Stray Shifter

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

THE GATEHOUSE DOOR wouldn’t open. I tried and failed to twist the knob a second time, higher smoke intensity at human face level making my eyes smart and my brain fog.

If Arthur had been knocked out of commission (I refused to consider a more permanent reason for his silence), the door should have swung open. Instead, the knob refused to turn.

Locked.

Behind me, the panel van pinged as flames heated metal. Somewhere lost in the smoke, wolves yipped and howled. But my mental connection to the pack lay dormant. Everyone was too busy to fill me in on how the tides of battle turned.

Which was fair. They had their job and I had mine. I pressed my pelt up around my neck and flared my nostrils, seeking clues about who might be hiding in the gatehouse with Arthur.

Big mistake. The only scents swirling through the smoke were rubber and gasoline. I choked on the inhale, coughing far too loudly into my fist. Had I been heard?

I paused for a moment, listening. Nothing. Shrugging off the trickle of unease at the base of my neck, I continued pacing around the outside of the building, the crackle of flames covered my footsteps this time.

Despite a locked door, the gatehouse wasn’t impenetrable. The explosion had dented siding and blackened the eaves. More relevantly, a window had broken halfway down the wall, shards of glass sticking out from the frame like pointy monster teeth.

“Arthur?” I called silently. He shouldn’t be too busy to speak with me. It would be nice to know what I was up against before I dove inside.

My only answer was resounding silence. Well, that plus a twist in my gut and the sure knowledge that the fence-raising button wasn’t going to push itself.

Shivering back down to four paws, I leapt directly through the window’s gaping mouth.

***

INSIDE, PAPERS DANCED across the floor, skittering away from the wind of my passing. Something sharp bit into my left rear paw pad. I spun in a tight circle, prepared for enemy attack.

None came. In that first haze of searching, no movement caught my attention either. The nip to my foot had come from a shard of broken glass.

I slowed and padded around at human speed this time, blinking back smoke-prompted tears and peering into the room’s dim recesses. There weren’t many places for an attacker to hide. Two closed doors led to a bathroom and a closet. The mesh rolling chair wouldn’t shield either a living or dead body. The desk, on the other hand....

I padded forward, liquid squelching between my toes as I smelled something other than burnt panel van. Blood. I swallowed. Took another step....

Saw Arthur’s crumpled body.

The fifty-something werewolf lying before me had been the first adult member of Luke’s pack to accept my woelfin identity. He’d learned about my pelt, had spewed profanities for thirty seconds, then had backed me up during a wild sprint through the forest to escape his kin.

And, yes, Arthur’s acceptance had hinged upon my status as Luke’s mate. But during the months I’d spent here at the pack’s home place, our relationship had grown into more than that.

There had been tea invitations while Luke was busy tending the endless tasks of alpha. The hand-drawn family tree that showed up in my mailbox after I complained for the third time about pack mates’ complicated relationships. Notes scrawled in the margins about intertwining pathways of alliance and rivalry that Luke had missed out on during his decade away.

Which could all have been attempts to strengthen a new alpha by educating his partner. But Arthur had dispensed more than mere wisdom. Just last week, when I’d subtly guided two grouchy pack mates into tentative harmony, Arthur had placed his hand on my shoulder just like my father used to do.

“Good job,” he murmured, proving he saw the hard work I strove to keep hidden. In my belly, new connections clicked into place as I fell even deeper into the pack.

No wonder my muscles now refused to carry me closer to the crumpled body that lay in the smoky dimness. Arthur’s chest didn’t appear to be moving. I couldn’t quite talk myself into shifting to human form so I could place a hand in front of his nose.

Instead, I paced past the desk and reared up on my hind legs to depress the big red button. A rumble, more felt than heard, promised the backup fence was rising.

And the invaders? Were they inside or outside that fence?

I itched to pull at clan connections to answer those questions. But anyone I contacted could be thrown off their stride by the intrusion. Better I check Arthur than interrupt pack mates locked in life-or-death struggles....

A voice cut through the silence. “Hello?”

I spun, searching a second time for enemies. Because the greeting was too high-pitched to be Arthur’s. Instead, whoever had spoken was female and healthy. What had I missed when I first surveyed the space?

Nothing I could see. Even the scattered papers were still now.

Yet the voice continued, light and teasing. “I’m sweltering in here. Could you let me out already?”

I padded toward the source of the chatter—the closet door—while wriggling out of my wolf skin. Sometimes, shifting was a struggle. Today, relinquishing my lupine nature felt like taking my finger off the nozzle of an untied balloon.

Wolf gushed out of me. Humanity consumed me. My shed pelt fluttered to the ground.

Ever since the drama with my family, I hated to be parted from my lupine skin. But for once I didn’t take the time to snatch it up and secure it about my person. Instead, my attention was riveted on the closed door three feet from my nose.

There was a woman shut up in that closet. A woman who wasn’t a pack mate—there were few enough females left within Luke’s clan that I could make that identification with certainty.

Closet girl had arrived with the invaders then. A year ago, I would have assumed she was their prisoner, someone to rush and rescue. Now, after finding betrayers hidden deep within families twice in quick succession, I wasn’t so sure of that fact.

I turned to assess the gatehouse yet again. If Arthur was alive, it was my job to protect him from enemies, even chatty female ones. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much available to use as a weapon. A laptop, crushed on the ground. A pen that might or might not manage to pierce someone’s eyeball.

My gaze turned to the window I’d recently leapt through. If I had fabric to shield my hand from sharp edges, one of those glass teeth would make an effective dagger....

The only accessible fabric encircled Arthur’s body. No, not his body. The fabric encircled Arthur.

Gritting my teeth at the mental slip, I stooped and grabbed my pelt rather than ripping Arthur’s shirt. Cuts on the pelt’s leathery surface would turn into cuts on my skin the next time I turned lupine. But I wasn’t ready to steal Arthur’s clothing if it meant risking a glimpse of his sightless eyes.

Instead, I used the fur side of my pelt as a second layer of protection. Then I reached up and wriggled free a triangular shard of glass.