by Terry Spear
“Wait for backup,” Leidolf said in a commanding, pack leader way.
“Going in. Call you when I know more.” He wasn’t her pack leader, and someone inside could be injured or dying.
She pocketed her phone and readied her Glock. Listening for any sounds, she approached the deck and heard someone moaning inside. She took a deep breath and smelled other scents. Humans. Wolves. A cat.
She climbed up on the deck, making it creak, but she kept moving cautiously forward in case someone might still be a threat inside. Other than the low moan, she couldn’t make out any other sounds.
Barely breathing, she stole into the cabin as quietly as a wolf. When she saw a boot behind the couch, her heart thundered and she rushed around the furniture. A blond-haired man was sprawled on his back, his hand gripping his throat, blood trickling through his fingers.
“Hold on!” Jillian bolted for the kitchen nearby, grabbed a bunch of paper towels, and raced back to him. Holding the towels against his throat, she asked, “Douglas?”
The injured man stared at her, his blue eyes half lidded, and gave a little nod.
“You’re going to be fine.” She set her gun on the floor next to her so she could reach it if she needed to, then quickly called Leidolf back while holding the towels against Douglas’s wound. “Douglas Wendish needs an ambulance ASAP. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Leidolf would have the records on who had rented his pack’s cabins and know Douglas was a wolf.
“Everyone’s on their way. ETA—ten minutes. Cause of wound?”
Jillian considered the bite wounds on Douglas’s arms and his neck. “Someone bit him on the throat and arms. He was trying to defend himself.”
She took in a deep breath, trying to smell any sign that her brother had been there, worried that he could be a victim too. But he hadn’t been here. So where in the world was he? “Do you know who bit you?” Jillian asked Douglas.
Barely having any strength, he shook his head.
She heard the ambulance and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Douglas was in bad shape, but at least with the paramedics here, he might have a chance. This couldn’t be a coincidence. They’d already had a case of a jaguar shifter being shot at Leidolf’s ranch, the shooting of her brother, and now this. Leidolf had asked her to help the jaguars in the United Shifters Force, the USF, to figure it all out.
As soon as Leidolf’s police officers arrived and the paramedics took care of Douglas, she drove back to her cabin, anxious to see if Miles had taken a wolf run and returned there. At least she could leave him a note to warn him about what had happened in case he didn’t check his phone right away. She prayed he wasn’t in trouble again.
* * *
When Douglas Wendish called Vaughn Greystoke, worried about not being able to reach his friend, Vaughn had told him he’d meet with him and look into it. Vaughn had resolved a missing person’s case in southern Oregon and wasn’t too far from Douglas’s location. Douglas was one of his pack mates from Colorado and a close friend, so he knew Vaughn was nearby.
Douglas texted back forty-five minutes later: My friend got ahold of me. No need to worry about it. Case of miscommunication. Thanks!
Vaughn was almost to the cabin, so he figured he’d just drop in, say hi, and return home to Colorado. When he tried to get ahold of Douglas to tell him that, there was no response.
While Vaughn didn’t want to jump to any conclusion, he couldn’t help it. That was some of the trouble with being a wolf, a SEAL, and a PI. After asking for Vaughn’s help, Douglas wouldn’t have ignored Vaughn’s call. Perhaps he had gone running as a wolf with his friend. Vaughn would have called the local pack leader, Leidolf, to have some of his men check on Douglas, but Vaughn was so close to the cabin’s location now that he would probably get there before Leidolf could send anyone.
When Vaughn arrived at the cabin, no vehicles were parked there, and two chairs and a small table had been knocked over on the deck. A light rain was falling, and a gentle breeze was blowing.
He got out of his Land Rover, gun readied, and moved quickly to the porch. He smelled Douglas’s blood right away, as well as several wolves—some of them Leidolf’s men’s scents—and a cat’s scent. His heart pounding, he rushed into the cabin, navigated around the sofa, and came face-to-face with a big, male gray wolf, his nose touching the blood on the floor before he whipped his head around.
Vaughn was startled, and the wolf looked just as shocked to see him. Before Vaughn could prepare for the wolf’s reaction, he leaped at Vaughn. Huge paws slammed against Vaughn’s shoulders. Unable to brace himself in time, Vaughn fell backward and hit the floor hard, losing his Glock under the damn sofa.
He grabbed the knife in his boot, but the gray wolf didn’t attack him. Instead, it shot out the door.
“Damn it to hell.” Vaughn shoved his hand under the sofa for the gun, pulling it from the accumulated dust bunnies. He shook it off and raced out of the cabin just in time to see the direction the wolf had run.
Vaughn holstered his gun and immediately called Leidolf and began to strip.
“This is Vaughn Greystoke. I’m at Douglas Wendish’s cabin near your ranch and—”
“We’ve got him in surgery. A wolf named Jillian Matthews found him and called me. He’s in a drug-induced coma.”
“Hell.”
“We’re taking care of him.”
“A wolf was here. I’m going after him. Get me a nearby cabin so I can investigate this, will you?”
Leidolf told Vaughn which cabin he’d give him, the same one where Vaughn had stayed last year on vacation. Leidolf would have his men park Vaughn’s vehicle there. Vaughn gave him the code to unlock the car door. “Going after him.”
Then Vaughn threw his clothes, cell, and gun in the car, locked it, and shifted. He tore after the wolf, hoping he’d reach him quickly. He intended to get some answers from him pronto.
Loping through the Oregon forest as a wolf, Vaughn was hot on the trail of the other one. He prayed Douglas would pull through after the vicious attack he must have suffered.
For the moment, Vaughn and the other wolf were running through the evergreen forests near the Columbia River Gorge, the sound of yet another waterfall rushing over the top of a cliff nearby. A light, icy rain continued to fall, the guard hairs of Vaughn’s outer coat repelling the droplets.
For about an hour, he chased the wolf through the underbrush of the misty forest, the birds diving for cover in the Douglas fir and western hemlocks as soon as they saw him coming. Vaughn wondered where the wolf was going. He’d been looping around as if trying to reach a location, but then moving in another direction, most likely fearing Vaughn would catch up to him.
Then somewhere in the deep forest ahead, the wolf suddenly howled. Calling for help? Out there?
That meant he’d stopped long enough to howl. Vaughn raced forward to close the gap, trying to reach the wolf before he ran off again. Or before reinforcements arrived.
Why else would the wolf howl? Other members of his pack must be out there. Maybe he thought he could scare Vaughn off, making him think a wolf shifter pack was out there and would back him up any minute. Vaughn had used that ploy himself a time or two. He wasn’t giving up on his prey no matter what. He had to learn the truth. Had the wolf standing next to the bloody mess on the cabin floor been the same wolf who had torn into Douglas? If the blood on the wolf’s muzzle was any indication, and the way he had run off, Vaughn would have to say he certainly could be.
Yet how had a she-wolf, Jillian Matthews, found Douglas, called Leidolf for help, and not been injured by this same wolf?
The chance that this wolf would have left Douglas for dead, run off, then returned after Leidolf’s people had come for Douglas would be pretty slim. Unless the wolf had nearly killed Douglas in anger, then got his rage under control and came back to get rid of any evidence. Maybe he realized he hadn’t made sure Douglas was dead and went back to see. What if Jillian had actually witnessed the attack, and tha
t’s how she knew a wolf had severely injured Douglas and needed Leidolf’s help?
Leidolf hadn’t said Jillian had seen the attack though. Not that Vaughn had given him a chance to respond much. Except for a quick mention that Leidolf would give him the cabin located closest to Douglas’s on the north side while he investigated the attempted murder, Vaughn hadn’t had time to do anything but agree. He was certain Leidolf had as many questions for him as Vaughn had for Jillian. Like how had Vaughn happened to be at the cabin so soon after the incident when he lived in Colorado?
And Vaughn wanted to know just who Jillian was. Douglas’s girlfriend? He didn’t remember Douglas dating anyone by that name.
Right now, Vaughn was so busy tracking the wolf’s scent that when something hit a tree near him, and then a shot rang out, it took him a second to realize someone was shooting at him. He growled softly, irritated that anyone would be hunting out there. He continued his pursuit, another round slamming into a tree near his chest. No damn hunter was going to stop Vaughn from his mission. He had to take down the wolf and learn if he’d nearly killed Douglas.
Vaughn dodged around a hemlock, hoping the hunter would think he’d taken off in another direction. But he couldn’t detour from his path for long or he’d lose the wolf. As soon as Vaughn was in the clear again, a third round clipped the shrubs in front of him. Damn it! He would soon be out of the shooter’s range. Just a little bit farther. Then he felt the kick of the fourth round impacting with his right shoulder and heard the sound of another round firing right afterward.
Trying to dodge behind a tree to get out of the hunter’s sights, Vaughn stumbled over fallen branches. He didn’t have time to look for the shooter. The hunter fired another shot, and the round whizzed past Vaughn’s head, sinking into the trunk of a massive maple tree with a thud. Hell. No matter how much he wanted to continue on the wolf’s trail, he couldn’t. Not with the shooter actively hunting him down.
Right before Vaughn sidetracked to the river a few feet below the rocky cliff there, he saw something golden moving so fast in the undergrowth that he could barely believe his eyes.
A big cat? Jaguar? Shifter? What in the world was going on? He’d never seen a jaguar shifter before.
Vaughn jumped into the river, the cold water enveloping him as he went under. He surfaced and let it carry him away, the whole time mentally cursing the shooter.
What of the cat he’d witnessed running through the woods? He hadn’t imagined observing a jaguar. He wasn’t delirious. Yet seeing one of them in an Oregon forest was like finding a unicorn. Had one gotten free from the Oregon Zoo? Or a big-cat reserve? Then again, his pack leaders had said jaguar shifters lived among them. Taking the wolf down had to be Vaughn’s priority, yet he wished he’d been able to chase after the big cat too and learn what in the world it was doing there, in the same vicinity as the other trouble.
Hell, maybe the jaguar, and not a wolf, was responsible for Douglas’s wound.
* * *
Jillian couldn’t believe that a lupus garou could be trying to kill her brother. The wolf chasing Miles had to be a shifter. She knew he wasn’t running with Miles for fun. Not with the way her brother had howled, calling to her for help. If the other wolf had been in trouble too, he would have howled along with her brother. No, this one had been hell-bent on Miles’s trail. Worse, she worried he could be the wolf who had nearly killed Douglas.
She ran through the woods to track where the wounded wolf had gone once he’d finally veered from her brother’s path. Wild wolves had been sighted in Oregon, so at first she’d thought it might have claimed the territory and was chasing Miles out of the area or, worse, planned to kill him. When she couldn’t scare the wolf off with the first three rounds she’d fired, she was certain he was a shifter. She found drops of blood collected on vegetation, the light rain already diluting it, and followed them to the river where the trail ended.
In the misty rain, she glanced in the direction the river was flowing and thought she saw a wolf’s head bobbing up and down in the water. She couldn’t be certain, considering the conditions: the water was dark, the object was far away, and the day was overcast.
She continued to watch until whatever it was disappeared beyond a bend in the river. Her heart pounding, she ran in the direction of her cabin, hoping her brother was there and could tell her what was going on. If she hadn’t needed to hang on to her rifle and cell phone, she would have shifted and run as a wolf. Much faster that way.
She was glad the wolf was no longer chasing her brother, but she did hate that she’d had to shoot him. With their shifter ability to heal faster than humans, he would be fine in no time.
As soon as the cabin came into view, she hurried to the front door, unlocked it, and called out to her brother. He didn’t respond, and she didn’t hear him in the back bedroom. She stalked back to the room, but he wasn’t there. Why wouldn’t he have come here? Unless he was afraid of bringing the big, bad wolf to their doorstep.
For now, she had other business to take care of. She left a message for her brother, telling him to call her at once, that she was working with some jaguar shifters. And that Douglas was in dire straits after someone attacked him. She would be staying at the red wolf pack’s ranch part of the time. She considered trying to track down her brother as a wolf, but with the other wolf wounded and leaving the area, she figured Miles would be okay for now.
Teaming up with jaguars was something totally new for Jillian. Never in a million years would she have believed she’d be working with a combined force of jaguar shifters and a wolf—and with another, if they could solicit his help. On the way to her cabin, Leidolf had informed her about a hard-core Navy SEAL, also turned PI—and from what she’d read about his profile, a loner in his investigative work—who was in the area and investigating the attack on Douglas.
From a photo Leidolf had sent to the team, the PI was one hot-looking specimen of a wolf and single, though she just happened to notice that information by chance. And he looked a hell of a lot like the guy she’d seen at the Clawed and Dangerous Kitty Cat Club in San Diego. The good Samaritan. That meant he had been a wolf all along. She should have known.
Hoping she’d hear from Miles soon, Jillian quickly packed a bag and left to join the jaguar shifters at the cabin nearby to meet up with the SEAL wolf. She also put in a call to Leidolf for an update on Douglas’s condition.
* * *
Vaughn bobbed up and down in the icy water, thankful his wolf’s double coat protected him from the chilling cold. He had to take care of his wound first, hoping it wasn’t too bad and he would heal quickly enough. He was certain the gray wolf couldn’t have suddenly armed himself with a rifle, so he was still running as a wolf, and that meant Vaughn could try to find his scent later.
What if the gray wolf had an accomplice? Maybe that’s why he howled. To get help from a wolf shifter friend or pack member who would shoot Vaughn instead of coming to his aid as a wolf. The shooter wouldn’t have been some random hunter then. A marksman lying in wait while Vaughn tried to take down the wolf seemed too damned convenient to be mere coincidence.
Because of the numbing effect of the cold water and the shock from the impact of the round on his shoulder, he still wasn’t feeling any pain. Thankfully. He’d make it to shore close to where his cabin was and slip into the place, take care of this bloody mess, rest a while, eat, and take off again.
Lupus garous healed faster than humans, but they didn’t heal instantaneously. He couldn’t wear a bandage on his shoulder as a wolf either. He would need to rest his shoulder for a time before he could shift again. Chasing the wolf as a human, Vaughn would never be able to catch up. Not until the wolf settled somewhere.
Vaughn recognized the trees and shrubs near the water’s edge, and the telltale marker—three stacked boulders, the result of an avalanche centuries ago—he’d run past before that indicated where his cabin was situated, just north of Douglas’s. He fought the swift flow of the current
s so he could scramble onto the rocky shore. He could tell his strength was already dwindling.
He needed to get an update from Leidolf on Douglas’s condition and let his pack leaders know about it too.
He was trying to keep on his feet, stumbling over rocks and branches, and stumbling where there were none. He was just a little north of his cabin, not too much farther to go. He was sticking to the woods and avoiding the river view in front of the cabin, just in case. The next couple of cabins were about a half mile away, including the one where Vaughn had found Douglas’s blood. Vaughn was nearly in view of his own cabin when he heard a woman’s voice as she spoke to someone else.
“We’ll just wait for him. You’re so impatient, Everett.”
“We should have tracked him down.”
Staying low and prowling closer, to his surprise and irritation, Vaughn saw two men and a woman standing on his front deck, drinking bottled water.
What the hell. He really didn’t need this aggravation right now. Why did they want to see him? He didn’t know them from Adam.
The woman was a brunette, her hair tied back in a ponytail, and her eyes were dark brown. A man with shaggier dark hair and green eyes looked like he was with the woman. From the man’s protective stance, Vaughn was certain they were together. Another man was occupying his own space on the other side of the deck, watching the river, his short-cropped hair black and his eyes blue, with a square jaw that looked like it could take a fist. His eyes narrowed, his expression was ominous.
All of them were dressed in jeans, rain jackets, and hiking boots. The men looked hard-core, like they could dish out some real punishment. The three were in great shape, regular hikers in the woods, Vaughn guessed. Something about their posture and appearance suggested they were former military or police. They just had that official look about them. Leidolf’s people? Nah. He didn’t recognize any of them.
All of them could be wearing shoulder-holstered weapons. Vaughn couldn’t tell from the lay of their jackets.