Curiosity filled me. So the Fire Wolf not only fought with magic, but he used weapons and witch-brewed potions too. Interesting. He was turning out to be quite well rounded.

I ran my finger along the tip of a throwing star. Its razor-sharp surface nicked my skin, drawing a drop of blood. I instinctively brought it to my mouth just as something glinted deep within the closet.

I pushed a row of hanging leather strips aside to see a huge black axe hanging in the very back of the closet.

My eyes widened. It was so dark, it gleamed like obsidian, and a heavy pulsing aura seemed to surround it, as though its blade were magic itself. Heady energy grew in the space, and something deep inside me beckoned me to move closer, to caress its onyx handle and gilded blade. The weapon was power itself. I itched to feel it, to—

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep voice rumbled from behind me.

I shrieked and whirled around, mortification filling me.

The Fire Wolf stared down at me, his eyes a rolling sea of fire. “And if you’re done looking through my things, we can find your sister.”

Oh shit. I somehow managed a shaky smile despite being caught red-handed. I eased the closet doors closed behind me. “I’m sorry. The wait was getting a bit long, and I . . . I was having a hard time sitting still. Sorry.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that also why you looked through my kitchen and cupboards?”

A flush stained my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”

“Or you didn’t mean to get caught.” He reached past me and tugged the door back open before pulling out one of the leather strips. After slipping it on, I realized it was a harness that wrapped around his huge chest and flexed with his every move. The hunter added a variety of weapons to it as I tried to ignore the way it hugged his broad shoulders and clung to his toned waist. When he finished, he looked ready for combat.

“If you’re done gawking, your sister is waiting.”

My heart leaped. “Do you know where she is?”

“I have a good idea.”

“So you were scrying.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Did you stay put on the couch at all?”

I gave him a pointed look. “Actually, yes, I did initially, and despite”—I swallowed awkwardly and gestured toward the kitchen and closet—“having a look at a few things, I stayed away from the corner you were working in so I wouldn’t disturb you.”

“Then how did you know I was scrying?”

“Because your curtain isn’t opaque with the candles. I could see your outline.” A very nice outline, but I kept that thought to myself. “And I have ears. I could hear your chanting and when you scattered bones or whatever they were on the floor.”

His lips twitched. “Bones?”

“Or marbles. I mean, I don’t really know much about scrying, so I’m just guessing here.”

His amused expression stayed in place as he nodded toward the wall we’d stepped through to enter his man cave. “We’ll have to go back the way we came. I can’t conjure a portal in here.”

“Because your wards won’t allow it?”

“Something like that.”

I followed the Fire Wolf to the wall. As before, he threaded his fingers through mine, and I desperately tried to ignore the feel of his hand, but my belly still tightened and a flood of awareness shot through me. I blamed it on his combat attire. I’d always had a thing for a man in uniform.

“Ready?” he asked, that amused tilt to his lips present once more.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Think of Tessa. Think of Tessa. But even that mantra couldn’t consume me with the hunter pressed so closely to my side.

He tugged me forward, and we stepped through the thick wards surrounding his secret base. I couldn’t be sure, but it felt as if he drifted closer to me as the wards snagged and pulled at my senses.

I tried to tell myself that his close proximity didn’t affect me, but who was I kidding, it totally affected me. It was as if his body beckoned mine to his. Every time he touched me, I wanted to step closer to him, to run my hands up his chiseled stomach or across his broad shoulders, or to inhale his tantalizing fragrance that drifted over my senses.

I figured the lack of sleep was catching up with me because I had never reacted to anybody as I did to the Fire Wolf.

Once in the alleyway, the hints of dawn scoured the sky. Swaths of pumpkin and cherry hues lined the horizon in a muted glow.

The sounds of several car doors banging and machinery revving up drifted from the streets. It reminded me that we were in a human city with human equipment, and this industrial section of town was coming to life as a new day began.

“Do you think Declan’s okay?” I asked.

The Fire Wolf’s hand was still engulfing mine, but then he pulled away, and I instantly missed the feel of him. “I could contact Miranda to find out, but I’m sure he’s fine.”

My eyebrows rose. He would really do that? But then I realized that would take time, and we had a locate on Tessa right now. We should act while we had a lead.

“It’s okay, but if you don’t mind, when this is all said and done, I would appreciate an update.”

He stared down at me as he pulled his yellow crystal from his pocket. “You really want to know?”

I nodded. “Don’t you?”

He grunted and began swirling his crystal through the air. His glowing portal began to emerge, a wicked blend of sparks and magic.

“Does the yellow crystal channel your magic?”

He gave me a side-eye. “Maybe.”

In other words, yes. He gestured for me to go first. “Where are we going?”

“Have you ever heard of the Williamstown Institution?”

“No, am I supposed to?”

He shook his head. “I hadn’t either, so I looked it up while you were caressing my throwing stars.”

A new rush of blood flamed through my cheeks, and I wished it was nighttime again so the darkness could hide it.

But the Fire Wolf continued talking, as if having a random woman ransack his man cave was a normal, everyday occurrence. “It’s an abandoned institution that used to be an insane asylum. It’s been empty since the 1950s and fenced off from the main roadway. When I initially got a locate on your sister, I kept seeing what looked like an abandoned warehouse. That was why it took me so long, since I couldn’t identify what the institution was and the surroundings were too vague. I was finally able to locate a road sign about a mile away from where I’d picked up her signal. It had the institution’s name on it.”

My blood chilled. “And why would they have taken Tessa to an abandoned mental asylum?”

“I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Let’s go,” I said, my heart thrumming madly in my chest. “I just hope we’re not too late.”

He grasped my hand, and we jumped through his portal.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 11

The usual sensations of portal travel were there and then gone as my stomach became a whirling mess of nerves and unease. I imagined the horrible monstrosities potentially being done to my sister in a derelict mental asylum.

When the portal spat us out onto a cracked black asphalt drive, morning sunlight lit the sky. Weeds riddled the pavement, scrawny stalks of plant life stubbornly rising from the broken terrain.

The old abandoned asylum rose up in front of us, only twenty yards away. Even in daylight, it looked like something from a horror movie. Three stories tall, the building stretched a hundred feet in each direction, and I guessed that it had probably once held hundreds of patients.

“Creepy,” I said more to myself than anything, but the Fire Wolf grunted.

Vines and weeds grew around the asylum’s perimeter. Some of the vines snaked up its cracked stucco exterior and infiltrated the building through broken windows. Most of the windows were boarded up, but the ones that weren’t had obviously been smashed throughout the decades. Bird nests filled their corners, and streaks of caustic poop painted the stucco below the windowsills in streaks of white and black.