Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves #3)(22)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“There’s no one around for miles,” Lake told us. “That it?”

She jerked her head toward a house in the distance, and I nodded, even though there was nothing about the way the house looked—from the outside, in the dark—that would have tipped off the average observer to the fact that days earlier, someone had been murdered there.

Unconsciously, I began running through everything we knew about the circumstances in which the death had been discovered.

The front door was closed when the police responded to a 911 call placed from the vicinity. They found the body—what was left of it—inside. The walls were dripping blood.

I forced myself to focus on the sights and sounds of the here and now. We were close enough to the mountains that even in the dead of summer, it smelled like snow, and the moon overhead was a shade fuller than it had been the night before.

To my eyes, the world was shadowy and dark, quiet, still. I could barely make out the outlines of the people standing right next to me, but to the Weres, the scant moonlight would have been as good as a spotlight, illuminating the leaves on the trees, each blade of grass, and the house in the distance.

Beside me, Chase breathed in deeply through his nose. Through the bond, I could feel him sorting his way through layers and textures, scent upon scent upon scent.

“Anything?” I asked him, my voice quiet, but echoing through the silence nonetheless.

He closed his eyes and breathed in again. Even though I couldn’t quite make out his features, I could picture the expression on his face almost exactly: long eyelashes lying still against pale skin, nostrils flared, and concentration playing around the edges of his lips.

“There was definitely a werewolf here,” he said finally. “Female. Young.”

He glanced at Lake, and she nodded, kneeling to the ground and bringing a handful of dirt up to her nose.

Was it Maddy? I asked her, not wanting to give life to the question by saying it out loud.

For the longest time, Lake didn’t reply, but even through the darkness, I could see her lowering her head toward the ground. Her blonde ponytail picked up the light of the moon, making her look like an angel caught midprayer, knees in the dirt, head bowed.

Chase joined her on the ground, crouching down with liquid grace, the whites of his eyes catching the moonlight the way Lake’s hair had.

I translated their actions—and the things they weren’t saying—for our human companions.

“Maddy was here.” I paused, suddenly aware of how very much I’d hoped that Callum was wrong, just this once. “Was she in human form, or wolf?”

“In this exact spot?” Lake asked, sniffing again. “She was human, but there’s no shortage of woods around here. If she’d decided to Shift, smart money says she would’ve gone farther in.”

Chase stood, the motion fluid even in the darkness. “It’ll be easier to track the scent if I Shift.”

Lake said nothing, but when I nodded in response to Chase’s unspoken query, she began stripping off her shirt.

Clearly, Chase wasn’t the only one planning to Shift.

Turning my attention back to our human companions, I laid out a plan of attack. “Chase and Lake are going to check out the woods. We can get started inside.”

If Lake said there wasn’t anyone out here except us, I believed her, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way for long. If we wanted to check out the inside of the house—the actual crime scene—sneaking in under the cover of darkness seemed like a good way to go.

“Police might have someone set up, watching the place,” Jed said, “to see if the killer comes back.”

Killer, my mind echoed. Maddy.

I didn’t push the thought away, but didn’t dwell on it, either. “There’s no one here now. Chase and Lake would have smelled it if there were.”

I spared a glance for Caroline, who was standing so silent and still that I couldn’t be 100 percent sure I was glancing in the right spot. “You’ll let us know if you hear a car coming?”

I didn’t know the full extent of Caroline’s knack, but I did know that she was a deadly hunter: impossible to track and good at tracking others. She also had perfect aim, no matter how impossible the shot. While her senses probably weren’t as good as a Were’s, I was going to go out on a limb and bet they were probably pretty darn close.

“No,” she replied. “If I hear the police drive up, I’ll keep that little gem to myself to spite you all.”

Jed snorted, and I realized that Caroline was being sarcastic.

“If we’re going to go,” she said, impatience peppering her tone, “let’s go.”

Behind me, the sound of snapping bones and guttural, inhuman cries told me Chase and Lake had begun to Shift. A second later, a wave of power hit me, tantalizing and torture, all at once.

I wanted my pack. I wanted to run. I wanted to stay here with Chase and Lake, I wanted to Shift—

But I couldn’t. Couldn’t Shift. Couldn’t stay here. Instead, I fought the call of the wild and took a step toward civilization.

The house.

We closed the distance between the woods and the front porch with quiet efficiency. Caroline circled the entire house, keen eyes looking for weaknesses and points of entry. She came to a stop beside us, unnaturally still and utterly sure of herself, and addressed her next words to Jed.

“Killer came through here.”

I wasn’t sure how she could be so certain, or so calm, but it was hard not to take Caroline’s words at face value. When it came to games played between predator and prey, I had no doubt that she was as much of an expert as any Were.

All business, Jed took something out of his pocket and managed to jimmy open the front door.

“If you want to touch anything,” he told me, glancing back over his shoulder, “you’re going to need to put on gloves.”

I hadn’t brought any. In the course of my time as alpha, I hadn’t had nearly as much practice breaking and entering as I had with breaking and reinstating psychic bonds. Clearly, I had not come prepared.

“Here.” Caroline made no move to invade my personal space, but as Jed flipped on a hallway light, she held out a single white glove.

My eyes were drawn immediately to the skin she’d bared. Thick, sinewy scars—some white, some sickeningly pink, even after all these years—marred her flesh from the elbow down. Looking at it hurt and reminded me that Shay was the one who had given Caroline those scars—one more reason that we couldn’t afford to let him be the one who found Maddy.