“Amanda, are you okay?” her neighbor asked as they stepped off the bike and Aspen removed her helmet.
“What? Yes. Of course,” she replied.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine, Janet. Just a strange day. I’m sorry about your dog, by the way.”
“Oh, thank you. It was horrible. I don’t know why anyone would do that to an innocent dog.”
“Huh? I thought it was attacked by some sort of animal.”
“An animal, yes. The human kind, apparently. The wounds initially looked like some sort of wild dog, but wild dogs don’t open the back screen and throw the dog inside when they are done.”
“What did you say?” Aspen said, jerking his head around toward Janet.
Amanda noted the look of concern on his face. He had been standing beside her looking around anxiously, but not really paying attention to the momentary interruption in their progress toward getting her home.
Janet looked at him and then back at Amanda. For the first time, her gaze dropped down to Amanda’s arm, wrapped in the bloody shreds of Aspen’s shirt.
“What happened to your arm?”
Amanda looked down and noted the long scratch that was visible on either edge of the material. There was no doubt what must be going through Janet’s mind, but she wasn’t worried. She had been in her robe when the officers had come by, but the sleeves had been pushed up. They would have noticed if she had been scratched after the events next door.
“She fell down by the falls,” Aspen interjected, pulling her away from the woman and back toward the bike, away from the house instead of inside of it. “Get on the bike,” he whispered.
“But,” she began to say.
“No, just get on the bike.”
Amanda did as he said, not even bothering with the helmet. They roared down the street. Amanda had no idea what was going on, but they were soon pulling up at the clubhouse. Aspen was off of the bike and helping her off, almost pulling her to the front door. Inside, he didn’t pause to speak to anyone. Instead, he barreled into the kitchen, going straight through and into a room on the other side.
“Aspen what is happening? Why didn’t you leave me at my house? Why are we here?”
“Something is wrong, bad wrong. That encounter in the woods was planned. They followed us there from your house.”
“My house? Why would they be there? Did they follow you?”
Amanda felt alarmed. What had she gotten herself into with him? Now, she was being involved in something that made no sense and couldn’t even go home.
“No. They were already there. The dog last night. A wolf shifter did that. It’s the only explanation. What kind of dog was it?”
“A Rottweiler. Why?”
“Not a small dog and I’m guessing trained to guard the house. Only a wolf shifter could get into a yard, kill a dog so that it looked like an animal had done it and then open a door to toss it back in someone’s house.”
“Why? Why would they do that?”
“My guess is that they came to your house and the dog started barking. They tried to shut it up, things got hairy and they ended up killing it, then tossed it inside. I’m guessing they woke up the owners and had to get out of sight.”
“Oh, my God! The door!” she gasped.
“The door?” he replied.
“Yes. Someone came to the door while I was asleep, but when I went to answer it, no one was there.”
“You opened the door?”
“No. I looked out the peephole and didn’t see anyone, so I didn’t open it. I just went back to bed. Then the dog started barking next door. There was some sort of fight with another dog and then silence before I heard voices. The cops came over to visit when the sun came up.”
“This was last night?”
“Yes. Aspen, what is happening? This is all so crazy. You said wolf shifters. What are wolf shifters?”
“Come here,” he told her, pulling a white box from a cabinet in the room where they stood.
Amanda looked around for the first time since they had arrived. It was some sort of clean room from the looks of it, almost medically sterile it seemed. She did as he asked, and he pulled the cloth from her arm before removing some swabs and peroxide from what she could now see was a first aid kit. He cleaned up her arm and put some antibiotic cream on the scratch before wrapping it in a thin layer of gauze and taping it down.
“What is this room?”
“One question at a time. Look, I rehearsed all this. I had a whole speech prepared for out by the falls before we were attacked. I was planning on telling you about me, about what I am. That’s why I had the backpack, the extra clothes. I usually strip down, but didn’t want to confuse you with that, so I prepared to shred my clothes. I had no idea I’d be doing it for a different reason or before I could explain to you why. I’m sorry for that.”
“Tell me now, then,” she said.
“The members of this motorcycle club are wolf shifters. My uncle is the President and I am the Vice President. We are not exactly human. We can shift into animals, specifically wolves. The members of the Dire Wolves are also wolf shifters, but as I was telling you before, they are bad news. They want to take over this town and run it like they see fit.”
“I don’t understand. Not human? You’re aliens?” she said.
A part of her thought this was ridiculous, but hadn’t she seen it for herself? Hadn’t he turned into a wolf right in front of her and killed another wolf or man. He killed a man. What was going to happen to him now?
“No, we are not aliens. We’ve been around for a very long time. We just don’t show ourselves to most humans unless it’s by accident or we trust them. I wanted to show you earlier, to let you know what I am. I didn’t intend for it to happen the way that it did.”
“Why? Why would you want to show me that?”
“Because I have feelings for you, Amanda. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you since I first laid eyes on you in that bar.”
“Why did you come to the bar in the first place?”
“I don’t know. I stopped by the bar without knowing why I was there. Then, I was out for a run, in wolf form, the day I met you at the falls. I had just gotten dressed and was heading back to my bike when I encountered you. It was if I was meant to keep running into you.”
“I don’t know what to do with all of this, Aspen. I thought I had feelings for you too, but then you disappeared after we spent the night together. You were just nowhere in sight for three days before you showed up with the redhead.”
“I know. I explained to you about her. As for the rest, I had a problem here at the clubhouse. It was the reason I had to root you out of here so quickly. One of the members was found badly hurt down by the bluffs and we were on the trail of the wolf that attacked him. It’s hard to stop and call someone when you are a wolf in the woods. I knew something was up with the Dire Wolves and that is what the redhead was supposed to be giving me information on.”
“You eat on the run,” she said, almost to herself, the meaning of the comment and underlying smile sinking in.
“What?”
“That’s what you said when I was at your cabin. You said you don’t keep much food on hand because you mostly eat on the run.”
“Oh,” he laughed. “Yeah.”
“How am I supposed to react to all this? I’m falling for a man who isn’t a man and is really a werewolf.”
“No. I’m not a werewolf. They are something completely different.”
Amanda looked at him with a mix of shock and amazement.
“Those are real too?” she asked, feeling incredibly naive now.
“I don’t know. I’ve never encountered one.”
“This is crazy. I don’t know what to think. Oh, God, Aspen. What is going to happen when they find that man at the falls? They’ll find you. You’ll go back to jail!”
“No. He will be gone long before they find him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“His kind will feel him. They will know that he has passed over and retrieve him. The police will never be involved, unless they are one of us.”
“There are cops that are shifters too?”
“There are cops, lawyers, doctors, all sorts of people who are shifters. This room you see around us is our medical facility. Sometimes we sustain injuries that have to be fixed by someone discrete, someone who understands us. They come here to do it.”
“Like what kind of injuries?”
“Like, say, broken bones. We heal really fast and there are times that bones don’t get set properly before they are healed. Our healing kicks into a sort of hyper-drive when we are in our wolf form, so if we get injured while in that state, they may heal too quickly and have to be broken again by a doctor. It’s hard to explain a fresh break that has already healed to a human doctor.”
“Okay. So, you are a wolf shifter. Everyone here is and I can’t go home. I’m assuming I can’t go to work. Roy is going to be livid.”
“You can go to work, but I will go with you or send people to watch over you if I can’t.”
“Great. Guard dogs.”
“Funny. It’s just temporary. Let us figure out what is going on with these Dire Wolves. We need to see what they are up to and deal with them so that you’ll be safe. So that the entire pack is safe.
“And how long will that take?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what it is they are trying to accomplish. Killing one of them today isn’t going to go over well, so it could get ugly, really fast. I want you to stay here at the club with me for a while.”
“Stay here? Where? In the kitchen? In this medical facility?”
“No. Of course not. There are rooms on the other side.”
“I didn’t think they are finished.”
“They aren’t finished as far as being polished and pretty, but they are functional and one of them already has my stuff in it for when I stay here.”
“And what about my stuff? I don’t have anything, not even my handbag.”
“Make do tonight until I can sort out how much danger there is to deal with and tomorrow, some of the guys and I will take you back to your place to get what you need.”
“For how long?”
“For however long it takes.”
“You have a weird way of asking a woman to move in with you.”
“Don’t I?”
He smiled at her. It was the first time she had found herself smiling since before the encounter at the falls. Leaning down, he pulled her chin up toward him and kissed her. She felt it to her core.
“I have to go talk to my uncle and a few of the guys. I’m going to leave you out front where some of the guys can keep an eye on you while I do that and then we will go to my room, so I can show you just how much I missed you during those few days in the woods.”
“Is it safe? You said there was a rat.”
“I have a good idea who the rat is and he’s not here. The guys I leave you with are my cousins. I trust them. I won’t be long.”
Amanda nodded, leaning in to him as he kissed her again. Then he was walking her out, introducing her to some guys that were piled up watching some old sitcom about a radio station on the television. He kissed her on the temple and nodded toward some other guys to follow him before they all disappeared into an adjoining room at the back.