His aura, which is the only way I could think to describe what I felt, surrounded me, heady and heavy, until I thought I would pass out. “I’m…No one,” I finally said. “The body. I just…Is it…” When he wrapped me in his arms again. I didn’t fight him. I let the heat of his comfort seep into my skin.
“No, Chavvah,” he murmured softly. “No. It’s not Babe. It’s not your brother.”
I let the tears fall as relief flooded me. Still, I was sickened. This was someone’s brother, husband, son… someone loved the person on the table as much as I loved Babe, and they would soon grieve in a way that no one ever expects when the life of a loved one is ripped away from them under such violent and evil circumstances.
When I finally calmed myself enough to speak, and sadly, had smeared my snot across Billy Bob’s chest, I asked, “Do you know who it is?”
My stomach dropped at his solemn expression. “No,” he said, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him. “But it might be Ed.”
“What?” I shook my head. “Ed Thompson?” He’d just been in for lunch today. He was fine. Right as rain. I couldn’t be Ed. Not Ed.
Billy Bob nodded.
“Oh.” My hand went to my mouth. “Ruth. Oh no. Who is going to tell Ruth?”
* * * *
I sneezed. Twice. The feather top guest bed was comfortable, but my allergies to goose down along with my fears for Ed, knowing he was killed just outside the back door, and I hadn’t even noticed. I’d been in my own bubble for what? Forty minutes? That wasn’t enough time to remove the skin from a fresh corpse. No. He had most likely been skinned somewhere else and brought to the dump site.
My skin itched and my fingers lingered over a deeper more substantial scar on my forearm. I recalled the injury with terrible clarity…
“Stubborn bitch,” one of my captors said. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and he smelled like wintergreen chewing tobacco. I pulled against the restraints, but three days without water had left me dehydrated and weak. “All you have to do is change into the animal you are, and this will end.”
The other man, a middle-aged blond, held his phone up and recorded us.
Wintergreen waved a chisel, one used for woodwork, in front of my face. He held the angled tip against my forearm. “Last chance,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
The sharp sound of the hammer as it struck the metal chisel rang out against the aluminum walls of the Morton building.
Noise, small and pathetic, snapped me from the memory. I realized it had come from me. A whimper. Better than the screams I could still hear when I thought of that torturous night. That’s when I noticed the tall shadow inside the room by the closed door.
I scrambled to sit up, rolling off the bed on the far side to put distance between the intruder and me. I summoned my animal, using my coyote eyes to scan the room and get a better look. I saw the painting of the rolling Ozark hills, the eight-drawer dresser, a tall bookshelf, a closed closet door, and the very bright moonlight streaming in from the window.
No intruder.
I scented the air, but I couldn’t detect anything foreign. Besides, what kind of idiot would intrude on a werewolf’s territory? Billy Bob wouldn’t allow it.
“You’ve suffered much, little wolf,” a familiar voice said. My friendly neighborhood imaginary buddy … except he was more like an actual presence than a pesky voice in my head.
“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered.
“I would not choose someone feeble-minded,” said an offended male voice.
Not in my head.
In the room.
Movement near the door startled me. I crouched low, my hands up, ready to attack. “Who are you?” A gravelly rumble built in my chest. No way I’d be taken again. Not this time. Not ever again.
“I am known by many names, sister. Pia’isa, kweo kachina, and mai-coh to name a few.”
“Well, your new name will be mud if Doctor Smith, the owner of this house, finds you. He’ll rip you a new asshole.”
He wasn’t a town resident, which meant he had to be one of the men who’d come in for the Jubilee. His face was shadowed. Even with my coyote-vision, I couldn’t make out his features. I tried to hone in on other appearance landmarks. He was well over six and a half feet tall. His shoulders were as wide if not wider than Billy Bob’s. His language was stiff and stilted as if every word cost him something. Finally, and most oddly, it felt as if his breath stirred the air around me. But the weirdest thing of all was the sense of calm that overrode my stirring panic.
“What do you want?”
“Ah.” The dark figure shook his head. “There is no need to fear me. I mean you no harm, little wolf.” I felt another wave of calm. “You know me. We often speak, sister.”
The voice in my head sometimes called me sister, and the awareness jolted me. At some point when my imaginary pal first started talking to me, I’d convinced myself it had been Judah, my older brother, the one who’d been killed.
“I’m a coyote,” I said. Because that’s soooo important. “A therian, not a lycan.”
“You are wolf, child. That above all else.”
The denial died on my lips. Recently I’d found out that my grandmother had been half-lycanthrope, but as a werecoyote, I’d grown up despising werewolves. My brothers and I had been taught that lycanthropes were dangerous and unpredictable. A rogue pack had killed both my grandparents before I was born, which only strengthened my family’s views about the species. So, I had no intention of claiming the heritage, let alone giving it precedence over my coyote blood.
I’d backed up to the window, my fingers on the frame. I had no doubt the huge, hulking figure between me and the door could take my head off. My claws bit into my flesh as my fingers began to shift. I needed to hold it together. Keep the element of surprise to myself.
“You don’t need to run from me, sister. I am not your enemy.”
“A friend doesn’t sneak into your bedroom,” I said.
“I do not sneak,” he said. Again, his tone reflected offense.
Noise in the hallway had him turning his head away from me. I used the opportunity to throw myself backward through the window. I cried out when the broken glass bit into my back as I landed on the grassy lawn, but I didn’t wait for the weird dude to chase me. I didn’t know what scared me more, that he claimed ownership of my imaginary friend or that I wasn’t nearly as frightened as I should’ve been.
Who cares? Run, you moron.
I shucked my nightgown and my underwear, finding freedom as my body mid-run began to change. My bones moved and reformed, fur sprouted down out of my skin with a whispering tingle that the full shift to animal form always brought on. It was pleasure, not pain, and it was why my family always warned against changing when it wasn’t necessary. During the first night of the full moon, the shift came without being called, and unfortunately, therians become true animals on those nights. Acting on pure instinct alone. It was dangerous for everyone around, humans and shifters alike. But when therians chose to change at any other time, they could think and remember as if they were still in human form. It made the impulse to stay a beast strong, the feeling of being in animal form while able to keep clear headed, intoxicating. I tried not to think of the joy. It would distract me and get me kidnapped again, or worse, killed.
A howl in the distance startled me. On four legs now, my senses heightened, I ran in a full out sprint toward the woods behind Billy Bob’s house. I caught a fading scent of a wolf on one of the trails and the faint aroma of bergamot. Billy Bob. Of course, he ran these woods in his lycan form. I had been born and raised in Kansas City, and I’d never been much of a country girl, not until these past couple of years, but even then, I hadn’t done much exploring. Would it be safer to follow where Billy Bob had roamed, or try to make my own way deep into the Ozarks?
Another howl drove my choice. I took off through thickets of briars and stick’ems, past oaks, maples, and evergreens. A fallen tree
just up ahead of me had to be four feet thick in diameter and gray with age and decay. I leaped with all my might to get over the top. The wind ruffled my fur, my belly scraping against the dry bark as I dove head first into a shallow creek on the other side. I yelped then inhaled the water, the cold liquid soaking me to the skin. I stood up and shook, droplets spraying everywhere. The running stream chilled the pads of my paws.
I sloshed toward the far bank, only twenty feet away, the stream rising until my paws could no longer touch. I paddled hard, keeping my nose above the water.
“Chavvah!”
The sound of my name brought me up short. I glanced back, and my head went under as I saw a very naked Billy Bob standing on this side of the log. I turned back toward the other side of the creek bed and kept going until I was able to get on dry ground on the opposite side. We’d had plenty of rain this month and fighting the current had taken it out of me.
I panted, trying to gather my wits. Had the wolf howls come from Billy Bob and not the intruder? In my panic, had I been running from him the whole time? I felt like an idiot. A fool. A scared foolish idiot. I stared at Billy Bob, the moonlight dancing on his flawless skin, the shadows enhancing every cut of his muscles. He didn’t make a move toward me as if he knew I would rabbit if spooked. He simply waited, his brow furrowed with concern.
Finally, I shook out my fur again, allowing the shift back to my human form. When the change completed, I was crouched low on the ground still staring at the doc.
“Are you okay?” he asked when my heavy breathing died down.
“There was a man in your home,” I said. “In my room.” God, what if it had been the killer? Had he followed me from town?
His eyes widened. He pursed his lips. “Are you hurt?”
The glass in my back stung suddenly as if to remind me that I’d thrown myself out of a window. I turned so he could see my back and said, “I’ll live.” I hadn’t felt it in my coyote form. “How did he get inside, Doc? How did he find me?”
“You’re safe now,” he said. “If someone were near, I’d smell him. It’s just you and me now.” His voice was low and soothing.
I plopped back onto my ass. I appreciated that he didn’t ask me if I’d had a bad dream or try to tell me I was overwrought. Now that I was away from the intruder, the strange Zen I’d experienced had evaporated under a cold dose of fear. The sharp rocks from the shore dug into my skin. I ignored the pain. I’d had worse. I hugged my knees, burying my face in the crack between them. I’d never forget the man. His presence had been weighted. Undeniable.
“Do you want to come over here?”
“No,” I told him.
“Do you want me to come over there?”
I remained silent and let him interpret my lack of response how he wanted. The water sloshed and a small sense of satisfaction slid through me. I lifted my head and peeked. Billy Bob was nearly waist deep in the creek and half way across. As the water level lowered, I got a really great shot of his package, and… “Wow.” Let’s just say that the cold water had very little effect on him.
He stopped just shy of the shore. “What?”
“What?” Crap, I’d said, “Wow,” out loud. He really was gorgeous. His skin was a perfect shade of heavily creamed coffee and completely unblemished. Unlike my own, which was scarred and knotted in multiple places. I suddenly wished he hadn’t crossed. Self-consciously, I hugged my knees harder to hide my ravaged skin.
“Chavvah,” he said.
I looked up at him, reluctantly meeting his gaze.
“Is it so difficult to look at me?” He held his hands out to his side. “Do you really dislike me so much?”
I didn’t want him to know how much I cared. How much my feelings had grown for him since my rescue. He was the only one who hadn’t made me feel all victim-y and TSTL, too stupid to live. But he’d always been strictly professional with me, and I knew how much he liked, maybe even loved, Sunny. I wouldn’t be second best, not for any man. I wanted someone who wanted me above all others.
“I don’t dislike you.”
“Then stop pushing me away.” He walked the rest of the way over and sat down on the rocks next to me. I tried really hard not to stare at his dangly parts. “Turn so I can see your back.”
I did. He grasped my shoulder with his left hand, and with his right, he plucked the larger shards of window glass from my flesh. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even whimper at the pain. Instead, I rubbed the gnarled scar at my elbow and let my mind go elsewhere.
“Tell me about the intruder?”
I shivered. “He was large, larger than you even.” I shook my head. “His face was hidden in shadow, his whole body really. I could make out his shape, but not any features.”
“Did he say anything?”
I snorted. “Yeah. He was really chatty for a psychopath.”
“Like?” He pulled out another piece of glass lodged in my lower back. This one was deeper, and I jerked a tiny bit.
“He kept calling me sister and little wolf. I think he thought I was like you. A lycanthrope.”
Billy Bob stopped then. He took my shoulders with both his hands and gently turned me. “What else did he say?”
“Weird stuff, like he wasn’t my enemy and that I shouldn’t be afraid of him.” But I hadn’t needed several weeks of torture to know bullshit when I heard it. “I can’t remember it all.” I caught Billy Bob’s eyes flicker toward my naked breasts. He’d seen them before. He’d seen all of me before on his surgical table and during the many exams I’d had to endure. But I’d never seen him look at me, or them, like this—with heat.
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for his gaze to meet mine.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We should get you back to the house.”
“I don’t…”
“You will sleep in my room, and I will not leave you tonight.”
I tucked my chin, “In your room?”
“I will stay in the chair. I won’t be sleeping. Your safety is my only concern.”
“If it’s the killer, he knows where I am now.”
“If it’s the killer, he’ll have more than he bargained for if he tries to get to you again.” He wiped my cheek with his thumb. “Let’s shift, or it’s going to be a long trip back. You covered several miles.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “Really.” In the next few moments, I watched Billy Bob transform with a fluid elegance I’d never seen in another therian. It dawned on me, as I gaped at his large wolf covered in thick silvery fur that I’d never seen him shift before. Frankly, I found him unsettlingly striking. He waited, his gray eyes expectant. I nodded, concentrated on my coyote, and changed again. I’d never shifted twice in the same night. Hell, most of the time I only changed on the full moon. It was surprisingly easier than before. I could have probably followed my scent trail back to the house, but I let Billy Bob take the lead.
The Old Witcheroo Page 26