Shiftless: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 1)

by Aimee Easterling

  Brooke's son jerked one shoulder up into a shrug, then his mouth quirked upwards as well. "I had a feeling you weren't sleeping," he answered, and I couldn't help smiling back at him. In that minute, his eyes looked just like my sister's had when she'd stolen the last piece of pie that was supposed to be our father's, then had shared it with me instead. The hint of innocent mischief was enough to raise a lump in my throat. Was I really going to turn this kid over to my father to be turned into a monster?

  And, if not, was there any other way to get out of this situation with my skin intact?

  Just like figuring out how to help Keith tune into his werewolf identity, that question was far too difficult to answer at the end of the world's longest day. "Look," I said, making up my mind, "I promise I'll tell you far more than you ever want to know very soon, but tonight I'm so exhausted I can't think straight. What do you do for fun around here?"

  And that's how I ended up playing Dance, Dance, Revolution with a fourteen-year-old boy at midnight in a mansion on top of a hill. It was the most fun I'd had in years.

  Chapter 8

  The ceramic crack of pool balls drew me into a part of the basement I hadn't yet explored. I'd thought Keith was still sound asleep, recovering from his near-shift the day before, but instead my nephew was carrying on the family tradition—practicing to be a world-class pool hustler. He had his feet apart, one hand resting on the table as he lined up a shot with the cue stick.

  "I've been thinking," the kid said without looking up, knowing with a wolf's sensitivity to the surrounding world that I was standing in the open doorway behind him.

  "Your grandfather likes to think at a pool table too," I answered, my mind inexorably drawn backwards to childhood memories of my father honing his skills. Business meetings always happened in the pool house, which for us had nothing to do with swimming and had everything to do with pocket billiards. I'd never bothered to learn the game, but Brooke had been nearly as good as our father. No wonder her house had a pool table in the basement.

  "That's just what I was wondering," my nephew continued, oblivious to my trip down memory lane. He hit the two ball into the far pocket and walked around the room so he could face me across the table while planning out his next move. "Dad obviously knew you existed, but I had no clue there was anyone alive on Mom's side of the family. Then you show up without calling. Are you in trouble?"

  I was glad that Keith didn't look up to gauge my response to his question, and instead just sank another ball into the near pocket. The youngster's lack of attention was helpful because my mind was racing. This wasn't good. Why couldn't Keith have inherited any of his father's cluelessness?

  Insightful questions like Keith's weren't going to make my mission any easier, but the ensuing interruption was even less welcome. "Yes, Ms. Wilder, are you in trouble?" Wolfie asked from the open glass doors leading to the outside. I'd scouted the area briefly when I carried in my belongings the previous afternoon, and I'd noted the security issues resulting from the way the house was built on a hill and opened into the woods on the basement side. But I had figured my wolf would keep an eye out for danger. Too bad she'd been caught napping at just the wrong moment.

  Now, my wolf woke with a vengeance, causing Wolfie's musky scent to swallow me in a sudden cloud even as pain ran down my arms and legs. Despite the danger, the smell was enticing, and I had to shove my wolf out of the way to focus on the alpha. I could sense Keith behind me feeling the first symptoms of a shift, brought on by my wolf's alertness, so I walked away from my nephew and toward the alpha wolf who had invaded our home.

  Not just invaded our home; he'd invaded my past. Wolfie's words made it clear that he'd done enough research to track me back to my father, and his next question elucidated what he thought of said alpha. "How is Crazy Wilder doing?"

  "What are you doing in my house?" I growled back, my words low enough that Keith might not even hear if his wolf had drifted back to sleep after I moved away. I knew I wouldn't be lucky enough to get out of this situation without doing some major explaining for the kid, but right now I was more concerned about keeping a bloodling alpha away from my young nephew.

  Before either Wolfie or I could throw down the gauntlet, though, a new voice drifted in from outside. "Hey, guys!" Chase was out of breath in his rush to perform crowd control, but I was still able to recognize the more stable wolf without taking my eyes away from the threat in front of me. Although Chase was clearly Wolfie's second in command and probably would obey the alpha's orders regardless of their sadism, I instantly relaxed when I realized the beta was present. Chase seemed to have a similar effect on Wolfie since I could see the wolf retreating out of the alpha's eyes at the same time Keith stepped up beside me, a smile on his young face.

  "Hey, Chase," the kid said. "We're ready to go."

  ***

  If I hadn't been so tense, the battle of wills as we piled into Chase's car would have been hilarious.

  "Aunt Terra calls shotgun!" my useless nephew noted as Chase got into the driver's side of the car. The teenager shot me a knowing glance, and it dawned on me that Keith probably thought the tension earlier was purely sexual. He'd apparently parsed Dale's description of Chase as my "old friend" to mean that we'd dated, and was bound and determined to throw us back together. But despite the kid's cuteness, there was no way I was letting my pre-change nephew ride in the backseat with a bloodling. Yes, it seemed unlikely that the alpha would attack Keith in plain view, but bloodlings cared a lot less about human social standards than the rest of us did. I wasn't going to risk it.

  "No, really, I'd rather ride in the backseat," I demurred, stepping toward the back of the car. Unfortunately, Keith wasn't easy to override.

  "You get carsick in the back. Remember, Aunt Terra?" he said pointedly, jerking his head toward Chase. If I actually had harbored a crush on the beta, my nephew's gestures would have been mortifying. As it was, they were just annoying, especially since Wolfie seemed to have picked up on my real purpose in dragging my feet. The alpha smirked at me and began to open the back passenger-side door, and I knew I had to squash this farce right here. Even if Keith was safely ensconced in the front seat, I still wanted Wolfie as far away from my nephew as possible, which meant the alpha needed to get into the other side of the car.

  "Thank you," I said to Wolfie, pretending he'd been holding the door open for me, and I quickly slid past him into the car. "I'll really be fine in the back," I tossed out to Keith. "Your long legs would be cramped back here."

  Keith shrugged, and I could have sworn Wolfie's smirk grew even wider as the alpha strutted around the back of the car to get in beside me. I should have felt victorious, but somehow ended up thinking I'd been played.

  ***

  "How are you feeling?" Chase asked Keith a few minutes later as we turned onto another winding country road. It was clear that Chase and my nephew knew each other well and were on good terms, presumably because of the volunteer work the beta performed with my brother-in-law. I gathered that this clinic project had been in the works for years and was just now coming to fruition, so I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that Chase treated my nephew as an honorary little brother.

  As Keith chattered away about how his father was pretending he had mono and keeping him home all week, I turned my attention to Wolfie. Despite the fact that the alpha was in human form, I could tell the wolf predominated since he'd rolled down the window so air could rush over his face, a very dog-like thing to do. My wolf nudged me, asking for the opportunity to partake of the same heady array of odors from the surrounding farmland, but I denied her the simple pleasure. We don't have time for games, I warned, returning my wolf's focus to Keith. Remember the young wolf? She muttered sullenly, but shifted her attention back to my nephew and away from the scent-laden air.

  "Still having trouble with your darker half?" Wolfie breathed, his voice so low that I was sure Keith couldn't hear. The guy was three for three today—he'd only asked three questions,
but each one hit on an issue I truly didn't want to address. I was silent, and Wolfie turned to look at me, leaning in a bit so he could speak even more quietly. "Chase reminded me how strange it is for a female werewolf to be packless." He tilted his head to the side, inviting me to fill in the blanks, but I just shook my head and looked away.

  My wolf was now toeing the line, staying below the level of my conscious thoughts, but I could feel her attraction to the striking alpha beside me. As much as I hated to admit it, I agreed—the man was every bit as eye-catching with clothes on as with clothes off, but he was also dangerous, both to me and to Keith. I couldn't figure out how my father's scouts could have neglected to report on such an obvious threat to my nephew, which made me concerned that there was even more going on than met the eye. Was Wolfie part of some plan to manipulate me, and if so, toward what end?

  "We're here!" my nephew exclaimed, bouncing out of the front seat before Chase had even turned off the engine. I had never been so glad to see a drug-rehab clinic. I unfastened my seat belt, which had started to feel like a torture restraint, and rushed after the teen werewolf.

  ***

  Cleaning windows brought out my anal-retentive side, so I couldn't really blame Keith for wandering off to work with the guys. Unfortunately, it didn't make my task any easier to have to keep my nephew in sight while scrubbing down grimy glass.

  "Oops, was that your face?" the kid said. "I thought it was the window." Wolfie wiped a dribble of window-cleaning fluid off his forehead and I tensed, waiting for the explosion that was bound to follow. But Wolfie merely reached calmly behind them for the mop bucket and upended it over my nephew's head, foamy water spilling down over the teenager's ears. Before long, the two were wrestling on the industrial-tile floor, which, given their soapy exteriors, could loosely be considered mopping.

  "They're like wolf cubs," Chase said, coming up behind me and handing over a paper mug of hot chocolate. I turned to smile at the beta, enjoying his presence despite myself. The packless ache in my stomach returned in a rush, and the warm liquid I was sipping didn't do much to dull what was obviously a psychosomatic pain. "Wolfie told you he's a bloodling," his friend continued, watching the rough-housing in front of us with fond eyes.

  "My little brother was a bloodling," I answered, the non sequitur drawing Chase's gentle attention back to me. "Father drowned him," I added. "I always figured there was no way for bloodlings to fit in around humans, or even around other werewolves, but Wolfie seems to manage." I hated to admit it, but the evidence in front of me also suggested I had been overreacting about the alpha's potential for harming Keith, and I wondered how else I'd misconstrued Wolfie's actions.

  "He takes some getting used to," Chase said thoughtfully, parsing my mood correctly. He scuffed his boot against the floor before continuing tentatively. "Maybe you'd like to come and meet the pack sometime. I think you'd understand Wolfie better if you saw the outcasts he's pulled together into a solid family."

  "Outcasts?" I was intrigued in spite of myself. Not that I didn't have plenty of issues of my own without getting sucked into Wolfie's drama, but it felt good to spend a minute not worrying over my wolf, Keith, and my father.

  "Halfies and full humans, and a few crazy purebloods like me," Chase said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Although Wolfie says you're a werewolf princess, too good for the likes of us."

  I turned away from Keith, giving Chase my full attention at last. "I hope you know that's crazy," I chided him. "That's not what's going through my head at all." There was a little zing of heat between me and Chase suddenly, although nothing like what Wolfie had yanked out of my baser nature in the car. Chase was a good-looking guy, and I wished I wasn't irresistibly drawn to the bad boys—troubled alphas like my father. Not that attraction made any difference since I was celibate by choice given the options: human men, who I might accidentally change in front of, or asshole werewolves. Focus, reminded my wolf, for once proving herself the smarter half of our alliance.

  "I know," Chase said, checking in with his alpha with a quick flick of his eyes before looking back at me. "I just meant that if you're in trouble, Wolfie will want to help. Heck, we'll all want to help."

  He paused, giving me the opportunity to spill my guts. And I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But no matter how nice Chase seemed to be, he was a male werewolf, and I knew I couldn't trust him.

  I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say next, but footsteps echoing off the tile floor put an abrupt end to our conversation. We turned to see who was walking through the front entrance, and I squinted against the strong light beaming in from the outdoors. Werewolf, my wolf reported before my eyes had adjusted to take in the stranger's features.

  Only he wasn't a stranger. "Milo?" I asked, recognizing a cousin who had been Keith's age when I left home.

  "Terra the Terror," Milo answered, the smile on his lips not reaching his eyes. "The Chief sent me to check on you."

  Chapter 9

  I had forgotten how quickly werewolves could move. Before I had opened my mouth to reply, Chase was hustling Keith down the corridor out of danger and Wolfie had taken the beta's place by my side. And despite my mixed feelings about Wolfie, I was glad to have the backup because Milo, not I, had been the terror when we were kids. My cousin had been one of those boys who enjoyed tearing wings off butterflies, and now he looked like the adult version of that aggressive child—dark suit, glistening leather shoes, and the bulge of a gun under his dress jacket all adding to the image of a mob enforcer. Or, more likely, the Chief's enforcer.

  I could feel the hackles of both male wolves rise as they eyed each other, even though they were still clothed in their human skin. "Wolf Young, pack alpha," Wolfie growled, forcing my cousin into a bone-crushing handshake, and Milo's eyes narrowed in response. This was only the third time I'd seen Wolfie use his alpha dominance, and the effort turned him into a completely different person. Gone was the jovial wolf who would let a kindergartner maul him, replaced by a ruthless alpha like my father. Only, instead of being terrified of Wolfie, this time I was glad to have him at my back. "You're on pack land," Wolfie continued ominously.

  "I'm here to speak to my alpha's daughter and grandson," Milo replied, his tone nearly as gruff as Wolfie's. But my cousin couldn't quite pull off the alpha persona, and after a moment his eyes shifted to the side, which made Wolfie huff out a canine laugh. Milo ignored the taunt, and although his jaw tensed, he held his physical ground.

  "Proper protocol would have been to seek out the alpha of their new pack first," Wolfie said, and I could have sworn the wolf behind his eyes was having fun. I'd heard my father pull rank so many times, the move should have been familiar, but it felt different coming from Wolfie, as if the younger alpha was playing the system rather than being swept up by werewolf machismo. Father had always been on a power trip, requiring interlopers to go through him first to prove the alpha's dominance, but I had a feeling Wolfie didn't usually greet intruders in this manner. He was only being surly because of the potential for danger to me and Keith.

  "A pack leader doesn't have to ask permission to speak to his heir," Milo shot back, his eyes locking onto Wolfie's. As much as I hated to admit it, Milo had a good point. Werewolf society was dressed up with all kinds of complicated social rules, the point of which was to keep bloodshed to a minimum. The relevant guideline in this situation was clear: no matter where a pack leader's heir wandered, the heir remained under the alpha's protection and control.

  I shivered, imagining my nephew being dragged back to Haven by my blood-thirsty cousin, and I could feel Milo's wolf rising in the extended silence. My own wolf responded by pushing against her bars, but Wolfie didn't seem affected—his wolf had already been rampant, so there wasn't much further for it to go without fur sprouting out of the alpha's ears.

  Instead, the young alpha seemed perfectly calm as he responded for both of us. "Keith isn't Wilder's heir," Wolfie replied. "He's mine."

  ***

 
Milo and I both stared at Wolfie as if he were crazy, and the alpha's lips curled up into a grin. Yes, the bloodling really was enjoying this.

  "Brooke and I had an understanding when she brought the boy onto pack land," Wolfie explained, and I realized with a jolt that the man beside me was lying through his teeth. Wolfie's pack hadn't lived on the mountain when Brooke first moved here—Wolfie had been the one moving into another wolf's territory, in part, I was now guessing, to protect my nephew.

  But my analysis of the situation simply didn't make sense. Although our animal side was cunning, werewolves couldn't tell outright untruths when our wolf was in charge, and I couldn't quite figure out how Wolfie could be both the most wolf-like person I'd ever met, and still hold onto the human trait of deception. No matter how Wolfie pulled it off, I hoped Milo wouldn't have enough facts to realize the alpha was lying. If my cousin twigged to any inconsistencies, hopefully he'd get caught up in the same mental tangle I was currently pushing my way through.

  Wolfie ignored both of our shock as he kept spinning his enticing lie. "The grandson of an alpha would present a threat to my status if the boy wasn't clearly kin, so Brooke and I took a blood oath and I accepted Keith as my heir." He raised a challenging eyebrow at my father's enforcer. "As you probably know, that supersedes any claim your pack leader may have on the boy. So you can go home."

  Milo moved as if to obey the outright command, his face turning red at the involuntary reaction to another pack leader's order. Then, with an effort, my cousin turned his attention away from Wolfie to speak directly to me. "I don't know what the deal is with Keith, Terra, but Chief Wilder said to tell you these precise words: 'You or him.'"

  "It's only been two days!" I exclaimed, the sentence popping out of my mouth before I could think it through. I could already feel my father yanking me back to Haven, and the tug of his command terrified me. In fact, my father scared me far more than the alpha beside me did, I realized as Wolfie laid a possessive arm loosely around my waist. I would have thought the contact would feel confining, but instead I relaxed slightly, my wolf retreating out of my eyes at the alpha's touch.