There was a rustling sound over me, and then sharp teeth pierced the length of my wrist. Liquid fire flashed through my limbs, and my vision went white before subsiding into darkness.
Chapter One
Ever since the day I became a werewolf ten years ago, fear has had a specific taste for me. It tasted metallic, like sucking on a penny. Right now, slouched in the back row of a mostly deserted bus, somewhere in Northern California, my mouth tasted like I swallowed a whole piggy bank.
The bus seat under me vibrated with the telltale rhythm that signified we were decelerating on the highway. My heart raced and palms began to sweat. Something was very wrong. This wasn’t a scheduled stop.
I had memorized every town on the route from Colorado to the border of Canada, and we shouldn’t have been stopping for another hour.
No one else on the bus had seemed to notice something was wrong. They didn’t even look up as we pulled off the highway, all of them either sleeping or playing on their phones.
We approached a city sign at a reduced speed, and I raised my digital camera and adjusted it to night-mode just in time to snap a picture as we passed. In the photo, “Welcome to Grayhaven” was illuminated in the bus headlights as the sign hung crooked on its post. Something was written under the welcome, and I narrowed my eyes to examine the blurry photo, but the battery light on my camera blinked on, and the screen went black.
“Fuck a duck,” I whispered as my mind spun with the possible scenarios.
My panicked brain was screaming that my pack had found me. The Alpha of North America had tracked me down, and he was waiting in this Grayhaven town with his ten werewolf enforcers. This bus driver had been paid off to drop me straight back into my alpha’s waiting arms. But if my alpha had found me, he’d have had us pull over on the freeway. Hell, he might have the local police do it. He had powerful connections in the human world as well as the supernatural one. More than likely, this bus was stopping off for an unscheduled refueling, but even that was dangerous. Every single time the bus doors opened, was another chance that I’d be scented by werewolves.
I hunched down in my seat, unzipped the top pocket of my bag and curled my fingers around the handle of my gun. My palm was slick against the grip of a small semi-automatic. I was an omega, the least dominant wolf in any pack. I couldn’t fight another werewolf, but I sure as hell could shoot one.
The bus exhaled under me as we pulled into a dark, dilapidated station that claimed to be the Grayhaven Bus Terminal. Trying to keep my breaths as even as I could, I tensed for an attack.
The doors opened with a whooshing sound, and the odor of piss and unwashed bodies wafted up, making my empty stomach flip.
I could smell old beer, piss, mold, bleach, and cheap perfume, but no… werewolf. I sat up in my chair to peer out the tinted window of the bus.
Bracing myself for the putrid mixture, I inhaled deeply again, and again, there was not even the slightest trace of werewolf musk. It was the first city since Arizona where I didn’t smell even a whiff of werewolf. The bus stop sign blinked over my head, shining upon piles of trash and the homeless sleeping under the detritus.
Tingling adrenaline spiked through me, kicking me in the stomach. It was the feeling I got every time I settled in a town, and it was strange because I hadn’t even considered disembarking into Grayhaven. Even if there wasn’t a sitting pack here, the risks of being spotted in a town near the Cascades were high and staying in one place increased the likelihood I would be spotted. The moment I was identified, I would be hunted down and handed back to Kane Shipman, my alpha.
Ten years ago, I’d signed a marriage contract with the man I thought was Kane Shipman, except the Kane I knew was an imposter. Really, Michael Card, the bankrupt owner of a pencil company was hired by the real Kane Shipman, werewolf Alpha of North America. The man I stood at the alter with used all of Kane’s information, social security number, birth certificate, everything, on our official marriage paperwork. It didn’t matter that the real Kane wasn’t the one I stood across the altar from when I said, “I do.” According to the law of the United States of America and every werewolf within the lower forty-eight, I was Kane Shipman’s wife and, to most wolves, his property as well.
Looking at the bus stop that strangely didn’t smell like werewolves, I inhaled a shuddering breath and pulled a loose quarter from my pocket. “Should I get off in Grayhaven?”
I tossed the coin in the air, caught it, and smacked it down on the backside of my hand. “Heads is yes, tails is no.”
When I lifted my hand, George Washington winked up at me.
Fuck a mother-fucking duck. I was going to do this. I grabbed my go bag, pulled it on, and headed for the back stairs of the bus.
“Hey, you!” Someone called over.
I stopped dead in my tracks as my heart climbed into my throat. The gun was tucked in the top pocket of my bag, and it would take far too long to get it out, point, and shoot.
“Sweetheart, I’m talking to you in the back.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I peered up to the front of the bus.
The bus driver leaned out to look over his shoulder. He was a middle-aged man with a scruffy chin, beer belly, and gaze that lingered too long on the female passengers. I’d successfully avoided his attention since I climbed on seven hours ago, but now I found myself fixed by it. “Sweetheart, a girl like you shouldn’t be walking around out alone at this time of night. Do you have someone coming to get you?”
At thirty-seven, I could hardly be considered a girl, but between my height, baby face, and the fact I stopped aging when I was bitten and turned into a werewolf, people usually guessed my age in the college-age bracket when they were at a distance and mid-twenties close up. I’d obviously called too much attention to myself by staying on the bus this long. I thought I had done a good job blending with the sleepy crowd, but clearly the driver’s hungry eyes had taken notice.
I pulled up my hood. “My father is waiting in the parking lot,” I called out. “Thanks for the ride.”
As soon as I stepped off the bus, the doors slid closed and the engine hissed. I’d barely made it to the curb before the bus was rumbling forward and turning back onto the street. As the engine quieted with distance, I waited in the shadows of the bus station, sniffing the air.
It was almost impossible to believe that I still didn’t scent a single supernatural. A few homeless people slept in the hedges along the exterior wall of the bus station, but homeless people on the streets always soothed my fears. Yes, that sounded bad, but vampires cleared out the streets of vulnerable populations faster than an overzealous mayor ever could. Seeing people sleeping on the street was a sure-fire sign that a town wasn’t overrun with the undead.
The hair prickled on the back of my neck as I stepped onto the street outside of the bus station, and I could swear I felt the heat of someone’s gaze on my back. There was a quiet hiss, and I spun, scrabbling for my gun, but I stopped with my hand halfway in the zipper. Save for a few blinking streetlamps, the road was empty.
My heart thundered in my chest as I craned my neck to see into an alleyway between dark storefronts, only to hear a soft snap and see a pair of eyes shining from the bushes.
Squatting, I found a small feral cat hunched down, ready for a fight.