A painful memory from my past echoed Clint’s words. Dylan’s voice rasped against my soul, “Andrea McNeilly, you are mine.”
I shivered.
Chapter Fourteen
In any other district, the old brick multi-storied warehouse would’ve been a heritage building, but this was Gastown, the rundown part. The inhabitants were a homeless mix of drug addicts, criminals and the mentally ill with a population of unhealthy-looking sex trade workers that could’ve fit into any of the previous categories.
I stood on the street and looked up. The windows of the building had long been broken, likely from crackheads and other delinquents looking for a place to squat. The last owner had boarded the windows before they gave up and abandoned it. Multi-coloured graffiti added ‘character’ to all the exposed surfaces within reach. The layers of tags upon tags brightened the otherwise drab colour of the old, washed out and neglected bricks. There was a faint smell of fetid urine, and I knew from experience it grew stronger in the summer months.
This building had been the perfect location when I met with my handler. I didn’t know where Landen lived, what his surname was, or hell, if Landen was his real name. After becoming an SRD employee, I was given Landen as my primary contact so I could go off the grid.
I couldn’t shake the feeling my current plan would essentially peg me in the ass with a homing beacon and expose me to anyone who wanted to find me. Did it matter now? There was already a giant target on my back. All Lucien had to do was say the word and I was done. Nothing scared me more than being controlled by someone again—trapped, owned.
Focus on one thing at a time.
Right now, I needed to find Landen. When we were first assigned to each other, we’d gotten shamelessly drunk and fooled around. Well, in truth I got him drunk to learn more about him and to find out where he lived. With a performance worthy of an Oscar, I’d insisted we go back to his place.
When I returned to the townhome a week later, he was gone. His scent erased and left with no other clues, I couldn’t track him. He ditched and cleaned the place as a professional precaution, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. I’d thought my charms were invincible. My plan to learn more about my only point of contact failed, but it served as a bitter reminder of the world I lived in. Trust no one and no one trusts you.
All I knew about Landen was his physical appearance, his slightly floral scent, his preference for boobs over booty and where we met. Here. Since he conveniently left all my recent calls unanswered, my plan was to back-track his scent using my wolf—she was an excellent tracker. If Landen covered his tracks like he did years ago, my sole lead would be gone.
I ducked under the police caution tape—like that stopped anyone—for some crime committed in the past. The police had given up long ago on the case, without bothering to remove the tape. The metal double doors for the main entrance hung off their hinges.
Squatters had made this building their home until unusual sounds and animal sightings, a.k.a. me, scared them away. This place was now avoided like a hooker with a skin disease.
When I got to the room where I’d met Landen previously, I stripped down and neatly folded my clothes. I placed them in a pile on top of my shoes so they would touch as little of this place as possible.
The wolf form came easily—muscles stretched and bones snapped into place. I instinctively inhaled my surroundings and instantly regretted it. This building might smell bad as a human, but it intensified to something far worse with the heightened senses of the wolf. My fur shook as I exhaled the vile air.
There were so many different scents. I picked up the one unique to Landen and huffed in relief. He’d grown complacent. I sniffed the air again, targeted Landen’s trail, and followed it out of the building.
A wolf loping around the downtown core didn’t raise any alarms. For one thing, I wasn’t beastly huge like Werewolves and two, this city was riddled with coyotes and I looked pretty similar. Besides, the inhabitants of this area knew to look the other way and not ask questions if they valued their health. Most saw what they wanted to see—a slightly oversized coyote looking for food.
There had been an unfortunate incident years ago where an elderly lady thought I was a stray, rabid husky and called the SPCA on me. I was locked behind bars with a horny malamute and fed no-name dog chow for three days straight before I managed to escape.
Suppressing the memory, I followed the stale scent of Landen across the downtown core. He’d not been here in weeks, maybe not since we last spoke. I didn’t know if he handled any other agents. One time, he’d slipped and said I was “more than a handful.” Not sure if he referred to me as an agent, or my breasts. If he did have other agents, he’d have different meeting places for each of us.