Wolf at the Door

by Sadie Hart

  Wolf at the Door

  Three years ago, Timber Kearney barely escaped the serial killer known as the Wolfman. Now, she’s still shaken by the nightmares of her past, but she’s turned her focus to helping others. But when one of the women under her care is murdered, the killer leaves a gift on Timber’s doorstep and she knows the Wolfman has found her again.

  Brandt Lawrence worked this case before and failed to catch the killer. This time, however, Timber’s knowledge could be enough to put an end to the slaughter, if only she can trust Shifter Town Enforcement. But Timber has been burned in the past and is wary to trust a Hound. She’s willing to give Brandt a shot--and only Brandt--but the deeper she lets him into her life, the more she makes him a target.

  Now, as the wolf comes knocking at her door it’s up to Timber to let the one man in who could save her. For Brandt, he’ll have to prove that no matter how dangerous one killer can be the two of them are stronger, and that this time she won’t have to face her nightmares alone.

  Smashwords Edition

  Heartsong Publishing LLC

  Copyright 2014 Sadie Hart

  Cover art designed by Sadie Hart

  License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with someone else, please purchase an additional copy. If you’re reading this book and you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. The names, places, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved

  To mom, dad, and Sammi: Thank you guys for reminding me that sometimes you have to let go of the past to embrace the future. This book I hope captures that lesson. Your confidence and faith in me humbles me every day.

  Wolf at the Door

  By Sadie Hart

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also Available from this Author

  Chapter One

  The nightmares always left her shaken, ravaged. Timber Kearney dragged her knees up to her chest, the blankets tangled around her ankles, and reminded herself to breathe. She was in her house. She was safe. He couldn’t find her here. But even as the familiar words spun round and round in her brain, the panic continued to mount in her chest.

  She couldn’t see in the darkness. God, what if he’d found her? What if—

  She cut the thought off with a low curse and scrambled out of bed. Blindly she staggered down the hall, shoved open the bathroom door, and slapped on the light. Bright purple hair and haunted eyes greeted her in the mirror. The image hit her hard enough she bent over, grasping the sink as relief flooded in with her deep, gasping breaths.

  If there was anything that helped remind her she was safe and in the present, not still locked in the horror that was her past, it was the gaudy hair color. Charles never would have tolerated it. Timber clutched the counter until the hammering of her heart finally subsided. Oh, how she hated the nightmares.

  Hated the memories.

  She let out a shuddering breath as she looked up at herself again. The dark circles under her eyes, the frazzled hair, the big, baggy T-shirt, and while it was loose enough, there was no denying the curve of her right breast...and the absence of her left. She swallowed.

  Yeah, she was definitely right here, right now. Far, far away from that bastard.

  And she even had the scars to prove it.

  Timber reached up and ran her hand over her chest, feeling the flat skin, right up until she touched the raised ridge of the scar...all that remained of her left breast. A whimper clogged her throat and she gritted her teeth, refusing to feel the pain. The self-pity.

  She’d dragged her butt out of that hell, and she was proud of it. She’d created a life where she could be safe, one that allowed her to help others who’d lived in hell just as she had. She was proud of that, too. A soft smile touched her lips. Finally, the lingering terror that always came with her nightmares subsided. They always left her exhausted, but she knew all too well she wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore tonight.

  Closing her eyes meant the dreams would just come roaring back.

  No. Tonight she’d have to haul out the coffee and a good book. Maybe if she was lucky, some swashbuckling romance hero would sweep her off her feet and she’d catch a bit more sleep before dawn.

  But Timber knew better than to hope for a miracle.

  ***

  Ring. Brandt Lawrence burrowed his face into his pillow and snarled. Who called at three in the goddamn morning? But even as he grumbled, he swatted at the nightstand until he found his phone. Then with grunt, he rolled to a sit and answered. “Brandt.”

  His name sounded sharp, angry, but hell, it’d been a late night and he had to be at Shifter Town Enforcement first thing in the morning. He needed sleep.

  “Boss, we got another body.”

  So much for sleep. His blood ran cold. He’d been hoping—no, praying—that the last kill had been a fluke. A one-time deal that just happened to look like the one case he’d never been able to shake. Old nightmares and all that jazz. “Same MO?”

  “Yeah,” Tate said. The guy might be new to Brandt’s pack, but Tate was a good Hound. Brandt trusted his judgment, though for once he wished he didn’t.

  He rubbed a hand over his face, fighting exhaustion. Part of him still hoped it was a copycat, but it was looking less and less likely. The niggling feeling of dread in his gut wouldn’t let him believe in coincidence. Not now. Not with a second body.

  “The last one was only a week ago.” He tucked his cell against his chin and grabbed a pair of jeans, shimmying into them without dropping the phone. The last time he’d tried to stop this murderer, they’d happened only once a month.

  Every full moon.

  Though that particular pattern was all too common with shifter killings. Anyone who’d ever read a myth or watched a horror flick seemed to have that lodged in their brain, especially the psychos. No matter that real life wolf-shifters didn’t need a moon to let the beast loose.

  “Can’t forget the big change, though, the one we suspected with the first victim. That’s certain this time,” Tate said, his voice soft. “This guy is definitely a wolf-shifter.”

  Brandt stopped in the middle of his bedroom, brows furrowed. Then it couldn’t be the same man. The original Wolfman had been human. He’d gotten his name because he tortured, raped, and murdered twelve wolf-shifter females. All slain during a full moon. The media had gone apeshit with their headlines.

  Hope sprouted anew in his chest. “Then it might not be the same guy. I’m on my way.”

  He hung up, shoved the phone in his pock
et. It wasn’t impossible for a human to be turned, but it was unlikely. Unlike most myths, legends—whatever—real life was different. It wasn’t as simple as a quick bite.

  Then again, it could explain the three-year quiet period. If the killer actually had been turned, maybe he’d needed the time to get control. Brandt shook his head. And all of these questions could probably be resolved by getting his butt to the scene.

  Because if the scent was clear enough for Tate to know for sure this guy was a wolf-shifter, it’d be clear enough for Brandt to match this man’s scent to the one that still lingered in the back of his mind.

  It was a stench he’d never forget.

  How the hell this killer—if it actually was the same guy—had wound up here, firing up a killing spree in the state where Brandt now ran his own Shifter Town Enforcement pack, he couldn’t even guess. But if it was the same bastard, he’d made one fatal error. Brandt knew this case, had worked it before. He’d seen what the Wolfman did to his victims.

  And he’d be damned if he would let this guy get away again.

  Chapter Two

  Dawn had begun to bleed across the sky by the time the crime scene was catalogued and the body transferred to the crime lab. Rebecca Morgan. Twenty-four. Brown hair, the same type of face, freckles, everything. There were no doubts now. Both recent victims matched the twelve women killed three years ago, but more damning than that?

  Brandt could smell the bastard all over the scene.

  And Tate had been right. He was definitely a wolf-shifter now. Brandt’s stomach churned. The bite marks on the women three years ago had all been human, though they hadn’t matched a single dental record. The bite marks on the two current victims? Wolf.

  “He’s evolving from his last set of victims,” Tate said as he leaned against the black SUV next to Brandt. “But overall, same deal.”

  Brandt nodded. “He’s simply altered his kill style to take advantage of his wolf abilities. The theory back then was he hated wolf-shifters. We were thinking hate crimes.”

  “Still could be.” Tate shrugged. “Just that somehow he got turned. Maybe a victim got the best of him?”

  Yeah. Could be. But something told Brandt that wasn’t the case. He didn’t know what, but something about that theory just felt wrong. Off. He gritted his teeth.

  “Guy’s a fool, though,” Tate said, pausing until Brandt looked his way.

  “Why’s that?”

  “He shouldn’t have come to Colorado. Hell, he certainly shouldn’t have come here. You worked his case last time, you’d have thought he’d be smart enough to stay away from people who could put him away. Would have thought it was why he left Chicago.”

  Would have thought. Brandt grunted but didn’t say a word. Whatever had led this bastard here, he didn’t care. The good news was, he could stop this guy once and for all.

  “First step, we need to get the word out to the local packs. This guy hunts wolves and they need to know it.”

  “Way ahead of you, boss. I already drew up the list. Eight packs in the state, three in our general area. I notified STE headquarters closest to the other five and asked them to get the word out. Sent Mac and his partner off to do the one farthest out. That leaves us two. You take one, I take one?”

  Brandt bit back a laugh. Yeah. It wouldn’t be long before Tate transferred again, and Brandt had no doubt his next move would be to alpha his own STE pack. Tate knew his job, and he did it well. “Works for me. What two do we have left?”

  “Bear Creek and Delphi.”

  Delphi was good-sized and stable. Strong. Nathan Bannock took care of his pack, and he wasn’t the kind of alpha one messed with lightly. Bear Creek, on the other hand...

  Brandt stiffened. Bear Creek was a small, wary band of misfits. All females, including the alpha. They were more likely to be prime targets, and easy pickings. Hell, now that he thought about it, unlike the first victim, this one hadn’t been registered with any specific pack.

  Hell. He knew Timber Kearney hid rogues. Chances were last night’s victim was one of hers.

  “I’ll take Bear Creek,” Brandt said. Though it was likely he’d be calling in the Hounds if his hunch was correct. He’d bet his next paycheck that Ms. Kearney had known their victim.

  Whether she’d help him was another thing. She smuggled in women who needed help, but his one and only experience with the purple-haired alpha had made two things clear: One, someone in her past had hurt her...maybe not physically, but she carried more than enough emotional scars in those flint-gray eyes. And two, she had an almost pathological mistrust of Shifter Town Enforcement.

  She wouldn’t be eager to help.

  But maybe Brandt could buy himself a bit of leverage. For the most part, he had ignored her little ragtag gang of misfits, ignoring the fact that most were unregistered rogues. Maybe that could garner him some help. Either way, it had to stop. There’d be no more turning a blind eye to the people she welcomed into her pack. He needed to know about all the women under her protection.

  “Stay on call,” he said as he glanced back at Tate, suddenly certain it was going to be a long day. It’d already been one hell of a long night.

  ***

  Timber rubbed her eyes, weary. Her entire body ached from spending the night propped up in her recliner. She’d drifted in and out of sleep, jerked from one nightmare to the next, each of them filled with one woman or another’s anguished screams, or pleading whimpers...

  Her stomach clenched and the hair on the back of her neck prickled. Even now, three years later, she could still feel his breath on her skin, spinning her back to those moments right before he’d ground his teeth into her neck. Blunt, hard teeth that meant he had to chew to break skin. Every time.

  She gagged and staggered to her feet. Her book fell to the floor with a quiet smack but she ignored it, just focusing on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. Fists clenched, she held herself utterly still, waiting for the roiling panic to subside.

  Some nightmares never went away—and Charles Wolfe would forever be hers.

  There was a knock on her front door and she jumped, ready to scream, but she cut it off before it became a sound. Damn, she really needed sleep. Blissful, dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep she’d hadn’t had in years. Not since before Charles had kidnapped her. Before she’d learned, up close and personal, just how monstrous people could be.

  Whoever it was knocked again and she sighed. A member of her pack would have walked right in. Timber’s house was their safety net, and they knew they were always welcome. She frowned. Then who? She mulled the question over as she walked to the door, tucking the stray strands of her hair behind her ears as she went in an attempt to smooth out the bed head. Her bare feet slapped over the linoleum of her front hall before she stretched up on tiptoe to look out the peephole.

  Bloody hell.

  Hound. Every one of her senses alerted her to exactly what the man on her front porch was. Hounds who worked for Shifter Town Enforcement had a unique feel to them. Part dog-shifter, part witch, part I’m-going-to-make-your-day-hell. The last was especially true for her. She had a number of illegal rogues hidden in this pack of hers, and it tended to make Hound visits not...pleasant.

  “Ms. Kearney?” the man said politely, his voice calm. Soothing.

  It’d stay that way right up until he realized she had no intention of giving up one of her own.

  Her hand tightened over the door handle. She should at least get dressed.

  “Please, I just want to talk.” He sounded tired, and she looked through the peephole again. He had dark circles under his eyes to match the exhaustion in his voice. Her stomach twisted, suddenly even more nervous.

  Timber opened the door just enough to stand braced between the doorjamb and the door, unwilling to let him in further. “Talk about what?”

  Surprise flitted across the Hound’s face just as his gaze traveled down the length of her night shirt. It hung to mid-thigh, not short enough to show him anythin
g, but the masculine flare of interest made her wish she’d left his ass on the porch and dressed before opening the door.

  His gaze jerked back up to hers. “Brandt Lawrence, Shifter Town Enforcement. May I come in?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  He grimaced for a moment, then, as if he’d figured something out, he reached in his back pocket and pulled out a picture. “Do you know her?”

  No was on her lips, ready to be spoken before she even looked at the picture. Still, she took the photo, ready to fake giving it a once-over. Right up until she saw Rebecca Morgan’s lifeless face. Her hair was splayed wildly over the bloodstained concrete where she lay dead.

  Her fingers tightened on the picture. She’d seen enough dead people thanks to Charles that Timber knew the answer, but she still had to ask, had to hope even for a second that she was wrong. “She’s dead?”

  “As of last night.” He reached out and took back the photograph. “She wasn’t registered to any pack in the state. But then again,” he added with a smile, “most of your pack isn’t.”

  She arched an eyebrow, not confirming or denying, but, hell, she was impressed he’d figured out that much.

  “Brandt Lawrence,” he said again, extending his hand.

  She wrapped her arms over her chest. “You already seem to know my name.”

  “May I come in?”

  “I didn’t know Rebecca well. I don’t know who would want her dead.”

  “Ms. Kearney—”

  Her jaw tightened. Every time he said her name like that it made her sound ancient. “Timber,” she corrected.

  “Timber,” Brandt said with a gentle smile. “I have reason to believe that Ms. Morgan’s death wasn’t an isolated incident, and that the rest of your pack could be in danger.”