Resisting the Moon: A Royal Shifters Novel by L.P. Dover Read Free Book Online Page B

others apart, there were more that came in and devoured them. I could see their tracks, but couldn’t smell them.
    “Why can’t I smell the other tracks? Is it just me?” I asked.
    Sebastian let go of my hand and kneeled, touching the tracks. “No, it’s not just you. But there’s a reason why.”
    I turned to him. “Why?”
    He huffed, jaw tense. “Magic. Whoever did this doesn’t want to be found.”
    “Magic? Are you talking Maret kind of magic?” Maret was a powerful witch I’d helped kill just a few months back. It had happened during a rescue mission for Bailey. I could still taste the foulness of her blood in my mouth. When Sebastian nodded, I groaned. “I didn’t think there were any other witches out there like her.”
    “There must be.”
    “Why are they trying to hide?” It made no sense. Wolves were all about territory and making themselves known.
    “Don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t like it,” he growled.
    “What about Amelie? If she’s not here, they had to have taken her. How are we going to find her?”
    Amelie wasn’t a fighter. When we were younger, she’d been the soft-spoken one who chose to pick flowers and search for beautiful rocks instead of climbing trees and playing in the mud. We were the perfect balance together, and the best of friends. The thought of what was being done to her made me sick. It felt like a rock was being wedged in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
    Sebastian clutched my cheeks in his hands, turning my face to his. “Calm down, Tyla. We’ll find her, I promise. We just need to track her scent.”
    I tried to turn to the carnage, but he held me firm. “What about my aunt and uncle? We can’t just leave them here.”
    “We won’t. But every second matters. We need to see if we can pick up Amelie’s scent and find out where she was taken. We’ll have to come back and bury your family later.” It was a long shot, considering we couldn’t even track the other wolves’ scents. But we had to try.
    I didn’t want to leave my family rotting on the ground, but what choice did I have? Nodding, I placed my hands over his. “Okay, let’s go.”

Tyla
    W e’d picked up Amelie’s scent pretty easily and followed it away from the carnage. It made no sense why they would leave her scent while masking their own.
    “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked, glancing at Sebastian. “Either they want someone to follow her scent, or they figured she wasn’t part of a pack, and therefore, no one would try to find her.”
    I could tell the wheels in his mind were turning. He was older than me and definitely wiser when it came to tracking. “But why would they mask their own scent then? There’s something more going on, and I can’t figure it out. It makes no sense,” he said.
    “What do you suggest we do?”
    He pointed in the direction Amelie’s scent guided us to. “We keep following.”
    Ten minutes later, we spotted a backcountry road off into the distance. The footprints and spots of blood stopped at the side of the road, where a set of car tires were ingrained in the dried mud.
    “They had this planned,” I said, glaring at the tire tracks on the road. “Can you tell what kind of car they were in?”
    He shook his head. “Only that it’s probably a large SUV or van. There are lots of vehicles with that size of tires.”
    There were no houses within miles. The chances of someone seeing anything were slim. All I could do was stare at the road, hating myself for not knowing what to do. “What the hell are we going to do now?”
    Sebastian came up behind me and put a hand on the back of my neck. His touch made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. Biting my lip, I slipped out from underneath his hand, hating the disappointment on his face.
    He stepped away, the muscles in his jaw tense. “Our best bet is to go back to Amelie’s and search around her house. Maybe there’s something we missed, a clue as to who would be after her.