Shattered: The Sundance Series

by Rider, C. P.

  He needed to change. He was a strong alpha—I felt his power in my bones and blood—but he was mortal. I was shocked that he'd fought for this long, though in truth I had no idea how much time had passed while we were trapped inside the twists and bends of his tortured mind.

  Hours? Minutes? Seconds?

  The silver necklace was around his throat, the charm buried inside his chest where the bald one had shoved it. Guillermo had healed around it, so the only way I could take it off him would be to cut open his chest and dig it out. To save his life, I could do this. It didn't even sound hard to me, which worried my human side.

  Human side? I had no human side. I was a paranormal through and through, a telepathic spiker, and I had only one side.

  My thoughts were slippery, but I grabbed onto the idea that perhaps the moon charm my mother had given me would help Guillermo change without me having to rip his chest open. Who had last had the thing?

  Ms. Beige.

  I turned my head, leveling her with an even gaze. She would die today. They all would. One way or another, I would find a way.

  Forcing my stubborn mouth open, I looked straight at her and said, "Moon."

  Except what came out of my mouth was nothing like that word, or any word. Instead, I uttered a series of whines and what sounded like … howls.

  I lurched toward the woman, determined to get the moon charm away from her. My front foot splashed in the blood and … other things. I growled. Apparently realizing what I wanted, she flung the charm away from her. The necklace splashed into a puddle by Guillermo's head.

  Revenge would have to wait.

  I loped to Guillermo's side, peered down at him. His half-closed eyes widened when he saw me. His skin was a flat shade of gray, his lips swollen and pale. His breath was faint.

  Hurriedly, I swiped the charm from the blood puddle and held it out to him.

  My hand. Foot. It was furred and clawed. A paw.

  Pieces of the puzzle flew into my head as if flung there by hurricane-force winds. Lucas's words. I'm sorry. I'm coming for you. Don't be afraid. I love you.

  The explosion of stars inside me. Blood and flesh covering the garden floor, when all beings were present and accounted for.

  Guillermo reached for the charm but was unable to grab it. Dark fur riffled the surface of his skin. Was his dire wolf coming to save him? The fur disappeared as he coughed. I swallowed my own terror and watched him sink into his.

  "C-can't," he said hoarsely.

  I pushed the charm closer with my … paw.

  "C-command. Alpha."

  I shook my head. There was no alpha here to command him to change. There was only me, in what had to be the worst nightmare spike trip I had ever experienced.

  "You. Command." He coughed, a whistling pathetic sound. "C-Command. Override charm."

  I felt so bad for him. He needed to change, and the only being that could help him was a powerless spiker trapped inside his nightmare.

  "T-try," he begged.

  If I tried, which meant me spiking into his head (in this nightmare) and waking up his wolf, I would be literally double dipping into his head. My path out of there was already labyrinthine. How many more twists in the road could I face and expect to find my way back?

  "Please." The word was croaked out on a sip of air.

  He was losing the fight. I had no choices left. I tilted my head from side to side, my ears picking up the swishing sounds of the wind moving through leaves in trees on the other side of the imaginary garden. Everything was sharper, louder, including the vibration of Guillermo's brain energy. I latched on with ease, spiked into his brain, and set off to search for his wolf.

  "No spike. Speak. Command!" He dissolved into a fit of wheezy coughing.

  I pulled out of his head. Tears itched my eyes. He didn't want me to spike him, but I didn't know what else to do.

  Speak. Command.

  It was that easy, then? Just look him in the eyes, throw a little intention behind it and say, "Change?" That seemed to be what he wanted, and it wasn't like I had anything left to lose. I mustered up all my intention and focused wholly on him.

  "Change, wolf."

  The words came out in a growl that no one could possibly have understood.

  No one except Guillermo's wolf.

  His flesh disappeared behind his fur, muzzle elongated, ears peaked, teeth lengthened. In seconds, he was on his feet, the charm that had been buried inside his chest a crushed pile of silver on the grass beneath him.

  A lone bee landed on his head. He shook it away. Apparently, his human side was allergic to bees, but his Texas red wolf side dealt with the little buzzers just fine.

  He growled, a slow ticking grumble, like the countdown to an explosion.

  He leapt.

  Three screams rang through the garden.

  They stopped. Abruptly.

  Guillermo was safe.

  I backed out the way I'd come in, through the garden with its protective weeping willow, into the hospital room where the rose had been plucked and the old man who'd plucked it had died, back through blindingly fast twists and turns, to a bright light that inched down into a spark, through a wall of bees that no longer stung or hurt me, out of the wolf's head, and back into the field outside a farmhouse surrounded by Texas red wolf shifters.

  I opened my eyes.

  Alpha Juan stood over me, growling at the wolves who surrounded us. Beyond them stood Gert and Guillermo, both in red wolf forms.

  "Juan, what's happening?" I asked, but the words came out as feeble yips that brought the largest of the red wolves surrounding us closer, and the teeth of the Martinez pack alpha down on the offending wolf's muzzle.

  Guillermo was safe. The spike was over. So why was I still in the nightmare? An illusion, perhaps? Gert and Juan? Guillermo?

  I whined. Tried to speak. Only managed a sorrowful howl, which several of the wolves answered with howls of their own.

  This wasn't an illusion. There was no denying it. The truth was right in front of me.

  I had shifted into a wolf.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I was ushered into the back seat of Juan's truck, where I hunkered down and rested my head on my hands. Muzzle, not head. Paws, not hands. Grey paws, like my uncle's. Like my dad's.

  I had a muzzle and paws.

  Everyone in the cab, except for Guillermo and I, had shifted to human form. Juan drove, Gert rode shotgun. Barney the mystic and Amir took Gert's truck. The other shifters waited in the field for a ride home. I listened to them talk as I breathed through my nose in an attempt not to hyperventilate with panic.

  I had paws. Fucking paws.

  When I'd told myself things couldn't get more complicated in my life, it had been an innocent observation. It wasn't supposed to be a dare to the universe to prove me wrong.

  "They'll be fine, Gert. I called Celio and asked him to round up some rides. They're on their way over."

  "Yeah, I just don't like leaving our boys unprotected out there. You saw what happened. They're drained."

  "They were already starting to recover. But sure, I can see how leaving a bunch of hungry alpha wolves in a field full of dead gophers and rabbits would be a hardship for them."

  Dead gophers and rabbits? I pressed my nose to the window glass and peered out at the lightless Texas landscape. The world was clearer, brighter now than on the way over, my vision sharper.

  "You've made your point, smart aleck," Gert said.

  I sniffed at the window and Juan rolled it down a crack. Along with the scents of grass, soil, and various furred creatures, the night had an odor separate from the land that reminded me of rain.

  "Besides. We have to get her away from them." Her? My ears peaked. "She's not pack, she's more alpha than any of them, and she's a single female wolf."

  Something outside squeaked, and my head swiveled toward the sound. It was a death squeal. If someone asked me to define exactly what the difference between a regular squeal and a deat
h one was, my human brain couldn't begin to explain it. But my wolf brain knew.

  I shuddered.

  "Being female isn't her problem. It's those mud-headed males' problems."

  "Regardless, it changes nothing."

  "No, I don't reckon it does." Gert sounded gloomy, as if she were sad about more than my predicament.

  Soon, flat farmland gave way to suburban neighborhoods, which led to a highway, which led to a business district. We passed two Waffle Houses and a Pancake House before the land flattened once again into rural terrain. The smell of spoiled food and unwashed human burst into my nostrils, making me cough.

  Guillermo edged closer to me, rested his head on my leg. Since I'd changed, my knee had healed, and I didn't mind the pressure. It seemed to calm him, and after all the wolf had been through, he deserved to be calm for a while.

  I, however, was not even close to being calm.

  "According to Amir, Alpha Blacke flew in a few minutes ago. He's meeting us at the house in Austin. Neely, you'll have to stay the night. You can leave with Luke as soon we get the flight plans set up," Juan said.

  Guillermo whined and buried his face in my fur. I found it strange that I was completely panicked about being a wolf, yet completely at ease with the other wolf drawing comfort from me.

  "Gil doesn't want her to go." Gert peered over the seat at us. "He's been a lone wolf for a long time. Do you suppose he's decided to make her his alpha?"

  "It's possible. Do you believe she's a stronger alpha than he is?" Juan asked.

  "No. At least, she doesn't seem to be. But if she's a spiker-shifter—"

  "A telepathic-spiker-shifter," Juan corrected.

  "Yes. If she's that, it would make her a crossbreed, right? And, like as not, that would put her up in prehistoric territory in terms of power, even if she's not a prehistoric. Crossbreeds are a different strain of paranormal altogether."

  Crossbreed. Now it was my turn to whimper. I hated that word with a white-hot passion. I hated the idea of being one even more.

  Juan glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Calm yourself, wolf. We don't know what you are yet." To Gert, he said, "One of her biggest fears was being turned into a crossbreed. Let's keep our speculations on that subject to ourselves."

  "Me and my big mouth." Gert looked over her shoulder into the back seat. "Sorry about that, Neely. Didn't mean to scare you. I'd imagine you're well past terrified as it is."

  Shivering, I nuzzled Guillermo's head, then pressed my nose against the window again.

  In response, Juan rolled it all the way down and I stuck my head out, enjoying the feel of the wind on my face. The night held so many terrible and wonderful scents. Layers upon layers of scents in dimensions I'd never experienced before. Human, animal, dirt, asphalt, water, grass, joy, fear, pain, lies, truths … I inhaled them all.

  Guillermo crowded next to me and thrust his head out, too. He opened his mouth, and his tongue slapped my nose. I would have laughed, but at this point, I was afraid that if I started, I might never stop.

  I was a wolf.

  Like my uncle. Like my mentiroso dad.

  Fury rose in me with the realization that he'd known all along what I was and had lied. Again. Damn it, why hadn't he prepared me?

  The truck switched lanes, which meant some new and intriguing scents for my nose. More damp earth, less asphalt. I liked this lane better.

  Juan flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. "See how he follows her? Something must have happened between them during the spike."

  "You don't suppose she maybe commanded your brother to change, do you? While we were in the illusion, it was clear she had some special connection to him. Like as not, that's why she was able to kill that devil man in the hospital room," Gert said. "Remember, he didn't sense us there, but he saw her real clearly."

  "Could be. I never was able to get into my brother's head properly, even after I went deep into prehistoric form—by the way, thanks for keeping an eye on me. I would have hated to slip into berserker mode and take out half my family while they were too weakened to fight back."

  "Welcome. You'd have done the same for me."

  "You know I would." Juan slowed, flicked on his turn signal. He tapped his hand on the steering wheel as he stared at the night road. "Once she spiked Gil, I couldn't influence his thoughts at all. The only thing I could do was keep her from draining my wolves dry." He glanced in the rearview mirror. "Sorry, Neely, but you took down every wolf there. If I hadn't blocked you, you would have killed them the way you killed every other living thing on my tío's property."

  The dead gophers and bunnies.

  "Thank God the eagle had the foresight to fly back and spirit Barney out of her range." Gert wrapped her arms around herself. "She killed every critter in that field. She should hire herself out to the farmers around here."

  "She killed everything, Gert. Plants, worms, bugs, and, I'd wager, microorganisms in the soil. For all intents and purposes, that soil is dead."

  I didn't think I could be more depressed, but I was wrong.

  "Hell, in that case, Norma might want to take that real estate broker up on his offer to turn the place into a subdivision, after all. She'll make a mint. It'll be the only place in Texas where you don't need an exterminator."

  "True." Juan glanced in the rearview again. "Sorry about cutting off your energy supply, Neely. It was not easy to do, emotionally or metaphysically. You're incredibly strong."

  His actions as Alpha were understandable. Laudable, even. When I'd had to draw that sort of energy before, I'd had the witches there to protect the people in Sundance so I didn't drain them all dry.

  Still, his actions had nearly killed me, and it was hard not to feel betrayed when the reason I had been doing it was for his brother. On top of that, I'd flipped some dormant paranormal DNA switch and turned myself into a goddamned wolf.

  When the alphas had tried to change me at the sanctuary, they had come to the conclusion that I was already a crossbreed—I hate that word—as the reason why they couldn't change me. I'd assumed they were too weak, and had used that as an excuse.

  Look who got the last laugh.

  Well, technically, me, since one of those alphas was dead and the other, my ex, had had his memory wiped and wouldn't know me if I walked past him on the street.

  I hung my head over the edge of the window and tried hard not to cry, because I was sure it would come out as a howl, and that would only make me cry harder.

  "Right before you cut her off, her whole body glowed like one of those sticks the kids hang around their necks on Halloween. Whew, glory, it was a sight. This gal's so strong she makes Old Testament Sampson look puny." Gert said the last to Juan, then leaned over the seat to address me again. "Neely, you sure you don't want to join our pack? You can turn down a mate, you know. It ain't easy, I'll give you that, but you're strong enough to withstand the pain. And look how handsome my nephew is. You could do worse."

  I pulled my head into the cab and whined.

  "That would be a no, Gert." Juan laughed. "Besides, she's Luke's mate. Me taking her from him would break the bro code."

  "Bro code? Good gravy, what a pile of human-thinking malarky. You'd break that code in a hot minute if she was willing."

  Juan winked at me in the rearview mirror. "We'll never know, because she doesn't want me, and I don't believe Luke would give her up for the world. He was sitting on the phone when Amir called him. Said he felt her in distress but couldn't reach her."

  "Good thing you were there to help. Sobrino, eres un buen hombre y, mejor aún, un gran lobo."

  That was the first time I'd heard Gert speak Spanish. She spoke it like Juan, her delivery a musical blend of Mexican Spanish and Texas English. Nephew, you're a good man and, even better, a great wolf.

  "Thanks, Tía," Juan replied.

  Guillermo broke away from me and poked his furry head over the top of the seats. Sniffled his aunt's neck.

  "Sugar, you sure are a sight for
sore eyes. I missed you like the dickens. Don't go away like that again. Someday I'm going to get old and I won't have the strength to come fetch you."

  He whined.

  "Guess I can understand why you'd be partial to Neely, seeing as how you're both getting used to new forms. Don't worry. Johnny and I will help you with your prehistoric wolf."

  The wolf lowered his head, growled.

  "Time to get over yourself on that front, Guillermo James Martinez. He whooped your butt in that challenge that you instigated—against my advice, I'd like to add. You didn't want to be Alpha and you know it. You just got your tail up about Juan cutting back on the cattle side of the business."

  "I should have talked to you more. Explained better." Juan's voice matched Gert's in tone and volume. "I missed you, brother."

  While the three of them worked out their family issues, I curled up on the seat and tried to figure out how to change back into a human—as close to it as I got, anyway. I was remarkably calm, all things considered, though I knew I wouldn't stay that way if I started thinking too hard about the implications of it all.

  I sank into my own head, taking a little power from each of the three alphas in the truck with me, and spiked into my brain, the way I had when I was caught up in the dire wolf's—Guillermo's—illusion. What I needed to do was force my change. I was sure I could do it, I simply needed to find the switch, the point of connection.

  Guillermo whined.

  "Wait, Neely," Juan said. "Allow Luke to bring you out of your wolf form this first time. He can alleviate the pain of the change. If you try to do it alone, it will hurt. Wait for Lucas."

  Lucas.

  I'm sorry. I'm coming for you. Don't be afraid. I love you.

  My mind winnowed through the words he'd used to calm me, settling on one phrase. I'm sorry.