His throat wasn’t right. His vision wasn’t right, and his priorities were shifting. The beast didn’t care if Mary was afraid, but the beast wasn’t going to let her leave, either.

“You’re…you’re a wolf,” she said.

Am I? he pondered, and then there was nothing.

Just the wolf.

Chapter 5

Mary crouched in a corner nook she’d created by pushing several wooden crates and some old dusty chairs together. She watched the big, shaggy, gray wolf pace nearby, either oblivious to her presence or simply having stopped caring that she was there. She suspected the latter.

At one point while Andreas had been sniffing around the remnants of their meal, she’d grabbed her tote and scurried back to her makeshift bunker.

She didn’t want to draw attention to herself until she knew what that animal was capable of. She hadn’t heard any recent news in town about wild animal attacks, but that could have simply meant the beast hadn’t had an opportunity. Or he had, and his hunting territory was too far away from town for anyone to have discovered the carnage yet.

She needed to make a call. There was a woman who knew about their magic and what their people had been like before they’d crossed the seas. She’d recently left Fallon, but she was the only person Mary could think of who could tell her what she was dealing with. She happened to be Oliver’s aunt. Contacting her was risky. Maggie would be suspicious of her intentions.

Also, contacting anyone with the wolf so close was likely risky for Mary’s health.

Andreas settled onto his belly and looked toward the windows, though seemingly at nothing in particular. She had no way of knowing how good his ears were, though—whether he had human hearing, or a true wolf’s, or something in between. Anyway she sliced the situation, though, he was going to be able to hear her.

But maybe he won’t understand.

She massaged the corner of her phone for a few moments, and then took a deep, bracing breath.

“I’ll risk it,” she whispered. She suspected that if Andreas had been in his human form, he wou

ldn’t have wanted her to make the call—not to the Afótama. They were enemies to Fallonites, after all.

While scrolling through the dozens of numbers in her phone’s contact list, she muttered, “Come on, come on, be in here.” Some numbers, she simply didn’t program in if she didn’t expect to use them often, but that number should have had a gold star.

“Ah,” she exclaimed quietly, finding a good number under the D listing. Sheldon Dent.

Holding her breath, she let the phone dial and put the cell to her ear.

The wolf got to his feet.

Her gut plummeted.

He stalked to the windows and jumped up onto a shelf for a better view.

Clutching her chest over her rapidly beating heart, she let out a relieved titter.

“Sheldon Dent,” came the lethargic response through her phone.

“Um,” she whispered, and licked her lips. “This is Mary Nissen.”

“Huh? Speak up, will ya?”

She cringed, and attempted a slightly louder volume. “I can’t speak loudly. I’m having a bit of a situation. This is Mary Nissen.”

Sheldon seemed to need a moment to make out the words, and while he did, she watched the wolf.

His focus was still on something out the window.

“Oh! Mary!” Sheldon exclaimed. “How are things goin’? You calling me from work?” He laughed. “Did you finally get fed up and decide you want to come work for me?”

She cringed. “Well, not exactly. I need a referral.”

Tags: Alyse Zaftig Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net