Oath Sworn - K.N. Banet Page 0,58

even though everything ached. I didn’t carry much as I started back out onto the streets of Dallas. A simple outfit, which amounted to nothing when it came to protection, but it covered up the injuries I already had. Jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. I looked normal. I also had a pair of sunglasses hanging from the front of my shirt’s collar in case my eyes went even more haywire than they already were. I couldn’t risk more humans seeing cat-eyed women running around the city. There was an accidental slip and then there was being stupid. Though I woke up with gold eyes again, I didn’t have the cat pupils…yet. Lastly, I had my silver knife, sheathed and stuffed into my hoodie pocket with my cellphone and wallet.

I didn’t have much of an objective, just like the night before. Find a werewolf and get to someone important. The leader of the ones who took Carey was the best option, but finding her father was a good second option. If he didn’t already know his daughter fell into the wrong hands, he needed to. Whether that would make him my ally or my enemy, I didn’t know, but I had to make sure he knew in case I needed him to get her back and out of the danger zone again.

I was walking past a large skyscraper when I ‘accidentally’ bumped into a man in a suit, who cursed at me, glaring angrily.

“Sorry, sir,” I mumbled, bowing my head a bit respectfully.

“Damn street whores taking over the fucking city,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Wow, dickhead. Who pissed in your coffee? It’s not like I’m going to give you some transmitted disease from a shoulder check.

I brushed off my shoulder where I’d touched him and smiled at his back as he continued to hurry where he was going. It wouldn’t be too hard to do that several hundred more times throughout the day, but hopefully the rest would be a bit nicer about it. It would help spread my scent, taking it in buildings and cars across the city. It would let any werewolf with a brain catch my scent and let them know I was around.

I walked into a Starbucks, glad it was open, and purposefully ran my hand over everything that seemed natural. The door, which my shoulder checked as well, as if I was too tired to push it all the way open. The counter, which I rested my hands on lazily, letting my scent cover it. When I got my drink, I took a seat near the front door, took a few drinks, then played up an act that the spot wasn’t good enough for me and moved to the back of the room, trying to find dimmer light.

It was ridiculous, planning out how to do it, but I left with my coffee thirty minutes later knowing that for the next hour, any human who touched my scent would carry it. That was why I’d hit up the counter. The only problem with a Starbucks was that it had a variety of its own strong smells. Those would fade faster, but they had the potential of covering me up. I went for quantity over quality.

“What to do?” I asked myself softly as the dawn finally started coming. I couldn’t force a werewolf to show up during the day time, not if they didn’t want to. “I can check out the pack’s shit…” I nodded, pleased with that idea. Hitting up their businesses would get some attention, and a bunch of humans would be around for me to bump into. Humans who were possibly employed by the wolves.

I pulled out my phone and searched for the closest one to me. I chuckled as the GPS sent me back to the skyscraper where I’d bumped into the human businessman. I stepped in, appreciating the strong AC they ran in the building. It kicked scents everywhere, telling me only humans were in the room.

I walked quietly to the security desk in the front and smiled. “Hi, sir. I’m looking for a friend. I’m with the Werewolf Council of North America.” I knew my gold eyes were going to work in my favor, so I blinked them innocently. The more innocent a supernatural monster tried to be, the worse the reaction they got from humans. Humans had a natural prey instinct, really. They might have dominated the globe and became the smartest and most advanced creatures, but they were prey.