My fae-engineered rifle recoiled, kicking into my shoulder, but I’d been braced properly for it. I dug out the tiny set of binoculars I carried with me when doing my training so I could see how my shot was on my target.
Silvery paint spattered the ring just outside the bullseye—that was another reason my fae-made rifle was odd; it could only shoot two kinds of bullets: silver ones, and capsules that were basically a cross of BB pellets and paintballs. (The fae had been pretty grumpy I’d asked for that modification, which would have been impossible outside the use of magic. But I needed rounds that were safe for me to shoot off for practice given that a werewolf could randomly wander through.)
Not a bad shot. Not wonderful, but close enough to get the job done.
Two wolves appeared in the green of the forest like shadows, silent and deadly.
I held my breath, until I recognized the pair.
The taller but leaner one with a reddish coat and a small black mask that covered his face and muzzle was Aeric, while the more muscled one with the dark brown fur and a hint of rust undercoat with a spray of gray on his chest was Wyatt.
They ghosted their way up to the small river that flowed through the forest and connected to one of the nearby lakes.
The river had carved its way through the ground, so it didn’t have proper banks but rather steep cliffs that dumped into the wide stream.
Wyatt and Aeric didn’t even pause. They jumped the river, the muscles of their front legs and hind quarters visibly bunching through their thick coats, and landed with a predatory grace that was almost ominous.
It was an impressive leap I never would have attempted, but hey, that’s werewolf athleticism.
Now on the same side of the river as me and my target, Wyatt raised his nose as he sniffed, but I was downwind from them and up a tree, so he’d have a difficult time finding me.
Aeric slipped through the underbrush and found my target, investigating the silvery paint with his nose.
He made a noise of distaste, then pulled back, and started looking up in the trees.
I flicked the safety on my rifle, then nestled it across my lap. “Is something wrong?”
Wyatt saw me first and howled a hello before he triggered a shift, starting the transformation back to his human shape.
Shifting can be painful—they’re literally changing the structure of their bones and muscles, after all—and it typically takes between forty seconds to a minute.
That might sound fast, but it’s really dangerous considering it leaves the werewolf—or shifter—completely helpless, and gives an enemy plenty of time to kill them.
Greyson had the fastest shift I’d ever seen, and it still took him nearly thirty seconds to transform.
I secured my rifle to the harness I’d specially made for it and swung it over my back before I started shimmying my way down the tree.
Wyatt had almost finished shifting by the time I got down there, and Aeric had started the process, so I let them finish as I traipsed through the forest to more closely inspect my target.
“Ugh, I always feel like I need an ice bath after a shift.” Wyatt groaned and popped something in his neck as he stood up, brushing dead leaves off his bare knees.
“It sounds painful enough to need one.” I turned in his direction, and was secretly grateful that Mayor Pearl had the temperament of a bulldog, as it meant I didn’t have to worry about mentally scarring myself.
Because Mayor Pearl had leveled huge fines against the Pack for indecent exposure every time they transformed in public—all shifters shifted back to their human forms in the buff; it made winter supremely unpopular with some of them—the Northern Lakes Pack had been forced to come up with a solution for the problem.
The fae engineer that had made my rifle also did some work for the wolves. She’d created thin, gold bracelets all the wolves wore that, when they shifted from wolf to human, triggered a cloth spell that covered the most important bits—at least the ones that would get them fined by Mayor Pearl.
For the female wolves that meant these sack-like shapes that could technically be defined as dresses, but were really baggy, and basically existed just so they could walk themselves to one of the clothes drop-off points without getting fined.
For male wolves, there was a pretty wide variety given that the fae had done a lot of experimenting when she first made the bracelets.
Wyatt puffed up his bare chest as his covering—a blue kilt—flapped a little in the breeze. “Nothing like a run through the woods to pump you up!”
“Yeah.” Aeric tried stretching out his hamstring, which yanked the hem of his kilt tight. “I guess.”
“If you’re not careful you’re going to bust your kilt again, and the fae engineer told you next time you did that she’d engineer it to have roses and kittens,” I reminded him.
Aeric propped his hands on his hips. “Excuse me, I am not wearing a kilt. This is clearly a skort, thank you!” He yanked up the front flap to show me the shorts the skirt-part hid.
“I didn’t really need the visual, thanks,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Aeric said. “My skort cost me so much more than the basic kilt, I’m going to make sure I get my money’s worth out of every one of them! And I’ve decided I don’t care about that fae’s threat. Shania told me she thinks I’d look good in roses and kittens!”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
“She’s a good and supportive girlfriend,” Aeric continued.
“We know—you tell us that every day,” Wyatt said.
“You’re just jealous you don’t have a girlfriend,” Aeric said.
“True.” Wyatt leaned up against a young tree, which groaned ominously under the pressure of his strength. “I joined two dating apps, and I’m still not having any luck. I hope it’s just my profile, and not me?”
“It’s your profile,” Aeric said with confidence. “You are one cool wolf. Whoever you date will be lucky to have you!”
“Thanks, man.”
“Don’t mention it!”
While Aeric and Wyatt exchanged manly hugs, I peeled my target off the tree I’d attached it to, used to the ways of their bromance.
I’d been friends with them pretty much since I’d arrived in Timber Ridge when I was twelve, but it wasn’t until Greyson became Alpha and the previous Alpha’s daughter, my best friend Lynn, left the Pack with her parents that we became better friends.
“You know, if you’re desperate, you could date Pip,” Aeric offered.
“Desperate?” I spun around to glare at the pair.
Wyatt grimaced. “Yeah, sorry, no, I’m not that bad off.”
“Hey! That’s mean!” I folded my target up and prowled up to the pair.
That’s it. Next time they make me go into Howl-In Café to get their coffee drinks, I’m getting them decaf!
“Sorry, Pip. You’re great and all,” Wyatt said. “You just…have that dog vibe.”
“You do,” Aeric agreed. “I don’t know if it’s because your pheromones make you just so cute we want to ruffle your hair, or if it’s like a self-defense aura unique to hunters. But you just have that…feel. The same way Greyson has that Alpha vibe!”