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  For a few silent moments, the past hung between them, hazy-sweet and almost tangible. Then a sound broke the quiet, clear and crisp – a snapping twig.

  Kimberly whipped her head around, her cloud of strawberry-blonde waves spilling over her shoulders. “Did you hear that?”

  Michael barely managed to peel off the spare change of clothing she’d brought him before shifting, straining eyes, ears and lungs for more information, any hint of danger. Blood blossomed hot and ready beneath the surface of his skin, tinged with a hint of adrenaline. The missing hiker was an afterthought.

  “Deer,” he said seconds later, back in his human form. “It’s just a deer.” The scent had drifted to him, down from a ridge – a lone doe wandering the forest.

  “Oh.” Kimberly frowned, disappointment etching fine lines around her mouth. “I thought…”

  “We’ll keep looking,” he assured her, his gaze lingering on her expression of dissatisfaction. “We’ve got all night.”

  “Right.” She reloaded the backpack quickly, tidying away the little buffet she’d reluctantly laid out.

  He bit his tongue for half a second before shifting back into his wolf form.

  With her hand buried in the crest of fur behind his neck, they continued in near-silence, barely making it a dozen paces before graceful but panicked noises lit up the night – crunching leaves and breaking twigs, the sound of an animal on the run.

  The doe bounded toward them, down the ridge’s slope. Michael smelled her alarm before he saw her, a shadow flying on four slender legs. Her eyes and nostrils flared when she caught sight of him and Kimberly, and she veered to the right, adjusting her course to avoid them, disappearing with her white tail held high.

  Something had frightened her – something at the top of the ridge, or maybe on the other side.

  Michael tensed, alert for any sign of danger – any sign of anything.

  No scent came to him on the light night breeze. Whatever had scared the doe wasn’t at the top of the ridge, then – he would’ve scented anything upwind and so close.

  Eventually they made it to the top, where a drop-off ended the brief plateau of leaf-covered earth and mossy trees. It was only a few yards, but it was enough of a fall that a person might break bones, or even their neck. He placed his body between Kimberly and the edge, inhaling deeply.

  The smell hit him before he looked down. Thick and pungent, obscenely rich – the odor of early decay was distinct. A sense of dread slipped over him as he caught fainter traces of scent: bacon grease and DEET-laced insect repellant spray.

  The lifeless body lying somewhere at the bottom of the drop-off was human, and as he strained to see through the shadows cast by trees and rock, he made out the dark shape of a still, masculine form.

  He shifted and found that when he was back in his human body, his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  “What is it?” Kimberly asked, gripping his hand tight, almost wringing his fingers, as if she sensed it too.

  As a human, he couldn’t smell the body. It was below, and the process of decay had only recently begun, abated a little by the chill in the autumn air. One silent second ticked by, then another. He savored them, even as dread built in his gut, a dam that blocked off the truth.

  Kimberly squeezed his hand more tightly.

  “There’s someone down there.” His muscles tensed involuntarily. “They’re not alive.”

  He felt the knowledge of the truth go through her like an electric shock, stiffening her muscles, too. “You stay here – I’ll go down and look.”

  “No!” She clung fiercely to his hand as he prepared to shift. “No. Let’s go down together.”

  “No need. I’ll look and we’ll hurry back, notify the authorities. No reason you gotta see what’s down there.”

  “I want to go with you.” Her tone was as firm as her grip. “I can handle it.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Against his better judgment, they went down together. He paused to dress first, then remained in his human form – it’d be better if there wasn’t a gap between them during this. He’d be able to touch her … hold her. Being a wolf had its advantages, but common sense told him there were times when being human was best.

  They walked a short distance and picked their way down one side, where it wasn’t too steep. He was ever-ready to steady her, but she didn’t need it. By the time they reached the bottom, he could smell the wrongness in the air, even without his lupine senses.

  “You sure?” he asked, eyeing the area he’d identified from above.

  She nodded, her handkerchief bobbing dark against her hair in the moonlight as she turned on her flashlight and swept the beam across the forest floor.

  Khaki cargo pants splashed with the dark crimson of dried blood, a flannel shirt that hung open over a white t-shirt – the body was dressed as the missing hiker had been described, right down to the thick-soled boots. A backpack lay a few feet away, torn open like a piñata, its contents scattered across the dark dirt at the foot of the ledge the man had obviously fallen over.

  Whatever had torn into the backpack hadn’t left the hiker untouched. Lacerations showed dark against his lifeless skin, marks visible on his arms, just below the pushed-up sleeves of his shirt. “Looks like some kind of animal got here before we did,” Michael said, his spine prickling. “Something canine.” He recognized the tears in the flesh, the bloody punctures and lacerations that marred dirt-smeared skin.

  “Coyotes,” Kimberly said, her voice hard. “Must’ve been coyotes.”

  An elongated semi-circle of red dots stood out in high contrast against one of the man’s shoulders, staining his t-shirt and marking where something had gripped him and dragged him – only a few feet, by the looks of the shallow trenches the heels of his boots had carved in the dirt.

  “Big coyotes,” Michael said, his spine still prickling. “Strong coyotes. Hold on – I’m gonna shift and look more closely.”

  He stripped quickly, drawing a deep breath as he assumed his wolf form. The forest came alive around him, brimming with scents and sounds he’d been oblivious to as a man. The odor of death was pervading, but other smells were detectable too, and the faint moonlight was enough for him to see sharply by.

  A canine smell hung in the air, and though it had faded over the course of several hours, he thought he detected three unique animals. It didn’t take him long to spot tracks, four-toed indentations in the dirt that belonged to something larger than the average coyote.

  Not wolves. There were no wild wolves in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, only the shifters who made up the Half Moon Pack.

  Overall, he located two sets of large canine tracks – one larger than the other – and evidence of a third, much smaller animal. A male, a bitch and a pup, maybe?

  It was hard to tell.

  “We should get outta here,” Michael said, dressing quickly after shifting. “Notify authorities.”

  Kimberly lingered by the body. “It doesn’t seem right to just leave him here, especially if wild animals have been bothering him.”

  Michael shrugged. “Nothing else we can do. They’ll want to see the scene just as it is so they can be sure of what happened to him. Won’t appreciate us messing with things.”

  “It looks like he fell over the overhang.”

  Michael nodded. “Might’ve stepped right over the edge without seeing it, especially if it was dark at the time.”

  Even in the dark, he could see Kimberly’s frown. And was that the glimmer of a tear at the corner of one eye, or was he imagining it? Damn his human senses. He was tempted to shift again, but didn’t. They’d make the hike back together, both human. “Let’s go.”

  She let him take her hand, though her fingers felt tense, curling in on themselves instead of twining with his.

  He held on as they walked in silence, the journey back longer – or so it seemed – than their original hike. By the time they reached the edge of the woods and approached Jack and
Mandy’s cabin, she still hadn’t said a word.

  No one else was back yet – Mandy met them at the door, alone. With a twinge of guilt, Michael remembered Jack’s instructions to howl if necessary.

  “Well?” Mandy’s eyes – blue, just like Michael’s – were wide as she held the door open, letting them in.

  He’d notify the rest of the pack after he got in touch with the authorities.

  Kimberly pulled her hand from his, drifting across the kitchen area, taking a glass from a cabinet and filling it at the tap.

  “We found the hiker,” he said as matter-of-factly as possible. “Fell over an overhang – broken neck maybe… He’s gone. Sorry.” Why was he apologizing? The word didn’t cut through the tension that hung in the air like fog, didn’t make it any easier to watch Kimberly drink her glass of water, staring straight ahead at the wall instead of at him or Mandy.

  “I’ve got Ronnie’s number,” Mandy said, picking her phone up from a nearby counter. “He wanted to know if we found anything. Here.” She dialed, then handed the phone to him.

  Michael took it and explained what they’d found, right down to the bite marks that had been left on the man’s arms and shoulder. Saying it all out loud felt callous, somehow. When the conversation was over, he surrendered Mandy’s phone and went outdoors, stripping and shifting, calling to the others with a howl.

  The animal sound felt right in a way words hadn’t since he and Kimberly had discovered the body.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Mandy appeared on the porch, holding the front door open as Michael lingered near the cabin porch, dressed and bracing himself for the coming conversation. “I have some cookies in the oven, and there’s other stuff in the fridge.”

  He turned toward his daughter, a glimmer of brightness skittering over the surface of his mind as he laid eyes on her. “I’ll have one of those cookies, since you went through the trouble of making them.”

  He didn’t have much of an appetite; a sense of foreboding gnawed at him in a way hunger didn’t. It wasn’t just the hiker, though his death was regrettable – he’d seen plenty of dead bodies throughout his life, human and shifter alike. The war between his extinct pack and the Gruen clan of shifter hunters had seen to that.

  It was Kimberly.

  Seeing the body had shaken her, even if she didn’t say so out loud. He could see the subtle signs of her distress, could smell it on her when he was in his wolf form.

  He shouldn’t have taken her along for the search, shouldn’t have let her see the body. But what else could he have done? The gap between them was still too wide for him to tell her what was best, and he wouldn’t have tried to control her like that anyway. She might not be a wolf, but she was his mate – his equal – as far as he was concerned.

  Had she ever seen a corpse before, outside of funeral services? He didn’t know, didn’t dare to broach the subject in front of Mandy. But later…

  “Michael.” Kimberly appeared on the porch, arms crossed beneath her breasts. “Why don’t you come inside? Mandy’s taking the cookies out of the oven. They’re your favorite – chocolate chip.”

  Her voice and the mention of the past drew him in like a moth to flame despite the fact that he’d intended to wait outside for the others.

  Nearly thirty years had passed and she still remembered his favorite type of cookie. Their time together had been brief, but steeped in the sort of passion that made memories last, hardwiring them into the mind. He remembered so many things about her and what she liked that it was crazy, and it was a comfort to know it wasn’t one-sided.

  The scent of Mandy’s baking hit him hard, surprising him by drawing a growl from his stomach.

  “Get them while they’re hot – they’re best while the chocolate chips are still soft and melt-y.” Mandy stood in front of the stove, an apron tied around her round belly. “Use this to scoop them up.” She produced a spatula, then reached into a cupboard for plates.

  Michael tried not to look insensitive as he devoured three of the cookies. They were delicious, and it wasn’t the first time he’d eaten with the scent of blood still lingering in his nostrils.

  Kimberly took a cookie but only picked at it, slender fingers crumbling the treat into pieces on her plate.

  “How are they?” Mandy looked expectant.

  “The best I’ve ever had, besides your mother’s.”

  Mandy grinned. “It’s mom’s recipe.”

  He glanced at Kimberly, daring to hope for a meaningful look, a smile – anything – as memories of their tiny Nashville apartment flooded back to him. The water stains on the ceiling, the old stove and her pregnant, bent over the oven… Nostalgia was bittersweet, subjecting him to a brief recollection of happiness before wrenching at his heartstrings, forcing him to imagine her there alone.

  For a few seemingly endless seconds, he hated himself. And yet…

  They were alive. Kimberly and Mandy. They’d be dead and gone now, dust in the ground – like his pack – if he’d stayed, and that fact alone kept him from leaving again now, from cutting himself off from their presence because he didn’t deserve to be there. The running, the killing, the searching – it had all been for this, even if this was hard after so long apart.

  He’d never meant for it to take almost thirty years, but his enemies had been cruel and hardy – cunning. The group of Eastern Cypress Pack avengers Michael had been a part of had quickly been whittled down to just him – one lone wolf against a band of enemies. He’d survived by the skin of his teeth, had been thrown onto death’s doorstep more than once and had barely managed to deliver his own daughter from their clutches in the end.

  “The others are here.” Mandy turned toward the door, a distinct light shining in her eyes as she untied her apron. “I hear them.”

  Her tender expression sliced through him, a double-edged sword. He was glad she’d found a mate to love, though seeing how good she and Jack were together reminded him of what he and Kimberly could’ve shared. Would’ve shared, if circumstances had been different.

  As the screen door swung open and the others began to file in, Michael caught Kimberly’s eye and was surprised to see his feelings mirrored on her face.

  Then Jack crossed the room, freshly-dressed in rumpled clothing. A gust of night air followed in his wake as he paused to embrace Mandy briefly, then turned to Michael, his expression grim. “I reckon the hiker’s been found, else you wouldn’t have called us all back here. What happened?”

  * * * * *

  The rental cabin was a small two bedroom, one Kimberly had chosen for herself when she’d come to the mountains for Mandy’s wedding. Not long afterward, in the aftermath of the bloody finale with the Gruens, Michael had taken to sharing it with her. The building only – they hadn’t shared a bed.

  At night, he stayed in one room while she took the other. Tonight was different. He couldn’t stay away; the sound of her shuddering breath called to him, summoning some protective instinct to the surface. He hadn’t been there for her for years, and now that it was possible, he ached to make things better.

  “Kimberly?” He drifted from his seat at the kitchenette table and to the hall, pausing at her door.

  Sudden silence reigned for several moments.

  He called her name again. “Mind if I come in?”

  To his surprise, the door swung inward. She’d moved as silently as a shadow, and though her eyes were red-rimmed, her face was dry. “What is it?”

  “I, uh—” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as his resolve warred with the sight of her mouth, plump pink lips set in a brave line. “Thought you might be having a hard time after tonight, with the hiker and everything. Wanna talk about it?”

  She looked into his eyes, then beyond him.

  He glanced over his shoulder instinctively, eyeing the empty kitchen and the chairs that waited at the table. So, she didn’t want him in her bedroom. The realization wounded his pride a little, but he resisted the urge to nurse a b
ruised ego. This wasn’t about him – it was about her. The night hadn’t been easy on her. “I could make you some tea.”

  There was a tin in one of the cupboards with a few bags inside, left by some past vacationer who’d been either kind or forgetful.

  “Thanks, but I’m not thirsty.”

  A spark of anger flared inside him – not at her, but at himself. He wanted to draw her close, but she was distant – had been ever since they’d found the body. Before then, he’d thought they’d been making progress – growing closer, headed for a reunion that’d be as sweet and hot as it would be natural. Now, he was left to stare at the shattered pieces of his fantasy – her frown, the way she crossed her arms as she looked at him.

  “Let me do something for you.” He didn’t toy around, couldn’t bear the thought of trying to disguise what he felt for her. “You deserve that, at least. What can I do?”

  “Touch me,” she said, her voice whisper-soft, so quiet and so unexpected that he doubted his senses. “Let me feel that you’re real – that you’re really here.”

  Unable to resist, he reached for her, hands drawn to her body like she was a magnet and he was made of a million pieces of crushed iron.

  He settled his hands on her hips, relishing the feel of her body heat radiating through her cotton shirt. She was slim, warm. Perfect. His cock stiffened halfway as she leaned into him, her breath rushing against his throat, just above his collar.

  “The shock will fade eventually,” he said, his heart surging ahead as she leaned against his chest, her body tight against his, her breasts soft against his torso. Her hair brushed his chin, and a wave of her strawberries and cream sweetness threatened to crumble what self-control he had. Holding her was good, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to have her, to take her – to be inside her. The impulse radiated through him, animal and potent.