AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ahead two gray SUVs waited, parked on the side of the road. That had to be my ride.
I caught a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye. Eight shapeshifters slipped out of the woods and flanked me, with my husband popping up on my right like a jack-in-the-box. I took half a second to catalogue the familiar faces: Keelan, dark blond hair tousled, a massive claymore on his back; Da-Eun, his beta, athletic, with dark hair pinned to the back of her head; Jynx, a bouda with wild eyes and long, bright yellow nails; Andre and Hakeem, whom I first met on their cow-pawing adventure; Troy, the red-haired werejackal who was our medmage; Luiza, dark-haired and willowy; and Owen, who looked like he enjoyed bench pressing small cars as a light workout. A good team.
Curran grinned at me, his gray eyes happy. “Hey, baby. You come here often?”
I laughed.
“Your hand looks heavy. Let me hold it for you.” He squeezed my hand with his warm fingers.
“Smooth,” Jynx murmured.
Andre winked at her. “Hey, Jynx, your hand—”
“Touch me and I’ll break you,” she told him.
“Aww.”
“Conlan?” I asked.
“Back at the safe house with Helen,” Curran told me.
I figured he’d choose that option over having someone watch him at the fort. This way everyone could pretend that he was a guest and not someone they were babysitting.
“Luiza will take Cuddles back to the safe house,” Curran said. “Helen will need backup until the patrols come in.”
At any given moment, there were three shapeshifter patrols moving through Wilmington and the surrounding area, not counting the pair of shapeshifters who watched the Farm. Keelan wanted to know what was happening in the city, and he was very thorough about things.
We reached the cars. I dismounted, took the saddlebags with my gear off Cuddles, and handed the reins to Luiza together with a bag of carrots.
“If she stops in the middle of the road, don’t try to force her. Show her that you have a carrot, give her a small piece, and keep the rest. She’ll follow you. Also, Conlan looks like an eight-year-old, but he doesn’t think like one. He’s very polite, so he’ll say things like ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, ma’am,’ and before you know it, he’ll talk you into letting him do something everyone will regret. Treat him like a smart, conniving teenager. Above all, please keep him away from Penderton.”
Luiza smiled. “I can handle him. No problem.”
Famous last words.
I pulled a copy of Isaac’s sketch out of my bag. I had made several at the chapter while the tech held out.
“What’s this?” Curran asked, focusing on the creature.
“Something the knight-pathfinder saw in the woods. I’ll tell you more on the way.”
I passed the sketch to Luiza. “When you get back, show this sketch to Helen in front of Conlan and tell her that we asked you to research it. If he asks you for the sketch, tell him it’s boring adult stuff.”
She grinned back at me. “Got it.”
“It will keep him occupied,” I said. “But we do need to know what this animal is. Maybe run it by Forest Service.”
“And the hunters,” Curran said. “Butcher shops buy venison and other game at auction during Friday market, so a lot of hunters will be there. Ask them if they ever saw something like this.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
We climbed into the vehicles and started down the road. Curran drove, with me in the front passenger seat and Keelan and Da-Eun in the back.
“Did you find out anything?” Curran asked.
I brought him up to speed on my fun visit with Barrett.
Curran laughed.
“Barrett’s been the king of his little island for too long,” Keelan grumbled. “He needed a reality check.”
“That man has the straight-A student syndrome,” Da-Eun said. “He’s been the most powerful Master of the Dead for so long, it’s gone to his head and permanently fucked it up.”
Isaac’s story didn’t go over as well. Neither did the copy of his sketch, which I had passed to Da-Eun and Keelan.
Da-Eun rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s not enough that there are mud-smeared women and human sacrifices, now we’ve got a weird-ass elephant.”
Keelan shrugged. “It’s still a herbivore, just larger. It bleeds, so it can be killed. If it gives us trouble, we’ll bleed it and run it down like an oversized stag.”
Werewolf thoughts, uncensored. If it bleeds, it dies. Not worried about the giant mysterious pachyderm in the slightest.
A side road came into view on our left. We took it, rolling deeper into the woods. After a couple of minutes, the trees turned into fields wrapped in barbed wire. Onion, corn, squash—most of it either waiting to be harvested or in the process of it. An occasional farmhouse and a few solid barns dotted the landscape, all reinforced new construction designed to shelter the farmers and their livestock from the weird predators breeding in the magic-soaked forest. To the right, a herd of red and white cows with foot-long horns grazed in a pasture. Three big Anatolian shepherds watched us as we drove by.
