In Sheep's Clothing

by Meljean Brook

  Emma hurriedly shoved her jeans back down to her ankles. “Oh, my God. Nathan. Get out to your place. As fast as you can. Tell Osborne to get to Letty’s room, and take his gun.”

  He didn’t ask; he swung the Blazer immediately onto the road, repeated her instructions to Osborne.

  As she removed her clothes again, she explained. “I can hear Daisy barking. She doesn’t do that - she never does that. Except the night after I was bitten. She barked like crazy the first night.”

  Nathan nodded, his lips tight. Despite the two inches of snow that had fallen, a fresh set of tyre tracks led down the lane that her aunt shared with the Forresters.

  “Oh, shit,” Emma whispered, then turned to Nathan. His gaze was fixed on the road. “I’m going to change. I’m faster that way, quieter. He’s probably still in human shape.”

  “And he might have a gun,” Nathan said grimly. “So don’t you think you’re going anywhere yet. Emma! Dammit.”

  She heard his curse, the slam of his fist against the steering wheel, then the agonizing crack of her joints as she began her change.

  Letty’s place rose up out of the darkness like a gingerbread house frosted with white icing. Nathan glanced over at Emma, sitting up with her ears pricked forwards. “OK, I agree. You’re safer in that form. Harder to argue with too - which I’m sure you love.”

  Emma turned her head and grinned at him before facing forwards again.

  “There’s his truck,” he said, unsure if Emma’s wolf eyesight had picked out the extended cab pickup parked just off the lane. “He drove past the house. Then did he walk back to Letty’s or head out on foot to my place?”

  Emma gave an uncertain whine. Nathan pulled up behind the truck and drew his weapon. “Stay behind me.”

  He approached the truck slowly and noted the magnetic sign stuck to the door. Fuller’s Plumbing. He pictured its owner, Mark Fuller - tall, sandy-haired, easy-going - and shook his head. Jesus Christ. He’d played ball with Fuller in high school.

  In all the years since, he’d never heard a whisper of trouble connected to Fuller. In a small town like Pine Bluffs, word got around. If Fuller had even looked at a woman strangely, had an argument or made an unwanted advance, Nathan probably would have heard of it. But Fuller had managed to stay squeaky clean.

  Footprints led away from the pickup, heading further off the road, into the pine trees. “Do you hear anything from inside the cab?”

  Emma shook her head. Nathan checked the truck, found it empty. A bandage, crusted with dried blood, lay crumpled on the passenger’s seat.

  What had Fuller thought, Nathan wondered, when the bleeding stopped so quickly? When his thumb began to heal over? Did he understand what was happening to him?

  “This guy has the right smell?”

  In answer, Emma put her nose to the ground, began following the footprints. They led to his place, Nathan realized, jogging beside her. Fuller must have parked here rather than risk anyone at Nathan’s house seeing the truck’s headlights or hearing the engine.

  Nathan dialled Osborne’s cell, and was putting his phone to his ear when the gunshots cracked through the night. He broke into a run. Emma streaked ahead.

  He didn’t slow to catch his breath when Osborne answered the phone. “Who fired?” Nathan asked.

  “I did. It’s Mark Fuller, hopped up on something. He took off, out of the house.”

  “Injuries?”

  “Not me or Miss Letty, sir. I hit Fuller but it didn’t slow him down.”

  “Did he have a weapon?”

  “If he did, he didn’t use it.”

  All right. “Hold your position. We’re coming up on the house now.”

  Or he was. Nathan disconnected, searching for Emma. Her tracks followed the footprints across the wide, moonlit clearing that separated his house from the woods, but he didn’t see her or Fuller.

  He stopped, used the wide trunk and low branches of a pine at the clearing’s edge for cover. The shadows around the house were deep; movement near the back porch caught his eye.

  Fuller. Hunched over, and using an eerie, loping gait that sent prickles of dread down Nathan’s spine. That gait didn’t look human or wolf, but simply mhuman. Moonlight reflected in Fuller’s eyes as he turned his head.

  He stopped, straightened - and stared directly at Nathan.

  Nathan held his breath, but his hopes that Fuller had just been searching the treeline and couldn’t see him were dashed when he hunched over again and began loping towards him. An eager, hungry growl carried across the clearing.

  Nathan stepped out of the trees, set his feet, steadily aimed his gun. “Drop to the ground, Fuller! Get down, or I will fire!”

  The werewolf kept running - grinning, panting.

  Nathan squeezed the trigger. Blood sprayed the snow behind Fuller’s left leg. But he kept on coming.

  Cold sweat trickled down the back of Nathan’s neck; he fired again: an abdomen shot that twisted Fuller to the side, briefly, before the bastard righted himself. If anything, he seemed to run faster. Nathan had time for one more shot. The chest was a bigger target than the head. The head was a kill shot.

  His next bullet ripped through Fuller’s scalp, laid white bone open to the moonlight. He didn’t miss a step.

  Nathan stumbled back, searching for the tree branch. He’d get higher, defend himself from a better position, if he had time.

  A dark form raced across the clearing and launched at Fuller. Nathan heard the impact of flesh and bone, saw the wave of snow that flew back from the two bodies hitting the ground.

  Nathan sprinted towards them. Growls filled the air, yips of pain. Emma’s?

  No, Nathan realized with relief as their twisting battle came to a halt. Emma pinned Fuller on his back with her large forepaw pressing into his bloodied chest. Her teeth closed over his throat.

  Fuller wheezed, his eyes opening wide. He flailed at Emma with his right hand. The thumb was gone, but a tiny protrusion of pink flesh had already begun to grow in its place.

  Nathan aimed his weapon at Fuller’s head. “Don’t move, Mark. Just stay still.”

  Fuller obeyed, dropping his fists to the snow at his sides. His chest heaved as he tried to draw in air. His frantic gaze met Nathan’s. “Can’t . . . stop.”

  “We’ll try to get you help,” Nathan promised. But he had a feeling they weren’t going to get Fuller out of this field. Madness filled the other man’s eyes, and Nathan didn’t trust that Fuller would stay down if Emma let him go.

  But he was staying down now, so Nathan asked, “Did you kill those women? Rape them, and leave them off the highway?”

  As if in ecstasy, Fuller’s eyes rolled back into his head. He ran his tongue over the grin that stretched his lips. “They were . . . so good. Want more.”

  Emma’s snarl echoed Nathan’s own rage.

  “And what were you planning to do here?”

  Fuller raised his right hand. “Knew . . . you’d find . . . fingerprint. Knew . . . you’d stop me. I can’t - don’t - want to stop.”

  Nathan shook his head in disbelief. No, he wouldn’t have found a match. Fuller had never been charged or booked. His prints wouldn’t have been in the system.

  Emma shifted her grip on his throat. Fuller’s voice rose an octave, took on a sing-song rhythm. “But when I came to your house, I smelled her. Oh, Miss Letty, Letty, Letty—”

  Emma tightened her jaw, cutting off the sick refrain.

  “Hold still,” Nathan ordered.

  Fuller lowered his hand again, but his other hand moved beneath his waist, pulling out—

  “Gun, Emma!” Nathan shouted. “Get back!”

  Her jaws clamped around Fuller’s neck as she twisted away. The rip of flesh was drowned by the roar of a gunshot.

  Emma yelped. Nathan shoved her to the side, stomped his boot into the bloody cavity she’d opened in Fuller’s throat. He aimed between the bastard’s eyes and fired.

  Nathan whipped around. Emma lay on the
ground, blood spreading over and melting the snow beneath her.

  “Emma, Emma, Emma.” He fell to his knees, lifted her head onto his lap, stroked his hands over her fur, searching. It was a belly shot. Bad. Really bad for most wolves. “Tell me you’re going to be OK.”

  He heard the crack, felt her ribs bulge beneath his hands. “Jesus Christ, Emma.” He tore out of his coat, covered her with it, held her through the transformation. As soon as she lay panting and sweating in his arms, he said, “I just meant for you to nod your head.”

  She laughed breathlessly, showing him her pale stomach. Blood stained her skin, but the wound had vanished. “Nice trick, huh?”

  His relief grabbed him by his throat, and took away any response he might have had. He hauled her up, sealed her mouth with his kiss, let her feel every emotion rushing through him. She clung to him, returned everything he gave.

  He stood and swung her up against his chest, her bare legs dangling over his arm. They stared down at Fuller’s body for a silent moment, then Nathan began carrying her towards the house.

  He took a long breath. “So, in a little while, once we’ve got everything settled, maybe you’ll take a risk with me.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Marry you?”

  His stomach dropped, but there wasn’t a bit of him that didn’t like the idea. “Well, that too. But I’m thinking more along the lines of you . . . biting me.” He brushed his lips against her mouth which had fallen open in surprise. “I’d like to run with you.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes before she buried her face against his neck. “Yes,” she said. “Of course it’s yes. We can be our own little pack.” Her lips kissed his skin; her teeth followed it with a nip.

  He laughed, pressed his lips over her hair. “Let me get you home first.”

  “I’m with you,” she said simply, and her arms tightened around his neck. “So I’m already there.”

  Author Biographies

  Meljean Brook

  Critically-acclaimed author of the Guardian paranormal romance series

  meljeanbrook.com

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters 162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009

  “In Sheep’s Clothing” © by Meljean Brook. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  The right of Trisha Telep to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN 978-1-84529-941-5

  First published in the United States in 2009 by Running Press Book Publishers

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  US Library of Congress number: 2008942197 US ISBN 978-7624-3651-4

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