Page 44 of Stubborn as a Shadow

Then I scooted as quickly as I could between the cars, going in the opposite direction I had been walking, and counting on the blizzard to obscure my movements. If someone had found my room, they probably knew which vehicle was mine too. I wasn’t used to feeling this level of paranoia, but being captured and caged had messed me up.

By the time I leaned against a pickup truck to figure out my next move, I was panting. My gaze darted over the area. The vehicles I was crouched between had their noses pointed toward the woods at the edge of the parking lot.

Perfect. I could hide in the trees for a bit. It’d get me out of the wind and away from the worst of the snow until I confirmed if someone was out to get me.

I tiptoed toward the trees. I didn’t stop until I found a nice, fat trunk to hide behind. Since I wore black, they shouldn’t be able to spot me too easily in the shadows, right? And the snow was coming in quickly enough that my footprints were already filling in. I crossed my fingers on both hands. If I could cross my toes, I’d have done that too.

“Did you find him?” someone asked. The words were muffled and scratchy, like they were spoken over a slightly out of tune radio. But it sure sounded like the wolf who’d been sniffing me at the hotel entrance.

“Not yet,” the man said. He sounded close. “You sure he didn’t go back inside? It’s freezing out here.”

They weren’t even trying to whisper or anything. That was worrying. Why weren’t they being sneaky? My heartbeats crashed through me faster than ever. Still, they might not be talking about me. Not everyone did.

“Tough shit. You know he didn’t go back. And quit whining. You fucking spooked him with all that ‘your magic is strange’bullshit; now you need to find him.”

Well, fruit loops and pixie farts, it looked like they were looking for me after all.

15

SEXY, SEXY, SEXY. HALLELUJAH.

MORGAN

“I don’t see him,” the guy said. “Can’t you sniff him out?”

“Management doesn’t want us shifting at the hotel. And I can’t smell very well in my human form with all this snow blowing around.”

“Fuck the rules. Get your ass over here and shift so we can get him and go back inside. Besides, we’re in the parking lot, not the hotel. And if we were listening to management, we wouldn’t be going after him anyway.”

“If I get caught shifting, Keenan will fire me. I don’t want to lose my job,” the woman said. Her voice was coming through the radio, but I could also hear it echoing in real life too, as she approached my hiding spot.

“If we get caught with him, we’ll be vampire food anyway. Particularly if he finds out we’re working with the hunters,” the man retorted. “But fine, Judy. You stay out here in the fucking cold and poke around in the blizzard. I’m going inside.”

They were working for the hunters to… to abduct me? Me? I scowled and wished them a lifetime of sprained ankles. Now, if only I could figure out how to make that happen.

The wolf huffed. “Are all fire mages so whiny?”

“My magic is the only thing stopping my balls from freezing off, so fuck you. You’re going to owe me a plate of phaal curry so I can replenish my magic after this.”

“What’s going on?” a voice whispered in my ear.

I jumped.

“What was that?” the wolf said. She and her buddy stalked toward the trees, straight toward where I was standing. “Rudy Tada? Are you over there?”

I turned to glare at the person who’d scared me, except no one was there. Nelson was in his shadow form again.

“Stay still. No matter what happens, don’t move,” Nelson instructed so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

I closed my eyes and tried to stay as still as possible. We’d played this game already once today. And now that I knew what was going on, it was even easier to obey this time.

The wolf lifted her snout to the air and inhaled. She sneezed. “Stupid fucking snow.”

“Can you see any footprints?” the mage asked.

“The wind is blowing everything around too fast,” the wolf said with a growl. “Even our prints are already covered in.”

“He can’t have gotten far.”