Page 100 of Claimed By Prince Daddy

God dammit…

Sasha skipped past me, her shoulder ramming into my side. “Get the hell out of my way.”

I backed a step or two, allowing her space as she inhaled, peering at the trees, studying the soil I’d sifted through. She dropped to her hands and knees and sniffed the soil disturbed by a werebear.

“I don’t recognize the scent. Perhaps a bear from another clan, so we’ve no leads that?—”

“Shh!” she hissed, throwing up a hand.

With a hardened brow, I closed my mouth.

After a few seconds, she reared back onto her knees. She fastened chocolate eyes on me. I fought not to swallow. Those eyes drew me in, made me want things I couldn’t have.

“Dark Fae were here before.”

I blinked. “What?”

She rose to her feet and pointed at the crime scene down below, where they found the little girl. “Chelsea’s killer is Dark Fae. I could smell his scent the night I discovered her body.” She gestured toward the disturbed soil by the tree. “This odor is older by two weeks, but carries the same traces as the former scent. The killer here was Dark Fae.”

I shook my head. “Werebears were responsible. You saw the police files, the autopsy reports, they ripped their throats out and bodies gouged by claw marks.” A muscle popped in my jaw. “Bear claw marks.”

“But you came into my territory and told me that the bears were being manipulated,” Sasha said. “The Dark Fae are manipulating the bears.”

I raised my brows.

“Why are you eyeing me like I’m one step away from the looney farm?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Because I’m wondering if that’s our next stop.”

Her eyes bled amber, glowing like twin gold nuggets. “Damn you…I can scent the Dark Fae! Why don’t you try using your nose?”

After a growl, I tilted my head back and inhaled. The usual smells of pine and oak, fresh grass, prey, wind, and sky wafted into my nostrils. I raised my arms and let them fall to my side. “There’s no foreign scent here.”

Sasha’s eyes rounded in disbelief. “Y-You… you can’t smell it?”

I shook my head.

Sasha groaned in frustration and, reaching down, she scooped up the dirt and shoved her palm beneath my nose. “Really inhale.”

Narrowing an eye at her, I sniffed the dirt.

“Nothing there, darling.”

She sighed, letting the dirt sift through her fingers. “How can you not smell that? It burns the back of my throat, for God’s sake!”

I bit the inside of my cheek, debating if I should say what was on the tip of my tongue.

To hell with it.

“Don’t you think you might be reaching?”

“Reaching?”

I hooked my thumbs into the loops of my jeans and took a relaxed stance. Maybe that would simmer down the storm crossing over her face.

“Yeah… trying to find a killer where there isn’t one. I know you need closure to?—”

“Fuck me, man!” Sasha shook her head, appearing dismayed.

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