The trail leading to the buried vampire was easy enough to follow, which was a good thing, because even in his wolf form, Christian found it hard to concentrate. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to turn around, to go back and rip the other two males apart in order to prevent them from mounting his mate.
Gabe and Gabby ran behind him, perhaps providing a barrier out of loyalty to Mystic, or more likely, not wanting to get in his way and feel his wrath. Regardless, their presence on his heels and the need to lead kept him moving forward.
He stopped only long enough to take a quick sniff of the buried corpse. At this point the driver's license Mystic and her friends had retrieved was more important than what Todd Moore smelled like.
Christian hoped Moore's license was valid. He hoped the identity was real. The last thing he wanted was to be forced to return and exhume the remains in order to take fingerprints and look for dental records.
He'd like to find out about the victim and how he'd ended up on the wrong end of a hunt without having to provide a body and open an official investigation. It would be better for all concerned if this matter could be handled among the supernaturals with minimum involvement of humans. There was no telling where Moore's vampire lifestyle would lead or who it would expose.
It troubled Christian that the wolves who'd hunted Moore hadn't bothered to look for his corpse. He wondered if it meant they'd been lazy and careless, perhaps overconfident, or if it meant they thought a vampire would disintegrate completely in the sunlight. The answer would have told him a lot about where to look for the Weres who were responsible.
There was no trace of any scent at the scene of death save the ones which belonged there and those of Mystic and her friends. Christian glanced at Gabe for an indication of which direction the howling had come from. The other wolf pointed his nose forty-five degrees to the right and wagged his tail slightly. Christian set off, loping easily through the woods, enjoying the run despite himself.
He'd been trapped in the city too often lately. He'd buried himself in his work. Now he realized why. He'd been lonely.
Vegas was a city of tourists, dreamers and losers. It was a city of glitz and false hope with a dark underbelly of despair and degeneration.
On the surface it had suited him. Easy women, casual hookups to scratch a need that came less and less, plenty of work to keep him from noticing the lack of a family other than the cops he worked with, the lack of mate, the lack of anything to tie him in one place and say home. Now the word home and mate and Mystic were interchangeable.
Images of her being mounted by other men once again drew his attention away from the trail he was following. Christian growled deep in his throat and forced his thoughts back onto the matter at hand.
The wolves had given up their chase of the vampire a long way from where the hunt ended with the rising of the sun. Christian stopped when he got to the place where three different scents mingled, two male, one female.
Gabe shifted form and said, "I smell three of them here."
Gabby followed suit. She stood and stretched in her human form. "It was over quickly but it sounded like there were at least four wolves hunting." She shrugged, extending the movement into a roll of her shoulders. "There might have been more. As soon as the screaming started they stopped yipping and howling."
Christian shifted form and gave the other two a cursory look. Both of Mystic's friends were lean and fit, completely comfortable with their nudity as a result of growing up in a pack.
He was older now, self-confident, but he'd only rarely run alongside other wolves. The part of him raised human always took a second to adjust, to shut down its learned modesty.
Even though they were still in a wooded area Christian could feel the ascent of the sun. "I can run a little longer before I have to head back. I've got to go to work. If the wolves set Moore free at dark and ran him until sunrise, it could take all day to find the start of their hunt."
Gabby frowned. "Do you think they started from a house? Or are you thinking they parked along some deserted road?"
"I'd guess they hauled their victim out here by car or truck. But at some point they were human. Those are the scents I'm most interested in."
"So you can start trolling through wolf haunts in Vegas?" Gabe asked.
"Yes, unless I find out the driver's license was old and Moore had moved on to another city. He might have been involved with werewolves somewhere else, or maybe pissed off some vampire with connections to these Weres."
"How likely is that?" Gabby asked.
Christian shrugged. "It's an angle that needs to be covered."
Gabe nodded. "So you're a cop?"
Christian looked at him and wondered where the conversation was heading. Any number of times he'd found it dicey dealing with a Were from a pack. He suspected Gabe's pack was an old, well-established one or they'd never have been entrusted with Mystic's care. His gaze dropped for an instant to the brand above Gabe's pubic hair but the symbols were meaningless to him. "Yeah, I'm a cop."
"Do you like it?"
"Yeah. I like it."
"Even working for the humans?"
"Is it so different than working for pack members?"
Gabby snickered. "It's probably better to work for humans. Unless you're alpha, working for the pack means you not only get ordered around all day long by those with higher status, but when you get together at night, you still get ordered around by them, along with their mates and sometimes even their adult children."
"So don't work for pack members," Christian said, knowing how impossible it was even as he said it. There was no separation of home life and work life when you were part of a pack.
A knot tightened in his stomach as his thoughts flashed to the two men who were fucking Mystic. Roman he could deal with. But what if Hawk turned out to be her second mate?
Christian shuffled through the memories Mystic had shared with him and saw the other man's brand. It was different than the one Gabe and Gabby wore.
"Tell me about Hawk," Christian growled and the tension ratcheted up when he saw Gabby's instant nervousness.
"Do we really have time for this?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be trying to find where the hunt began?"
Christian didn't want to let the subject of the other man drop. But Gabby was right. If they didn't keep going then the only thing to come of this trip would be the knowledge Mystic had fucked two other men and he'd lost his claim as her sole mate.
They shifted into wolves again and ran. A short distance away they encountered the scent of two additional males, then much further they found the place where the five wolves had joined up with two more, a male and a female.
Christian shed the wolf's body in order to study the ground with his human eyes. His wolf smelled blood and fear, traces of urine along with the unmistakable scent of sex.
Gabe and Gabby continued to sniff the area for several minutes. Then Gabby plopped down to wait while Gabe became human and walked over to stand next to Christian.
"Weird," Gabe said. "Neither female is in heat but the males fought about something then all of them fucked one of the females. Maybe that's why they didn't catch the vampire before sunrise, they got sidetracked."
Christian found himself smiling. It felt good to have a nonhuman to discuss the scene with, one with the same acute senses as he had. "That's one way to read the situation. Here's another. Five Weres raced ahead, two hung back. Maybe the two who hung back are weaker pack members and can't keep up. Maybe they're scared and don't want to have anything to do with actually killing a vampire. Either way, the five frontrunners are frustrated and pissed at losing their prey. They meet up, come back, and when they get to the two stragglers, the fur flies. The omega male gets rolled and bitten. The female gets mounted whether she wants it or not."
Gabe nodded. "Submissive pee. Blood. Sex. That'd cover the smells here. But taken all together, in this situation, it's way, way more human than wolf, even if everybody's in fur."
Christian had wondered as much but he couldn't fully interpret the scene. He had no frame of reference other than what he'd read about wolves in books. He had no experience with pack life or pack dynamics, and even then, since Weres were neither completely wolf nor completely human, he assumed their culture and behavior were a hybridization. "So you're saying something about the scenario is off for a Were pack?"
Gabe rubbed his brand in an unconscious gesture. "Yeah, here's the thing. Weres are as obsessed with lineage and history as the Angelini are. If you ask Mystic she would be able to tell you the name of every Renaldi ever born. She could also tell you in excruciating detail more history than you'd care to know and she's not even an A student." He grimaced. "Unfortunately, Gabby and I have been called weak links more than once by pack historians. We are more like F students."
In response to Gabe's statement, Gabby lifted her muzzle and howled, the final notes wobbling off as if she were snickering-or choking up. Gabe's laugh answered the question in Christian's mind though the other man's amusement quickly faded into a serious expression.
Gabe waved his hand over the ground where the Weres had fought and fucked. "The dynamic is all wrong. Having two Were females here and fucking one of them... This could be a lot worse than just a bunch of rogue wolves hunting a vampire for sport."
Christian wanted to howl himself. He didn't have a clue what Gabe was getting at but he guessed it must have something to do with pack lineage since Gabe had started the conversation off by mentioning it. "You want to translate that into something I can understand?"
Gabby shifted into human form. "What my brother is saying is there are no outcast female Weres. A pack would kill a female before she was allowed to leave and breed with either a human or a Were who wasn't acceptable. The packs are like the Angelini in the way they guard their females." Gabby grimaced. "Trust me on this. If I don't end up a skin on someone's wall when we get back to our compound then I'm going to end up under some bitch's thumb and never out of her sight until a wolfie mate comes along."
Surprise kept the usual burn of anger from settling in Christian's gut. With the Weres it always came down to pack. Whether it was by choice or birth or exile, a man without a pack was an object of contempt. It was one of the reasons Christian had little contact with Weres who wore pack brands.
"You're serious?" he asked Gabby. He wondered if it was because he was Mystic's mate that they were so open with him but he hoped it was something more, a camaraderie that would extend into friendship.
"Completely," Gabby said, "which brings us to the other part of what Gabe was getting at. There are two options here since all of them were wearing their fur. The first is they're young members of an established pack who came to Vegas for a wild night on the town."
"But there's a huge problem with that scenario," Gabe said. "The females would be under the protection of mates or male relatives. If you're right and the lead wolves came back pissed off and took it out on the two weaker wolves, then beating the male up, yeah, that's wolfie if he's Omega, but ganging on a female and sharing her..." Gabe shook his head. "I'm not saying it absolutely couldn't happen but we're not programmed that way, especially when we're in our wolf form and the female's not in heat. Even during a Howl when everyone is pretty much a horn-dog, only mated pairs go at it in their fur."
"Which leads to option two," Gabby said. "Some of the Weres, the females in particular, are made and not born. Maybe that'd explain why they smell...different...off somehow."
Gabe nodded. "Yeah, maybe. I thought I was imagining things. Figured if they actually ate the vampires they hunted it would account for the smell."
Christian's first reaction was, Now they're shitting me. It passed when he saw how both Gabe and Gabby were touching the brands above their pubic line as though they were instinctually seeking reassurance they didn't have to be afraid because they had pack to back them up.
"Are we talking Werewolves in London remade into Werewolves in Vegas?" Christian asked, keeping it light in case his gut was wrong and they were playing with him. He hadn't been around enough wolves to make a judgment about the smell of the ones they were tracking.
"Here's where hanging out with A students would do you a lot more good than hanging out with Gabby and me," Gabe said, cracking a small smile. "A better understanding of history and lore would come in handy right now. What I know is this, there was a time when humans were turned, or at least the ones who survived being mauled by pure Weres were. But it's been outlawed for centuries. The survival rate is low. And besides, it's not as easy to get rid of the bodies of the ones who don't make it as it was in the past."
Christian felt his gut tighten. Fuck. Being a cop in Vegas was tough enough with the down-on-their-luck players, the lowlifes and the human predators, now he had Were-Vampire shit on his plate.
He glanced at the height of the sun and wanted nothing more than to escape responsibility and take his new mate back to bed. "Let's see if we can find where this hunt started."
Mystic sat on the hood of Roman's sports car. She alternated between scanning the tree line and glancing at Hawk and Roman. They were leaning against Hawk's car, discussing history and giving her some space. Not that her body wanted distance between them. She ached to lean against them and soak in their warmth through her skin.
It was the thought of Christian that had driven her out of their arms and out of the woods. Rationally she knew he was going to have to see her naked between Hawk and Roman's bodies. Emotionally she wanted them all clothed when he returned to find out he had to share her with two other men, not just one.
No doubt her grandparents would be pleased, extremely pleased by Hawk and Roman. They might even be able to overlook her inability to shift to a wolf and the fact she'd managed to flout convention by taking a lone wolf as a mate. Mystic grimaced. Not likely. She knew better than to hope they'd see her as worthy of bearing the Renaldi name. She'd long ago given up trying to gain their approval.
Her eyes traveled down Hawk's body and up Roman's. Both men were looking at her, smiling in satisfaction.
Mystic's heart turned over in her chest. She had them. She had Christian. She had Gabe, Gabby and her parents. It was crazy to focus on grandparents she couldn't change when she had others in her life who accepted and cared about her.
Her gaze returned to the trees in the distance. She could feel Christian drawing near along with Gabby and Gabe. She slid from the hood of the car and landed on her feet just as the three wolves emerged from the woods in a lope. Happiness rushed through her at the sight of them. Seeing her friends running in their fur always made her smile but seeing them with her mate as though they were one pack made her heart expand with pleasure.
The wolves shifted form as soon as they reached the cars. Mystic went immediately into Christian's arm.
Home. As soon as Christian held Mystic against him he felt complete. Even the scent of Roman and Hawk and the unmistakable smell of sex didn't diminish the wild rush of joy and pleasure crashing through him.
He took her lips and never wanted to free them. He thrust his tongue against hers and desperately wanted to shove his cock between her lower lips.
For long moments Christian lost himself in his mate. She became his only reality until the need for breath finally ended the kiss.
He lifted his face and met her eyes. He could feel the wild tangle of her emotions as she clung to him. The bond between them was wide open and he knew with a thought he could see what had happened while he hunted with Gabe and Gabby. He didn't need to. He could feel her link with both Roman and Hawk.
The wolf had known even as it loped to where Mystic waited. Neither man had been touching her but both of them radiated possessiveness. Both of them stood with the confidence of the undefeated.
Christian wanted to rail against a fate that had given her to him then forced him to share her with two other men, but he couldn't. Her concern over his reaction, her worry over causing him pain left no room for anything in his heart but tenderness.
It's okay, he whispered along the bond. It had to be. There was no other choice.
"Did you find where the hunt started?" Mystic asked when she finally pulled from Christian's arms and reclaimed her seat on the hood of the sports car.
Roman and Hawk came to stand on either side of her. As Gabe, Gabby and Christian dressed, they described what they'd found.
Hawk's response was immediate. "Mystic needs to be returned to the Zevanti compound where she can be kept safe until we know what's happening here."
His words had a predictable effect. Roman and Christian stiffened while Gabby snorted a laugh and Gabe grimaced.
"No," Mystic said. Excitement and trepidation spun wildly in her chest, along with something else, a feeling of independence that made her almost lightheaded. She was no longer an unmated female subject to the protections and restrictions of Were, vampire and Angelini culture.
"No," Mystic repeated. She wrapped her legs around Christian's waist and her arms around his then pulled him backward so his buttocks leaned against the car and his body served as a shield. "I may not be trained as a hunter but I'm not going to be sent away, Hawk." Her chin lifted. "Gabe and Gabby and I could have stopped to stretch our legs a hundred other places. But we stopped here. I think there's a reason for it. I should already have a hunter's tattoo. This is meant to be my first hunt."
The responses from Hawk, Christian and Roman were entirely predictable and completely negative.
"No."
"No."
"No."
Mystic didn't bother to argue. She opened the mental link and let them feel the surety she'd felt as soon as the unplanned words left her mouth. The Angelini magic had brought them together for this very purpose.
All three men growled in protest. But all three accepted this was the price they had to pay for gaining the mate they'd each wanted.
"Are you going to try again to track the wolves back to the place they shifted form?" Mystic asked Christian.
"Not today. I've got to get to the station. I've got other cases going, important ones I'm close to wrapping up. Plus I want to find out what I can about the dead vampire." He glanced at the sky. "There's a chance it'll rain later. Most of the time it's not enough to destroy a trail but..."
Gabe said, "Gabby and I can come back. We need to get something to eat first and sleep for a while, but if we could find one of the roads we just crossed while we were tracking them and park there, we'd gain back some of the time by not having to start from here."
Hawk growled, a low frustrated sound. "I'll go with Gabe and Gabby. We can't risk that it'll rain and we'll lose the track. If we can find the place where the vampire was freed and catch the human scent of the wolves then it'll be easier to hunt them. They'll be frustrated by losing their chance to savage this vampire. My guess is they'll be prowling in Vegas, if that's where they're from, and looking for a new victim to amuse themselves with."
"I'll take Mystic to her hotel room," Roman said.
"No," Christian said. "I've got a house."