0968348001325302640 brenda huber shadows

by Unknown

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Nothing’s missing—”

  Clearing her throat, JJ began again. Her words tumbled out in a wobbly rush. “Nothing’s missing as far as I can tell. I’m sure whoever broke in realized this was a waste of time. I’m sorry Ginny called you out here for nothing.”

  Why was he wearing that strange expression?

  Why did he look like someone was flaying him alive?

  He reached a hand out to her, but before he could speak, she spun away, desperate to flee the shed, frantic to escape into wide-open space and fresh, mind-clearing air. A soft ripping sound accompanied her first step, but it took two more steps and the bright, warm caress of sunlight before she realized she’d left half her threadbare T-shirt hanging from the nail back inside the shed. It didn’t matter. She had to get inside the house…away from the turbulent chaos in his disconcerting eyes.

  A dark, vicious roar stopped her dead in her tracks. A band of steel locked around the crook of her elbow, spinning her around until her palms braced against his granite chest once more. His 104

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  muscles quivered beneath her palms. His hands clutched convulsively at her shoulders, bruising and unyielding. His wild eyes were black with the faintest hint of a green ring. His nostrils flared, and his chest heaved. His face was livid, and a vein throbbed in his neck. A low, dangerous snarl rippled through his chest, vibrating against her palms.

  Her mouth went bone dry. She froze.

  She’d never seen anything so fierce in all her life.

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  Chapter 8

  The rending of her shirt echoed in the shed, pricking at Cam’s sensitive ears. For a split second, he didn’t move as she fled. He couldn’t. Confusion, then vile, outraged shock held him rooted to the spot as sunlight filtered across the satiny flesh of her exposed back. The thin, pale pink straps of her bra held no hope of concealing the long, jagged scar slashing its way across her back, over one shoulder blade, and down around the curve of her ribs where it disappeared beneath the ragged edges of frayed cotton. The faint pucker left behind from dozens upon dozens of stitches only served to highlight the pearly scar tissue.

  Rage roiled through his system, and black, acidic bile rose in his throat. In a sudden spurt of motion, he was behind her, the sight of her scars ravaged his control. The wounds had healed well, but they were still relatively new, and the urge to protect her from some unseen threat clawed through him. How dare anyone harm her? How dare anyone cause her one second of fear or pain? Fury seethed inside him, snarling for release. He’d kill the son of a bitch that had done this to his female.

  He’d maim and dismember before he ever let something like this happen to her again. Ever.

  She jerked at her arms, eyes wide and frightened as they stared up at him. With superhuman will, he uncurled his fingers from her elbow, swearing beneath his breath at his own thoughtlessness. Shit…he’d probably bruised her. If he were lucky, that was all he’d done. He’d lost his 106

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  head, and with his strength, he could have snapped her bones like a damned pencil. He shuddered, cringing inside because now he was the source of that raw emotion swimming in her glassy, fearful eyes. It was a feeling he never wanted to experience again.

  His words tumbled out, a dark, and mighty growl, “Damn it, JJ! What the hell happened to you?”

  The alarmed groove between her brows slowly faded, as did all the color in her face, and her eyes widened with understanding. She shook her head slowly, gaining momentum as she backed away from him. Her lips moved, but she didn’t seem able to find her voice.

  Her hiking boot pivoted as she prepared to flee, but he was faster, latching on to her wrist with viselike strength. Though she fought him, he tugged her back with inexorable purpose. That’s when he noticed the pair of scars, one long and jagged and the other short and straight, each with stitch puckers of their own, running along the underside of her forearm. Defensive wounds if ever he’d seen them.

  His gut churned anew with rage, and his teeth threatened to shatter.

  “Please, let me go. Please,” she whispered, trembling like a leaf in his hand. Her anguish tore through him. “Please.”

  She was frightened. Terrified. She had that same deer-in-the-headlights look he’d seen in her eyes that first morning in the diner. Those beautiful, blue eyes held both demand and plea as she struggled to break his hold. He forced his voice to level out, but the driving need to protect her, to hold her and comfort her was firmly entrenched now.

  “JJ, what happened? Who did this to you? Tell me,” he demanded.

  “It’s over, it’s over now,” she chanted, her eyes 107

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  darting around them. Was she expecting someone to jump from a hiding place and cut her down? She sure as hell was acting like it. “He’s dead. He’s dead, and it’s over.”

  Cam’s brows drew together, and his jaw tightened. The horror in her eyes didn’t diminish despite of her chant. Gone was the defiant spitfire who’d wrestled with him in the mud and kneed him in the balls to gain her freedom. The woman before him was fragile, delicate.

  Breakable.

  No, perhaps a more accurate assessment would be that she’d already been shattered, and still hadn’t put all the pieces back together yet. The jagged edges of his own, inexplicable fear began slicing at his control. The wolf within snarled and snapped and began pacing, restless and alert. Dangerous.

  The analytical part of his brain engaged, the cop in him wanting to press the questions, demand answers. He wanted a name. He wanted a reason.

  He wanted retribution. He wanted vengeance. The emotional side of him—the wolf within—needed to protect what was his with a ferocious urgency that bordered on fanatical. He wanted to comfort her, to kiss her and offer her a safe haven. He wanted to be her safe haven, with every cell in his body. He wanted to take her into his arms and make it better for her. He wanted to claim her for his own so that he had the right to protect her with his life, if need be. Compulsive. Obsessive.

  Unsettled, he faltered, blinking at her in bewilderment. What was wrong with him? Only a…a mate…should engender this dangerous level of emotion. Burned to his soul, he dropped his hands from her and stumbled back. A bolt of lightning come down from the heavens to strike him where he stood wouldn’t have stunned him more.

  No way.

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  It wasn’t possible.

  Then he remembered his initial reaction to the sight of her scars. How dare anyone hurt his female…

  His female .

  He stared at her, his mouth hanging open, unable to string two words together to save his life.

  Every nerve in his body ached… raged for her…even as his mind rebelled. His heart lurched inside his chest. His soul staggered.

  She backed away from him once more. Slowly now. Cautious. As one would from a wild, predatory animal. Staring at him with wide, bruised eyes, her voice trembled. “It’s none of your business, just…just go away!”

  She bolted for the house. Her long, blonde ponytail bobbed and swayed as she ran from him, ran from memories he couldn’t see. Instinct demanded he follow, but he let her go as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just transpired. His hands shook. Hell, his entire body shook. His mouth went dry. His head spun. And he couldn’t move. He didn’t dare so much as blink.

  His female?

  He couldn’t go after her, and he couldn’t walk away.

  Her anguished sobs tore at him. Through wood and glass, he could hear them plain as the pulse of the forest around him, and each sob raked through his body like icy claws, shredding his heart. A flicker of motion in one of the windows caught his attention, and he stared in morose grief as she wrapped her arms around her middle and collapsed onto a sofa.

  She was so pale, so tormented as she folded in half, dropping her forehead onto her knees, her delicate frame shaking
with the force of her suffering.

  The need to hold her, to comfort her finally pushed him beyond the borders of shock. Yet he 109

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  stifled the urge to go to her, to break down the door and force her to accept his comfort. It took more willpower to stop himself than he realized he was capable of. He had to think this through. Dissect and examine what had happened here. There had to be a rational explanation. Something beyond the obvious.

  Something less threatening to his peace of mind than a…than a…

  Son of a bitch…

  She couldn’t be.

  But ancient, feral instincts argued with sanity.

  His mate?

  He needed to get the hell out of here. Far enough away to look beyond the wolf’s instinctive response to its mate’s pain. She wasn’t his mate. She was not his mate, damn it. She was a virtual stranger.

  Yet she called to him on a primal level. And she was hurting. Damn it all to hell! What was he supposed to do?

  Cam bore down on the emotions wrenching his system in too many different directions. Grinding his teeth together, he stomped through the yard and jerked the truck’s door open with enough force to leave the imprint of his fingers on the handle. The impression on the metal gave him pause and he froze again. His mind raced, swamped with jagged pieces of memories and old lore. Impression.

  Imprint…

  Imprinting?

  Was it possible the old legends could be true?

  He’d humored the others in the pack…the ones who’d claimed the legends held true and claimed their own mates. Reed, Charlie, Todd… He’d humored them, but he hadn’t truly believed. He’d kept his love life free of any threat of permanency, free of the tangled web of emotional ties for a reason.

  A mutual sharing of physical pleasure that went no 110

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  deeper than the here and now was his mantra.

  Essentially, love ’em well and leave ’em happy.

  Leave being the operative word.

  His own mother hadn’t been capable of fidelity to his father. How, then, could he expect any different of any other woman? His mother’s betrayal had been deeper than the usual, though. With far reaching consequences no one could have anticipated. Well, no one, perhaps, but the Werewolf she’d willingly taken to her bed. The Werewolf who’d supposedly imprinted on Cam’s mother. The Werewolf who’d sired Cam…while Cam’s mother had still been married to Seth Walker.

  Bowing his head, he thrust that upsetting train of thought forcefully away.

  Imprinting…

  Pulling himself up inside the cab of his truck, he slammed the door shut behind him, shaken to the core, praying the sound of her gut wrenching sobs would cease with the barrier. They did, at last, but he knew she wept on, knew it in his soul, and the impact of her tears rocked him. It still wasn’t easy to bear, wasn’t easy fighting instinct, but he cranked the radio to an eardrum-shattering decibel, and let Daughtry’s “What I Want” pound the shakes from his system.

  Cam stomped on the accelerator with unnecessary force as he aimed the truck toward the road, leaving a wide spray of gravel and a billowing cloud of dust in his wake. Unfortunately, he couldn’t steer his mind as easily as he could his truck.

  Imprinting… shit.

  Remembered lore swamped him. The old ones claimed that once the time was right, and a Werewolf imprinted on his female, there was no turning back. No denying fate. The Werewolf would be unable—on every level imaginable—to connect with another female. Unable to form an emotional, 111

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  intimate attachment with another. Unable to mate with another, regardless of his chosen female’s loyalty or emotions. The urge to protect would be irrefutable. The need to claim and possess inescapable, irrational. His very existence would center around his female. Her safety. Her happiness.

  If the Werewolf in question were extremely lucky, the emotions wouldn’t be one sided.

  If those emotions weren’t reciprocated, however, the results could be disastrous.

  Destructive.

  Case in point…his own biological father. He shuddered at the thought, at the very term. When his mother had been unable to deal with the…the wilder side of her lover’s true nature, she’d gone back to her human husband. Right up until the day he’d died, Seth Walker had never known the truth of Cam’s paternity. His mother’s life had gone on as if her infidelity had never happened, and the resulting child passed off as a Walker.

  Her lover, on the other hand, had never recovered.

  In one of the rare, real conversations Cam had had with her lover—Cam refused to acknowledge him as his father—the bastard had claimed moving away from her, severing all contact, would have been harder than carving the heart out of his own chest.

  He’d been too much of a coward. Instead, he’d wasted his life loving a woman who could never return his love, desperate for a glimpse or a smile, finding what solace he could in the bottom of countless bottles of alcohol. Cam couldn’t find any respect for him, couldn’t summon anything but the meanest pity for a man who refused to lick his wounds and walk away.

  No, he wouldn’t be that man. That pitiful excuse, a burden to his pack, emotionally shackled to a female who couldn’t or wouldn’t accept him for 112

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  what he was. Besides, what female in her right mind would willingly bind herself to a monster…the big, bad wolf?

  Nickleback’s “Come for You” finally broke through the haze of angry confusion clogging his brain. He gritted his teeth as the gravelly voice sang of searching forever to bring his love home. The song hit just a little too close to the way he was feeling right now. With an angry jerk, he twisted the knob, effectively killing the sound.

  Shaking his head, he guided the truck into his designated parking space in the lot adjacent to the sheriff’s department. Turning the key, he yanked it from the ignition, and drew several deep breaths, calming his mind. He felt better…almost. He was being stupid. Paranoid. Yes, he felt a connection to JJ Frost. Yes, he was attracted to her. She was sexy and intriguing, and her eyes hinted at a fiery passionate side. And the smell of her…

  His entire body shuddered, head to toe.

  It was simple enough. He’d see her again…later, when things settled down, when he’d settled down.

  He’d pursue, he’d have his fun—make sure she had hers too, of course—and then he’d walk. Imprinting was bullshit. It was lore. Nothing more.

  He’d never be pitiful.

  Feeling slightly more comfortable now that he’d reasoned it all through, he hopped out of the truck and strolled across the asphalt, nodding respectfully to the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Cross as they passed, hand in hand. The familiar clack of computer keys, the ring of the phone, and the chatter of the scanner greeted him as he pushed the door open and stepped inside the office building. Emma glanced up. Her smile took some of the exasperation out of the roll of her eyes.

  Holding up a slim finger, she spent a long moment in silence before responding to the headset 113

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  with intermittent pauses, “Yes, Ms. Potter. I’ll send a deputy right over… That’s right… That’s no problem. I’m sure everything will be fine… No, you don’t need to stay on the line… Yes, Ms. Potter. You have a nice day too.” She flicked a button with practiced ease, transitioning from the headset to the radio. “Austin, Ms. Potter called in again. She says that sound is back.”

  The aggravation in Austin’s voice was unmistakable, even beneath the layers of scratchy static. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Nope, I assured her you’d be right over.” The pause was long, the sigh audible, the drawn out response sarcastic. “Thanks…” Turning back to Cam, Emma grinned like an evil pixie as she leaned back in her expensive office chair. The pencil in her hand joined the two already lodged in the wild spikes of her hair. Her clothing was black, as usual. Goth, right to the tips of her thick-soled boots.


  Her hair was another story all together. This week her spikes were a stark, white-blonde. That didn’t necessarily mean she’d be blonde next week, of course. Or tomorrow for that matter. Last week her hair had been flamboyant red, the previous week jet-black, and electric blue the week before that, if he remembered right. He half expected her to get confused someday and come in with rainbow stripes.

  Her hair color seemed to change with her whims, although, thank heaven, her disposition always held steady. She was invariably bubbly, unfailingly cheerful, with a mischievous streak a mile wide, and a peculiar coolness under fire that belied her youth.

  Cam could find no fault with the way she ran his office, and so she could dress any damned way she pleased. The sheriff’s department was a well-oiled machine beneath the watchful eye of a master 114

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  mechanic…despite the fact that the mechanic looked a bit like a wild-haired Wednesday Addams.

  Everyone loved her, from Ms. Potter, the senile old lady down on Maple who lived with fifteen cats and swore up and down that someone was walking around in her attic on a regular basis, to all the teenage boys who thought she was the coolest thing since somebody got the notion to screw wheels onto a short piece of wood.

  “Hey there, Cam,” she called in her trilling voice. A voice completely different from the one answering 911 calls. Then her expression turned foreboding, her tone scolding and suspicious. “What are you doing here?”

  “Came to file a report,” he told her, leaning an elbow on the high counter between them. “How’d the other calls turn out?”

  “Same as before,” she grumbled, passing him a stack of papers and a thick manila file. “Looks like the same vandals…those little bastards.” Her tone changed, edging into reluctant admiration. “They painted up one of the screens at the movie theater.” Her lips twisted in a wry smirk. “Did an interesting…mural. Judy took some good photos, they’re in the file.”

  Huffing out a long, aggravated breath, Cam tapped the edge of the stack against his palm and headed for his office. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on those little shits. Halfway through the door, he spun on his heel and paused, hand on the doorknob. “Did Jarvis—”