Dani Harper: First Bite

“I’ve got some things to do, but I’ll be back at the end of my shift. We’ll get that catheter and IV out and see about helping you to the bathroom.”

“I can walk?”

“Well, it’s going to be quite a challenge with a broken arm and a broken leg on the same side, but the X-rays and the CT scan say you’re okay otherwise. Crutches won’t work for you, but I’ll see if I can find a cane. We’ll try to get you mobile enough to shuffle to the bathroom when you want to.”

The nurse smiled and left, and Neva exhaled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She pulled aside the blanket and did a quick survey—not hard when the silly hospital gown was so small. Her leg was in a cast from her ankle to the top of her thigh. Her arm was in an L-shaped cast. Quickly, she tried each one of her fingers and toes. Everything obeyed. The ones on the left were damned stiff and sore, but that was to be expected. All the skin she could see was garishly multicolored with the fading remains of spectacular cuts and bruises. Two days? There was far more than two days’ worth of healing there—more like two weeks —and Neva realized the creature within her was to blame.

The creature she had to destroy before it was too late.

As motorcycles went, the Triumph Thunderbird was one of Travis’s favorites. This particular bike had been out of the showroom for over nine years, so it had enough wear to make it look ordinary—an important feature, since fitting in was the unwritten code of all Changelings who wanted to survive. But the Thunderbird also had just enough retro styling to give it some class. Travis didn’t want to be too ordinary.

Best of all, it was a great cruising machine. He’d checked out of the motel at six a.m. and been on the road for the entire day. Straddling an 885-cc engine at high speed was the closest thing his two-legged form could get to the thrill and the freedom of running as a wolf.

But today his Canis lupus had grumbled nonstop. His Homo sapiens wasn’t overly happy either. He tried to ignore both and just ride and ride and ride…until his stomach got louder than both the engine and the voices in his head, and Travis was forced to stop at a Denny’s in Idaho Falls. Shape-shifting burned a virtual ton of calories, and he’d been foolish to go without breakfast, crazy to go without lunch. He was ravenous. There were better restaurants, certainly, but Denny’s was his go-to place when he needed a lot of calories fast . Maybe he’d be lucky and they’d have that bacon-on-everything special. Thank the goddess, Changelings didn’t have cholesterol issues.

A wild-haired man in ragged clothes stood quietly in the parking lot, a tin can at his feet labeled Thank U . He was holding an enormous cardboard sign: You can’t go back and fix the past.

Travis threw a dollar into the can as he passed. The slogan had proved disturbingly true in his life, although he could have done without the damn reminder tonight.

He’d finished his double cheeseburger and was halfway through his country-fried steak when both sides of his personality ganged up on him. It started with his wolf, of course. That was normal—his alter ego was always nagging him about one thing or another, and he was used to it. The lupine persona had a moral compass that exceeded that of many humans, probably because life was simple to a wolf. Black and white, no gray at all. Still, Travis didn’t understand why on earth it wanted him to go back to the woman he’d barely managed to rescue.

By then his human brain had started laying out clues like breadcrumbs, all the bizarre things he’d been doing his damnedest to ignore. Like how the woman had failed to react to his Change. Sure, she’d been injured and in shock, but even the most stoic person would at least raise an eyebrow when someone shape-shifted right in front of them. And then there was how she’d somehow managed to leap far enough out from the ledge to land in the trees. Without a hang glider or one hell of an updraft from the valley, it should have been impossible. And of course it should also have been impossible that she survived it. Even with the tree branches slowing her descent, they could only break her fall to a degree. She shouldn’t have been alive, never mind conscious , when he found her. Humans could be tough spirited, but their bodies were all too fragile.

The real clincher, however, was that momentary flash in the depths of the woman’s dark brown eyes, like the elusive glimmer of green in a tropical sunset at the precise moment the sun disappeared into the ocean. Travis had tried to talk himself out of it—just imagination, a trick of the light, all those lame-ass explanations—but the truth was, he knew what he’d seen.

And he knew what it meant.

She was a Changeling, just like him. Her scent had said human , however, and there was only one possible reason for that: she hadn’t made her first shift yet. His inner wolf radiated approval—no doubt relieved at having finally gotten through to the thickheaded human it shared its existence with. And the thickheaded human’s mind seemed satisfied, too. Both fell silent as Travis finished his meal. He even got to eat his bacon-maple sundae in peace. He paid his bill and walked out into the parking lot, and knew without looking that the moon was only a day or so from being full. He could feel the lunar tug, but he wasn’t subject to it—he took on his wolfen form as he pleased. Or not. But then he’d been born a Changeling, not made . A human who had been bitten would turn at the very next full moon. And it wasn’t pretty.

The woman he’d rescued was in the worst of all possible places for such an event: a hospital filled with witnesses. As a loner, Travis didn’t give a damn about pack protocol, but it was in his own best interests to make sure that the world at large didn’t suddenly find out about Changelings. But what made up his mind was the knowledge of what a first Change entailed. It was difficult enough for those born to it, but for a human? It was the sire’s responsibility to both guard them and coach them through the ordeal. Why the hell was this woman alone at such a critical time? Where was her sire, her pack? If she lived through the Change—not a given, especially in her condition—a freshly made wolf left to its own devices could do a lot of damage in its terror and pain. It was something that Travis knew all too well. And while he definitely did not want to babysit this already troubled young woman, he couldn’t stand by and allow her to hurt somebody.

As he headed to his motorcycle, he pressed a bag of hot food into the hands of the homeless man and nodded at the sign.

“S’true, man,” the man said as he clutched the bag to his chest.

“More than you know,” muttered Travis. He straddled the Triumph and cruised out of the parking lot, heading in the direction he had come from. He could swear his damn wolf was smug as he opened up the throttle.

Fern was as good as her word, and a few hours later, Neva was sitting on the edge of the bed, free of all tubes, needles, or other accoutrements. Her toes touched the cold floor, and her right hand gripped the mattress cover beside her. She wished she had the full use of her left one to clutch something, anything else. “No crutches, huh?”

“Not with that arm. I brought you a cane instead.” Neva’s expression must have been totally transparent because Fern waved a calming hand at her. “I know, I know, it looks like a little old lady’s cane, but maybe you can steady yourself with it once you’re up.”