Each time the smell grew stronger and stronger.
Fae glamour--a type of illusion--is strongly effective on sight, sound, taste, and touch.
I'm told it is sufficient for a human sense of smell, but mine is better than that.
By the third breath I smelled the sharp smell of broken wood, and the ammonia-like scent that fae magic sometimes leaves behind.
I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and let my nose be right.
My ears cleared with a pop, and when I looked up, the tidy bookcases filled with tidy books had disappeared, leaving destruction in their place.
"Sam." I kept my voice down, though I don't think anyone outside would have heard me if I'd shouted.
It was a reflex thing--we were sneaking around, so I needed to be quiet.
"Do you smell it? The blood? There's a glamour here.
Can you break it, too? Do you see the mess the fae left behind when they searched the place?" He cocked an ear at me, then looked around.
With a movement swifter than thought, he turned and sank his teeth into my arm.
Maybe if I'd thought there was a chance of him attacking me, I could have gotten out of the way or defended myself somehow.
Instead, I stared at him dumbly as his fangs slid through skin and into flesh.
He released me almost immediately, leaving behind two clean marks that could have been a vampire bite except that they were too far apart and too big.
Vampires have smaller fangs.
Blood trickled out of one mark, then the other, dribbling down my forearm.
Sam licked it clean, mostly, ignoring my surprised squeak and the way I backed away from him.
He looked around the shop again.
I clamped my arm to my mouth--I didn't want to be bleeding anywhere in enemy territory.
Witches can use blood and hair and other body parts to do nasty things.
I didn't think the fae worked quite the same way, but I didn't want to chance it.
I checked under the counter for tissues and found something better--a first-aid kit.
It wasn't as good as the one I had, but it was good enough to have gauze and an Ace bandage.
Wrapped and no longer in danger of dripping bits of myself all over, I walked back to Sam.
He was still where I'd left him, staring as hard as he could at something I could no longer see.
It hadn't been a hard bite, and I wouldn't let myself be afraid of Sam.
My foster father's SIG was in its holster across my shoulder, full of regular ammunition that generally worked just fine on fae-- and did nothing to werewolves but make them mad.
I tuned out Charles's warning voice and put the hand of my uninjured arm on Sam's neck.
I refused to believe he was regressing into a vicious killer.
A bite did not a killer make.