Free Clay's Instinct (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Wolf Call) by Abbey Polidori Page A

you believed them?'
    Ronson shrugged. 'Should I? I asked around and it seems there have been other similar sightings around here.'
    Now it was Clay's turn to shrug. 'Do you believe in monsters, Ronson?'
    'I've seen some things.' He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and stuck one in his mouth. When he lit it and drew on the smoke, Clay took a reflexive step backward. Having heightened senses had its drawbacks and the cigarette smelled like a cloud of foul-smelling poison to him.
    'I've investigated the sightings but they're just people being mistaken about what they saw. There are wolves in these woods but not wolfmen.'
    'Is that what you were doing in the woods this morning? Investigating?' Ronson took another pull on the smoke and his eyes watched Clay closely as he exhaled.
    A coldness crept up Clay's spins and settled at the base of his neck. Ronson knew something. He didn't know how much but it might be enough to mean real trouble for Clay.
    'Like I said, I was just taking a walk.'
    Ronson nodded. 'Well if you hear anything or find anything during your...investigations...be sure to let me know.' He opened the door of his police car and slid inside. Without another word, he pulled away toward Main Street.
    Clay watched him go, the ghostly remnants of the cigarette smoke still hanging in the early morning air, and he felt a queasiness in his gut. He had heard tales when he was younger about how no shifter was safe in the world of men. There were people out there who hated anyone who was different to themselves and they hunted down Clay's kind. Sometimes they killed them but usually shifters were captured and taken away. The stories about what happened to those captured were the ones that had kept Clay awake at night when he was younger. Stories of a shadowy occult group called the Temple of Thul. What they did with shifters was unknown but was rumored to be worse than what the Third Reich did with the Jews during World War 2 when humans were experimented upon.
    Clay had convinced himself long ago that these tales of the Temple of Thul were stories made up to ensure that shifters kept their wild side secret from the world of men but now he wondered if the stories could be true. Ronson's arrival at this hour and his questions about sightings of a wolf-like creature were not normal.
    Clay sighed and sat on the wooden porch. Should he run? That meant the life he had built for himself here - the police work, the friendship of the townsfolk, the sense that he was protecting a community - would be left behind. Gone.
    No, he would not run. 
    He would stay.
    And if they came for him, he would be ready.
     
    *
     
    Ronson left the Faith town limits and parked his car by the side of the road near the woods. Taking his cell from his pocket, he punched in a number.
    The voice that answered was old, gravelly. 'Ronson.'
    'I found what you sent me to find,' he said into the phone.
    'The shifter?'
    'It's the sheriff, like you said. I don't know what spells your techs were working when they found out there was a shifter in Faith but they were right. His name is...'
    'Clay Adams. We know. We needed someone on the ground to confirm it and you were our closest member to Faith.'
    'Well it's him. He spent last night in the woods.'
    'How vile. His filthy animal days are over. We'll handle it from here.'
    'Sure thing. I...'
    The phone on the other end had been hung up.
    Ronson cranked his engine and pulled back onto the the deserted road, heading back to his own town. Whatever the Temple had planned for Adams was no business of his. He had done his part. 
    The filthy shifter was about to get what he deserved.
          
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    Called
     
    Lucinda Everett's cell vibrated on the nightstand, waking her from a dream in which she had been swimming in the Pacific Ocean with a dark-haired, muscular man. She had been wearing a black bathing suit that contained her curves