The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld Read Online Free Page A

Nothing.
    I paused there for a few deep breaths, sloughing off the fear, then strode into the room to search for clues. The answer was right there, on the desk. A page ripped off the notepad, Elena’s looping handwriting: salty crab + no water = beverage run .
    Shit. We really should have grabbed more water earlier.
    As I pulled on a T-shirt, I told myself Cain was long gone. I’d had him in a death-hold before he could lay a finger on me. A sensible mutt would take it as a lesson in misplaced arrogance, swallow the humiliation, get out of town and find a doctor to set his jaw before he was permanently disfigured. But a sensible mutt wouldn’t have gotten himself into that scrape in the first place.
    Cain would back off only long enough to pop painkillers. Then the humiliation would crystallize into rage. Too cowardly to come after me, he’d aim a sucker punch where he thought I was most vulnerable: Elena, who’d just strolled out alone into the night, having no idea that a mutt had been stalking her all day because I hadn’t bothered to tell her.
    Shit.
    As I tugged on my jeans with one hand, I dialed Elena’s cell phone with the other. Elena’s dress, discarded on the chair, began to vibrate. Beneath lay it the purse she’d taken to dinner, open, where she’d grabbed her wallet, leaving the purse—and her cell phone—behind.
    I grabbed my sneakers and raced out the door.
    •  •  •
    I didn’t bother checking the gift shop. Elena had already decreed the water there too expensive. Jeremy and I might have had some lean times during my childhood, but Elena knew what it was like to wear three sweaters all winter because you couldn’t afford a coat. Even if she could now afford to buy the whole damned gift shop, she wouldn’t give them three bucks for water that cost half that down the block.
    Normally, I respect that, but this was one time that I wished to hell she’d just spend the damned money.
    I strode out the front doors, stopped and inhaled. A couple glowered when they had to drop hands to walk around me. I scanned the road, sampling the air. Finally it came. Elena’s faint scent on the wind. I hurried down the steps.
    •  •  •
    There was a convenience store on the corner, but Elena’s trail crossed the road and headed down the very alley where I’d lain in wait for Cain that afternoon. What the hell was wrong with the shop on the corner? Was the water ten cents cheaper three blocks away? Goddamn it, Elena!
    Even as I cursed her, I knew I was really angry with myself. I should have warned her about the mutt. If I’d honestly believed I could keep her in my sights twenty-four hours a day, then I was deluded. Elena would see no reason why she shouldn’t run out for water, even at this late hour. She was a werewolf; she didn’t need to worry about muggers and rapists. But a pissed-off mutt twice her size?
    I broke into a jog.
    •  •  •
    The moment I stepped into the alley, I smelled him. He must have been waiting outside the hotel, formulating a plan. Then his quarry had sailed out the front doors . . . and waltzed straight into the nearest dark alley.
    By the time he had gotten over the shock at his good fortune, he’d lost his chance to catch her in the alley. She’d exited, walked a block, then . . . cut through another alley.
    Goddamn it!
    I raced to that alley, then pulled up short. Cain stood at the far end, his back to me, gaze fixed on something across the road. Elena.
    I could drive him toward her . . . if she’d known he was coming. I circled to the next side road, hoping to cut him off. As I approached the end, I moved into the shadows.
    Elena was still there. I could sense her, that gut-level calm that says she’s near.
    The streets and sidewalks were empty. Our hotel was in a business section of town. That had looked good when I’d picked it online—surrounded by restaurants and other conveniences. But we arrived to discover those conveniences