Page 60 of Roguefinder

It thickened, and I moved faster with Caleb at my shoulder. We hurried past churches and gelato shops. Past bars and pharmacies with signs advertising currency exchange. Ulfrik’s scent pulled me south, then east, and then the Colosseum loomed ahead.

Its arches blazed against the black sky. The travertine at the base was deserted, and the grassy areas beyond were dark and quiet.

The scent intensified. My wolf snarled in my mind, hackles raised and fangs bared. Ulfrik was close.

Anticipation pumped hot in my veins. The end of the mission hovered. Finally, Caleb and I could leave Rome and get back to normal life.

It couldn’t come fast enough.

I broke into a run, racing across the travertine toward one of the yawning arches. Its metal grille glittered in the floodlights. I’d have to find a way inside without alerting the Carabinieri.

The scent vanished.

I stopped so fast my boots skidded on the travertine. Caleb lurched to a halt beside me with confusion in his eyes.

Spinning in place, I strained my senses. Nothing. Once again, the trail had snuffed out. It wasn’t even like someone had pinched a candle flame. The candle had never existed in the first place.

“Did you lose it again?” Caleb asked. Immediately, he winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like⁠—”

“It’s okay,” I said, finding his hand and squeezing it once before releasing it.

I stood in place, chest heaving and my wolf standing still in the back of my mind. The beast was just as stunned. In over a century of tracking, I’d lost trails to snow, highways, and the occasional river. But they faded. They didn’t just cut off. Now it had happened twice in two days.

Above us, wings rustled. A handful of crows lifted off a pilaster and fluttered over the Colosseum, disappearing into the night.

Caleb and I watched them go. Frustration building, I cast my senses wide, feeling for Ulfrik’s scent at the edges.

A sudden realization froze the breath in my lungs.

Aside from Caleb, I didn’t sense a single other werewolf. Not one.

Impossible.

I closed my eyes and pushed, casting a wider net. I spun my senses north, past Tuscany and into the Southern Alps.

No wolves.

My heart sped up, and I turned and repeated the process to the south, scanning badlands and mountains and the rugged terrain of Calabria.

Nothing.

“Jesse?” Caleb asked.

I opened my eyes to find him watching me, his earlier exhaustion replaced with tight alertness.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

His mouth tightened, and hurt flitted through his eyes before he masked it. “You don’t have to protect me. I can handle⁠—”

“No,” I said, running my gaze around the empty piazza. Palatine Hill was a dark lump rising behind the Forum. “That’s the problem. I don’t sense any other werewolves.”

He frowned. “Like in Rome?”

“In Italy.”

Silence pressed around us. Caleb stared, his frown growing. “Is that unusual?”