Thank You For Not Shifting (Peculiar Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

Seconds passed.

I have done as you asked. He says to keep hidden and keep safe. He will find you.

I found a giant hollowed out tree nearby. I curled up in a ball, holding my knees tightly. As the adrenaline in my body waned, my lids and my limbs grew heavy with exhaustion, and I’m sure there was a little bit of the drug left in me as well. I didn’t dare close my eyes. Didn’t dare sleep. Billy Bob was coming for me. I just needed to stay vigilant and stay alive until he got here.

Strangely enough, I didn’t cry. Unlike the last time I was kidnapped, this time, I’d gotten away. I might not be one-hundred percent safe, but I’d managed to save myself.

Not a victim, I told myself. Not this time.

I don’t know how much time passed, but it had felt like three lifetimes when I heard the gentle pad of four paws on dried grass. I stayed hidden but leaned out from the tree enough to glimpse a large, gray wolf standing less than thirty feet away. His fur glowed as the moonlight turned it silvery-blue. His gaze captured mine, and I pushed myself to a stand, stumbling toward him. Jagged rocks dug into my bare feet, but I ignored the pain. The only important thing in my world was the wolf.

He bolted toward me, his body shifting on the way. By the time we met, closer to my side than the middle, Billy Bob grabbed me into his arms and clutched me so hard I couldn’t breathe. His hands roamed my body as he examined me with his touch. Last, his fingers were in my hair, holding my head back so he could check my face.

“He didn’t hit me,” I told him. “He just knocked me out and hauled me out here in the back of his truck.”

“Who?” Billy Bob asked in a way that promised violence, ending in a brutal death.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He drugged me with something. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. He had a canvas tarp over me.” I shook my head again. “I…I just can’t tell you more.”

“Can you describe him at all? His height? His weight? Hair color?”

“I was able to burn some of the drug from my body. Enough to shift.” My voice cracked with emotion. “But everything seemed warped and weird, even for a while after I ran away.”

He pulled me against his chest, the warmth of his skin easing the tension in my weary muscles. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’re safe now. I have you, Chav, and I’m never letting you go.”

My nose started to run. I sniffed. “But what if I have to pee?”

His tone was fierce. “Get used to an audience.”

“I really do love you, Doc. But there is no way I can poop with you in the room.”

A low growl rumbled gathered in his chest. “I will board up the bathroom window.”

“Good, because watching me use the toilet might have been a deal breaker.”

The low rumble turned into a chuckle. “You staked your claim on me at the Blonde Bear Café, Chav. There are no take backs.”

I looked up at him pushed his silvery locks back from his face to drink in his raw, masculine beauty. He was everything. “No take backs,” I agreed. “Will you take me home now?”

“My place.” It wasn’t a question. “We’ll call the sheriff on the way. He can meet us there.”

“My brain is still foggy,” I said as I tried to remember more about the abduction.

“The tox screens came back on Wares and Blackwell. They’d both been dosed with a safrol, a drug extracted from the root of a sassafras tree used to make MDMA, and a paralytic compound. But the dose in both victims would have been enough to kill a human.”

“Ecstasy?” It explained why I was super thirsty. I remember something more. “He knew about me.”

“What?”

“The man who took me. I remember now. He said something about knowing last year that I would be the third sacrifice. That I was his or rather their destiny. He was talking on the phone with his partner. He said that I could be their deliverance.”

“They can’t have you. I won’t let it happen. I can’t lose you, Chavvah,” he said. He kissed me gently. “Not when I’ve just found you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “I promise.”

I hoped it was a promise I could keep.

S
heriff Taylor had come out to take my statement personally. I wished I’d been able to tell him more, but a drugged up witness was almost as good as no witness at all. Apparently, I’d been gone for seven hours. Billy Bob and Sunny had reported me missing, and with the murder taking place at Sunny’s Outlook two days earlier, the sheriff took my disappearance seriously. Billy Bob, in a frantic effort to find me, had gone full-on spirit ritual, body paint and all, in the hopes that Brother Wolf could reach out to me. I still didn’t understand why the guardian spoke to me all the time, but I was glad I didn’t have to work at finding him. Tonight could have ended much differently. Thank you, Brother Wolf.

You’re welcome
.

After a long, hot shower, I’d fallen asleep in Billy Bob’s arms. When morning came, we were rudely awakened by the incessant push of the doorbell. The
ding-dong ding-dong
annoyed the hell out me.

Billy Bob pulled me into his arms, spooning me from behind, his peace pipe jabbing me in a sensitive place.

I giggled.

Don’t judge me.

“There’s someone at the door.”

“They can wait,” he said, nibbling my ear.

I groaned at the pleasure his love nips sent through my body. The doorbell kept ringing, but Billy Bob’s hands on my breasts, his fingers teasing my nipples as his hot breath sizzled my skin pretty much meant I didn’t care.

Finally, the noise stopped. I turned in his arms, my fingers slipping around his shaft. “You are frisky in the mornings.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “You bring out the pup in me, woman.”

Oh lawd! The way he said woman tripped every hot, alpha fantasy I’d ever had. I moved closer until my breasts touched his chest, and leaned in for a heated, passionate kiss that scorched my brain with its fiery licks.

And just when my leg looped over his, giving him an all-access pass to my throbbing goodies, a loud banging on the window sent us flying apart and ready for battle.

A blonde I recognized all too well had her face pressed up against the window. She slapped the window pane again and then squinted. Her eyes grew large, much like Billy Bob’s…you know. I yanked the cover up around me to hide my nakedness.

“Sunny!” I yelled.

She snapped her attention away from my naked boyfriend and stepped back from the window.

She managed a chagrinned, lopsided smile. “Open the door,” she shouted, pointing sideways. She held up a white bag with her other hand. “I brought donuts.”

I sighed with deep regret as I took in the Adonis in the room. I shrugged a half-apology. “She brought donuts.”

“I can’t compete with donuts.” He turned his back to me and grabbed a pair of jeans off the back of a chair.

I cussed Sunny ten ways to Sunday for her ill-timed interruption as he pulled them up over his sexy ass. I didn’t know when or how, but my ex-BFF was going pay. I got dressed too, mourning the loss of morning nookie.

Billy Bob started the coffee while I answered the door. Sunny had a fake as hell smile plastered on her face as she held out the bag. I gave her a dirty look and gestured for her to come in.

I closed the door and relocked it. Leftover nerves from the night before. When I turned around to follow Sunny to the kitchen, she pitched herself into my arms. The wet of her tears smeared on my cheek.

“Oh, Chav,” she said, squeezing me with more strength than an anaconda. “Why are you always getting kidnapped?”

“I don’t know.” I put my arms around her to complete the hug. “I must have ‘take me’ tattooed on my forehead.”

She leaned back, grabbed my chin, and tilted my head down. She examined my face very carefully. “Nope,” she said. “No tattoos. Just a few wrinkles and some ghastly clogged pores.”

I gasped in horror. “Sunshine Ambrosia Haddock. You are an awful human being.”

She sniffed and nodded. “Yes,” she said. She wiped at her eyes and managed a genuine smile. “I really am.”

We both began to laugh, and the tension I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding inside released like a cake in a well-greased pan.

“Coffee’s ready,” Billy Bob said.

Sunny and I turned to see him standing in the archway leading back to the kitchen. He wore a black T-shirt that fit snug across his wide chest, and damn, he made those tight jeans look mmm-mmm-good.

Sunny gave me side-eye, her eyebrow raised.

I gave her side-eye back and wiggled my brows.

Billy Bob shook his head, chuckling softly, as he went back into the kitchen giving us both a very nice view of him walking away.

“Holy shit, Chav,” Sunny said in a quiet voice. “You and Billy Bob. I am seriously impressed.”

“What? You didn’t think I could land a man like the doc?”

She wrapped her arm around my waist and put her head on my shoulder. “Don’t be silly. I’m impressed he managed to land you. You are a fucking catch, and any man would be goddamn lucky to have you in his life.”

I don’t know why, but I teared up. Not enough that anything leaked from my eyes, but I think on some level, I was almost afraid I was too damaged for any relationship. I rubbed her shoulder. “Thanks, Sunny. You always know the right thing to say.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a gift.”

We laughed again. “That coffee smells good.”

“Well, let’s go get some then.” She picked her donut bag off the floor.

“Cinnamon twist?”

“You bet.” She winked. “A cinnamon twist for you, old fashions for Billy Bob, and a double chocolate dipped raspberry éclair with extra raspberry for me.”

“So you really are pregnant.”

She grinned. “I’ll wait until after the Jubilee and we find these fucking bastards before I take the official test.” She glanced at Billy Bob, who had already poured three cups of coffee and set the steaming mugs on the counter.

“Have you told Babe?”

“Do you think I would have said it in front of Billy Bob if I hadn’t?”

“I guess not.” I chuckled, so glad I had her in my life. She was right. Babe would have had a conniption if she had told Billy Bob about her pregnancy before him.

“Congratulations, Sunny.” He pushed her mug to her. “You can come in anytime during clinic hours. I’ll work you in.”

“Of course, you will,” I said, more out of habit than a real belief that he preferred Sunny to me. He’d pretty much kissed and…well…you know… the doubt right out of me.

Sunny smacked me. “So, tell me what happened, and don’t you dare leave a single thing out. I may get an impression or something.”

“We should be safe for tonight. The killer has to be a therian, so he’ll be shifting along with the rest of us.”

“They grabbed you in broad daylight,” Sunny said. “If they want to kill someone today, they will find a way to do it, and I want to help stop them.”

“You’re right,” I said. “The man the night before had seemed determined to get in a third killing before the full moon.”

“Sunny,” Billy Bob said. “Trying to get a vision while you’re pregnant isn’t a good idea.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “My baby is the size of a cashew. She doesn’t even have a nervous system yet, let alone a brain. She will not be traumatized by any visions I get, but I will certainly be traumatized if we don’t catch these psychos before they kill someone I love.”

He didn’t look completely convinced, but, finally, he nodded. Good thing too, because I’d known Sunny for almost a decade, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her from doing what she wanted to do.

Sunny took my hand and closed her eyes.

“We’re doing this now?”

She peeked at me with one eye. “Now is as good a time as any.”

“Fine.” I sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Focus on yesterday. Everything you can remember. Try to picture it in your mind as you do.”

“Okay.” I put my thoughts to the day before.

“After the public make-out,” Sunny said.

I blushed hotly. I hadn’t meant to go back that far, but wow, it was hard to forget climbing up my man in a public eatery. “You saw that?”

“Along with half the town.”

Oh yeah. I’d forgot about the recording.

Sunny kept her eyes shut. “And while it was very exciting, it’s not going to help us find the bad guys.”

“Does this mean your gift is working?”

“It’s like I’m watching TV with an old UHF antenna, everything is grainy, and I’m only getting a partial picture, but yes, I see bits and pieces.”

“Gotcha.” I tried to only sift through the memories after entering Sunny’s Outlook. The sharp prick in my neck. Waking up in the back of a truck. The rough roads leading into the woods. Brother Wolf.

Do you need something, little sister
?

Oops. I hadn’t meant to call him. He had been a major part of how I’d managed to escape.

A strange look passed over Sunny’s face. “Who is Brother Wolf?” she asked. “Does Billy Bob have a brother?”

“No,” I heard the doc say. “He is Chavvah’s spirit guardian.”

“Huh. I’ll expect a full explanation later,” she said. “But keep thinking about the Brother Wolf dude. I am getting a stronger signal when he’s in the picture.”

I couldn’t help but think about when I first started hearing his voice while kept in a cage. Brother Wolf had been a way to escape the metal bars. He’d help me escape the pain.

“Oh, honey,” Sunny said. “It was so awful for you.”

“What do you see?” Billy Bob asked.

“The cage she was kept in at the lodge.” She held up a hand to silence Billy Bob’s next question. “I can see a shadowy figure in a stretch of green pastures and blue streams. The sky is the color of sapphires, and the clouds are ridiculously fluffy and white as if giant cotton balls levitated in the air.

“He is a giant wolf. Black as night with eyes that are the color of white diamonds.” She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “I can hear him talk to you, Chavvah. I hear him tell you that you are not alone. That you are his child.”

I wanted to cry as she spoke. I remembered that day so clearly. The hunters had broken my collarbone trying to make me turn. I almost did. Brother Wolf, even when I didn’t have a name to call him, had lent me his strength.