Blake, Abby - Suddenly Wolf (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

ABBY BLAKE

Copyright © 2011

Chapter One

Shit! The stupid chime signaled the arrival of yet another customer. Cursing herself for forgetting to lock the door when she’d turned the open sign to closed, Andrea plastered on a fake smile and decided to get rid of this person as quickly as possible. She’d already packed the stock in the safe, so there was no jewelry to actually show them anyway. Besides, it had been a very long day, and there was cold mac and cheese waiting for her upstairs.

“How can I hel…” Her words trailed off as she found herself face to face with three men wearing balaclavas. Considering that it was the middle of fucking summer, she took that as a bad sign. Tired, cranky, and maybe not thinking quite as rationally as she should’ve been, she placed her hands on her hips, looked them straight in their blank eyes, and asked, “What the fuck do you want?”

The men—she assumed they were men by their fat beer guts, and because the idea that she was about to be robbed by a gang of pregnant women was just a little too difficult to swallow—gaped at her as if she’d grown a second head.

“Hands up!” the closest one said nervously.

She rolled her eyes, tried not to laugh, and glanced around the room. “Or what?”

“What?” gun-toting-beer-gut guy asked in what appeared to be drunken confusion. Obviously this robbery wasn’t going the way he’d planned. “Or we’ll…we’ll…”

He trailed off and stupid-dick-in-a-ski-mask standing to his left answered for him. “Or we’ll shoot ya.”

“We?” she asked with a half laugh and a smirk. “You only have one gun, so technically that’d be
he’ll
shoot me.”

Skinny-legs-and-no-ass guy had already decided he didn’t like the way things were going because he started to shuffle back the way they’d come, clearly intent on leaving his friends behind.

“Okay, he’ll…um…shoot you?” She couldn’t help the laugh that escaped as the man somehow made a threat into an uncertain question.

“How about,” she said, stepping closer to the man with the weapon, “you put the gun down and leave the way you came. Seems to be working for your acquaintance.”

Startled, both of her remaining would-be attackers turned to the front door in time to see their fellow robber turn tail and run.

“Aw shit,” gun-guy said, slurring his words slightly. “Stan’s supposed to be driving us home.”

“I reckon if you run fast enough, you could catch up to him.”

Gun-guy scratched his belly, burped, and considered her proposal. “Guessing ya might be right.” He turned to leave the store, but turned back suddenly to hand her the gun.

Of course the stupid walking dipshit didn’t have the safety engaged and the weapon fired. Even knowing the impact came from a bullet, Andrea couldn’t believe how similar the pain felt to when she’d been sucker punched in the gut a few years back. She managed to stay upright long enough for her killer to apologize, hand her the gun, and drunkenly weave his way out of her store.

Angry enough to shoot the bastard as he meandered away, clarity finally returned when her legs wobbled and she slid ungracefully to the ground. She tried to partially roll so that she could reach the cell phone in her back pocket, but her hand seemed less coordinated than her legs.

And then, as her lungs seemed to grow heavy and a metallic taste filled her mouth, she finally realized that she was in a shitload of trouble.

Great. Fucking great.

Eleven years on the police force without a scratch, and this was how her life was going to end? Fate sure had a fucking pathetic sense of humor.

* * * *

Isaac breathed deeply. When he’d planned this mini vacation, stumbling across a victim of violent crime hadn’t been on his agenda, but that was definitely human blood he could smell. He followed his nose all the way to the small jewelry store tucked between a bookstore and a women’s clothing shop.

Curious about the owner—it was a small town, but even small towns had crime—Isaac pushed the front door open, dismayed to find it unlocked. But he was quickly distracted by the overwhelming smell of bleeding human.

He found the woman half-propped, half-slouched against a wall, her hands pressed against her gut as if to somehow hold the blood inside. But blood was everywhere, and his better-than-human hearing picked up the sluggish thumping of her heart as her life clock ran out. There was no way human medicine would be able to help her now. She was going to die.

Unless he did something.

But that was against the laws he lived by. He couldn’t interfere in petty human concerns, despite the curiosity that had brought him into this store.

He leaned over and brushed a lock of golden-brown hair from the woman’s eyes, his wolf picking up her sweet scent even over the coppery, metallic smell of blood. He froze, his mind racing as he processed what his wolf already knew.

“Daegan,”
he called to his brother telepathically.
“Jewelry store on Main Street. I need your help.”

Daegan didn’t question him. He simply arrived at the store a few moments later using his preternatural speed. It was getting dark outside, so at least the few humans left in the area this late in the afternoon would not have gotten a good look.

“S’up bro?” Daegan asked as he walked into the store. It was obvious that he could smell the blood, but Daegan lived by the same strict code. Isaac wasn’t surprised when his twin didn’t immediately move to the woman’s aid.

“She’s our mate,” he said without preamble. “Save now. Deal later.” He glanced around the store, hoping like hell that he was doing the right thing. What if she was married? Had a family? Was it fair to make her a werewolf and take that away from her?

“We…you want…are you sure?”

Isaac growled at his brother. Without their help the woman was dead. At least by changing her they’d save her life. They could deal with the fallout later. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Daegan didn’t look convinced but moved closer to the woman that Isaac had pulled into his arms. Isaac held her tightly, unprepared for the feelings of loss that assaulted him as her heart beat slowed even more. But as Daegan reached out a hand to touch the smooth contour of the woman’s cheek, he took a deep breath and nodded.

Between the two of them they managed to get her to a sitting position, strip off what was left of her shirt, and let their wolves come to the forefronts of their minds. This wasn’t the usual way to do things, but time was running out, and it was very literally now or never. One on each side, they bit into the flesh where her neck connected to her shoulders, their sharp canine teeth piercing the skin, their saliva beginning the change from human to werewolf.

She groaned, but didn’t wake. The transformation, if they’d done it properly, shouldn’t take long to begin, so hopefully they’d gotten here early enough to stop her from dying. Daegan pulled his teeth from her, his long tongue lapping at the small wounds several times before he moved back.

“Now what?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac answered irritably. “I’ve never done this before either.”

“Chill, dude,” Daegan said as he climbed to his feet and moved around the area. “I’m just going to look around. See if I can figure out what happened.”

“She had a gun in her hand when I first got here.”

“What’re you thinking? She did this to herself?”

“I don’t know.”

Isaac glanced around the small room. “Everything’s packed away. Maybe a thief got pissed off and shot her.”

“Maybe,” Daegan said as he stepped around a corner and out of sight. He was back a moment later. “I think she might live on the upper floor. There’s a door marked private at the top of the stairs.”

Isaac moved easily, standing with the woman in his arms. She’d stopped bleeding, but he couldn’t be certain she was healing until he could get a closer look at her. His wolf vision was better in the dim light, but without the full color of human sight he couldn’t tell for sure.

Daegan didn’t bother knocking. He simply twisted the handle and stepped inside.

“Not locked?” Isaac asked as he stepped into a small but tastefully decorated living space. He looked around, found a doorway that he assumed led to the bedroom, and shouldered it open.

The room had no windows, but just like the living area it was decorated in a comfortable if somewhat sparse design. Isaac was about to lower her to the mattress when Daegan said, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Look around you. The woman is a neat freak. No way is she going to appreciate blood all over her bed. We’ll need to clean her up first.” Isaac nodded tightly. He should have noticed that. If he’d been thinking beyond his need to keep her alive, he probably would have. He hesitated as he turned to what he assumed was the bathroom. She was still injured, possibly still bleeding, and jostling her around was not going to help her condition.

Daegan laughed at him. “Take a deep breath, bro. She’s already lupine. I can smell her sweet scent from here.” Isaac took a deep breath, somehow unable to trust his brother’s words without knowing for himself that Daegan was right. And there it was, his mate’s wolf scent, the sweet, tantalizing aroma that made his own wolf sit up and take notice.

“It worked,” he said with no small amount of relief in his voice.

“Yup,” Daegan said from the bathroom as he turned on the shower and began stripping from his clothes. “Hand her over. I’ll get her cleaned up.”

Isaac glanced down at his own clothes covered in the woman’s blood and shook his head. “I’ll clean her up.”

Daegan gave him that “whatever, bro” look he did so well, but it was obvious to Isaac that his brother wasn’t happy. Isaac stepped into the shower fully clothed, half expecting the woman to wake up, but she didn’t. She stayed unconscious as Isaac managed to get most of her clothes off by shredding them with his claws.

His wolf howled joyously in his mind, and images of licking her all over danced in his head, but the part of him that was rational realized the woman probably wouldn’t be impressed. It didn’t matter that she was also a wolf now. Until her first shift she probably wouldn’t understand what had happened to her, and he didn’t think she’d be happy if she woke up while he explored her body.

He washed away as much blood as he could, pleased to find the gunshot wound in her abdomen mostly healed. A few moments later Daegan opened up the shower door and stood there holding a towel open. This time Isaac unbent enough to let her go. Jealousy was misplaced. The woman was mate to both of them, and now that she wasn’t in immediate danger of dying they had a lifetime—a long werewolf lifetime—to get to know each other.

Daegan wrapped the still-unconscious woman in the towel, nodded his head once, and then carried her from the room. Isaac turned his attention to his own clothes but ended up shredding them as well. The warm water would have set the blood into the fabric. There was no way he was ever washing that out, so he cleaned himself up, wrapped a towel around his hips, and headed into the bedroom to check on their woman.

Daegan had placed her under the blankets, but positioned himself on top. He lay beside her, his head propped on his hand as he watched the woman sleep comfortably. She was still very pale, but the change would take care of that soon enough. Isaac looked at his brother, raised an eyebrow, and waited for an answer to his most obvious question.

Isaac shrugged. “I didn’t think she’d appreciate waking up sandwiched between two strangers. She might be a werewolf now, but she’ll still think like a human woman for a while.”

Isaac nodded. They’d shared many a willing human female between them, but they needed to be patient. This woman was their mate. They’d be together a long time, and they sure as hell didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Waking with them both in her bed might not be the best way to impress their mate.

Add to that the fact that newly made females had a tendency to underestimate their improved physical strength and Isaac was more than willing to wait for her to wake up. “I’ll make some coffee,” he said and turned to the kitchen.

* * * *

Andrea woke slowly. As always she didn’t really want to climb out of bed—it was too damn cold in this part of the country in the mornings, even in summer—but she had jewelry to make and customers to serve, so she went to roll out of bed.

That’s when she noticed her pajamas were missing.
When did I get naked?