“Because I didn’t do this.” Lennox took a step closer and extended a hand, wrist up. She knew she still smelled like lion, like sex. Kanon and Tegan’s scent had faded, but it still lingered over her skin and clothes, light under the scent of her sweat, but still there. “Because I was trying to protect friends of mine. Lions.”
Sawyer leaned forward on the balls of her feet, her nostrils flaring slightly. Her brows drew together and Lennox laughed. “Yeah. Believe me. I’m still not quite sure how I went from trying to arrest one of them...to well...bed.”
She grimaced and Sawyer let out a soft, rough sound. Maybe a laugh.
Lennox nodded towards the girl. “We need to move. I’m surprised he hasn’t caught us yet.”
Sawyer nodded and knelt, scooping the child up against her chest. “Come on, Tilly. Little bit farther.” She jerked her head in the direction of the water rumbling angrily. “There’s a road past the river. But every time we tried to make it to the downstream crossing, the other Hound started gaining.”
Shit. Lennox jerked around just as Torres broke from the trees, a red blur. She barely had time to start to slip into a crouch, to brace herself for the impact, when eighty-five pounds of dog, all muscle, slammed into her. The force of Torres plowing into her side knocked the air from her lungs, but it was his teeth, ripping into the skin just above the gunshot wound that ripped a scream from her.
Lennox fumbled, her hands going to the skin at the back of his neck as she tried to grab hold of him, even as he rode her to the ground. Jaws snapped towards her face, and only reflex kept her from losing her nose. She rammed an arm under his chin and knocked his head back. Dogs were faster, more flexible. In a blink of an eye, teeth could click shut with the force to break bones, rip into skin.
Even with Hound speed flowing through her body, without shifting again, she didn’t have the speed to deflect every bite. Torres ripped into her shoulder, flesh tearing easily under his canines. She was wet. Red. Her hands were covered in blood when a yelp sounded and Torres was jerked backwards off of her. A huge, tawny beast launched past her and landed on the red dog, unsheathed claws slashing down across the ridgeback’s shoulder. In the wild, a lioness would have beaten a stray dog easily.
But when Shifter Town Enforcement had been born, and they’d been looking for away to keep the various shifter-types in line, dogs had seemed the way to go. Several of the shifter dog breeds had been selected, the canine twins already bred for centuries to hunt certain animals, it wasn’t a far stretch to make them Hounds. Packs could outweigh some of the more dangerous beasts, and after that...magick. Thanks to a handful of really powerful witches, Hounds had been infused with a magick on their completion of the Shifter Town Enforcement academy, a privilege none of the other shifter-types had gotten.
Torres couldn’t have much left in him, but Lennox felt the flexing pulse of his magick anyway. Just a light shove, like an invisible hand ramming into Sawyer’s face, but the lioness jerked back startled and it was enough. Torres whirled to his feet and bolted into the woods, vanishing amongst the tattered shrubs and the shadows tossed down by the trees. Sawyer took a step to go after him, her tail curved up over her haunches twitching in threat, when Lennox whistled for her.
The lioness paused, head turned back to snarl at her.
“Don’t. We need to get out of here.” She dragged herself up again, her right arm hanging loose at her side. He’d snapped bone when he’d hit her there, teeth ripping through muscle.
Pain made her sway on her feet, but she didn’t fall.
Suddenly Sawyer was there, reaching for her. “You okay?”
Lennox waved her off.
“Good enough.” A grim smile touched her face. Torres wouldn’t be done. Whatever had pushed him this far...he wouldn’t give up now. “But you need to go. Get Tilly out of here. Get help.”
She stepped around Sawyer, moving for the trees. A low shadow danced along the edge of the woods. Waiting. Like a wolf stalking for an opening. “Go,” Lennox breathed.
Sawyer reached for Tilly, scooping her up just as Torres broke from the trees. This time he didn’t run out–low and fast–a red blur of a dog. This time he stepped out of the shadows like a demon. A man. His gun in one hand, he lifted it towards Sawyer.
His body shook, but it was his eyes that stopped Lennox cold. They were wild, panicked. The look of a desperate man. There was nothing sane staring out of his almond gaze anymore. And the coiled rage pulsing around him, a palpable fury, told her he wouldn’t miss what he aimed at.
“You will not take my daughter.”
His finger moved towards the trigger and Lennox lunged. The sharp sound of a gun firing filled her ears, followed by another blaze of pain as the bullet lanced through her right shoulder. Light exploded behind her eyes as more silver bit deep into her skin, the bullet burrowing straight down to bone. Lennox staggered, spinning under the force of the shot.
It took everything she had to keep her feet under her, to keep moving. Torres launched himself past her, roaring, and Lennox grabbed him as he ran. Her one good arm wrapped around his waist, she dug her heels in, fighting to stop him, but he dragged her behind him like she was nothing at all. A fly on his back. Torres lifted his gun again, the muzzle pointed right at Sawyer, but the lioness did the unthinkable.
She stepped back to the edge of the cliff and leapt.
Torres thrashed after her, frenzied. Raw panic burned through his voice. “Arianna!”
He screamed, clawing at the ground. Lennox clung to that revelation. The hysterical screams as he shouted for a ghost of a child that had been dead for over a year now. His daughter. The pieces started to click together. The monster references, the hatred. Somewhere along the way, the man that had been great at his job, an incredible father, an amazing friend, had changed. Loss could do that to a person. Grief and revenge were two great equalizers.
Then Torres flung himself over the edge, Lennox still holding onto him, and she tumbled after him. The river roared below, the white capped water reaching up for them as they fell.
***
Brambles and thorns snagged at his pants as Tegan slunk around the edge of the barn. Bree was poised in a crouch just in front of him, her head tilted back to scent the air when she stiffened. Tegan copied her, sniffing softly along the wind. Blood, but he’d smelled that and the rot of silver poisoning on a shifter from the moment they’d gotten within a good wind of the barn.
Now though, he could smell the underlying beast. Lion. Male. Hurt badly enough that he wouldn’t put up much of a fight either. Below that, he could smell Mel; her dog-form had streaked by not ten feet from here a good hour ago. Tegan sidled closer, still scenting. Ridgeback came next. Lennox and a male.
He winced. It backed Mel’s story, but it just meant that the Hound in front of him might be a wildcard. Had it been Kanon or Lennox accused there was no way in hell Tegan would have taken it lying down. He’d have gone to bat for either of them until the very end. He gave a soft whuff in Bree’s direction, but she shook her head, holding up one palm.
The wrinkles around her eyes were strained and he could feel the tension radiating off of her. She gave a soft, shuddering breath and inhaled again, long and slow. Tegan followed suit, finding the fainter scent of lions. Females, one of them a cub. Young. They hadn’t been here long. Bree blew out a haggard breath and righted herself, standing straight as she scanned the field surrounding the barn. A forest stretched out about a hundred yards to the west, and the tip of a mountain range grew out of the woods a few miles out. The spattering of gray colored rock faded into the swirls of clouds in the sky.
“You okay?” he asked softly, still crouched. She looked like a woman ready to snap.
Her head jerked once. “Let’s go look in the barn.”
She stomped around the edge, no longer trying to be quiet and Tegan cringed. Anyone with a nose and good ears could tell the only person in the barn was the wounded male lion-shifter, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t come back. Most likely the person with silver bullets loaded in their gun. And Tegan was responsible for watching her.
“Breanna,” he called after her, before cursing and following her at a crouching trot. She flung open the barn door just as Kanon and Brandt came around the other corner, the Hound’s lips curled back in a snarl. They had back up waiting in the trees behind the barn, just waiting for an all clear, but running in without a care was stupid.
Her breath seemed to short out as she moved along the barn and Tegan paused just inside, watching as Brandt moved instantly to the lion wounded along the far wall. “Shit.” He tilted his head up and glanced at Kanon. “Call Gaston. I think this is his boy. Have him grab a medic; we need to get him out of here and to a hospital. Now.”
Kanon vanished out the door. The lion gave a soft, wet cough, his breathing labored. “It was...a
Hound.”
Tegan winced, even as Brandt laid a hand along the wounded man’s shoulder and said, “We know.”
They did. The proof was in the room right here, in the straw dust on the barn floor. In the scent still lingering amongst the old wood and rafters. There had only been six people here, three lions, two ridgebacks, and a saluki. They knew everyone here.
Tegan glanced at Bree. She stood in the center of the barn, over a pile of ropes strung out over the wood floor, just staring at them. Tegan moved for her, slow and easy. Her head tilted up to look at him and she shook her head, offering him a helpless shrug. “There has to be a reason. Caesar, he’s a good man. Lennox is like a daughter to us. A friend.”
Tegan placed a hand over her shoulder and squeezed. “Then we’ll find out when we find them.”
“He
didn’t
do this. A witch could still be hiding the killer. Caesar would do anything to keep Lennox safe. He was following her, trying to track her down to
help
her.”
Tegan shifted slightly on his feet. “Following her?”
“I assume when you guys left Utah. He called me to trace a number, it was hers. He needed her whereabouts; I assumed she was in trouble. With the two of you.”
Or it could be exactly how the killer had found them. Tegan glanced towards Brandt and saw the wolfhound flinch slightly under the weight of that knowledge. Bree noticed it and pulled back. “My husband is a damn good Hound. A good man. He
didn’t
do this.”
“Okay then.” Tegan forced himself to smile. “Then let’s find who did.”
Bree pressed her lips tight, a longing smile on her face, as she nodded. They waited in silence as Kanon led Gaston and the team of medics back in the barn. Only after Brandt had set the perimeter did they move out. The trail had aged over the hour, but the wind was light. There was some thick brush in the forest, but nothing that would make tracking particularly hard.
This time, there was no wiped scent trail.
Kanon stepped up next to him and bumped his shoulder. “Lennox was shot.” He angled his head in the direction of the blood, the smell of it thick in the air when Tegan inhaled. He winced.
Silver. Shit.
Tegan raked a hand through his hair, thick black curls wrapping around his fingers before it fell loose in a wave. Kanon leaned into him, a heavy sigh spilling between them. “She’ll be okay,” Kanon murmured, but his voice didn’t quite match the words. They didn’t quite believe.
It was an awful lot to keep hoping. Then again, this was Lennox. Tegan pressed his head against Kanon’s and smiled. “Oh yeah. She’ll be just dandy.”
Brandt stepped up beside them, two Hounds in dog-form milling around his feet, both a breed Tegan had never seen in person before. Bloodhounds. But when one, the female, tipped her head back, doleful brown eyes stared out at him—
human
brown eyes.
Bree stood beside them, ready. She’d grated her teeth at the wait as it was. Brandt signaled to the Hounds in front of him with a flick of his hands, and instantly both dogs riveted their attention on him. Brandt glanced at the three of them, one eyebrow arched. “Ready?”
Tegan nodded.
“I’ve sent packs out on grids around here already, but we’re going to follow the most direct trail. Should be a rough run.” Then with one sharp whistle blast the dogs at his heels bolted off, noses hung low. They zigzagged the field, before settling in along two distinct lines of travel. Brandt waved a team of men in the direction of one, the female—a bit darker than the male, and then with a tilt of his head, gestured for them to follow the other bloodhound, and him.
Tegan recognized the scent their dog was following. The two lionesses, followed by the male ridgeback: Caesar Torres. No sign of Lennox, so that had to be the second trail the other bloodhound was following. He glanced at Bree, her shoulders stiff, eyes drawn. He could guess what was running through her head. Trying, no doubt, to figure out a way to help clear her husband. Probably the same frantic train of thoughts he’d had when he’d walked in and spotted Lennox in their living room, silver cuffs poking out of her back pocket. He winced.
The bloodhound ahead picked up speed, moving briskly through the undergrowth. The short, snuffling whuffs of air as the dog sifted through the scents. He was hurried, but focused. Everything about the massive brown dog spoke volumes. A twist of his tail could mean a difficult patch; a missed turn could result in quick circle back. They followed him at a jog, the dog easily outpacing them, but never moving beyond eyesight.