We found her keys on the ground. They haven’t been disturbed.”
Raed looked at her and then back to Wulfric. “And you’re sure about the other thing I said on the phone?”
“Yes, you definitely can smell werewolf.”
“A what?” Cydney asked, thinking she had to have misheard him.
Wulfric met her gaze. “A werewolf.”
She stuck her finger in her ear and gave it a little wiggle before pulling it out. “I really couldn’t have heard that right. Did you just say a werewolf?”
Raed didn’t give Wulfric a chance to answer. “Are you sure this is the way you want Cydney to find out, Wulfric?”
He pulled his gaze away from her, and with his face devoid of all emotion, he jerked his head in a short nod. “Cydney isn’t going to want to leave. And we need to use every edge we have to see if we can find a trail.”
Not liking how the two men spoke as if she weren’t there, and feeling anxious about what she’d soon find out, she said, “Damn right I’m not going anywhere. Would someone explain what all this werewolf crap is about?”
Wulfric blew out a loud breath. “It’s probably better if I go first and show you.”
“Before you do,” Algar cut in, “I suggest you go wolf, and save the other until she has gotten over the first. I made that mistake with Kamryn, remember? And since we have to start the search for her friend, we really don’t have the time to calm Cydney down.”
The sound of her heart pounding with unease filled her ears. The way Wulfric and the others looked at her, as if they were prepared for her to react badly, had her a little scared about what Wulfric was going to do. Go wolf? What did Algar mean by telling Wulfric to go wolf?
Cydney soon found her gaze locked on Wulfric, and she was unable to move or say anything. In the bright lights of the parking lot, she watched as his eyes seemed to change, the iris taking up most of the white. His body blurred, and from one blink to the next, he’d shifted from a man to a wolf who stood staring up at her. His fur was a very light brown verging on a blond shade, a bit darker than the color of his hair.
“Holy fucking shit,” she all but yelled.
She backed away only to slam against a hard body. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Brand behind her. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms, preventing her from going anywhere.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s still Wulfric. Touch him.”
Not giving her a chance to protest, Brand slid one hand down her arm to her wrist and forced her to place her palm on top of Wulfric’s lupine head. His fur felt soft against her skin. He turned his head and rubbed it against her hand. She looked into his wolf’s eyes and saw intelligence and understanding. This was all so surreal. If she hadn’t seen Wulfric change, she wouldn’t have believed him if he’d just straight out told her.
Brand let go of her wrist. Cydney kept her hand on Wulfric’s head, stroking his fur. She didn’t feel as if she wanted to run screaming in terror. But that didn’t mean she felt any less unsure about what he could do.
But then his body blurred again, he grew bigger, taller and took on another completely different form. This one had her heart trying to beat out of her chest, and a trickle of fear ran down her spine. Wulfric stood seven feet tall. His body was completely covered in the same fur as the wolf had. He looked to be a cross between a wolf and a man with his large lupine head, pointed ears on top of his head, bushy tail and clawed fingers and toes.
“It’s still me,” Wulfric said, his voice deeper and gravelly sounding compared to his normal one.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs as if she were about to hyperventilate.
Hearing Wulfric’s voice come out of a wolf-looking mouth had her about ready to balk.
As if he sensed she was about to run, he reached out and pulled her to his furred chest.
She heard the wild thud of his heart under her ear, almost matching the rate of hers.
“It’s all right, Cydney. You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t hurt you. Just relax.
You’ll get used to seeing me like this.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The scent that filled her nose was the one she’d come to associate with Wulfric—masculine with a hint of the aftershave he always seemed to wear. His hands stroked her back and he rested his chin on top of her head. When all he did was just hold her, by slow degrees, her fear abated enough for her to calm down slightly and slow her breathing, so she wouldn’t pass out.
Putting her hands on Wulfric’s chest, she pushed back in his embrace and looked at him. It was hard to think of this half man and half wolf as being the man she’d slept with. But looking into his wolf’s eyes, she saw something that let her see into the soul of the man inside.
“What are you?” she asked shakily. “Are you a werewolf?”
“For now that’s the best explanation. We don’t have time to get into it. We need to see if we can pick up the trail of the werewolf that was here with Maggie.”
“You think one of your kind has her?”
Wulfric let out a low growl. “This one isn’t like us. This werewolf was sired by Fenris the wolf, one of the creatures me and my fellow warriors have been charged to put down. They’re bloodthirsty and prey upon mortals for sport.”
Cydney felt her heart race again. “Oh god. Are you telling me one of those things has Maggie?”
“We’re going to do everything we can to find her, Cydney,” Raed said. He then turned all business as he addressed the men around her. “Dolf, you’ll search with Wulfric. Garrick and Brand you team up while Algar and I will as well. One from each pairing will stay wolf while the other stays in human form.”
Cydney stepped out of Wulfric’s arms and watched as Raed shifted to his wolf form and sniffed the keys on the ground. Once he changed back, he said, “There are too many scents on it to pinpoint Maggie’s.” He stooped to look inside the car. “Cydney, can you tell me if the jacket on the backseat is your friends?”
She walked over to where Raed stood and peered into the back-side window.
“Yeah, that is Maggie’s.”
He picked up the keys, used one to unlock the driver’s door and reached inside to pull out the jacket. Raed held it to his face and took a deep breath. “I’ve got it.” He held it out. “Everyone take a sniff.”
“And be sure to check out the werewolf scent high up on the car door,” Wulfric added.
One by one, the others went wolf, checking out the two scents. As each one shifted, Cydney found it less jarring, and that she could accept it better. Dolf went last.
He buried his wolf’s nose into the jacket and his whole body visibly stiffened. A low growl rumbled out of his throat as he snatched the garment out of Raed’s hand with his teeth. He dropped it at his paws, threw back his head and let out a loud howl. In a blink of an eye, he shifted to his human form, picked up the jacket and held it to his face.
Cydney couldn’t help but notice how Dolf desperately clutched at what he held.
“Are those claws I see on the tips of his fingers?” she asked uncertainly.
“Aw, fuck,” Garrick said in a loud voice. “She’s his mate. It figures Wulfric and Dolf would find theirs practically at the same time.”
Wulfric punched Garrick in the arm. “Shut the fuck up, big mouth.”
Garrick rubbed where he’d been hit as he shot her a glance before looking back at Wulfric. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
What Garrick had said about Wulfric and Dolf slowly sank in. She gasped. “I’m your mate?” she asked Wulfric.
“Yes, just as Lexi is Raed’s, Kamryn is Algar’s and Nika is Garrick’s. But again, this is something we’ll discuss later.” He turned toward Dolf. “You have to pull it together, my man. If you go all wolf you’re not going to keep yourself thinking straight enough to find your mate.”