Page 21 of Shifters in the Night

“OK, can someone please explain the murder references to me?” Lia asked. “They’re becoming unnerving.”

Sonja motioned for everyone to sit on Zed and Dani’s big, sturdy sofas. “We’re going to need more drinks.”

6

LIA

Lia ran through the woods, enjoying the crunch of ferns under her hooves.

True to their word, the ladies answered most of her questions about the murder references – apparently Jillian’s arrival in town had coincided with the presence of an unstable, shifter-obsessed serial killer, then an administrative assistant who was willing to kill to help shadow groups take control of the rift. It turned out it was even more unnerving to get the murder references, but she was glad that they’d told her. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a great idea to know as she was running through the dark woods alone in deer form … but serial killers rarely targeted deer.

She was ninety-two percent sure.

The ladies also talked about Jon, assuring her of his sweetness, his gentleness. He hadn’t dated anyone for a long time, Sonja told her, so the fact that he showed interest in Lia was a big deal. But when she asked about why he didn’t date, or his comments about not coming into town very often, the group as a whole clammed up. She thought about that while she was running back to town. She’d been assured she was invited back to all future girls’ nights, so it wasn’t that she’d mis-stepped socially.

At this point, she was lucky she wasn’t mis-stepping physically. Ingrid's delicious ice cream had not been nearly enough to absorb the amount of alcohol she’d drunk. She wasn’t sober enough to drive. So she’d thrown her clothes into a specially-designed backpack she kept in her car for just such an occasion and well, hoofed it.

Jillian and Dani offered to drive her, of course, but she wanted the run to clear her head. Because her head was a pretty warm and fuzzy place between the female camaraderie and the vodka. Eventually, the group had moved out on the porch. She’d expected the conversation to revolve around the men in their lives and Jillian’s baby and Dani’s pregnancy, but after the initial lava-spit-up conversation and Jon, they moved onto Dani’s research and Jillian’s duties as community liaison and physics and apple farming? Lia didn’t participate much, barely able to grasp each topic that bubbled up before it popped and then another one replaced it. But it was nice. These women loved each other. As the liquor seeped in and she lost her grip on her gift, Lia could see the connections between them like little links of color, deep purple for a deep abiding love that sprang from mutual admiration. There was no competition, no angst, just love. She could not have been more envious.

Deer shifters tended to herd together, for lack of a better term, for protection and fellowship. But her parents had always preferred to keep to themselves. Less competition, more attention, more profit. And so she never quite learned how to make the sorts of friendships these women enjoyed.

Leaping over a fallen oak, Lia huffed out a breath and tried to focus on the freedom of being able to run like this. Normally, she might take a jog or even go to the gym on her days off. But she couldn’t help but wander through the woods of Mystic Bayou. It felt so good to run in her other form and Sonja assured her that were no sport hunters here in the parish. With so many people shifting into animals, not only was it unsafe, but it seemed ghoulish. She cantered, her specially designed backpack bouncing against her spine. She’d learned from her encounter with Jon that wandering around the bayou with no back up clothes was a pretty stupid idea. She felt much more prepared.

She thought maybe it was her imagination, but the moon seemed brighter, the greens deeper, the smells sharper – in a good way. She could smell the rich, decaying scent of the mud and while her deer nose appreciated a good stink, she followed a clearer, brighter scent to the water’s edge. It reminded her of summers with her parents in a rented mansion at some new exclusive beach enclave. It made her miss her mother.

Curious, she followed the waterline, sniffing. The water in the distance looked different. It was blue instead of the relentless brown that flowed through the rest of the bayou. And she thought she could actually hear waves in the distance, ocean waves. She ambled forward through the treeline and found herself standing on a well-manicured lawn.

A faded denim blue house stood in the distance, built further into the water than most of the stilt-bearing houses in the area. The front door was only accessible by a sturdy wooden bridge, giving it a strangely appealing treehouse feel. A huge metal workshop building stood a short distance from the house. In the light of a bell-shaped outdoor lamp, she could read a sign over the door that said, “Carmody & Sons, Boat Repair, Est. 1910” in peeling blue paint.

In her head, she heard herself screech, “Oh, no.”

A familiar man in faded jeans and an old black t-shirt came out of the workshop, squinting into the darkness. Jon. She’d wandered into Jon’s territory. Again. There’s no way he was going to believe this was an accident, and maybe it wasn’t. Had her deer brain instinctively brought her back here? Or was it the alcohol?

Dammit, alcohol!

Maybe she could just pretend to be a normal deer, eat some acorns and wander off?

He called, “Lia, is that you?”

Nooooo.

She froze. What was the right thing to do here? If she just ran off, he would think she didn’t want to talk to him. Or worse, he would think that she was stalking his house like some sort of deer stalker. Wait, no, that was the Sherlock Holmes hat. Dammit, if she was sober, she would not be distracted by weird thoughts about hats.

Sighing, she shuffled back into the trees and shifted onto two feet.

“Lia?” Jon called again.

“I’m just going to change into some clothes!” she yelled through the branches.

“Oh! Good plan!” he called back.

She pulled her clothes out of her backpack, wishing she’d brought something nicer than a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie. But she’d been headed to a girls’ night, not a nightclub!

By the time she stepped out of the woods, Jon was standing closer, but not an “I’m trying to see you naked through the trees” distance.

“You keep finding yourself back here,” he said, grinning at her, his teeth reflecting in the moonlight. “I’m starting to think there’s a pattern.”

“I didn’t know this was your house,” she countered, though her lips were twitching. “I told you I didn’t get a good look at it last time.”

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