"No, she'll be fine." Meara tried to yank Tessa toward the living room, but she was rooted to the floor. "Finish your list. I'll bring--"
Ashton stretched his arms upward toward the gray clouds, his face began to distort, elongate, and his naked lean body began to change, his back arching. Pale gray hair, no it was more like... fur, began to cover his body, the whole thing happening so quickly it was like watching a movie playing at triple speed or more in a blur. He dropped to his... his paws, no longer a man, but a gray wolf. A beautiful creature, wild and dangerous.
She barely breathed. If she hadn't seen the sudden transformation with her own eyes, she would never believe it. Even now, she had a hard time accepting it. Every inch of him looked like a real wolf.
Her heart pounding and her head swimming, Tessa's knees buckled. Meara was still holding her arm and when Tessa collapsed on her knees, Meara fell with her. "Ohmigod... did... did you see... what happened to Ashton?"
Meara watched Tessa with wide eyes.
"Cara! We've got to get her away from him." Tessa scrambled to her feet and peered out the window, clinging to the kitchen sink for support.
Shaking her finger at him, Cara scolded the wolf-- Ashton. For a couple of seconds, he listened to her, but then bolted for the woods.
Turning, Cara saw Tessa watching. Her face turned pasty despite the fact her cheeks had been cherry colored from the cold. Tessa stepped away from the window, her heart thundering.
Cara was one, too. She had to be. Had she turned Ashton last night when she seduced him? Turned him? What was she saying? They were shapeshifters?
Tessa bolted for the door and locked it.
"Let me in, Tessa. I don't have my coat on and it's freezing out here." Cara half-coaxed, half-demanded, rubbing her arms with her bare hands.
Tessa couldn't find her voice. What if the wolf that had bitten Ashton was the culprit and not Cara? But then, why wasn't Cara surprised when Ashton shapeshifted?
Tessa didn't realize how much she was shaking until Meara touched her arm. "It's too cold out. We've got to let her in."
Tessa stared at Meara. She saw Ashton turn into a wolf. She observed the whole thing and wasn't surprised.
What if she was one? And what did Ashton say about Hunter? He saw him naked in the freezing weather before he dressed and charged up the hill after Ashton for shooting him. Why? Because Hunter had been shapeshifting beforehand? Ashton hadn't been drunk. She groaned.
"Tessa, we have to let Cara back in."
"You're one of them." Tessa's eyes misted. "You're one and Hunter is one and he bit Rourke. Leidolf is, too, isn't he? Everyone but me is." Her heart beating too rapidly, she backed up.
"Tessa, you're just imagining things." Meara took a step forward, cautious, concerned.
Where had Ashton left the rifle? In the living room?
Tessa dashed for it just as the back door squeaked open. Meara was letting Cara in.
The door shut and the lock clicked, but no one said a word. They didn't need to. They'd share one of those conspiratorial looks that said it all.
She grabbed the rifle and headed back into the kitchen where Meara was pouring Cara another mug of hot cocoa. "I want you both to leave, now. Get in your vehicles and drive away. I won't say anything to anyone. Hell, what could I say? Anyone would think I was nuts. But I want you out of here, now."
"We can't leave," Meara said, softly. "Hunter would kill us if we left you unprotected."
"He would kill his own sister?"
"In a manner of speaking. He'd be angry, and I don't want to go there. You know how upset he was with me for taking off with three other guys. Believe me, this would be worse."
"Do you want to know why, Tessa? Because that intruder who's after you is also one of our kind," Cara piped in. "We can't leave you to face him on your own. If he manages to get you alone now, he'll change you."
Tessa sat down hard on the dining chair. "The one who bit Ashton, was he the same man/wolf?"
Meara sighed. "I imagine he's the same one."
Everything that had happened in the last few days ran through Tessa's mind--Hunter being naked on the beach, the way he knew the man had been in her bed, and that it was him and not some other man. He knew things he shouldn't.
"Tell me what you are, exactly."
Meara shook her head. "You know too much already. In most cases, the pack leader would have two options. Kill you, or turn you. Hunter won't want to change you."
"Why not?" Not that Tessa wanted that option, no way, but death wasn't the greatest choice either. Not that she would go willingly either.
"He doesn't believe in it," Meara said. "We haven't known anyone personally changed by a bite. It's just something we prefer not to do."
Tessa gave a haughty laugh. "Yeah, right. He changed Rourke, didn't he?"
"By accident."
"So then he'll have to kill me. That's why he said the relationship would never work." Tessa swallowed a lump in her throat. "Will he at least get my brother free first?"
"I don't believe he'll want to eliminate you. But enough said. Like you mentioned, people will think you're certifiable if you breathe a word of this. So here's the deal. You don't ask questions or learn anything more about us, and when we free your brother, we all will..." Meara snapped her fingers. "... disappear. You'll never hear from us again."
"Unless Hunter wants to terminate me."
Meara took in a ragged breath. "We won't tell him."
She cast Cara a warning look.
Cara bowed her head slightly.
In disbelief, Tessa stared at Meara. "Why?"
She shrugged. "He'd want to eliminate all of us for putting him in this bind. It'll be our little secret."
Keeping secrets from Hunter was like trying to drive a car across the ocean. Tessa knew she would sink and drown before she got anywhere.
"Want some cocoa?" Cara put on a fake smile and offered Tessa a mug.
Tessa had known something would go terribly wrong after she had come home from Michael's trial, but she never guessed the nightmare could get this bad.
Rourke looked over the edge of the cliff where the men had pushed Hunter. "I don't know how in the hell you managed to survive. The tide must have come in just at the right time."
Hunter examined the nearby trees, looking for signs of a struggle. Half a foot of snow had fallen, so the ground would yield no clues.
"Looks like you gave them a hell of a time." Rourke twisted a broken branch back and forth.
"I still can't figure out why they would have attacked me. If I came into a wolves' territory unannounced, the pack leader would either welcome me, or tell me to leave. The only way he would fight me with the intent to kill was if I had seriously violated pack laws, killed one of his wolves, tried to claim a female he had other plans for, or threatened to take over his pack. Maybe I was headed in the direction of Tessa's cabin and Yoloff, the one who wants her, got riled, thinking I was after her."
Hunter led the way to Bethany's log cabin. Like Tessa's place, the house sat cliffside with a view of a rocky beach, woods all around, and no sign of any other homes.
"Why she would live out here by herself is what puzzles me," Rourke said. "I can understand Tessa's situation. She and her brother lived together and had inherited the house. But Bethany?" He shook his head as Hunter unlocked the door. "She was kind of a loner, like... ." Rourke stopped dead inside the house. "It's him, isn't it? The smell of Tessa's stalker."
"Yoloff, yeah. He's been here. His brothers, too. And recently. Did they have a key to her place also? No broken windows." Hunter checked over the two-bedroom, one-bath house. "She wasn't killed here."