At the time of David’s command, Kelly had understood two things—the first was that she needed to protect Renee, who didn’t have the benefit of magic to protect herself. Yes, Renee had managed to kill Grant, but if Kelly went after Renee or if David decided to take matters into his own hands, Renee would not be lucky enough to avoid the transformation again.
The second was that Kelly should have known from the start that she was meant to kill David. There had been no writing on the wall, no drawings of him in the notebook she had begun to keep for such purposes. Yet in that moment, Kelly had known that David had to die. And Kelly thought some part of her had known all along.
Kelly had done it for Renee, but she had also done it for herself.
She’d made the death quick and left him on the forest floor for the other werewolves to find and bury. Because she was a bitch, killing the alpha didn’t make her the new leader. And because she was a witch, the pack had banished her instead of setting upon her with tooth and claw, the justice of the forest. They’d feared for their own lives if they tried.
They’d let her leave with her truck and the trailer before the sun set. Once she’d reached the highway, she’d realized that she finally did have somewhere else to go—Renee’s dog sanctuary, where Renee had already harbored one werewolf, however poor judgment that might have been at the time.
The shapeshifters had reserved a little suspicion of her, and no wonder, after Grant had turned one of them. That man, a tall, dark and handsome stranger to her, had showed every sign of an involuntary turn. He wasn’t as wild as she had been in her first months—his body was already accustomed to shifting. But almost immediately, Kelly had seen his struggle with every twitch, every avoidance of eye contact and in the fever that burned far deeper than his skin.
Kelly had thought that she might be of some help. And fortunately, Renee had agreed.
Kelly had accepted that her werewolf nature would make it hard to live with the canine shapeshifters and the sanctuary dogs, neither species at all compatible with lycanthropes. So instead of living in the log cabin with the main shapeshifter pack or in the shapeshifter barn with the rest of them, she had her own small piece of land at the edge of the forest to park her trailer. Renee had even offered space in the greenhouse for Kelly’s potted herb garden she maintained for her small magic business.
Kelly thought that part of the reason the shapeshifters had been warming up to her these last few months were the potions she provided. From Kelly’s birth control potion, better for Ki than pills, to the poultice that Kelly had made for a young pit bull rescue with wounds from a dog fight, to the potion for Lotus’ migraines, Kelly had proved herself and her motives to be quite different from Grant’s. And after a few weeks, the dogs had become just as excited to see her as any human or any shapeshifter. They still kept some distance, but they happily hopped around a few yards away from her, and they didn’t bark anymore when she transformed.
Kelly sipped her hot chocolate on the trailer stairs as the morning sun saluted her skin and Butch Cassidy played with her toes. She gamely flared them for his amusement until he headed back into the trailer away from the cold.
The only resident left at the sanctuary who had not quite warmed to her was the new werewolf, Malcolm. Even during the full moons when he couldn’t hold back the transformation, he refused to run with her. He would jump the property fence and leave her behind whenever she tried to entice him to follow. Every morning after, he would limp back in human form, the hair on his body tipped with frost.
The rest of the time, Malcolm stalked his broody self around the sanctuary and avoided everyone as though he could spread lycanthropy to his friends by proximity. But he particularly stayed away from Kelly—as if he were afraid that if she got close enough, he might actually like her.
But Kelly wasn’t going to let another moon pass without a confrontation. The shapeshifters, well-meaning as they were, were never going to get his dog skin back for him. Malcolm had fundamentally changed from the animal he had been before, and the mourning had gone on too long. It was time to cast away the black crêpe and veils and reveal the mirrors, time to introduce Malcolm to his new pelt before the moon ripped it out of him again.
There was plenty to not like about being a werewolf. Kelly had visited that self-loathing state many times before and would probably stay in the vacation home for years to come. However, Kelly firmly believed that lycanthropy didn’t have to be all bad. It was best to embrace what you loved and discard the rest. She’d always been strange among the other wolves because she didn’t accept her wolf skin wholesale. She hated the way human beings smelled so appealing to her sensitive nose, but on the other hand, nothing beat a wolf run.
Sometimes, she thought she outran magic.
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About the Author
Aurelia T. Evans is an up-and-coming erotica author with a penchant for horror and the supernatural.
She’s the twisted mind behind the werewolf/shifter Sanctuary trilogy, demonic circus series Arcanium, and vampire serial Bloodbound. She’s also had short stories featured in various erotic anthologies.
Aurelia presently lives in Dallas, Texas (although she doesn’t ride horses or wear hats). She loves cats and enjoys baking as much as she dislikes cooking. She’s a walker, not a runner, and she writes outside as often as possible.
Email: [email protected]
Aurelia loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com.
Also by Aurelia T. Evans
Calling the Dragons Home
Red Queen
Sanctuary: Winter Howl
Sanctuary: Cry Wolf
Arcanium: Fortune
Arcanium: Carousel
Arcanium: Aerial
Arcanium: Ringmaster
Frost Bite: Gravedigger
Wild After Dark: Intervention
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