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“I bound a little of the spell to the pendulum, so it’ll act as a compass pointing us in the right direction.”
Holding up the chain of the pendulum, she demonstrated how the weight at the end was pointing away from her hand as if being pulled by an invisible force. Right now, it stretched roughly northwest.
“We’ll just have to get as close to the point on the map as possible and then follow the pull of the pendulum the rest of the way.”
A smile snuck onto his lips. “You’re amazing.”
She softly sucked in air, then lowered her gaze, her cheeks painted a lovely rose.
The road ended in a small parking lot surrounded by trees, with trailheads leading into the woods. He parked the car, and they got out, sprinting through the rain toward the trail the pendulum was pointing at. Once under the cover of the trees, the rain decreased to a drizzle, the foliage keeping most of it at bay.
Tallak shook his head, spraying water all around, then pulled off his T-shirt to wring it out. Unerringly, Hazel’s eyes tracked to his bare chest, and she watched him with quiet hunger, just as she’d drunk in the lines of his muscles earlier when the rain had plastered his T-shirt to his body. Preening just a little inside, he made sure to flex just so as he wrung out the fabric.
Gotta give her something to look at, after all.
He donned the T-shirt again, and they continued following the pull of the pendulum, the woods breathing moisture all around them. Ferns covered the ground left and right, blanketing the forest floor in lush green.
Up ahead, a rest area came into view, featuring a pavilion that was open on three sides, with one solid back wall made of wood planks.
The pendulum pointed straight at it.
Hazel shared a look with him, and then she carefully approached it, studying the wall.
Tallak’s eyes traced the faded marks on the dirt floor between the set of picnic tables with attached benches. Crouching down, he stirred the soil a little, then brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled deeply.
“Blood,” he said.
Hazel shot him a sharp look.
“Old, though. At least a week or longer. But there’s a lot of it here.”
She took a deep breath. “This is it, then.” Her gaze flicked back to the wall. “The sigil must be on there.”
Again, she pulled out her knife and the jar, and Tallak tensed. Damn. Maybe if he breathed through his mouth, the scent of her blood wouldn’t hit him like a drug this time? Accompanying her on this mission might not have been the best idea if it meant he’d have to endure her slicing her veins open four fucking times right under his nose while he fought the maddening need to lap up her blood and feed her his own.
“Here.”
He blinked down at her phone, which she held out to him.
“Take a few pics of the sigil when it appears.”
Right. The sigil. That was what they were here for. To document the bloody sigil so Hazel could get ahead with her investigation, and not to have a primal exchange of bodily fluids that would bind them together for all eternity.
Right, yes.
With effort, he wrenched control over himself back from the demonic side of his nature, beating the mating urge into submission. Still, it was a tremble in his bones, a buzz under his skin, making his hands shake as he took the phone from her.
Unaware of his inner struggle, Hazel slit her wrist and bled into the jar, then splashed the blood at the wall. As before, at the other murder site, red lines appeared like a neon lamp flickering on, glowing with magic.
Breathing stubbornly through his nose, the scent of her blood nevertheless thick enough to tease his senses, he did his damnedest to steady his hands and snap a series of pictures of the sigil before it faded back into obscurity.
“Got it?” Hazel asked.
Fuck, I sure hope I did. He wouldn’t make it through smelling more of her blood right away in case he fucked up the photos and she had to bleed even more. He needed the time it’d take them to drive to the next location to calm the fuck down and get his instincts under control.
Hazel took the phone from him and swiped through the pictures. “Good,” she said and pocketed it.
He heaved a sigh of relief, walked a few steps away, and inhaled the moist forest air. He could still taste the aroma of her blood way back in his throat. Dammit.
