Chapter One #2
Just when she wondered if she would sit there all night, headlights flashed in the distance.
They grew closer and closer and then a rambling old truck pulled up—the glare of the lights blasting straight into her eyes.
She held her hand up to block her face before they were shut off.
A man stepped out of the truck, a car door slamming, and heavy footsteps headed toward her.
He stopped in front of her, just a massive, dark-shadowed figure outlined by the glow of the bright headlights fading from her eyes.
“Caitlin? Are you Caitlin?”
She looked up, surprised, but still didn’t have enough working eyesight to see him in the dark. Not after that blinding burst of light.
“I’ve seen your picture. Penny’s phone,” he explained. “I’m Noah.”
Was she supposed to know who he was? A thud sounded against the wood behind her, and the door swung open.
“Caitlin? You’re still here?” her sister asked incredulously.
Caitlin slowly rose, drawing herself up to her full, five-foot-five stature, wincing when her ass let her know she’d sat longer than she realized.
The movement gave Penny room to reach Noah’s side.
She didn’t miss the way he folded her into his arms and kissed her lips lightly.
Didn’t miss the way her sister melted against him.
Didn’t miss the way she looked up at him with a softly dazed look in her eyes.
She’d met lots of her sister’s boyfriends. Her latest whims. But she’d never seen her… like this.
“Caitlin, meet Noah. My fiancé.”
That was big news. Her eyes widened as she shook Noah’s hand. He had dark hair, longer on top than the sides. From what she could see, a handsome face. His body was buff under the long-sleeved flannel he wore. “Congratulations?”
“Thank you,” Noah said, while her sister said nothing. Her lip had curled much like their father, and it dawned on her that maybe they were engaged, but they probably hadn’t meant to be. Not this soon.
Noah turned to Penny. “She shouldn’t be sitting outside at night,” he said softly but there was something else in his words—something she couldn’t quite understand. A depth of meaning that her sister obviously understood, but didn’t bother to explain to her.
“I didn’t realize she was still out here. I kicked her out.”
He raised a heavy, dark brow.
Penny turned toward her. “I’m heading to Noah’s tonight. We had plans. You’re welcome to stay here since you’re obviously not leaving for the motel.”
“I didn’t book at that skeezy motel. I tried to tell you before you slammed the door on me. There wasn’t anywhere normal to stay in this town.”
Penny snorted.
Noah’s gaze skittered back and forth between them.
“I didn’t invite you here and I’m not taking the blame for you coming on your own.”
“I’m a grown-ass woman. I can go anywhere I want.”
Penny studied her for a moment. “I didn’t purposely head into the city to fight with Dad. You want to know why Dad summoned me? Because I’m dating a shifter.”
Caitlin couldn’t help it. She sucked in a breath and her eyes flew to Noah’s, like she could seek the truth out there.
Maybe sense what kind of animal he was? Maybe he was a good one.
A sweet little bird shifter. Did those exist?
Surely, he wasn’t one of the… predator-kind.
And now that her eyes weren’t filled with echoes of bright, flashing light, she could see the musculature.
His thick neck. Strong jawline, the hint of a dimple.
“And right now, I’m mad. I don’t want a heart to heart with you because I’ve been waiting all day for Noah to come home and we have a special night planned. So, stay if you want and we’ll talk when it’s convenient for me.”
Her sister turned on her heel and stomped toward the truck, opening the door and climbing inside without another word. But she slammed the car door shut.
“Go inside and lock the door,” Noah murmured to her, angling his head toward the cabin.
“Stay inside. There’s wild animals around this property.
That’s why Penny’s moving in with me.” He nodded his head once and then headed for the truck also.
The lights illuminated her when he started the engine but then he peeled back and drove down the old dirt road she’d come from.
Sighing, she headed to her car on the side of the house and pulled out her suitcase. She set it on the porch but then, in an act of defiance, she sat down right on the front step like she had been before.
Who was Noah to tell her what to do? He was like Penny’s last boyfriend—no, that wasn’t fair.
Penny wasn’t interested in Cory Pyre. Cory was sleazy, he just covered it well with expensive clothes and well-taught manners.
He knew how to blend, handsome enough with a bland haircut that made him seem more mature than his age.
He was the perfect partner for their dad, the perfect political candidate, with the knack of telling people what they needed to hear.
But Caitlin didn’t miss the way his eyes had lingered on things he coveted before he slyly suggested he should be involved with her father’s career.
Their dad was the one who told her she needed to shape up and prepare herself to become the future Mrs. Pyre.
That was what made Penny move away.
Her father summoned Penny? He knew she was dating a shifter? He wouldn’t be happy about that. And Penny said she was engaged? Did her father know that? Did her mother? Why hadn’t anyone told her?
Oh, God. She didn’t have a choice. If she was dating Noah, and Dad had signed Turn Limitations, she had a year to become one.
She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and pressed Dad’s contact. At first, she thought it was going to voicemail, but after the third ring, he picked up.
“Caitlin? Where are you? We thought you’d stop by the restaurant for dinner. I know your mother laid out that green dress for you.”
She didn’t even care that he didn’t bother to remember she’d put in for a week’s vacation. Had reminded him yesterday.
“Did you know Penny’s dating a shifter?”
“I told you not to call her anymore,” he said after a pause. Oh, he’d laid down the law, all right. And she’d listened. She hadn’t called. She surprised them all when she showed up.
“Did you know?”
Her father sighed. “Yes. I knew.”
So maybe Penny was right. Maybe her father had summoned her despite him telling Caitlin that he had no idea where Penny had run off to. Maybe he knew where Penny was holed up all along. Score one for her sister.
“When?
“When what?”
“When did you know she started dating the shifter?”
“Since the beginning. Do you really think I wouldn’t keep tabs on my own daughters?” he huffed as if he had to prove he was a good parent. Check all the boxes in the parental skills category.
“When?” She practically screamed, because he was avoiding the answer.
“Six months ago.”
They both went silent. She had no idea about the turmoil on his end of the phone because on her end all she could think about was his hand in the latest shifter law that was enacted three months earlier.
Shifters—those ones with the ability to change others—were now only allowed to turn one person in their lifetime.
It was to protect the general population, her father had said.
It was for predator shifters mostly because they were much stronger than humans.
If a shifter picked a human as a mate, that human no longer had a choice.
The shifter would change her or him and they would have to register as a couple.
Did it punish humans? Sure, but in the long run it saved women from dangerous animals, Dad had said.
That should encourage women to date within their own species, right? Now that they knew of the danger.
Now her sister would have to give up her humanity. And not all humans lived through the infection. But the worst thing about what her father had just admitted?
He didn’t veto the bill when it popped up three months ago. Yet he knew six months ago that Penny was already dating Noah.
He handed his own daughter a death sentence.
“I can’t deal with this right now,” Caitlin said softly, and disconnected the call. Her phone rang immediately, the sound shrill in the night air. She ignored it.
God. Caitlin pulled her knees up, resting her chin on them, suppressing a shiver that wracked through her body.
Surely, he couldn’t have known. But, by his own admission, he did. Why hadn’t Penny told her?
The wind whistled, crackling through the trees. She glanced out there, but it was too dark now to see anything in the shadows. A mist was rising; there must have been a bed of water somewhere.
A sharp, piercing wolf call sliced through the fog—so loud, so eerie, gooseflesh rippled along her arms.
Oooowwwoooo!
What the hell? That was the call of a predator.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. God, that sounded close.
Adrenaline tingled in her arms and legs and she twitched from the sudden surge.
If she saw anything, anything at all come running through that mist, she’d jump up so quick and kick the front door shut.
But she didn’t have to see anything.
When the haunting howl sounded again, she scrambled up and raced into the house, grabbing her suitcase at the last minute and shoving inside, slamming the heavy wooden door behind her.
She threw the deadbolt in place and right then, on the other side of the door, she heard it again.
Oooowwwwooo!
It was on the porch—sniffing where she’d sat. Noah had been right. Wild animals. And one had wandered right up onto the porch.
Adrenaline made her heart pound. That had been close.