WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  “How am I supposed to do that? There’s one way in and one way out.”

  “I’ll start the fire, you tell the server you can see smoke, then run around the side, and I’ll head in and grab them and get them out without standing in the blood.”

  “Not a bad plan,” he mused. “Do you have a cigarette on you?”

  I glowered at him. “No.”

  He simply cocked a brow. “Don’t bullshit me. This is no time to be in denial about your habit.”

  Though I carried on glowering at him, I reached into my coat and grabbed the packet of poison sticks that had been manhandled over time.

  They were old. Not as old as my habit, but I had them in there just in case. Some days, you needed a crutch, and in our job, those days came often.

  Still, I hated being dependent on human poison, so I went as long as I could before falling on my sword.

  He flicked a glance at the packet, then instructed, “Make sure it’s the cigarette that starts it. Otherwise, the fire department will look for arson, and it needs to appear accidental.”

  “This isn’t my first rodeo,” I muttered, flipping him the bird as he wandered around the side of the stall. Halfway around, when the back of the stand caved in to reveal the contents on sale, he shot me a look and grinned.

  From that grin alone, I knew there was at least one woman manning the stand.

  When his charm came on thick and fast in the next few minutes, I looked around for some paper that would get the fire going nicely.

  If we were in the city, or maybe even a bigger town, I knew there’d be a major problem with our plan. But this was Drake’s Point County. The firemen were volunteers and weren’t exactly experts. On top of that, most of the town’s crimes were handled by the pack, leaving the sheriff and his two deputies to deal with the parking and speeding tickets, as well as domestic issues that were out of the pack’s reach.

  If things came to a head, which I doubted, I knew Eli would smooth things over with the sheriff, who knew about us, as did all the sheriffs who served the county, but I preferred to keep things nice and simple.

  Using the season to my advantage, I grabbed some of the leaves that had been tossed all over town, thanks to the nasty winds that had torn through the county, clumped them together, and tossed them on the bloodstain. When the area was covered with foliage, I grasped some more, checked they weren’t wet from the day before yesterday’s downpour, then lifted the lighter to them and waited, patiently, for them to catch on fire.

  I rolled my eyes when I heard Austin charm the staff tending the stall. There were two of them, two females as luck would have it. I never understood why women always lifted their skirts for Austin. His charm wasn’t charming at all, but it always worked.

  Gently blowing the lit leaves until the flame was stronger, I carefully placed it onto the pile of detritus I’d crafted and watched as the fire slowly began to grow. I fanned the flames until a mushroom cloud of smoke billowed up from the pile.

  Eying it and trying not to cough, I reached for the door to the stand and opened it. As I peered through the gap I made, I saw my brother flirting with the women, and waited until I caught his eye. Nodding slowly, I opened it farther, smiling when the blaze caught the bottom edge of the particle board. With the lit cigarette still in hand, I set it off to the side, just out of reach of the fire, but close enough for it to appear to be the source of the flames.

  As the edges of the door became charred, my brother yelled, “Smoke!” Before the women even knew what the hell was happening, he ran around the corner and I switched places with him.

  Slipping out of my coat, I slammed it against the flames like I was trying to beat the fire out, but my shearling coat caught on fire too.

  My one regret was the women’s fear. Their terror wasn’t my intention, and their screams of fright were real, so I stopped playing the hero and leaped over the fire to help them scramble over the counter to safety before I followed them.

  I caught my brother’s eye, and saw he’d shifted and was running off to the woods. With him gone and the attendants thinking I was my brother, I dragged the women back as the flames tore through the cheap door and caught onto the rest of the painted particleboard that made up the stall.

  Within seconds, someone appeared with a fire extinguisher, but even though the small blaze was quickly destroyed, I knew the combination of the leaves and my coat would scorch the grass, shielding the bloodstain from untrained eyes.

  “Thank you for saving us,” one of the stall workers whispered, staring up at me with big blue eyes. She batted her lashes, making me want to laugh at the flirtatious move, before the other woman cuddled into me.

  “You’re more than welcome,” I replied, but I wasn’t interested in the doe eyes she was shooting my way.

  Austin liked to tumble anything in a skirt, but I didn’t.

  Untangling myself from their clutches, I waited on the town’s one fire engine to appear, saw the sheriff bustling through the crowd that gathered in the aftermath, and disappeared through the throngs of people.

  They recognized me, but most of them were pack, and if they did register who I was, they knew to ignore me.

  Everyone ignored us.

  That was what fear did to people.

  What they didn’t, couldn’t understand, they didn’t trust.

  Austin and I had long since come to terms with that fate when we were younger and excluded from every aspect of pack life for the simple fact that we were twins. Only Eli had ever stood up for us, only he’d ever had our backs.

  It was why we were loyal to him.

  Not the pack, never them. But Eli? He’d hold our loyalty until the day we died, even if that day came sooner rather than later because of the shit he had us doing.

  When I rounded the crowd until I was at the back of the candy stall once more, I watched the one permanent firefighter poke through the mess I’d made with a stick. When he found the tiny butt of a cigarette, I saw him shake his head in irritation.

  Knowing he credited that for the fire, I moved to the shadows, shifted too, then rushed off to find my twin.

  He wasn’t far away, and as a pair, we dashed through the woods to the back of the carnival where the carnies lived in trailers.

  Austin went one way, and I went the other, each of us seeking the unusual apple pie scent we’d discovered earlier.

  It wasn’t much to go on, but over the stench of blood, we didn’t have much else on our side.

  There was a ton of crap everywhere at the back, and I used that to my advantage. The fire hazard of all the boxes would have the council clamping down on the organizers, and to be fair, it was warranted. They didn’t give a damn about public safety—who on Earth used particle board to build stalls? Any health and safety inspector would have a field day when they were assigned to the carnival.

  Then, I registered the likelihood of that ever happening—they’d just move on first. Faster than a squall until they were away from us, in another county, Mother, maybe another state.

  Inadvertently, we’d shortened our timeline.

  A soft yip had my ears pricking up as I rounded one rusty camper after another. The only advantage to the fire was that this place was deserted, and I darted across the clearing, passing more boxes—the kind you saw in attics loaded with stuff from a hundred years ago. Particle board was evidently their wood of choice for their storage boxes, except these were lined with some kind of rusty metal foil for insulation. Even though Austin yipped again, I reared up to peer into the boxes and saw just a huge pile of dirty tools.

  Considering the state of the vehicles in the vicinity, that made sense, as did the engine that was bleeding motor oil onto the grass a few feet away, and was evidently in the process of being stripped down.

  The odor clung to me as I went on the hunt for my brother, but the scent of cinnamon swiftly overrode it when we approached a trailer that was just as rickety as the others but had little red curtains in the window.
/>   Austin shifted and, after a quick look about, I did too. The second I did, I muttered, “Cinnamon.”

  “Not apple pie,” he replied good-naturedly. “What a perfume.”

  “I smelled flowers on her before. Maybe she bakes?” My lips curved as I went to try the door, but it was locked. Thankfully, a bit of muscle persuaded the ramshackle lock to open, and we quickly surged inside, closing it behind us just in case the residents began to return once the excitement from the small fire dispersed.

  There was a soft light glowing in the corner, one that had made the red curtains gleam in a gentle welcome, and the rest of the place was just as cheerful. Everything had an old feel about it, but it was clean and well-maintained, if tired. And eureka—there was a pie on the side.

  I shot him a look. “Be a shame to waste it.”

  Grinning, he reached for a knife, sliced it in two perfect halves, then grabbed his piece while I grabbed mine.

  I moaned first. “God, that’s good.”

  His pupils were blown. “Better than beer.”

  Without having to utter another word, we split up, armed with pie and sharp eyes. Austin went to the tiny living area, and I went to the bedroom, which was even smaller.

  Neither of us wanted to make it look as though the place had been searched, which was easier said than done when you really were on the hunt for something, so we moved slower than either of us would like, something the pie facilitated. Still, there was no point in bitching about it.

  As jobs went, this was the least of our worries.

  Leafing through the drawers, I found her papers, and though I’d only known her a handful of hours, it was odd how relieved I felt to know her name.

  Sabina Krasowski.

  Softly, I called out, “I have her passport, driver’s license, and social security card here.”

  Austin stepped through the trailer, treading so quietly, not even I heard him until he was beside me. “That’s fortuitous.”

  I snorted. “Fortuitous is the word.” Finished with my pie, I peered around the space but saw nothing of any real value. Which made me feel mean, but it wasn’t intended that way. There was nothing except for a few trinkets in a dish on the dresser beside the tiny bed, which I scooped up and shoved into my pocket. Everything else in here was pretty quaint, but there was nothing that I envisaged her missing, nothing we couldn’t buy or replace. Still, we had to try.

  If the carnival staff disappeared before the night was out, heading on their way before any officials could close in on them, then I figured we needed to look around for things she might want when she awoke once the metamorphosis was complete.

  “Aside from clothes, what should we take?”

  “Nothing. I don’t think we should even take clothes,” Austin replied.

  “Why?”

  “If we take anything with us, it might look like she ran.”

  My brow furrowed at his logic. “Isn’t that a good thing? Technically, she’ll have disappeared. Let’s face it, the fire department here might be a piece of crap, but they’ll still fine the carnival. Before the day’s done, they’ll be out of here. If they think she’s run away, then won’t that work to our advantage?”

  Austin shrugged. “If you say so.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. “Ever helpful,” I told him with a grunt. “Look around and see if there are any pictures. Any keepsakes. We don’t want her to lose everything. Her entire world has already burned down around her. Let’s soften the blow.”

  He dipped his chin at that and went to do as I directed—that in itself was unusual. I cut him a look, catching only the back of his head, but I knew my brother. Knew him well.

  If the she-wolf had addled my brains, then she’d messed with Austin’s too.

  And what that meant?

  Well, I had to figure we’d learn soon enough.

  Austin

  After grabbing some essentials, at least, what we figured as being essential to a woman—we were guys, who the fuck knew what a woman needed when she’d been forcibly changed into a shifter and had to leave behind the life she knew—ducking out of the trailer was as easy as sneaking in had been.

  There was shit for security in this place, and I guessed it didn’t help that the management would be having their asses reamed over the fire. Still, it made our jobs easier because we didn’t have to shift to leave the quadrant that was earmarked for the carnies’ mobile homes, and we could walk out on two legs with the few bits we’d grabbed for Sabina.

  Sabina.

  I savored the name, thought about it and all its unusual vowels. It tasted good. Sounded weird, to be sure, like I should be saying Sabrina.

  “You’re thinking loud enough to disturb me,” Ethan muttered as we made it onto the back road that would take us from the carnival and on to Eli’s place. Our pace was faster than that of a human’s walking cadence, more like a jog, but to us, this was us going slowly.

  “Her name…” I mumbled.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s unusual.”

  “Not the most unusual name in the world,” he countered.

  “Polish, do you think? Russian?”

  “Definitely Slavic.” He shrugged. “She’s American though. Her passport was from the U.S.”

  “I wonder why she had a passport anyway.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “She was a traveler,” I pointed out, eying a fox that was peering at us from the trees. It began darting between them, tracking our movements, able to sense that we weren’t all that we seemed and wanting to keep an eye on us.

  Stupid fox.

  That told me her den was around here, and that she had kits in there.

  Of course, in this form, I’d never dream of hurting the creatures, but in my other? It was fair game.

  That made me feel like a bastard, but in my other skin, I was a wolf. I didn’t think about forest conservation or protection of the species. I just thought about the state of my belly and whether it was full or empty. Her trailing us wasn’t preventative, she was just making me want to shift.

  “Lots of people have passports,” Ethan retorted, butting into my earthly thoughts.

  “Yeah, but her life was about moving from town to town, not country to country.”

  “True. Still, it’s not that unusual.”

  “I bet no one else in that carnival has a passport.”

  He frowned at me. “Where are you going with this? They might slip in and out of Canada on the road.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied warily. “I just know that she’s different.”

  “We already established that. She didn’t go on a hunt immediately after her transformation. That makes her weird as hell.”

  I couldn’t deny that, so instead, I asked, “She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

  He snorted. “You mean beneath all the blood?”

  “As a she-wolf,” I snapped, pissed that he wasn’t taking me seriously. Ethan tended to do that. He was smarter than me, and we both knew it, but I hated when he turned condescending on me. It really fucking grated.

  As a partnership, I tended to deal with people, and he dealt with the facts. It made us pretty unstoppable—as our record attested to—but also, every now and then, I wanted to headbutt him for being a robot.

  Our past didn’t help us. He’d turned to books and I’d turned to girls, but still, that didn’t make me a dumbass.

  “Yeah,” he admitted after a while. “She’s beautiful. Haven’t seen that coloring on a mixed blood before.”

  “Gold and silver?” I shook my head. “Me either. Very rare. Wonder what it means.”

  He shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  We walked in silence back to the mansion and, from the gates, when we saw that the council party was still going strong, we both groaned, knowing we’d have to face them to leave the clothes and other items in place for Eli.

  “Do we have to?” Ethan muttered under his breath.

  I shrugged.
“We should.”

  “We could take them around in the morning. Eli looked like he was more focused on her than her stuff.”

  “He’ll want answers first thing,” I stated, certain about that if nothing else.

  “Or we could keep an eye out for the fuckers to leave, and then we could swoop in.”

  I shot him a grin. “I’m game for that.”

  Veering off the drive, we headed toward our place. We were the only people in the pack to live on the alpha’s grounds. That was an honor bestowed to only the alpha’s enforcer. Except in our case, there were two.

  Historically, the alpha trusted his enforcer even more than he did his beta. It was why the enforcer lived on the same grounds, because he was always supposed to be there, waiting for his alpha’s command.

  The beta was like a right-hand man. The go-to guy for most of the shit that came as part of leading the council.

  But an enforcer was at his left. Doing all the crap that no one else wanted to do. As a result, enforcers were always feared, but we were disliked too. Mostly because we were twins. Pups born in multiples weren’t trusted. Ever.

  Still, Eli had always had our backs, had always protected us, and as a result, he had the most dedicated enforcers the pack had probably ever known. Our relationship was forged on a loyalty that few could begin to understand, because no one truly knew what it was like to be hated simply for being a twin. Yet Eli? He didn’t hate us. He didn’t even simply tolerate us. He liked us, and we him.

  Our house was about a mile away from Eli’s large mansion. It was tucked in the woods, surrounded by trees on all sides, and though small, the cabin was ample for our needs. It blended into the surroundings, easing our security concerns, and from the bedroom at the front, we could see into Eli’s home and know that all was well without having to leave.

  Our pace increased now that we knew we were close to the cabin, and as we made it there, I wasn’t the only one to release a relieved sigh.

  Both of us hated dealing with the council even more than they hated dealing with us, which was really saying something.