Two
Cam
Istared at my brother as he rubbed his forehead. in his hand, he clutched a piece of paper, and he frowned down at it instead of making eye contact with me. “another one, cam? seriously?”
I shrugged and looked toward the window.
It was getting late, and the afternoon sunshine was mottled by passing clouds, dipping Cal’s office in and out of shadow as they rolled by.
Outside, the wind had picked up, blowing the yellowed grass that had been buried under the snow until just a few days ago.
Beneath it, there were a few green blades starting to poke up, signaling the arrival of spring.
Cal’s boots clomped over the wooden floorboards as he made his way to his desk, then plonked down in the leather chair. I wasn’t entirely sure which of them sighed—my older brother or the chair.
He set the letter down on the mahogany and folded his hands in front of him. “This can’t keep happening,” he said, his voice falling low.
“I know.”
Cal stared at me hard for a minute, his blue eyes snapping—much like our mother’s, God rest her soul. His mouth twisted in a frown. “If you know so dang much,” he said sourly, “why does it keep happening?”
That, I didn’t have a good answer for. I knew that I needed to stop, but in the moment, I couldn’t. It was like every time I shifted into my fur, I lost my mind. The coyote in me took over.
Running down the neighbors’ livestock was obviously not a good pastime, unless I wanted to get myself shot.
Because that was going to be the next step.
Bobby Lam wasn’t any stranger to a shotgun, and the letters from town council—and the hefty fines—clearly weren’t working.
It was only a matter of time before Bobby figured a bullet or two would solve his problem faster than complaining to the town’s “animal control” department.
Not that I could blame him; if something was attacking our livestock at Rocky Ridge, we’d make sure it stopped.
The difference was that us Carlyle brothers were all coyote shifters, and Bobby Lam was human.
Not many critters wanted to tangle with a pack of us, so we rarely had to worry about anything bothering our beasts.
And it wasn’t like it was a regular old coyote hopping the fence and scaring the bejeezus out of Bobby’s sheep.
I didn’t know how much Bobby knew; there were more and more humans living in Coyote Creek these days.
Bobby had bought the old Wilkinson place about five years back now, and as far as I knew, no one had enlightened him about the existence of shifters and their presence in Coyote Creek.
It wasn’t like we went around shouting it from the rooftops. The people who knew, knew—they were often shifters themselves, or they were from what we called the “old stock,” people whose families had lived in Coyote Creek for generations.
We’d been off the map for ages, a tiny, nondescript farming village that nobody bothered with.
That was how we liked it, and over time, Coyote Creek had become something of a refuge for shifters from all across the country.
Now though, with the cost of living so high and people being unable to afford their rent or buy a house, more humans were moving to town.
Cal sighed again. “We can’t keep paying these fines, Cam.”
“I know,” I said, then metaphorically kicked myself. I knew that wasn’t what Cal wanted to hear; he wanted to know what the hell I was going to do to stop racking the fines up in the first place. “I swear I’ll stop.”
“Will you?” Cal’s voice was like a knife. “’Cause you said that last time too, and you ain’t stopped yet.”
Part of me longed to admit to Cal that I felt out of control, but something made me hold my tongue. Maybe the fact that Cal, perfect Cal, had probably never felt anything but control over his shifting. Cal the human and Cal the coyote were in sync, exactly as a shifter should be.
I’d always been … less than perfect, to put it mildly.
With another mighty sigh, Cal pulled out his check book and his pen. “See that it stops, Cameron,” he said with this resigned air that made it clear he didn’t believe I would. Or that I could.
I desperately wanted to prove him wrong. I hated when he was right, but I wasn’t sure if maybe he wasn’t right about this.
Cal finished scrawling out the check, his icy gaze flicking up to pin me again.
I felt like a butterfly being stabbed into a cushion.
“Before something bad happens to you,” he said as he slid the check across the desk to me.
He pushed back on the chair, rising to his feet.
“See that that gets where it needs to go, yeah? I’m gonna go check the cows. ”
“Aye-aye,” I said, saluting him as he strode out of the room. I stared at the check in my hands, wincing at the sum. The council was getting pissed.
With a sigh, I closed my eyes and got to my feet. I’d drop this off, then go for a run to help clear my head.
Maybe I’d think up a solution. Maybe.