The Wolf's Call (Two-Natured London) by Susanna Shore Page B

He needed to have her,
right now.
    Rafe
was trying to decide where he would take her, in the car or outside in the cool
October air, when a shot rang out, the sound reverberating loudly in the
silence of the meadows. He jumped from an aroused stupor to action so fast that
Charly didn’t have time to react before he had pushed her under him, hiding
them both in the long grass. He released his aura and his wolf stretched out of
his back to scent the air above them. Another shot whirled past where they had
stood only a second before.
    “What
are you doing,” Charly protested, trying to push him off her.
    “Shh.
Someone is shooting at us.” She froze underneath him and he could smell her
fear, the arousal gone. He dug into his pocket for the car keys. “Take these
and crawl back to the car. And this time, stay there.” It was a command, but he
let her see the worry in his eyes and she nodded and took the keys.
    He
waited only to see her halfway up the path, briefly distracted by the shape of
her butt as she advanced on her belly, then he shed his clothes as fast as he
could in the awkward crouched position. Naked, he turned to look at her once
again and saw that she had paused to watch him. He could have urged her on, but
he knew she wanted to see this and so he let her.
    The
shift was fast, urgency and the nearness of the full moon speeding up the
process. His wolf aura grew to its full size, something she couldn’t see,
covering his body and then growing beyond its limits. Then the image simply
filled from the inside outwards, the wolf in him coming out. It hurt, but not
much, as his human half took the backseat at the same time, hiding within the
wolf.
    In a
matter of moments, the wolf was standing on the footpath. They shook themselves
to adjust their fur and then they shot a glance at their female. They didn’t
like how she hadn’t moved so they snarled to make her know she should go. She
nodded, not looking as frightened as they had thought she would, which pleased
them. Then they turned around to head towards the direction they had smelled
the attack coming from, staying low in the long grass.
    They
smelled dog and turned to look at the black canine following them, crawling
too. They growled and the dog paused, but when they moved on, it followed
again. Telepathy didn’t work between shifters and natural animals, but there
were other ways to communicate. It took some effort to make Bob understand
them, but finally it turned around and headed after Charly, eager to fulfil the
command it had been given: protect her.
    It
took them a while to reach the place from where the shots had come from, but
the human was already gone. There were footprints and a good scent trail to
follow, but the wolf and the man agreed. They had to return to protect their
female. The shooter might be heading to her already.
    Ten
minutes later, Rafe was back in human form and clothed. He made a quick call to
Jamie, who promised to send Kieran, their best tracker, to study the place.
Then he returned to the car, walking low just in case the shooter still had
them in his sights.
    Charly
was crouching on the front seat with Bob, her arms wrapped around it to press
it low too, looking frightened. She smiled, relieved, when she saw him and
would have gotten out of the car if he hadn’t indicated that she should stay
put. He moved Bob to the back before getting in the car, where he was instantly
pulled into a tight embrace. He revelled in it for a moment. She definitely
cared for him. “I was worried,” Charly explained unnecessarily.
    He
gave her a quick kiss, not wanting to risk anything more thorough before he got
her to safety. Starting the car, he told her what he had found. “It was a
human, so there’s a good chance it was the man we’re looking for.” It wasn’t
anyone from the pub, which was what he had suspected, but someone there had
probably directed the shooter after them. Had they guessed who he was, or were
they that hostile