by Olivia Gayle
“I need your help finding her sister.” Aidan beckoned Ever over, and his mother watched her approach. “Mom, this is Ever Jackson. Ever, this is my mother Eleanor Landry.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Ever said, the faintest hint of a Southern drawl on the words. They sounded rehearsed, as if she’d said that many times before in her life, and maybe she had. If she was nervous, it didn’t show, at least not outwardly.
Her smell, however, told a different story.
They shook hands, and Aidan saw his mother’s silent assessment of the human girl. She must have passed muster, because Eleanor nodded. “I’ll go find Derek and we can get to the bottom of this.” She looked sharply at Aidan. “And you and I have things to discuss.”
Ah, so she’d sensed the mating bond. He doubted it would get past her, but she’d want answers, most of which he didn’t know himself. But he nodded and watched her head towards the barn out back.
“So, now I’ve met both your parents. Must be getting serious between us.”
The words had been meant as a joke, but they rang with more than enough truth for Aidan. Ever’s cheeks colored under his gaze, and she made a point of staring at his mother’s garden and not Aidan himself. “Derek Landry is the best tracker I know,” he said instead, sidestepping her statement. “I doubt Carlton Avery will let us on his property again, but I’m hoping Derek can find something else on the land around the house.”
“Your mom seems different from the rest of you.”
Aidan looked back at Ever. “How do you mean?”
She chewed her lip, looking unsure, then blurted out, “She looks older is all. You and your dad both look like you’re in your twenties, while she…well…”
Aidan nodded. “That’s because she started life as human and was Changed when she was forty-two years old.”
Ever’s eyes widened. “So you can Change regular humans,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone in particular.
“We can, but prefer not to do so. It’s rough, really rough, and not everybody makes it.”
“Wait,” she said, squinting up at him, “it can kill people?”
“In the wrong situation, definitely.” Well, she’d have to find out sometime. “A simple scratch or small bite isn’t enough; not enough enzymes would be released and would be easily purged by the human body’s defense systems. It takes a real bite to get the enzymes into the system that starts rewriting DNA.”
“Wait, DNA? Enzymes?”
“Well, that’s the pseudo-scientific theory bandied about anyway. You ask most of the older shifters and they’re content to say it’s magic and leave it at that. I prefer a more modern approach.” He shrugged. “It’s not like we can give any geneticists samples to prove or disprove that theory. Anyway, Changing this way seems to work best when both parties are connected by a bond.”
“What kind?”
“Blood bonds ease the process, but the mating bond can ensure it as well. Whatever it is that links mates, that seems to help facilitate the Change.”
“But,” Ever said slowly, “you said your mom didn’t find her mate until well after she’d been changed.”
He nodded. “She was attacked by a rogue shifter and left for dead. In those cases, the Change isn’t as straightforward; it’s more like a disease that will either kill or heal you. Most attacks like that fall into the first category; they die pretty quickly, as if they’d been poisoned. Fortunately, my mother survived and was found by my father, who’d been hunting the rogue.”
Movement toward the back of the house caught his eye. His mother was beckoning him toward the barn, and he jerked his chin to let her know he saw her. “Come on, we’re being summoned.”
Questions swam in her eyes, but she followed silently. Aidan wished he could answer all her questions, but they were working to find her sister, and he had the feeling she’d want to focus on that. Besides, he’d given her a lot of information; she’d likely need time to absorb it all.
He just hoped it wouldn’t scare her off.
* * *
The previously quiet hounds started baying as soon as he and Ever stepped around the house. Aidan counted about twenty or so, lined up in dog runs about three to a pen. “For training?” he asked his mother, indicating the hounds with a jerk of his chin.
She nodded. “Some are here for breeding too. He’s becoming known across the country for producing great dogs.”
Ever drew close to the pens, looking intently at the dogs, but not putting her hand out. Most of those in kennels were young, no more than a year old, all but tripping over their long ears. “They’re adorable,” she said, a smile lighting her face.
“My husband trains and breeds various types of hound dogs,” Eleanor said a bit proudly, “both for hunting as well as search and rescue operations.”
Ever’s back was to them so she missed the quizzical look his mother sent Aidan. He couldn’t tell whether his mother could sense the mating bond, but the way her eyes were darting between the human girl and the way Aidan stood watchfully close, she probably guessed it. She said nothing however, just turned and smiled as her mate walked up.
“Is he going to use the dogs to find Sonya?” Ever murmured to Aidan.
“Not exactly.”
Derek Landry was a quiet, unassuming man with dark hair and brown eyes. He was on the shorter side, only a few inches taller than Aidan’s mother. Unlike most shifters, he was average-looking, but it wasn’t his looks that had Aidan seeking him out.
“What can I do you for, Sheriff?”
“I need your help finding someone.”
Derek cocked his head to one side. “Human or were?”
Never one to mince words. “Were.”
Beside him, Ever jerked in surprise. “What? We’re talking about Sonya, right? No, she’s human.”
Aidan winced. He hadn’t told her yet about what exactly he and his father had seen on the recording.
Derek glanced at Ever, then back at Aidan. “You have something that smells like her?”
In reply, Aidan pulled a sock he’d stashed away from the demolished house and handed it to the other man. He could feel Ever’s eyes burning holes into his skull but kept his eyes on Derek, who brought the sock to his nose. “Definitely a familial resemblance with your girl here,” the other man murmured, taking another sniff. “It’s not fresh, at least a couple weeks old but I have the scent. You sure this is hers?”
“It came from the house where she lived, so I’m hopeful. She was kidnapped from Arcadia two weeks back.”
That got the other man’s attention. Derek’s eyebrows dropped into a frown. “From Arcadia? I thought the Brahm had that place locked down tight.”
“He thought so too.” While many in town didn’t mind the constant monitoring, many chose to live outside the confines of the city and away from the surveillance. Technically, they were still on Arcadian soil and under Marshall’s rule, but away from the constant prying eyes.
Not that the Brahm couldn’t get his information by other means. He made sure to stay one step ahead of everyone else. Which is why this breach was such a shock.
Derek’s mouth twisted, then he turned to Ever. “I’ll find your sister,” he promised, voice gentle.
Ever didn’t answer, just nodded. Emotions Aidan could read easily spilled from her eyes however, and he knew Derek could read the gratitude there too. Aidan put his hand on the small of Ever’s back to steer her toward the truck, and felt her stiffen.
Looks like he’d pissed her off. He was pretty sure how he’d done it too.
They said their goodbyes and moved back toward the car. Ever stayed out of his reach, eyes forward and gait stiff. Aidan sighed. “Look, I…”
“Why didn’t you tell me my sister was one of you?”
She said the last part in a grumpy voice, and Aidan tried not to take offense. “I wasn’t sure until I saw that video, and at the time you didn’t even know such a thing existed.”
Ever folded
her arms, still not looking at him. “You should have let me know directly, not making me find out secondhand like that.”
Yes, he should have. Shit, another thing he’d screwed up with her. “I’m sorry,” he said, exhaling rapidly. “You only today found out we existed at all, I didn’t want to worry you.”
She harrumphed, then glanced back toward the kennels and his family. “So what does he turn into, a bloodhound?”
Aidan shook his head. “Derek is another bear shifter, like me.”
Ever screwed up her nose. “Is everyone in this town a bear?”
He shook his head. “Bears have one of the best noses in the animal kingdom. I could go looking for your sister too, but Derek knows these woods better than I ever will. Plus, he has more experience tracking in other ways. To answer your other question, no, we have many different shifters in Arcadia, not just bears. The Animal inside depends on the person, not genetics.”
The cellphone in Aidan’s pocket rang. He almost ignored it, wanting to make sure she understood his reasons for doing what he did, then figured it might be a lead. “Yeah?” he said, letting some of his frustration bleed through.
“You should probably get back to town, bossman.” It was Mac, and she wasn’t joking around this time. “Somebody torched your girl’s car.”
Chapter 14
It was all gone. Her entire life had been inside that little car, and now there was only ash and charcoal.
Ever stared at the blackened husk that had been her trusty little Bug. She hadn’t even gotten around to unpacking it to the new place; she’d gotten so used to keeping everything there for those times where she needed to book it. It was still in the driveway, but the fire hadn’t touched the house.
Part of her wished it had, if only because her misery could have used company.
The flames had already been extinguished before they’d arrived, but it was a total loss. Even the tires had melted to the driveway; whoever had done this had known how to make it burn hot. The sun was getting low on the horizon, and absently Ever wondered where the day had gone. So much had happened, but all she could feel was a numb blankness.
So, this is what shock feels like.
“Nobody saw anything?”
Aidan sounded pissed, and Ever was glad one of them was thinking clearly. Between her sister’s disappearance and the destruction of what amounted to all her worldly possessions, she was a little overwhelmed.
“Mark’s on the phone with the Brahm to see if anything came through on camera, but…”
The growl beside her sounded like it came more from an animal than a human throat. Ever didn’t even flinch; somehow, the idea of shapeshifters had fallen pretty low on her give-a-shit meter.
First an empty pair of shoes crossed her vision, then pants landed in a crumpled heap beside her feet. She looked down at them, then over to Aidan as he shifted. The Change rippled across him, hair sprouting along his arms and legs first. He grew in size, his body expanding as he fell on all fours. Fingers shrunk as palms grew, nails darkening as thick brown hair sprouted from every pore. It happened all within the space of about fifteen seconds, and a large bear was standing before her.
Ever watched this all dispassionately, wincing only when his beautiful face grew a snout and expanded. It was strange, but not disgusting. Part of her was intrigued by the shifting; how did his body even do all that? Was it painful?
Oddly enough, no part of her was repulsed by what she’d seen.
“Bears have a sense of smell twenty-four hundred times more powerful than the human nose.” Mac, the female officer Ever had met earlier, stepped up beside her. “He might be able to track the person who did this more quickly than regular police work alone.”
Ever said nothing, only stepping aside as the bear moved toward them, head waving around trying to get scents. It paused briefly, then turned to look at Ever, and her heart clenched. Those amber eyes were the same she’d seen in Aidan’s face before. He was in there, somewhere; she could feel him staring back at her. She took a tentative step forward, then another, then the bear leaned forward and butted its forehead against her belly.
The touch was soft, almost cautious. Ever’s hands automatically went to the giant head, wider than she was, and her fingers dug into the thick fur. The bear whuffled, pressing against her as Ever ran her hands over his head and along the muzzle. She’d never felt anything like this; her arms couldn’t even go around the creature’s head, but she wasn’t afraid. The small ears atop his head, almost buried in the hair, reminded her of a teddy bear, and without thinking she threw her arms around his head and hugged the bear close.
A kernel of emotion moved in her heart, pushing through the numbness. She wanted this, all of this. All the crazy, furry insanity that her life had become the last couple days. Her grip tightened around the thick hair.
Mine.
All Ever wanted to do at that moment was cling to the bear and try to absorb the raw power she felt beneath that fur. But right now, they had other things to worry about. She didn’t realize a tear had leaked from one eye until she pulled away, and scraped at it with the cuff of her shirt. “Find that son of a bitch,” she murmured.
The bear nodded, a human gesture that looked odd on the animal, and resumed its roaming of the area. Both Mac and Ever followed behind him, the spinning red-and-blue police lights creating odd shadows in the growing darkness. The trees that lined the street blocked out the sun, making it feel later than it was.
Ever knew when he found something, because a shiver went through the bear’s body. The thick hair rippled as if with a breeze, but there was no wind. Then he turned down the driveway, his thick legs propelling him fast toward the street. Ever turned to follow him, only to have Mac’s hand on her arm stop her.
“You won’t be able to keep up. Come on, we’ll take the car until he leaves the road.”
* * *
Only in Arcadia would a giant bear running down the street not seem like a problem to any citizens.
Aidan was moving at a fair clip down the neighborhood streets, obviously following a trail of some kind. He’d occasionally stop as if checking his direction before taking off again. The speedometer of the car almost got to forty miles per hour when he finally turned off the road and off into a copse of trees.
“Looks like we’re on foot here.”
Mac parked the car and Ever popped out, jogging after the bear. Aidan had slowed his pace quite a bit which was good, because there was no way she could have kept up otherwise. The ground here was uneven, and came to an embankment where a seasonal stream had clearly carved out a gully. Aidan leaped down it no problem while Ever made her way more carefully, sliding along her butt. She reached the bottom only to have Aidan cut her off, his eyes on something across the wash.
“Don’t come any closer, Sheriff, or I’ll do it.”
Atop the opposite embankment stood a young man, one arm raised high. Ever couldn’t see what he held in his hand, but it wasn’t pointed at them so it probably wasn’t a weapon.
She hoped.
“Kevin, what the hell?” Mac sounded incredulous as she joined them. The muddy ground didn’t seem to bother her much, and belatedly Ever wondered what kind of shifter the other woman was. “Since when do you resort to vandalism?”
The way the deputy spoke to the stranger made him sound like a teenager, but he looked to be about the same age as Ever. In her experience however, shifters were notoriously difficult to tell the age of in human form, so he could be old enough to be Ever’s grandfather.
Maybe someday, she’d be able to get her head around that better.
Even without her glasses, Ever could see the sneer on the other man’s face as he stared down at them. “You’re all so pathetic,” he called out. “Living out your lives, doing nothing with the gifts you’ve been given.”
Aidan’s attention was fixed on the man, but Mac glanced at the bear, then at Ever, a concerned look on her face. “Kevin,” she said in a soothing vo
ice, “just put the lighter down.”
Lighter? Only when she heard that did Ever notice the red container beside the man’s feet. The wind shifted, bringing with it the faintest hints of gasoline. A sick feeling settled in Ever’s chest.
A high-pitched laugh, laced with lunatic joy, spilled from his lips. He raised both hands to the heavens. “Luna, I give myself unto your embrace!”
“Kevin, no,” Mac cried out, sprinting toward the other man.
Too late.
Flames erupted seemingly out of nowhere around the man, and the insane laughter almost immediately turned to shrieks of pain. Ever was frozen in place, unable to look away from the horror before her.
The man called Kevin, or a flaming shape of him, ran a few yards down the embankment, still screaming, before tripping over a tree and falling. Mac was on him in an instant, batting at the flames around the writhing shape, but nothing she did made a dent.
When the smell hit her, Ever felt her gorge rise at the combination of sight and scent. Then arms wrapped her shoulders, and a man’s torso blocked out the view. It was such a Hollywood cliché, shielding the little woman’s face, but in this instance Ever couldn’t complain. She clung to Aidan’s naked body, shivering, as the screaming turned to gurgles and, finally, stopped altogether.
Chapter 15
They had nothing. No leads, no reasons why Kevin would take his own life.
Night had long since fallen but Ever was still at the police station. She was left alone for the most part, which didn’t do her any favors. It was impossible to get the images or the sounds out of her head of Kevin Reynolds’ last moments alive.
Apparently, Shifters could be killed if one tried hard enough.
Mac sat nearby, both of her hands wrapped in white bandages. A tall, wiry man Aidan had introduced as Marcus hovered over her, ignoring everyone else in the room. Ever would have bet money he was the deputy’s mate.
