Shifting Shadows

So he vented by letting the unfortunate stranger feel the full weight of his wolf—driving him to his knees with the power he let roll out. He ignored Bran’s sigh and stalked out of the house without talking to anyone else.

Behind him he heard Bran say, “Eric. I thought we agreed that you would stay in the hotel until—”

•   •   •

The next evening he went out to his greenhouse and found a very sad-looking wolf. She was panting with the effort of trying to change. He went back to the house, brought her a plate of raw steak, and sat beside her while she ate. When she’d finished the plate, he pulled her into her change. She wouldn’t talk to him on the way home.

“It’ll happen,” he said.

“Don’t pat me on the head,” she snapped. “You don’t know anything!”

“Don’t,” he said softly.

Jaw jutting out, she turned her head away from him, while he fought his wolf hard enough to break into a sweat.

“You can’t challenge me like that,” he told her when he’d won his battle. “You are a wolf—not just a teenager. Bran won’t allow it, either.”

She hunched her shoulders, so he thought that Bran hadn’t allowed it.

“But my control isn’t as good as his. Look.” He held out a hand so she could see that it shook. “My wolf is unhappy with you, and he’ll enforce his dominance any way that he needs to. He’ll hurt you if you try that again. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I don’t want to be a werewolf,” she muttered, the scent of her fear filling the truck. She wiped her cheek with her hand. He couldn’t comfort her because his wolf was still angry.

He gave her a bitter smile she didn’t see because she wasn’t looking at him. “Neither do I.”

•   •   •

She didn’t come the next night. Asil waited as long as he dared, then called Bran.

“She’s here,” Bran said. “I helped her change, and it was harder than the last time I did it.”

He didn’t ask, but Asil told him anyway. “I scared her. She snapped at me, and my wolf was unhappy.”

“She’s dominant,” Bran said. “Too dominant for old wolves like us to be able to let things slide. I’ll talk to her.”

“No,” Asil told him. “She needs to be afraid. If she goes on First Hunt, it might make her safer if she is afraid.” Too much fear might cause the new wolves to hunt her, but not enough fear and she’d put herself in harm’s way. She needed not to go on First Hunt. But that was not why he had scared her. “She is safer if she is afraid of me. I almost hurt her, Bran.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.” It had been too close. And all she had done was show a little disrespect.

“She is safe with you, Asil.”

He laughed. “No one is safe with me. No one.” He hung up the phone—something, he told his wolf fiercely, that was much more disrespectful than Kara had been yesterday.

•   •   •

It snowed that night, dumping six inches before morning. Asil waited until it stopped around noon to go out and shovel it. He heard the howls of hunting wolves and frowned. All of the people in Aspen Creek—not that there were many of them—knew about the werewolves. But to hunt like that was still taking too many chances. Besides, he frowned, werewolves were not hounds, they did not need to make noise when they hunted.

And then he heard her; wolf or human, he knew her voice. Kara yipped, a high-pitched, terrified sound. Those bastards weren’t hunting deer. He dropped the shovel and ran, wishing he was on four paws, wishing his human body was faster, wishing the snow had not fallen so deeply. He howled, the cry sounding odd coming from his human throat, but it would carry, telling Kara he was on his way.

Who would dare? he thought with shock that slowed him not in the least. Who would dare hunt one of the Marrok’s pack in his own territory? Idiots, he decided grimly. It wasn’t an accident that Charles was feared as much as he was. That other werewolves thought of the Marrok as some magical wolf far removed from them—because it wasn’t in a werewolf’s nature to tamely bow to authority just because it was presented to them. Most especially it wasn’t in an Alpha werewolf’s nature. And sometimes Bran’s chosen means of presenting himself as a quiet, thoughtful, and intelligent leader became something of a liability.

Every few years, when the idiots had forgotten too much, or new idiots were born—the Marrok had to remind them why they obeyed him and not the other way around. Usually, Bran was sharp enough to make sure that the idiots didn’t hurt anyone but themselves along the way.

Asil’s body knew these woods, he’d spent nearly fifteen years here, and his feet knew every rock and hole within miles of his house. He was pretty sure he knew where the howls had been coming from. If Kara was leading them here, she’d take the most direct path—and after a week and more of coming to his greenhouse every day, she should know the most direct path.

The idiots were still making noise, so either they hadn’t caught her yet, or they were playing with her. Asil jumped a creek bed hidden under the snow and a thin sheet of ice and, with the trail flat and straight before him, stretched out and ran. He thought he’d hit top speed when Kara yipped in pain. He found another gear and moved faster.

They were loud, which was foolish and arrogant in these woods. Arrogance was a fine trait—but not when combined with stupidity.

Even as his wolf raged that one in his care had been hurt, his human brain was picking at the motivation. Everyone knew whose woods these were. Everyone knew that wolves who did not belong to the Marrok’s pack were not allowed to hunt here unless they were invited. Everyone here would know about Kara—she was unique, a child Changed who survived when no child survived a werewolf attack. Everyone knew she belonged to the Marrok, even though they did not know that she belonged to Asil—the Moor.

For fifteen years, Asil had tuned out gossip that came by him. He was no longer an Alpha, he had come here to die—what did he care about other werewolves?

There was a narrow gully up ahead, where prey could be trapped. From the sounds of it, that’s where his prey was. He quit worrying about why and began thinking about what he planned to do. He left the trail and ran up the side of the mountain so he could come at the gully from the side.