Free Dark Wolf Rising (Heart of the Shifter) by Stephanie Rowe Page A

pressed her forehead against the solid wall of his chest, trying desperately to remember. For the first time, she wanted to remember, because she wanted to be able to give Cash the information he needed to understand where his loyalties should lie. "It was hot. I was sweating. Humid."
    "Wolves rise in temperature before they shift. It can affect the environment sometimes."
    She breathed deeply. "It smelled like the deep woods, like fresh earth, even though we were in an alley. I remember thinking that it smelled good." And then... She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to bring the image into her mind. "I heard a woman singing. Her window was open. It was a beautiful song, almost angelic. The man coming toward me paused and looked. He stopped in the light from her window, and that's when I saw his face. I recognized him as Jace Donovan. He's in the paper so much that I knew who he was."
    "She was singing?" Cash's fingers continued to work through her hair. "Did you recognize the song?"
    "No, but it was beautiful. As she sang, I saw Jace's face began to change. It was his eyes first. They changed from brown to gold." She breathed deeply, opening her mind to that night. "Then his face began to change. He looked wild and feral. His face became more angular, his jaw more defined. It was so fast, the change, that I almost couldn't process it. One second he was a man, and the next moment, he was a wolf, teeth bared, sprinting for the fire escape that led to her apartment, growling. He'd barely shifted and he was already on the move." She squeezed her eyes shut, using Cash's strength to ground herself. "He leapt through the window. The glass shattered, falling all around me, and in my hair. She screamed and leapt out the window, racing down the fire escape to get away from him. He caught her just as she landed in front of me." Her fingers tightened on his jeans. "They were less than a yard from me, Cash. I could see the look on her face when he crushed her throat. It was so ruthless, so brutal, so... God."
    She pulled back, looking up at him. "Why, Cash? Why would someone do that?"
    "He didn't do it," Cash said quietly. "There's more you're not seeing. Look away from the scene in front of you. What did you hear? What did you see? What was the other man doing?"
    "I don't know!" She pushed away, her hands shaking as she relived the woman's horrific death. "He killed her and then shifted again, taking his human form again. He stood over her, staring down at her as he reclaimed his form, just staring at her like—" She stopped, suddenly, recalling the look on his face.
    "Like what?"
    She looked at Cash. "He looked shocked. He kept looking at the woman, and then his hands, and then back at her, like he was trying to figure out what had happened."
    Cash nodded. "Memory lapse can happen during an uncontrolled shift, like when I was younger. What happened next?"
    "He ran over to his pants, dug out his phone and called 9-1-1." She sat down on the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. "Then he turned sharply, as if he'd heard something. He looked right at the doorway where the other man had been, but he was gone. He looked up, like he was searching the rooftops, but before he could move, the police cars flooded into the alley. There were five of them, trapping him before he could go anywhere...except he did. He grabbed his clothes, and then went right up the side of the building and disappeared over the roofline."
    Cash walked over and knelt beside the bed. "How long did the attack last?"
    "Seconds. It was over so fast."
    "And yet the cops were there almost instantly. They were already on their way when he called, weren't they? They had to have been."
    She frowned, replaying the timing of the events in her mind. "Yes, they were there within a few seconds after he hung up."
    "So someone else called before he did. Long enough for five squad cars to get there."
    "It could have been anyone," she said, but even as she said it, her mind isolated a