Bad Seed: An Imp World Novel (Northern Wolves Book 4) Read online

  “I figured that the hunters might have some kind of magic that lit up in the presence of a shifter, so I actually became a mink, not a shifter-turned-mink, a mink. That means I looked like a mink, smelled like a mink, and, I hoped, looked to a magical device like I was a plain old mink.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve met demons before, and they all smell the same no matter what form they take. They smell like the form they are in with faint touches of the souls they own and a weird burnt chocolate smell. I’ve never met one that completely masked their scent before.”

  “First off, I’m not truly a demon just as you’re not truly an angel. Secondly, demons weren’t raised around shifters with their heightened sense of smell. It’s not that they can’t mask their scent, it’s that they don’t think to do it. And even if they tried, I don’t think they’d be all that great at it because they’re not used to experiencing the world through their noses. I was brought up as a shifter. My entire life I’ve honed my olfactory skills. That’s the sense I’ve practiced to the point that it’s far more sensitive and skilled than any of my other senses. And because I’m all about my nose, I’ve learned to adjust my own scent signature.”

  “Do it.” He narrowed his eyes. “Smell like something else—something not Tupper Mills.”

  It was tricky to do it without changing physical form, but I concentrated and shifted my scent to that of the mink. Jake leaned close, sniffing. Then he leaned even closer. I could feel his breath as he scented my neck and hair, felt the heat of him so near that he was almost touching me. My beast preened, urging me to present myself, to offer sex. The timing was terrible, but I couldn’t help but catch my breath, the scent of arousal trickling out into the mink. His breathing changed in response, and he hesitated, almost touching me. It was one of the most erotic moments of my life, millimeters away from him, his breath tickling my neck as I held myself absolutely still, willing him to do something, do anything. Kiss me. Stroke me. Bend me over the desk and fuck me like the animal I was.

  Instead he stepped away. “You do smell like a mink.”

  Yeah, a horny mink in heat, but a mink. I took a deep breath and tried to dampen down the sexual excitement. No boinking for me. Not now. Probably not ever.

  “And I clearly picked up the aroma of a mink where your regular scent trail vanished.” Jake sat at the edge of his desk. “Tell me everything about these humans you tracked.”

  That was it? No apology? No “gee Tupper, you’re amazing and I should never have doubted you”? Asshole.

  I was irked, but my beast wanted to show off and I really did want him to be aware of this threat, so I told him everything, from sensing the odd lingering spots of magical camouflage this afternoon to following the hunters’ car.

  “Were they armed?”

  I shrugged. “The distortion wasn’t enough that I could see whether they were carrying weapons or not. I’m assuming so, given that they were spying on a compound with sixty werewolves. They’d be idiots to come here unarmed, invisibility magic or not.”

  He nodded. “How close did they come to the compound?”

  “I don’t know. They were at the rock face when I saw them, and from my exploring this afternoon, that’s the only place with the lingering spot of magic. There’s a whole lot of ground I didn’t cover though. It would take me a while to do a thorough sweep of the area to see where else they may have been and how close they came.”

  “That’s your work then, after our post lunch sparring. I want you to take Robin with you just to see if she can pick up anything that you’re sensing. It would be good to have another wolf with the ability to spot these guys. If you need more time, you can do it the next day as well.”

  Ugh. Work. Then sparring. Then this assignment, all on zero sleep. I was going to crash hard after dinner and not wake up until the whistle for morning drills the next day.

  “Will do, boss.”

  He stood. “Then get going.”

  No rest for the wicked. It all felt so satisfying, though. I had a place here. I had value here. I was an asset to my pack, had skills my Alpha admired. Hopefully I had other things he admired as well. And best of all? I’d totally gotten away with the dorm room incident. Guess Jake wasn’t as smart as I’d thought, because he hadn’t put two and two together on my abilities to change my scent and what happened with Muscles and Muffin Top’s trunks last evening.

  I headed for the door only to turn around with my hand on the handle as I thought of something else. “I gotta ask, do I really smell like burnt chocolate?”

  “Yes, you do. And Mills?”

  I hesitated. “Yes?”

  “Report in an hour to Jamie in the center of the compound for punishment. And try not to kill Stacy.”

  Busted. Guess I wasn’t getting away with that after all. I wondered what this punishment would be, then thought of how Fox Face wasn’t going to get a last minute pardon, and grinned. “I’ll try not to kill her.” Try being the operative word here.

  Chapter 11

  One hour was just enough time for the exhaustion to set in. I dug out the sweaty garbage-scented clothing that I’d worn yesterday and put it back on, vowing that I needed to at least run it through the laundry tonight if I didn’t make it to the compound store to buy extra workout, and work, clothing. Then I brushed my teeth and left behind my sleeping roommates to go meet Jamie.

  Well, sleeping roommates minus one. Fox Face hadn’t been there, although from the hastily-made bed, I could tell she got more sleep than I had last night.

  Jamie and Fox Face were both waiting for me, the latter with a slightly puzzled look on her face.

  “What did you do?” she asked, not masking the hostility in her voice.

  “Killed seven in one blow,” I told her. Judging from the wary expression on her face, she didn’t get the fairy tale reference.

  Jamie glared, ending the conversation, then she looked at the stopwatch in her hand. “Ten-mile circuit. If you’re not back in an hour, you need to do it again. Two-legged, human form only. Go.”

  Fucking hell. I’d just spent the whole night walking all over the woods, not including my run back to the compound. Shifters were fast, but holding a six-minute pace for ten miles was brutal. But I didn’t have time to contemplate that, or much else because Jamie had clicked the stop watch and Fox Face had already taken off.

  Having only been here a few days, I wasn’t as familiar with the area as other pack members, and although I knew the ten-mile circuit was the trail with the red blazes, I’d waste too much time slowing down to check for the markings on the trees to finish in the required time, so I did something that had my beast ready to rip out of my skin—I followed Fox Face.

  My beast was pissed off beyond belief that I hadn’t passed her, or attacked her, but even she didn’t want to run a second ten miles in one morning, so I held position, keeping close enough to Fox Face that I didn’t lose her. I had no idea if we were on the right path or not since I was jumping rocks, winding around trees, and splashing through shallow streams at top speed, having no time to check the trees for the red blazes. I only hoped that Fox Face was equally reluctant to do a second ten-mile run, and wasn’t leading me off course on purpose.

  My lungs were burning, but when I snuck a peek at my watch I saw we were only four miles into the run, and not going to make it if we kept up this pace. I edged closer to Fox Face, and she yanked a branch forward as she rounded a corner, letting it fly back to smack me in the face.

  Bitch. I could feel the blood on my face before the wound sealed, and ducked to avoid another branch. I needed to pass her. Not only was the idea of running another six miles dodging branches completely unacceptable, but Fox Face was going too slow to make the run in our required time. Either she planned on pulling some Usain Bolt sprint the last few miles, or she wasn’t able to hold the pace. And if I stayed behind her, not only would my face be covered with whip marks from the branches, but I’d find myself needing to scream past her and run the last
mile at the speed of a jet airplane. I needed to get around her now, or reconcile myself to doing a second ten-mile run.

  Of course, getting around Fox Face proved to be problematic. The trail was narrow, and the few times I tried to pass her, she swerved and cut me off. There’s no way I could head through the brush and keep up the speed I needed to get around her, so I held back and waited.

  Three miles left. There was another stream crossing and I took it wide, speeding up to get around her. She did the same and we reached the bank at the same time. I flung out my arm to knock her back, and she did the same with her foot. I tripped, landing face-first in the mud, looking up to see Fox Face vanishing around a corner.

  Fuck. Fuck! Not only was she still ahead, but I’d need to waste time looking at the blazes or risk getting lost. My beast and I both snarled in frustration, and I jumped to my feet, fury fueling my adrenaline.

  I caught up to her with two miles left to go, and when we came out of the woods and into a meadow, I put on the speed, each breath like fire as I pushed past her to take the lead. But even ahead, I still couldn’t slow down, not if I wanted to make it in time, so I kept running, gasping for air as my muscles quivered and screamed. My watch beeped just as I rounded the corner of the lake, and I tried to sprint, giving everything I had to make it up that hill and to where Jamie stood waiting with her stopwatch. I tore past her, heard her click the watch, then fell to the ground, tears in my eyes as I struggled to steady my breathing. Fuck, that was tough. If I didn’t make it in the hour and needed to run it again, I was going to just walk the damned thing.

  Fox Face ran past Jamie. She was obviously beat, but still had enough energy to place a weak “accidental” kick in my thigh as she went past. Jamie looked at her stop watch and strolled over to us as we lay panting on the ground. I heard Fox Face retch and grinned. I was in pain. I was exhausted. But at least I wasn’t dry heaving in the grass.

  “Mills, fifty-nine minutes and twenty seconds. Hammond…”

  Please let it be over an hour. Please let it be over an hour.

  “Fifty-nine minutes, fifty-eight seconds.”

  Damn it all, she’d made it with two seconds to spare. I shot Jamie a narrow-eyed look, wondering if she’d fudged the time for Fox Face. It certainly had seemed like I’d come in more than forty seconds ahead of her, but I’d been too winded to check my watch.

  “Nice job, ladies,” Jamie commented, stuffing the stopwatch in her pocket before turning to leave. “Let’s hope I don’t see either of you here tomorrow.”

  I’d been a bit peeved to find out that my punishment run didn’t take the place of morning drills. No sooner had Fox Face and I returned to the dorm, but we needed to head back out again for more sprints, this time carrying logs. After that, I managed to grab a quick shower, then drag my aching body into work. It was recycle day, which wasn’t quite as dirty and smelly as regular garbage day, I discovered. After collecting everything from the bins, I sorted it, then loaded it into the bed of a pickup and headed into town.

  This was my first time off the compound since I’d arrived, not counting my tracking the hunters last night, and I was a bit concerned about getting lost. The truck had a GPS on the dash, and I’d been left a map and a set of directions for the recycle center, but I still took it slow, pausing at each turn. Once I was out onto the paved road, the drive went quicker, and the town was only fifteen miles away, not the hours I’d been dreading.

  I had no idea what this town was called. No one had told me, and there wasn’t a sign as I pulled into town. Following the directions, I headed toward the rear of a gas station, where there was a line of dumpsters, each labeled with the appropriate recycle type. I tossed the contents of my bins in accordingly, then raided the truck’s cup holder for enough change to buy a soda.

  It was pretty sad that I didn’t have enough money to buy a vending machine drink. The last two days I’d gotten kind of used to having the pack provide everything, but this brought home to me how very little I had in life to call my own. Not that I’d ever needed much, but it would be nice when payday came and I could at least have enough cash on hand to get a soda or order a new pair of jeans.

  By the time I pulled back into the compound, it was lunchtime, and I was starved. I’d skipped breakfast in favor of a lengthy shower, and my stomach was reminding me very loudly of that fact. Work done, I grabbed a quick bite to eat, changed my clothes, and headed to the Alpha House for the afternoon sparring session with Jake.

  I was nervous, and not just because I was stupid enough to have eaten right before I was going to get the crap beaten out of me.

  Jake was in his office, and far from taking me to task about my part in the dorm room incident, he barely even spoke to me as we walked down to the gym.

  “Are we sparring on four legs today?” Jake asked, eyeing my jeans.

  “No, I’d rather fight in human form.” It had been hard enough to control my beast on patrol last night. I feared sparring would quickly turn into more purposeful fighting if I let her out of my skin, and I didn’t want to put Jake in a position where he’d have to rip my head off to save his own.

  “Fencing? I’d suggest boxing, but I think those jeans are a bit tight for the footwork.”

  I reached down and unsnapped them, scooting them down over my hips. “I’ll spar sans pants, then. I don’t have any workout clothes besides the pair I wore this morning, and they could probably stand up on their own after that ten-mile sprint I had to do.”

  His lips twitched. “You’ve only got one pair of leggings? No sweat pants? Jogging shorts?”

  “One pair.” I folded my jeans and set them to the side, bending over at the waist so he could get a good look at my ass. Too bad I didn’t have any fancy underwear. Hopefully Jake found six-for-three-dollar nylon panties sexy. “So are we going to do this or not? You gonna take off your pants too? I mean, we should really make this fair.”

  I turned around to see him watching me with an odd expression on his face. “Think I’ll keep my pants on. Feel free to take your shirt off, though.”

  I ignored the sarcasm in his voice and pulled my shirt over my head, tossing it on top of my jeans. My sports bra covered more than a bikini top would, and it wasn’t like shifters weren’t used to seeing each other naked all the time anyway.

  He shook his head, and I felt a bit let down that he wasn’t overcome with lust at the sight of me clad in only discount-store underwear. His loss.

  An instructor, heck, a gentleman would have waited for me to make the first move, but I’d hardly taken a breath to ask which style we were using today when I was on my back from a solid kick in my stomach. I hooked a leg around his ankle and pulled, but didn’t have the best angle for leverage and barely budged him. Another kick came toward my side and I rolled toward it, grabbing his leg. I yanked, twisting the one leg while pulling the other and managed to at least get him on his ass for a hot second before he sprang to his feet.

  Guess that was my cue to get up as well.

  “Did you check up on my story today?” I asked, trying to distract him with conversation.

  He threw a quick series of jabs and I danced backward out of reach. “I followed your mink scent to the road, and picked up the smell of the car you were following, but lost it ten miles out. I never did smell any humans, though.”

  He didn’t believe me. He figured I just turned into a mink and went on a merry jaunt through the forest instead of patrolling like I was supposed to. Now I was the one distracted, and I found myself on the receiving end of an uppercut to the jaw that rocked my head and spun me around. I spat blood and a tooth to the ground and wiped my mouth on my arm. Damn, that one hurt.

  “Kind of odd, you know, smelling a moving car without the scent of humans in it. As far as I know, we don’t have any self-driving vehicles here, so whoever was in the car must have had a magical means of hiding their scent.”

  He did believe me.

  “Maybe they just had a really big-ass bottle
of Febreze.”

  I smiled and swung a few wild punches, leaving a stupidly big opening on my left. Jake swung for it and I spun, nailing him hard in the shin with the heel of my foot. I heard bone crack and he staggered back, bending down to position the leg so it healed properly. I took that opportunity to bring my knee up hard into his face and he fell back, nose gushing blood.

  “Dirty trick, Mills,” he commented, wiping the blood on the bottom of his shirt.

  “All’s fair,” I quipped, snapping another kick at him as he rose. This time he was ready and grabbed my leg, tucking it under his arm and turning. I felt the strain on my hip and tried to turn with it, but wasn’t fast enough. With an agonizing pop, my leg came out of joint.

  It’s really fucking hard to dislocate someone’s hip, even for a shifter. They are big-ass joints, with a deep ball-and-socket fit. So even though I was squirming on the ground in pain, I was filled with admiration at the strength and ability of my Alpha to do it in one quick move.

  Luckily my hip had snapped back into joint once he’d let go and it took me seconds for it to heal enough for me to stand. It still hurt, as did my jaw and my ribs where he’d kicked me. Shifters heal fast, and we’re fairly impervious to pain, but that didn’t mean those recently injured nerve endings didn’t keep sending lovely reminders to our brain that what just happened wasn’t something we wanted to repeat.

  Unlike I’d done, Jake hadn’t hit me when I was down. He waited until I’d gotten to my feet before sending me backward with a lightning-fast series of kicks and punches. I redirected as many of them as I could, but still found myself with my back to the padded wall. Jake had me hemmed in and try as I might to duck or scoot to either side, he blocked me at every turn. Suddenly he was too close for me to hit or kick at all, too close even to head-butt. I tried to raise my knee and nail him in the balls, but his thigh blocked my action.