I crossed the sidewalk and circled my car to the passenger side. The moment I caught sight of fur, my heart skidded to a stop. It might have been a stray animal, but my gut told me it was a Shifter.
“Come out from behind there. I can see you!”
I squinted, trying to discern if that was a black tail peeking out from behind my front tire. A tail ofwhat?
“I have a weapon, and backup is on the way.”
My finger rested nervously on the mace release lever. I wasn’t certain how to use it since I’d never owned one before.
When I stepped back for a better look, a wolf came into view. His hind quarters protruded from beneath my car, and part of me wanted to run. But where would I go? The store had a gaping hole in the window, and I needed my car.
“Are you the one who broke my window? Come out from there before I call the Council.”
A guttural whimper came from the shadows—like a wolf in pain. What if a car had struck him?
No way was I going to reach under the car, so I grabbed his hind legs and dragged him out. I knew a lot of wolves in the territory by sight, and hopefully this one belonged to a familiar pack so I could call his alpha to pick him up. When his head came into view, his tongue was hanging out and his eyes were closed. Was he dead?
I cautiously knelt and ran my hands across his thick coat. No blood coated my palms, but an injured wolf was a dangerous one, so I kept a close watch while I examined him. When I touched the side of his head, broken pieces of skull shifted beneath the skin.
I grimaced. “Oh my God.” Whoever this guy was, he needed immediate help. “Shift,” I said firmly. When he didn’t respond, I prodded his side with a finger in hopes the pain would rouse him. “Shift!”
He growled weakly, his eyelids fluttering.
I repeated my less than gentle approach at waking him. “Shift before you die!”
Though facing away from me, he bared his fangs. Normally that aggressive type of gesture would have sent me running, but instead, I stood up and frantically searched for help. The two people across the street had left, and I hesitated about calling over a random stranger. What if they were a human and called animal control? That was a Shifter’s worst nightmare.
Squatting, I readied myself to run. Poking a wolf was about as effective as killing an elephant with a flyswatter, so I needed to resort to extreme measures. With a quick swing of my arm, I smacked his hindquarters. “Shift!”
He rolled as if to flip over, and in a swift movement of magic and shadows, the creature shifted from wolf to man.
I scarcely breathed when I gazed upon his tattooed face. He lay naked on his right side, his long hair unbound. What on earth was Tak doing out here at this hour? How long had he been lying by my car? Blood still trickled from the partially healed wound on his head, wetting the concrete.
I patted his thigh. “You need to shift again. Do you hear me? If you fall asleep, you might not wake up. Tak?”
He groaned, his eyes still closed.
Shikoba led one of the largest Shifter tribes in Oklahoma. If I let his son die in front of my store, I was certain I could kiss my career goodbye.
I pinched Tak’s brawny thigh, but he lay motionless.
“If you don’t shift, I’m going to take a belt to you!” I slapped him hard on the ass, and his eyes popped wide open.
He pushed himself up and scowled. As if caught in a dream, I watched his brown eyes connect with mine while his body slowly morphed. Usually the process of shifting went fast, but fur grew from his skin like magic. His limbs changed shape, and his stern jaw stretched into the toothy mouth of a wolf. It was a beautiful and intimate thing to watch, but when his wolf rose to his feet, I held up my can of mace in terror. Was Tak still awake in there, or would his animal rip me to pieces?
The wolf staggered toward me and then collapsed at my side.
I catapulted to my feet and backed away from the unconscious animal, my heart racing. His skull appeared mended, but there was no telling if he had suffered brain damage. Based on his incessant laughter earlier that day, odds were he was already afflicted.
A horn honked twice, making me jump and drop my keys. I quickly gathered them up and looked at the red truck that had stopped behind my car.
A shadowy figure leaned out of the window. “Are you Miss Church?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Joe.” He backed into the parking space on the other side of my car before shutting off his engine.
I dusted off my hands while the young man got out and rounded the front end of my car.
