by Jae
But instead, two women burst out of the building.
Through the open door, Kelsey’s shouted “stop” trailed after them.
When one of the women raced past her, Rue jumped and wrestled her to the ground.
The woman growled, spat, and kicked.
Damn, she’s strong! A flying elbow barely missed Rue’s eye, but she didn’t let go and threw her weight against the woman to hold her down.
The woman beneath Rue bucked, nearly throwing Rue off despite her slender build. “Run, Nyla!” the woman shouted. “Run or she’ll kill you!”
But Nyla didn’t run. She dropped the barking dog and grabbed Rue by the hair, trying to drag her off her opponent.
Pain flared through Rue’s scalp. “Owwwh! Goddammit, let go!”
Growling, the tiny dog dug its teeth into Rue’s shoe.
The door crashed open again. Kelsey stumbled outside, one hand holding her head.
Fury exploded in Rue. What did they do to Kelsey? She ripped her hair out of Nyla’s grip, ignoring the pain. “Kelsey! You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Kelsey grabbed the woman beneath Rue and pulled her up. “Stop it. We’re not out to hurt you. Use your nose if you think I’m lying.”
The woman’s nostrils quivered. She ceased her struggles and stared up at Rue through wide hazel eyes. “You...you’re human! You smell like her,” she jerked her chin in Kelsey’s direction, “but you’re human.”
Rue froze. Oh, shit. This is exactly why Kelsey didn’t want me to come up.
Kelsey dragged Dr. Carson toward the front door. “Let’s all calm down and go upstairs before someone calls the police...or the Saru.”
* * *
As gently as she could, Rue parted Kelsey’s hair and dabbed a damp cloth against the back of her head.
Kelsey flinched. “Ouch.”
Rue winced in sympathy. “Sorry.”
The black-haired woman who had introduced herself as Nyla Rozakis stepped around the coffee table. “Let me do that. I’m a nurse.”
Reluctantly, Rue relinquished the cloth and her place next to Kelsey. She stayed next to the easy chair and leaned over Nyla’s shoulder, craning her neck to see the wound. “Is it bad? Does she have a concussion?”
Nyla shone a penlight into Kelsey’s eyes. The orange-brown eyes reflected the light, glowing eerily. “Her pupils look fine,” Nyla said. She patted Kelsey’s shoulder. “You Wrasa are pretty hard-headed.”
Rue blinked. Does that mean Nyla is human? So Dr. Carson broke that don’t-tell-anyone law? Is that why they ran?
“If you want to shift shape to heal it, go ahead. Just promise not to eat Goliath.” A hesitant smile brought out Nyla’s dimples.
“No, not now,” Kelsey said. “Just clean the wound. I should be fine.”
They heal wounds just by shifting shape? Jesus, what else can they do? Rue eyed Nyla with interest. She seems so at ease with it. As if shifting shape was the most normal thing in the world. “How long have you known? About the Wrasa?”
Nyla hesitated. Her gaze veered toward Shelby Carson, who sat on the couch, cradling the dog to her chest.
Sighing, Shelby set down the dog and gave a defeated shrug. Goliath immediately raced over to Kelsey and started barking at her from three feet away.
“I’ve known for about six months now,” Nyla said while she finished taking care of Kelsey’s wound.
“And you’re...” Rue hesitated, aware of Kelsey’s gaze on her. “You’re okay with it?”
“I’m okay with Shelby being a Wrasa, just like she’s okay with me being Greek.” Nyla’s gaze rested on Shelby, who smiled at her. “What I don’t like is the secrecy. I thought I’d left that behind when I came out to my family. But Shelby can’t take me to meet her family or her Wrasa friends, and we have to live in fear of someone like you,” she glanced at Kelsey, “knocking on our door.”
“I’m not here as a Saru to punish you because of your relationship,” Kelsey said.
Shelby walked over to stand next to Nyla. “That would be pretty hypocritical. Your girlfriend’s scent is all over you.”
Rue’s eyebrows rose when she realized Shelby was looking at her. “I’m not her girlfriend.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I’m not,” Rue repeated more forcefully. Why do I keep having to say that? She decided it was time for the truth. Since Shelby had broken the Wrasa’s law by telling her human girlfriend about the shape-shifters, she wouldn’t betray them. “I’m the mother of the boy you saw in the ER.”
Shelby frowned. “You’re human. You can’t be his mother.”
Kelsey met Rue’s gaze. “She’s his mother in every way that counts.”
Her acceptance of Rue’s place in Danny’s life brought a smile to Rue’s face.
“We’re here to find Danny,” Rue said. “You were the psychiatrist who treated him, right?”
“Yes,” Shelby said.
Kelsey looked at her with wonder in her eyes. “I’ve never heard of a Wrasa who’s an emergency psychiatrist. How can you stand that job without the constant risk of shifting shape?”
“I have a slight...handicap,” Shelby said. “My adrenal cortex produces very little mutaline, so it takes a conscious act of will for me to shift. Sometimes, I can’t manage even then.” She ducked her head and stared at the floor.
Nyla wrapped one arm around Shelby. “That just makes it more special when you do shift. And if you couldn’t work as an emergency psychiatrist, we would have never met.”
Rue’s head buzzed with all the new information. Adrenal cortex. Mutaline. “What happened to Danny?”
“When he was brought into the ER, his First Change was just hours away,” Shelby said. “I wrote a discharge order, so Nyla could take him with her when her shift ended. But when Goliath barked at him, he ran. That was around eleven last night.”
A quick glance at Rue’s wristwatch showed that it was nine a.m. “Damn.” Rue started to pace and nearly stepped on the tiny dog, who promptly growled at her. “Then he has probably shifted by now.” She ran both hands through her hair. Images of all the things that Kelsey had told her could go wrong flashed through her mind, making her tremble.
“Maybe not,” Shelby said. “I gave him an injection of quonilol.”
“Quonilol?” Rue had never heard of that.
“It’s a Wrasa drug,” Shelby said. “It reduces the effect of the hormone that causes shifting. I always keep a vial of it nearby, just in case a Wrasa teenager is mistaken for a psychotic patient and taken to the ER.”
A relieved breath escaped Rue’s lips. “I think this is when you shape-shifters would say, ‘Oh thank the Great Hunter.’ So the drug will stop him from shifting?”
“Not stop it, just delay it,” Shelby said. “It’ll also make him sleepy, so he probably found a safe place to hole up for the night. But you don’t have much time. At the rate his metabolism is working right now, it won’t last for more than twelve hours.”
The tension returned to Rue’s shoulders. “Then we have less than two hours to find him.”
“If the Saru haven’t found him already,” Kelsey mumbled, her fisted hands pressed against her sides.
A sly grin spread across Shelby’s face. “You’ve got one advantage. You know Danny was here and can let his scent trail point you in the right direction.”
“How does that give us an advantage?” Kelsey asked. “I’m sure the Saru have done the same. Maybe they even found him by now. A panicked pup, about to undergo his First Change—that’s like a warning beacon for their noses.”
Damn. Rue pressed her nails into her palms.
“Yeah, but the Saru didn’t start their search here,” Shelby said. “I didn’t want them sniffing around the apartment and finding out I’m living with a human, so I told them Danny escaped from the ER.”
How can they live like this? Always afraid of the Saru and of their existence being discovered? Rue hoped Danny wasn’t condemned to living his life in fear. She tur
ned toward Shelby. “Do you have another vial of that drug?”
“I do,” Shelby said, “but giving him more is a bad idea. With all the things going on in his body right now, the effects are too unpredictable. I already gave him as much as I dared.”
Rue studied Kelsey’s pale face. “Do you feel up to continuing to search?”
Kelsey didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“Then come on. Let’s go find Danny.” Rue reached for Kelsey’s arm and helped her up from the easy chair.
Together, they strode to the door.
“Wait!” Shelby called after them. She hesitated and then exchanged a quick glance with Nyla. “We could help you find your pup.”
So Kelsey isn’t the only decent shape-shifter. Rue gave her a grateful smile but shook her head. “You were the one who called those Saru guys. If they see you with a human, they’ll become suspicious. We can’t afford that and neither can you.”
Shelby gnawed on her lip but nodded. “Can you get backup?”
Kelsey shook her head.
Rue sighed. Once again, she and Kelsey were on their own.
* * *
“Left, right, or straight ahead?” Rue slid to a stop at the next intersection and threw a questioning glance at Kelsey.
Kelsey’s nose quivered like that of a beagle. “Um, can you take a few steps back, please?”
“Why?” It wasn’t as if she were blocking Kelsey’s view.
A blush crept onto Kelsey’s cheeks. “When you stand so close, I can’t smell anything but you.”
“Oh.” Rue swallowed. She stepped back, giving Kelsey ample space to pick up Danny’s scent.
“Left,” Kelsey said and then sniffed again. “Yes, he definitely went left.”
Rue experimentally breathed in through her nose but couldn’t detect anything but exhaust fumes and freshly baked cookies from a nearby bakery.
With Kelsey in the lead, they turned left and walked down the street at a brisk pace. The quieter residential area around Shelby and Nyla’s apartment slowly became a busy street bustling with pedestrians, cyclists, and taxis.
Rue’s pulse raced. She was on high alert, prepared to catch a glance of Danny at every corner. And what then? So far, she hadn’t allowed herself to think of more than finding him. “What will happen once we find him?”
“I will try to get him to submit to me and guide him through his First Change,” Kelsey said.
“No, I mean after that.”
Kelsey sniffed the air again and turned right into another side street. “He’ll need a lot of training to control his shifting abilities. Griffin and I will probably take him to a remote area in Michigan. Maybe my family could help too.”
“But not without me,” Rue said more sharply than intended. “I didn’t give Danny up when Paula and I broke up, and I certainly won’t give him up now.”
“My family and I...we never had that choice.”
The pain in Kelsey’s voice made Rue reach out and touch Kelsey’s back.
Kelsey glanced over her shoulder. “Now that I know Danny is alive, I want to be part of his life. I lost so much time with him already.”
“As much as we sometimes want to, you can’t turn back the clock.”
“I know. But, Rue, we’ve got so much to offer him. I don’t want Danny to miss out on that. I want him to see the pack home where his father grew up, and I want him to know what it feels like to run with the pack and greet the day with a group howl. I want him to be proud of who he is and where he came from.”
“And he’ll miss out on that if he stays with me,” Rue said, her voice raspy. She had worked long hours to be able to give her son everything he needed, but no matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t give him this.
Kelsey slowed her step until they were walking side by side along the less busy side street. She reached over and took Rue’s hand.
Instinctively, Rue wove her fingers through Kelsey’s and looked down at them. They fit together so neatly. It was still hard to grasp that they didn’t even belong to the same species.
“My wolf side wants to claim Danny for myself. I lost him once, and I don’t want to lose him again,” Kelsey said. “But I know he’ll miss out on a lot, too, if he goes to live with my family. You’re his mother. Wrasa or not, no one could ever replace you in his life.”
The tight band around Rue’s chest loosened a little. She rubbed her thumb over Kelsey’s. “So no matter what we do, Danny can never have it all. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Kelsey lifted her shoulders and then let them drop. “I see no way around it.”
Rue refused to accept that. Even with Danny’s deafness, she had never believed that there would be limits to what her son could do. She wanted him to stay with her, but she also wanted him to know his birth family. Her own parents were dead, and Paula’s had cut her out of their lives when she came out to them, so Danny didn’t have other grandparents. Rue couldn’t imagine how her life would have been without her grandfather. There’s just one logical solution, but will Kelsey think so too? Rue swallowed. She peeked at Kelsey out of the corner of her eye. “What if we do this together?”
“Do what?”
“Raise Danny.”
Kelsey nearly crashed into a streetlamp. She turned to Rue, her mahogany-colored eyes wide. Her lips twitched and then formed a tentative smile. “That has got to be the most unromantic marriage proposal I ever heard.”
“What? Oh, no. No, that’s not what I... This isn’t about...us.” Rue rubbed her burning earlobe. Is there even an us? “Danny needs me as his mother. But he also needs a fellow shape-shifter who can show him all the wolf stuff.” She lifted their linked hands. “So you and I are the logical choice.”
“Rue, a pack is a family, not co-workers working together on the same project.”
“So? I’m Danny’s mother, and you’re his aunt. If that’s not family, I don’t know what is. We both care for Danny. And I...” She swallowed. “I like you. So why can’t we be a pack, at least for a while?”
Kelsey sighed. “It’s not that simple. You don’t understand what you’re asking.” She tried to pull her hand back, but Rue didn’t let go.
“Then explain it to me.”
“Pack bonds are not just for a while. They’re forever, Rue. If I live with you and Danny, the Wrasa will consider us...” A flush raced up Kelsey’s neck. Her gaze flickered away from Rue’s. “We would be married in the eyes of my family and the rest of the Wrasa.”
A matching heat suffused Rue’s cheeks. She cleared her throat twice until she finally got her vocal cords to work. “Oh. So you weren’t joking about that marriage proposal.” She let go of Kelsey’s hand to study her fingernails.
“No, I wasn’t,” Kelsey said, all hints of a smile now gone from her face.
So we’d be stuck in a marriage of convenience, unable to go our separate ways or have other partners. Rue pressed her lips together. “Forget what I said. That wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“To me? What about you?” Kelsey glanced at her, then away.
“After Paula, I didn’t think I would ever want a long-term relationship again.” Strangely, the thought of having Kelsey in her life for good didn’t seem wrong. In fact, she couldn’t imagine just going their separate ways after what they had been through together in the last few days. That’s crazy. You hardly know her, and she’s a shape-shifter!
“I know,” Kelsey said. “And you certainly didn’t want a relationship with me. You and I...we didn’t start this off the right way. That night in the hotel...”
Rue lifted one corner of her mouth into a half-smile. “Well, it certainly proved that we’re compatible in the bedroom at least.”
Kelsey sighed. “A relationship is more than just sex.” She returned Rue’s smile. “Even if it’s great sex.”
“I know that. We skipped a few steps, and we don’t really know each other very well yet, but...” She reached for Kelsey’s hand again. “It doesn’t feel that
way.”
“No, it doesn’t. But even if we decide to try, the council will never—oh, shit!” Kelsey let go of Rue’s hand and dug her fingers into Rue’s arm, her gaze on something across the street. “Saru!”
Her heart pounding, Rue looked around. Instead of the fire-breathing monsters she had halfway expected, two harmless-looking men with alert eyes waited next to a red pedestrian light. Were they searching for them or for Danny?
One of them looked up. His gaze drilled into Rue, then zeroed in on Kelsey. He nudged his colleague, who then studied them too.
“Oh, shit, they’ve seen us,” Kelsey whispered, her voice hoarse with panic.
“Run!”
“No.” Kelsey tightened her grip on Rue’s arm. “I don’t think they’re looking for me. They sent Tala Peterson—a woman—to hunt me down, and these two are male. I bet they’re looking for Danny.”
The pedestrian light turned to the walk signal, and the two Saru crossed the street toward them.
“Follow my lead,” Kelsey said, barely moving her mouth. “Walk away when I tell you to.”
“I won’t leave you to—”
“Please. No time for discussions.”
The Saru had almost reached them now. The bigger man’s eyes gleamed like those of a dog who had scented its prey.
Kelsey ducked her head, smiled at Rue, and glanced up at her through half-lowered lids. “Anytime, sugar.” The seductive lilt of her voice made Rue’s skin erupt in goose bumps. “Call me whenever you want some playtime. Just remember to bring enough cash.” She trailed a single fingernail down the side of Rue’s neck, pulling down the collar of the coat until the mark she had left became visible.
What the hell is she doing? Everything in Rue screamed at her not to walk away and leave Kelsey behind, but she had no other choice. She hurried down the street but ducked behind the falafel stand just a few feet away, pretending to buy some food.
The two men were crowding Kelsey.
Rue craned her neck to see what was happening.
“What can I get you?” the falafel vendor asked.
Blindly, Rue reached into her wallet, pulled out a bill, and pressed it into his hand. “Nothing,” Rue whispered so that the two Saru couldn’t hear her. “Just shut up.”