by Ranae Rose
****
“Jack?” She came to slowly at first, then bolted upright with a start. “Jack!” He was crouched beside her, his hazel eyes locked with her blue ones. He looked…concerned? She remembered his gunshot wound and moaned. Here she was lying on the floor like an idiot while he was seriously hurt, and she was no closer to getting him into the truck. How long had she been out, and since when did she faint, anyway? She swallowed a knot of tension as she remembered the ridiculous trick her mind had played on her. Totally idiotic. Jack’s craziness must have rubbed off on her.
“Mandy, you all right?” The rough timbre of his voice was calming, despite the fact that it had no right to be.
She nodded. “Sorry. I was seeing things for a second.” She glanced around the room. “The dog, uh, wolf is back. Where is he?” She could hear it whining somewhere nearby. It was badly hurt too. She’d have to coax it into the back of the truck somehow and get it to a veterinary clinic, if possible.
Jack laid a hand on hers, and he didn’t feel so hot anymore. Had she been out long enough for his fever to retreat, and if so, should she be glad or worried? “I think you need to lie down for a little while,” he said.
“What? No!” The wolf yelped from somewhere nearby, and the sound was a reminder of Jack’s injury. “I’m not going to lie down. I’m going to take you to the hospital.”
“Follow me,” he said, rising. “You can have my bed again.”
She sprung up, biting back a curse. “Damn it, Jack!” The wolf in the house barked, drowning out her words. This was all going wrong. So wrong. “I’m not going to—” She slipped, her feet skidding across the floorboards before she was halfway out of a crouch. She snarled in frustration as she stumbled, and the sound was surprisingly scary. She’d spent too much time around Jack, and now she was making weird growling sounds like he did. Maybe she needed to get back to civilization for reasons besides Jack’s need for medical attention.
A hint of a smirk curved his lips. “You’re doing it wrong. You’ve gotta use all four legs, else you won’t have any balance.”
She laughed humorlessly, and it came out in a barky sort of wheeze. Four legs. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” she snapped sarcastically. Jack’s crazy wolf-dog obscured her reply once again. She pushed herself up, grunting as she glared down at her hands…
Her hands. They were gone, and in their place were two large…paws. There was no other word for them. They were furry and ended in black, inch-long nails. A wolf’s feet, not a woman’s hands. Her heart leapt, and for a moment, she was sure Jack’s pet wolf had found her.
“They’re all yours, darlin’,” Jack said, a wide grin splitting his face.
“No…” Mandy moaned, trying to wriggle her fingers. The beastly claws before her scratched against the floorboards. “No, no, no.” The wolf she’d assumed was Jack’s pet barked lowly three times in succession. Only now she knew…it was her. She was the wolf. A freakin’ wolf! She turned and bolted for the door, taking long strides with even longer, unfamiliar legs.
She kept running, her momentum building until she was going so fast she didn’t know how to make her strange new legs stop. Jack called out her name as the screen door banged shut, but she pushed on, heedless. Within seconds she’d penetrated the forest and was weaving through tree trunks, leaping over the occasional fallen pine as she ran toward the heart of the endless Smoky Mountains.
“Mandy!” Halfway through, the cry became a bark. The sound brought back her dreams from the night before in full clarity. It was as if they’d become her reality, but that wasn’t possible… This had to be some sort of fluke – a life-sized joke played by a cruel creator. Or perhaps she was dreaming again. She tumbled to a breathless stop, pausing just long enough to bite down on one of her own paws.
Damn! Wolves had strong jaws. She whimpered as she pulled her hand – no, foot – from her mouth and began running again. So she was awake. But how—
Underbrush crackled behind her, and her ears twitched backward automatically, seeking out the sound. She could hear the steady rush of another animal’s breathing, and the musky, piney smell told her it was Jack. Jack running on four legs, Jack the wolf…
Aaaah! That was the sound she heard inside her head, but a sharp yelp escaped her mouth instead as something caught her foot and she went flying through the air, head over haunches. Dirt filled her open mouth as she landed, her face sliding across the forest floor. All the pressure in the world seemed to have clamped down on one of her front paws, as if she was being bitten by a bear or…a steel trap. Panic seized her as she saw her furry foot caught between its jagged teeth. It was grinding her toe bones together, and lightning bolts of pain were shooting up her leg.
The dark-coated wolf Mandy had seen sleeping in the cabin that morning skidded to a halt, surveying her with wide, golden eyes. Jack. A low whine escaped her as a sense of bewildered horror warred with her physical pain. What the hell was going on? She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Jack was a man again. A naked man.
She yelped in surprise as he leaned toward her, kneeling on the forest floor. She tried not to notice the way his muscles tensed and shifted, nothing hidden as he laid his hands on the trap. As he took a deep breath and pried the steel jaws open, freeing her, she forced herself to keep her eyes on his face.
She jerked her foot free, wincing as she stood and a million red-hot needles shot through it. It had to be broken, but she didn’t have time to worry about that, because blood was streaking down Jack’s side, flowing freely from his wound. His face was pale, and a tremor wracked his body, causing each and every exposed muscle to quiver. She tried to speak, to warn him to move carefully, but all that came out was a low sound that was half groan and half whimper. Feeling helpless, she snarled in irritation. Was she stuck in this wolf’s body forever? Jack seemed able to change back and forth, and he did so again before her very eyes.
The shocking sight of his bare human body was gone, replaced by the form of a dark, burly wolf. He turned in a flash, bounding back toward the cabin. His stride was unsteady and his breathing labored, but Mandy was slowed too by her foot. It felt as if bone had been cracked, and the pain worsened with every step, but she didn’t dare stop running. She could smell Jack’s urgency, sharp and clear. They had to get back to the cabin. If they didn’t, consequences would be grave. She knew that, somehow. So she pressed on, loping at Jack’s heaving flank until the modest building came into view. When they reached the screen door he nosed it open easily.
Inside, he collapsed onto the pile of blankets Mandy had assumed were for a pet. She stood uneasily on three legs and barked to gain his attention. Not being able to talk sucked.
His golden eyes flickered toward her, and before she knew it, he was human again. He still looked pale, but at least he wasn’t shaking anymore. He seemed to be bleeding less now that he was no longer running.
She kept her gaze trained on his face, not daring to let it stray below. Well, not for more than a second, anyway. It was hard not to look at his blood-stained side. She barked again, hoping that he’d translate the sound of her desperation to ‘tell me how to become human again, damn it!’
He sighed. “You can shift back now.”
She whined, feeling like an idiot.
He cocked a dark brow, drawing Mandy’s attention to the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Was he really fevered now? “Having trouble?”
She nodded. Thank God he’d understood.
“Now that’s a problem I’ve never had.”
She growled lowly. Great. Not only was she a wolf…she might be stuck this way permanently. It was too much to bear. She put a little weight on her injured paw just to distract herself, afraid she’d go crazy if she thought too much about being trapped in a canine body for the rest of her natural life.
“It’s a mind game,” he said. “All you have to do is want to be human, and you will be. Same way you shifted into your wolf form.”
She rolled her ey
es, hoping the gesture was as obvious in her lupine form as it would have been in her human body. She wanted to be human again, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to become a wolf in the first place.
“Right, well…” he said after watching her intently for a few moments, “if you’re holdin’ out because you don’t want me to see you naked, you can go into the next room.”
Alarm lanced through Mandy’s consciousness. Naked. She hadn’t even thought of that. She glanced down at her body and saw nothing but fur. If she did manage to shift, she’d be left in nothing but her skin. Where had her clothes gone? She gazed over her shoulder, through the screen door and out at the yard. Scraps of khaki fabric and blue cotton littered the lawn – the remains of her shorts and t-shirt. There was even a bra with a snapped band and a scrap of violet that she recognized as her shredded panties. She’d been so frantic when she’d bolted off that she hadn’t even noticed her clothing tearing and falling from her body. There was only one thing missing – her socks. When she peered down at her feet, they were still there, pierced by her long toenails, which protruded absurdly from the tips.
Jack released a snort of laughter. “Well, your wolf feet are smaller than your human feet – no reason for your socks to come off. Now you see why I prefer to go barefoot.”
She glared at him austerely, trying not to imagine herself squatting on the floorboards in front of him in just her ruined socks. If she wasn’t so afraid she’d be stuck this way forever, she would have been glad that she hadn’t succeeded in shifting back.
“Come on.” Jack rose unsteadily and started toward his bedroom, leaving Mandy to follow in his wake, her vision filled with the sight of his tight, toned and completely bare ass. He had no shame, but she did. Her cheeks heated underneath the thick tufts of fur that covered them. When he opened his bedroom door for her, she darted inside, broken foot or no.
Okay. Now all she had to do was turn back into her human self, scrounge up some clothing and get Jack into the truck before he bled to death. If she’d been human, she probably would have burst into hysterical laughter at the thought of those three impossible tasks. Instead she hunkered down on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to think human thoughts.
Five minutes later, she moaned, a whine rising from deep within her throat. She’d thought long and hard about her job back in Nashville, and had even run through a few financial calculations in her head. It didn’t get much more human than that, and yet, she was still a wolf. Continuing to try felt hopeless.
“You all right in there?” Jack called from beyond the door.
She responded with an irritated bark. Why couldn’t he be more helpful? Instead of helping her get her human body back, he was standing out there stark naked, just waiting for her to walk through the door the same way, or maybe wrapped in a blanket from the bed. The thought of facing Jack that way jolted her, putting a little fire in her blood. Which was ridiculous, of course, but… There was just something about him. Something raw, manly and undeniably— “Oh my God!”
Mandy scrambled upright, staring at her hands – human hands! Sure, one of them was purpled with bruises, but they had fingers, not toes with ridiculously long nails. She was human again!
“I take it you finally succeeded,” Jack drawled from the other side of the door, and to her horror, it swung open.
Chapter 4
“Jack!” She grabbed the comforter off the bed and wrapped it hastily around her naked body. Her cheeks were burning when she met his eyes. “The whole point of me coming in here was privacy!” His gaze was glued somewhere below her face, even as she snapped at him. Too late, she looked down and saw that she’d failed to cover one breast. Her nipple peeked pink and pert from above a fold in the blue blanket. She hurried to hide it. “What do you think you’re doing?” It came out half-growl, almost as if she were still a wolf.
He shrugged, the muscles in his torso and stomach rippling. The motion drew Mandy’s gaze lower and lower, until it landed on the dark nest of curls between his hips. However much blood he’d lost, he apparently had enough left to support a growing erection. “I figured you’d be covered up already. Sorry.” His voice was low and husky, even more so than usual.
“Well…” She struggled to keep her voice calm, remembering that he was still badly hurt, regardless of how shameless he was. “Cover yourself up, for God’s sake!” She tossed him a blanket.
He caught it in the nick of time and held it half-heartedly over his swollen groin.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’re going to pass out.” It was true – his gaze had grown hazy, and he was swaying a little. She pulled him down onto the bed, where he promptly collapsed, his eyes half-open. “Now tell me what the hell just happened.”
“You turned into a wolf. Then you turned back.”
She clenched a tight fistful of her blanket. “Yes, but why, and how? It’s impossible, you know.”
An attempt at a laugh shook his chest. “Clearly, it ain’t impossible.”
“Well it should be.” She crossed her arms, wincing when she jostled her injured hand. The pain was a deep ache that didn’t seem likely to subside anytime soon. “And I sure hope you weren’t joking when you said that your body will heal itself during the night.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Does that mean mine will too?”
He nodded. “No reason for it not to. You’re a shifter, just like me.”
She started to say that she wasn’t like him, but stopped. The memory of being covered in fur and running on all fours was too fresh for denial. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”
“I gathered that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How could this have happened to me? Did you bite me or something while I was sleeping?” It was stupid, as the door had still been locked when she’d risen that morning, but how else did something like this happen?
This time he really did laugh. “That ain’t how it works. You’ve been watching too many movies.”
“Then how does it work?”
“You’re born with it – born with shifter blood in your veins.”
Now she knew he was full of crap. “I certainly wasn’t born this way. I’ve been perfectly normal up until today – body temperature of 98.6 and everything.” She barked out a sarcastic laugh. “No tail, either.”
He nodded stoically, still lying on the mattress while she sat beside him, huddled inside her blanket. “I’ve been thinkin’ about that, and I figure you’re a half-breed.”
“Half-breed?”
“Meanin’ one of your parents was a shifter, and the other human.”
“I think I would have noticed if my mom was a werewolf,” she said drily.
“What about your daddy?”
Mandy shifted uncomfortably. “Never really met him. My mother raised me by herself.” Her spine stiffened as all the muscles in her body tensed just a little. Bracing herself for judgment was a habit she’d acquired when she’d been little more than a child – most people tended to give her one of two certain looks when she mentioned that she’d never known her father. She wasn’t sure whether she hated the disdainful looks or the pitying looks more. She didn’t deserve either of them – her mom had been everything a good mother should be.
Jack simply cocked a dark brow at her. “Guess we know who the wolf in the family is.”
She slumped against the headboard, the rigidness going out of her spine. “That can’t be…”
“Why not?”
She used her good hand to fiddle with the frayed edge of the quilt. “It just can’t.”
“You’re not doin’ yourself any favors by bein’ so hardheaded. Might as well just accept it.”
“Easy for you to say – you’ve been living out here by yourself for God knows how long. I have a life back in Nashville.”
“My whole life. And I reckon you’re better off here than in the city anyway.”
“Yeah, right. It’s not like I’m going to retire
to the mountains now just because…” She swallowed a sudden feeling of tightness in her throat, unable to bring herself to say ‘because I’m a werewolf’.
For the first time, curiosity sparkled in Jack’s eyes. “You really think you could live in the city as a wolf shifter?” He chuckled.
She glared down at him. “And just why couldn’t I?”
He raised an arm in a sweeping gesture, grimacing as it caused the muscles in his side to stretch. “A wolf is at home out here. You go back to the city and you’ll feel like a caged animal.”
“Whatever,” she sighed, eager to change the subject. It wasn’t like she was about to take a werewolf’s life advice. “Tell me what’s going on with that psycho who shot you.”
“There are people out there who hunt shifters like us,” Jack grunted.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. People know about werewolves?”
“Not most, but the majority of the ones who do know have had the information passed down through their families for generations. They’re hunters.”
“Why would anyone want to hunt you?” She eyed the wound in his side apprehensively, shocked that another human being could hunt down a man as if he were an animal and shoot him in cold blood.
He shook his head and frowned. “They like to talk bullshit about us bein’ dangerous – instead of seeing us as rational people who can take on animal forms, they think of us as wild animals who can disguise themselves as humans – but the truth is they’re in it for the sport. A shifter is the ultimate big game trophy, and every shifter-hunter out there wants a wolf shifter’s head mounted on their wall.”
Mandy gaped in horror. “That’s disgusting!”
“I know it.” Jack squeezed his eyes shut and touched the wound in his side. “Anyway, I reckon one of ‘em has come for me.” He opened his eyes again and shot her an apologetic glance. “And you, too.”
“Great. I’m only a few hours into this thing and someone already wants me dead.”
“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice softer than she’d heard it yet.
