Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

T he next morning, Skylar waited for Travis to open her door. She was almost beginning to like it. Every day he fixed her breakfast while she got ready for work. Then he drove her to the task force's workspace, bearing goodies for the team to snack on throughout the day. Detective Guerin had surprised them all by bringing in a Keurig. The task force was quickly becoming a tight-knit team.

"So, we're coming up on eleven days since Jenny was killed. My father's plantation is on lockdown. I'm going out there just to be sure, but I think he'll strike here in the city."

"I still think we ought to send at least one more person, if not two, out with you," said Hollings.

Skylar shook her head. "I think we're better off leaving most of the team behind. Our resources here in the city are limited. At Rivière Du Loup I'll have the protection of a group of strong men with combat experience, all focused on protecting their own and catching this creep. If our killer is watching, and he probably is, my going out there won't look like anything other than my fiancé and I going out to see my parents for the weekend. If he decides it's too good an opportunity to miss to flip me off, so be it. Besides, I shouldn't be his target yet. He's going for a brunette. Trust me, the women at Rivière Du Loup will be under lock and key and there will be patrols—hidden and in plain sight. If he decides to try and take his next prize at my parents' home, I very much doubt he'll live to see the inside of a jail."

Guerin shook his head slowly. "You're hoping he'll decide to try, aren't you?"

"Not necessarily. I'm trying to do whatever I can to catch him. I do think staking out the gazebo in the center of the city is a good idea. Studying the painting, it looks like he intends to slit this one's throat. Tom, do you think he'll deviate from the pattern?"

Tom nodded. "Normally, I wouldn't think so. He is slavishly focused on recreating these master works of art. There are museums in this country that wouldn't allow the paintings to be exhibited—the New Orleans Museum of Art among them. There were some fears that this kind of exhibit might inspire someone. It looks like the fears weren't unfounded. But if he thinks he has a better chance at getting you, it may be too tempting for him. Let's keep in mind, this guy is not playing with a full deck."

"I wonder if the paintings sparked the spree, or some sick bastard just decided it would be fun to stage his murders in a way that would shock and scare people," said Guerin.

"In the end, I don't really care what his reason is other than to help us prevent more murders. We just need to stop him."

"I'm only going to say this once," started Hollings, looking around at everyone sitting at the table. "If you get a bead on this guy and you have any doubt that you can arrest him, you drop him. I want him stopped. He killed one of our own and I have no trouble with justice being served with a bullet between his eyes."

T ravis went to the park that Skylar had run in last. It seemed to him that the killer had become fixated on Skylar after that run. Could the killer have seen her shift? New Orleans had a lot of parks and green spaces, both within and just outside the city. This one happened to be on the fringes of the city, and off the beaten track. Travis pulled into one of the spaces in the parking area and happily noted his vehicle was the only one there.

Removing his clothes, he called his wolf forward. While their purebred cousins had been hunted to extinction, the wolf-shifters in Texas still came in three varieties—grey, red, and timber. The Galveston Pack had been timber wolves as far back as anyone could remember. Travis's wolf was an enormous, well-muscled timber. He had tawny-colored fur with black tips and guard hairs running throughout his coat.

He shook himself to dispel the shimmer before taking off in the direction Skylar said she had run. As he ran, he understood why she loved this path. It was difficult terrain and allowed a wolf to really stretch their abilities. He ran around a corner and up a hill, sniffing the air. He could smell flora and fauna, but nothing human and nothing shifter.

It had probably been a fool's errand, but he felt useless sitting at home waiting for her. He knew when she caught this guy and the restaurant got going, he'd feel better. But right now he felt like an extension of his mate, and finally understood why so many she-wolves raged against the placement wolfen society had assigned to them.

Travis reminded himself that he didn't just supply her with food and fucking, although he enjoyed doing both. He had brought her to heel, for the most part anyway. But he didn't fool himself into thinking she would always be well-behaved. She had too much of her mother in her. He'd never thought he would enjoy disciplining a mate or holding the line where she was concerned, but he'd been wrong.

There was something deeply satisfying about spanking Skylar into submission, feeling her give over to his authority and learning to yield to his hand. She was still fractious, unruly, arrogant, courageous, and absolutely gorgeous. But when she let go and surrendered to him, it was the sweetest feeling in the world and turned him on in a way nothing else ever had.

Travis had personal reasons for wanting to catch this bastard. He wanted Skylar safe and despite her assurance that she was, he knew in his gut that she wasn't. If they didn't kill the murderer while trying to catch him and he went to jail instead, Travis intended to find someone who could get to him inside prison and serve up justice with a shiv. The killer wouldn't live to be executed.

And the killer was messing with what Travis wanted. Each morning and night when he fucked his mate, he had to focus on repressing not only his knot, but the instinct to sink his teeth into her. He reminded himself that this weekend out at Rivière Du Loup might provide him with the opportunity to do just that. They would be safe at her father's stronghold, but there was the problem of how she might explain it if someone happened to see the fresh wound or the resulting scar. If they were more planful, they could allow enough time that a wolf-shifter's natural recovery ability would allow the wound to heal and perhaps not be as noticeable.

There had been times in his life when he'd wanted to knot a she-wolf in her human capacity—the knot was larger and tie far longer and more intimate than when they were both wolves. The problem was that only alpha males could form a knot and tie their mate in human form. The thing was, and this was the crux of the issue, to do so was frowned upon by wolves of honor unless there was an understanding between the alpha wolf in question and the she-wolf he wanted to tie. So, like the other wolf-shifters that he call friend, he'd settled for only knotting females in his wolf form.

Travis knew that Skylar reveled in their lovemaking. Each time he took her she writhed beneath him, climaxed multiple times and fell asleep sated in his arms. He longed to be able to focus solely on her and on her pleasure. Having to suppress the knot and quell his need to allow his canines to elongate and sink into her neck was effort he couldn't put into pleasuring her.

The one night he almost lost the fight to mark her, he growled when he'd rolled off her—angry that he didn't have a better handle on his more primal self.

Skylar reached for him, her hand running down his back. "Travis? What is it?"

"It's nothing, Sky. Go to sleep."

"It's not nothing when you roll off me frustrated and angry. I know you came, I felt you fill me up like you always do. What did I do wrong?"

He turned back to her, smoothing her hair out of her face. "Nothing, baby. You didn't do anything wrong. Making love to you is everything I dreamed it would be and then some. My wildest fantasies didn't even come close to the real thing."

"Then what is it?"

He sighed and stretched out on his back, lifting his arm up to invite her to snuggle.

"Tell me," she whispered.

"I feel like many times I don't do right by you."

Skylar sat up, looking down at him, and began to laugh. Not exactly the response he'd been hoping for.

"It's not funny, Skylar."

"Oh, but it is. Are you nuts? You never touch me without me climaxing at least three times. Most times you have me so wildly turned on that I come when you mount me. Shit, Trav, I even come when you mount me from behind after you blister my ass for breaking some arbitrary rule and I'm so angry I want to punch you. Let's not even talk about the other night when you flogged me into subspace and still made me come twice before you took me down off the cross and fucked me all night. Just in case you missed it, that would be the night I marked up your back something fierce."

She pushed at him before continuing. "I've come to accept that I'm going to spend the rest of my life sore in my feminine parts because you're hung and know how to wield that particular weapon with consummate skill. Even knowing I'm going to be sore or even when I'm already sore, I still crave you. I can't seem to get enough of you. And you're worried about not doing right by me? You do me any more right and you'll have to explain to my father that you actually managed to fuck me to death."

"I don't think that's a conversation I want to have with the Alpha of New Orleans."

"Probably not, but my point is the idea that you could or should be doing more is ludicrous. The fact is, no one has ever made me feel like you do. I now understand why my mother sometimes trembles when my father walks in a room. I'm sure he does that rumbling thing you do that no one else can hear. Every time you do that, my pussy clenches in anticipation. Just for fun, what is it you think you should be doing?"

"It's not a question of should. I'm doing what I should be, taking care of you and ensuring you're safe and cared for. The problem is what I want to do. And fighting those primitive urges means I can't focus solely on you."

"I don't believe whatever urges you think you're fighting take away from how you love me. Tell me what it is."

He rolled to his side, pushing her back down. He traced the hollow of her throat across to her clavicle. "I want to sink my teeth into you and tear enough flesh away with a savage bite that you are marked forever as mine."

"You do know that's not something she-wolves look forward to."

"If it's done right, all you'll remember is the pleasure I bring to you at the same time and then knowing you belong to me."

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. You said urges, plural, what's the other?"

"I want to drive my knot up into you, rock you into oblivion and then have you tied to me for hours."

"Is it like subspace?"

"I think probably subspace on steroids."

She smiled at him with that sexy, sultry smile. "Now that's something I can look forward to. My mother is pretty blunt about most things. She said the pain from the breach is bad but the ecstasy that awaits on the other side makes it worth it." She leaned up and nipped his earlobe. "I can't wait. I think I'm going to be very greedy and want to be knotted several times a week."

He groaned and fell back. "Not helping."

She laughed and curled up next to him. "Sorry… not sorry."

He continued to run along the path, catching glimpses of other animals who called this place home. Several times he thought he heard a sound that didn't quite belong—the snap of a twig, birds taking to the sky in fright, another animal crashing through the brush. Each time the hackles along his back would rise in warning. On more than one occasion, he turned to confront something that wasn't there.

In a clearing, Travis stopped and scented the wind. He snorted to clear a foul stench from his nostrils—blood and decaying flesh. Something… He sniffed again. Something human had died out here and been left to rot. He cast about until he found the strongest odor and then began to track it. Whatever, or whoever, it was, didn't belong here.

He followed the trail off the path and into the underbrush. He noted where something large and walking erect had dragged something deeper into the swamp. He could hear a snake slithering away and in the distance an alligator returning to the water. A bobcat dropped his prey—a rabbit—to hiss at him before snatching up his dinner and racing away. All of these were sounds he expected to hear, but Travis still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something here that didn't belong.

The smell of blood and decay got stronger as he moved closer to the center of the park. He could see another clearing up ahead. He proceeded cautiously, using all of his senses to locate the source of the smell and what might be the cause of both the swamp's and his own discontent. But there was nothing but stench of rotted flesh. Then he saw a small, freshly turned mound of earth. Travis sniffed again. The mound reeked of death and madness.