by Lia Davis
A werewolf.
He growled.
Panic took over. Natalie turned and raced back the way she’d come. She ignored the ache in her ankle. If she could just get to the car. But before she made it even a few steps Bertolf was all the way up and lunging for her. She darted to the side, heading away from him and away from the car. The trail that Luca had brought her down the mountain on the day before wasn’t far away. Once she got there, she’d be able to run with no trees.
From too close behind her she heard his heavy breathing and she picked up the pace, the pain in her ankle forgotten under the full fledged panic of being chased by a pissed off wild thing.
Instinct had her looking behind her and she saw him lunge. She screamed, and cut left, shifting off her course, running into an area with less trees. And then no trees. Shit!
She turned fast, hearing him skid on some loose gravel behind her.
She was running toward the edge of what had to be part of the ravine she’d been in the day before, only the drop looked to be twice as far. There was nowhere else to go. She stopped and turned, holding up the canister of bear spray and confronting what was chasing her.
She blinked in surprise. The half-man, half-beast was gone and in its place was a massive gray wolf, with full muscular shoulders and much bigger than she thought a wolf should be. His eyes were weeping tears and his nose was wet with snot.
The intelligent gleam in his eyes as he slowed and took in her precarious location on the edge of the cliff, told her freaking out brain everything she needed to know—this wasn’t a beast. There was a man in there. And he knew who had pulled that trigger.
Her.
The wolf curled his upper lip and snarled, revealing sharp white teeth. Natalie looked for someplace to go, but there wasn’t any—behind her was the edge of the ravine. She went to go left, but the wolf lunged. She jerked back, her feet slipping dangerously close to the edge.
She had no choice. There was nowhere left to run. She aimed the can and pushed the nozzle again. This time her aim was better and the arc of spray hit him full in the face. He made a horrible howling sound and spasmed, twisting himself at the last minute and throwing his huge heavy body toward hers. She instinctively jerked back, coughing from the taint of toxins in the air, and fell off of the side of the steep trail.
Down, she slid, scraping her fingers into the dirt and roots and landing hard.
She rolled, and stopped. She dug her fingers into the ground, crying from the pepper spray and staring down through blurry eyes at the forty foot drop only inches away.
She sat up, blinking and coughing. Her fall had been stopped by a narrow outcrop of mostly flat rock. There were a few scrubby plants clinging to life, and a small dead tree. A few feet above her she could hear pitiful sounds, almost like a puppy crying. Two shots of bear spray and he had to be hurting. But the first shot had barely slowed him down. And this time he’d be really pissed.
She didn’t have much time. She slid her pack off and took out her phone.
Damn. No reception. But sometimes, even when you couldn’t get a phone call through, you could text. It was a long shot, but the only one she had. She texted the only person she knew who would be able to find her. Luca.
Then she sank down on the ledge, gripped the nearly empty can of spray in her hand, and aimed it at the top of the ravine. And waited for the wolf to come over the edge.
The council’s meeting had devolved into too many people asking too many stupid questions for Luca, and no real answers from the people in charge.
Should he say something to the council members? They looked like they were going to be there for hours, and the chief with them. When Gabe and Rico stood up and made their way to the door, Luca quietly followed them.
Outside, in the large main room with the soaring log beams, Gabe turned to Luca. “Hey Weylyn, have you ever seen so many enforcers with their tails between their legs. You would think the entire human race was coming after us.”
“Yeah.” Rico rolled his eyes. “It’s only a tiny quirk of our DNA that makes the virus change us. We’re all human too.”
“Can I ask you guys something?” Luca put his hat back on his head and motioned the other two enforcers to a quiet corner of the room. He needed to tell someone, and Gabe and Rico were some of the best on the force. They waited, looking at him with serious looks on their face. “Ah hell. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Just start at the beginning,” Gabe said.
The beginning. “Yesterday, I—” His phone buzzed. “Hang on. Bertolf chewed me out the other day for not checking my messages. I need to at least look.”
He thumbed through to his texts. Natalie’s frantic message was there in white print on a blue bubble followed by some GPS coordinates.
Help. Cornered totally pissed and drooling big guy. Bertolf? You won’t believe it, but he’s a werewolf. Seriously. He’s going to kill me.
Inside his wolf growled, and the rise of the shift flowed through him.
“Luca. What the hell.” Rico waved a hand in front of his face. “Stand down, bro, we’re in the middle of a group of riled up enforcers. This won’t end well.”
He took a deep breath and his wolf eased back, but the thought of Natalie being hunted by Bertolf had his shoulders tightening with tension. He turned back to Rico and Gabe, looking them over. “Are you carrying?”
“Something wrong?” Gabe tilted his head at him.
“Yes. I’ll explain on the way.”
“What the fuck?” Rico’s brows shot up.
He headed for the door, both men right behind him. “There’s no time, we have to go now. Do you have your weapons?”
“Yeah, in the SUV. Why?” Gabe followed him outside. “We have it all. Stun guns too.”
“Great. Let me grab my stuff. We’ll take your vehicle.”
He ran to the truck and grabbed his go-bag, adrenaline humming through his veins like electricity down a wire. Natalie was in danger. And there was a good possibility that Brandon was not just the man threatening her, but that he was also Yvette’s killer.
Chapter 8
Anxiety rode Luca hard, pushing him to shift and run instead of taking a car. He took a deep breath, took his hat off so he’d fit, and got into the back seat of Rico’s SUV with the Windy Gap Security logo on the side.
He could do this. He had to do this. He had no idea why his wolf was so out of control at the idea of Natalie in danger, but he couldn’t focus on that right now.
“Hey, man, where are we going?” Rico finished buckling on his weapon belt and got behind the wheel. Gabe had shot-gun.
Luca punched the GPS coordinates Natalie had sent into the app on his phone and checked out the little red line. “Drive to my cabin.”
For the first time in a long time he could feel the security of having back-up and he could tell his wolf liked the idea too. Maybe he’d been alone too much, lately. Maybe that’s why his wolf had latched onto Natalie as if she were pack.
Or maybe it was something else.
“There’d better be a good reason for this, Luca, or we’re up shit creek with the chief.” Rico cranked the engine and they drove out of the parking lot, wheels skidding to the side and spitting gravel.
“And the council.” Gabe turned to look at him from the passenger seat. “And those old women are mean.” He whistled.
Luca rolled down the window and stuck his head out, sniffing the air but not catching the scent he wanted. Natalie. Natalie. Natalie. Inside his wolf howled.
“Drive faster,” was all he could get out.
“We’ll be there in five minutes but we need to know what we’re getting into.” Despite his reassurance, Rico sped up a little. “Now talk.”
This was a hunt and his pack needed information. Luca pushed his wolf down.
“I met a girl on the ranch yesterday, just off of the trail that runs along the side bordering the state park hiking trail, right near the ravine. She was looking for a friend
of hers and had found a kill scene. But there was no body. No bones. No evidence. Nothing but lots of old blood soaked into the dirt. I doubt anyone not looking for it would have even noticed, it was so far off the trail.”
Rico met his gaze in the mirror. “Someone cleaned up.”
“Yeah. And get this, the girl’s been missing for a month.” While he talked he dug into his go-bag. He pulled out his gun and holster, stun-gun, and knife. Checking the safeties he buckled all three on.
Gabe turned back from the front seat. “How come no one told us? You’d think the county would be up in arms over this.”
The SUV took a tight turn. Luca grabbed the handle and hung on. They were almost there. “But they’re not.”
“That means someone bribed the sheriff to shut the investigation down.” Rico gave his partner a look.
Gabe nodded back. “Keep talking.”
“She was hurt. Not bad, but I took her back to my cabin for some first aid before I took her back to town. But when she was there our new volunteer supervisor, Bertolf, dropped by. He saw her and chewed me a new one.” He shook his head and stared back out the window, fiddling with the band on his hat. The open fields had turned to the edges of the woods. Shouldn’t he be able to scent her by now? He sniffed the air. The wind was blowing the wrong way and all it did was make him more anxious. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“She’s here?”
“On the ranch?”
“I don’t know why she came back, but she texted me—Bertolf’s got her cornered.” He looked at Rico. “He’s gone furry.”
“Shit.” They said in unison.
Rico sped the SUV up. The road turned, cutting up a steep rise into the woods towards the cabin. They skidded around a tree and into the dirt drive. Brandon’s SUV was parked next to Natalie’s little banged up car, dwarfing it with its large shiny curves and massive bulk. There was no sign of either Natalie or Brandon but there was a stink in the air.
Luca’s hopes dropped.
“Pepper spray.” Rico said, getting out of the car and wrinkling his nose.
Luca looked at the GPS app. “She’s up on the trail that borders the ravine.” He opened the door and jumped out, his hat dropping to the ground.
Gabe got out. “We’re right behind you.”
He ran for the shortcut through the woods. He didn’t look back. Despite his not being close to these men, he knew, with a wolf’s instinct, that these men would back him up. Natalie’s survival depended on it.
And maybe, so did the pack’s.
He caught a whiff of Natalie’s perfume, trailing under the stink of the pepper spray and the strong adrenaline-packed smell of pissed-off wolf. He honed in on the scent-trail, adjusted his trajectory, and ran. Inside, his wolf howled.
The hunt was on.
It wasn’t very far and they broke out of the trees near the ravine. Brandon’s gray wolf hunkered down over the edge, his wide head pressed to the ground, as if he were trying to shove his face in the cool of the dirt. One large gray paw dipped and swiped down over the edge of the ravine but he kept his head well back. He looked as if he were trying to fish blind.
“Take that, you mother-fucker!”
Brandon howled and jerked his paw back.
“That her?” Gabe was right behind him.
“Yes.” Both he and his wolf swelled with a fierce surge of pride.
“Man, she’s got a mouth on her, doesn’t she.”
Luca grinned. “You bet your life she does. She’s a fighter.”
Natalie wasn’t pack. She hadn’t grown up knee-deep in wolves, learning how to fight predator style, but here she was fighting off Brandon Bertolf with whatever she had. If she were his mate he’d say she fought with tooth and claw.
The thought made him stumble and he almost went down. Why would he even consider this woman for a mate?
Rico caught up to him and grabbed his arm, stabilizing him. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah.” Luca shelved the whole mating confusion thing and sprinted the last few feet. He couldn’t take time for anything like that. Natalie needed him.
They hit the edge of the ravine and spread out surrounding Bertolf. Luca nodded to Rico and both he and Gabe held back, letting Rico take the lead. Despite Brandon’s so-called rank, Rico’s status as the only full-time enforcer here, and the respect both Luca and Gabe had for him made him the alpha in a group of alphas.
“Hey, Bertolf, what’s going on?” Rico moved closer.
Brandon turned to face him, snarling with the out of control fury of a wolf deprived of its prey. For the first time Luca saw his face. The wolf’s eyes were nearly swollen shut, the fur around them was matted and wet with goo. Masses of mucus ran from his nose. His bloated tongue hung out of the side of his jaw and he panted, his sides heaving, as he stood off balance, his right front paw holding more weight than his left.
“Holy crap, Bertolf. What the hell happened to you?”
“Luca! Is that you? Thank God. I’m down here.” Luca saw the top of Natalie’s head pop up near the edge.
At the sound of her voice, Bertolf whipped his head around. He lunged back toward the cliff face and dropping his head down and opening his jaw, aimed for Natalie’s head.
The top of Natalie’s head disappeared from view. “Fuck you, asshole!” A cloud of yellow spray shot up, hitting the wolf in the face. He dropped to the ground, rolling and pawing at his face and howling in agony.
Rico and Gabe dragged Brandon away, opening bottles of water and pouring them on his face.
Luca checked in visually with Rico and got the nod. He made a wide circle around the thrashing wolf, heading for the edge. “Natalie. He’s down. We’re here now and we’ll take care of it.”
“Who’s here? I don’t trust anyone but you.” Her voice was thick, as if she’d been crying. Or had gotten some of the back-spray in her throat.
Luca got to the edge and looked over. A few feet down, just out of reach of an adult shifter’s paw, Natalie sat, gripping a black canister, a broken branch at her side. She looked small and vulnerable to him, but he saw the way she held the spray and he knew—she might look like she needed protecting, but she was tough as nails.
His wolf whined in approval. This woman was strong, she’d have good strong pups and she’d fight off any who tried to hurt the pack.
Luca wished that were so.
What his wolf saw was a strong female, but what he saw was a human ignorant of their ways. Someone who’d never had a pack to defend. Someone who wouldn’t understand anything about what had gone down here.
Luca lay belly down on the ground and hung over the edge of the ravine. “Here, give me your hands.” Natalie stood up and reached. He took her small hands in his and, for the second time in two days, pulled her up over the ravine’s edge.
They ended up face to face lying on the ground.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said.
She cracked a smile. “You wish, cowboy.”
A tremor raced through him at the sight of her snarky grin. Natalie was okay. She was going to be fine. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in tight. “Yeah, I do wish.” And he kissed her hard.
Her mouth opened under his, and the hard kiss blossomed.
There was a gagging sound behind them. Luca reluctantly let Natalie go. Brandon was in the middle of the shift back to human.
“Ugh. That is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.” Natalie averted her face, burrowing into Luca’s shoulder.
Which part?
The naked middle aged man with lurid red burns on his face, swollen eyes and nose, and the tongue too fat to fit back inside his mouth? Or the shift?
Luca wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Suddenly, it was very important to him that the shift from man to wolf not be the thing that offended this woman.
“Hey Luca, we need to get him back. He needs medical treatment.” Gabe tilted his head and Luca nodded. He got the unspoken message—they needed to get Bertolf ba
ck, but they also needed to deal with Natalie and the fact that she’d seen too much.
Inside, his wolf gave a mournful howl and he wished he could howl right out loud with it. He had to turn Natalie over to the council and, despite only knowing her for a few days, his heart was breaking as if he’d known her his entire life.
Natalie hugged Luca hard. Every cell in her body was glad to see this man. “Thanks for showing up, cowboy.” Her nose was running, she sounded like she’d smoked way too many cigarettes, and her ankle hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. But she was alive.
“Did you think I wouldn’t.” He grinned at her and her heart skipped a beat.
He’d come for her. She’d thought she’d lost the only person she could depend on when she’d lost Yvette, but here was Luca—sweaty, disheveled, no hat to be seen.
“Nah, my jerk radar had you pegged from the first moment I saw you.”
He pulled back in surprise. “You thought I was a jerk?”
“No, silly.” She kissed him hard, a fast super-smack, right on the lips that zinged through her like lightning in a bottle. “The jerk radar also picks up on white knights. And you, for certain-sure, are a white knight.” She grinned. “Okay, maybe a white hat. She patted his head where his Stetson usually sat. “You are a cowboy, after all.”
The taller man walked over to him. “Hey, Luca. We do have a problem.”
Luca lost his smile. “I know. Natalie, this is Gabe.”
Gabe squatted down beside them. “I’m sorry ma’am, but we’re going to have to take you in to headquarters.” Despite the sympathy on his face, his tone was firm.
“Headquarters?” Natalie tightened her grip on Luca. “What’s going on?”
Luca shook his head and stood up, pulling her to her feet with him. His arm stayed around her and even with the worried look on his face she still felt protected, safe within his embrace. He’d come for her, she knew, deep in her gut, he would back her up.
Gabe stood up too. “We have a real problem here ma’am. You’ve trespassed on private property and we’re all responsible.”
