He laughed and put his arm around my waist as the path widened enough for two. 'For breakfast?'
'You said I could have whatever I wanted.'
'Can I get you some fruit to balance that meal?'
'No, but you can dig up some bacon. Bacon and eggs.'
'Dare I ask for a little help?'
'I'll make coffee.'
He laughed again, 'Thanks a hell of a-'
He stopped. We'd come to the forest's edge and stepped through to the backyard. There, on the back patio, less than fifty feet away, stood Jeremy… surrounded by five or six unfamiliar human faces, all of which turned the second we walked from the woods. Clay growled an oath and stepped in front of me, covering my nakedness. Jeremy wheeled around and ushered the group off to the side. It took a few seconds for them to move, and a few more for them to stop staring.
When the visitors had vanished around the side of the garage, I grabbed Clay's arm and made a run for the back door, not stopping until we were upstairs. Before he could say anything, I shoved him into his room and went to my own. I'd only put on panties and a bra before I heard Clay's door open. Expecting him to head downstairs to confront the trespassers, I hurried to my door and yanked it open, only to find him holding the handle.
'Hey,' he said, grinning as he recovered his balance. 'If you're that eager to let me into your bedroom, I should offer to make breakfast more often.'
'I was-You're not-You're okay?'
'I'm fine, darling. Just coming to round you up for breakfast while Jeremy gets rid of our uninvited guests.' He leaned forward, put a hand against my back, and kissed me. 'And no, I'm not going out to help him. I'm in too good a mood to let a bunch of humans spoil it. Jeremy can handle them.'
'Good,' I said, putting my arms around his neck.
'Glad you approve. So let's get breakfast going, then we can dream up a few ways to distract ourselves until Jeremy's ready to tell us how he plans to deal with Marsten and Cain.'
As he leaned forward to kiss me again, someone cleared his throat in the doorway. I peeked over Clay's shoulder to see Jeremy there, arms crossed, a slight smile on his lips.
'Sorry to interrupt,' he said. 'But I need Elena downstairs. Fully dressed if we ever intend to get rid of these men.'
'Yes, sir,' I said, disentangling myself from Clay. 'I'll be right there.'
'Hold up,' Clay said as Jeremy turned to leave the room. 'I need to talk to you.'
They left. I could hear Clay apologizing for his behavior the night before, but quickly tuned them out, not wanting to intrude. I finished dressing, ran a brush through my hair, checked in the mirror, then went into the hall. Jeremy and Clay were still there.
'I'll start breakfast,' Clay said, heading off down the stairs. 'Have fun, darling.'
'I'm sure I will,' I said. As we went down the steps, I glanced over my shoulder at Jeremy. 'Sorry about that. The walking naked from the woods thing. We didn't expect visitors.'
'Nor should you,' he said, steering me toward the back door. 'There's no need to apologize. You should be able to come and go as you like here. It's these damned intrusions that…' He shook his head and didn't finish.
'What is it this time?'
'Another missing person.'
'The boy from the other day?'
Jeremy shook his head as he held open the back door for me. 'This time they're looking for one of the men who came on the property Friday. The middle-aged one. The leader.'
'He's missing?'
'Not just missing, but missing after having left a message for a friend saying he was coming here last night to check things again. Something about this place was bothering him. He wanted another look around.'
'Oh, shit.'
'In a nutshell-exactly.'
Mistrust
There were six people in the search party, three local cops and three civilians. Jeremy, Peter, Nick, and I went out to help them look while Antonio returned to the house to keep an eye on Clay, in case his commitment to noninterference didn't last. The four of us played the role of good and concerned citizens, scouring the bushes while keeping our noses on alert for anything we didn't want the searchers to find. One thing I would have rather they hadn't found turned up early in the quest.
'Got something!' one of the men yelled.
'Is it Mike?' another called, rushing from our sides.
As everyone converged on the scene, Nick's voice rang out, choked with barely contained laughter. 'Forget it. It's-uh-nothing important.'
'What the hell do you mean?' the first man said. 'Maybe this is all a joke to you, son, but…'
The rest of the sentence trailed off as we burst into the clearing to find one of the searchers bending over a ripped shirt. Torn clothing littered the ground, more hung from bushes. Nick held up half a pair of white panties and grinned at me.
'Wild dogs? Or just Clayton?'
'Oh God,' I muttered under my breath.
I walked over to snatch the underwear from him, but he held it over his head, grinning like a schoolboy.
'I see Paris, I see France, I see Elena's underpants,' he chanted.
'Everyone's already seen much more than that,' Jeremy said. 'I think we can safely resume the search.'
Peter plucked Clay's shirt from a low-hanging branch and held it up, peering through a hole in the middle. 'You guys can really do some damage. Where's the hidden video when you need it?'
'So this-uh-wasn't done by wild dogs?' one of the searchers said.
Peter grinned and tossed the shirt to the ground. 'Nope. Just wild hormones.'
The other men, who'd finally stopped casting sidelong glances at me after the 'naked in the yard' incident, now looked me over with renewed interest. I smiled, trying hard not to bare my teeth, then hurried back into the woods.
Jeremy, two of the searchers, and I were beating the bushes in the northeast quadrant of the woods when we heard another shout, this time infused with enough urgency to make us run. When we got there, Nick and two searchers were standing over a body. Nick looked up, caught my eye and gave me a look that said he'd tried unsuccessfully to distract the men's attention. Jeremy and I walked to the body and looked down. It was the missing man. His shirt collar was torn and drenched with blood. Above the collar his throat was shredded, flaps of flesh hanging from the wound. Empty eye sockets stared up at us. Crows or turkey vultures had found him first, lying exposed in the clearing. Besides taking his eyes, they'd pecked at his face, leaving bloody holes where white bone peeked through. Bits of scattered flesh covered his shirtfront and surrounded his head, as if the searchers had scared the scavengers mid-meal.
'Like the others,' one man said, then turned away from the sight.
'One difference,' another said. 'He wasn't eaten. Not by the dogs at least. Birds got to him though. Buggers don't waste any time.'
A younger man bolted for the woods. Seconds later, the sound of retching filled the air. Two of the men shook their heads in sympathy, both looking a little green themselves. My stomach wasn't feeling so great either, though it had nothing to do with seeing a dead body. When the younger man stopped throwing up, he was quiet a moment, then ran from the thicket.
'Come here! You guys have to see this!'
