Energy radiated off his skin, his wolf close enough to the surface that I could feel the nearness of his shift from across the room. He looked up, his dark eyes fixing on me.
“Who did you bleed here?” he asked, prickly wolf energy rolling off him.
Crap, he’s going to shift. Completely, this time. And he’d only shift if he planned to attack.
My back hunched, the hair on my neck lifting in reaction to the buzz of pissed-off wolf in the room. I stumbled back, barely realizing I was backing up until I hit the wall.
Cornered. A spasm shot through my hand. Blood ran between my fingers as my claws forced their way through my fingertips.
Degan’s eyes moved to my hand, and his coat slid to the floor, his knees bending as he prepared to shift. Crap.
Nathanial flowed in front of me. Where Degan radiated his anger, his intent to do violence, Nathanial was the eye of the storm—still, calm, and about to destroy the clanless without mercy. I had to defuse this situation. Fast.
I waved my clawed hand. “Stop!”
Neither man looked at me.
“Mooncursed luck. Nobody died here, Degan.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. The pitch of energy turned up a notch. Wolf. Fear jumped up my throat. My feet urged me to run.
I didn’t run.
My instincts told me Degan was one of the good guys. I have to stop this fight.
Nathanial continued to stand between Degan and me, deceptively still as he responded not only to Degan’s threat, but to my fear of wolves. I swallowed. I can’t just cower. I pushed away from the wall and looked around. How am I supposed to convince Degan no one died when the room is filled with the scent of blood?
Well there was one way.
I darted around Nathanial and jerked at the buttons on my shirt, but one arm hung useless at my side and my claws made it hard to operate the buttons. Degan’s skin split over his back. I was out of time. With a frustrated growl, I ripped the shirt, rending both layers I wore. Pain tore over me as I jerked the fabric off my body. I swallowed back a curse and stepped around Nathanial.
“It’s my blood.” I dropped the shredded shirts to the floor, revealing the jagged suture marks running the length of my arm. “My blood.”
Degan’s human bones were already reshaping into a wolf’s form, his muscles making wet sounds as his joints popped.
He’s too far gone. His eyes were clear, though. He watched me, and I saw the alarm in the still mostly human-shaped face. Then his skin sealed back around his body.
His human skin.
I blinked in surprise. I wouldn’t have been able to reverse a shift that advanced. He was powerful, a lot more powerful than I would have guessed. But lethal energy still rolled off him, enough energy that he could have shifted again.
Immediately, if needed. I gulped, feeling very vulnerable, standing half-naked and injured in front of this fallen Torin.
My instincts better be right.
Degan stalked across the room, his nose flaring as he moved into my personal space. Nathanial was suddenly there, between us. He threw only one punch, and the clanless shifter crashed into the wall. The thud shook the room, but Degan rolled to his feet. Stood. I wrapped a hand around Nathanial’s bicep before he could move forward to continue the attack.
“Don’t. He wasn’t going to hurt me.” Or at least, I didn’t think he’d planned to.
Degan rolled his shoulders back, but while his stance was defensive, he ducked his head. It was an apologetic, almost submissive gesture. “I should have announced my intentions. I wish only to analyze your mate’s scent,” he said, nodding at Nathanial.
“He’s not—” My teeth snapped shut before I finished the sentence. In Firth, a male shifter would never touch a mated female without her mate’s permission. Nathanial and I had shared blood, which had mingled our scents. My cheeks burned. With our merged scent—mating was a logical assumption. Denying it would damage my credibility. Besides, after what almost happened in this room… I didn’t finish that thought. Dropping my gaze to the floor, I muttered, “It’s complicated. Nathanial?”
He was staring at me again, as if he was trying to figure out my thoughts but couldn’t follow them. I didn’t have a great track record for good decisions. I could only hope I was making one now. If my poison-tainted blood was what had drawn Degan here, there were only two explanations as to how I could have picked up the scent of the murder victim.
One was when I shared blood with Tatius. The other was Akane’s venom. I was betting on the latter. If we knew who killed the Collector’s vampire, we’d have one very powerful bargaining chip.
Slowly Nathanial nodded, but his eyes revealed how unhappy he was with the situation. He unbuttoned his shirt and slid out of it before holding it out to me. I accepted his help into the shirt, which hung halfway to my knees, and let him button it for me. I guessed Degan didn’t give a damn about the fact I’d been nearly nude—most shifters didn’t, but covering myself seemed to make Nathanial feel better, so I did.
Once Nathanial stepped back, Degan approached slowly, as if giving the vampire time to protest. It was a very polite action, very much something I’d expect of a well-bred shifter—not one I anticipated from a shifter severed from his clan, branded criminal and untrustworthy. Of course, maybe he was just trying to save his own skin.
He didn’t touch me when he crossed into my space, he simply leaned down, his nose within an inch of my skin. Air moved through my hair and across my throat as he inhaled. A shiver threatened to tremble up my spine. Part fear, as the scent of wolf enveloped me. Part not-fear, as his breath touched my throat. Geez, a couple vampire bites and Tatius has already programmed a response into me. The thought pissed me off, but there was no denying the truth.
Degan stepped back, his features drawn in as much confused skepticism as when Nathanial had made an empty wall turn into a door. “Your blood is in that tub, but your confusing, convoluted scent isn’t the only one. And you have no hint of the tainted smell I’m tracking.”
That last bit was actually relieving. Biana drew out all the poison. Good to know. But, as Degan backed away, his confusion became the prickly heat of his wolf. He was confused, and until he figured it out, we were enemies. I could see his reasoning, could even understand it.
“I was poisoned. By…” I wasn’t sure how to explain Akane.
“A foreign snake shifter. The blood is from drawing out the poison.”
“A snake?” He tilted his head back, his nostrils flaring.
He breathed in again, and his beast subsided, his energy sliding back under his skin. I nearly sighed with relief. He believed me. I mean, it was true—mostly—but I hadn’t been sure he’d believe me.
A smile cracked across his face again as he shook his head. “Nothing’s been sane since you came to my city.” Then, scooping his battered coat from the tile, he shrugged it on and headed for the door. “Come on. I’ll take you to the corpse I found.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wind tickled my face as Nathanial carried me soundlessly through the air. We trailed the clanless from just above streetlight level, wrapped in the tightest illusion Nathanial could command. Being on the street increased the danger of being caught, but Tatius was the only Haven vampire strong enough to break Nathanial’s illusion. With any luck, he was still preoccupied with the Collector. But he might not be. He might be out searching. It was a chance we had to take.
Nathanial agreed with me, knowing more about the decapitated body could help us.
So far, there was a human body with a missing head, and a vampire head with a missing body. We were either about to see the enforcer’s body, or there had been another murder.
The towering buildings rushed by on either side of us and made the flight more nerve racking than normal—or maybe that was because I could only cling to Nathanial with one arm. Nathanial had fashioned a makeshift brace for my butchered arm and buttoned a borrowed coat over me. The nervousness could also have something to do with being wrapped in the warm circle of Nathanial’s arms again, but Nathanial was completely focused on his illusion and on trailing Degan.
If his thumb didn’t occasionally trace a line along my spine, I’d have thought he’d forgotten I was even pressed up against him. There was no hint of the heat that had been between us earlier. I hated the twinge of disappointment I felt at that fact.
Nathanial’s secret home was close to Sydney Park, but Degan’s path led us to a busier, more nightlife-oriented area of town. I tensed as we flew past Death’s Angel, but no legion of vampires burst through the door determined to drag us back. Soon its black lights faded behind us. We were only three streets from the club when Degan ducked into an alley and stopped.
The clanless shifter hadn’t looked behind him for the entire trip—Nathanial had told him he wouldn’t be able to see us following—but now his gaze roved the street, trying to find us.
Nathanial landed behind Degan. Snow crunched under my bare feet as Nathanial lowered me to the ground, and Degan spun around, energy leaking into the night. His eyes narrowed, but he only nodded in greeting, not voicing the agitation I could feel swirling around him. I didn’t hold it against him—predators get cranky when you startle them.
“This way,” he said, moving beside the boarded windows of a closed nightclub.
A hint of acrid smoke clung to the building, offering a clue as to why it looked condemned, while the rest of the area hosted a thriving nightlife. Degan shoved his fingers under a large piece of plywood and pulled it aside easily. Too easy, even for someone with a shifter’s strength. Clearly this has been used before. The question was whether Degan had made the makeshift entrance or if he’d just stumbled over it.
He disappeared into the dark opening, and I moved to follow, but Nathanial held up a hand, stalling me.
“In case this is a trick,” he whispered. Then slipped around the crooked slab of wood.
I gave Nathanial a five-second head start—it had taken him mere seconds to subdue Degan earlier—then I pulled the wood aside with my good hand and slid inside.