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One Year Ago
No one was in the shop. Kerry flicked through a magazine, mostly looking at the pictures of sparkling celebrities and dapper suits, and tried not to wallow in her boredom. Everything was set up exactly as it should be, and it wasn’t like the gallery normally had high traffic.
And none of her dad’s people had been through in a week.
Thank god.
Air ruffled her hair as someone walked in. He was a white man in his forties, wearing a nice suit with no tie, and he had a haircut that probably cost close to a grand. She’d learned to spot rich marks when she was a baby, and though this guy was rich, he was no mark.
He didn’t glance at the artwork on the wall, instead heading straight for her desk and pulling out a small business card and setting it on the table without a word.
He didn’t look like one of her dad’s clients. But numbers didn’t lie.
“Well?” the man prompted when she didn’t move fast enough.
Kerry was already in the process of standing, but was tempted to plunk her ass back down in the chair and make the man wait just a bit longer. She didn’t have much power, but she could always annoy the guy.
But annoying rich guys with thousand-dollar haircuts never worked out well.
“Come with me,” she said, palming the card and placing it into a locked drawer before leading the man towards the back of the gallery.
She could feel the eyes of one of the figures in a painting watching her as she led the man to the back. Watching and judging. And if Kerry were alone, she might tell the painting to mind its own business. But she didn’t want the guy to think she was crazy.
It got lonely sitting in the gallery by herself all day, though. And sometimes the paintings felt like friends.
She opened the closet in the back and pulled out the lone box that had been waiting for more than a week. That stupid box made her heart pound every time she heard a police siren outside. She didn’t know what was in it and she’d never ask.
But her gallery funding had to come from somewhere. And she certainly wasn’t selling enough paintings to afford Manhattan real estate.
A number scrawled in sharpie on a post-it note was the box’s only label. Kerry took the post-it, careful not to otherwise touch the box, and nodded down at it. “That’s what you came for.”
The man stared at her. “Well, bring it along.” He turned on a heel and started to walk away.
“I don’t touch the boxes.” Kerry kept her feet planted. “And y
ou’ll want to take this out the side door. No cameras.” There wasn’t an alley, of course. New York didn’t really have alleys. But the side street was less busy and they wouldn’t be observed.
The man stopped, turned back to her, and gave her a look. But he wasn’t the first man to give her a hard look, and Kerry could more than handle herself. She gestured to the box and nodded towards the door.
They stared at one another for several long seconds until the man finally scowled and stalked over, scooping up the box as if it weighed nothing. Kerry heard something rattle and hoped it wasn’t fragile.
“Can you touch the door?” the man asked, voice dripping with contempt.
Kerry pasted on her best customer service smile, the only thing she’d learned from her one week working fashion retail, and led him towards the side door. She pushed it open and kicked the small brick into place to hold it wide while the man walked through.
There was a small park on the other side of the street, one she’d once imagined sitting in and eating her lunches. But scary men carrying numbered business cards could come in at any hour, and she’d never managed to leave the shop for long. She gave the park a longing look and startled when she thought she saw something big moving through the trees.
A coyote? A deer? A dog? She tried to look closer, but her client stomped out behind her and she lost sight of the animal.
He set the box down and pulled out his phone, typing something for a moment before slipping it back in his pocket. “My driver is circling the block.”
She could leave him here, but something kept Kerry rooted in place. Her father wanted her to make sure the packages left the shop. And that meant ensuring the clients made it to their vehicles unscathed. Not that she could do much to stop a scathing, but that didn’t mean she was allowed to retreat.
She’d done this a hundred times or more before. Nothing bad ever happened. And this guy would be no different.
But for some reason her heart was beating fast, and she wanted to go b
ack inside. She had the strangest idea that once she was inside the store, she’d be safe. But the store was only marginally safer than the street. It wasn’t like she could lock the front door. She still had a business to run.
The man let out a huff of frustration and she could almost relate. He probably never had to wait or carry his own shit. But he couldn’t exactly control the stop lights his driver was sure to face.
There was a loud pop as a car backfired and Kerry jumped, eyes searching for the danger even as her brain tried to assure her all was well.
Tires screeched as two black cars met on the narrow street, and the man beside her cursed. One car rammed the other and Kerry’s eyes went wide.
“What the hell?” For a second, it didn’t occur to her that this was about the box. But the man was already running, box tucked under one arm as he raced to his car. A good Samaritan might call the cops to report the accident, but Kerry just wanted this day to end.
Then she heard another pop and realized it wasn’t a car backfiring. Someone had a gun.
Kerry backed up and tried to get inside, but something had jostled the brick that kept the door open, and it was locked from the inside. Her focus narrowed as she crouched down, making herself as small as possible, and tried to figure out what was going on.
The man in the suit had run for his car and was taking cover behind it. He’d opened the box and was holding something and rocking back and forth. The car that had hit his had both doors open with two men standing and shooting like they were in the middle of an action movie. The driver was returning fire.
No one paid any attention to Kerry and she wanted it to stay that way. But if she stayed in place, her chances of getting hit by a stray bullet were good. And she didn’t want to get shot. But running would only attract attention.
She scooted along the wall, trying to get to the dumpster just a bit further down. The smell would be godawful, but it was the only thing approaching real c
over. And once she was out of sight, she could run. She’d circle the building, lock the doors, and call her father to sort this shit out.
Her head pounded, and there was something just outside the scope of her senses, words she couldn’t quite hear demanding to be let into her head. Kerry clamped her hands over her ears, but it did nothing to stop the intrusion. Neither did closing her eyes.
She didn’t know how long she crouched, trying to block out something that didn’t exist; it might have been a minute. Then her senses clued her in to an actual danger, something right in front of her she couldn’t run from.
Wet, foul breath that punched her right in the face. A growl in the back of a throat. A monster.
Kerry forced her eyes open, sure this was some other illusion. She wasn’t so lucky. She saw thick fur and yellow eyes. A dog, no, a wolf, bigger than any she’d seen, standing right in front of her and studying her like she was some sort of lab rat.
Somehow the chanting in her head got even louder. The wolf froze, and for a moment she had the crazy thought that it had turned to stone. But, no, it was still breathing, still waiting.
She couldn’t run. The wolf was a predator and there were still gunshots. Why wasn’t the wolf running from all of the noise?
Her concentration split for a second and the wolf lunged forward, clamping sharp teeth onto her arm, tearing at her skin and making her scream as white hot pain flashed through her.
Kerry fell as the wolf pulled her and she struggled against it. It was pulling her back towards the fight and she had no idea why. This was no normal wolf. They were in the middle of Manhattan. It couldn’t be real.
The blood dripping down her wrist said otherwise.
She tried to push away the pain, but whoever said that was possible clearly had never been bitten by a wolf. But if she didn’t do something, she was going to be forced into the middle of a gunfight, bleeding, and unsure of what was going on.
She reached out, hand scrambling for anything she could use as a weapon. They weren’t far from the dumpster and her fingers clo
sed around the edge of a glass beer bottle.
Kerry pulled back against the wolf, even as she expected it to dig in and tear her arm off. But there was something almost gentle about it. She was hurt, bleeding, and probably needed stitches, but she had the idea that a wolf could do a lot more damage than this one.
So why wasn’t it?
No time to wonder.
She swung the bottle and smashed it against the wolf’s snout. It let go.
Kerry burst to her feet, an impossible explosion of adrenaline giving her speed. Any thought of not running from a predator was obliterated by her fear. She clutched her bleeding arm to her chest and rounded the corner, screaming for help and hoping someone would hear her.
The gunshots had faded, but she only distantly noticed that.
Red and blue lights flashed, a cop car coming to a stop so close to her that she almost ran into it. The officers were out in a blink, guns drawn and pointed at her.
“On the ground!” they demanded, as if she wasn’t crying, bleeding, and running for her life.
Kerry collapsed. At least she didn’t see the wolf anymore.
Present Day
Bryan Vega stalked his prey. They were in the woods behind the farm and he’d caught the scent only a minute ago. He wasn’t in his wolf skin, not today. It made stalking all the more difficult.
And that much more fun.
He stepped carefully, not letting leaves crunch under his boots. His prey didn’t know he was only a few steps away, and he intended to keep it that way. As long as the wind didn’t shift, he had this.
It ruffled the leaves on the trees and he tipped his head back, enjoying the breeze. Fall was his favorite time of year, and it was only starting to cool off. Soon enough they’d be huddled around a fire and making s'mores.
But not tonight. Tonight, he was a hunter. And a winner.
He surged forward, tackling the blonde woman to the ground and flashing his teeth at her.
Stasia’s eyes went wide and her hands went up to ward him off.
Bryan froze as another scene flashed through his mind.
Pain. Bright light. A demanding feminine voice. The slice of a scalpel.
Heat.
The shift.
Blood.
He reared back and slid off Stasia, hands and knees on the ground as the memory threatened to make him puke. The wind teased his nose with another scent as Owen Myers, Stasia’s mate, found them.
“Which one of you won?” he asked with a damned smile in his voice. The man was way too cheerful. Somehow the Army had
never beaten it out of him, never mind he’d been in for nearly a decade longer than Bryan.
“I’m the one standing,” Stasia said, her voice cool and sharp. She was all hard edges and seriousness next to Owen, and their relationship still made no sense to Bryan, but he didn’t have a right to question it.
After all, ...
