More Than Skin Deep (Shifter Shield Book 3)

by Margo Bond Collins

  Chapter 6

  Shadow slipped out of the shrubbery where she had hidden when the group had stopped, presumably for the hyena-monster to change into its human form. She couldn’t hear what they were saying or even see them clearly—they stood in shadows when they stopped, and moved swiftly and almost silently. But she could tell that the hyena had been replaced with a man.

  Once, she had seen one of the monsters in the process of shifting from human to animal form. The sight had horrified her—the man had dropped to his knees and twisted into impossible shapes as his body reconfigured itself—but it was the sound that stayed with her. Every time she thought of the creatures changing from one form to another, she remembered the grinding, crunching, cracking sound of bones and tendons popping.

  If she’d had any sympathy for the beasts at all, it would have made her eyes water. As it was, her stomach turned whenever she considered it.

  And hyenas. They were worse even that werewolves. At least wolves were majestic creatures. In the wild, hyenas were scavengers, living off the spoils of other animals’ efforts.

  Disgusting.

  Much like all of the shapeshifters she hunted.

  With a snarl, she determined to follow this group until she could either take one out tonight, or at least figure out how to do so soon.

  The closer they got to the river, the more she realized that she had been on this sidewalk before. Glancing up, she realized they were almost to the Hyatt. As the group ducked inside, she caught a glimpse of them in the light shining out through the glass doors from the lobby.

  The man with them looked like Jeremiah.

  She shook her head in an attempt to dispel the notion.

  Shadow had killed dozens of monsters—maybe even hundreds; she hadn’t counted. She knew what they looked like, how they acted, how they smelled.

  She knew how to recognize them.

  She would never have sex with one.

  By the time she reached the lobby door and stood just outside, peering in, the group was already halfway to the elevator. Scattered throughout the open area of the lobby, young black men stood in smaller groups, laughing and talking.

  Oh, crap. She knew what this reminded her of. The bar the night before.

  The leader of the beasts glanced up, and her eyes caught the light, flashing it back toward Shadow in a glow that managed to be both yellow and brown.

  Shadow had seen that kind of reflection before, from the eyes of other monsters.

  I have to follow them.

  As she pulled open the door, one of the men laughed—a cackling, wild, barking laugh exactly like the sound she had heard from the animal she followed here.

  Another laugh answered it—distinct, but also similar enough to be recognizable as belonging to one of the hyena shifters.

  It was also whooping and bright and happy, and she had heard it before.

  An involuntary gasp escaped her.

  The beast really was Jeremiah.

  She ran her gaze quickly over them, seeking him out.

  Yes. There he was. Jeremiah was one of them.

  As he turned his head to glance toward one of the other shifters, the light reflected from his eyes, bouncing back toward Shadow with the same yellow-brown glow she had seen from his leader only seconds before.

  “Oh, motherfucker,” she breathed.

  Her stomach contracted and heaved, as if she’d been sucker-punched.

  Jesus mother-lovin’ Christ.

  I fucked one of the monsters.

  I fucked a hyena.

  Her mind scrabbled away from the thought, instantly trying to find some way to justify it. He looked like a human?

  Shadow, better than anyone, knew that the creatures that haunted the night could look as human as … well, as an actual human.

  “Ma’am? May I help you?” One of the hotel’s doormen leaned in to look at her from one side.

  Crap. I’m blocking the entrance.

  And worse than that, she was drawing attention to herself. Any second now, the monsters might take notice of her.

  Jeremiah might notice her.

  And she was going to need to stay hidden—to remain truly a shadow—if she was going to deal with this latest …

  Development? Event? Horror?

  Fucking nightmare.

  “No, thank you,” she murmured, backing out of the door and letting it swing shut. She turned and walked purposely away, crossing the street to stand in the shadows cast by a tall tree.

  She stared up at the hotel for a long moment, trying to gather her disordered thoughts. After a minute, she began pacing back and forth along the sidewalk that curved away from the hotel across the street from the entrance, until she noticed the doorman watching her with too much interest.

  “Dammit,” she muttered, crossing the street again and cutting through what looked at first glance to be some kind of alleyway, but actually turned out to be a shortcut between the hotel and the Savannah City Hall, leading to the brick-paved walkway that ran alongside the river.

  Shadow was half-tempted to turn around and present herself at Jeremiah’s hotel room, demanding to know who and what he was.

  That would give away her own identity, however.

  But she wasn’t going to follow her original plan of take out a hyena-shifter to learn their strengths and weaknesses, either.

  No. She was going to take one of those monsters prisoner and make it talk. Force it to tell her everything it knew about the packs in Texas—and any packs it might know about here in Georgia. And everywhere in between, too.

  Still fuming, she stomped to the edge of the river, staring at the opposite shore and grinding her teeth in combined anger and horror.

  How dare he act like a … a person?

  In retrospect, though, that laugh of his….

  And to think she had actually liked it.

  Liked him.

  Oh, dear God. I let it lick me.

  The image of the vaguely dog-shaped creature licking its leader’s hand as it walked beside her flashed through her head. Shadow’s stomach clenched, and she doubled over, retching.

  By the time she stood up, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she felt calmer. More certain of herself.

  I can’t waste any more time on emotions.

  I have a job to do.

  Step one of that job was to re-acquire her target.

  She stepped to the edge of the walk, staring across River Street and up at the hotel.

  It had been a mistake to let the group she had been following out of her sight. Shadow was willing to forgive herself the lapse, as she had been taken by surprise and allowed her feelings to overwhelm her.

  That wouldn’t happen again.

  I wish I had my axe with me, though. I could work through a lot of emotional angst with it.

  She had barely enough time to finish the thought, when hard hands grabbed her from either side. Before she could overcome her surprise enough to scream, a dark SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the curb, and she was shoved into the back seat, followed by one of the men who had grabbed her.

  Sitting in the seat next to her was another man, tall and dark-haired, and on the floorboard, a wolf.

  “What?” said the man waiting in the vehicle, as the driver in the front hit the gas. “Did you think we wouldn’t smell the hyena all over you?”

  * * *

  Jeremiah waited until the door to Keeya’s suite had closed behind her and the other females of the clan, then turned and raced back to the elevator, all but bouncing on his toes.

  He was absolutely certain that down in the lobby, he had seen a flash of white-blond hair out of the corner of his eye—someone leaving the lobby, though by the time he turned around, it was gone, and the elevator had arrived.

  He didn’t want to hope that Shadow had come back, but he found himself considering the possibility, anyway.

  And if she has, so what? a
sarcastic inner voice asked him. You will request that she, this woman you just met, be your mate, your molekane? Or maybe you aim for a human mating? A mosadi, a wife?

  It was stupid, he knew that. Other than their sexual compatibility, he had learned almost nothing of her.

  I don’t even know what kind of work she does, or if she grew up in Savannah.

  For that matter, he realized, he wasn’t even certain she actually lived in Georgia. They had talked very little, and most of what had been said had come from him.

  I’m an idiot.

  But a hopeful idiot, he thought as he dashed through the lobby and out the door, stopping at the sidewalk to gaze about in all directions.

  And perhaps a disappointed one, as well. No flash of blond hair caught his attention. If it had actually been Shadow leaving earlier, he had wasted too much time seeing Keeya to her room to be able to see her now.

  Still, he sniffed the air, hoping to find a trace of her on the breeze.

  Instead, he smelled something entirely different.

  Wolf.

  He had just enough time to spin around to check his surroundings, when a dark SUV pulled up in front of him and the door swung open.

  Rough hands grabbed him from behind, moving shifter-fast. He had only begun to struggle against them when he was shoved roughly into the SUV’s already-crowded back seat.

  One that already held Shadow. Sitting next to the werewolf pack’s alpha.

  Did I fuck a woman who was working with the wolves?

  Could Jeremiah’s intuition about her have been that wrong?

  Surely not.

  She looked as unhappy to be in the car as he did, her jaw clenched tight as she stared down the werewolf in the floorboard.

  Then he saw the gun the alpha had jabbed in her ribs. She definitely wasn’t here by choice.

  Of course, her gaze wasn’t any more pleasant when it flickered toward Jeremiah than it was when she glared at the alpha-wolf.

  She held her silence until they pulled up in front of some sort of warehouse several miles from the hotel. The wolves ushered them out of the SUV at gunpoint, and took them into a large, empty room. There, Shadow and Jeremiah were both chained to chairs and the chains run through bolts cemented into the concrete floor. Jeremiah couldn’t help but notice that Shadow was secured as firmly as he was.

  Why bother with chains on a human?

  They held their silence for a long moment after the wolves had left them alone in the room, and she continued to glare at him steadily.

  Stonily.

  He was guessing that the werewolves had told her what he was, what they were.

  Either that, or she isn’t happy about being kidnapped.

  Sometimes the simplest explanation was best, after all.

  “Are you okay?” he finally ventured. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’re a goddamned shapeshifter?” she hissed at him.

  Then again, maybe the simplest explanation wasn’t always best.

  “I’m not allowed to discuss it with humans,” he replied, drawing his shoulders up.

  “I’m not a human. I’m a Shield,” she replied, equally stiffly.

  Wait. What?

  “A Shield?” Jeremiah repeated. “I’m a Shield.”

  “No. A Shilled.”

  “A Shilled?”

  “S-C-Y-L-D.” She spelled it out through gritted teeth. “It’s an Old English word that means ‘protector.’”

  “But you smell human.”

  She huffed in irritation. “I guess I am, mostly. But I’m also a Scyld. A … a hunter, of sorts.”

  “Oh, holy shit,” Jeremiah breathed out. “You’re The Huntsman.”

  She blinked at him. “What did you mean, you’re a Scyld? You can’t be.”

  “Shield. The modern English word. I’m … like a guard for my clan.”

  “Your clan. Of hyena-shifters.” She said it flatly—it wasn’t a question, but he felt the need to verify it, anyway.

  “Yes.”

  They were still staring at each other in something akin to horror when the werewolves returned to the room.

  “So,” said the alpha. “The bogey-man—or woman, anyway—and the hyena’s Shield. Together. Glad we’ll be able to take you both out at once.”

  Another werewolf in human form opened the door a crack and slipped into the room. “I found her car,” he said. “Right where you said it would be.”

  He tossed the keys to the alpha.

  Shadow glanced from the werewolf to Jeremiah and back again, and then, without warning, began to laugh.

  “You have no idea,” Shadow said.

  Her glance invited Jeremiah to join in, though he wasn’t entirely certain why. It seemed to disconcert the wolf, though, so he added his own distinctive cackle to her wild laughter—a laugh that he found unbelievably sexy, despite their precarious situation.

  Then the chains securing her to the chair and to the floor exploded, and everything around them went to hell.

  Chapter 7

  Shadow wished she’d had a way to warn Jeremiah of what was about to happen. But the werewolf gave her the idea when he’d called her a “bogey-man.”

  Apparently the shifters have some sort of legend about the Scylds, scary stories told at night to keep little shapeshifting monster cubs in line, maybe?

  She curbed the thought, with a glance at Jeremiah. Despite her emotional reaction earlier to the knowledge that he could turn into a hyena at will, she found herself still attracted to him, physically. And his very first words had been to make sure she was okay.

  I’m so fucked.

  So to speak.

  Not that it mattered, if they couldn’t get away. She had no doubt that the werewolves would kill them both. She had seen it in the eyes of the one with the gun, and was a little surprised that they hadn’t already done so. Clearly they wanted something from either her or Jeremiah.

  In the meantime, they seemed to be waiting for something.

  Shadow decided to take advantage of that wait, wiggling around until she got one hand into her back pocket.

  If the werewolves had actually known anything real about Scylds, they would have known to check her pockets and disarm her. The animals had teeth and claws. Scylds had strength, a little magic, and what they could carry.

  For the first time ever, Shadow thanked Erik silently for having trained her to pack along back-up supplies.

  With a flick of her wrist, she scattered flare-powder in front of her, closing her eyes as it exploded. Then she followed it with the confusion spell, holding her breath and counting to ten to let it take effect on the others while she ripped the bolts up out of the floor, first the one holding her chains down, then the one holding Jeremiah’s—the chains were strong, but she had already seen that the bolts were rusted, and her natural Scyld strength was easily equal to the task. Next, she smashed the chairs, once again breathing normally, but counting silently.

  At most, she had thirty seconds to get them out before the confusion spell began to wear off and the werewolves figured out what was going on.

  Thirty seconds to get to her car and either get them both out of there, or grab her axe—along with all the other supplies she kept in her trunk—and take a stand.

  She would decide which when the time came.

  “Come on.”

  She grabbed Jeremiah’s hand and tugged, but he resisted, as confused by the spell as the wolves were.

  “Shit. I don’t have time for this.” She placed her palms on either side of his face, stared into his eyes. “Jeremiah. It’s me. Shadow. From last night. Remember? I need you to come with me.”

  She didn’t know what she would do if he refused—if he fought back, she wouldn’t be able to pick him up and carry him.

  Leave him behind?

  And suddenly she discovered that she was absolutely unwilling to do that.

  I am reall
y and truly fucked.

  Luckily, he nodded and fell in behind her.

  Shadow heard him muttering one word over and over as he followed her out the door: “Moratiwa, moratiwa, moratiwa.”

  “What?” she demanded over her shoulder as she slammed the door behind them.

  “We must remember moratiwa. We can make this work if we remember.”

  Shadow ignored his ravings and pulled out her last spell packet. This one she sprinkled into her mouth, grimacing at the taste, then waited for the strength-enhancer to kick in.

  When it flooded her system, she took the length of chain still wrapped around her hands and focused on pulling open one link, then another. When she was free, she slipped the chain through the handles and managed to bend it back on itself just as the wolves on the other side began slamming into the door.

  Only then did she look back at Jeremiah, who had used the time to shift into his hyena form. He still dragged chains from around his midsection, but up close, his animal shape was huge, reaching almost to her waist, and heavy-boned. In another first, Shadow felt awe at a shapeshifter’s ability to change, rather than disgust.

  She reached out her hands to pry the chains away from his midsection, and as the chains dropped to the ground, found herself rubbing her fingers through his brown, spotted fur—it was coarse and stiff on his neck, but softer along his sides.

  “Later,” she promised, though whether to herself or him, she wasn’t certain. All she knew for sure was that the hinges on the doors were about to give, and she still didn’t have her weapon.

  Scrabbling toward the car, she managed to open the driver’s door and pop the trunk, and by the time the doors fell outward from the frame to reveal three full-grown wolves, she and Jeremiah stood side by side, ready to fight.

  * * *

  They fought, Jeremiah thought, as if they had been built to work together. Shadow moved like a dancer, her axe flashing bright in the moonlight as strands of her hair swirled out from the braid tucked down the back of her jacket.

  Jeremiah, used to hunting with his clansmates, darted in and out, snapping at the wolves and using his sharp teeth to slash skin and heavy jaws to crush bones when he caught them. The first wolf he grabbed yelped once as Jeremiah cracked his foreleg in half, then went silent forever as Shadow cleaved through its spine with her weapon.