AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I decided earlier on my way to Charlie’s that I wanted to walk. It’s been a couple of days since the last time I shifted, and though I’m hesitant to go wolf in case it gets back to Roman, I use the twenty block walk to burn off some more energy. A shift at the bar usually is enough to stimulate my wolf, but I only did seven hours today, and that’s including the two extra I did for Hailey. This walk will do me good.
Even though Muncie is an urban city full of vamps, I’m not worried about walking around by myself. I’m just as dangerous as anyone else that might be out there, and that’s not even accounting for my golden ticket.
So when my wolf yips to get my attention, I listen. I was busy thinking about what I wanted to cook for dinner—as a shifter, food is on my mind most of the time—and I wasn’t really watching where I was going. Why should I? When my shifter senses are always open, my wolf constantly aware in the background even when I’m in my skin, I can daydream without worrying about it.
I go still. Tilting my head slightly, I sample the scents on the breeze while listening carefully.
The sounds of the city are the same as they usually are. Cars. Chatter. Doors closing, dumpsters slamming. Rats scurrying in the distance. Vamps lurking around corners. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But… I sniff again.
No way.
I shake my head, but that doesn’t do anything to get the scent out of my nose. A very familiar yet, at the same time, unfamiliar scent..
A wolf? In Muncie? I was the only idiot reckless enough to call the vamp-ran city my home. But that’s definitely a shifter scent, even if it belongs to one that I don’t recognize.
What are they doing here?
More importantly, how did they breech the borders?
In a Fang City, supes like vampires and shifters are basically an open secret. While some humans are blissfully unaware that the supernatural walk among them, others make their living as willing blood donors. As employees—and, well, food—they’re owed some kind of protection and security.
That’s why the Cadre—the vampire leadership who govern each individual vamp town—sends some of their strongest on patrol, keeping out undesirables around the clock. That’s what Aleksander was doing the night I fled Accalia. A vamp with some seniority, he spends most nights doing a full-turn, patrolling the entire border of Muncie to make sure that our community is safe and protected.
And if I understand that they’re basically protecting the vamps and humans who live here from the monstrous wolves who live in Accalia, I politely try to pretend I don’t for the sake of getting to live here myself.
I’m a shifter, yeah, but I’m a lone wolf. I turned my back on the pack a year ago, and I can’t imagine what a wolf is doing in Muncie now.
Well, no. I can. I totally can. But I don’t want to think that, after hiding out all these months, they’ve finally figured out that this was where I ran off to. I don’t want to meet up with any other shifters. I also don’t want to have to deal with any vamps who might start questioning what I’m doing in town.
Slipping my finger under my shirt, I pull my necklace out, letting it nestle between my boobs. Just in case.
Aleks had it made especially for me after I decided to give staying in Muncie a try. As a shifter, I can’t wear anything made of silver, so the chain is pure gold. And the charm? It’s a fang, and it’s very, very real.
It’s also one of Aleks’s.
