Rhyannon Byrd - Last Wolf Watching

A shiver slipped down her spine, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “How do you mean?”

“From what Wyatt told me, they tried to keep a reasonable distance, but I’m going to be on the inside with you at all times. If something happens, I need to be close enough to make a difference. Like it or not, I’m going to be like your shadow.”

She slanted him a sideways look as she asked, “You didn’t agree to watch over me just to keep me from causing trouble for the pack?”

He shook his head, and she watched, mesmerized, as the auburn tips of his thick hair shifted over the soft cotton of his black T-shirt, the material hugging the firm muscles beneath. “There’s more going on here, Doucet, and you know it. I’m doing this for you, not them.”

“My name is Michaela,” she sighed, shifting her gaze back to his, irrationally irritated by the way he continually called her by her last name. It was so impersonal, which was exactly why she figured he did it—and it occurred to her that they were like two opponents circling one another, wary of the other’s motives.

“I know your name,” he muttered, his tone dry.

Michaela lifted one shoulder. “Couldn’t prove it to me, since you never use it,” she countered, noting the strange blend of exasperation and wariness in his sexy, almond-shaped eyes. “So you plan to protect me while keeping me in line, then?”

“I doubt anyone could keep you in line,” he snorted, the corner of his mouth twitching in a reluctant grin. “What I am going to do is keep you safe.”

“That’s not what—”

The green of his eyes flashed with emotion. “Forgot what they said at the clearing, okay? As much as I don’t care for Riggs, he knew that one of the Runners would accept responsibility for you so that we could keep you alive. There isn’t a goddamn chance that Drake plans to let you live,” he rasped, the softness of the words in no way lessening their impact. “Not when he knows he can use you to get to us, just like they did with Max. The only problem is that Max lived. Now I think they’ll come after you even harder, or turn it into a game and play with us.”

“By keeping me scared?”

“Yeah.”

Grabbing at another plate, she ignored the shaking in her hands. “Drake really is the one behind all the trouble, then, isn’t he? The one Anthony Simmons was working for, who’s tempting Lycans to turn rogue, teaching them how to shift during the daytime?”

Michaela knew the past few weeks had been chaotic for the Runners. On top of learning that a traitor was working to expand the number of rogue wolves in the area, they’d discovered that those who had turned had been taught how to dayshift. That was the first clue that had pointed the Runners toward an Elder, once they’d learned that the ability to teach a wolf how to take his shape beneath the sun was a power possessed only by those who served on the League, meant to be used as a defensive weapon during times of war.

After the Runners had realized they were hunting a traitorous Elder, Stefan Drake had become their obvious suspect. Drake and his followers made no secret of their fanatical hatred for humans and Bloodrunners alike, but it wasn’t until Jeremy had accepted his place within the Silvercrest pack and returned to Shadow Peak that they were truly able to investigate Drake.

Thanks to Pippa Stanton, the lone female Elder, Jeremy had learned about Drake’s grudge against the League itself. According to Pippa, Drake had never forgiven his peers for forbidding the assassination of his wife after she left him for a human. They also knew Drake was responsible for the recent attack on Jillian’s life. Using his own daughter as a weapon, Drake, along with the help of an unknown Elder, had performed a task believed impossible by most Lycans, pulling Elise’s wolf from her body against her will. Once the change was complete, Elise’s beast was controlled by Drake, and would have killed Jillian if it weren’t for Jeremy and Mason’s intervention. When Jeremy later confronted the Elder, accusing him of the crime, one of Drake’s followers, a man named Cooper Sheffield, had tried to kill him, dying instead by the Bloodrunner’s hand.

To make matters worse, Drake wasn’t the Runners’ only problem. Over the course of the past month, Michaela knew that Brody and Cian had been investigating a series of gruesome killings. Four human females had been found murdered, three in the mountains and one in the city. At each scene, there had been no trace of Lycan musk—only the acidic scent produced by a Lycan who had dayshifted, which was untraceable. Each of the victims had clearly been a rogue kill, their hearts eaten from their chests in some kind of psychotic, symbolic gesture. Only one of the victims had clearly been the work of Anthony Simmons, the rogue who had targeted Torrance’s life, and who had been killed by Mason in a Challenge Fight shortly afterward. The other three crimes were still unsolved, and the Runners couldn’t be sure that Drake himself was behind them, his accomplice on the League…or one of his twisted followers.

“Drake all but admitted his guilt to Jeremy after the attack on Jillian’s life,” Brody rumbled, his deep voice suddenly pulling her from her troubling thoughts and back to their conversation. “He already hated us before, but now he has a reason to risk taking us out. It’s either get rid of the Runners, or accept that we’re going to destroy him and whatever he has planned.” He shrugged, and Michaela found herself momentarily fascinated by the way the casual gesture traveled across the broad width of his shoulders, his muscles flexing beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

She tried to keep her focus, but damn, she couldn’t get enough of those shoulders. Hoping she didn’t sound dazed with lust, she managed to say, “So what happens now?”

“Would you like me to take you home tonight? We can stay in Covington for a day or two so that you can get your things together, close up your shop, then head back up.”

“Close up my shop?” Her hands went still beneath the running water as she rinsed the suds away from a mug. She’d already made arrangements with one of her employees to run things at Michaela’s Muse, her paranormal specialty shop, for a few days—but she hadn’t considered that she might be away longer than that.

As if following her train of thought, Brody said, “I want you in the Alley, Doucet. In my cabin.” The dark sound of his voice shivered across her senses, but his expression remained unreadable, as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather. “I don’t trust what’s happening in the pack and we’re too vulnerable in town.”

She wanted to argue. She had a life, a business in the city. And yet, none of that would ever be the same again. Max wouldn’t be coming back home with her. Working with her. Living with her. The pain crushed down on her again, but she battled against the tears. “Let’s go down tonight,” she said shakily, hoping he didn’t hear the tremor in her words. “I can get what I need from home, then go by the shop and close things down. My customers will just…have to understand.”

“You don’t have to close. David would be more than happy to keep it open for you,” Torrance suggested from the table, having obviously been listening in on their conversation. David Sharp was a loyal, longtime employee who had worked at Michaela’s Muse while getting his degree in advertising and had recently returned home to Covington.