Free Fire Storm by Ally Shields Page A

into the grove of trees and vines to their left. When Samuel stiffened, apparently picking up the fox scent, Ari touched his arm in a warning not to react.
    The man striding toward them was deeply tanned, his natural Mediterranean complexion weathered and turned into a mocha color by the Tuscan sun. Well-built, confident, his expression was neither welcoming nor threatening. “Why is a tiger on our land?” he asked Samuel without preamble.
    Ari answered instead, explaining she was a Guardian from the States and was visiting the De Luca vineyards. “A werefox has been on the estate property recently, and we’d like to talk with her.”
    “You’re concerned about a trespasser?” The werefox, who’d identified himself as Ramon, was faintly mocking. His eyes narrowed. “You said her ?”
    “Yes, it was a vixen.” Ari had deliberately mentioned the gender. Lycanthropes had a hard time differentiating the males and females of other species by smell alone, unless the female was in her heat cycle, but witches could read the remnants of auras. It should tell him what she was.
    He took another look at her and then a deliberate sniff, his nostrils flaring. “Witch.” His expression hardened. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
    “There was a break-in at the De Luca house, and your vixen may have seen the suspects.”
    Ramon scowled. “Are you accusing her of being involved?”
    Ari struggled to keep her voice casual and not antagonize him. “We just want to talk. We’re willing to pay for information.” If anything motivated werefoxes, it was money.
    Ramon’s tense stance relaxed at the mention of payment. “It may have been Katya. I heard she had a new client.”
    Client! Ari’s nostrils flared with indignation. Too tame a word for the lowlife behind a sneak attack and abduction. She forced herself to focused on what she’d heard. So the fox had been someone’s local eyes, just as they’d suspected. The small and clever creatures could go wherever they wanted without being noticed. It made them effective spies, and in the States they earned good money doing freelance surveillance.
    “I’ll take you to her, but…” he looked directly at Ari, “I think I better stay while you talk.”
    “Fair enough.” Ari and Samuel followed him back down the road. He cut through a grove of trees and approached a gentle hillside of vines and brush.
    His soft growl warned her before the smell did. Rotting flesh.
    The den had been dug out by deep claw marks; twigs and earth scattered; the werefox’s body lay half in, half out. Her neck had a large chunk of flesh missing where it had been ripped by sharp teeth, and she had bled out. Katya’s clothes hung in shreds; the backs of her hands showed small tuffs of red fur, suggesting she’d been in the process of transforming when she died. Probably in an attempt to escape. Foxes were not effective fighters against larger opponents, but they could run like the wind.
    Ari sucked in a shallow breath. It hadn’t been an easy death. But overshadowing her natural empathy for any loss of life—even this life—was a bitter disappointment. Ari wanted answers, and Katya wouldn’t be telling them anything.
    She stepped closer and sniffed the air. A second odor was becoming all too familiar.
    Ramon’s low growling cut off, and he knelt beside the victim. “What the hell happened to her?” Even though it was clear to Ari the woman had been dead for some time, he leaned over and listened for a heartbeat. He looked at Ari with pain in his eyes. “Who did this?”
    She responded to his loss first. “I’m sorry about your friend. She was attacked by werebears. Two or more. The same scent was at the De Luca house.”
    “Did you have a kill like this?”
    “At the estate? No, but there’s blood from a fight.” She glanced at the victim’s decomposing body. “She may have been attacked the same night so she couldn’t report what she saw. I’d like the name of her