“What kind of person names their kid Skye?”
Max snorted. “Probably some nature-loving hippy who wears daisies in her hair.”
“Yeah,” he murmured distractedly, his thoughts already drifting back to the hunt that had brought them there, and away from the human’s unusual name.
For the past three weeks, he and Max had been hunting a...puzzle. A monstrous one, but a puzzle no less. One they wanted solved so badly they could taste it.
It had all started with a string of missing persons’ reports that Monroe had asked them to look into. Some unusual happenings around the disappearances had caused Monroe, whose sister was married to a Lycan from the Silvercrest pack, to suspect that there was more to the case than his human agents would be able to handle. Something dark and sinister and predatory—like an animal on the hunt for its prey—and Monroe had been right to be suspicious.
When Elliot and Max had worked over the crime scenes, their sharper-than-human senses had picked up clues that the FBI had failed to notice. Things like the faint, musky scent that clung to the locations where seven different women had simply vanished.
That was the killer part of the case right there. All of the victims were female...and human...and exceptionally beautiful. And now they were just gone, with no trace of them left behind for their loved ones to cling to.
There had been no bodies recovered, which meant that if the psychopath responsible was killing them, he was smart enough to hide the victims where they were difficult to find. But Elliot didn’t think that was the case, and Max agreed with him.
Instead, they believed the women were being kept. Imprisoned. And undoubtedly used. Though at this point, they couldn’t be sure of anything. All Elliot knew for certain was that he and Max planned to find those women, set them free and make the one responsible pay. With blood and pain...and ultimately death. That bastard deserved no less, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be shown any mercy.
“Okay,” Max murmured, drawing Elliot from his thoughts. “Let’s do this thing.”
The late-afternoon sun glinted against the shiny metal as Max tossed the coin into the air. It spun, then fell into his waiting hand. Max flipped the coin onto the top of his other hand, then revealed the outcome.
“Congratulations!” the jackass said with a smirk, knowing the noisy diner would grate on Elliot’s nerves. “Looks like you get to go in and meet the mysterious Skye.”
Shaking off the cold chill that had started to settle over his shoulders, he jerked his chin toward the front of the retro-styled diner. “Guess it’s a good thing it takes a hell of a lot to poison our guts, huh?”
“Hey, you never know,” said the guy with a cast-iron stomach. “It might taste freaking fantastic.”
“Or like shit.”
“That, too,” Max agreed with a laugh. “But look at it this way—at least you get to relax for a while, while I’m off to venture even farther into this shit-stain of a town in search of her friend.”
“Just hurry and get back here,” he murmured, shoving his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want to be waiting all night. We don’t know how much time we have before they try to take them, and Mase’ll kill us if we have a showdown in the middle of a human town.”
“Mase would understand.”
This time, Elliot was the one who snorted. “After he kicked your ass.”
Max laughed as he pulled out his crumpled pack of cigarettes. “The old man could try.”
“Yeah, right,” he muttered, enjoying ribbing his friend. “Even you’re smart enough to know not to mess with those guys.” At twenty-seven and almost twenty-nine, he and Max were by far the youngest of the Runners. But while Mason and the other guys were into their forties now, they were in their freaking prime. As lethal and powerful as they’d ever been, and some of the dirtiest fighters Elliot had ever seen.
Which meant Max would undoubtedly get his pretty ass handed to him, seeing as how the guy’s conscience was still a bit more human than wolf. He could be just as deadly as the rest of them, but there was always a subdued edge to Max’s brutality. A sense that he was doing what his head told him had to be done, rather than his heart. It made Elliot worry that his friend might hesitate a second too long one day, instead of fully trusting the instincts of his wolf. And those types of delays could be costly...especially when dealing with the kind of monsters they came across.
They chatted for a few more seconds, while Max lit his smoke and took a deep drag. Then they said their goodbyes, and Max turned to head back to his truck.
Unable to shake the sense of foreboding that was climbing up his spine, Elliot shouted, “Watch your six!”
“You, too, man,” Max called back over his shoulder, before disappearing around the corner.
Instead of heading straight into the diner, Elliot decided to stay outside for a while, where it was quiet. He propped his back against one of the gray lampposts that ran down the snowplowed street, content to simply have a few moments to himself while he watched what was going on in the place through its massive front windows.
There were three waitresses working the floor, but none of them matched Hewitt’s age or description. Not that they had all that much to go on. He and Max caught a lucky break back in Philly, where the last abduction had taken place. A drug addict, who had been sleeping under some cardboard boxes in an alley behind the club the victim had been taken from, had listened to a group of what he described as “big, badass-looking men” as they’d discussed their next “targets.” The jackass hadn’t done a goddamn thing to help the woman who was dragged into the alley, bound and gagged, and tossed into the back of a white delivery van. But he’d at least been able to tell Elliot and Max fragments of the conversation he’d overheard.
According to the addict, who had never come forward to the police officers who had canvassed the area, the men were meant to drop off the woman they’d taken from the club with their employer, and then head to Charity, where they would track down two young roommates by the names of Skye Hewitt and Vivian Jackson. And while Vivian certainly seemed to be in keeping with the employer’s taste—lean and brunette and exotically beautiful—Skye was the exact opposite. A so-called “wholesome, pudgy blonde.” She sounded more cute than drop-dead, in-your-face gorgeous like the other victims had been. But Elliot didn’t give a crap what she looked like. He just wanted to find her, and protect her, while hopefully getting a lead on where the other women were being held.
With Skye and Vivian’s names, as well as the town they lived in, it’d been easy for Monroe to track down their current address and places of employment. A few carefully worded phone calls, and the Fed had even managed to get the Runners both of the women’s schedules, which was how they knew Skye’s shift would be starting any moment now.
As if he’d managed to make her appear by simply thinking about her, the swinging door that Elliot assumed led to the kitchen was pushed open, and a woman walked through, coming into view. A young woman who looked to be in her early twenties, with thick, lustrous hair falling down past her shoulders, a curvy body and a smile that made him suck in a sharp breath, just before his body jolted like he’d been kicked in the stomach.
Son of a bitch, he thought, pressing his hand against the center of his chest. The sight of her smiling face had just knocked the air out of him so hard that it hurt.
Elliot narrowed his eyes as he stared at the woman, eating up every detail like his wolf with a bone. With his keen eyesight, he could see the letters on her nametag: S-K-Y-E. It was really her, Skye Hewitt, and Jesus, she was...different. But in a good way. In an “I can’t stop staring, would probably kill to get closer to her” kind of way. And, um, yeah...that was unexpected.
As Elliot stood there like