Page 38 of Mated
"Go towards the rec hall, Nisha."
I start to peer at her over my shoulder.
"Don't," she snaps, and my head locks in place, partially turned. A new echo thrums through her tone, raising gooseflesh all over my body. "Get Tanner. Don't turn around, don't stop. Just go."
My body jerks and I start forward. Every fiber of my being rails against it, rails against losing my freewill with a few choice words. My hands fist. I struggle in place, trying to break free. But the command sears through my insides like fire.
Shit.
Behind me, harsh rumbles spill forward in two separate cadences. One is pitched so low it seems to reverberate into my marrow. I shiver.
But it does the trick.
I whirl in place.
Daisy's form disappears in a cloud of black mist and low moans. I try to see past the fog. Try to discern anything of the woman who has rapidly become a staunch ally in my crazy new life.
Something russet and petite streaks out of the shadowed haze.
In human guise Daisy is curvy compared to me. As a wolf, she is resplendent.
Her amber and russet fur seems to glitter, covering her over five-feet body in a wash of color.
With a baying howl that sends me running, she rushes through the trees after a sickeningly familiar expanse of tawny fur and rosettes.
My attacker.
Shit.
I slam my feet over theciorcalfloor and rush headlong up the hill. It's not Daisy's command that sends me off like the hounds of hell are behind me. It’s the surety that only one person has scared the big cat off, and he is somewhere on pack land.
My lips part and I draw in a deep lungful of air before I start screaming for the only help I can think to give.
Chapter 17
Tanner
Bending down, I pull a longneck from one of the coolers and chug half.
Fucking Ebony. All her posturing just to leave me fucking hanging.
But with her and the thetas helping to scour pack land, it look me a lot less time to realize that the body was placed here. Something Gage was only too happy to confirm.
I take another draught of the beer.
With the pack being in and out of the trees, it’s been damn hard to track the rogue by scent or print. Now my fucking head aches and my nose burns from scouring every inch of the fucking forest.
And still nothing.
How did the rogue get the body in the tree without anyone noticing?
Gage walks up out of my peripheral. “Coroner just left with the stiff,” he says mildly. “He’ll call if he comes up with anything else, but he’s ruling it as an animal attack for now.”
I nod. “Better than nothing.”
“I’m going to head back and clue Ruin in,” he says, pulling a hand rolled smoke from a slim black case in his jeans. He snaps and the end catches with a burst of his ethereal green flames. “You want me to head back when I’m done?”
My eyes dip to Caine where he waits leaning against a thick oak. His hellfire gaze tracks over every inch of the field and the trees beyond.
