Bait This! (A 300 Moons Book) Read Online Free

emergency exit was at the back of the plane. He went to it, reached up and worked the crank.
    It stuck, and for a moment he was afraid it was permanently sealed after being dented by the tree or something. He worked the handle frantically.
    Then suddenly the bear forced its way to the underside of his skin, and with a single shove, the door was open.
    He pulled himself up and out through the small space, feeling like a baby being born.
    He slid off the top of the plane and looked around, acrid smoke from the plane filled his nostrils.
    He needed to get moving, but which way?
    The sun was already touching the edge of the mountain. It would be dark soon.
    He stood in a shadowy clearing, surrounded by trees, without a single sign of life in any direction.

5
    B y the time Hedda made her way to the source of the sound, she had already been studying the smoke rising from it for a long time.
    She searched for signs of a creature that could cause such a ruckus. However, there was no glimmer of activity in the woods beyond the usual twilight noises.
    Coming around a stand of pines, Hedda saw at last that what she had found was not a demon, but an airplane.
    Smoke billowed out of it, masking any detail.
    “ Purgare fumi ,” she whispered, waving one hand before her.
    Instantly, the smoke cleared.
    At first she thought that part of the plane was missing. There was the tail, there were the broken wings in pieces in the trees and on the ground. But where was the nose?
    When she realized it had crumpled in on itself, she nearly vomited.
    So, there were probably no survivors.
    A plane crash was never good news, but she couldn’t see how it fit in with the omen. What did any of it have to do with her?
    She walked around the wreckage.
    Footprints.
    Whatever had survived the crash was now in the woods. This must be the bad thing she’d been expecting.
    She scanned the trees for the owner of the footprints, but she saw and heard nothing. So she studied the prints instead.
    They were human, though of course plenty of evil could take other shapes. They were almost certainly male, judging by their size.
    She eyed the wreckage again. No way a man just got up and walked away from that.
    A demon, then.
    That was her best guess. Probably inhabiting someone on the plane - the more powerful ones could do that. An unlucky coincidence to be sure. And it had brought down the plane when it felt the pull of the moroi and the unsecured portal in the mine. She’d been afraid of something like this.
    She waved her hand over the footprints, and they began to glow. Whatever made them was packing some powerful magic.
    Hedda swallowed hard.
    There was no one else here to follow the tracks.
    And perhaps her second gift would help her assert herself over this thing, whatever it was.
    In any case, she didn’t have a choice.
    Taking a careful breath, Hedda resolved to track down the man creature, no matter the consequences.
    She had screwed things up enough with her vanity once before. If she died trying to fix things it was no more than she deserved.

6
    D erek had decided to walk in the direction of the setting sun. He didn’t know where it would lead him, but he was sure he didn’t want to be anywhere near the burning plane.
    Once it was out of sight, he stopped to get his bearings.
    Then realization hit him.
    He had been in a plane crash. And a man was dead.
    He’d gotten a little banged up, but the bruises were already healing - one of the advantages of being a shifter.
    He looked around.
    He was obviously in the middle of the woods. There was nothing but an endless stretch of trees in any direction.
    Derek was not the outdoorsy type, which was slightly unexpected, considering he was a bear shifter who had grown up on a farm. But even as a child, he’d always been eager to get to the city and out of the trees.
    But here he was, alone in the woods.
    At least he had his cell phone.
    He slid it out of his pocket.
    No signal.
    No, no, no.
    He tucked the