Chapter 65: Inseparable

Nash

Dazed and confused.

After staring up at the ceiling for a while, I rolled over to look at her side of the room. I felt like I had been hit with a stun grenade, temporarily blinded and disoriented, while my ears throbbed with the force of the flash-bang known as Daphne Redhawk.

I scrubbed my hand over my face, and was reminded that I was in dire need of a shave. I also desperately needed to sleep, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind long enough to catch some shut-eye. Normally, I was a man who could sleep any time anywhere, even in the middle of a battle zone. It was a matter of survival, to be able to shut off and turn it back on at will.

Which only confirmed that Daphne was going to be the death of me.

I lay on the bed for another hour before I rolled up to a sitting position. I pulled out my phone and went through my messages and emails. It wasn’t as if this gig was my only responsibility. I still had my security company to run, other clients I needed to keep tabs on. Luckily, I had a great team that managed things fairly well in my absence. Since I had the room to myself, I also took the opportunity to make a few discreet phonecalls to my teams.

And the whole time I felt guilty for sneaking around behind Daphne’s back. The need to tell her exactly who I was and why I was on campus was practically choking me. Every time she called me “Nate” I felt my throat constrict. I’d never had a problem keeping my cover before, not during my military career, and not in the private sector.

The only solution was to hurry up, find the bear, and wrap up the assignment.

And then what? Was there any hope that I could come clean, and we could ride off into the sunset for our happily ever after. I had never thought that was possible, not for me at least. I was too broken, I had nothing left to offer a woman, and if I ever had a family, I would probably just f.uck it up.

All these thoughts made me feel restless and uneasy.

Not to mention the fact that Daphne kept going out into the woods, even after I specifically told her not to. Was she doing it on purpose, disobeying me like some defiant child, just to get a rise out of me? Why else would she keep going out there, when she had to know how dangerous it was?

I had to keep her safe, but short of tying her to bed at night, I had no idea how I was going to keep her out of trouble. Just the idea that Daphne might accidentally stumble upon that monster in the woods made my heart clench painfully in my chest.

I could not let anything happen to her.

The mission has changed.

Daphne’s safety needed to take priority over my recon mission on the big bad bear. How I would accomplish that without compromising my identity, or the fact that I was working undercover for a werewolf alpha remained an unknown.

I dressed quickly and pulled on my boots. I had to get out of the room before Daphne came back, or God help me, I wouldn’t make it out at all. She was like the most potent drug on the planet, and I was so addicted that I couldn’t go five minutes without getting a hit. Her beguiling scent alone was enough to keep my on my knees, begging for her attention.

Never had I been so weak, had never felt so vulnerable. But when she was in my arms, I felt so strong. I felt powerful, invincible, complete. I swore and grabbed my coat on the way out to the Jeep. I needed food, and I needed some space to think things through clearly.

I drove away from the campus, into downtown Rutberg, and went through the drivethru of the Burger Joint. Once the kid in the window handed me out a paper sack of junkfood, I found a parking space in the back of the lot where I wouldn’t be disturbed. I unwrapped a burger from its foil packaging and stuffed a bite in my mouth, while I leaned over and pulled a folded paper map out of the glove box.

These days one can see everything online, with satellite imagery allowing you to identify everything down to the individual tree, rock and river. But I found using the old school paper survey maps from the forest service was much more valuable. It took two maps to cover the area around the university campus, as there were state and national forest reserves on both sides of the university, and a state park surrounding the twin lakes. There was a lot of forest to cover, so I had gridded off the map to separate it into manageable search areas.

Male black bears can have a home range territory of up to 120 square miles, so I used a compass to draw a circle around the school, further refining my search area.

I had crossed off the areas I had already cleared with a yellow highlighter. But, in light of what I had just learned from Daphne, I had to consider the fact that I might have missed important details. I fished a mechanical pencil out of the console and searched the map for the trailhead to the overlook. When I found it, I traced my finger behind the swamp. The countour lines showed that the mountain rose up steeply behind the marshy area, and I added another circle at the base and wrrote in “caves?” next to the circle.

I should go check it out, but since Daphne had already reported that they were empty, it didn’t seem like the best use of my time. There was aother cave on the map, a well known one called Devil’s Den. I hadn’t bothered to search there because it was a well known attraction on a trail with heavy traffic, especially during the warmer months. The Appilacian trail also cut through the grid, and there were several camping shelters set up along the route.

Again, I had dismissed those areas as being too active, but I was forgetting that I might be dealing with a shifter, not an actual animal. And during the winter months, when this killing spree had began, those trails would be all but impassible, even to the most intrepid hiker.

I tore another bite out of my burger and made a plan in my head. I would head to the block to the south, check out the trails on that side, then I would circle back and do a sweep of all the bike paths and walking trails around the campus. I felt a growing sense of urgency. I had to find this thing before it took another life.

I had to find this thing so that I could move forward with Daphne.

I shoved the last of the burger in my mouth and picked up the beverage and took a big gulp of the cola. It was syrupy sweet in my mouth, but I had neither the time nor the resources to worry about proper nutrition. With food in my belly and a plan on paper, I put the Jeep in gear and headed south. As I drove, I glanced down at the passenger seat and noticed the t-shirt I had picked up off the trail.

Without thinking, I picked it up and pressed it against my nose. I could swear I could still smell her scent on the fabric. And for some reason, it made me feel more calm, more focused.

It also made me long to be close to her again.