Taming The Shifter

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She was a detective. Whatever risk it took to learn what she wanted to know was a risk she was willing to take. Of course she wasn’t usually foolish enough to go into a potentially dangerous situation without backup. But this was the second night she had taken that risk. Third, if she counted that first night when she’d chased Warrick James into the alley. But then she hadn’t wanted to risk his killing that man.

And now, she hadn’t requested backup because she didn’t want to risk her reputation. Her “missing” body case had undone the respect she’d fought for years to gain in the department. He had ridiculed her the most. Not the man she’d shot but the man from her past, the man she wished she could leave in her past— forgotten only to surface in rare nightmares to remind her to never make that mistake again.

To never trust.

But they worked together. He worked nights, though, and she worked days. Except now when she was off the clock but not really off duty.

Tonight she was more prepared, though. Her gun wasn’t in her holster but clasped tightly in her right hand while her left grasped the flashlight. She shone the beam around the alley, illuminating only one small circle of darkness at a time. Nothing moved in the shadows, though.

Well, nothing human. Small feet scurried across the asphalt. Confident she was alone, Kate gave in to a shudder of revulsion over the nearness of the rats.

“Hello?” she called out. “Anyone here?”

Why call her if the person had no intention of showing up? He or she had gone to the trouble of disguising his or her voice so that it was unrecognizable. Maybe it was just a joke. Since that night when they had all searched for a body no one had been able to find, her coworkers had subjected her to many jokes. Like the bloody dummy left in her desk chair. And her locker and even her car...

If only she had been able to arrest Warrick the other night...to bring him in to the department and show his scars. She could have proved that she hadn’t imagined it all. That she hadn’t imagined him. He was real.

But too strong for her to have overpowered without her gun. Hell, when she’d had her gun she hadn’t been able to stop him. At least not permanently. He had survived injuries that would have killed anyone else.

Was he real?

He had disappeared from her bedroom just as quickly as he had the first night she’d discovered him there. One minute he had been there, almost as if he’d been watching over and protecting her after her concussion. Then the next minute he’d been gone...before she’d been able to find her gun or her cuffs. Before she’d been able to arrest him.

Or make love with him...

She wasn’t sure which she’d wanted more. Or at least she wasn’t willing to admit which she’d wanted more.

“Warrick?” Could he have been her caller? Somehow she doubted he would have gone to the trouble of altering his voice, though.

Who would have gone to the trouble of luring her here only to not show up? It had to be a joke. She sighed over her wasted time. But it didn’t have to be wasted. She could finish the investigation a concussion had ended those few nights ago. Instead of putting away her gun and putting down the flashlight, she leaned her shoulder against the Dumpster and shoved.

The metal creaked and squeaked as it edged slightly across the asphalt. Hell, she hadn’t entirely gained back her strength after the concussion. But the Dumpster seemed heavier tonight. It certainly smelled as if it was full since mingled putrid odors wafted out and overwhelmed her.

One scent—sweet and metallic—was new.

She rose up on tiptoe and shone the flashlight inside the Dumpster. The beam illuminated a man’s face, his skin pale but for the dirt and grease smeared across it and his beard.

“Bernie!” She recognized the homeless man from whom she had taken the statement about the people he had seen flying from the alley.

Maybe that was how Warrick disappeared so quickly from place to place. Usually she would never consider such a fantastic explanation, but at least it was an explanation. And that was more than she had managed to discover on her own.

She waved the flashlight in the homeless man’s face. “Bernie!”

The vagrant’s eyes were closed. Had he passed out drunk? She could smell the liquor, too, that saturated his clothes and oozed from his pores. The beam of light shining in his face didn’t even stir him.

Her pulse quickened and she moved the flashlight down. Horror, over what she saw, rushed up to gag her. But she choked it down just enough to scream.

* * *

He had already been tracking her scent, not surprised that it was leading him to the alley, when he heard her scream. The sound of the terror in her voice raised all the hair on Warrick’s body. She needed him.

But could he come to her like this?

It was after midnight, so he had taken his other form—the form he was from midnight to dawn every night. The form that might frighten her more than what was already in the alley with her. Unless...

He ran to her, legs straining to close the distance between them before she could be hurt again. Before he could hurt her...

But when he burst into the alley, he found her alone, staring into the Dumpster. What had she discovered this time that she shouldn’t have?

Then she turned and discovered...him. Fear had already drained her face of all color, leaving her skin deathly pale in the dark. Now her eyes widened, and another scream rose to her open lips. But she bit it back, as if afraid of startling him. “Stay away,” she murmured, cowering from him.

But the Dumpster was at her back, and he stood between her and the only exit. He was down on all fours, hoping to resemble more dog than werewolf. But dogs weren’t this big, this powerful, and she knew it.

“What are you...?” she asked the question, but he doubted she expected an answer.

She did not know that he could speak in the same voice he used in his human form. She didn’t know anything about werewolves, and she could never learn because the rules of the pack were as strict as the rules of the Secret Vampire Society. Perhaps stricter, because no exceptions were ever made within the pack.

At least they hadn’t been when his father had been the leader. His uncle was unlikely to make exceptions, either, as his pride demanded he be as fearsome a leader as his brother had been—even though he was not nearly as ruthless.

“Get back,” she said, her voice soft but the command unmistakable. “I’m not going to let you finish him off.”

Finish him off? Who? Just what the hell was inside the Dumpster?

He moved closer, hoping to catch a glimpse. But on all fours, he could not see inside the metal bin. He wanted to talk to her, wanted to ease the fear that had her gripping her gun and flashlight tightly as if she was ready to use either as a weapon. But his speaking to her, in his present form, would only scare her more—and put her in more danger.

“Get away!” she said, her voice rising and cracking with her panic. “Leave me alone!”

If only he could...

Every time he left her, trouble found her. Usually here in this damn alley. He moved closer to the Dumpster, needing to know what she had found this time. He needed to know which secret she was at greater risk of discovering.

But in moving closer to the Dumpster, he also moved closer to her. The gun shook as she trained the barrel on him. “I know you can’t understand me,” she said, “but I’m begging you to just leave me—and him—alone.”

Just as he had that first night they’d met, he ignored her commands. And he surged up on his hind legs. With his front ones braced on the edge of the Dumpster, he peered inside. And now he understood her horror and the scream she had probably involuntarily uttered.

He didn’t recognize the man, but he recognized the wound. Someone had torn out the throat of the victim—as he had threatened to do to his enemy. But this man was not his enemy. Neither was Kate.

But she didn’t realize that. Trembling with fear, she stared at him—her eyes wide as if she was afraid to blink in case he attacked.

He wanted to say her name, wanted to soothe her fears. But she probably thought he’d done this— either in his present form or his other one. She had been there the night he’d made this threat to Reagan; that was why she’d shot him.

She looked about to shoot him again. But instead of backing away from her, of leaving her alone, he stepped closer. If only she could see that he was no threat to her...

That he wanted to soothe her fears.

But she breathed fast, in frantic pants. “Please, don’t make me do this...”

He wasn’t growling, wasn’t snarling—wasn’t doing anything to intimidate her but being. And that, with his mammoth size, was intimidating enough.

“Please...” The plea slipped through her lips with a whimper.

She didn’t want to shoot him tonight any more than she had that first night when she’d broken up his fight in this very alley. He understood that now. That he had left her no choice.

He had a choice—he could speak to her, could explain what he was. He wasn’t sure that she would understand, but he was sure that knowing the pack’s secret would put her in danger. No, he had no choice, either. He would rather endure whatever pain she might inflict on him than put Kate’s life at risk. But that urge to comfort and protect her had him moving closer to her.

“Stay back,” she yelled at him, as if raising her voice might make him understand—if he really was just the creature she thought he was.

He had moved too close to her—so close that he’d backed her right up against the Dumpster behind her—the Dumpster she thought held his last victim. And she was scared that she would be his next.

If only he could assure her...

But he had no choice. And neither did she.

She’d shot him once to protect another man. Tonight she lifted the gun and she shot him to protect herself.

The bullet seared through his pelt and then his skin, burying deep in his flesh. He dropped to the asphalt as blood gushed from his wound.

And he heard her scream again...

Chapter 5 (#ulink_9d9e3409-8beb-5cd2-be14-fe4c9e416c9d)

His blood had been spilled again. Even in his human form, Reagan’s sense of smell was extrasensory. It was past dawn now, but no light shone into the alley. If his vision wasn’t extrasensory, too, he might not have noticed the crime scene tape cordoning off the entrance. He’d seen it as he’d stepped right over it.