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“Seriously? Wolf shifters, when in our alt-forms, are stronger than the animals we become, too. So, teeth stronger, jaws stronger,everything’s…stronger.” He paused, glancing at me.
I blushed, trying to keep my mind from wandering.
Over the years, I had known some women who slept with their shifter lovers while the men were in alt-form, but that was a little too close to bestiality to me. If it had been in lycanthrope form—more human than beast but still monstrous—I would have an easier time accepting it, though that felt kinky as hell. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy a good throw down with blindfold and restraints, but…
Quit thinking about sex, I scolded myself, realizing I wanted more. Fucking Faron had been a drop in the ocean and I was thirsty as all get out.That’s not what tonight’s about.
Faron shifted, glancing at me. I caught my breath. He winked at me, then flicked the tip of his tongue through his teeth. He must be able to read my scent. And if my scent had shifted with my thoughts…then he knew I wanted him again. I hesitantly reached out and took his hand, squeezing it, then quickly let go.
We slipped through the alleys, behind the homes where families were settling in for the night, where kids were whining about taking baths and going to bed, couples were either watching TV or making love or fighting, where the business of life was taking place.
Here and there a dog barked, cats leapt on the fences to stare at us, and behind one house we saw a coyote who slunk off into the night. I suddenly felt alien, as though I were looking in on what it meant to be human—what it meant to be an observer instead of participating in the great parade of existence. I’d experienced this before, but it had been a while. Usually, it was while I was driving at night on a highway, alone in my car with the music going and the rain pouring.
We neared the corner across from the block Bree’s house was on. As we hurried across the street, keeping to the alleyway, my heart pounded. When we approached the back yard, Bran effortlessly hopped the four-foot fence, landing behind an oak tree. The trunk was wide enough to offer cover for all three of us. Faron caught hold of my waist and boosted me up, and Bran helped me down to the other side. Faron joined us and we were in Bree’s back yard. We kept to the shadow behind the tree, peeking out.
Faron held his finger to his lips, sniffing the air. Then, he leaned over to Bran and whispered something in his ear that I couldn’t hear. Bran set off for the middle of the back yard. Taking me by the hand, Faron led me along the fence line to the edge of the yard. We turned and were soon in the shelter of the side yard, next to the fence dividing Bree’s house from the graveyard.
We crept along, low to the ground. I was in decent shape, but my knees weren’t used to squatting, and they didn’t enjoy moving in this position. Faron had no trouble, but then again, he was used to shifting form and running.
I sighed. The truth was, I needed the gym I’d signed up for.
We reached the gate leading into the graveyard and Faron froze. He stared, squinting, and I tried to follow the direction he was looking in, but it was twilight now and, while I could discern auras, I couldn’t see in the dark. But the next moment he pointed and I leaned forward, trying to see what he was looking at. There, where the graveyard met the street, was the outline of a car parked along the curb. It could be a neighbor…or maybe someone else.
Faron leaned close and whispered, his breath tickling my ear. “That might be her stalker. He probably couldn’t help himself and came back to the graveyard. Moth to flame.”
“How do we find out?”
“There are places to hide in the cemetery. A couple of mausoleums, for one thing. Let’s go.” He cautiously rose, silently leaping the gate, then held out his hand as I climbed up on the middle slat of the gate, then swung the other leg over and jumped down.
We quickly slipped behind the yew that we had found the camera in. I scanned the graveyard. If the stalker was here, he could be hidden anywhere. I examined the tree where we’d found the camera and it didn’t look like it had been replaced.
“Can you sense anybody?” Faron whispered.
I sat down against the tree, leaning my head back against the trunk, and closed my eyes.
I reached down and planted my hands against the ground, sending feelers through the soil, into the plants, using them as a conduit to discover any intruders. The plants picked up my query, and the question rippled along to the animals hiding among them.
Listening, I waited, as the energy rolled through the yard, touching each blade of grass, each leaf, every rabbit, vole, shrew, and mouse around. I could feel them stop quickly to examine the rolling wave, and then carry on.
And then, an unexpected disturbance broke through the smoothly wending energy field—a disruption—as though an ocean wave suddenly crashed around a rock.
I stiffened. Everything around the disturbance froze, on alert. There was a cat nearby, and she hissed and backed away. The grass bent under footsteps, and the light breeze that had sprung up billowed around the form.
A figure it was, but not a statue. No, the obstruction had an energy field of its own—hisown, I ventured. The energy read masculine and dank. I tried to project my vision through the earth elemental who was helping me see, but everything was fuzzy when I tried to reduce it to a visual, and the attempt to do so broke the connection.
I stumbled back on my ass, sitting there, trying to figure out what had happened.
After a moment, I turned to Faron, who, confused, was watching me. I motioned for him to lean close. “There’s someone out here with us, but before I could pinpoint where in the graveyard, it got disrupted. But it’s a he, all right, and he spooks the locals, so to speak. The nature spirits and animals around the area.”
“All right. Do you have any idea in which direction we should look?”
I glanced around, my gaze falling on one of the mausoleums. “There—I think that direction.” It felt right. I gauged what we could still see of the graveyard. “We can get there if we sneak from yew tree to yew tree. The grass is high enough that, if we keep crouched down, there’s a chance he won’t see us.”
“Sounds good to me. Let’s go.” Faron led the way, and we half-crept, half-crawled our way over to the next yew tree.
The trees were awake—they could sense our presence. Yew trees guarded the path between the world of the dead and the world of the living. Sentinels of the underworld, they were often found in old graveyards. The dark gods who walked in the shadows often carried staves made of yew, as did priestesses of the dead.
It took us ten minutes of cautious movement to near the mausoleum. From where we were hiding behind a sapling, we could see the door. It was ajar. Spirits wandered around the cemetery, and at that moment, a ghost exited the mausoleum and turned to look at me.
