Page 22 of Magic Betrayed

It suddenly occurred to me that there was one other possibility I hadn’t considered. What if Kes had gone with themon purpose?

There was still a lot I didn’t know about her. Could she have chosen to leave without telling me, taking the kids with her?

No. I wasn’t ready to believe that just yet. Not to mention, she would have had to convince Ari to go with her. There was no holding Ari anywhere she didn’t want to be, and she’d been happy here.

It was still possible that Blake’s people were responsible. If they’d found out Kes was here, they might have avoided using magic in order to throw us off the trail. Might have decided to take the risk of doing the job themselves in order to avoid paying a bounty hunter. But why take the kids? Unless… Blake would know how much Kes valued them. How much easier it would be to control her using hostages.

Rage and desperation flooded my tiny body, and I abandoned the utility room, nose to the floor.

In the open doorway, I caught that same hint of alcohol, then again in the hallway outside the apartment. With the scent fixed in my nose, I leaped forward, following it down the hall to the stairs. The door was closed, so I whined briefly at Callum as he jogged up behind me. He hit the bar, and I flew down the steps, pausing only at the landing as I detected hints of piney woods and stale, sweaty musk—Kes and Logan. But was that from last night? Or could they have left those scents at any time in the past few days?

At the foot of the stairs I had to pause to wait for Callum to open the door again, but then I was loose in the lobby, suddenly assaulted by a dizzying array of new smells and sounds.

But the fox would not be deterred. We circled, ignoring the sidelong looks from a couple of startled residents, then bolted outside, nose to the ground, following that faint hint of stale beer. Across the sidewalk to the curb, where the trail went right into the street…

I stepped off the curb. Horns blared. Brakes screeched. And then I was dangling off the ground, my scruff caught in a firm hand as I was lifted back onto the sidewalk.

“Raine.”

I squirmed and snarled. I needed to follow that trail.

“You need to separate yourself from the fox. Her reasoning is bleeding into yours, and you almost ran right into traffic.”

I heard the command in that voice, turned my head, and was caught in the glow of burning amber eyes. The king of the shifters was crouched in front of me, but I felt no urge to cringe or to obey. Instead, I flattened my ears and barked. A warning, that if he tried to stop me, I would fight back.

“Raine, it’s me. Callum. You need to trust me. We will follow the trail, but only once you remember who you are.”

I snapped my teeth at him. Of course I knew who I was. I was a hunter, and I was tracking… But what was I tracking? Dinner? Family?

No. I was tracking the one who’d attacked me. The one who might have taken my family.

My people. I was human.

And I had almost forgotten where I was.

I whined, hoping Callum would hear it as the apology it was.

He nodded and released me. “We can cross, but I think as long as it’s daylight, you shouldn’t be out here without a leash.”

My ears flattened again, making it fairly evident what I thought about that.

“Not for you, for them.” He jerked his chin at the cars streaming past. “You are clearly not a dog, and you don’t want anyone freaking out and assuming you’re a wild animal.”

Okay, that was fair. But we didn’t have a leash, and I didn’t want to wait to follow the trail.

“There is a way…” Callum hesitated. “For right now, I can carry you across. If you’re okay with it. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Hah. The thought was definitely uncomfortable, but not for the reasons he was thinking. And right now, I didn’t care whether I was comfortable or not. I only cared about figuring out what had happened to Logan, Ari, and Kes.

So I nodded my little fox head and bounced on my little white paws and an instant later my breath left me in a whoosh as Callum picked me up, cradled me in his arms and headed for the crosswalk.

I froze, mostly from the disorientation of being so suddenly scooped off the ground, but also from the sensation of being so close to him. My fox nose informed me that he smelled… good. So good. It was the same scent I remembered from that first day in his apartment, and somehow it steadied me, helping me to center myself. As did the brisk, steady rhythm of his heart, so loud to my fox ears. I felt less divided, less scattered. More attuned to the fox without being consumed by her.

In this form, I was so tiny in comparison to his tall, athletic frame, but I still felt safe, just as I had before. Back when he was simply my enigmatic employer. I’d never been able to make sense of it then—not when Callum had logically posed the greatest threat to my safety—so I’d decided not to try. And now, I didn’t have the luxury of divided attention.

But just as I had before when I touched him, I caught the edges of a flood of emotions and sensations that seemed to come out of nowhere. A sense of protective determination. Patience. Power—so much power it staggered me. And a strange kernel of something else. Something spiky and raw, filled with tangles and knots and confusion, but also with warmth.

But then we were across the road, and he was setting me down. The moment my paws hit the sidewalk, I raced forward, up and down the curb, desperate to find the trail. Searching intently for any hint that might tell me which direction my attacker had gone. For any whiff that suggested Logan or Kes might have come this way.

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