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I hadn’t decided whether to take the job, but I did my due diligence anyway. Wasted precious minutes pretending I was interested in other items in the gallery beyond the bracer so the security footage wouldn’t look so suspicious if this turned into a crime scene.
In fact, I was snapping photos of a Viking’s helmet when the scent of wolf once again surrounded me. This time it was closer. Stronger.
I whirled...then relaxed as I took in the same ugly shifter I’d met downstairs.
“You’re very recognizable,” I greeted him.
I’d intended my words as a compliment, my face blindness meaning that I often couldn’t pick out people I’d met only once or twice or, let’s be honest, seven times before. The stranger didn’t take it that way.
Instead, he sidestepped as if once again opening up my escape routes. His face tilted away from me so I could only see the unscarred left side, and his voice was apologetic as he rumbled, “I didn’t intend to startle you.”
“I wasn’t startled,” I began. But my nostrils flared and proved me wrong.
Because I didn’t smell wolf now. I smelled wolves, plural. More than this single gentleman in a shifter’s malleable skin.
I spun, not quite comfortable with having the wolf I knew at my back but even less comfortable with being unable to see the wolves I didn’t know. There were two of them. Both just as tall as the one behind me but totally different in every other way.
The one on the left was white, tattooed, and decked out in studded leather. A biker or biker wannabe. Definitely someone I’d cross the street to avoid passing alone at night.
The one on the right was black, clad in a suit that could only be tailored. As perfectly featured as Marina while still exuding virile masculinity. This one the chatty girls would have eaten up.
Still, something about his eyes suggested his gentility lay only skin deep. His wolf scent was overwhelming. The hairs on my arms stood on end.
So I was relieved that the biker spoke instead of the more dangerous man beside him. “What’s this?” he asked, his eyes skimming over me then rising to meet those of Mr. Ugly. “Tank?”
Tank’s answer confirmed his identity. “She was here when I arrived.”
For half a second, I relaxed into the already familiar rumble. Scary men stood between me and escape, but Tank wasn’t scary. He was gentle beneath his massive exterior. The kind of man who forced himself into a small box for the sake of skittish teenagers.
And...his breath was hot against the back of my neck.
Maybe not so safe then. Tank had advanced without me realizing, sandwiching me between himself and the other two shifters. His earlier sidestep now seemed less like politeness and more like baiting a trap.
A trap I’d blithely strolled into.
I swallowed. Tried to talk my way out of a situation that would have been better avoided. “Look, I have a card in my pocket from the local alpha. He’s granted me permission to hunt here....”
“Does it look,” Scary Suit asked, “like we’re interested in cards?”
Adrenaline consumed me. Fight or flight. Unfortunately, neither was an option at the present moment. Not when I was penned in by shifters, each of whom boasted double my mass....
Reprieve came from an unexpected source.
“Are these men bothering you?”
The interruption materialized into an ordinary human. Museum security guard, if his uniform was any indication. Late fifties, chubby around the middle. Nowhere near a match for one of these werewolves, let alone all three.
Still, his official tone and the gun at his hip promised an authority that might just get me out of this mess. I grasped at the offered straw.
“Yes,” I answered, tarring all three shifters with the same brush. Never mind that Tank had been nothing but polite to me. I tried to ignore the bitter disappointment wafting from him as I continued, “They were.”
The guard lifted his walkie talkie, calling in backup. I slid out from between the trio of werewolves, expecting at any moment for a hand to slam down and pin me in place.
None did. No one stopped me. Not even the security guard as I slid past him, through the arch, and hurried down the hall.
Four museum patrons seemed to be too much for one security guard to juggle. So I didn’t have to use my backup plan—begging for a bathroom break then using the ladies’ room as a staging ground for escape. Didn’t have to give my name and address. Just slid away from the werewolves and the human authority figure like the burglar I was.
I did spare a hint of remorse for Tank. But I doubted he’d be held up for long. After all, security cameras would confirm the men had only spoken to me, never even touched me. The guard would have no reason not to let them go.
Which meant I needed to make tracks before they were released. My tennis shoes snicked softly against marble as I plummeted back down the main stairwell. The front entrance drew me, but a stray thought changed my trajectory. Scent trails. It had been a year since my last run-in with other werewolves, so I’d almost forgotten. I needed to think less like a human and more like a wolf.
I wasted thirty seconds spinning through the smelliest aisle of the gift shop. Scented candles were always good for overwhelming a lupine nose....
They certainly overwhelmed mine. I had to pinch my nostrils shut to prevent a sneezing fit as I inserted myself amid a large family exiting the museum. These humans were just as stinky as the space I’d rushed out of. Fruity shampoos and manly body washes. Helpfully foul. I let their forward momentum carry me two blocks in the wrong direction before peeling away to strike off on my own.
That should be enough. Or at least I hoped so. The benefit of a city—there were too many people passing to make it easy to trace a single scent trail for very long. Add on my evasions and any followers wouldn’t stand a chance....
Not that I really expected the trio to track me. They had no reason to. Yes, I was a female shifter, but I didn’t possess the enticing chocolate aroma of a pack princess. My half-blood heritage had provided that much for me at least.
And my wending route away from the museum had turned up an unexpected side benefit. A fleeting glance down an alley caught golden arches on the next street over. Perfect. I’d pick up another salt packet for Harper before heading back to my car....
I was halfway down the alley when the scent of wolves rose around me. Halfway down the alley when something leapt from above, landing on my back and bearing me all the way to the ground.