Her expression turned wary, fear alive in those no longer calm, gray eyes. “And what is that?”
He met her gaze, his mouth twisting in a semblance of a smile. “Xavier.”
Natalie swayed, her heart suddenly in her throat.
“Where is he? What have you done to him?” She’d started to trust this man, this . . . werewolf. Was he nothing but a kidnapper? A murderer? “The week I lost, was I your prisoner, too?”
“We didn’t hurt you. We let you go.”
“But not Xavier.”
“We couldn’t take his memories of all he’d seen. We can only take memories through the eyes.”
She stared at him, the sudden feeling washing over her that they’d had this discussion before. “And his don’t work.”
“He’s fine, Natalie. He’s safe. And he’ll be glad to see you.”
Safe. How could he possibly be safe? Her pulse raced, her muscles tensing with the need to run. With him injured, she might be able to get away. But what if he was telling the truth? What if he really could take her to Xavier?
She pressed a trembling palm to her pounding head and met the werewolf’s gaze. The warm light of kindness emanating from his dark eyes slowly burned through her own haze of fear, reminding her why she’d been drawn to the animal in the first place. Despite every logical thing to the contrary, her instincts told her she could trust him. He wouldn’t hurt her.
And she would risk being wrong, risk anything, to reach Xavier.
“Okay.”
He watched her for a moment more, then nodded and turned. “We’ll leave through the front door and circle to the back. I don’t want you having to see . . .”
“The bodies.”
“Yes.”
She grabbed the lantern. “Why the backyard?”
“My truck is on the other side of the woods.”
The wolf always came to her through the woods. He drove a truck? Of course he did.
The man opened the door. “Pack a bag. Quickly. Essentials only, and just for a few days.”
A bag. With a shake of her head, she focused on that, just that, and slipped past him to run to her bedroom. “Does Xavier need anything?” she called as she grabbed the small, hard-sided, yellow suitcase out of her closet.
“Not that I know of.” She turned to find him standing in her doorway, watching her. “We’d have gotten him anything he asked for. Pink makes the shopping lists, and he’s become her best friend. Fuck.”
The man exploded into sparkling lights, and suddenly the wolf was back.
Pardon my language.
At the sound of his voice in her head, she met his wolf’s gaze and saw the man’s intelligence and personality in the wolf’s eyes. Chills ran down her arms, making the hair rise. He was speaking to her. Telepathically.
The draden are back, and I have to stay in my wolf. I’ll explain that later. Pack, Natalie. And change your shirt.
With a shake to clear her head, she glanced down to find her clothes and arms streaked with blood. For a moment, she just stared. Then, taking a shaky breath, she pulled herself together again. They needed to get out of here quickly, before more of those soldiers came. The thought spurred her to move. Grabbing a clean tee, she ran into the bathroom to change and grab a few toiletries, then packed quickly.
Feral House is full of women, these days, the wolf said as she added the last items. Most of my brothers are married. If you forget anything, you can borrow it.
Married werewolves. Her head was going to explode. “How many of you are there?”
One wolf shifter. More than a dozen other Ferals . . . shifters . . . each of whom shifts into a different animal. I’ll explain more later.
So not werewolves. Not exactly.
She zipped the suitcase, then grabbed the flashlight off the bottom shelf of her nightstand, deciding the lower light would attract less attention. Turning to the wolf, the shape-shifter, she said, “I’m ready.”
He rose and trotted to the stairs.
“I’m going to need my purse. It’s on the desk in the kitchen.” She really wanted her laptop, too, but she was afraid the rain would destroy it.
I’ll get the purse and your phone. Grab a raincoat. It’s pouring.
The wolf ran down the stairs ahead of her as the wind and rain blew in through the open front door. By the time Natalie snatched her raincoat out of the coat closet and pulled it on, her pants were already damp. As she turned her back to the buffeting wind to zip up the raincoat, she made the mistake of glancing toward the family room just as another bolt of lightning illuminated the house. Bodies . . . body parts . . . lay everywhere, blood streaking the walls and soaking the carpeting. The sight burned her eyes and made the bile rise in her throat. Swallowing it back down, she spun away.
Her house was ruined. Her life was in shambles. But Xavier might still be alive. The thought raced through her like a live wire, filling her with hope and excitement, strengthening her against all she’d lost. Because if she could really see him again, if she truly found him safe and well, none of this mattered. None of it.
Straightening, she pulled up her hood and waited. A moment later, the wolf returned with her purse dangling from his mouth. She took it from him, slung it over her shoulder, and braced herself against the wind as she stepped through the wreckage of the front door and into the driving rain. Without a backward glance, the wolf at her side, Natalie left everything she knew behind.
Chapter Five
As Natalie followed the massive gray wolf around the corner of her house, through her backyard, and into the woods, the wind buffeted her, dragging at the hood of her raincoat. She clung to her suitcase with one hand, her flashlight with the other.
Her hand shook as she struggled to assimilate all that had happened. How was any of this real?
“Do you have a name?” she asked the huge animal, desperate for any pretence of normalcy.
You already guessed it. I’m Wulfe, spelled W-U-L-F-E. All the Ferals, the shape-shifters, have taken the names of our animals. It’s tradition.
“You’re the only wolf.” Twigs snapped under her soles, the leaves torn free of the trees flying and swirling around her. The woods smelled of rain and damp fur this night.
Yes. The others include a tiger, hawk, lion, jaguar, cougar, panther, fox, snake, and falcon. There aren’t many of us anymore. Maybe as many as twenty-six, but that’s it. We’re Therians, a race that used to be all shape-shifters. Five thousand years ago, we were forced to mortgage most of our power to defeat and imprison Satanan and his Daemon horde. When the dust settled, one member each of only a fraction of the animal lines reclaimed the power of their animal and the ability to shift. They banded together and became known as the Feral Warriors, the defenders of the race and the protectors of the Daemon Blade, in which Satanan and his horde are imprisoned.
He described something from a movie or urban fantasy novel. If she hadn’t seen him shift with her own eyes, she’d never believe any of this. Now, she had no reason to doubt him. Still, despite his fantastical tale, she had more pressing worries.
“What’s going to happen when the police find the mess in my house, Wulfe? They’re going to think some of that blood was mine.” Her stomach cramped. “My mother’s going to think she’s lost me, now, too.”
Once we get a little deeper into the woods, I’ll use your phone to call for cleanup. We can ward the house against intrusion so that no one will see the damage until we have a chance to fix it. The bodies and blood will disintegrate on their own in a few days.
How could that be? How could any of this be?
The wind began to die down, the rain changing to a mere drizzle. Ahead, the wolf trotted, favoring one leg.“You need to see a doctor,” she said. “Or a vet.”
In her head, she heard him chuckle. We have a healer staying with us, now. She’ll be able to help me.
“Are you in pain?”
A little.
“Did those soldiers know you were a werewolf?”
I think so, yes.
She thought about that, felt relief at his words. “So they were after you.”
Yes. They may have been after both of us. I’m sorry.
Natalie frowned. “Why?”
It’s complicated.
“Isn’t everything? Did you . . . did shape-shifters . . . kill my friends?” There. She’d asked it.
His head whipped back, the flash of horror that lit his wolf’s eyes revealing the truth before the No exploded in her head.
They were killed by Daemons and Mage. He made a sound of frustration. I guess there’s no reason not to tell you the rest. The six of you were captured to be sacrifices. You, Xavier, and Christy were the only ones we were able to save.
“I thought you said the Daemons were imprisoned.”
They were. They still are, though the Mage managed to free three of them. We killed those three, but during that battle—a battle you witnessed—you were exposed to an energy that, for about a week, kept us from stealing your memories of the event. The Mage leader, Inir, is evil. Worse, Satanan is now controlling him. We’re trying our damnedest to stop Inir from freeing Satanan and his entire Daemon horde, but we’re struggling.
“I still don’t understand where I come into all this. What do they want with me?”
I’m not sure.
“Wulfe . . .”
That’s the truth, Natalie. All I know is that yesterday morning, when I came to check on you, you’d developed an odd glow.
He’d come to check on her . . . Wulfe. Not the wolflike dog, but Wulfe, the shape-shifter. Good grief. “What do you mean by ‘odd glow’?”
You’ve acquired a bright aura, an unnatural one.
“And you think the attack last night had something to do with that?”
I don’t know what else it could be.
“Xavier?”
Neither Christy nor Xavier is experiencing it, so far.
As Natalie made her way through the dark woods, the rain slowly eased to a drizzle. Exhaustion rolled over her as she tried to take in all that he’d told her, all that had happened. A little of the tension she’d been living with eased out of her shoulders as those lost days began to emerge, ever so slightly, from the fog. She’d been with Wulfe. And Xavier. Presumably safe. But there were still so many things she didn’t understand.
Emotion welled up as the adrenaline of the past hours slowly drained away, burning her eyes. Please let Xavier be at the end of this journey. Please, please, please let me see my little brother again.
A rain-soaked branch snapped dully beneath her shoe, and the scent of the night woods filled her senses as they walked in silence.
Wulfe stopped suddenly, his ears going rigidly alert, his hackles rising. Natalie, turn off your flashlight and give me your cell phone. Fast. With startled eyes, she watched as he exploded in a million sparkling lights, turning back into a man.
Dropping her suitcase, she flicked off her flashlight and shoved it into her pocket, then fished her cell phone out of her purse, swiped the screen, and punched in her security code. Wulfe’s dark form rose large before her as he reached for the phone and snatched it from her hand.
He tapped a number, lifted the phone to his ear, and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go. Quickly.”
She picked up her suitcase and together they hurried through the dark woods. Without a flashlight, she could see virtually nothing, but Wulfe’s tight grip kept her upright each time she stumbled.
“Natalie and I are in the woods behind her house,” he said into the phone. “We’ve got Mage sentinels on our tail. I’m guessing more than two dozen.” Disconnecting the call, he released her hand long enough for her to slide the phone back into her purse, then took it again.
“They’re on their way,” he assured her.
“Where are they?”
“Great Falls. Virginia side. Give me your suitcase.”
She handed it to him and his hand tightened on hers as they half walked, half ran.
“That’s an hour from here.”
“Not the way we travel. But our transport has to find us, and that could take time.”
Which made little sense. “Can you see where you’re going?”
“Well enough. My human night vision isn’t nearly as good as my wolf’s, but it’s better than yours.”
A dull thud reached her ears, vibrating up through the ground. Footfalls. A lot of them. Terror crawled slowly up her spine.
Suddenly, Wulfe made a low sound of pain. “Fuck. Sorry. Natalie, I’m going to have to shift. The draden . . . I can’t explain but I have to shift. Take your suitcase.”
He shoved her small case into her hand, then stepped away from her and in another spray of colored lights, again became the wolf.
“Wulfe, I can’t see,” she whispered. He was little more than a dark smudge against the nearby trees.
I’ll guide you.
The smudge moved to her side, his warm body pressing against hers. Natalie slid her hand into his fur, then followed as he started forward. But the ground was wet and uneven, small branches strewn about everywhere from the storm, and she could only move so fast.
Behind them, the footfalls grew louder.
Natalie, we need to run. Hold on to me and do the best you can.
Her pulse began to race because she knew they were in trouble. Dropping her suitcase and her purse, she bent over to grip Wulfe lightly around the neck, not wanting to add weight to his already wounded body.
“Be my eyes, Wulfe.”
She nearly lost her grip on him as he took off, but she managed to hold on and run alongside him, at a slow and awkward gait. Behind them, the pounding grew louder until Natalie’s spine crawled, and she kept imagining she felt the steel of a blade piercing the back of her neck.