Taming The Shifter. Lisa Childs

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ