Free Know Thine Enemy by Rosalie Stanton Page A

while he understood the appeal to human males, such fragrances were often an affront to his super-heightened senses. Izzie smelled like soap and toothpaste. Either she knew what attracted the seedy underbelly of the demon world, or she didn't care to scrub down in frilly foam or whatever else the girls of today enjoyed. Ryker liked it. Were circumstances different, it likely would have led him straight to her throat.
    Thus, when he stepped outdoors, he couldn 't help but drink in the lingering hint of her scent.
    Something had happened here.
    "Evertin' all right?"
    Ryker shoved his hands into his coat pockets and kicked the curb. "The girl."
    " Whut?"
    " Izzie. She came out this way."
    " Right." Connor huffed in agreement. "After she din't eat no food."
    Ryker domed a brow and favored his friend with a slanted look. "That wasn't personal, you know. The girl's a hunter. She probably doesn't make a habit of taking food from strangers."
    " Coulda taken it from me."
    " Yeah, but she didn't know that."
    Connor gaped at him for a minute then furrowed his brow as though he hadn 't considered this before. "Err. Right."
    Ryker inhaled and nodded, his attention returning to the slab of pavement where Izzie 's scent was the strongest. "Something happened here."
    " Happened?"
    " Yeah. Girl like that doesn't stop to fumble for her keys. She made tracks to get away from me and stopped a hair outside the door?" He shook his head. "Something happened here. She ran into something."
    " Or sumfink ran into 'er."
    That might have been the most intelligent thing Ryker had heard the other man say. He nodded and looked to the numerous shadows and alleyways in which a predator might hide.
    " Ya tink sumfink grabbed 'er, is that it?"
    " Maybe." He didn't like jumping to conclusions.
    "' Nother bloodsucker, ya tink?"
    Ryker frowned. No, that didn 't make sense. None of this made much sense. The odds of a vamp making a random successful grab of a talented hunter were steep.
    " No."
    " Coulda followed her."
    " I followed her. If someone else was on her tail, I would've known."
    " Ya tink?"
    The note in Connor 's voice lent him pause, but Ryker decided not to pursue it, or Izzie's mysteriously hovering scent.
    Perhaps he was thinking too hard. After all, it had been over a century since a woman had stirred in him more than a mere passing interest. The most action he 'd seen in years was the blood he nursed off a willing neck before bringing his bedmate to fruition. Izzie was different. She knew what he was, yet she wasn't afraid or disgusted. Even as a hunter, she didn't reach for her weapon unless she was under fire.
    Perhaps that was why he was concerned.
    Perhaps.
    Either way, she was a clever, resourceful girl. He wasn 't one to worry, and he definitely didn't want to start now over someone he'd just met.
    Not now. No. Though something told him if she didn't show up by the following evening, his answer would change.
     
    Chapter Five
     
    The mind was a funny thing.
    Izzie 's childhood, for the most part, was nothing more than a blur of images and sensations. Memories of her later years—the last spent as Harrison's daughter—were more concrete. The line separating what she imagined and what she knew was real had solidified somewhere between the ages of ten and thirteen. Granted, she didn't particularly care to reflect on the life she'd left behind, but she had learned how to compartmentalize. How to preserve the memories she needed and lock all the others away.
    H er mind felt fuzzy when she pried open her eyes the next day. She blinked and yawned, her skin humming, her heart pounding, and a sense of dread pooling in her belly. A few moments passed before the night returned in all its confusing glory.
    Izzie sat up, looking from one corner to the next. This was her motel room —the same one she'd awakened in the day before. Her duffle bag sat where she'd left it, as did the crossbow she'd inherited from Wright and the clothes she'd worn last