Tag: urban fantasy books (Page 10 of 15)

If you’re just tuning in, this excerpt will probably make more sense if you start at the beginning….

I should have realized that my wolf hadn’t surrendered to my earlier admonitions. She was merely biding her time and waiting for the right moment in which to strike.

Now, as exhaustion rounded my shoulders while the lack of nearby family gnawed at my gut, my inner beast grabbed the reins out of my tired fingers. Pushing open the bedroom door with human hands, she drew us toward what she considered the solution to all of our problems—a session of snuggling with our recently bonded mate.

And I’ll admit it—I didn’t really resist. After all, the day felt like it had lasted for an eternity, and the steady susurrus of Sebastien’s breathing drew us forward like flames entice a moth. So my wolf and I were united as we passed through the dimly lit corridor, pausing only after we were able to peer greedily upon our mate’s enticing body.

He was asleep. Sacked out on the sofa with one arm wrapped around a cushion and the opposite leg visible atop the thin blanket that he’d fallen asleep beneath. Resting, the professor’s scent was less intense than usual, but also more complex. Old books and brilliant sunshine filled my nostrils, and beneath that came the merest hint of slippery elm.

Then I lost track of rational thought as my own inner beast subsumed me yet deeper beneath her control. Shedding shirt, underwear, and borrowed pants alike, we slipped into our lupine skin as seamlessly as a fish dives beneath the surface of a pond. Mate, the wolf whispered silently inside our combined body, raising her snout to nuzzle at Sebastien’s stubbled cheek. Ours.

The professor sneezed as our eyelashes brushed up against his nostrils. But although he stirred, he didn’t wake. Instead, the human merely pressed his back further up against the sofa cushions as if welcoming us into his personal space.

My wolf needed no further encouragement. Leaping onto the sofa as lightly as any house cat crept onto an off-limits kitchen counter, she settled in beside the slumberer. Then, my own nature squashed beneath her stronger will, we all three fell soundly asleep.

***

I woke to the distant tolling of a doorbell, and for one split second I forgot where I was. My dreams had been redolent with sensations—scent, sound, and even the heady tingle of hands sliding across naked skin. Claiming moon, my wolf whispered, reminding me that we had, at long last, discovered our mate.

Of course, Sebastien hadn’t yet discovered us back. Still, when I opened my eyes, I granted both woman and wolf time to soak up his tantalizing presence. Surely we possessed enough leeway for such a small indulgence as that.

Together, my inner beast and I basked in Sebastien’s beauty. Dark stubble coated the professor’s jaw, but the shadow only made him appear stronger rather than unkempt. A wisp of sable hair lay across one high cheekbone, and it was all I could do not to stretch out my neck and nose the tendril aside. Meanwhile, twitching orbs beneath his eyelids proved that the professor was still deeply asleep.

Our mate was just as enticing in daylight as he’d been beneath the moon last night. But the color of the pillow was oddly muted while the medley of scents swirling between us threatened to overwhelm my human mind. And, gradually, I remembered succumbing to the unthinkable—cuddling up beside a one-body in the skin of my wolf.

My location, unfortunately, wasn’t the only problem marring the morning’s tranquility. Voices carried in from outside the house, too soft for me to make out individual words but with their inherent tension abundantly clear. Then fists hit the door in a cacophony that was bound to wake my resting bed-mate sooner rather than later. Time was quickly running out.

Sure enough, Sebastien stirred at last, his arm tightening around my middle as he came gradually awake. And I knew even as my mate hugged me that I wouldn’t make it out of the room without being sighted if I remained in lupine form. Which meant it was time to shift.

After all, waking beside an unexpectedly naked woman is better than opening your eyes onto the snarling visage of a wolf…right?

My inner beast didn’t entirely agree. She argued that we wouldn’t snarl. Would instead lick and tease and make nice. Still, she allowed the transformation at last, helping me shed my fur and regain my skin in the end.

Our internal debate had slowed the shift, though. So we had only a split second to spare before Sebastien’s eyelids lifted, his face widening into a sleepy smile that skewered my wolf and me both with its tenderness.

“Ember, sweetheart,” he murmured, his hand rising to trail across my bedhead even as his lips parted to breathe out my name along with an endearment that melted my human side into a sticky pile of saccharine goo.

Luckily for the sake of both of our skins, my wolf was less susceptible to words. Predators outside, she reminded me, forcing us to wriggle out of our mate’s willing arms and rise onto our human feet.

And as we came erect, Sebastien woke more fully as well. I saw the moment his rational brain won out over his instincts. Saw when he took in my completely unclad nature, noted his eyes roaming from my still grubby feet up to my erect nipples before landing on my reddening face.

Our companion liked what he saw—I could smell his simple animal attraction swirling around my own. But, at the same time, he was uneasy about the fact that I’d ended up in his bed uninvited like some sort of stalker girlfriend.

The fact I wasn’t even his girlfriend made the whole thing ten times worse.

“Ember…” my mate began, brow furrowing as his scent turned bitter and harsh. But even in human form, I could make out the sound of footsteps moving around the side of the house, suggesting that Sebastien’s annoyance was the least of our current worries. Any minute now, whoever had been pounding on the front door would break into the back. At which point we’d both be sunk.

Looks like you were right, little brother, I thought. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. I really should have fried that laptop when I had the chance….

Then, turning to my mate, I voiced my subsequent thought aloud. “Do you have any files on your computer that you absolutely can’t live without?”

Wolf-like, Sebastien cocked his head to one side in question. He hadn’t heard the men at the door, didn’t realize that we were already operating on borrowed time. In fact, I got the distinct impression he wasn’t going to let me out of the room without a long-winded conversation neither of us had time for.

So I instead pushed a little compulsion into my words as I commanded: “Tell me.”

“No,” my mate answered, his frown deepening so dramatically that I thought the wrinkles might cut their way into his very bones. “I back up everything onto the cloud….”

Even as he obeyed my request, though, I could see Sebastien’s scientific interest being piqued by my lapse into werewolfism. Further questions would certainly be piling up within my mate’s analytical mind just as they had the day before.

But I didn’t have time to indulge him. Instead, I snagged my discarded clothing then hightailed it back toward the professor’s unoccupied bedroom even as I cast my reply over one naked shoulder.

“Great,” I answered. “In that case, I apologize in advance. Answer the door, delay them as long as possible, and I’ll be back after your visitors have left the premises.”

Want to know what happens to Ember and Sebastien? Keep reading in Huntress Bound!

In case you missed it, you can read chapter 1 here.

With surprisingly few words, my host dug up an old pair of sweat pants then showed me into his bedroom. After that, he closed a far-too-solid door between us, flicking off the hall light and relegating himself to the couch.

Which left me trembling on the brink, fighting against my wolf’s desire to slip back through the darkened building and weasel my way into the absent human’s waiting arms.

“Totally inappropriate,” I chided my alter-ego, forcing our feet to turn away from the barrier. She countered with a memory of yesterday’s kiss, which—I in turn reminded her—had occurred in front of strangers and had never been repeated since. Plus, by human standards, a peck on the hand gave me no right to turn up on my mate’s doorstep after midnight, let alone insinuate myself into his belated slumber. Despite rocking my world, Sebastien’s lips had never even touched my face.

My wolf growled quietly but allowed me to turn aside in order to peruse our mate’s inner sanctum instead. Unlike his office back at the college, this room was neat as a pin, the bed freshly made and clothing all tucked away into drawers. Only two areas spoke to the professor’s recent attention—a desk cluttered with papers in one corner of the abode and a workbench dotted with wood shavings and carving paraphernalia at the other.

I was tempted to see what kind of art Sebastien had chosen to create. But nosing aimlessly through his belongings wasn’t what I’d come for. Instead, I perched on the hard wooden chair in front of the professor’s desk and opened the laptop that sat waiting on the otherwise empty expanse.

It felt strangely disloyal to borrow hardware without permission, vaguely like the lie Sebastien had made me promise not to tell. Still, I reasoned that my mate would neither know nor care that I’d plugged in a simple thumb drive and perused the contents using his keyboard and monitor. It wasn’t as if I planned to comb through my mate’s data; I just needed the loan of his equipment to discover what my brother had so carefully squirreled away.

Conscience sated, I inserted my brother’s data-storage device into its slot and hastily plugged in a pair of headphones as well when Derek’s face filled the laptop’s screen. “I don’t have much time,” my brother whispered, the view jiggling erratically as he speed walked down a corridor while filming himself on his cell phone. The younger male was entering the bay of PO boxes where I’d found this thumb drive, I realized. Meanwhile, the time stamp at the bottom of the screen matched the date when my brother’s social media accounts had gone so abruptly dark. Perhaps I was about to discover the clue that would lead me toward Derek’s current location?

Unfortunately, whatever had happened all those weeks ago must not have been good. Because my brother was obviously scared at the time of filming, sweat beading on his forehead as he glanced back over one shoulder rather than looking directly into the camera. “They’ll be here any minute,” Derek continued, voice muffled by the angle of his head. “I just hope I have time to drop off the key where you can find it so this whole thing doesn’t turn into a complete waste of time.”

I clenched my fists in frustration. Even in his desperation, my brother remained unbelievably vague. Who would be there at any minute? And had this video been intended for me or for someone else within his intensely private life? The truth was, Derek had never even let slip the name of a single friend, so I had no idea who else he might be addressing.

My questions remained unanswered, but my brother did drop a few additional hints. “If you’re watching this,” he said, “then I’ve probably disappeared off the face of the Lupanet. In which case, just watching this video might put you at risk. If you’re connected to the internet right now, disconnect, copy the contents of this thumb drive someplace safe, then destroy both the computer and thumb drive. Right now. I mean it.”

“Paranoid much?” I countered even as I hastened to obey Derek’s instructions. Well, not the destroying part. I wasn’t going to ruin my mate’s hardware without his permission. And even though Derek had gone missing, I didn’t quite believe the mere act of plugging a thumb drive into a laptop put me and Sebastien at risk.

Still, I transferred files onto my phone’s SD card as the video continued to roll. Derek had entered the chamber of PO boxes by that point, his fingers fumbling with a key in the near darkness. “Don’t follow me without backup,” the male whispered, glancing over his shoulder as the barest echo of a slamming door carried through my tinny speakers. My brother swore, hesitated, then spoke directly into the camera once again.

“Sebastien Carter is a good egg. If you need help, go to him.”

Then the screen went dark. No indication of what Derek planned to do or where he intended to go. No data on whether he’d been snatched up or had made good on his escape and disappeared back into the anonymity of the city proper.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. I’d discovered the key to the PO box miles from my present location in a national forest where werewolves frequently hunted. Which meant my brother had made it off the college campus unscathed during the night in question…although who knew what had happened thereafter.

Transfer complete, the computer reported, breaking into my increasingly circular thoughts. I double-clicked on a few files, found strings of numbers and letters that my tired brain refused to comprehend. It was definitely time to call it a night.

Still, Derek had been single-mindedly intent upon his paranoia. So after sliding the SD card back into my phone, I carried the thumb drive into the bathroom and dropped it into a mouthwash bottle to deteriorate. Then I powered Sebastien’s computer all the way down, the room around me growing dark and still in an instant.

Finally, I sank back onto my mate’s bed, the day’s events crashing over me in a wave of exhaustion. I was alone with my wolf, my thoughts, and a hole in my belly that reminded me I was no longer part of any pack. What kind of werewolf hunted entirely alone?

Read chapter 3 here. Or dive right into the entire book here.

Ready for a peek into Huntress Bound? As a reminder, you’ll enjoy this book much more if you read Huntress Born first. That caveat aside…let’s dive right in!

I stood in Sebastien’s foyer and assessed my current predicament.

Unwitting mate who had no idea I was a werewolf? Check.

Tenuous permission to hunt for my brother within another clan’s territory? Check.

Cupcake from my beloved father to be eaten when I found a safe harbor? Check.

Pants? Okay, so I’d lost that one small item somewhere along the way. But otherwise, I seemed to be all set.

With everything else accounted for, I gazed up into my mate’s molten chocolate eyes and acted more bold than I felt. “Do you think,” I asked a human who I’d only met a few days earlier, “I could spend the night on your sofa?”

Sebastien’s scent gradually shifted as he looked me up and down, gladness at my unexpected arrival giving way to the first inkling of doubt as reality stretched out between us. And I had to admit that he had grounds for misgivings. After all, it was roughly one o’clock in the morning and I’d spent the last hour running through the city in lupine form. So in addition to those missing trousers, my feet were filthy, my hair was tangled, and I looked very much like my inner beast felt—exhilarated, tired, and very much wild.

I’d apparently chosen well, though, when I bound myself to this particular human in a fit of intense desperation earlier in the evening. Because the professor merely nodded and showed me inside, nuking a mug of water plus tea bag in the microwave before joining me on the sofa. Being cared for felt really good…so I squashed my inner chef’s urge to cringe at the irregular brewing method and instead settled in to enjoy the experience.

And, once again, Sebastien proved himself far more insightful than I’d expected. “Tea is healthier when you make it this way,” my companion explained professorially as he handed over the vessel. “More theanine and polyphenol. Try it.”

Obediently, I lifted the mug while struggling against my wolf’s impulse to scoot closer to our host so our skin might touch. The liquid was hot and aromatic, and my inner beast quieted as we discovered that our mate was right. The brew was tasty. Perhaps science won out over tradition after all…at least in this one specific case.

Unfortunately, Sebastien’s methodical mind wasn’t willing to let my unconventional appearance slide by without further comment. “Are you in trouble?” he asked when the silence between us had lengthened considerably. And even though the topic wasn’t one I’d hoped to broach tonight, the gravelly rumble of my companion’s voice was enough to make my inner wolf whimper with delight.

On the other hand, my human self was the one carrying on our end of this particular conversation, and I had no answer to the questions that were surely running through Sebastien’s mind as quickly as possible answers were streaming through mine. Should I explain away my pants-less arrival by saying I’d fallen out of a moving car and torn my clothing on the pavement? Been vomited upon by a drunken party-goer before tossing the sullied fabric? Lost my clothes in an ill-fated poker match? Was there any semi-believable explanation at all other than the fully implausible truth?

“Should I call the police?” Sebastien continued when I failed to so much as nod or shake my head in reply to his earlier question. “If somebody hurt you….”

And there was that wolf-like possessiveness I knew and loved. My mouth quirked up on one side as Sebastien’s aroma shifted yet again, this time turning steely and dangerous in response to thoughts about an imaginary tormentor.

No, Sebastien hadn’t chosen me as his mate when given the chance. Didn’t, in fact, possess a single clue about what a werewolf mate bond consisted of or that he’d become entangled in one against his will. But my companion did worry that I’d been harmed, and that concern soothed my lupine soul.

So I hastened to return the favor. “Nobody hurt me. I promise,” I answered, trying to figure out what else I could tell Sebastien without risking either of our skins. After all, despite being my not-quite-mate, the professor was still a human who wasn’t allowed to learn about shifter-kind under penalty of death. That particular sword of Damocles definitely put a damper on what I was willing and able to share.

I must have hesitated a bit too long. Because before I could come up with any answer at all, Sebastien cut me off. He sighed, pursed his lips, then let me off the hook. “You can’t tell me. I understand.”

He didn’t understand, though. Not really. Our mate bond wasn’t yet fully functional, but proximity still granted me a window into my companion’s thought processes. Via our half-formed tether, I could tell that the professor was confused, puzzled, disappointed…and that he also halfway believed he’d opened up his home to a mafia member whose family would invade with guns blazing before the night was out.

The mere notion startled words from my lips that I wished I could take back as soon as they’d been uttered. “I’m not a gangster,” I told him…only to realize a second too late that an ordinary human wouldn’t have been granted that trickle of insight into her companion’s thoughts.

In an effort to cover my butt, I segued straight into the first semi-believable lie that came to mind. “I wasn’t paying attention earlier, and I got stuck in an auto-locking door,” I started, warming to my tale as it spun out around me. “I would have told you when you first asked, but the result was just plain embarrassing. The door snagged on my pants as I was going out the back of a bar downtown, and I couldn’t figure out how to tear the fabric loose or get anyone’s attention. That place was so loud—it was crazy. So I wriggled my way out of my trousers and came here rather than walking bare-butted through the fray. Really, there’s no reason to call the police. I’m not hurt. I just need a place to stay for the night.”

I paused, then added, “And maybe the loan of a pair of pants.”

For half a second, I thought my mate had bought into my lie. After all, the tale didn’t involve supernatural beings or invisible bonds—surely it was more convincing than the truth?

But then Sebastien shook his head, chocolate eyes hardening into sharp-edged flint. “You can spend the night and borrow some pants,” he offered. “But please don’t lie to me again.”

Read chapter 2 here. Or click here to get your own copy of Huntress Bound.

(Did you miss the first scenes? Click here to start at the beginning.)

My initial impulse was to take off in search of my erstwhile companion, but the oncoming vehicle had already purred to a halt before I could make my move. And as I stood eying the expanse of sleek, shiny metal, a tinted window rolled down to reveal a man twice as beautiful as the hunk of steel that surrounded him.

“You called an Uber?” the driver asked, sable hair floating down to partially obscure equally dark and mysterious eyes. Despite myself, I leaned in closer to harvest a sniff. Soap, smarts, confidence. The scent was intoxicating.

The driver was human, though, which in this era of extreme shifter secrecy meant he was also entirely off limits. Forcing my head away from the open window, I bit my lip and squashed the hum of lupine interest threatening to rise up through my human throat. Never mind the rules—there was no point in considering a relationship with a one-body when I had no intention of mating outside my pack.

My wolf whimpered within my stomach, chastened by the reminder. But it was the muffled shriek—just distant enough to be indiscernible to a normal human—that pulled me back to the present with a jolt. “I forgot something down there,” I said hurriedly before twisting my arm to gesture awkwardly at the suitcase by my feet. “Help yourself to a cupcake,” I added, “and I’ll be right back.”

Hoping the treat would keep my driver occupied while he waited, I took off at a run just barely slow enough to appear human. Then even that pretense fell away as shadows settled around my furless skin and shielded me from view. I’d made one mistake already in letting the stranger off scot-free. I had no intention of allowing him to harm a human on my watch.

Still, even as I raced down the dark alley intent upon rescue, my mind was attempting to assemble a puzzle whose pieces didn’t quite add up. I was new to this city and unfamiliar with local customs, but it made no sense for a shifter to be attacking females willy-nilly. After all, the Greenbriar alpha would be acting under the same mandate that guided Dad’s governance—the imperative to keep the peace within his pack while also ensuring werewolves remained hidden from prying human eyes. Moral implications aside, Chief Greenbriar would have to be an idiot to allow underlings to draw attention to themselves by breaking one-body laws.

Shivering despite the warmth of the night, I allowed my wolf to rise up and join me within our human skin at last. She wasn’t concerned about the inconsistencies presented by this city’s rotten underbelly. Instead, her attention latched onto the renegade werewolf who’d cornered a human woman in the shadowy enclave between a metal dumpster and an unyielding brick wall.

Despite the darkness, my shifter senses made the scene all too clear. And I winced as I realized the attacker had taken yet another step into the unthinkable during the moments he’d spent alone. Because he wasn’t a wolf now. Instead, the male was two-legged and naked, presumably having transformed right in front of the young woman he was currently attempting to maul.

Unsavory repercussions flew in front of my mind’s eye in one jumbled heap. There was no wiggle room in this particular law. No way to save a human who had been privy to a shifter’s transition from wolf to man. Instead, if this woman had been able to discern her attacker’s shift despite the darkness…well then, she’d have to be killed for the sake of werewolves everywhere.

I’d just have to hope the woman’s eyesight wasn’t up to the task.

The victim didn’t need night vision, though, to be terrified. Not when her attacker had ripped open the front of her blouse, his other hand fumbling with the buttons of her jeans. “You’re fertile,” the male murmured, his words more wolf than human. “Ripe, round, ready.”

And despite my former intentions not to make waves, I abruptly saw red. This wasn’t the way werewolves acted. Forget the mandate not to show ourselves in public, this was uncivilized.

Uncle Hunter would have punched out the attacker’s lights. Dad would have shifted into lupine form and torn into this stranger with tooth and claw. Right now, either option seemed like a good one to me.

But stumbling footsteps in the alley behind my back marked the approach of my Uber driver, his advance slow but steady. Darn his cute face, the guy was too chivalrous to allow me to be assaulted in a dark alley on his watch.

Which meant, unfortunately, I didn’t have the wiggle room to assault anyone in a dark alley either.

So, instead, I readied the talent I’d rejected earlier as akin to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. This time around, I figured the bug in question deserved to be squished. “Go home,” I ordered, my voice too quiet for either human to hear.

The stranger, though, not only heard but felt. Predictably, he jerked like a puppet whose stage manager had pulled the strings and bade him to dance. But the shifter didn’t flee immediately. Instead, the bastard tried to fight against my overt command, swiveling around to glare at me over one naked shoulder as he fought against the compulsion to obey.

Then the Uber driver was in the alley behind us. His flashlight shone across the wall and dumpster before glinting against the woman’s eyes…and that was all the illumination the latter needed to raise the canister of Mace she’d been clutching in one white-knuckled grip and spray it directly into her attacker’s face.

My shifter dominance would have done the trick eventually…but I have to admit the effects of pepper spray were far more satisfying. Because the attempted rapist yowled as if his victim had stuck a knife through his groin. Then he was running down the alley in the opposite direction, air humming with electricity as he shifted into lupine form just out of sight.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I crossed my fingers and hoped the two humans didn’t realize they’d just sighted the impossible—a person able to transform into the body of a wolf at will. Because if they put two and two together, the law said I had to put them down.

I definitely didn’t have enough cupcakes on hand to deal with that sort of catastrophe.

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(Did you miss the first scenes? Click here to start at the beginning.)

When the stranger emerged from the shadows at last, an inexperienced human would have found him inconsequential. His lupine belly nearly scraped the pavement and each step was placed more cautiously than the last, producing the impression of an abused and tentative stray dog.

But, to a shifter, the threat was obvious. This wolf wasn’t skittishly searching for a handout. He was exercising the careful moderation of a practiced hunter. And, as the only living being within eye shot, I was definitely the one who’d been earmarked as prey.

Opening my mouth, I rolled a great gulp of air across my taste buds in an effort to analyze the stranger’s threat level. He wasn’t particularly dominant—I could smell that much from a distance. But despite his lack of alpha oomph, the male was crouched in readiness to spring while his teeth were plenty long enough to take down an average human.

Luckily, I was neither average nor human.

“I’m Ember Wilder-Young,” I said loudly, taking one long step forward as the stranger paused at the edge of the slim circle of illumination provided by the streetlight above my head. A werewolf shouldn’t have needed excessive volume to pick out words across the distance that separated us. But I opted to raise my voice anyway, mimicking the firm yet gentle dominance my father had embodied for my entire life. “I’ve got a ride coming and your alpha’s expecting me. So there’s no need to wait around. I’m good.”

I seemed to be telling everyone that I was good today…and no one was willing to take my assertion at face value either. Like Wolfie, this shifter snorted out a huff of air that called my sanity into question. But then he lifted his muzzle and inhaled deeply through his moist, black nose.

I could see the moment the stranger caught my scent. The breeze, such as it was, had been blowing in the opposite direction from the beginning or this wolf would have gathered all salient details before even stepping out of the shadows. Now he froze, head cocked to one side as he tried to figure out how a woman like me came to be in a place like this.

“You smell like rich, irresistible chocolate to any red-blooded shifter male,” one of my cousins had told me the day before. “You’re nuts to leave pack lands unprotected.”

Other family members had chimed in with similar admonitions, trying to keep me at home where I was safe. But I had reasons to be here and I definitely wasn’t going to let the first starry-eyed shifter with more libido than sense send me scurrying back to Haven with my tail between my legs.

So I stood my ground as the wolf drifted closer, his eyes gleaming and the first hint of slobber trailing across pink gums. Yuck. Apparently even the mention of an absent alpha wasn’t enough to get me off the hook this time around. Time to come up with a plan B.

Let me, my wolf murmured underneath my skin. She wanted to speak with my tongue, to order the less dominant wolf to stand down. The compulsion would have worked, too…and yet I hesitated, shifting nervously from foot to foot rather than reaching for our most obvious line of defense.

Because I’d learned the hard way that bending a weaker wolf around my little finger with a simple verbal command wasn’t as painless as it appeared from the dominant side. Instead, being controlled by a stronger shifter was akin to listening to nails scrape across a blackboard while watching someone vomit out great big gobs of stinky stomach contents…all while dangling upside down over a deep abyss that ended in a trough of voracious alligators. There was no long-term damage associated with the compulsion, but the ordeal itself was certainly unpleasant in the moment.

So, yes, I could bark this growling shifter into line…but should I? What if my initial impression had been wrong and the male wasn’t busy stalking women who’d made the unfortunate mistake of walking alone at night? What if I was merely on edge from my recent trip and this male intended to remind me not to traipse through someone else’s territory without permission?

When in doubt, don’t, I decided, opting against forcing my opponent to back down the easy way. Instead, I stood a little taller and gazed directly into the wolf’s greenish eyes. “You really don’t want to mess with me,” I promised too quietly for a human to hear.

Then, relaxing my hold over my own inner beast, I allowed the stranger to see a hint of the animal hidden beneath my human skin.

She might have been smaller than my opponent’s animal, but my wolf was no lightweight. Instead, she was twice as dominant as our aggressor, twice as able to stand up for herself in either a physical or verbal battle. As intimidation tactics went, showing a glimpse of her behind my eyes was akin to a war-like nation threatening to drop an atomic bomb.

And, sure enough, plan C worked like a charm. Drool dried up in an instant as the shifter swiveled without a sound. Then he was heading back into the shadows from which he’d come, not a single yip of protest reaching my ears.

There was nothing like a stronger force to make a budding bully back down.

“And my Uber’s almost here too,” I noted, glancing down at my phone. I’ll admit my voice was a little smug as I watched headlights flicker across the wall behind me. Already, I was thinking three steps in advance, counting my remaining cupcakes as I imagined doling them out to each person I’d need to charm before I could lay my head on a pillow and drift into rejuvenating sleep.

One for the Uber driver, one for the Greenbriar pack leader, one for my eventual host. Luckily, I had precisely three cupcakes left…not counting my own treat smashed between clean undies and a work blouse, that is. Perfect.

Which is when I picked up a sound from the direction in which the wolf had fled. A wolf’s growl. A woman’s gasp.

Meanwhile, the air around me filled with the sharp scent of overwhelming fear. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given that wolf so much benefit of the doubt after all….

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***

I stepped off the bus into a darkened city full of human muggers, territorial werewolves, and countless other scoundrels. But I was prepared. I’d brought cupcakes.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t yet time to eat those cupcakes. Instead, I keyed an Uber request into my phone with one hand while dragging my rolling suitcase clear of the massive wheels with the other. Then I froze as my inner animal abruptly straightened onto full alert.

Wolf. The hint of fur, musk, and testosterone warred for pride of place with urban odors, and I found myself turning in a tight circle in search of the source of the barely present aroma. If my inner beast wasn’t mistaken—and she rarely was—then this wasn’t merely a shifter in human form sliding seamlessly through the city streets the way I hoped to do. No, a fur-form werewolf was nearby, running four-legged in a space where only two-leggers belonged.

Hairs lengthened on the backs of my arms as my inner beast responded to danger by requesting ownership of our shared body. We were female, far from our pack, and boasted no recourse save our own lupine fangs. It was time to pull out those ivory weapons and show this stranger how capable we were of fighting back.

But instead of obliging my animal’s request, I merely stalked to the edge of the lighted circle that marked the bus drop-off zone. Then, drawing extra sensory assistance from my inner wolf, we peered together into the asphalt shadows.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Even in human form, it was easy to pick out the staccato beat of a leaky faucet inside the closed Greyhound station behind our back. Grumbling cars rolled past one block over while human laughter emanated from what smelled like a bar further down the street. But nothing pointed to danger more severe than tired businessmen enjoying a night out on the town. Nothing suggested that my initial impulse—the urge to track down a wolf who possessed the scent signature of a stalker—was anything more than inexperienced-traveler jitters.

This is unknown territory, I reminded myself. Maybe smelling a wolf here is no big deal.

After all, there were several hundred times as many people per square mile in this city compared to the rural enclave where I’d grown up. Presumably, there were several hundred times as many werewolves too.

Still, given the legal imperative against displaying our animal skins to the one-body world, surely it made no sense for a werewolf to be wandering these city streets on four furry feet. No sense…unless the shifter in question was hunting a very specific sort of prey.

Prey like me.

Back home, I would have responded to imminent danger by shifting and running for higher ground. In the process, I’d tug at the pack bond that sat invisible yet ever-present at my fingertips then would laugh with exhilaration as dozens of uncles and aunts and cousins came sprinting up to join me. Together, we’d been known to roust troublesome werewolves away from our borders in less time than it took to whip up a batch of buttercream frosting.

Here though, I was deep in the heart of Greenbriar territory, an invader rather than a defender…from a legal standpoint at least. I had no permission to be present. No permission to walk these streets in search of the brother I’d never before met and who I only hoped was still alive. As such, the smart response would have been to keep my head down and to stay out of trouble. I couldn’t go haring off after a total stranger based on nothing more than a whim combined with a trick of the light.

Chase him. Find him, my inner beast countered. She urged me to blow off human worries and slip into the skin of our wolf. To follow our instincts and run. Now, she added impatiently.

But before we could duke out our disagreement, the distinctive odor of wolf began receding into the distance. Within seconds, the hint of fur had faded to nothing, hidden beneath the overwhelming aromas of rotting garbage and over-applied perfume.

Perhaps the danger had never been present in the first place other than in my own over-tired brain.

And as the scent trail dissipated, I was once again left alone in a strange city with only a few possessions at my disposal. A suitcase, four cupcakes, and a phone that promised connection to my beloved pack mates. The combination would have to be enough.

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