by Rider, C. P.
You are needed. It is time for you to be unmade and remade, time for you to join us.
I took a steadying breath, which unfroze my blood and helped me think. I willed my heart to stop racing. "No."
You will walk out the back door and down the sidewalk until it ends. From there, you will be taken to where you belong.
"Hard pass. Is Dan your guard dog?"
The coyote growled again, snapped, circled around me to the right. If I hadn't already known it was him, the rage in his eyes would have told me.
You are a brave woman.
Scared and sarcastic, more like. "Yep, I'm a regular Joan of Arc over here. Where are you hiding, wolf? Show yourself."
I have so much more to show you. You don't even know what you really are.
From behind me came another growl, this one decidedly wolfish. With one eye on the circling coyote, I backed and turned to bring the new animal into my line of sight.
"Carter?"
The massive gray wolf flashed his teeth at me, his ticking growl low and menacing.
He doesn't see you. We can control every shifter in this town, young and old. Do you understand? Do you see the power we wield?
A white wolf emerged from behind the feral cat structure. It was the same wolf that had flown out of the pot in the Dusty Cactus's kitchen. The same wolf who had been there when I had nearly spiked Chandra.
"This one isn't from Sundance." I tried to draw energy from the white wolf, but as with the dire wolf, she felt wrong, tainted somehow. "She's with you. How many Legion people have you brought to my town?"
We are many.
A lion roar boomed from across the street. The only lion I knew in Sundance was King Jones, and he was a very large, extremely alpha lion shifter. The slavering coyote and the circling wolf had frightened me, but the lion incited a new level of fear.
"What are you doing to my friends? What are you showing them?"
That you are their enemy.
Where Dan and Carter circled me, the white wolf headed straight for me. Slowly, each stomp of her paw provoking an anticipatory sort of terror. I backed toward the kitchen door, but even if I got it open before the wolves and coyote reached me, they could easily break it down. There was no place safe for me to hide. I had no choice but to fight.
I drew energy, from the shifters circling me, and from the shifters in the businesses around the panaderia. There weren't many out this early, but then I didn't require much. My reach had grown with all the practice I was getting spiking the alphas who kept trying to abduct me, and I found myself needing less and less power to fuel my spikes.
The lion roared and my pulse quickened.
I thought about calling for Lucas, but if the dire wolf took control of him, everyone in town would die. No, I couldn't call him. I needed to handle this on my own.
Because the wolf seemed to know most of my tricks, I decided to try something different this time. Instead of spiking the white wolf, which I was sure was a diversion meant to draw my focus from the real danger, I grabbed hold of Dan's brain and synced our energies. I didn't even try to match his, I simply bent his will to mine.
Dan whined and howled as he tried to wriggle free of my control. I held tight.
Stop this. You're only prolonging the inevitable.
Got him.
The dire wolf's eyes stared out at me from Dan's face. Within their glowing depths, I detected anger, fear, and desperation. One of my eyebrows shot up, one corner of my mouth lifted. I had the wolf right where I wanted him.
I powered into his head, holding back from blowing out the light behind his life-force, but only narrowly. Everything inside me wanted to spike him dead, whoever "him" even was, but when I moved to do so, Chandra's frightened face popped into my vision.
How close are you to spiking me right now?
I didn't like Dan, but I didn't want to kill him. So, I simply turned his lights out for a while.
Dan's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he tipped over like a frozen cadaver, dropping like a stone in the gravel. Carter froze, his wolf's eyes fixed on the coyote. The white wolf leapt over the unconscious coyote, barreling straight at me.
The lion bounded into the parking lot.
Head held high and exuding power, the enormous golden-faced, black-maned lion ran past Dan and leapt in front of me, upper lip curled to reveal sharp incisors and a partial row of dangerous, meat-tearing molars.
Startled, I pulled out of Dan's head and locked onto King's brainwaves. I'd already grabbed onto Carter's and the white wolf's, which had proven easier than I'd anticipated. The white wolf howled, Carter growled, King roared, and I prepared to spike them all.
"Neely, no!" Amir's voice came to me from afar, and I realized that he was in the air, speeding toward the earth in hybrid form—something I hadn't known he could do. "Don't move and don't spike."
He stopped talking then, and I assumed he'd shift back to eagle form to land, which is precisely what he did ten seconds later. He landed on the back of the white wolf and lifted her into the air. She shifted into a pale white human and slipped from his talons, dropping at least forty feet to the ground to land in a patch of nearly dead Russian thistle.
If I'd hoped for her to die from the fall, I'd have been disappointed, as she bounded out of the thorny bush in wolf form and sped away from the bakery to where I assume her cohorts were waiting.
That shifter was not normal. But then, what about Legion was?
Amir landed behind Carter and King, who were still staring at me, or whatever form I took in their eyes, and growling. Dan crawled to his feet and stared hatefully at me. His regular version of Neely hate, not the dire wolf-enhanced one. Amir cawed, and all three shifters turned their attention to him. A low-level hum weaved through the air in the parking lot, not something I could hear so much as feel as it vibrated beneath the surface of my skin. The shifters were communicating.
Fine desert dust clouded the horizon to my right, kicked up by something large and angry. A roar rent the air. Not that of a lion, but another fierce predator, the Bengal tiger, the animal Lucas chose to assume when not in prehistoric form.
He raced into the parking lot, sending gravel skittering everywhere as he slid to a stop at my feet. In one swift move, he shoved King aside and spun to face his shifters. He growled, chuffed and roared at each animal—except for Amir—saving the biggest roar for Dan's coyote.
Other than Dan, whom I wasn't entirely sure about, King was the first shifter to shake off the illusion. He shifted to his hybrid form, which was a thickly built, muscular male with skin the blue-black shade of his lion's mane. He was closely followed by Carter, who, though tall and muscular, simply wasn't in the same weight class as King. Carter kept a thin layer of fur over most of his body, but the skin that was visible was work-tanned white. He was younger than King, probably by about twenty years, and didn't quite have the same presence.
"I offer my apologies, Neely," King said in a low, throaty voice that carried the intonations of his lion.
"I also apologize." Carter blinked rapidly and shook his head. "I didn't see you there. You were … that is to say, I saw you, but you looked like …"
"A demon," King supplied. "A demon formed of fire and bees."
"Is that what you saw, too?" I asked Amir.
He nodded as he slipped into his hybrid form. Golden brown feathers tufted his chest, his arms, and his legs. "The demon ran into the bakery, and when I followed, the room was filled with bees. Floor to ceiling."
"I touched you and you leapt out of the room," I said.
"I didn't know it was you."
Lucas shifted just far enough to regain the use of his vocal cords. He kept the body of his tiger and most of the facial features, including the sharp teeth. "I find it interesting that the dire wolf chose the four of you to attack her, but not me."
"I'm guessing he chose the strongest shifters he could find nearby. King is an obvious choice due to his animal and proximity. Amir was l
ikely on Neely guard duty—" I looked at Lucas, who said nothing, confirming my suspicion. "—Dan lives close by and hates my guts, and Carter…" I trailed off.
"I was on my way to King's to pick up some milk," he admitted sheepishly. "Imogen's probably wondering where the heck I am."
Everyone noticed the way Dan didn't refute my accusation. No one remarked on it.
"This can't continue," Dan said, once he'd also transformed into his hybrid form. "The dire wolf is attacking Sundance. Someone is going to die. Someone innocent."
King rolled his shoulders back. "No dire wolf is going to chase Neely out of town. We're not weak. We protect our own."
Dan kicked a piece of gravel. "She's not one of us, so—"
"What do you think we should do, Alpha?" Amir asked, as he glared at Dan.
"I'm going to draw the wolf out of Sundance," I answered, without looking at Lucas. My nose was bleeding again, something I’d noticed when I swiped the back of my hand beneath it. "I'd already made up my mind, but this makes it more urgent."
Amir folded his feathered arms over his chest. "How do you plan to do that, Neely?"
Although he hadn't asked the question, I looked Lucas directly in the eye when I answered. "I'm going to Texas. I leave tomorrow."
My pronouncement was met with a wall of silence. Even Dan was smart enough to keep his thoughts to himself.
The Blacke shifters left soon after that, and their alpha accompanied me into the bakery, where I washed the blood off my face over the kitchen sink.
"You may need to take an iron supplement."
I glared at him as I sprayed the sink with disinfectant and wiped it clean. Usually cleaning calmed me. No such luck today.
After I filled him in on what he'd missed, he went uncharacteristically silent. He watched me pace the kitchen from his seat on the stairs to my apartment. He'd shifted all the way to human and was wearing a vintage Smokey and The Bandit T-shirt and a pair of jeans he'd left in my closet a month ago.
"The wolf creature kept saying these unnerving things in my head, stuff like, 'You don't even know what you really are,' in this creepy, ominous tone." I stomped from one end of my kitchen to the other, stopping occasionally to brush a crumb off the worktable or put something away.
"What do you think he meant by that?"
"What every alpha and other weirdo who wants to weaponize me means. I'm oh-so-powerful and I could be oh-so-much more with the right pack, cause, blah blah blah."
"Well, he's not wrong. If you joined a large group, you could be more powerful."
"I'm as powerful as I want to be. More than I want, if I'm being honest."
"You were definitely strong enough on your own to take the wolf down today."
I paced into the café, where there was more room to be angry. "I bested him, but I'm not arrogant enough to think he couldn't kill me if he tried hard enough. I have to go to Texas and put a stop to this."
Lucas followed me, sliding on a plastic glove before opening one of the display cases. He pawed through the polvorones, sniffing each cookie before replacing it. Finally, he found the one he wanted, a bright yellow one the size of my hand.
He ate it in three bites, then began sniffing the others again. "A few years ago, Amir was mentally attacked by a dire wolf."
"Who, Juan?"
"No. Someone even more terrifying. Neely, they're not easy to bring down."
"I'm starting to see that, but I have to try. I can't have him hurting anyone in town."
"Why not?"
Annoyed, I stopped pacing and scowled at him. "What do you mean 'why not?'"
"Dan's an asshole, but he was right about one thing. You aren't a Blacke group shifter. You don’t owe us anything."
I have to admit, it stung. I'd hoped Lucas understood what Sundance meant to me. "I love this town. I don't want to be the reason anyone here is hurt."
"Spoken like a Blacke group shifter." He waggled his eyebrows.
I balked at his not-so-clever attempt to manipulate me. "You know why I can't join the group. There will be problems between us. I don't want there to be problems."
"Interesting." He sniffed another cookie. "Because it would seem that we are ass-deep in problems with you outside the group. How bad could it be for you to be a part of it?"
"Different problems, us problems—Lucas Blacke, are you seriously looking for the cookie that smells the most like me?"
"Maybe," he said, his mouth full. "Or maybe I just like the way they all smell."
"If you buy them, I'll strip naked and rub the damn things over myself before I package them up."
Lucas's eyes flashed gold. He clamped down on the cookie in his mouth, swung the display case door open wide, and pulled out the entire shelf. "Where do I set this?"
"That was a joke, Blacke. All of the pastries here were made by me. The rolls, too. They all have my scent on them."
"Sell them all to me, then."
"Put the tray back, you weirdo." I stepped around him behind the counter and grabbed a water bottle out of the café refrigerator. "Here. Eat slower or you'll choke."
"Okay." He set the tray back on the shelf and took the water from me. "I'm going to Texas with you."
"No, you are not. You have to stay here and defend your shifters against more of these dire wolf attacks."
"Isn't that why you're going to Texas? To lead the wolf away from Sundance?"
"Yes, but we don't know how long it will take for him to follow—wait, why am I explaining this to you? You're one of the smartest people I know. You're fully aware of the reason you need to stay behind."
"Fine, I know. I'm just worried about you." He reached for me, and I went into his arms. "Not because I don't think you can take care of yourself, so don't get all huffy."
"Because I can, you know."
"I said not to huff. And, duh. What you did out there this morning—holy shit. That kind of fight would challenge a prehistoric. Dire wolves don't fight fair—even Johnny will admit that. When cornered, they're survivors who will use any weapon at their disposal to prevail. And their arsenal is vast." He squeezed me a little tighter. "Much like yours."
"Mine's bigger." I tipped my head up and winked, but Lucas didn't smile as I'd expected him to.
"You cannot hesitate. If you corner Guillermo, you'll have to kill him. It's the only way to survive."
"But if he's Alpha Juan's little brother…"
"I know. It's a terrible choice to have to make, but necessary. You can do this if you need to. You're strong and powerful and smart."
"Thanks for saying that." I might be all of those things, but I knew what I'd need to kill Guillermo: that apathy I both feared and reached for when having to make choices like this.
"Sometimes apathy can work in your favor. Don't hesitate to use it while you're in Texas. Don't let anyone tell you to set it aside."
"Stop reading my thoughts." I played with the neck of his T-shirt, ran my fingers over his collarbones and up the sides of his throat. Felt the quickening of his pulse against my thumb.
"I wasn't reading your thoughts, I was reading your expression, which is fair game." Lucas kissed the top of my head, twirled a lock of my hair around his finger.
"Sounds like you've accepted my decision to go to Texas. You fought me pretty hard on this before," I peered up at him from within his arms. "What sneaky plan do you have up your sleeve? Are you following me to Austin?"
He placed a hand over his heart. "I solemnly swear I have no plans to follow you to Texas, although I reserve the right to change my mind if the situation changes."
"Then what is it?" My eyes narrowed. "You've got that mischievous gleam in your eyes. The one you get before you do something you know I won't like."
"Nothing." A smirk curled his lips. "I said I wasn't going to Texas with you, and I meant it. I didn't, however, say I was going to let you go alone."
Chapter Twelve
After a blessedly uneventful afternoon and night, we headed for La Palo
ma Airport at four a.m. Monday morning.
Lucas and I picked up coffee from King's mini mart and ate pastries from the bakery for breakfast. I'd baked all afternoon to fulfill the orders I'd already been paid for, then cleaned half the night because I couldn't sleep. Yesterday I'd called Diego and asked if he'd be interested in taking over the baking duties, fulfilling my once-a-week deliveries in La Paloma and my growing business in Sundance. Bless him, he said yes. Ana Cortez and Tellis Malone agreed to help, and Ana said she'd make a sign to hang in the café explaining that we were closed until further notice.
"Can I have another mantecada?" Lucas asked.
"No. You already ate three. I'm saving the rest for the trip. Are you sure I can bring food on the plane?"
"If I say no, will I get another mantecada?"
"No, you will not. What you'll get is a look of disappointment."
"Fine. Yes. You can bring your pastries aboard." He grumbled under his breath. "Private jet. What a show-off."
"You've been grouching about this since we talked to Alpha Juan last night. He's sending a private jet to take us to Texas, not sending over a space shuttle to fly us to the Moon."
"Have to admit, I do feel better about you being seven or eight miles in the air and out of Gil's reach. If he'd followed you on the road, no telling what might have happened."
"Don't think the thought hadn't crossed my mind." And I still wasn't sure how safe I was in the air. Alpha Juan had assured me I would be out of range of the average dire wolf, but Guillermo Martinez wasn't behaving in an average way.
Lucas stared at the road with narrowed eyes. "You know, if I wanted to, I could buy a private jet."
"Settle down, Mr. Celoso. Juan said his plane was the property of the family business and he was borrowing it. I'm only using it because Juan is taking special precautions. As a dire wolf himself, who better to protect me from one?"
"Me," he grumped. "And I'm not jealous."
Right. "Isn't it enough that you forced Amir to come to Texas with me?"
I'd gotten the whole story out of him last night. Apparently this was something he and Amir had cooked up after the dire wolf approached me on New Year's. A contingency plan, they called it.
