Once Bitten (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #1)(62)

“Yeah, Raoul,” I added. “Don’t torture yourself. Maybe you should call Fox to get a place prepared for Belle.”

Fox Matthews, a city werewolf, specializes in medicine. He helps with injury, illness and, unfortunately, death. We can’t go to human doctors with vampire bites and claw marks. With Fox’s help, we had laid more than one wolf to rest within the trees and forests beyond town. Belle would be in good company.

Raoul looked at us with obvious relief but slowly backed away from the door. “Sure.” He nodded and grasped the railing at the top of the stairs. “I’ll make some calls. Maybe make some coffee. Do you guys want any?” He paused, looked at Arys then shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Make coffee. Use the phone. We’ll be down in a few minutes.” I rushed him downstairs. His nerves created a raw energy that bit at my skin in all the wrong places.

He descended the stairs and turned the corner before I reached for the door handle. The knob was cold and smooth in my hand. I must have held it a split second too long because Arys tried to step in.

“Do you want me to go first?” he asked. When I shot him a dirty look, he added, “It’s not personal. I never knew her. Well, except for that one time.”

My cheeks grew hot, and I shoved the door open with more force than was necessary. I couldn’t believe he was joking at a time like this, or at least, he damn well better be joking.

I took in the sight of the bedroom and forgot my irritation. I almost slipped on something slick as I stepped through the doorway. If Arys hadn’t been within grabbing distance, I would have landed on my butt in the mess.

“Oh, this is a nice one,” Arys remarked, completely unaffected.

He gave the murder scene before us an all-appraising glance, like an artist surveying the latest creation of another. I knew the things that he’d done in his time. I saw them through my own eyes. Arys had done so much worse than this.

I started at the foot of the bed, unable to look at her face yet. I could only recognize Belle’s bleached blonde hair, well, what remained blonde anyway. Most of it was stained a tragic red.

Blood covered the duvet on the bed as well as the wall behind it. I wondered how Belle had that much blood. A trail of splatters fell in a line across the expensive grey Berber carpet. Even her pretty, pink toenail polish was dotted with scarlet smears. I was dying to take a deep breath but the air was rank with the sickly sweet scent of werewolf blood.

Two gaping wounds caused the entire mess. One ran straight down, from her surgically enhanced br**sts to her pubic region. Although exceptionally straight, a few jagged tears indicated that a clawed human hand had created the slice.

The other wound was in her neck. Her throat was torn wide open, exposing gruesome tissue and bone. Her vacant blue eyes had rolled up to stare at the ceiling.

“Oh God, Belle.” The words slipped out, and I reached to touch her but didn’t.

I stared at Belle for a long, silent moment. Finally, I pulled the blood stained sheet to hide her nakedness. My hand lingered, and I trailed it through her silky locks simply because she was one of my own. As I gazed down into her dead stare, I was livid. Someone dared to take what Raoul and I protected. His human lovers weren’t mine, but Belle, she was pack. Somebody was going to pay for this.

“Tell me what you feel,” I breathed.

“You don’t feel anything?” Arys asked and stepped nearer.

“I feel a lot of things. But, there’s so much here, and the smells are overwhelming.” The energy in the room created a swarm of sensations, a fuzz inside my head. I waved a hand to indicate the carnage around us. “I’m not quite sure what I’m feeling. Something is off.”

He studied me as he slowly walked the room’s perimeter. “The blood scent overpowers your Alpha’s fear, but the rage… It lingers everywhere.”

He stopped near the bed and looked down at Belle. He saw something that I couldn’t see, which created a metaphysical itch that ate at me. His thought taunted me like an idea on the tip of my tongue.

“Who would do this?” I asked, not expecting an answer, but I felt the weight of Arys’s questioning stare.

“Somebody with a serious vendetta. Your Alpha has been a really bad boy. You really can’t pick up that energy?”

“He’s not my Alpha.” I crossed my arms over my chest, which only drew the vampire’s eyes to my br**sts. “Yes, I can feel something, Arys, but I can’t identify it. I have been around for two and a half decades. You’ve seen centuries. Don’t make me feel inferior just because I don’t know what I’m sensing. It smells human, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s hard to pick out anything beneath the blood and death.”

His hands came to rest on my forearms, and he gazed deep into my eyes. The now familiar heat within my core began to grow at his touch. He pulled my arms apart despite my childish resistance and gave me a slight shake.

I frowned. “Arys, what are you-,”

“Shh.” He placed one finger lightly on my lips to silence me. “Loosen up. Concentrate. Seriously, Alexa, listen to me.”

I wanted to listen, to allow his voice to draw me in. I leaned into his touch and savored his cool power.

“Shake off the need to be wolf,” Arys continued. “Smell, sound, sight…these things won’t serve you here. You have to go beyond those senses. Tap into what makes you more than wolf or woman.”