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

does. This…thing…is something else.”
    Kieran nodded soberly.
    “All right. Follow the scent, but stay close to me. I don’t want to lose sight of you.”
    She took his arm again, and when she felt strong, she returned to her wolf form. She forced herself to be calm, and so she set off after the scent of the man who had been carried away.
    There was a brief moment where she could smell another wolf, a scent which confused her. Wolves were actually a rarity in the mountains of Europe. In many regions, they had been hunted to extinction. She knew this was true. Some of the men she had known in the Angioli coven in Italy even spoke of the old wolf hunts.  
    All of that was true, but she could definitely smell the scent of another wolf here. The scent was fresh. She supposed that there must be long holdouts, wolves that hid so well that they bred in secret populations throughout the mountains.
    She put the thought to one side. Instead, she put her nose to the ground and started casting about for the scent. As she had feared, the wrong scent that she had detected was wrapped with the scent of the man who had been taken away. The two scents twined around each other, telling her that they were moving in the same direction.
    There was one comforting thought that occurred to her as she followed the trail at least. As time wore on, she became more convinced that the man was alive. He might have been unconscious or otherwise immobile, but he was definitely alive.  
    The trail was not a direct one. It wove through the forests, following a path that she couldn’t discern. Sometimes it doubled back on itself. She wondered if the thing was afraid of being tracked or caught. As she followed the trail, Kieran followed her closely, though he stood back whenever she needed to sort out the trail. He knew that she needed him not to foul the track with his own scent, but he was always right behind her.
    Then, suddenly and without warning, he was not.  
    She looked up from a strange twist in the trail only to realize that she was alone. At first, Hailey thought that she must be wrong. Surely Kieran was right behind her. Perhaps he was hanging back to let her work out the trail. At worst, he had walked to one side or the other to see if there were any other traces worth following.
    She stood stock still for a few long moments. Then she had to come to the dark conclusion that he was not behind her. Hailey took a deep breath. The wolf brain was not one that was inclined to panic, so she used it to her advantage. She followed her own track back patiently. She couldn’t have lost him all that long ago, she knew that.
    Less than twenty minutes after she started following her own back trail, she found Kieran’s scent again. The fur of her back started to rise, and without even thinking of it, she uttered a deep and ferocious growl. That wrong scent was back again, fresher than ever. It mingled with Kieran’s scent, tumbled with it. She could see no blood on the ground, but neither could she see any tracks leading away. To her shock and fear, she realized that whatever had taken him had carried him straight up.
    She didn’t bother thinking about what she did next. Instead, her body started shrinking. Instead of a human form twisting out of the wolf’s, an eagle’s feathered body emerged instead. The expenditure of power was large, but she didn’t care. As soon as she had wings that were great enough to bear her upwards, she sprang into the air. She lofted herself well above the trees, circling the area where she and Kieran had been. She sought desperately for Piers, but even the power of her sharp eyes did not reveal his presence.
    Hailey circled the area for what felt like hours, but what she knew was only minutes. They were simply not there to be found. If she was a human, there would have been some doubt. However, there was no fooling her eagle eyes or her wolf nose. Something had taken both men, plucked them away as if they had never