Stray Shifter

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

LUKE DROVE WHILE I shed clothing in the passenger seat. Usually, my nudity would have attracted my mate’s attention, but this time his eyes remained fixed on the road.

“They won’t be able to get through the fence,” he told me. Or, perhaps, he was reassuring himself. Still, gravel pinged against the fenders as he sped faster than was appropriate given the unevenness of the road.

“Not unless someone grants them access,” I agreed, wriggling out of my panties. “Who’s on gatehouse duty this morning?”

“Arthur.”

Luke’s honorary uncle—actually some sort of far-removed cousin, but old enough to be in the uncle category—was one of the most stable and loyal members of the pack. “So we’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Luke must have disagreed because he didn’t slow down. Instead, he swung the wheel into a tight turn as the fork rose before us. Our passenger-side tires splashed through a puddle, creating a damp line in the gravel as seen through the rear-view mirror.

“One set of tracks,” I observed, just in case Luke was too intent upon planning and driving to notice that heartening evidence. “Other than ours. How many werewolves can you fit inside a single vehicle?”

I hadn’t expected an answer, but Luke gave one anyway. “At least two dozen in a panel van....”

His voice petered off and his eyes grew distant as he tuned in to an interior conversation I wasn’t privy to. Not Ruth, since their connection had frayed weeks ago. Not Arthur either since mental conversations with wolves I knew well tended to spill over to me through the mate bond.

Whoever it was and whatever they said, Luke’s face whitened. He swore, slamming on the brakes and leaping out of the car before it came to a complete stop.

This was where we’d planned on waiting, just short of the rise that would have returned the compound to view. Here, we could hover without Ruth noticing that we barely toed the line of obedience.

Still, Luke’s body language suggested the wait-and-see plan had already flown out the window. So I disembarked as rapidly as he had, swirling my pelt around my shoulders and pulling at threads of wolfishness to initiate a shift.

“Plan B,” Luke growled. “Arthur’s not responding. We....”

The hilltop belched smoke as an explosion roared from the direction of the pack compound. Fabric shredded away from Luke’s transforming body as his paws hit the pavement.

“They’re in,” he explained unnecessarily.

The invaders had blown their way through our fence.

***

WHICH SHOULDN’T HAVE been the end of the world. When Luke dug deep into his personal coffers to pay for fence construction, he’d installed a second line of defense at the weakest point. All Arthur had to do was hit a big red button and fifty feet of even heavier fence material would rise out of the ground to create a smaller but nonetheless secure enclosure.

Which, okay, sounds useless since the defenders were outside the perimeter fighting off invaders. But Luke had also added wolf hatches scattered along the entire fence line. The latter were like high-tech doggy doors, keyed to each pack mate’s irises in wolf and human form.

Wolf hatches made it easy to keep the compound locked up tight when we headed off on hunts as a clan unit. They made it simple for skinless to blow off steam without stopping to chat with a nosy gate guard. Now, they would allow pack mates to return to the compound without invaders following...assuming the secondary fence rose before invaders made it inside.

That only worked if the gatekeeper remained conscious and able to erect the backup fence, however. As Luke and I sprinted toward the haze of smoke hiding gatehouse and gate, no signs of life emanated from where Arthur had last been seen.

There was plenty of life around the gatehouse, however. Swirls of movement flickered in and out of focus, heading in the direction of what I guessed to be the fence gap. It was hard to tell through the dense smoke, but invaders seemed to be halfway to the line in the pavement that the secondary fence would rise out of. The big red button wouldn’t do any good if someone didn’t push it fast.

“Don’t wait for me,” I told Luke, knowing his longer legs could traverse the intervening ground faster than mine could. He huffed protest but pushed his muscles harder. I followed suit, fighting not to cough as we dove into the foul-smelling haze.

Inside the smoke, it was impossible to make out our enemies’ progress or the state of Ruth’s defensive forces. Which made our own goal simpler. Ignore the invaders. Head for the gatehouse. Push the button....

Bruiser’s voice struck us via the pack bond just as the wall of the gatehouse loomed dark against the sky. “Aunt Ruth! No!”

A shimmery, distorted image flowed toward us along with the words. Based on the oblique angle and the chain-link diamonds between her and the action, Bruiser had been left behind in the dubious safety of the pack compound while our warriors rushed out to meet the enemy. Ruth, as anyone could have predicted, hadn’t stayed behind the fence.

No, even though she was eight months pregnant, the pack’s alpha was leading the charge. The scarred, potbellied werewolf waddled in front of her relatives, intent upon warding off attacking shifters...

...which would have been comical if battles among skinless didn’t often end in death.

Neither Ruth nor I saw what had prompted Bruiser’s initial cry. Well, not at first. Not until it was too late for Ruth to dodge the huge dark wolf slamming into her hindquarters, spinning legs out from under her. Too late for me or Luke to rush to her assistance as something pale and snarling clamped sharp teeth down on the underside of her neck.

Ruth was an alpha for a reason, though. She didn’t cave. Instead, she twisted her entire body, struggling to protect herself.

Unfortunately, her swollen belly refused to bend. Even as Bruiser’s second cry—“No! Please!”—tolled in my brain, our alpha disappeared beneath a pile of fur.

And...our entire pack hesitated. Didn’t dive in to help their alpha or defend their home. Just stood stock still, waiting to be mown down like so much summer grass.

Which is when Luke stepped into the gap.

Not literally. He and I were both too far away to see the action without Bruiser’s help, let alone impact it. But his mental connection to the pack rivaled Ruth’s.

“Are you wolves or are you field mice?” he bellowed.

His words, I could see, didn’t strike everyone. But pack mates Luke didn’t have a personal connection with possessed connections to one another. No wonder his demand spread through the pack as fast as a ripple. Ruffs rose and lips curled as a tidal wave of strength flowed from Luke through our entire clan.

Which was great...for now. It wouldn’t be great tomorrow, when Ruth tried to wrangle dissent arising from two pack leaders spitting out two different sets of instructions. It wouldn’t be great next month when the neighboring alphas we invited through our gates saw a splintered clan ripe for the picking rather than the united front we intended to present.

Of course, that assumed Ruth was there to host and wrangle next month and tomorrow. And that there was a pack left to be managed at either time.

I blinked and Luke was gone, sprinting toward the spot where his sister had fallen. “The button,” he reminded me.

I turned around to face the building that towered above me in the smoke.