It was her, the woman from the apartment. He knew it. He didn’t have to catch her scent. Horror and tragedy still lingered in her eyes.
Another kind of knowing settled into his bones, a strange, deep pool of certainty that he had undergone an undefined, irrevocable shift that he didn’t understand or have the time to explore. The woman turned and began to walk in the direction of the nearby subway station. Riehl pushed through the delicatessen door and moved to cross the street, the whole of his attention laser-locked on her retreating figure.
Alice’s feet started carrying her automatically on her normal route home after visiting Haley, toward the Bedford Avenue subway station. First Peter was killed. Then yesterday they found out David had gone missing, and now Haley was dead.
David was dead as well. She knew he was, even though the police had not yet released any official word. Three of her friends, gone in as many days.
The street looked innocuous but a hint of the monster’s scent still lingered, warm and sensual in the cold wet air. Alice couldn’t stop shaking. The image of Haley’s poor mutilated body was frozen in her mind. What was she supposed to do next? Oh yes, call 9-1-1.
She dug in her pocket for her cell phone as her gaze darted around her surroundings. She glanced over her shoulder.
A man in black jeans and a battered leather jacket was crossing the street. He was immense, as tall as a tree, built like a linebacker, and he moved like a killer. His white-blond hair was cut military short, and the sharp, ruthless lines of his face were weathered and harsh. His piercing eyes were some kind of pale color, either gray or blue, and they reflected the light as he looked straight at her.
The bottom dropped out of Alice’s world as recognition slammed into her. Too many nightmarish epiphanies happened at once. They nearly knocked her to the ground.
It was the monster. He was no longer caught in a Wyr’s partial shapeshift, but she knew him. She knew him.
He’d found her, just as she’d been afraid he would. He had caught her scent, and now he had seen her face.
And she had seen his. He might be the one who had killed her friends. He was the most terrifying male she had ever seen.
And he was her mate.
Oh gods. Oh gods.
A hot wash of horror licked invisible flames along her skin. She had heard of such a thing before, two Wyr recognizing each other as mates at first sight. She had thought it was an urban legend. Deeper than love, more dangerous than lust, Wyr mated for life. This couldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t happen, not if she had anything to say about it.
She whirled. Terror whited out her thinking and lent wings to her feet.
Riehl lunged into a sprint after the woman.
Holy hell, that chick could move. Riehl was fast but he was big. She darted lickety-split between cars and people like nothing he’d ever seen, her slight, slender body able to take sharp turns and squeeze through tight spaces in a way he couldn’t hope to match.
Then in a hopscotch skip straight into the land of weird, as she ran she faded into her surroundings. She didn’t quite disappear, not totally. Her clothing was too solid for that, but somehow it was harder to track her just by vision alone.
Huh. That was fascinating as shit.
Good thing he could track her with more than just his vision. He could catch her if he changed. If they had been anywhere but the city, he would have. He was faster in his wolf form, and he could run literally for days. But if he changed into the wolf, he couldn’t speak unless they were close enough for telepathy, and he could already taste her panic on the wind. Besides, NYC might be the seat of the Wyr demesne, but it was also home to millions of others as well. He didn’t trust how people might react to the sight of a two-hundred-pound wolf hurtling down a city street.
He took a deep breath and bellowed, “NYPD! Stop!”
Of course she didn’t stop. He wouldn’t have stopped either just because some dumbass stranger yelled at him. Damn it, was she headed for the subway?
She was. In a move that was so suicidal it took his breath away, she plunged almost directly under the wheels of an oncoming truck as she raced across the street. Riehl didn’t think the driver even saw her because the truck never slowed.
Riehl had no choice but to pull up for a few vital moments, which gave her an even greater lead. After the truck he kicked it in gear, kicked it as hard as he could. He blazed down the sidewalk like a heat-seeking missile, scattering pedestrians in his wake like so many squawking chickens. He listened to the sounds of his breathing, the sharp wind whistling in his ears. At the subway station, he didn’t bother with taking the stairs at a run. Instead he gathered himself and spanned the flight in one massive leap, but it wasn’t enough.