by Anna Lowe
But when her eyes found Kyle’s, expecting to find a similar kind of relief, there was only the cold touch of steel.
“I have to go,” he grunted.
Go? Where? She blinked as his gaze slid to the car door, hinting that she should get out. He’d left the engine running, too.
A sticky lump formed in her throat. Her friend was gone, replaced by a stranger with cool, military eyes. Eyes that reminded her of her father’s or brother’s when they were getting ready to ship out.
“Where are you going?” she squeaked.
“Work.”
The man whose eyes had promised her the world suddenly couldn’t do better than four letters, one curt syllable, and a kick out the door. What happened? Had she done something wrong?
She found the door handle more by touch than sight, her vision blurred by tears she fought to hold back. She slid out of the truck, swayed a little when she touched down, then pushed the truck door closed.
Before she even made it to the porch, Kyle drove off, leaving a plume of dust and a rutted wake of gravel. She sank down on the top step and watched him go. The hard-to-read kid had become a walking hieroglyph. Earlier in the day, he’d been her shining knight, her savior. Now, he couldn’t seem to get away from her fast enough.
She sat there a long time, clasping and unclasping her hands until something niggled at her senses. She stood and walked to a corner of the porch. A nearly full moon was rapidly clawing its way from behind the hills, swinging on a seesaw with the sun. The minute the sun set, the moon would take over and fill the sky with its pale light.
The hair on the back of her neck shivered, and Stef hugged herself tightly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kyle had to admit that work was a lame excuse. But a minute longer in Stef’s company and he might have done something he’d regret, like following that enticing scent straight to her neck. The way she’d tipped her head back in the truck had pulled every trigger in his body. She was so innocent. So trusting.
So sweet.
Yeah, that was the wolf again, and the beast was getting harder and harder to control.
He’d been tracing her slight curves with this eyes, studying the athletic figure. The tomboy had filled out in all the right places without overflowing awkwardly into a body that didn’t match her soul. He wanted to reach out and feel her heat—a heat that pulsed and flared whenever they got close.
Mine! Mate! His wolf leaped straight up, practically salivating.
He could feel the beast trying to break free even after he put some miles between them. Goddamn wolf was already planning the bite, calculating just where to place each fang and how must pressure it would take to puncture her skin—gently, ever so gently. His fangs would bore deep, and then close tight, sealing a clean mating bite that would secure her forever. As his.
We take her! Now!
Even his human side was half in agreement. One bite turns, the second bite mates. He knew it as well as any other shifter. A mating bite from him would cancel out Ron’s initial claim. Stefanie would be his, and his alone.
Greed burned in his throat, and it was all he could do to wrestle it back down.
Claiming her now would make us as low as Ron, he told the wolf. She has to want it too.
She wants it! Her wolf wants it!
He shook his head. She had to understand the implications. That it meant forever. With him. With his wolf.
And Christ, why would she ever say yes to that?
She’d always seen him as a lost puppy who needed rescuing, nothing more.
That’s not the vibe I got from her today, man.
He had to wonder what she was rescuing him from now. He’d pushed away the past, made a decent life for himself. Had a good job and a pack that accepted him. He didn’t need any rescuing now.
Except maybe from yourself, the wolf sniffed.
His soul was a candle burning at both ends, and he knew it. The human side fizzled at one end, lost and lonely as he’d ever been, and his wolf blazed at the other, desperate for acceptance.
She can fix that candle. Make it burn bright.
Kyle slammed a door on his wolf and drove on. But even when he merged on to the highway twenty minutes later, the wolf was still whimpering for her. Images of Stef chased him all the way to headquarters and up the stairs, straight past the dispatcher who looked up in surprise.
“Kyle! What are you doing in today?”
He grunted something neutral and climbed the stairs in jerky, robotic steps then sat at his desk to shuffle a few reports. Stefanie’s scent clung to his clothes like a burr, and he almost wished for the radio to crackle with a crisis of some kind. Gang activity to crack down on, maybe, or a drug bust. Anything to distract him. But the citizens of central Arizona were behaving themselves and things were quiet. It always was this time of year.
“Officer Williams.” A familiar voice broke into the room, followed by the clink of keys tossed on the neighboring desk. He looked up to see two of his colleagues coming in, ready to wrap up their shift.
“Don’t you have something better to do on your day off?” Lee chided.
“Days off,” the other, Chavez, said. “The man has a week off. Me, I’d be out of here.”
Kyle responded with his usual line of defense: silence.
“You’re the only person I know who has to be ordered to take his vacation days.” Chavez shook his head. “Do you even know what a vacation is? Va-ca-tion?”
Kyle straightened his back but said nothing. He didn’t need a vacation. He’d wandered enough in his life.
“Aw, come on, leave the guy in peace.” That was Andie—Andrea—another colleague, just coming in the door. Kyle threw her an appreciative nod. She was one of the best officers on the force and one of the few people who left him in peace.
“What he needs,” Chavez said with a waggle of his bushy eyebrows, “is a woman.” The other two grunted their disapproval, but Chavez went on, waving his hands. “All the man has to do is spend three minutes in a bar and they’re on him like flies on a carcass. Me, I’d be taking them home.”
Kyle pressed his lips into a tight line. He did have a woman at home. One he didn’t know what to make of.
I know what to make her, his wolf hummed smugly. Mine. Mate.
If he could have physically cuffed the beast, he would have. He didn’t need a mate. Didn’t need anyone. There was no such thing as destiny—not for humans, nor for wolves. And definitely not for him.
Lee tried a new tack. “You need to get away from work for a while.”
Kyle shook his head. Work was as good a place as any. It filled the holes in his life. Some of them, anyway.
“Guys, give it up.” Andie sighed from behind the stack of files on her desk.
“Or you could fix something at home,” Lee went on. “You know, put up a shed or something. That’s what you need, a home improvement project.”
Kyle held back a snort. Home. Where was that?
The pack is our home, his wolf snipped.
Kyle gave a mental shake of the head. The pack was only half a home. He had a little too much human in him to fit in at the ranch and a little too much wolf for a life outside it. But he’d found his niche, and things were fine the way they were.
At least they had been until Stefanie came along, stirring up all kinds of crazy thoughts. Like the urge to possess, to protect. To hunt the bastard who’d attacked her and rip him into tiny little bits. He knew the others had glossed over the details, keeping the worst of it from her. Sooner or later, the North Ridge wolves would come to claim her. Much as his packmates sympathized with Stefanie, they wouldn’t defy pack law for her. That bastard Ron had turned her. He’d have first rights to claim her, too.
His inner wolf snarled. Let him try.
He tried not to picture it, but the ugly images were impossible to lock out. Stefanie being dragged off against her will. She’d learned to fight somewhere along the line, but her lean, five-foot-eight frame wa
s no match for a hungry male. He pictured a he-wolf pinning her down and twisting her head sideways to expose her throat. Forcing the mating bite then forcing the rest of his body on her, into her. Even a woman as tough as Stef couldn’t resist the power of a mating bond. She’d be a prisoner, a slave, a shadow of herself. She’d be Ron’s. Forever.
“Earth to Williams. Hello.”
Something snapped, and Kyle looked down to find a crushed pencil in his hand. He dropped the pieces in disgust. Why couldn’t he turn on the same cool reasoning he did with any other criminal case?
“Man, you really do need a vacation.”
And once again, the memories flooded in. Pleasant ones he didn’t know he had. A thousand images of Stefanie in motion. The girl was always loping off to some sports practice or another. Soccer, he remembered, and basketball and track. She’d thrown herself at sports like she might find a second family out on a field or in a gym. With an ailing mother, an ambitious brother, and a father who rotated in and out of active deployments, Stef must have had her own closet of fears. Fears that had come true, because she wouldn’t have come running into the desert if she’d had family to turn to.
She’d like belonging to a pack, his wolf decided. An honest pack like Twin Moon.
“Someday…” He remembered her whispering to him after one of his stepfather’s rampages. Like there really was a someday out there and it would be better.
Then one day, the tomboy next door was gone, off to her father’s new posting, and someday got buried under an avalanche of ugly memories.
Someday. Kyle had given up hope for anything like that. And now, Stefanie brought it all back.
But hope was a dangerous thing, especially for a hopeless case like him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Stef wandered around the house then shut herself in the spare bedroom she’d changed in before—the pink one on the east side, a throw-back to the 70s that she imagined belonged to the daughter of the previous owners. The window opened on a view of the old windmill, standing as silent and gaping as a skeleton. The moon had just cleared the hills, fat and greedy and ready to take over the night.
Her skin itched just looking at it. It itched from the inside.
The need will start to pull you in.
She pulled the blinds and fretted before flopping on the bed with a magazine she’d pulled from the heap in the living room. A minute later, she was up again, pacing her cage. The room was cramped, the air stale. The window beckoned, but she resisted the urge to throw it open and lean out. Who knew what the desert air might bring to her tonight: nightmares or fantasies?
She tried to force her eyes back to Kyle’s magazine—Law Enforcement Today—but it was no good. Slowly, inexorably, the moon song found her until the urge to respond became a command. The pale light seemed to pulse right into the room, right in time with the throbbing of the wound on her neck.
Skinwalker. The terrified eyes of the Navajo woman shone in her memory.
She jumped up and bolted the door, more to keep herself in than to keep something out.
Hot and stuffy became a sauna, a coffin. She pulled off layer after layer until all she wore were her panties and bra. Maybe the choking feeling would pass, just as it had on the previous nights when the same symptoms appeared: the sweaty face, the prickly skin, the cramped muscles. Each time, the feeling had gradually ceased.
Or had it? That was the blurry part of her memory. A few nights ago, she’d dreamed she was dying, the pain in her joints was so intense. She’d lain crying and panting on the bed of a cheap motel, thinking that was it. One minute, the clock was showing midnight and she was in agony; the next, the birds were singing in the dawn. Everything in between was a blur of sound, scents, and sensations that might not even have been her own. Panting breaths. A lolling tongue. The beat of a four-footed run. The call of the wild in her bones.
Let me out.
It was a whisper, and it came from inside.
“No way.” She curled into a tighter ball and started rocking herself. Was she going crazy?
Not crazy, said a contralto voice that was both foreign and familiar.
“Kyle.” She whimpered his name, and a series of memories flashed through her mind. Him as a kid, him as an adult. Steady. Solid. Secure.
Except Kyle wasn’t here now, and suddenly, she couldn’t take it any more.
In a heated rush, she dashed for the door, fumbled it open, and plunged into the dark pool of night. The world was spinning and she stood at the center, watching the universe go round and round while her lungs heaved desperately for a breath of air. A thousand stars swirled, and she almost laughed at the vision from Van Gogh.
There was a dizzying thrill to it at first, but then the pain took over. The change.
It began with a massive yawn that ripped through her face, unhinging her jaw. Her body contorted, stretching wildly until she collapsed to her hands and knees, moaning at the tearing sensation inside. Her stomach was being pulled down, her lungs up. Her knees were popping, her skin burning.
Let me out.
She wanted to dig in her heels and push back, as if she were battling an overstuffed closet about to burst open and release a deluge. A monster.
I am not a monster. I am you.
Her eyes flashed and color leached out of her vision until all she could see between frantic blinks was a world of black, white, and a million grays. Sound and smell rushed in and intensified, filling her nose with a thousand overpowering scents and her ears with tones much higher or lower than she should have been able to register. The quiet desert had become rush hour in the city: the faintest rustle of bushes became a din, the chirp of insects a riot. And under it all, like the deepest bass drum, was that irresistible moon song.
Let me out. You’ll see.
She squeezed her eyes tighter, shuddering. She didn’t want to see anything.
The wracking stretch of her body went impossibly far and her joints strained, slipping out of whack. Her jaw hung open in a silent scream as her shoulder blades pulled back much, much farther than they ought to be able to go. Her heart beat wildly. Any minute, it would burst and the world would go black.
Except it didn’t. The pain went on and on, and she dragged herself along the ground. An oversized coat had been thrown over her body; it clung tight in her armpits but shifted loosely along her back. A twig broke somewhere on her right, and that sent her skittering away. But her feet kept tangling with her arms, and she fell. It was only when she realized she was on all fours that she managed to coordinate her limbs. She ran on four clumsy feet, trying to escape the truth.
Skinwalker.
Shifter.
Wolf.
The beast that had stolen her body gobbled up its newfound freedom, relishing its power and speed. Her human mind became a distant observer, watching in terrified fascination. She was a wolf. A wild beast. Would she go on a bloody rampage, tearing livestock limb from limb? Haunt the hills with a mournful howl then slink into a den?
The wolf gave a violent shake that started at the nose and ended at the tail.
Tail?
The beast did it a second time, just for the satisfaction of having won control. Then it set off in a crazy dance, reveling in its body and the light of the moon. It set off a hum inside that even her human side wanted to sing right back to.
Awaroooo…
The wolf lifted its muzzle and began to sing, adding its voice to the choir of the night.
Aaaaarrrroooo….
The sound resonated in her chest and echoed through the night.
Images came with the sound. Images of a dozen canine feet pounding the ground, then huddling on a hilltop and singing this song. She’d lean against one—and not just any one, but the brown wolf with spiky hair and sharp blue eyes—and howl her soul out into the night. Sing until all the doubt was gone and hope had filled back in.
Unlike the blur of the previous nights, this night was cool, sharp, and clear. Every breath, every step a th
rill. Her wolf was high, giggling, gloriously one with the night. A wisp of human awareness fought it all, but the wolf beat it back.
We’re one, silly. Stop fighting me.
Stef wanted to shake her head, but part of her was already giving in.
Watch. Learn. Listen.
If she still had hands, she’d have held them over her ears.
Listen, the wolf insisted, and its voice grew more urgent. Listen to the night. The warning.
The beast cocked its head, lifted its ears, and Stef had no choice but to tune in.
The beating bass drum of the moon formed the underlying pulse of the night. But under it—no, behind it, beyond the horizon—came a faint metallic tap along with a tobacco-laced scent.
Her wolf froze when she recognized it. Ron. Honing in on her.
Ron. Coming to claim.
She could have screamed until she was hoarse, but the only sound that emerged was a canine snarl.
Watch. Listen. Be warned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lee and Chavez were still droning on as Kyle worked his jaw back and forth, fighting memories away.
And not just memories. He was getting totally inappropriate fantasies, too. Like holding Stefanie closer than close. Peeling off layers of denim and cotton to touch her, taste her, bury himself in her. To let instinct take over and make them both howl in sweaty pleasure. But Jesus, it wasn’t right to think thoughts like those, not about the girl next door.
Except that the wolf liked those thoughts. He liked them very much.
The first weeks as a Changeling—for those who survived, anyway—could wreak havoc on the body. That was probably what his wolf was responding to. Right?
His wolf grunted and flopped to the floor in his mental doghouse. When are you going to get it, man?
There was nothing to get. Emotion couldn’t have anything to do with it. He wouldn’t let it, damn it! Because he didn’t want or need anyone. And neither did Stefanie. All she needed was to get out of this mess.