Someone must have drugged her. That was the only explanation for this strange behavior. Or, dear God, did they go into heat?

“Are you coming on to me? ’ Cause if you are—” He didn’t have time to finish with his bad barking-up-the-wrong-tree pun. Up ahead, the mansion loomed before them.

With startling clarity, he remembered that night. Or, more accurately, the drive over. He’d never seen Nathan so shaken. Too keyed up to drive, definitely, so Max’d had to drive Ziggy’s shitty old van, listening to Nathan mumble “faster” and “come on,” the whole time.

“I can’t lose her, Max. If I lose her, you have to do me a favor.”

And then he’d pressed a stake into Max’s hand.

Max wouldn’t have been able to do it then, and he wouldn’t be able to do it now. They’d have to take Nathan alive, and damn the consequences.

“Why did you stop?” Bella demanded, digging her heels in again as if she could spur him to movement. “He is not here!”

“Fine!” Max didn’t mean to shout it. The stress was getting to him. Calmer, though his voice was still ragged from tension, he started forward. “Where am I going?”

She sniffed the air again and tugged his shirt. “That way. And straight onto that lawn.”

Her directions led him to another sprawling home, past a baffled security man, who didn’t try and stop them until they were nearly to the back fence. There was a gate—thank God for small miracles—and it was unlocked, so they could slip out before the guard called the cops.

“Wasteful, to have such large homes,” Bella said, the flirtatious air completely disappeared from her speech.

Max thought of his own place and cleared his throat. “Well, maybe they’re inherited.”

“Then wasteful of their ancestors, to have such large homes.” There was clearly no arguing with her.

As they crossed the next lawn, she directed him back to the street. He groaned in frustration. “We could have just gone around the block.”

“The trail is fresh. Cross the street!” She sat up like a foxhunter rising in the saddle.

“You’re hard to carry when you’re squirming like that.” He ran across the street, glad for the absence of traffic on this side of town after nine.

They were crossing another lawn when he caught sight of Nathan, naked and bleeding, sprinting through a hedge.

“Holy shit!” Max dropped Bella, though she tried her damndest to stay on him.

“Do not leave me here!” she yelped. “I thought you needed my help.”

“I need to lose some ballast so I can chase him down!” Max ran toward the hedge, slipping on the grass.

“You will lose his scent!” Bella jogged beside him, her face contorted in pain.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he warned. Let her. She’ll have no one to blame but herself.