by Bec Adams
Donovan watched the surveillance footage closely. It was quite possible that Wendy was expecting someone. They had her under fairly close watch, but they’d tried not to infringe on her privacy. It was distinctly possible that she was about to get a friendly visitor.
But it was their job to be sure.
Chapter Three
Sogarn enjoyed wearing his wolf-shaped form, not because of the freedom it gave him to move around the forest without attracting attention—though that was certainly a part of it—but because it let him get close to Wendy. She’d quickly become a woman he wanted to know better, and as frustrating as it was to not be able to have a real conversation with her, it was enough just to listen, for now.
He really didn’t have a plan in his head, but there was a part of him that imagined that when the time was right he and Donovan would reveal themselves to her in their human forms. It was strictly forbidden by their alpha, and in reality Wendy would probably be terrified to realize the wolves protecting her were actually men, but in his imagination things went much more smoothly.
Sogarn raised a wolfy eyebrow in question as Donovan moved slowly to Wendy’s side. He barked one sound at Polly—“car”—before maneuvering into a position where his head was close to Wendy’s free hand. She smiled, immediately dropped her hand to his head, and scratched behind his ear. Sogarn made an annoyed groaning sound but quickly rolled to his feet and moved toward the cockatoo.
“Well, aren’t you the bossy one?” Wendy asked affectionately. “You bark. He jumps.” She rubbed Donovan’s head as she glanced around the wooded area that was her backyard. “Is there a problem at home? Maybe with the wife and kids?”
Donovan shook his head, perhaps not really considering that he was answering a direct question.
“That’s a shame,” Wendy said, staring off into the distance. “I’ve seen other wolves around, but I suppose you two prefer to stay bachelors.” She sighed softly. “I can’t say that I blame you. My one and only foray into love was a disaster.”
She fell silent, her hand stilling in Donovan’s fur, her thoughts apparently wandering back in time.
“You saved my life that day,” she said quietly. “Even if Brian hadn’t killed me, I would have been too frightened not to do what he said.”
Donovan pushed his muzzle back into her hand, rubbing his face against her in a wolfy version of affection. Sogarn knew his lover well enough to know that what he really wanted to do was change back to his humanoid shape, take her in his arms, and comfort her that way. She might, however, not react very well to the wolf she’d been talking to for the past three months suddenly turning into a man.
Donovan nuzzled her again, sighing softly when she started to scratch behind his ear once more. They stayed that way together for several minutes as she drank the rest of her coffee. It wasn’t until she looked over at Polly that Sogarn realized how quiet the bird had become. He’d long since given up trying to remind himself it wasn’t actually a cockatoo, that it was an Alcarn in disguise, but the obnoxious miniature being’s silence was a little unnerving.
“You okay, Polly?” Wendy asked as she lifted out of her chair and came over to where the bird stood shivering on its perch.
“Wolf, wolf, wolf,” the bird said in a very quiet version of its usual raucous voice.
Sogarn rolled his eyes as well as he could in this form, bared his teeth at his feathered charge, and barked a single word in wolf voice—“Safe.”
They’d had situations like this over the past forty-four years. Granted, they were few and far between, but the Alcarn had never shown any signs of being frightened by a single car before.
“Sense them,” Polly said to Sogarn, clearly confusing Wendy. Donovan moved closer to the bird, and Sogarn lifted his head in what he hoped the Alcarn took as an order to explain. “Know them.”
That wasn’t good. Sogarn growled a warning to Polly to stay calm, unfortunately making Wendy jump in the process. He moved to lean against her leg, trying to offer an apology of sorts.
“Know who, Polly?” Wendy asked, glancing between the wolf and the bird as if she understood they were communicating. Unfortunately, if Polly could sense—and was frightened of—whoever was in the car coming up the mountain, then this was a definite problem.
“Car, car, car.”
Wendy immediately turned toward the road, a very clear plume of dust rising from the general area of the winding road that climbed the mountain to her home.
She grabbed the cockatoo and immediately stepped into the house.
* * * *
Donovan wanted to snap the stupid bird in two for scaring her like this, but he slid in behind them, determined to stay close even if Wendy did have a rule about no wolves in the house.
He followed her around her home, watching as she closed and locked every window and door. Clearly, her experience with Brian still deeply affected her. Fortunately, her actions would make it look like no one was home—a distinct advantage from a security point of view. Even if their visitors were known to Polly, it was unlikely that they’d recognize him in his current form—unless they had an Alcarn with them.
All Alcarns—those born of Avian-shifter royal blood—had the ability to sense the presence of most other beings, humans included, but Donovan had often wondered if that particular skill was somehow faulty in Polly. How could someone who knew when other shifters were close seem to be so clueless most of the time?
Donovan stayed near Wendy, wanting to assure her she wasn’t alone. Fortunately, she didn’t try to shuffle him out of the house, but rather, dropped her hand to rest on his head as she stood several feet back from the front window and waited for an unknown visitor to arrive.
“Do we have any information?” Donovan asked his lover telepathically as he sensed Sogarn move back into the tree line and head toward the road.
“Not at this stage. Did Wendy mention expecting any visitors?”
“No,” Donovan said, glaring at the bird currently shaking its feathers loose with fear. “Can you see the car yet?”
“Yeah, it’s not familiar, but it has a least three men inside, and it’s definitely heading to Wendy’s place. Damn,” Sogarn whispered telepathically, “I was kind of hoping it was that asshole ex of hers. I wouldn’t mind another go at him. My only regret about that day is that we didn’t do some permanent damage.”
Donovan grinned at his lover’s words. At the time they’d handled the situation exactly as it had needed to be, but when they’d later learned from Wendy that it wasn’t the first time Brian had tried to hurt her, they’d been annoyed enough to want to track the guy down and teach him a lesson he’d never forget. It was probably just as well that they couldn’t leave Polly unguarded because Donovan had a feeling that Wendy wouldn’t have appreciated the male posturing anyway.
“I’m heading back,” Sogarn sent telepathically as Donovan sensed him running back to Wendy’s home as fast as four legs could carry him.
* * * *
Wendy practically held her breath as three very big strangers stepped from a car she didn’t recognize. Two of them, wearing what seemed to be official-looking black suits, stood by the car, surveying the area the way secret service agents did in the movies. The third turned her way, looked around as if assessing potential threats, and then headed toward the front door.
There was something very intimidating about the three men. Something felt off, almost like they were trying to give the impression that they were somehow important and that their authority should be respected. Unnerved by the fact that, parrot and wolf aside, she was very much alone on this mountain, Wendy suddenly didn’t care who they were. She wasn’t opening the door. Even if they were visiting on an official, governmental, high-protocol, military, homeland security, future-of-the-nation reason, she still wasn’t opening the damn door.
They could go away and try calling her first. Or sending a letter. Or, hell, visiting someone else.
She could feel the fur bristling on the
wolf’s neck, his agitation perhaps a direct reflection of her own. She held a finger over her lips, not even stopping to wonder why she would think a wolf and a cockatoo would understand what she meant, but still very grateful for their silence.
Later she planned to ponder over why a noisy, demanding cockatoo would suddenly be as quiet as a church mouse, but for now she’d just concentrate on not hyperventilating.
As the man stepped onto her front veranda, she moved closer to the front door and crouched low, worried that he might see her shape if he looked through the front window. The curtain was quite a thick lace pattern, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Thanks heavens she’d had the foresight to have the original door replaced with solid oak and a deadlock after her ex’s last visit.
The loud, thumping knock made her jump. The wolf bared its teeth but thankfully didn’t make a sound as it moved itself between her and the man on the other side of her door. Polly shuffled along her shoulder, pushing his head closer to her neck as if he somehow hoped to hide inside her hair.
“Ms. Roberts,” the man yelled through the front door. “I’m Special Agent Chaucer. We need to speak with you on a matter regarding your father.”
Special agent? FBI? CIA? NSA? Why would anyone want to talk to her about a man who’d been dead since she was four years old?
Perhaps they’d just mistaken her for someone else. The man thumped on the wooden door again and repeated the exact same words in the exact same tone and inflection. It was probably easiest just to open the door, explain that she wasn’t who they were looking for, and send them on their way. She certainly didn’t want to go through this over and over. And if she had to guess, she’d say they looked like the patient types. She could literally be stuck sitting at her front door, too scared to move, for the next several hours.
Just as she made her decision to get things over with, she heard the man turn and step off the veranda, apparently heading back to the car. She risked a peek out the window. Wendy didn’t hear what he said, but the wolf beside her bristled even more in what seemed to be a direct response to the man’s words.
Shit, she really needed to stop imagining her animals had human personalities. It was bad enough that she’d let a wild wolf into her house. She shouldn’t be interpreting its actions with human emotions in mind. She reached a hand out to comfort the wolf but at the last moment changed her mind. Even pet dogs had a tendency to snap at their owners when they were this agitated. There was no telling what a wild wolf might do if she touched it now.
Suddenly the wolf turned to her, leaning its shoulders against her, pushing her back away from the door. Frightened by the wolf’s reaction, Wendy shuffled away, her breath catching as she noticed the man heading back toward her front door as the two others moved around the side of the house.
She was half expecting the door to burst open, the terror of that actually happening three months ago combining with the fear she had right now almost leaving her catatonic. The wolf kept pushing her backward, its agitation growing as the man stood silently on the other side of her door. She could hear something scratching inside the lock, her imagination running wild as she realized the man was trying to open it with some sort of lock pick.
What the hell was going on?
She wrote this shit in her books. She didn’t fucking live it!
Anger surged through her, thankfully overriding the catatonia caused by her fear. She briefly considered opening the front door and demanding an answer, but the wolf kept pushing her toward the back room, and she finally realized that running was probably a better choice. If she could make it into the tree line she could disappear into the forest. At this moment she far preferred the idea of curling up in a wolves’ den than hanging around to see what these intruders wanted.
She nearly screamed as she turned to the glass door of the back veranda and found the silver wolf growling at two of the biggest snakes she’d ever seen. She was still deciding what to do when the front door swung open.
Chapter Four
Sogarn watched the two men strip off their clothes as they reached the back veranda of Wendy’s home. Almost before they changed shape, he attacked. Snake-shifters were nothing to muck around with. They were here looking for Polly, of that there was absolutely no doubt. Chances were they wouldn’t even recognize him or Donovan as werewolves in wolf form, but snake-shifters weren’t known for their discretion. They’d likely kill Wendy if she got between them and their target. If they were still looking for him forty-four years later, whatever Polly had done to piss off the people who’d hired professional assassins, it was unlikely they would stop coming now. Thwarting them today was only going to piss them off even more.
Sogarn growled and stepped onto the veranda just as two massive snakes turned toward him.
* * * *
Donovan had no time to try and help his lover. He turned to the front door as it swung open and frantically tried to decide on his best course of action. If the shifter about to come into the house was as big a snake as the two on the back porch, he was in serious trouble. The only chance he had of protecting Wendy…and, oh yeah, Polly…was to attack first. He rushed toward the front door just as the snake poked its head around the doorframe. He dived at it, teeth first, grabbing the top of its massive head in his jaws. The snake whipped its body toward him, thankfully miscalculating and slamming itself into the doorframe, giving Donovan a chance to bite down harder, his canine teeth crunching through bone and muscle.
The shifter’s body twisted and flexed, instinctively trying to pry itself loose as Donovan felt the consciousness draining out of it. He bit down harder, not wanting to kill it but not willing to let go either. He never enjoyed killing—even in wolf form where the instinct seemed to come more naturally—but in a kill-or-be-killed situation, he preferred to be the one who survived.
The snake’s body was still writhing, instinctively fighting even though it was stunned and unconscious when Donovan let go and turned his attention back to Wendy and Polly. The snake shifter would probably recover quickly—even a skull-crunching bite was only a temporary distraction for these damn shifters—but it would hopefully give them a chance to leave without being followed.
Wendy stood on the back veranda, her face as white as a sheet, her hands trembling even though the rest of her seemed frozen to the spot. A small-caliber rifle clattered in her grip.
She gasped, stumbling backward as Donovan morphed into human form, opened the back door, and stepped onto the veranda. He’d been half expecting to find his lover suffocating from the death grip of two oversized pythons, but instead he found two snakes, both unconscious from bullet wounds to their heads, wrapped around his lover’s wolf form. He held his breath until he noticed Sogarn’s tail thumping halfheartedly against the ground. He was down but not out.
Donovan thanked every deity—shifter and human—that he’d ever heard of before turning back to check on Wendy and Polly.
Wendy’s knees gave out just as he got close enough to break her fall.
Chapter Five
Donovan carefully lowered Wendy into the chair she’d been sitting in earlier. She was unconscious but still breathing, so he moved to check on Sogarn first.
Like a python in the wild, snake-shifters preferred to suffocate their victims slowly, squeezing harder each time their prey breathed out. Donovan was fairly certain Wendy had gotten here in time to prevent them from doing any serious damage to Sogarn, but it was obvious that they’d intended to kill the wolf.
Judging by some of the bleeding gashes and puncture wounds on both snakes, Sogarn had gotten in his fair share of fighting before they’d managed to wrap around him. Whether they realized he was a shifter or not was irrelevant. The fact that they’d been attacked by a wolf and rendered unconscious by a rifle shot would probably be enough to confirm they’d found the Alcarn they’d been looking for.
“Come on, Soggie,” Donovan said, using his lover’s most hated nickname, “wake up and join the party.”
“Shift, Soggie. Let’s get this over with.”
The wolf made a halfhearted attempt to bite his hand, apparently unhappy with the reminder of his childhood nickname, but managed to start the change from furry, bleeding wolf to injured, but no longer bleeding, human.
“Better?” Donovan asked as he helped his lover into a sitting position.
“No,” Sogarn said breathlessly, “but I’ll live. Is Wendy okay?”
Donovan smiled, not surprised that the man’s first thought was for the beautiful human. His had been, too, so he really couldn’t complain, but it didn’t need to stop him from teasing his lover, though. “Wendy is fine. So is the parrot we’re being paid to protect.”
Sogarn gave him a tired smile, but didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed that they were both more concerned for the woman who fed the parrot than the annoying Alcarn in feathery disguise.
“What are we going to do with the snakes?”
“Leave them where they are. We’ll pack some of Wendy’s things and take her with us.” He was half expecting an argument—the alpha was going to be furious—but other than a concerned frown, Sogarn remained silent. They weren’t supposed to interact with humans, and they sure as hell weren’t supposed to let them see their true forms, but if they left her behind, she’d be vulnerable when others came looking for Polly. And come they would. Anyone who still held a grudge nearly half a century later wasn’t going to give up when they were this close.
“She’s going to be angry,” Sogarn said as he watched Donovan lift the woman into his arms. “She hates being lied to. It’s a common theme in a lot of her books.”
“I know,” he said, touching a gentle finger to her face, “but it can’t be helped. Hopefully she’ll give us a chance to explain that it wasn’t by choice.”