by Jody Wallace
A man in dark clothing emerged from the side of the house. “Man up, you idiot.”
The wolf whined and lowered its head to the ground. It blurred and emerged on the other side as a nude, dark-skinned man Harry recognized from earlier. One of the Roanokers.
“What did you smell, Maurice?” the first man asked. Harry couldn’t make out the man’s features. They had zero reason to be here. This location had already been checked by Bianca’s people.
“He’s been in the car, maybe a week ago.” Maurice straightened, but his shoulders remained hunched. “No recent trace.”
“Bianca said Smith hangs out with the old woman who lives here. He left a scent trail from his house to her restaurant a juvie could follow.” The man stepped into the light of the moon.
Gavin.
Hate shivered across Harry’s skin like a chill. No time to reexamine his old resentments. His goal was getting himself and June out of here. Why the hell was Gavin looking for him, to help Bianca out? That would mean she was still fixated on him and hadn’t held the ceremony yet.
Maurice shook his head. “Dude, nobody’s here and now I’m form stuck. How will I get back to the cabin?”
“Nike Express,” Gavin suggested. The two other wolves bumped Gavin’s legs. One glanced toward the house. Harry tensed. Four against one wasn’t as bad as his odds yesterday, but it was bad enough. Luckily, the wolf didn’t seem to sense him.
“This was a waste of time,” Maurice said.
“Bianca thought it would be a waste of our time too.” Gavin didn’t seem concerned they might wake the occupants of the house; he and Maurice were speaking at regular volume. “But we know something Bianca doesn’t.”
“Maybe.” Maurice glanced at the front porch. June’s spells must be working overtime if the wolves thought nobody was here. Harry released a breath. This didn’t have to become dangerous as long as Gavin stayed outside. “Are you sure your dad came here?”
“There are his tire tracks, idiot.” Gavin jerked his thumb toward an area in the driveway that was more dirt than gravel. “You’re supposed to be the best nose in the pack.”
“There’s been a lot of traffic,” Maurice said defensively. “Bianca, shifters, humans, cars. I was trying to isolate Smith and the old man, not the truck.”
Was Gavin here to find out about Harry or Douglas? Harry inched closer to the glass so he’d be able to make out facial expressions.
“If he didn’t drop them off here, where did they go?” Gavin ripped the head off one of June’s daffodils. “Old bastard never tells me anything.”
While Harry wished Gavin wouldn’t vandalize June’s plants, that wasn’t enough of a reason to call the cops. Millington had a conscientious police force who’d report quickly once Harry dialed, which could turn a neutral situation into a bad one.
“He could have taken a wrong turn. Lots of houses around here.”
“If he recognized Smith and didn’t tell us, he could be laying a false trail.” Gavin destroyed another flower, crushing it. “I don’t know how they fooled us. If they’ve got some agreement with Pop, I’ll make them tell me. Should have known he wouldn’t stick to the plan.”
So Gavin had put two and two together—maybe he’d seen a photo—and realized they’d intercepted Harry Smith in No Business and not a stranded human. Who else knew? Obviously no one had told Bianca or she’d have shown up hours ago.
“That dude did look familiar.” Maurice nudged the flower Gavin had destroyed into the flower bed, hiding it. “The chick had blood on her. She’s all over the old man’s truck, but there’s no marker here.”
“She was a tasty piece of ass.” Gavin chuckled darkly. “When I find her, I’ll enjoy convincing her to tell me everything she knows.”
Maurice rubbed his close-cropped hair. “Maybe she doesn’t know anything.”
“Who gives a crap? She can shut up and take it. Once I’m alpha here, not even human bitches will tell me no.” Gavin put his hands on his hips, gazing toward the house. “I’m missing something. I can feel it.”
Harry shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Gavin was interested in the Millington position. It didn’t bode well for anyone if he got the job. Why, oh, why had Bianca refused to consider any candidates but Harry? If she’d gone through a normal selection process with interviews and such, this wouldn’t be happening.
“You could ask Douglas,” Maurice said. “He’s here until tomorrow.”
“He’d never tell me.” Gavin stalked around the Caddy, testing the handles. “Bianca has no idea Pop came with us. She sent us here because she assumed we’d strike out. I bet she knows I wouldn’t turn Smith in if I found him.”
Harry rotated the phone in his hand, considering. Could he use the fact Gavin would try to trick Bianca to his advantage?
Maurice crouched between his wolf brothers. “If something happens to Smith, she’ll be suspicious. You have to treat him like the others.”
“He pissed me off,” Gavin growled. “We’re doing Bianca a favor. She didn’t want candidates nosing around, and we made that happen. If some won’t leave peacefully, that’s not our fault.”
From the sound of it, Gavin and his friends had been encouraging candidates to disappear. Thinning the herd. Were Douglas and the others part of the plot to set Gavin up here? Hopefully they wouldn’t succeed. Harry didn’t wish Gavin on anyone, not even Bianca.
“This is Bianca’s home turf. If she finds out…” The wolves huddled closer to Maurice’s nude body, keeping their form stuck compatriot warm in the cool night temperatures.
“If she finds out, it will be too late.” Gavin’s sharpened teeth flashed in the moonlight. “One way or another, I’ll be a pack alpha before the next moon.”
Harry frowned. It was a toss-up which of them would be a worse alpha in Millington—him or Gavin. If Gavin became alpha, Harry would have to relocate. No way would he live in a territory overseen by that feral piece of shit.
Uprooting himself—he hated the very thought. Would June come with him? It wouldn’t be safe for her here anymore, maybe not even as Sandie.
Maurice put his arms around the wolves. “What if something goes wrong and we have to go back to Roanoke?”
“Then I guess I’ll feed my parents cyanide and find some dumb recessive bitch to marry,” Gavin snapped. “Where’s the faith, man? We mapped this years ago, and finally there’s a vacancy. This is our shot.” He felt under the wheel wells of the Caddy, probably for a spare key.
“It’s a joke,” he continued, sounding like the teenager Harry had known and not a mature alpha ready for pack responsibility. “I don’t know what Bianca’s thinking. Everyone knows Harry Smith is a shit choice for a pack wolf. Even Pop said so.”
Since Harry had expended some effort making sure everyone knew it, he was gratified to hear his reputation had spread. Too bad it hadn’t gotten him off the hook when it mattered.
“Douglas wants this as much as you do,” Maurice said. “You wouldn’t have been able to get so much help with the candidates if he weren’t here to anchor us.”
“Yeah, Pop’s a saint,” Gavin said. “He agreed because Mother won’t let him banish me. That’s what he gets for letting a woman order him around.”
Another strike against packs—they tended to be patriarchal. Women weren’t without rights, but many packs treated females as lesser. Harry gripped the phone as if he could shoot Gavin with it. His mother had removed him from that poison at the expense of her life, and he was grateful to her every day.
“You’re not worried about somebody else finding Smith?” Maurice asked.
“I don’t care.” Gavin spat on the ground. “No matter what, I will make sure his loser ass is never a contender for pack alpha again.”
Even on two legs, Gavin’s threat raised Harry’s hackles. There were a few ways to ensure an alpha never became a pack alpha, but the easiest was to kill him. Gavin’s vehemence solidified Harry’s determination to avoid a confrontation
at all costs—a confrontation he had little chance of escaping with his life.
Maurice cleared his throat. “I don’t think he wants to be alpha. You don’t have to—”
“If Bianca tries to instate him, I’ll challenge before the pack bond ceremony. I’m already pack. He’s not. He’s a dead man.”
If candidates wished to unseat a new alpha, they had to challenge before the next pack bond ceremony when the new alpha reached full strength. Although tonight there wouldn’t be a gap, sometimes it was weeks between instating a new alpha and the next pack bond ceremony, which were two separate rituals. Challenges were primitive, brutal and an embarrassment to shifters everywhere. Kill or be killed, with your reward a lifetime of pack.
It was Harry’s worst nightmare, multiplied.
Maurice crossed his arms. The wolves on either side of him hunkered onto their haunches. “You’ll have to challenge Bianca too if she doesn’t want you.”
“Bitch’ll get in line.” Gavin swaggered toward the porch. “She’s a woman. What the hell does she know?”
Probably a lot, Harry realized. She had the good sense not to want another Bert, though replacing him with his polar opposite—Harry—seemed extreme.
From the flagstone walkway, Gavin studied the house. “I don’t like this. What was Pop doing here? There’s no trace of Smith or the blonde.”
Maurice huddled against his companions’ bodies. “What does it matter, Gav? There’s nobody here.”
“Then there’s nobody to stop us from going inside. Maurice, check those planters for a key.” Gavin ascended the stairs. “Let’s see if we can figure out what our esteemed leader was doing.”
Shit, Harry and June couldn’t be here when Gavin came in. He’d recognized Harry, and things would get ugly. Harry couldn’t protect June if he couldn’t even protect himself.
Time to do that running thing he was so good at.
He dialed 9-1-1 as he headed for the bedroom. In the quietest voice possible, he told the operator a version of the situation. But when he reached June’s bedroom, she wasn’t there.
Where did she go? He yanked on jeans and boots. No time for a shirt.
When he concentrated, he could make out the shifters on the front porch discussing how to get into the house without leaving evidence. Veteran burglars, they were not. He wasn’t sticking around to find out what window they broke.
Something tinked in the back of the house. Ceramics on glass.
Harry shot down the narrow hallway to June’s stillroom. She was there, frantically stuffing packets and bottles into her big purse, her hair in wild ringlets.
“They’re coming in. I dialed 9-1-1.” He grabbed her arm above the tan bandage. “Out the back. Move.” If Gavin had half a brain, he’d have lookouts on all sides. Harry was counting on Gavin being as brainless as he was ambitious.
“No.” She shook out of his grasp. “We’re not in any danger.”
“Then why are you shoving your pantry into your handbag?”
“I should have done it earlier.” She startled when a loud thump resounded from the front porch. “I hope they don’t break anything.”
According to the 9-1-1 operator, the cops were on their way, but June had an excess of confidence in the police if she thought that was the only protection they needed.
“Gavin’s not here to play poker, June. Let’s go.” Harry would carry her if he had to. She wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Seriously, it’s okay.” She shoved her hair out of her face. “They think we’re human, and the talc spell components are still in our bodies.”
Harry didn’t want to scare her, but she had to realize the shifters wouldn’t just let them go. “They know I’m Harry Smith. They must have seen a photo since Douglas dropped us off.”
“Then we’ll pretend to cooperate with them until the cops get here.” She fastened her purse and secured it around her body like a bandolier. It contrasted with the pink flannel of her PJs. “We have to stay. I can’t have the cops tear apart my house looking for me.”
“This is about your place getting wrecked?” June hadn’t overheard what he’d overheard. “They’re going to do more than hurt us. Gavin wants to kill me and rape you.”
She turned big blue eyes on him, uncertainty growing. “Are you sure?”
“If you thought Bert was bad, it’s because you never met Gavin.” Harry cupped her chin. “I can’t let that happen to you too.”
“What do you mean by too?” When he shook his head, she conceded. “All right.”
“Let’s go,” he repeated, two seconds away from tossing her over his shoulder. June didn’t keep a spare key anywhere Gavin would find it, so it wouldn’t be long before the wolves kicked in a door or window.
“Better idea. Hide in the cellar. I’m sure the dispatcher told you to do that anyway.” June bumped her arm on the counter and flinched. “My wrist hurts.”
“I’m not getting trapped down there.” Harry had helped another friend of theirs build shelves in the low, dank room carved into the hill behind June’s house where she stored canned goods, bulk items and old clothes. As far as he knew, she didn’t store weapons and guns. “We’re running.”
“We won’t get trapped. There’s a back door.” She shook a small pill out of a nearly empty bottle and popped it in her mouth.
“You mean that vent? Too small.”
“The root cellar is bigger than you think. The door is concealed.” She slipped her feet into a pair of plastic clogs. “They won’t even know we’re there.”
What was she talking about? The cellar door was beneath the hallway floor, covered by a fluffy rug. The rug disguised the edges, but any wolf who crossed over the door would notice the change in pitch.
“I’m not taking that chance.” Harry was done arguing. He picked June up and carried her to the Florida room. Beyond it was a screened porch and the woods. The mountain rose sharply behind the house, but he knew a way up the cliff. “They’re pack, June. That means they’re strong enough to—”
The remainder of his statement was cut short by a crash from the living room, followed by laughter. The picture window. That answered the question of how the shifters were getting in.
“Jerks,” she muttered. “Glass is expensive.”
He hustled her out the rear door, alert for sounds of pursuit. Gavin was cussing the hell out of whomever had broken the window. Harry scanned the backyard, thankful he’d repaired the formerly squeaky screen door.
“Will they chase us?” June whispered.
“Who knows what those idiots will do?” Their breath steamed in the frosty air. “We’ll climb the bluff, hit Horse Mountain Road and steal a car.” A semi-flat area atop the mountain boasted a small community of houses.
“We most certainly will not steal a car.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s cold after that rain.”
“Shhhh.” They crossed the yard as silently as possible. Shifters had astute senses in human form, but the housebreakers would be focused on searching a house they thought was empty, not listening for escapees.
Once past June’s property line, the manicured landscape disintegrated into trees, scrub and rocky slope. The mixed evergreen-and-deciduous forest blocked what light the stars and moon offered. Harry had navigated this on four legs, not two. Since June had no wolf, shifting wasn’t an option.
Though she did have a shirt. Good thing they hadn’t slept nude. Who’d have thought he’d be wrong about that?
Wet brambles thrashed Harry’s chest as he endured the brunt of the trail blazing. The frigid air nipped his skin. If the wolves gave chase, they’d have no trouble locating this path. He had to hope they wouldn’t realize there was anyone to follow.
Small bluffs began to dominate the landscape along with the trees and laurel. Slick ground cover created unstable footholds, and several times they knocked rocks loose.
When June tripped and fell the fourth time, Harry realized their mad dash up the incline wasn’t working. T
he tree cover was dense, the lighting limited. Scratches crisscrossed his skin and hands. He could only imagine how she felt.
Pebbles clattered as he muscled her to her feet. Her warm breath tickled his chest, and her damp pajamas grazed his belly.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“I can’t see a thing.” An owl called overhead, and June trembled. “Isn’t there a cliff around here? What if we accidentally walk into it?”
He smoothed her hair out of her face. “I can see okay. We’ll be all right.”
She rested against his chest, her heart thumping. “Instead of going up, what if we follow Route 56 to town? We can hide in the back of the tea room.”
“Too obvious. Apparently everyone knows I go there.” And here he’d thought his love for the tea room had been a secret from the pack. So much for his cleverness.
“Especially the coven,” she agreed. “I wish it weren’t so dark. I can’t see where my feet should go or what’s safe to grab.”
If he weren’t careful, she was going to get hurt. “I’ve got an idea. Hold on to my back pocket.”
“Okay, but you’ll have to slow down. I don’t want to make both of us fall.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just hold on.” She couldn’t knock him over unless he let her. He’d wolfed out as much as possible without growing fur. It increased his stamina and steadiness. He just had to be careful not to bite his tongue.
Muttering under her breath, she clung to the back of his jeans with one hand. He paused frequently so she could use him to lever past obstacles. The strenuous exercise ought to keep her from getting chilled.
“Wait, my shoe fell off.” She crouched, patting the ground. “Can you see it?”
The clog was wedged several yards downslope, a splash of neon against the dark leaves and rocks.
“Gotcha.” He fetched the shoe and straightened to inspect their location.
