Timber Wolf (Virtue Shifters Book 1)

by Zoe Chant

  Jake growled, low and deep in his throat. Noah's father went white and backed up until he hit the side of his car, then scrambled into it with a yelled, "I'm coming back for you, Noah!"

  He sped off in a cloud of dust and Noah tightened his fingers in Jake's fur, whispering, "I didn't like him, Mr. Growly."

  Jake shifted back into his human form and caught the little boy and his puppy in his arms, hugging them hard. "Neither did I, Noah. Neither did I."

  Noah hung on for a minute, then squirmed loose, his eyes enormous. "Mr. Growly, how did you do that? Can I do that? Can WOLF do that? Where did your clothes go? How come you didn't bite that mean man? Can I see your teeth? Sometimes Wolf makes me sneeze. Do you make yourself sneeze? Is he going to come back? Will you bite him if he does? Can I have a cookie?"

  Jake reeled under the barrage of questions, ending on a laugh. "I was born able to do this, so no, I'm afraid you and Wolf can't do it. My clothes are kind of like my fur, so they stay with me when I change. I hardly ever make myself sneeze, it's not nice to bite people, and," he said, standing to offer Noah a hand, "yes, you may have a cookie. How did you know it was me?"

  Noah had to put Wolf down in order to take Jake's hand, and looked up at him nonplussed. "You were the only other person here. Can I have TWO cookies?"

  "I was the only other p..." Jake trailed off, then shook his head, smiling. "I guess that makes sense. And yes, you may have two cookies."

  Noah, with the air of a child who thought he might be on to a good thing, said, "May I have THREE cookies?"

  Jake burst out laughing. "No. Two cookies and some milk."

  "Okay, Mr. Growly!" Noah let go of his hand and ran into the house, Wolf bouncing at his heels. Jake gazed after them in amazement, hardly knowing what to think. He was going to owe Mabs one hell of an explanation, but Noah had just accepted the impossible with hardly more than a blink.

  See? his wolf asked, smug. Easy.

  * * *

  Mabs got home in the middle of dinner, glowing with happiness. Jake didn't try to stop Noah from rushing straight to her with shouts of everything that had transpired in her absence. His narrative about a mean man and Mr. Growly being a BIG DOG was a little jumbled, and some of Mabs's glow had faded by the time she got Noah back to the table and asked Jake, with a quirk of worried eyebrows, what had happened.

  "Someone who said he was Noah's father came by," Jake said quietly. "Good-looking blonde guy, mid-thirties? He didn't give his name."

  "Brent? I just can't—I've barely even seen him since Noah was born." Mabs sounded more baffled than angry or upset. "I don't know how he'd even find us. What did he want?"

  "I don't know. I kind of ran him off before there was much conversation."

  To his surprise, Mabs flashed a smile. "You're good at that, aren't you? Thanks. What...on earth was Noah talking about? A big dog? Did Wolf suddenly turn into Cerberus or something?"

  Now! his wolf said. Tell her now!

  Jake, though, couldn't help smiling at the idea of the puppy turning into a three-headed hellhound. "Not exactly. Can I explain that after Noah's gone to bed? It might take a while."

  His wolf said hnf, but Mabs, who had no reason to expect sudden shapeshifters in her life, said, "Okay, sure," easily, then squeezed his arm. "Thank you, Jake. I know it's not your job to end up standing between me and annoying men who show up on my property, but you're really good at it and I appreciate it."

  "I'll be glad to do it as long as you need me."

  "Watch it," Mabs said lightly. "I might need you for a long time."

  FOURTEEN

  Her first massage therapy class had been such a rush Mabs hadn't thought anything could bring her down from it. But if anything could, it would be the baffling reappearance of Noah's father. In fact, if anything should, it was Brent's return.

  Somehow, though, it wasn't rattling her nearly as badly as it should. Not with Jake nearby, providing a kind of safety net that she hadn't even realized she wanted.

  It was going to suck, Mabs realized, when Jake Rowly moved on. She'd come to rely on him over the past couple of months, and not just in an oh God he's so pretty way, although she could rarely look at the man without him taking her breath away. His presence around the house comforted her, and the care he'd taken in making her home warm and secure went far beyond what she could ever repay him for.

  And dealing with Brent, or Preston Cole, for that matter, would be harder without Jake around, but that was something Mabs was going to have to get used to. She tucked Noah into bed, listened in amusement to his repetition of the story about the mean man and Mr. Growly, who was Mr. Growly and, apparently, a Big Dog, and left him to sleep with his puppy sprawled at the foot of his bed.

  "If I've got this right," she murmured, still amused as she came into the kitchen to find Jake at the table, "Brent showed up while Noah and Wolf were playing in the yard, then a big dog came out of the house, growled at Brent to scare him off, and then turned into you and you all came into the house for milk and cookies?"

  Jake rubbed a fingertip over his eyebrow, as if trying to find an itch that he could hide behind. "Well. Wolf didn't have cookies. Chocolate's bad for dogs. The rest of it, though...he got that pretty much right."

  "Jake." Mabs ducked head to give him what would be a look over the top edge of her glasses, if she wore glasses. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm sure everything was okay with Brent, if you were here, so why don't you tell me what really happened?"

  He stood and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture that made the greying strands stand up every which way. Mabs's eyebrows drew down. Nervous was not a word she associated with Jake Rowly. Handsome, kind, competent, generous, talented—there were lots of words she could associate with him, but nervous definitely wasn't one. "Jake?"

  "What if he did get it right, Mabs? What if Noah told you exactly what had happened, and he was right about all of it?"

  "Jake..." A knot of discomfort tied itself in Mabs's stomach. "Jake, did something actually awful happen? What happened? You're scaring me."

  "Nothing awful happened." His voice was very soft as he walked to the other end of the kitchen, putting the whole length of the room between them. "Noah explained it all already. It's just that what he explained is impossible to believe, unless you see it."

  "Jake, I don't understand, what are you talking abo—"

  Jake Rowly, at the far end of the kitchen, faced her, spread his hands in a shrug, and turned into a wolf.

  * * *

  Mabs shrieked in the back of her throat, hands clamped over her mouth so the only sound that emerged was a kind of strangled gurgle. Her knees cut out and she sat hard into a kitchen chair. Jake lay down flat on his belly, head extended between his paws and the very tip of his tail wagging.

  Exactly like Wolf when the puppy was afraid he might be in trouble.

  A slightly hysterical giggle escaped from behind Mabs's hands in the same way the shriek had. Jake's ears perked and his eyes—big blue eyes, although Mabs didn't think wolves came by blue eyes naturally—but then, why would a shapeshifting man-wolf come by anything naturally? Anyway, his eyes widened hopefully, and Mabs blurted another giggle.

  Jake's tail started wagging harder and he crept forward a few inches, belly still flat on the floor. Mabs giggled again and he squirmed forward faster, getting his feet under him enough to scooch across the floor with his belly about two inches off it. She sat there, still giggling, until he crawled all the way down the kitchen to her and put his chin on her foot, eyes rolled hopefully up to see her expression.

  Mabs, being not made of stone, bent and rubbed his ears. Jake pushed his head into her hand, whining. She slid out of the chair, and he sat up into a furry hug and licked her ear. Mabs whispered, "Jake?" and he shifted in her arms, catching her when the change in his shape unbalanced her.

  He whispered, "Sorry," but all she could think of was his strength, the ease with which he'd caught her, and the warmth of his arms around her. He was
so close. Mabs hadn't been close enough to kiss someone in longer than she liked to think, and she'd nearly lifted her mouth to his before she remembered Jake Rowly was in Virtue to avoid relationships, not find one.

  She pulled back, heart hammering, and pushed her hands through her hair, wetting her lips before croaking, "Um...how... Where...do your clothes go..."

  Did she imagine it, or was there a flash of disappointment in his blue eyes as she pulled away? She probably imagined it, from the ease with which he rolled back a little, and chuckled. "Noah asked that too. They shift with me, like they're my fur." A grin danced across his face. "And no, that doesn't mean if I shift while naked, I'm a furless wolf."

  "I wasn't going to ask!" protested Mabs, who had totally been going to ask. Then she put her hands over her mouth and edged a little farther back, trying to see all of Jake at once, as if she'd be able to see the wolf, too, if she looked hard enough. "Jake...how..."

  "Runs in the family," he said softly, as if afraid he would chase her away. "Back in the day there were a lot of shifters in Virtue, Mom says. People running from persecution in the old world, I guess. I didn't know any others growing up, though, so I guess it's run its course, maybe."

  Mabs kind of heard all of that, and sort of got that it didn't mean what popped into her mind next, but she still squeaked, "Are you a werewolf ?"

  Jake's gorgeous grin flashed again. "Nah. Werewolves—well, okay, first, I've never met one, so I don't know for sure, but if the stories about them are at all real, then they're tied to the phases of the moon and I'm not. I'm a shapeshifter, so I can just change whenever I want."

  Mabs flapped both hands in expectation and Jake shifted, his grin still fixed firmly in place on a wolfy face. He had very large teeth.

  And Mabs bet they'd scared the ever-loving shit out of Brent. She suddenly found a huge grin on her own face. "Okay. Okay, I get it. Not a werewolf. So you don't, uh, bite people and change them?"

  Jake, shifting back, said, "Well, I've never tried, but no, it's genetic, not contagious. And if I'm laying it all on the line..." His expression went serious and Mabs's heart nearly stopped with hope. Maybe he'd only said there was nobody to have a relationship with in Virtue because he hadn't really known her then. Maybe he wanted as much to stay as she wanted him to. Maybe—?

  "I guess I could be a werewolf," Jake said solemnly. "Stories about shapeshifters do tend to get...embellished in the re-telling." His eyes sparkled, and Mabs heard herself give a weak little laugh in response.

  "Sure," she said faintly. "Right. Of course they do. Because..." She couldn't think of anything else to say, and just sat there looking at him for what felt like forever.

  He looked like the same guy he'd been all along. Tall, ruggedly handsome, kind-hearted. Reliable. Competent. Insanely, insanely attractive. Maybe a hint of shyness or hope in his blue eyes, now. Or wariness, maybe, as if he wasn't sure whether she'd throw him out. "It must be hard," she whispered.

  Surprise drew his eyebrows down, and she spread her hands a little. "I mean, you must not tell very many people, right? It must be hard to have to go around your whole life keeping such a big part of yourself from the people aro...oh." Her voice softened as sympathy struck her. "Is that what happened with the one who got away? She couldn't handle it?"

  "I never told her." The words came in a rush and Jake looked away, making a face of embarrassment. "The time never seemed right."

  And that, Mabs thought, had been with The One, or at least, with the person he'd thought had been the one. She couldn't imagine that he'd have ever told her, unless he'd been forced to, in a situation like this. Heart aching, she reached out and took one of his hands. "Thank you. Thank you for risking your secret to keep Noah safe, Jake. I won't tell anyone."

  "No, I guess I didn't think you would." His eyebrows stayed drawn, more confusion than surprise now. "You're not freaked out?"

  "I mean, I'm a little freaked out." Mabs laughed, put her face in her hands, then lifted her gaze again to meet Jake's. "You were here to protect my kid, Jake. I know you would have done the same thing whether you were a—" she nearly spluttered the words—"a shapeshifter or not, but...you didn't have to let anybody, much less me and Noah, know that. You could have just been yourself, your...human self...and done the same thing, but you thought this was the better way, didn't you?"

  At his nod, she spread her hands again. "I guess I'd be kind of a jerk to completely flip out over you deciding that revealing what's got to be the biggest secret in your life is the best way to keep my son safe. I am absolutely dying to know everything in the whole world about shapeshifters now, because oh my God, who knew there were shapeshifters?! But...I guess if I'm freaked out it's because oh my God, who knew there were shapeshifters? It's not because you're one."

  Tension she hadn't even known was in him drained out of Jake until she thought he might lie back down on the floor like his wolf self had done. Mabs reached out to pat his shoulder just as he looked up, and somehow ended up sliding her fingers right along his temple into his short greying hair.

  Jake's breath caught and he lifted his hand, capturing hers against his head. His fingers curled at her wrist, warm and strong, and his breath trickled over the soft skin there, like the promise of a kiss. His gaze held that promise, too, or at least a question of it, and Mabs was wetting her lips, ready to answer, when Noah wailed, "Mommy?" from upstairs. "Mommy, I had a bad dream!"

  Mabs closed her eyes in a whole-body grimace, and, with sweet, gentle thoughts of murder on her mind, went to check on her kid.

  FIFTEEN

  Jake sat back with a thump when Mabs left him, nearly clobbering his head on the underside of the kitchen table. Nobody who ever wanted to have sex again, he thought, should have kids.

  Not that he expected telling a beautiful woman that he was a shapeshifter should definitely lead to sex, but it had looked promising there for a moment. The idea of gathering Mabs in his arms, of kissing her and murmuring her name into that gorgeous purple hair, of picking her up, carrying her to bed, of simply being with her, was...really appealing.

  Of course it is, his wolf said impatiently. She's your mate and you've been avoiding her for moons and moons!

  I haven't been avoiding her! I've been hanging out with her all along! And she has a kid! And an ex! You don't just swoop in and say 'Hi, I'm your fated mate' to a woman in that position!

  The wolf sniffed. Scaredy-cat.

  Jake sent back an image of a teenage afternoon when he'd been sneaking around the woods in wolf form and somebody's housecat had taken umbrage at his presence on its territory. The cat, which couldn't have weighed more than twelve pounds, fluffed up, bounced across the thin forest floor at him, hissing, snarling and batting at him the whole way. Jake's feet had gotten so tangled up trying to run away that he'd fallen down a hill and into the same stream that ran by Mabs's place.

  Wet, like clothes, remained, when a shifter changed shapes.

  That was different, his wolf said with affronted dignity.

  "Mmm," Jake said aloud. "Cats aren't scaredy, and neither am I."

  Mabs came down the stairs again as he spoke, looking much more worn-out than she had when she'd gone up. "Are you down here talking to yourself?" Her voice, soft so as to not wake Noah again, was also gently teasing, as was her smile.

  "Not exactly." Jake finally got off the floor, stretching idly. "My wolf is...it's like an inner voice, only more of a smartass. At least, I hope other people's inner voices aren't that snarky."

  Mabs leaned in the kitchen door, smiling. "What was—he? It? They?—snarking about?"

  "He thought I should have told you a while ago and was smug that you took it well."

  Her eyebrows rose. "Well, to be fair to, uh, human-you, I don't know if I would have six weeks ago. Tell him to be nice to you or I won't scratch the top of his head again."

  Hey!

  Jake laughed. "He objects. I don't know if it'll make him stop giving me a hard time, but it was a good t
hreat."

  Mabs wriggled her shoulders, a visible sign of satisfaction that also wriggled the rest of her in an incredibly distracting, attractive way. She'd taken off her bra while upstairs, leaving her breasts free to jiggle under the snug fit of her t-shirt, and that jiggle went all the way down, shaking her little soft belly, her hips, her...Jake got kind of caught around her hips, really, forgetting to draw his gaze any farther down, or any farther up again, for that matter.

  "I was wondering," she said, apparently not noticing he'd fixated on her hips, "I was wo—well—it's—no—never mind."

  That was enough to bring his attention back from the study of her hips, although he quite intensely wanted to resume that as soon as possible. "Never mind what?"

  She opened a hand and closed it again, then repeated that, lifting it like she might conduct her speech before losing her nerve again. "Um. No, it's...no. I don't think...so."

  "Mabs." Curious, amused, a little worried, Jake crossed to her, trying to get close enough to share secrets without looming. It was hard not to loom; she was eight inches shorter than Jake. He had to fight the urge to turn into a wolf, which at least wouldn't loom, but which was a great deal harder to hold a conversation with. Instead he put his hands out, palms up, from a few feet away, inviting whatever she had to say. "What is it?"

  "It's just that—I don't know how he found us. My parents and friends sure wouldn't have told him where I'd gone. I guess somebody at work could have, but I really just said I was moving upstate, not even where to. Honestly, I can't even imagine him bothering." Mabs went around Jake, all the way into the kitchen, and got a drink of water, giving the faucets a suspicious, cautious look as she did. They both did that, partly out of not trusting the faucet but mostly to make the other one laugh. Now, even with her dancing around whatever she wanted to say, it still made Jake smile.

  The smile seemed to reassure her. She went to sit at the table, putting her water glass down and spinning it in its own ring of condensation. "I wasn't exactly running away from him, you know? But I wasn't not, either. Wasn't-not, like...I'm not on social media and changed my phone number and provider when I got up here, not. And my email address."