by Dani Harper
He didn’t know whether to laugh or be pissed off at that. “You’ve been watching way too many bad movies, honey.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I don’t have any reference points for all of this. I had no idea that werewolves—”
“Changelings.”
“—werewolves existed until today. On top of that, you’re telling me I’m going to become one. If that’s true, how do I know you didn’t plan it this way? Maybe you didn’t want a human lover, maybe what you really wanted was for me to be just like you. Well, I don’t want this, Connor Macleod. I don’t want any of it, do you hear me?”
“I didn’t do this to you,” he growled. With a quicksilver motion, he reached out a powerful arm and gathered her back against him, nearly taking her off her feet. Wrapped his other arm around her as well and held her. She struggled a little, then made a disgusted noise and settled for glaring up at him with furious eyes. His own anger began to dissipate. Zoey might be putting up a brave front, but he could sense the fear, scent it on her. She wasn’t afraid of him—but she was terrified of the unknown. “I didn’t do this to you,” he repeated, gently this time. “I would never put you through this unless you asked me, and even then, not until you’d had more time in our world and understood what you were asking for.”
“You wouldn’t have turned me into a wolf?”
“Never. Not unless you truly wanted it. And if you didn’t want it, then we would continue just as we are. And I happen to think we’re pretty damn good together.” He waggled his brows at her. “You sure didn’t need to be a wolf to drive me crazy the other night.”
She seemed to relax a little at that. He kept his arms tight around her just the same, but took a chance and planted a gentle kiss on her head, nuzzled her thick russet hair. “We have to deal with what is, Zoey. It’s not fair that you’ve been bitten, not fair that you have no choice. It’s against all Changeling law. But it’s done. We have to go from here and make the best of it.”
“Easy for you to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t see an instruction manual anywhere. What if I can’t Change, what if I don’t do it right? What if I change into a Labrador Retriever or something instead of a wolf? I read about shapeshifters who can become anything. I could end up being a groundhog or a goddamn chicken!”
He was certain that if he gave in to the laughter that was threatening to burst out, she’d get even more upset. “Okay, sure, there are legends of people who can become any animal they want. But I’ve never met any. Or heard of anyone who has. You’ll be a wolf, I promise. You won’t even have to think about it.”
Zoey looked unconvinced. “Does it hurt?”
He wished he could say no. Instead, he nodded. “The first time, yes it does. Not so much for those who are born Changelings, but there’s a great deal of pain for those who are human to start with, I’m afraid. Most of the pain is in the bones, like a severe case of arthritis. It’s because they have to shift proportions so dramatically, much more so than any other part of the body. The most important thing is not to fight it. It’s painful but you have to keep your fear under control. If you panic and start resisting, the pain gets worse.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said ruefully, then searched his face. “Does it hurt you to Change?”
“No, not at all. Like I said, it only hurts the first time. The next time and every time after that, you don’t feel a thing. It’s like your body knows the way, has created a pattern to follow. And it comes faster. After you’ve Changed a few times, it becomes pretty much instantaneous.”
“Do you have any idea how surreal this is? Or how scary? You’ve grown up with the concept of people turning into animals. I haven’t known about this for twenty-four hours yet.”
He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers, rested his broad hands on her shoulders. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, I swear it. I’ll help you. We’ll get through it together.” Now he was the one putting on a brave front. The whole idea of Zoey going through the first Change scared him to death. He certainly understood now why Geoff Lassiter had waited so long—almost three years—before allowing his human wife, Melly, to join him. There was always a certain amount of risk involved, just as there was with childbirth. If a problem developed, however, no human hospital could help.
Connor wished that Kenzie and Birkie were here. He could call them, he knew, and they would come home immediately. But good Christ, he didn’t want either of them within a thousand miles of Dunvegan until Bernie was dead. No, better to leave things as they were, with the women safely in Scotland. If Zoey wasn’t so close to the Change, he’d send her there too.
“You’re frowning,” she said.
“I just remembered that there’s no one looking after the farm but me today. I need to drive out and feed some animals, check on things. Maybe that’s a good thing. You look like you could use some fresh air.”
“I don’t know, Connor. I think I’d rather stay here and lie down.”
He shook his head. “You can lie down at the farm if you like, but we’re not splitting up again for any reason. That damn reporter was parked outside your building when I came in.” He waved a hand at the window.
“I’m not surprised. He phones a dozen times a day,” she sighed. “But I’m perfectly safe in my own apartment. There’s a deadbolt on the door and I’m on the third floor, for heaven’s sake.”
“If you were on the twentieth floor, I’d still be worried about Bernie. The crazy old bastard’s still at large and he’s targeted you. And believe me, he could climb to your balcony just as easily as I just did.”
“He’s an old man!”
“No, he’s not. He’s old as dirt, all right, but he’s a Changeling. You saw the gray wolf at the party—did he look old and decrepit to you? Or the night he bit your leg—I’m betting he didn’t look too geriatric then either.”
Zoey shivered. “Okay, okay. I get the point.”
Connor slipped his arms around her. “Besides that, we’re a team now.” He nuzzled her ear, brushed his lips over her temple, her brow. “I don’t ever want to be without you again. These last few days were hard enough. So I’m thinking you should marry me, and the sooner the better.”
“Don’t you want to wait and see what I look like as a wolf first? I might be ugly and then you’d be stuck. The other Changelings would make fun of you.”
He laughed then. He couldn’t help it. “I’ll take my chances. Is that a yes?”
“No, it’s a let me take something for the headache I’m getting, and I’ll get ready to go.”
His hand found the back of her neck, rubbed it gently. “Another migraine already?”
“Yeah. I usually only get a couple in a month, but lately it’s been one after another.” She laid her head on his chest and sighed as he massaged her shoulders, her neck, the back of her head.
“I’ll bet it’s because the first Change is coming on. Your hormones are probably all over the map as your body adjusts to accommodate it.”
“Hormones?” She gripped his arms. “Please, please tell me I don’t get PMS with this.”
“I sure hope not,” he chuckled. “But anything’s possible. The good news is, after you’ve gone through the Change once, the migraines will stop. In fact, you’ll probably never have another one. Never have a cold either. Changelings are remarkably healthy.”
“No migraines? Ever? You should have told me that first—I might have volunteered to be a werewolf!” She smiled then, the first real smile he’d seen in days, and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Still smiling, she stepped into him, fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his face down to hers.
“I need you, Connor,” she whispered. Her amber eyes were lit with tenderness, with love, with desire. With a hundred emotions that were all for him. “Now; I need you right now and right here.”
He meant to say I need you, too. Before he could get the words out, however, something primal slipped its leash. What poss
essed him went far beyond a human need and he wanted, hungered and craved with a soul-deep yearning that shook him. Before, he had always been careful, even gentle, not wanting to overwhelm her with his strength. Now, without any warning, he was a creature maddened by thirst, balanced on the brink of deep mountain lake.
In the blink of an eye, he yanked her hard against him. Took her lips in a bruising kiss and thrust his tongue deep, clutching her ass in viselike hands. What small part of him was still sane expected her to protest such tactics and shove him away, yet he couldn’t make himself pull back. Instead, a faint growl escaped him. Then her tongue flicked lightly at the corners of his mouth, slid teasingly between his lips. One slender hand knotted itself in his hair as her pelvis rocked into his. The surprise of it held him still for a fraction of an instant, long enough for her to unhook his straining jeans and slide her hand inside.
As her cool fingers caged his rampant cock, he sucked in an empty breath—the air had long since left the room. Slowly, slowly, her hand began to slide up and down and the beast that had wanted so badly to ravage and take was suddenly at her command. He opened his eyes to find her amber ones fixed on him—and in them was the same primordial need that had overtaken him.
In a heartbeat they were on the floor. A wild desperation to be in one skin drove them to tear at each other’s clothes. She was wet as he pressed against her, wet and hot and hungry for him as he stroked into her. She urged him on, wrapping her legs around him, pulling him in harder, deeper as her pleasure gathered and spiked. Wrapped her arms around him as his body throbbed out his own bliss.
When sense finally returned, they were gasping and laughing in a comfortable tangle of arms and legs. The tangle of clothing was less comfortable. Connor kicked away his jeans from one ankle. Zoey’s bra was looped crazily around an elbow and her shirt was attached by only a cuff.
“I sure hope the neighbors are at work,” she giggled as she tried to free herself from her sleeve. “I don’t want the cops at my door asking what all the noise was about.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll only write you a ticket.”
“Write me a ticket? What about you? You all but howled at the end!”
“Fitz is a buddy of mine. I’m pretty sure I can get off with a warning.” Connor helped her turn the tangled cuff and undid the button. “Maybe I’ll put in a good word for you too. After all,” he grinned. “I love you, Zoey Tyler.”
She stripped off the offending shirt with a sigh of relief. “I love you too. I didn’t stop, you know. Not even when I thought you were, well—”
“Crazy? That’s good to know. So you’ll stand by me if I develop any mental problems in the future?”
“Absolutely.”
“Even if I do something crazy like this?” He nuzzled her face, sought her mouth and kissed her long and deep. Roved his hands over her pliant body, skimming his fingers lightly over her soft skin until she shivered. Palmed the moist heat between her legs until she moaned aloud.
“Okay, yes, especially if you do something crazy like this.” She gasped as he slipped a finger into her, trembled as he swirled it slowly around. “Omigod, I don’t think we can do this again already.”
“Bet we can.” He grinned. “We’ll just take it long and slow. Very, very slow.”
The colorful shades were drawn and the Closed sign swung in the window of the Finer Diner, but Culley walked in the front door just the same. Most of the Pack was already there, including the RCMP sergeant, all watching a disheveled Devlin as he taped district maps to the candy display. A bundle of colored markers rattled in his shirt pocket and Culley chuckled to himself. My brother the geek.
Culley raised a hand at Lassiters and McIntyres, nodded to Holt LaLonde and Fitzpatrick, winked at René Ghostkeeper, then took a seat in a booth across from Bill and Jessie. Jessie looked exhausted and grim, leaning back against her husband as he rocked her gently. Culley knew that she, as well as most of the people in the room, had been hunting for the rogue Changeling almost around the clock since the night of the barbecue. Still, the Pack leader managed a faint grin for him.
“What are we looking at, Dev?” Culley called out.
His twin ran a hand through his hair, unaware that the gesture only made parts of it stand up straight. “I thought if we looked at where Bernie’s been, we could spot some sort of pattern.”
“What, like in Scooby Doo?” Holt snorted. “That stuff only happens in the movies.”
“Yeah, well so do monsters,” said Culley. “But we seem to have one anyways.”
Jessie rose to her feet. Despite her obvious weariness, her voice was clear and firm. “Ideas, people. We need ideas and we need them now. Bernard Gervais has eluded our best trackers and we don’t know how he’s doing it. I don’t even care how, as long as we figure out where he is so we can stop him. So all ideas need to be on the table no matter how silly or farfetched you might think they are.”
“Motive,” said Fitz. “If we know what he wants, we could figure out where he’s going.”
Geoff Lassiter rolled his eyes. “Bernie’s crazy. Who knows what the hell he wants?”
“Crazy, and grouchy as an old bear. Have you ever met anyone so rude?” asked his wife, Melly. Her makeup didn’t hide the circles under her eyes.
“More than rude. He hates us—does that count as a motive?” Culley ventured. “Of course, I don’t know if he hates the Pack as a whole or each of us individually.”
“Both, and some more than others,” said Devlin.
Bill shook his head. “Bernie’s a right miserable cuss, but it’s not members of the Pack he’s attacked. He’s picked on humans, and one for sure that he didn’t even know.”
“Zoey,” said Culley. “But maybe Bernie doesn’t attack Changelings because he knows he can’t win. Like an angry bully who only picks on kids smaller than him.”
“Well, if he’s attacking humans at random, I don’t know how we can predict what he’ll do next,” said Melly. “For all we know, he’s picking on humans just to make life hard for us.”
Fitz looked thoughtful. “You know, Mel, that makes a lot of sense. Bernie doesn’t have to fight any Changelings in order to make life miserable for every one of us. He just has to scare the general population. It’s going to be tough to be a wolf in these parts soon. Some people are already out hunting.”
“You’re talking like that old coot has a plan,” said Holt. “I think Geoff had it right. What if Bernie’s just batshit crazy? That means there’s no motive, no pattern, no nothing.”
Culley sat back as the meeting got “lively,” as Jessie often termed it. As a species, Changelings were strong-willed and intelligent, and that usually translated into strong opinions too. This type of an assembly tended to resemble a gathering of relatives at Thanksgiving when the subject of politics came up. It was going to be noisy for a while. . . .
Devlin was busy circling things on the maps and Culley strained to see what his twin was doing. Finally, he got up to take a closer look. “Are these all the places Bernie’s been spotted?”
“Well, not quite all.” Devlin made a couple more circles with a marker. “Holt caught sight of him here and chased him for a short ways until he vanished without a trace. And here’s where the McIntyres saw Bernie, up on the ridge. By the time they got there, he’d disappeared and there was no trail to follow.”
Culley’s gaze flicked from one circle to the other. “I can see roads intersecting these locations. But even if Bernie was driving or taking the damn bus, there’d still be a trail of scent in the air.” He closed his eyes, tried to picture each location, conjuring not just the image but the smell. If a Changeling had been somewhere in lupine form, then his brain automatically had the location mapped out in immense detail by scent. Culley knew all of these places intimately, right down to the smallest clump of earth and the types of plants that grew there. Slowly, he drew in a long breath of air as he savored each scent stored in his mind, noting the odors common to all
the locations—
His eyes flew open. “Devlin, we need a more detailed map.”
Half an hour later, it was Culley standing in front of the Pack. Emotions were still running high but the Changelings had settled into relative quiet. For the moment. At the new map, hastily scanned and enlarged at a local geological survey office, Devlin traced something in blue highlighter. At first, the thick colored line resembled a tree, branching out in all directions. Little Burnt Creek wound its way along the edge of town, a tiny stream as it passed under the Gamble Street Bridge. But by the time the creek made its way to the Peace River, it wasn’t tiny anymore. Instead, countless streams had trickled through the rolling landscape to join it, swelling it to a respectable size before it merged with the mighty river.
“This is the old Gervais place.” Devlin made a square with green marker, then drew two more. “This is Menzie’s farm. And this, over here, is the local golf course outside of town.”
“They’re all linked,” announced Culley. “Everywhere Bernie’s made an appearance, he’s been able to get there by water. Water is the key.”
“What, he’s swimming?” Holt didn’t clue in at first.
Jessie did, immediately. She sat up and pounded her small fist on the table hard enough to rattle the salt and pepper shakers. “Goddammit. He’s using an old fox’s trick.”
There were nods around the room. It was one of the most basic of strategies, employed by many animals. A fox pursued by a dog would enter a creek and walk downstream for a time before returning to dry land. The pursuer would have a difficult time finding the scent where the quarry had left the water.
“Yes and no,” replied Culley. “I think he’s taken the old trick to a whole new level. I think Bernie’s using the water system in this area as his own personal highway. In fact, I’ll bet he seldom leaves the waterways except to commit some new atrocity.”
Geoff wasn’t convinced. “Come on, Culley. We’re good hunters, all of us, and Changelings have keener senses than even real wolves do. Holt and I followed the stream by Menzie’s for nearly four miles in each direction without ever catching a hint of that bastard’s scent. It just plain wasn’t there. Water can hide tracks and trail, sure, but we’d be able pick the scent out of the air itself if we had to.”
