Oath Sworn - K.N. Banet Page 0,54
werewolves, but coffee. I was near Union Station and followed the scent and frowned when I realized it was a hotel.
Fuck me, I guess. No coffee for me.
I continued walking, hoping to find anything. As I walked down the street, another scent hit my nose, one that had me grimacing and baring my teeth.
Werewolf. Got your number, asshole.
Coffee and food would have to wait. Now I was hunting.
I tracked the scent down an alley and onto another street. It was fresh, maybe only minutes old. Lucky me. I continued, casually looking at my phone still, trying to learn something about Dallas as I walked. I needed to appear like a casual tourist because I couldn’t go running if I couldn’t see who I was chasing. There was no fear in the wolf’s scent, or really any obviously discernible emotion. He seemed like just a guy on a walk, that baseline everyone had when they were just having a normal day.
I followed it down the street, wishing I knew more about the city. I didn’t know anything, honestly. The tall buildings could have been from any major city, and the little restaurants dappling the streets could have been New York or Seattle or Atlanta for all I knew about Dallas. I was never a city girl, but then again, I was never really a violent person either. Things were changing fast on me.
I followed the scent down another alley and up another street. It went on for nearly an hour, but I was slowly gaining, walking a little faster than my target.
By the alley, I could see him. The back of him, anyway. He was broad. Really, he was fucking huge, and I was going to have to play this one carefully, injured as I was. My thigh was burning from the walking now, but I knew what I had to do.
As the shadows covered both of us, I started running. He looked over his shoulders, first confused, then his eyebrows went up as shock hit him next. Once that was done, I was only ten feet from him, but my thigh wasn’t ready for me to make that sort of jump. He took off, and suddenly the hunt was really on.
He turned right at the end of the alley, and I followed. When he shoved through a pack of people, I followed through the hole he made. My thigh screamed in revolt, wanting me to slow down and stop the madness, but I wasn’t having any of that, so I pushed through it until my legs began to feel more like gelatin. Maybe not much of an improvement, but it was better than pain.
He tried to duck into another alley, but I was too close to him for that to work. As he tried to scramble over a fence, I grabbed the back of his jacket and pants, yanking him back down as hard as I could, snarling viciously.
“Who are you loyal to?” I demanded. “WHO?”
“Fuck you, cunt,” he growled at me from his back.
I put a knee on his chest, pulling my silver dagger and pressing it to his Adam’s apple. That brought fear to his scent.
Good boy, pup. “Answer the fucking question,” I whispered. “Or I’ll end you right here. Not even our kind can come back from a fucking open throat. I would know. I’ve torn enough of them out over the last few days.”
“Why the fuck are you even in this city, cat? Huh? You’re breaking some serious Laws, taking me down like this.”
“So were the wolves who stole Carey Everson out of my protection and threatened her life enough for her to come to me in the first place,” I snapped, digging my knee into his chest until he screamed.
“Hey, what’s going on back here?” someone demanded from the light of the street. I looked over to the human, knowing my gold eyes were glowing and my pupils were feline slits. I definitely wasn’t human.
“Werewolf business. Get out of here. This doesn’t concern you or the mortal police,” I answered. The human, a smart man like I hoped he would be, took off running after a second. When I looked back down at my werewolf, I grinned. “They’re so easy to appease, aren’t they?”
“Like you’re a fucking werewolf. If you kill me, every werewolf in the city, probably the state, is going to come after you.”
I had to give it to him; he had some real balls for the wolf with a silver knife slowly