She had turned and rested on her haunches several feet back from the unconscious man, her head tipped sideways as she studied him.
Now he knew exactly why the European Breed Protection Network had so hated losing her. As she stared at the man, senses she wasn’t aware she had, senses that were so much a natural part of her, were assessing him, committing each feature to memory, each scent, and drawing in every bit of knowledge that her primal senses could pick up on.
“Kate?” he questioned her softly.
Not Kate.
Katie was the girl she had been, Kate was the woman who had come to that bed with him and broken down the barriers he’d built to keep her out of his heart. Kate was the mature, instinctive, highly adept Breed female the animal inside him had known she was.
No wonder his own primal instincts had rushed to claim her as soon as possible. The animal part of him had known no other woman could match him as fully as this woman did.
“He hasn’t bathed in several days,” she murmured. “He’s been on the estate, watching and waiting.” She tipped her head to the other side and Devil swore he could feel her assessing things she wasn’t even aware she had the senses to assess.
“He wasn’t alone. I can smell several others’ scents on him. Not just one, so he and the pilot aren’t the extent of the team sent out to capture me. But the other scents aren’t as strong. He’s not been around them in a few days.”
Devil gave Graeme a speaking look, to which the other Breed gave a quick nod.
He wanted those men, each and every one of them. He’d send a message to whoever had sent them out. Kate was his, and the Devil did not tolerate anyone at any time striking against what belonged to him.
Moving to her side, Devil watched her face then, seeing the frown that creased her brow and the look of confusion that filled her gaze. Bending down as well, he drew in the scents that covered the male and tried to find what was confusing her.
As she said, the soldier was working with at least two others. Their scents were too much a part of the soldier, yet not strong enough to indicate that he’d been in their presence for several days. They were likely awaiting him somewhere with transportation to spirit Kate out of the States and back to Europe.
He had definitely been on the estate for several days. The land around them held a unique scent, just as all places did. A combination of the ground, the movement on it and the plants that grew within it. The scent he carried was definitely that of the grounds within the secured stone wall Lobo had erected around four acres that the house sat in the center of.
Then, he found the scent confusing her. It was subtle, so subtle that even he couldn’t filter it enough to identify it, but it was definitely one he’d known before. One that was unique, and teased his senses as one well known.
Known to not just Kate, evidently, but to himself as well.
“Have you figured it out yet?” she asked him softly.
He shook his head. “It’s too weak.”
She nodded, then slowly rose to her feet and moved back as Lobo took her place.
If the scent was well known to Devil, then it was possible, highly possible, it was known to Lobo as well.
“Familiar,” Lobo muttered. “But I can’t get enough of it to identify it.”
“My problem as well.” Devil grimaced before rising and moving to Kate.
His arm went around her possessively, drawing her to his side as he turned to Graeme and gave the other man a nod.
Flicking his fingers to the Breeds behind him, Graeme moved aside to allow them to haul the soldier to his feet as he groaned weakly.
“Lock him in the cells,” Graeme ordered harshly. “I’ll be in later to question him.”
The cells were just as stated. Iron cells, secure and impossible to escape once locked. They were buried beneath the stables with only one way in and only one way out. Once they had him down there, he was at their mercy. And Devil knew there was little, if any, mercy in Graeme for anyone besides himself.
Graeme knew loyalty. He understood compassion. Mercy to the enemy was something else entirely. That didn’t exist in Graeme’s little world. And he sure as hell didn’t apologize for it.
“Call Da, let him know he’s here.”
Devil looked down at her, then back to Graeme, and read the other Breed’s instinctive rejection of the request.
Well, not a request exactly, Devil admitted with a small grain of amusement.
“I’ll call him personally.” It was Lobo who agreed to the demand voiced at the last minute, as a request, Devil thought as he hid his smile and nodded to the man he’d followed since his liberation from the Council lab.