Chapter 4
“Are you crazy?”
Yes, she was, Francesca thought as she stood outside her car.
It was crazy to bring a man to their secret “book club” location.
Worse that the man was a grizzly-shifter and a cop.
But when Detective Kennedy had passed out in her car, she could think of only one safe place to take him.
Here. Hazel’s secret dojo PLACE, which stood for “Private Library and Cosmetics Emporium.” And then she’d begged Hazel—the closest thing to a mother she had—to come out of the dojo to help her.
Except Hazel had been more worried about the blood on Frankie’s clothes than the unconscious man in the front seat. Hazel had reason to not like men.
“Why’s he naked?”
“Because his clothes were ripped off when he shifted.” The remains of his shoes, pants, and boxers were in the sewer.
She hadn’t seen any shirt, but that was because it was probably in fragments in the water.
All that was left on his body was the detective’s badge dangling from a chain around his neck.
It had remained on the bear and the man, though it was barely recognizable now beneath all the blood.
“He belongs in a hospital,” Hazel stated.
“Are you sure?” Francesca pressed. The woman had once been an army nurse and had medical experience. “I think it’s exhaustion. You know, from shifting too many times.” She winced. “He also got shot by, um, someone who shouldn’t have shot him.”
Hazel grimaced as she gingerly stretched forward to take the detective’s pulse. “You wolves are shooting cops now?”
“I’m not. I’m trying to save the guy.”
“A cop shifter.” Then Hazel gasped as she put the pieces together. The woman was sharp as a tack. “Is this Detective Kennedy? Your idiot crush from three years ago?”
“He was not an idiot crush! He’s a smart shifter who was helping the community, and so I told people. He was doing—”
Hazel pointed an arthritic finger at her. “Right there. That’s the idiot part. Good God, what you did to that poor man, and he didn’t even know why he was a target.”
She blew out a breath, her temper fraying. It had already been a long day in a very long few weeks. “Are you going to help me with him or not? He just needs a place to rest.”
“He’s a cop! I can’t have him here.”
Fair point. PLACE often housed runaway wives and children.
The organization survived in part because she and Hazel kept law enforcement and crazy husbands completely in the dark as to its real nature.
Everyone referred to it as a “book club,” the sign read “Private Library and Cosmetics Emporium,” and no one ever brought an adult male here.
Until today.
“We’ll just keep him away from everyone. That’s what the attic’s for.”
“You going to haul him up there?” Hazel blew out a breath. “Why didn’t you take him back to the Griz?”
“Because I would have been spotted. Now are you going to help me—”
“All right. All right. Go get the wheelchair.” She grimaced. “And a blanket to cover him up.” She looked around the parking lot. Francesca had slid her Prius into a secluded area surrounded by fences and topped by trees. But you never knew who might be spying, and they had reason to be careful.
She started to head back inside while Hazel unbuckled Detective Kennedy. She was halfway to the door when the woman grunted.
“Make it a really big blanket. Geez, bears are huge.”
Frankie snorted. She’d been the one to half carry, half drag the guy to her car.
She knew exactly how impressively he was built.
He’d make a great ally, if she could get him on her side.
If not, then she’d…what? Kill him per her father’s orders?
She shuddered in horror at the thought. War or not, she was not going to kill anyone.
She’d just have to convince Kennedy to help her all while keeping him off her pack’s radar.
By the time she got outside with the wheelchair and the largest blanket they owned, Hazel had maneuvered his legs out and was trying to wake the guy with none too subtle slaps on the face. “Come on, fuzz face, wakey wakey.” She turned to wink at Francesca. “’Cause he’s the fuzz.”
Francesca laughed at the old-fashioned term for cop. “You know the sixties were a really long time ago.”
“Not in my heart. Come on, Detective Fuzz.”
“Stop it,” Francesca said as Hazel was getting more aggressive with her face taps.
“I can get him.” As the child of a shifter, she was slightly stronger than the average woman.
As a newly formed hybrid, she was scary strong.
She edged Hazel out of the way, braced Detective Kennedy against her, and hauled him out of the car.
“Don’t do that out here!” Hazel said in an urgent whisper as she held the wheelchair in place. “Someone could see that you’ve changed.”
Anyone with a good nose could tell. It was only because they’d been down in the sewers that Kennedy hadn’t realized she was the newest form of shifter monster.
She set him down in the chair then they wheeled him inside, but she balked at climbing four flights of stairs with him as deadweight.
She was strong, but no one was that strong.
“We’ll just have to wait until he wakes.”
“Put him in the back of the coat closet. It’s summer. No one goes there now.”
Francesca complied, though she worried about what he would think—and do—when he woke. Hazel peered over her shoulder.
“That’s fine. Shut the door and get ready for class.”
Francesca jolted. “Class? The city’s on lockdown. No one’s coming for class.”
Hazel pinned her with a heavy stare. “You’re here. I’m here. That means we have class.”
Frankie shook her head. “I need to talk to Noelle.” She was the only one who could convince Brady to go against Raoul. “Can you text her? Ask how she’s doing? Something innocuous that doesn’t reveal—”
“That you’re the one asking. Yeah, I got it.” Hazel pulled out her phone and whipped off a text. A moment later, she grunted as she got Noelle’s response. “Says she’s going to bed, and she’ll kill anyone who wakes her or the boys right now.”
“Yeah, the twins have the flu. Not the Detroit Flu, just the regular one.” Frankie did some mental calculations. “I’ll visit her in a couple hours and—”
“Excellent. You have time to train.”
“I’ve been running nonstop,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s skip, okay?” It was a vain hope. She knew Hazel’s answer long before it was spoken aloud.
“Your brother is stepping up his insanity. That means you train.”
“I’m not fighting him. That would be suicide.”
“You don’t have to fight, just—”
“Delay,” Francesca said the word with her.
That was Hazel’s mantra. Don’t fight, delay.
That meant getting in a surprise attack before getting the hell out of Dodge.
It was the smart way to survive and had saved many of her students’ lives.
But that kind of strategy only went so far, especially with wolf-shifters like her brother.
Escape worked in the short term, but he always found a way to get even. Always.
Best option was not to fight him at all, just manipulate everyone else to keep him in check. Then she was just one of many, not one standing alone in a dark alley against the most vicious werewolf she’d ever known.
She consciously relaxed her shoulders. That image alone was enough to terrify her into practicing. Because deep inside her nightmares was the sure belief that one day she would have to face Raoul, and she would die.