Shifting Solitude (Outlaws, Fangs and Claws Book 1)

by Cheyenne Hart

Deadra was busy trying to get Rita out of there alive. "Come on, stupid girl, I'm not having more blood one my hands because of you."

  As they all moved through the front door, the werewolves were close behind. A gunshot took one of them out, getting it right in the head. It was Rita's boyfriend, coming in from an adjoining doorway.

  "Jimmie!" called Rita. But Deadra wouldn't let her stop, pushing her completely out of the building.

  Continuing to fire, Jimmie might have saved their lives. Melody and Colton barged through the front door thanks to the cover he allowed them. It looked like they might be home free, Melody and dared to look behind her. The werewolves were still chasing them, only one or two more had fallen to Jimmie's bullets. He let out a blood curdling cry from inside as one of them rushed at him.

  We owe you, Jimmie.

  Rita cried out for her boyfriend as they hustled away down the cold street, now with enough of a lead on the beasts to stand a chance of escaping alive. There were no street lights, leaving the area in nearly complete darkness.

  "Forget this," said Deadra, as she flashed her werewolf claws in the moon's glow. "Keep running. I'll try to stop them."

  There were police sirens in the distance. "Shit," said Colton. "Just what we need."

  "It might actually be," said Melody. She looked back at the door of the yellow building and whimpered to see three of the gnarled, twisted creatures coming out of it. "Colton, you need to change into a werewolf, now!"

  "I can ... I have before." He strained, his face turning red and veins showing where they weren't before. He started to grow light hair on his face. His finger nails became stumpy claws. "Yes!" he roared as he slowly, but surely, took the form of a werewolf in the dark of the night.

  "Just go after Rita," said Deadra. "We've got this, right Colton?"

  "Sure!"

  "What?" Melody hadn't seen Rita continue running down the street like a pet with no owner.

  Deadra slammed into the first werewolf, showing her weariness with the way she let her body partially fall as she tackled it. The other werewolf struck her in the face and began clawing at her head and chest.

  Colton circled around one of them, still only half shifted, trying to avoid getting too close.

  The third werewolf kept running, going after the two women.

  Melody stood in front of Rita, but had no thoughts of being able to defend either of them. She tried to look as though she could.

  The werewolf chuckled at her false bravado, as it closed in on her.

  Rita was behind her, fumbling with something. There was a clicking sound.

  Boom. The werewolf was shot in the throat.

  "Get away from her!" Rita screamed, but her voice broke up. She had a pistol, which she kept firing. Her aim was actually good, which wasn't so surprising for a young lady who was dating a gang leader. She hit it right in the forehead and sent it to the floor.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Hallard was still fighting against Grave, but now had the upper hand. He was more worried about Melody staying alive than himself. His superior size, weight, and strength were too much for Grave without his minions help.

  With tremendous force, he drove his razor sharp claws into the big, black werewolf's fleshy spot, between the shoulder and neck. It was a difficult spot for the wolf to protect while they were grappling, and the creature was injured from Melody's bullets.

  Blood was all over--a dark, rich juice flowing out. Hallard had the taste of copper and earthly delight in his nose and on his tongue. It made him hungry, so he bit into Grave's neck the second he found enough purchase to do so. His fangs sunk deep and he sucked like a vampire, chewing away at the countless threads that wove the thick skin together.

  Grave didn't even scream in pain. He only bleated, his throat now severed, and started to breath his own blood. Soon, he slumped over, barely alive and with his eyes closes.

  Hallard managed to stop himself from feeding on his vanquished foe, but only for the sake of his own humanity. He also heard police sirens, and knew he could not risk being found by them in his current form and condition. It would mean taking a shower of bullets, and really testing out just how much damage a werebear.

  He stood up and started to shift, but it hurt too much. "Damn it!" If he shifted back to human form, with the wounds he'd sustained, it would mostly likely kill him. So, he hobbled over to the barred window at the end of the hallway. For him, it was easy to remove, and he lowered himself out of the window second story window with a thud, into some thick bushes. After that, it was impossible to get back up, but he was safely hidden among the leaves and branches.

  He wondered if Melody had felt as hopeless on the night he first saw her beauty. What a lovely vision to die with, he thought.

  Chapter Forty

  "God damn pigs!" Colton yelled, the blue and red lights flashing on his face just as he changed back to human form.

  "Hold it right there!" said one of the police officers from the street, standing by the open squad car.

  The two remaining werewolves they'd been fighting had run off the second they saw the police lights.

  With Deadra badly hurt and Rita wasted, Melody and Colton weren't willing to run for it.

  "At least there's nothing odd to see," said Melody.

  "I hate pigs," Colton answered.

  Melody laughed. Yes, she actually laughed. Whatever the police were going to do to them would seem like a free vacation compared to what she'd gone through the past week. She kept on laughing to herself, even as Deadra and Rita were safely loaded into ambulances, and as she rode all the way to the police station in the back of the squad car, with Colton cursing the whole way.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Melody was only in a cell for a few days. The police had been desperate to pin something on her, but they could only come up with minor charges. Even those seemed flimsy, given the amount of illegal activity that had happened in that yellow warehouse, and the sheer lack of evidence that linked her to any of it.

  "You're getting out. Come on," said the mean female officer who seemed to spend all his time on his ass.

  And as if she didn't already know that she was getting out. "Really?" she said with sarcasm.

  The guard had given her nothing but trouble, treating her like trash.

  "Thanks so much," said Melody when they let her leave. She still felt, and looked, like shit. At least she'd been able to bathe regularly, and a doctor gave her the all-clear, despite her many wounds. She walked out the front door of the police station a free woman, but still had no idea what had happened to Hallard.

  "There you are!" she called out, seeing Colton by the little garden area out front, sitting on the concrete divider between the plants and the road, smoking a cigarette too.

  "I thought those things were too much for your new senses, wolf man."

  "Yeah, they still kind of are. I don't give a shit though, I can deal with the nausea now. Too fucking old to try and quit anyway."

  "You're what, forty?

  "Thirty-seven, thanks. Don't you wanna know why you've been released?" He stepped on the cigarette butt and stood up.

  "Let me guess, you pulled some strings?"

  "I pulled some strings. And your boyfriend's just fine."

  "I had a feeling he would be. You'd have told me if he wasn't."

  "How'd you figure I'd know?" Colton asked rhetorically.

  Melody knew he didn't expect an answer. She felt a lot closer to him than she had just days earlier. Of course, plenty had happened, and even while in the jail cell she'd had time to think and grow in who she was.

  "Rita didn't get off so easy. Used all my string-pulling powers for you. Besides, her daddy's got some sway. She'll be fine." He started walking and gestured for her to do the same.

  "Wow, I had no idea. Although, she kind of does have that way about her."

  "Spoilt, rich brat? Yeah, I think the cops got that impression when they found her naked, on drugs, waving a gun around--and talk
ing about wolf men."

  "Oh, she didn't ..." Both Melody and Colton burst out with laughter.

  "It's okay, the drug part works out for us, made 'em think she was making it all up. She's on house arrest. Like I said, her daddy's got sway. But I bet you wanna to know where Hallard is."

  Melody could hardly reply. She'd been putting off asking, trying to hide her emotions. All along, the woman inside her, the girl, her heart--had been crying out for someone to tell her that Hallard still loved her.

  Colton brought her to a big van. She started to perspire at the sight of it. The color was different, but it almost looked like the one she'd been kidnapped in for a second.

  "Easy," he said. "I replaced that shitty car o' mine when I got the reward for finding Rita."

  "Her parents still gave you the reward?"

  "Let's just say there's a lot of dirt on her family. Get in, lover boy's at my place."

  When they got to Colton's apartment, Melody ran through the door of the apartment the second Colton unlocked it.

  Hallard was there, asleep on a pull out sofa with bandages over his body. He looked like he'd fallen off a bridge, but nothing seemed permanent.

  "Oh, my god! You poor thing!" she cried out and rushed over to him.

  When he startled awake, the look on his face was enough to tell her that all her worrying had been for nothing. Of course he still loved her. She started to kiss his face, but then pulled back and recollected herself. "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Why?" he rasped.

  "I left you alone on the side of the highway. I took off and caused all of this."

  "And you're worried I won't want to be with you again?

  She didn't answer in words, but dropped her lip and her shoulders.

  "Look at what I did to myself for you. It wasn't just out of a sense of doing what was right. I did it because I do love you, Melody. I really love you--with my whole heart."

  "I love you too, Hallard." She looked around the bachelor pad and said, "Wow, you really live here now?"

  Hallard laughed. "Where else would I go? The hospital workers might freak out if one of their patience loses consciousness and accidentally changes into a giant bear."

  Epilogue

  Hallard didn't have anything to spend money on in the woods, and he had always been resourceful.

  There was a knock on the front door. "Well, hello stranger," said Melody. She radiated a calm beauty that had taken time to accustom itself to her new life. Now, though, it was a part of her.

  "Hello there," Colton said from behind the screen door. The other, wooden door was open, as was usual on mild days. It let the breeze come through off the field beside the farm house. "Crop looks like it's going well," he said. "Not that I'd know shit about farming."

  "You old dog," said Hallard from a chair in the living area, where there was no television, but lots of books, as well as Melody's pencils and drawing books, on a wooden table in the center of a thickly woven rug.

  "Don't start with the dog jokes already, bear man. It's too hot out in the god damn boondocks."

  "Air conditioner still broken in your van?" asked Hallard.

  "Probably. We traded the van for something with better mileage. Been doing some travelling." Colton stepped inside and revealed the pretty blond behind him.

  It was Deadra, looking warm and healthy in the sunshine that came in under the porch. "That's definitely enough dog jokes, Hallard," she said with a laugh.

  "Wow, you look amazing!" said Melody, running over to hug her. They hadn't seen each other since they were arrested. "Can I ask what you're doing with this reprobate though?"

  "You heard that word from me," Colton said. "No fair using it against me."

  "Yeah, and he's not such a bad guy, when you look past the tacky trench coat," said Deadra.

  Melody and Hallard took them out the front to sit on a long bench on the porch. It was a nice day for it, and there was a chorus of birds in the big almond trees by the house, jittering about, diving to pick up the nuts that had fallen and were opening up.

  "Are you still searching? I assume that's why you traded in the van," asked Hallard.

  Colton nodded and turned to face him. "Somebody needs to know something about this curse. "

  "You can't reverse something like this. It's not a curse. It's biology."

  "Well, I can try, we're going to keep looking. You don't know what it's like to have the blood of the people you hate going through you."

  "No, but I've been living with this a lot longer than you," replied Hallard coolly.

  "Then you could help us," added Deadra.

  "Like I told your new man here," Hallard continued. "We're both happier than we've ever been."

  "It's a whole new start," said Melody, and Hallard just nodded and leaned back against the bench. The boards creaked back against his weight, like the wood was embracing him.

  "That's fair, but I know you want answers. When the time comes, my money's on you helping me out. Even if just to return a favor to a friend who helped you out ..."

  "Well, you've got us there," said Melody. "But let's forget about that for now, huh? I'd say it's time we all finally had a meal together and a few relaxing drinks. She kissed Hallard on the lips and he pushed back with passion.

  "That's good enough for me," said Colton.

  "Sure, for now," said Deadra.

  Want More Paranormal Romance?

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