Yeah… I was a lost cause.
“So what do we have on the docket after lunch?” I asked between bites.
Gabrielle took a few more bites before she replied, “I was thinking we’d spend an hour on responsibilities of being an Alpha and another hour on shifter stuff. I don’t want to push you too far too fast, because that’s no way to learn anything. Honestly, given you’re two months into being a shifter already, I may just call it good and help you learn as you go. You’ve done really well so far with the few times you’ve needed to adjudicate things as Alpha, and you have Alistair and I for meeting prep in the future.”
I nodded around another bite. When did steaks—and medium-rare steaks at that—get to be so tasty? This was my third one, and I kind of felt like I wanted a fourth.
“So… do we get to have another game of ‘Catch the Cat’ tonight?”
Gabrielle blushed. Honest-to-goodness blushed. “Let’s see how Karleen’s doing when she gets back. She said her sister sounded a little off when they set up the lunch date, and if she needs us, I’d rather focus on that.”
“Naturally,” I replied. “Sometimes, I think Karleen needs us as much as I need the two of you.”
A haunted look took over Gabrielle’s expression for a moment, and I wondered what all she and Karleen talked about. I knew they went for runs sometimes that turned into talk sessions as they swam in Gabrielle’s lake.
“Yeah, she really does. She hasn’t told me a lot, but what little I do know… well… she had a rough childhood.”
Ouch. Rough childhoods either screwed someone up for life or set them on the path to success because they fought against their experiences. Karleen hadn’t told me all the whys and wherefores that led her to abandon shifter society for however long she had, but I didn’t see how it could’ve been good. And yeah… I didn’t know how old she truly was yet, either. In the long run, age didn’t really matter, since shifters only died from wounds and not from old age or disease. What blew my mind about that was Alistair choosing to look as old as he did; come to find out, he didn’t have to.
The roar of a chopper reached our ears, and Gabrielle and I grinned at the same time.
“She’s back,” I said.
Gabrielle nodded, and we devoured our food so we could go welcome her back. As soon as our plates were clean, we stood, and I tossed a handful of bills on the table. We turned toward the door, and I blinked at the sight of Karleen having someone behind her on her bike that looked unconscious. Gabrielle didn’t freeze; she crossed the space to the door in the blink of an eye and was halfway across the street by the time I shook off my surprise. I hurried to catch up.
“…ran out of the underbrush along the road,” Karleen was saying as Gabrielle helped her release her passenger from the harness. “I have no idea who she is or where she’s from, but she scents of shifter. Normally, my wolf tells me what breed a shifter is, especially if I haven’t met the breed before, but she’s been silent the whole time.”
“Here, tough guy,” Gabrielle said, gesturing to the unconscious woman. “You can carry her into the infirmary.”
I chuckled and scooped the woman up in a bridal carry, following Karleen and Gabrielle as they opened doors for me. The last set of doors—the ones that led to Doc’s triage area and the rest of the infirmary—swooshed open on their own at Gabrielle’s approach.
“Doc,” Gabrielle said, “we have an unconscious woman here. She scents like a shifter.”
Doc looked up from a book of some type just as I followed Gabrielle through the automatic doors. “Ah, yes. Put her over there on the bed where you woke, please, Alpha Wyatt.”
By the time I had the woman laid out on the bed, Doc was across the bed from me. He started his exam with two fingers pressed to the side of her neck. “Hmmm… she’s alive, yes. Pulse is steady if a little weak.”
I picked up on the shifter scent as well, and I agreed with Karleen. I didn’t know what breed she was.
Well? I directed to the part of my mind that was no longer human.
My cat sent back a mental image of a massive Smilodon yawning, the growly voice asking, What?
You’ve always identified shifter breeds for me before. What is she?
Trouble, the growly voice immediately replied. Very yummy but still trouble.
Seriously? That’s all you’re giving me?
What? A mental image of total innocence formed in my mind. Then, an almost-human shrug. All cats think birds are yummy.
Birds, huh? So, she’s an avian shifter?
Sure… why not.
My cat sent an image of a massive Smilodon lazing in the shade of an enormous tree on a bright, sunny day. I felt pretty certain that was code for ‘not talking anymore.’
“My cat hinted that she’s an avian shifter,” I said while Doc continued his exam.
Karleen scoffed. “Well, that’s no fair. My wolf doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. The last time I asked, she sent back an image of us playing in the woods.”
Just then, the woman’s stomach growled. Most people hear ‘stomach growled’ and think of the fairly tame growling human stomachs do. Yes, for the most part, ours are the same way. Except this one. It wasn’t a growl so much as a roar. Doc even took a small step back from the bed.
“Should we go get a couple platters of food, Doc?” I asked.
Doc nodded. “Yes, that might be good.”
Her head hurt. Her stomach ached. The last thing she remembered was… what? Running? Right. She ran through the forest after they found her at that campground. But where was she now?
She laid on a… well… it almost felt like a hospital bed. Her back angled slightly upward. The smell of strong disinfectant assaulted her nose, and she heard a heartbeat and breathing close. Very close. Whoever was with her knew she was awake if the person was a shifter. Might as well get it over with.
She opened her eyes and saw a curtained off space. The drop ceiling and florescent lighting screamed hospital of some type, and terror threatened to overtake her that they caught her at last.
“Hey, relax,” a new voice said. A woman’s voice.
Turning toward the voice, she saw a woman in a flannel shirt, blue denim jeans, and biker leathers. Her dark hair brushed her shoulders. Her expression—her entire demeanor—conveyed concern.
“I don’t know where you think you are, but I’m almost certain you’re wrong,” the woman said. “You’re in Precious, the infirmary there. My friends went across the street to get some food for you, and they’ll be back shortly.”
At the mention of food, her stomach growled again. Growled so fiercely it sounded like it might attempt escape to get its own food. Then, her senses finally caught up to her; the woman in biker leathers was a shifter. Hints of wolf but nothing like any wolf shifter she’d ever encountered.
“I’m Karleen Vesper,” the woman continued. “You stumbled out of the forest about an hour west of here and collapsed right on the road’s yellow line. I brought you here. Doc says you’re okay overall, just malnourished and dehydrated. We’re going to fix you up, okay? You don’t have to run. You’re safe here.”
No. She wasn’t safe anywhere. She didn’t see how she’d ever be safe again. Not since the Higgins farm outside Pitawqua, Nebraska. Goodness, that was what… a year ago now? But how much was safe to tell? She always avoided large settlements before—regardless of human or shifter. Except now she was one of two places she never wanted to be.
She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat and mouth were parched. She cleared her throat and licked her lips. “How long?”
The woman calling herself Karleen lifted one eyebrow. “About ninety minutes since I found you. It’s been maybe twenty minutes since my friends went for food. They should be back very soon.”
“Who else is here?”
“If you mean the infirmary, no one; Doc went to get a bite once he finished making sure you had no injuries that required his immediate attention. If you mean the town, I
have no idea. The whole county is shifter territory, and the only humans we have in town are those who know about us.”
The sound of an automatic door opening preceded footfalls and a cornucopia of lovely food smells. Two silhouettes approached the curtain, and Karleen moved to pull it back and revealed two people—a man and a woman—both carrying platters piled high with food.
“Oh, hello,” the young man said, his expression one of warm greeting. “Welcome to Precious. I’m Wyatt, and for my sins, the Shifter Council named me Alpha. This lady to my right is Gabrielle, and I see you’ve already met Karleen.”
It was all she could do to bob her head in acknowledgement of his words. Her eyes remained locked on the food, almost drooling at the thought of it all. But then, reality returned.
“I don’t have any money.”
Wyatt placed the platter on the foot of the bed and gave her a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry about it. If anyone gets grouchy, the infirmary can reimburse me, since Doc said you needed food.”
That was enough for her. She leaned forward as far as she could, grabbing the platter and moving it to rest on her lap. The woman Wyatt introduced as Gabrielle placed her platter on the now-vacant foot of the bed.
Gabrielle touched Wyatt’s upper arm as she said, “I’m going back for drinks. What do you want?”
“Something fizzy… no ice,” Wyatt replied, handing her a card.
“Karleen?” Gabrielle asked.
“I’ll have what Wyatt’s having but with light ice.”
Then, Gabrielle turned to her. She paused mid-bite as a wave of something passed through her. Sorrow? Regret? She wasn’t sure what she felt, but these people opened up their lives and town to her. Fed her. And she didn’t want to tell them her name. She didn’t want to tell them anything about her. She feared it would only get them killed.
She swallowed her bite and answered, “Uhm… water, I guess.”
“You sure?” Gabrielle asked. “There’s tea, coffee, pretty much any kind of soft drink you can imagine.”
“Water’s fine.”
Wyatt added, “If you don’t mind, swing by Hank’s and see if he still has any of those hydration packets left. Besides just getting more water in her, she may be low on electrolytes.”
Gabrielle nodded and left, leaving the other two watching her eat.
“You were back kind of soon,” Wyatt remarked, looking at Karleen. “Everything go okay?”
Karleen grimaced. “It went. ‘Okay’ might be stretching things. Nadine wanted me to come to the next family get-together, which is something like next month or two weeks or something. I don’t really remember right now. What pissed me off is how two of my brothers apparently have opinions about you from whatever gossip the wolves around there are spreading over the Thomas Carlyle thing.”
“Why would that matter?” Wyatt asked, his face scrunching up to show his confusion.
“Because… well… I was going to invite you along.”
Wyatt’s confusion vanished. “Oh. You mean like a ‘meet the family’ situation?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of them, and we seem to be building something, so I’d like them to meet you if I’m going to be back in the shifter world from here on out.”
Karleen’s words clicked with something in the woman’s mind, mid-bite, and she fell into a coughing fit as she almost choked on her food. When she cleared her airway at least, she almost gaped at Karleen.
“Are you okay?” Wyatt asked.
She only had eyes—or focus—for Karleen. “You said ‘back in the shifter world.’ Does that mean what I think it means? Are you the North American dire wolf?”
Karleen blushed. Then nodded.
“Oh my goodness,” the woman gushed. “I’ve been chasing every rumor and suspected sighting up and down the Pacific coast looking for you for something like six to eight months now. I need your help. Will you teach me how to go completely off the grid?”
Karleen glanced at Wyatt, then said, “To be honest, I’m not sure how much my experience will help you. Number one, I never had people hunting me, so you should really deal with that first. At least, I assume you have people hunting you, since it seemed like you were running from something before you collapsed. Number two, I didn’t leave shifter society so much as ignore it. I built a cabin deep in the Oregon wilderness and just let the world do its thing. I went into towns for supplies I couldn’t make when I needed them and sold pelts and traps and whatever for money. We don’t even know what breed of shifter you are, so even after the first point, it’s kinda difficult to know if I can help you at all. You haven’t even told us your name. I get that, and I don’t want you to feel like I’m being pushy or nosy. But at the same time, are we just supposed to shout, ‘hey you?’”
And there it was. She would’ve liked to get through both platters of food before having to give them her name. Every time she gave it before, it was a toss-up whether people tried to run her off or turn her in. She took another bite to stall. When the silence extended quite a ways past awkward, she looked at the platter in her lap.
“My name is Sloane Martinez.”
Karleen looked to Wyatt; he shrugged. Karleen turned back to look at Sloane, adding her own shrug to Wyatt’s and saying, “You said that like we should recognize your name. Should we?”
When Sloane didn’t answer, Wyatt produced a phone from his hip pocket and tapped at the screen. Just a few seconds later, he whistled. “It says here that a Sloane Martinez is sought by police as a person of interest in connection to the murder of Jerome and Beatrice Higgins and arson at their farm just outside Pitawqua, Nebraska. That you?”
Sloane continued to eat. Neither Wyatt nor Karleen looked tense, so she held out hope. But maybe they were just letting her finish the food before they called the police.
“It’s about me, yes, but I didn’t do it. And I know every criminal says that. But I really didn’t. I worked for Jerry and Betty as a farmhand, their only farmhand. Been there for years. Then, one day, three blacked-out SUVs rolled up while we were at the kitchen table eating dinner, and people in suits and sunglasses stepped out. They demanded I come with them, never showed any ID or warrant or anything. Just demanded I go with them. I didn’t even get the chance to say ‘no.’ Jerry was all over them like a bulldog on a T-bone. While Jerry and the lead guy argued, one of the guys pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and went to Jerry’s gun rack. He pulled down a shotgun, loaded it, and calmly blasted Jerry into oblivion. Then, he went to the kitchen and did the same to Betty. I booked it out of there. A few of them chased me, but I managed to get away. They’ve been chasing me ever since.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Karleen remarked.
Sloane frowned at her. “Seriously? You believe me just like that?”
Karleen returned a patient—almost motherly—smile. “We’re shifters, honey. We can hear variances in people’s heart rate when they lie. You’re not lying.”
Sloane nodded her understanding and went back to eating.
“So, what do we do?” Wyatt asked. “Figure out who’s hunting her and why?”
Karleen leaned back against her chair, looking up at the ceiling tiles as a grimace took over her expression. For several seconds, the only sounds came from Sloane finishing the first platter and switching it with the second.
“I want to say yes,” Karleen answered at long last. “The problem is that we have to be very careful about how we do so. We don’t want to give humans the impression we’re sheltering a murderer and arsonist.”
“Get Alistair’s opinion, then?” Wyatt asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
The infirmary door activated, and Wyatt grinned at the sound of a second woman’s voice. Gabrielle arrived with a drink carrier and two gallon-size jugs of water. A woman who looked about Wyatt’s age with wavy blond hair and a curvy yet athletic build carried a brown paper grocery bag.
“Look who I found loitering on the str
eet,” Gabrielle said as she handed off the drinks in the carrier. “She arrived just as I was going into Hank’s store.”
“So, what brings you to visit, sis?” Wyatt asked.
The blond Wyatt claimed as a sister beamed. “I’m looking for Karleen.”
“Oh, and before I forget,” Wyatt interjected, “this is Sloane Martinez. Sloane, this is my sister, Vicki.”
Sloane waved her greetings as she continued to eat.
“Why are you looking for me?” Karleen asked.
Vicki turned to her after waving a ‘hello’ to Sloane. “A couple of government fops pretty much demanded a meeting with the family, and Grandpa and Grandma don’t want me going alone. All of our people are in the Magi database, but have you let Doc put you in the shifter one yet?”
Karleen shook her head. “He won’t even if I agree to his primogenitor exam. I made very clear what his fate would be if any of my information ever reached a government database.”
Vicki beamed. “Sweet! So, do you mind going with me?”
“Nope. When are we going?”
Now, a slight blush colored Vicki’s cheeks. “Uhm… is tomorrow too soon?”
3
I watched Sloane reach her food limit about two-thirds of the way through the second platter. She drank a couple glasses of water with electrolyte packets dissolved in them, then laid back against her bed.
“Oh, my.” Her voice had an almost dreamy lilt to it. “I can’t remember the last time I felt truly full. That was so yummy. Thank you.”
I smiled. “No problem. So… as long as you promise that you won’t try running off, I’ll go ask Doc if he’ll sign off on you getting a room at the hotel here in town.”
“But… but… I can’t stay. I simply can’t. They’ll come for me. They always do.”
Roc Page 2