Werewolves & Whiskers: Sawtooth Peaks Wolf Shifter Romance Box Set

by Keira Blackwood

  “Who?” Penny asked. “Zombies?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If they’re just brainless monsters, wouldn’t it make more sense that it'd be like the movies? They’d be drawn to sound, gatherings of people, like rounding up cattle for slaughter. Right?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re back to thinking you can save them,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Not after last night.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not that. But it seems like there is some kind of strategy to their attacks.”

  “Maybe,” Penny said. “The whole nocturnal thing isn’t very classic zombie, either.”

  I nodded. “And if it’s a virus, why hasn’t the entire town been turned?”

  “I wish I had more answers,” Penny said.

  Metal clanged, something from the back of the building, and set off a chain of barking dogs, large and small.

  “Let’s see if we can find some of those answers,” I said, and smiled at Penny.

  She took off first, fearless as she raced around the dark building.

  It was different this time. There was no stink of rot, no sickening feeling in the air. What was that scent? Dogs, trees, wood, and something different. Similar to Penny, though not quite the same.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Penny’s voice was acid. Was she talking to me? I stopped five feet away. She didn’t turn. It was someone else.

  Penny stared at the back of the building, to a younger version of herself. The raven shifter looked a hell of a lot like Penny, but younger, and with longer hair.

  “You don’t own the woods,” the teen said.

  “You can’t be out this late, Kaylee,” Penny said. “It’s not safe.”

  “Oh, but it’s safe for you?” the girl snapped.

  “I know how to protect myself,” Penny said. “You’re going to get yourself hurt. That’s what curfew’s for.”

  “Hypocrite.”

  “Sure,” Penny said. “And if you don’t get your ass back to the manor right now, I’m dragging you there.”

  “You write me this note and just disappear?” She held up a folded piece of paper in her hand. “You should have talked to me. And you don’t seem sorry. Come home, or I’ll tell Dad about your dog,” the girl said, and glanced at me. A jab, it seemed. Was this girl Penny’s sister? Did their father have some issue with wolves?

  “I am sorry,” Penny said. “And you can tell him anything you want. But you go. Right. Now.”

  The girl scowled and stood her ground. Until Penny took a step in her direction. Just like that, Kaylee shifted like Penny had when I first met her, clothes and all. In a flutter of black feathers, the girl was gone, and a small black bird soared high above the trees.

  Penny watched longer than I could see the distinction between bird and sky. I walked up to her side and waited for her to be the first to speak.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said, turning to me.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  “It’s my sister,” she said. “She shouldn’t have said that. She shouldn’t have been out. I swear, she’s pushed just about as much as I can handle for one day.”

  She sounded pissed, but her eyes betrayed her sadness.

  “I’ve been called worse,” I said with a smile, and pulled her in for the hug she looked like she needed.

  Penny’s arms wrapped around my back and she pressed her face against my chest. She felt small and perfect in my arms.

  “I can’t go back,” she said. “I can’t be me and go back home.”

  “Then don’t,” I said. Maybe it was the wrong thing. Maybe I should have pushed her to make up with her family, but that wasn’t what I felt. It wasn’t what I had done. How could I tell her to?

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I have to find him. I can’t stop.” It wasn’t the time to ask who she searched for, though I did want to know. Because I cared.

  “I’ll help you,” I said.

  “I’ve been searching so long,” Penny said. “I don’t know if it’s ever going to end.”

  My shirt grew damp where her cheek touched my chest.

  “We’ll look as long as it takes,” I said.

  Penny turned her chin up to me, and I saw her—not her anger, not her frustration or sadness, but the beautiful soul that hid beneath. I saw my mate.

  “And you can stay with me,” I said.

  She stood on tiptoes, pulling my jacket down for the second time in one night. Her lips were soft and tender. She tasted sweet and minty, and I kissed her deep, exploring the way she moved her tongue, the feel of her lips on mine.

  I lost myself in her. Penny. My mate. There was no way I could force distance between us. Not anymore.

  I was screwed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Penny

  Every morning I had opened my eyes and seen my bedroom’s vaulted ceiling. There had never been a night where I’d slept in someone else’s bed. So when I looked up and found poo-stained popcorn instead of pristine white plaster, it took a minute to realize where I was.

  The mattress was hard, when I was used to soft. The comforter was scratchy compared to mine at home. Instead of the inviting aroma of bacon and pancakes, the room smelled vaguely of mildew.

  Though I knew I had done what I had needed to do, I couldn’t help but feel guilt for not returning home. I knew my father and my sister would worry. And sleeping somewhere else felt like I’d crossed a line. I wasn’t pushing the limits of curfew. I was deciding my own fate. It was what I really wanted. It was what I needed to do. And I was living it.

  The room felt quieter than it should have. I distinctly remembered Axel sleeping by the edge of the bed, even after I’d told him it was okay to sleep beside me. He was as stubborn as me.

  Looking at the t-shirt and jeans that I still wore, I remembered laying down to sleep without bothering to change. Clean clothes were the least of my problems.

  “Axel?” I said, wondering where he’d gone.

  No answer. There was only the hum of the bathroom fan, and the muffled sounds of shuffling feet and distant voices from other rooms.

  I climbed out of bed, and rinsed my face in the sink. Water spurted, then drizzled from the faucet, as steady as my life at this point.

  My stomach rumbled, an empty pit reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in a day. Right about now the constable was chowing down on the usual morning spread. What I wouldn’t give for a slice of crisp, center-cut bacon.

  Metal jostled on metal, clinking in the room behind me. I walked out to find my favorite wolf shifter closing the door and smelling even more tempting than usual.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I brought breakfast.” He held out a white paper bag that smelled like eggs, and bacon, butter, and some kind of yeasty bread. My mouth watered.

  “Did I mention how thankful I am that you’re letting me stay with you?” I asked, with a smile.

  “You may have,” he replied.

  “Well I am,” I said. “I’ll have to make this up to you somehow.”

  “It’s just a shitty motel room.”

  “And breakfast,” I said. “Please tell me you’re sharing that, too.”

  “Of course,” he said, dumping the contents of the bag onto the mattress. “You think I’d just eat in front of you?”

  I climbed up onto the bed, and looked over the four balls wrapped in yellow waxed paper. “We are just getting to know each other,” I said, and grinned at him.

  Axel climbed up next to me. “So we are,” he said, then slid two sandwiches in my direction.

  “So, you’re the giving type,” I said, while unwrapping the first paper in my hands. “Also a little dark and mysterious, not from around here, and strangely nonviolent.”

  Axel swallowed hard and laughed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “No one has ever described me quite like that,” he said.

  “Which part?”

  “All of it, maybe,” he sai
d.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Louisiana,” I said.

  “Neither do you,” he replied.

  “My community is pretty closed off from the rest of the world,” I said. “They’re paranoid.”

  “About the zombies?” he asked.

  “About everything,” I replied. “Ravens in our constable don’t want to be known to others—humans or shifters. They all just hide out in their big house, pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Well, except for the shop. But that’s only to have a non-cultish way to order mass amounts of supplies.”

  “You’re different,” he said.

  “I am,” I agreed, “and always have been. But it’s been worse lately. The divide between me and my family has grown from a crack to a canyon. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “So what’s your story?” I asked, then took a bite of bacon, egg, and cheesy goodness.

  “You really want to know?” he asked.

  There was a sadness in his dark eyes. I almost regretted asking. What if I was pushing him away? But I wanted to know him, even the dark parts, or especially those. Struggle and heartbreak define us. How bad could it be anyway?

  “I do.” I had to know.

  “I’m a terrible person,” he said. “I’ve always known it was true. I was an angry kid, who grew into a hateful man.”

  I wanted to interject and console him, tell him that his perception was wrong. But, I needed to let him continue.

  “It started after my mom died,” he said, “and only got worse when I ended up with a stepmother and two stepbrothers that I could never live up to. I was smaller, and always felt like less. They hated me, and I hated how well they got along, how much the pack loved them. Sons of the alpha, through and through.”

  “How does that make them better?” I asked, feeling like I was missing something.

  “That was exactly what I asked myself. Over and over,” he said. “It wasn’t until my father was murdered that everything changed. He was killed by a madman, for no other reason than to send a message to my stepbrother.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. I knew exactly what kind of impact that could have. I was living it every day.

  “I became obsessed with revenge,” he said. “Until I got it. Eventually, I was face to face with the man that murdered my father. I tore him apart. And when he was dead, you know what happened?”

  “You found peace?” I asked, hoping that it was true. It was what I searched for.

  “I wish,” he said. “I hated myself more than ever. I’d never killed a man before, and with every day that passes, I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it didn’t help,” he said. “It didn’t bring him back. It didn’t heal any of the wounds. They’re all still there.”

  Could I really just walk away from all of this? Is that what Danny would have wanted? Probably. If I found the zombie I searched for, if I got my revenge, would I end up regretting it just as Axel did? I hoped it would be different for me. But even if everything just got worse, I couldn’t give up.

  “So you ran,” I said, only part in question. I knew because his story was mine in so many ways. I was running right now, just not as far.

  “I’ve been running ever since,” Axel said. “Not just from the place where it all happened, but from myself. I don’t want to be that man anymore. Not the angry kid, not the vengeful bastard that I grew into.”

  “If it helps,” I said, “I don’t think you’re a bastard.”

  “Maybe you just don’t know me well enough yet,” he said.

  “I think I do,” I said. “You could have killed Zombie Seth Ricci, Garfield, that night we met, but you didn’t. You could have told me to fuck off instead of letting me stay with you. And you could have brought back only enough food for yourself.” I accentuated the last sentence with a big bite of my sandwich.

  “A breakfast can’t make up for what I’ve done,” he said. “Nothing can.”

  “Maybe it’s more about surviving each day than about what we can’t change,” I said. “You aren’t the only one who’s made mistakes.”

  “Penny,” he said, with a soft look that contrasted everything else about him, “I don’t know who they took from you, but it’s not your fault.”

  How did he know I’d lost someone? Or that I blamed myself? How could he possibly know what was wrong with me?

  “It is,” I said. “It was all my fault.”

  Axel placed his hand on mine. It was warm, and comforting. He wasn’t a terrible person, no matter what had happened in his past. He was kind and caring.

  I took a deep breath, then shared the story that started it all.

  “A year ago, I didn’t believe in zombies,” I said. “No one did. Corbeau was quiet, and peaceful. Or at least I thought it was.”

  Axel squeezed my hand, a gift of strength that I desperately needed.

  “Maybe they were already here, and I just didn’t know. Either way, everything changed in one night,” I said. “Back then, the constable didn’t have a curfew. Ravens were still secretive, but we were free to go out at night. So we were out all the time, my brother Danny, and me.”

  “Where did you go?” Axel asked.

  “To the movies,” I said. “They were showing classic films every Thursday night. It was Battle Fu Fist Thirteen, and I wanted to see it. It was my idea to go. My badgering that made my brother agree to join me. It was my fault that he was there.”

  “You were attacked at the movies?” Axel asked.

  “After,” I said. “I had to use the bathroom. Danny went outside to wait for me. When I came out…I found him, and the yellow-eyed monster that murdered him.” Pictures flashed through my brain—the creature kneeling over my brother, his lifeless body, the dark puddle that grew across the pavement.

  I’d expected the speech I’d heard a thousand times. I’d expected him to say what everyone else did—it’s not your fault, a tragedy but you need to move on. But he didn’t. Axel surprised me.

  “He’s the one you’re after,” Axel said.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “Tell me what he looks like,” Axel said.

  “White-blond hair, messy and medium length. Fit arms, and a beer gut. Wide, broken nose,” I said.

  Axel was quiet, so I told him the last of it. I told him my intention, in case it wasn’t clear.

  “And I can’t stop until I find him,” I said. “I won’t. Even if it means being disowned by my constable, my family, everyone I know. I need to do it for Danny, for me.”

  “I’ll be here,” Axel said.

  “I know,” I said, and inched closer to him. Somehow I did, even before he told me so. I knew deep down before I’d told him my story. It was why I told him, because I knew he understood.

  His hand remained over mine. The distance between us felt infinitely too much, though we were only inches apart. I could almost feel him through the air, through every breath and every heartbeat, through the electricity that drew me to him. I stared into his dark eyes, a brown so rich that it nearly matched my feathers. It was a color that suited him, intense and dark, alluring and deep.

  His lips were soft, a gentle caress as they brushed mine. The smoky flavor of bacon mingled with the rich masculinity that was only him. I kissed him back, needing this connection more than breath, more than anything.

  I slid my hand up his arm, exploring the hard muscles I’d only dreamed of touching. There was strength in everything about him, so different from anyone else I’d ever met. I was drawn to that strength, to the darkness, to the wolf.

  I licked the seam of his lips, and a deep, masculine sound rumbled through him, the growl of a feral beast, and it turned me on. Desire coiled through me, every inch of my skin yearning for his touch. I wanted this. I wanted him.

  His lips parted, just before he pulled away.

  Confused, I stared at him, as he leaned his forehead on mine. His eyes were downcast.
What had I done wrong?

  Chapter Twelve

  Axel

  Distance was crucial. With every conversation, with every kiss, it grew harder to deny my desire for my mate. If I’d been stronger, maybe I could have left Corbeau. But for the first time, my weakness didn’t make me run—it made me stay.

  Tension still remained, the unspoken question in her eyes. I wanted to reassure her, but that would only make it harder for her when I left. And I would leave, when I knew that Penny was safe, that her brother was avenged, and when I knew that she would be okay. It was for the best, as was picking up where we had left off in our investigation.

  “We should go back to the shelter,” I said.

  “What?” Penny asked, the hurt was clear in her eyes.

  There’d been no sign of zombies at the animal shelter the night before. But between the appearance of Penny’s sister, and the fact that it was our only real lead, I was eager for a more thorough search of the building. Even more so, I needed to get out of the motel and put space between us.

  “Let’s see if we can get something more from the animal shelter,” I said. “It’s all we have to go on.”

  She paused, and searched my face. I wondered if she’d question me. She didn’t, at least not with words.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

  It pained me to hurt her. It was the last thing I wanted to do. That was why she was better off without me. That was why it was better to push her away.

  We rode to the shelter in silence, and said nothing to each other until we entered the building.

  Desperation, sweat, fur, piss, and chemicals—the stink of the place made it difficult. I would have preferred to remain outside. Dogs were just too much like the wolf in me. Standing in the building was like being in the center of a prison, my cousins caged on every side.

  “You okay?” Penny whispered while we waited at the counter.

  I nodded.

  “You look queasy,” she said, as she studied my expression.

  “I—” An average-sized blond guy stepped out from the tunnel of cages and up to the counter. His cheeks were round and hairless, his expression dull. He looked like he was twelve. And his name tag labeled him ‘Rage.’