Changeling Dawn

by Dani Harper

  “I’m not scared!”

  He paced, needing to channel his frustration before he grabbed her and shook her. “Not of some things, that’s for sure. You’ve got a lot of courage and a lot of strength. You have to, in order to spend years digging in the dust for any tiny clue that might protect your family and your people. For chrissakes, Kenzie, you’re preparing to stand the entire world on its ear with your work. Why can’t you find the courage to give us a chance?”

  “Don’t you understand? There’s no us, there can’t be.”

  He stopped in front of her and looked her in the eye. “Why the hell not? Give me one good reason.”

  Her lips pressed together until they were almost white. When she spoke again, her words were sharp and clipped. “I don’t love you and I don’t want you. I was curious and now I know. I need a mate of my own kind.”

  The invisible knife finished carving his heart from his chest, and he stepped back. “That’s plain enough. But Anya’s missing and she needs help. So we’re going to work together until we find her. And then we’ll talk.” At least that’s what he thought he said. Tough to be sure when it was hard to get the words out and when it cost him even more to make them calm and steady. He didn’t believe what Kenzie had said, didn’t believe for a moment that she didn’t have feelings for him, yet he still felt like he’d been gutted. Funny how there was no blood on the ground—with this kind of pain, there sure as hell should be.

  The grass of the big clearing had been flattened by all the traffic, and trails had been punched into the forest in every direction. Kenzie resumed her wolfen form right in front of him—and he was acutely aware of the symbolism of the act. She wasn’t displaying her abilities because she trusted him but because he no longer mattered. She bared her teeth at him as if to underline that message, then made a point of searching the ground as far away from him as possible. He sighed and drew heavily on his experiences in Afghanistan—there, you had to focus on the mission, and you learned to block out everything else. Everything, like someone you knew getting shot out of the sky or an IED taking out the truck ahead of you on the street. You not only had to keep functioning, you had to stay sharp or you’d be the next casualty. So you dealt with pain, felt the pain, after.

  Moments later, Josh found a few drops of blood on the ground—but whom it belonged to, he couldn’t tell. It was on top of the tire tracks, however, and on top of the dog prints too. So whatever or whoever was wounded was following the hunters. It could be one of the dogs, trailing behind. What if it was Stanton? Josh hissed out a breath between his teeth as he realized how much sense it made. He couldn’t imagine any human hunter getting the drop on the wily Stanton, yet the only way anyone could have gotten to Anya was if the old wolf was physically unable to prevent it.

  One thing Josh wasn’t seeing, however, was any print belonging to Anya. Either she’d been successful in getting away—unlikely, considering the dogs—or she’d been captured and carried. Damned if he knew where, though. Kenzie had been all too right about the condition of the ground. The humans had been searching for something, and it must have been small because they appeared to have looked under every goddamn leaf and blade of grass to find it. Had Anya been their target to begin with? If so, why the hell did they want her?

  It seemed impossible to sort out the collage of footprints, tire tracks, and paw prints, and yet he had to figure out where the hunters had gone, where Anya had been taken. And right now he didn’t have so much as a general direction. The only thing he’d been able to determine was that the party hadn’t headed south to Chistochina. Nor did they come from there, which added to the mystery.

  A movement drew his eyes to the trees and his mouth dried at the sight of a small familiar figure. The red of her scarf was like a gash against the bright green salmonberry bushes. She wasn’t smiling this time and he realized that that was what was odd about the dream he’d had the night before. She had always smiled at him. Always. But the last couple of times he’d seen her, her dark eyes were big and solemn. She wasn’t waving at him either, but pointing at a break in the thick brush. When he looked back, the child had vanished.

  Josh jogged to the spot she’d pointed out and pressed through the broken branches and past the scraped trees. A hundred feet later, he wasn’t sure why he’d been directed here. If anything, this was one of the few areas the hunters hadn’t forced their way into. No tracks, no prints, not even a stalk of bent grass. Nothing but a narrow game trail through dense and prickly brush.

  Kenzie wasn’t there when he returned to the clearing. He knew damn well she’d set out to try to find Anya and even if he succeeded in tracking her, he didn’t have a hope of catching up to her, not in her lupine form. He sat on a fallen log and breathed out a curse. This is what I get for listening to spirits. In fact, the little Afghan girl wasn’t even a spirit, just a nasty trick that his own brain conjured up because Anya was in trouble. And now Kenzie could be in danger as well because he’d been stupid enough to take his eyes off her.

  That’s when a new thought pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. What if the visions he’d been having hadn’t been flashbacks at all?

  What if they’d been warnings?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anya curled up in the farthest corner of the cage with her back to the door. She didn’t care what the men said, she wasn’t going to eat one bite of their dumb food. Or even look at any of them. She was tired and scared, and tired of being scared. Her shoulders hurt where one of the big stupid dogs had picked her up by the scruff of the neck like she was a baby, even though she was way too big for that. She’d tried to squirm and shake herself loose, but the dog had carried her straight to the hunters. She’d managed to bite one of the men before he tossed her in a kennel and locked the door. Inside her mind she’d hollered for Stanton, again and again. The old wolf hadn’t answered. Not when the ATV bumped and bounced along forever. Not when it stopped inside a strange building. Not when a man reached in and stuck her with a needle, and not when she woke up in this cage. She was afraid of this place, but she was also afraid that maybe Stanton had been hurt by the big mean bears. And how would Kenzie and Josh know where she was?

  Most of all, she missed her mom, and wished they were home together right now. Anya raised her head and howled her heart out.

  Nobody came.

  Warnings, not flashbacks ...

  To his surprise, the idea felt right. Josh’s grandmother often had visions—hell, even Mamie Dalkins had them regularly—but he’d never experienced anything similar. Still, one thing he’d learned during his deployments was always to go with his gut. It had saved him more than once. Maybe it could save Anya too.

  He returned to the trail the Afghan child had pointed to, covering the ground as fast as the uneven terrain would let him, until suddenly a familiar voice popped into his head. Josh stood listening intently, more than a little concerned he was losing his mind. “Stanton?”

  Over here, boy. And be damn careful where you step.

  Josh left the trail and pressed through the dense brush as he honed in on the voice in his head.

  I said careful!

  He came to a stop and crouched where the ground fell away into dark empty space. The scent of damp earth, mineral-laden water, fungus, and wet limestone rose up to meet him. “Christ, Stanton, you’ve got yourself a bunker now? I think you’re taking this conspiracy theory shit way too far.”

  “Just see if I let you in here when the world’s blowing itself up, smartass.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cave below, Josh could see the old man sitting against a rock wall opposite him. Blood ran down the side of his face from a cut on his head. “You all right?”

  “Hell no. I’ve broken a wing down here and I’m still stupid from the fucking dart they shot me with.”

  The distance to the cave floor appeared to be about thirty feet, with piles of rocks waiting below. Josh leaned as far over the edge as he dared and felt aro
und for any possible handholds. “Where’s Anya?”

  “IBC has her. They came looking for her, you know, specifically looking for a female wolf cub—and when they saw me, they decided they wanted me too.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re so cute and cuddly, bro.” Damn it, he couldn’t find a place to climb down. Stanton was lucky he’d broken only an arm. “How the hell did you get down there?”

  “Jumped.” Stanton held up a fluorescent orange dart.

  “Right after they shot me in the goddamn ass, but they weren’t loaded for a full-grown wolf, and especially not for a werewolf. I barely had enough time to lose the dogs and drop in here before I passed out. Kenzie with you?”

  “No. She went after Anya on her own.”

  “And you let her?”

  “What can I say? She blew me off.” Josh cursed as his boot slid off a rock.

  “And I repeat, you let her?”

  Jesus. Definitely time to change the subject. “So what’s with the Vulcan Mind Meld? Since when are you Professor Xavier?”

  “Ha,” Stanton snorted. “Took long enough to get the message through your thick skull.”

  “Why am I getting a message at all? I thought shapeshifters—”

  “Can only communicate with each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well guess what, most werewolves aren’t nearly as old as I am. You pick up a few tricks if you live long enough.”

  Josh crawled back onto the edge. “Hate to leave you, but I’ve got to go back for a rope, okay? Even if I get down there with you, I can’t pack your ass back up.” He wasn’t sure he could get himself back up the slippery cave walls. “I’ll bring the first-aid kit too.”

  “Hell with that. Bring me a beer.”

  The ground beneath Kenzie’s paws was a blur. The average wolf could reach a speed of 35 miles an hour, but Changelings were faster. Especially motivated Changelings. Now that she finally had the trail, nothing, not even six humans and a dozen dogs, would prevent her from reaching Anya.

  The further away from the trampled clearing she got, the easier the trail was to follow. Although grasses were gamely trying to stand up again and branches were springing back to their original places, there was no hiding the broken stems and scraped bark, the scents of disturbed earth and crushed leaves. The tracks showed that the ATVs had traveled in single file, heading dead north. Kenzie followed the tracks until the trail veered off and met up with a road of sorts—if you could call it that. More like twin ruts in hard-packed clay with tall grass growing between.

  It looked like the ATVs had followed the road, but Kenzie slackened her speed just the same, alert for any sign that they had gone off into the bush again. Miles later, she stopped to drink at a cold stream and wondered where on earth the hunting party was headed. Her maps hadn’t shown any villages in this direction. And it still made no sense that they had taken Anya. Why would anyone want a wolf cub?

  Not for the pelt, that was for sure. Although many Alaskan furriers sold wolf skins to tourists, most hunters took them in the winter when the pelts were thick and lush—and at their most valuable. Plus, Anya was far too small anyway.

  Sled dog? Kenzie had watched some of the winter races near Dunvegan, and a few of the dogs were wolf hybrids. Maybe the hunters thought Anya was a hybrid because of her unusual markings. Zoo specimen? Private pet? More people were keeping exotic animals as pets, despite whether it was legal or practical to do so. Kenzie’s brother, Connor, had been called in to treat a full-grown tiger at a farm last summer.

  She sighed—she wasn’t asking the right question. Instead of why Anya had been taken, Kenzie knew she should be thinking about how she was going to free the little girl when she found her. With a twinge of guilt, she knew she’d picked a really stupid time to brush Josh off. If he were here, he could have thrown a little law enforcement weight around, quoted some Fish and Game regulations and probably walked away with Anya tucked under his arm, no problem. Instead, the logical and meticulously scientific Dr. Kenzie Macleod was charging into an unknown situation without a plan and without backup. She wondered if Birkie would be proud of her newfound spontaneity or horrified....

  Shadows were deep and the sky had slid into twilight, where it would remain until morning. Kenzie trotted along the road until her keen hearing picked up the sound of an engine. She dove into the brush, hunkering down on her belly to watch until the vehicle roared slowly into view, bouncing methodically over the potholes and ruts. Omigod. Only one person could be driving around central Alaska in a bright yellow Humvee... .

  In an instant she resumed her human form and walked onto the road. The Humvee braked abruptly. There were some awkward noises from the transmission as the driver fumbled the vehicle into park and jumped out.

  “Good God, Kenzie, is that you? What on earth are you doing out here?”

  “I could ask you the same—” was all she got out before he grabbed her in a bone-crunching embrace. “Wow, that’s pretty enthusiastic, Nate. Put me down, ’kay?”

  He stood her on her feet and stepped back. “Just glad to see you. Really glad.”

  “Glad enough to give me a ride?”

  “Absolutely. I’m just on my way to drop something off to the IBC execs and then heading back to Anchorage. Your camp’s along on the way.”

  “Actually, I’m headed the same direction you are.” Buckling into the Humvee’s deluxe leather seat, she explained about Anya.

  “No problem,” said Nate. “IBC’s an international research group. Probably thought they were collecting a regular wolf cub, but there’s no need to worry about Anya. They won’t hurt her. It’s all part of a study.”

  “What, are they collaring wolves or something?”

  “Something like that. Some Alaskans feel that wolves compete with them for deer and moose and—what’s that other thing with the antlers?”

  “Elk? Caribou?”

  “Caribou, that’s the one. So the government’s had this aerial shooting program for the last few years to reduce the wolf population. But it’s really unpopular with the general public as well as with wildlife groups. So IBC is collecting their own data to prove it’s unnecessary.”

  “But why would they contribute to your archaeology department?”

  “Good PR and a tax break, of course, just like the oil companies get for their hefty contributions. And IBC has more than one branch of interest worldwide. Besides, I suggested they make the case that indigenous peoples were able to subsist comfortably for centuries without killing off the wolves. And they liked the idea.”

  “So what about Anya?”

  “We’ll just go get her. She’s got a white leg, right? So we’ll tell them she’s not pure wolf. She’s a cross or a pet or something. I don’t know—you think up the story and I’ll ask for the cub back.”

  “They’d actually do that for you?”

  “Hey, IBC is a major donor to my cause. Major donor. We’re on really great terms. So no worries.”

  Kenzie settled into the leather seat, hardly able to believe her luck. “I don’t know how to thank you, Nate. I’ve been beside myself since I found Anya gone, and I have to tell you I thought the worst.”

  “You’ll be with her in no time.” Nate reached over and put his hand over hers. “So now, how about being with me? Didn’t throw me over for that tall native guy, did you?”

  “Josh and I aren’t together, Nate. You know I wouldn’t go for a human.” She injected a hint of distaste into human, to cover the fact that she’d really like to see that particular human. A lot. Right now, in fact.

  “That’s what I figured. But I gotta tell you, it was tough to put on a happy face when I saw you with him. You and me, we’re a team, honey. Don’t you think it’s about time we made it permanent?”

  Her mouth dried. Crap, crap, crap, he was going to press her for a relationship. Again. And if she didn’t give him the right answer, would he still help with Anya? How on earth was she going to handle this without pissing him off? None of her anthropology
studies covered this kind of thing.

  “We’ve always been close, Nate. As for more than that, let’s discuss it after I get Anya home safe and sound—my emotions are totally wrecked right now.” She laughed a little. “I wonder if this is what it’s like to be a parent?”

  She was relieved when he started talking about other things, his plans for the department in the fall, the latest contributions he’d scored, the discovery of cave paintings in the Dominican Republic ... Through it all, however, something was niggling at her, something that wasn’t right. She reached for it with her mind—

  And then the compound came into view. “Holy Jeez, Nate, is this Jurassic Park?”

  “Some fence, eh? But it’s to keep things out. This complex is in the middle of nowhere, so grizzlies used to just walk right in. One of the biologists got mauled last spring. So IBC installed the fence, electrified it, and voilà, no more bear problem.”

  “Obviously I should have had one around my campsite,” said Kenzie, trying to make light of it. The fence creeped her out, and it didn’t look any friendlier when they pulled up to the gate either. Hollywood could film a prison movie here. Her inner wolf growled softly.

  Nate snapped open his cell phone. “Hey Jurgen, open Sesame.”

  The gate slid apart a few moments later and Kenzie quelled the rising sense of alarm she felt as they drove into the compound. Every building was shiny-new and much too clean looking—why would someone pick white as a decorative color in the middle of the wilderness? Even hospitals weren’t this sterile and had more windows. Oh God, she wasn’t going to start hyperventilating, was she?

  “So you’re sure Anya’s okay?” she asked as they parked the Humvee in front of the main building. “You know, I just don’t understand why they picked her up in the first place. I’ve never heard of any study that didn’t gather their information in the field.” In a flash, the thing that had been bothering her came clear. “Nate, how did you know about Anya’s white leg?”