And no scent of curs.
He growled in frustration. “Ingrid didn’t come in or out of the tunnel.”
“Then we have to go on,” Cassie whispered softly. “We know she was in the wine cellar. We can pick up her scent there.”
He shot a glance over his shoulder, meeting her stubborn glare. “And what if this is a trap?”
She managed to look even more stubborn.
Stubboner.
Was that a word? If not, it should be.
“I’m not leaving until we find the trail leading to my sister.”
He turned to move down the tunnel, muttering beneath his breath. Man, it had to be the greatest cosmic joke ever. Fate had given him his deepest desire and transformed him into a pureblood Were only to punish him with the constant pressure of keeping the most endangered creature in the entire world safe.
He was supposed to be enjoying a carefree existence at the top of the food chain, surrounded by his adoring harem and collecting hordes of ill-gotten gains. Hadn’t that been his fantasy?
Certainly, it hadn’t been creeping through the dark, tormented by the fear that he was somehow going to fail the female who’d become an essential part of his life.
Fingers tightened on his waistband, and his bout of self-pity was forgotten as the scent of warm female and lavender wrapped around him.
Cassie.
He wouldn’t trade one hour with this female for all the harems and fortunes in the world.
Oh, how the mighty were fallen.
Shaking his head at his foolishness, Caine followed the tunnel that led straight to the cellars beneath Salvatore’s lair. Then, as they reached the heavy wood door imbedded with iron spikes, he sucked in a deep breath, not at all comforted by the strange void filling the air.
There should be some odors.
On full alert, he reluctantly shoved the door open, doing his best to keep Cassie behind him as they entered the room, which had a dirt floor and cement walls lined with towering shelves that held hundreds of dusty bottles. In the center of the room sat a collection of aged-wood barrels and across the vast space were a number of arched doorways that led to storage alcoves and high-tech refrigerators.
Focused on searching the nearby shadows for an ambush, Caine nearly missed the slender, blond-haired Were that was sprawled in a chair next to the wine racks, apparently knocked unconscious.
He did, thankfully, sense the moment Cassie prepared to launch herself across the room. Grabbing her arm, he grimly held on. “Wait.”
“It’s Harley,” she hissed, straining against his grip. “We have to help her.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist, speaking directly in her ear. “Cassie, there’s something missing.”
“What?”
“Smell.”
“I don’t smell . . .” She stiffened as she realized there wasn’t any hint of her sister’s scent in the air. “Oh.”
On the point of shoving her back through the doorway, Caine felt the air stir as one of the shelves swung open to reveal a hidden chamber. He had a brief impression of a small cement-lined cell before his attention turned to the two matching curs and dark-haired witch who spilled out of the cramped space.
“Very good, Caine,” the female cur mocked, obviously overhearing their private conversation.
“Ingrid.”
Caine’s lip curled in derision as his attention shifted to the male cur. The twins looked like Tweedledum and Tweedle-dummer on steroids with their matching buzz cuts and muscular bodies bulging beneath the olive wife-beaters and cammo pants. He’d always been creeped out by Ingrid’s overly intimate relationship with her twin, and not just because Dolf was a magic-user.
His opinion of the two hadn’t improved when he discovered the male had managed to get turned into a cur.