by Lauren Esker
Well, and that whole problem where our families have hated each other since before we were born ...
Strange to think that twenty-four hours ago, the family feud had been their biggest problem.
"Let's not try to meet up," she said. "Damon can wear borrowed clothes, or, I don't know, buy new ones or something. I agree, getting him out of town is the important thing right now."
Terry's long-suffering look had deepened throughout the conversation. Julie planted a heel on his toes to make sure he didn't say anything. She didn't get a chance, though, because there was a loud horn honk from outside and the sound of someone revving an engine.
Julie beat everyone else to the window to look out. Ava had backed her car all the way down to the foot of the driveway. It was now flanked by two big motorcycles with burly guys on them. One of them leaned over and slammed a fist on the hood of the car. Even from the window, it was possible to see the jerk of Ava's blond head as she jumped.
"They're bullying Ava," Terry seethed. "Those assholes."
"She's in the car and she's got the doors locked," Julie pointed out, trying to keep a level head although she was equally furious at the Renners' bullying of her younger sister. "She's probably safer than we are."
Gray let out a low growl. "I'll go talk to them."
Julie and Terry followed close on his heels, with Vanessa bringing up the rear. Despite his limp, Gray could move fast when he wanted to, and halfway down the stairs he vaulted over the railing and landed on the living room floor, catching himself awkwardly with a stumbling sideways hop. "Brad!" he shouted.
"What's got your tail in a twist?" Brad yelled back from the kitchen.
"Get those idiots out there under control before I do it for you!"
Brad appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, beer in hand. "That's the alpha's job."
"Well, then he's not doing his job," Gray snarled, and shifted into a startlingly huge light-gray wolf. Hackles bristling, he stalked out the half-open front door.
By the time Julie and Terry made it out onto the porch, Gray was back in human form and arguing loudly with his brother Barry, who turned out to be one of the two yahoos on motorcycles terrorizing Ava. The other one was the guy Terry had pointed out as Doug Renner, and he'd backed off to a safe distance.
Through the windshield of the Toyota, Ava stared at them, wide-eyed.
"Sons of bitches," Terry muttered. His shoulders hunched, and Julie sensed he was on the verge of shifting.
"Don't shift," she said, grabbing his hand. "It'd be like throwing blood into shark-infested water. Go make sure Ava is all right."
Terry gave her a look of disbelief. "I'm not leaving you alone!"
"I just want to say goodbye to Vanessa. Go check on Ava."
She could see he was torn, but in the end, worry for the younger and more delicate of his two sisters won out. Terry stalked over to the car, head down, fury radiating off him. He elbowed a Renner out of the way. Fortunately, all the Renners were too busy being distracted by Gray's fight with his brother to go for him. Doug Renner had now gotten involved in Gray and Barry's fight as well.
"What did you want to say to me?" Vanessa asked quietly.
"I wanted to know how bad your father's condition really is. I know Damon will ask."
"Bad," Vanessa said. "He's in a coma right now, I think. Even if he wakes up, Gray thinks he's probably never going to be the same again."
"So he can't be the alpha anymore?"
"It's not necessarily a matter of physical strength," Vanessa said. "But ..." She sighed. "It was strength that Dad used to maintain his control over the pack. No matter what else happens, there's going to be a power vacuum."
Vanessa looked drawn and resigned. Julie's fury at the Renners for bullying Ava still hadn't faded, and she thought how much worse Damon must feel, knowing his sister was in this situation, surrounded by these rough and dangerous people.
"Look," Julie said on sudden impulse, pulling out her phone. "Let me text you my number, okay? If you need help, call us."
Vanessa's face was shocked and touched. Tears sprang into her eyes. "You don't have to."
"Yeah, I do. You're going to be my sister-in-law, I hope. We may not be pack, but we're family. What's your number?"
"555-1792."
As Julie punched in the number, a look of pain crossed Vanessa's face. Julie looked over to see that Cain Renner had finally noticed the altercation happening beside Ava's car, and had come over to intervene. The burly alpha didn't have to throw a punch; everyone backed down as soon as he approached, like wild wolves scattering from a kill when a bigger predator moved in.
Vanessa's grimace indicated he must be hitting the alpha-mojo pretty hard—but then, he'd have to be pretty tough, mentally as well as physically, to control a pack that reminded Julie of nothing so much as a biker gang.
"Call us if you need to," Julie told Vanessa, hitting send.
"I will. Thank you."
Julie darted quickly to Ava's car. Terry leaned back and popped the lock on the rear door as soon as she reached it, and Julie scrambled inside. Ava wasted no time in backing out onto the highway, spraying gravel from the little car's tires.
Julie twisted around to look back through the rear windshield. She couldn't see Gray; her view was blocked by a stand of trees beside the mailbox. She hoped he wasn't punished too badly for defending her sister.
"Well, aren't they a bunch of lovely people," Ava said. She looked okay, but she was gripping the steering wheel very tightly. "Did you get what you came for?"
"Sort of," Julie said. "We found out that both wolf packs are planning on searching for Damon tonight, so we need to get him out of town. Are you okay, sis?"
"I'm fine. It wasn't that scary." But a slight quaver in her voice gave the lie to her brave words.
Terry reached out and squeezed her arm.
"Why don't you take a roundabout way instead of going straight back to Grandma's," Julie suggested. "Just in case anyone is following us."
Ava sighed, but turned onto a county road that cut through the neighboring farms and came out at the next town over. "I'll go by way of Littlefield. Good enough, James Bond?"
"Wait 'til you hear what she's planning on doing later," Terry said. "So, Jules, this is not to say I told you so, but—I was joking about Bonnie and Clyde, I swear to God."
"We aren't going on the run," Julie said. "Not from the police or anything like that. We're just lying low."
"You could take him to stay with Aunt Lydia and Aunt Charlotte," Ava suggested. "They always complain we don't visit enough."
Terry snorted. "I'm not sure if showing up with a werewolf boyfriend and a whole pack of homicidal wolves in pursuit is quite the sort of casual family weekend they have in mind.
Julie smacked him in the shoulder. "Hey, the whole point is not to show up with homicidal wolves behind us, okay?"
"Hey, guys," Ava said, her eyes on the rear-view mirror. "Speaking of things along those lines ... didn't we just see that truck back at the Wolfe farm?"
Julie twisted around. They were on a narrow county road with trees and farms flicking past, which made it hard to miss the big black truck coming up rapidly behind them.
"Pull over a little," Terry said, his voice tight. "Maybe they'll pass."
Julie swallowed. "I—I don't think they want to pass."
She'd caught sight of several motorcycles strung out in a line behind the truck. Like ducklings behind a mama duck was her first thought, but no, the more appropriate analogy was probably like a pack of hunting wolves following their leader. She had one guess who was in that truck.
And it was coming up fast.
"What do I do?" Ava asked wildly, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "I don't know what to do!"
Reacting more with panic than thought, she pushed down the accelerator. Leaning between the seats, Julie watched the speedometer creep up to 60, then 70. The little car shuddered at the higher speed.
"Guys
, I'm so sorry," Julie said. "I never should've brought any of us here, and if it weren't for me, we'd still be on the main highway—"
"—where assholes with a monster truck would still be trying to run us off the road. You couldn't have known." Terry fumbled for his cell phone. "I'm calling the cops."
He didn't get a chance. The big truck's bumper loomed in the back windshield, and then it crashed into the back of the smaller car. Since their speeds were almost matching by now, it was more of a tap, but the car veered wildly as Ava fought to control it.
Terry's phone skittered out of his fingers and went under the seat. "Damn it!" He raised his head and yelped, "Ava, steer into the skid, you're going to flip us!"
Julie twisted around just in time to see the bumper looming behind them again. "Ava, he's trying again! Can you get out of his way?"
"Stop telling me what to do, both of you!" Ava protested breathlessly. "I'm busy!"
"You just told us to tell you what to do!" Terry yelled.
The truck tapped their bumper again; the car lurched sideways. Just then a break in the trees streaming past them gave way to a hayfield. Ava yanked the steering wheel. For a helpless moment it seemed they were going to flip over, had to flip over. Then they jolted off the road, into the ditch. Julie shrieked as she was bounced out of her seat, and Terry made the most sheeplike noise she'd ever heard out of him.
The car lurched out of the ditch, whipped through a single strand of wire fencing, and sped into the field. The grass was taller than the hood of the car, lashing their windshield. As they bounced over ruts and knots of turf, Julie felt like she was going to shake apart.
"Can you even see where you're going?" Terry demanded.
"No!" Ava wailed.
Julie clung to the seat and craned around. "They're leaving the road too," she reported.
"They're going to be able to drive through this stuff a lot faster than we can," Terry said grimly.
"It's not like I had a choice!"
The Toyota jolted to an abrupt halt at the edge of the woods, its small tires sinking into softer dirt and spinning out.
"Shit!" Ava yelped.
Julie fumbled with her seat belt. "They're right behind us."
The three of them piled out, Terry helping Ava, who was white and shaking. The trees quickly hid their view of the field, but not before Julie glimpsed the truck skidding to a stop next to the little car, with motorcycles swarming up behind. The roar of engines seemed to shiver the air around them.
"They can't follow us in those," Ava gasped.
No, Julie thought, but they could do something much worse. The forest was the wolves' natural hunting ground.
"I dropped my phone," Terry panted. "Who's got theirs?"
"Me." Julie lagged briefly as she got hers out of her pocket. When her finger-tap woke it, the screen was still displaying Vanessa's saved contact. Julie hit that because she didn't think she could navigate the touchscreen or call 911 while running.
"Julie?" Vanessa's voice said cautiously.
"Vanessa, help!" Julie gasped. She stumbled on a low stone wall; Terry helped pull her over. "Your pack is chasing us. We're in the woods near Littlefield. Get help. Call Damon!"
And then her feet almost went out from under her on a muddy bank. Her phone flew out of her hand into the bushes. There was no time to stop and find it.
Behind them, a long low howl went up from the pack. Their pursuers had shifted.
"Shift," Terry ordered. "We can't outrun them on two legs."
"We can't on four either," Julie said. She'd run through the woods with Damon often enough to know that.
"All we have to do is make it to the nearest farm. We can call the cops from there."
Ava shifted first. Her sheep form was even more fragile-looking than her human one, all pale blond wool and delicate legs. But she was fleet; she dashed ahead of them, bounding through the trees on her tiny hooves.
Julie shifted as Terry did. Suddenly the forest's colors washed out; the smells strengthened; the depth of her human field of vision spread and widened into the nearly 360-degree range of her sheep vision.
And all her instincts, the born and bred instincts of a prey animal, screamed at her to run.
So she did.
10. Damon
Julie!
Damon woke with a jolt from a hazy, disjointed dream. He'd been running through the forest, with yellow eyes watching him from every side ...
Now he was lying in a tangle of sheets, his side stabbing him and his ankle burning. He was hot, sweaty, and so tired he felt as if he'd barely slept at all.
Sunlight gleamed through the lacy gingham curtains, throwing a block of yellow light across the bed.
How long did I sleep?
He pulled himself stiffly out of the tangle of covers. He was thirsty, starving, and everything ached, but the physical discomfort was overwhelmed by anxiety about his mate, beating against the back of his brain like a bird battering its wings on a window pane.
Julie wasn't near. She was far. This much, his wolf knew. And she was ... not in moral peril, perhaps, but deeply anxious. Threatened.
Damon opened the door of the room and nearly stumbled across a neat stack of clothing in front of it. His own clothes were on top—now washed, dried, and folded, though still torn to rags. The items from his pockets, keys and cell phone, were placed neatly on top of the jeans.
Under that, he found a shirt, a pair of sweat pants, and socks. The shirt was too wide in the shoulders and too short in the sleeves, and the sweatpants stopped just above his ankles, but he felt a little better once he was dressed. Even his shoes, at the bottom of the pile, had been dried and brushed off.
He left the bedroom and moved silently through the house, limping on his sore leg. Julie's nervousness continued to beat a tattoo in the back of his mind. Wherever she was, it was making her very anxious, and he desperately needed to be there, helping her. Protecting her.
The house was not large. When he passed through the kitchen, there was a plate on the table containing several pieces of buttered toast and weighing down a note on sunny yellow paper: Breakfast for you on the stove, young wolf.
Damon lifted the lid on the skillet on the stovetop and found scrambled eggs and probably half a pound of fried bacon.
It was all lukewarm, but he inhaled it standing at the stove, without bothering to look around for a microwave or transfer it to a plate. The energy for shifter healing had to come from somewhere, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been this hungry.
With the urgency of his hunger abated somewhat, Julie's peril elbowed its way back into his brain. She still wasn't in mortal danger, just anxious. Damon picked up a piece of toast, stuffed most of another into his mouth, and opened the door to sunshine and farm smells.
"Ah, you're awake," Grandma MacReary's voice said from somewhere nearby.
Damon jumped and looked around. He finally realized the voice had come not from ground level, but from above him. She was on the roof of one of the sheds, in rolled-up coveralls with a bucket of tar.
"Patching leaks?" he asked when his mouth was no longer full.
"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. Someday I need to refinish all the outbuildings properly with metal roofing, but in the meantime, I suppose it gives me an opportunity to see the land I own from a new vantage point. I always used to love going up on roofs as a girl."
A brief flash of the Capshaw hayloft skated through Damon's mind, which reminded him even more urgently of Julie. "Mrs. MacReary—"
"Could you do me a favor, son, since you're down there?"
"Sure, but—"
"Do you see that hammer there, and the box of nails? I could use both of those up here. I'm not so good with ladders as I once was."
Well, she had helped save his life. Damon stuffed the other piece of toast into his mouth and picked up the requested items.
Climbing the ladder turned out not to be as difficult as he'd been afraid of, as long as
he used his good leg to lead and didn't twist too much. The smell of warm tar hit him as he crested the edge of the shed roof. Mrs. MacReary was standing on the roof's asphalt shingles, spreading it with a broom.
"Ah, thank you. There's a loose board up here. You can't let these things go—but, then, you grew up on a farm, so I suppose you know that already."
"Yes, ma'am."
He saw what she meant about being able to survey the whole property from up here. Both the Capshaw and Wolfe farms were much larger, big enough to run a commercial market operation. But this was simply a small family farm. A couple of cows and a goat grazed in a fenced area, and farther off a spotted horse was lying in the shade of a tree. The garden tucked up against the side of the house was just the right size for one person to manage. Some chickens pecked around the barn, and a tabby cat sitting on a fence post was so still that Damon didn't see it until it moved.
"This is a beautiful place you have, ma'am," Damon said, and meant it. "Thank you for the loan of the clothes."
"I thought you'd prefer those to pajamas. They belonged to my late husband. Julie is bringing you something more appropriate."
"Julie is—" And then it all clicked together, the vague anxiety coming from Julie's end of their link, together with her absence. The most likely place she could be getting clothes for him was also the very place she couldn't go.
He started for the ladder, but one of Mrs. MacReary's hands closed over his wrist. For an old lady, she was very strong. He could've broken her grip anyway, but he didn't want to start a wrestling match on the roof.
"I commend you for wanting to defend my granddaughter, young man, but if she wanted your help, she'd have asked for it."
"She doesn't know what she's getting herself into," Damon protested.
"Really? I think Julie is a girl who knows her own mind. Besides, if she were in true danger right now, you'd know it, wouldn't you?"
Damon stopped trying to get away, and looked at her assessingly with newfound curiosity. "How do you know that?"
A smile warmed her weatherbeaten face and crinkled the network of creases around her eyes. "You don't imagine you're the only person who's ever experienced the mate bond, do you, son?"
