Perfect Mate (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #2)(4)

Damien stepped forward.

"You said before that you were here for Julia. Why?"

The shifter chuckled, a low, growling sound that set Damien's teeth on edge. He felt the wolf inside of him straining to come out. He wanted to rip the man's throat out. He could have spoken as a wolf, but he had shifted, making himself weaker than ever, just to speak with Julia. Why?

"She's not... she's not what you think she is," the shifter said. His voice now was barely a whisper.

"You need more help than I can give you," Jordan said. "Damien, if we can get him to the emergency room—"

"What do you mean?" Damien asked. He would not let the shifter away that easily. "Why were you after her?"

"You'll find out soon enough," the shifter said. "It's been... it's been too long. Let me die as a wolf. Bury me... bury me as a wolf."

Damien heard him shift before he felt Julia's shock, the bones crackling in low pops as he moved back to his wolf form.

"No!" Jordan cried. "You're too weak to shift! You'll—"

Damien heard the rattling breath of the shifter, the low snarl and final exhale as the shifter died on the table in front of him. Standing beside him, Julia was aghast with terror.

"He didn't even make it all the way back to wolf form," Katherine said softly. They were the first words she had spoken since the shifter had changed.

Damien was shaken. He'd never killed another shifter before. Animals, sure. He'd even taken down a small grizzly bear once when it had threatened the pack. But this was different. He turned to Kyle and Katherine, setting his face in what he hoped was an expression of solemn resolve. He could not afford to let any of them see him unsure of himself.

"Go back to where we found him, by the lake," Damien said. "Follow his trail. I want both of you to stick together. There could be others."

"No way. Why didn't we scent them before?" Kyle asked. "We scouted the whole territory around the town here!"

"How did this one sneak up on you?" Katherine asked.

"He must have been in human form. Possibly downwind." Damien thought back, and remembered that his mind had been elsewhere. Specifically, focused on kissing Julia, his hands moving over her body. He had let himself become distracted, and it had almost killed them.

"Don't lose focus," Damien said. "Follow the trail until you find where he came from, then come straight back. Don't fight any wolves if you find them."

"We won't," Katherine said bravely. Damien was proud of her. She was loyal, even now that Damien had found another mate. It helped that she and Kyle had taken to each other, but still, he had been worried that she might want to leave his pack. It was comforting to know that he still had their trust.

"What are you going to do?" Kyle asked.

Damien motioned to the body on the table and spoke grimly.

"We're going to bury him as a wolf."

CHAPTER THREE

Julia watched as Jordan and Damien cleaned up the body, wrapping it in sheets. Julia was glad to see it covered. The shifter had changed only part of the way back from man to wolf, and his body was a strange hybrid thing. His arms and legs had changed almost completely back to wolf form, hair and claws included. The face, though, had only partially morphed into a snout, and his nose bulged grotesquely out of his face.

"Think the hotel will be mad at us for stealing their linen?" Jordan asked.

"I'd say they've probably seen worse. It smells like blood in here. Have we cleaned it all up from the floor and table?"

"The floor's fine," Jordan said, with more than a hint of pride in his voice. "I run a clean operating room."

"I'll wipe down the table," Julia said, moving to the bathroom to find a washcloth. Anything to get away from that body. When she came back with the cloth dampened, they had put the shifter's corpse into a bag. It seemed smaller to her than before now that it had partially shifted into wolf form.

"You don't have to do this," Damien said. "You can wait for us outside. Just don't go far."

His voice was worried, and for the first time Julia realized the full importance of the shifter's words. She wrung the cloth in her hands.

"Damien, what he said—that I wasn't what you think I am. What did he mean?"

"I'm not sure. He might have thought I considered you my mate, and he knew you were human. Maybe he thought I didn't know. I can't think of anything else."

From the look on his face, though, Julia knew that Damien was concerned that something else was going on. She clamped down on all of the questions running through her head. Surely Damien could sense that she was nervous, and they had a body to bury. No need to make him more upset.

"Should we wait until dark to do this?" Jordan asked. "If anybody sees us..."

"If anybody sees us, we're burying a pet in the woods," Damien said. "We'd attract more notice sneaking out at night here."

"A pet?" Jordan raised one eyebrow. "Hell of a German Shepherd."

"Let's not let anybody see us, then," Damien said. He lifted the bag in his arms, carrying it in front of him like a child.

Julia followed the two of them through the parking lot to the woods, glancing all around her to make sure they weren't seen. Damien was right, though—everybody was at work or school during the day, and the lot was empty of anyone who might be suspicious of them.