Page 15 of Running with Direwolves
“One thing can’t become another. It’s a physical impossibility.”
He raised one eyebrow, the way he had in the bar the night before. “Want me to do it again and show you just how possible it is?”
“Not right now.” Her heart was pounding so hard she feared for its survival if she were subjected to much more. “But you did … you are…?”
“I’m a shifter, yes, a direwolf shifter, just the way Grady in there is.” He nodded in the direction of the zoo. “Which is why we must get him out now.”
“Oh my God.” She cupped his face, feeling his very human bones beneath his flesh. “He’s a … we have a man locked up? His name is Grady?”
“Yes, and he’s a shifter, but he’s also a man, all man in fact. Alpha male.”
“I … I can’t get my head around this.”
“Then let me get dressed and we can figure it out.”
“Figure it out?” Her brain was a mass of emotions and scientific questions.
“Yeah. Hang on.” He disappeared for a second then returned with his battered rucksack.
As he dressed, she tried to catch her breath. The implications of what she knew were far-reaching, frightening, exciting, and gave her a huge ethical dilemma. She held the key that kept an innocent man locked up like an animal.
“Sienna.” Tarl was dressed now and he took her hand. “You know we can’t leave him in there. Caged.”
“Why? I mean, why doesn’t he just change into a human,if he can? Then anyone would release him, Ted on his rounds even.”
“And let the world know shifters exist?” Tarl’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy? Only a few people are privy to that information.”
“And now I’m one of them.”
“Yes.” He steered her out of the tunnel, back in the direction of the zoo. “You’re special, Sienna, I knew that the moment I saw you in The Gin Room. I didn’t know how or why but I knew it.”
“But Tarl, please, I’m figuring this out, please wait.”
“We haven’t time.” He stopped and turned to her, placed his hands on her shoulders. “Grady is on a hunger strike. It’s our final line of defense if caught by humans. We stop eating, die, and the secrets die with us.” He paused and shook his head. “And as a direwolf he has an incredibly fast metabolic rate. A gray wolf could last three weeks without food, but Grady…” He paused and frowned. “Another day at the most.”
“What?” Her heart squeezed. Die. No, they couldn’t let him die.
“So come on,” Tarl said, urging her to walk again. “We don’t have a moment to lose.”
She kept up with him, her mind spinning. “Shifter? You’re shifters? How many more of you are there?”
“All in good time.” He looked left and right as they walked past the unlit lampposts. “I’ll explain everything.”
“I think I understand, it’s how you’ve survived undetected for so long, right? You direwolves. You’ve been hiding in plain sight, walking amongst us.”
He made a small huffing sound. “I knew you’d figure it out, and yes, we only shift, as a rule, when we’re in the wilderness, no chance of discovery, except Grady and I were in Montana, hunting, and this ranger came out of nowhere. Hedarted Grady and hauled him onto his truck. I couldn’t do a thing as a direwolf or as a man to help him.” He shook his head. “I failed him.”
“I’m sorry, I really am. But you’re here now, so you haven’t failed him at all.” She steeled herself. There was only one thing she could do. Only one action that meant she’d be able to live with herself. She was an animal lover, a believer in freedom, every life mattered. “And you’re about to free him, Tarl, with my help.”
“Sienna.” He stopped and cupped her cheeks. “Are you really going to help us?”
“What kind of human would I be if I didn’t?”
“I don’t know, but right now you are the most beautiful, bravest, kindest human I’ve ever met.” He set his lips on hers. A lovely deep passionate kiss that brought back so many memories of the night before. “But you know this will be career suicide,” he murmured. “I spotted the cameras in there earlier.”
“And I’ll be the last member of staff in the direwolf’s enclosure before he is gone.” Even saying it was hard. Was she really going to knowingly release a wild creature into the city?
It seemed she was.
