by Knox, Abby
Their scent is not even on this boat, she thought.
Pen sniffed the air again. Something else canine was in the air, though—actually, complete canine, not shape-shifter canine.
Has someone brought their service dog to this wedding?
But no, that wasn’t it. It was a disturbed, determined energy.
After Rosemary and Ash had disembarked the riverboat and hopped into the classic car to speed off to the hotel, Pen turned to Bobby. “Take a whiff. Gavin’s not here on the boat. He left.”
Bobby looked around and sniffed. “You’re right. Think he sneaked away with that chick from Baton Rouge?”
Pen shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think we’d better find out.”
Bobby took Pen’s hand, and sparks seared into her.
His stare warmed her soul. Bobby’s eyes came to life again, now that he didn’t have to talk about himself.
And then, looking down at the dock, they watched as a stray Labrador retriever was running toward them. Its eyes locked onto the two of them, and then it stopped short of the gangway. The Lab began barking right at Bobby and Pen.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Bobby muttered.
Pen turned to her friend. ”I think he wants us to follow him.”
* * *
Her paws were light on the earth, her eyes trained on the stray Lab, as they all ran full tilt, like they’d never run before.
Pen’s coppery fur stood on end, knowing she was headed straight into trouble. On that June night, the air in New Orleans was virtually pea soup, but the matter at hand had the wolf friends speeding along as if the wind was at their back. As if they were together on a hunt in the woods, carefree and fierce.
The wolves were anything but carefree at the moment—she was sure she and Bobby were not going to like what they would find at the end of this scent trail—but part of her was happy to be running beside her dearest friend again.
The wild, boisterous hunts in the woods, lakes, and swamps had taken a backseat these last few months. A lot of wedding drama had taken over their lives. The normally life-giving hunts had become a temporary inconvenience every full moon, only to be squeezed in between dress fittings and endless wedding-related parties. There was another inconvenience: with all the pairings-off between wolf shifters and feline shifters—that would be Rosemary’s people—the monthly hunts included more and more participants. Outsiders were working their way into the pack. Pen was trying to keep an open mind, but it was hard.
She loved Rosemary, so she had to keep an open mind. Last January, she had become a client at Pen’s design studio, and the two of them hit it off immediately. They liked each other so much they even worked through their differences in their packs. Rosemary was a shape-shifting panther, and Pen was a shape-shifting wolf. But Pen figured if her pack mate, Ash, could overcome the fact that his true love was a shifter of an entirely different species, so could Pen.
She had even grown to accept Rosemary’s cousin GiGi, grudgingly, after she’d morphed into a panther and accidentally injured Pen’s pack member Vann.
Pen had told herself to just deal. Because why bother living if you could not be free to love who you loved or could not throw a party at every turn for no reason?
But the wedding was over now. There would be no more chatter about flowers or dresses or place settings. Pen was simply running beside her best friend Bobby and not talking.
It was primal and perfect.
She had discarded her gigantic silver bridesmaid’s dress in a lonely, crumbling cemetery on the edge of downtown. She and Bobby had hidden there to quickly shift from their human to wolf forms. Funnily enough, Pen noticed before they sprinted away that her dress was entangled with Bobby’s custom-tailored suit on the ground among the tombs. The two garments reminded Pen of photos from archeological digs showing skeletons clinging to each other in the midst of whatever natural disaster had destroyed their village. Well, if that’s not the most depressing harbinger of Pen and Bobby’s relationship, she didn’t know what was.
But for now, Pen put the thought of bedding down with Bobby out of her head. Chas and Gavin were missing and likely in trouble.
When this was over, and all her friends were safe, Pen decided she would not waste any more time wondering when Bobby would come around.
She was done watching everyone else fall in love. She was going to fix this thing between them, once and for all.
Chapter Six
Bobby
He should be holding Pen right now. Kissing her. Caressing her. Ridding her of that dress to explore each other’s bodies, not to run to someone’s rescue. They should be alone somewhere. Anywhere. Instead, they ran toward danger together.
He had blown it. At the reception, he’d had his chance to ask Pen to dance to her favorite song, and he hadn’t. When the band had struck up “No Woman, No Cry,” Bobby had looked up from his glass of straight-up aged Kentucky bourbon and thought he saw Pen glance briefly in his direction.
He should have taken that as a signal right there.
Instead, he had sat and brooded. And then had allowed old man DuChamp to sideline him.
Wasting time. It was what he was good at. Bobby was the ring leader, chief party thrower, but it was all a diversion. He had been in love with Pen LeFleur since middle school, and now literally everyone else in the pack was paired off with somebody except them.
As he and Pen ran, led by the stray yellow Lab up Bourbon Street, he knew precisely what was holding him back. But he had no time for the therapy he needed to heal from the shame of the past. He was too busy spending his life making sure everyone’s drinks were full, and the music was turned up.
It seemed neither Pen nor Bobby had remembered to care about all the gasps and screams and stares from humans watching the two wolves barreling through the streets of New Orleans. As far as Bobby was concerned, it was kind of a relief to have a mission to focus on other than kicking himself over romance.
Just when he thought maybe that filthy stray Lab had lost the scent, it turned down an alleyway and stopped.
Bobby looked up and realized they were in the alley behind Gavin’s shop, Howlin’ G’s tattoo parlor.
He recalled Gavin mentioning he was leaving his employee, Manny, in charge of the shop for a few days while the wedding activities were ramping up.
From the alley, Bobby heard muffled whines. His fur stood on end, this time in a terrible way.
He went to the door, but it was shut. Without opposable thumbs, there was no way he could open the door. But if he shifted back into human form, he would risk being too sapped of energy to shift back, and if there was real danger in there, then he would need to be at full strength. As a wolf, he was more powerful than three ’roid-raging body-builders.
He looked at Pen, and she understood. She checked the entry points to the alley; there was nobody around but the two of them and the Lab. She shifted back into human form and opened the back door, slowly and silently. Stark naked, of course.
Yep. There was the object of his lust, his best friend, the love of his life, the person he thought about when he woke up and last thing before he slept, standing right there, naked. By the nature of their species and the fact that they hunted together, he’d definitely accidentally seen her naked before. With a lifetime of shifting back and forth in each other’s presence, that was unavoidable. But now, the sight of her felt different. Now that he was so close to taking what was his, seeing her bare naked and vulnerable kicked his protectiveness and lust and self-debasement into overdrive. Bobby being Bobby, he had to kick himself to stay focused. The indentations in her skin were still there from the corset contraption that she’d worn under that ridiculous dress all day and well into the night. The sight of those tender red lines begged Bobby to shift, scoop Pen up in his arms, and softly, slowly run his tongue over her aches, tracing kisses down her rib cage, across her sweet belly, and reminding her she never needed a corset.
“No mate of mine needs to wear a torture
device to squeeze her perfect body ever again,” he would say, just before diving into her folds with his tongue while stroking her long, soft thighs. The sight of her bare curves and valleys made his pulse pound and his skin crackle with life, even as they had a crisis to attend to.
Bobby grudgingly led Pen and the stray Lab into the back room of the tattoo parlor.
There was an open box of promotional tee-shirts in the small storage room, and Pen helped herself to an oversized one that fell to her thighs. Relief washed over him that she was covered; he didn’t want to see her vulnerable around anyone unless they were alone and in private.
Soon enough, he’d have her naked again. And hopefully, their sordid history wouldn’t crop up to ruin the moment.
Looking around the nooks and crannies of the storage room, Bobby and Pen found something extremely strange. There was an altar to some unfamiliar idol, with flowers and candles. There was a jar of moonshine. There was a weird, dusty old book laid open next to the altar. Its pages had strange diagrams and pictures that Bobby did not recognize. Not that he was much of a book person. Pen whispered, “Nobody leaves a grimoire lying open unless they’re in the process of spell-casting.”
If Bobby were in his human form, he would have asked what the hell she was talking about.
As Pen was perusing the contents of the open pages, Bobby heard another noise. It sounded like people talking. He froze. Then, if he was not mistaken, some muffled cries and growls. Whimpers.
The sounds came from the shop's main room and included the distinct kind of growl that belonged to their pack mate Gavin.
Bobby felt the fur on his neck stand up. He looked up at Pen, who locked eyes with him. She had heard it, too. Something was very profoundly wrong here. The beast inside told him to remain perfectly quiet. Move in for a closer look, but to not make a goddamn sound. With his eyes, he told her to stay still. Pen moved over to put her hand on the neck of the stray Lab and nodded. All they needed was for an overexcited dog to ruin the element of surprise.
Bobby peeked around the corner, and his beast nearly began to growl. He summoned every fiber of restraint he could. First, he saw Gavin sitting in a chair, kicking and snarling at some invisible force holding him still. More alarmingly, Manny stood next to Chastity, who was helplessly rooted to another chair. Bobby could see no visible ropes holding them in place, so there was obviously some dark magic going on here. Manny was holding a pistol in his hand, angling it down Chastity’s hairline and toward the back of her skull.
Manny was speechifying in true Disney villain fashion. He was talking about the purity of the wolf race.
What the hell is going on here?
“Gavin, man, your mind has been poisoned by the DuChamp clan,” he heard Manny saying. “Just because they own your friend Boudreaux doesn’t mean we all have to fall in line. I’m surprised your clan is so agreeable to mixing the blood of the wolves with humans, let alone another species of shifter.”
So. Manny’s got some weird blood purity fixation.
While watching their scene play out, Bobby had been holding himself back tenuously. The emotions and the alcohol, and now terror at this voodoo-practicing lunatic, were all working against his self-control. He needed just the right moment to strike.
And then, he made the mistake of locking eyes with Chas.
Terror gripped poor Chas as Manny traced lines around her face with the barrel of his handgun, like a psychopath. Truth be told, Bobby hadn’t much cared for that chick’s behavior the other night, sloppy drunk and dancing on his bar. And he didn’t much like the idea of her hooking up casually with one of his best buddies. But they would deal with that later. For now, Bobby’s first priority was disabling Manny.
Bobby was ready to lay waste to this asshole.
Manny’s back was to him, and so was Gavin’s. But Chastity’s whole demeanor changed when she saw the wolf emerge from the back of the shop. She smiled. Manny saw the change in her face and turned.
That’s when Bobby lost the element of surprise. Manny’s eyes narrowed as the wolf bounded at him, and then he did the unthinkable. Pointed his .32 semi-automatic and fired.
Chas screamed. Gavin howled as he watched the wolf’s body jerk at the bullet’s impact.
But it wasn’t Bobby who was shot.
It was Pen.
Chapter Seven
Pen
She knew Bobby had signaled her to stay in the back and not to wolf out again.
But to hell with that plan. All her wolf senses were firing in full flight-or-fight mode. Pen never backed down from a fight before, and she wasn’t about to start now.
When she inched around the corner behind Bobby, she saw in a split second that Chas was smiling up at Bobby. Who could blame her? Pen imagined that Chas was relieved, no doubt, that the cavalry had arrived.
Pen wolfed out without a second thought and dove with all her might at Manny.
The shot rang out. Bobby and Pen both hit Manny at full force and knocked him to the floor. The gun went skittering. Bobby loomed over top of Manny, whose eyes now were wide and filled with terror. Pen fell to the floor, howling in pain.
She tried to catch Bobby’s eye to let him know she was OK. But it didn’t matter if she had not been hit at all. She saw the primal rage in her wolf friend. His massive canine jaw was locked onto Manny’s neck like a rabid dog.
Manny screamed and struggled. Doubtless, he was trying to shift into his full wolf as well, to make it a fair fight. But Bobby had him, and he was not going to let go. Manny was helpless. A bleeding Pen ran at Bobby and tried to nudge him off of Manny. It was enough; they could restrain him until they called the police. But even at her most vigorous effort, she bounced right off of Bobby’s massive body. She was already weak from all the shifting back and forth; she had no power over him as a wolf.
Pen shifted back into human form and felt the side of her face, felt the blood dripping. The pain was blinding, and the blood was surging from her ear.
“I’m OK, Bobby! Let go!” she cried, but it was too late.
Bobby instinctively jerked Manny’s neck in his grip, as a wolf does with its prey, and at that moment, everyone in the room heard the snap. Manny exhaled his last.
Chapter Eight
Bobby
Bobby, now in human form, stood over Manny’s lifeless body. Manny’s blood was all over his face and down his chest.
This was bad.
Things were supposed to go way different today. He should be in Pen’s bed right now or heading out of town to let her live her life. Instead, he had allowed the wolf to dominate, and now someone was dead.
Again.
“Bobby?”
He looked up and turned. Pen was standing behind him in the long tee-shirt down to her thighs, looking sexy as hell, even with a minor flesh wound, but there was just one problem. She was staring at him in horror.
“Bobby, are you OK?”
And then, Bobby did what he did best. He panicked and ran away.
And knowing he was leaving behind an injured Pen, he hated himself all the more. Because the wound had occurred while she was in wolf form, it would heal quickly. Didn’t change the fact that he was an asshole.
He could never go back now.
He would have to leave New Orleans for good and let Pen move on without him.
It was for the best.
Chapter Nine
Pen
Gavin and Chas were freed of the spell as soon as Manny’s soul left his body. Chas sat with Pen in the back office and applied first aid to her ear while Gavin went to fetch more clothes and supplies from his apartment up the street. Chas explained to her what was going on, why they hadn’t been able to move. Manny had trapped them with a voodoo binding spell and was planning to murder Chas because she was a feline shifter intruding on the wolf clan.
“What did he care? He’s not even a part of our pack,” Pen said, still trembling in shock when Gavin returned with a pair of his board shorts and a belt for he
r.
“I should’ve kept a closer eye on him. All this wedding bullshit—I mean, wedding activities—got me so distracted, I hired the first wolf shifter to walk in the door. Some of them are pretty hardcore, I guess. I feel like such an idiot.”
“Don’t,” Pen said, squeezing Gavin’s hand. “We’ve all been off our game lately.”
She noted the way Chas eyed that platonic hand squeeze. That possessive little shifter might just fit in, after all.
Gavin smiled weakly. “A lot of pairing off. A lot of parties. A little too much fun.”
Pen closed her eyes to avoid looking at the bloody mess on the floor. Not that blood was new to her, but the cause of it made her heart sink. “Damn it, Bobby.” No amount of friendly counsel would be able to convince him that what he’d done to Manny was justified. Bobby would beat himself up for this for the rest of his life.
Gavin put his arm around his friend. “Pen, Bobby was defending us. Manny had been ready to kill one or both or all four of us in the name of shifter purity. There was exactly one way this day was going to end for him. Killing someone or someone killing him.”
She shook her head and rubbed her palm on her brow. “The first time Bobby ever shifted to defend his friends from a human, it went badly, and he never dealt well with it. You remember, Gavin? I’m worried that this time will mess him up for good.”
Gavin nodded and sighed as he put pressure on Pen’s ear. “We should get you to the hospital. If we let it magically heal, which it will, we will have less of a case to make for self-defense when we talk to the police.”
She might have been embarrassed to dress in public, but neither Chas nor Gavin paid any attention to Pen.
Gavin stood and hugged Chas so tightly her feet rose off the floor. Gavin’s eyes scrunched closed. Then he moved his head and kissed her tenderly on the lips. The pair of them opened their eyes, and Pen saw it. The look on their faces was like there was nobody else in the room. It was true love. They had it. It had happened just within the last few days, but it was real.