Kin Selection (A Shifter’s Claim Book 1)

by L. B. Gilbert

  “What I said earlier still holds. Do not eat my face.” Gingerly pressing the squirming little body to her chest, she rocked him until he stopped crying.

  It took the better part of an hour, but the baby finally quieted down—for like a minute. The second she stopped rocking him, he started up again.

  Maybe he’s hungry?

  Babies needed to eat regularly, didn’t they? But would this one want milk or raw meat?

  She squinted at the red-faced little boy. Both. She’d give him both.

  Balancing the toddler on her hip, she dug through her bag until she found one of the jumbo-sized syringes she always packed. They were useful in case the animals were too young or weak to eat proper food and needed to be on a liquid diet. It would have to work as a baby bottle in a pinch.

  Fortunately for her, the baby took the milk. Halfway through the syringe, he passed out in her arms. Moving like molasses, she set the sleeping toddler down as if he were made of glass. If he woke up again, she didn’t know what to do.

  Crap. What if he pooped the bed?

  Denise tiptoed to the dresser and took a T-shirt from a drawer. She gingerly wrapped it around the baby’s bare butt, wondering if he was warm enough.

  With a feather-light touch, she tested the baby’s forehead. It seemed hot, but maybe that was normal? It was cold here and she didn’t want him to get sick. Deciding he needed another layer, she tucked a sweatshirt around him.

  The baby rolled over and farted in his sleep. An exhausted and shrill giggle escaped before she could clap her hands over her mouth.

  Too afraid to jostle the baby by sitting on the mattress, she settled down on the floor. When the sun came up, she was still there, watching the baby werewolf sleep.

  4

  Denise scanned the aisle of the local grocery store, loading up her cart with anything in the baby aisle that was marked with a toddler stamp.

  Diapers or no diapers? Would they fall off when the werewolf shifted again? And just when would he do that?

  She eyed the baby, who was sitting contentedly eating raisins in the shopping cart, before throwing in a box of toddler-sized diapers. He had stayed human shaped ever since he’d woken up this morning. So far, he hadn’t done anything wolfy or aggressive, not since last night. Part of her had wanted to believe it was a dream, but she knew better. There was no history of mental illness in her family.

  Werewolves exist.

  She had made herself say it aloud several times that morning. Denise was now acting caretaker of a toddler lycanthrope. She had spent all morning on her phone, trying to research werewolves. Most of what she’d found had been completely irrelevant. She didn’t need to read werewolf erotica or watch any of the Underworld movies. No resources existed for her situation.

  Denise had decided the unfortunate lack of how-to-care-for-baby-werewolf manuals wouldn’t stop her. She would simply pretend the boy was a baby when in human form and an animal when he was a cub.

  Hanging on to her practical side was the only thing that kept her from cracking up.

  After spending most of her ready cash on a car seat, she and the baby headed to the cabin. “You and I are going to be okay, kiddo,” she assured the drowsy toddler.

  Denise wasn’t as confident as she sounded, but the baby didn’t need to know that. Sooner or later she was going to figure this thing out.

  Whatever happens, I will protect this child-slash-werewolf, she thought, driving around the last bend on the road leading to her rental.

  And keeping it away from the huge, muscle-bound man nearly bursting out of his army green T-shirt—the one currently climbing out of her cabin window—seemed like a good way to start.

  Yogi heard the van’s engine as soon as it rounded the bend leading up to the cabin. He jumped out the window, but the driver reversed and floored it, getting away.

  All he had was a quick impression of a small, heart-shaped face surrounded by a cloud of dark hair. A woman had Oliver. Yogi hadn’t seen him, but Oliver’s scent was in and around the cabin. Instinct told him the cub was in the van.

  Shit.

  He ran to his Jeep, which was hidden around a clump of bushes.

  His intention was to cut the other vehicle off before it got any farther, but the road was too narrow to overtake it. By the time he made it to the main highway, the van was already out of sight.

  Damn it!

  Yogi floored it, taking advantage of the empty street to fly over the asphalt. They couldn’t have gotten far.

  5

  Denise nearly spun the van out getting away from the cabin. Miraculously, she managed to keep all four wheels on the ground as she drove pell-mell down the unpaved road to the highway.

  She’d only caught a glimpse of the man breaking into her cabin, but that brief impression was all she needed to know he was dangerous. He was massive, at least a foot taller than her five three. Despite the cold, he hadn’t been wearing a coat—giving her an unobstructed view of enormous biceps and a barrel chest that tapered down to an enviable narrow waist.

  The way he’d moved, slipping out of the widow so fluidly, pointed to some sort of military training. That or he was a professional thief. She wasn’t betting on the latter. What pro-thief would target a random little cabin on a lake in Wyoming? Maybe a druggie would, but addicts did not look or move like that.

  Was it Reliance? Had they found her? How?

  Her van looked completely different. And if they had been on to her the whole time, why hadn’t they busted down her door last night?

  It didn’t matter. She needed to dump this van and get a new car. Denise had more cash socked away in a safety deposit box in Cheyenne, but it was at least an hour away. Her plan had been to avoid cities while the baby was with her, but it didn’t appear as if she had a choice. That money and a new car were now a necessity.

  Denise had dozens of credit cards, some under different identities she’d carefully constructed over the past couple of years. Her inheritance had given her some serious advantages. However, living off the grid was the safest course of action for someone in her line of work. That was why she made it a habit to stash cash in various places around the country.

  After Cheyenne, she would drive over the border to Boulder, the site of her next closest stash, to get that too. Babies were expensive…especially the ones who enjoyed a steak the size of their own head before their binky.

  Scanning the traffic in the rearview mirror, Denise decided she’d lost the muscleman. She gave herself a little shake and apologized to the baby for the rough ride. However, he didn’t seem to care about her driving. He was snoring softly. The baby continued to sleep deeply for the next several hours, even when she stopped to buy a truck at a junkyard she passed on the way.

  Later that night, Denise checked them into a cheap motel off the interstate. She’d taken a room on the ground floor with the stipulation there was an open parking space directly in front for her use. Everything was ready for a quick getaway in case the muscleman somehow found them again.

  That’s not going to happen. I definitely lost him. And Max had laughed at her when she told him about studying evasive driving techniques with a disgraced police detective… Well, who was having the last laugh now?

  She settled the baby in the portable crib she’d bought for its resemblance to a dog bed, then checked the battery on her Vipertek Taser.

  A girl can’t be too careful. She slipped it under her pillow and lay down fully dressed, just in case. There were more dangers in the world than one mysterious muscleman, especially in a place like this.

  Denise drifted off to sleep with one hand on the portable crib and the other on the Taser. A few hours later, her eyes flew open when the window opened with the lightest of scraping noises.

  Reacting on instinct, she shot from the bed, stun gun in hand. The dark muscular arm reaching inside the bedroom started to withdraw as she rushed forward, but not quickly enough. Flipping the switch, she pressed the contacts to his skin and bla
sted it with everything the Vipertek had.

  The smell of burned hair, with a hint of cooked bacon, filled the air. Whoever was on the other end of the arm swore viciously and fell back.

  Heart pumping wildly, Denise grabbed her backpack and the handles of the portable crib. She threw open the door and ran toward the new-to-her truck before skidding to a stop.

  The hood was open, several wires haphazardly hanging out.

  Fuck. She needed another vehicle. Spinning on her heel, Denise turned, ready to sprint to the motel lobby, but he was there.

  The hulking figure stumbled in front of her, cutting off her path to help. His frame was so big it blotted out the light from the naked bulb outside the lobby door.

  Denise pulled the baby from the portable crib, hugging him to her. He was awake now, upset at being unceremoniously yanked from sleep into the chilly night air.

  The baby made his displeasure known, opening his mouth in an ear-splitting wail.

  That little cry compelled her to move. There was no plan, no way to escape, but she ran anyway. Denise faked left, and the man fell for it. She broke right, heading toward a four-door Jeep with a soft top.

  She didn’t look behind her when other shouts went up. Multiple voices were calling out. The ruckus had alerted the motel’s other occupants. A crashing noise signaled something heavy being thrown—maybe a lamp. Someone must have been trying to help her, but she didn’t have time to stop and thank them.

  Hurrying forward, she took out her pocketknife, prepared to slash her way into the cab, but when she tried the door, it opened. Buoyed by the stroke of luck, she jumped behind the wheel before anyone could stop her.

  Sensing the danger, the baby shifted to a wolf and whined. Panicked that someone would see him, Denise shoved him out of sight below the passenger seat, stowing her backpack next to him to act as a sort of cushion. Without a car seat, it would have to do.

  “Stay down, kiddo.”

  She checked the visor and the seat around her for the keys, but there was nothing. Swearing, she reached underneath the dash, slicing and dicing wires by feel. But then the muscleman appeared in front of her, his features clearly delineated by the moonlight.

  His face was sharp angles and flat planes—handsome in a savage kind of way. Even though he was wearing a jacket, she could still see he was built like a brick wall.

  Denise shivered when he smiled at her. He raised a set of car keys and jingled them. They stared at each other through the windshield. The man opened his mouth as if about to say something when she finally got the wires connected properly. The engine started, transforming her adversary’s expression from smugness to shock. She threw up a one-finger salute and hit the gas.

  6

  The Jeep was a war horse in disguise, but it didn’t help her much when she didn’t know where she was going. Denise took a blind turn, expecting to join the interstate highway, only to find the way narrowing. It unexpectedly turned into a dirt tract bordered by trees and high bushes. There wasn’t enough room to turn the vehicle around, so Denise kept going. She hoped the road wouldn’t dead end, praying there would be another turn off to the highway.

  She never found out. A huge, blurry shape shot out from the trees on the left, leaping in front of the vehicle. Screaming, she yanked hard on the wheel to avoid hitting it, steering into a deep ditch on her right.

  Denise tried to put the Jeep in reverse, but no matter how hard she pressed the gas, it didn’t budge. She was stuck, the back wheels spinning in midair. Only a tow truck would be able to pull it free.

  Hands slammed on the hood. She raised her head to meet muscleman’s livid expression. Dumbstruck, Denise gaped as the now-shirtless stranger tried to incinerate her superman-style with his furious gaze.

  Where did his clothes go?

  A wail from the cub caught her attention. Still in wolf form, he yapped at her.

  “All right,” she told him, catching him in her arms. She threw open the door and shot toward the trees on the other side of the road.

  Run. Don’t stop.

  Her feet flew over the uneven ground, stumbling over the rough terrain as she dodged tree trunks to get distance between her and the Reliance agent. Pain shot through her chest from a stitch in her side, but she held onto the cub and kept going until she was nearly doubled over, unable to catch her breath.

  She didn’t even hear her pursuer. The blood was rushing in her ears so loud it drowned out everything else. But something was chasing her, dogging her steps before overtaking her. It finally rounded on her in a lightning fast move—and it wasn’t a man.

  The wolf was deep chocolate brown with a white patch on the upper chest. Its malevolent yellow eyes were looking directly into hers…up until the moment it shook itself. A weird smoky shimmer passed over the wolf, and then the muscleman was there. And she could see all of his muscles.

  Frozen in place, she gaped at him as he moved toward her, his outrageously defined body glinting in the moonlight. A little snarl filled the air, making her heart nearly stop. For a moment, she thought muscleman was making the noise.

  She glanced at the little wolf. His teeth were bared, and he was barking at the stranger.

  “Calm down, kid,” the man growled.

  Holy heavenly crap. This was a werewolf, another one. “Are…are you his father?’

  The man’s brow drew down. “No. He’s dead…so is his mother.”

  Denise reflexively cuddled the cub closer, an ache of sympathy welling inside her. The baby boy was an orphan too. And he was so young. At least she’d had her parents until her teens. The cub might not even remember his mother and father when he grew up.

  If he grew up.

  She had no idea what the stranger’s intentions were. “Are you going to eat him?”

  The man looked at her as if she were crazy. “No,” he spat.

  “Are you going to eat me? If you are—I’m a vegetarian. We taste terrible.”

  The irritated Adonis rolled his eyes, his head tipped back as if praying for patience.

  “Well?” If she was going to be wolf chow, she wanted to know sooner rather than later.

  Muscleman put his hands on his hips. “Actually, it’s carnivores that taste terrible.”

  “Really?” Denise squeaked.

  “Relax, I’m a vegetarian too. Well, except for steak, but who doesn’t like steak?”

  Hoping he was serious, Denise glanced down to make sure he didn’t have any weapons before quickly averting her gaze. How did you forget he was naked?

  The stranger didn’t appear to be the least bit embarrassed about his state of undress. His blasé attitude was particularly chafing considering she was the type of person who wore a T-shirt to the pool.

  “My name is Yogi. I’m here for the boy. I’m taking him back to his family.”

  Relief flooded through her. “Oh, thank God!”

  Muscleman wasn’t a Reliance agent. “I didn’t know what to do with him,” she said, relief making her babble. “I mean, I could probably handle a wolf cub or a baby, but a combination of the two? I was alternating steak and formula for crying out loud.”

  Yogi let her go on and on, apparently deciding that letting her run out of steam was the best course of action.

  When he didn’t say anything, Denise shut her mouth and rocked the cub, abashed. He had stopped growling, but his little lips were still curled up and he was showing a distressing amount of fang. Why hadn’t Oliver’s family sent someone the toddler would recognize?

  “Err, do you know his people? Are they…are they nice?”

  Yogi hesitated. “I only know his grandfather, and that situation is complicated. Our families have a history. But he’d never hurt Oliver. Pack takes care of its own.”

  Pack. Like real wolves. She was talking to a werewolf about his pack. A naked—and ridiculously gorgeous—werewolf.

  Focus. She was losing the thread here. Shifting, she rebalanced the cub’s weight, turning him slightly so she could look down
at his face. She knew his name now. “We haven’t been properly introduced, Oliver. My name is Denise. Um… It was real nice spending time with you, but now this nice man is going to take you to your family.”

  Oliver whined. The sad puppy-dog eyes were killing her.

  He looked so miserable, and it made something crumble in her chest. She couldn’t just fob him off on someone else. The least she could do was check out his circumstances. His mother wasn’t here to do it anymore.

  “Maybe you could put me through to this grandfather? I’d like to talk to him.”

  Was it possible to get a sense of someone’s goodness over the phone? Did she have a right to do that?

  Doesn’t matter if I do or not. She owed it to Oliver to try. At the very least, she could explain how and where she’d found the boy.

  Her eyes had been fixed on Oliver, so when Yogi took her arm and started dragging her behind him, she almost tripped over her feet and dropped the cub.

  “Hey!”

  “Hurry up,” Yogi said gruffly as he frog-marched her in the direction of the Jeep.

  “Are you giving me a ride to my car?”

  The grunt that followed was ambiguous, but Denise decided to stay optimistic as she quickened her pace to keep up. She kept her lips tightly shut when he nearly walked her into a tree, but scowled at him as he dragged her to a stop at the Jeep. He glowered right back when he saw the way the rear of the vehicle was in the air.

  Did she owe him an apology?

  It wasn’t like she’d known who she’d been running from. Her only thought had been to protect Oliver. Nope, not doing it. He shouldn’t have broken into her cabin and scared the crap out of her.

  Why was he just standing there? Um, because naked werewolves probably don’t carry cell phones, idiot.

  Denise was about to ask if he wanted her to call a tow truck, but he held up a hand when she opened her mouth. He turned his head right and left as if checking to see if they were alone.

  She was still wondering if she should call Triple A when Yogi put his hands under the Jeep’s bumper and hauled it out of the ditch.