Thirteen
Wyatt
Seriously,” vern said, which was probably the first thing he’d said to me since we’d left the house.
we’d been cruising down back country roads for around twenty minutes, only the crunch of gravel and the occasional notes from the radio, when we had reception long enough to hear anything other than static, filling our ears.
“Seriously what?” I asked.
Vern drew back a little, although he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Why Cameron?” He sounded … affronted? Disappointed? Maybe a bit of both?
“Uh,” I managed.
“Why not Cal?” Vern continued, gaze still glued to the road. I wondered if he was really seeing it, though, as he basically blew through a stop sign.
I twisted, looking over my shoulder. “Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s six on a Saturday morning, ain’t nobody coming through here at this hour.”
I wanted to argue, but he knew the place like the back of his hand.
“So,” he said, “Cameron.”
I twisted my mouth. “I don’t know,” I answered. It was honest, if nothing else.
Maybe it was because I’d seen him in the split-second before Bobby shot him. Maybe it was because there had been something we’d shared in that moment.
Attraction wasn’t rational. Emotions weren’t rational. Asking for an explanation was like asking someone to explain why they liked skydiving or something. There was no logic to it. They liked what they liked, and that was that.
Vern swung the truck down a long, oak-lined laneway. We bounced over a couple of potholes. I turned to look at him. “Did you know?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Did you know that coyote was Cam when Bobby shot him?”
Vern grimaced, then put the truck into park as we nosed up to a gleaming barn. The vehicle jerked to an abrupt stop as Vern turned to look at me.
He considered for a long moment, then said, “Bobby doesn’t know about shifters.”
I opened my mouth, but Vern shook his head. “And neither does Jed here, so you best hold your tongue. Understand?”
I clamped my mouth shut, nodding. Vern bobbed his head a couple of times, then opened the door and slid out of the truck. “Good.”
With a sigh, I did the same. My boots landed in muck, and I grimaced. Today was not off to a good start.
I wanted to ask more about shifters: did Vern know who else in town was a shifter? Cal had indicated there were more of them around, and Vern knew about the Carlyle family and he clearly knew Bobby and Jed weren’t shifters.
And Vern had never answered me about whether he was a shifter or not. If he was, that would explain a lot about how he knew about the others.
But Vern hadn’t grown up here. Did that mean there were other shifter towns, scattered across the US? In other countries? Cal had said there were other animals too; some people shifted into horses and stuff.
I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand. There was this whole secret society of people who weren’t quite-human that had been, basically, living under my nose my whole life. Who could blame me for being curious?
But I had to stay quiet in front of Jed. I wondered how badly humans treated shifters, for them to want to keep to themselves, for them to keep their secret. Like, they turned into animals! Didn’t that give them the advantage over regular humans?
Or maybe it didn’t. Humans had advantages over a lot of creatures—guns, for example.
So it was cool Cam could turn into a coyote, but he was more likely to get shot that way.
Bobby Lam was proof of that. And as a coyote, Cam couldn’t even fire back.
At least when two humans had a gun fight, they were playing on equal terms.
And what if shifters could be forced to shift? Maybe that made it easy to hunt them or something.
I thought about tales about man-eating wolves in Europe and werewolves and silver bullets and stuff.
Yeah, it was probably better that shifters didn’t tell humans about their existence.
As much as I wanted to ask all the questions about shifters, I had a lot else on my mind too.
One, what the hell was an omega, and why did Cam think I was one?
He’d never really given me an answer. He’d called himself an alpha, which I knew lots of people thought meant “leader of a wolf pack.” But I also knew that theory had been debunked ages ago, and from what I’d seen, Cal was definitely in charge.
Cam was more like a second-in-command, if anything.
So that had to mean alpha meant something different.
Second, Cam had said I was in heat. I didn’t need anyone to explain to me what that usually meant—I was a veterinarian, for crying out loud. But I didn’t know what it meant for shifters—or what it meant for me. I was, as far as I knew, human.
I’d been wondering if maybe I had, like, some secret shifter ancestors or something, but I didn’t know how I’d figure that out.
My mother had run off and left me with my dad when I was six, so I barely remembered her.
My dad had never told me her new married name or even where she went, so I’d have a bit of trouble tracking her down. And my dad … well.
I wasn’t sure he was ever going to talk to me again. Maybe it was better that way.
I supposed I could do archival research or something, but that would take time and effort and money, and all my money was going toward paying off my stupid student debt and staying alive.
So, yeah. As far as I knew, I was human. Maybe one day I’d be able to do the research to prove that I wasn’t—and maybe unearth some family secrets—but in the meantime, I had to assume I was human. After all, I’d been raised human, and nobody had ever mentioned shifters to me.
The other thing I wanted explained—and the thing that was occupying my brain the most, even over all the shifter crap—was why I was so goddamn horny still.
The night with Cam had been fantastic. I’d fallen asleep totally satisfied, but when I woke up this morning, my blood was roiling with need. I’d been stiff as a board, and I’d jerked off in the shower not once but twice.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How the hell did you have mind-blowing sex and still need more? Had it just been that long that I needed more to really cure my case of blue balls?
I didn’t think that was possible or probable, because I’d gone longer.
Not for a while, but suffice to say nobody really wanted to sleep with the nerdy gay kid when I was in high school.
My first time was near the end of my first year of college, when I’d finally worked up the nerve to go to a party.
Because I’d taken a gap year between graduating high school and my first year, that meant it had been nearly six years from the time I first met raging hormones to the time I’d gotten laid.
I definitely hadn’t had a six-year drought since then, so the “it’s been so long” argument didn’t seem to hold water.
Worse, though, I just couldn’t get Cam out of my head.
It wasn’t just that I was horny—it was that I wanted Cam.
Every time my eyes fluttered shut, I could see him; I could practically smell him still, even over the scent of hay and manure as we marched through Jed’s barn to where one of his cows was standing, lowing softly, as though she were in pain.
I tried to focus on the animal in front of me. She was a Jersey, a bigger girl, and according to Jed, an older one. Hadn’t meant to stud her, but she’d gotten loose when the bull had been around and, well, lo and behold.
She’d had calves before, but never twins, and Jed was probably right to be worried sick about her. I felt for the farmer; it was clear this lady was one of his favorites, from the way he looked at her to the way he patted her flank, to the way he said her name—Daisy.
Vern took a look. “Well,” he said, “she’s doing good so far.” He turned to me. “Wyatt, get the pack from the truck, and bring me some of the towels too.”
“Got it,” I said, then darted out of the barn. I inhaled deeply when I stepped outside, hoping to clear the scent of barn, but instead giving myself a whiff of what my brain interpreted as Cam.
I glanced around. Was he nearby? Had he followed us? Vern hadn’t told him where we were going, but maybe he was tracking us?
I caught a flash of reddish fur disappearing over a knoll, and my heart leapt. My stomach lurched. He had followed us! I felt torn in half—anger that he was stalking me, and sheer, unadulterated joy that he was nearby, keeping watch.
I gritted my teeth and stalked to the truck, just as Vern hollered. “Wyatt!”
“Yeah, yeah!” I called back, flinging open one of the doors and rummaging around for Vern’s kit and some towels.
I glanced toward the knoll as I headed back to the barn, but the flash of fur was gone. Or, at least, hiding.
I swallowed. I was being silly. It probably wasn’t Cam, even if I wanted it to be.
That was another question: did I really want it to be Cam? Did I really want him following me around places?
Vern had told me not to get mixed up with the Carlyle boys, and he’d seemed particularly disappointed that I’d picked Cam over Cal. Did Cam have some kind of … shady past?
I let my gaze slide over my shoulder again, and my heart nearly stopped as I spied not a coyote but a fucking wolf standing at the top of the knoll, watching me with golden eyes.
“I!” I cried, and the beast’s eyes widened. Then it turned tail, darting back down the hill.
I waited for a second or two, then raced up the knoll.
It was stupid, because there was a wolf on the other side of it, I knew, and God knew what would happen, but when I crested the hill, all I saw was the creature loping off across the barren earth of what was likely a corn field.
It didn’t so much as glance back, instead hightailing it toward a stand of trees near the fence line.
“Wyatt!”
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes. I clutched the kit and the towels, then turned back to the barn. “On my way!”