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The girl was invisible, but her recent work wasn’t. Rumpled blankets. A pillow on the floor. A trail of blood spots leading toward another closed door behind which I noted the roar of running water.
“Nosebleed,” the girl informed me. “He gets them sometimes.”
I jumped. The girl—face young and eyes old—was closer than I’d expected. She’d brought the cigarette in with her, as if she didn’t care whether the real owner of what was clearly the house’s master suite knew she’d been inside.
“Might be a while,” she added, tugging at her top so it covered half an inch more of her bare midriff. Then, changing the subject: “Nice fur.”
Before I could take evasive action, her fingers slid into my pelt. Unlike Luke’s, her touch was neutral. Neither good nor bad. Just—there. Unfamiliar. Like a memory of a past when my entire family had romped together on summer evenings, frolicking in the forms of our wolves.
I stepped backward, away from the girl and the memory. Perhaps I’d search this room later. Still—there were two interior doors. Not just the bathroom but also what I suspected was a walk-in closet.
I eyed the teenager. She’d grown bored with me already. Had fallen backwards onto the bed and snuggled up into the comforter. The glowing tip of her cigarette was half an inch away from flammable sheets.
I felt like an old fogy as I warned her: “You’ll light the bed on fire.”
She grinned. Sucked in another lungful of smoke. Exhaled toward me. “We already did.”
No wonder her eyes were drifting shut now, her legs drawing up toward her torso. Her short skirt hiked up to display rounded buttocks, no underwear in sight.
I sighed. Snagged the cigarette out of her fingers. Dropped it into an empty glass.
Teenagers. Their interlude would have been entirely normal if not for the mention of money. The story might as well have been written in lipstick on the mirror.
On the girl’s part, the impetus was cash. On the young Smythewhite’s—rebellion.
Because Justice’s research had turned up basic information on the family whose house encompassed Bastion’s stolen pelt. They had one son—Clarence. The seventeen-year-old landed good grades, seemed smart, but had been arrested for dumb shit three times in the last year.
Shoplifting, graffiti, then reckless driving. Nobody had been hurt. Each time, his parents had bailed him out and found a lawyer who got the charges knocked down to community service. Each time Clarence had repeated the so-called mistake.
Which meant the teenage Smythewhite was still struggling to win parental attention. No wonder he’d snuck a girl into his parents’ bedroom while Mom and Dad were glad-handing donors downstairs.
Clarence wanted to get caught, and I needed to be in and out before that happened. Striding toward the interior door that didn’t lead to a shower, I yanked open yet another entrance into the unknown.
***
THIS ONE TURNED OUT to be a full-fledged room rather than the expected closet. Racks of clothes and shoes lined the walls. Spots to sit and change littered the space’s center.
There was a mirror. Cosmetics. A locked jewelry box.
No, not a box. More like a knee-high chest of drawers.
There were no furs though. Unless Bastion’s pelt was stuffed into the jewelry safe—unlikely—it really wasn’t there.
I was tempted to shift and use my wolf nose. But Clarence—the son—would be out of the shower shortly. Despite his penchant for rebellion, he might take offense if he found a four-legged invader in his parents’ domain.
So I left the most likely location behind me. Left the girl sleeping and the boy showering. Stepped out into the hallway...and into Luke’s arms.
“What are you doing here?”
His chest was hard, his voice a growl. Last night, he’d been playful. Tonight, he sounded like a territorial wolf.
I jerked backwards, and my pelt retaliated. I’d wrapped the fur firmly around my neck while preparing for the evening, but somehow it slithered free now to slide down into the space between me and Luke.
Our fingers grazed as we each attempted to grab the plummeting pelt. Luke made the first contact, and his grip was tighter than it had been previously. Pain radiated from my left kneecap all the way down to my toenails.
I must have gasped because Luke eased up instantly. “Honor?” His brows drew together. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. How could I explain that clenching my pelt had hurt me in the process? Especially now when the ghost sensation was turning into a caress?
Fingers slid up and down the soft skin on the inside of the pelt’s thigh...my thigh. They teased, tickled. I closed my eyes against the pleasure. Grabbed my fur out of Luke’s hands so abruptly I made myself flinch this time.
“Excuse me.” I turned blindly away from the heady source of pleasure. “I have to go.”
***
MY EYES REMAINED SHUT, as if glancing back at Luke would reawaken something too dangerous to mention. My fingers slid across the wall beside me, past one door, on to the next.
My theory here was simple. If the woman downstairs thought I was a bonus prostitute, then the room she’d pointed me toward must have been Clarence’s. A teenager was an unlikely possessor of a woelfin’s pelt. So I tried the third door instead.
Unlocked. Did these people have no concept of security?
Luke, of course, walked in after me. His presence raised hairs along the back of my neck.
“Go away,” I said without turning to face him. This was an office. Books, desk, computer. If a pelt was stashed here, it might be beneath the lap rug on the back of the sofa....
Luke slid in front of me as I headed toward the leather furniture. “Whatever you want from him, you can’t have it.” For a moment, I thought he meant the owner of this room. Then he clarified. “Clarence is mine.”
“Your what?” My question froze Luke long enough so I could sidestep and discover that there was no fur on the sofa. I rattled the handle of the wooden filing cabinet. Locked. But, like the wife’s jewelry case, the pelt was unlikely to be hidden within.
And...Luke hadn’t answered. This time, I hesitated rather than searching further, cocking my head and taking in the man who’d trailed me into someone else’s domain.
Out in the hall, he’d looked like he had every right to be here. Now, Luke shifted from foot to foot like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
I was intrigued. Part of me wanted to soothe his angst the way he’d soothed my ruffled fur. To ease whatever confusion had frozen him in place.
And yet...this was my ticket out of Luke’s presence. So I channeled my twin and tossed out a zinger intended to send my pursuer scurrying for cover.
“Clarence wouldn’t say you were his anything, would he?”
Then, before Luke could answer, I slid past him out the door.
***
THERE WERE TEN DOORS on this level. Four empty guest rooms. A den. Another office. A home gym.
I spent over an hour flitting between them, aware that Luke was up here also. Watching, waiting. I shrugged off the hair-prickling sensation, knelt to peer underneath yet another bed.
There weren’t even dust bunnies down here. The cleaning crew was impressive.
“...tomorrow?”
I nearly cracked my head as voices passed by in the corridor. First a thread of a whisper from a woman, then a male voice higher pitched than Luke’s baritone. Their words were muffled by the thick wood between us. All I heard was:
“...doesn’t matter.”
Had guests snuck upstairs like Luke and I had? Or perhaps servants were turning down beds for the night?
I was running out of time and I hadn’t seen hide nor hair—pun intended—of Bastion’s pelt This house was far too large to search without further information. If I stayed much longer, I’d be caught in the act of pawing through possessions not my own.
People passed down the hall again, this time in the opposite direction. No voices. Instead, the footsteps were harried and abrupt.
I ignored them, mind rushing through possibilities. Was there a way to bring Bastion inside, to use him as a homing beacon? The task would be tough since my cousin was barely ambulatory. Plus, we didn’t know the family well enough to wrangle an invitation....
My plans were derailed by a blood-curdling scream.