Free Claimed (Book Four of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel by Hazel Hunter Page A

that…what I think it is?” she asked, her voice soft and scared.
    In the clearing were the remnants of a tent. It had been caved in from the top, and there were supplies scattered around the dead campfire. The light dusting of snow did nothing to cover the destroyed site. Instead, it only added to the air of desolation and fear.  
    Kieran appeared as if materializing out of the forest, his face grim.
    “I saw you both drop down and came to look. Stand back, I want to get closer.”
    Piers and Hailey hung back while Kieran carefully turned over the site. For a full twenty minutes, he went over the goods, occasionally nodding to himself. Finally, he stood and walked over to where they stood.
    “It’s definitely a Magus Corps officer’s campsite. Those are the same supplies as the ones that I’ve used and we’re using right now. I don’t know what could take him out of it like this; he wouldn’t have left it this way on his own.”
    “Something large,” mused Piers, looking over the destruction. “But it didn’t kill him, did it?”  
    “No, or at least, there’s no sign of blood or anything else. As far as I can tell, something came down and dragged him off.”  
    Hailey shivered to think about what could be powerful enough to remove a Magus Corps officer from his tent. All of them were trained in the armed and unarmed forms of combat. Some of them, like Kieran himself, had had centuries to hone themselves in the arts of war.  
    “I was looking for incendiary devices,” Kieran continued. “Templars and the Magus Corps have been at this war for some time, and they will leave bombs in places that they have attacked. There’s nothing like that here. It makes me think that they were in a hurry or simply did not have the mind to leave something behind.”
    He turned to Hailey.  
    “We’re taking a break to refuel on water and food. After that, I want you down here in your wolf form. We’re going to start moving slowly to prevent ourselves from missing anything.”
    “And me?” asked Piers.
    “I still want you in the air. If something happens to me, I want you ready to take Hailey out of here.”
    Piers nodded. The three of them sat down to eat, by silent consensus staying away from the wrecked campsite. After they were done, Kieran went to clean it up, taking what supplies survived and piling the rest together so that the site would not be so obvious.
    This time, when Hailey took Kieran’s hand, she could access his power with even more speed than she normally did. It was almost a heady feeling, having it right there. There was something powerful happening. She had never taken power from anyone as often as she had taken it from Kieran.
    In her wolf form, she cast around the area carefully. Now she could tell that there had been a man at the site. His scent was the strongest, but the other scent that she found confused her badly. Her wolf brain tried to put it in a way that her human mind could understand, but it was at a loss.  
    Water. Blood. Bad. Old. Rot.
    Hailey shook her head as if to get the scent out of her nose. For a moment, all she could think to do was to sit up and howl in a panic. Whatever had taken the man, it was not human. It was not right, and her body twisted, trying to pull away from it.  
    She shook her head and twisted into her human form.  
    “There is something very wrong with whatever took this man,” she told Kieran. Piers was already far above, watching them closely.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Templars are men. I know they are because I’ve seen them die. This…I don’t know what this is. The wolf is telling me that it is bad and, more than that, wrong.”
    Kieran frowned.
    “Do you mean something like a mountain lion or a bear?”
    Hailey shook her head in frustration, wishing she could explain.
      “No. I mean something wrong. A mountain lion or a bear is not a good thing, but it makes sense. They’re just other predators who want the same thing that the wolf