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CHAPTER TWELVE

HUNTER

Hunter blinked open his eyes when he heard the sizzle of bacon from the kitchen downstairs. He stretched, arching his naked body in between Neri’s soft sheets as his shoulders popped, before he lay back and contemplated more sleep. Last night was their first night in a bed since Zahava’s visit, too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

It had been a busy four days for he and Neri as Ghost sent them to track Zahava’s scent. Neri commented the human’s scent had changed little since she grew into adulthood and became determined to find the woman and eliminate the threat. Ghost hadn’t hesitated, knowing Neri could defend herself or come get the rest of them in a blink if needed.

The scent lead to Downtown Snowfall before it disappeared. Zahava wouldn’t be the leader of an unknown shifter group for so long if she wasn’t an expert at deception and hiding her tracks. As Neri tracked Zahava, Hunter categorized the shifter’s scents under her direction. Although he differentiated the individual animals they shifted into; it’s hard to miss a lion, a puma, and two mountain lions. But in the background lingered their human’s scents.

Even when the assassins shifted, their human’s scents stayed with them. The animals they shifted into had their own distinct essence, but when Neri shifted, he identified lilac and the natural scents she carried with her.

“What do I smell like to you, when I’m in my panther form?” Hunter asked.

Neri’s brows drew down, and she turned her attention from the indistinct office building they stood in front of off Treetop Drive in the heart of downtown.

Although Zahava’s scent had long since disappeared, something brought Neri back to the unfamiliar fourteen story red brick building which looked abandoned from the outside.

“A weird question,” Neri shook her head and turned her attention back to the building before answering, “but to be honest, when you shift, your pine scent comes through. The citrus, lemon-lime scent becomes muted. But when you’re human, the citrus scent comes through before the pine.”

“Huh.”

“Why do you ask?”

“What was dominant scent from Zahava’s shifters when they were at Kai and Liv’s?”

“I scented animals, their other forms.”

Neri paused, her hands clenched at her hips. Her mouth pursed as she tried to recall their run-in’s with the other group.

Hunter sucked in a surprised breath as Neri’s memories, including touch and smell, replayed at the forefront of his mind. The memory was as clear to him as if he experienced the moment personally. Instead of dwelling too much on how Neri could do this, he reviewed each incident Neri had with the shifters since they’d met.

In the clearing where he first spotted her, the wind dissipated her scent. Both sniffed, turning their head from side to side to see if they picked out something, anything, but all he caught was the crisp air and pine trees. There was a quick blink before they were onto her second memory.

Outside Neri’s house, he listened to the fight going on between the five shifters and himself. He noted Reaper and Kai were flanking her position and he scented both men before she darted forward to throw herself into he fight. As she jumped onto the shoulders of the first one, he tried to scent the shifters. Blood, he scented blood. But as he studied the shifters who were attacking him, their skin was the same sickly, gaunt flesh. An observation he missed the first time.

He took a moment to concentrate on their movements. Their training in hand-to-hand combat had improved since the last fight over a year ago, but they couldn’t predict his movements before he struck. As Neri drew closer, instead of going back to the muscle memory of their training, they panicked and flung their arms out, hoping to hit him or the others.

He recognized nothing from scent alone, but he made a note to bring a body back for Liv to study after the next run-in with them.

In another blink, they stood in Liv and Kai’s living room, looking up at Zahava and her shifters.

Yep, Axel was right. She is bat-shit crazy.

Hunter chuckled but when Zahava stiffened at Neri’s disdainful words telling her to use her indoor voice, he concentrated on the scene in front of him and scented the room. While he scented his family, there was an obvious wild animal scent present in the room. When they leapt up to the second floor, the scent became cloying and there was nothing human that came through.

Huh, it’s like a wet cat and dog. Nothing other than that.

He blinked several times, getting used to the bright sunshine after Neri’s memory.

“Well, you’re stronger as a shifter.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I thought about you experiencing the memory with me and soon after, I sensed you in my head. So cool.”

“It was jarring at first, but to see what you’ve seen without my senses being cut off is helpful.”

Hunter took a moment to think about all the differences between the shifters who transitioned through a venomous bite and Zahava’s shifters.

“I hate to ask this, but can you take me into your memory before they injected you with venom and the bioweapon?”