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He noticed that Kristine had maneuvered her chair around the table to sit beside him, notwithstanding the crush of other nearby patrons. She was listening attentively. He liked the seriousness of her expression beneath her sexy and short hair, as dark as a moonless night sky. She was one attractive soldier, and she was doing a hell of a job as his undercover wife.
“There are coyotes,” the local woman said. “Bears, too, and even bobcats. But they don’t usually attack people. I heard in the news that the people killed were two sisters from St. Louis who were active members of a national wildlife preservation organization. Maybe they got too up close and personal with some creature.”
“Can happen anywhere that there are wild animals like that,” said one of the guys at the table who hadn’t spoken before. “Too bad we can’t shoot ‘em.”
“No hunting and trapping in Acadia,” the woman chimed in, looking angry that killing wild animals had even been mentioned. Quinn liked that attitude.
“But park rangers can probably kill vicious animals that hurt people,” said Basketball Player, and his comrades nodded.
“Whatever happened,” said Steph, “I’m sure everyone visiting the park will be on guard to make sure it can’t happen again. Now—” She faced Quinn and Kristine. “May I take your order?”
“At least we have a general idea of the position of townspeople and tourists,” Kristine said later as they walked along the sidewalk, past souvenir, clothing and other shops still open for visitors’ pleasure. It was dark outside, but the narrow street was lined with lights.
“Yeah, and fortunately no one we spoke with has claimed that the killings could have been done by shapeshifters,” Quinn responded. He reached over and took her hand. At her glance, he prepared to remind her of their cover.
But she didn’t pull away. In fact, she grasped his hand even harder.
Which almost made him smile. At least until her next words.
“Even if there are any suspicions like that,” she said, “no one’s about to admit them aloud without any evidence. Not unless they want other people to doubt their sanity.”
He stopped and looked at her. “Right. Sane people don’t believe in shapeshifters, do they?”
“Looks like there’s a lot of insanity going around,” she said, and smiled. She raised her chin a little. He’d already begun to appreciate that as a characteristic gesture, a statement of challenge and determination. “But we still haven’t gotten any clue about where Simon and Grace might be,” Kristine continued. “You’re the investigator.”
“Yeah, I’m the professional investigator,” he agreed, “but I heard from Grace how much she relied on your ideas to help in Alpha Force assignments.”
Kristine’s grin looked proud but she shrugged her shoulders modestly. He liked her unassuming nature despite her obvious drive and intelligence.
“We’ll work on it more tomorrow,” he said. “Take the same tour they did, for starters. I’m also working on some other ideas.”
“Sounds good.”
They walked on for a while in silence. Kristine halted outside one small shop that sold pet supplies. “I’ll bet that Grace stopped in here. She’d have wanted to bring something back for Tilly.” That was Grace’s cover dog. All of the shifters had one that resembled them in shifted form.
Quinn hadn’t gotten one yet, and neither had Simon. They were too new to Alpha Force. But he had seen how Kristine had lovingly said goodbye to her own assigned dog, Bailey, who had traveled with her on her last assignment along with Grace and Tilly.
Another admirable trait. The woman liked dogs. Real dogs. And apparently she also cared for shifters.
He was going to have to watch himself around Staff Sgt. Kristine Norwood. He was coming to like her too much.
And that could be a mistake.
“So what’s your next idea?” Kristine finally asked, breaking the growing silence between them. Not that Quinn had found it uncomfortable—but he had been using it to think. And to plan.
“The night’s still young,” he said. “Why waste it? I’m ready to prowl.”
He knew, of course, that Acadia was a national park with established entrances. At least this first time, before they had oriented themselves about locations, he didn’t want to be seen driving in so late in the evening. Not many tourists were likely to be around, even though the park was open—or at least the campgrounds were.
As a result, he drove them both in the rental car along one road at the park’s outer perimeter, and then another, until he spotted a turnout surrounded by lots of vegetation, right beside a sheer cliff.
Insurmountable for mere humans. Not for a shapeshifter.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
“Here?” Kristine looked both puzzled and skeptical. He enjoyed watching the expressions play across her unconventionally pretty face.
“Here,” he confirmed. He parked at the end of the turnout closest to the thickest shrubbery. “It’s fairly isolated and I doubt we’ll see many cars at this hour.”
“Okay.” She opened her door. He popped the trunk open and she extracted her ubiquitous backpack—once more filled with the equipment he needed.
In only a few minutes, he had drunk a dose of the elixir and stripped—enjoying Kristine’s attempt to appear nonchalant and disinterested while sneaking peeks at his bare body. Which only made said body react the way he knew it would. But only for a minute—until the light she trained on him began its job.
He felt the usual tugging and pulling … and then his shift continued.
This was as much bliss as a shapeshifter could experience. No full moon. Complete mental sharpness.
If only his leap onto the mountainside five minutes ago, and his initial stalking into the park, could yield useful information.
Unlikely, though. It was a distance from where he thought he’d heard the mauling of the tourists had occurred.
He inhaled the complicated and intriguing scents of other wildlife—the coyotes and bobcats he had anticipated, as well as smaller, unimportant creatures.
This was merely an initial foray, a more-than-pleasant test. He would accomplish more with future shifts around here, but at least he had gotten his first wild taste of Acadia.
For now, he would simply revel in the freedom and ability to enjoy it. Not to mention his current, undoubtedly brief independence from the military, its structure, its orders.
He had wondered long before enlisting if the elixir Simon had told him about would be enticing enough for him to give up his life, his freedom, his sanity.
If all had gone well, perhaps it would have been more than enough to experience this amazing kind of shift as often as possible.
But all was not going well, with his brother, and now with him—while he was, in some respects, AWOL from his official assignment.
What would happen if he found Simon and Grace?
What would happen if he didn’t?
He had to find them, of course. Alive and well, and with a full, logical explanation of where they had been, and how they had not been involved in the park killings.
And then he would not have to wonder whether he could continue to immerse himself in a life that required him to follow the orders of strangers, some of whom he despised.
But a life that included this marvelous elixir.
And an aide like Kristine. For now.
Kristine, the dedicated and permanent soldier. Attractive, smart and sexy … but a nonshifter.
A scent blew toward him—a coyote. Drawing closer. It must have smelled him, too.
He paced farther into the forest. Not even a hint of the aromas of Simon or Grace, shifted or not.
His frustrations mounted.
No answers tonight.
Chapter 5
Kristine sat alone in the locked, dark car. Waiting.
She hated waiting for anything.
But she had taught herself patience while staying behind as her shapeshifting charge Grace dashed about the countryside in wolf form after Kristine helped her shift.
She had worked a lot with Grace. Learned her habits. Helped her not only as a shifting soldier, but also in the solution of a problem that could have put the entire world at risk of unleashed biohazards.
Kristine had gotten shot in the process. But she was fine now, physically.
Mentally, too, she reminded herself—although she was damned worried about her charge, her friend, Grace.
One step at a time. Quinn and she would find Grace and Simon. They had to.
For now, she watched through the windshield and the car’s side windows, scouring the mountainside in the scant light of the bright stars overhead for any movement that would indicate the return of the wolf that was Quinn.
Since this wasn’t a night of a full moon, and turning on any kind of light was a bad idea in this area, where she wanted no one to spot her, she merely slumped behind the steering wheel of the rental car.
Too bad she didn’t have the senses that her charges did while shifted, or even some of their enhanced senses in human form. Grace had described them to her, at least somewhat.
If Kristine had better hearing, maybe she could at least hear when—
There. Right in front of her. A movement within her line of vision.
Something had leaped off the hillside. In the little that she could see in the almost complete darkness, the shrubbery clinging to the side of the mountain remained in motion.
A figure moved in front of her on the roadside turnout. A wolf?
Just in case it wasn’t what she anticipated, she clutched the service weapon she had brought along, preparing to use it if necessary.
As quietly as she could, she opened the car door.
That created a haze of light—light in which she could see that something writhed in the bushes in front of her.
A shifter regaining its human shape?
The hell with being seen. Holding the gun in one hand, she grabbed a flashlight, too, turned it on and aimed them both at the moving figure.
In time to see the last of Quinn’s transformation back into human form.
He was back in the car, back in his jeans and T-shirt. Exhausted partly from the shift and partly from his ongoing frustration.
“Did you see anything useful?” Kristine asked, as she drove the car from the turnoff onto the twisting mountain road.
“No. I didn’t see, smell or hear anything at all that could help us. But at least I’ve oriented myself a bit more to this area and shifting around here.”
Beside him, Kristine said nothing for a minute. And then, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Fine.” And he actually was. As he breathed deeply, he felt his strength—and his determination—increasing. He was here. Simon and Grace had to be somewhere around this area, too.
Of course he would find them.
They would find them. Kristine, with all her military training and dedication, would continue to be an asset.
As she had already been, tonight.
“Thanks for watching my back,” he said gruffly, only to see her turn her head to glance at him.
“It’s what I’m here for,” she retorted in an equally gruff tone that made him smile.
The time Kristine had been dreading had arrived.
Okay, it wasn’t that big a deal. They were here undercover. They were both adults, rational people, soldiers.
At least she was a soldier, and he had enlisted as one. But that shouldn’t matter here anyway.
The point was that they were here under assumed identities. False ones.
And now, after dinner, a preliminary assessment of the town, plus the first of Quinn’s shifts in this area—and she anticipated many more—they had to get some sleep to be rested enough to dive right into their roles tomorrow.
Find answers.
Learn where Grace and Simon were, and rescue them, if necessary.
Assuming they were still alive.
That was what was important.
Who was sleeping where, in this small, quaint room with only one bed, was not a big deal. No bigger a deal than her acting as Quinn’s aide for shifting.
He had just crossed the room and closed the drapes. The room didn’t get any darker, since the lights were on.
“Would you like to use the bathroom first?” Kristine asked neutrally.
“After you, sweetheart.” His tone was ironic. Not serious at all.
A good thing.
“Fine,” she said briskly. “Then, when you’re changing, I can take the duvet and make myself a bed on the floor. I think you’ll be okay with the sheets already on the bed, and—”
“And you don’t think the maid would notice tomorrow?” His brows were raised, emphasizing that irony he had already projected.
