---

CHAPTER SEVEN 
     
ROWAN
“My bag was stolen,” I tell my father through the phone. I’ve finally given in and called him, even though I honestly didn’t want to bother even talking to him. I would have sent him a text but knew I ultimately would have ended up on the phone with him at some point.
“And all of your pills were in it?” Dad asks in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Goddammit, Rowan. How long have you been off them now?”
“Tonight will be the second night.”
I can tell he’s pissed, but I’m not sure what he expects me to do about it. “What the hell have I told you about missing days?” he asks. Of course he’s acting like it’s my fault the bag is gone.
“What do you expect me to do? The bag is gone, the pills are gone. If there’s no pharmacy in the area that can call them in, then you’re going to have to send them to me. My horse is hurt, and even if I get the keys made tomorrow, I can’t haul her that far for at least a week. That’s a lot of stress on her.”
“Then leave the damn horse.” Dad sighs loudly, like he needs to make sure I’m aware he’s pissed. The issue is that he’s always pissed, and it just gets old after a while. Means less when he yells at me or something.
“I’m still working a job here,” I say, even though I brushed Scott off just an hour ago when he tried getting me to head out with his team. He wants me tracking again but I just feel tired and fed up with this shit. Instead of wasting all morning harassing the shifters, he could have been out there looking for the escaped convicts. What’s going on in Scott’s mind makes little sense and I’m more than happy to avoid dealing with him.
“Give me an address and I’ll send you more but don’t fuck up like this again. You’ve always been such a fuck-up, Rowan.”
“I’m well aware,” I say before hanging up. I’ll text him the address once I get something from Quinn. I don’t even know if they’re willing to host me any longer.
Talon whines and I look over at him, uncertain what might be upsetting him. “You alright, bud?”
He wags his tail and rushes over to me before butting his head against my hand for pets. As I head outside, I notice some shifters eyeing me, and I wait for the whispers and talk, but instead, a girl of about seventeen comes trotting up with a huge smile.
“Are you going to eat with us?” she asks.
“Um… I don’t know,” I say. Even though Quinn invited me to, I feel like I shouldn’t. Why am I even here? Why am I not leaving? I know I shouldn’t be interacting with shifters.
She smiles and grabs my wrist, like we’re familiar friends. “Come on! It’ll be fun!”
I can’t help but question what choices I’m making as I allow her to pull me over to where her friends wait.
“I’m Addie,” she says. “And this is Layla and Sophia.”
They’re all around the same age with clear curious attention on me like I’m something unique to watch.
“It doesn’t seem to be unusual for humans to be around here, right?” I ask.
Addie shakes her head, sending her rich brown hair into her face. “Not unusual, but they’re very touristy. They go about buying stuff and moving on and Quinn won’t let us talk to them. He says that you never know when one of them is a psychopath who wants to wear your skin.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Okay then… I think that’s a bit extreme.”
The three girls laugh. “He told me they’d like my fur,” Layla says.
Sophia nods. “He told me they’d make mittens out of me.”
“They’d have a whole set. Mittens, hat, and a coat,” Quinn says as he walks right up. “Although… I’m not sure it’d match too well… might look a bit gaudy.”
“You’re awful!” Sophia says. “You should worry about our lives! Not whether or not we’d match!”
“Please tell me you don’t horrify all of the youth by saying this?” I ask in concern.
Quinn gives me one of his huge grins and I find myself drawn right back in, instantly forgetting everything about questioning why I’m here. Is he why? Is he doing something to me to make me feel like this? I mean, it’s not like shifters have some power to sucker you into staying with them.
“Of course I do. The moment they can talk I pluck them from their parents and I pull out my winter gloves, made with faux fur, of course, and I tell them that this is what happened to the little boy who didn’t listen.”
“That’s awful,” I say, but the way he’s grinning makes me smile.
“They listen so damn well after that, Rowan. I mean, look at my three star pupils right here.”
The three girls look unimpressed with Quinn’s crazy stories.
“So this is how you run your pack? You get them young and terrify them so they have lifelong trauma?”
He nods vigorously. “Yeah, that’s about right, huh, girls?”
They all agree with him, which is definitely something he shouldn’t be proud of, but he seems to think it’s hilarious. “Come along or we’ll be late for supper. And you know how Logan gets when we’re late to supper.”
“I swear he was a bear shifter in a past life,” Sophia says.
“He’s more ferocious than Addie who’s actually a bear,” Layla chimes in.
“Only when it comes to food, though. Everything else he’s like a teddy bear,” Addie says. “I’m just glad he arrived so we don’t have to eat Quinn’s food anymore.”
“Do I need to pull out the rabbit fur gloves again?” Quinn asks.
They laugh and hurry over to Talon who has brought a stick with him.
Quinn turns to me. “So on Sundays we eat supper together, and then we go for a run as a pack. If you’d like to join us on your measly little human legs, you can. Just like lope around and howl if you want to fit in.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You really think that’ll make me ‘fit in’? A grown man galloping around naked while on all fours howling?”
Quinn’s highly amused by this. “I don’t know but I’d love it.”
“I haven’t known you long and am already positive you’re strange,” I say with a grin as I follow after him.
“But in a good way, right?”
It is, but I don’t know why. I just automatically feel like everything he says or does is good. “Right. But I can’t stay long, I really do need to get back to helping Scott,” I say.
His face scrunches up in clear disgust. “I try not to hate people, but I hate that man. Just hearing his name makes my hackles rise.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say as I follow him into a building the girls had disappeared into. Talon is waiting at the door for me while questioning why I was taking so long.
“Do you mind if he goes inside? I can tie him up here if you do.”
Quinn raises an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure of anyone, this group isn’t going to mind if there’s a dog in here. Once I start kicking the dogs out, they get a bit pissy, you know?”
“There’s a difference!”
He grins at me before waving to a table. “Go get a seat next to my brother. I’ll be right there.”
I look around until I find his brother sitting alone. As I walk toward him, I can’t help but notice the attention on me. There are a lot of untrusting stares as Talon and I walk in, but if they’re used to dealing with humans, what makes me any different? Is it just my association with Scott?
When I reach the table, I nod at it. “Quinn told me to take a seat here.”
“Did he?” Graham asks, and I feel like it’s said as a challenge. Like if I sit down, I’ll have unwittingly entered into some type of wolf duel to the death.
“Is that alright?” I ask, trying to feign nonchalance.
The way Graham is looking at me tells me that it might not be alright. “Did those assholes put you up to this? Are they wanting you to get the inside scoop or something?”
I decide to take a seat even though it’s quite apparent that I’m not necessarily wanted. “No, I’m not, but I can understand why that’d be a concern.”
“Why else would you be here?”
Why else would I be here? I can always come back for Maze and stay in the motel Scott booked for me. It’s not like I need to be beside the horse all day.
Quinn scoots in next to his brother, smashing into him as he sits. “Don’t mind Graham. He’s all bark and no bite. I can put a muzzle on him if I need to.”
He hooks his brother by the neck and presses his face close to his which I find strange, but I’ve noticed shifters do it quite often.
“All I’m saying is that it’s pretty suspicious that all of this has played out the way it has. That he could be watching us,” Graham says, rather stubbornly.
“While I would be rather jealous if he’s watching everyone and not just me, what’s it matter, little brother? We have nothing to hide. He can peep at us all day long.” Quinn turns to me. “When Graham gets like this I call him Graham Cracker because he loves it and he’s stubborn as hell.”
“I’m not stubborn. You’re stubborn,” Graham says.
Quinn pats his back. “But he’s my wee baby brother and I just have to deal with it.”
“I think he forgot about the ‘wee’ part,” I say since Graham’s broader and taller than I am.
“Graham, pet his dog. Let that sate you,” Quinn urges.
Graham stares me in the eyes as he reaches over and pets Talon’s head. It does seem to sate him as he turns his death eyes away from me and melts a little as Talon falls into his legs and looks up at him with love. Talon generally isn’t this friendly, which makes me wonder if it has something to do with the shifter’s animal-like nature.
“At least his dog isn’t disgusting,” Graham says quite audibly, apparently making sure I can hear—clearly Quinn got all the nice genes.
The big guy from the diner comes out and claps his hands before waving to the tables where people are bringing food out. “Dig in!”
“We take turns preparing food or other things that help run the pack,” Quinn explains. “We really want to work together and stay together as a pack.”
“There are humans in your pack,” I say. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a shifter and human, but there’s usually something that gives shifters away whether it’s eye color or hair color.
“Yeah, we don’t discriminate. At least, we try not to.” Quinn gives his brother an elbow in the ribs, like he wants to make sure he’s paying attention.
“I get that,” I say as he gets up and waves me after him so we can get in line.
When we’re finished eating, everyone helps clean up their own plates and any mess before heading outside.
“We’re going to go for a run if you want to go with us,” he says. “I’m sure Helen would let you borrow a horse if you don’t want to run naked on all fours.”
I shake my head because I feel a bit off. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to head back to my room.”
“Of course. Maybe some other time,” he says, amber eyes holding on to mine a moment longer than they should, as though he’s trying to figure something out. But then he just smiles and turns to his pack.
I watch as he walks to the front, and without a word, everyone quiets and gives him their full attention.
“With what is going on with the escaped convicts, we’re going to stay closer to the village and remain on human trails where I can see all of you. No one will step away from the pack, understand? We will move as fast as our slowest runner and Graham will stay at the rear. If anyone notices something off, we will gather and head home immediately. I can’t imagine we’ll have trouble this close to the village, but there will be no risks taken. Does everyone understand?”
Instead of saying anything they all give a single nod that’s oddly filled with respect. Then, without a hint of modesty, everyone excitedly starts stripping, and I’m left in a state of shock as they all stand naked like it’s no big deal. They’re talking and chatting, and it’d be like me walking over to my neighbor Margie and stripping my clothes off. Something tells me she might enjoy it while I would not.
With something that’s between fascination and horror, I watch them shift. Many are not as skilled as Quinn, who shifts with ease; instead, their bodies distort as their faces elongate like something out of a horror movie. They shift into different types of animals of varying sizes. But out of them all, my eyes are instantly on Quinn. There’s a fucking giant brown bear a foot from me and I’m fixated on Quinn, the shifter I’ve already seen shift multiple times. By his side is his brother, a boxy gray wolf that pales in comparison. He might be taller, but Quinn with his black coat and silver tips is breathtaking.
He catches my eyes a moment before he turns and runs, and I find myself wanting to follow after him. Move with him, run with him. Together, we’d race into the forest.
And then he’s gone and I’m left standing in the middle of a field with Talon by my side and far too many piles of clothes. My head slowly clears as I realize how ridiculous of a thought it was to chase after Quinn.
I shake my head as it clears. “What the fuck?” I whisper to Talon. “What the absolute fuck?”
Dragging my attention away, I rush to my small cabin and shut the door. I feel horrible, ill almost. What the hell is wrong with me?
The moment I’m inside, I drop onto the bed and Talon joins me as nausea rolls through me. Was there something wrong with the food? Fuck. It has to have been the food.
      
QUINN
“What are you doing?” Graham asks, voice loud and clear in my mind as he catches up to me. Speaking to each other through our minds is a trait only shifters know. And it only happens when the shifter is close enough to another, just like speaking out loud would. We can’t do it as humans, only in this form. Some shifters never figure it out and have to rely on body language to speak while in our animal form, but everyone in my pack, besides some small children, has a handle on it.
Graham and I, being full-blooded brothers, have an easier time of it than I do with anyone else in the pack. While I can still speak to them and they can still hear and understand me, it’s not always as clear as it would be between Graham and me.
“What are you doing? You should be in the back where I told you to stay,” I say.
Graham keeps up at a steady trot beside me. Usually, we’d run, the faster of the shifters taking the lead and moving quickly across the terrain, while the slower ones stayed together, but I don’t want to break the pack into two groups that I can’t keep an eye on. “I have my position covered. As your second, you should speak to me before just inviting some human who belongs to them into our pack.”
“He’s fine, Graham. I promise you he will bring no harm to us. I know it makes you anxious. It makes me anxious as well, but I don’t think he’s a bad man.”
I follow the human trail that cuts along the edge of the forest. This is far from any of the main attractions, so the likelihood we’ll pass someone is slim and if we do, we’ll fade into the forest until we pass them.
“Why are you being so trusting? You’ve trusted humans before, but never like this, and not with someone like him. He works for the very people who want us suppressed and controlled like animals.”
It’s a good question. One that I’m not sure I have the answer to. I shift my attention off the path before me and lock it onto Graham. “Do you not trust me, brother?”
He doesn’t miss a beat, even though I’d been hoping to use that as a way to get him to back off. “I trust you to the ends of the earth. But you’ve already been hurt once because of this man.”
“I agree!” Ari says as he comes galloping up.
“Not you too. Stay out of this,” I say.
Ari, the spitfire he is, leaps up and grabs my ear and yanks it down.
I growl at him, but he doesn’t bother letting go, so I start dragging his tiny body after me.
“Dammit, Quinn. Don’t be so bloody stubborn!” Ari says as I shake him off. He nabs onto my tail, leaving me to drag him like an anchor. He knows he looks adorable as an ocelot, especially his freckled pink nose, but he also has to know that I’m not giving in to him.
I growl at him before stopping where I stand and turning to my pack. Quite a few of them obviously weren’t expecting it and they create a pileup as everyone runs over each other.
“Wow, the grace,” Ari says with enough sarcasm to fill the forest.
“How many of you have a problem with Rowan, the human?” I ask.
There’s clear chatter through the group as I watch them in confusion. Do they really not trust him? Have I made a mistake? I’ve never had my own pack want one thing while I chose another.
“He’s different, Quinn, and not in a good way,” Graham says.
Ari nods. “He’s strange.”
The large brown bear steps up past them, toward the front. “He’s part of them,” Trenton says. He’s always one eager to fight.
“But you’re alpha and we trust your opinion,” Helen says, and there’s a chorus of agreement with that.
But how the hell did it come to this? How was I so wrong on what everyone wanted? “He’s harmless. He’s done nothing to prove ill will toward us.”
No one says anything and I can tell they’re not wanting to tell their alpha he’s wrong. But honestly, why am I so adamant about protecting him? He does work for Scott who is clearly hellbent on harassing us. It is strange for me to just pull him into the pack.
I take a deep breath and give them a nod. “Understood. I respect each and every one of you. I will encourage him to move on by morning.”’
The pack seems satisfied by that, even though the thought of telling Rowan to move on bothers me for some reason. I’m not quite sure why, but I do know that my pack will always come first.
As we make our way back, I sense someone in the woods and hesitate. My pack notices and slows and quiets down. Whoever it is, they’re running toward us. Racing through the brush and trees like they’re in a panic, alerting me instantly of their position a moment before Rowan comes rushing out onto the trail.
His eyes are wild, he’s breathing heavy, and he’s barefoot as I realize something’s happened. Talon is trailing him, but the dog has his tail down and seems anxious.
“What’s wrong?” I ask before remembering that I can’t speak to him in this form.
“I don’t know,” he says, sounding a bit panicked. “What’s going on?”
Did he answer me? No, it has to be coincidence, right?
“Fuck… I got turned around,” Rowan says as he twists his face into something that doesn’t seem to coincide with the way I’m reading his body. Like he’s trying to feign amusement or something.
I shift into my human form as my pack hovers behind me, uncertain. Maybe my pack’s right and there is something off about him, but I feel like he’s fine. I feel deep down that I should pull him into my pack, not push him away. “What are you doing out here when you know it’s not safe to wander alone?”
He stares into my eyes for a moment before turning around and starting to walk back toward the village. “I just got turned around.”
Did he? He seemed almost terrified as he rushed onto the scene. At first, I thought something was chasing him or coming for him. So is he really fine?
I walk with him as my pack quietly follows me. When I’m human and they’re in their other forms, I can’t hear them, so they might be talking about how I’ve misjudged this man. And maybe I have. What makes me so certain he’s fine?
He gives me a sheepish look. “Really, I just got turned around. I’ve never been the best with directions,” he says before laughing, like it’s a big joke.
“You’re a tracker… who isn’t good with directions?” I ask, rightfully confused.
His forced smile returns. “Don’t tell the people who pay me that it’s all Talon.”
I notice he doesn’t have his gun with him, even though he knew he was running into a wooded area packed full of danger. Was he hoping to spy on us? Did he really just get lost? Why would he have gone running out here at all?
I look back at my brother and Ari who are both watching me closely, but I don’t know what else to do or say.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER EIGHT 
     
ROWAN
What the hell am I doing?
I spent all night unable to sleep as I twisted and turned in my bed. When I get a call at seven in the morning, I immediately answer it.
“Hello?”
“Sinclair, nice of you to finally answer. Are you done playing with those freaks and ready to get back to work? You’ve been ignoring my calls.”
“I wasn’t ignoring them, I was busy,” I say.
“I asked if you could walk out of the village limits and you just never got back with me,” he says. “What the hell are they doing to you there, Sinclair? They brainwashing you? I didn’t take you for a freak lover.”
Are they doing something to me? Why else would I be here? Why would I just be going along with anything they’re saying? “Yeah, pick me up. I’ll walk outside the village limits.”
“Fine, I’ll be there in an hour.”
I hang up with him and start packing things as I look over at Talon. “I think they have us under some weird spell, Talon. Some glamor or something. Making this place look better than it is.”
Once my bags are packed, I head over to the main house and knock on the door. Donna answers after a minute with a smile on her face. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”
“No. Thank you, though. I need to get going, so I wanted to pay you for the access to the room.”
She waves me off. “No, no, no. I don’t want a dime. You didn’t bother me one bit. It was nice having company. Come back any time.”
I smile at her. “No, I can’t do that. How much would you usually charge a night?”
“I will hear none of it!” she says before patting me gently on the shoulder. “We’ll miss having you around here.”
I decide I’ll just get her a gift card or something and mail it to her since I probably don’t have enough cash on me anyway and she doesn’t strike me as someone with a smart phone to accept a payment.
I debate finding Quinn before deciding that I just need to leave because whenever I’m around him, I find myself more confused. So I quickly head down the street with Talon and my bags. He perks up before I reach the village limits, and I realize that it won’t be that easy to get out of here.
“You’re… leaving?” Quinn asks as he slowly walks up, almost like he’s uncertain of me.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I should have let you know. Scott needs some help tracking this morning and I didn’t know how to contact you to tell you I was headed out,” I say, wondering why I feel like I have to explain my every action to this man. Almost like I’m afraid of upsetting him.
He rubs at his neck before smiling at me. “Got it. If you ever need anything, let me know. I would volunteer to help, but I’m pretty sure my pack would strangle me for helping Scott the Menace again. We talked about which of us would be allowed to eat him if he ever set foot here again.”
“And who won?”
“Sophia.”
I think back to everyone shifting yesterday. “Isn’t she a rabbit?” I ask, amused.
“Yes, that’s why we thought she’d be best. More torture.”
I can’t help but laugh as the tension from the night leaves me. “You know what? Some days I feel like I’d pay extra to watch that.”
Quinn grins at me. “You can stay longer, you know?”
I do want to stay longer. Without a doubt, I’d love to. “Well… but I have to help Scott,” I say as I’m pulled in by his gaze. At this moment I feel like I’d agree to just about anything he asked of me. If he told me to stay, I’d stay as long as he wanted. Talon barks at the car pulling up, snapping me out of my stupor, and I see Scott inside it as my mind snaps back to me. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
Quinn looks at me in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“How do you keep doing that? How do you keep trying to talk me into things? You’re a fucking shifter, why am I even listening to you?” I ask, my mind a whirlwind of confusing thoughts.
There’s a flash of hurt on Quinn’s face and I’m left hovering between being unsure why I’m so angry at him yet so fascinated by him and feeling devastated I made him upset. Is it really even his fault? And why am I snapping at him? Without another word, I nudge Talon and rush over to the car. I just have to get away. If I get away, everything will be fine and everything will go back to normal. I put Talon in the back seat and get into the front as I glance at Quinn whose expression is nearly impossible to read.
“Disgusting freak,” Scott says before flipping Quinn off and backing out.
Yes, that’s right. Shifters are disgusting. They’re abnormal. Freaks. It’s what I’ve always been told. Why did I forget that? What the fuck is wrong with me?
I look back to see Quinn flipping Scott off with a smirk on his face.
“I oughta have that asshole fucking arrested,” Scott says, like he wasn’t the one who started it.
“How about we just go?” I don’t mean it to sound like a plea, but it comes out that way. All I know is that I need to get away.
He grumbles but turns around and starts driving.
      
QUINN
“What’d I tell you, big brother? You’re an idiot,” Graham says, with a very defiant look on his face that I kind of want to wipe off. I know he’s been dying to say something since Rowan left this morning, so I’m in shock he waited until after lunch to do so.
“You little shit,” I growl as I grab him in a headlock. I have him pinned down when Ari comes into the dining hall and gives his ass a smack before cackling.
“Beat him harder, Ari,” I say as Graham tries to get away.
Ari seems to debate it as he stands, hand hovering. “You know Logan’s going to get jealous if he walks in on me spanking your brother,” Ari says before spanking him again.
“Hey, Graham, hey, Quinn,” Logan says as he walks in without even sparing a glance at Ari, his mate who is clearly caught, mid-spank.
“I don’t think he cares,” I say, breaking it to Ari fast and dirty. He might as well know now that Logan either super trusts him or he likes kinky Ari spanking others.
“I care about very little in life besides watching Ari have fun and right now, Ari has a huge smile on his face as Graham is abused, so I guess abuse is where it is.” Logan lovingly looks down at Ari.
Graham struggles against me. “Alright, funny, funny. Let me free now, please.”
“Are you going to verbally abuse me anymore, Graham Cracker?” I ask.
“Not until I at least am a good distance from you.”
I give him a little shake. “You know I can outrun you.”
Graham sighs extremely loud in case I’d gotten hard of hearing lately because he needs to remind me he’s unsatisfied. “I’m aware.”
“I’m fast as lightning. Many have spoken legends about me. They call me—”
“I’ve heard him called Chicken Fucker before. That was a good time!” Ari says, his delightful voice breaking through my tough guy routine.
Logan leans in to get a good look at me, like maybe I’ve changed since Ari’s lie. “You’ve fucked a chicken? Like a real chicken or a shifter chicken?” Logan asks.
I scowl at both of them. “Neither, thank you. I had my hands full and I needed to move this fucking rooster that was up on a hay bale, so I just bumped it with my hip.”
“He totally pelvic thrusted that bitch right off the bale,” Graham says, who I then decide needs to repent, so I swipe his leg out from under him, making him stumble.
“I did not!”
My phone rings and when I look down I grimace. The three are carrying on about whether or not my gentle pushing of the chicken counted as humping the chicken off the bale, so I step outside to answer.
“What do you want?” I growl at Scott.
“What did you do?” he asks.
“I haven’t fucked a chicken if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“What?” Scott seems equal parts disturbed and horrified, which gives me a strange sense of satisfaction. “No, did you attack Sinclair?”
I still as that sinks in. “No, what do you mean?”
“I go to his motel room to pick him up and the door’s busted and inside his room has been completely torn apart. Looks like a fucking shifter got him.”
“Is he there?” I ask as my stomach tightens. I can’t get myself to ask if his body is there. If he’s dead.
“No, it dragged him off. Blood trails leading out the door. So which of you did this?”
“I’m coming,” I say as anxiety bubbles up inside me at the thought of Rowan being hurt. “Send me the coordinates.”
I hang up on him and peek into the building. “Guys, I need to run to town. Be good.”
“What are you doing?” Graham asks suspiciously.
“Scott wants to talk, and you know I have to go,” I say, hating when I lie to them. It isn’t a full lie but it’s also not a full truth. I just know that Rowan isn’t a part of this pack, so I shouldn’t risk my pack for him. They’ve already told me I was being far too lenient with Rowan and the pack should come first, but I can’t get my mind to wrap around the idea of stepping back and letting someone else deal with it.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Graham asks.
“No, but thanks for the offer. I want you to stay here and deal with them.”
“Be safe,” Ari says.
“I will be,” I assure him as I jog toward my car. As I’m getting in, I notice Trenton jogging out of the woods in his bear form. “Trenton, I told you not to go into the woods alone with those prisoners out there.”
Trenton shifts and looks over at me, sweat glistening on his skin. He’s the only one in my pack that I could see trying to usurp me, but he’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t. His sister, Addie, is a sweetheart and one of the nicest in our pack but Trenton is one of the stubbornest. Clearly, they didn’t take after each other but I find myself glad to have them both in my pack. I fully understand why Trenton struggles to find peace in the pack. He grew up fighting against a world that discriminated against his shifter side, and he hung on to some of that hate when he came here.
He fought hard to get his sister away from that life and ended up here where she’s been given an easier path.
“Just went a few feet in, alpha,” Trenton says.
“Stay in the village,” I order.
He puts his hands up in the air and bows his head. “My bad, my bad. I’ll be good.” His voice has a condescending edge to it that makes me hesitate, but I know I need to get going.
I get into my car, fully aware Trenton won’t be good. If he doesn’t listen, I’ll be forced to put him in his place again. And this time it won’t be as pretty and he sure as hell won’t be happy about it.
When I reach the motel Scott sent me the information to, I park in a spot as far back as I can since I see that the room is sectioned off by the police. I walk up, but the moment someone sees me, they try to turn me away.
“Hold on, I called him,” Scott says as he waves me after him.
Once I have gear on to keep me from messing with the crime scene, he leads me into the room that is completely torn apart. The bedding is shredded. There’s blood on the carpet, and claw marks covering the door out, like the shifter who attacked him got locked in.
“No sign of him or his dog?” I ask.
“Nope. Now, which one of you did this?” Scott asks, arms folded over his chest.
I ignore him as I stand by the door and look at the scratch marks dug deep into the wooden frame. The marks are brutal and wide, unlike anything my claws could do. “No one from my pack could have done this.”
“And how do you know?” Scott asks, clearly not believing me.
“Multiple reasons. First, scent. I would recognize the scent of one of my own immediately.” Instead, this scent is strange and hard to place. “Secondly, I don’t have any shifters who could make these marks. I have a few cat shifters, but they’re smaller. A small cougar and an ocelot, but neither are this big. And then I have a couple of bear shifters but they’re even bigger. Their paws would dwarf this. This is likely a cat shifter of some kind. Which of the prisoners that you’re tracking down could have done this? Hell, the one who attacked us could have. It was large, but maybe these marks would fit. I didn’t get a good look at its body size as it was trying to tear me apart.”
Scott’s glower deepens. “I need to know which of your men did this.”
“Lord, you literally came in the other day and got a list of everyone. If you think any of them hit this criteria, let me know.” I push past him and head out to my car, but I know that if Rowan is still alive, I could help him. While it’s absolutely stupid to go alone, I can’t drag my pack into this. I can’t risk any of their lives for a man we barely know all because of my strange obsession with him.
I pull my clothes off and set them on the passenger seat before getting out my travel pack which I fill with necessities like my phone and a first aid kit. I sling it over my back then loop it over my arms before shifting. While I can’t buckle it in this form, having it looped over my front legs is enough to keep it from sliding off. I head over to the blood spot and sniff as Scott stares at me. When I catch the scent, I start moving. Without wasting a moment, I rush across the road and disappear into the forest.
The scent trail is a few hours old, so I hope that I’m not too late. I keep my nose down, picking through the scent as I run. My paws strike the ground as I push off and leap over a fallen tree only to have the scent veer far to the left, across the tree. The tightrope-like path they chose reconfirms that it was a cat shifter. Little else has the dexterity to walk like this.
But where does Rowan come into play? There’s no way the shifter could have dragged him this far, could he? The claw marks weren’t that big, telling me Rowan probably outweighed the shifter. I still find small traces of blood here and there, but nothing life threatening. And what’s weirder yet is that I can smell Talon. Did he try tracking down his owner in the hopes of helping him? Am I wrong and it isn’t that the shifter has Rowan, it’s that Rowan and Talon were out first and the shifter is following his trail? Or maybe Rowan is following its trail?
The questions continue to rack up the farther I run and the deeper into the forest I go. The sound of a bark startles the wildlife around me and the birds flutter off to find a quiet place to land. I turn sharply and my eyes lock on to Talon who is pacing.
He hears me and instantly turns before trotting over to me. He seems a bit anxious as he looks from me back to the tree. Is the cat shifter up there?
I slip through the brush as some thorns stick into my fur. I tug myself free a moment before I hear it above me. Quickly, I scoot forward, but the creature’s leap is impressive, landing where I’d stood only moments earlier. I turn on my haunches as the animal jumps onto my back with a yowl. Fast as can be, I grab it by its throat, teeth sinking into thick, dense fur before barely coming into contact with skin. Once I’ve latched on, I throw it off me and turn to face it, hoping to ask it where Rowan is.
It hisses at me before striking out with a large white paw, dotted in black. Its small black-tipped ears flick back, showing its displeasure. But stranger yet is the smell. This is the scent I’ve been tracking. A strange combination of animal and Rowan.
Is Rowan… a shifter? But that’s not right. No. He doesn’t smell like a shifter, he doesn’t act like a shifter, but… I did notice he smelled strange, and I found my wolf reacting to him differently than I would a human. It was like my wolf was fully enamored by the man while my pack questioned my sanity.
And while I’m questioning my own sanity, the snow leopard barrels me to the ground before batting at me with large paws. He must be holding back some, or his claws would have done more than nick me as I fling him off. It seems like he’s in a fight or flight mode, but he has no true skill in fighting.
I elude him as he tries to tackle me to the ground and that seems to piss him off enough he takes off running. Without missing a beat, I race after him, but he’s faster than I am, his long tail helping him twist and turn, and when he reaches the side of a sheer rocky ravine, I swear that fucker just climbs straight up it, feet stepping onto the thinnest of overhangs that allows him to scale right up it as Talon and I watch in wonder.
Once I’m done being gobsmacked, I shift, wondering if some human words would help the situation. “Rowan, please calm down, I’m here to help you.”
Silence.
Since my ability to scale up cliffs is nothing like his, I decide I’ll have to shift again and go around. By the time I reach the top, he’s long gone, and Talon and I are left tracking after him. Thankfully, Rowan hasn’t gone far, choosing instead to hide.
This time, I don’t get too close because it’s clear what I’m facing isn’t fully Rowan. I’ve never heard of a shifter losing their human side when they shift beyond those who have refused to embrace their animal. Is that what happened here? And then when he walked up to meet the pack, he’d heard me through my pack link, which should have raised some red flags. As well as his scent… but his scent was wrong… off in some way.
“Rowan, it’s Quinn. You’re safe. You’re fine. Please come out.”
I hear the snow leopard hiss as Talon gets too close. Quickly, I rush Talon, nipping at his hocks to tell him to back off since I don’t want him to get hurt. Startled, he does, while looking back at me like I’ve horribly offended him, but I couldn’t let Rowan deal with having killed his dog.
“Please come out. You’re safe,” I urge him.
I near the small crevice he’s worked himself into without getting too close because I don’t want him to think I’m cornering him inside.
He lunges out at me, rushing toward me as I question what to do. Maybe if I can just pin him down, I can speak to his animal side through body movements and cues. While a snow leopard would typically be a lone animal, a shifter’s human side generally wins out, causing the animal side to desire a pack or pride or whatever the alpha in charge considers it, so he might respond to that idea.
So as he slams into me, I grab onto his leg and drive my shoulder into him, pushing him off balance. He crashes down on his side as I latch on to his throat and use my weight to keep him pinned down. He’s big for a snow leopard, but not much bigger than me.
“Rowan, I know you’re in there. Listen to me. Rowan, your animal side is taking over. Listen to me.”
“Quinn?” Rowan asks a moment before he hisses at me and smacks me off him. And then off he goes, bolting into the trees.
I sigh, wondering how long I have to chase him before he listens. But at least I got something out of him this time. As I run off to catch up with him, Talon falls in line with me. He’s confused as hell. His human just turned into a leopard and is threatening to eat him, but he’s positive he’d still follow him to the ends of the earth. I bump my muzzle into his in an attempt to ease his confusion. I’m not sure if it does or not, but he sticks to my side like glue as we chase Rowan all over the place. At some point, he decides he’s tired of being followed and goes on the attack again but despite how quickly he turns on his haunches and leaps a very impressive distance at me, I throw him onto his side.
He’s exhausted, and as I hold him down, he kicks slowly at me.
“Rowan, come on. It’s me. Wake up. Stop letting yourself get pulled into this. You’re safe. You’re safe.” He’s not fighting back as hard as he was before. So either he’s exhausted or he’s slowly coming to understand me.
“Quinn?” He seems hesitant, confused.
“Yes. Now shift back.”
“Quinn...”
“Yes, it’s Quinn.”
Rowan hooks a paw around my neck, throwing me off him, but instead of attacking me, he pins me down and starts grooming me while purring. “Quinn.”
Well, this is awkward.
His rough tongue licks up my face and over my ear as he merrily purrs away. Since he’s not trying to kill me, I just let him at it while racking my brain on what to do and that’s when his body begins to distort. The shift is horribly raw and not at all fluent—bones creaking and changing as the fur pulls away to reveal light skin. He cries out as he falls onto me, panting hard.
Seeing me, he jerks back, so I shift myself back into my human form so I can freely speak to him.
“Welcome back to the land of opposable thumbs,” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment, still staring at me before things seem to dawn on him. My face is wet, so I rub at it in the hopes of removing some of his saliva from me. “Thanks for the bath. I did have one earlier today but yours was much superior,” I assure him. “The purring was a nice touch.”
“Oh my god. Oh, fuck me,” Rowan says as he falls back onto his bare ass and grabs his head.
“So… you’re a shifter,” I say.
He jerks back, eyes wild. “No! No, I’m not. I’m human. I’m a human. I’m not like you. I’m not… fuck.”
He’s going to have to try really hard to convince me he didn’t just shift into a leopard if he wants to pretend that. “So did you honestly not know you were a shifter? I mean… how could you not? How could you have lived thirty-some years without ever shifting?”
“I… knew,” he says quietly. “I have shifted before… when I was a kid.”
I stare at him in shock. “You haven’t shifted since you were a kid?” I’ve never heard of anyone even being able to go that long without shifting.
“My father got me some medication to keep the animal side away and taught me how awful that side truly was. But when my bag was stolen, my pills were in it. I’ve gone days without my medication before and nothing like this has ever happened. It was like I was enamored by everything you did and it pulled out that horrible side of me.”
“Horrible?” I ask as my eyebrows knit. “I’m not sure I’d call it horrible. You were pretty fucking cute. I mean, nothing can be that fluffy and not be cute.”
His eyes narrow, telling me that he’s really into this “shifters are horrible and disgusting” routine he has going on.
“Your tail was like this poofy,” I say as I use my hands to show him. “And when I chomped on your throat it just left all this hair in my mouth—I think there’s still some in my teeth. And then you groomed me all up, which was pretty cute.”
His face turns to a look of horror as he remembers that part. “I did not. I was… priming you to eat!”
“You were grooming me. Just licking all over my face while purring.”
“I don’t… purr,” he growls.
I grin at him as I realize how horrified he is by all of this. “I know I might be a bit biased, but you’re not a horrible person, Rowan. You’re not a freak, you’re not unnatural, you’re not an abomination. You’re just you.”
He shakes his head. “No,” he grumbles. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand how your father could have made you feel like this, no. I don’t understand how awful that had to have been to constantly be told you were unnatural to the point where your own family member wished to keep you drugged so you’d stay quiet. But I do understand what it means to be a shifter.”
Talon’s ears perk up and I hesitate because I hear something. I’d missed it in my fixation on Rowan.
“What is it?” he asks, clearly not able to use his animal senses in this form. While mine are muted, they’re still stronger than any human’s.
“Move,” I whisper. “Can you shift back?”
Rowan looks alarmed. “What? I-I don’t know how. I can’t.”
I see an opening in the rock face and push him toward it. “You have to shift. You’re too big to fit through like this. Cats can fit through better.”
“What is it?” he asks anxiously.
“I think it’s that thing from the other day. GO!”
He rushes toward it and pushes Talon inside who has to crawl on his stomach to fit. I look over at Rowan who is still very much human.
“I don’t know how,” he says.
“Just feel it. Just…” Fuck, I don’t know how to tell him. Even the children I’m around learn it on their own before they learn to talk or walk. It’s just something natural, not something one needs to learn.
I can hear the monster rushing toward us, telling me it’s clear it’s picked up our smell.
“You get in there, I’ll… do something,” Rowan says as he looks around.
He’s fucking crazy if he thinks I’m not going to protect him. I shift into my wolven form and stand my ground as the beast steps onto the scene. The light leaking in through the trees is bright this time, and it’s clear this thing isn’t natural. Its body is humped, back arched more like a bear, with lithe legs made for running. The beast’s face looks like a cross between a wolf and a wildcat, but what I notice most is it’s big, nearly twice my size, and it’s ready to kill me.
“We won’t hurt you,” I say, wondering if it’d bother to speak to me.
It growls in response and lunges at me. I should leap away, but if I do, I leave Rowan exposed and everything in my body tells me that I’d be willing to die for this man. I must protect him at all costs.
It barrels into me like I’m nothing and rushes for Rowan. I don’t know if instincts kick in or what, but Rowan shifts and bolts through the hole. I rush after him, slipping in as the monstrosity slams into the side of the rock wall.
“Move back, away from the front. Let’s hope he gets bored and moves on,” I say as I try to push him deeper into the darkness. When I look back, I can see the monster’s forearm stretched through the opening, large claws dragging through the air as it bats at us, hoping to shred us.
“How are you talking to me? How am I talking to you? How am I doing anything?” Rowan asks, clearly confused.
“Let’s worry about all of that when our lives aren’t currently threatened. Is there a way out of here? You can probably see better than me in the dark.”
“I can see that we’re going to die. I’ve become a monster and we’re going to die.”
I glance back at him before moving deeper into the small cave. The beast at the entrance has decided it can’t get in through the front and is either lying in wait, finding a different way in, or has given up. “Dramatic much?”
He whirls on me. “Did you just spout fur without wanting to and morph into some… some—”
“Pussycat?” I helpfully supply. “Come, puss puss.”
His anger seems to deflate as his stance becomes less annoyed and more open. “Don’t call me that.”
“Here, kitty kitty.”
“I will eat you.”
“This is delightful,” I decide. “Nothing like verbally abusing your friend while trying not to be eaten by a fucking creature from the pits of hell. My life was boring until I met you. I did alpha stuff which involved a lot of howling, chasing balls, and treeing squirrels. Then you come along and bring real live monsters with you.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying our imminent death.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic.”
“Pessimistic? Is that what you call this? My life has been ruined. If it gets out that I’m a shifter, everything I did with the military will be gone. I’ll be in trouble for lying. I could even face prison time.”
“You act like this is my fault.”
Rowan ducks his head, as though he’s ashamed for making me feel like that. “It’s not your fault. I’m just melting down. Can I please have a meltdown for just five minutes?”
“Sure,” I say as we reach the dead end. “Melt down as long as you’d like because we hit a dead end and it’s going to be a while before we can get out. Just don’t shift while you’re in here or you might be stuck in here for eternity. I’ll have to pass little bowls of food through the crack when I think of it. Which, let’s be honest, I might make sure it happens every day the first week, but everything gets old after a while.”
“Feeding me and making sure I’m alive will get old?”
“Really quickly, if I’m being honest. I’m a wolf and get distracted by the simplest of things.”
“Does that mean I’m simple? Because you sure seem distracted by me,” Rowan says.
If I could grin, I’d be grinning ridiculously hard right now because he has a point. “I think it was just my wolf trying to tell me you were a shifter hiding in plain sight. It was trying to tell me my shifter sensor was broken.”
“Ha-ha.”
I sit down and watch him as he paces. It’s clear he’s upset or anxious about this, but there’s not much I can help him with.
“Are you okay?” I ask, realizing that maybe joking right now when he’s clearly not handling this the best isn’t ideal.
“No, I’m not sure I am, but as soon as I get back, I’ll get back on my medication and I’ll pretend this never happened.”
The thought that he hates his true self so much that he’ll use drugs to hide it bothers me. I stand up and go over to him before brushing my muzzle against his cheek, hoping to calm him. He just seems confused. But why does it bother me so much? It makes me feel anxious that he’s upset. I push my shoulder into him, forcing him to stop pacing.
Then I lick the side of his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks in pure alarm, which I knew would distract him.
“You looked a bit dirty. It’s no wonder when you were scaling trees and cliffs left and right.”
“Why would you lick me?”
The thing is… I really don’t know. I just felt compelled to. “You licked me first. At least I wasn’t purring and shit.”
“I don’t purr.”
I lick the side of his face again which makes him jerk back. He hisses at me, which is adorable and makes me want to keep at it.
“Dammit, I will eat you.”
“Sounds kinky,” I say before he shoves me off and goes into his own little corner, ridiculously long tail twitching.
“Nope.”
“It’s not?” I ask as I trot over to him. I sit facing him and watch him, but while he thinks he’s being prickly toward me, his body language is anything but. More toyingly annoyed, which I can handle, and I find rather cute.
Why is it that just about everything he does I find cute?
Must be because I’m going crazy. That’s the only answer.