She wouldn’t give in to the past. It wouldn’t claim her, and she wasn’t about to let it ruin her chances at becoming Lead Detective. Mistakes were learning lessons, she tried to tell herself. Her breath caught in her throat. It was an impassable lump.
She glanced at the clock on her computer screen. It was barely past five AM. She groaned and chugged back the last of her coffee. She needed a dog or something, a creature to help make the silent rooms of her house feel more alive. Something to occupy her time and set her mind at ease when there was nothing else to do.
All she could do was sit back and mull over the details of her case, even when she finally got up to throw herself into the shower.
***
Jax leaned against the wall of the Lodge building, a paper cup of cheap lobby coffee in one hand as he breathed in the fresh and damp air of the mountain morning. He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair, thankful the sab had washed away after some persistence the night before.
A few doors down from him, a man messed with the mechanics of a motorcycle. He grunted and cursed from behind the machinery. Jax huffed a laugh and pushed off from the wall to stalk closer to the source of the sound. The scent of motor oil and shifter touched his nose before he saw the man behind the machine.
He hesitated, worried he might be stepping on another pack’s toes, before realizing he was at a Lodge. This was a place for those passing through. It wasn’t the kind of place people lived. Whoever this shifter was, like Jax, he was most likely on his way out of town.
“Need some help there?” Jax asked, his voice light.
He leaned over the bike to see a lean man with high cheekbones and dark hair dusting his shoulders. His body stilled, and his eyes rolled up to meet Jax’s. Their gazes held, the moment suspended as two shifters warred with their animal instincts.
Finally, the man let out a long sigh and grunted.
“I’ve got one of my own.” Jax pointed to the bike parked outside his room, an old Indian he’d found and refurbished years ago. “I know a bit about bikes.”
The man sat back, his rear hitting the pavement. He waved his hand futilely. “Damn thing has me stranded here as the Lodge drains my bank account.”
Jax snorted. “At least you have a bank account. I’m living off credit right now. Not the most surefire way to exist.”
The man laughed in response, a sense of brotherhood taking over the air between them. Perhaps they didn’t know one another, perhaps their beasts would rather destroy one another, but the bike between them had created a kind of bridge. One that Jax suddenly wanted to cross.
As much as he’d needed to leave the too-large Pack behind, he found he still craved companionship.
A roar filled the space, and an SUV dipped into the parking lot. Jax’s heart stopped when he saw the face behind the windshield. She was a force of nature, the open window making her blonde tresses float around her as if she were a Valkyrie come to lift souls from the battlefield.
The man on the ground craned his neck to see what had captured Jax’s attention and grunted when he saw the SUV.
“There’s a bar in the Lodge,” Jax suggested, struggling to pull his gaze away from the woman in the SUV. “Want to grab a beer later and give the bike another look over?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The man’s response faded as Jax was drawn toward the SUV. He knew he should turn around; he should duck back into his room and pretend the cop wasn’t there. Jax and cops didn’t mix well, but he drifted toward the car like a magnet.
She hopped out, her feet hitting the pavement and lifting a small cloud of dust. She wore a pair of combat boots over her dark wash jeans and a long-sleeved canvas jacket as if she expected a romp in the woods. As his eyes skipped over her form, along the curves, Jax decided he wouldn’t mind taking her for a romp in the woods.
The wolf inside him echoed his approval, the sound dropping to a growl of desire. She scanned the parking lot until she found him. Her eyes focused on him like a hawk in search of prey. It made his heart flip, out of excitement or fear, he couldn’t tell. The wolf wanted him to stalk closer to her, but he held his ground just in case.
“I was hoping to find you here,” Sydney said.
He raised a brow. “Is that so? I can’t imagine why you would be looking for me.”
Her eyes narrowed, hand moving to push aside her jacket and sit on her hips. “You took off in a hurry once you saw me yesterday. I honestly didn’t expect you to return.”
The ghosts haunting him had risen with a fury the day before. Upon seeing her, hearing her mission, they’d risen to howl about the injustice he’d served them. Once more, just the thought of them brought the ghost back.
He could have done something. He should have died in their stead.
“Are you… are you alright?” Her voice broke through the cloud of spirits suffocating him.
They broke apart and dissipated into nothing. His shoulders dropped, defeat stealing any strength he might have claimed that morning. Her brows flattened over her eyes. She looked as though she might have been hiding concern behind a wall, but he couldn’t be sure.
“What can I help you with, Ma’am?”
“I’d like to know where you came from. What brought you to Fangway?”
“Fangway? Is that really the name of the town?” It was a preposterous name, something only a vampire would have thought of. Not for the first time, Jax wondered if vampires might be real. If he was, if Ashe and witches existed, there was certainly room for other monsters.
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Just tell me where you came from, alright?”
He couldn’t say Stonefall. Not with the number of deaths and missing persons that had accumulated over the time of Killian’s reign. He did not want that monster’s doings to come back to him. Jax’s voice caught in his throat as he searched for a town name he could remember on the spot.
“I’m from Syracuse,” he managed to throw out. He’d never been to Syracuse other than to prowl the massive mall with Joanna when she was a teen before it’d been renovated into a megalith.
“That’s a ways away,” she noted, her dark eyes jumping over the cars parked in the lot. He loved the way her lips pursed as she thought, becoming a puckered heart shape. Would they taste like roses, he wondered? “Are you moving? I don’t see a moving van or a truck.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the bike parked behind him. “Just me and the open road. Did have much of a life where I left, so I left it all behind.”
Lie, he thought. He couldn’t leave behind what he’d done. He couldn’t leave behind the voices of the people he’d lost, the screams of their deaths. His teeth gritted as they tried to rise again.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like an address,” Sydney said, once more breaking through the madness rising around him. It was as if her voice rang like a bell and banished everything dark in his life. The world brightened, and he could focus on her like she was the sun.
The effect of her voice caught him, held him for so long that the moment dragged out. Sydney raised a brow and he shook back into himself, realizing he hadn’t heard what she’d even said.
“Address?” she repeated. “Where you lived in Syracuse. Just so I can confirm you are who you say you are.”
“I haven’t even said who I am.”
She opened her mouth before snapping it shut.
“Jax Andrews, at your service. Can I ask why you’re grilling me before I’ve even finished my cup of coffee?”
Chapter Four
The man drifted in and out of the conversation, his eyes glazing over now and then as if he left this world altogether. Sydney’s chest ached as she watched it. Her heart strained for the man standing in front of her, and she hated it. She knew nothing about him, yet her body betrayed her.
When she’d stepped out of the SUV, she’d felt his gaze track over her. It’d left a trail of burning heat that had sunk and nestled in her core. It made walking up to him awkwardly, made
her attempts to talk to him clunky and inefficient. She was so much better than this, but every time she spoke, she seemed to be walking herself in circles.
He was a suspect. He shouldn’t have this kind of effect on her. When she looked up into his face, and her gaze found the soft sweetness of his eyes, she melted.
And it ticked her off.
She rolled her shoulders back and slid a wall between them. It was thick and impenetrable.
Then a scream split the air. She jumped to action, but Jax was faster. He darted toward the sound. Her feet pounded against the pavement. The scream led them to the side of the Lodge she’d crept the day before. Jax shoved aside the branch while she slid under it. Her hip bounced against the ground, but she bounced back on her feet.
The hill dropped ahead of them, a steep incline. At the base of it, a woman ran toward them. She was only a small shape racing toward them, but Sydney didn’t waste a moment. She launched herself down the hill. Her feet threatened to drop her, but she leaned back and skidded down the incline.
Behind her, Jax called out. She heard him curse and leap after her. He soared through the air, a dark and graceful shape that slammed into the ground below. The sight of it stole her breath. He should have broken something, an ankle at the very least. Jax didn’t pause when his feet hit the ground again. He ran full force toward the screaming woman.
Sydney’s feet touched the bottom of the hill and dumped her toward the two figures. Her hand flew to the gun at her hip, but instincts told her she wouldn’t need it.
She tumbled forward and closed the space between herself and the woman. Jax reached her first. Together they dropped to the ground. His arms wrapped around the shuddering woman. For a moment, Sydney felt disappointed. Was this woman the reason Jax had come to Fangway?
The jagged edge of the disappointment made her sick. She’d just met this man. There was no reason for her to attach herself to him like this. Her jaw tightened, and she plucked the gun from its hip holster. It was in her hands in seconds as she surveyed the scene. There was no one, nothing more than trees and brush.
Her heart pounded in her chest, adrenaline slipping away and making her hands tremble.
“Ma’am!” Sydney shouted to them. “Are you alright?”
Jax’s kneeling form grew larger as she approached. His broad back concealed the woman from her view, making her creep around him. But, what she saw made her heart stutter.
The woman in his arms twisted. Her form shrank and shifted into something inhuman. The moment dragged on, Sydney’s mind refusing to make sense of what she saw until there was a dog-sized fox in Jax’s arms.
He stood, lifting the fox in his arms. The beast snuggled into Jax’s chest. She watched it breathe deep and let out a soul-shaking sigh.
“What the actual fuck did I see?”
Jax glared at the volume of her voice, but she wasn’t about to let up.
“Where did the woman go? I know I heard a human scream. I saw her down here.”
He hefted the fox in his arms, silently indicating that was what she’d seen. Sydney shook her head, refusing it all.
“No. I saw a human being.”
Jax looked down at the creature in his arms. His eyes softened and the tension that’d been tightening his shoulders released. He shook his head and turned back toward the lodge, climbing the steep incline with ease.
What had Sydney just seen? None of it made any sense. Jax had jumped down, what, a thirty-foot hill without hurting himself? He hadn’t even rolled to ease the impact like she’d been taught.
Then… then the woman she’d struggled to reach had disappeared. A fox had appeared in her place. Sydney rubbed her temples. She needed to get more sleep.
Sydney looked at the too large fox shape curled on the Lodge mattress. The creature tucked its nose beneath its tail and shuddered from time to time. Sydney’s stomach churned. Could she believe her eyes?
Could the creature on the bed truly be the woman she’d seen screaming at the base of the hill?
Jax stood over the bed, turning to glance out the window now and then like he expected someone to come knock down the door. Sydney forced herself to stand. She paced the floor while her mind turned over what happened. No matter how many times she went over it, how many angles she inspected it from, nothing made any sense.
“That’s a fox,” she said, finally, pointing at the creature on the bed. Once she said it, she knew it sounded dumb, but when Jax met her gaze, she knew he understood what she meant.
“Very astute,” he replied.
Her jaw tightened. She would not be made fun of.
“But, it is also the woman. To be more accurate, she is a shifter.”
“A what?”
He sighed. “A shifter. She shifts from human to fox and back. How is that so hard to understand?”
“Because thing like that don’t exist!” This guy was crazy. He was on some drug bender. Possibly running from the debt he owed his dealers. The bike outside would probably come up as stolen if she ran the plates.
“Remember the wolf you saw yesterday?” Jax’s low voice rumbled through her bones and pulled her to a stop.
Her head snapped up. “How do you know about the wolf?”
He pointed to himself, brows raised. She laughed, the sound cracking as it escaped her. Sydney yanked on the tie holding her hair in a ponytail and ran her hand through her freed tresses. Ahead of her, Jax licked his lips.
“I’m not joking. You almost shot me yesterday.”
She shook her head. “Nope. You ran in that direction to hide from me yesterday. You could have been in the hills watching. You sat back and watched as I dealt with the wolf.”
“I wasn’t running from you. What you saw was… well, the wolf wanted out, and I couldn’t do it in front of the entire lobby, could I?”
She shook her head. This wasn’t happening. The stress of the job had turned her brain to mush. It was no wonder she wasn’t climbing the station ranks anymore, no wonder her Chief had ordered her out of the station. She wasn’t fit to do anything.
“Hey,” Jax yanked her out of her meltdown. “You said yesterday that you were looking for missing persons. Do you have photos of them?”
Sydney stumbled to her feet. Like an automaton, she made her way to the SUV, grabbed the files, and silently let herself back into Jax’s room. She threw the file onto the small table next to the door. Jax grabbed it and flipped through the pages that were supposed to be confidential.
Her future was over. She tapped her phone with her fingers, debating checking herself into a hospital.
“Here, this one.” Jax threw down a file with Trisha’s face clipped to it.
Her heart stopped, and cold washed over her. Her head snapped up, lips parting. She couldn’t help but look at the fox sleeping on the bed. No. This wasn’t right.
“That’s the woman I saw before the change took her. She was scared, and when I found her she, gave in to it. She must have felt safe.”
Sydney’s jaw clenched. “You’re lying to me.”
She looked at the floor, unable to bring her gaze up. A fire burned away the cold that had poured into her. Sense told her this man was lying. He was trying to cover whatever had actually happened by telling her the fox was one of her missing persons.
“Do you really take me for that big of a fool?”
“Woman.” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. Her head fell back, and she was forced to look at him.
His eyes glowed a familiar gold. The wolf. Jax. Were one and the same.
“I’ve lost my damn mind,” she muttered.
A smile broke his face, and a low laugh escaped him. It made heat flutter inside her. She became aware of his hands on her shoulders, burning hotter than anything she’d ever felt. Her body begged for more, for his hands to slide down the front of her.
A small groan echoed from the bed. Jax’s head snapped up, and he appeared by the bedside. He was faster than anything she’d ever seen. Her hands cl
enched in her lap.
Alright, she thought. What if this wasn’t a mental break? What if what he was saying was right?
As if to prove her thoughts, Jax moved aside to reveal a woman’s form lying across his bed. He moved to lay a blanket over her bare skin. Sydney rose. The file crunched in her hand. She was looking down at Trisha Bantiff’s face.
Jax sat on the mattress and lifted the woman’s head so that it laid across his lap. He patted her hair in a soothing motion, and Sydney felt jealousy burn a hole through her. She had to shake her head to dispel the silly emotion. Sydney had no right, no reason, to want him to touch her like that.
Trisha snuggled into him, falling into a deeper, more peaceful sleep.
“I wonder how long she’d been away from a pack,” Jax muttered as he looked down at her.
“A pack?”
“Ah, uh, a family of shifters who look out from one another. I’m guessing she isn’t part of one since she seems comfortable with me. We crave companionship and pack usually does that for us.”
“Do you have one? A pack, I mean?”
He paused. The weight and tension returned. It crackled in the air, like the sound of his bones breaking beneath it all.
“I did.”
She licked her lips. “Why aren’t you with them?”
“Things changed. I had my own issues to deal with and… well, it was time for me to move on.”
She knew she was pushing it as she kept going. “If your kind seeks companionship, I don’t get why you would leave.”
His lips were sealed shut. He wasn’t talking about whatever was locked behind them. Alarms went off in the back of her mind. As sexy as the beast of a man was, he had some skeletons in his closet.
She looked at the form laying on the bed and tried to imagine a kind of world populated by people with animals inside them. Was it a peaceful community or was it filled with human savagery?
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