The one on the right was black, clad in a suit that could only be tailored. As perfectly featured as Marina while still exuding virile masculinity. This one the chatty girls would have eaten up.
Still, something about his eyes suggested his gentility lay only skin deep. His wolf scent was overwhelming. The hairs on my arms stood on end.
So I was relieved that the biker spoke instead of the more dangerous man beside him. “What’s this?” he asked, his eyes skimming over me then rising to meet those of Mr. Ugly. “Tank?”
Tank’s answer confirmed his identity. “She was here when I arrived.”
For half a second, I relaxed into the already familiar rumble. Scary men stood between me and escape, but Tank wasn’t scary. He was gentle beneath his massive exterior. The kind of man who forced himself into a small box for the sake of skittish teenagers.
And...his breath was hot against the back of my neck.
Maybe not so safe then. Tank had advanced without me realizing, sandwiching me between himself and the other two shifters. His earlier sidestep now seemed less like politeness and more like baiting a trap.
A trap I’d blithely strolled into.
I swallowed. Tried to talk my way out of a situation that would have been better avoided. “Look, I have a card in my pocket from the local alpha. He’s granted me permission to hunt here....”
“Does it look,” Scary Suit asked, “like we’re interested in cards?”
Adrenaline consumed me. Fight or flight. Unfortunately, neither was an option at the present moment. Not when I was penned in by shifters, each of whom boasted double my mass....
Reprieve came from an unexpected source.
“Are these men bothering you?”
The interruption materialized into an ordinary human. Museum security guard, if his uniform was any indication. Late fifties, chubby around the middle. Nowhere near a match for one of these werewolves, let alone all three.
Still, his official tone and the gun at his hip promised an authority that might just get me out of this mess. I grasped at the offered straw.
“Yes,” I answered, tarring all three shifters with the same brush. Never mind that Tank had been nothing but polite to me. I tried to ignore the bitter disappointment wafting from him as I continued, “They were.”
The guard lifted his walkie talkie, calling in backup. I slid out from between the trio of werewolves, expecting at any moment for a hand to slam down and pin me in place.
None did. No one stopped me. Not even the security guard as I slid past him, through the arch, and hurried down the hall.
Four museum patrons seemed to be too much for one security guard to juggle. So I didn’t have to use my backup plan—begging for a bathroom break then using the ladies’ room as a staging ground for escape. Didn’t have to give my name and address. Just slid away from the werewolves and the human authority figure like the burglar I was.
I did spare a hint of remorse for Tank. But I doubted he’d be held up for long. After all, security cameras would confirm the men had only spoken to me, never even touched me. The guard would have no reason not to let them go.
Which meant I needed to make tracks before they were released. My tennis shoes snicked softly against marble as I plummeted back down the main stairwell. The front entrance drew me, but a stray thought changed my trajectory. Scent trails. It had been a year since my last run-in with other werewolves, so I’d almost forgotten. I needed to think less like a human and more like a wolf.
I wasted thirty seconds spinning through the smelliest aisle of the gift shop. Scented candles were always good for overwhelming a lupine nose....
They certainly overwhelmed mine. I had to pinch my nostrils shut to prevent a sneezing fit as I inserted myself amid a large family exiting the museum. These humans were just as stinky as the space I’d rushed out of. Fruity shampoos and manly body washes. Helpfully foul. I let their forward momentum carry me two blocks in the wrong direction before peeling away to strike off on my own.
That should be enough. Or at least I hoped so. The benefit of a city—there were too many people passing to make it easy to trace a single scent trail for very long. Add on my evasions and any followers wouldn’t stand a chance....
Not that I really expected the trio to track me. They had no reason to. Yes, I was a female shifter, but I didn’t possess the enticing chocolate aroma of a pack princess. My half-blood heritage had provided that much for me at least.
And my wending route away from the museum had turned up an unexpected side benefit. A fleeting glance down an alley caught golden arches on the next street over. Perfect. I’d pick up another salt packet for Harper before heading back to my car....
I was halfway down the alley when the scent of wolves rose around me. Halfway down the alley when something leapt from above, landing on my back and bearing me all the way to the ground.
Chapter 4
I rolled while jabbing upward with my elbow. Someone grunted. The grasp on my shoulders relaxed just enough for me to wriggle free.
But whoever had leapt off the dumpster wasn’t my only problem. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of wolf fur that matched a warning growl. Meanwhile, the thud of boots on pavement promised there was at least one undamaged two-legger backing up the one swearing on the ground.
Then the wolf was upon me. Gray around her muzzle suggested age but her speed rivaled that of a teenager. She snarled. Snapped. Stopped one inch away from my skin.
I was on my hands and knees, lacking the leeway I needed to scramble upright. The wolf was providing just enough breathing room so I could scuttle backward. An attempt to herd me toward whoever I’d elbowed? I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him griping, the expletives loud and harsh.
He was the least of my worries, however. So was the wolf.
Or, at least, that wolf. My own inner animal was alert, angry, powerful. She grabbed at our shared body, doing her best to burst free of my skin and clothing....
And her instincts were good. Going wolf would help us escape this ambush. But I couldn’t afford to break the rules I’d agreed to when I accepted the card in my pocket.
Not now, I told my inner animal. Harper needs us.
Without the card, we couldn’t see our sister. Would be forced to leave this territory and beg for refuge in another. Or, more likely than begging, would be forced to make a deal we didn’t want to make.
My inner wolf was driven less by rational thought and more by instinct. But even she could see the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze in this instance. So she subsided...for a moment, until the gray-muzzled wolf snapped another offensive, her teeth cutting through my shirt and into my wrist.
Great. Just great. Wolves always responded so very rationally to physical challenges.
Not.
The growl rising out of my throat didn’t originate with my human self. Fur slid from the skin of my arms....
And I held my breath while scrabbling atop the greasy pavement in search of a weapon. If I could prove to my wolf that I wasn’t defenseless, she’d subside. Or at least I very much hoped so.
Fingertips turned up a bottle cap. A flattened piece of metal. Nothing useful. Couldn’t the litterbugs be bothered to drop a knife now and then?
“We’re not going to hurt you.” The voice twenty feet down the alley was deep, soothing. Tank. Why did his presence here make me so disappointed?
Still, he’d been helpful. My inner wolf stopped struggling the instant he spoke.
“Of course you aren’t,” I agreed just as my hand closed around something sharp and pointy. Aha. The litterbugs had come through after all.
The shard of glass bit into my palm as I fisted the found weapon. It wasn’t much. But perhaps enough to get out of this mess without going lupine? I hoped so.
“That’s why you’re attacking me in an alley,” I continued.
As I spoke, I eyed my route to safety. I’d only have one go at it. Slash the wolf’s face with the shard of
glass, kick out a second time at whoever had initially leapt on top of me, then vault on top of the dumpster and from there onto the fire escape.
The shaky vertical staircase would keep the wolf from following until she could shift back to human form. I hoped Tank’s distance and my original attacker’s nosebleed would similarly slow them down.
It was a sliver of a chance, but I’d take it. Better than going full-on fur and wearing out my welcome in the city closest to Harper’s boarding school.
So I feinted with my empty fist. The wolf swerved just the way I knew she would. The glass shard bit into my skin as I teased it out behind my fingers...
...then something hard and unyielding clenched around my middle. Air wheezed out of me. My chin sunk to my chest as I peered down at tattooed arms cocooning me in an unaffectionate bear hug.
Meanwhile, the wolf shimmered upward into a woman. Mid-forties if I had to guess, with short black hair and dark eyes that seemed to see all the way through to my inner wolf.
Her voice was dry as she turned our recent fracas into a minor misunderstanding. “We just want to talk to you,” she said, walking away to pick up a pile of clothes from behind a dumpster.
Not only clothes. There was a gun there and a shoulder holster. The woman donned the combination so easily I had a sinking suspicion her profession lay in the field of law enforcement.
My past, it appeared, had caught up to me. Now I wished this had been a mere mugging carried out by an unruly group of male werewolves.
“I have the right to remain silent,” I informed her, trying and failing to hold my body away from the biker’s.
Because, of course, that’s who had disarmed me in the most embarrassing way possible. Or I assumed so, despite the way faces tended to slither out of my memory. How many other tattooed, leather-clad werewolves were likely to be hanging out downtown?
Meanwhile, Nose Bleed rose from the ground and materialized into a beautiful black man. The third member of the museum trio, presumably. Great. Just great.
This time, there was no security guard to rush to my aid. Instead, I bristled, not wanting my assailants to realize how intimidated I was by the odds, the gun, the badge the woman surely had in her pocket.
But one of them noticed. “Will you feel safer in a public space?” Tank murmured.
One minute ago, he’d been on the far side of the alley. Now he was so close his heat warmed me. Tank’s huge hand closed around my right wrist, then he jerked his chin upwards. “Ryder. I’ve got her. You can let her go.”
The tattooed biker snorted. The arm around my waist tightened. “Finders keepers.”
Tank growled and I got the absurd impression I was being fought over like a bag of Halloween candy. The air sharpened with alpha electricity and....
“Boys.” To my surprise, the woman’s voice stopped the incipient battle before it had time to begin.
Ryder released me. Tank took a step away from his former opponent, even though his hand remained clenched around my wrist.
Without meaning to, I’d followed Tank sideways. Now, I peered up at him, trying to assess his intentions. But his face twisted sideways. Not away from Ryder’s glare. Away from my searching glance.
“Should we take this somewhere more public?” he rumbled, repeating his question. The uncomfortable bend to his neck seemed habitual. A way to see me out of the corner of his eyes, I guessed, while hiding most of his own face from view.
His grip, meanwhile, was firm but not painful. I expected my wolf to rise onto the offensive. Instead, she sighed and settled down for a nap.
Traitor. Perhaps that’s why my voice came out curter than I intended.
“I’d feel safer if strange men stopped manhandling me.”
Tank’s lips—what I could see of them—thinned. But he didn’t release me.
And the woman, once again, took the lead. “I have handcuffs if you’d prefer. Can’t risk you doing another runner.”
Her eyes promised she was far scarier than Scary Suit. Whatever she wanted to talk about mattered to her as much as bringing fries to my kid sister mattered to me.
I swallowed down aggression and accepted reality. The faster I gave them what they wanted, the sooner I could see Harper. “A public space it is.”
Chapter 5
We walked right past the McDonald’s. Breezed into a fancy coffee shop where the only item on the menu that appeared to contain sugar was a so-called Super Shake...which came out green and seedy and thoroughly disgusting.
I gave up on my beverage after one abortive sip then focused on Tank’s fingers curled into my fingers. Because he’d slid his grip down to my hand while walking. As if we were lovers instead of captor and prisoner. Even now, our intertwined fingers rested atop his knee.
I hated how aware I was of the flesh separated from mine by one thin layer of fabric. Of the muscles that slid beneath our joined hands when he leaned over to draw the sugar dispenser down the table toward us. Of the care he took tearing open sweetener packets to pour into my drink.
Thus doctored, the Super Shake became marginally less vile. The fact Tank had noticed my disgust and made an effort to remedy it was far more enticing.
There’s nothing sexy about being kidnapped, I reminded myself. Inside my belly, my wolf hummed disagreement. I clenched my free fist and told her to shut up.
Thief, I reminded myself. Cop. Bad combination.
“What do you want from me?” I asked Lupe—the woman, who appeared to be these werewolves’ leader. We’d faked amiability while ordering, sharing introductions. First names only. I wasn’t about to offer identifying information to someone who had attacked me in an alley and Lupe didn’t press the point.
Now she smiled before answering, as if she was well aware of my lupine half’s interest in Tank’s proximity. “The Samhain Shifters....”
Shifter I understood. But—“Saw Win what?”
“Samhain,” she said again, slower. “Sunset on October thirty-first through dawn on November first. The Samhain Shifters are a group assembled to keep the most dangerous night of the year safe.”
She eyed me, as if expecting instant understanding. And, yes, I could do calendars. “Halloween,” I confirmed. Then, unable to help myself, I glanced around at the guys who were silent observers of our conversation. “They don’t even need costumes. Posh Spice. Biker Spice....”
“And Ugly Spice,” Ryder—the tattooed biker—suggested when I couldn’t come up with a name for Tank.
“No, he’s....”
Lupe spoke over me before I could finish my sentence, which was probably a good thing since my rebuttal had originated with my wolf and involved the word tasty. “This isn’t about trick-or-treating,” the gun-wielding female told me. “Nodes pop up every Samhain. I’m one of several full-timers who assemble a crew of shifters two weeks beforehand, a member of which is drawn from each nearby pack. Our teams start out as strangers and train just long enough to learn to work together without building pack bonds. After that, we keep the fae in check for a very critical fourteen hours.”
I was nodding along until the last sentence, at which point my eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “Are we talking bad fairies? Like Tinkerbell with an attitude?”
Lupe shook her head, humorless. “More like full-size beings who use glamour to look and smell like your best friend then suck your pack bonds dry to fuel their depredations. Thus the short-term team.”
Pack bonds. My lips thinned. Based on a bad encounter as an orphaned teenager, I’d sworn off werewolf packs for the duration. I certainly had none of those much-touted connections with other shifters to be threatened by these hypothetical fae.
Still, I’d heard how pack bonds worked. They let mates communicate telepathically, allowed an alpha to locate his underlings, and could even be used to heal. So I guessed I could see why others found them so important. Regardless, they had nothing to do with me.
“Our job is essential,” Tank told me, sliding into the silence my la
ck of a response offered. “I met a pack once that was impacted by fae. They self-destructed. Tore each other to pieces. The few survivors told me they didn’t even understand what was happening for months after it started. They just thought long-time friends had turned into enemies. Family members became backstabbers....”
His cheek twitched. The pack, I could tell, had mattered to him. Despite myself, my left hand slid toward the one Tank had rested on the table. I stilled the pesky appendage before it could get me into more trouble than I was already in.
Lupe watched us both with eyes dark and hard. “The fae aren’t always that overt,” she told me. “The subtle ones are even more dangerous.”
“Dangerous enough to make it kosher to assault total strangers in an alley?”
In response, Lupe speared me with one of those alpha glares that made underlings shiver. “If we think she can help us, then yes.”
And maybe I could help. Marina’s rose-petal aroma shimmered in my memory. The way the check with all those zeroes had materialized out of thin air. “I might have met one.” I hadn’t realized I was speaking aloud until Lupe’s eyes narrowed. “A fae,” I elaborated. “Fairy. What’s the singular?”
“No.” Lupe shook her head. “The fae—singular and plural the same—only cross over during Samhain, although they can talk mortals into working for them in the interim. We call those helpers Sleepers. They’re trouble, but not our primary objective.”
A burst of masculine annoyance: “Why are you telling her this?”
I blinked. I’d forgotten there were others present beyond me, Tank, and Lupe. Now, I shifted my focus to the black man I’d punched in the nose. Butch, his friends had called him, even though the name made no sense for someone blessed with such sublime physical perfection. Despite my punching, his face remained as perfectly formed as before.
“We tracked Athena down,” he continued, voice melodious and at the same time grating, “because Ryder had a hunch she was a Sleeper. She could be taking notes right now, intending to sell us out to the enemy.”
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