by Aubrey Rose
"He didn't even make it all the way back to wolf form," Katherine said softly. They were the first words she had spoken since the shifter had changed.
Damien was shaken. He'd never killed another shifter before. Animals, sure. He'd even taken down a small grizzly bear once when it had threatened the pack. But this was different. He turned to Kyle and Katherine, setting his face in what he hoped was an expression of solemn resolve. He could not afford to let any of them see him unsure of himself.
"Go back to where we found him, by the lake," Damien said. "Follow his trail. I want both of you to stick together. There could be others."
"No way. Why didn't we scent them before?" Kyle asked. "We scouted the whole territory around the town here!"
"How did this one sneak up on you?" Katherine asked.
"He must have been in human form. Possibly downwind." Damien thought back, and remembered that his mind had been elsewhere. Specifically, focused on kissing Julia, his hands moving over her body. He had let himself become distracted, and it had almost killed them.
"Don't lose focus," Damien said. "Follow the trail until you find where he came from, then come straight back. Don't fight any wolves if you find them."
"We won't," Katherine said bravely. Damien was proud of her. She was loyal, even now that Damien had found another mate. It helped that she and Kyle had taken to each other, but still, he had been worried that she might want to leave his pack. It was comforting to know that he still had their trust.
"What are you going to do?" Kyle asked.
Damien motioned to the body on the table and spoke grimly.
"We're going to bury him as a wolf."
CHAPTER THREE
Julia watched as Jordan and Damien cleaned up the body, wrapping it in sheets. Julia was glad to see it covered. The shifter had changed only part of the way back from man to wolf, and his body was a strange hybrid thing. His arms and legs had changed almost completely back to wolf form, hair and claws included. The face, though, had only partially morphed into a snout, and his nose bulged grotesquely out of his face.
"Think the hotel will be mad at us for stealing their linen?" Jordan asked.
"I'd say they've probably seen worse. It smells like blood in here. Have we cleaned it all up from the floor and table?"
"The floor's fine," Jordan said, with more than a hint of pride in his voice. "I run a clean operating room."
"I'll wipe down the table," Julia said, moving to the bathroom to find a washcloth. Anything to get away from that body. When she came back with the cloth dampened, they had put the shifter's corpse into a bag. It seemed smaller to her than before now that it had partially shifted into wolf form.
"You don't have to do this," Damien said. "You can wait for us outside. Just don't go far."
His voice was worried, and for the first time Julia realized the full importance of the shifter's words. She wrung the cloth in her hands.
"Damien, what he said—that I wasn't what you think I am. What did he mean?"
"I'm not sure. He might have thought I considered you my mate, and he knew you were human. Maybe he thought I didn't know. I can't think of anything else."
From the look on his face, though, Julia knew that Damien was concerned that something else was going on. She clamped down on all of the questions running through her head. Surely Damien could sense that she was nervous, and they had a body to bury. No need to make him more upset.
"Should we wait until dark to do this?" Jordan asked. "If anybody sees us..."
"If anybody sees us, we're burying a pet in the woods," Damien said. "We'd attract more notice sneaking out at night here."
"A pet?" Jordan raised one eyebrow. "Hell of a German Shepherd."
"Let's not let anybody see us, then," Damien said. He lifted the bag in his arms, carrying it in front of him like a child.
Julia followed the two of them through the parking lot to the woods, glancing all around her to make sure they weren't seen. Damien was right, though—everybody was at work or school during the day, and the lot was empty of anyone who might be suspicious of them.
Damien maneuvered deftly around the trees, slowing to walk behind Jordan only when there was a particularly dense cluster of brush ahead of them. Overhead, the chickadees and jays chirped to each other, and squirrels shook the branches as they leapt from tree to tree.
"How do you walk so easily?" Julia asked, after stumbling over yet another tree root.
"The branches move. I hear them," Damien said. "And I could follow Jordan through anything; his footsteps sound like an elephant rampaging through the woods."
"I don't have an alpha male figure to maintain," Jordan sniffed, patting his stomach. "And I weigh less than you do, anyway."
"Skinny-fat," Damien teased. "You're just not as graceful as me."
"That's what I think of when I think of my alpha," Jordan said, chin tilted up in the air. "A graceful ballerina prancing through the forest."
"Just don't make me wear a tutu."
Julia got the sense that they'd been teasing each other their whole lives, but as soon as they reached a small clearing the jokes stopped. Jordan looked over his shoulder toward the forest they'd trampled through.
"Is this far enough away, you think?" he asked.
In response, Damien knelt and lay the body of the shifter on the ground. He touched the forest floor, scraping away the leaves and letting his fingers dig into the loam underneath.
"This is a good spot," he said.
"Oh!" Julia said. "We didn't bring shovels. Should I go back?"
Damien shook his head.
"He asked to be buried as a wolf. Part of that is digging the grave."
"I can help," Jordan said.
"No," Damien said. He paused, his head bent. "I killed him. It's my job." He tore off his shirt and threw his glasses aside as well. Julia didn't realize what he was going to do until his form began to change. She gasped as his body shifted into that of a wolf.
The first time he'd changed in front of her, she had been too scared to look at what exactly was happening in front of her. Now, she watched with a keen curiosity as his face morphed outward. Hair sprouted first on his face, back, and shoulders, turning his skin dark with fur. His chest was the strangest part of him to change, for the altered bone structure made his ribs pop as they realigned, the muscles underneath snapping into place one by one, rippling under his skin. Then fur grew over his chest and that, too, was covered. He turned toward Julia, and his eyes shone golden. He seemed to be asking her a question.
"I'm alright," Julia said. She realized that she'd been holding her breath the entire time, and she inhaled deeply. "It's just strange." Damien stepped out of his pants, which had fallen away as soon as his legs shrunk, and sniffed the forest floor.
"You get used to it," Jordan said, shrugging.
"He... he said that it uses energy to shift," Julia said.
"It does. You should rest a minute," he called over to Damien, who had already started digging into the earth. If Damien heard him, he didn't show it. His claws raked the soft earth, tearing a hollow in the ground.
"Let's leave him alone for a while," Jordan said. "It shouldn't take too long."
Julia looked back over her shoulder at Damien as they walked away. Dirt flew from his paws and he was already sunk into the ground, his jaw open and panting. A wolf. That was who she was in love with.
He stopped digging and looked over at her, his eyes wild, almost seeing. He was reading her doubt. Julia turned and followed Jordan away through the brush.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was hard work, but Damien found himself enjoying the exertions as he got deeper and deeper into the ground. A long time had passed since he had dug so much. The last grave he'd made had been for his grandfather, a shifter who had lived nearly a hundred years after changing permanently into his wolf form. Damien wondered idly if he would live that long. He would have to live without Julia, and the thought of it made him cringe.
/> The earth was colder now under his paws, and he was almost entirely submerged in the ground. Roots tangled through the stony earth so far down, and it was harder to dig. The smell of the earth was nutty, deep and rich, and Damien rested for a moment, leaning against the side of the hole he had dug. His chest swelled, pressing against the earthen wall. There were worms down here, beetles, grubs. The scent of a fungus, the vein of its growth squirming its way in slow curves through the ground. Other dead things, too, and not just plants. The earth would take back the bodies of whatever lay down and did not get up.
Would he live as long as his grandfather? Long enough to shift permanently into wolf form? Or would he die in a fight, as his father had?
Damien remembered the fight that had taken his sight away from him. It had been a mistake. He had never meant to offend the alpha male by eating his portion of deer; he'd only been hungry and had taken what he thought was the pack's meat. But such an offense had led directly to a challenge, and he was forced to battle the leader of the pack.
He'd told Julia that he'd lost his eyes in an accident, and that much was true. It was a stupid accident to have eaten food left out without knowing whose it was. He was lucky he'd escaped with his life.
The day he'd fought the alpha male had been the worst day of his life. He remembered it vividly now, and as the memory played back in his mind his fur bristled as though a wind had suddenly come through.
He had been hungry, and followed the scent of deer to where the severed haunch was laying against a boulder. The scent of other shifters around it should have been a warning sign, but he thought nothing of it. His pack trampled through these areas regularly, after all. But as soon as he had taken a bite of the meat, he'd scented another shifter.
He could have run. He could have lied, said that another animal had eaten the deer. It infuriated him to think that he had lost his eyes and lost his pack for a bite of meat that didn't even fill his stomach. But he'd stayed, and Lukas had challenged him, and he stood in a clearing at night with the pack surrounding him and Jordan at his back, whispering encouraging words, ready to kill or be killed.
Moonlight lit the scene, and nothing else.
The alpha male had been older, almost entirely wolf, and Damien was overconfident. As Lukas snarled, his grey fur rising on the scruff of his collar, he paced back and forth. Around them wolves growled and yipped, shouting encouragements to the alpha. Nobody would support a young contender against the leader of the pack. Nobody except Jordan, that is.
"He favors the kick," Jordan said softly. "It's how he kills most of his prey. I've seen it."
"I'll keep that in mind," Damien growled. "Wish me luck."
"I'll always love you," Jordan said.
The words gave Damien pause. He'd known of Jordan's affection for him since they'd been pups, but for his best friend to state it so plainly meant that he doubted the outcome of the fight. Still, he was young and agile. Lukas was old; he'd been thinking of stepping down as leader for a couple of years already. It was only his fierce stubbornness that kept him at the front of the pack. He wanted to lose his position by challenge, not by surrender. Like many alphas, he wanted to die while he was still able to shift to human form.
Lukas growled, and Damien turned to face him. The old wolf was large, and strong, and the scars running down the side of his haunches testified to the fights he had already fought, and won. Damien made up his mind that this would not be one of them.
Circling each other, Lukas and Damien sized up their competition. In this regard, Damien had a distinct advantage. He was young enough that the leader hadn't taken any notice of him, and had no idea what kind of fighter he was. Lukas was terrifyingly strong, but also slower, more careful in his motions. The slow circling put Damien on edge. Why wouldn't he attack? His nerves grew more and more tense, his muscles twitching from anticipated combat. Finally he could take no more. Adrenaline surging through his veins, Damien lunged forward.
It was a mistake. Two mistakes, the first that led to the fight, and the second that ended it. Lukas rolled back on his haunches and Damien stumbled, snapping his jaws at the larger wolf's underbelly. The backward step Lukas had taken was just enough to make Damien fall short of his target, and as the wolf's back legs had raised up to strike him, Damien had only one thought:
Wrong. I was wrong.
"Damien?"
Damien shook his head, and earth fell from his fur to the ground.
"Damien, are you done digging?"
Jordan's voice penetrated his thoughts, and he licked his chops, tasting the grit of the dirt underneath him.
"Yes," he growled, leaping up out of the hole in the ground. Without thinking, he had finished the job, and now it was time to bury the dead.
At least he hadn't died in the fight. Small comfort. The wolf they would bury in this hole couldn't see, either.
Julia's fear had subsided somewhat, although he could tell that she was still nervous at seeing him in his wolf form. Well, she would have to stay nervous for a while longer.
Damien went over to the body and gripped the bag with his teeth, pulling it towards the hole. He slipped only once, at the edge of the grave, and his hind leg dangled for a brief second over the empty hollow before he regained his balance. In his mind, he imagined the dead shifter falling on top of him in the hole, imagined the dirt piling onto them both, imagined being buried alive. It did not seem as horrible as it once did. The fear came in part from fear of darkness, he supposed, and his world was already dark. He found his footing and went around to the other side of the bag, using his snout to push the body over into the hole.
Filling the grave was a lot easier than digging it had been, and Damien made quick work of the ritual, sprinkling dirt with each of his four paws into the grave before pushing the rest of the earth in. The dirt made a low mound over the body, and Damien knelt in front of the grave. He growled the prayer of the dead, eyes closed, and lifted his head to the sky.
"Amen," Jordan said softly.
Although it was afternoon and he could feel the sunlight on his face through the tree branches, all was darkness. He howled a keening wail, his nose pointed toward the invisible stars of their ancestors. Behind him, Julia shivered in sorrow at the sound of the howl twisting through the trees. The birds ceased their calls, and when he lowered his head, all was silent.
He sniffed out his clothes and shifted back to human form, quickly pulling on his shirt and pants. Both Jordan and Julia had seen him shift, seen him naked, but for some reason he still felt awkward at having them around when he changed. None of them said a word as Damien finished dressing.
"Kyle and Katherine are on their way," he said, after they had left the clearing. Jordan sniffed, his nose raised to the air.
"I barely smell them," he said. "You're sure they're coming?"
Damien nodded, and swerved slightly in their direction. Sure enough, it was only a half-minute before Kyle and Katherine walked into sight. They had already shifted back into human form.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"We followed the trail from the lake to the highway," Katherine said. "It was only his scent. No other wolves."
"His car is parked on the side of the road," Kyle said. "We looked inside, but didn't break in."
"I told Kyle not to break the window," Katherine said. "I thought that it would be best to talk to you first."
"Good," Damien said. He considered his options for only a split second before deciding.
"Jordan, you come with me," he said. "We'll check out the car."
"What about me?" Julia asked.
"Kyle and Katherine will follow you back to your grandmother's house. They'll watch over you."
"I don't need a security guard," Julia said.
"What, we're going to be glorified babysitters?" Kyle said.
Damien growled under his breath.
"The shifter said he was after Julia. Until I have proof otherwise, you're going to be protecting her." He took Julia
's hands. "Julia, be careful."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I need to find out who this shifter was. If he has a pack in town. If he's been following you for a while."
A new ripple of dread pulsed outward from Julia.
"It's alright. The pack will be around if you need them." He bent down and kissed her, and from her lips drew desire and fear, intermingled. Though he did not want to leave her, he did not want to leave the mystery unsolved for any longer than he needed to.
He motioned to Jordan. "Come with me."
They would find out who this shifter was, and why he had come.
And why he had come for Julia.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the car ride back to the house, Julia ignored the other shifters pointedly, and they seemed happy to ignore her back. Katherine made a few comments about the town, but they fell flat, and the rest of the way was passed in a dull, awkward silence. As they pulled into the front of the old Victorian-style home, Julia was relieved to find that the shifters did not intend to go inside with her.
"We'll wait in the back," Kyle said. "If they come as wolves, we'll smell them before they get too close."
"Sure," Julia said, closing the car door and walking toward her house without hesitation. Katherine always looked at her as though she had no idea what Damien saw in her. And Kyle—she didn't know anything about him, but he seemed skittish. Unnerving.
Creepy. That's what her girlfriends would call him if he came up to them at the bar. There was something about him that didn't quite add up. But as soon as Julia closed the door behind her and smelled the delicious scent of her grandmother's apple crumble, she forgot all about him.
"Granny Dee!" Julia cried out, coming into the kitchen. "Are we celebrating something?"
Her grandmother sat at the table, her head in her hands. She looked up sadly.
"What... what's wrong?" Julia said. She sank into the seat next to Granny Dee.
"The bank called this afternoon," Dee said. "Someone bought the house."
"Oh, Granny Dee—"
"I'm afraid we'll have to leave. I thought this was a good place. Safe, perfect for us. But now—"
