“I can’t do this,” Senora said, heart in her throat, her adrenaline spiking as she tried to calm the fear that was overwhelming her. “This isn’t going to work.”
Ty closed his eyes.
“We don’t have time for this. You have to trust me. You can climb down this if you’ll take it one step at a time.”
“It’s almost straight down,” she said.
“I know,” he said, exasperated. “You’ve said as much about a million times. Time to buck up, buttercup. We don’t have time for this.”
Senora closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but she didn’t feel any better. The forest was hot and humid, the rain from the night before trapped in the dense foliage. Ty was right; they didn’t have time to argue. But Senora couldn’t ignore the fact that what he was asking her to do was not safe, and she couldn’t afford to die. Addie was counting on her.
“I’ll help you,” Ty said, holding out his hand.
“I’m not scared,” she said indignantly. “I don’t think it’s safe. I jumped out the second story window, I went into the wolves’ enclosure with a dead body and I’ve done everything else that needed to be done. But I’m telling you that this is not safe.”
Ty looked over the edge again, weighing her words carefully. He shook his head, smiling as he put his foot out over the edge and braced it on the young tree that he’d pointed out as the first handhold of many on their descent.
“See, it’s perfectly-”
The tree bent beneath his weight, and his face went blank. His hand shot forward, grabbing a branch in front of him as the sapling roots pulled out of the muddy wall of the cliff face with a sucking sound, and Senora reached out and grabbed his other hand to yank him forward.
“I told you it wasn’t safe,” she said, feeling smug. “It poured all morning and rained most of last night. Even a city girl knows that lots of rain causes issues.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“No problem. I would have been caught without your help at the hotel. Saving you from your ego was the least that I could do.”
His smile faltered, and he narrowed his eyes.
“We have to get going,” he said briskly. “It’s going to take us almost two hours to circle around, and the ground is going to be wet in a few places, which is going to slow us down even more.”
“I thought you said that down the cliff was the only way,” she said to his back as he started down a trail that ran parallel to the cliff and the river beyond.
“It was the only way that we have time for. The longer we stay in this forest on this side of the river, the more likely that the Sheriff and his men will find us.”
“And if they do find us?”
“They’ll kill us both.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised by that. I guess I shouldn’t be.”
“You really shouldn’t. Robin knew something that was worth dying over, and I’m sure the Sheriff is involved.”
They were walking nearly beside each other, with Senora only slightly behind as she struggled to keep up with Ty’s long stride.
“If you knew he was corrupt, why not take care of it before this?”
Ty stopped and turned, almost bumping into her as he leveled his deep brown eyes on her.
“You’ve never lived in a small town before, have you?”
“Things run differently here. You can’t just accuse the Sheriff of being corrupt without mountains of proof, and even then, it has to be enough to build a Federal Case out of.”
Senora scoffed.
“I doubt the government is worried about what goes on in a little town in the middle of nowhere,” she chuckled.
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I was called by a mother with a missing person. That’s my job, but that has nothing to do with small town corruption unless the Sheriff killed her. I visit hundreds of towns every year that no one has ever heard of. I do my job, and then I turn over the evidence to the local law enforcement to prosecute. Out of all the cases I’ve worked, I’ve testified in court three times. This is no different than any other time a desperate parent has called me in to help find their child.”
“Where do you think Mabel got the idea to call you?”
The silence between them was explosive.
“You had her call us?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“This is bigger than just a corrupt Sheriff and a few of his men. As much as I’d like to think I can handle this on my own, I could disappear today and no one would ever know.”
“He could kill me, too.”
“And the FBI would investigate. No matter what, that puts the spotlight on Glen Rose and the Sheriff. Dale doesn’t want that kind of attention here.”
“So, dead or alive, I further your cause?”
He seemed startled by her blunt rephrasing, but she was right. He was on a mission to save his town, and somehow, he’d forgotten that she was more than just an outsider there to help.
“I’m sorry. I’m not saying that you’re expendable.”
“But you are saying that whether I live or die, I serve my purpose.”
“You’re more valuable to me alive.”
“Why?”
“For one, because you care about the victims. You haven’t turned cynical after years of working your cases, and you are willing to go into the middle of a pack of wolves to find the truth. That’s not normal. You care more about your victims than you do about yourself, and you have resources we don’t have here.”
Senora nodded.
“Fair enough. At least I know where I fit in with all this mess. I didn’t expect to come looking for a lost woman and end up in the woods, running from the Sheriff with a stolen file from a therapist who-”
Senora heard a buzzing noise, interrupting her mid-thought. Her hazel eyes met Ty’s at the same instant she placed the sound.
Without a word, he grabbed her hand, and they ran, dashing through the woods as fast as they could, Ty propelling her faster and nearly yanking her off her feet with each stride. Her heart pounded as her adrenaline surged to new heights and gave her a burst of speed she hadn’t known was in her.
She could hear the four-wheelers getting closer, and she pushed herself even harder without result. Her legs could only carry her so far and so fast, and she was quickly reaching her limit as they dashed through the thick forest over the damp, uneven ground.
“Hurry,” Ty urged her.
“I can’t,” she said.
Her hand was damp in his, and her skin was starting to slide. He was losing his grip on her as her body fought the overuse and her lungs threatened to explode.
She was scanning the edge of the trail for somewhere to hide when Ty slowed and grabbed her upper arm.
“Hold onto me,” he said as he lifted her off her feet and flung her onto his back.
She grabbed onto his shoulders, about to protest when she felt his skin changing beneath her fingers. She looked down as his shirt tore and thick, course hair sprouted before her eyes and his shoulders broadened.
What the hell? Senora thought, too shocked to give life to the question.
It had only been a few seconds since he had thrown her onto his back mid-stride, and already, she could feel his body changing beneath her seat. She held on, more afraid of the men on the four-wheelers than she was of the monster beneath her.
Ty was headed straight for a large, smooth boulder that jutted out from the trail like a ramp as the last of his human features disappeared and ears sprouted from the top of his head. He was still on two legs when he hit the bottom of the natural ramp, racing up it at an alarming speed and leaping into the air at the end. Senora held on tight, burying her fingers in the coarse coat, too afraid to even close her eyes.
Ty’s body stretched out mid-leap, and when they hit the ground on all fours, he took off so fast that Senora’s stomach lurched, and this time, she did squeeze her eyes shut.
Her mind struggled to make sense of what was happening as the four-wheelers gradually faded into the distance behind them, but one word kept circling in her mind repeatedly.
Wolf.
Even knowing what she was seeing wasn’t helping Senora make sense of everything.
She was sailing through the forest on the back of a giant, dark gray wolf, running from a corrupt police force in a small town in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing rational about anything that was happening on any level.
Ty ran for a long time after the four-wheelers were well behind them and had probably turned back or given up completely. Senora still listened intently and stayed low over Ty’s back while her eyes scanned the forest around them. Everything looked the same, and without being able to see the sun overhead, she wasn’t even sure which direction they were going. She was lost, and the only way she was going to get out of this was to place her trust in the hands of a handsome stranger who had turned out to be a wolf.
Great, she thought. Just great.
They were almost to the river’s edge when Ty slowed, looking over his shoulder at her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “As fine as I can be riding on the back of a wolf, in the forest with deranged men on four-wheelers behind me.”
Ty’s eyes lit up, and she knew he was silently laughing at her, but she was exasperated. Things weren’t supposed to go this way. The good guys were supposed to be good, men were supposed to be human and Senora was supposed to investigate the case until she reached a resolution and then walk away.
She was about to dismount when he stepped into the water and began picking his way through the shallows, using the occasional boulder when the water got too deep. Because it was summer, the river wasn’t very full, though the water still went up to her knees.
She hoped that Ty remembered the sensitive materials in her backpack and didn’t submerge them accidentally. Her backpack was water resistant, but she was pretty sure that was meant to protect from a light rain and not swimming in a river.
Despite the heat, the water was cool on her legs, and she relished the feeling as her body started to cool down from their mad dash through the woods. Still on edge, she searched the tree line above them, but there was no sign of the Sheriff and his men. They had gotten away.
Now that the most immediate danger was gone, Senora was left with her thoughts and a large wolf beneath her. Much larger than a real wolf, Ty was nearly the size of a horse. If she had encountered him in the woods without knowing who he was, she would have been terrified.
As it was, she knew that she should be terrified, but she wasn’t. Ty had been alone with her on multiple occasions and hadn’t harmed her. He was using her to further his cause, whatever that was, but he wasn’t going to hurt her. At least not until he got what he was after. Once that happened, she wasn’t sure if she would be safe.
She hoped to be long gone by then.
Ty dipped his head in the water just then and shook, spraying water all over her face and yanking her out of her thoughts. She laughed and held her hands up to shield her face from more droplets of water. He looked back at her over his shoulders, his eyes the same shade of deep brown as they were before, the only remnants of his humanity left in the wolf that he’d become. He drank from the river quickly, then pulled himself up the bank and onto the flat grass in the meadow beyond.
Senora slid off his back, walking beside him until they reached the edge of the tree line and stepped into the shade again.
She took her backpack off and set it on a fallen log as she sat down. Unzipping the bag, she was thankful that she’d packed a bottle of water that morning just in case she found herself outside of town and thirsty while she ran her investigation. Too bad she hadn’t realized exactly how important that water would be, and how much she would wish they’d she’d brought some food with her, too. But she hadn’t expected to end up in the wilderness with only the clothes on her back and a single bottle of water in the Texas heat.
Her back was to Ty as she drank the water a few sips at a time and left it more than half full. She didn’t know how long they would be in the woods, and she wasn’t sure if he would need some, too.
“I hope you have a plan for getting out of here or we’re going to be dead by morn-” she turned, then stopped, her mouth dropping open. “Why are you naked?”
“My clothes ripped when I shifted. I didn’t exactly have time to undress and neatly fold them beforehand.”
His tone was wry, his face in a half-smile.
“I can tell you’re really upset about it,” she said. “I’ll walk in front, and you can tell me which way to go.”
“I don’t mind leading.”
“I mind,” she shot back.
“You didn’t look like you minded, but maybe I misread that look in your eyes.”
She felt her face flush, and she cursed him under her breath for making her feel this way. He was right; the view was nice. More than nice, his body was chiseled perfection. But that didn’t mean that she wanted to spend the rest of the day staring at his naked backside or trying to keep her gaze level when he turned to her. It was tempting to look, and even more so since she’d gotten a glimpse of his entire body and she already knew that every inch of him was beautiful.
“Maybe you can shift again, and we can enjoy peace and quiet.”
“You get so snippy when you’re the only clothed person in the forest,” he chuckled. “Come on, now. We’re out of harm’s way, but we’re still vulnerable here. We have another mile or so to go before we get to the den.”
“What’s at the den?”
“Food, clothes, shelter, safety. Any number of things you could want when you’re running from murderous enemies.”
“Is that what you call your house in the woods?” she asked.
He started walking, ignoring her request to let her lead and leaving her following him with a clear view of his backside. She focused on a spot between his shoulder blades, but every now and again, her eyes traveled south and she let herself enjoy the view as his muscles bunched and stretched with each long stride.
They walked in silence for what seemed like an eternity, and already, Senora’s clothes were bone dry and sweat trickled down her back. Each step was torture, the air so thick and hot that she felt like she was walking through water. She stopped and bent at the waist, trying to catch her breath.
Senora pulled the hem of her shirt up and wiped the sweat from her face. The heat in the forest was oppressive, despite the shade and the gentle breeze that blew through the trees every now and again. The fresh air and the birds in the trees did nothing to lift her mood. She was tired, she was hot, and her mouth was bone dry.
Grabbing the water bottle from her backpack, she took a drink before offering it to Ty. He waved her offer away with a smile.
“I’m fine.”
She nodded.
“How much further?”
Ty gave her a soft smile.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “I know you weren’t prepared to go traipsing through the woods all day. We’re almost there, and then you can rest and eat.”
“It’s not that,” she said.
“Then, what is it?”
“I need to get somewhere with a signal so I can talk to J and let him know what’s going on.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“Why?”
“What information do you have to give him at this point? And what if he calls you back to D.C.? Then what?”
He was right. J would call her right back to the office to protect her. He would leave the locals to deal with this mess, perhaps getting State Troopers involved, but either way, Senora would be off the case. In all the corruption and mess of the Sheriff’s office, Addie’s kidnapping and murder would get pushed to the wayside and possibly left unsolved. Plus, there was the kidnapping in her childhood that still hadn’t been solved. No one was going to advocate for Addie, and Senora knew that this would eat her up. There was nothing worse than an unsolved case, and Addie’s would bother her for years to come. She couldn’t let Addie down when so many others had failed her.
She just couldn’t do that.
Addie deserved better than that, and so did Mabel. Senora wasn’t giving up on Addie until she knew the truth, even if it meant keeping things from J for just a little while.
“You’re right,” she finally admitted. “But where do we even start, and how are we going to find out anything with the Sheriff and his men on our trail?”
“You leave that to me. This county is huge, and Dale can’t be everywhere. We’ll start in Granbury where she last faked her own disappearance. I’m sure someone saw something. But first, we need to go through those files from Robin’s office. Something in that file was worth dying over, and I want to know what it was.”
Something in his words struck her, and she realized in that moment that there was so much more to this than Ty had shared.
“Did you know Robin?” Senora asked. “I didn’t even ask you if you’re alright after witnessing that.”
“I knew her well enough to be surprised. It’s a small town. We pretty much know everyone, even those of us who are considered outsiders.”
“And you’re an outsider?”
He nodded.
“Not that I cared about it, but it came up a lot in school. You’d be surprised how many kids want to try their hand at bullying the Lycan children.”
“That seems dangerous. Couldn’t you just shift and win any fight?”
“It’s not that simple. We weren’t allowed to shift within the city limits, and never in front of a human. Breaking the rule caused huge problems for our tribe, and we couldn’t risk it. For the most part, we coexisted without issue, but there were always problems.”
“Where does Robin fit into the picture?”
“She’s the school counselor, too. When children are troubled, they get sent to her for therapy, and that keeps them from getting kicked out of school.”
“Did a lot of children get sent for extra therapy? That seems rather odd for a small town like this.”
“Mostly just Lycan children. They get sent there to deal with their ‘anger issues.’ But no one takes into consideration that they’re angry because they’re being bullied. It’s been such an issue that a few of our young adults have come back from college ready to teach, and we’re starting our own school on the preserve.”
“Won’t that keep them from being able to integrate into society later on?”
“Not as much as having a juvenile record will. Our children were being disciplined more harshly and more often than the others without any proof of poor behavior. There have been a couple times that the town has voted on whether we should be allowed off the preserve at all and our freedom has been a few votes away from being taken away.”
“Yet the Sheriff has no problem calling you in for a consult when he needs you.”
“That’s only because some of the wolves in that enclosure are endangered, and he wasn’t allowed to shoot them. He knew I could get in and get out without getting injured. Sending you in with me was just to amuse himself.”
“See, that doesn’t make sense to me. He sent you in when he could have left her there for the wolves to finish off. Wouldn’t that have made more sense?”
“Not really. The wolves had already destroyed most of the evidence, if not all of it, by then. If he had delayed removal of her body, that would have raised suspicions. Not that I think he killed her, because that’s not how he works. He doesn’t get his hands dirty, and he maintains plausible deniability throughout. He’s not an idiot, and he’s not going to put himself in the position of getting caught. If I hadn’t been able to help him, then he would have called a vet to tranquilize the wolves, and the end results would’ve been the same.”
“It sounds like there’s no love lost between you two. Why did you help him?”
“Because I knew you would be here. Your reputation in the field is well-known, and I wanted to get a look at you for myself.”
Senora could feel herself blushing, and she was glad that he was still walking slightly ahead of her on the wide trail and couldn’t see her face.
“I had no idea that anyone outside of D.C. knew who I was.”
“You’ve been a household name since you did that job in Little Elm. The news replayed the video of you pulling that girl out of the shipping container over and over for weeks. I’m sure the Sheriff wasn’t happy when he found out that Mabel had called you.”
“Is Mabel going to be safe?” she wondered suddenly. “I doubt the Sheriff is happy with her.”
“Mabel will be fine. She’s not even on the Sheriff’s radar,” he said, but Senora wasn’t convinced.
“What if she keeps asking questions and pressing the issue? Mabel doesn’t seem like the kind of parent that’s just going to let this go.”
“I spoke to her as we were walking out, and she agreed not to mention it to anyone else. She’s going to play the part of a mom too stuck in her grief to want to pursue an investigation.”
“That makes sense since Addie is already gone. I’ve had a few parents give up in their grief. I can’t blame them for just wanting the nightmare to be over.”
“Mabel is not the kind of woman to just let it go. She may be heartbroken, but she’s also enraged, and that’s going to keep her going long after most would give up. She’s going to keep her thoughts to herself for now, but she’ll get us anything we need to find out who did this to Addie.”
Ty stopped, looking at Senora and sighing.
“We’re almost there. I just want you to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” she asked, her stomach clenching.
“We live life differently than you’re used to.”
“Am I in danger?” she asked, hand instinctively twitching for her gun.
“No,” he said, and there was a twinkle in his eye as he bit back laughter. “But I can guarantee you’re going to see a lot more nudity.”
Senora shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t say that I have a problem with nudity. I said I didn’t want to see you naked,” she teased him.
But that was a lie. He laughed as he led her around the corner and out of the tree line. Her last thought was that she wouldn’t mind if he never put on clothes again, but that thought was cut short when she saw the magical scene before her eyes. What she saw took her breath away, and she realized then that Ty wasn’t exaggerating when he said that his people lived differently than anything she’d ever seen before.