AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His eyes snapped to hers when she spoke, and the predatory spark in them had her feeling like a cornered rabbit with nowhere to run. Her pulse quickened, and the tip of her tongue snaked out to lick her lips. Dangerous. Oh yes. He was just her type.
“No problem.” He grinned down at her, showing a bit too many teeth. But he didn’t move, didn’t shift out of the doorway to let her by. “Do you need some help with those?”
The crooked smile accompanying that question made Lilith seriously consider tossing the pizzas in the trash and asking for his help locating the nearest bed. Hell, even a wall in the alley would work, for a face like that.
But… her sisters were waiting, and cold pizza wasn’t much of an apology gift, was it?
“Not today, puppy,” Lilith cooed, shouldering him aside and slipping out the door. Sure, maybe she brushed against him a bit more than was necessary, and maybe she lingered for just a moment to feel his hard chest pressed against her upper arm, but who could blame her? The guy was a snack. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he called after her.
Lilith shot him one last look over her shoulder, smiling at how intensely he watched her walk away.
Jasper watched Lilith until she turned the corner, disappearing around the block before he stepped away from the door and let it fall closed.
The street was swarming with scents tonight, but the wind was on his side. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of pizza and the faint odor of jasmine and…
Leather. Huh.
He started after her, carefully tearing apart her scent piece by piece. When Alastair had told them all to keep an eye out for the red-haired Witch and her friends, he’d shown the Wolves who worked at his nightclub photos of each of the four of them, pulled from the security cameras. But photos gave such little information that they were almost useless to Shifters like him.
No, they had a much better way of identifying people.
Jasper had spent enough time with Fey to recognize her by scent. Fuck, Alastair had smelled so strongly of her the last time she’d come by the club all he’d wanted to do was bury his face in his boss’s clothes and soak up every sweet trace of her. He’d spent that entire night constantly having to rearrange himself to hide his erection, and he hadn’t been the only one that night. Even Ferus had been on edge, snapping at everyone who came near him, and drinking more than usual to keep his calm. Wolves were drawn to power, drawn to the safety of forming a pack centered around a strong leader. Fey’s scent had them all practically drooling around her, and Alastair had no idea what it had done to his bar staff to walk around that night smelling so strongly of her, so strongly of sex…
And under that mouthwatering smell? Jasmine. And just a faint hint of leather.
The smell pulled at something deep in his chest, something he didn’t fully understand. He swallowed down the questions it raised.
It was dumb luck he’d gone out tonight to grab a slice of pizza for his niece before work. Pure luck he’d managed to catch a whiff of that scent on the wind.
Jasper tipped his head back, taking a deep breath of the cold night air. Oh yeah, it was her alright. Under the other Witch’s scent, there was Fey’s smell, fresh and thick.
It didn’t take much effort to follow her, not with the scent in his nose and the streets crowded enough to blend in easily. After all, there was a time in his life before Jasper had tended bar, a time before Alastair had convinced him to go straight, a time when stalking marks was all that kept him and his family eating. And that skill set did not fade, even after all these years.
The Witch led him a few blocks out of the main thoroughfare of his neighborhood, to a small apartment building. He paused, hidden well enough from view, and watched as Lilith fumbled with the building’s door and key code before disappearing inside. Watched and listened.
The street was buzzing with noise, and the building Lilith had entered held several well-illuminated luxury apartments. But though the lights were on, the curtains were all closed, and as Jasper listened, his hearing nearly as well developed as his sense of smell, he knew one thing with certainty.
Only one of those apartments was occupied.
Curious.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, Jasper kept his eyes on the building as he dialed the number from memory and listened to it ring.
“Hey boss,” he said into the phone when it picked up. “Guess who I just found.”
Chapter 31
“Take a deep breath,”
Fey drew in a deep lungful of air and held it. The Med Witch beside her pressed the flat of her palm against Fey’s back and nodded almost absently, feeling the air inside her.
“Good, that’s good. Okay, breathe out.”
Fey exhaled noisily. She’d endured almost an hour of poking and prodding and was quickly reaching her limit. It wasn’t the Med Witch’s fault, though it was an effort not to snap at her to hurry it up. Having a stranger touch her, run their hands over Fey’s wounds and weak points, made her skin crawl. And this was the same Witch who had seen her immediately after she’d been pulled from the river, the Witch who had seen Fey at her most broken and vulnerable.
Something about that—knowing this stranger had held Fey’s life in her hands—made her feel weak in a way she wasn’t used to. A way she didn’t like.
