by C. D. Gorri
Rick had lied to her all along. He’d led her to believe he was interested in her romantically, but now she wasn’t even certain that his name was Rick. She was worried that he would come looking for her, and so she kept on moving. She’d driven from one side of the country to the other and was currently halfway up the coast. Jennifer figured that if she made it to her grandmother’s house, it would be a fresh start for her. She could then make some phone calls to the authorities and notify them of the deceptions Rick or whoever he was, had planned.
Chapter Two
Declan Chase ran his fingers through his hair before tying it up at the base of his skull. He’d followed all the leads his males had provided, and now it was just a waiting game. He sipped his coffee and found that it was just hot enough to burn the tip of his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Lucky for him, being a wolf shifter meant that it would be healed as good as new within three to five minutes. Still didn’t mean he wanted to repeat the process with every sip, so he sat the cup down.
His phone pinged to say he had a new message, and he didn’t need to read it to know that his bounty had just walked into the café. Bronco walked in as though he owned the place and looked around for his ex-girlfriend Ruth Holiday. As the felon walked past Declan’s booth, he slid it out, creating a convenient trip hazard. The big guy was so busy looking for his meal ticket that he didn’t see the shit kicker. He went down hard. Declan landed on his back even harder. It was as if Bronco was true to his name as he started kicking and cursing at Declan.
“Dude just stay down if you know what’s good for you,” Declan suggested knowing that his shifter strength was no match for the idiot trying to get free of his hold. He quickly disarmed the oversized fool and put him in cuffs. Declan assisted the guy to his feet only to have the moron try to run. A well-placed kick to his ass sent him straight to the floor in a face plant that had to hurt. Declan had no time for men who took out their frustrations on the fairer sex. If you want to use up that sort of energy, then you go a few rounds in the ring with someone who is trained and can fight back. The female that Bronco was there for came out to the front counter. Her hand fluttered near her throat as though she felt Bronco’s hand there, and Declan knew that if he hadn’t been there to pick Bronco up, it was most likely he would have been reading about the young female’s death in the newspaper tomorrow morning. That is what made his job worth it. The money wasn’t bad either, but getting the likes of Bronco off the streets and into a jail cell where he belonged was the ultimate reward to Declan.
He had a team that was made up of the males of his pack. He dealt with both human and shifter laws in the same fashion. The law was the law as far as he was concerned, and those who didn’t abide by it needed to be locked up. To Declan Chase, it was that simple. He walked Bronco out of the café and into the waiting Escalade.
“Let’s get rid of this drain on society?” Declan prompted his second, “I want to get an early night.”
“Yeah I know what you mean,” Maddox replied, starting the engine and putting the vehicle into reverse, before pulling out of the parking space in front of the café. His wolf was wanting out, “Looks like it was an easy catch, let’s hope the release is just as easy.”
“I doubt the judge will let this one out any time soon,” Declan thumbed over his shoulder towards the apprehended felon sitting in the back seat.
On the way to drop of their felon, Declan’s phone buzzed with a new bounty. He gave the info a quick once over to see if the job was worth them taking a look at it. It wasn’t the type they normally took on, but he would have a better look at it after having time to shower and eat. He hoped there was even enough time for him to shift and go for a run. His wolf was antsy with the coming of the full moon. They were only two days away from the peak of the moon’s cycle, and the pull was incredibly tough to fight. So, tonight he and his pack would run.
Declan arrived home a little after eight only to notice lights on at the place next door. He’d lived on Seymour Avenue for the best part of five years, and since the older woman had gone eighteen months ago, the place had been empty. He didn’t remember seeing a ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard.
Well shit, looks like he had a new neighbor. Although the car must have been parked in the garage as there wasn’t one parked in the driveway. He wondered if it was one person or a family? His wolf quickly provided the answer to that question with a whine. ‘We are not looking for a girlfriend,’ the wolf chuffed in response as if it were unfair of Declan to speak for the both of them. It was pure animal instinct to find a mate, and it was unrealistic to think he could avoid it forever. His pack would want him to take a mate to continue the linage. It seemed in recent years as if there were fewer of the younger generations talking about settling down and having young ones of their own. As pack leader, he supposed he should consider leading by example, but he just hadn’t met a female that captured the eye of both his wolf and him.
*.*.*.*
Jennifer scrubbed the laundry washtub in an attempt to remove the stains from the hair dye. She’d gone from blonde to brunette in thirty-five minutes, which she seemed to be rocking even though it was still damp. Jennifer felt bad for tarnishing her grandmother’s place, but she had to remember it belonged to her now. She felt even worse for not visiting before her grandmother had passed away, but then she thought she still had years left to do that. Who knew that a virus would strike her down without a cure. Her hair dried into the same Hollywood-looking curls that her grandmother had worn, and she felt melancholy about not visiting more frequently. It had been unbelievably hard once her father died and her mother moved them to the other side of the country for work. Jennifer had always carried a sketchpad with her and a charcoal pencil. She packed away the meager groceries she’d bought from the store on the way to Seymour Avenue. Jen removed the protective covers on the couches and rolled them up before placing them in the corner of the room. She made a mental note to wash and treat them with that smelly stuff to stop them from getting moths and silverfish. She wrinkled her nose from the remembered smell of nepheline flakes. She spent the next couple of hours settling into her new home. She packed away her grandmother’s closet into bags and loaded them into the car. She would donate them to goodwill tomorrow. She finally made a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table to unwind. She opened the page of her sketchbook to the piece she’d been working on and smiled. The eyes that looked back at her looked so familiar, yet she had never seen one in real life. The wolf in the image was sad about something, and Jenn felt that it was because she didn’t have a pack. Sometimes she did pictures of a single wolf; other times, it was a pack. After about an hour or so. Jennifer yawned, glancing at her watch.
It was only early, but she’d had a monumental few days. Between the long drive and the unpacking of her things, she was exhausted. As she folded down the covers on the bed, she could have sworn she heard a wolf howl. She waited several minutes, but it didn’t happen again, so she thought maybe she had imagined it.
Chapter Three
Jennifer opened her eyes to find that it was the next morning, and she'd slept soundly throughout the night. It was the first time in weeks that she had, and she felt somehow revived and refreshed. She went about washing the dust covers and hanging them on the line. As she turned, she glanced at the house next door to find an occupant watching her. "Well that's not creepy at all, Norman Bates," she said to herself, dropping an extra peg back into the basket. The wind picked up, and the sheets made a slapping sound drawing her attention to what she was doing. She picked up the empty basket and rested it on her hip before turning back towards the house. It was rather unsettling that the male standing at the window didn't move. He just continued to watch her with a sly look on his face as though he were summing her up at a glance.
*.*.*.*
Declan stood at the kitchen sink, with the last mouthful of coffee in his cup. He downed it quickly but then paused as he caught sight of a movement in the next-door neighbor's b
ackyard. Large sheets were flapping around in the breeze, and a beautiful brunette with the hips of a well-bred female stood beside them with a look of satisfaction on her face. The wind picked up, and his wolf caught her scent on the draft coming through the open window. His wolf growled, 'Mine!'
'No she isn't,' Declan told his wolf, but he knew that he would not be that easily appeased. He rinsed his cup and left it to stand in the dish drainer without taking his eyes off the female. Regardless of what he thought, Declan wasn’t happy with the way his body reacted to her scent. Even when the single females in the pack were in heat, he was able to control himself. It was most likely thanks to his wolf not being attracted to any of the females in his pack, but then he wasn't interested in any of them in their human forms either. The female standing under the morning sun turned and looked straight at him, and he refused to turn away from her gaze. He had no idea how well she could see him as he was standing inside, and the kitchen was slightly shadowed. Something sparked inside him, and he narrowed his eyes on her as if she knew how she affected him. It wasn't possible. Declan was a wolf, and she smelled human. That in and of itself should have been enough to tell his wolf that they could be friends, but that was as familiar as they would ever get with the new neighbor. Again, his wolf chuffed at him from the back of his mind as though the human side of him didn't know his head from his ass, which was rich coming from an animal that chased its own tail out of boredom. Declan blinked after having a mental argument with his wolf to discover the female was long gone. He would deal with her later. For now, he had a job to do, an overnight bounty had been posted for one of the coyotes from the other side of the Wild Springs Reserve, and he knew the wildlife sanctuary like the back of his hand. He'd called it in this morning to the rest of the team, and those available to assist were currently preparing to get their hands dirty. Some of the others had their own bounties to hunt down.
Three hours later, he had found the coyote shifter's prints in the soft mud along the edge of the freshwater riverbank that ran through the protected forest. Only, this wasn't a coyote. It was a coywolf or whatever they were calling it this month. Hybrid was probably the most accurate under the circumstances. This fact was generally the only thing that changed the outcome of the bounty. It all came down to the parentage of the kid and whether they were a member of Declan's pack or formerly a member of the Wild Springs pack. On the rare occasion, they were cousins to one of his pack, and because they'd lost their family elsewhere, they would find their way to Declan's patch of the country to ask for sanctuary. None of those things had happened with young Colin Feral, but that didn't mean that hadn't been the young man's intentions. Being unfamiliar with the lay of the land meant he might have found the Coyotes by mistake. The youngster had to be lost inside the reserve boundary, yet there were no signs of a fire. He picked the paw prints to be that of a seventeen-year-old's, bigger than a coyote but smaller than a wolf's. The coyotes might have perceived him as a threat, whereas the wolves would still see him as a youngling who needed to be protected. The human laws would see him as a juvenile delinquent who needed to be placed into the system where he would be out of the way and forgotten.
Declan had read through the younglings file and knew that he'd been arrested for hacking into the D.O.T. database in search of something the young criminal Colin Feral wouldn't admit to. He'd taken off after an anonymous citizen had posted his bail through a bondsman on Smith Street. The 'Bonds, Bonds and Bail Bonds' owner was a member of Declan's pack. The pack was a diverse group of men and women who had effectively integrated with the human population.
Declan's parents had retired after being the leaders of the pack for more than two hundred years. He'd seen them last, on the day that they had passed the leadership over to him. He hadn't been ready but, his parents had argued that a pup was never ready to fill the shoes of their father.
Devlin had been a fierce leader and an unrivaled wolf. Declan had his father to thank for everything he was and all that he knew. He was the strongest wolf. The best male fighter, whether in skin form or fur. All of the pack respected his decisions, and they would understand his choice about the young coywolf. Declan was about to bring him in out of the cold, into the Wild Springs Pack, whether the kid wanted to be or not, because Declan wouldn't accept any other outcome. He refused to lose a youngling to the system.
He contacted Drew, who had contracted his services for the bounty, and told him there would be no collection today. Declan instructed Drew to reach out to the courthouse and advise that the youngling had taken sick and could not attend court. He requested an adjournment through Sue-Ellen, the pack's solicitor who was at court for some dumb human who'd been charged with stealing women's underwear off of clotheslines. The fool was a known offender who had no option other than to plead guilty as this was the third time he'd been caught running around his living room with a pair of Leanne the librarian's sparkly G-strings on his head. Sue-Ellen was successful at requesting an adjournment, and she sent a brief text to Declan to tell him he owed her.
He dreaded that thought. For a male to owe one of the females meant that Sue-Ellen could ask for him to service her when she next went into heat. The only way for him to avoid that was if he had a mate. Mated males were not available to bed anyone except their soul mates. Even after one of them passed away, the bond was seen as something that transcended death. Without a mate, Declan was pretty much fucked with a capital F.
Chapter Four
Declan followed the prints to a cave-dwelling hidden amongst the boulders. He moved with the gracefulness of his wolf even though he was in his skin. In the back of the cavern was the outline of Colin Feral. He’d curled up and fallen asleep. To Declan, he appeared to be pre-pubescent, which meant he hadn’t matured enough to control his shift. It was obvious from the paw prints in the soft mud that he could shift. Colin appeared to be one of the ones who could shift, but not all coywolves possessed the ability to wear their fur.
Colin jerked awake and snarled at Declan. He pushed himself up off the dirt floor of the cave. “Easy kid,” Declan soothed the youngling. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help.”
“What if I don’t want anything from you?” Colin growled, making Declan’s hackle raise at the back of his wolf’s neck. He was ready to shift if he had to, but he didn’t believe the kid was stupid enough to take on an alpha.
“Well I guess that means we are at an impasse,” Declan sighed. “You see my pack owns the bounty on your head and there’s only two options. The first being that I cuff you and take you in. They will lock you up and call it a day.”
“Yeah and what’s the other option?” It was obvious that Colin had authoritarian issues.
“The second choice is that you and I go for something to eat while we have a chat to see how I can help you. So what’s it gonna be kid?”
“I could eat, but the name is Feral if you expect me to answer any questions.”
“I can work with that. You can call me Declan,” he announced before smoothly exiting the cave, not wanting to make any sudden moves. The youngling followed two steps behind for most of the way. Declan led them back towards where he had parked his truck. By the time they reached he’d parked, Colin was walking beside Declan, and Declan had to reframe from getting caught with a smirk of satisfaction on his face. Inside his mind, though, he was doing a fist pump. He pulled the keys from his pocket and pressed the button to unlock the doors. Colin paused as if having second thoughts, but it was only a fleeting gesture as his hand reached for the door handle, and he opened it before climbing in. “So are you going to lecture me on how I shouldn’t break the law to find my family when nobody wants to help me?” he asked Declan expecting a journey to wherever they were going to be consumed with blah blah, blah. Colin figured he’d just stare out the window and let the guy run out of hot air. Only, after several minutes Declan hadn’t said a word. He just sat with his hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead. He hadn’t even started the en
gine.
“Are you saying that you have family in the area?”
“Yes,” Colin replied. “My grandmother lives somewhere around here.”
“Do you have any details that could help us find her?”
“I have an old photograph and I know her first name was Lillibet,” The youngling expressed in a defeated manner.
“What if I told you that we may be able to help you find your family. As the leader of the pack I can offer you sanctuary with us. Would you be willing to abide by our rules and our laws. One of which is that family always comes first and sometimes the air we share is stronger than the blood that runs in our veins.”
“But I’m coyote,” Colin admitted lifting his chin as though he were not afraid of the wolf sitting beside him even though he knew that Declan could deliver a killing blow just on instinct alone.
“Do you know anything about your heritage, your beginnings?” Declan shook his head as he discovered this young man could have so easily slipped through the cracks.
“No, I found a couple of letters amongst my mother’s belonging that were given to me after she died. That was fourteen months ago. Since then I have been doing everything I can to find my grandmother. The only thing is that my grandmother doesn’t possess a digital fingerprint. She doesn’t even have a driver’s license.” Colin stared straight ahead as if trying to find the reason behind Declan’s not starting the truck. “Might be faster if we walk,” he told Declan in a sarcastic tone.
As if someone had clicked their fingers in front of Declan, he started the engine and put it into gear, “Let’s go to Clarissa’s Café. We can get something to eat. When was the last time you ate something decent?”