He shook his head. “No you wouldn’t have. You’d be muddling through because that’s who you are. But I’m so glad I’ve been here with you. So glad the witch whose delightful ass I was checking out turned out to be you.”

“You checked out my ass?”

He snorted. “Is that a question? I came into the lobby and there was this woman there with the nicest ass. I checked you out before you’d even turned around. That it was attached to you, and that you’re my mate? Well that’s cake.”

“I’m sort of drunk. You put a lot of liquor in that tea. I figured I’d sweated it out in the bath.”

“How about I order in and we watch a movie? You haven’t eaten in hours, and you should know wolves need to eat about every three hours to keep up with our metabolisms. Though…do you get horny when you’re drunk?”

She rolled her eyes. “It seems that I’m permanently horny when I’m in your general proximity. It’s sort of disconcerting.”

“Not for me.” He shrugged and stood.

A ringing phone woke her up just after dawn, three days after he’d revealed to her that she was his mate. Josh was already up, moving around. Probably in his office playing catch up on his own work as he’d been spending so much time away from it, driving Michelle all over the city looking for that SUV or for signs, any signs, of Allie. They’d even headed up to Seattle, stopping at all the rest stops north and south on the way back for any signs of the mages, and found nothing.

Guilt flashed through her again. Sure he’d told her he had things in hand, but she felt bad for taking him away from the office.

Rolling from bed and sliding into the robe, she moved to the bathroom to brush her teeth, the muffled sound as he answered and spoke to whoever rumbled in the background.

And then she paused, a chill running through her at the change in his tone.

She rushed out and down the hall as he was writing something down. “Yes, yes. On the way. I need to wake her up. Yes, I know. I’ll rush. Try to hold off calling anyone else until we arrive.”

He hung up and turned, he was so pale she knew it was bad.

“What?”

“Get dressed. One of the teams of wolves I sent out stumbled on a house with the scent of the mages. And something else. Pam is there, she’s holding things down until we arrive. Damon is on the way as well.”

“What is it? You’re pale.”

“They smell death inside. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s her. Just, let’s get out there now.”

With trembling hands she got dressed before rushing into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She pulled her hair into a ponytail in the car on the way to the scene, trying really hard not to think about it. Hoping that the scent of death was anyone but Allie.

He parked on the side of the road and turned to her. “We’re not going to get any closer in the car. I don’t want any evidence of our presence that close. Not until we know more.”

She got out, and they jogged down a street and then up a dirt road. “It’s a mile or so up here, Pam says.”

Michelle got caught in a web of despair about five minutes later as the house came into view on a vista just ahead.

“Yes, they’ve been here.” She tried not to gag on the fetid, rotten-meat stench of that magic they used. Wrong energies. Dark.

Pam was waiting for them, along with Damon and one of the wolves she remembered from the lobby that first day she’d come to ask for Pacific’s help.

“We haven’t gone in yet.” Pam looked to Josh and then to Michelle. “You ready? You go low, I’ll go high.”

Michelle had worn her vest and she was glad. And she hoped the spell she’d learned the day before from Gina to defend herself would work.

The closer they got, the worse the stench was. From the faces on the Weres all around her, it wasn’t just a magical stench but a physical one. And then she smelled it, death. Not just death magics, but the smells that indicated someone had died and died badly. Still fresh enough that it probably had been within the last eight or so hours.

Josh kicked the door in so hard it flew off the hinges, and as they’d planned, Pam went high and left while Michelle kept low and went right.

They swept through room by room. The house only had four rooms, and so when they found nothing, they went out the back door and that’s when she saw it.

Michelle made a sound. She didn’t know where it had come from, only that it was full of everything she’d been feeling. All her grief and guilt and fear. A sound that ripped from her so hard it hurt.

Allie lay, bloodied and broken in the center of a circle. A blood circle, not a salt circle.

“Wait!” She held up a hand as she dug through the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a bag of salt she’d blessed only the day before according to Lark’s directions.

She spoke softly, through tears as she traced another circle just inside the blood circle. She tried hard not to look at Allie as she did.

No birds sang. There was no sound in that yard and there should have been. The leaves on the trees should have been rustling. There should have been insect sounds, the rustle of small things in the underbrush. But there was nothing.

Once she finished the circle, she spoke the last words of the spell, and the power rushed through her and broke the blood circle with a rush of sticky, sick energy that thankfully disappeared quickly.

What didn’t dissipate though, was the stench of death.

Michelle broke the salt circle. She moved to Allie. Pam approached and put a hand on her shoulder. “This is a crime scene. Remember that.”

It wasn’t like she needed to check a pulse.

There was nothing left in Allie. Her magick, her aura usually so vibrant in Michelle’s othersight, was gone. There was nothing. She’d moved on. She’d been brutalized. Left torn, broken and empty on the ground like garbage.

“I have to call this in. I need all the wolves gone. Michelle, you can stay. But we can’t touch anything else.”

“Before they get here, I’m going through the house one more time to get scents.” Damon paused and then took Michelle’s hand. “I’m sorry, Michelle. We will find justice for this. I promise you.”

She nodded, absently. “Is Gina being protected?”

His expression turned feral. “Yes. At all times.”

Josh watched, saying nothing until Pam stepped away to call it in and get crime-scene folks out.

He took Michelle’s hand, drawing his thumb back and forth across her skin. She stiffened and took her hand back.

“God, beautiful, I’m so sorry. I want to hold you so much. I wish this was different.”

She shook her head hard, once. “It’s not. I need to deal with this. I can’t afford to lose my shit right now. I have to do my job and I can’t if you touch me.”

He nodded. “I understand. I don’t like the idea of leaving you here.”

“You have to. I can’t explain you to the cops. Pam is under enough scrutiny right now. You have to go. But if you’d have my car brought over, I’d appreciate it.”

“That I can do.” He paused. “I love you, Michelle. You’re not alone. No matter what.”

She turned, catching his gaze, and that connection between them clicked into place. She nodded, shoving back all her emotions. She needed to be cold and hard and ruthless right then. She needed to examine that scene with every single one of her senses, and that meant she had no room for guilt, or even love.

She pulled up to her apartment and sat in the car for long minutes, unable to bring herself to even move.

Back in Portland, she’d stayed at the scene while it had been processed. They canvassed the neighborhood, but the houses were very far apart so no one claimed to have seen anything. The place they’d found Allie in was supposed to have been empty, the last tenants having left six months before. No one had noticed anything at all.