Warrior Wolf (Shifter Falls Book 3) Read online

  What the hell was she doing?

  It didn’t matter. He had work to do.

  Still, his wolf didn’t move.

  He growled, low in his throat. Growled at himself, at his frustration, at the helplessness of it. She was out here somewhere, past the end of the nearest road, and she was alone. He couldn’t just move on.

  He turned in one swift movement and started to run, following the scent. She was heading for higher ground, making her way up through the trees and thick brush. She was fit, but she was human, and compared to him she was slow. Even though she was several miles away, he still caught up with her quickly.

  She had made it to the top of a ridge with a sweeping view of the valley beyond. He glimpsed her as he approached through the trees. She was wearing jeans, hiking boots, a light jacket that ended at her hips. She was small and slender, but she wasn’t a wisp of a woman. She was strong. Her dark hair was tied back in a braid, which was the style she always wore. He hadn’t seen her in five years, but he knew her instantly. He’d know her anywhere.

  She was wearing a backpack, and had a pair of binoculars held up to her eyes. She could be any tourist or hiker taking in the landscape, except that her jacket bore the Grant County crest on the arm and her stance was unmistakably tight and official. She was here on sheriff’s business. She was always on sheriff’s business.

  He came closer and she lowered the binoculars. Devon’s wolf was big—very big, almost four feet tall from foot to shoulder—and even though he was skilled at keeping silent, he didn’t even try for stealth. He let his paws crunch leaves and twigs, let his big body bruise its way through the brush. He let the greenery shake as he half emerged, his head lowered, his eyes on her.

  She turned and saw him, dropping the binoculars.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said.

  She hadn’t seen his wolf before. He stayed still, watching her. His wolf was black, and he knew he appeared as a massive shadow, even in the sunlight, with two very dangerous, half-human eyes.

  Nadine stared back for a long second. He smelled nervousness coming from her, and a quick wisp of fear. But not the full, outright terror any inexperienced human would give off when seeing his wolf for the first time. Nadine may be surprised, but she’d lived in this area all her life. She knew a werewolf when she saw one.

  She bent down and picked up the binoculars again. “Devon Donovan,” she said. “You’re just who I was looking for. You aren’t going to make me shoot you, are you?”

  He took a step forward, noting that she had a gun in a holster on her hip. He came fully into the clearing and walked a slow circle around her, keeping his eyes on her, not making a sound.

  “I know it won’t kill you,” she said, shrugging out of her backpack and pulling out the binocular case. “Shooting you, I mean. Bullets don’t kill werewolves, right? But if you keep staring at me like that, I might try.”

  He stopped circling her and stood, watching her.

  “Fine,” she said, as if he’d spoken. “You’re not going to rip my head off, at least not right now. That’s nice of you. But do you think you can be human, at least for a few minutes? I need to talk to you.” She put the binoculars away, zipped the pack again, and stood up. “It’s kind of important. I’m not your favorite person, I suppose. But this is official business.”

  Inside the wolf, the man woke up fully at the sound of her voice. She was asking him to change back. It seemed like a simple request, yet it was anything but. He turned and trotted back into the cover of the trees.

  “Hey!” he heard her call after him. “I was talking to you!”

  He ignored her and kept going. He descended partway down the ridge, then crossed to another and ascended again. He wanted to run, to lose her. He could do it easily, even with his permanently injured leg. Yet he kept himself at a sedate pace, never quite going fast enough to be out of her sight.

  Behind him, she half-jogged, half-ran to keep up, panting and swearing. “Goddamn it!” she shouted after him on the wind. “Devon Donovan! Get back here! Or at least slow the hell down!”

  He crested the ridge and descended the other side. They were miles from Shifter Falls now, deeper into the wilderness on the edge of Grant County. Her territory, not his. Still he kept the pace.

  “I’ll shoot you to slow you down!” Nadine threatened, her breath ragged as she kept up behind him. “See if I don’t! I’ll pick a choice spot, too. Your balls, maybe.”

  His wolf ignored that. If she wanted to shoot him, she could have already; he was the biggest wolf of all his brothers, and as a cop she was probably a good shot. Not quite good enough to get his balls, but close.

  When he arrived at the place he’d been headed for—a clearing that was shaded by the lowering sun at the moment—he turned and faced her. She caught up to him and stopped.

  He stepped forward, butted his forehead into her hip. Unbalanced her. She staggered back, then stood again.

  “Okay,” she said, bending and putting her hands on her knees, catching her breath after the mile-long chase. “I’ll wait here.”

  The man deep inside took a second to be amazed at that—that she understood his wolf, and trusted him. Then he turned and ran into the trees, faster and faster.

  When he was well in the darkness, out of her sight, he leapt in the air, a powerful move, and landed as a man. The change only took a split second, and it was always done in strict privacy. A werewolf never changed in front of anyone—not his brothers, not anyone. Only his true mate was allowed to watch such a sacred act.

  Devon pushed that thought away.

  He stood up, brushed himself off. He was buck naked, as a man had to be in order to change into a wolf. He’d come back to this particular place because this was where he’d left his clothes.

  “Hey!” he heard Nadine shout through the trees. “Did you take off on me?”

  He looked around for the neatly folded pile he’d left. “You can come closer if you want to see me naked,” he growled. “Otherwise, give me a second.”

  She was quiet after that.

  He found his clothes and pulled them on quickly. They weren’t particularly clean; neither was the rest of him. He’d let his hair grow long these last few weeks, his beard too. She’d likely think the wolf was less scary, and definitely more handsome, than the human. Especially with the permanent limp he now walked with, thanks to the Silverman.

  The long-sleeved shirt he wore covered most of his tattoos, except for the flames that snaked up the side of his neck and down over his wrist and hand. The others were visible only when he was naked: the snarling wolf that crossed his shoulder blade—the warrior wolf, feral and ready to fight—and the stylized D on the back of his neck that labeled him one of the Donovan brothers, alphas of the Donovan pack, werewolf royalty. His brothers, he knew, didn’t have any tattoos except their wolf, which indicated which shifter they were, and the same D on the backs of their necks. It was Devon who had felt compelled to get more tattoos, flames down his neck and his arm, to his hand, like a man on fire.

  No one had ever seen his flames in full, except the man who had inked them years ago. Certainly no woman had ever laid eyes on them.

  He put on a jacket over his long-sleeved shirt, a concession to his human appearance instead of a necessity. It was only slightly chilled this high in the mountains, beneath the trees, but in any case wolf shifters were impervious to cold. They could—and, when the change was on them, did—walk around naked even in winter, the snow brushing off them unheeded. But that kind of behavior tended to unsettle humans, so shifters made a pretense of needing clothes like everyone else.

  When he came out of the trees, he found Nadine standing firmly with her back to him, her legs hip width apart, her arms crossed over her chest. It was a ridiculous pose, except for the braid that knotted down the back of her neck and over the collar of her jacket. Damn this woman. He should just walk away and be done with her.

  “All right,” he said instead, his voice startling h
er. “What do you want?”

  4

  This was exactly what she’d been afraid of: Devon Donovan. Big, muscled, almost as hairy as his wolf. Tattooed and scowling. Alone with her.

  She wasn’t easily intimidated, but something about Devon Donovan put her off-balance. It always had. He probably held a grudge against her, because they’d had a run-in five years before. Devon had spent his life in Shifter Falls, as the head henchman for his father Charlie, the late alpha. Nadine had spent her life right here in Grange County, next door, a cop since she was twenty-one. She was virtual strangers with Devon’s brothers, but not with him. This was not, as her daddy liked to say, their first rodeo.

  In fact, there was that small matter of her arresting him five years ago on suspicion of murder.

  It was possible he hated her for that.

  It had only been the second murder she’d worked in her career. Devon had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, a werewolf, and she’d been handcuff-happy. He’d been cleared almost immediately with an airtight alibi, and it wasn’t a mistake she’d made again. But you never knew with werewolves. Bad blood could linger. It certainly had with Charlie, who had become more violent and more paranoid as the years went on, before he’d died in his sleep. And for every one of those years, Devon had been Charlie’s warrior wolf, his enforcer, his number one bodyguard. A shadow looming in the background, always there, always scary.

  Scary and attractive. He was nothing like Heath, who every woman fell over for. He’d lost a little weight since she’d seen him last, probably because of the injury he’d just recovered from. But he was still big. Big hands, big arms, big shoulders, a huge man to move so gracefully and silently. Underneath his beard, his face was ruggedly handsome, like it had been carved from oak. But it was his eyes that unsettled her—deep, dark brown, and fixed on her. Always fixed on her. He’d looked at her just like this, she remembered, when she’d put him in a cell five years ago.

  Still, she lifted her chin. She could handle this. “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “You said that already,” Devon growled. “What’s this about?”

  “Do we have to do this in the middle of nowhere? Let’s go into town.”

  He actually laughed at that, the sound sharp. “Nope,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth. “It’s just a conversation. I could use a cup of coffee.”

  “Forget it,” Devon said. “We talk here, or we don’t talk. Though I might be able to rustle up some coffee.” He strode past her and walked into the brush, and she watched the change in his gait, the limp that made his big body move differently than she remembered.

  She followed. She didn’t have much choice. Moving Devon Donovan where he didn’t want to go was like moving a mountain or diverting a river. At least he was human, and talking. She’d get her answers any way she could.

  “Listen,” she said, following his big back. “Heath says the Silverman is somewhere nearby.”

  “He is,” Devon said. The limp made him different, but she found it wasn’t ungainly. In fact, it was oddly graceful in a distinctive way. Nadine watched it, fascinated despite herself. “I’d have found him already, but he’s an expert at traveling without being tracked.”

  “I want to find him,” Nadine said.

  Devon pushed out of the brush and into another clearing. Here she could see a small pack filled with clothes, as well as a campfire—currently unlit—and a few camping dishes. There was a log that served as a place to sit, and a bar of soap and a towel. There was no sign of a tent.

  Devon found a pack of matches, crouched lopsided by the fire on his bad leg, and lit it in seconds. “You can’t find the Silverman,” he said, not looking at her.

  “But you can.”

  “That’s what I’m doing here.” He looked around. “Believe me, I’m not living here by choice. Though the isolation has its benefits.” He nodded toward the log, saying with uncharacteristic politeness, “Have a seat.”

  Nadine sat. It was good to get off her feet after the hike—damn, she wasn’t as fit as she used to be. Too many hours behind a desk. She dumped her backpack off her shoulders and set it next to her feet. “Why don’t you have a tent?” she asked, her curiosity diverting the topic for a minute.

  The flames licked up from the campfire, and Devon poured some water from a jug into a coffee pot. “I sleep as a wolf,” he said.

  “What if it rains?”

  “Then I get rained on.” He added some instant coffee to the water as it heated. Instant wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

  “Do you eat as a wolf, too?” she asked him. Werewolves had a benefit over humans there—they could simply hunt and eat, living off the land in a way humans couldn’t do without SUVs full of camping gear.

  “Mostly,” Devon said, laying out two cups for when the coffee got hot enough. “It’s easier, and I’m alone out here, so there’s no reason to change back. Though sometimes I like a cup of coffee.”

  He was being pretty conversational, for Devon Donovan. That was promising. Nadine regarded him for a minute, while he was being less intimidating, spooning instant coffee into a cup. His dark hair was shaggy and his beard was getting thick. It was interesting, if you liked that sort of thing, how similar the four brothers were and how different at the same time. Devon had Brody’s serious, dark gaze and some of Ian’s aggressive restlessness. He had no resemblance to Heath at all. And even Ian, who had been a fighter and could probably snap Nadine in half, didn’t have Devon’s bulk. Brody was powerfully strong, but understated. And Heath was more graceful, his power quick and deadly like a cobra’s.

  Nadine did a quick calculation, trying to recall how old Devon was. He’d been twenty-one when she’d arrested him, which made him around twenty-six now. She shouldn’t be ogling him like this. Nadine herself was thirty-one, pitifully single, and was feeling more like a cougar every year.

  Devon turned to pull the hot water from the fire, and Nadine noticed the flame tattoo licking up the side of his neck, as well as below his sleeve onto his wrist and hand. He hadn’t had those five years ago. She wondered why he had them now. She really had to stop thinking about this stuff.

  “What are you staring at?” Devon asked without looking up.

  Nadine flushed. Damn. “I’m just wondering how I can get answers out of you, that’s all.”

  Devon shook his head and stirred the coffees. “I don’t have any answers for you, Sheriff. You’ve come to the wrong place.”

  “I’ve already interviewed your brothers. So where do suggest I go for answers?”

  Devon looked up at her, his dark eyes sharp. “You talked to my brothers?”

  “Of course I talked to your brothers.” She took the hot cup from him and blew on it. “They gave me the same old blah-blah you Donovan werewolves always give. They don’t know where the Silverman is. They don’t know who he is. And of course they swear up and down that they couldn’t have killed my murder victims.”

  Devon took his own cup and stayed crouched, watching her. “They’re right. They couldn’t have.”

  “Please tell me how I can close these cases with They couldn’t have and not get fired. I’m all ears.”

  Devon frowned. “How the hell am I supposed to know how your job works?”

  “I’ll give you a hint,” Nadine said, sipping her coffee. It wasn’t half bad—or maybe she was just that desperate for coffee. “I close murder cases by finding the actual murderer. Hence…” She motioned around her. “Here I am.”

  He made a dismissive sound, but he rubbed the back of his neck slowly, thinking it over. Unlike Heath, Devon was a man of few words. “You have a dilemma,” he pointed out.

  “Do I?” She took another sip of her coffee. “What might that be?”

  “You have to find the Silverman. To do that, you need me to help you, because you can’t do it on your own.”

  Nadine raised her eyebrows. “And?”

  “And I’m not going to help you,�
�� he said. “That’s your dilemma.”

  Now she was starting to get angry. “Seriously? This is a murder case, Devon.”

  He looked at her, his gaze running down to her toes and back up, and she felt a weird giddiness that she pushed away. Then he said, “The Silverman will kill you.”

  That riled her up. “This is about me being a woman, isn’t it? He isn’t going to kill me. I’m going to arrest him, and I’m going to charge him with murder. That’s all.”

  “It isn’t about you being a goddamn woman,” he said in a voice that was close to a snarl. “It’s about the fact that the Silverman doesn’t give a damn who he kills. It’s about the fact that I’m twice your size, and a fucking werewolf, and he nearly killed me.” As if to emphasize the point he stood from his crouch and stalked away across the clearing, his limp more pronounced than before. He bent, put his cup down, and started rifling through the pack of clothes.

  Nadine stood from her seat on the log. “Fine. I won’t arrest the Silverman without backup. I’ll bring Ben.” Ben was her second in command, a deputy. He was over six feet tall.

  “Ben?” Devon said. “The fifty-year-old with the beer gut?”

  Since he didn’t live in Grant County, his knowledge was surprising. “How do you know who my deputy is?”

  “You think you humans are the only ones keeping tabs on their neighbors?” Devon said. “Human cops love to arrest shifters, as I have reason to know. Always learn more about your enemy than he knows about you.”

  That was disconcerting, since she knew almost nothing about the Donovans. “Ben is big and strong,” she argued, returning to the point. “And he’s an experienced cop. I’ll tell you what. I’ll bring Tate, too, just for good measure.”

  “Tate Henderson?” Devon scoffed. “That kid is what, twenty?”

  Damn, he knew about Tate, too. “Tate is twenty-four.” And fit. And strong.