by Tera Shanley
Seven wolves waited in the clearing. Five gray and two brown. Dean had dark gray points with a cream color underneath. He was the darkest by far, but he wasn’t the dark wolf she searched for. He would never be there.
Brandon, Logan, and Brent scrapped to the side, but upon her arrival, Dean yipped and they stilled. There was a moment of complete silence. The moment of calm that comes right before the flurry of action. And then they were off.
Running as a wolf was freedom. Rachel bumped her side and yelped in excitement, and Brandon nipped at her front legs. She made an excited noise deep in her throat and Dean slowed. He rounded and cocked his head to the side. He mimicked the noise and she rolled over playfully. Brandon clamped his jaws gently over her neck but Dean growled. The noise said he was not in the mood for playing. Dean pitched his head back and howled, and Rachel joined him as his voice lowered. Then others lupine voices rang out. The song seeped into her marrow, filling the empty places that hurt so badly, and she lifted her voice to join them.
They were answered by a lone howl miles away. It was deep and inviting and mournful, like the lonesome whistle of a midnight train.
She took off. Dean barked out a warning behind her but she was already gone. Usually, she obeyed, but Dean wasn’t her alpha, and rules could be bent by an outsider willing to deal with a reprimand later.
The howl lingered on the air and she raced against the last note in the direction it came from. Let him sing again. She had to meet that voice. The wolves trailed behind her and she straightened her tail and bolted. Faster and faster, she ran until the forest was a blur. Every footprint was an instinct. Twig, root, leaves, bramble. She missed them all in that body made for the woods.
There he was. As black as the night sky and as silent as a thought. He watched her from the other side the pack’s territory line. His golden eyes seemed to glow against the dark as he watched her. She sidled closer, whining.
Their wolves had never been the problem. They had always been evenly matched and both knew the logic of being together, of wanting each other, devoid of all of the other human emotions and insecurities that come with a relationship.
The noises of the pack slowed behind her, as if they were wary of the barbed-wire fence that served as a separation for the territories. She inched closer on her belly. In that moment, she’d do anything to touch him.
He took off running a short sprint away from the fence and then came back, repeating the gesture again and then again. An invitation. She lay down on her side of the fence, poking her nose through to his. He’d brought her food when she’d first turned, and a cage had separated them just like this.
He touched her nose gently with his own. It wasn’t enough, but it was all they would get. Dean growled behind her. It was time to hunt. She looked between the two dominants, stalling. The black wolf let out a soft growl, but she was already leaving. She didn’t have to listen to everything the alpha said, but if she wanted to run with his pack, she’d better not push it. She looked back once and then disappeared into the brush behind the other wolves.
* * * *
Grey stayed frozen at the fence, breaking apart all over again. Nothing had changed between them, so why did he do that to himself? He kept setting himself up for her to hurt him. Why? He trotted back to the car and Changed in the grass beside the tires. No more. That was enough damage done to him for one night.
Pulling on his jeans, he lay in the bed of his pickup and stared at the stars. The stars out here were radiant. Light pollution didn’t exist out in such remote country. Only an earthbound wolf and an infinite cloudless sky sprinkled with the silver dust of twinkling stars. The man in the moon was his only companion. The moon smiled down on him as if to say everything would be all right. What did he know?
When his muscles were fully recovered from the Change, he climbed into his truck and headed down his winding gravel drive. On the main road, he passed Dean’s property entrance. Morgan’s truck was there as she readied to turn on to the gravel street. She watched him pass with heart-wrenching sadness in her soft, violet eyes. He jerked his gaze away, unable to hold hers. Her silent torment was a knife in him that only served to widen the weeping hole.
A moment with her hadn’t placated him at all. It had only woken the greedy need for more and reminded him of all he had lost.
Chapter 4
“Snacks, sippy cup, extra clothes, toys, jacket. Lana?” The sound of Morgan’s voice echoed down the empty hallway as she called for the little girl.
They were so late. She’d told Mom that she would have Lana at her house by five, and it was a quarter after and she still wasn’t out the door.
Lana scuttled around the doorway to the living room, her cheeks covered in magic marker. “I did my make up too,” she chirped happily.
Morgan shifted the overnight bag, her purse and the pink, flower pillow that was trying desperately to escape her grasp. “Wow, baby. It looks… No more makeup until you are twenty, okay?”
She checked her panic. How had Marianna made everything look so easy? Deep breath. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was just a little marker. It wasn’t as if she had been bitten by a roving werewolf. That would require panic. She’d just clean it up when they got to Mom’s house.
“Come on, Lana. You ready to go see Grammy?”
Lana rubbed her eyes sleepily. “Hold me.”
“Right.” She readjusted the flailing bags and made room on her hip before she scooped her up.
Keys. Where had she put the blasted keys? Lana had gone limp and Morgan struggled to keep her snuggled to her chest. With both hands full, she pulled the door closed behind her with the toe of her sneaker, but she lost her balance on the welcome mat. Welcome, my ass. She never opened the door for anyone in that neighborhood. She tripped forward and her legs splayed in opposite directions as she tried to right herself. Lana yelped as Morgan landed hard on her backside.
“Son of a…curse word!”
They were already late. Morgan sighed in resignation and lay out on the cracked concrete like a star. What was a couple more minutes?
“Morgan,” the girl whispered. She touched under Morgan’s eyes with her little hands. Purple, frightening eyes.
“I’m okay. I just got scared you were going to get hurt is all.” She stroked the girl’s dark hair. “Your momma was always so much better at this stuff.”
“I miss Mommy.”
“You and me both, kiddo. Come on.”
She hauled them both upright again and trekked to the truck parked by the curb. The bags hung awkwardly and bumped her hips every time she took a step, but who was going to care? No one was watching.
A tiny scent settled itself into the blackest and loneliest part of her. She jerked her head and sniffed.
How long had Grey been sitting there, watching them from his truck? She frowned at the unwelcome mortification. Of course he saw her fall. That was the perfect end to the day.
She buckled Lana up and pressed her favorite book into her hand. She shut the door gently and jogged over to his truck. “What are you doing here, Greyson?” she asked as he rolled down his window. Full name. Burn.
“Keeping you and the kid safe,” he answered. He took off his sunglasses and revealed crystal-blue eyes. He arched his eyebrows and waited.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got it covered,” she said, patting the door frame twice before she turned.
“I’m still going to be coming around from time to time,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear.
Couldn’t he see how torn up she was to see him? Couldn’t he understand her need for space? She straightened her spine and glared. “I’m going to call the police.”
“Morgan, I know you think I’m trying to make your life miserable, but I’m not. You think I want to be here watching you move on and seeing how much you dislike me with all of the dirty looks? I really don’t, but I would do anything to keep you and Lana safe. I’ll never try to t
alk to you, or try to see Lana, or try to interfere with your life. You have made it clear you don’t want that. But until the danger blows over, you get your own pet guard wolf. It’s that or move to pack property where you won’t have to deal with me anymore. Either way, you have to know this is the best way to keep Lana safe.”
Oh, that was a low blow. Bring Lana’s safety up and she would buckle. It was irritating how well he knew her. “Fine. No interfering.”
“Fine,” he growled.
* * * *
Three weeks had passed with no danger to Morgan and Lana. Most of him was relieved, but Wolf had only given in to sitting in a car for hours a day doing nothing because he thought there was a chance of killing someone. Sometimes it was hard compromising with a monster.
The cabin was finished. He and Marissa jokingly called it the Crawford Pack Cabin, because it was just Grey in the sprawling house. It had only been finished for a few weeks, but Marissa had already picked out a room and had not so subtly circled furniture she wanted for it out of a catalog. He’d get her room all fixed up for her birthday. He’d have talk to Dean about it first, but if she wanted a room, she could have one. She was over there all of the time anyway. Even if their wolves disagreed, Dean was a confident man and a stalwart leader. He would surely see the advantage to giving Marissa her own space away from Logan and Brandon. It didn’t take much to see the girl was happier and more relaxed with an escape.
Movement caught his eye in the direction of Morgan’s house, and he tossed the book he’d been reading into the passenger seat. She sprinted toward him with panic-stricken features. He threw open the door before she even reached him. “What’s happened?”
“Lana. I went to take the laundry upstairs and I heard something. When I came out, she was gone. I can’t find her anywhere, and I smell something. Someone has been in the house. Multiple someones, but I had the doors locked. They must have found the spare key. And I tried to Change but I can’t--”
She wasn’t even finished talking before he was Changing. He pushed it as she shielded his body as best she could with hers. Sure, his windows were tinted, but it would still look odd if someone saw her talking to a man one minute and a dog the next.
As he finished the last of it, she opened the door to let him out. She bolted for the house while he tried to keep up with her on wobbly legs.
She opened the door and he raced past her legs, picking up a thick scent right away. Werewolf. Morgan must be too new to be able to decipher the difference between human and wolf. Two fresh trails snaked through the house, beginning at the back door where the spare key was indeed still in the doorknob. Wolf followed it into the living room where bright colored crayons were scattered all over the floor and a coloring book lay open on the edge of the coffee table. The room stunk of unfamiliar werewolf.
He raced out the back door as she opened it and he turned and growled once. Stay here, he seemed to say.
“I’m calling the pack. Bring her home safely,” she pleaded, removing the traitorous key and shutting the door. The lock clicked. Good little wolf.
He ran after the trail, nose down, through the alleyway that separated the backs of the next row of houses. The breeze held animal but no new exhaust fumes, so they must be waiting for a car to pick them up somewhere. He had to make it to them before their escape vehicle did. The back ends of houses and garages whizzed by him and the smell of oil and gasoline and garbage mixed with everything. Another block more and the trail ended. As he doubled back, a man jumped out from behind a bright blue garbage bin. Two other men, one tall and lanky and one built like a freight train, were huddled in an open garage packed with moving boxes in the back of a house. The thin one held Lana with his hand over her mouth as she kicked and screamed, tears streaming down her face. He let her mouth go and a wail escaped her. The man who’d jumped out at him looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world and backed away, but the burly man closest to Wolf gripped a silver knife.
Wolf pulled his lips over gleaming teeth and let his fury fuel a bellow deep in his chest. He’d kill them all and they’d spend their last dying breath full of regret.
Lana looked so scared, and every instinct told him to get the men off her first, but if the man with the knife had his way, he would kill Wolf long before he could do any good for her. Silver flashed as he slashed the knife downward, but Wolf ducked out of the way, drawing him closer. The man rode his forward momentum and came at Wolf again, and this time he connected blade with flesh as Wolf latched onto his arm. Wolf pulled him into his body as the man lodged an ill-placed silver knife in Wolf’s shoulder. As the man toppled forward, off-balance and covering his face, Wolf latched on to his throat and clamped down. He was made to break bones. A second passed and it was enough. If he wasn’t dead now, he would be soon, and Wolf tossed the man’s limp body to the side. The weight of it thudded dully against a wooden fence as Wolf’s gaze drifted to the face of his next target.
Lana’s attacker was hurting her. He was pulling too tightly on her mouth, hurting her neck, and her eyes were large with fear and pain. As Wolf lunged, the man dropped her, and Lana landed on her backside and yelped in pain. That tiny noise was all it took to turn everything red. They’d hurt his little girl and a roaring sound filled his head.
The knife had gone into his shoulder at an odd angle and was still in place, buried almost vertically in the thick muscle there. He paced closer and turned his head far enough to pull the knife blade out and toss it closer to the man, tempting him to pick it up. Wolf could smell his silver-seared flesh but couldn’t feel it. Not yet. All he felt was fury.
The man dove for the knife as Wolf tensed. He dove for the back of the man’s neck that was so neatly presented for him. The man thrashed wildly, but Wolf would die before he let go. He clamped down harder with supernatural jaw strength to match teeth made for tearing and crunching through bone and then pulled back. It wouldn’t be enough, but he needed to get the man’s neck muscles out of the way first.
The man roared as he reached over his head and grabbed Wolf by the scruff of the neck with both hands and threw him into the fence the first man was lying under. Digging his paws in, he jumped up and launched himself at the fleeing man’s back, catching his injured neck in his jaws and snapping his spine.
Before the body had even landed on the unforgiving concrete, Wolf scanned the ally for the other man. Lana sat in the garage crying, her wide gray eyes fixed on him. She had never seen him in his monstrous form and he regretted she’d seen him for the first time like this.
His words sounded garbled coming from Wolf’s throat. “Stay there, Lana.”
He picked up the retreating man’s scent and followed it around a corner, but he couldn’t tear himself away from Lana. He circled back and whined. She was so small. She was hurt and crying and scared and he couldn’t leave her alone in the alley, no matter how important finding the other wolf was. A growl sounded behind him.
He wasn’t able to turn around fast enough before the other wolf was on him. The last man hadn’t run after all. He had Changed. From the weight of the animal as he sunk his fangs into Wolf’s neck, he was large. Wolf instinctively curved his body inward to latch onto the others shifter’s front leg. The bone went snap.
The wolf yelped and loosened his grip. Wolf used his powerful neck muscles and yanked the other wolf under him by his crippled leg and then he latched on to his muzzle. The bones crunched between his jaws. Wolf was tired of clean deaths. This man had taken Lana, his tiny baby Lana. He held on to the scrabbling wolf until blood rattled in his lungs--until the kidnapper slowly suffocated from his crushed face. He held his mouth and nose closed as he struggled wildly. A whistling sound came from the wolf’s muzzle as the last few molecules of air tried desperately to make it to drowning lungs. He didn’t let go until the animal went slack and its eyes glazed over.
Lana stood frozen against the side of the house. Not the way he had wanted to introduce her to his animal
form. His belly brushed the ground as he crawled to her, slowly whining. He licked her face clean of tears when he got close enough.
Three wolves. That was all he had seen and smelled, so she should be safe. He jerked his head in the direction of Morgan’s house. They were two blocks away, at least. His instincts screamed to stay as a wolf to protect her, but it was a long walk for the child. He needed to carry her.
“Stay right here,” he said before he slunk around the corner to push his Change as fast as possible in the open garage. He hated her being out of his sight for even a moment. A stack of boxes leaned crookedly against the left side of the garage, and he scanned them until he found one that sounded promising. It read winter clothes. He ripped it open and grabbed a pair of dark gray sweats from the top and pulled them on as quickly as he could.
Darkness was setting in, and he didn’t want them in the back of this alleyway any longer than they needed to be. He dragged the two bodies by the fence into the garage and ran out to grab the other, which had already Changed back to a human corpse. Grey piled him on top of the other two and shut the garage behind him. He noted the house number over the door and ran around the corner. As recognition lit Lana’s face, he picked her up and crushed her to him.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” he murmured as he checked her for injuries. She seemed shaken but wasn’t hurt.
He took off at a brisk walk back to the house, head swiveling and keen wolf eyes scanning for danger. Lana squeezed her arms around his neck and cried. The place he was stabbed in the shoulder had shifted when he Changed and was now in his back, open and bleeding freely. Warmth trickled down his back in a steady stream. The last thing he needed was for someone to see them like this. He jogged, the ill-fitting sweats pulling irritatingly as the too-short legs bunched around his calves.