Izzy could not stop smiling. She was back in the air, co-piloting Dev Crandall’s Bell UH-1H Huey 10 helicopter, sailing over the glorious peaks and valleys of the Cabinet Mountains. Best of all, Luke was with her.
She should tone it down, though. It seemed rude to be so happy when they were searching for two missing cops and a murdering asshole of a cougar.
“Why do you think this is a good place to search for your rogues?” Izzy asked as the rotors spun down. When Luke had called Dev earlier, she’d been so thrilled at the prospect of flying again, she hadn’t paid attention. “Seems kind of remote. Even for weres trying to stay on the down-low.”
From the air, she’d seen no signs of habitation for many miles. The land was rugged and wild, with lots of steep slopes and deep, narrow gorges. They’d strapped snowshoes to their backpacks, but Luke had said they wouldn’t need them for most of the trek. She could see why. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much snow on the ground. Probably because it was so freaking windy. It howled across the mountain face, making the evergreens dance and sway. Good thing she was from Chicago and used to such pissy behavior from Mother Nature.
“It is,” Luke said. He rubbed a spot on his chest like he had heartburn. “It’s on the edge of our territory. One of the sections Vaughn supposedly searched.”
She tugged her knit hat down over her ears. “And you don’t think he actually did?”
“I don’t know. No one’s heard from or seen him or his deputy, Sam. So I can’t ask them about anything. They didn’t show up at the party last night, they’re not answering their phones, and no one knows where they are. We thought it’d be a good idea to recheck all their sections.”
Dev and his son Davy, who’d already shifted into a wolf, joined them outside the helo. “I just don’t see either of those guys turning rogue,” Dev said. Davy barked his agreement.
“Won’t know until we find them,” Luke replied, his voice stiff and cold.
They fanned out into the trees, the wolf and men making no noise. Hell, not even the snow crunched under their boots. Izzy, on the other hand, sounded like a bull in a china shop. If there was a twig on the ground, she stepped on it. A low-hanging branch, she bumped into it.
Luke kept her close as he scanned their surroundings, his face taut. She wished they could go back to his cabin where his eyes had been free of shadows.
In a low voice, he said to her, “This is a good time to learn to use your nose. Open yourself to your wolf’s senses. She’ll help you. Don’t worry if you can’t name the scents yet. Just describe them.”
Right. Good thing he’d given her the caveat, because city girl that she was, she had no idea what most of these trees were called. Well, Wolfy, what do you think?
Over the last two days, Izzy’s wolf had evolved from a terrifying, headache-inducing buzz to an almost-physical presence in her mind. If she closed her eyes, sometimes she “saw” the silver creature pacing or lying down.
Like now, she didn’t know if it was her imagination or not, but the wolf snorted at her, as if annoyed. What? Izzy asked her. Don’t like Wolfy?
This time, she was sure she heard a disdainful huff.
I’ll work on it, she promised. What do you think? Izzy breathed in deep, trying not to get squicked out by the undeniable sensation of something else stretching inside her.
Izzy’s human brain told her she smelled snow and green things—definitely some pine, maybe cedar. The wolf, though, provided more detailed answers in the form of pictures that flitted through her mind like an old film reel. “Whoa,” she said under her breath.
“What?” Luke asked, helping her step over a fallen limb.
“It’s just...wow.”
Finally, a smile turned up the corners of his gorgeous mouth. He brushed the backs of his fingers down her face. “Yeah. It is. Tell me what you smell.”
“Well, there are all the trees, of course. I got some birds and rabbits. A big deer. Davy and Dev, and you. She’s showing me pictures. Does that sound nuts?”
“No, sugar. We all communicate with our other halves in different ways. Pictures are great. As you grow more comfortable with each other, she may give you something more verbal.”
Remembering last night, Izzy snorted. “She’s real comfortable making her position clear on one particular subject.”
“Oh?”
A blush warmed her wind-whipped face. “When it comes to you, the word ‘mine’ comes through loud and clear.”
“Isabelle,” he said with a low, sexy growl. “When we get home—”
A sharp bark from Davy made Luke spin around. They were already running when the second bark and Dev’s shout reached them. As they cleared the next rise, the stench hit them. Izzy didn’t have to ask her wolf what it was. Some primal part of her brain recognized it and wanted to get the hell away from it.
Death.
With lead feet, she followed Luke into a dense copse of trees. Crows cawed and flapped in the branches, swooping back and forth in front of Dev and his son, where they crouched at the edge of a deep crevasse. Man and wolf wore identical, curled-lip expressions. Luke reached them, peered over the edge, and swore viciously.
Izzy didn’t want to look. Whatever was down there was horrible and would stick with her for a long time, maybe forever. Didn’t she have enough nightmares? Yet her stupid, disobedient feet carried her onward, right to edge.
Heart pounding, she fought the urge to look. And lost.
Fifty feet below, the crows hopped and pecked at a jumbled pile. For one blessed second, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Then the puzzle pieces clicked together into a picture straight out of a horror film. Body parts—bones with hunks of bloody meat still attached—poked out of the snow. An arm flopped as the carrion eaters fought over it. One huge crow perched on the head of a man with short blond hair. The bird hopped to the ground, revealing the man’s face and the way the mouth hung open as if in a frozen scream. It struck Izzy like a bomb blast.
She fell to her knees and retched as the memory of where she’d seen something similar stormed the walls she’d erected three years ago, and tore them down. He looked like the poor guy her sister had killed and so helpfully showed her in a suicide/cautionary video.
Luke’s enraged roar scattered the jabbering birds. As they flew away, Izzy saw a deputy sheriff’s hat lying near the body.