as she liked her job, and mostly liked her co-workers, she had no desire to be in a wolf pack with them.
Goodness no. Anything but that!
Audrey grimaced as she imagined office politics spilling over into a wolf pack. Not a pretty thought. And what would they do at the office after a full moon? Pretend they hadn’t just seen each other buck naked as they shifted from one form to the next? Add in the torch Jay seemed to carry for her and...ugh.
Yikes. Let’s just hope everyone’s a good shot.
The park service issued guns but, unlike police, had pretty lax training standards, which made sense in a way. Park Rangers didn’t bust up meth labs or gangs. They rarely had the need to even take their guns from their holsters. Now, that might come back to bite them...literally.
But bullets are still stronger than monsters, right?
Something moved in the corner of her eye, something white and fast that loped close to the ground, almost blending in with the sand as it went. Audrey whipped her head around to track it. Raising a hand, she said, “Slow down. I think I saw something.”
Jay hit the brakes and peered in the general direction of Audrey’s gaze. Holding her breath, she narrowed her eyes. When nothing moved, she rolled down her window and sucked in the fresh breeze rolling off the lake.
Maybe she didn’t have full wolf senses yet, but she’d caught something of Nick’s scent back at the restaurant. Just the memory of blood mixed in his essence made her shudder. She sniffed again, but if the bastard was out there, she couldn’t catch him with her nose.
“I’m getting out.” She moved to unfasten her seatbelt.
Jay put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
She gave him a cross look. “I’ve got my radio and my gun. Plus, I was just inoculated against rabies last week, remember?” Audrey held up her arm, showing off the bandage covering Nick’s bite. “I’m safer than anyone else you could send out.”
When his hand didn’t move, she gave an impatient shake of her shoulders, forcing him to let her go. “You can’t drive up that way, Jay. It’s protected habitat. You know it makes sense for me to go on foot and you to patrol the shore.”
His thin lips dipped down in a frown. “Are you sure you saw something?”
“Sure enough to try to chase after it.” She shrugged off her seat belt and opened the door. “I’ll be fine.”
Still he hesitated. “You sure?”
She gave a confident nod. “Yeah.”
“Radio me the second you find anything, okay?”
Audrey raised her hand to her head in a salute. “Yes, boss.”
Jay drove off, leaving Audrey alone. The wind tossed her hair while the lake gently puttered to the shore with a soft hiss as it hit the sand and seagulls screamed in a high-pitched soprano. Even during tourist season, the beaches of Northern Michigan weren’t very busy. The area was still a hidden treasure and crowds weren’t the norm, but now, with no one else there, Audrey felt cut off from the rest of the world. Almost as if she was on a different planet.
And she felt like she was being watched. An unseen pressure pressed between her shoulder blades. Whirling around, Audrey thought she caught a glint of yellow in the tall beachgrass dotting the dunes in an organic fringe. The yellow gleam of a wild animal lying in wait.
For all that she’d assured Jay she would be fine, she couldn’t help but be nervous. The truth was, she might be immune (relatively speaking) to rabies, but there was no vaccine that could stop Nick’s ability to compel her to do whatever he wanted.
She could only hope he wasn’t able to talk in wolf form.
All the more reason to shoot first and don’t talk to him at all. She took a deep breath, pulled her gun from its holster and headed toward the spot where she’d seen that predatory yellow gleam.
Chapter Ten
Sand sunk under her feet as she navigated the sloping dune that rose up above the