The Shifters

There was no more vibrating. He was standing in what was essentially a cave: musty, moldy, water damaged, probably crawling with vermin. His instinct was to get the hell out of there, but there was a presence that drew him, not alive, but…

He strode to the windows and pulled down the thick, frayed curtains, so the sun spilled in.

Ryder twisted back around to stare down at the floor, at the crumpled body of a large young man, his body wrenched back into a hideous arc, the same grotesque misshapenness of the tourist’s body last night.

With one notable difference. Claws extended from the clenched fingers of this corpse’s fur-covered hands.

Ryder had just enough time to think werewolf before he was hit hard from behind, tackled by a force strong enough to knock him halfway across the room, into a vile and moldering couch against the wall.

Ryder gasped through the pain and shoved backward, hurling his attacker off him and whipping around with a low growl, braced to fight, to kill….

Behind him, staggering to his feet, was a tall, strong young man of around thirty, with the ragged scruff-around-the-edges look of a were.

Already rage was changing man to wolf, the hair longer and shaggier than normal, facial features coarsening as nose and jaw assumed snoutlike length, savage teeth emerging…. And huge. An Alpha, Ryder thought with dismay.

Recovering itself, the were half turned, crouched on its haunches to spring.

Instinctively, Ryder threw up his hands and shift ed…into a woman. Not just a woman, but the first woman he could think of—in fact, the only woman he’d been able to think of since he’d met her: Caitlin MacDonald. Ryder called out, as close to Caitlin’s voice as he could mimic, “Wait!”

The were dropped back onto its haunches in an almost comic double-take of shock and recognition.

Ryder had been counting on the element of surprise buying him some time, but something else had happened here. It seemed that the were knew Caitlin.

Already the fangs and snout were retracting, the young man’s features returning to a more human cast. The strapping young alpha before him actually seemed sheepish now, shuffling in shame.

Ryder couldn’t help but realize that as long as the were thought he was Caitlin, he might get some interesting information out of him. “What the hell?” he demanded in a fair approximation of Caitlin’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

The young man before Ryder was now almost completely back to human, and clearly chagrined.

“Caitlin, I—I’m sorry. Louis disappeared yester day. Patty Lee is just about out of her mind. I followed his scent, and…”

The were suddenly turned back to the body on the floor and dropped into a crouch by the corpse’s side. There was obvious agony in his posture, and Ryder felt a pang of sympathy for him. “I’m so sorry,” he said, as he knew she would. His mind was racing. If this alpha were had been following the dead man, then the dead man was probably a were from the same pack.

The alpha was checking the body, and Ryder could tell he was confused by the absence of wounds. Ryder himself was bothered, but for a different reason. It was deeply disturbing to think a walk-in would possess—or even trying to possess—a were, yet the painful contortions of the body pointed to exactly that.

The young were abruptly stood, pacing in a circle that was more animal than human. “What are you doing here? I haven’t even spoken to Shauna.”

Ryder recognized the name as the third of the Keeper sisters. He realized that he would probably be discovered as an impostor at any minute.

The door slammed open behind them, and a very agile, very pissed-off young woman stormed into the house, followed by several bulky men.

The woman was strong and moved with animal fluidity. Even before she spoke, Ryder was certain he was looking at another were—several of them, in fact. Great, a whole pack.

The female barely glanced at Ryder-as-Caitlin; her focus was on the body on the floor. She leaped for ward, faltered, looked up at the first were, then back to the body. “Oh, Louis…” she growled.

“Dead,” the first were said flatly.

“How?” the female snarled, and Ryder could see her face start to change, her nose darkening and elongating, the muscles of her bare arms rippling.

“I picked up his scent on Claiborne and followed it here. The Keeper was here first.” He nodded toward Ryder. “Louis was already dead.”

The female whipped around to stare at Ryder. Her nostrils flared, as if she were smelling some strong scent. Busted, Ryder thought.

“Keeper my ass—that’s a man.”

All the weres turned on him as one now, a bristling, changing pack.

Ryder braced himself. “I didn’t kill your friend. But I can explain what did—” he started before the pack lunged.

Ryder quickly shifted. Holding his Caitlin form would only weaken him in a fight in which he was already at a huge disadvantage, if not mortal peril. The supernatural strength and animal viciousness of weres was something he’d experienced before. The pack before him was perfectly capable of ripping him to shreds. As he dropped back into his own body, he spun with a ninja kick and felt his boot connect with the snout of one of the young males. The were’s body went flying back. But the others were already on Ryder, snarling and foaming in a killing frenzy, teeth ripping through clothes and skin.

Ryder felt himself falling to the floor from the combined animal weight of them, and the thought of Caitlin flashed through his mind. Then he hit the ground hard, feeling teeth in his arms and thighs….

A commanding male voice rang through the dim house. “Hold off.”

To Ryder’s vast surprise and relief, the weres fell back, drawing away from him. And though he was bleeding from several deep gouges in his arms and legs, he was no longer being chewed.

The weres moved aside for whoever had entered the house. Ryder gritted his teeth against the searing pain in his arms and lifted himself to get a glimpse of his savior.

He found himself looking at a dignified older man with silver hair, wearing an expensively tailored suit. He had discerning powder-blue eyes and the command of a professional, but the broad chest and broader shoulders gave him away as another were, though at the moment perfectly in command of his human form.

The older man’s eyes went from Ryder to the contorted corpse on the floor.

The first young male were growled, “I found the shapeshifter with Louis’s body. He hasn’t been dead more than fifteen minutes.”

The older man’s eyes rested coldly on Ryder’s face, and Ryder’s heart contracted. This isn’t looking good.

“And the shapeshifter was in the form of that Keeper, Caitlin MacDonald,” the female added ominously.

The older were’s face went very still, and Ryder saw a ripple of coarseness, an anger that presaged the change.

“I don’t know you, shifter,” the older were said softly. “What were you doing, taking on Caitlin’s form? If you’ve hurt her…” The menace was clear in his voice.

“No,” Ryder said quickly. “I know the Keeper. We’re working together. There’s been a string of murders and your friend—” he glanced at the corpse on the filthy floor beside him “—is likely the latest of them.”

At the word “murders,” the weres shifted on their feet, muttering.

“Why should we believe him?” the female demanded.

“Call the vampire. DeFarge,” Ryder said, hating to have to evoke Jagger’s name for help, but it was slighly better than being torn apart by wolves. “He’s investigating.”

The older were looked him over without smiling. “All right, shifter,” he said finally. “We shall see.”

Chapter 11

It was dusk.

Caitlin was disoriented to realize that she’d slept the whole day. Just like a vampire, she thought, a bit unnerved at the thought.

On the other hand, it meant she could cook up a hell of a sleeping draught.

And she hadn’t dreamed, thank God; that had provided at least some respite from her intrusively sexual thoughts of the shapeshifter.

Don’t go down that road, she warned herself, and stalked to the closet.

She stared into her wardrobe and pushed clothes aside until she found what she was looking for: a lace-up dress of shell-pink that incorporated a corsetlike bodice of intricate hooks and eyes and ribbons. Both innocent and fetishistically sexy, it was something she knew Danny would like and Case would be hard-put to resist. She didn’t feel one second of guilt.

When she was showered, perfumed and laced into the dress—no small task without someone else to do the lacing—she sat down at her reading table in the alcove of the living room and unwrapped the silk from the set of cards she kept at home just for herself.

She sat unmoving in her wicker chair with its high curved back and carved swan design, and let her breathing slow and her thoughts focus, then slip away to blankness.

Then she opened her eyes, shuffled and cut the cards, and dealt one.

The Lovers.

She stared down at it in dismay, then swept it up, shuffled, and dealt again.

The Lovers.

She suppressed a wave of fury at Ryder Mallory, then gathered the deck to shuffle again, and this time she held the cards in both hands, concentrating on a single question: “Where will I find Case and Danny?”

She drew a card and turned it over…and this time she smiled.

The Moon.

Meaning, obviously, the Full Moon Saloon.

Caitlin walked into the packed bar with its patently obvious theme. There were moons everywhere: the lighting fixtures, the neon bar signs, shining discs on the window shades, glowing cutouts in the candleholders on the table. For a moment it struck her uneasily that the Moon card was also a clear sign of deception, deceit and danger….

But of course she knew that about the situation anyway, didn’t she? No news there.

She dismissed the thought and scanned the crowd. She saw Case almost instantly; the long bar was located in a raised area of the room, with wide stairs leading up to the higher level, and Case was parked on a bar stool toward the left side.