Wolf at the Door

by Sadie Hart

  The cold night air flowed over her skin like a soothing balm. The wind brushed over her cheeks, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and soak it all in.

  The smell of blood hit her first, and her stomach twisted, wild with fear. Her hand tightened on the doorknob and she was about to slam the door shut when she saw the hair scrunchie lying on her front steps.

  Red smears across the rich hunter green.

  There were still strands of long brown hair tangled around the small bit of cloth. Her throat locked around a whimper. Becky’s. But it was the deep, masculine scent, the combination of wood smoke and an aftershave she would never forget, that had her knees buckling. Only her grip on the door kept her from hitting the linoleum.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Timber jerked backwards and slammed the door, her hands shaking so hard she fumbled with the locks. It was a dream. It was a nightmare and, oh, God, she had to be wrong. The chain lock slid into place, followed by the deadbolt, the lock on the handle, but none of it could possibly be enough.

  She sank down against the door, the world spinning around her, as if the entire universe had been rocked right off its axis. It wasn’t real, her brain tried to tell her. It was too much of a shock. Charles was gone. He couldn’t find her here. Whoever had left Becky’s hair tie on her porch had to have been someone completely different.

  She tried to believe it. She truly did.

  Timber concentrated on getting her control back. In and out. In and out. The words were a silent chant as she forced the air through her lungs. It was only when she could breathe without feeling the drive to hyperventilate that she dragged herself to her feet. Her knees wobbled, fear leaving her weak, and she staggered toward her living room.

  Her cell sat on the table next to her book and her hand closed over it. Sinking into the chair she forced herself to pick up the small card the Hound had left behind. A hysterical laugh built, threatening to bubble out and break loose.

  The last time she’d gone to the Hounds for help they’d laughed her off, and she’d ended up in Hell.

  She wasn’t sure she could survive if Shifter Town Enforcement did it to her again.

  It’s not him. She reminded herself. It can’t be him. You’re only calling to alert them to a tiny a bit of evidence for their case, once they’re here and pick it up, you’ll see. It’s just your demented mind playing tricks on you.

  But no matter what she told herself, she knew the truth.

  With trembling fingers she dialed. It took her four tries to get the number right, but the moment it started ringing, she longed to hang up, go back up and pull the covers over her head, and pretend none of this had happened. Maybe she’d wake up in a second and discover it was just another nightmare after all.

  “Shifter Town Enforcement, what’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice came over the line and Timber felt the air squeeze right out of her lungs. “Hello?”

  “I need to speak with Brandt Lawrence.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. What—”

  She found her voice then and it was like steel. Unbending, unwavering, and despite the way every inch of her body was shaking, her voice didn’t as much as quiver. “Look. I’m Timber Kearney, the Bear Creek alpha. Brandt came to my house to warn me about a serial killer who might possibly be after my pack. I have information I think he’d like to have right away, and I’m only willing to share it with him. Now, I need to speak with him.”

  “Hang on.” She could hear the woman moving in the background, but the voice was muffled. Then finally, “Are you in immediate danger?”

  Timber bit back the strangled laugh then. She’d made her wait and then asked that. And people wondered why shifters didn’t trust these people. “No.”

  “Then I’ll take your number and have him call you.”

  “It has to be tonight. Now.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, ma’am, but he’s not in right now. Are you sure you won’t speak to anyone else?” There was a patronizing tone that left Timber shaking.

  She let a growl edge into her voice, her hand gripping the phone so tightly she knew her knuckles had leached white. She snapped out her number.

  “I’ll see what I can—”

  “He’ll want to hear this as soon as possible. Morning might not be in time.” And before the idiot woman could say anything else, Timber hung up and sagged back into her chair. She’d made a mistake. She knew it now. But the thought of yet another Hound, possibly a pack, nosing around her house, asking her questions...she couldn’t do it.

  Refused to do it, when she knew damn well they wouldn’t help her or any of her wolves.

  She sucked in a hard breath and blew it out, nice and slow. She’d talk to one Hound. If he chose to help it’d be a bloody miracle, but at least it would just be one out here.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand a second before the ringtone cut through the silence. Timber jumped, a half-scream on her lips, but she looked down at the screen. A number she didn’t recognize flashed in the darkness. She thumbed over the button and answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Timber?” Brandt’s familiar voice filled her, groggy and gravelly from sleep, and yet amazingly soothing. Strong. She closed her eyes as another tremor of fear jolted through her veins.

  “He was here.”

  Brandt growled over the other end and she knew in that moment he’d snapped wide, wide awake. “What do you mean he was there?”

  There was a flurry of frantic movement in the background, clothes being shaken out, and shoes skidding across the floor. A whirl of a belt. “There’s a bloody hair tie on my front steps. It’s Becky’s.”

  “You should have told the operator—”

  “I’m not dealing with anyone else.” He cursed on the other end and she smiled. But it was one of those weak, on-the-verge-of-tears smiles. Because what she was going to say next, she didn’t want to say. When she spoke, it sounded breathy, filled with the pain and fear she’d tried so hard to convince herself had been left behind when she escaped Charles. “I think I know more about your case than you do.”

  “Are you safe? In any immediate danger?”

  “I’m locked in. I think he’s gone.” But she was always going to be in danger, she knew that now.

  Brandt blew out a frustrated breath.

  “I’m going to keep you on this line, but I need to call in my pack.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off before she could begin. “Look, you only have to talk to me, but I want my pack out there. I want to make sure we comb every inch of your territory looking for this guy. I want to make sure you and your pack members are safe.”

  She didn’t say a word, just leaned back in her chair and waited for him to arrive. It was another twenty minutes before headlights flashed through her living room window, cutting through the curtains, and Timber dragged herself out of her chair and to the front door. She recognized the uniform black SUVs that pulled up in front of her house with STE emblazoned in white on the front doors. Brandt got out first, issuing orders.

  He waved for one man to follow him and walked her way. “Shit,” she heard him whisper the moment he spotted the hair tie. “Bag it, Tate, and make sure this place is searched.”

  “You got it, boss.” The other man tilted his head toward her and the door. “You want help in there?”

  “No.” Brandt stepped around Tate and past the bloody scrunchie on the front steps and lifted his hand to knock. Timber undid the locks and let him in. “Thank you.”

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. The other man, Tate, was watching her, and she wrapped her arms around herself and escaped to her living room. She heard Brandt shut the door behind him.

  “You okay?” he called out.

  No. She wasn’t okay. She blew out a shaky breath. So far, everything Brandt had said, he’d done. Trust had to begin somewhere, right?

  “His name is Charles Wolfe.”

  Chapter Five

  Brandt paused in the middle of he
r living room, stunned. He blinked at her. Timber was still hugging herself, and there was an aura of fear around her. She looked ready to break. But the way she said that name, in a soft whisper full of horror, told him whoever Charles Wolfe was, he was the bastard behind her fear.

  “Who?”

  She nodded at the door. “The man who dropped that hair tie on my front steps.”

  Holy shit. He rocked back slightly. They had a name. He’d caught a whiff on his way in. It was the same bastard who had killed Rebecca Morgan and the thirteen other women in his case file.

  “Looks like he got his wish, too,” she added, and her eyes squeezed shut for just a second.

  “What wish? And how do you know the man who killed Ms. Morgan? Her boyfriend was a James—”

  Irritation flared in Timber’s eyes as she cut him off. “It wasn’t her ex. God, that would have been easy. And I know her killer because he kept me trapped in Hell with him for a year.”

  Timber ran her hands up and down her upper arms as if she were trying to chase away a chill. He could see her whole body shaking. She wore a pair of sweatpants and an over-sized T-shirt again. He figured this time she’d gotten dressed while he was on his way over. At least into something more than a night shirt.

  “Talk to me,” he whispered, his voice as soft, as soothing as he could make it.

  “Four years ago...” She trailed off for a second and shook her head. “It feels like it must have been longer than that.”

  “Timber, sit down. Breathe.”

  She looked at him then, a quiet edge of defeat in her gaze. “I tell myself to do that a lot, you know? Breathe. In and out.” She snorted. “Depends on the day, how well it works. But maybe you should sit down. It’s not a short story.”

  Brandt eased past her to the couch, hoping that if he sat, she’d sit down too. She didn’t. No, she just stood there, her hands clenched at her sides.

  “I guess I should start from the beginning.” She steadied herself and she looked like she was bracing for impact, as if calling up the memories was calling down a lightning bolt. Brandt knew the script, the things he was supposed to tell someone to walk them through the pain of retelling, but never before had they felt like lies on his lips.

  Looking at Timber right now, he knew time hadn’t healed a thing.

  He’d heard a quote once, that nothing cemented something in a person’s memory like wishing to forget it. His sister had survived a serial killer—twice. But he’d seen the look in Ollie’s eyes when she’d been praying to forget. Some things a person couldn’t shake, they couldn’t outrun. Those were the things that scarred the mind, burned into the soul.

  Ollie had told him once that things that she wished to forget more than anything else, those were the things she could remember the clearest. Brandt didn’t think that was true for his sister anymore, but, looking at Timber, he knew that whatever Charles Wolfe had done to her, those were still her clearest memories. Her living nightmares.

  “I know this is hard,” he said softly, watching as the scorn flashed across her face. She didn’t know just how much he understood, and he couldn’t blame her for the instant skepticism. There were words he was supposed to say: I know this is hard. He can’t get you here. You’re safe now.

  But even to him they sounded rehearsed. False.

  Timber didn’t need a cop right now. She didn’t trust Hounds and she needed someone she could trust. “My sister was taken by a killer the media called the Hunter. He chained her up in a shack; she got loose while someone else died.”

  Surprise had flitted across Timber’s face the moment the word “killer” registered. He watched her war with herself, wanting to believe but not quite trusting. “The details aren’t important, but afterwards, we talked. She said even the littlest things she could still remember. Like the smell of dying leaves and rotting wood. She said she never realized how birds go quiet in the woods when danger gets closer. It’s not a sudden thing. It’s slow, like how the sun creeps along the horizon in the morning. A few die off, then a few more, and it gets closer until you know that whatever has scared the rest of the forest is standing right behind you.”

  Brandt paused and he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes. She knew. For a moment she looked away and he wasn’t sure there was anything he could say to make her open up, and then finally, “It’s the smell of old brick. You never think much about a smell like that, but it’s dry. Like a rock in your mouth, and I can still taste it. I smelled it the first time I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle, the first time I knew someone was following me.”

  She paused for a moment and Brandt waited. There was nothing else he could think to say. The rest had to come from her.

  “I worked at a small diner at the time, finished work at obscene hours, and my car only worked half the time. But it was a short walk from the diner to my apartment. No biggie.”

  She shrugged as if she meant it, but look in her eyes belied her words. “It’s hard to sneak up on a shifter, you know.”

  Yeah. He knew. It was one of the reasons Hounds were granted a bit of witch magick when they graduated the Academy. It gave them a tiny advantage when dealing with shifters.

  “It was about three weeks of walking home late at night, jumping at every shadow because I couldn’t find the bastard I knew was following me every night, before I bumped into him just outside my apartment complex. He shoved me against a brick wall and asked if I was a wolf-shifter. Wanted to watch me shift. I fought him off, ran inside the building, and called my alpha. They told me they’d look into it. The night watchman insisted I report it to STE as well.”

  Bitterness clouded her face while she said that. Hell. He only needed one guess. The local Hounds hadn’t done a damn thing.

  “I did. They waved me off and told me they’d look into it. For a week, I had a different pack member walk me home every night. No sign of the guy, so we wrote it off. The night after they stopped walking me home, he grabbed me.”

  “The same man you smelled out there on Ms. Morgan’s hair tie?”

  Timber nodded. “He was human then. Though he wanted to be a shifter. A werewolf. He was fascinated by the myths. The books. The movies.”

  That’s what she’d meant about him getting his wish. Hell, just what she’d said so far showed she knew more about this killer than they’d ever released to the press. He had no doubt she was telling the truth.

  Brandt leaned back against the couch. And now, incredibly, because of her, they had an ID on this guy for the first time. They had a shot at catching him. “What happened?”

  Her eyes shuttered and she wouldn’t look at him. The muscle in her jaw twitched. “The usual. When a psycho grabs a girl.”

  “I know this is hard, but anything you can tell me—”

  “Whatever.” She cut him a glare. “At first, he chained me to a bed. He raped me. Said I was his mate. He knew what I was, knew wolves mated for life, and I was his. He just wasn’t a wolf yet. Psychobabble, okay?”

  She was rigid at this point. Brandt could feel the whirling emotions as though they were a tornado around her. The anger, the pain, the embarrassment, the fear—they churned like a physical entity around her. “Every night when he was done he begged me to turn him. To bite him. I did once. To prove to him it didn’t work like that. Charles never liked being proven wrong.”

  Her left hand rubbed against her hip, and Brandt wondered what the man had done to her then, but he didn’t ask. Right now, he just needed her to get through the basics. They could worry about details later. He had a feeling she hadn’t told anyone this story, not the full story. And despite the pain it was causing her, he had to hear it.

  “He had to unchain me that night. Remind me of what I was.” She shook her head, and Brandt knew that, whatever had happened, she wasn’t going to go there right now. “After...after. Just after, okay? He forgot to re-chain me. He passed out still holding me. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time he’d ever left me loose
.”

  “What happened?”

  “I ran. And a naked woman running down the streets gets picked up by STE real fast. I told them what had happened, and then Charles walked in the door. A human against a shifter. They decided it was a lover’s quarrel.”

  Brandt felt sick. He’d seen a lot of shit when he’d been transferred from pack to pack, working his way up the ladder. He’d seen lionesses returned to abusive prides. He didn’t even need to guess, he knew they’d probably let that man drag her out of there screaming.

  “He had a bottle of medication with my name on it. They bought his bullshit story that I was a nut job and that he was the kind soul who took care of me. And the bruises, the cuts? Oh, I just liked it rough.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brandt said softly, but she shook her head.

  “Don’t. Just don’t. It wasn’t long after that the first woman died. Another wolf. She wasn’t his destined mate, though, so she didn’t have to stay in his hell. Apparently, he could fuck them, chew them up, and kill them. But I was the only one who didn’t get to die after a night of him. He liked the full moon thing, too. I tried to convince him it took more than just a bite to turn someone, so next he decided it required a sacrifice on a full moon.”

  “Did you know the victims?”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “The first one? Kelsey Monroe. She’d been part of my pack. He said she was looking for me, poking around at my apartment, tracing the route I’d taken back and forth from work. After that, no. Not until Becky.”

  “How long were you with him?”

  She sank into her chair then. “A year. Maybe a little more, because I don’t remember how long he had me before he killed Kelsey. After that though, I knew. Every full moon, I knew. There was no letting time slip away then. I tried so many times to escape. I told him so many lies about ways to change him that I hoped would kill him.”

  Brandt didn’t blame her for the hate that lingered in her eyes. He hated the bastard, too, and would make sure Charles Wolfe paid dearly for his crimes. “How’d you get away?”