Book 1 - Page 2 (2/2)

That was one of the reasons she was going to her cabin, to get away, to consider the facts of the murders, to search for clues in the woods. He had to be from Portland or the surrounding area, since it was there he’d killed all the women. And he had to take a jaunt in a forest from time to time. The call of the wild was too strong in them. She hadn’t expected to smell red lupus garou in the place where she ran, as far away as it was from the city. For three years she hadn’t smelled a hint of them. Not until last weekend. Was one of them the killer? She had to know.

Bella tossed a pink sweats.h.i.+rt into the bag.

“You be careful, honey. The victims are all redheads in their twenties. And the last was killed not far from here.”

“Don’t worry, Chrissie. I’ve got a gun for protection.” Well, two: one at her cabin, and one at home, but who was counting? Silver bullets, too; Bella had them made for Volan. It wasn’t the lupus garou way, but she had no other way to fight him. She would never be his.

“A... a gun? Do you know how to shoot it?”

Yep, she’d learned how to shoot a gun a good century and a half ago, ever since the early days when she had lived in the wilderness, trying to survive in the lands west of Colorado.

“Yeah, don’t worry. Give your kids hugs for me, will you? Tell Mary I want to see the painting she did for art cla.s.s, and tell Jimmy that I want to see his science project when I return.”

Chrissie sighed. “I’ll tell them. You be careful up there all by yourself. That is, if you’re going all by yourself.”

Always checking. Chrissie was looking for husband number two, and she a.s.sumed Bella rendezvoused with some mountain man every time she returned to her cabin.

“See you Monday.”

“Be careful, Bella. You never know where that maniac will end up.”

“I’ll be cautious. Got to go.”

Bella hung up the phone and zipped her suitcase. Before it turned dark she had every intention of searching the woods for further clues concerning the red lupus garou — not a wild dog, a mixed wolf-dog breed, or as some thought, a pit bull that some b.a.s.t.a.r.d had trained to kill his victims — that might be killing the women.

Why had she caught the scent of red lupus garou in the area near her cabin now, when the woods had been free of their kind for the last three years? She envisioned a lone female wouldn’t stand a chance at remaining that way. Her stomach curdled with the idea that she’d have to give up her cabin and find a new place to run. Just one more concern to add to her growing list of worries.

Later that day, when Bella arrived at her cabin, the waning moon called to her though it was still fairly light out. She tilted her nose up to the breeze, standing on the porch of her cedar home in the woods, the building now a faded gray. It served as her hideaway on the weekends when she lived on the wild side, away from the hustle and bustle of the city of Portland. She would be the right age to be Volan’s mate, if he ever found her. Smiling at how clever she had been to avoid him, the smile faded as a coyote howled. She wasn’t meant to be a rogue wolf, living alone without a pack. Some were naturally geared that way. Not her.

More than that, Devlyn still held her heart hostage, d.a.m.n him. She could still feel the way his strong fingers had gripped her shoulders with possessiveness, smell his feral craving to have her, feel his heart thundering when he crushed her against him. Why couldn’t he have run with her?

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts of the one who’d possessed her soul since the beginning.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care for the gray wolf pack, the lupus garou family who had taken her in. It was the unfathomable notion that she’d have been Volan’s mate that fired her soul to the depths of h.e.l.l. Stronger than the rest, he wasn’t brighter, nor caring in the least bit. Just a bully, such as in ancient times when the strongest men ruled. Why couldn’t she find a mate who would treat her as... as... an equal?

Somewhere, such a male had to exist.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled off her sweater, turtleneck, denims, and hiking boots, and dropped them on a porch chair. Standing naked, she s.h.i.+vered, then breathed in the heavenly scent of pine needles, the smell once again triggering the memory of Devlyn kissing her. No man since had kissed her like he had.

She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard. He stirred primal longings in her too strong to quench. The desire to feel him deep inside her, filling her with his seed, producing their offspring, their family — sharing a lifetime commitment as mates forever — overwhelmed her. But he wasn’t the leader of the pack. Even if she wanted Devlyn for her mate, she didn’t think he’d ever be strong enough to have her. Yet, she couldn’t help but keep in touch with Argos, the old former leader of the pack. Knowing Devlyn was alive and well...

She growled with exasperation. For now she had to hunt like a wolf, and in the interim, search for a different prey — the feral predator that stalked human redheaded females and murdered them like a rabid wolf.

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