Page 83 of Diners, Damsels & Wolves

The monster that had been Tom turned. Large yellow eyes locked on her. She’d seen those eyes before. When Alister attacked her.

Alister. The attack. Her heart squeezed with panic. Stumbling backward, her chest heaved.

The creature moved toward her.

Turning on her heel, she ran. Navigating the maze of parked cars, she scrambled back to her Taurus. She heard the sounds of running coming up behind her, large feet displacing chunks of pea-stone in the driveway. Then it dimmed. Something was still chasing her, but it was smaller.

“Clarissa!” Tom bellowed. “Clarissa, wait!”

Slamming her door shut, she turned the key. A naked human Tom was running after her car. Pulling the gear into reverse, she floored the gas.

Twenty Three

Thomas

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Shifting to human, he sprinted after her; he could easily catch her, but she was already terrified, the spring air thick with the scent of her panic. Face white as a sheet, her eyes large as saucers. No, he had to make her stop some other way. He called to her.

Ignoring his yells, she jumped in her car and turned the key. The white car reversing down the drive, a pit fell in his stomach as he watched her retreat. The car jerked and swerved, turning off the drive. It stopped for a second before pulling forward, completing the turn, and racing off to the main road.

“Clarissa!” he bellowed.

Turning around, he sprinted back to the garage. The packs were standing, watching him. He ignored them. Grabbing his cell phone from his jeans, he called her. She didn’t answer.

He texted her.

Please call me.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. How did everything keep going so wrong?

“Sara, Nathon, Emmanuel, you’re with me,” he said. “The rest of you pair up and get going!”

He felt Atticus’s bobcat watching him. He paid no attention to him. Tom already knew Atticus’s disapproval. According to tradition, the Alpha was supposed to mate the strongest female in the pack, never a human. For his pack, that was Sara.

He’d made her third-in-command after Sam. She was a powerful wolf who deserved the position. He respected her, but he never saw her in that way.

Tom felt his own pack watching them whenever they were together, heard their whispers, waiting for it to happen. It never would. This was one of the many things Tom despised about being Alpha. But he kept his bitterness to himself. He had a family, a town, to protect.

He pulled a thick plastic bag from his car. He’d fastened elastic straps to it years ago and sometimes used it on long runs. With the popularity of smartphones, other pack members started doing it too. Securing his phone inside, he pulled the elastic over his head and down to his abdomen, adjusting the straps until they were just right. He phased.

The phone stayed squarely on his back. He started to run, he felt the others follow. None of them dared to say a word. Part of Tom felt bad for making them uncomfortable, but how much of their drama did he have to put up with on a daily basis?

No, that wasn’t fair of him. These three weren’t the ones getting into trouble. It was usually the pups. They didn’t start to phase until they were about seventeen or eighteen. It was a terrible time, if Tom was being honest.

Their emotions were a wreck and unregulated, their hormones off the freakin’ charts as they constantly fought their wolf instincts for control. Some of them struggled until they were in their twenties. He did his best to be patient with them, but sometimes they were just unfathomably stupid.

Pushing the memories of his own pup years aside, he focused on the task at hand. He was desperate to find anything that would lead him to a bear. But the chances were growing slim. He couldn’t understand why the bears were so hard to track.

* * *

Dawn had risen in the east. They’d found nothing, and Clarissa hadn’t called him. The groups of patrols made their way back to the mansion. The day patrol was awake and waiting for them.

Most of the pack was crashing at the mansion. Brittaney and the other small shifters made a breakfast large enough to feed an army. They liked to feed people when they were feeling grateful.

Atticus’s, Brittaney’s, and Tom’s packs all sat together and feasted. Meanwhile, the night patrol relayed everything to the day patrol and vice versa. The evening had been uneventful … too uneventful.

Worry they’d missed something grew in his chest. Something had slipped by them, but he had no idea what. Not yet, at least.