between us before shrugging and taking up a protective stance at my side, lingering a little too close for my comfort. I wasn’t used to having a bodyguard, but he looked ready and determined to take a bullet or arrow for me if necessary. Weird. On the bright side, Chaz had confidence in me, if not necessarily for the reasons I would’ve wanted. That much was comforting.
Several of the shifted Weres were sniffing around the edges of the parking lot, moving through the trees in the general direction they thought the arrow had come from. Chaz called out when we got closer, though it was probably more for my sake than theirs.
“Find anything?”
“No,” someone replied, puzzled. “There’s no spoor. Not a hint of anyone’s having been out here except for the kids earlier.”
“The hell?” Nick muttered. “There must be something.”
Frowning, Dillon looked up in the trees. “Did anyone check for any sign up there?”
“No. Why?”
Dillon pointed upward, and though I looked, I couldn’t see anything. The others around me muttered curses and exclaimed softly as they saw something I couldn’t make out in the shadowed limbs above our heads.
“What is it?” I asked, momentarily annoyed at being handicapped by my paltry human senses.
Nick stomped over to a particular tree, and one of the shifted Weres came too and stared upward, holding out a clawed hand to catch Nick if he slipped as he started climbing. It was strange, but somehow right. I knew the wild-looking beast in front of me would never hurt one of his own. I was a different story. The way those feral golden eyes watched me when I came closer was just plain creepy.
“There’s some equipment or something tucked into the branches up there. Hold on a second,” Nick called down, probably more for my sake than anybody else’s.
The others gathered around the base of the tree. Chaz was looking better, and he slid his good arm around my shoulders, head tilted up like the rest of us to watch Nick climb.
A few moments later he shimmied back down, landing in a crouch much more like a feral beast than a man. He had a grim look on his face as he showed a scrap of torn cloth and an arrow he’d tied it around, along with a thick branch he’d obviously broken off. There were claw marks embedded in the wood, big and deep enough to show they weren’t from any ordinary bird or tree-dwelling animal. No bear or other forest creature large enough to make such marks would venture so far up, practically to the top of the tree, where the limbs would be too thin to carry its weight. That was why Nick had climbed up there instead of one of the shifted Weres.
“I don’t recognize the scent on the cloth or the branch. What about you, Armina?”
Armina? That meant the big black and gray Were beside us was Seth’s mom. I sorely hoped she was more trustworthy than her son, though I wasn’t exactly holding my breath.
The great shaggy Were leaned forward, nostrils flaring as it took in the scent of the cloth, arrow, and tree branch. Shaking its—no, her—head, she settled back on her haunches and spread her clawed hands in a remarkably human gesture of puzzlement. She didn’t know who or what it was from either. It was difficult to tell her thoughts on the matter considering she couldn’t talk in her current form, and the rapid shift would prevent her from turning back for a while. Most likely she wouldn’t be able to talk about it until tomorrow, after the full moon had set and she’d gotten some sleep.
Did she not find anything because she was covering for her son? No, I didn’t think so. There were other shifted Weres out here too, and they’d pick up what she missed—or covered up.
Some of the others came forward, pressing their faces close to the cloth or tree branch that Nick held out before him. Even Chaz took a cursory sniff, though none of them seemed to know what the scent was. Their inability to recognize it pissed Chaz off even more. I was alarmed to note his eyes were reflecting the last dying rays of sunlight filtering through the trees, cat-like in these shadows.
“This is un-fucking-believable. What the hell is out here? It’s not one of us. It’s not a Were-cat. What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said, fists clenched tightly around the items in his hands. “If