Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter (32 page)

I sat at my desk to tackle the workload that was building. My sister was making plans for future events, but we had to clear the backlog from this one first. Joshua and Ellis hung out in the back room, playing the Xbox that had been set up. While I liked gaming, I was occupied with other things—Ramsey’s house.
My
house. I spent the morning browsing the internet and looking for appliances that would match my new floor. In between work, of course. Other than the constant presence of Russells, things settled back to a normal pace.

I should have guessed that it wouldn’t last. The door to the agency opened early that afternoon, and I glanced up.

And sucked in a breath. The woman who came in had a hunted look on her face that I recognized all too well. She glanced around the small office as if frightened, hugging her arms to her chest, her shoulders hunched.

I looked over at my sister, but Bath was on the phone, soothing a high-maintenance client. Her shoulder cradled the phone against her ear as she typed, attention focused on her computer monitor.

I stood and invited the woman to sit down in front of me. The scent that touched my nostrils told me she was were-otter. “Good afternoon,” I said brightly. “Can I help you?”

“I . . . I think I want to cancel my account.”

“All right. I can help you with that. Your Alliance ID number?”

She gave it to me, and I pulled up her profile. Amanda Michigo. Twenty-seven. Unattached. She’d been a client of the agency for six years. Odd. “Is there a problem?”

She leaned forward and rested her arms on my desk. “I think . . . I’d really just like to close it. I’m not going to be dating for a while.”

I stared at her arms. They were covered in faint bruises, most of them finger-shaped. Alarm raced through me. I recognized those sorts of bruises.

I glanced over at my sister, but she was still on the phone. I kept my voice low as I asked, “Did someone hurt you?”

Her nervousness seemed to double. She fidgeted in her chair and pulled her arms back, tucking them
close to her body. “Not as much as they could have,” she said in a small voice.

I felt sick to my stomach with rage. On a hunch, I pulled up her dating history.

Maynard Anderson—date—last night.

I wanted to bury my head in my hands and weep. His profile was active because I’d been so distracted with my own problems that I’d forgotten to go back in and deactivate it. This was my fault. I looked over at Amanda, and how twitchy she seemed. “I’ll cancel your account,” I said softly. “You could have done it online, though.”

“I know,” she said, and her voice trembled a little. “But someone . . . someone told me to come at this time. And give you a message.”

“Oh?” I could barely hear from the blood roaring in my ears. “Who? What did they say?”

She swallowed hard. “They said that . . . that they were tired of waiting for you. And that you’ll be coming to them, begging for them to take you.”

I stared at her.

Behind us, Bath put down her phone. Immediately it rang again and she picked it up with an exasperated sigh. “Midnight Liaisons.”

“Is Ramsey there with you, baby?” I heard Beau’s voice clearly from across the room.

My sister looked over at me with wide eyes. I sat frozen in my chair. My stomach threatened to lurch out of my mouth.

“No,” Bath said, her gaze on me. “Sara said he was meeting you.”

No, no.

Beau sighed. “He’s not answering his phone. I’ll try him again.”

I stood, my entire body trembling.

They said that they were tired of waiting for you. That you’re going to come to them, begging.

“Maybe he got stuck in traffic. Or had a flat.”

“I’m going to the gas station to fill up,”
he’d said.
“Want me to get you anything while I’m there? Stop by Starbucks?”

He’d never come back to deliver the coffee. I’d been so immersed in work that I’d completely forgotten. I turned toward the front door.

You’re going to come to them, begging.

They were tired of waiting for me. I had a mate in the way, and since I wasn’t coming around, they’d just get rid of the mate.

“Sara?” my sister said, her voice questioning. “You okay?”

My fists clenched, and I ran for the front door and slammed through it, hearing the clang of the decorative cowbell against the glass. My sneakers crunched on the gravel and I sprinted, dashing down the highway.

“Sara,” my sister yelled from the front door. “Where are you going?”

Anguish gutted me. I ran though my legs burned, the muscles twitching to shift. I raced out of the parking lot and down the street, past the Dollar Mart and ripping down the road, as fast as I could run, my mind picturing the gas station on the corner
of the intersection. I raced there and stopped, panting, breathing hard. A car rolled past and honked; I was blocking the pumps. I moved out of the way and lifted my nose, sniffing the air for the slightest hint of bear. The gasoline smell was overwhelming, and I wanted to scream in frustration.

I couldn’t smell him. Too much traffic had come through. I paced around each of the pumps furiously. If I had to put my nose to the damn concrete, I would.

There! A scent! I ran to the last pump, even though there was no car parked there. I ran my hands over the pump, looking for a scent of anything—a leftover, a hint.

A twisted piece of metal hanging out of the garbage caught my eye. I pulled it out and sucked in a breath—Ramsey’s license plate. The edges were clawed, as if someone very strong—and half-transformed—had yanked it off.

The garbage began to ring, and my eyes widened. Ignoring the bees buzzing around the trash, I reached my hand in and pulled out Ramsey’s phone.

I clicked to answer.

“Ramsey? Hey, man, you had me worried—,” Beau began.

“I just found his phone,” I said in a trembling voice, interrupting. “He’s not here.”

“Sara? Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” I said harshly. “They took him. They took him because they want me to find him.”

“Sara—”

The growl started low in my throat. “And I’m going to do it,” I said, my lips tightening.
Nobody
stood in the way of me and my mate.

“Let’s be calm about this,” Beau began, but I hung up and tossed the phone aside. I barely made it behind the gas station before I began to shift. Grim with determination, I encouraged the change to ripple over me, mentally leaned into it. I needed the aid of my wolf side.

And . . . the change came. Slowly but steadily, my muscles adjusting and tensing, bones flexing as if they’d been made of rubber. In a few minutes, I was down on all fours, and my body sank into the last of the changes with relative ease. It twinged and stung, but it wasn’t the earth-shattering pain it had been in the past.

The trick was simply to embrace it. Much like in my relationship with Ramsey, my own fear had gotten in the way of things.

I lifted my canine nose to the breeze. The scents were ten times stronger as a wolf, and I easily caught the scent of bear—and wolf. Werewolves in human form have a slightly differently tinged scent—much like a howl sounds different to wolf ears—and I could tell they’d been human when they’d grabbed him. All but one, that is.

I circled the parking lot, nose to the asphalt. A child cried for his mother at the sight of me, but I ignored them. Ramsey’s scent disappeared on the asphalt—they’d driven away with him. I wanted to cry out in grief at the thought. Ramsey would
have never let them drive away with him while conscious—he would have fought to the death. And he could have taken them, too—so something must have happened. The scent of the wolf continued back behind the gas station, and I circled the scent trail for a minute, puzzled.

Then I realized—they were trying to lead me somewhere. Of course. This was all part of the elaborate, sneaky trap they were laying for me. The scent went across the next parking lot as well, and then down the street. I crossed the street and slunk through a suburban neighborhood before crossing into a field. The wolf’s trail—Wyatt, I could tell by the smell—continued on forward, so I followed it. They were leading me northwest, out of the city and into the sticks.

On my wolf feet I was able to travel fast. The trail cut through yards and over structures, and at some points it circled around buildings. I knew it was designed to lead a canine nose. As a human, I’d have been able to follow the trail, but not as clearly and as quickly.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, I was deep into private property and out of the city. My skin twitched with the need to change back, but I ignored it. The trail grew heavy with the scent of wolves, the scent older and foul. I was close.

Deep in the woods, thick in the brambles and weeds that overgrew the land, I found an old ranch-style house. It was surrounded by a tumbledown barbed-wire fence, and I approached, the scent of
wolves in my nose. The house had been abandoned long ago. The wooden shingled walls needed a coat of paint, and every window seemed to be broken. There was a large porch up front, and several wolves lay there, lolling in the shade. Their ears pricked at the sight of me and one raised his head. I’d found the Anderson hangout.

This was where they had taken Savannah. This was where Ramsey would be.

Wary, I paced in the front. One of the wolves slunk into the house as the others regarded me, waiting. One wolf lay his head back down on the porch, and his mouth curved into the canine version of a smile.

That made me furious. I lowered my head and began to make the difficult shift back to my human form. They wanted to play games? I wouldn’t play by their rules. I crouched low, my back arching as I shifted. Now all the wolves on the porch watched me. I didn’t care. I
had
this. Fury or determination made the shift surprisingly easy to manage. Within a minute or two, my human form crouched on the ground instead of my wolf form, and I brushed my sweaty hair out of my eyes.

The others hadn’t changed—maybe they spent more time in their wolf form than human? I knew the Russells didn’t. Then again, the Russells were sane. I couldn’t say the same about the Andersons.

A high-pitched whine cut through the air, then someone appeared in the doorway. Gracie, still wearing one of her too-short-too-tight sundresses,
her feet bare. Her curly hair was pulled over one shoulder and she smiled broadly at the sight of me. “Hey, girl. Was wondering when you’d show up.”

I stared at her, resisting the urge to bare my teeth and snarl at her. I didn’t understand her friendly words. We weren’t friends.

She approached me with a knowing smile, her hands on her hips. She had a towel thrown over her shoulder and she offered it so I could cover up.

I ignored her and stood, easing my stiff muscles. I was adapting. I didn’t need the wolves.

She pushed forward, trying to wrap the towel around me. “Here, girl—”

I pushed her aside with a snarl, baring my teeth. Surprised, Gracie took a step backward and then averted her eyes.

A surge of elation rushed through me. Her bossiness was a challenge, and I’d won it. She couldn’t deal with the confidence that anger had brought to me, and she was yielding. In the pack, I now outranked her until she challenged me again. She kept her eyes averted and took another step backward.

I resolved then and there that I wouldn’t yield to another wolf. They wanted to see me strong? They got it.

“I want to see Ramsey.”

“Why would your boyfriend be here?” someone asked, and I looked up to see Tony.

“Because you wanted me to come here,” I said calmly. “I’m here, and I want to talk to Levi.”

Tony looked me up and down with a leer, then
nodded his head. “Come in, then, if you’re so brave.”

I went. There was nothing else the wolves could do to me, after all. My jaw set, I stalked inside behind Tony.

There were a few other wolves lounging in the living room of the house. The place smelled like stale cigarettes, weed, and so many wolves that it was impossible to pick out any other scent.

Connor jumped up at the sight of me, immediately removing his shirt and offering it to me.

This was different than Gracie’s smug offer of a towel. As a male wolf, Connor couldn’t really compete with me, so I took the shirt and shrugged it on.

“Sara? What are you doing here?” His face went pale. “Is Savannah all right?”

I gave him a cold look. “I’m here for my mate.”

Sprawled on the couch nearby was Maynard. He gestured at his body and winked at me. “Here I am, baby doll.”

I ignored him, sniffing the air for Ramsey’s scent. The smell of wolves and weed was too thick to pinpoint anything else.

Tony moved past and slapped my ass, and I jumped in surprise, then glared at him. He was trying to unnerve me, make me doubt myself.

Connor shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would Ramsey be here?”

“Ask your cousins,” I said. Either Connor was playing stupid or he wasn’t being included in the games of the others. I didn’t know which one it was—Gracie turned on a dime, after all.

But Connor gave me an uneasy look and raced for the stairs.

“Now, boy,” I heard Maynard call after him, teasing. “We didn’t tell you ’cause you know how you get. Can’t have you fucking
all
the captives . . .”

My heart raced and I followed him as he stomped up the narrow stairs. “Uncle Levi? Levi! Where are you!”

He tried the first door, which led to an empty room. He tried the next door, and I tried the one opposite. The room I stared into was empty, filth and leaves scattered on the floor. This had obviously been a nesting ground for the wolves for years.

Across the hall, Connor groaned and disappeared into one of the rooms. Heart pounding, I followed him in . . . and gasped.

Ramsey lay on a filthy mattress on the floor. Dried blood crusted his nose, and a massive bruise shone at one of his temples. His feet were manacled together, the chain hooked to a support beam in the wall.

He didn’t stir as Connor stood over him, fists clenching. My heart slammed in my throat at the sight. Oh, Ramsey.