She rolled over on her side, facing the wall, and Cole melded his body around hers, spooning with her. She didn’t stop that either. Between the warmth of his skin and the blanket, she felt safe and protected. Odd, she mused, that Cole could produce such warring feelings within her. That he could frighten her and make her feel safe.
There wasn’t a phone in the hunting cabin, so there was no way to contact the SF. Dana was worried about that. Enoch knew that she and Cole had escaped, and she was afraid that he’d move his camp now. The SF wasn’t going to be able to find him after all. Still, at least they knew the date of the attack. If she could get that information to Ursula, maybe they could protect the SF.
Thinking about the SF made her think of home, and home made her think of Piper. She wondered what her daughter was doing right now. The sun was struggling into the sky, so Piper would definitely be awake. Was she having fun with her babysitter?
Dana suddenly felt the absence of the little girl like a gaping hole inside her. She never should have left her. She missed her daughter acutely.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she began to sob softly.
Cole stirred behind her. “Dana?”
“It’s nothing,” she muttered, trying to choke down her tears.
“Is it bad that I’m…? I could sleep on the floor.”
That made her laugh a little bit. Maybe there was a gentleman in Cole somewhere, struggling to find its way out. “It’s not about you.”
“Then what? Don’t cry. Please.”
“I miss Piper.”
He was quiet for a minute. Then, “Your daughter?”
Of course Cole wouldn’t have remembered Piper’s name. She meant nothing to him. He didn’t know… She started to cry even harder, because suddenly everything seemed so hopeless. She and this man had created a life together, a tiny, beautiful little girl. But Cole wasn’t… right. He was missing things, important, human things, and he didn’t understand how to love or how to care. She was drawn to him, somehow hopelessly intertwined with him, though. She had tried to make the right choice—the choice that would bring her happiness and safety. She’d married Avery. But now, here she was, ravaged again by Cole, afraid of him and attracted to him, and her whole life had never seemed like such a mess to her.
“Hey.” Cole was moving her, turning her to face him. He wiped tears away from her cheeks. “I’m going to get you back to her. I swear. You’ll go back to your family, and you can forget all this.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I can forget.”
“You can.” He pulled her close, his hands smoothing over her hair. “You need to forget it. You don’t belong here, Dana. You deserve better than this.”
“Deserve?” She lifted her face to look at him. “I don’t think so, Cole. I’m cheating on my husband, and I’m barely even thinking about my daughter. And… damn it, right before we left, I killed those fucking campers. I think I’m getting exactly what I deserve.”
“You’re not cheating,” he said. “We’re not doing anything.”
“We had sex, Cole.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.” He shook his head. “I had sex. You were there, but you didn’t want to. That’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”
It was his fault. And she was letting him comfort her anyway. She rolled away from him. “Maybe you should sleep on the floor.”
* * *
They awoke in the late afternoon. Dana had kicked the covers away in the heat of the day, and she lay sprawled out on the bed, her body sticky from dried sweat.
Cole was stretching on the floor, and she felt suddenly caught by the sight of the muscles in his back, rippling and moving under his skin.
Then her stomach growled.
He turned to her. His gaze traveled over her nude body. She could feel his eyes on her hips and breasts.
“Hungry?” he said.
She was starving. She didn’t know the last time she’d eaten. It had to have been more than a day. Funny that she hadn’t thought of it until now. The danger and excitement had driven the idea of food from her brain. She got up off the bed, doing a little stretching of her own. “It’ll be easier to shift and catch something.”
He nodded. “Probably.”
“When we were running before, you weren’t thinking about mating with me, right?”
“No.”
“So, if we’re hunting…?”
“It’ll be all right.”
She smiled. Hunting in wolf form. That sounded amazing. She was excited, eager for it. “After we eat, though, we need to find some way to contact the SF.”
“Of course,” he said.
She rearranged the blankets on the bed, feeling a little guilty that she’d sweat all over them. But there wasn’t any way to wash the blankets, so she couldn’t do anything about it.
They left the hunting cabin. The minute they were outside, they both shifted, and Dana was overtaken by the simple sweetness of the wolf. She and Cole capered in the mature sunlight, nipping playfully at each other.
And then they dove into the woods, creeping, looking.
She’d never hunted with another wolf before, but she was pleasantly surprised at how well she and Cole seemed to work together. They moved according to the same rhythm, something inside the earth directing their movements. When a tree branch cracked, they both heard it. They both moved towards it together, stalking quietly, their senses on high alert.
Most of the noises were false alarms—the breeze made them or some creature too small to be worth their while.
But soon they were rewarded by the scent and sight of a deer. It seemed to be alone, which was unusual. Not that a group of deer was any challenge for the two of them, but it did make it easier to stalk the animal if it was alone.
Dana usually stayed away from bigger prey on her own. It never made sense to take down an entire deer when she was the only one eating. Furthermore, most of her hunting happened outside her normal human meals, so she was never truly, truly hungry.
This was different, though. She and Cole together could consume that much meat, and besides—it had been quite some time since they’d eaten.
The deer noticed them, ahead, nearly obscured by leaves and branches.
But they could smell the deer. It hardly mattered how invisible it was.
And the deer was quite noticeable in a moment, because it sprang forward, running for its life, shaking the branches and bushes.
She and Cole gave chase, delight and joy bursting through her as they ran. She loved this part. This was what life was all about. Running and chasing and killing and eating. It was magnificent.
Together they tore through the woods after the deer.
The deer was fast. They were faster.
She could smell its fear, and that only spurred her on, made the chase even sweeter.
Cole lunged, leaping into the air to tackle the deer.
She hung back. She’d let him take the first swipe. There was an unspoken communication between him that he was slightly stronger and faster than her, that he would have a better chance of taking it down. This didn’t diminish her. There were no emotions like jealousy and insecurity in the wolf.
Cole’s jaws were wide, and he was inches from sinking them into the deer’s neck.
And a gunshot rent the air.
Cole whimpered, freezing in midair.
And then he crumpled to the ground.
The deer skittered away.
Dana ran for Cole.
He lay on his side. There was blood pouring out of a hole in his flank. It stained his fur.
Cole let out a whimper. Then a gasp.
And then the change went through him, his fur receding, his paws expanding, fingers pushing their way out, muzzle tucking into his face.
He was human.
He was still bleeding.
Dana licked the wound. She didn’t know what else to do. She supposed she should shift back too.
But then there were voices.
“Fucking wolves. Don’t want ‘em out here. They’re dangerous.”
“There’s another one. You better shoot it, too.”
Two men were coming through the forest. They had beards, and they wore dirty baseball caps on their heads. They were both carrying shotguns.
“Ah, shit, you’re right,” said one of them—he had a dark beard. He lifted his gun.
She should shift. She should shift right now.
But she was confused, and Cole was wounded, and there were guns, and she was afraid, and she was hungry and—
She lunged instead.
He shot at her, but he missed—probably startled by a wolf leaping right on him.
She tackled Dark Beard.
The other man screamed. He had a red beard.
Dana pinned Dark Beard down, growling at him. She wanted to rip out his throat, but she held herself in check. This was a person, and she knew that she wasn’t supposed to hurt humans.
Red Beard raised his gun. “Get the fuck off him!”
“Don’t talk to it,” said Dark Beard. “Shoot it.”
Dana bared her teeth, turning to Red Beard, staring down the barrel of his gun.
“Dana!” came Cole’s voice, straining from effort. “Shift.”
Both men turned to look at Cole, who was trying to pick himself up. But he was too hurt to stand.
“What the fuck?” said Red Beard.
“Shift, Dana,” said Cole.
And so she did. Finally. She let the shift roll over her, let her human form back out.
“Holy shit,” said Red Beard, dropping his shot gun.
Dark Beard gazed up at her with wide eyes. “Werewolves,” he said.
“Naked chick werewolves,” said Red Beard.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The two bearded men had cell phones, and they called the SF. Dana was relieved. She needed to talk to the SF. But she was worried about Cole, who was badly hurt. The shot had gone into his side, right underneath his ribs. She couldn’t tell if it had hit any of his major organs. The shot had gone in when he was a wolf and the wolf’s body was different than the human body. Dana didn’t know if her wolf stomach shifted back into a human stomach—if a wounded wolf stomach was a wounded human stomach. She’d never dealt with this before.
“He needs help,” she said to the men. “He’s been shot. He needs a hospital.”
“We called the SF,” said Dark Beard. “SF deals with wolves.”
Where the hell were they? Arkansas? That meant they were in the southwest region. Well, at least they were fairly close to the headquarters here. Depending on where they were in Arkansas. The southwest region stretched all the way from Louisiana to New Mexico. It was vast and wide, and it could be hours before the SF arrived. A small regional branch like this probably would only have one set of trackers, and they’d be deployed to pick up any rogue werewolves—not that she and Cole were rogues, but they’d be categorized that way.
“Please,” she said. “It might take a long time for them to arrive. He needs first aid. We need to clean the wound. We need bandages.”
“Why don’t you shut up, furry?” said Red Beard.
Cole grunted. “Dana, you should just go. Shift back and leave me.”
“No,” she said. “Are you crazy? The SF is coming.” They’d fix everything.
Red Beard and Dark Beard kept watch over them for quite a long time. They never dropped their guns. They refused to speak to her.
Cole kept bleeding. She didn’t have anything to stanch the wound. She put her fingers over it, but the blood was coming out so fast, it didn’t make any difference.
She cried, begging for the men to do something, but they were stone.
Eventually, Cole lost consciousness. His face had turned white, and his lips were a strange bloodless blue.
Dana was terrified that he was dying. She was huddled next to him, his blood smeared all over her naked body, while the two men with guns stared down at her, both of them looking disgusted.
She listened to them talking to each other about werewolves as a menace, about how all the furs should be rounded up and shot anyway.
“You did the world a favor shooting that one,” said Red Beard. “Less werewolves there are, the safer it is for the rest of us.”
“Yeah,” said Dark Beard.
The more time that passed, the antsier they got. They began to question where the SF was, and they didn’t think they should have to hang around and wait for them.
“Fine,” said Dana. “Go, then.” The men were no help.
They ignored her.
“Well, you probably killed that one,” said Red Beard. “But if we leave, what’s to say that one won’t go out and start eating people.”
“True,” said Dark Beard. “If we were going to go, we should probably shoot her too.”
Dana couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t be hearing two men matter-of-factly discussing shooting her. She glared up at them. “I can hear you, you know. I’m right here.”
“You might be able to hear us,” said Red Beard, “but that don’t mean nothing. I’m sorry, honey, but you’re a monster. If we’re going to shoot you, it’s going to be to protect ourselves and our families.”
“It ain’t like you’re a real person, you know,” said Dark Beard.
Dana was hungry. She was terrified. She was angry.
And it felt like the shift came over her involuntarily, almost the way it used to before she could control it, when she was at the whim of the full moon. It flowed through her body, and she was on the two men before she could think.
She went straight for Red Beard’s throat, ripping into it, glorious blood on her tongue.
Dark Beard started yelling. He was trying to get his gun up, but he couldn’t believe what had just happened to his friend, and he wasn’t moving quickly.
Dana was faster.
She killed him too.
And then she ate.
She’d been very, very hungry.
* * *
Dana awoke on a concrete floor. She was still naked, and she was covered in blood. Cole’s blood, the mens’ blood. She could smell it, but now that she was in human form, it smelled bad—not delicious and wonderful the way it did when she was the wolf.
How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was the blood and flesh, her teeth sinking into it…
No. There was something else. She’d been so intent on her meal that she hadn’t noticed the SF trackers come upon her. She’d only been alerted by the sharp punch of the tranq dart in her body, and it had been followed by several more.
She was pretty sure that they’d shot her four times, which was a little bit excessive. That many darts would have knocked her out for a long, long time.
She sat up, surveying her surroundings. She was in a large room. The walls were bare. There was a toilet hanging on one wall, a sink next to it. Benches lined the walls. What was this place? It looked like a drunk tank in a prison.
Oh, wait. Wait, maybe she knew this. She remembered that a couple of the SF headquarters out in the middle of the country were old prisons. There hadn’t been enough money for new buildings, and the government had moved the SF into these abandoned places instead. There was always money for new prisons, after all. That was a thriving economy. But werewolves—well, they were a public menace. At least that was how everyone thought about it.
She craned her neck around the room. This was a big holding cell, and it was nothing like the SF back home, which might be institutional and bland, but was at least modern and comfortable.
Cole!
He was lying on his back on one of the benches. He was still naked too. She went to him.
Well, at least they’d bandaged his wound. She touched him. He was warm. He was breathing.
She put a hand to her mouth.
Next to Cole, there were two jumpsuits—the same kinds that they used back east.
So, at least they’d provided them clothes, even if th
ey hadn’t dressed them.
Dana reached for one but saw the blood all over her hands.
She went across the room to the sink and turned it on.
Only cold water, and a trickle at that. The faucet was dull and there was rust in the bowl of the sink. It was better than nothing. She washed herself as best she could, but there was blood all over her body, and she didn’t have any soap.
It took a long time.
Then, wet and shivering, she went back to dress herself in the jumpsuit.
She looked at Cole again. She touched him. He was warm, but… was he too warm? She felt his forehead.
She couldn’t tell. She was cold. Maybe she was misjudging his body temperature by her own.
She peeked underneath the bandage.
The wound told the story. The skin around it was red and swollen. Pus was oozing out of the hole itself.
She let out a little cry.
The gunshot was infected.
She ran to the door of the holding cell and banged on it. “Hey!” she yelled.
Nothing happened.
She banged harder. “Someone help! He needs a doctor!”
Still nothing.
Dana kept at it, screaming and pounding on the door until she was growing hoarse.
Finally, there was an answering bang on the other side. “Quiet down in there,” said a woman’s voice. She had a heavy accent.
Dana breathed a sigh of relief. “The man with me. His wound’s infected. He needs medical attention.”
“Sure he does.” The woman’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Look, lady, you’re a werewolf, and you’re not getting out of there until at least the next full moon. You gotta get your change under control. Now, trust me, I heard everything you can think of to try to get out of there, but none of it’s going to work on me. So, just hush up.”
“I’m not…” Dana was stunned by this. “Look, I’m not a rogue wolf. I work for the SF back east. My name is Dana Gray.”
The woman chuckled. “You work for the SF. Yeah, right, lady. Got to say that’s the first time I’ve heard that.”
“It wasn’t a full moon, was it? If I was a rogue, I would have shifted on the full moon, and—”
“That is weird, but so it goes. Look, we found you eating people. Eating people.”
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