by Chant, Zoe
She thrust the gear shift from park to drive and slammed on the gas. Gravel sprayed up around her as she turned the steering wheel as far to the right as she could, swinging the empty passenger side of the car in Eli’s direction.
He hit her with all the force of an earthquake.
She watched with horror as the passenger side of the car crumpled inwards, almost in slow-motion.
The whole car just crunched around her, with the front grill of Eli’s truck her new passenger, close enough for her to reach out and touch it.
Her fingers were stiff as she fumbled with the seatbelt.
Have to get out, have to get out. It could catch fire.
The truck growled at her, its headlights reflecting the sun and shining like eyes.
God, her hands kept slipping on the door.
And then, just like that, some incredible force ripped the door off the side of the car for her.
Colby was standing there, breathing hard, and he reached down and gathered her up in his arms. His dark blue eyes had never looked fiercer, but his hands were as tender with her as ever.
He set her down on her feet.
“Get Susan back in the house.” His voice was almost supernaturally calm. “I know you can protect her. Hurry.”
She wasn’t going to argue. Right now her mind felt like a wobbling cube of Jell-O. And the part of it that was functioning knew that Susan did need to be kept safe—and kept out of the secrets of the shifter world if at all possible.
There was a brutal whine as Eli struggled to reverse the truck out of the snare of her car.
He would give up in another few seconds, Aria knew. She had better be in the house by then.
She took off running and grabbed Susan’s hand on the way, pulling the other woman inside.
“Aria? Why are you here? What’s going on? Who was that man in the truck? What’s happening?”
Aria bolted every lock on the door.
“He’s a federal fugitive.”
She could hear that her voice had taken on some of Colby’s weird calm, and somehow that comforted her, like they were both drawing from the same pool of strength.
“That man’s dangerous, but Colby will take care of him.”
She couldn’t stand not being able to see what was happening outside, but she knew she couldn’t let Susan watch. She remembered the instructions Colby had given her when Eli had burst through her front door.
“Go into the bathroom. Shut the door and lock it. Don’t come out until you hear one of us telling you it’s okay.”
“Why the bathroom?”
Because it doesn’t have any windows.
“Um, It’s more stable if there’s structural damage to the house.”
Actually, for all she knew that was the truth. You were supposed to take shelter in bathrooms during tornadoes, weren’t you?
“Aren’t you going to come with me?” Susan said in a small voice. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. If you’re going to stay out here and fight, I’m going to stay out here and fight.”
Aria was sorry for every time she’d ever thought Susan was too much of a worrywart. She’d had real problems this whole time, and when push came to shove, she was standing up and trying to protect Aria just like Aria was trying to protect her. She really was sweet, and she was a lot braver than Aria had given her credit for being.
“It’s all right,” Aria said gently. “I’ll join you in a minute. I just want to keep an eye on Colby.” She squeezed Susan’s arm. “I’ll feel a lot better if I know you’re okay.”
Susan gulped down her panic and nodded, running back towards the bathroom.
Aria pulled the curtain aside.
*
The force of the collision had shattered the windshield of Eli’s truck. Colby reached straight through it and pulled Eli out over the twisted wreck of the front of the cab.
Halfway through, it turned from him dragging a fugitive from his vehicle and into him dragging a timber wolf out by the collar of its slowly ripping shirt.
“No, you don’t,” Colby growled. “Not this time.”
He wrestled the wolf sideways. He still had most of his shifter strength even in his human form, but he knew that Eli, shifted, was still stronger.
But Eli wanted him to shift, and he was tired of playing Eli’s game.
If Eli was his reflection, Colby was just going to have to break the damn mirror.
It didn’t matter who was stronger. What mattered was that, as a human, he had more flexibility and coordination. He could wrap his arms and legs around Eli and hang on tight, keeping him pinned to one place no matter how much Eli thrashed and snapped at him.
I’ve got a wolf’s determination and a human’s ingenuity. You can’t beat me.
He kept his chin down against his chest, protecting the soft flesh of his throat.
“You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Aria Clarke. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—”
Eli flailed in Colby’s grasp. His jaws gnashed together just half an inch away from Colby’s ear.
“Come on, I know it has to be pissing you off to be hearing this human stuff. Sorry you’re not getting your big alpha showdown this time, asshole.”
Teeth sank into his shoulder, and the pain momentarily blinded him. He refused to let his grip loosen, even though the fingers knotted in Eli’s fur were starting to grow numb.
He needed Eli frustrated and out of control. Sooner or later, Eli would exhaust himself, and this wrestling match would end.
“You’re not going anywhere. And you’re never coming near my mate again. She outsmarted you, and now I’m going to outlast you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You don’t get what you want anymore.”
He heard Susan Fowler’s screen door open and close, and when he looked up, he saw Aria headed towards them with a determined look in her eyes.
She had her gun out and aimed squarely at Eli.
This was starting to become a very familiar sight.
Against all odds, Colby wound up grinning at her, even though he could feel blood soaking through his shirt.
“I could have sworn you were supposed to stay inside.”
“I’m more of an outdoors kind of girl.”
And just like that, the rest of the cavalry arrived all at once. Martin, Theo, and Gretchen seemed to step straight out of thin air, with the mythic shifters dropping the invisibility that had shrouded them all.
“You’re surrounded,” Colby said. “Give up.”
“And Animal Control is really and truly on their way this time,” Aria added. “They know enough to take a nature photographer’s word for spotting a wolf. And you’re feral and dangerous, so they won’t take any chances. You can die as a wolf... or live as a human. Your choice. But you’re outnumbered.”
Eli’s unnerving yellow-green eyes stared into Colby’s like he wanted to dissect him.
But Colby could have told him what he’d find. Not a clearly labeled wolf half and a clearly labeled human half; not one side dominant over the other. Just him.
Whatever Eli saw there, it seemed to convince him that he really was done for.
Slowly, the fur Colby was gripping flattened down, smoothing out into bare skin.
Apparently, the back-to-nature, go-wolf-or-go-home guy wasn’t so attached to being a wolf that he was willing to die for it.
Colby snapped the handcuffs on the second Eli had hands to put them around.
He repeated the Miranda rights, letting himself start to feel woozy now as more and more blood seeped through his shirt and ran down his chest. Good thing he’d been the one to take that bite, not Susan Fowler.
“Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
Eli just looked like the whole world had turned upside-down on him.
“You’re weak,” Eli said. “You needed all these people on your s
ide to take me down.”
“These people are my pack,” Colby said. He thought of Mel, Luke, Mattie, Aria’s parents. “Some of my pack. I’m glad I have them. And I bet right now you’re sorry you threw all of yours away.”
He hauled Eli up to his feet and smiled at his team.
“Can one of you take this asshole away before I pass out on top of him?”
“It would be our pleasure,” Gretchen said.
He handed Eli Hebbert off to her, getting an extra kick out of how much it probably pained his delusional ego to be manhandled by a woman.
“And Susan’s inside in the bathroom,” Aria added. “Theo, you talked to her before, she knows you. Can you go—sort of explain this?”
“Of course,” Theo said instantly.
Good, Colby thought. He still felt a little woozy. That’s good.
Now that everything was resolved, he let himself slump—and found he was leaning against Aria’s shoulder, since she was suddenly right by him, holding him up.
“Thanks,” he said.
She was busy unbuttoning his shirt to examine the bite. “For what?”
For catching him. For being his backup even when he’d said he didn’t need it. For telling him not to say goodbye to her. For saving her own life by turning the car around.
For having a voice that was the most beautiful piece of music he’d ever heard in his entire life.
He just shook his head, unable to possibly say all of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life saying it.
Then something occurred to him. Even with the pain of Aria starting to dab the blood away from his shoulder, the thought made him laugh.
“What?” Aria said.
“I’m half-tempted to shift just so poor Susan Fowler doesn’t have another phantom wolf sighting she has to try to explain to Animal Control. But you can’t let them capture me.”
“Oh, that.” She smiled. “I made it up. I was too busy worrying about to even think about calling Animal Control and doubling down on it. I was just bluffing.”
Like she had with the silver bullets. Totally fearless.
“God, I love you,” Colby said.
She wrapped her arms around him, burying him in the wildflower and cedar scent of her hair. She was holding onto him like she never wanted to let him go.
*
“Are you going to turn into some kind of super werewolf now?” Mattie said, staring at the white bandage on Colby’s shoulder. “Some kind of double werewolf?”
“No,” Colby said. “I’m still just me.”
“Being you is always enough,” Mattie said seriously.
He was still a little pale, but his shifter healing had already started getting him back on his feet, and Aria had secretly been relieved when he had wanted to have another dinner with her family and finish it this time. She knew they’d wanted to see for sure that he was all right.
That they were both all right. It felt like it had been a long, feverish nightmare.
But now everything bad had boiled away and all she was left with was the sweetest, most lasting part of the dream.
No. Of the reality.
Tomorrow she would have to start dealing with some of the more complicated parts of reality. She’d made a vow to spend more time with Susan, and she was going to start taking her on walks through the preserve so she’d be less freaked out by the wilderness. She would have to spin her some story about Eli. And she would, in general, have pictures to take, trail mix to assemble, dirty dishes to wash.
But she would also have Colby.
It felt good to be home with her family again, and it felt good to have him be part of that.
It was sweet to see how much Mattie already liked him. Aria liked watching the two of them together: Colby sitting on the fireplace with his long legs stretched out, and Mattie sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking up at him with a solemn, fascinated expression.
She didn’t have her camera with her, but she at least had her phone. Time to capture some classic mate and child memories. She aimed the phone and took a candid shot of Mattie trying to imitate a wolf howl.
Mattie heard the click of the camera app and turned around.
“Mom,” she said sternly, “I’m not nature. Neither is Marshal Colby.”
“Just Colby, sweetheart,” he said. “And we’re all sort of part of nature.”
She shook her head. “We’re in the house. If you take nature inside, it becomes domesticated.” She pronounced the word carefully. “Like a cat or a potted plant. We’re domesticated. Mom’s only supposed to be photographing wild things.”
Aria laughed. “I think you definitely qualify as a wild thing sometimes.”
“I think you should only take pictures of me when I pose,” Mattie said.
“I’ll consider that.”
Colby stood up, stretching. Aria was glad to see that he was past wincing whenever he did it. He joined her on the sofa and put his arm around her, letting her snuggle up against him.
Her mom and dad came in bearing plates with slices of her mom’s famous devil’s food cake.
Colby turned his head against Aria’s ear and whispered, “Is it just me, or is your mom’s lipstick a little smudged?”
“It’s not just you,” Aria whispered back. She’d resigned herself to this a long time ago. “I told you, they’re crazy about each other. And we know how tempting it is to make out in the kitchen.”
She accepted a cake plate with thanks.
“So,” her mother said, elegantly situating herself in an armchair. She could be dignified no matter what amount of smudged lipstick she had on. “I think all’s well that ends well.”
“All’s well that ends with cake,” Ben said.
“Both of these are true,” Aria said.
And all, she thought, was well so long as it ended like this, with her family all around her and Colby’s arm over her shoulders.
It was a version of home with romance suffused through it, like the chocolate through the devil’s food cake. It was a version of herself that she had never known before, and she thought Mattie was right. Being herself was enough.
Epilogue
Ben Clarke had very strong feelings about backyard cookouts, as it turned out. Colby was tempted to turn the whole grill over to him, but his self-respect was on the line here. Perfectly chargrilling these burgers was probably the modern equivalent of being able to hunt properly for his mate and her cub.
Their cub. Kid.
His brain was going ultra-wolf on him. His manhood was on the line here.
...Okay, that was pushing it a little too far. His manhood was fine. But he liked doing things right, and since this whole “moving in together” cookout had been his idea in the first place, he figured he owed the party his hard labor.
“You got the portobellos for the vegetarians, right?” Ben said. “You put those way on the other side of the grill so they don’t get any of the grease from the meat. Now, the burgers, you gotta make sure to salt those before you start grilling them. It’s not as good if you do it afterwards.” He paused, a hamburger patty still balanced on his outstretched spatula. “You ever eat raw meat?”
Colby blinked. “What, like steak tartare? Sushi?”
“No, I mean...” He lowered his voice. “When you’re all Twilight.”
“Most men your age go for Teen Wolf or An American Werewolf in London,” Colby said, laughing. “Or, I don’t know—The Howling. The Wolf Man.”
“That Twilight lady’s a good storyteller,” Ben said, unruffled by this. “And should you be yelling ‘werewolf’ all over the place?”
Colby shrugged. “Everybody here knows already.”
He salted the burger on Ben’s spatula, took the spatula from his hand, and flipped the patty onto the grill, where it made an appealing hissing sound.
Man discovers fire. Man discovers grill. Man discovers family.
Wolf discovers pack.
I already knew we had a pack, his wolf said complac
ently. When do we eat? The smell is delicious.
Soon. Down, boy.
“Anyway,” he said, “when I’m on all fours... yeah, sometimes. I know it seems gross, but it’s just part of the whole deal.”
“No,” Ben said, rubbing at his chin and the prickle of salt and pepper whiskers there. “I think I understand. Gotta let the beast off the leash every now and then. You take that kid hunting?”
He meant Luke. Colby nodded. “A couple times a month. More running than hunting, though, generally—I just drive us out to the preserve and let him burn off some energy.”
“Wish I could have done that at his age.” Ben considered the point further. “Well, I guess I could have run track. Maybe running’s running.”
Colby shook his head, unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face just at the thought of sprinting through the forest, surrounded by dense smells and endless excitement. “Doesn’t even compare.”
“Show-off,” Ben said good-naturedly, elbowing him. “And flip those right there, it’s getting to be time for it.”
He flipped.
Aria came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist, nuzzling into his back. The scent of her filled his nose, wild and intoxicating.
“What are you two talking about?”
“Running. And whether or not I eat raw meat when I’m a wolf.”
“Dad, don’t ask questions like that.”
“He’s a werewolf,” Ben said. “I’m not allowed to be curious?”
“You’re allowed to be curious,” Aria said. “You’re not allowed to talk about Colby chowing down on a deer while other people are trying to eat. Especially Mattie and Mom.”
“Now, see, I didn’t even get into that kind of detail. You’re the one ruining table-talk. And we’re not even at a table anyway.” Ben looked at Colby. “Would you consider surrendering the grill to an old man? It’s killing me being a bystander to it, and if you go and entertain Aria, maybe she’ll remember she’s my beloved only daughter and not just her mom’s Miss Etiquette.”
“You’re not old,” Colby said. He stepped away from the grill. “But it’s all yours. My manhood will survive.”
