"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I need to find out who this shifter was. If he has a pack in town. If he's been following you for a while."
A new ripple of dread pulsed outward from Julia.
"It's alright. The pack will be around if you need them." He bent down and kissed her, and from her lips drew desire and fear, intermingled. Though he did not want to leave her, he did not want to leave the mystery unsolved for any longer than he needed to.
He motioned to Jordan. "Come with me."
They would find out who this shifter was, and why he had come.
And why he had come for Julia.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the car ride back to the house, Julia ignored the other shifters pointedly, and they seemed happy to ignore her back. Katherine made a few comments about the town, but they fell flat, and the rest of the way was passed in a dull, awkward silence. As they pulled into the front of the old Victorian-style home, Julia was relieved to find that the shifters did not intend to go inside with her.
"We'll wait in the back," Kyle said. "If they come as wolves, we'll smell them before they get too close."
"Sure," Julia said, closing the car door and walking toward her house without hesitation. Katherine always looked at her as though she had no idea what Damien saw in her. And Kyle—she didn't know anything about him, but he seemed skittish. Unnerving.
Creepy. That's what her girlfriends would call him if he came up to them at the bar. There was something about him that didn't quite add up. But as soon as Julia closed the door behind her and smelled the delicious scent of her grandmother's apple crumble, she forgot all about him.
"Granny Dee!" Julia cried out, coming into the kitchen. "Are we celebrating something?"
Her grandmother sat at the table, her head in her hands. She looked up sadly.
"What... what's wrong?" Julia said. She sank into the seat next to Granny Dee.
"The bank called this afternoon," Dee said. "Someone bought the house."
"Oh, Granny Dee—"
"I'm afraid we'll have to leave. I thought this was a good place. Safe, perfect for us. But now—"
"Wait, no," Julia said, her excitement bubbling up through her. "It's Damien. He bought the house."
Dee knitted her eyebrows together.
"Damien?"
"The guy who came over. The blind man."
Granny Dee's face dropped, and for a moment Julia thought that she would explode. Her face twisted into a grimace, then back to a more neutral expression as she calmed herself.
"It's not like that," Julia hastened to explain. "He says that we can still live here. They just want to build cabins on the land."
"Why?" Dee hissed. Julia paused, shocked by her reaction.
"Why? Be-because he likes me. He wanted to help."
"By buying a house?" Granny Dee's frown wrinkled her brow. "That's more than just help. What did you promise him?"
"Me? I didn't promise anything! He likes me, that's all! And I like him. And... and..." Julia stuttered, unable to tell her grandmother the raw truth behind the decision. On the surface, it must certainly seem strange that Damien would be so accommodating. It must seem like she had done something else for him. Julia flushed a fire engine red as she realized the implication of her grandmother's words.
"It's not like that, Granny Dee, I swear!"
"How is this even possible?" Dee muttered, half to herself. Julia couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"What do you mean? Are you saying someone like him couldn't like me?" Tears welled in Julia's eyes. "I know I'm not beautiful—"
"Shh, no, child, that's not what I mean," Granny Dee said, her face softening. "Forget I said anything. But we can't live here with them alongside us. We'll have to move."
"But—"
"If they move in, we move out, and that's final," Dee said.
"But WHY?"
Julia's shout was louder than she had intended. Indeed, she'd never screamed at Granny Dee before, and it took her by surprise as much as it did the older woman. Dee reached across the table and took her hand. Her grandmother's skin felt papery and thin under her fingers, and she immediately regretted raising her voice.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, bending her head down. Tears trickled down her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I don't want to annoy the guests."
"There's nobody here today," Dee said, sighing. Julia blinked back her tears and wiped her eyes with one hand. No guests. It wasn't any surprise that they were being foreclosed on. But if only Granny Dee would let Damien help...
"I just want to protect you," Dee said. "It has nothing to do with who likes you or not, child. That's not the reason we're here."
"But if Damien—"
"Enough about that man," Dee said, in a voice that said she would brook no opposition. "He's dangerous, and we won't take his charity."
"Dangerous?" Julia was aghast. Damien was the kindest, most gentle man she'd ever met. Sure, he'd fought the wolf and injured him, but that was self-defense. She couldn't imagine him ever hurting her intentionally, not in any way.
Dee stood up from the table. Her hands were shaking as she smoothed the folds of her apron down.
"We'll plan to leave this week," she said. "I don't want you to see Damien again."
"That's not fair!" Julia's face turned hot with anger. The injustice of it all! Granny Dee had always supported her. When she was bullied in school and came home crying that no boys would ever like her, Dee told her that one day she would find true love. And now that she had found it...
"Child," Dee said. Her wrinkled face sagged. "You must trust me on this."
"I don't understand," Julia said, her heart tearing between Damien and her grandmother. "Please."
Granny Dee shook her head, her gaze absentminded. She seemed to be remembering something else.
"Put the apple crumble away when you're done with it," Dee said. Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen.
"I'm not hungry," Julia said, to nobody in particular. Her stomach turned at the thought of food. She felt like a prisoner trapped inside of the cozy walls of the house. Her grandmother spoke as though she knew Damien's intentions were bad. She hadn't even given him a chance. Julia felt a wetness on her cheek, and wiped away the tears that seeped out of her eyes unwillingly. One tear made it through her fingers and tickled her chin, and this small agony made her want to give up.
She walked to the kitchen window and looked out at the backyard, over to where the meadow ended and the forest began. There, just inside the line of trees, Katherine and Kyle were waiting, ordered to protect her, on guard.
But on guard for what?
CHAPTER SIX
In the car, Damien tapped his fingers against the window impatiently.
"You're the world's worst percussionist," Jordan said. "I thought you were supposed to make up for being blind with heightened senses. Or did that not include a sense of rhythm?"
"I wish I didn't have a sense of smell, sitting here next to your ungroomed pelt," Damien retorted. The joke was half-hearted, and he knew it, but he didn't care. He wasn't in the mood to tease.
"My pelt is excellently coiffed, thank you very much," Jordan said.
"Do you think they're really after her?" Damien asked.
Jordan paused.
"I'm not sure. It sounded like it from the way the shifter was talking. But who knows? He could have been crazy. You saw him kill himself shifting."
"Mmm," Damien said noncommittally.
Jordan pulled the car off to the side of the road. "I think this is it. What did Kyle say? Green car?"
"Green Toyota," Damien said.
"This is it, alright," Jordan said. He turned off the ignition. The sound of the keys jangling in his hand struck Damien's nerves. He wanted to snatch them up, to cease the high-pitched clanging. He realized that his adrenaline was flowing, and his hearing had begun to pick up the most minute sounds. The buzz of a mosquito just outside the car window. The low hum of their car cooling down, the pings of metal in the engine. "You ready to go, detective?"
Damien took a deep breath and opened the car door, swinging his legs out. The scent of wolf made him tense, even though he recognized the smell as being from the dead shifter. The dead shifter. The one he had killed. The fight—
"Looks like it's locked," Jordan said, trying the last door of the Toyota. "Windows aren't open. Let's see if there's a rock around here somewhere."
"Let me try something first," Damien said. He opened the trunk of the rental car and dug through to find what he thought was inside.
"You know, you can ask me to help you find things," Jordan said, leaning against the side of the car. "My ungroomed pelt isn't all that useless."
Damien emerged from the trunk, holding a wire hanger up over his head in triumph. The search had distracted him from his black thoughts.
"Aha!"
"Did you find that using a magical sense of magnetism?" Jordan asked.
"No, that's how I find the ladies," Damien said, grinning. "Or rather, how they find me."
"Such dazzling charm," Jordan said. Damien could almost hear his eyes rolling in his head.
"Watch a pro," Damien said. He bent the coat hanger into a hook and slid it expertly down into the window's small gap. Letting the hanger wander, he focused his attention on the vibrations coming through the metal into his fingers. If he could only find the latch—there!
With a flourish, he pulled up on the coat hanger and in a single smooth moment opened the car door.
"Abracadabra," he said. "Open sesame."
"Do you want to tell me how a wolf knows how to break into a car?" Jordan asked, climbing into the open door.
"It's just my magic touch," Damien said, wiggling his fingers. "That, and I read a book on it once."
"He read a book on it once," Jordan echoed. He opened up the glove compartment and a shuffle of papers fell out.
"Anything interesting?" Damien asked, irritated at his inability to see.
"Registration, proof of insurance, napkins," Jordan listed. "ID: Trevor Gordan. He's from around here, address is a P.O. Box, though. Oh hey, here's something."
"What? What is it?"
"Hotel key." Damien could hear the faint clicking as Jordan tapped the plastic card against his knuckle. "Guess who's staying at the Holiday Inn across town from us?"
"No kidding," Damien said. "Suppose we should have scouted inside the city."
"We drove through the main highway," Jordan said. "And Kyle can scent anything for miles around when he's in wolf form. I'm guessing he showed up not too long ago. After we scouted."
"Let's see," Damien said. "You'll have to get into the room first."
"Me? You're the one with the magic locksmith fingers."
"We don't need locksmith fingers," Damien said. "We have the key. We just need the room number."
"There's no envelope thing for the key," Jordan said.