Inadvertently, we’d shortened our timeline.

A soft yip had my ears pricking up as I rounded one rusty camper after another. The only advantage to the fire was that this place was deserted, and I darted across the clearing, passing more boxes—the kind you saw in attics loaded with stuff from a hundred years ago. Particle board was evidently their wood of choice for their storage boxes, except these were lined with some kind of rusty metal foil for insulation. Even though Austin yipped again, I reared up to peer into the boxes and saw just a huge pile of dirty tools.

Considering the state of the vehicles in the vicinity, that made sense, as did the engine that was bleeding motor oil onto the grass a few feet away, and was evidently in the process of being stripped down.

The odor clung to me as I went on the hunt for my brother, but the scent of cinnamon swiftly overrode it when we approached a trailer that was just as rickety as the others but had little red curtains in the window.

Austin shifted and, after a quick look about, I did too. The second I did, I muttered, “Cinnamon.”

“Not apple pie,” he replied good-naturedly. “What a perfume.”

“I smelled flowers on her before. Maybe she bakes?” My lips curved as I went to try the door, but it was locked. Thankfully, a bit of muscle persuaded the ramshackle lock to open, and we quickly surged inside, closing it behind us just in case the residents began to return once the excitement from the small fire dispersed.

There was a soft light glowing in the corner, one that had made the red curtains gleam in a gentle welcome, and the rest of the place was just as cheerful. Everything had an old feel about it, but it was clean and well-maintained, if tired. And eureka—there was a pie on the side.

I shot him a look. “Be a shame to waste it.”

Grinning, he reached for a knife, sliced it in two perfect halves, then grabbed his piece while I grabbed mine.

I moaned first. “God, that’s good.”

His pupils were blown. “Better than beer.”

Without having to utter another word, we split up, armed with pie and sharp eyes. Austin went to the tiny living area, and I went to the bedroom, which was even smaller.

Neither of us wanted to make it look as though the place had been searched, which was easier said than done when you really were on the hunt for something, so we moved slower than either of us would like, something the pie facilitated. Still, there was no point in bitching about it.

As jobs went, this was the least of our worries.

Leafing through the drawers, I found her papers, and though I’d only known her a handful of hours, it was odd how relieved I felt to know her name.

Sabina Krasowski.

Softly, I called out, “I have her passport, driver’s license, and social security card here.”

Austin stepped through the trailer, treading so quietly, not even I heard him until he was beside me. “That’s fortuitous.”

I snorted. “Fortuitous is the word.” Finished with my pie, I peered around the space but saw nothing of any real value. Which made me feel mean, but it wasn’t intended that way. There was nothing except for a few trinkets in a dish on the dresser beside the tiny bed, which I scooped up and shoved into my pocket. Everything else in here was pretty quaint, but there was nothing that I envisaged her missing, nothing we couldn’t buy or replace. Still, we had to try.

If the carnival staff disappeared before the night was out, heading on their way before any officials could close in on them, then I figured we needed to look around for things she might want when she awoke once the metamorphosis was complete.

“Aside from clothes, what should we take?”

“Nothing. I don’t think we should even take clothes,” Austin replied.

“Why?”

“If we take anything with us, it might look like she ran.”

My brow furrowed at his logic. “Isn’t that a good thing? Technically, she’ll have disappeared. Let’s face it, the fire department here might be a piece of crap, but they’ll still fine the carnival. Before the day’s done, they’ll be out of here. If they think she’s run away, then won’t that work to our advantage?”

Austin shrugged. “If you say so.”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Ever helpful,” I told him with a grunt. “Look around and see if there are any pictures. Any keepsakes. We don’t want her to lose everything. Her entire world has already burned down around her. Let’s soften the blow.”

He dipped his chin at that and went to do as I directed—that in itself was unusual. I cut him a look, catching only the back of his head, but I knew my brother. Knew him well.

If the she-wolf had addled my brains, then she’d messed with Austin’s too.

And what that meant?

Well, I had to figure we’d learn soon enough.

Austin

After grabbing some essentials, at least, what we figured as being essential to a woman—we were guys, who the fuck knew what a woman needed when she’d been forcibly changed into a shifter and had to leave behind the life she knew—ducking out of the trailer was as easy as sneaking in had been.

There was shit for security in this place, and I guessed it didn’t help that the management would be having their asses reamed over the fire. Still, it made our jobs easier because we didn’t have to shift to leave the quadrant that was earmarked for the carnies’ mobile homes, and we could walk out on two legs with the few bits we’d grabbed for Sabina.

Sabina.

I savored the name, thought about it and all its unusual vowels. It tasted good. Sounded weird, to be sure, like I should be saying Sabrina.

“You’re thinking loud enough to disturb me,” Ethan muttered as we made it onto the back road that would take us from the carnival and on to Eli’s place. Our pace was faster than that of a human’s walking cadence, more like a jog, but to us, this was us going slowly.

“Her name…” I mumbled.

“What about it?”

“It’s unusual.”

“Not the most unusual name in the world,” he countered.

“Polish, do you think? Russian?”

“Definitely Slavic.” He shrugged. “She’s American though. Her passport was from the U.S.”

“I wonder why she had a passport anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“She was a traveler,” I pointed out, eying a fox that was peering at us from the trees. It began darting between them, tracking our movements, able to sense that we weren’t all that we seemed and wanting to keep an eye on us.

Stupid fox.

That told me her den was around here, and that she had kits in there.

Of course, in this form, I’d never dream of hurting the creatures, but in my other? It was fair game.

That made me feel like a bastard, but in my other skin, I was a wolf. I didn’t think about forest conservation or protection of the species. I just thought about the state of my belly and whether it was full or empty. Her trailing us wasn’t preventative, she was just making me want to shift.

“Lots of people have passports,” Ethan retorted, butting into my earthly thoughts.

“Yeah, but her life was about moving from town to town, not country to country.”