Page 14 of Kin of the Wolf

“Excellent. I’ll lever this prize out of the murk.” Duncan nodded to me, then grabbed the rope with both hands to put more effort into pulling.

I left him to it, not finding this as much of a fun adventure as he did, though I’d come along more to avoid employers visiting the apartment complex. And spending time with Duncan was pleasant, even if I now worried about the possibility of him being magically forced to turn on me. That had been a concern since the night of our battle, but I’d assumed that for it to happen again Lord Abrams and his magical controller would need to be present. But if he could manipulate Duncan from afar…

I looked back as I climbed a path into the parking lot for the convenience store. Duncan had wrangled his prize onto the dock. It was a dented shopping cart missing its wheels and as covered with grime as everything else. I shook my head in bemusement, wondering how much junk he had to pull out of bodies of water before finding a genuine prize.

“We might have different definitions of adventure, my friend,” I murmured but smiled as I entered the store.

A step inside, I dropped the smile and halted abruptly. A man in a ski mask stood in front of the counter, pointing a gun at a gray-haired male clerk, who was pulling money out of the cash register. Another masked man stood behind him in the mouth of an aisle. He held a sawed-off shotgun also pointed toward the counter.

My skin pricked with heat, danger trying to call forth the wolf.

Both men looked toward me. Before I could decide if I shouldrun back outside or let the magic take me over, the guy with the handgun swung it toward me.

Swearing, I dove into the nearest aisle. The gun fired, the blast cracking through the glass door where I’d been standing.

Magic and adrenaline surged through my veins as the change swept over me. There was no tamping it down. All I had the presence of mind to do was tug off my jacket, my keys and phone in the pocket, before my body morphed and fur sprouted from my skin.

Once I stood on all fours in my wolf form, thoughts offleeingfrom the gunmen evaporated. I was a powerful predator, and these fools had dared challenge me.

When one of the men lunged into view at the end of the aisle, prepared to fire again, I sprang at him. He shouted in surprise but managed to get off a round. I was already charging at him, however, and he flinched back, the bullet going wide. Jaws snapping, I tore into his shoulder. He screamed, dropped the gun, and wheeled away, smashing into a stand and knocking snack bags everywhere.

Engines roared in the parking lot outside—human vehicles. The noise startled me, but movement to my left alerted me to another threat inside. The man with the sawed-off shotgun stepped toward me. Seeing a wolf must have startled him as much as the first man, but he recovered quickly enough to take aim, his hands steady.

An instant before he pulled the trigger, I sprang over shelves, claws clipping bags of chips on the top before I landed two aisles over. Meanwhile, the bullet blew a giant hole in the window beside the door, obliterating the already-taped glass.

I charged out of the aisle as the shooter spun back toward me, but he wasn’t fast enough. Before he could swing the gun around to fire again, I sank my fangs into his arm. He screamed, releasing the gun, and stumbled away as he tried to pull free of my grip.

My savage animal instincts wanted me to spring up and tearout his throat, to utterly destroy this enemy, but I managed to keep my calm. They’d threatened me but not others of my pack, and this wasn’t my territory. I wasn’t as enraged as some times when I changed, and I kept a measure of sanity.

That didn’t keep me from releasing his arm to bite him in the balls. The bastard deserved it.

The next scream was so high-pitched that it hurt my ears. More sounds of engines vrooming came from the parking lot, and I released the man, anticipating a further threat. Nothing good happened to wolves when humans roared close in their noisy metal boxes.

Outside, not cars but motorcycles had entered the parking lot, but they were in an unexpected position—flat on their sides on the pavement. As the two men I’d bitten fled out of the store, both gripping their wounds, I spotted the reason the motorcycles—and their riders—had been knocked down.

Duncan stood among them, fists raised. He remained in his human form, but he was formidable even with his bare hands.

By the time I nosed open the broken door, stepping around shattered glass on the ground, the two riders and the two gunmen, none now armed, were fleeing into the wetlands.

Duncan squinted after them. “If they touch my magnet, I’ll kick their asses again.”

My wolf brain understood the human words but didn’t grasp their full meaning.

Duncan looked at me. “They can have the shopping buggy if they’re hard up.”

Crunches came from the store—the male clerk stepping gingerly out from behind the counter, over my discarded jacket, and peering toward us. Specifically, his gaze fell upon me. A woman of similar age had come out of a door behind the counter, and she joined him in peering at me.

They weren’t threatening, but my hackles rose with thecertainty that danger might result from their scrutiny. Humans did not like wolves.

Duncan patted me on the back. “Why don’t you follow those guys and make sure they aren’t further trouble, Fluffy?”

Fluffy?

He waved me toward the wetlands and added softly, “I’ll get your jacket.”

Given that all the men had injuries, delivered by fist or fang, they were unlikely to return, but I sensed the power of the werewolf magic in Duncan, power greater than mine, and allowed that he was like a pack alpha. I trod off, my instincts telling me to stay away from humans anyway, and left Duncan chatting amiably with the store clerks.

Only as I padded into the wetlands did the wolf magic start to fade. I didn’t try to track the men, though droplets of blood and the scent of a cigarette one had smoked lingered, so it would have been a simple matter to follow them. Instead, I sat on my haunches by the rolling den that belonged to Duncan and waited for him.

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