Shift Into Me (Werewolf Shifter Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) Read online

  The feeling of uncovering some great truth filled me. I flipped my pen a couple of times between my fingers, letting it glide down my knuckles and back up before I drew a little doodle on the side of my notepad by the two numbers I’d requested.

  When I looked back up, Carrell was already gone. “Weird,” I said under my breath.

  Grabbing the catalog out of the box, I thumbed through to the underwear section.

  The thing I looked at was, apparently, a two-piece set that involved a top that went up to the neck, a bottoms-bit that extended almost to the knees, and then some weird, torture-device looking hooks that connected some calf-length stockings to the bottom of the undergarment.

  With bumbling, stuttering steps that seemed very out of character, Carrell delivered the two boxes and stood beside the table. “Anything else?”

  Quickly I eyed the numbers. Different than I ordered.

  “No,” I said. “Thanks!”

  Just as I turned back to the useless boxes, a woman entered the records office without being buzzed through.

  I had to give my license to a guy sitting at the front desk, then go down the labyrinthine halls, and finally have Carrell buzz me through the last doors to the record office. But, this tall, lithe woman with blue-black hair had just walked straight in.

  “Ugh,” she said to announce herself. “The smell back here could choke a donkey. I don’t know how you handle this.”

  Leaning back in my chair, I lifted a newspaper, looked right over an old, faded image of a car accident featuring a fifty-six Chevy and a lamppost, and watched the two of them. The woman was very touchy, very grabby, and it seemed to irritate Carrell, though she didn’t much care.

  “Why do we have to wait around?” she asked him, pulling the necktie out of the front of his vest and running it through her fingers. “We’ve got everything in place. What’s the hold-up?”

  Carrell grimaced and, grabbed the woman, yanking her by the wrist into his glassed-in office. I looked up, and he smiled at me as he closed the door.

  The woman sat on his desk and drew him near with his red and silver tie still wrapped around her fist. I watched as she pulled him over, as though to kiss him, but then mouthed some words and laughed.

  Through the thick glass I was only able to hear the high-pitched punctuations of her cackle. She mouthed something that looked like she was asking about me and what I was doing. Carrell answered with a shrug.

  Carrell’s office had that partially-frosted glass that blocked out most of everything that happened below neck level, but judging from the way he kept pulling away and she kept grabbing him closer, I figured that either he was a real stick in the mud, or he didn’t want anything to do with that woman’s attention. She smirked at him, and he turned away, frowning a little bit.

  “Why do you have to make such a show of everything, Danness?” he asked her, finally relenting and facing her. “That woman out there, do you know who she is?”

  “No,” she said in response. “I don’t much care, either. I’ve marked the wolf. He’s mine. We can do whatever we want and he’ll be no obstacle.”

  I started getting that tingle at the base of my skull again, the one that kept me from complaining to Carrell about his delivering the wrong boxes. It was almost like a sense that I’d never used before, or one that had lain dormant for long time, had come to life without my knowing it.

  Even though the two of them were obviously whispering, the words they exchanged simply came into my mind, like they were my own thoughts.

  I remembered that bizarre dream I had before Damon and I got to Scagg’s Valley, but this was something else entirely.

  Or maybe not.

  As I watched, that old Shaman, Wilton, occurred to me. His strange way of grabbing my shoulder and telling me I was special or different or whatever he’d said rattled around in my head for a second.

  “What do you mean you marked him? I’m tired of your games, Danness, I’m the master here.”

  At that, I cocked an eyebrow.

  She shook her head. “He’s mine. I own him. I can feel him… sense his big, strong arms. I can feel them around me, imagine him…”

  My thoughts returned to that strange, purple bruise behind Damon’s ear, and his bizarre, erratic behavior.

  I had to stop myself from throwing a stapler through the window. At least half of the reason I didn’t is that I knew it’d probably just bounce off.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that I could go find out whatever was in the boxes Carrell didn’t want me to see. I circled the three boxes I wanted to look at – stuff about murders from the fifties and sixties. There had to be some reason he kept bringing me the wrong stuff.

  Grabbing my notebook, I stood up slowly, not wanting to attract Carrell’s attention, though from the way his friend had him wrapped up, that probably wasn’t much of a concern.

  The back of the room, where all the boxes were kept, wasn’t far from where I sat, but still, the idea of sneaking off to hunt for something I wasn’t supposed to see was by turns thrilling and utterly terrifying.

  I gritted my teeth and crept away from the table as the two of them kept arguing.

  The first undelivered item, a shoebox-sized container, was sitting right where it was. The other two though were missing. There were spaces on the shelves where they went, but no boxes.

  Scanning the room, my eyes fell upon two shapes underneath Carrell’s desk. Immediately, I knew what they were, and sighed heavily.

  “Why do we have to keep doing this?” the woman demanded of Carrell, who wore a very unimpressed expression. “You run this town. Or at least, you’re the most powerful man in it! No one has any idea who you are or what you’re doing. Why can’t we start your damn war and be done with all these games?”

  Still crouched down, I snuck to the front circulation desk and snatched one of the two big tubs off the desk. The longer he was in there having a debate with that mysterious woman, the longer I had to go through them.

  Then I got a brilliant idea – switch the contents.

  Saying goodbye to Sears and Roebuck, I tucked all of the stuff he’d brought me into the new tubs, dropped the new papers into the old ones, and by the time Carrell emerged – without the strange woman, somehow – I was back to rifling through papers and looking as bored as humanly possible.

  None of it made much sense, but then again, it kind of did. Why would he hide these ancient newspaper clippings… unless he had some reason to not want me to find out about what was in them?

  I shot a quick glance at Carrell as he settled into the circulation desk. One of his cheeks was red, either from embarrassment or anger, it was impossible to say. He settled in, pulled himself up to his desk, and peered at me for a second. I half-wished I hadn’t been so busy stealing his secret documents to keep listening to what he and that woman were going on about.

  Looking at my phone, I considered texting Hunter to warn Damon about the things they’d said, but without knowing what in the world she was really talking about, I didn’t know what good it would do to panic him about being possessed by a witch or… whatever she was.

  Witch? I had to laugh. This was a whole new world. Witches, werewolves, being a mate to an Alpha? Jesus. Sometimes it’s hard to believe my own brain.

  As Carrell watched me, I traced the lines of a rose I’d doodled earlier, then looked up at him and smiled. Evidently, that was enough for him. He turned back to whatever he was working on, and for the time being, my heart stayed in my chest. The last thing in the world I needed was for him to look in one of those boxes and find out what I’d done.

  When his hand went over to the top of one of the doctored tubs, my breath hitched in my chest, but then he just idly set it on the ground and kicked it underneath his desk, apparently satisfied.

  Okay. That’s it. He’s already past the boxes. He’s clueless, and I’m damn sure he doesn’t know I could hear him and his weird girlfriend yammering in his office. Everything’s fine, for now.r />
  Out of nowhere, the tingling buzz in my skull tickled me again. It was like a distant ringing sound, like an alarm in my dream that wakes me in the middle of the night and then when I look over at the nightstand, find out it’s only four in the morning. I stuck my tongue out between my teeth and concentrated.

  Damon.

  I needed to feel his arms around me, but mostly, I needed to tell him about what I’d seen.

  But most of all, I just needed to know he was safe and that he was okay.

  Right then, I felt the shakes creep into my hands and rubbed my eyes.

  No, not right now.

  A wave of nausea came and went. Taking a deep breath settled my stomach a little bit, but if the day before was any indication, it would be back sooner than later. To distract myself, I reached into my poached box and fished out the first thing inside it – an issue of the Scagg’s Post – Covering the Valley and the Mountains – that dated to October, 1956.

  “Mysteriously Bound Body – No Clues at Scene, Say Police.”

  Scanning the page, my eyes started opening wider and wider. Suddenly, it made a whole lot of sense why Carrell didn’t want me rooting around in these. I grabbed the next item in the box, a police report, and read through some details.

  There wasn’t anything clear reported. The non-clues were the clues.

  Two persons, bound in chains, found deceased in a cabin off the county road. Officers reported no blood, though there were horrible slashes on the bodies, as though they’d been attacked by wild animals.

  I shook my head and kept reading, but nothing else jumped out at me.

  The nervous archivist was still fidgeting with a pencil and a folder, but that time when I looked up at him his hands were trembling.

  Rifling through the rest of the papers in the first box, and the second, all the reports were similar. There were eight unsolved murders in this little town in the last part of the fifties. The number was enough to shock me, but the fact that none of them were solved, and no one seemed to bother to continue investigating after the initial findings… that was a little much.

  No autopsies, at least not reported. No suspects ever arrested.

  What’s the damn secret, Carrell? Why didn’t you want me to see this?

  My mind started to buzz with ideas. Wild ones, crazy ones, ideas that only come from brains that have read way too many crime novels and seen way too many episodes of Law and Order.

  Carrell had started sweating on his temples, even though the records room was cold and clammy. He dabbed at the droplets with a handkerchief, and then I noticed his lips were wet, too, either from his habitual licking, or from sweat.

  A wave of nausea came over me, but subsided quicker than the first one. Something was talking to me. Some kind of ancient, buried sense was trying to push its way out and trying to tell me something.

  “I’m done,” I announced, standing up and pushing my chair back.

  Carrell looked up, wiped his lips again and stared at me like I’d just talked to him in Japanese.

  For a moment, he looked down at his desk, and in that split second, I thoughtlessly stuffed the police report that was trembling in my hand into my purse.

  As I gathered my things, as quickly as possible, and rushed out to my car, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I really needed to get to Damon.

  Something was wrong.

  I didn’t know what it was, nor did I know how I knew.

  But I knew something was very wrong.

  Nine

  Damon

  “Come on, man,” Hunter said as he shook Damon awake. “We gotta go.”

  Sun was streaming through the window when Damon blinked as he looked out, and realized he’d somehow gone back to sleep until noon. He grunted and pushed himself off the mattress.

  “What… where are we going?”

  “Get up,” Hunter urged him again, pulling on his arm to get Damon to his feet. “Something’s happening. Not sure what. One of the – or I guess one of your – lieutenants called a meeting.”

  “Meeting?” Damon blinked again, rubbing his eyes.

  “Yeah, bud. This is the world we live in. Meetings, politics, all kinds of backstabbing and whining and maneuvering.” Hunter groaned, pulling his heavy friend to his feet. “You gotta get used to it, I guess.”

  Damon frowned, rubbing his forehead. “Life in Arizona’s a lot easier. All I had there was my brother trying to kill me. No politics.”

  “Politics will kill you faster than… what’s his name? I can’t believe how all that turned out.”

  “Devin. And yeah, it… I still don’t know what to think, really.” He swallowed. “Anyway, whatever. He’s out of the way. Last I heard he’d gone all the way to Texas. Maybe Louisiana. Who knows? Got other things to think about.”

  “You really okay with all this?” Hunter asked.

  “Yeah.” Damon nodded, slowly. “I was worried for a little bit that he’d try to come back after me or Lily, but nothing ever happened.” He shrugged. “The Carak aren’t exactly known for their ability to make big plans and follow through.”

  That got Hunter chuckling. “Yeah, true. But he is their Alpha. Even if they’re kinda sketchy, the Carak aren’t going to let that go forever. At some point—”

  “Yeah, like I said,” Damon said. “Another time. There’s other stuff to think about right now. How’s your jaw?” Damon let one of his dazzling smiles creep across his face.

  Hunter slapped his friend on the shoulder and laughed, ignoring the barbed question. “I’m impressed with you. I’d go nuts if any of that happened to me. How’d you keep it together?”

  Damon’s reply was one, whispered word. “Lily.”

  The two men stood in silence for a moment, Hunter’s hand on Damon’s shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Hunter finally said. “I can see why you’d say that. I guess she went back to the courthouse for more research?”

  “I only have vague memories of this morning,” Damon said, rubbing his temples again. “It’s weird. I remember her waking me up, and then…”

  “Do you need to wash my sheets?” Hunter laughed. “It’s fine. Two young kids in love? How could I expect anything else?”

  “No,” Damon said. “I mean, well, yes,” he shrugged. “But no, I remember her waking me up and then yeah, that, and afterward, my memory got kinda fuzzy. Back when I was first transforming, I used to black out, but this is different.”

  “You’re probably still getting used to night running. When I started I got the shakes like I was coming off a drug binge. My mind got all shitty, my hands shook, and I could hardly do anything except sleep. Couldn’t even eat.”

  Damon nodded. “Yeah, maybe. It feels like I’m hung over. Kinda… did I already say fuzzy?”

  “Yeah, you’re just getting used to your new body. It’s weird as shit, for sure. Anyway, come on, I got some coffee in the kitchen. You look like you need some.”

  “Thanks.” Damon followed his friend down the hall and slurped down about half a cup in one go.

  Damon’s mouth was dry, like he’d been sucking on cotton balls. Suddenly, he realized that if Lily was gone, so was the car. “Where is this meeting? And what’s it about?”

  Hunter pulled up a shoulder. “Not a clue what it’s about. As far as where it is, there’s a lodge a few miles from here, not very far. We can just double up on your bike.”

  “That’ll be a sight,” Damon said, allowing himself a laugh. “Us two, you hugged up against me. You with your hand on my leg, and one around my waist.”

  “You make it sound a lot more exciting than two big dudes scrunched up on a motorcycle. You sure Lily’s the writer?” Hunter finished off his coffee. “Ready?”

  “Sure,” Damon said. “You’re not bullshitting about the meeting, right? I’m not going to get jumped again am I?”

  “Not so far as I know. Although I will warn you – the pack only gets these meetings together when things are pretty bad, so I can only assume something
is wrong. Wolves don’t get together for fun.”

  Sighing, Damon swallowed the last of his coffee. A million things were running through his mind. One thought above all the others. He was worried about Lily, worried that she had fallen into some sort of trap.

  But along with the rest of his memories of that morning after they’d made love, he couldn’t remember what he was worried about. There was just a nagging feeling in the back of his head that he couldn’t quite shake.

  “Is there some reason I’m worried about Lily? Something I’m supposed to remember but don’t? Did something happen last night that I don’t remember? I’m seriously getting sick of feeling like an amnesiac.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. I don’t think there’s much trouble she could get into in the basement of the police department. She’s stronger than you think. Or than you let yourself believe. She’s careful, Damon. You know?”

  “Yeah,” Damon said. “I guess you’re right.”

  *

  The building – an old Elk’s lodge on the outskirts of Scagg’s Valley that, judging by the sand blasted paint job and one-horn-missing cow skull that hung on the front door – had seen better days.

  “They’re pissed about something,” Hunter said, stepping off the bike and stretching his lower back with a couple of twists and a toe touch. “These meetings usually get this loud, but not until they’re mostly over and the whiskey comes out.”

  The back of Damon’s head throbbed. If Lily were around, she’d tell him about how aliens put probes in people’s skulls. She’d seen it on one of her shows, and would tell him all about it. Through the haze of irritation, he couldn’t help but smile when he thought of her. She kept him anchored, kept him grounded, even when nothing else would or could.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled. “So much noise. My head doesn’t feel right.”

  “You don’t look so good,” Hunter said. “You feel okay?”

  Damon shook his head. “Started getting a headache as soon as we got off the bike. Maybe slept too long. I don’t—”