He’d barely noted the cloaked figure going into the brothel. But his interest was aroused when he saw her slip through a side door. And then when her scent reached him…
Raoul opened his mouth slightly, letting air coat his tongue with the taste of woman and sex. She’d been with the demon-possessed human recently. She’d held her body open and let him spend his seed inside her.
It had marked her. And unlike the brand on her hand, there was no hiding it—at least not from a Were.
She was secondary prey, not as important to him as the escaped prisoner. He’d line his pockets with the reward Anton offered for her if he could, but he’d sacrifice her if necessary.
Raoul’s lips pulled back in a feral smile. With a fresh trail, he could easily track her, and he would. The only question was whether to leave the hunt until after he’d met with Levi, or to take it up now.
Alone he could subdue the female. She might be deadly skin to skin, but he had the armor of his fur if necessary, though he’d have to be careful. Even in the red zone he’d be fair game in anything but a humanoid form.
His attention swung back to the brothel. Perhaps it would be better to wait, at least until he learned whether Levi had taken the bait and decided to help him turn the prisoner and the woman over to the maze owner.
As if on cue, the lion emerged from the brothel. Raoul averted his eyes, wary the other Were would feel the intensity of his gaze and find him lurking in the shadows.
It was far harder to suppress his anticipation. Would Levi head toward the bar and their meeting? Or would he decide to go to the maze and attempt to trade whatever information he had to Farold or Anton in exchange for the werelion they held there?
The woman must have come to the brothel and spoken to Levi, delaying him. Otherwise Raoul would have expected Levi to leave earlier in order to get to the meeting place in time to make sure it was safe.
At the end of the street, a waif-thin young boy changed from a run to a walk as if fearful the shapeshifters who controlled and worked in the whorehouses wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from pouncing.
Raoul laughed silently. Stringy muscles and narrow bones, he’d killed a boy just like this one at dawn and left the carcass for scavengers after finding there wasn’t enough meat to waste his time trying to eat it.
The boy approached the brothel, squaring his puny shoulders as if preparing for their ridicule and taunts. “I’m lookin’ for a Were named Levi,” he said, his voice still a child’s.
“I’m him,” the lion said, leaping down the steps in a graceful bound.
“Got a message for you. From the healer, Rebekka.”
Raoul snarled in frustration at seeing his trap ruined. If he’d been close enough to rip the boy’s throat out, he would have, just to keep him from saying more.
“Where is she?” Levi asked.
“With the Wainwright witches.” The boy extended his arm, offering a tattered handkerchief. “The healer wants you to come to her there. She sent the cloth, so you’d know the message was real.”
The boy opened his hand, revealing a darkened token. “This is from the witches.”
“What do they want?” Levi asked, not taking the coin.
“Nothin’. They said if you didn’t want to take it, showin’ you was good enough. I’m to return it to them before I go home.”
“And if I take it?”
“Then you can pass through the wards at the border of the red zone without pausin’. And you can come see the healer without worryin’ about spells and such.”
“So they’re offering safe passage?”
The boy shrugged. “I reckon. I don’t know. I’m just deliverin’ the message.”
“Did you see the healer?”
“Sure, least I think it was her. She told me her name and said I was to tell you the trapper’s son was back with his mother.”
A low growl sounded in Raoul’s throat before he could stop it. He should have killed the toddler when he had a chance. If the messenger boy spoke true, then in all likelihood the compound was already abandoned, Eston’s mother gone and spreading her legs for some human male who offered protection.
Everything Raoul had been working for seemed lost in a single cruel sweep of fate as Levi took the handkerchief and token, then headed toward the red zone border without even a glance in the direction of the bar where they were to meet.
Raoul fought against changing form, his muscles strung tight in his fury. He wanted to chase the lion down and slay him, to slaughter the messenger boy as well. But reason prevailed.
He left the alley and found the scent of the prisoner’s woman. Sex-laden, marked. Easy to follow. And in doing so, he found he wasn’t the only one who’d recognized her.
His path crossed with two guardsmen as they emerged out of a brothel bar moments after the cloaked figure passed. He recognized them both—the one named Jurgen, and the other, Salim, who’d been driving the jeep when they tried to intercept the healer and the Were.
Another time Raoul might have decided it suited his purposes to kill the humans competing for the same prey, especially since these particular humans were responsible for letting the healer escape with Eston. But already he was adapting, realizing there were other females he could take for a mate. Virgin females who could be bought or stolen or captured.
Claiming his father’s woman would have been the ultimate in victory, the ultimate vengeance. Taking her would have satisfied him the way pissing on his father’s corpse had, but if she was already soiled by another human—
“You’ll take a third of the reward?” Jurgen asked, breaking into Raoul’s thoughts and verifying his suspicion they were all after the same prey.
Tasers. Netguns. Pistols. It took only a second for Raoul to inventory the weapons they wore on their belts openly because of the insignia patches sewn onto their shirts.
“Equal shares,” he said, agreeing to the partnership though he didn’t trust the guardsmen any more than they trusted him.
“Good.” Jurgen touched his netgun as their prey turned a corner ahead of them. “You take the street to the right of her. I’ll go left so she can’t use the alleyways to get away from us. Salim here will catch up to her and drive her forward. If she keeps going she’ll hit the open space near the maze. I can net her there, then taser her until she’s real compliant and real helpful about answering our questions.”
Salim’s hand settled on his gun. “What if she comes at me? I’m not going hand-to-hand with her. Not after what she did to Nelson.”
“Nelson touched her pussy. As long as you don’t do that, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Farold said—”
“Shut the fuck up already. Shoot her and kiss off collecting any money. Even if she lives, a gun going off is going to bring the vice lords running to claim their take. Don’t get close if it’s going to make you shit your pants. Just let her know you’re coming after her and keep her moving so I can use the netgun.”
“Okay, okay,” Salim mumbled.
“Split up,” Jurgen said as they reached the street parallel to the one their prey had turned on.
FEAR spread through Tir like an inky black stain. His jaw ached from unconsciously clenching it as he worked his way through pages of long-dead languages, translating one symbol into another and then another and another, until he came upon a word he could speak and whose meaning he knew.
Prayers. Invocations. Incantations.
All of them using his blood to heal. Most of them turning it into something separate and living, something that could be offered like wine in a cup without his presence being necessary.
His emotions swirled like a building storm. For centuries he’d kept his sanity by imagining himself in possession of the translations. And now—