me wonder if he’d been a cat burglar in a past life. Once he was in, I walked off the porch and ventured further onto Ben’s land.
His magic had saturated the earth, the strange yet vibrant cool magic he used when healing. I bent and tugged one of my gloves off, touching my index finger to the snowy ground. Sending a pulse of power through the earth, I searched for anything unusual. It took me a minute, but I found something toward the front of the house.
Blood. Ben’s blood.
A strand of hair that didn’t belong to him, and a disturbance toward the front of his driveway told me Ben didn’t go willingly. I rose and put my glove back on. My teeth chattered, and I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket.
Midwest cold was far different from the Texas cold.
I knocked the snow off the swing seat and sat down. Caelan’s sense of smell was extraordinarily keen, and I didn’t want to risk messing his concentration up if I walked inside. Glad I’d chosen to change, I zipped my jacket all the way up to cover my nose and waited.
He was out a few minutes later, a grim expression on his handsome face. “Signs of a struggle inside. Ben put up a hell of a fight, but…” His voice trailed off.
“They shouldn’t have been able to take him like they did. Drugs might have been involved.” He sat down beside me. “Find anything?”
“Blood. Signs of a struggle toward the front of the driveway. I think they put him in a car and drove somewhere.”
Caelan rose and held his hand out. “Let’s check it out.”
More blood dotted the area. Ben was injured, but not enough to kill him. Caelan grimaced. “I need to shift.”
“In the snow?” I shuddered.
A flash of teeth as he smiled. “You forget about all the fur.”
“Yeah, but you have to get naked first.”
