Shifting Solitude (Outlaws, Fangs and Claws Book 1)

by Cheyenne Hart

  "They came to the bed and breakfast in their van. Colton saved me. You left me, Hallard ..."

  Shaking his shaggy, furry head, he walked over to her on all four paws. He stood up as he got right up to her, and his height was enough to make her a little afraid.

  "Who's Colton?" he said with open jealously and distain for the very name of the detective.

  "He's a private detective looking for a girl from that bus, that night."

  "A stranger. You still went with him?" The bear looked down at her from his eight-plus-foot vantage.

  Melody went weak at the knees and a little part of her wanted to turn and run--the rest of her was turned on by the immense physical force. She'd been sleeping with this beast, more or less, even gone on a dinner date with it. "Please," she whimpered.

  Hallard let his body slacken and he assumed a less intimidating stance. He got back down on all fours, his coat of thick, dark brown fur shining in the light of the moon as he moved.

  That act of self-conscious consideration, concern for her personal comfort, reminded her that this was in fact Hallard. Inside the magnificent, albeit frankly terrifying beast, was the man she'd grown very attached to. "I've never seen you like this," she said, "I mean, not with time to really take it all in. You're breath-taking."

  "I don't know," he grumbled through fangs. "Not much is beautiful, compared to you."

  She had barely enough time to enjoy that sweet compliment, because there was a high, mechanical squealing out in the darkness, a bang, and then an engine whirring up to speed as quickly as it seemed able.

  "Wait here," he said.

  "What? No, no, no, Hallard, you're not leaving me here!"

  "I'll be back for you in a minute," he said and ran off.

  It seemed so lonely and dangerous in the dark as the werebear ran off, so Melody chased him. There was no chance of keeping up with such an animal, so she soon gave up, dropping to the hard road and panting with exasperation. Immediately, she remembered everything she'd been through that night; all those hours of working herself up to accepting this man, this beast, could never give her what she needed.

  I have to let him down, sooner instead of later, she thought, head down, feeling the dirt on her legs and butt. She got up and hiked to the top of the hill that ran along the dirt road. She could see some tiny dotted lights in the distance. That had to be the highway, so she started walking. Still unsure what the hell she was doing, Melody knew there was one sure way to escape most problems: run away.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Hallard was sure it was a larger vehicle over the grassy hill. It must be their van. He crept along in bear form, hoping he could catch the werewolf gang unaware in their van, and break a few necks before they realized what was going on.

  The sound was a van, but not the one driven by the wolves. It was just some idiots in a flashy, new minivan. They were stuck in the mud.

  Hallard stayed down and didn't let himself be spotted.

  He watched them for a few minutes as they struggled with their car. There were four of them, all young. One of the women was furious at her boyfriend about getting them into that situation.

  It was possible to make out some of what they were saying, as the yelling became heated and loud. Hallard couldn't help but relate the arguing to his own fledging relationships, and he wondered if it was really a better alternative to living alone. But he couldn't be happy alone, either.

  In the form of a monstrous bear, he mostly tried to keep from imagining what their flesh might taste like.

  When he went back to where Melody had been, all that was left was a trail of her rich bodily odor. That was easy enough to follow, even after he'd changed back to human form.

  He hadn't realize how much his other form--which was the true form, really?--could put the fear into a person, even Melody. Did she really understand what he was? Maybe she was changing her mind about being with a monster already.

  The sun was starting to come up when Hallard caught up with Melody. She'd walked toward the low hum of the highway. "Melody!" he called out.

  She turned to look back at him but kept on walking toward the road. She luckily seemed too tired to run from him.

  "What are you doing?" he said as he approached her.

  "I'm sorry, Hallard." She stood by the road with her thumb out.

  He walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Sorry for what?" His stomach churned because he was sure he knew the answer.

  "Don't make this any harder than it has to be. Please, just let me get back home."

  "You told me you don't have a home."

  "No, but the city is my home. It's always given me what I needed. Those might not be the most pleasant things, but at least I'm still alive. How much longer can I keep saying that if I stay with you?"

  Hallard tensed up. "You were in danger before you met me." She was finally going to prove him right and leave, just like everyone else he'd ever known. Just like his mother and father. "I knew you'd leave me."

  "If that's true, why did you leave me first? I wanted to believe you could take care of me, Hallard. Shit, what better person to protect me than someone with your strength?" She put her hand out and pressed it against his hulking chest.

  Blood flushed through him. It made him want to drop to his knees and beg her to reconsider. "I only went for a walk to get some fresh air. I needed to be alone with nature."

  "And that's what you do need, Hallard, I think. But it's not what I need. Look at me," she said. Her hands were shaking and fear was clearly in her eyes. "I've never been this afraid in my life."

  "There's no one who can protect you better than me right now, not ever."

  "I want to believe that. I have to go with my instinct on this. You of all people should be able understand that."

  A truck honked its big horn as it drove toward them. It was probably loaded up with goods, but Hallard saw it as bringing the end of everything. But he couldn't bring himself to express how badly he wanted Melody to stay there with him.

  "I'm not saying goodbye forever, Hallard."

  "You don't know that."

  "No, you're right, I don't. Once this all settles down, maybe we'll see each other again someday, okay?"

  "You really believe that?"

  The look Melody gave him filled Hallard with dread. It was like a terminally ill family member asking you to pull the plug on them.

  The truck gradually came to a halt next to them. "Hey, baby, you can get a ride. Sorry, dude, only space for one," said a husky woman from the driver's seat of the truck cab. She was middle aged with a leathery tan. Her trucker's cap was from Hooters.

  Hallard stared, sure it was some bad dream.

  Melody opened the truck door and climbed up. "I'm sorry, Hallard ... Maybe if we ... no, never mind. I'm just sorry." She pulled the passenger door shut. Through the side window, it was hard to tell, but she might have begun to cry.

  "But I l--" Hallard said right before the truck pulled away. He wasn't loud enough to be heard, and didn't have the guts to commit to the three simple, yet so complex, words.

  Hallard watched the truck drive away. He could have stopped her, ran after the truck, tried something. But that would have meant openly showing how he really felt about Melody. He didn't want to live without her, but wasn't willing to beg. If she didn't want to stick around, he didn't want her to.

  But that was a lie ...

  He felt like part of him had just been ripped out, but adrenaline was doing the mercy of making him numb. He'd hardly noticed when the sun was out. Not knowing what else to do, he walked back to the bed and breakfast, planning to grab the pickup and continue on his way. He didn't care that the wolves were out there looking for him. That pickup was the only grounding he had in the world of normal humans.

  Without Melody to worry about, he wasn't afraid for anything. A more accurate way to put it, was that he didn't care about anything. The idea was liberating but awfully lonely.

  He walked
back to the bed and breakfast. It took longer than it should have because he was slinking along slowly, putting in zero effort and just letting his legs carry him like a ghost.

  There were two different cars parked there. When the saw an expensive looking minivan, with mud and scratches all up the sides, he actually felt better. It was those idiots from earlier. If it weren't for them, maybe he wouldn't have left Melody alone again, causing her to walk away from him.

  The other car outside the bed and breakfast was a beat up sedan. It looked like something a lowlife might own. The driver's side window was down, with no one inside. Hallard walked over to it, then did a double take--he picked up the smell werewolf. It was so familiar, and almost certainly one of the fucking gang who started all of this.

  The only logical source he could find for that hated stench was a man standing at the front door, talking to the old lady who owned the place with her husband. If this was the owner, he had to be a werewolf. Hallard saw red but controlled himself. He decided to patiently wait in the pickup, which was right beside the beat up sedan.

  He waited for a long time, careful not to look over at the stranger as he chatted with the old lady.

  Even just sitting in the pickup again was hard though. It only reminded him of Melody, as the whole place did. She could have almost been in the seat beside him, smiling, defying, pushing him to be someone he wasn't sure existed--making his heart race and his blood surge.

  "Say, you mind tellin' me where your girlfriend went?"

  "Huh?" Hallard didn't even see the guy coming, he was so wrapped up his sorrow.

  "You seem shocked. Anything you want to talk about?" said the man.

  "That smell, it is you--werewolf!" Hallard reached out through the halfway down window but the man stepped back swiftly. He was a werewolf for sure with that kind of reaction speed.

  The similar revelation showed on the face of the other guy as he flared his nostrils and sniffed at the air before him, only he was confused. He held the door shut with his foot, while keeping his upper body away from the opening in the window. "Easy, pal. You're no wolf, are you?"

  "No, but you are." He pulled the door handle and pushed hard. "I'm going to tear your head off," he growled.

  The other man jumped back quickly, rather than being pushed down by his stronger opponent.

  Hallard emerged from the pickup. The nearby youths, getting their things out of the minivan and assessing the damage, all stopped to focus their attention on Hallard.

  "Maybe you should calm down, pal. You'll need me to find your girl."

  That sent Hallard into a rage and he started to shift, just slightly, so that it wasn't easy to see from far away. His hunger for blood and carnage grew as well. "What have you done to her?"

  "Saved her when you took off. Think yourself lucky I was tailing those punks in their van."

  "What?" said Hallard, feeling light headed. He had to sit back down in the pickup. It was hard trying to breathe, lungs filling up, not bear lungs, holding back that animal. Sadness seemed to do the trick. "Who are you?"

  "Name's Colton. What I wanna know is, how'd you get yourself involved in all this?" He stood at the passenger side door, leaning in so he could talk quietly.

  They sat down in the pickup and filled each other in on the details.

  "To be honest with you, I don't care anymore. She can take care of herself. I'm going to leave the state. If this gang really is after you, you'd do the same."

  "I could use your help getting to the bottom of all this. Besides, aren't you worried about those punks gettin' your girl?"

  Hallard groaned. "Of course I am, but she's gone now."

  "You really lettin' her go for good? Girl could love a monster must be rare as hell." Colton dropped an older model mobile phone in his lap and stepped out of the pickup.

  "What's that?" Hallard asked.

  "I think you know what a phone is, cave man. More specifically, that's a burner. Do me a favor and hold onto it."

  "I don't have anything more to say to you." Hallard put his fingers around the key in the pickup's ignition, readying to leave.

  "No, but you might if I get a lock on these god damn punks." He shut the passenger door and walked to his own car.

  Hallard drove away.

  "What a dickhead." Hallard went and bought a lot of food. He was tired of the junk they'd been eating, and drove for an hour before he found a town with a butcher. There, he purchased some of the best cuts of meat they had.

  He chewed angrily, voracious for more and loving the sensation of tearing the flesh from pieces of dead animal. It had still been some time since they'd had their throats slit. But it was fresh enough. Hallard didn't enjoy the idea of living things suffering so that he could eat. He just accepted it as a part of life, and enjoyed that because it came naturally to him.

  All the loneliness he felt was a trivial thing compared with the eternity of his days in the wild. It looked as though that'd all been wrecked now.

  His belly extended from eating so much wet, cool meat, and he thought about napping in his card. No, he would drive on and find a hotel instead, then he would slumber like the great bear he was.

  There was a hotel not much farther than the town. Just as Hallard pulled into the gravelly parking, the burner phone started to beep and vibrate on the dashboard, where he'd tossed it with disregard.

  "Hello?"

  "Hallard?"

  "What?" he asked gruffly. He didn't want to talk, especially not to this guy. He just wanted to go and sleep, alone and with quiet.

  "I've found them!" said Colton. "The van, the gang, only ..."

  "I'm not interested in them. They've done enough to fuck up my life, and now I'm going to go sleep."

  "It's Melody."

  "She's not my problem anymore," he said with ego, hoping that Colton couldn't hear the strain in his voice. He hung up and tossed down the phone, then pressed his tightened fists to his eye sockets, holding back tears of anger and regret. "Fuck!" he yelled out.

  And the phone started to ring again right away.

  Hallard picked it up, very nearly threw it out the window at the cinderblock wall of the hotel. But he imagined Melody's face, and the anger shrank back into him. "What?" he said after answering the phone.

  "They've got your girl, moron! What's your problem?"

  "What am I meant to do? Why don't you call the police?"

  "The police aren't gonna take my word on something like this. By the time they sit up and take notice, your girlfriend might have her throat ripped out.

  "She's not my girlfriend."

  "Hallard, I don't know you from a piece of shit, but you don't seem like the emotional type. Get your shit together and stop being a whiney girl. Yeah, she took off. You wanna know how many times my ex-wife left me before she asked for a divorce? Get over it! Help me save her and take these fuckers down."

  Chapter Thirty

  Melody and the truck driver didn't make it far.

  As it was breakfast time, they went to get something greasy to eat. The kind trucker had offered to pay when she found out Melody didn't have any money. It was pretty obvious she had a thing for Melody.

  They were just getting back in the truck when bam. They grabbed Melody and put a bag over her head. The trucker was screaming, and then went dead silent. Melody was thrown in the back of the van with her hands tied behind her back.

  The van took off fast, causing her to bounce around in the back. It was soon apparent she was alone in a small compartment in the very rear of the van. Melody had lots of ideas about what might be headed her way, and none of them were pleasant. At least the fabric of the bag over her head soaked up her tears.

  They drove for hours. It was easy to tell when they were in the city, with the sounds and smells sifting into her dark, moving prison. And the men in the van started to holler at people as they drove, either yelling angrily, or letting out sexist remarks at women on the street.

  After the van stopped, Melody was le
t out. They grabbed her by the legs and shoulders, then picked her up and carried her.

  "Let me go you fucking assholes!" she cried out. That only made them laugh.

  They carried her over uneven ground, away from the sounds of the street, into a building.

  "Put her in with the new recruit and that skinny pain in the ass from the bus," ordered a guy.

  The bus?

  When they took the bag off at long last, Melody was in a cement room with bars on a small, high up window. There was nothing in the room except large cages.

  "I know you," came a young, female voice from one of the darkened cages.

  "Shut the fuck up," said the man behind Melody to the girl in the cage. "And you, get in that cage."

  Melody turned and looked at him with disgust. "You get in the cage."

  The guy was huge, with dead eyes and an evil sneer. He pushed Melody, causing her to stumble over and hit her face on the unoccupied cage.

  "Do you want me to beat the crap outta you?" he asked.

  Melody was too broken and tired to try to resist any more, especially tied up like she was. It felt so hopeless. Instead, she sat down in the cage and waited for the man to leave so she could fall into a sobbing heap.

  "Good girl. Now, shut the fuck up, do what we say, and don't listen to that skinny bitch with the big mouth. You might live for a while longer." He slammed the cage shut and fastened the heavy padlock. The guy stopped at the doorway and added, "Although, I got no idea how she's still alive, bitch not putting out without a yellin' n' sreamin'." He left, shutting the door behind him.

  "Hey, it's Melody, right? You were on the bus but you didn't get back on. Where've you been?" said the young woman. She was in the cage nearest the door, with another between herself and Melody. In that cage was a sleeping woman, although she looked rough enough to be dead.

  "You're Rita?" It was awful how different that plucky girl looked, demonstrating the kind of hell she must have gone through in just a few days. "What happened to you?

  "When that thing attacked all these other, things? They dragged us onto the bus and right out of there fast. They were scared bad."