by Keri Hudson
“First light,” Jonathan said, turning to head back to the house.
That night, Caleb shared dinner in the house with Abigail and the family. Jonathan seemed to be warming up to Caleb, as if any initial suspicions were waning. But it could also be that he was looking forward to springing his trap the next day. His life would hang in the balance.
But Abigail and Daniel seemed infected by their patriarch’s good spirits, smiles and chuckles spreading from one person to the next. Caleb was glad to see it, but it made him wonder why the man’s mood had changed so drastically so quickly.
It hadn’t escaped Abigail’s attention either, and the two stole away for a stroll around the darkened property, arm in arm.
“There’s something going on, Caleb,” Abigail said. “I’m worried.”
“He seems in good spirits.”
“I know… he’s never like that, I don’t get it. And the way he kept talking about the hunt tomorrow, it worries me.”
“Could be the man relishes a good hunt,” Caleb said. But Abigail’s stern glare told him that she wasn’t comforted. “I know what you mean, Abigail, I… I’ve got my doubts about him too. But… you know me. Do you think I’ve really got anything to fear?”
Abigail didn’t seem to need to think about it for too long. “Can you survive a gunshot in your human form?” The question was a good one, and the answer wasn’t going to make either one of them feel any better. She didn’t seem to make the logical leap to the question of whether Jonathan Armstrong himself was the ursine shifter, but it seemed to be percolating beneath the surface. It was likely to Caleb that she didn’t want to consider such a thing; Caleb didn’t either, but it was certainly possible.
Caleb felt he had to ask, “You and he never… um…”
“No, Caleb, no! I told you, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“And I know that’s true.”
“Just because I… you and I, we… I don’t just fall into bed with every man who comes around.”
“I know you don’t, Abigail, and I love you for it.”
“You… you what?”
“I love you for it, and for so much else.”
After a tender moment of seeming disbelief, she asked, “You… love me?”
“Yes,” Caleb said, without a pause, without hesitation. “I know it hasn’t been long, but… we have a chemistry, Abigail, one I can’t resist and one I don’t want to resist. You’re a… a miracle to me, Abigail, that’s about all I can say about it. And I need a miracle; this world… we all need a miracle.”
She fell into his arms, eyes dipping shut as their lips met, his arms wrapping around her to pull her close. Her cheeks glanced against his, foreheads bumping just a bit as he pulled her to him.
But in the corner of his eye, Caleb couldn’t miss the sight of Jonathan Armstrong standing in a corner window on the third floor, the master suite. He seemed grim-faced, another snifter of brandy in his hand as his eyes were fixed on Caleb and Abigail. The man had issues, Caleb didn’t doubt that.
What they were, exactly, he expected to find out soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Caleb went to sleep that night with a troubled mind and a conflicted heart. He’d confessed his love to Abigail, and though she hadn’t put it into those words, he knew she felt the same way about him. It filled him with a rush that kept him awake, unable to resist reliving that last kiss, their night together just a few days before. He wanted her there and then, to feel those soft curves against his hardened manhood rubbing between those silky thighs, dewy with a thin sheen of her sweat.
But there were other things to think about, obstructions to their happy future together which had plagued him from the start. The answers, he felt certain, lay with Jonathan Armstrong and would be revealed on the hunt the next day.
Whatever would happen, Caleb would be ready.
But it was so deeply implanted in his brain that he couldn’t help but dream about it as he slept. Caleb’s vivid dreams were of two types: premonitions of things to come, or windows into what was happening at the time.
And this one would be no different.
Caleb knew the location instantly, the second floor of Armstrong House. It was dark in his dream as it was there at that time, but that didn’t tell Caleb whether it was a vision or a premonition. But he knew the man he was seeing, none other than Jonathan Armstrong himself. Caleb could sense drunkenness and anger and frustrated sexual tension as the man lumbered slowly and quietly down the hall toward a room other than his own.
Abigail’s room.
Caleb watched as his mind’s eye revealed the terrible event, the big man’s fist wrapping around the doorknob and slowly turning it. The tumblers clicked, the door eased open in front of him.
Caleb shook his head, unable to help as he watched Jonathan step into Abigail’s room, closing the door behind him. He walked slowly across the dark room, Abigail sleeping like an angel in her bed as the demon approached.
He loomed over her for a moment, drinking in the sight of her purity and innocence and sweetness, determined to take those things from her, plus a lot more.
Caleb thrashed in his bed, trying to call out to her the way he’d tried with his brother, knowing she’d never hear him. Wake up, Abigail, wake up and scream, scream for your life!
Abigail’s green eyes shot open, suddenly aware that she wasn’t alone. But Jonathan moved fast, clamping his hand down over her mouth and pressing hard. Her hands reached up to pull it away, but she couldn’t match his strength.
He leaned down to her and rasped, “You’re mine, you little minx, you hear me? I’ll kill that son of a bitch before I let him have you!” Abigail screamed into his palm as he tore the bedsheets away and let them fly across the room, her shapely body barely covered by her flimsy nightgown. Her creamy legs exposed, her firm breasts trembling with her fear and his outrage, what was going to happen next could only be stopped by one person.
But Caleb was locked in his troubled sleep, able to do nothing more than watch as Jonathan pinned Abigail down. His hands pushed up her leg, holding it down as she kicked, pushing down her bucking hips and slopping up to her round, firm breast.
“Oh yeah,” he hissed like the reptile that he was, “I was thinking about you all through Europe, you sweet little thing. That… that bitch wife of mine thought she was too good for me? Run out on me? Nobody runs out on an Armstrong!”
His voice had leapt to a clenched scream, blasting in Abigail’s gagged face, her frightened whimper her only answer.
“Now you think you’re going to do the same thing?” Jonathan chuckled as he took a deep breath of her scent, a wicked smile stretching across his face. “No, my little sweet one, no… you’re not going anywhere.”
Caleb sprang up from his sleep, panting and sheeted with sweat. He looked around at his quiet single-bedroom apartment, turning to survey the big house across the yard, visible through the bedroom window. There were no lights, no sounds, but that didn’t mean nothing terrible was happening inside the house. It could have been a premonition, and that would make it something Caleb could deal with on the hunt the next day. If not, it was something he had to deal with immediately.
And he was going to.
Caleb quickly dressed and hustled down the stairs, moving across the dark yard with perfect stealth. The property was eerily quiet, and the back door of the house was foolishly unlocked.
No, Caleb thought, not foolish, arrogant. He doesn’t think anybody would dare challenge him in his place of power. Or… is there more to it? Is he… is he luring me in, provoking an attack he could easily explain to the police? Am I going to walk into a shotgun that cuts me in half?
Doesn’t matter. Have to make sure Abigail’s all right.
Caleb crept up the stairs to the second floor. The house was quiet, but Caleb knew her screams were muffled. The stairs creaked beneath his feet, but he also knew neither Jonathan nor Abigail would hear that. He didn’t want to alert Daniel or Edi
th or Lulu, though he knew they’d wind up alerted once the battle broke out.
Caleb crept down the hall toward Abigail’s room. He turned his ear to her, but nothing alerted him. Must have been a premonition, Caleb told himself. Still, have to be sure. He walked slowly toward the door he’d seen in his dream. He reached for the knob just as Jonathan had in his dream, turning that knob and opening the door.
Abigail sat up in bed with a surprised gasp. “Caleb!”
But another voice behind Caleb said, “Hey!” Caleb turned to see Jonathan standing down the hall with a Smith & Wesson pistol in his hands. “What brings you into the house at this time of night… I wonder?”
Caleb glanced at Abigail, then back at Jonathan. “I… I was afraid she might be in some danger.”
“Some danger,” Jonathan repeated, “from who… from me?” Caleb knew then that there was more to his dream that even just a premonition, but he put the thoughts away for later. “You were going to carry on like this… in my own home?”
“Abigail had nothing to do with me being in this house,” Caleb said, “I want you to know that. We… we’d never do that in the house, with Daniel close by.”
The truth was out, but Caleb was reasonably sure that it wasn’t uppermost in Jonathan’s mind. Either way, he was about to find out.
After a tense moment, Jonathan said, “Well, I… I appreciate that. Then what made you think she was in danger? You take me for a rapist, Caleb?”
Caleb stood, the word hovering around them. It was too close to the truth of his vision, too ready on his tongue; almost as if that was what he wanted Caleb to think. But he’d have to be a shifter to do that, Caleb thought, or a… an oracle or a specter of some kind?
But there was no time to reason it out.
Jonathan finally said, “Go back and get to sleep. We’ve got an early day tomorrow, heading out after that bear.”
Caleb glanced back at Abigail, sitting in her bed so graceful and inviting, brows arched in fear. “Yeah,” Caleb said, turning to nod at Abigail. “G’night, Abigail.” She nodded as he closed the door, uncertain if he’d ever see her again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Caleb and Jonathan crept through the woods around Armstrong House, each armed with a Remington rifle and a Smith & Wesson .356 caliber handgun. Caleb didn’t imagine they’d find a bear, and he certainly didn’t expect to come upon the shifter he knew was responsible for his brother’s death.
He wasn’t convinced that Jonathan Armstrong himself wasn’t that very shifter. But he imagined he’d find out after not too long.
The two crept onward, a starling flying out of a tamarack as if suddenly fearful. The hairs on the back of Caleb’s neck stood on end, but there was no threat that he could detect… other than the one he was walking with.
“So…” Jonathan finally said, “about last night. I… I’m not so old, or so stupid. I remember how things are… with men and women.”
Knowing what he knew from his previous night’s premonition, Caleb answered, “You’re not so old.”
“Right,” Jonathan said as they each surveyed the area, creeping forward up the hill. “Thing is, my son is in the house, as you said. And he shouldn’t be exposed to such things.”
“No, I agree.”
“Yet there you were, in my house, creeping into her bedroom. And you claim you weren’t invited there.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Caleb said.
“Then… it was a matter of routine?”
“No, not at all.” Caleb wasn’t sure how much to say, knowing his dream clues which had led him into the house were off limits for that particular conversation. “I… I was following an impulse that she was in danger, like I told you.”
“In danger… from me.”
After a cold pause, Caleb said, “Yes. You’re a lonely man, clearly, left alone by your wife.”
“My… what? What do you know of my business? Who told you such a thing?”
“Does that really matter? Am I wrong? You went to Europe to bring her back, and clearly you failed. It’s easy enough to imagine you taking that out on Abigail, taking what you can when you can’t get what or who you want.”
Jonathan looked at him aghast. “How dare you?”
“How dare you? You think your family’s money allows you to imprison your wife, track her down like an escaped slave, or rape your staff at will? What did you do to Lulu, I wonder? Poor thing’s frightened out of her mind.”
“I’ve never touched either one!”
“But that doesn’t mean you won’t!” After a heated pause, Caleb went on, “But you won’t touch either one, or anyone who doesn’t want you to; not while I’m here.”
Jonathan grasped his rifle. “Maybe that won’t be as long as you think.”
Caleb cracked a wry smile. “Really, Master Armstrong, you think you have a chance against me?”
Jonathan cracked a little smile of his own. “You might be dealing with more than you can imagine, young man.”
An animal burst out of the bushes just a few yards away, both men jolting and leveling their rifles. A white-tailed deer ran out from between two cedars and down the hill, clearly picking up on the pitched tension between the two men.
Neither fired, but they turned their focus back on each other.
“Just a deer,” Caleb said.
“Yeah,” Jonathan said, “just a deer. But things aren’t always what they appear.”
“No,” Caleb said, “not always.”
They walked on, silent tension following their every step. Jonathan said, “Your brother, he was… more a man than he appeared.” This caught Caleb’s attention, for reasons he didn’t have to consider long. He knew what Jonathan was talking about, what he was inferring, and Caleb knew what that inferred about Jonathan himself. The older man went on, “I think there might be more to you than meets the eye as well.”
Caleb was virtually certain that Jonathan knew he was a shifter, and clearly he’d also known that Carl had been one too. Is that what scared Mrs. Armstrong off? There were still so many questions, and time to find the answers was fast running out.
“What about you, Master Armstrong?”
Jonathan chuckled. “I like to keep things… old-fashioned. Keeps the staff in line.”
“Your staff, they’re all on the square.”
“You trust them, do you?”
“I do,” Caleb said.
“Abigail especially.”
“That’s right.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
“That’s right.” The two men glared at one another before Caleb went on, “I don’t trust your local law either.”
“Who, Hume?” Caleb nodded and Jonathan waved off the idea with a disgusted sneer. “He’s as harmless as he is useless.”
****
The bear’s roar sent a chill up Caleb’s spine, goosebumps rising on the backs of his arms as he turned, Jonathan doing the same. She was massive and black, tan face and white jaws. Black bears had become more aggressive in recent years, but Jonathan knew just what had enraged this particular bear.
The common alphas hated shifters, and Caleb had attracted this one as he had the coywolves. No common bear could best a lupine shifter, but Caleb did not want to reveal himself to Jonathan in that way; not until he knew for sure what was behind Jonathan’s bluster.
Caleb and Jonathan turned their rifles on the bear and fired. Bam, bam! The bear roared out, but turned and ducked back into the trees. It would take more than a few shots to that fatty hide to bring that enraged animal down, and they only had so many rifle shots between them.
The second bear came up on them from behind, another big black that Caleb took for the other’s mate. The bear charged fast, and Caleb barely had time to discharge his rifle once, the bear swatting it out of his hand and making his way straight toward Caleb’s throat.
There was no time for the handgun, no room for formality. He shifted quickly, clothes tearing away as his lupine form repl
aced his human self—almost a thousand pounds of muscle and bone, fang and claw and jaw, a killing machine.
Caleb was flush with lupine strength, glorious in his physical perfection, instincts precisely honed and ready to do their bloody best. The bears both reared back but did not retreat. It intrigued Caleb’s lupine conscience, only tickling his desire for battle. He could take both bears handily, and even looked forward to doing so.
Jonathan ran, dropping his rifle and hiding behind a white cedar. Caleb was surprised Jonathan didn’t shift for battle, and he had reason to reconsider his theory about him. It was always possible that the ursine shifter was drawn to Armstrong House not because of Jonathan’s presence or absence, nor because of the boy.
But… a member of the staff, perhaps? Abigail, could… could she be the shifter who’s upsetting things around here?
There was no time to think any more about it. The two bears were empowered by one another, emboldened, and they closed in on Caleb from both sides.
Caleb attacked, running at one of the bears and biting hard onto his right foreleg. The bear roared and swung his arm, lifting Caleb’s paws off the forest floor before the tearing of the bear’s flesh made supporting his weight impossible. But the bear struck Caleb in the ribs with his sharp claws, jabbing those long, black claws into his side.
It was a bad injury, would have been deadly in his human form. But shifters were quick to heal and even quicker to retaliate, as the bear was about to learn.
Caleb released the bear’s arm and fell to the floor before biting hard into the bear’s hind leg, the meat splitting under his fangs, and he dug in and shook, pulling and yanking to dislodge the meat from the bone.
One good swipe knocked Caleb from the bear’s leg, but he’d already done enough damage there. The animal was nearly hobbled, and finishing it off would be no problem. But it wasn’t going to be necessary.
Caleb turned to the other bear.
The bear swiped at Caleb, a wide miss, but a second swipe was closer, close enough for Caleb to grab hold of that vicious paw, jaws clenching tight. Caleb held tight, the muscles of his neck and face all focused on that killer clamp. Bones cracked under the pressure, a hard tug made the bear cry out. She swatted him with her other paw, tearing at his hide. Caleb backed off to survey the damage. The bear was clearly in agony, too distracted by its own pain to go on with the attack. It turned and hobbled off. Caleb turned to see that the other bear was also in retreat, both beasts whimpering in pain.
