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“My wolf doesn’t like the smell of your blood,” he growled.

He’d said that to me once before, and now I understood what he meant by it. He was breathing heavily and his jaw was tight. I didn’t know how the whole inner-wolf thing worked, but it was obvious he was going through something on a base, animal level. When I cut myself, he felt it in some way.

I turned to him, rested my hand, the one not bleeding, on his shoulder, and looked into his eyes. Yep, his wolf was right there, I could see the change in that green gaze. “I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s part of who I am. I’m sorry if it makes you unhappy,” I said to him, “but I’m perfectly okay.”

His gaze searched mine, wild and intense. “You can tell me you’re okay a million times, Iris, but I’ll never be okay with you hurting yourself, with you bleeding, no matter the reason. So let’s get this over with. I want you back in my bed.”

All righty then. I could admit I liked being in his bed as well. But I was a witch, and that would never change. I didn’t want it to, and my task had to come first. “I’ll move as quickly as I can.”

“Good.”

I pressed my hand to the door handle, tilted my head back, and closed my eyes. I felt the rush of power flow through me, Amy’s ward. It had weakened while she’d been gone, which was what I’d been banking on. We needed to strengthen magic like this daily, which would make my job easier. I whispered the spell to breach it over and over again, faster and faster.

You needed a good reason to break a ward. If you had evil intent, it was impossible. The spell I was using could see into my heart. The words came from light and goodness and were the impartial judge that would grant the request or not. That’s why blood was required. I was essentially giving the spell life, warmth, a beating heart for that moment in time.

I’d never used it before, and I didn’t know if it would work now, but it was the only option we had, and I was highly motivated to get inside. Tingles danced from my chest along my arm and down to my hand that was wrapped around the door handle.

Another surge of power pulsed through me, and I had to hang on when it would have shoved me back. Draven was suddenly behind me, holding me there, even as he did some more unhappy growling. The power surge peaked, then flowed right through me before leaving through the hand that still gripped the door handle.

It clicked.

The ward breaking and the door unlocking.

I sagged against Draven, the spell taking my energy with it.

He hooked an arm around my waist, opened the door, and all but carried me in, shutting the door after us. “Okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. Some spells just take a lot out of you.” I straightened, but he kept his arm around me for a long moment, his head bent, studying me before he finally released me. I stepped back before I was tempted to do something like kiss him. “Right…uh, we better get searching.”

“What are we looking for?”

“I’m not entirely sure. But I’ll know it when I see it.” I hoped so, anyway.

It was a nice apartment, with more than enough room for one person. There was also no sign that Amy was a witch, which wasn’t unusual, especially if you mixed with a lot of humans. Not everyone lived like my family.

But honestly, it didn’t feel very…lived in. It was missing personality. Draven went to the kitchen to search, and I went to her bedroom.

The bed was in the middle, everything in shades of pinks and mauves, and she loved throw pillows. She’d made her bed the day she went missing, but that seemed to track, since the rest of her apartment was so perfectly presented. Amy liked everything in its place, apparently. I peeked into the en suite. Her cosmetics were still on the counter, and the drawer she kept them in, open. Had she been in a hurry to get to the club? This room didn’t seem to match the rest of her extremely tidy apartment.

I checked the other drawers. Nothing of importance, just more makeup, hair care products, and a packet of condoms. I knew she’d been seeing someone, well, several someones. Again it was all over Nightscape. But as far as I could tell, no one seriously.

I went back into her bedroom and started going through the dresser. It didn’t feel right, invading her privacy like this, but I was out of options.

“I think I found something,” Draven said.

I turned, and he was at the door, holding a knife. “There was blood on this. They washed it, but I can still smell it.”

“Hers?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to smell her blood to compare it. But I can smell a lot of bleach, especially in the kitchen. Someone did a lot of cleaning in here recently.”

Had someone hurt Amy with that knife, or worse, then cleaned away the blood? Was her body already buried somewhere as well? Dread crawled up my spine. What the hell kind of monster were we dealing with?

We checked the rest of the apartment, but there was nothing here, and after Draven’s discovery, I wasn’t surprised. Someone had been through this place and cleaned every surface, hiding any evidence that might have remained.

He held the door open, and we walked out and back down the hall to the elevator. My mind raced, the feeling of helplessness suddenly overwhelming. The doors slid closed.

“Iris?”