by Carol Davis
.
Shifter Island
Book Two: Rivals
by
Carol Davis
Copyright © 2016 by Carol Davis
All Rights Reserved
CarolDavisAuthor.com
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Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
One
There was no place to hide—and even if there had been, Abby couldn’t force herself to move to get there. She was dimly aware that she had started to scream, but her limbs were frozen, and she could barely think.
In front of her, where a hulking man named Daniel had been standing, there was now an enormous black wolf, lips pulled back in a snarl that revealed glistening white fangs, a molten-red fury glowing in its eyes. Aaron had pushed her out of its reach, but it was still close enough that she could smell it, could feel the heat rolling off of it as if it were actually on fire.
“DANIEL!” roared Aaron’s father.
The wolf turned to stare at him, unblinking, and growled deep in its chest.
“Not in my home, Daniel,” Aaron’s father said in a tone so low that it seemed to rattle the furniture. “No matter what you think has taken place. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
He, too, seemed to be bigger now than he’d been a minute ago. He was standing in front of his still-sobbing wife, shielding her from the wolf the same way that Aaron was shielding Abby. And he was calling the wolf “Daniel,” as if the man and the wolf were the same…
What…?
Aaron’s father repeated his directive: “Not in my home.”
Nothing happened for a moment, although Abby could still hear Aaron’s mother crying. Then, in what seemed like slow motion, the wolf stretched and contorted and shrank… and somehow turned back into Daniel. Because his clothes lay shredded on the floor, he was naked. Massive-shouldered, broad-chested, with legs that looked like they’d been carved from a pair of oak trees.
He was still snarling.
“A crime has been committed,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound quite human. “A crime against the pack.”
His attention was focused on Aaron, who reached back and nudged Abby a little more fully behind him. Her hands were stiff with fear, but she managed to move her fingers enough to grip the back of Aaron’s shirt and hold on. That bit of contact reassured her enough that she could take a breath for what seemed like the first time in hours.
A few steps away, Aaron’s father—Jeremiah—wrapped an arm around his wife and held her close. “This is not the way we do things,” he told Daniel.
Daniel jabbed an impossibly long finger toward the bedroom. “Your son and heir lies dying in there, and you worry about protocol? An attack with a poisoned blade is not how we do things either, Jeremiah. Luca informed you and the elders that he had fought with his brother, and hours later—”
“Leave my house.”
“Not without the prisoner.”
Jeremiah’s gaze moved to Aaron but quickly returned to Daniel. “He is not your prisoner. I will discuss this with my son. Leave us now.”
“You’ll discuss it?”
“They are my sons. This is my house. Leave now, or I will inform the elders what you’ve done—that you’ve put us all at great risk without good cause. That once again you’ve let your temper overrule both your common sense and the good of the pack. Don’t test me, Daniel. My leg may be weak, but my will is not.”
Again, for a moment, nothing happened. Then Daniel turned on one heel and stalked out of the house, slamming the door so hard behind him that Abby thought it would pop off its hinges and go flying out into the road. When the echoing rattle finally stopped, all she could hear was the gulpy breathing of Aaron’s mother and her own gasps of shock.
The shredded remains of Daniel’s clothing still lay scattered across the rug, and Abby found herself entranced by them, the only physical evidence of what had just happened.
“Are you all right?” Aaron asked her quietly.
All right?
She felt an urge to laugh. There was nothing funny about any of this, but it was so far beyond anything she had ever imagined that all she could think to do was laugh. Shaking her head, she stepped away from Aaron and sank into the chair near the fireplace. Chair, hearthstone, her shoes, her yellow bag—she took it in one thing at a time, because it seemed like her mind couldn’t handle any more than that. Aaron pressed a cup of water into her hands, but she could do nothing more than hold it in her lap.
A voice she didn’t recognize said, “I’ve done all I can. Luca’s wounds are deep and grave. He may heal; he may not. We must turn to hope now.”
“Thank you, healer,” Jeremiah said.
A dark shape moved through Abby’s peripheral vision—the person she’d seen in the bedroom with Luca, she realized—and then the front door opened and closed again as the healer left.
“Father,” Aaron said. “You can’t believe that I would do anything to harm Luca. Certainly not attack him with a knife.”
“I’m trying not to believe it.”
“Father.”
Putting all of this together seemed to Abby like trying to reassemble a photo album after it had been torn apart in a hurricane. She dimly remembered coming here with Aaron after their idyllic few days at the cabin, remembered her first impressions of the simple, somewhat primitive village he called home. She remembered his quarrel with Luca at the stream.
Now Luca was dying?
She turned her head slowly, but she could only see a little of Aaron’s brother from where she was sitting—part of an arm and a shoulder, a very pale cheek. She had a hard time connecting that image with the strong, determined man she’d seen at the stream just a few hours ago.
Someone had stabbed him, and Daniel thought that someone was Aaron.
“He was with me,” she whispered.
He’d been with her for almost every minute of the last four days, so close that she’d begun to feel as if they were becoming a single person. He said they’d been pulled together by something he called a bond—that they were soulmates. She liked that thought, particularly right now. It gave her something to cling to, something that was warm and comforting. Something she understood. She wanted him to hold her now, wrap her in his arms and tell her everything was all right, that she’d simply had a very bad dream.
Instead, he was standing a couple of steps away, looking exhausted and cowed.
“Please,” she said to his father. “He was with me.”
But there’d been a gap of ten or fifteen minutes between when he’d left the house and when she’d found him sitting alone out in the woods. Was that enough time to attack someone, to leave them close to death?
No, she told herself. Not Aaron. He wouldn’t attack anyone.
But why was everyone so quiet? Rachel, Aaron’s mother, had finally stopped crying, but she’d said nothing about Aaron’s innocence. Abby had assumed that Aaron was her favorite of her two sons, but… was that wrong? Did her older son mean so much to her that she was willing to believe Daniel’s crazy accusations? And why wasn’t Jeremiah doing more to resolve this?
Rather than look at any of them, Abby returned to looking at the cup in her lap. She was trembling enough to make the
water jiggle, scrambling its reflection of the ceiling and her face. It caught the bright, golden summer light streaming in through the window, and for an instant she thought she saw a pair of eyes looking up through the water.
Staring at her.
Golden eyes, full of mysterious heat.
An image slipped into her mind, something she’d seen both here on the island and somewhere else, a while ago. No; a long time ago. And other times, other places—over and over again, on those websites her co-worker Sera was so fond of talking about, particularly when she’d had too much to drink.
Eye of the Wolf. They Live Among Us.
ShiftersRReal.
Those golden eyes… they were Aaron’s eyes.
He was arm’s reach away. Guarding her. Because she was bonded to him, was his soulmate.
A whimper escaped her throat.
“It’s all right, Abby,” he told her softly. “Please don’t be frightened.”
Lifting her head to look at him seemed like the hardest thing she had ever done. Less than half an hour ago—she supposed that was about how long it had been, though it seemed like days—they’d made love in that little alcove among the rocks. She’d drunk in the sight of his face out there, thinking it was more beautiful than anything else in the world. She’d loved the way he looked at her in return, the way a simple glance from him could make her heart race and fill up with joy.
Now…
“Are you… that… too?” she asked.
Like Daniel. Not a man; a wolf. A shapeshifter.
His lips began to form her name. Then he closed his mouth. His head drooped, as if he was mourning something.
She turned a little more and looked at Jeremiah and Rachel.
At Luca, lying still and silent on the bed.
Oh, God.
They were all wolves. All of them.
Aaron sank to his knees in front of her, took the cup away and set it on the floor, then took her hands in his own. For the first time since she’d come to the island, his hands seemed cold and lifeless, and if she was holding a wax figure and not a living, breathing person.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
All she could think to say was, “Oh.”
“Abby… I’ve wanted to tell you all along. But I thought if you decided that you wanted to leave, if you went away thinking that we were just people who wanted to be left alone, it wouldn’t occur to you to say anything to anyone on the mainland. Or that you might say you met someone at that other place, the one you ran away from—the hotel. Maybe you wouldn’t mention me at all. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you about us. Then I thought, if you got to know all of us, if you understood that we care for you, that we would never harm you…”
“Take her to Granny Sara,” Rachel said in a raspy voice.
“No,” Aaron said. “Mother. I’ll make this right.”
Rachel shook her head, stepped away from her husband, and straightened her clothing haltingly with the palms of her hands. “She’s had a terrible shock,” she continued, each word wobbling. “And we… we should focus on Luca. Help him heal. There are questions to be answered. She’ll be safe with Sara.”
“I want to go back to the cabin,” Abby blurted.
“No,” Jeremiah said with a deep groan, then told Aaron, “Your mother is right. Granny Sara will understand. Better than the rest of us, I think. It’s best that she go there.”
Aaron argued, “And what if Daniel goes after her there?”
“Sara won’t allow it.”
“There’s danger out there, Father. Whoever did this to Luca is still out there.”
Jeremiah shook his head, announcing very clearly that the discussion was over. “Take her to Sara. Come back here immediately, before Daniel has a chance to confront you again.”
“I didn’t harm Luca. You know that.”
“Well,” Jeremiah said. “Someone did.”
Before Abby could respond to that, or even think it over for more than an instant, Aaron had tugged her to her feet and was pressing her big yellow travel bag into her hands. “Come on, then,” he muttered. “We’ll do as we’re told.” When Abby hesitated, he said firmly, “Granny Sara will have a bed for you. She’ll take care of you. She’s a human. She’ll take you in.”
He seemed angry now, as angry as he’d been when he and Luca had fought at the stream. He took several deep breaths with his eyes half-closed, then said quietly, “It’ll be all right, Abby.”
“Is this because of me?” she asked him. “Did someone hurt your brother because of me?”
“No.”
“I didn’t—I wouldn’t–”
“I know you wouldn’t.” Aaron turned to his father and said tersely, “I’ll be back shortly.”
Then he ushered Abby out of the house.
Two
Granny Sara’s house was only a short distance away, he said—which was a good thing, because as unnerving as Abby’s first walk through the village had been, this was ten times worse. The place seemed almost deserted, and the few people they did encounter glared at her, then hurried away, muttering to themselves. More than one of them seemed willing to…
What? Take a bite out of her?
Her mind spun, and she had to stop walking. She was dizzy, nauseated, and more than a little scared.
No—a lot scared.
These people were wolves.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Aaron as he tried to urge her to continue moving along the dirt path that ran through the center of the village. He had a firm hold on her arm, almost tight enough to hurt. He’d never been rough with her before, and she tried to tell herself that he wasn’t angry at her—or was he?
He stopped walking and looked down at her, and his expression softened a little, then hardened again. “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “We don’t know what happened to Luca. But it isn’t your fault.”
“Will he die?”
Aaron grimaced. “He’s badly hurt.”
“And that’s… not common here?” When he drew back, she said timidly, “There’s a lot of violence in the world. People get hurt all the time. Stabbed. Shot.”
“Not here.”
“Even though you’re… wolves.” The word came out as a squeak.
“We’re a pack,” Aaron said, lowering his voice as another man rushed past them. “We’re a family. We argue. We have difficulties. But we don’t stab each other.” There was a lot of bitterness in his voice. “No one would attack Luca,” he said, shaking his head. “He can be stubborn and argumentative, but he has no enemies.”
That you know of, Abby thought.
Maybe two hundred yards farther along, they came to a house that wasn’t much bigger than Aaron’s tiny cabin in the woods. It was set back from the other buildings, nestled among the trees, and seemed more welcoming than the other homes. A flowerbox had been mounted under each window, and each one was crowded with bright-colored blossoms. The door and the window frames were whitewashed, and a slate pathway led up to the entrance.
Granny Sara opened the door quickly when Aaron knocked.
She was a sweet-faced woman with gray curls cropped close to her head. She looked to be in her seventies, and was dressed in a warm sweater and a thicker version of the homemade pants Abby had seen on almost everyone who wasn’t wearing jeans. When she saw who her visitors were, she quickly beckoned them inside.
“I’ve heard,” she said to Aaron, her expression now somber and concerned. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
“Be cautious, Granny,” Aaron replied.
“Have I ever been anything but?” Sara closed the door and stood for a moment with her hand on the knob.
There was no lock, Abby noticed. None of the doors here seemed to have locks. Did they trust each other that much? And was that stupid of them, if somebody was running around with a knife?
“This is Abby,” Aaron said. “We—I thought you might be able to offer her a bed. For tonight, at least. Mayb
e for longer.”
“Of course.”
Where that bed might be, Abby wasn’t sure. Like Aaron’s cabin, this house was a single room: bedroom, kitchen and living room all in one. The bed tucked into one corner looked big enough for two… provided they were a couple, or a mother and child. Not this lady and a guest.
“I’ll give you two a moment,” Sara said.
Then she slipped out a door Abby hadn’t noticed before, one that led out the back, probably into the woods.
Finally, Aaron seemed to relax. Or maybe it was that all the starch had gone out of him. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a long sigh before he gathered Abby into his arms. “I don’t know who did this,” he said softly. “Or why. Until we know what’s happened, you should stay here with Granny. She’ll take care of you and keep you safe. I’ll come and see you as soon as I can.”
“Are you in danger?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know.”
Abby rested her head on his chest and listened to the rapid thud of his heartbeat. Bit by bit, it slowed down into a more normal rhythm and his breathing became more regular.
She’d assumed for most of the day that they’d spend tonight in bed together, nestled in each other’s arms. If their surroundings were private enough, she’d thought they might be able to make love. But now…
Oh, God. Now…
As if she’d said that aloud, Aaron tipped her head back and pressed his lips to hers. Then he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, each cheek.
“You are my mate, Abby,” he said. “I want us to be together. To make a home together.”
She looked deep into his eyes, looking for some sign that he was like Daniel, that he could alter his flesh and bones and turn into an animal. It didn’t seem possible. He was her Aaron, the man who had been so kind and strong and funny and gentle these past four days. The man who made her feel things she’d never felt before—that she’d barely even imagined feeling.
Her soulmate.
They’d made love only a short time ago, but she longed to have him take her again, to feel the heat of his cock inside her. She held on to him tightly and stretched up onto her toes to kiss him. They could at least do that right now, desperately and passionately. She could taste him, pull the musky scent of him deep into her lungs, feel the steady drumming of his heartbeat.