Bedrock rose from the earth alongside mossy trees. Rocky outcrops were stacked in haphazard clumps like large log piles. The girl scampered up a large boulder, her bare toes gripping the steep slope with an efficiency that would have impressed a mountain goat.

  Rafael tracked her speedy climb to the top, where a little boy huddled.

  Mother Moon! There were two of them. The boy was even younger. Maybe four.

  Rafael started toward them, still unsure what the hell he could, or was willing to, do about the two young survivors. The girl was dressed in a plain cream-colored dress that covered her knees but not the lower half of her bruised legs. The boy wore a long, baggy gray shirt with a short length of rope tied around his middle like a belt.

  When the boy saw him, his eyes widened. He wrapped his hands around the girl’s waist and clung to her like she was his last hope. Rafael nearly stumbled as feelings flooded in of what he and Diego had gone through in the days following their mother’s death.

  These kids didn’t stand a chance on their own. They were human. Rafael couldn’t help them even if he wanted to. There was nothing he could do for them, and yet leaving left an acidic burn inside his gut. Maybe whatever was in the packs would help them for a little while.

  When he reached the bottom of the boulder, he set the bags on the ground and looked up. The girl shoved her brother behind her and glared down at him.

  “Stay away from us, werewolf!”

  Her ferocity brought a chuckle to his lips. “I’m not a werewolf.”

  “Then what are you?” she demanded.

  Damn, she had lip for a tiny human who knew her parents weren’t coming to rescue her.

  He took a step back and folded his arms. “Shapeshifter. Wolf.”

  The girl scowled. “How’s that different from a werewolf?”

  “Werewolves are slightly bigger, more humanoid in their animal form with the ability to walk on two legs. They become what they are from being bitten. Wolf shifters are born into their heritage. When we bite, it is with the intention of killing or claiming a mate.”

  It wasn’t something either species went around broadcasting. Werewolves were made. Wolves were born. In Rafael’s mind, it was obvious who the superior of the two groups were even if werewolves tended to be bigger and tougher than most urban wolf shifters. Rumor had it that there were no guarantees when it came to surviving the transition.

  He kept this opinion to himself. Why was he getting chatty with a nosy human, no matter what her age, anyway? She stared at him, her jaw loosening. The little boy peered around her, his mouth slightly open as he took in Rafael’s words.

  “You don’t walk on two legs when you’re a wolf?” the girl asked.

  Rafael shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t want to. That’s what my human half is for.”

  He thought he caught a smile on the boy’s lips before he ducked his face behind the girl as she put her hands on her hips.

  “Are you a good wolf, or a bad wolf?”

  “Depends on who you ask. The deer and rabbits don’t think too highly of me.”

  There was a muffled giggle behind the girl. She rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath. “Do you harm children?”

  Her question stole the mirth from his lips.

  “Of course not!” He hadn’t meant to snap. It was a fair question and showed a keen sense of self-preservation on the girl’s part, but just the idea of treating young innocents poorly sickened him. He remembered the first time he shifted, around his twelfth year, confused and as unsteady as a toddler taking his first steps. There had been no one to guide Rafael or Diego through that first stage between wolf and human and back again. Like everything else, they had to figure it out for themselves. They only had each other—the way these two kids did now that their parents were dead. At least he assumed that was who that man and woman had been.

  The girl went rigid at his tone and the little hands around her middle now clutched at her like she was the only thing preventing the boy from tumbling off the boulder.

  With a heavy sigh, Rafael lowered one arm and lifted the other, running a hand through his hair.

  “What are your names?

  “What’s yours?” the girl fired back.

  “Rafael.”

  She pursed her lips and studied him for several beats before saying, “I’m Coral and this is my little brother Eco.”

  “What are you doing out here anyway? Don’t you humans usually stick to your settlements?” Rafael scanned the woods as though someone might emerge and explain the queer circumstances that had left two children orphaned in the wild.

  The girl cast a cool look over him. “We had to leave our home.”

  “Why?”

  “We had to leave because of the werewolves.”

  “What do you mean? Was your settlement attacked?”

  The girl shook her head of tangled auburn hair. “They said they were our protectors, but only if we did what they said. My father said they were the village overlords, and he wouldn’t spend his life serving them.”

  Werewolf overlords? Rafael swallowed down his shock. He had always assumed that werewolves were as motivated as any other animal shifter to keep as far away from humans as possible.

  “How many of these overlords are in your village?”

  “There were six at first. When we left there were five.”

  Five werewolves. ¡Mierda!

  “How many people in your village?”

  Coral screwed up her face and looked skywards in thought. “A lot.”

  Rafael nearly laughed at her childlike answer, but there was nothing funny about her situation or—more to the point—the one he had become a part of when he followed her to the boulder.

  “More than thirty? Less?” he asked.

  “More.”

  “More than fifty?”

  Coral pursed her lips and shrugged.

  With five werewolves lording over the place, it wouldn’t matter if there were a hundred of them. Usually it was shifters avoiding humans, not the other way. Apparently, werewolves were an entirely different breed of crazy. Come to think of it, Rafael and Diego had rarely come across them in their travels. They had never seen one living among wolf shifters until meeting Aden in Wolf Hollow. He hadn’t seemed like the type to want anything to do with lording over humans.

  Rafael scrubbed the wiry hair covering his chin. “Do you have any family who stayed behind in the village?”

  Coral inclined her head. “My aunt Autumn stayed behind.”

  Rafael nodded. It was unfortunate the place was run by werewolves, but it was a hell of a lot safer than the woods, and at least the kids still had family.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he would help the girl and boy. When he looked at their tiny faces, he saw children, not humans. They were in a category of their own. And he couldn’t help feeling that this was fate’s way of intervening. He had been close to catching up to Hailey. Too close.

  The horror he had stumbled upon along the hillside was a bleak reminder of why he did not want a mate and children. A warning.

  Looking up at the sister and brother huddled together on the boulder, he felt a certain relief in knowing that it would never be his kids who had lost everything and been left to fend for themselves.

  He would never have to worry about what he didn’t have.

  The thought brought him more emptiness than relief.

  chapter twenty-three

  HAILEY RETURNED TO her dream, standing naked on a sandy shore. She had never seen the ocean before, only heard descriptions from elders in her pack. But there it was at her feet, the tide rushing across her ankles as she searched the endless blue waves for other survivors.

  What she saw was vivid, yet far away as past and present intertwined. She could not feel the wet sand beneath her toes, nor the chill of the wind on her exposed skin. She floated somewhere between the dream world and the prairie in which she slept hidden in the grass.

  Her thoughts were for her luggage and the miniature portrait of her mother, which she valued above all else. Lost to the sea. She had more urgent matters to worry about, but thinking of the frivolous items that had sunk beyond reach delayed an all-out panic.

  How far was she from New York?

  She walked up the beach and made her way over a windswept dune to a grassy ledge, stepped on top, looked from side to side, then stared at the wall of green. There was no sign of civilization in sight.

  A sequence of events unfolded, blurring and skipping as dreams do.

  She was running through dense woods on four legs. The forest was endless, and she wondered if any other creatures existed here. Lonely howls rose from the depths of her soul every night. She felt so very alone. And then, one night, her call was answered.

  The male appeared from the trees, a striking gray wolf who radiated primal dominion over those eternal woods. Over her.

  They became mates, loyal and loving. No human had ever treated her as well as that wild wolf.

  She birthed her first litter in the early summer—six healthy pups. Of those, two survived. A couple years later, she gave birth to a litter of four. The older two helped look after them. Her mate found it odd that their offspring stayed with them instead of forming their own packs with the wild wolves that sometimes called in the distance, but he allowed them all to remain. Like the wolf she had claimed, Hailey was a force to be reckoned with. Not once during their time together did she take on her human form. That part of her became a ghost.

  She got six more years with her mate before he succumbed to old age, having lived the full, satisfying life of a natural wolf.

  Although her pups were now older than her mate had been when she met him, they were curiously playful and dependent upon her, like adolescent children she recalled from her human life.

  There were six of them, plus her, leading the family pack. Years passed. Seasons changed. The moon waxed and waned and still her pups did not succumb to their father’s lifespan. It was around the time they should have been approaching their entry into the spirit world that Hailey came across the oldest two, now in their twelfth year, sitting beside the creek making sounds of dismay as they stared, and poked, and slapped at their arms and legs. Groans and bellows heaved from their lips. They looked at one another and cried out in terror.

  Without a second thought, Hailey shed her fur for the first time in over a decade and stumbled toward her children. Her upper body hunched, as though she had forgotten how to walk upright.

  “It’s all right,” she gasped.

  Their eyes widened as she closed in. When she stretched her arms toward them, they scrambled away and tried to bark.

  “Luna! Lupus!” she said sternly, pointing at her daughter, then son. “Hush!”

  They went still.

  She looked them over and nodded. “Good girl. Good boy.” Then the words poured out of her, coming easier than her body movements. Her thoughts had been with her all along, though she’d had no one to share them with for many moons.

  She explained to her children what they were. They didn’t understand her words, or what was happening to them. Not at first. But they learned her language fast. Their younger siblings were afraid at first. Curiosity won out in the end. The four younger pups followed their siblings around and occasionally allowed themselves to be picked up, though they squirmed almost immediately after. When their first shift came, the transition was a great deal smoother having watched Luna and Lupus go through the transformation.

  Hailey was happy in the dream. She had six beautiful, healthy children who were able to shift from wolf to human and back like her. They could carry on conversations. And they were strong.

  Wildlife abounded and they were always well-fed. The forest provided. The native people left them alone, and they extended the same courtesy to those humans who respected the land and animals.

  Although Hailey’s wolf mate had died of old age, she was still a beauty in her prime. Her animal form aged at the same pace as her human side. Although her children kept her happy, there was a loneliness they could not completely fill inside her soul. She missed having a mate.

  Her memories of the young bucks in London were like faded photographs. She had never been with a man and concluded she never would in this savage new life she had carved out for herself. That ship had sailed . . . and sunk.

  Then one afternoon, as though sent by the moon goddess, a male wolf appeared at the edge of a pond as she was rinsing off alone in her human form while her children hunted. The wolf had a gorgeous coat of black fur edging his ears, upper head, and back. The coloring lightened to gray, brown, and tan over his muzzle and legs. Seeing her, he growled. When she looked into his eyes with no trace of fear, his snarling stopped.

  “Hello there,” she said.

  He cocked his head to the side.

  Emerging from the water, she chuckled. “Don’t you know it’s highly inappropriate to watch a woman bathe? Scandalous.”

  The wolf wagged his tail and she laughed, until his fur faded into tan skin and raven black hair that fell practically to his waist. He raised himself off the ground, standing proud and as naked as she. With a strangled gasp, she threw one arm over her breasts and the other in front of her sex.

  She did not realize the indigenous people had beast forms, or perhaps he was a rarity like her. He grinned and fired off a string of words that had her shaking her head.

  “Sorry. I don’t understand.”

  Whatever he was saying, he looked quite happy. Walking backward, he stopped, crouched, and pointed to where her paw prints had turned to footprints.

  She nodded and smiled. “Yes, that’s right. I’m a shapeshifter like you, apparently. Are there more of you? More like us, that is?”

  “Us?” His deep voice was as beautiful as the rest of him. There was an intensity about him when he listened. Wide, sensual lips parted slightly from beneath a long, elegant nose and soulful eyes. He had no facial hair and his body was all smooth, defined muscle.

  “Yes, us,” Hailey said enthusiastically. She had aided her children through the beginning and advanced stages of verbal communication. She could do so again with this male. “You and me. Us.” She pointed at him then at herself. In her eagerness to commune, she momentarily forgot about her bosom. That is, until she saw the man’s lips stretch into a wide smile and his keen dark brown eyes look where they should not have been looking.

  Over a decade spent living in the wild should have eroded the last of her inhibitions, but modesty clung to her like the moss to the trees. There was no shedding a proper British upbringing. Not entirely.

  Hailey felt her cheeks turn hot. It crept across her fair skin down her neck to the valley between her breasts. She quickly used her arm to cover what she could.

  The shifter spoke, then wiggled his eyebrows.

  “I hope you did not say something inappropriate,” Hailey admonished.

  The man’s smile was friendly and warm. He made no move toward her, instead pointing to the animal tracks. “Maheegan,” he said.

  “Wolf,” she countered.

  “Wolf,” he repeated, then pointing at her, “wolf.”

  “Wolf.” Hailey pointed at the tracks. “Woman.” She exposed her bosom again briefly to point at herself.

  “Woman.” The reverent way he said it made her thighs heat and legs quiver.

  She stole a look below his neck, running her eyes down his chiseled chest. Unlike her, he did not attempt to cover himself. He was tall, lean, tan-skinned, muscular, and . . .

  Oh, my.

  Her gaze snapped right back up in time to catch his knowing smirk.

  Hailey’s face burned. She backed up a couple steps, as though that might make up for their nudity and lack of a chaperone.

  She was a widow, she reminded herself. A mother. And part beast. Perfectly capable of handling herself with a stranger.

  The man remained in place, as though he did not want to scare her off, though she couldn’t help noticing the way he posed, standing with his back straight, torso and chin lifted. When he fluffed his long, black hair over his shoulders as though to show it off, she couldn’t help chuckling. “Indeed, you have the most gorgeous locks. Men and women alike would be envious.”

  He grinned and flattened his palm over his chest. “Ininì.”

  She repeated the word in her head. Was that his name?

  “Ikwe.” He pointed at her. “Woman.”

  Understanding brought the smile rushing back to her mouth.

  “Woman.” She pointed at herself. “Man.” She pointed at him.

  “Us,” he said in a tone that brightened her entire world.

  Over time, the native wolf shifter learned her language. Neither of them were in any hurry. There were other, more pleasurable, ways to get to know one another. He was her forever mate. Eventually they could speak. He learned English so that he could talk to her children, as well as her.

  With Matwau, her shifter mate, she gave birth to her first child in human form. She joined Matwau’s tribe, having discovered several months into her pregnancy she could no longer shift. With that joining, her family grew into a community of people who accepted her with open arms and hearts. She found not only love with Matwau, but happiness in the tribe. Her children suddenly had playmates and role models. Together, they made new discoveries of who they were as man and beast.

  Although she had more time with Matwau then she had with her wild wolf mate, it still slipped away too fast.

  Blissful years passed until the inevitable ravages of age found the couple. As they lay side by side, wrinkled and gray, in their tepee, Matwau spoke his farewell for the parting that must temporarily take place.

  “I will find you in the next life, my woman, my wolf, my heart. Until then—”

  “Run forever free,” she finished, cupping her mate’s cheek.

 

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