by Noir, Roxie
Then Houston grabbed the leash in his mouth, and the two of them trotted off, sticking to the shadows. They’d memorized the map as humans, and soon, they stood behind the yard they were looking for: some grass, some dirt. A deck off the back, and a doghouse.
Jack sniffed again.
She was in there.
Houston deposited the leash at the darkest part of the fence, and they went to work quickly and quietly.
Seconds later, a golden retriever came charging out of the doghouse, barking at top volume, and Jack and Houston froze. Then Jack put his nose to the fence and wagged his tail.
“SHADDUP!” came a voice from inside the house. Houston watched the back door, tensely, as the golden retriever sniffed Jack curiously. Then she paced back and forth a couple of times, seemingly undecided.
We’re friendly, thought Jack. We’re so, so friendly. Look at this! Tail wagging, ears upright, everything.
The golden retriever sat down, tongue lolling, and watched them.
It was hard work, but after several minutes, they had a hole just big enough for a wolf to fit under. Jack went first, squeezing underneath, and then Houston followed, the leash in his mouth. The golden retriever growled at first, even as she backed up, and Houston deposited the leash on the ground. Both the wolves backed away and lay down submissively.
I can’t believe I’m submitting to a dog, Jack thought, head on paws. I could tear her throat out in one second flat.
The dog came forward and sniffed the leash. Then she sniffed it harder, and then she walked around it, still sniffing, wagging her tail harder and harder until she was wagging her whole body, doing happy little hops in the air.
They’d gotten the leash from Kirsten’s house.
The dog yipped, and Jack and Houston exchanged a glance. This was going to be the tricky part.
Jack went behind the doghouse and shifted back to human. He was in the shadows, but he needed to hurry, since he didn’t really want Kirsten’s ex finding him naked in his back yard.
Not that he couldn’t handle the problem, but it was best not to have a problem in the first place.
“Katie,” he said, getting the dog’s attention. “C’mere, girl.”
Katie looked up, tongue lolling.
“Come on.”
She cocked her head, and Jack sighed.
Houston went up to her, and though she was a little skittish at first, Houston rolled over, pawing at her and showing his belly in the universal canine language of let’s be friends.
Katie sniffed him a couple of times, and then sat. Houston rolled back over and took the leash over to Jack.
As he did, a shadow passed over the backyard as a human form moved in front of the sliding glass door, and all of them froze. The shadow passed again.
Then nothing for a long time.
“Katie,” Jack called one more time, holding up the leash, and this time she trotted over, letting him fasten it to her collar.
“Good girl,” he said, and shifted.
Katie didn’t like that, shying away, but Houston had already grabbed her leash in his teeth and was heading for the hole in the fence. Both wolves squirmed under it, but Katie stayed there, looking nervous.
Jack put his nose back to the fence, and then did some leaping around the grass behind her fence.
Come on! he thought. Look at all the fun dog stuff out here!
Katie looked over her shoulder at the house.
Then she wagged her tail and scooted under the fence, and Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Keeping a close hold on her leash, they trotted her back to the shed. Jack shifted first, dressing quickly, and then grabbed her leash.
“You are such a good girl,” he whispered, rubbing her ears. “Such a good girl.”
“You’re a natural,” Houston said, pulling his shirt on.
“It’s in my blood,” said Jack, letting Katie lick his face.
Then they emerged and headed for the sidewalk, just two men walking their dog.
The moving pods were outside Kirsten’s house, doors shut for the night. As much as Jack couldn’t wait for Kirsten to come live with them — he still couldn’t believe that she’d agreed to it — he wasn’t really looking forward to filling those pods with all her stuff.
“Sit,” said Houston as they stood outside the door to her small rental house.
Katie looked up at him, wagging her tail.
“Sit,” he said again.
Nothing.
Houston sighed and knocked.
“It’s open,” Kirsten’s voice called, but Houston looked down at the dog and knocked again.
A few seconds later, Kirsten swung the door open.
“It’s un— KATIE!”
Instantly, Kirsten was on her knees, her arms around the dog. Katie knocked her backwards with boundless enthusiasm, licking her face and wagging her whole body, letting out little yips of sheer delight and Kirsten laughed and laughed, flat on her back now.
“How did you get her?” Kirsten gasped, grabbing Katie’s ears and rubbing them.
Jack and Houston exchanged a glance.
“She escaped,” Jack said. “Dug a hole clear under the fence.”
Kirsten grabbed Katie’s ears again, wiggling them from side to side.
“Are you an escape artist?” she asked the dog, who licked her face. “Or did they do something illegal?”
Jack laughed, and the two of them stepped inside, closing the door behind them. Her living room had nothing in it but boxes, stacked floor to ceiling, and now Katie bounded back and forth, racing from the wall to Kirsten and back again, like she simply had no idea what to do with all her joy.
That’s the happiest dog I’ve ever seen, Jack thought.
Finally, Kirsten sat up and scooted to sit against a wall, her face glowing, and wiped her hands on her jeans.
Something glinted on her left hand.
“Thank you,” she said.
Jack grinned.
“Not a problem,” he said. He sat down on the floor next to her and lifted her left hand, letting the silver band shine in the ugly overhead light.
“You’re wearing it,” he said, simply.
“Yeah,” Kirsten said softly.
Houston sat on the floor on her other side.
“This mean we’re married again?” Jack asked. He flipped her hand over and kissed it.
“We were always married,” Kirsten said, leaning back against the wall. Houston put an arm around her.
“I never took my ring off,” Jack teased her.
“Well, we can’t all be perfect,” she said, lacing her fingers through Jack’s.
“It looks good,” said Houston. “I like it there.”
Katie came over and began investigating Jack and Houston. She didn’t quite seem one hundred percent sold on them yet, but she wagged her tail as she sniffed them, and Houston rubbed her ears.
“Can I make one rule?” he asked.
“Maybe,” said Kirsten. “What’s the rule?”
“No dogs on the bed,” he said.
Katie ran off and did a couple of excited laps around the living room, and Kirsten looked up at him, a wicked grin on her face.
“What about dogs in the bed?” she asked.
“Uh oh,” said Jack. Over Kirsten’s head, he could see Houston’s eyebrows go up, the start of a devilish smile around his eyes.
“Did you just call me a dog?” Houston asked, narrowing his eyes in mock anger.
Kirsten leaned her head back against his arm and traced her finger in a circle on Houston’s jeans.
“Well, you’re both canines, right?” she said.
Jack leaned over her, putting his face against her hair, and grinned at Houston.
“I think she wants us to show her the difference between dogs and wolves,” he said.
“I don’t think she’s given us a choice,” said Houston.
Kirsten giggled quietly between the two of them.
“Worse, she knows exactly what she’
s doing,” said Jack, grinning.
In a flash, he was on his feet, pulling Kirsten up and then lifting her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry to the bedroom. Houston and Katie both followed, but Houston closed the door before the dog could come in. Then he leaned against it, watching for a moment.
Jack tossed Kirsten on the bed, listening to her laugh, then knelt behind her, pulling her up in front of him, both kneeling and facing the end of the bed. He bent his head and nipped her on the neck as Houston sauntered over.
Kirsten grabbed Houston by the belt, letting one thumb wander over the dark trail of hair leading from his navel downward, getting a quiet growl from him.
“What’s the difference, then?” she asked. “Dogs do as they’re told?”
It had been five days since they’d seen her, and Jack could feel his control slipping away with every moment that their bodies were pressed together, every fiber of his being aching with pure need.
“The difference is,” Jack said, his lips against Kirsten’s ear, “wolves will make you howl.”
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Everyone fights for something.
Grey Macauley is in t-r-o-u-b-l-e. She’s new to Rustvale, but she’s already found a body in a dark alleyway -- and landed herself right in the middle of a shocking small-town murder investigation. Circumstances implicate Grey herself in the crime, and the sexy wolf shifter investigating the case isn’t fooled by Grey’s innocent good-girl facade.
Dane Sorenson is taking on the first homicide investigation Rustvale’s seen in thirty years, and the complications are piling up fast. The gorgeous girl who found the body isn’t telling him the truth, and Dane’s own mate Issac is definitely hiding something -- but Dane’s damned if he can figure out what. In the meantime, he needs answers... from his own mate, and the sexy woman he just can’t seem to leave alone.
Issac Yates has his own connection with Grey -- he found the fierce, curvy girl in an underground gambling den where they were both up to no good. A former champion wolf fighter, Issac is going to step into the ring one last time -- and Dane can’t find out. But when he meets Grey he knows instinctively that she’s the perfect woman to complete their triad... and all Issac’s carefully laid plans scatter with the wind.
Murder, lies, and lust will test their newfound connection... but will it bond them fast, or shatter them forever?
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Fighting for Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves #3)
CHAPTER ONE
Dane
It was seven at night when Dane got the call. He was just clearing off his desk, getting ready to head home, and then his phone rang.
Don’t answer it, he thought, even as he reached for the receiver. The world will still have problems in the morning, and when was the last time you actually ate dinner with Isaac?
“Sorenson,” he said into the receiver.
“Hey there,” said the voice on the other end. “Don’t leave just yet.”
Dane could hear loud voices in the background of the phone call, along with shouting, the sound of tires, and sirens.
“What’s going on, Ramirez?” he said. “It sounds like you’ve got the National Guard out there.”
“Homicide,” said the other voice.
Dane straightened his back in surprise.
Now he was fully alert.
“Homicide?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yup,” said Ramirez. “Unless our victim managed to fall on a large knife several times.”
“Shit,” breathed Dane. “Where is it? What happened?”
He could practically hear Ramirez shrug over the phone.
“Nice young girl found him in the alleyway between Main and First,” he said. “Says she was taking a shortcut home from a friend’s house. Guy got stabbed at least three times, maybe more. As for what happened, I think that one’s your job, detective. Get out here.”
They hung up the phone, and Dane sat back down.
Rustvale wasn’t the sort of place where this happened. It was a small town, and even though the wolves could get violent sometimes — last year, his own brother had set a car on fire and Dane had been the one to arrest him — there weren’t murders.
Not in Rustvale. At most, they’d have vehicular homicides, hit-and-runs, or just accidents. This was beyond the pale.
The phone rang again, and reluctantly, Dane picked it up, praying it wasn’t Ramirez with another body.
“Sorenson,” he said.
“Looks like a long night, so we’re getting pizza,” said Patty, the woman who worked the front desk. “What do you want?”
“Pepperoni?” Dane said, his mind elsewhere. “Thanks, Patty.”
I have to call the coroner, he thought. I don’t even remember his name. Are we still using half the morgue as file storage? We should get those out of there.
Dane started pacing.
When was the last time we had a murder? He wondered. Ten years? Twenty?
He’d only made detective last year, when the previous guy had retired. There wasn’t much need for more than one on the Rustvale police squad. Dane managed to keep busy, but there certainly wasn’t enough work for two of him. Most of his job was investigating robberies, break-ins, and vehicle thefts.
A couple of years ago, there had been a kidnapping case that had nearly paralyzed the town for a day. Then it turned out to be part of a custody battle in a divorce, and the kid was just with her mom, who’d taken her without the dad knowing.
People didn’t get murdered in Rustvale, and they certainly didn’t get stabbed in alleys and left like a pile of trash.
Snap to it, Sorenson, he told himself.
With a sigh, he sat back down at his desk and turned his computer back on so he could look up the number of the coroner that Rustvale shared with the surrounding counties.
We don’t even have enough problems for our own coroner, he thought.
Dane shook his head and dialed the number.
Ten minutes later, he grabbed his jacket and his badge and headed out the front door of the police station.
“Hey,” said Patty. “Where you going? The pizza will be here any minute.”
Dane half-smiled at Patty. She was an older human, the sort of receptionist who excelled at a few tasks, but hadn’t learned any new skills in about ten years.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should’ve taken a raincheck, I gotta go to the scene.”
Patty’s eyebrows arched upward, and her frosted pink lips thinned into a line.
“Can you believe it?” she whispered. “A murder in Rustvale? You know, just last week I saw a couple of young men — up-to-no-good types — just take off racing down the highway on the loudest motorcycles. I bet they might have something to do with it.”
Dane just nodded. It was impossible to ever tell Patty that she was wrong about something, and he’d given up long ago.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Just trying to help,” she said, looking pleased.
Dane walked down the steps of the police station, getting into his unmarked car. It was early April, and a few scraps of snow were still just clinging to the ground, only in places that stood in deep shadow all day long. Pretty soon, all the trees would start getting their leaves back, the flowers would start blooming, and Rustvale would blossom to life once more.
He could practically smell it in the air. Wolves didn’t hibernate — they weren’t bears — but the winter always felt especially long to them, and when the days got warmer and longer, everyone seemed to get a little stir crazy.
Stir crazy enough to murder? He wondered, getting into the car. He could feel it himself, a
deep itch in his bones, the urge to run through the forests and fields, leaping into streams and chasing after rabbits in pure canine joy.
Please, let this not have been a wolf shifter, Dane thought as he pulled the car out of the police station parking lot. We’ve got a bad enough reputation already.
It seemed like he was the last person to get to the crime scene, since the small back alleyway was completely mobbed. Most of the people there were just onlookers, gawking at the most serious crime that Rustvale had seen in years. Scattered among them were reporters for the local news station, jockeying along with their cameras to get the best possible view. The crime scene tape blocked the path, and uniformed deputies stood in front of it, doing their best to control the crowd.
“Detective Sorenson!” one of the reporters shouted. In the glare of the lights, he could just barely make out the reporter’s face.
“Any idea who might do this?” she asked.
He raised both hands into the air.
“I just got here,” he said. “No comment just yet.”
“Can you confirm or deny rumors that a vicious motorcycle gang has been seen in the area?” she asked, shoving through the crowd and presenting him with a large microphone.
Deep down, his wolf snapped at the woman, but Dane held it back. He had plenty of practice in holding it back.
Gingerly, he put a hand on the foam sphere at the end of the microphone and pushed it back.
“I haven’t heard those rumors,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get to work.”
She shouted something else, but Dane lifted the police tape and walked underneath it, then over to where Ramirez, the police chief, stood looking down at a long knobby lump underneath a black plastic sheet.
It was the body, of course. Dane took a deep breath and lifted the plastic sheet from the face, bracing himself for the worst.
