“Keys please,” I said, holding out my left hand. It had been awhile since I’d driven without my bionic arm, but I’d manage. I’d driven Louie’s Oldsmobile more in the last two years than I’d driven my own car. Louie handed them to me without argument. This was the deal we’d struck. He could drink himself to death in our pub, if either Evan or I drove him home each night.
Louie slid into the passenger seat and I took the drivers. He only lived four blocks away from the Tooth and Claw, but at his age, and his state of afternoon intoxication, four blocks could be deadly. The wind was picking up and bits of snow flew on the windshield. I cursed the old car for taking forever to heat up. By the time I had it pulled into the garage, it still hadn’t started blowing warm air.
I came around the passenger side and helped Louie out. He was passed out. I leaned down and unbuckled his seat belt, “Come on, Louie, get up.” I hefted him to standing and he groaned, “Come on Louie, you have to help me get you inside.”
“Don’t stay with a man who treats you like shit,” Louie murmured taking a careful step forward into the car door, “Certainly don’t go back to one.”
“Come on buddy, up we go,” I helped him up the steps from his garage into his house. I turned on the kitchen light and we made it to the living room. That’s as far as I’d take him.
“Sleep well, Louie,” I told him placing the blanket over his legs. He started crying. He’d probably cry the rest of the night.
“I miss her so much, Lee,” he cried, “Why’d she leave me?”
I ran my fingers over what was left of his thinning grey hair, “I don’t know, Louie. I just don’t know.”
7
10 Years Earlier
I was in my car trying not to catch a glimpse of my newly blackened eye. It seemed that even though I was a soon to be exiled human dud, Kendrick’s flunkies still weren’t afraid to show me who was boss. It stung and was starting to swell. I looked down at the clock. I had forty minutes to get 60 miles. I’d never make it.
I was so angry. I hated them all. As if life hadn’t been hard enough having been raised in the pack. I had spent every day of my life for years preparing to become a wolf, to find a mate, and raise a litter of pups, and I wouldn’t get any of it. The people I’d been raised with, my friends, my pack, tortured me for it. I waited for my wolf so I could join them and end my misery. I was patient. I sat outside on the forest border every night for years willing the wolf to come out of me.
“Flowers bloom all year round, Aster dear,” my mom would say as she wiped my tears after each new wolf made its way into the world, “You’re a September flower. Your wolf will come.”
But she never came. I watched all my friends go through the change and pair up under my nose. One day, they’d be normal, the next they’d be glued at the hip to another wolf, having become one of them. I prayed to the moon goddess for years to show me my wolf. I wanted to be a part of the pack. I wanted to be a real member of my family. I wanted friends. By age 17, they’d all changed, but not me. I’d held out hope that maybe a younger wolf would recognize me as his mate, at least then I could stay. But none had claimed me.
The anger grew painful in my gut. I pressed my foot down on the gas, better to risk a speeding ticket than a brutal whipping for my mother. My car was nearing its limit when the pain in my gut grew worse.
I could hardly breathe, I couldn’t think. I heard popping and my hips burned with a fire I’d never felt before. My arms hurt like they were being pricked by thousands of tiny pins. I looked down at them, they’d started sprouting fur. I had to pull over. I was so close to the border. One mile, maybe two but I couldn’t concentrate. Black fur was burning its way through my body and I could feel each follicle widen to accept it.
I was changing
I opened the car door and quickly took off the cap and gown. The popping in my back prevented me from saving my sundress and shoes. I collapsed on the side of the road. It hurt so bad. I crawled into the ditch, if a human saw me changing it would be the end of their lives, and mine.
I wasn’t a dud.
The joy of not being a failure temporarily blocked out the pain as every bone in my body broke and reshaped. My knees popped backward as my femur shortened. My nose and jaws elongated. I closed my eyes as a girl and reopened them as a wolf.
I heard howls miles in the distance. The pack was running to celebrate the commencement. I longed to run with them. Then I felt it.
The unmistakable pull.
I’d heard it described every Sunday at shifter school. It encompassed every part of my being. I needed to go to it. To him, to my mate. Wherever he was I needed to be. He was in the woods away from my car. I raced, unsteady on my four paws at first but quickly finding my pace. I was a wolf. I was running as a wolf. I raced pulled by the invisible leash leading me to my mate. The one the moon goddess had made just for me. I knew he’d love me. He wouldn’t care I was almost a dud; he’d just want me.
I heard another howl, this one closer, mournful, mine. I howled back, joining his song, the song of my mate. His howl abruptly cut off. He was on the move. The leash rapidly changed directions pulling me a new direction. I needed to follow it, I had to find him. I raced through the trees not caring about anything but finding the wolf who had half my soul. I caught a glimpse of a black fluffy tail. Nearly there, he was leading me home, that had to be it, he couldn’t be running from me. He needed me as much as I needed him.
I raced faster and harder trying to catch up to him, but he was so much faster. The tether urged me on. I was panting trying to keep up. I was racing leaping over fallen trees and ducking under low branches. My wolf was thrilled with the chase. We leapt over another tree and my paw found an awkward footing. I heard a metallic click-
Snap
8
Present day
I walked back to the pub, wishing I’d had the forethought to wear a sweater. There was a winter storm watch in the region, and the regulars had been talking about the impending blizzard for days. Shifters were more durable than humans, I would need to stay outside far longer than four blocks before the weather would dangerously affect me, but it was damn uncomfortable.
I walked around to the back of the Tooth and Claw and I could feel power pulsing from the imminent fight inside. I took a deep breath, steeling my nerves. I opened the door and went inside.
The wolf and Evan were still in human form, miraculously. They were posturing, Blondie was facing the front door and Evan was blocking him. Both were focused on their opponent, neither noticed me.
“Move,” the wolf commanded.
“No,” Evan replied.
The wolf faked moving to the left but dodged right and slid around Evan and ran out the door. Evan promptly turned the lock and slid the bar down with a smirk.
“Quick, bar the back!” Evan shouted to me. I turned and did as instructed. Looks like one of them did notice me come back, I wandered over to Evan and he wrapped me in his arms, “That so-called wolf of yours is a piece of work.”
“You have no idea.”
We went about our cleaning duties as if nothing amiss had happened. I wanted to ask Evan what else had happened while I got Louie home. There had been a struggle, as I had expected. Tables were overturned, the coffee mugs shattered across the room, and one of the old ship wheels dangled from the ceiling like it would fall at any moment, like it had the last time Evan had been truly angry in the pub.
It took us longer than normal to complete our closing chores without Sarah. But we finally finished them. I unplugged my arm when we were done and brought it upstairs while Evan turned off the lights and turned on the alarm system.
“We’re going to need to alert the sheriff if he comes back,” Evan told me, “This could bring a lot of unwanted attention to us.”
I nodded. Our secret was the most important thing. The last thing I wanted was human law enforcement digging into my past or Evan’s. The wind whined rattling the old leaded glass windows of our living
room. I wouldn’t get much sleep tonight.
“Want me to stay with you?” Evan asked. It was a generous offer. Bear shifters valued their alone time. After reaching maturity, they struck out on their own only seeking out another of their own kind to mate. After the female became pregnant, she’d leave to raise the cub herself. Male bears weren’t the cuddly sort, despite what their toy counterparts may have you believe.
“I’ll be ok, Ev,” I lied, “I’m just going to get a hot shower.”
“If I hear you howling in your sleep, I’m coming in,” he warned me. I knew he was serious. Unlike bears, wolves craved companionship. Evan had woken me up countless times since we’d lived together telling me I’d been howling in my sleep. He’d wrap his massive body over mine and hold me until I slept. I knew he hated it, it was against every instinct he had, but he did it for me.
“I understand,” I told him, “you want to shower first?”
We only had one bathroom and the hot water was iffy at best. He took me up on my offer.
9
10 Years Earlier
Sharp pain radiates up my right front paw. A pained whine escapes my throat. I was caught in a bear trap. Its terrifying jaws dig into my thin leg like a dinosaur’s maw. I loose a desperate howl begging for my mate to come back and find me. To help me out of this trap. I knew I couldn’t shift out if it, I’d lose my paw for sure. I needed help. I whined and howled again.
I heard the snap of a twig and looked in the direction. A big black wolf with golden eyes was watching me. I whined and whimpered. It was him, my mate. He’d come back for me. I motioned to my leg and the trap and barked hoping he’d see it and understand. He could release me, take me back to the pack doctors and save my leg.
The wolf’s fur rippled, and the painful sound of popping bones echoed in the silent summer forest. Several agonizing seconds later Kendrick Biel stood in front of me. He shifted so fast, so easily compared to my shift. The pain of the shift was nothing compared to what I was experiencing now.
I whimpered, pleading with this man to save me. He strode over and my heart leapt. He was going to save me. He touched my head and my wolf leaned into his caress. He pet back my ears and shushed me soothingly.
“You need to leave,” he said finally, he continued to lovingly stroke my fur, “I don’t want you here.”
He stood up and shifted again. His wolf wouldn’t touch mine as it walked away. I whined again begging him to come back to at least release me. I tried to shift but the pain in my leg was too much. He got several yards away and I heard the sounds of his low growl. His wolf sat near a tree and watched me.
Instincts kicked in. If my moon blessed mate wasn’t going to free me from the trap, I’d die in it. The trappers would come back, find their prize, and my fur would be mounted on their walls. No one would ever know what happened to Aster Fields. My mother would assume I never wanted to talk to her again. Easterville would assume I just never showed up. No one would know I died. Except Kendrick, who no doubt would never admit I was his mate.
I couldn’t die here. I couldn’t give the bastards the satisfaction. I stared into his golden eyes and chewed. My first shift on four legs would be my last one. There was no coming back from this. A part of me hoped as I tore through the fur and flesh, that this was a test. That he needed me to prove that his mate was tough enough to be an alpha female. That she had the guts to do what needed to be done to survive. I looked back at him when I’d exposed bone. He was still watching me. He was going to make me do this. I whimpered. It hurt so bad. I didn’t want to do this.
10
Present day
I woke to a pounding at the apartment door. That was odd. Evan and I never invited people back to our apartment. When Evan had bear duties, he went to the sow’s house, never brought her here. All our friends hung out with us in the bar or we went to their place. I never dated but had long ago agreed on the off chance it would happen, I’d go to his place. I stepped out of my warm bed and threw an Easterville College sweatshirt over my sleeping shirt.
I opened my bedroom door and heard Evan still snoring in his room. If the thundering on the apartment door didn’t wake him, I shuddered to think how loud my howls had to be to rouse him from his slumber.
I cautiously approached the door. There were two doors to the apartment, the one that led downstairs to the pub, and the one that led down a set of poorly maintained outdoor stairs to the parking lot. The pounding was coming from the parking lot door.
I smelled the air. The scent was female. That relaxed me immediately. I smelled the air again. It was a wolf. That raised my hackles. I hadn’t scented another female wolf in my exile. Even my own mother did not attempt to contact me. Alpha Biel had forbidden it. I crouched low. The pounding continued. I got closer to the door. The scent was familiar, but my wolf couldn’t place it. She hadn’t met many wolves, and she hadn’t been around before I left.
I was at the door. I dared to look through the peephole. It was my mother. I unlocked the door in a hurry and pulled her inside before locking it again.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed at her, “Alpha Biel will kill you if he finds out-”
Her arms were wrapped around me. She was crying. My wolf breathed in her scent and whined. This was her mom too; she’d never met her before. And now her mom was sad. My mother continued to sob sagging into my arms. I awkwardly tried to hold her up balancing her more on my left side. Her knees gave out and she sank down my body collapsing at my feet shaking. Something was very wrong.
I looked back through the peephole in the door. No one was around. I breathed in trying to catch if there were any other scents nearby, but there were none.
“What’s going on?” I asked crouching before her. I used my left hand to brush the hair from her face. Her hair had been as black as mine when I left, it was greying now. She was letting it go grey naturally it seemed, creating that salt and pepper effect. Her eyes, currently red and puffy with tears were lined with deep lines and wrinkles. She looked old now. Her soft green eyes were paler, and her lips had thinned, small wrinkles cracked out from them. She was looking back at me. Her green eyes darting over every inch of my face as if trying to memorize me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said again, “I can’t bear the thought of you taking another punishmen-”
“Alpha Biel is dying,” my mother said finally, her voice harsh and gravelly, “Kendrick is to ascend to the title,” her hand reached up and caressed my face, “I had to see you before it was forbidden again. You’re so beautiful, Aster. My Fall flower. You’ve finally bloomed.”
I started crying now. I wrapped my arms around her again. My wolf whined, she wanted to meet our mother. She’d never met another female wolf. She pushed against the surface, “Mom,” I cried burying my face in her shoulder.
I heard Evan’s door open and his heavy footfalls approach the door, “Uh, Lee, who’s this?”
I felt my mom stiffen as her wolf sensed the grizzly in the room. I looked up at Evan, “Evan, this is my mother, mom, this is my partner, Evan Easterling.”
My mom slowly turned in the direction of the newcomer. I watched her eyes slowly climb from Evan’s feet up every 6 feet 7 inches of him. Evan slept in his underwear and nothing else. He was as hairy as you’d expect a bear shifter to be and every bit as big. I could feel my mother’s wolf trying to skitter to the surface, to force her to run away.
“It’s ok, mom,” I promised her, “He’s good people.”
My mother slowly rose to her feet her terror falling from her body in waves. Evan could smell it. He extended a hand, “No need to worry, Mrs. Fields. She knows all about me. If she was afraid of the big bad bear, I’m pretty sure she’d have left me long before now.”
My mother accepted his hand but turned to look at me, still unsure.
“Why don’t I make us some breakfast and let you two catch up?” Evan asked, “Let me just get dressed and I’ll see you downstairs.”
I gave him a
n appreciative nod and he disappeared back to his room. I wrapped my left arm through my mom’s right and led her to my bedroom and shut the door, “So...” she said awkwardly, “You’re....dating a bear?”
I shook my head with a smile, “No, Evan’s my business partner. His grandfather was the only person in town who’d hire me after....” I was suddenly unsure of what to say. Did my mother know about me? About the trap? About Kendrick?
“After you got to town?” she asked, “You had so many interviews lined up. Why wouldn’t anyone hire you?”
I bit my lip and lifted my right hand letting the sleeve drop around the stump. Her brows knit in confusion and a hundred expressions crossed her face as she puzzled it out, “I didn’t have a prosthesis yet and hadn’t stated that I had a disability on my application. All my interviews ended with them saying they’d call me, and no one did. Earl Easterling offered me a job here, and now I co-own the place.”
“What happened to your hand, Aster?” my mother asked seriously, “You’re human, the hospital should have called me.”
She didn’t smell my wolf. I had known my mother’s wolf was weak. She’d also been a late bloomer, her first change happening when she was 16. Late bloomers were usually weak. I didn’t realize her wolf couldn’t even scent my wolf. My wolf ached to howl in mourning, even her own mother didn’t recognize her. I shook the thought out of my head and refocused.
I shrugged, ignoring her question, “Can I get dressed and we can talk more over breakfast. Evan’s an amazing cook. You’ll love his eggs benedict.”
11
10 years earlier
I gave him one last look. I vowed; this would be the last chance he ever had to be my mate. He’d either save me from the trap now, or never see me again. Kendrick’s wolf continued to stare at me, silent, motionless, impassive. I looked down at the raw flesh and exposed bone. This was it. I bit down as hard as I could, hearing the sickening crunch as the bones broke. I was free. My paw was not. I looked up and Kendrick’s wolf was gone.
Tooth and Claw (Kootenai Pack Book 1) Page 3
