I fell asleep thinking about that.
CHAPTER 5
Silas
I’d come back from my hunt to find the cabin empty and Katie’s scent leading out through the trapdoor I’d idiotically assumed she wouldn’t discover.
After throwing on boots, jeans, and a flannel, I’d left the cabin at a run, following a trail which told me she’d travelled by bus, then foot, then bus again, with a detour through a park. Her scent told me her anxiety had spiked sharply there, and then she’d headed east, moving fast.
The sulfur stench still lingering in the air around the park made clear why she’d run.
I followed her scent into a quiet neighborhood, my wolf complaining all the while that if I was going to tear ass out of the cabin without even snarfing down a protein bar then I should at least take a moment to eat somebody’s chihuahua. My stomach rumbled in apparent agreement.
I found the building without difficulty. Her scent went up an exterior stair and through a second-floor door. A friend’s apartment, probably. The building was quiet. It was late enough that the early risers had already left and early enough that the late sleepers hadn’t yet surfaced.
Though lockpicking had never come easily to me, I’d found myself wandering suburban Santa Fe in the buff after an inopportunely timed shift on enough occasions over the years that I’d learned the basics, and the basics were all getting through this door required.
The apartment smelled of her, layered deep now under sleep and soap and a warm sweetness that told me she’d been in need of her mate and had done something about it without me. My cock gave an angry throb.
She was asleep on her back, one arm thrown over her face, her dark hair fanned across the pillow. She’d found clothes somewhere, leggings and a sweatshirt too wide in the shoulders for her frame. Her mouth was slightly open. She looked like she was sleeping the deep, genuine sleep of someone who had finally conceded to exhaustion after fighting it for too long.
She also looked exactly like a woman who needed to be over my knee.
I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes opened immediately.
“How did you—” She scrambled back against the headboard, pulling the sheet up. “How did you find me?”
“Your scent.”
“I showered.”
“I know.” I looked at her steadily. “You still smell like you.”
Her jaw tightened and her chin came up. “I was going to come back.”
I gave her a skeptical look in lieu of a reply.
“I wasconsideringcoming back.”
“Katie.” My voice came out level. “I told you to stay.”
“And I chose not to.” She kept her eyes on mine. “I’m a person. I get to make choices.”
“Your choices put you alone in an alley with the very thing you’ve been running from.”
“I got out of there alright.”
“You did,” I agreed. “Because dragging someone away in broad daylight isn’t how it operates. It’s patient. It would have followed your trail and waited for its chance to carry you off.”
She didn’t reply right away, and when she spoke again her voice was softer, more tentative.
“I smelled it.”
“I know you did.”
Something crossed her face. Not fear, but the expression of someone who has been holding a question at arm’s length for a while and just felt their grip slip. “You were going to explain things. Before your spine decided to relocate itself.”
