Unless that was the point.
I was still chewing on it when the second scent reached me.
Blood.
And underneath it, something sweet. Cloying. A syrupy, artificial warmth that coated the back of my throat and made my stomach turn.
I stopped dead. My claws dragged four deep furrows through the pine needle carpet. My eyes burned blue in the dark.
I shifted back without planning to. One second wolf, the next standing barefoot in the mud, chest heaving, the cold air hitting my skin like a slap.
I turned to Damian, Damon, and Darius as they pulled up behind me.
"Blood," I said. "Close."
Then I turned back and ran toward it.
The clearing was worse than I expected.
Ronald lay in the dirt. His chest had been torn open. Knife wounds, multiple, across his torso and arms. The blood had soaked d
