by Sadie Hart
“There’s another wolf on our side?” Eden looked about and froze, leaning away from the wolf breathing softly in her face.
“Six, not including Quinn.” He touched her shoulder. “I’ll need you to help me lift him. I’m a bit battered from the fight and I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Six? How the hell—?”
“I beat their alpha. If my wolf is anything to go by, and I’m beginning to think he’s rather right a lot of the time, I’m it now, apparently.”
A lopsided smile touched her face and Eden shook her head. “And Morrigan?”
“Morrigan, her trolls, and her black wolf fled.” Bay knelt and slid his arms under Quinn’s body, and waited for Eden to do the same. She felt down the man’s legs until she had him by his ankles and together they hefted him up. “Come,” Bay ordered the wolf, and the large white animal slipped under Quinn, lifting him onto his back and out of their arms.
Quinn gave a wounded moan from the movement. “It’s okay,” Eden said softly, “we’re going to get you home.”
“I was attacked,” he said, his voice a whimper. “Biggest wolf I’ve ever seen. Like the one you described.”
“I know.” Her hand found Quinn’s and she squeezed, but her attention lingered in Bay’s direction. He could see the worry on her face, in the harsh furrow between her brows, the wounded look in her eyes. Then she leaned closer to Quinn and whispered, “I’ll explain later. Go to sleep, you’re safe now.”
She trembled as she said it and Bay stepped forward, his frozen hands finding her neck. She flinched but leaned into the touch. Her hand fell away from Quinn and she stepped into Bay’s arms. Her hands trailed up his bare chest. “You’re so cold.”
The icy wind rattled through him, hard enough his teeth clacked, but Bay couldn’t help himself. He smiled. He leaned down and kissed her, needing that touch. Needing to hold her, to remind himself that she was okay, and that he really had won. “I love you, Eden,” he murmured when he pulled away.
His body swayed in the freezing wind, held here by the look of soft wonder in her eyes. She was the reason he’d found himself again. Seeing her had helped him put his world back to rights, but more than that, she’d accepted him in every way possible. For that, she held his heart.
“We need to get you and Quinn home. You’re both freezing. You’re naked.” Her fingers tapped his chest as if he could forget the blistering cold at his back.
“Say it first.”
She laughed. “I love you too, now shift.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. Fur slipped out over his skin and he heard her soft inhale, surprised as she felt him begin to change. Then he stepped away and let the wolf out again. Then, he tilted up his head, gave a short blast of a howl and led them all into the dark.
This time, towards home.
Chapter Eighteen
The warm scent of hot chocolate swirled through the air and Bay breathed it in, his frozen hands cupped around the mug. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for a month, but instead, he sat at Eden’s kitchen table in sweats and a flannel shirt, watching as Kennedy stitched up the small white wolf on Eden’s floor.
He’d sent the rest home. He’d helped them all shift back to human one at a time, before having Rowan and Eden drive them each back to their houses. He had a list of names and numbers, but he didn’t have it in him to deal with all the explanations tonight. And there would be explanations.
God, but none of them had had a clue. Like him before he’d run into Eden, they’d thought they were having bad dreams. Nightmares. Blacking out. Odd sleepwalking.
Not a single one had found what Bay had found.
And more than a few would wake in denial tomorrow. He scrubbed his hand over his face. As long as Morrigan couldn’t call them, Bay wasn’t sure that would be a bad thing. “You all right?” Doreen asked as she sank into the chair across from him, a cup of cocoa in her hands as well.
Bay scrubbed a hand over his face. “No. What does this all mean?”
“I have no idea.” She stared at the wolf on the ground. “You took away her pack. There are no stories about that. I’ve never heard of it being done before.”
“Maybe they’ll write new Fae stories then,” Eden said from the door, her gaze soft when he looked up at her. “We’ll rewrite them, away from the horror.”
Quinn cried out on the floor, the wolf’s legs thrashing and Kennedy made a low, strangled sound in her throat. She looked up at Bay. “You should have left him human. He needs a hospital. We could have called it a bear attack.”
Bay shook his head. His wolf instantly vetoing her plea. “He was getting too cold on the trip here. I had to shift him back. He’d have died from the exposure and he’s too weak to shift again.”
“He could die here.”
“He could have died a lot of times tonight. He’s fighting,” Bay said. Outrage poured into her eyes, but there was nothing Bay could do. “I’m sorry.”
“Dee, you’re the best vet in town.”
“I’m the only vet in town, but I’m not meant to work on people.”
“The worst of his wounds healed with the two shifts he’s had,” Bay said softly. “Give him time.”
He bent his head over the mug of cocoa and breathed in the warm steam again, letting it sink into his body and chase away the cold. He didn’t feel like he’d ever get warm again, and his still-healing wounds throbbed. He’d healed better than Quinn, but they’d both suffered life-threatening blows. Werewolves, it seemed, proved rather hard to kill.
Bay looked at Doreen. “So what are you?”
“That’s a story for another night. But I’m not that much different than you.” She reached over and patted his wrist. “You have Morrigan’s wolves for now, so we’ve weakened her, but we have a while to go yet before spring.”
Before they’d had have help from the Summer Queen. Which meant there’d be no shying away from the other wolves, no letting those men simply believe they’d had a crazy string of dreams. Bay flexed his hand over the coffee cup, fighting the urge to send it flying across the room, when Eden ran her hands over his back and curved them over his shoulders, massaging gently.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll handle it.”
Together, was the unspoken meaning that lingered between them. Of that, he’d had no doubt. By the time Rowan had returned from dropping off the last wolf Bay was finally starting to feel warm again, and Quinn’s fur was now cleaned of blood and he was patched up about as well as Kennedy could muster.
“Do you want to take him to the clinic? Or leave him here?”
“No. He’ll come home with me.” She ran her hand through her hair. “He needs someone to watch him, make sure he doesn’t die.” She looked at Bay. “Tomorrow you’ll change him back.”
“If he’s strong enough.”
Her eyes were tired, drawn, but she nodded. “Thank you.”
Eden shrugged on her coat again. “I’ll help you get him to the truck.”
Doreen and Rowan slipped quietly out with them and Bay found himself sitting alone in the silent house, watching through the window as they lifted Quinn into the truck. Thankfully, Quinn’s wolf was smaller than any of the others. He looked like a pup in comparison to Bay’s wolf. No bigger than the size of a Great Dane, just a bit broader. Unlike Bay’s wolf, they could lift Quinn’s into the truck.
Fahlow. One of the Summer Fae turned Winter.
Somehow, Bay would have to figure out what that meant and how he could use that to his advantage. But not tonight.
Dragging himself from the chair, he placed his cup in the sink and then headed towards Eden’s room. Her scent drifted up to him and he paused in the doorway, breathing it in. The scent of home, pack, it eased through his muscles and relaxed him. He stared at the clock. It was almost four in the morning.
Hours ago he’d thought he’d lost her. That somehow, he wouldn’t be enough to save her and that he’d die in that forest trying to do the impossible. And he almost
hadn’t been enough.
“Bay?” Eden called from the hall and he closed his eyes at the sweet sound of her voice. He pictured her that first day, the shock of her white blonde hair and blue eyes. The reality that somehow everything he’d thought was a dream and impossible, was now real.
God, if only he’d known. His body swayed under that thought but her hand on his shoulder steadied him again. “You need to rest.” She pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder. “You’re swaying on your feet.”
“I love you,” he told her again.
Eden smiled at that, a flicker of her humor dancing in her eyes as she pulled his arm around her shoulders and helped drag him into the room. “I love you too. Though this part sort of feels sort of like déjà vu.” He wobbled a little and she tightened her grip on his hand. “Easy there, big guy.”
Bay let her play nursemaid, leaning heavily against her as she led him towards her bed. Only when they were in reach of the mattress did he laugh, turning so that he could slide his hands around her waist as he fell backwards onto the bed, drawing her down with him. Eden laughed as she curled up next to him, one hand tracing small circles on his chest. She looked up at him, those hauntingly blue eyes tugging at his heart.
And once again, Bay felt his world flip on one end. But this time his life wasn’t falling apart, it was finally fitting perfectly back together. The shattered pieces of who he was made whole again in her arms.
With a smile, he drew Eden in for a kiss, one arm wrapped around her waist. He’d figure out the wolves, how to survive until spring, how to beat Morrigan once and for all—tomorrow.
Tonight, there was only one thing he wanted to do...show Eden just how much he loved her. He may have saved her today, but she’d saved him long before that.
The End
###
About the author: Sadie Hart is a paranormal romance author of the Shifter Town Enforcement and Northern Wolves series, as well as several shorter standalone works. http://sadiehart.com/
Available Titles by Sadie Hart
Shifter Town Enforcement Series:
Hounded
Cry Sanctuary
Northern Wolves:
Cold Mercy
Other:
Bending Steele
Moonlit Lovers Anthology
What the Heart Haunts
Silver Bells
Hounded - Shifter Town Enforcement #1
Chapter 1
Lennox Donnelly crouched behind a sparse yellow bush in the middle of the desert. She’d crawled the quarter mile from the billboard where her car was hidden to the wooden fence she eased under now. She gave a soft grunt as her belly scraped the rough grass, and then she was under, safely in the Bayrock Pridelands.
Well, as safe as a Hound from Shifter Town Enforcement could be around here.
The lion-shifters of Bayrock would hardly welcome the shifter equivalent of a cop on their lands, especially when she’d come to tag and bag one of the resident pride males. That tended to get their tails in a twist. Her lips quirked in a wry grin as she lay there breathing in the thick scent of dirt and dried grass.
He shouldn’t have attacked a Hound if he hadn’t wanted to get caught. Hounds didn’t take kindly to one of their own getting clawed up by a giant-sized kitty cat.
Lennox slowly eased herself into another crouch, her hands and clothes stained with the desert-red dirt all around her. A quick scan of the area revealed barren, yellowed rock that stretched for miles, broken only by tufts of weed and the occasional boulder. Well, that and the small cluster of ranch houses sitting several hundred yards to the south.
With the sun still clinging to its perch in the sky, more than a few of the pride members were lolling about outside, meaning Lennox was stuck in wait mode for the time being. Licking her dirt-chapped lips, she decided that having to hunt a pride male in his own territory wasn’t her favorite way to spend the evening. She wouldn’t exactly be able to march in there without drawing the attention of the whole pride, and Enforcement liked their takedowns cut and dried. No fuss, minimal mess.
Meaning her boss would shit sticks if Lennox botched the takedown and he had to send the rest of the pack out to save her ass. She needed to take Kanon Reyes in quietly, but quiet wasn’t something lion-shifters did very well. They were a lot like their wild brethren. Lions, both shifters and real ones, were violent, edgy, and always riding that fine line between aggression and brutality.
Visitors more often than not equated to snacks.
Keeping low, Lennox crept closer to the small ranch. Six houses total. It wasn’t the biggest pride around, and once everyone settled in for the night she should be able to make her move with as little uproar as possible. A car rattled up the road and Lennox froze. The only cars heading up this drive would be other pride members. But she should be fine since she’d planned her clothes to blend in easily with the red dirt and wiry brush that dotted the landscape. She’d dressed for a romp along a country dirt road, and at this point her khaki camos were dusted thoroughly with prairie dirt, and her tan tank top matched her skin. To a car racing down the road, she should be invisible.
The car drove on past, exhaust billowing out in dark, angry plumes, and Lennox waited, breath held. Watching. Taillights flashed in the dim evening light as the car pulled to a stop in front of a two-story house with a wraparound porch. She watched the towering form of a man get out, black hair flipped back in the wind. Had to be her man.
And he was alone. Lion prides, just like in the wild, were typically run by a coalition of ‘alpha’ males. The Bayrock Pride only had two coalition males, and one of her pack mates was supposed to have eyes on Tegan Sharpe to make sure he didn’t make it home in time to come running to his partner’s aid.
One pissed male lion-shifter was going to be bad enough. She licked the grit off her teeth and stretched out, belly-crawling over the dry, cracked grass. All this would have been easier if she’d just shifted into her dog-half and trotted the distance in a low crouch, but she kept her inner Rhodesian ridgeback clamped down. The trip to the ranch would have been easier, but it was a waste of energy and magick that no experienced Hound would risk.
She needed hands to put cuffs on Reyes when she got to him. Hands to slip a gag in his mouth if she needed one. Hands to tranq him enough to make him cooperative. Human logic had won out, so Lennox crept over the ground. Lean muscles bunched as she hung low, scanning the road for any other cars heading this way. Her shoulder holster chafed against the back of her arm as she rolled to get a good view.
All clear.
About damn time. She loved a good hunt.
Quickly working her way closer to the ranch, she was stopped cold by a roar that filled the slowly darkening sky. A tremor ran down her back, raising gooseflesh over her arms in a rush. It sounded again, deeper this time. Throatier. The roar had a physical punch to it. She could feel it rattle in her lungs, and she caught her breath at the sheer force behind it.
With nothing more than sound, Reyes left her frozen on the dirt a quarter mile away from his ranch, staring as the pride scurried into their homes. A lion cub pounced on a human sibling before darting in a front door; an impatient woman tapped her foot against the whitewashed porch step before she, too, disappeared inside. Reyes stood on the tan steps of the two-story house in the center, his face tilted up toward the dying sun.
The embers of fading sunshine highlighted the rich tan of his skin, illuminating his profile in sharp contrast to the shadow of his jaw. It made him look hard, fierce. His tongue darted out over pale pink lips, and then his mouth opened again. She could see him shudder and then sway as another roar ripped out of him. It thundered across the savannah sky, leaving Lennox trembling under the force of it, grubby fingertips curling into dirt.
Mine, it bellowed. Mine.
The stark claim settled over the land, and with a final glance across the now-silent string of houses, Reyes let out a satisfied snort and turned on his heel, disappearing inside. Lennox watched
him go, strength coiled through every step. Like most lion-shifters, Kanon Reyes was built like a tank—his capacity for sheer power and brutality evident in the shift and play of muscles and skin. He’d hurt one of her Hounds, left the poor man hospitalized. He’d pay for that. Her jaw tightened.
She was going to take the violent bastard down.
Hard.
***
Kanon stretched out across the leather sofa, a bowl of popcorn balanced on his stomach as he flicked through the channels. A few hundred channels, and you’d have thought he could find one decent thing to watch. Frustrated, he settled on a rerun of Halloween. Maybe watching Michael Meyers kill people would make him feel more at ease.
The night felt off, and it bugged the hell out of him.
The house was too damn quiet.
One finger tapped the volume button until the sound level rattled the walls. Nights without Tegan at home were long, dull affairs that put his teeth on edge. But it had been a choice between a night home with the pride without Tegan or a night negotiating territory with the Idaho Basin Pride’s coalition.
He’d passed on the latter.
Kanon didn’t have the temperament for it. The bastards had trespassed. In Kanon’s book it was simple: A quick slice of claws and they wouldn’t be an issue anymore. Tegan had more patience, more finesse. And then, when all else failed, Tegan would kick their asses as thoroughly as Kanon could have.
The new shifter laws required that they all belong in easily catalogued groups, and for lions that meant being classified as part of a pride. There was still the occasional rogue lion-shifter, but they had to report their permanent address, and every job they worked to Shifter Town Enforcement, plus suffer random check-ins. Which meant a Hound could show at any time to make sure they were staying on the straight and narrow. After Kanon had almost eaten the last Hound, when the bastard had showed up unannounced in the dead of the night, they’d opted to give pride life a shot. There were fewer check-ins and hassle from the Hounds.
