Kelley Armstrong - The Hunter And The Hunted

I opened the door and was crouching at the entrance when a yelp made me jump. Down the hall, a middle-aged woman stumbled back into her room, chirping to her husband. For a moment, I thought, Hell, I wasn’t even sniffing the carpet yet . Then I remembered I was naked.

I slammed the door and stalked into the bathroom for a towel. Humans and their screwed-up sensibilities. If that woman saw Elena dragged down the hall kicking and clawing, she’d tell herself it was none of her business. But God forbid she should catch a glimpse of a naked man. Probably on the phone to security right now.

Towel in place, I cracked open the door. When I was certain it was clear, I crouched, smelling the carpet. No trace of Cain. A quick glance around, then, holding the door open with my foot, I leaned into the hall for another sniff. Nothing.

I paused there for a few deep breaths, sloughing off the fear, then strode into the room to search for clues. The answer was right there, on the desk. A page ripped off the notepad, Elena’s looping handwriting: salty crab + no water = beverage run .

Shit. We really should have grabbed more water earlier.

As I pulled on a T-shirt, I told myself Cain was long gone. I’d had him in a death-hold before he could lay a finger on me. A sensible mutt would take it as a lesson in misplaced arrogance, swallow the humiliation, get out of town and find a doctor to set his jaw before he was permanently disfigured. But a sensible mutt wouldn’t have gotten himself into that scrape in the first place.

Cain would back off only long enough to pop painkillers. Then the humiliation would crystallize into rage. Too cowardly to come after me, he’d aim a sucker punch where he thought I was most vulnerable: Elena, who’d just strolled out alone into the night, having no idea that a mutt had been stalking her all day because I hadn’t bothered to tell her.

Shit.

As I tugged on my jeans with one hand, I dialed Elena’s cell phone with the other. Elena’s dress, discarded on the chair, began to vibrate. Beneath lay it the purse she’d taken to dinner, open, where she’d grabbed her wallet, leaving the purse-and her cell phone-behind.

I grabbed my sneakers and raced out the door.

I didn’t bother checking the gift shop. Elena had already decreed the water there too expensive. Jeremy and I might have had some lean times during my childhood, but Elena knew what it was like to wear three sweaters all winter because you couldn’t afford a coat. Even if she could now afford to buy the whole damned gift shop, she wouldn’t give them three bucks for water that cost half that down the block.

Normally, I respect that, but this was one time that I wished to hell she’d just spend the damned money.

I strode out the front doors, stopped and inhaled. A couple glowered when they had to drop hands to walk around me. I scanned the road, sampling the air. Finally it came. Elena’s faint scent on the wind. I hurried down the steps.

There was a convenience store on the corner, but Elena’s trail crossed the road and headed down the very alley where I’d lain in wait for Cain that afternoon. What the hell was wrong with the shop on the corner? Was the water ten cents cheaper three blocks away? Goddamn it, Elena!

Even as I cursed her, I knew I was really angry with myself. I should have warned her about the mutt. If I’d honestly believed I could keep her in my sights twenty-four hours a day, then I was deluded. Elena would see no reason why she shouldn’t run out for water, even at this late hour. She was a werewolf; she didn’t need to worry about muggers and rapists. But a pissed-off mutt twice her size?

I broke into a jog.

The moment I stepped into the alley, I smelled him. He must have been waiting outside the hotel, formulating a plan. Then his quarry had sailed out the front doors… and waltzed straight into the nearest dark alley.

By the time he had gotten over the shock at his good fortune, he’d lost his chance to catch her in the alley. She’d exited, walked a block, then… cut through another alley.

Goddamn it!

I raced to that alley, then pulled up short. Cain stood at the far end, his back to me, gaze fixed on something across the road. Elena.

I could drive him toward her… if she’d known he was coming. I circled to the next side road, hoping to cut him off. As I approached the end, I moved into the shadows.

Elena was still there. I could sense her, that gut-level calm that says she’s near.

The streets and sidewalks were empty. Our hotel was in a business section of town. That had looked good when I’d picked it online-surrounded by restaurants and other conveniences. But we arrived to discover those conveniences weren’t nearly so convenient when they closed at five, as the offices emptied.

Around the corner, I saw yet another quiet street, vacant except for a lone shopper gazing at the display of a closed clothing store. I had to do a double-take to make sure it was Elena. It certainly looked like her-a tall, slender woman in jeans and sneakers, her pale blond hair hanging loose down the back of her denim jacket. But window-shopping? At a display of women’s business suits? This honeymoon must have been boring her even more than I thought.

As she studied the display, her gaze kept sliding to the right. I squinted to see what was drawing her attention, but the streetlights turned the glass into a mirror, reflecting…

Reflecting Cain across the road behind her.

She knew he was there. I exhaled in relief. The sound couldn’t have been loud enough for Elena to hear, but she went still before pivoting just enough to see me.

She grinned and started to turn. Then her smile vanished as she jerked her attention back to the window and motioned, palm out, for me to stay put.

A quick sequence of charade moves as she kept her gaze on the display. Nose lifting to inhale, fingers gesturing to the alley to her right, the stop signal again-warning me there was a mutt in that alley.

Another flurry of gestures to say she’d handle it and I could settle into backup mode. Then, mid-motion, she stopped. A slow smile, teeth glinting in the darkness. Seeing that smile, I knew what she was thinking before she glanced over, lips forming the word.

“Play?”

My grin answered.

No game is fair-or much fun-when one of the parties doesn’t realize he’s playing. So Elena took care of that first. She started by drumming her fingers against her leg, her head twisting his way, a subtle hint that she knew Cain was there and was growing impatient waiting for his next move.

While I couldn’t see the mutt, I could picture him, poised at the end of the alley, rocking on the balls of his feet, seeing Elena’s signals but afraid to misinterpret.

She glanced over her right shoulder, hair sweeping back as her face tilted his way, and I didn’t need to see her expression to imagine that, too. I’d seen it often enough. Lips parted, eyes glittering beneath arched brows, a look that translated, in human or wolf, into, “Well, are you going to come get me, or not?”

Cain slingshot from the alley so fast he stumbled. Elena laughed, a husky growl that made me lock my knees to keep from answering it myself. As Cain recovered, she turned my way with a grin. Then she took off, breaking into a sprint, hair flashing behind her.

Cain teetered on the curb and stared after her in confusion and disappointment, the human telling him that a woman running in the other direction wasn’t a good sign. She stopped at the next corner and turned to face him.

He stepped off the curb. She took a slow stride back. Another forward, another back, and it wasn’t until the dance had gone on for ten paces that the wolf instinct finally clicked on and he realized that to her, running away didn’t mean “I’m trying to escape” but “Catch me if you can.”