Page 16 of Bear Haven
“Yes.”
His face hardened slightly and he looked over her shoulder at Michael. “They suspect anything?”
“Not sure. There’s one who might, but it’s too difficult to tell.”
“Hard to trust humans,” Blake added. “Never sure who is and who isn’t what they say they are. Can’t smell their deceit like we can in shifters.”
Bex considered the conflicting feelings inside her. On one hand, she was offended by Blake’s comment. Not all humans were deceitful. On the other hand, the human beings they were dealing with, the threat on their doorstep dashed any offense she took.
She had to remember that she’d grown up with humans and while they weren’t always the greatest, not all of them were bad. Then again, she hadn’t been in the position of always being on guard, of never being able to trust anyone different from her, of always being scared of what was lurking around the next corner.
They could smell fear, but seemed if it was coming from a human, they didn’t have a real clear sense of it until it was too late.
“Where’s Beck?”
“He’s out at —”
“I’m here. I move a little slow, remember?”
“If you weren’t an old man…” Gus snarked. He kept Bex close, unwilling to let her go just yet. And, lucky for him, she didn’t appear to want him to let her go.
“Yeah, yeah. Pesky cane and all,” Beck snarked in return. Gus grinned. Beck was learning to give as good as he got and that gave Gus a strange sense of hope for them all.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Gus.
“Anything for you,” he mouthed back. “So… Has there been any word from Luke?”
“Isn’t he with you?”
“No,” Gus answered. “Why?”
Michael lifted a brow and smirked. “You sorta smell like him.” He stepped close and took a whiff of Gus.
“You need to stop sniffing me.”
Bex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Underneath the scent that was naturally Gus, that was part animal, that was pheromone, she found it, could discern it. A faint trace of Luke.
She took a step toward Beck and the scent was stronger. He wasn’t able to mask it, not like Gus.
There was also something else, someone else.
“What aren’t y’all telling us?” she asked. “Where’s Luke?”
“I don’t know.” Gus sighed and pushed away from the wall. “He was supposed to come back with us, but at the last second said he had to check something out and that he’d be back in a couple of days.”
“So, you were with him? I thought you were going to get some supplies?”
“We did that, too, pretty girl. They’re in the back of Beck’s car. Those old Cadillac tanks can hold a lot of shit.”
“Then where did you meet up with Luke?”
“That was my fault,” Beck said. “This isn’t on Gus. It’s on me.”
“I don’t care who it’s on, I just want to know what the hell is going on.”
“I was able to track Luke’s scent down near Gatlinburg.”
“You were supposed to be going to Knoxville.”
