Chapter 6

Three sets of eyes turned to her. Surprise pulled at Lucy’s eyebrows. A frown did the same to Cam’s.

Dean regarded her. Nothing in his face told her what he was thinking.

“My uncle,” she said. “He knows something about my uncle.”

“Give me a sec,” Dean said, before striding away.

Katy watched him disappear into his house. She frowned. What was he doing?

A distant part of her mind noticed Cam’s wife was fussing over Cam’s wounds, scolding him as only a concerned wife could.

Katy shifted her feet, pulling at her thumbnail.

“Let’s get this bastard chained up,” Cam muttered, jerking her stare from the house.

He hooked his fingers under the choke chain linked around Grayson’s neck and dragged him towards the house, face down.

Lucy sighed, her lips twitching. “God, I love that man’s style.”

She touched Katy’s arm. “We’ll get to know each other better later; for now, I’m going to go give Cam a hand with the wolf.”

She followed her husband, leaving Katy to stand there alone.

The setting sun bathed Katy in searing heat. The cries of distant crows sounded on the air, high and lonely and somehow mournful.

She frowned, turning back to study the house. Give me a sec, Dean had said. How long was a sec?

Grinding her teeth, she frowned harder at his house. If he didn’t come out soon, she was going in after—

He walked through the glass doors, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt with the words A Dingo Ate My… printed on the chest in white.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

“What’s going on?”

He gave her a small smile. It didn’t, she noticed, reach his eyes. “C’mon. Before Cam realizes I’m stealing his beloved Range Rover.”

He led her to his beta’s car, opening the passenger door for her.

“What’s going on, Dean?” she repeated.

He flicked her a look. “We need to hurry.”

“What about Grayson? He knows something about Uncle Martin. I want to talk to him. I want to find out what he—”

Dean touched his palm to the side of her face. “Trust me, woman.”

She climbed into the Range Rover.

Katy had no idea what the speed limit was on the open roads outside Kangaroo Creek, but she suspected Dean broke them. By a lot. Thank God she’d had the good sense to buckle up.

They didn’t drive into the town itself, instead skirting it on dirt trails that had no resemblance to roads. Red dust spewed from behind the SUV like a cloud of billowing fire. The roar of the engine, the constant reverberation of the tires on the ground defeated any hope she had of finding out what was going on.

Every time she tried to get Dean to talk to her, he pointed to his ear, shook his head and shouted “I can’t hear you!”

She wasn’t one hundred-percent convinced he was telling the truth. He was a dingo shifter, after all. Didn’t that mean he had dingo-level hearing?

Her agitation intensified with every minute. She glared at him. Scowled at the empty landscape. It wasn’t until he took a sharp right, dropped back a gear, and then floored the accelerator that she realized they were approaching a ridiculously ostentation house, surrounded by a towering, razor-wire topped security fence.

“Where are we?”

Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed the SUV faster towards the house. Closer.

Just when Katy thought he was going to ram the gate, it swung open.

He sped through it, shifting down gears until the SUV screeched to a halt outside what looked like a big storage garage at the rear of the house.

Katy twisted about in her seat. Where were they?

A man ran toward them from the gate. A man who looked like…

Katy shrank back in her seat, her stare locked on him.

Dean. It’s Dean.

The man drew closer, and as he did, Katy frowned. It was Dean…but not.

“Messes with your head a little, doesn’t it?”

She jerked around at Dean’s dry laugh.

He shoved open his door, and looked at her. “Take another look, Katy.”

She turned back to her side of the Range Rover, finding the man she’d spoken to in the Longyard now striding past her door.

“Rat’s a skin walker,” Dean said. “He can mimic anyone’s appearance.”

And with no other explanation for what was going on, he climbed out of the SUV and followed Rat through the open door of the large garage.

Katy scrambled to do the same, her heart wild.

Her stomach churned.

Once again, the heat attacked her as she ran the short distance between the SUV and the dim interior of the building into which Dean and Rat had disappeared.

“Dean?” she called, stepping through the cracked-open door.

Her voice echoed around the cavernous darkness. The stench of animal feces and urine assaulted her senses, along with the dank ripeness of rotting meat.

Katy stumbled to a halt. Oh God, why had Dean brought her—

“Back here, Katy.” The distinct rectangle light from a smartphone’s screen shone at her from deeper in the bowels of the garage. “Quickly.”

She hurried to Dean, the concern in his voice making her stomach knot more. Did she really want to be here? Did she really want to see? Did she?

A low moan—barely audible over the creaking of the garage—wafted from the darkness.

Katy blinked. A tingling pressure began at her temples.

“Hurry, Katy,” Dean urged again.

She did, moving towards the floating rectangle of white light, heart thumping, stomach twisting.

Another moan, this one louder, sounded as she drew closer.

And then it wasn’t a moan, but a voice. A familiar one. Low and croaky and scratchy, but familiar all the same.

A man’s voice…

“Kitty…cat?”

“Uncle M?” she breathed, her stare falling on a thin shape lying on the ground, covered in dirt and caked blood.

The shape moaned once again, pushing at the floor with narrow arms. “Kitty cat,” her uncle said, his eyes finding her in the darkness. “Oh, my Kitty cat…”

She threw herself at him. Dropped to her knees and took him in her arms. Hugged him.

He was skin and bone, frighteningly thin, but there. There. In her arms.

“Uncle M,” she whispered, face buried in the side of his throat. “You’re alive. Oh, God, I’ve been so scared…”

She burst into tears.

He hushed her, smoothing his hand up and down her back, mumbling words she knew were meant to calm her, words of how brave she was to come look for him, about how she didn’t need to worry…

She sobbed, and hugged him.

“It’s okay, my little one,” he said. “I’m safe now. You found me. Your friends found me.”

She pulled away from him, staring first at the chains and shackles binding him to the floor, and then up at Dean, who was now crouched beside her uncle, watching them both.

“How…” She stopped, her throat too thick with tears to speak.

“I had Rat pretend he was me,” Dean said, “lurk outside Grayson’s house in my truck. I suspected Grayson would come after you if he thought I wasn’t around to protect you.”

She swallowed, looking up at the smaller man standing a little way back from them.

He smiled, the light from the cell phone he held casting his face—which looked nothing like Dean’s now—in a soft glow.

“When Grayson drove away, Rat broke into the shed looking for any sign of your uncle, as I ran back to confront Grayson at my place.”

Katy turned back to Dean. Her head spun. She looked at her uncle. God, he was so thin. “Has Grayson… Was it Wedge Grayson that did this to you, Uncle M?”

Uncle Martin nodded. “I thought it was because I knew about his kind, but I found out…” He stopped, his gaze moving to Dean.

Dean’s jaw bunched. “He learned you knew about me? About Cam and Lucy?”

Uncle M nodded again. “He wanted to know what I knew about your power. About your connection to the magic in the land.”

“We call it our baradii,” Dean said, looking at Katy. “It’s ancient. Powerful. Here, in Australia, in the Outback, it makes us close to invincible.”

“Grayson wanted to know how to destroy it,” Uncle Martin said.

Dean regarded him, expression enigmatic. “Do you know how?”

“No.” Her uncle’s smile was wobbly, but sincere. “And I don’t want to.”

Dean studied him for a few seconds and then nodded. “Rat, can you find me some bolt cutters? I think it’s time we get Martin here out into the sun and away from this shithole, don’t you?”

Katy wanted to hug him. And she would. After she finished hugging Uncle Martin.

Touching some of the bloodied wounds on her uncle’s arms, she blinked at the hot tears stinging her eyes again. “I was so worried, Uncle M, ,” she whispered.

He chuckled, lifting his hands to cup her face in his wrinkled palms. “I’m glad to see you, Kitty cat.”

The chains shackled to his wrists chinked and rattled, stirring in her an anger so deep, a desire to hurt Grayson so profound, for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” she said. “I should have come looking for you the day you didn’t answer my first call.”

He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have put yourself in danger over me.”

“Who else am I going to put myself in danger for?” she asked, taking him once again in her arms to hold him gently.

He chuckled, rubbing her back again. “Have you met Dean Singleton?”

She pulled away from him a little. “Are you seriously trying to match-make at this point in time, Uncle M?”

He laughed, the sound turning into a coughing groan.

Tears prickled her eyes again. She took him back into her arms, holding him as her gaze slid to Dean.

The lack of light this far into the garage made seeing his face tricky, but she couldn’t miss the worry in his eyes.

“I’ll make him pay for this, Katy,” he said, his voice low and calm. “I promise. Creek justice is not pretty, trust me.”

She regarded him for a moment, and then closed her eyes. The Creek. Jesus, she wanted to be as far from this place as humanly possible.

Human. Everything Dean isn’t. Do you want to be as far from him as possible? Do you?

Rat returned before she could contemplate an answer, a large set of bolt cutters in his hands.

Turning on his cellphone’s flash, Dean directed the bright beam of white light at the chains on Uncle Martin’s wrists as Rat cut through the steel links.

A part of Katy wanted to ask why neither Rat nor Dean turned on the garage’s lights, but she held her tongue. With the odious stench of the place she wondered if they were keeping things dark for a reason. Perhaps the last thing she needed was to see what Wedge Grayson had in here.

Another reason to get out of Dodge, Katy. Fast. This is not a place for you.

“C’mon,” Dean said, helping Uncle Martin to his feet with gentle patience.

They walked through the rank darkness, Rat illuminating the way, Dean supporting Uncle Martin. Wet things squelched under Katy’s feet, making her stomach turn. A fresh wave of violent hate for Grayson crashed through her.

What he’d done to her uncle…all in a gutless attempt to destroy Dean…

The bright sunlight blasted her eyes as she exited the garage, and she squinted. Beside her, Uncle Martin winced, raising a shaky arm to protect his eyes from the glare.

She looked at him, saw him clearly for the first time. Oh God, how was he even alive?

“You think Grayson put my sunglasses somewhere nearby?” Uncle Martin asked, a wobbly chuckle in the question.

Katy hugged him. She didn’t care about the filth and blood.

“Heya, doc. I need you at Grayson’s property ASAP.”

Dean’s declaration drew her out of the embrace. He stood still, one arm around her uncle, speaking into his cell. His gaze met hers for a second, unreadable.

“Yeah, we found the missing American,” he said, looking away. “He’s in a bad way.”

Bad way.

Katy swallowed.

“I’ll be okay,” her uncle scoffed, attempting to wave a dismissive hand at Dean.

Dean shot him a smile. “’Course you will. I pegged you for a tough old bastard the first time we met.”

Her uncle chuckled, even as he winced again at the bright sun.

“Let’s get him into some shade,” Katy said. Worry ate at her.

Shoving his cell back into his pocket, Dean nodded. “Good idea. Ready, Martin?”

With a “ready as I’ll ever be” from Uncle Martin, Dean carried him over to the base of a eucalyptus tree a few feet from the garage.

Katy chewed on her bottom lip, watching Dean lower him to the ground.

“Rat, can you let Cam know I’ve found McCoy?” Dean asked, helping Uncle Martin settle against the wide trunk. “And tell him not to freak out; the Range Rover is in perfect shape.”

Katy crouched beside her uncle, fighting to keep the worry from her face.

Uncle Martin smiled at her. “I’ll be back to myself lickity-split, Kitty cat. A shower, a steak, and a big ol’ piece of pie is all I need.”

He turned his smile to Dean, now standing next to them, scanning the area. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean shook his head. “If it wasn’t for me, Martin, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t thank me.” His lips curled into a grin. “Next time you want to track down mythical creatures, though, can I recommend the unicorn?”

Uncle Martin’s eyes widened. “Do they really exist?”

Dean chuckled. “I’m going to get you some water. Stay here and try not to get into trouble.”

He strode away from the tree, heading toward Grayson’s house.

Katy watched him. A heavy pressure wrapped her chest.

He’d helped her. He’d saved her uncle. He’d given her the most incredible sex of her life…he’d changed her life. Changed it in ways she couldn’t describe or fathom. And soon, she’d never see him again.

She looked at her uncle. He watched her, face smudged with dirt and blood. “I just… I’ll be right back.”

Heart thumping fast in her chest, she scrambled to her feet and ran after Dean. He stopped when she touched his elbow, his expression unreadable.

“Dean,” she said. “I can’t… I can’t…”

Can’t what? Stay here with you? Leave you? Live without you? Handle everything I now know?

“Thank you enough,” she finished, the words sounding limp and lame.

He gave her that grin of his, the one that made her tummy flutter and her pulse quicken. “No thanks needed, woman. Glad I could help.”

He turned back to his hunt for water, but she stopped him again, this time threading her fingers through his.

An enigmatic light shone in his eyes as he regarded her. A stillness fell over his body.

Katy studied him, needing…something, but incapable of knowing what that something was.

“Thank you,” she said again.

He reached out and cupped her face in his palm, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip. “It’s all good, Katy,” he whispered. “I understand.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away.

Pain ripped through her, an indescribable sensation of something more important and significant than she could imagine being torn from her.

The need to run after him, wrap her arms around him, kiss him, hold him swelled through her.

She took a step forward. One step. And then ground her teeth, balled her fists, and hurried back to her uncle.

The sooner they were out of here, away from this world, this strangeness, the better. It was time to put her experiences in Kangaroo Creek behind her.

All of her experiences.

* * * *

Two days.

Dean stood at the glass doors leading out to his backyard, staring blankly at the world.

Two days since the Creek’s doc arrived at Grayson’s place and took Martin McCoy back to her clinic. Two days since Katy went with them, her last words to Dean another husky thank you.

He hadn’t followed them into town, even as every fiber in his body screamed at him to do so.

Instead, he’d climbed into his truck and driven back to his home, Rat following in Cam’s Range Rover.

Instead, he’d focused his attention to Wedge Grayson, securely bound in silver chains by Cam and Lucy, and locked in Dean’s basement.

Instead, he’d sent out messages to the Creek’s residents, letting them know what Grayson had done. And what he’d done in return.

It was only a few hours later that Grayson faced justice. As Dean had said to Katy, Creek justice was not pretty.

The world wouldn’t be worried by Wedge Grayson any more. The only place to suffer would be Hell, if there was such a place.

Now, two days later, Dean stared at the world beyond his home and wondered what he was meant to do now.

Live? Exist? Function? Those things seemed inconsequential for some reason. The emptiness in his soul gnawed at him, the power of his bonding with Katy there and yet acutely absent.

Without her, he felt like a husk.

Even when he shifted into his dingo form, allowing the ancient magic of his connection to the land to flow through him, he felt…bereft.

Fuck, it was going to be a long, hollow life. Maybe he should just take on his dingo form forever. Finally succumb to the power of the animal he was and forget he was ever once a man. Forget he was mated for life to a woman with courage and fire and wonder and love.

Perhaps it was time he stopped being Dean Singleton and became just another dingo wandering the vast Outback.

He slid open the door and stepped out into the morning.

It took him longer to walk to Dead Swaggie billabong as a man than it would have as a dingo, but he stayed in his human form.

Lifted his face often to the sun, closing his eyes every time. Every time he did, an image of Katy filled his head.

She’d left the Creek just after sunrise that day. Cam had called him to let him know. As soon as the doc said her uncle was well enough to travel, she’d packed him and her stuff up and driven out of town, heading east.

It would take her over two days to reach Sydney by car. In those two days, Dean could track her down, follow her…ask her to stay.

But he wouldn’t. Because he knew the power of their bonding would be too great for her to deny and she would say yes, even if she didn’t know why. He couldn’t do that to her. She was an American, a human. He would be a monster to expect her to stay with him in the Creek.

He wasn’t a monster. A beast, maybe. A creature beyond his life-mate’s understanding, yes. But a selfish monster?

No.

Climbing the rocky outcrop beside the billabong, he allowed his mind to replay the last time he was here. Not his fight with Merv Sullivan—who was showing his belly to every Creek resident confronting him about Grayson—but making love to Katy on the grassy edge of the water.

He’d tried so hard not to join with her that day, knowing what it would bring about, and yet, he was glad it had. He might be alone now, but for a few incredible, amazing, intense hours, he’d truly lived more than he ever had.

Drawing a deep breath, he studied the water.

Deep and mysterious, like the land he loved so much. Did it too have its own magic? Was that why it defied the life-sucking harshness of the Australian sun? Was that why he came here now? Hoping some of its magic would help him find an answer?

He stood motionless on the rocks, listening to the distant crows and the gentle wind and his heart beating.

“Okay,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “It’s time.”

He snagged the hem of his shirt in his hands and pulled it up over his head before dropping it to the ground.

The sun wrapped around his bare upper body, hungry and hot as he reached for his jeans’ fly.

“Can I help?”

He opened his eyes, his stare locking on Katy, standing down by the billabong, looking up at him.

Dean’s breath caught in his throat. He swallowed. Stared at her some more.

She smiled, part shy smile, part sex-kitten seduction. “I mean, if you’re planning to get naked, I’m more than happy to help you. As long as you’re okay with me getting naked with you. And y’know…fucking you senseless.”

He swallowed again. Didn’t move. He couldn’t. “I thought you were leaving? I thought you’d left.”

Her smile stretched. “Well, the thing is, I was. I had. And then Uncle M told me something that totally explained why I had this fucking great big hole of emptiness in my heart and soul. Something that explained why the farther I drove away, the more empty I felt. Something about dingoes.”

Dean’s chest tightened. “Which was?”

A light twinkled in her eyes. “They are excellent for keeping your lap warm in winter. And are the absolute best at playing Frisbee fetch.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“Are you still going to get naked?” Katy called up to him. “Mind if I start?”

Before he could answer, she removed the short shift dress she was wearing with a flourish. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Dean moved. Fast. Down the rocks, to the edge of the billabong. To Katy.

He stopped directly in front of her. Forced himself to not haul her into his arms and kiss her.

“Do you know why you feel that emptiness in your soul, Katy?” he asked, even as his body strained for her. Even as every molecule of his existence strained for her.

She nodded. “Because I’m pretty damn certain if I leave you I will regret it for the rest of my life. Because as scary and as foreign as your world is, I want to be a part of it. Because life would never be complete without you in it. Because, as powerful as my sexual attraction to you is, I have a feeling my emotional attraction to you is more so.”

She closed the distance between them with a slow, single step, reaching up to brush her fingertips over his jaw, her eyes holding his.

“But above all else, I just goddamn like you. A lot. And seriously want to get to know you better. Is that okay?”

With a low growl, Dean snaked his arm around her waist and yanked her to his body. “That is totally okay,” he murmured, drawing his head closer to hers.

She met him halfway, capturing his lips with hers in a kiss that sent jolts of liquid electricity straight to his groin.

He worshipped her mouth, reveling in the taste of her, a taste he’d believed he’d never experience again.

She pulled away from him a little, tangling her hands in his hair. “So, Singo the Dingo, are we ready?”

“For what?”

She smiled. “For everything, my life mate.”

Dean swallowed. “Are you?”

“Hell yeah,” she whispered. And then, with a laughing whoop, shoved him into the billabong.

He came up spluttering and laughing. And when she joined him in the water, when she wrapped her bare limbs around his body, when her lips found his again, his laughter turned to moans.

The moans of a man about to spend the rest of his life with the one human, the one woman he would never stop wanting.

Perhaps the life of a dingo shifter wasn’t that bad after all.