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  Lucien’s number flashes on her display.

  “Excuse me, but I’ll have to take this,” she says.

  “Boyfriend?” he says lightly.

  Is it her imagination, but does she detect a tone of disappointment in his voice?

  “Not yet. We’re still feeling our way.” She gets up from the table and grabs her phone to run outside.

  “Lucien?” She closes the door behind her. It is chilly outside and she has forgotten to bring her jacket, but after knowing what Kirk Fitzpatrick feels about the Walkers, she doesn’t want this conversation to be eavesdropped upon.

  “Shannon.” The way he says her name – in that smoldering, sexy tone of his – makes her stomach go aflutter.

  “I’m having dinner right now with my boss. Can I call you back later tonight?”

  “Your boss?” Jealousy immediately comes into his voice. “Kirk Fitzpatrick?”

  “It’s a work thing.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Lucien doesn’t sound sarcastic about this, merely practical. “Shannon, you should really be careful about him.”

  “But why? He’s a doctor, for goodness sakes. You’re telling me to be careful about him and he is telling me that his family has a feud with the Walkers over the death of his brother.”

  “He told you that?” Incredulous.

  Careful, she tells herself. Lucien doesn’t know about her healing powers.

  “Yes. He says it’s common knowledge.”

  There comes the sound a sharp breath on the other side.

  Then: “Please, Shannon, stay away from him. I know you can’t really stay away from him as much as I would like you to because he’s your boss, but don’t have anything to do with him for more than necessary. I know I sound like a jealous boyfriend – ”

  Boyfriend! Her heart leaps at his first mention of the word.

  “ – but I know things I can’t tell you about the Fitzpatricks. This feud . . . my family was unfairly blamed over the death of Kirk’s elder brother. But trust me on this – we didn’t have anything to do with it. I swear it!”

  “Lucien, it’s all right – ”

  “No, listen to me, please. Are you listening?”

  She forces herself to calm down although her pulse is starting to race with his outburst. “I’m listening.”

  “Don’t get involved in this, OK? Don’t ask Kirk to tell you anything, and don’t ask the same of me either. All this happened long before you came here with your brother. It doesn’t mean if you date one of us and work for the other that you have to get involved with every aspect of our lives.”

  He pauses.

  “I don’t mean that to sound as a brush off because it really isn’t. It’s just that all of our families have secrets that are buried so deep that it’s best people outside never know of them. Just as you and your brother probably have secrets that are best kept under a lid. Just let it go, OK, Shannon? Trust me when I say it’s the best for all of us.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Shannon, did you hear what I said?”

  She pulls in a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I yelled.”

  “You didn’t yell. You were just trying to make your point.”

  He laughs mirthlessly. “Well, yeah. But please heed what I just said. It’s important. Promise me you won’t ask anything about our family feud anymore from either of us. Promise.”

  She doesn’t know if she can keep that promise. It isn’t as though she’s nosy by nature. It’s just that she has this sinking premonition that she and Jared are going to get deeply involved, and the more she knows about what happened between the Walkers and the Fitzpatricks, the better.

  Still . . . it is only a premonition.

  “I promise,” she says.

  “Great.” He is immensely relieved. “I’ll let you get back to your dinner. I’ll call you later, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “We’ll have more sex over the airwaves.”

  She laughs. “Phone waves.”

  “Miss you.”

  “Miss you too.”

  He clicks off, leaving her to mull over what he said.

  When she returns to the table, her skin is flushed even though the air was so chilly outside.

  “Everything OK?” Kirk says mildly.

  “Sure.”

  “Great.”

  He doesn’t ask her anymore about who she is dating – probably doesn’t think it’s any of his business – and she is grateful for it.

  THE FOREST

  It is late when she gets home. She sees the front door ajar. She parks, looking around for Jared, but she doesn’t see him.

  She kills the engine, grabs her purse and gets out of the Toyota. The night is still but for the rustling of the wind in the trees.

  “Jared?” she calls.

  She walks inside. Jared’s clothes are on the floor in an untidy heap, and she immediately knows what happened.

  “Damn,” she mutters beneath her breath.

  She supposes she shouldn’t blame him. He can’t very well shut the door in his panther form. But he can well take his clothes off outside and shut the door behind him, right?

  A semi-distant growl alerts her. The sound is coming from the forest at the back of the house.

  “Jared?”

  Other snarls permeate the air, as though a pack of animals has suddenly descended into the woods behind her house. Now she is alarmed.

  She breaks into a sprint outside. She remembers the stories of how old man Pullnam was killed.

  Jared!

  The woods are dark, but she is guided by the light of the moon dancing between the foliage. Brushing aside everything Lucien told her about going into the forest alone, she races towards the sounds. Rabid animals are fighting one another; it would seem from the growling and snarling. She almost stumbles over tree roots in her haste but her feet manage to pick themselves up in time.

  She rounds a dark pocket of trees and sees them in a clearing. There they are – a huge black panther and a pack of very large wolves. She immediately wishes she has thought this over before she so unwittingly came here, but her only concern was – is – for her brother.

  The wolves turn to regard her, and she can see the intelligence in their feral green eyes.

  Not wolves, she instantly understands.

  Shapeshifters.

  Just like her brother.

  Their innate intelligence tempers the ferocity their animal form brings along with all its raging hormones and glandular secretions. But it is like having two warring wills in one body, she knows. She has seen Jared’s transformation and all the freedom and imprisonment it brings.

  On one hand, the animal side of them longs to rend and tear everything in sight. Unlike true creatures of the jungle, the shapeshifters have not learned to temper their bloodlust and the power coursing in their muscles and veins with the need to kill only for food or defense. Like children reveling in their strength for the first time – or many firsts – they let the demonic, feral sides of themselves take over completely.

  Shannon has suspected the deaths of old man Pullnam and the others were due to these shapeshifters who were unable to rein themselves in. And now she knows for sure. Jared was the same. At first flush of his transformation, he went on a small animal hunting spree. She is glad the only slaughter of human beings he ever performed was on those cartel lowlifes in Tupelo. Those men who held her prisoner in Conchita’s hacienda were killers and mutilators of innocent women and children. She did not regret their deaths at the jaws of her brother.

  The only slaughter she knows of, that is.

  “Jared!” she cries out in fear.

  He bounds in front of her, shielding her. The pack of werewolves pace, circling them. This is not a good situation. Both she and Jared may be staring at their deaths right here if the werewolves have no control over themselves.

  “Please,” she cries to them, calling to their reason. “My brother and I have no qua
rrel with you. We just came here to get away from our pasts. We won’t tell anyone about you and we will leave you alone. Please let us be!”

  The growling continues. Rumbles from deep chests and deep throats. Light gleams from malignant eyes. Has this pack gone too feral to understand human words? But the fact that they are standing their ground gives her hope. The panther is far bigger than them, but there are five or six of them, and Jared is only one. Bullets cannot impact them, but a fight with another shapeshifter can do serious damage.

  The lead werewolf takes one step forward, and then another. Emboldened, the others do so too. The heat rises from their bodies and their hackles make them look very large. Their teeth are sharp and white in the scant light afforded by the moon.

  Shannon wonders if both of them have miscalculated in coming here.

  Please, she prays.

  A deep growl behind a thicket of trees makes them all look up. Another werewolf bounds into the clearing. This one is the largest of them all, with glowing green eyes. It is very clearly a male. The other werewolves immediately retreat at the presence of this one, signifying that he is the alpha of the pack.

  Do not run, Shannon tells herself. They would only come after you. Jared seems to agree with this as well as he stands his ground.

  The alpha werewolf throws up his head and howls. She recognizes that howl. It is the one she heard when she was in Lucien’s bedroom that very first night. Then he favors her with a stare and she can see the supreme intelligence in his eyes.

  The pack does not move.

  Jared seems to intuit that they are letting them go. He turns away, nudging her to do the same. She does so, taking small steps backward. She is very careful not to run just in case this invokes the werewolves’ ire.

  In this manner, they retreat from the thicket of trees. The werewolves – under the command of their alpha – do not follow. Once they are a considerable distance away, they both break into a run and head back for the sanctuary of their cottage.

  THE WOLVES

  “Jared, you have to be more careful!”

  “I am being careful! It’s just that I didn’t know they were there!”

  Shannon examines her brother’s naked and now human form in their cottage. There are no scratches or marks anywhere.

  “Well, now that you know, you can’t go hunting.”

  “I have to go hunting. Jesus. Hunting is what I do.”

  “They have obviously been here for a long, long time. This is their territory and they are staking their claim.”

  “Then I’ll have to hunt in a different zone. Or take them on.”

  “You can’t take them on! You have seen them. There are five or six of them.”

  “I have taken on far more than that, sis.”

  “But those were men! These are werewolves. Haven’t you seen them with your own eyes, Jared? Don’t let your macho shtick get the better of your brains!”

  “I’m bigger than any of them.”

  “And if you ran in a pack, by all means, take them on!” Though she privately thinks that is a stupid idea too as she detests violence of any sort. “But you don’t run in a pack, and you can’t go against a pack.”

  Jared gets up from the couch. His long, lean body is all sleek muscle. His erect penis bobs in front of him. After a transformation, he is usually hungry and horny.

  “I’m going to get something to eat. And then I’m going to get someone to fuck,” he declares, picking up his clothes from the floor. “Unless you’re willing to put out, sis.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You know I don’t like that,” she counters, her eyes flashing.

  “Fine. I’m going.”

  He heads out and slams the door behind him. She hears the engine of his new Pontiac start up and its tires screech as it back out of the little driveway and down the road.

  She is worried. Worried sick.

  Worried that Jared might be foolhardy enough to confront one or all of the werewolves, and it would be just the thing he would do too. Worried that tonight was just a warning. This is our territory. Go hunt elsewhere. Worried that the woods – huge as they are – might not be big enough for another shapeshifter.

  They would have to leave. Go further north, maybe even to Canada.

  She will have to talk to Jared about leaving.

  Oh, but her heart wrenches at the thought of having to leave! They have just gotten here. She is tired of running. And she has gotten a job at a place that she likes. She has just met Lucien.

  The thought of having to leave Lucien now that she has found some measure of happiness is devastating. Besides, another handsome face is lurking in the corner of her mind. Kirk. She likes her boss. She feels very comfortable around him.

  She doesn’t want to leave this place.

  Is it possible they can all coexist?

  She can’t put a reading on the werewolves. Are they willing to share their territory, or will it be all- out war the next time they meet?

  Maybe Jared won’t be alive the next time they meet.

  But maybe she is overthinking this. Maybe they won’t ever meet.

  Her cellphone rings in her purse and she jumps. She retrieves it.

  “Lucien?”

  “Good time to call?”

  “Yes. I’m home now.”

  “You OK? You sound a little winded.”

  She desperately wants to tell him about everything that has happened, but she doesn’t know how he will take it. Does he know there are werewolves in the community?

  “Sorry.” She tries to make her tone light. ‘I was just running in from outside.”

  “You have to be careful out there in the fringes, Shannon.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t go out there at night, OK? There are wild animals there and there have been attacks on people.”

  “I know. I’ve heard about them.”

  She wonders if he is trying to give her a subliminal message. It is so difficult when you are just starting to get to know someone. You don’t know how much to say. What would scare them off? How much information would be too much information?

  She senses he is going through the same thing with her. Maybe all of them have secrets that are buried too deep within their families to share. Lucien would be very repulsed if he learned that she had slept with Jared back when they were lonely and alone and teenagers. They had clung to each other because they thought they were the only two abnormal people in the world.

  “I’d feel a lot better if you moved out of there,” Lucien says seriously. “Look, I’ll find you another property. One that isn’t by the forest.”

  That is one no-no for Jared, she knows. He needs the forest. That is part of the reason why they moved out of Arizona. Because he needs new hunting grounds.

  “No. Jared likes it here. We’ll be all right, Lucien.”

  Wherever they move to, Jared will always need forest territory, so he will have to carve out his own place one way or another. Either he will have to share it, or he won’t.

  Lucien pauses. Again, she knows he is wondering how much to tell her, just as she is doing the same. But they can’t always be there to look out for each other, just as a parent won’t always be there to help a child cross the street.

  “Just be careful, OK?” he says.

  “OK.” She is starting to feel more at ease now. Maybe she is worrying too much for nothing.

  “What are you wearing?” he says in a low seductive voice.

  She laughs, and all is well in her world again.

  For now.

  FAMILY

  In the next few weeks or so, they arrive into some sort of unspoken co-existence. Jared does not encounter the werewolves again. Maybe they are circling in different hunting grounds, or maybe they are avoiding one another.

  Or maybe they have come to an understanding of shared territory.

  There are so few of us shapeshifters. We are not animals. There is plenty of forest for all of us. We don’t have to fight
one another to death to claim it like real animals. We don’t want to incur investigations from the police or they will hunt us to the ground.

  At least, Shannon hopes that is the reasoning.

  It would make total sense.

  Lucien and she have also come to a serious dating cycle. They would meet several times a week. He balks at waiting for her outside the clinic due to his unspoken feud with Kirk Fitzpatrick, but he doesn’t mind picking her up from home. They would go out to the fanciest restaurants in Dolphin’s Bay and the surrounding towns.

  Shannon has had boyfriends before, but none who have feted and wined and dined her as covetedly as Lucien Walker.

  She is falling in love with him, God help her. Although Lucien has never mentioned the word ‘love’ to her even once, he appears to show it in his every gesture and act – in his concern for her wellbeing and happiness. She gets that he is not a man who banters the word ‘love’ easily around, although she can clearly see the struggle in his blue eyes. This is why she appreciates him all the more for what he is doing.

  He has never proclaimed that they are officially ‘dating’ either. Romance words are not in his vocabulary. But it’s OK. She is willing to go with the flow right now. Why push something that is going so wonderfully, right?

  So many relationships are tripped up at the inopportune moment because of this kind of thing. She does not want to be the kind of girl who demands commitments from someone who isn’t used to doling them out.

  Besides, she isn’t sure she wants a commitment herself right now.

  So the ‘L’ word doesn’t creep out from either of them. Neither does the ‘C’ word.

  Not saying it isn’t at the back of her mind every second.

  * * * *

  It is only a matter of time before Kirk Fitzpatrick finds out who she is dating.

  It happens when she and Lucien are at a café one Sunday morning. They are having a lazy Sunday brunch of gourmet cereal with milk when Kirk walks in alone.

  He stops when he sees them.

  Shannon is seated facing the entrance and she is the first to see Kirk.

  Uh oh.

  Keep calm, she tells herself. You’ve done nothing wrong. And really, she hasn’t.