“And could you feed me when you get back from dealing
with the … trash? I haven’t eaten for three days.”
She was a rather bossy victim. “I’l see if Kittyand I can’t hunt down a squirrel or two while we’re at it,” he said,
turning away to hide his grin and jogging down the trail
before she thought of something else she’d like him to do—
other than commit murder and find her clothes and rush
back to feed her.
Oh, but he was tempted to let her stay, if for no other
reason than to keep himself entertained for a few days.
That is, until he remembered her battered though otherwise
flawless body and felt his groin grow heavy. Hel , spending
even one night in the same lean-to as the beautiful woman
would likely test the noble intentions of a saint, much less a
man who’d been alone in the woods al summer.
Alec fol owed the wolf into the forest from where they’d
emerged onto the trail earlier and tried to remember when
the last time was that he’d been so immediately captivated
by a woman. Especial y an obviously high-maintenance
princess who’d given him a fictitious name, who didn’t want
anyone—including her family—to know where she was, and
who woke up from a nightmare and started issuing orders.
He found the men right where he’d left them, the only
problem being the bastards were dead. Hel , one of them
was actual y smoldering, as was the exploded tree he was
crumpled against. The other guy was riddled with shrapnel,
a large piece of wood so forcibly driven into his chest that it
was sticking out of his back.
Alec crouched to his heels and rubbed his face in his
hands, then stared at the men in dismay. This ought to be
interesting to explain to the sheriff: two fried corpses that
upon closer examination would show cracked ribs and
broken arms and a knife wound, and also a discharged gun
nearby. Oh, and a battered, not-missing woman in his
sleeping bag going by the name of Jane Smith, who also
happened to have an il egal pet wolf named Kitty.
Speaking of which, where was Kitty?
Alec scrubbed his face again, undecided about what to
do, then suddenly stil ed. Wel hel , it wasn’t his fault these
two idiots had chosen this particular piece of wilderness to
settle their differences, was it? In fact, he could think of
several scenarios for their being out here, from a drug deal
gone bad to a botched smuggling trip to … to an execution
interrupted by a thunderstorm that had kil ed both
executioner and executee.
As for the beautiful princess in his sleeping bag … wel ,
what princess? He could let her stay a few days to get back
her strength, then run her down to Spel bound Fal s in his
boat in the middle of the night, hand her a few dol ars, and
kiss her saint-tempting mouth good-bye. Hel , he used to
make his living orchestrating damage control—on damage
he’d caused, usual y. In fact, he’d been so good at it that
he’d had to leave the game before he’d irrevocably
damaged himself.
Alec went over and started careful y rifling through their
pockets, only to come up empty-handed. He didn’t find a
wal et, money or loose change, or even any lint—which
meant they weren’t going to tel him what was going on any
more than the woman was. But just as he started to stand
he noticed the odd-looking burn mark on the smoldering
bastard’s shirt, unbuttoned a couple of buttons, and pul ed
away the material.
“Bingo,” he murmured, taking his knife out of its sheath.
He cut the leather cord and peeled the stil hot-to-the-touch
medal ion off the charred skin before buttoning the guy’s
shirt back up and standing.
Alec studied what appeared to be an ancient coin of
some sort as he walked to the other man and crouched
down, used the tip of his knife to snag the cord around the
bastard’s neck, and lifted another medal ion out of his shirt.
He sliced the cord then held the coins beside each other,
frowning at the identical symbols crudely stamped into what
he suspected was bronze, before turning them over to see
writing in a language he didn’t recognize.
Okay then; these weren’t tel ing him anything, either,
since he didn’t have a clue what the symbol was. Could it
be the cal ing card of some criminal organization? Or
judging by the men’s plain, almost crude clothes, maybe a
cult? Hel , for al he knew these two bastards could be
members of an arcane fraternity he’d heard about a few
years back that got its jol ies pul ing elaborate international
crimes, and Jane Smith could be nothing more than the
innocent victim of a pledge prank that had gone bad when
she’d escaped.
Alec shoved the medal ions in his pocket as he walked
a short distance away, deciding to keep them his little
secret until he got more pieces of the puzzle to put together.
He sat down, slipped off his pack, then reached in past the
now-useless rope and medical kit and pul ed out the
satel ite phone—because the resort owner and his boss,
Olivia Oceanus, had decided cellphones ruined the
wilderness experience for her guests and had talked her
wizard husband into blocking reception in the resort’s
backcountry. He dialed 911, dutiful y reported the accident
he’d stumbled across—because he real y didn’t want to
bury the problem under a rock—and gave the dispatcher
the coordinates. He also gave his satel ite phone number,
saying the sheriff could give him a cal when he arrived so
Alec could lead him to the bodies.
He shoved the phone back in his pack, then started
walking the area looking for wolf and smal er shoe tracks in
the scattered patches of mud. He erased them al the way
up to where she’d col apsed before he backtracked through
the scene and headed down to the fiord, again leaving only
the tracks the men had made. He eventual y found where
they stopped—or rather had started—at the inland sea’s
high tide line; the problem was that he didn’t find the boat
they must have used to get here. He saw only his boat,
which was pul ed into the trees and turned over, its motor
stowed beneath it. He looked out at the fiord, wondering if
the storm’s waves had set their boat adrift. But if the men
had been chasing Jane, then there should be two boats
floating out on the water instead of none. That is, unless
she’d escaped the moment they’d stepped ashore and the
storm had sunk their boat.
Alec faced the looming mountain at the end of the fiord
and frowned. He knew the water was more than two
thousand feet deep in the unnatural waterway, and that the
underground saltwater river ran up from the Gulf of Maine
before it continued north al the way to the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The twelve-mile-long fiord had been added to
Bottomless Lake when an earthquake had pushed several
mountains apart two and a half years ago, at the same time
turning Maine’s second largest freshwater lake into the new
Bottomless Sea—al compliments of Spel bound Fal s’s
resident wizard, Maximilian Oceanus, who also happened
to be Olivia’s husband and Alec’s other boss.
None of which explained how Jane and Kitty and the two
dead men had gotten here. But at the moment he honestly
didn’t care, as he had damage control to see to, a woman
to hide—and feed—and two bags to find. He’d found her
missing shoe when he’d fol owed their trail down, making
him realize that she’d traveled over half a mile wearing only
one shoe.
Which meant Jane Smith was one hel of a tough
princess.