Bloodfire (Blood Destiny 1) - Helen Harper Page 0,7
every moment that passed. I shrugged on my jacket, swung the pack on my shoulder and left.
Chapter Two
Practically speaking, there was a limit to the number of places that John could have gone to. We’d been east that afternoon so he wouldn’t be there again now. Having little patience with the local humans, he generally avoided the village so that was probably out. North of the keep was the road and south was the forest then the coast. It was usually the case that any nasties around would try to avoid being inadvertently run over by a heavy goods lorry and stay in the opposite direction. And where there were nasties, that’s where I’d find John so south it was. I kept my mental fingers crossed that I was just over-reacting but made sure that I stayed fully alert and engaged anyway, and that my daggers were easily accessible and wouldn’t snag on my clothing when I needed them most.
One of the inexplicable skills that I had, and could boast about to, er, no-one, were a few parlour mind tricks. I could hear and respond to the alpha’s Voice in the same way that a real shifter could, which admittedly might just be a side-effect of living with the pack for most of my life, much in the same way that women’s periods aligned themselves if they lived together in close quarters for a long period of time. It was just too bad the Voice didn’t work both ways, in my case or in the shifters’ cases. Unfortunately only alphas could initiate mind to mind conversation and although I shouldn’t by rights be able to hear him because I wasn’t a shifter, the rules for me were the same. I couldn’t contact him, he could only contact me.
But I also did have superior tracking skills – for a human at least – and was often able to sense when I wasn’t alone. At this particular point in time it was all I could use because, without the shifters’ superior sense of smell, I had little else to rely upon to find John as quickly as I could. I was pretty sure at the moment that there was nothing out there hiding in the darkness and shadows though.
Carefully checking the enveloping darkness around me as I went, I jogged steadily down through the worn forest path. I heard other shifters call out to each other in their animal voices from some way behind me. So far, nothing. The overhanging branches of a nearby tree caught my hair and pulled at it, catching some of the strands and yanking my head back. I cursed and stopped briefly to untangle myself when my gaze caught something gleaming on the leaf-strewn ground. I bent down to take a closer look before using the cuff of my jacket to scoop it up. It fell into my palm and heat started to rise in the pit of my belly. A wichtlein stone. Was this the one John had found earlier or was this one destined for me? I rolled it into my hand. It felt the same as the one from earlier but I had no way of knowing whether that was usual or whether it really was the same. I was about to bring it up to my ear to test it for the chiming sound when I realised it felt unpleasantly damp. I picked it up gingerly between my thumb and forefinger and brought it closer. It looked like blood. I sniffed cautiously, then reached into my backpack without taking it off my shoulder and rummaged through its contents blindly. I kept my eyes trained on the stone.
My hand finally found what I was looking for when it curved round a cold metal canister. It never to hurt to come fully prepared. I pulled out the hydrogen peroxide, twisting it so the nozzle faced the stone, and sprayed a tiny portion onto the black surface. As soon as the chemical hit the shiny surface it began to foam. It was definitely blood. The curling heat inside me rose higher and my insides felt as if they were starting to burn. The feeling of panic matched the bloodfire but I did my best to push them both back down. Neither would help me right now. I put the stone carefully into a side pouch where it wouldn’t get lost.
The moon continued to shine steadily down, casting shadows amongst the heavy trees. I could hear the