Shift Happens (A Carus Novel Book 1) (5 page)

John chose to stand off to my right and pace, back and forth, like a model with OCD and a limited runway, casting wary glances in my direction every third or fourth step. Burnt cinnamon wafted off him in waves. He was pissed.

“I understand why you don’t like me, Jessica,” I said, emphasizing her full name. “I kicked your ass.”

She bared her teeth in response.

“I hurt your pride, but if I’m to be a
guest
here, let’s get one thing straight. I did nothing you wouldn’t have done in my place.” I gave her a pointed look before continuing, “Except maybe spare your life.”

Jessica looked away. It told me all I needed to know. If I’d collapsed, bleeding out and vulnerable, she would’ve killed me.

“But you…” My attention shifted to John. “I have no idea what’s up your ass.”

He stopped pacing. “Jess is my mate.”

Understanding came faster than I could say, “fuck my life.” If I’d been male, John would’ve mauled me to death. Or tried. Female Werewolves were rare and cherished by their packs. For some reason, few survived the initial change. Some claimed the pain was too much, but that never sat right with me. Women had to have a higher pain tolerance. Hello childbirth!

I’d always figured the second X chromosome in women wouldn’t tolerate the lycanthropic viral DNA and imagined some epic genetic battle between the two where they both ended up self-destructing.

Regardless, few female Weres existed and I’d yet to meet one not mated or in a forced union. My eyes narrowed at John, my anger rising at the thought. “By choice?”

“Our wolves chose each other.” He didn’t sound bitter; his tone came across more confused, like he couldn’t fathom any other possibility. I could.

“True, but there are true mates and there are…” I trailed off, trying to stem the surfacing memories.

“Forced unions,” Jess spoke softly. Something in the way she spoke made me look up. Our eyes met and mutual understanding passed between us. “John is my true mate, Andy,” Jessica said. Her words came out soft and slow. I didn’t correct her on my name—not after that look. “All the couples here are. It’s not that kind of pack,” she explained.

I turned away from her knowing gaze. Though I’d only known him for less than an hour, Wick didn’t seem like the kind of alpha to support forced unions—too considerate. He’d given me privacy and space. But, Dylan hadn’t seemed like the forced-union-type at first, either. Nausea gnawed at my guts and I slammed a door on that memory before it could surface. Nothing boiled my piss faster than thoughts of Dylan.

A photograph on the wall caught my attention. Looking for a distraction, I walked up to it—a picture of Wick skydiving in a bright blue and yellow suit. He wore a look of sheer joy as he beamed into the camera. I smiled.

“So what in The Purge are you?” John crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not a Were or Wick’s pack magic would have healed you faster.”

“I’m a Shifter.”

John apparently didn’t get the hint from my flat tone. I’d finished answering his questions. “Don’t smell like one,” he said.

Shifters normally smelled human with a faint hint of the animal form they took. Not me, though. A Shifter once told me I smelled of the forest. He demanded to know what I was. When he lay beneath my claws with his life bleeding out of him, I told him I had three forms and no physical feras. He’d called me
Carus
before he died. If he hadn’t been a target, I’d have rushed him to a witch coven, paid the healing fee and demanded answers.

No amount of Google searches had clarified what
Carus
meant. All I could find, besides an aging porn star with an interactive website, was
Carus
meant
beloved
in Latin. What an odd thing to call the woman who killed you. When John grumbled, I shrugged at him.

“I don’t understand why we’re housing you and letting you heal. We should’ve been allowed to rip you to shreds,” John stated.

“Oh, John, why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

John paced, a scowl plastered on his face like clown make-up.

Jessica looked a little shocked. “John…” she started.

“It’s what Lucien will do to her anyway,” he snarled. His mouth opened into a mean toothy smile.

I flinched. Werewolf males were so dramatic, but he spoke the truth. I heard it in his words. “There are some questions he needs answered first, apparently,” I said.

John grunted. “What information of value could you possibly have?”

My feras howled inside my head. I did not like the implication I lacked gray matter, or significance. Being dumb enough to enter a relationship with Dylan had made me a bit sensitive on anything regarding my IQ. Some might say
overly
sensitive.

“Careful, John,” Ryan spoke as he entered the room. “Keep poking the beast and you’re going to get bit.”

“I’m not afraid of a little pussy.” John sneered.

I meant to respond with a witty remark, but a low hiss came out instead. Hmm. Must be angrier than I realized. John tensed and whipped around to face me. No time like the present to assert my dominance. Werewolves had a distinct pecking order in a pack. John would keep pushing me until I submitted or dominated. And I was nobody’s bitch.

Dominate
, my wolf demanded.

Kill
, my cat hissed. She had no patience for dominance games and lacked subtlety.

I bared my teeth and let my canines elongate. Most Werewolves lacked the control to do the same. Only the strongest could pull off a partial shift. Yowling, I let out the high-pitched call hikers dreaded to hear when alone in a dense forest—Werewolves too, apparently. They all tensed. They could only override so many instincts of their wolves, and a mountain lion trumped lone wolf in the wild.

Figuring I made my point, I told my cat to settle and closed my eyelids to rein her in. When I opened them, three wary wolves in human clothing stared back at me.
Great.
Putting them on edge was probably counterproductive to any escape attempts—and there would be escape attempts—but I needed to establish my place first.

Ryan cleared his voice. “Well, that’s settled. How about some cards?”

“Cards?” A strangled sound choked out of my throat in disbelief.

Ryan shrugged. “Daytime TV makes me want to stab myself with a fork. There’re only so many paternity shows I can handle.” He nodded at John and Jess. “And sitting in a room watching these two lovebirds moon over each other is worse.”

Muscles I hadn’t realized were tense, relaxed. The idea of playing cards certainly beat dominance games or torture. I reached my hands out and stretched them for what I hoped would be hours of cards instead of less enjoyable prisoner activities.

Ryan’s attention darted to my hands. “And maybe some sparring afterwards.” He probably picked up on the martial arts origin of my stretches.

“Isn’t that a little dangerous? I might hurt you,” I warned.

“I might like it,” Ryan countered, flashing his teeth. His flirtation gave little doubt to his unmated status, but my wolf yawned. Normally she acted like a bitch in heat when a wolf showed interest.

“Maybe some sparring,” I agreed. My wolf’s opinion wasn’t the one that mattered most. I liked him. He’d let me fight. Hell, anything to take my mind off of what Lucien planned to do to me in the not-so-far-off future.

Sweat dripped down my face and stung the tiny scratches on my neck. Under fluorescent lights in the stale smelling dungeon of a basement, I circled Ryan, wary of his every move. He was good. His fluidity gave him away as an older Werewolf. The various forms he’d demonstrated over the last half hour of sparring required time to learn and master. Some people threw cash at dojos, buying black belts from money-grabbing establishments. Ironically, those schools tended to be the more high fashion outlets instead of the less than savoury ones that spent little time or money on appearances.

Ryan didn’t buy his black belts. And he had more than one, his technique crisp, clean and perfect.

Of course, he had lots of time to practice. Werewolves lived several human lifetimes, but they were close lipped regarding exactly how many. Shifters were the same. Both aged like norms until they hit thirty and then they faced a slow road to geriatrics. Seventy-nine by the norm count and I still looked in my late twenties—a baby in the world of Weres and Shifters.

I took a moment to assess the damage. Some excessive sweating, a few scratches and an aching shin that threatened to bloom into one hell of a bruise, but nothing serious, and nothing worse than the injuries I’d had walking into the match. Ryan had pulled his punches. He needed to. Full force, a Were’s strike, even in human form, would knock me out. I was supposed to be mending.

Shifters did not benefit from the fast healing Weres were privy to. The arm with the bullet wound throbbed with pain and my ribs ached, but I was in a lot better shape than I should’ve been, thanks to Wick’s healing. If the alpha contained enough power, he could heal any supe with a similar form. Wolf Shifters often hung out near Werewolf packs for that reason alone. Despite what the norm tabloids said, the two preternatural groups weren’t the same thing. As a part of their genetic make-up, Wolf Shifters bonded to wolf familiars when they hit puberty or shortly after. Werewolves acquired their supernatural abilities, being
made
by another. The lycanthropic virus might not give the Weres feras, but it did make them stronger, larger in their animal form and controlled by the phases of the moon.

Stepping out with my right foot, I faked a body shot before trying to connect my left foot with Ryan’s face. He danced out of the way leaving me overextended. I spun around with the momentum, doing a complete three-sixty, before facing Ryan again.

“Nice roundhouse,” Ryan conceded.

I dipped my chin to acknowledge the compliment. Then I pounced. We exchanged a fury of blows—most didn’t land. I flung up arms and legs, blocking his strikes. It didn’t take me long to figure out we both excelled in defensive tactics. I didn’t like that I wouldn’t be able to take Ryan in a real fight, at least not in human form. My mountain lion might overpower his Werewolf, but not without sustaining considerable damage. Ryan was old and powerful. No wonder he was Wick’s second.

Fuck.
I probably couldn’t take Wick either. Would I even want to? Heat trampled through my body. Oh, I definitely wanted to do
something
with him.

“Karate?” Ryan asked, interrupting my thoughts. We went back to circling each other. He’d been trying to guess my martial arts background since we started.

Nodding, I unleashed a few combos to give him a hint. He blocked them all.

“Shotokan?”

I shook my head. “Goju Ryu. Shotokan’s a good guess. They’re pretty similar after the third dan.”

Ryan grunted and aimed a number of kicks to my legs and midsection, but I blocked them using my legs. My shin protested. “I should’ve picked up on the snake and crane movements. I thought you might have dabbled in Kung Fu.”

“I have. Kempo, too.”

I turned, setting up my favourite spinning jump kick. Ryan laughed and stepped to the side, his Werewolf reflexes too good to be taken by surprise by a Shifter. He attacked and I switched styles. Ryan’s eyes widened, then he smiled slowly.

Growing up, my parents saw a pretty girl in a rough neighbourhood. They enrolled me in karate classes, hoping to give me a means to protect myself. By twenty, I recognized the limitations of traditional karate and joined a different martial art. This one practiced the theology, “reach out and break someone.” The objective: incapacitate the opponent as quickly and quietly as possible. I loved it.

It also helped in my line of work. I wrote my membership off as a business expense on my yearly taxes.

“Huh.” Ryan circled me. “Krav Maga?”

I nodded.

With a blur of motion, his body slammed into mine. Air wooshed out of my lungs. I grunted on impact with the floor and tried to find a defensive position.

“You need to work on your ground game.” Ryan batted my hands away.

“Clearly.” I tried to shift my hips and throw him off. The effort failed, the man an immovable slab of rock. “What style was that? Jujitsu or wrestling?”

The grin on Ryan’s face spread. “Rugby.”

A bubble of laughter escaped my lips.

Ryan blocked the leg I tried to hook around his head. “Nice try.”

“Would’ve worked on a norm.”

Ryan smiled and caught my wrists. He pinned them over my head. His legs slipped down as he moved from full mount to a completely different position—missionary. Leaning his face down to mine, he spoke softly. “I’m not a norm.”

With his lips close enough to kiss, I stared at Ryan in fascination. My body lay limp beneath his. No heat, no stirring of the loins or quickening heartbeat. No anticipation, nothing. Only perspiration and exhaustion. Why didn’t my body react?

Ryan noticed what held my attention, or at least what he thought did, and licked his lips slowly. The spicy coconut scent of arousal flooded my nose. Ryan’s body had no problems reacting. How could I break it to him that I wasn’t interested?

“What style would you call this?” Ryan asked. His voice deepened.

“X-rated,” Wick harsh, loud voice penetrated the silence and echoed off the basement walls. “And one that will get your ass handed to you when you’re supposed to be on guard duty.”

My muscles tensed and warmth flooded my veins. I swallowed and tried to ignore my racing heartbeat.

Ryan stumbled off me so fast I bit my lip to stop the nervous laughter threatening to escape. Red blotches spread across his face and travelled to the tips of his ears. He nodded to acknowledge Wick’s presence. His body posture so rigid, I expected him to salute any minute. He didn’t.

With the scent of Wick’s anger palpable, I got to my feet and looked around. Nowhere to run. Dammit.

“Sparring?” The word came out clipped, not so much a question as an accusation.

Ryan hesitated. “She’s a guest.”

“An imprisoned guest. She could have escaped.”

“If she managed to take me out. She’d still have to get through the others and the locked doors.”