Shifting Solitude (Outlaws, Fangs and Claws Book 1)

by Cheyenne Hart

  The sound of a car crushed that hope. If only she knew anything about engines, she might have been able to tell if it was coming or going, and if it was even the pickup. Certainly, she heard no sound of an engine starting. Hallard might have gotten it going before she'd woken up, or that could have been what woke her in the first place.

  She peered through the quaint, floral curtains and saw a black shape coming closer to the driveway outside the cottage home. It was a van, the van. "Hallard!" she whispered as loudly as possible. "You'd better be sick or dying to not be here right now!"

  The van stopped, and a group of people filed out of the sliding door. They were deadly quiet, moving swiftly along in the moonlight and shadows.

  The door to the room was facing the van, with no space to run for safety before they would get her. Melody ignored her pooling tears, telling herself that he couldn't have left her--he said he'd protect her! Was she too much for him? The way she'd acted, too free and dirty, or he didn't respect her anymore, so he left.

  With great relief, Melody found that the window in the bathroom slid open enough for even her to squeeze through. It wasn't the first time she'd gone out through a bathroom window, but it was possibly the most dangerous. Those times might have led to being busted, or even beaten by a pissed off dealer, or lover. This time could mean death--or worse--if she was spotted. At least they didn't know which room she was in, and they couldn't have even known for sure that Hallard and Melody were staying at the bed and breakfast.

  She slipped out of the window.

  There was a man there waiting in the shadows. He grabbed her and covered her mouth to stop her calling out.

  He whispered, "I'm not with them. Please, don't scream, or we're both screwed." "I want to help you both. Let's get to my car quietly, huh?"

  Melody didn't feel she had much choice, so she nodded and followed the mysterious man away from the building, very quietly and carefully.

  They crept over to a crappy sedan that was parked in the dark, halfway up the driveway.

  "Leave the door open," the man said. "Too loud."

  In the light from the moon, she could see some features of his sharp face. He was clean shaven and had a level headed stare to him, as he grasped the key in the ignition.

  "Wait until we're moving before you shut your door." He started the engine and began driving immediately. He was up into the second gear in no time, revving the life out of the car to accelerate as quickly as he could. The engine didn't sound healthy, but they were moving fast enough to be get the hell out of there. They were near the end of the long drive way before the headlights of the van lit up behind them.

  "Okay, now tell me what the fuck's going on!" Melody yelled.

  "Listen, I could ask you the same thing." He took the upcoming turn fast and reckless. While he drove somewhat crazy, he seemed calm and in control of himself. "Where you on the bus?" He sped up the moment he was back on a straight, forcing heavy exhaust fumes and a disconcerting clicking-whirring sound from the car.

  "What? You mean the one in the woods?" Melody's had her hand on the dash, worried that they might be in a collision any second. "What do you know about that?"

  "I know as much as any good private detective should: a hell of a lot. Just not enough, or would I be out here in the first place? No. Now, what do you know about this gang?"

  "I could ask you the same thing." There was a silence that carried on too long. The car smelled like stale junk food and bad coffee. There was something else, stronger too. Melody knew that smell, from her horrific encounters with the werewolves. He can't be.

  "I think you know enough for me to sidestep the bullshit. Am I right? These guys are--"

  "They're werewolves."

  "I've been thinking of them as wolf men. Werewolf's real Hollywood, y'know? Can't get my head around it as it is." He cringed and shivered, veering over to the edge of the road, blue-black darkness around them where the headlights didn't touch.

  Melody startled. "What's wrong with you? Do you need to take some meds or something? Maybe we should stop."

  "Sure, let's pull over with a gang of damn werewolves tailing us." He nodded at the rearview mirror, his eyebrows going down in the center of his forehead. Under the smudges on the mirror, the reflection of the van was now coming up toward the end of the bed and breakfast's driveway. It was moving a lot slower, no doubt weighed down by all the killer werewolves riding in it.

  "Second thoughts, no, definitely no." She looked ahead and tried to imagine there was no van following them.

  "Do you know a Rita Caldwell?" he asked like a cop. He jarringly changed the subject too, like cops did. "Pretty young thing, parents are looking for her. She's go--"

  "Yes. I met her that night. What's your name?"

  "Colton. Anyway, her parents are loaded. They hired me to find her, but these guys are harder to track than, well, a gang of shape shifting monsters who shouldn't be real!" His inflection raised with desperation at the end of his words. It was like he wanted to scream or cry. It was obviously closer to him than just a job, and Melody could still smell that mustiness.

  There had been a wolf in that car, and not long ago. Maybe there still was, right beside her. Slowly, she moved her hand over to the door handle. It wasn't locked. Going that fast though, she'd wouldn't get back up if she did jump out.

  As if in response, Colton activated the central locking.

  "You're not thinking about jumping out are you? You crazy or something? What's the problem?"

  "Did you seriously just ask me that? Where do I start?! You're a fucking werewolf too, just like them. I can smell it on you. Your whole car reeks of it."

  "It does? Shit ... okay, yeah, I am but not like you think. I'm not with those punks. I was following their trail, trying to find Rita. I guess I was getting too close, so a couple of these assholes, in their damn gang jackets, ambush me in an alley. They change into these things--nothing like what I've seen in movies either, where they just turn into regular wolves."

  "Yeah, they're not technically werewolves, if you do your homework. They're shape shifters. Aren't you a detective?"

  "Close enough. Say, you're real clever," he said sarcastically. "Anyway, I ended up getting bit, almost hit by a damn truck. It did hit one of them, but it didn't die. The truck saved my life for sure, they took off running, and the driver called the EMTs. No point telling the cops what really happened, so I said I got mugged by some whackos on PCP. He tried to speed up, pushing the car's engine to what sounded like breaking point.

  "If you're a detective, aren't you friends with any police?"

  "Yeah, what, should I tell 'em I was by bit by a werewolf? Get myself put away in a white room with padding?. Besides, I'm not too popular at the local precinct."

  "I need to go back."

  "What? You are crazy. No way."

  "Fuck you. Hallard's still there. Do you think I was at a fancy bed and breakfast by myself?"

  "You think I don't know who I'm following? Look, not my fault he wasn't there. Why'd he take off anyway?"

  "I don't know ... he was gone when I woke up."

  "Well, looks like you've been stood up, sorry."

  As painful as that was to hear, Melody had to admit it was likely true.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hallard had woken up and felt restless. He decided to go for a walk to clear his head and get some fresh air. The countryside around the bed and breakfast was too inviting to resist. Since Melody was sleeping peacefully, he stepped outside, being careful not to wake her. She looked so beautiful and serene in her slumber.

  There were a trees around, albeit mostly little shrubs of things, all standing up straight and perfect. It was no woods out there, but he would take it gladly. His head was racing and he couldn't get a hold of what was troubling him. He was attached to Melody in ways that he'd never experienced before. Memories of the daytime TV movies they used to watch at the orphanage came back to him. The characters had been attached too, but it wa
sn't real. Hallard didn't have much experience with real-life relationships to guide him.

  The employees at the orphanage were either single, or they just didn't mix their home lives with work. It would have been shitty to rub their good family relationships in the faces of a bunch of kids who had no one but each other.

  He wanted to know what was Melody thinking. She might have just told him if he'd asked. He wasn't the most eloquent guy in the world as it was, and he loved being around her so much, that his brain got a little fried when he was close to her. She was almost like having a family, even so soon. But why did he feel so out of control? Wasn't family about being comfortable, about being home?

  Hallard wanted to find his home in the world, not just a wet hole to finally stick his dick in.

  He was sitting on the cool grass by a little stream that flowed around the outskirts of the old couple's property. From the smell of it, there were a lot of farms around the area. The thought of livestock made him hungry. It'd been too long since he'd had something freshly killed, not bled and stored for days or more.

  The stream ran loudly in the still night, but another sound pricked up his fleshy, pink ears. They weren't as capable as those of his bear form, but he was still alert than any normal human. There was a vehicle coming from the direction of the highway. He stood up and saw distant headlights moving closer to the bed and breakfast.

  There might have been a late reservation made, some guests who were tried, driving on the highway, and not willing to keep travelling until they found a motel. It was larger vehicle, with a flat front--a van.

  "Oh, shit," he exclaimed, and jumped up off the grass. Hallard began running, sure that Melody was in danger. But he was far away, having barely been close enough to make out the shape of the vehicle. There was another car too, farther away, a sedan. It was moving slowly, and he could hardly see it in the dark. Another strange thing was, the headlights were off. It was moonlighting after the van, and stopped about fifty yards from the buildings.

  As Hallard ran closer, he saw two people, male and female, leaving behind the guest building. He almost swore it was Melody, but it couldn't be. At first, he almost called out to them, but decided that could end in disaster. Instead, he started running faster, then shifted while moving, face burning with the speed of change, muscles pumping lava, hot and righteous.

  He didn't get to them in time, and had to watch them drive away.

  The occupants of the van had been alerted by the sound of the sedan taking off, and they went after it.

  Maybe Melody's life was in danger, but Hallard also felt like a petty child, for being afraid that she might have chosen to leave him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It wasn't hard to outrun the van with that head start. And the thing must have been weighed down a ton with a gang werewolves in it. Colton stopped the car off the side of the road, the moment he was out of sight of the van's headlights. He killed the engine and the lights, then pulled the parking brake on.

  She didn't like that. "What are you doing? Go, go!"

  "They'll go right by us."

  "You're crazy," she said, shuffling around in her seat. She put her hand back on the door's handle.

  "Don't. The interior light'll come on. Then we're screwed. Just wait, they'll go by, you'll see." And he was right, as he was. The van rushed right passed them.

  "See," he said casually, not smugly, but just to reassure her they were in the clear.

  "Now can you take me back?"

  "Sorry, I need to follow. You got no idea how long I've been after a trail." He felt kind of bad, but he had saved her life. And this was more important.

  "You're shitting me! I can't find my way back from here."

  "I'm not telling you to get out. I'll take you back to the city, back home. I'd love to know what the hell you're doing out here with a werewolf anyway."

  "Yeah, I bet," she said.

  Colton started the car back up when the van was out of sight, sure they wouldn't come back.

  She unlocked the door and opened it, stepping out.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "I'm not going with you, especially if you plan on chasing that van. You're out of your fucking mind."

  "And I could say the same thing about you. Do you really think you're safe with one of these things?"

  "Takes one to know one, I guess. And he's not a werewolf."

  "Wait, what is he then?"

  She looked so satisfied with herself as she slammed the door, hard, and ran off into the night.

  "Hey!" Damn it, he'd had just about enough of this bullshit. She was a serious looker though, he had to give her that one, even with sleep still in her eyes, looking like a week of driving.

  You should go after her, he thought. You wanted to be a cop. She could end up dead. But he was so close to the gang now. Colton couldn't abandon such a hot lead.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Melody felt like a complete idiot for getting into this situation, as she walked in the pitch black night, in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't like she'd chosen any of this, especially getting herself involved in a love affair with a werebear. But the guy wanted nothing more than to have and protect her.

  Out in the cold, scared for her life, she was starting to wonder if at least some of Hallard's persona was an act. How could a guy who chose to spend his life alone in the woods be suddenly so eager to get himself a girlfriend?

  He was a total hunk, so he could have had other women. Even though he'd have to keep his shifter self a secret, he could have still been happy. The only solution was, he must be as messed up as Melody, or maybe even more. Even with her drug addiction, which was still likely to come back and bite her on the butt, she didn't feel quite as damaged as Hallard.

  Baggage had never bothered her. If a man could give were what she needed, Melody wasn't bothered whether they were giving her all the extras ... Yeah, like love and genuine affection. Those things were all good for other women, and bitches in stupid fairytale romances. But this was the real world. Melody needed a man who would take care of her.

  And look at this shit, she thought. You're out in the middle of nowhere, probably gonna end up kidnapped or murdered. Where was Hallard? He'd left her when she needed him the very most. That meant none of the other stuff they'd gone through together really mattered, no matter how warm and fuzzy it made her feel.

  Melody came up to a dirt road leading away from the asphalt, but couldn't figure out if it was the right one to take.

  What a stupid time to be thinking about romance. This was life-or-death, and she was worrying about a man?

  Almost like life had gotten tired of her whining, or the universe just felt like throwing salt on her emotional wound—Melody slipped in some mud and landed hard on the dirt road. "Fuck!" she cried out with rage, as she scrambled to stand up. Again, she slipped and tumbled into the mud. Covered in the stuff anyway, she sat back down with a squelching noise. It was cold but barely seemed to matter. She felt numb anyway. Melody began to cry.

  She was glad there was very little makeup on her face, because Melody had been crying for a good hour. At least, it could have been that long. She started walking again, and the wind cooled the mud on her until it became hardened and itchy. Time lost her as her feet started to blister in the cheap shoes she'd picked up at a truck stop. Whatever noxious plastic they'd been molded from, it wasn't agreeing with the mistreated souls of her feet, either.

  It almost hurt now, through her extremities, how could she was. The night wasn't overly cold for that time of year, thankfully. In fact, it might have been rather mild if she had on a jacket, or even along sleeve blouse.

  She occasionally heard the distant sound of a farm animal. It might have been a rooster, but Melody had only ever heard them on TV, and they apparently didn't sound the same in real life. Trying to gauge the direction it was coming from would have been impossible to her, if that would have been helpful anyway.

  Was there a rooste
r at the bed and breakfast property?

  "Hallard!" she screamed out with desperation.

  He should have been able to track her with that super sensitive nose of his, especially if he took on his bear form.

  "I guess I was wrong about you ..." she finally admitted, ready to give up. The problem was, she had nowhere, and no one, to give up to. Sitting down and crying again would lead to more suffering in the cold.

  And those werewolves would still be looking for her.

  Staying with Colton was the smart move. At least that guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. He wasn't a lost puppy--bear--like Hallard tried to pretend he wasn't. Even while they were fucking earlier that night, she could tell he was trying too hard to impress her with how "bad" he could be.

  But it was so good, and to be honest, a bad boy was the last thing Melody needed. Hallard was tougher-than-nails and stood his ground when it really mattered. He wasn't all about putting on a show and acting big. So, why the hell did he leave her alone when it mattered so much?

  Whatever the reason, she really wanted to see him. "Hallard!" she screamed out again into the dark.

  "Melody!"

  "Hallard?!" No way ... That was really his voice, she was sure of it. And there was something coming over the nearest hill, a big, dark shape. She cautiously watched it come to her, bounding with speed and vigor. That was him, alright, the most savage and powerful guy on the planet, no doubt.

  Suddenly thinking about their hard love making, her head was all over the place, but she needed to remember that he'd left her.

  "What happened to you?!" he asked as he came closer, still in bear form. The voice was so different, low, growling.

  Melody tried to make out the details of him in the dark.

  "I could ask you the same thing!" she said, trying to stay mad. She was expecting him to shift back to his human form, now that he'd caught up with her, but he was looking around vigilantly.

  "Did they take you? Are they nearby?" he asked, on the search for any sign of them.