In her wolf form, Aimee Roux tried to keep up with the woman she thought might be her cousin, Cassie--the Greek name meaning she entangles men.
And yep, right there, seducing a naked man in a lake, was Cassie--if it was her--enticing the man to come to her. Without any effort, she was doing a great job of it, too, suckering him right in. Aimee admired her, wishing she could be just like her.
So what did Aimee's name stand for? French for loved. Loved all right. Every relationship ended in disaster. But worse than that, she swore she was always at the wrong place at the wrong time when bad things were going down.
Aimee had to chase after Cassie, had to know the truth. No longer was she solely focused on keeping out of a would-be murderer's path. She had a new goal: to discover if the woman was truly Cassie.
The truth, though, could kill Cassie. When she learned her cousin hadn't died but had caused their family's deaths. Aimee groaned. She had made a royal mess of everything.
The man from the lake grew closer to her hiding place, and when he sprinted past, she lifted her nose out of habit and took a sniff of his scent. Her heart nearly quit beating. He smelled like one aroused hunk of a lupus Garou.
She planned to skirt way around his trail so she could catch up to Cassie without running into him when he suddenly stopped and lifted his nose and sampled the air.
An icy wave of recognition washed over her. The man probably captured her scent. What if he was a member of the same pack as the men who intended to kill her? One of their friends?
She bolted into the woods away from him and Cassie and hoped like hell he wouldn't take chase because he'd catch her for sure.
* * *
Axel Ash had every intention of catching up to Cassie, convincing her to stay with him for a while longer, and learning more about what she had seen.
If she thought she was tracking a wolf, and it was someone from his pack, he had to convince her to move on before the situation got out of hand. When he reached the place where she had dashed off, he paused and smelled the air to sense her mood.
But what he sensed astounded him. A female wolf?
He sniffed the air some more. The feminine fragrance of arousal scented the air also but coming from the direction his woodland nymph had dashed.
Turning his head, he sampled the air again. Hell. He'd wished by some miracle Cassie was a lupus Garou. He couldn't smell a lupus Garou in the direction she had run. The unfamiliar wolf smell came from the area he had just passed.
Torn with indecision, he wanted to go after the woman who challenged him like an alpha female would and looked him over like she wanted to ravish him right then and there, who had danced with him like she wished to never let go... that's who he wanted. But a lupus Garou female was what he needed.
He switched direction and headed for the wolf's scent when someone stomped through the crisp fall leaves blanketing the ground, coming from the direction that Cassie had run and headed his way. Was she returning to speak further to him?
Instead of Cassie, one nearly out of breath, red-faced sub-leader, Elgin, materialized out of the thick woods and headed straight for him. To Axel Ash's profound disappointment.
Then three more of his men soon followed. Fergus, his other sub-leader, looked just as reluctant to give him any bad news.
Hell. No way would Elgin and the others come here to speak to him unless something was wrong with the pack. Talk about lousy damn timing.
After a brief hesitation, Elgin stroked his beard and then hurried to join Axel Ash. He seemed resigned to share whatever ill tidings he had, and damn the consequences. Which Axel Ash was grateful for, hoping the pack he'd taken over last fall would soon heal.
He started to ask if Elgin or any of the other men had seen Cassie. She'd been dressed as though she was hunting lions in the jungles of Africa, and the notion intrigued him. A huntress at heart, not just a wolf observer. He sure as hell wished she was a lupus Garou, too.
He shook his head at himself. The red hair and the olive green eyes caught his imagination--the built-in triggers for wanting to see a red lupus Garou in every redheaded female he came across. And the urge to race after her still lingered in his blood.
He took a settling breath. "What's wrong, Elgin?"
Elgin cleared his throat. "Quincy, Pierce, and Sarge took off in their wolf coats across the valley and are headed in this direction. I've sent our men out searching for them, and any who spies them is to report back.
Since no cell phone contact is available this far out, I came to warn you. They had a good head start, and at a wolf's run, they could be anywhere by now."
Axel Ash growled under his breath, "Any indication why the three of them took off?" Way too early for the cover of darkness to help shield the wolves from human sight.
Elgin's frown deepened. "We assumed Sarge was antsy from being newly turned and couldn't stop the change."
Giving a dark and disgruntled sigh, Axel Ash took off in the direction of his Humvee, hiking at a vigorous pace through the forest, while Elgin and the other men hurried to catch up.
Ensuring the men didn't get caught in their wolf coats was tantamount to their secrecy and safety. But as soon as he finished this little task, he was determined to learn the truth about the wolf he'd smelled.
He just had to set aside the unfathomable urge to locate Cassie.