was treat me like a servant.”
Sam tucked the rope around his waist and crooked a finger at her. “C’mere.”
With a soft sigh, Kelly slid into his embrace.
“I’m not my mother.” He kissed the top of her head and rested his cheek against her hair. “I’d never act like that.”
“That’s a relief. If you paraded around in a kimono and started sipping tea instead of beer, I’d really worry.”
Sam laughed and then focused his attention on the barn in the distance. “You ready for this?”
Soft grass silenced their footsteps as they passed the stone pagoda with its tattered Chinese lanterns swinging from the rafters. Kelly felt like a ninja, moving as Sam had taught her, darting from tree to tree.
Whoever broke into the estate knew not only its location but also the entrance to the underground bunker.
“Curt knows all about this place,” Sam said as they hunkered behind a thick magnolia trunk.
He removed a pair of binoculars from his vest and scanned the stretch of open lawn. “When he became my CO, he wormed it out of me about how I had no family. Then he asked me all these questions about the estate. He loves reading history. I told him about how the bunker used to hide slaves during the days of the Underground Railroad.”
“He wasn’t interested in history. Only you,” Kelly guessed.
“Yeah.” Sam watched the grounds. “In getting me to talk about the place’s history, he made me realize how important my heritage is. The estate had fallen into disrepair. I’d let it go. After, he helped me find a contractor to fix up the burned wing, gardeners to tend the grounds.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“None better. Damn good fighter and sniper. Scored twenty kills in Desert Storm.” Sam lowered the glasses, voice remote and cold. “If they did kill him, he wouldn’t have gone easily.”
Insects hummed in the trees. The stillness in the air felt heavy and unnatural. Impatient for action, Kelly wanted to race across the lawn.
Sam closed his eyes. “Nothing’s been by this way in months. No trace scents. Wish Dakota were here. His sense of smell could pick out a pebble in a stream.”
“The wolf can, you mean. Any wolf.”
“Not going there. We do this the old-fashioned way, on two legs, not four.”
Knee-high meadow grass brushed against their legs as they headed toward the picturesque split-rail fence dividing the estate’s grounds from the adjoining farm. Kelly followed Sam to the barn. Inside the air was moist and still. A slightly foul stench made her wrinkle her nose.
“Someone’s been here. I smell something dark and evil.”
Sam dropped to a crouch and pointed to patterns in the dust. “Someone who didn’t bother erasing prints, meaning they’re either careless or arrogant.”
Kelly’s heart squeezed painfully as Sam lifted the round iron ring on the floor. He drew out a pistol from his backpack. “Stay here.”
“They’re probably being guarded. Sam, let me go with you.” Panic lodged in her throat.
“If something happens to me, get word to J.T. and Dallas. You’re more important, Kelly. You’re the only one who can tell a real Elemental from an Arcane who killed him and stole his identity.”
“I’m not going to lose you, Sam,” she whispered.
She did not recognize the intense, determined look on his face. “Let me do my job.”
Every cell cried out to join him, but he was right. Should he run into trouble, Sam possessed the needed skills.
“Be careful.”
He vanished into the black hole that gave way to a small airless room holding rusted farm equipment. But another door, hidden and opened by only a spring mechanism, gave access to a tunnel that led to the estate’s wine cellar. Kelly sat on the floor, hugging her knees as she waited.
Waiting. How did Sam and his team do it? Sometimes they remained motionless for hours as they waited for a target to move out, he’d told her.
Sam’s selfless devotion to duty opened her eyes to her lover’s other side. She’d thought bravery and honor as mere words.
Sam had shown her those words in action.
Muscles cramping, she stretched out. A crow flew inside and perched on the overhead rafters, scolding her. Kelly leaned down and drew a heart and initials in the dust.
Smiling, she let her fingers trail over the letters.
The cellar door creaked open. Hastily, she dusted away her impromptu drawing as Sam climbed the steps, his expression remote.
“They’re not there. They were, and not long ago, but they’ve been moved.” Ice coated his next words. “They wouldn’t risk hurting the kids now until they stole the last one needed for the rite.”
Disappointment stabbed her. Kelly gazed around the barn. “Do you think they’re off the estate?”
“Hard to tell, but maybe somewhere around here. Moving that many kids is difficult, even if they’re drugged. Curt is a whole other challenge. He’s like me. Won’t give up the fight, and if he goes down, takes someone with him.”
His merciless tone told her exactly how challenging.
Kelly couldn’t fathom the risks Sam and his team took. Every time he went on a mission, he knew he might not return home.
Sam was cool and collected, even now when their search efforts failed. His calmness gave her strength.
“We need to track them.” Kelly pointed to her pack. “The bear has their scent.”
A guarded look dropped over Sam. “It’d be difficult to trace from here.”
“Not if you shifted into a wolf.”
“I’m a good operator, Kel. I’ve tracked targets through snow and sand as a man, not a wolf.”
He stood, dusting off his hands. “Let’s head downstream, follow the bank. If they moved them off the estate, the splashing water would disguise their movements.”
At the stream, they walked along the bank until Sam squatted down and shook his head.
“Nothing. I doubt they came here.”
Kelly hugged herself, studying the current. “You taught me how to swim here.”
“I always took Pete tubing in this place. Spring rains and runoff from the mountains would push up the creek. Made sure to stay behind so I could keep my eyes on him, just in case.”
“I watched you once, from this tree.” She pointed at an overhanging sugar maple.
Sam looked up. “Why didn’t you join us?”
“I told you, I couldn’t swim.”
“I’d have taught you.”
And Pete, in his cherubic innocence, would run home and tell his parents. It’d been safer to watch in silence.
“Sam, there’s only one way to find them. You have to shift into a wolf.”
His gaze grew haunted. “I don’t want to risk turning feral and hurting you.”
She took his face between her hands. “You’d never hurt me, Sam. All this time, you’ve endangered yourself to keep me safe. The wolf will do the same.”
Kelly kissed his mouth, feeling the strong line of his lips, the responding warmth. “Do it for Curt. He’d trust you to find him, and use any means at your disposal.”
“No, he’d trust me to do anything I could to find the kids. He’d die trying to keep them safe. Maybe he
