Mate Bond

She couldn’t. Kenzie shifted back to human so fast her muscles protested, and she made a muffled noise of pain as she straightened to her full height. But at least now she could clap her hand over her nose.

How Bowman could simply sit there in that wave of smell, she couldn’t fathom. He stared downward, unmoving. There was no moon tonight, clouds blotting out all light, but Gil’s lantern glistened on Bowman’s fur, ruffled by the rising wind.

Gil came up next to Kenzie, carefully not looking at her nakedness. “Holy—” He broke off and coughed. “Holy shit.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Kenzie said, still holding her nose. Ryan would have laughed at the nasally sound of her words.

“Is that thing dead down there?”

Kenzie glanced at Bowman. He never looked at her as he crouched low on his limbs and started climbing down the side of the ravine.

Kenzie breathed through her mouth as she lowered her hand. “Crap, I do not want to do this.”

“Then don’t,” Gil said quickly. “Stay up here, and he’ll tell us what he finds.”

“Can’t,” she said, still sounding as though she had a bad cold. “He might need backup.”

Gil glanced over the edge, then back at Kenzie, again keeping his gaze on her face. “You’re one brave woman, Kenzie O’Donnell.”

“That’s what Bowman says. Well, when he’s not saying, What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She touched Gil’s arm, first to send him gratitude and second to see if she could sense whether he was up to something. She couldn’t tell. “Stay here. If I howl, you dial that cell phone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gil said.

Kenzie shifted, more slowly this time. She embraced the fur that warmed her body, but gagged on the punch of smell, which came to her with renewed strength.

Heaving a wolf sigh, she started downward, following her mate, using the footprints Bowman had left to guide her.

* * *

It was dead all right. Bowman shifted back to human and waited for Kenzie to catch up. She stayed wolf, but sat on her haunches and let out a whine.

The beast that had attacked the roadhouse sprawled on the only flat stretch of ground next to the cold, rushing river. In the darkness it was difficult to say exactly what it was even now.

Bowman’s wolf sight had shown him fur, with enormous bearlike paws, but there was definitely something snakelike about its body, and that might be the stump of a wing. Bowman hadn’t seen any wings when he’d been fighting it at the roadhouse, but he’d been busy, there hadn’t been much light, and a stumpy wing didn’t mean the monster could fly.

Bowman put his hand on Kenzie’s head, drawing comfort from her presence. She always came to his side. Always.

The crashing and banging behind them meant Gil was coming down. His lantern flashed, showing that the wing stump had some feathering on it. Gil stopped, breathing hard, next to Bowman.

“Damn.” The man shone the flashlight around, its thick beam cutting the darkness. “That is one ugly, stinking mo fo. You sure it’s dead?”

“Looks dead. Smells dead.” Bowman nudged the hairy paw with his bare foot. “Yep. Dead.”

“What the hell is it?”

“I don’t know,” Bowman said. He didn’t like not knowing. All kinds of dangerous shit happened from not knowing.

“Did you kill it?” Gil asked. “When you hit it with the truck, I mean. Injure it beyond recovery?”

“I don’t think so.” Bowman remembered the beast crashing into the windshield, and the truck’s roof coming down on him. “It ran off, but it wasn’t that hurt. Something else happened.”

“The truck’s driver maybe,” Gil said. “Or whoever hired him. Its work was done, so they finished it off?”

Bowman shook his head. “Why bother to create, or find and trap, a huge, terrifying creature only to kill it? I’d doctor its injuries and keep it to fight another day.”

“Yeah, me too,” Gil said. “I’d love to know what it is and what killed it, though. I’d call my local medical examiner, but I think the guy would have a coronary if he came out here and saw this.”

“We need to study it,” Bowman said. “Find out everything we can. If not a human coroner, how about a veterinarian?”

“Hmm.” Gil pursed his lips. “You know one with a strong stomach?”

“I have one in mind,” Bowman said. “Let’s get up the hill, and I’ll give her a call.”

He felt Kenzie move, and looked down to see her glaring up at him. He hid his amusement. He liked that Kenzie grew jealous sometimes, because it meant she wanted him around. Indifference would have been much harder to bear.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her about it, though. Teasing Kenzie was just too damn much fun.

* * *

“Oh my God,” Dr. Pat said. She had her hands over her nose, her eyes watering, as she looked at the body in the narrow canyon.

It was the next morning, the sun was high enough to filter down to the river bottom, and everyone at the site was dressed. Dr. Pat had agreed, when Bowman had called her, to come out and take a look at the dead animal, but said she couldn’t possibly get there until morning. Therefore Kenzie, Bowman, and Gil had spent an uncomfortable night in Gil’s car, pulled up close enough to the ravine so they could watch to see if anyone came for the creature.