Naked for Her Two Masters(16)

“Plus there’s the contents of her backpack and we know unless she has something in her jeans pocket, that’s all she has.”

“About the only thing she could fit in her pocket without us noticing it would be a credit card and that’s useless up on the mountain without a working cell phone,” added Raleigh.

Kingston had to agree. Even the smallest of cell phones would have been visible in her pockets as she’d gotten dressed. He’d watched her carefully, which was one reason why he’d been slower than her. “Tomorrow morning I want to do an Internet search on everything she’s told us.”

“I might walk down the mountain a little way and see if there’s any evidence of people being around,” said Raleigh.

“That’s a good idea. I should have thought of that myself. What if we both go as wolves? We can cover a lot more ground faster that way. Then we can do any web searches when we get back.”

“That sounds good. What time do you want to meet, and where?”

It was very late and they both needed some sleep. “Eight out front suit you?”

“See you then.” Raleigh stood up, nodded, and left.

Kingston knew he should take a shower and go to bed, but he sat and thought about Andorra and everything she represented for a long time before he finally moved.



* * * *



Raleigh couldn’t help running down the three flights of stairs out onto the sidewalk in front of the building. For someone who lived in a werewolf shape-shifter community on a mountain, he didn’t get out in his wolf form anywhere near often enough. He always seemed to be working, with endless deadlines hemming him in and stealing all his free time. But this morning the sun was shining, the air was warm, and he was looking forward to a good long run.

His fur was sandy brown and mottled over his body whereas Kingston was plain dark brown, almost black. But he was longer than Kingston and faster than him if they decided to race. Kingston had more stamina, though. He’d never known Kingston to be completely tired the way he got occasionally.

Kingston came out of the front door and hit the ground running, heading for the hot spring. Raleigh had guessed that would be where they started their search, since it was where Kingston had found Andorra. It was a good three miles over very rough rock, but with four feet it was an easy run, leaping from rock to rock where a human would have had to climb.

Kingston stopped on the lip of ground overhanging the pool and Raleigh guessed this was where he’d been when she’d seen Andorra. He pictured her lying in the water, soaking, and it was a very sexy picture indeed. Still, there was no sense getting aroused now when he couldn’t do anything about it, so he walked slowly around the hot spring, his nose to the ground, and easily found her track. He signaled Kingston then began running again, following her without difficulty now as she’d taken the most obvious route for quite some distance, then veered to the left. At first he wondered why, then smelled the river. Not that it had much water in it up at this height, but he soon found where she’d camped the night before they met her. He looked all around very carefully but there were absolutely no signs of a tent or any other equipment or people.

Kingston shook his head and led now, following her trail down the mountain. They were able to move much faster in wolf form than she’d moved. Plus, they not only knew the mountain, but were also going downhill, not up. Still, it was barely midday when they found her campsite from the previous night. Once again there was no sign she’d had company or a tent. There were signs of a small fire, but when Raleigh scratched a paw through the ash there were no bones or debris from a meal. There’d been no trash in her backpack either, and if she’d buried it or dumped it on the track, they’d have smelled it. More thoroughly this time, Raleigh searched her campsite but there was no trash. The only conclusion was that she’d told the truth about having run out of food and not catching a fish that night.

He stepped into the water. The river was very shallow here and he stood still, watching intently. Finally he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a tiny fish. But only one, so it was quite believable she’d had no food.

Kingston changed back into human form and said, “Just because she was telling the truth this far doesn’t mean there’s not a whole team waiting for her a mile down the track. Can you trail her down farther while I go back and start doing the web searches?”

Raleigh wagged his tail enthusiastically. It was the perfect day for a run, and suddenly he’d much prefer to be racing up and down the mountain than sitting inside tapping the keyboard of a computer. “Be back by dark,” said Kingston.