“I know.”
“Do you trust him?”
I thought about his amber eyes watching over me, his strong hands throwing me over his shoulder, his magnificent cock…
“Yes,” I said. “I know I probably shouldn’t, but yes.”
She nodded once, seeming satisfied with that. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.” Then she left. The gate clicked behind her in the quiet.
I sat at the table for a while longer and listened to the sounds of the city, then went to the back room, lay down on the bed with my shoes still on, and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
The wolf inside me, whatever she was and wherever she lived in there, had gone quiet. Like it had been running hard for days and had finally been given permission to rest.
I fell asleep with the light still on in the kitchen.
CHAPTER 8
Silas
I found the motel first.
The Turquoise Sands. The vacancy sign was missing a letter and the parking lot smelled like gasoline and a mix of a variety of illegal substances.
Her trail went to a first-floor room, second from the end. The door was closed but the window was shattered. Glass shards fanned across the asphalt in a pattern that suggested something had crashed through it from the inside, and the creature’s blood, dark and almost chemical, ran in a trail from the window across the lot and into the brush at the far edge, where it disappeared into the scrub cedar. A few drops of my mate’s blood were mixed in with the creature’s, perhaps having dripped from its fangs or claws as it fled.
Cold, visceral fear took hold of my heart and squeezed.
I crouched at the window and looked into the room.
It was destroyed. There were lamp shards strewn across the carpet and a desk chair discarded in the corner. Cracks in the drywall indicated where something heavy had slammed into the wall. The crumpled bedspread had been pulled halfway off the bed, and there was more of the skinwalker’s blood on the floor near the dresser, a substantial amount, and a smear of it along the wall where the thing had most likely gone down and then gotten back up.
She’d fought it. In a motel room, alone, with a lamp and a desk chair as her only weapons.
And it looked like she’d won.
My wolf surged against the cage of my human form so hard my vision blanked for a full second. Not from fear, though that was there too, beneath everything else, but from the savage satisfaction of knowing my mate had not just fought that thing off but beaten it bloody with a chair.
Then the fear surged to the top again and my hands shook.
She’d been alone. She’d been alone because she’d left, and she’d left because I’d let her.
I tracked her from the motel and off through the city. Her scent braided with the faint residual trace of a vehicle, which told me someone had given her a ride, and I followed both until the trail terminated at a small compound behind a stucco wall on a quiet street in the old part of Santa Fe.
I circled the compound once in wolf form. Her scent was everywhere. Someone had seen to her injuries. I could smell antiseptic and some kind of herbal remedy along with cotton gauze.
After shifting in the brush as the sky went from black to slate, I climbed over the wall. The lock here was quite a bit more of a challenge than the one at the apartment had been, but I finally prevailed. Turning the knob and opening the door, I found myself in a kitchen where a light had been left on, casting a small warm circle on the counter and the first-aid kit sitting open beside it.
The back room was dark, but I could see her clearly in the gloom.
She was on her back with the blanket pulled to her chin, shoes still on, one hand resting on her stomach and the other curled loosely at her side. Her face was turned slightly toward the door. Gauze bandaging was visible on her forearm above the blanket’s edge, white against her skin.
I stood there for a while, letting myself drink in the fact that she was safe and mostly unharmed.
My stubborn, reckless, magnificent mate had beaten an ancient predator with motel furniture because she was too stubborn and too resourceful to let it be the end of her.
I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes opened before the mattress had finished absorbing my weight, her pupils wide in the dark. She saw me and recognition moved through her expression, then assessment, then what looked like escape planning.
