by Kate Rudolph
She almost gave up, but at the last moment clicked on a link called “Community Response.” And there he was, smiling on a bright sunny day, next to a K9 unit that looked far more like a wolf than a dog. The caption read “Officer Dominic Soto and K9 Officer Gordon patrol the Carnation Fest.”
Dominic, yes, that suited him. Dominic Soto. Cam smiled and said his name out loud, holding it in her mouth like a kiss.
A clatter outside brought her out of her fantasy about the officer and back to herself and the situation at hand. Cam eased carefully out of her office and peered around the corner, momentarily afraid that the person who’d done the damage had come back for more. But she saw June standing, haloed in the sunlight, and realized that she’d forgotten to call her.
“What happened?” her assistant asked, worry dripping from her voice. “Was there an accident?”
Cam wished. She came out into the shop and shook her head, watching as June navigated around the shattered glass. “Someone threw a brick through the window last night. You just missed the police.”
“Well there’s a small blessing,” June said, almost too quiet for Cam to pick up.
But Cam’s ears had always been sharp. “What?”
The color in June’s light brown cheeks deepened and she gave a nervous grin. “I can’t say I like police too much.”
“You’re the one who told me to call them.”
“They’ve got a job to do. Doesn’t mean I have to like them.” June set her bag and her lightweight jacket down on the front counter. Normally they stored their things in the closet in back, but Cam didn’t have the energy to do things right today. “I’ll get this mess cleaned up. I’m sure you have a lot to do this morning.”
Guilt assailed Cam. “Don’t worry about it. I can get everything taken care of. You can take the day off.” June was a bakery assistant, not a janitor.
But her assistant was already shaking her head and grabbing the broom. “Don’t be silly. It’s my job to help you. And if we get this taken care of, we’ll be able to open up tomorrow.”
Cam burst into tears.
Sobs racked her body and the water works wouldn’t stop. She went from completely calm to a terrible mess in three seconds, and the worst part was, Cam never saw it coming. This was a flash flood of a breakdown. One minute it was bone dry, the next minute she was swept away in the torrent of pain and anger. She smacked her fist down hard on the counter and tried to take deep breaths, tried to calm down. But it didn’t work. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from June, embarrassed that her employee was seeing her like this. June didn’t need to deal with this crap, and Cam needed to get her shit under control before she lost the only reliable person she’d ever been able to hire.
A hand on Cam’s shoulder made her jump, but June gave her a little squeeze. “It’ll be okay, Cam. We can clean it up and fix the window. I’m sure the cops will find who did this.” It was exactly the right thing to say, but nothing would help.
Cam wasn’t a crier. She’d been too young when her parents were killed to know that she was supposed to sob. And when she’d been kicked out of high school, it hadn’t seemed worth it to get too choked up about it. Even when her elbow had been shattered in that accident, she’d only cried from the pain. The fact that another car had flipped over her own and caught fire had barely registered on her conscience.
Did that make her self-centered? Did it make her a bitch? She sobbed harder and saw dark circles on the edges of her vision. Her head pounded and snot gathered in her nose. Distantly, she was happy that Dominic wasn’t here to see her like this. And that made her laugh, her sob turning into a choking chuckle that only made her sound deranged.
June’s hand disappeared from her shoulder. Cam wiped at her eyes and looked around, but her assistant was nowhere in sight. Of course she’d frightened June away. That was what Cam always did. No one wanted the freak who said weird shit about time. They’d called her a psychic, but she’d never predicted that anything would happen. She only knew when it would. Always.
But June hadn’t disappeared. She came back with a glass of water that she pushed into Cam’s hands. “Take a drink and buck up.” June’s voice took on a hard edge, probably the tone she used on her children. “We’ve got work to do.”
Cam did as she was told. She drank too deep and sputtered on the first gulp, but the second sip went down smoother. By the time she finished the glass, her tears had subsided and she was left with a puffy face and a headache. June handed her a towel that she’d wet with warm water. Cam used it to wipe her face. She felt marginally better but still wanted to go back home, climb into her soft bed, and sleep for a week.
That wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
“Thanks,” she said, voice rasping.
“It’s better to get it out now. There’s nothing worse than crying at home alone with no one to look after you.”
Cam was happy to find that she’d cried herself out. The thought of going back to her empty house didn’t make her happy, but it was nothing new, and nothing to cry about. Plenty of girls made it on their own; she didn’t need a man’s shoulder to cry on. Even if Detective Soto looked strong enough to carry her around and not notice the extra weight. She had herself.
“Let’s get this cleaned up.”
***
Camellia Watson. Twenty-five. Resident of Blue Valley, Oregon. Address 251 Oak River Lane. The girl—woman—didn’t have much of a file at the police department. Whether Dom should be glad she wasn’t a criminal or disappointed that he couldn’t learn more, he wasn’t sure. When the official records proved fruitless, he took to the internet, searching her out on social media to discover the tantalizing details her official records didn’t share.
She’d owned the Thorny Rose Bakery for three years and her Facebook feed was dedicated to her creations. In December she’d participated in a Polar Bear run to raise money for a local charity, and from all appearances, she was single. When his finger hovered over the friend request button, Dom asked himself what the hell he was doing.
She was the victim of a crime—he couldn’t just ask her out like he didn’t have a duty to take care of her problem. And what if it turned out she was more deeply involved in something shady that it seemed? What if she’d smashed her own window in some quick insurance fraud scheme? Or maybe she was secretly dealing drugs out of her kitchen. Maybe that explained the scent. It wasn’t her, it was whatever drug she was brewing that was just as tempting to wolven as catnip was to the felen.
Logan walked into the room and Dom quickly shoved his phone into his pocket. No need to make the other wolven even more suspicious. “What are you still doing here?” Logan asked. “You always jet the second your shift ends.”
“Just wanted to make sure everything got processed correctly. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Blue Valley this year.”
“More exciting than the jewelry heist?” Logan looked skeptical.
“You mean the meth head who stole an eighty-year-old woman’s wedding ring and one necklace? We caught him a day later trying to fence it at the pawn broker’s.” This wasn’t San Francisco or even Portland. They didn’t get much high profile crime.
“It was a brick through a window. We’ll see the kids on the video. I’m starting to think I imagined the foxen. Go home, get some sleep. I’ll call if I find anything.”
Dom didn’t need sleep. He needed to run. But he left Logan to his work without another word. Brenner wasn’t in for the day yet and Dom knew it was best to get out before the citlali saw him. He couldn’t start trouble if he wasn’t there.
Instead of heading out to the parking lot where his truck was waiting, Dom took a left turn by the evidence locker and opened a door that led to a dark stairway. Without bothering to turn on a light, he took the steps at a run, his heartbeat kicking up as the cool air of the basement wrapped around him. It was dark and a little dank, nothing a normal wolf would want. But it wasn’t the basement that got hi
s blood pumping. Dom approached a door that was almost completely hidden in the stone wall of the building’s foundation.
A light flashed with a beep, scanning his eye and opening the door in one smooth motion. Dom stepped into the tunnel and let the door close behind him. Lights hung at far intervals on the ceiling, almost far enough apart to cast portions of the tunnel in pitch black. But Dom knew this tunnel like he knew his own heart. He could dive in blindfolded and bound and he’d still make it home faster than anyone who wanted to race him.
He took off his clothes, stashing them in an old cupboard that had been built into the wall when the first wolven to move here had built the tunnels. His weren’t the only clothes there. When the other officers of the Blue Valley PD used the tunnels, they’d do just as he did, stripping so that they could let their other forms run free.
Clothes neatly folded and hidden away, Dom let the change take him over. And in a blink, a gray wolf with one black boot and eyes surrounded by a strip of pure white fur stood. On his shoulder he was marked with fur in the shape of half of a heart, the center cut off with a line like a lightning strike. This was the secret of the Blue Valley PD, and all other officers besides them. Charged by their goddess Rhen, they protected humans from the demon Khain and could walk in the skin of a man or a wolf. Dom had walked as a man for too long and for the first time in weeks, he felt free.
He took off at a sprint, eating the long stretches of tunnel under his feet with no care in the world. These tunnels would take him home, or to the home of any other wolven in the town. But he didn’t head home. He wasn’t ready for a rest. The tunnel terminated at the big stretch of redwood forest on the southern tip of town. The moss-covered wonderland was a balm for his battered senses. Exiting the tunnel, Dom slowed, taking his time to explore the land in a way he rarely indulged.
Everything was green and wet and perfect here. Thoughts of foxen and Khain and every danger that faced his people melted away until he could think in peace.
And just as it had all morning, his mind circled back to her. He’d been obsessed with things before. All wolves were at one point or another. But never so fast, and never with a woman. As a matter of fact, Dom had somewhat lost his taste for women over the past few years. In his twenties, he’d chased any girl who was willing and pretty. But something happened, some switch flipped in him, and suddenly the nameless women and one night stands had lost their appeal.
Sure, he hadn’t been a monk, but he no longer spent every night in a different bed looking for solace with a woman who’d never know him.
He wanted a mate.
He wanted her so bad it hurt. But even with the first of the One True Mates discovered, he knew that it would be years, if ever, before one was discovered for him. The citlali said that there were thousands, that they’d been sired by an angel to human women, and that many of them had no idea who they were. But every single wolf who’d found his mate belonged to a special team, the team dedicated to defeating Khain. Those were the males who needed the women. They were the real warriors among the shiften. Not some cop so far away from the fighting that he may as well not even have claws.
Dom padded through the forest on soft paws. The normal denizens of these woods took cover—they knew that a predator was in the area and none wanted to risk meeting a fatal end with his teeth. Though a hunt would normally cheer Dom up, today he simply walked, taking in the nature and scents all around. Normally he stayed deep in the woods. Most humans, if they saw him, would assume he was a stray dog. A very big, very well fed stray dog. But the Pacific Northwest was made of outdoorsy types, and plenty of them could identify a wolf on sight. He didn’t want to cause a fright.
Still, before he realized why, Dom was moving towards the edge of the woods to the small collection of houses that stuck out like a thumb on the south end of town. Until a few years ago, this neighborhood had been unincorporated. It was a few miles from anything, but municipal wrangling had brought it into the fold and now the handful of people who lived on this street were the farthest flung citizens of Blue Valley.
At first, Dom thought that someone was baking. The air was sweet, but the scent faint, as if it had been carried some distance. He crossed some invisible line from the forest into a yard, still following his nose. He couldn’t hear anyone inside the house, so he got closer. As the scents of the forest gave way to the wide open yard, oranges mixed in with the sugar and he realized where he was.
Oak River Lane, her file had said. That was one of the streets that had been sucked up in the annexation. He’d had no intention of coming here. He didn’t want to frighten her, and what woman wouldn’t be frightened by a giant wolf lounging in her yard? But Dom couldn’t make himself leave.
He wanted to shift back into his human form and investigate her house, find what secrets she was keeping, and see how he could use them to win her over. But if anything was more terrifying than a wolf in the yard, it was a looming naked man who’d broken into the house.
But he couldn’t make himself walk away. A sense of almost feline curiosity wormed its way into him as he padded to the stairs that led to her porch. He shouldn’t do it. If anyone saw him, word would get back to Brenner, and there was only one wolf on the force who had a single black boot. But his paws were already on the wood and he climbed quickly, his body making the decision for him before his mind could talk him out of it. That was the problem with walking as a wolf. His impulse control went to shit.
Her porch overlooked the redwood forest like a lookout post in the middle of the jungle. This close to nature, she was almost one with it. Even Dom’s own house wasn’t as tightly ensconced in the woods as hers was. An old patio couch had been set up against the wall, looking out into nature. It was battered and worn, having clearly endured a few seasons of Oregon weather. But Camellia’s scent was embedded in it, as strong here as it had been in the bakery. Though on the porch, it mixed with the scent of the forest into something wild that sang in harmony with his blood.
He wanted to climb up and lay in it until he was covered, but finally, Dom showed reason. If he wasn’t careful, his claws might damage the cushions, and he didn’t want to harm something she clearly cared for.
So he lay down in front of the couch and pressed his body flush up against it, her scent still close, coating him in something he didn’t understand but knew he needed. He’d take a few minutes here, nap in the sun, and let the smell of Camellia Watson cover him until he knew her better than anything he’d ever known. He’d be gone long before she made her way back from work. He only wanted a few minutes.
Just a few.
Chapter Five
There was a wolf on her back porch.
Cam blinked twice and then shook her head, trying to dislodge what had to be an illusion. There might have been wolves that lived in Oregon, she wasn’t sure. They had bears, so wolves didn’t seem like a stretch. But wolves did not climb up on porches and nap like stray cats. She didn’t need to be a wildlife expert to know that.
Strangely, she wasn’t scared. Maybe if she had a pet she would be, but she was indoors and the wolf was outdoors and it wasn’t like he was going to crash through the glass. Maybe she needed to scare him away.
She pounded her fist against the glass of the door and waited for the animal to bolt. He did startle, but instead of running blindly back to the woods, his eyes found her and he stared. Ice blue eyes met her and a strange sense of recognition tore through her soul.
You’re not just an animal, are you?
She laid her hand flat against the glass instead of pounding again and studied the wolf further. He stood calmly, almost invitingly, and Cam was seized with the strangest desire to open the door and sit beside him. To see if he’d let her pet him. But since she was only a little eccentric and not a complete nutjob, she kept the door firmly closed. But she didn’t pound on the glass again.
The wolf lay back down in a shaft of sunlight and closed his eyes. After a moment, his breath evened out and he was asleep
.
Cam eased back from the door and reached for the phone on the counter. She didn’t know the number for animal control and she was afraid that if she looked away from the wolf, he’d do something crazy. But a giant predator on her porch counted as an emergency, right?
She dialed 911.
When the operator asked why she called, Cam panicked and reconsidered. She hung up the phone without saying anything. The animal wasn’t harming her. He was just napping.
Before she realized what she was doing, Cam flipped the lock on the sliding glass door and opened it, so that only the flimsy screen door separated her from the wolf. She couldn’t stop herself as she yanked open the door and stepped out into the bright sunlight. It was an unusually cheery day, as if the universe was trying to make up for the horrible start. And it was turning into the weirdest day of her life.
She took cautious steps, afraid that she’d scare him and make him run. Or that she’d scare him and he’d attack. But she didn’t fear for her safety.
It had to be shock. Cam had moved non-stop after her crying fit. Now she was home earlier than she’d ever been before and finally had a moment to breathe. So it had to be shock that made her take a seat on the outdoor couch. It had to be shock that made her bend over and rest her hand lightly on the light gray fur of the wolf’s back.
It had to be shock that sent the sizzle of perfect connection through her. For a second, all her burdens were lifted and she was lighter than she’d ever been before, worries melting completely away. She wasn’t an orphan, wasn’t a freak, wasn’t the victim of some harassment campaign by idiot children. She was only a woman. Safe and worthy of love.
