We ended up farther back in the room than I’d gone with Sam earlier that day. Simone’s scents were soon intercepted by a different scent, one that was rich and spicy, and even in wolf form, it curled my toes in a way that was purely sexual. Human sexual, not anything to do with my beast.

It was a smell that, once found, I couldn’t release as it dragged me to its origins.

Sam stayed right beside me, probably wondering what the fuck I was doing as I zigzagged across the room, rumbles ripping from my chest.

I just… finally felt like I was on the right path.

More flutters rose inside me, and the pressure in my brain was stronger than ever as I tried to follow memories and scents. I was bracing myself for the usual stabbing head pain, but… it didn’t come. Was my wolf insulated from the worst of that as well? Had she been the key all along to figuring this shit out, and was that why she was so sluggish? Maybe someone didn’t want me in this form because this form was how I’d get my answers. And that meant we were on four legs until I figured this shit out.

That darkly enticing scent led me to the farthest wall from the entrance. I nosed around, trying to find an opening in the scorched and blackened concrete. Sam nudged me after I’d spent a minute trying to pry this wall’s secrets free, with very little success.

She jerked her wolf head away from the wall, and I followed her the few steps back until I figured out what she had been showing me. The bigger picture of what I was sniffing at.

The burned shape looked exactly like a giant silhouette of a person, scorched into the brick. The silhouette was larger than even the biggest shifter I’d ever seen, and I wondered if it was just a random coincidence, or was this the literal outline of someone bursting into the room?

But from where?

The basement had thick brick and block walls. Bricks and blocks that were still completely intact, outside of the blackened outline of a giant. Moving forward again, I placed my nose right in the silhouette, and the flutter in my chest really kicked into gear.

I sniffed harder, and in the next inhale came a whiff of spice and books and… magic.

My wolf tilted her head back and howled, stronger and with more emotion than she’d had since we’d awoken in Torin’s bed. Her call was a lament of pain, and I had no idea why, but the feeling of loss was so strong, it almost sent me to my wolf belly.