Bitten (Otherworld 1)

CHAPTER 9

PREDATOR

After dinner, I prepared for the evening. The choice of clothing posed a problem. If I was going to hook this mutt, I needed to pull on the mask that worked best with werewolves: Elena the sexual predator. This didn't mean miniskirts, fishnets, and see-through blouses, namely because I didn't own any. And I didn't own any because they looked ridiculous on me. Skimpy tops, stiletto heels, and barely there bottoms made me look like a coltish fourteen-year-old playing dress up. Nature didn't bless me with curves and my lifestyle didn't let me develop extra padding. I was too tall, too thin, and too athletic to be any guy's idea of centerfold fodder.

When I'd started living at Stonehaven, my wardrobe was strictly thrift-shop casual, no matter how much money Jeremy gave me for shopping. I didn't know what else to buy. When Antonio had bought us seats to a Broadway opening, I'd panicked. There were no women around to ask for help in choosing a dress and I didn't dare ask Jeremy for fear I'd end up in some taffeta and lace monstrosity fit only for a high school prom. I'd gone to a row of upscale shops in New York, but I got lost, literally and figuratively. My savior had appeared in a most unlikely form: Nicholas. Nick spent more time around women, particularly beautiful, rich young women, than any man outside of a James Bond film. His taste was impeccable, favoring classic designs, simple fabrics, and smooth lines that somehow turned my height and lack of curves into assets. All of my dress-up clothes had been bought with Nick in tow. Not only didn't he mind spending an entire day touring Fifth Avenue, but he'd have his credit card on the counter before I could fish mine from my wallet. Little wonder he was so popular with the ladies.

I picked out a dress for that night, one that Nick had actually bought me for my birthday two years ago. It was gorgeous indigo silk, knee length with no fancy trim or other adornment. Simple, yet elegant. To keep it casual, I decided to forgo nylons and wear sandals.

As I was putting on my makeup, Clay walked in and gave my outfit the once-over. "Looks good," he said. Then he glanced around at my princess bedroom and grinned. "'Course, it doesn't really suit the setting. It needs a little something. Maybe a lace shawl from the curtains. Or a sprig of cherry blossoms."

I snarled at him through the mirror and went back to my makeup, studying a jar of pink stuff and trying to remember whether it was for my lips or my cheeks. Behind me, Clay bounced on the bed, fluffing the overstuffed pillows and laughing. He'd changed into baggy Dockers, a white T-shirt, and a loose linen jacket. The outfit hid his build and gave him a collegiate, clean-cut look, the message here being as non-threatening as possible. Nick must have helped him pick his clothes. Clay didn't know the meaning of non-threatening.

At nine we left, taking Jeremy's Explorer. Clay loathed the bulky SUV, but we needed the cargo space if we managed to capture and kill this mutt. Later that night, Antonio and Nicholas would dispose of the young boy's body at the local dump. We could have saved them a trip and taken it ourselves, but eau de decomposing flesh wasn't a good perfume choice when mingling with humans.

Although I hated the idea of spending the evening with Clay after what had happened between us, I soon relaxed. He didn't mention the previous night or say anything about Logan's call. By the time we got to town, we were carrying on a perfectly normal conversation about South American jaguar cults. If I didn't know him better, I'd almost think he was making a conscious effort to play nice. But I knew him better. Whatever his motivation, I went along with it. We had a job to do and we had to be together all evening to do it. Duty came first.

Our first stop was the mutt's apartment. I parked at the McDonald's behind the house, then we circled the block. The apartment was dark. The mutt was out. We could only hope he was at one of the bars.

All three bars were a bust. The fourth place on our list was the one without a name, only the address I'd memorized from the matchbook. The address led us behind the paper plant to an abandoned warehouse. Judging by the music booming from within, it wasn't "abandoned" tonight.

"What's up with this?" Clay asked.

"It's a rave. Not quite a bar, not quite a private party."

"Huh. Can you get in?"

"Probably."

"Go on then. I'll take up my post at a window."

I went around to the back of the building. The entrance was a basement door down a flight of steps. A sliver of light illuminated the edges. When I knocked, a bald man opened the door. A tilt of my head and a promise in my smile and I was in with a handful of free drink tickets. I'd hoped it would be more of a challenge.

The hallway led to a massive open room, roughly rectangular. A second-story catwalk had been converted into a narrow balcony with a makeshift set of stairs and no second-level railing. With no railing to stop them, people were sitting on the edge of the balcony, tossing beer caps onto the crowd below. Dusty warehouse boxes and old boards served as a bar along the left wall. Scattered in front of the bar were rusty tables and chairs, the sort of folding furniture you'd find in yard sales and pass over if your tetanus shots weren't up to date.

I'd been worried this would be like a Toronto rave, where the average patron spent more time worrying about midterms than mortgage payments. Definitely not a party where I could pass unnoticed. I looked young, but I was definitely past the zit cream and orthodontics stage of life. I needn't have worried. Bear Valley wasn't the big city. There were some underage kids here at this rave, but they were outnumbered by young and not-so-young adults, most sticking to Millers and marijuana but a few shooting heroin as openly as they downed their drinks. This was the side of Bear Valley the town councillors liked to ignore. If a local politician had wandered in here, he would have convinced himself they were all out-of-towners, probably from Syracuse.

The right side of the room was the dance floor, A.K.A. an unfurnished expanse of space where people were either dancing or suffering in the throes of a mass epileptic fit. The music was deafening, which I wouldn't have minded so much if the tunes didn't sound like something the bouncers had recorded in the back room. The smell of cheap booze and cheaper perfume pirouetted in my stomach. I stifled my nausea and began to search.

The mutt was there.

I picked up his scent on my second tour of the room. Weaving in and out of the crowd, I followed the smell until it led to a person. When I saw the person that the trail led to, I doubted my nose and circled back to double check. Yes, the guy at the table was definitely our mutt. And a less prepossessing werewolf, I had yet to meet. Even I looked scarier than this guy. He had acorn brown hair, a slender build, and a scrubbed, wholesome face--the quintessential college kid, right down to the Doc Martens and chinos. He looked familiar, but I hadn't committed all the photos in the Pack's dossiers to memory. It didn't matter who he was. It only mattered that he was here. A flash of rage burst inside me. This was the mutt causing all the trouble? This baby-faced brat had the Pack all in a panic, looking over our shoulders for guns and racing around Bear Valley to find him? I had to stop myself from marching over, grabbing him by the collar, and tossing him outside to Clay.

I resisted the urge even to go to him. Let him find me. He'd pick up my scent soon enough and he'd know who I was. All mutts knew who I was. Remember, I was the only one of my kind. From my scent, a mutt could tell that I was both werewolf and female. Not exactly a Sherlockian feat of deduction to figure out who I was. I passed twenty feet from this mutt's table and he didn't pick up my scent. Either the smells in the room were too overpowering or he was too dumb to use his nose. Probably the latter.

Knowing he'd smell me eventually, I turned in a drink ticket for a rum and Coke, found a table near the dance floor, and waited. As I scanned the crowd, I found the mutt again easily. With his short hair, polo shirt, and clean-shaven face, he stuck out like a Yanni fan at an Iron Maiden concert. He was sitting by himself, scanning the crowd with a hunger that stole the innocence from his eyes.

I took a few sips of my drink, then glanced back at the mutt's table. He was gone.

"Elena."

Not turning, I inhaled his scent. It was the mutt. I settled into my chair, took another sip of my drink, and continued watching the dance floor. He moved around the table, looked at me, and smiled. Then he pulled out a chair.

"May I sit?" he asked.

"No."

He started to sit.