“My problem,” Michael shouted over his shoulder.
He heard Dylan yell Adam’s name, though Michael’s senses were firing enough to know that Adam Scott wasn’t in the house and had likely gone out to join his mate…and that Dylan was concerned enough to issue a warning.
Michael was outside, running as fast as his legs would take him as the sky adopted the pink hue of a new dawn.
This time, he knew exactly where to go.
*
In a daze, Kaitlin allowed the stranger to lead her from Michael’s house.
The being next to her was luminous in dawn’s early light, shining with a rainbow-hued glow that was difficult to see past. As they entered the park, the entity began to take on a more familiar form. More of its arms appeared, and also legs and a torso. Slender, slight of bone, white-skinned, with hair as fair as Dylan’s, this new being was a fragile fantasy figure come to life. Beautiful beyond belief. And female.
Another layer of the world was what she had heard Michael thinking as she’d left him behind out of necessity, fearing to involve the Weres in her problems when they faced so many more of their own. The incredible being beside her proved that this was a case of genetics and secrets that were a big surprise to the person in most need of clarity.
She wasn’t afraid, even when this unnamed being turned pale eyes her way. Gray eyes, like her own. She had the feeling this entity was trying to see through the half-wolf part of her, and that made Kaitlin want to laugh.
They walked in silence. The shimmering curtain wasn’t far. Her fate would be dealt with in minutes. This march had the quality of sleepwalking.
Her feet didn’t really touch the ground in any natural way. Like her strange companion, she seemed to glide over the earth. Each patch of grass they passed created a single note that attached to the next one, and so on, until the looming dawn was filled with music. The music seemed familiar.
“Kaitlin!”
The shout from behind made the music stop.
“Kaitlin!”
Michael…
In thinking his name, Kaitlin felt again the moistness of the grass between her bare toes. Her body seemed to access its former weight. But the spot that waited for them in this green landscape lay just ahead, and was shimmering between the trees. Wolf was a concept behind her now. The glow of completing this puzzle was on the horizon, twenty steps away.
Fifteen steps away.
Michael, I’m going to do this.
Ten steps.
Five.
Kaitlin turned her head when the pressure of leaving the world squeezed the air from her lungs one last time…and saw her lover running toward her.
*
Michael desperately tried to reach her. Dylan was on his heels. There was no sign of Adam, or Tory, who was supposed to be monitoring this anomaly.
Now, he had lost Kaitlin.
Michael sprinted toward the black curtain, cursing out loud and feeling as though someone had cut out his heart.
He knew heartache. The real reason he had left home was to avoid the pain of remembering what a pair of nasty humans had done to his mother, and learn to adapt to living among them.
Devastated by the loss of his wife, Michael’s father had never fully recovered. As the male losing a mate tonight, even if his bond with Kaitlin had been recent, Michael understood what his father had felt. As was the case with his father, he had not been able to protect his mate, and that lapse in attention went against every principle he had held to a high standard.
Michael stopped in front of that abysmal curtain of unknown origin and fisted his hands.
“Do you think Dev was right?” he asked Dylan.
“How can anyone know for certain?” Dylan replied, sending out a second silent call for the missing Miami pair.
Michael could see the concern blossom on Dylan’s face when no answering reply came. Chills were taking over. Tory, Adam and Kaitlin had disappeared.
His nod to Dylan said everything he couldn’t utter. Find your friends. Take care of my pack. Get help with Chavez and kick that sucker to kingdom come. If I don’t come back.
Sucking in a deep breath that he figured might very well be his last, Michael dropped his jeans. If humans couldn’t trespass in Fey territory, maybe a wolf could.
Holding a breath, and with an image of Kaitlin stretched out on his bed, Michael lunged toward the wavering curtain and whatever a bunch of fucking fairies might have in store.
Chapter 23
Kaitlin opened her eyes to a brilliance that hinted at potential retinal damage. She tried to shield her eyes and couldn’t, because her hand was not a hand. It was an auburn-colored paw.
Somehow she had shape-shifted again.
She looked past her muzzle at a landscape populated with trees and grass in colors she’d never imagined existed. There were actually too many shades of green. The sky was a cloudless amethyst blue.
The portal that had transported her here fluttered against her backside, which meant that she had just stepped through. She had no idea how she had shifted, but all she had to do was turn and jump, and she’d be back where she belonged, in a world with fewer shades of green and with the wolf she loved.
Did this place hold any answers for her?
Where was the welcome committee?
She saw them then. Two beings like the one that had brought her here stood a slight distance away, staring at a wolf instead of the female who might at one time have been coded to be like them. Without speaking, their thoughts were as clear to her as Were thoughts had started to be.
What’s done is done, said one of these beautiful beings in a voice that was softly feminine.
Shame, really, the other agreed.
What do you want with me? Kaitlin studied them with her enhanced wolf vision. It didn’t take her long to see that their beauty was managed by a cloaking device meant to protect a truer image. That device, aura or glamour, wavered around them like the curtain one of them had brought her through. Though she focused hard, Kaitlin couldn’t see all the way through the spell they had cast for themselves.
“We wanted to welcome you.” The taller being spoke aloud and waved a thin hand. “But look what we found.”
Wolf is a new part of me, Kaitlin sent back to them.
When the tall being cocked her head, some of the glamour sifted off. Kaitlin saw a dark expression cross the pale, otherworldly features.
Dread began to set in. These beings didn’t seem light, upon closer scrutiny. Her senses told her there wasn’t anything light about them at all. They weren’t happy to see her like this.
The dark curtain moved again. A heavy moving mass came leaping through the portal, knocking Kaitlin over. Sharp teeth caught her by the back of her neck. She yelped as she was dragged backward. Her overwrought senses reeled as her exhaled breath exploded into a thousand tiny fragments of color, each tinted shard as sharp as broken glass. Then she was robbed of breath until the familiar world again opened its arms to welcome her back.
More green confronted her, this time a pair of eyes in a face that was as darkly wolf as the faces across that veil had been darkly ethereal. She knew these eyes. She loved these eyes and had run from them to find out more about the secrets tucked inside her. At the moment, she was sorry she had tried.
Change back, Michael silently directed.
They weren’t alone. Dylan was there, waiting for what would happen next, and she and Michael were still wolves.
Change back, Kaitlin, Michael repeated.
Can’t, she panted, mustering her courage to face this latest challenge.
See yourself in the other form. Believe it. Be it.
I can’t be like them. They didn’t appreciate the new me. She sounded winded.
If you are like whoever they are, it’s only in part. The other part is like me, and I am going to change back.
“Someone is coming,” Dylan announced, spinning to sniff at the early morning breeze.
Michael growled
menacingly. We can’t be seen like this, Kate. This is Clement, not Colorado. There are no wild wolves here.
With a body-jarring snap of ligament and bone that made Kaitlin want to howl, Michael’s wolf form began to disappear as if he merely tucked his fur back inside. Naked and always gorgeous, he crouched beside her and placed a hand on her head.
He said, “You’d think others might be wary of this, too. So unless you want me arrested for strutting naked near a college campus, I suggest you hurry.”
Michael then spoke to Dylan. “Not Tory’s or Adam’s scent in that wind?”
Dylan shook his head. “It’s not a good omen when monsters dare to show up in daylight.”
Kaitlin willed herself to shift, to no avail. Her first shape-shift had been automatic in both directions. This one had come on just as suddenly, and now she seemed to be stuck.
“Damn it.” Michael took hold of her fur, tucked his arms beneath her and lifted her up. “What did those Fey bastards do to you?”
Oddly enough, Kaitlin wanted to tell Michael that they hadn’t done anything to her except stare at what had crossed over in that portal. She had a feeling she’d failed their test, and had been rejected.
“We need reinforcements,” Dylan said. “Chavez might have my friends, as impossible as that seems.”
Kaitlin knew Dylan was thinking that Tory and Adam had been taken by that evil trespassing gang, and she couldn’t see that happening. Tory was Lycan. On her own, Tory was terribly strong, with Adam a close second. Together, the pair should have been unstoppable. She couldn’t begin to imagine a force comprised of Michael, Dylan and the others being unable to secure any outcome they chose.
What mattered at that moment was shifting back to her usual body and watching her Alpha in action. Michael was already sending out a call to rally his Weres.
She sent her mind inward to locate the key for turning off a shape-shift. She was tired of being at the top of everyone’s prey list, and through with being the underdog.
Michael held her tightly. She felt the beat of his heart against her shoulder. His wolf’s pulse was slowing, unable to maintain its feverish pitch in a man’s body. Kaitlin concentrated on those beats, breathing through her open mouth, demanding that her body obey the command to change.
Michael’s extensive tattoos kept her mesmerized. The inky scrolls became fluid as he moved. Each flexion of his chest muscles set the intricate scrolls rolling and produced a reaction in her that was very close to being hypnotized.
With a long pink tongue, she gave one scroll a lick. Michael was salty from the effort of changing. He tasted like sex.
Her transition began as a distant pulse, like the first hint of an impending orgasm. That pulse didn’t roll or rise. Instead, it spread sideways like a plague that would take over her organs, one by one. In this case, it was a wolfish sort of glamour that was calling to her. Those Fey beings behind their curtain would have appreciated it, surely.
Kaitlin’s heartbeat matched Michael’s as her lungs filled with air. When her body began to convulse, she doubled over in Michael’s arms, folding up like an accordion.
They had been heading toward Michael’s home when her physical gyrations prevented him from taking another step. He swore out loud and loosened his grip enough for her to drop from the safety net of his strong arms.
She landed on her feet, both of them, as her body swelled from an auburn-furred wolf to the likeness of a young human female before she hit the ground. This older, familiar shape was a lie, of course. A sinking feeling came to Kaitlin of not knowing where she truly belonged, though this shape would have to do for now.
Michael used a tight grip on her wrist to turn her abruptly around. He leaned down to peer into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice reflecting his impulse to get her out of sight. “Use everything available to you and consider yourself lucky to have made it this far when the odds were stacked against you. Your specialness makes you who you are. Own it.”
He was right. She knew what half of her was, and that half was something she could use to help this pack. Michael’s pep talk had helped.
On tiptoe, Kaitlin rose to look at him. With her face close to his, she said, “I’ll race you home,” daring herself to test the parameters of a current status she wasn’t quite sure she could completely master in so short a time.
The comment took Michael back until she swayed on her bare feet, spasmed as her spine crackled and realigned, and her body began to turn itself inside out. Words became impossible to transmit. Thoughts became longings. She was once again a wolf.
Rendered immobile by the surprise of this victory, Kaitlin swiftly regrouped. After the first wobbly few steps, she took off at a lope, glancing over her shoulder only once to see the few seconds of stunned surprise on Michael’s face before he ran after the wolf he had created, flinging four-letter curses to the wind.
*
Kaitlin didn’t change back when they reached his house. She kept her wolf shape, Michael supposed, because she wanted to, since she had successfully reverse shifted in his arms.
He wasn’t sure what the others would say. It was a sure bet they’d be as stunned as he had been when first encountering Kaitlin’s handy little trick. He still wasn’t used to it.
As he dressed, she circled his room, watching with her wolfish gray eyes made greener by her infusion of Lycan blood. She brushed against his legs once, careful afterward not to remain within touching distance. Being close to him had to be the key to her transition reversal. He sensed her anxiousness about what might happen next.
Rena, Dev and Cade burst through the front door at the same time, equally as anxious, all of them paler than usual from lack of sleep. They slid to a stop when Kaitlin appeared, and exchanged puzzled glances.
“Long story,” Michael said.
“Is that Kaitlin?” Rena asked.
“Yep.” Michael moved quickly past the myriad of questions he perceived in their minds. “Tory and Adam are missing, and Chavez’s minions are loose in the light.”
“Shit,” Rena muttered. “Does that freak have a damn army?”
Kaitlin growled, and all eyes turned to her.
“That,” Rena said, pointing to the auburn wolf, “isn’t normal. Tell us how you did it.”
“Bigger fish to fry,” Michael said. “We join Dylan to hunt for his friends in the daylight and in public. I hope to God Dylan is wrong about Tory and Adam being caught, and they’re out there somewhere, not daring to call in.”
Devlin inched closer to Kaitlin, looked down at her and whispered, “You have the smell of that mysterious place on you. Is this a spell?”
For Devlin, at least, a spell might have explained Kaitlin’s current shape, Michael thought with relief as he strode to the door. “Dylan is searching. You know what to do. At the first whiff of trouble, call. Those are the rules.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Dev said. “Over and out.”
Rena blocked Kaitlin’s departure by straddling the threshold. From the porch outside, Michael let Rena say whatever she had to say.
“There was something strange about you from the start, Kaitlin. Still, if you’re willing to help, you can cover way more ground than we can in that shape. Be careful. Keep out of sight. You probably already know that you don’t blend real well with Clement’s people world. If they find you, they’re likely to call in the posse, the pound or the closest zoo.”
Rena cleared the doorway to allow Kaitlin to exit. Proud of Rena, Michael waved for them both to follow.
“Rena means well,” he said to Kaitlin, marveling how quickly she had adapted to a shape she wasn’t used to.
“The hell I do,” Rena remarked. With a wave of her hand, Rena took off after Cade in the opposite direction and called back, “Just making conversation.”
“Dev, can you monitor the area near that wavering thing in the trees that, with any luck at all, will be gone by now?” Michael asked.
“Shouldn’t she do that?
” Devlin replied, alluding to Kaitlin. “Maybe she can get the fairies to help.”
“I don’t think she’d like that, Dev.”
Devlin shrugged shoulders that were covered this morning in a tight black T-shirt. After a lingering glance at Kaitlin, he saluted and took off to man his post.
“You dodged a silver bullet,” Michael said to Kaitlin, who shadowed him like a heeling hound. But he immediately wished he hadn’t used that phrase. An image of his mother’s dead, skinless body returned to haunt him. Because that’s what wolf hunters did. They scalped and skinned their prey in order to make money on the black market, or hell, just for bragging rights.
Worry began to consume him as he glanced to the wolf beside him. There weren’t any wolf hunters in Clement that he knew of, but a sleepy college town would be a short enough distance from Miami and possibly, to a wolf hunter’s crazed mind, live with potential new pickings.
“What if they followed Chavez here?” he said.
An answering reply came from the wolf frequency.
To hell with Chavez and the pelt he loped in with, Dylan said. If there weren’t so many nice wolves here, I’d call those wolf hunters myself and leave them a direct map to their worst wolf nightmare.
Kaitlin was growling. Michael glanced down, deciding to tell her more of the things he had never spoken of to anyone.
“Wolf hunters left my mother’s bloody carcass for us to find. Not much of her was left to identify, other than a locket my father had given her. I moved to Clement in part to try to lose that memory, and made myself believe I came because of wanting my own pack.”
He drew a deep breath. “You don’t have to stay here. You can go home, or someplace else, and start over. Chances are good that you wouldn’t shift without me beside you. Maybe your family can help.”
What was he saying? They had imprinted, and those chains, once forged, could not be broken. If Kaitlin left him, odds were good that he’d never find another mate. He’d never want another mate. It would be the same for Kaitlin, unless her other nebulous half could overrule that bond and set her free.
Sharp teeth dug into his leg. Kaitlin might have heard some of that last bit.
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