Mate Bond(46)

The back of the hotel gave onto a small empty lot. Kenzie dashed across  it to an alley that led between stores in this touristy part of the  town. She scattered a clump of cats who were investigating trash cans in  the shadows and ran out into the street beyond.

A flash of movement took her attention to the right. Gil was still  trying to cloak himself, to blend into the white mist that was rising in  the dark. He couldn't hide from Kenzie's Shifter sight, though, and she  wanted to laugh as she sprinted after him.

The road Gil ran down ended in woods, which Gil plunged into. Kenzie dashed after him.

A motorcycle roared up behind her, Pierce's back tire skidding as he stopped. "Kenz, wait."

Kenzie flung off her jacket. "I'm going after him. Either stay here and guard my clothes or come with me."

"Damn it, if anything happens to you, Bowman will take my head off."

Kenzie ripped free of her sweatshirt, kicking off her boots. "Tell  Bowman you tried to stop me, and I fought you. He'll believe that."

She started running even as her jeans slid away. She tossed her  underwear behind her, becoming wolf before she went another three  strides.

The woods here were so thick snow hadn't made it to the forest floor.  The carpet of old pine needles and mud was frozen, cold and slick under  her paws.

Kenzie had been raised in dense woods in the Transylvanian  mountains-wild country, and remote. She'd roamed far and wide as a cub,  fearless in her innocence.

Even now, she was more at home in woods than in towns. She craved clear  air; to feel the ground, not concrete, beneath her feet; and untainted  wind rushing through her fur.

Gil's distinctive scent lay in a clear trail before her. Foolish man-or  whatever he was-to think a Shifter couldn't track him. Out here it was  even easier, with fewer human scents to get in her way.

Gil could run, though, Kenzie gave him that. He was moving almost as fast as a Shifter could. But not quite.                       
       
           



       

She burst through the trees, terrifying smaller creatures who huddled in  the night, and caught sight of Gil ahead of her. Kenzie rejoiced, the  wolf in her ready to land on the man and tear into him. The human part  of her that abhorred murder and wanted answers was almost as furious.

Gil was pounding along a narrow trail, nothing ghostly about him . . .  until he disappeared again. Kenzie put on a burst of speed, determined  not to lose him.

She slid to a halt on the edge of a ravine, her paws backpedaling, dirt  and pine needles raining over the edge into the darkness.

Crap. Had Gil gone down this? Fallen to his death? Or did he know a secret path?

Kenzie howled. Partly to let Pierce know her location, partly in frustration.

She could still see and scent pretty well, so she started picking her  way along the edge of the cliff, testing ways down into the ravine. She  heard water below, one of the many rivers and creeks that crisscrossed  the mountains. Rushing water, not frozen, meaning a fair-sized stream.

She sniffed, catching a tang of scent that might be Gil's. But it was  confused now, damn him. He'd known exactly where to go to elude her.

After a few false starts, Kenzie found a path that was solid, somewhat  dry, and led downward. She had no way of knowing how far she could go  before the trail petered out, but she took the chance. If she turned  back now, she might never find Gil.

Mist rose as she descended. The ledge on which the path ran widened,  keeping her from having to walk too close to the edge, which was fine  with her.

The mist was clammy rather than cold, as though she'd left winter behind  as she descended. That made no sense-the mountains here were in the  five- and six-thousand-feet range, not like the Alps, or the Rockies or  Sierras. The change in climate from top to partway down shouldn't be  that radical.

A thicker mist suddenly engulfed her. Kenzie sneezed as warm air flowed past her nose.

She heard her name. "Kenzie!"

It was Gil, shouting at her, his dark voice suddenly near. Kenzie whirled around, but she couldn't see him in the mists.

"Kenzie! Shit, don't . . ."

Don't what? Kill him? Drag him back to Shiftertown so Bowman could play jump rope with his guts?

"Kenz." Gil's voice was softer, breathless, but Kenzie still couldn't find him. The mists obscured everything.

She tried to retrace her steps, to move toward his voice, but she  couldn't see a damn thing. Her paws slipped in mud and she fell.

"Aw, crap," Gil said. "I can't . . . reach . . ."

His voice faded, and the mists cleared. Kenzie could see the woods  again, but the trees were different, deciduous rather than evergreen,  the forest floor covered with dead leaves, not pine needles.

But this was all wrong. It smelled wrong, felt wrong, looked wrong.  Kenzie's throat closed up in sudden panic. The stink around her, the  magic squeezing her, made her dizzy and sick.

"I think he meant don't go in there," a cool, crisp voice said in the  clearing mists. A female voice, speaking English but with an accent  Kenzie couldn't place. "Did not your grandmother in Romania always tell  you to keep away from the mists?"


* * *

"What do you mean, you lost her?" Bowman heard himself roar in fury and fear.

Pierce gave him the steady-eyed stare of the Guardian. They were in the  clearing at Turner's place, the trackers still going through his house  and the small sheds on his property. Cade and the others paused to  listen, uneasy.

Bowman's gut clenched in his growing fear. Pierce wouldn't have come to  find him unless something very bad had happened to Kenzie.

"She went down into the ravine, gone before I could get there," Pierce  was saying. "You know Kenzie. She wouldn't stop. She wanted Gil. And  then she just . . . disappeared."

"Show me where. Now."

"You won't find her," a man's voice said. "Not like that."

The now-familiar timbre and smooth inflection had Bowman's Collar going  off, snapping pain into his neck. Gil stood not six feet from him, his  expression quiet, the surprised trackers quickly surrounding him.

Bowman bellowed. He grabbed Gil by his shirt and had him up against the  wall of Turner's house before Gil could say another word.

"She was hunting you." Bowman cracked Gil's head into the wall. "Why won't I find her? What the fuck did you do with her?"

"I didn't do anything with her." Gil's words were choked, his eyes wide,  the man finally showing fear. "There are bad places in that woods. I  never meant for her to fall into one."

"Bad places? What bad places?"                       
       
           



       

"Ancient passages. Gates."

"Gates?" Bowman hated the sound of that. "You mean gates to Faerie?"

"Faerie, yes. And other places even worse."

"What other places? There's here. There's Faerie. There's the Summerland, where you are very close to heading. That's it."

"Not true," Gil struggled to say. "There are places even the Fae are  afraid of. They open on the ley lines, but not on every ley line. They  flick in and out. There's evil there, and people can be trapped."

Bowman sensed his Shifters closing around them, Cade now in his grizzly  form, his warm bulk reassuring. Jamie next to Pierce, the two looking  much alike with their brown red hair and lithe bodies, Pierce's sword  glittering on his back. Cristian, quivering in anger as he listened to  Gil explain that his beloved niece was lost.

Kenzie. My mate.

"Trapped," Cristian said when Bowman was unable to speak. "You mean in a pocket?"

Gil's gaze flashed to him, and he nodded the best he could with Bowman's hand on his throat.

"What the hell is a pocket?" Jamie asked.

"A piece of a world beyond," Cristian said, "where anything might be. Or  so my mother claims. She's always telling me to never go into the  mists. Romanian folktales, as I said."

"The pockets are real," Gil broke in. "They open and close. One can lead  to many different places or to other pockets. Some are stable, most are  not. Even the Fae are afraid of the mists."

Bowman's voice was harsh. "You're saying Kenzie is in one of these?"

"Maybe," Cristian said, at the same time that Gil answered, "Yes."

Bowman yanked Gil from the wall by his frayed shirt. "You will show me  exactly where you lost her. And if you're lying, and if she's dead, you  will come to understand the meaning of pain."

"That means no more haunting for you," Pierce said with cold humor.  "Your mutilated body would scare all the guests in your little hotel  away."





CHAPTER THIRTY




"Who the hell are you?" Kenzie called.

She peered between the trees and wet leaves of fernlike plants,  searching for whoever had spoken. She'd turned human as soon as she  heard the voice, but her sight wasn't as good in this form, and Kenzie  strained to see. It was lighter here, as though the sun were rising, but  that couldn't be. It was still the middle of the night.