Torn From the Shadows (43 page)
“Danger!”
Joanie yelled in her mental voice, and we scrambled for the house, but another gunshot and a puff of wet dirt and grass in front of Leo, who had the lead, sent us toward the woods.
“Son of a bitch!”
If I hadn’t been so panicked, I would have been shocked by Joanie’s language. She’d promised me she thought in expletives, but I’d heard very few from her.
“It’s a fine line between thought and speech in this form,”
she said.
“We have to hide so we can change back.”
“But we’ll be naked!”
Leo scoffed.
“I’ve got no problem with that.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Joanie didn’t sound amused.
“Stop thinking like humans. Get off the path.”
We did as she said, but we weren’t exactly quiet. There were no more gunshots, so we laid low in a hollow behind a downed tree trunk, panting.
The breeze came from behind us and didn’t give us any good clues as to what was going on up ahead. I heard Joanie curse mentally again and Leo calming her down, but I’d sensed something that made my knees—all four of them—turn to gelatin: the smell of fuchsia on the breeze.
“Guys… Guys! We’ve been lured into a trap.”
“How do you know?”
Joanie looked around, her ears alert.
“I can smell him, the fuchsia wizard.”
“Where?”
Leo started to rumble, but Joanie knocked into him.
“Behind us.”
I stood and ignored Joanie’s growl to get the hell down and stop being an idiot. I bared my teeth.
“It’s one thing to hunt me at my apartment; it’s another to follow me here. How dare he?”
“Go ahead if you like, but we’re staying here,”
Leo said.
“I won’t let you endanger Joanie and our cub.”
I shot a look over my shoulder at him.
“Your cub? You mean your child. Remember who and what you are.”
“You do the same,”
he said.
“I am a human, but I’ll use what I have. He’s after me. I’ll lead him away, and you two get to a safe place.”
“The boathouse,”
Joanie said.
“We can get in and defend ourselves if we need to. There are guns hidden in there, and clothes.”
“Go,”
I told them.
“Keep yourselves safe. I’m sorry for bringing this on you.”
“Maybe it will help us with our other puzzles,”
Joanie, ever the scientist, said.
“But Lonna, be careful!”
“I will.”
I crept away, keeping low to the ground. I knew that humans would be unable to sense half of what I could as a wolf, so I suspected I’d be able to surprise whoever it was. I circled the scent, moving downwind so it would be strong enough for me to pinpoint its exact location. I couldn’t say with certainty, but I suspected it followed me and only me. Finally, it stopped, and I did as well, curious.
The sounds of the night chorused in my ears, and I panicked, sure I’d lost it. Then I smelled a fire and heard human breathing. I snuck closer until flickering light cast strange shadows in the trees and on me.
It stopped and made a campfire?
This didn’t compute with either the wolf or the human parts of my brain.
“It did,”
an unfamiliar voice said in my brain.
I growled, then, careful to keep any thoughts of my two companions out of my mind, but I was too late.
“They’re safe. They’re not after them, only you.”
“Your pronouns confuse me, sir. Who are they? Who are you?”
“And who are
you?” The mental tone held amusement.
“Come here in the circle of my fire and change so you’re out of their reach.”
“I’ll be naked.”
“I have clothes for you.”
I slunk closer until I could see the speaker. It was a man who sat close to a fire. The flames gleamed in the blond highlights in his reddish brown hair, and I recognized him from the doctor’s office. Now he wore slightly tinted lenses, and I could barely see his eyes behind their smoky panes.
“Doctor Fortuna?”
He stood and bowed in my direction.
“Maximilian Fortuna at your service. Call me Max.”
Torn From the Shadows
Yolanda Sfetsos
All it takes is one goddess-affiliated demon to seal the deal.
Sierra Fox, Book 4
Sierra Fox knows better than to believe the demon-obsessed freakshow has given up on her. She’s settled into a nice routine of living with her sister, enjoying her relationship with a sexy werewolf, and staying on top of work—and always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Predictably, things start falling apart as she’s suddenly swamped with surprise visits and unwanted advances, and someone she despises wants her help.
When a spook-catching training session goes horribly wrong, she encounters a man who’s not quite as dead as she’d hoped. Mace is now more than human and still determined to get his hands on her. But not if Sierra accepts the strengthening gifts her grandmother bestowed at her birth.
Having the good guys put a price on her head is enough to ruin anyone’s day, but Sierra refuses to give up or give in. Even if it means exercising the last option on earth she wants. But claiming the ultimate power may not be enough to save the man she loves before his werewolf past destroys him.
Warning: Phantasms, pookas, werewolves, and demons,
oh yes!
And a spook-catching heroine who must choose to take what’s rightfully hers—even if it means walking the shadows with a demon.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Torn From The Shadows
Copyright © 2014 by Yolanda Sfetsos
ISBN: 978-1-61922-009-6
Edited by Holly Atkinson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: April 2014
