Nature of the Beasts (2 page)

Sarah’s mother had been attacked by shifters before Sarah was born. The shifters were never caught, and her mother lived in constant fear. Unfortunately, she’d instilled a little of that fear into Sarah.

“Sarah? Are you up?”

Dastan’s voice coming through the walkie-talkie they insisted she keep with her made Sarah jump in surprise. She glanced with annoyance at the clock and growled at the ungodly hour of five in the morning. It wasn’t unusual for the two of them to be out working the ranch this early, but they never called her at this hour.

She sat up and grabbed the walkie. With a yawn, she hit the Talk button. “I’m up. What is it?”

“I need you to call the sheriff. Have him meet Dmitry and me at the trail that leads to the falls at the far west side of the ranch. We’re at the overlook part of the trail.”

Sarah’s sixth sense went into overdrive, and her stomach knotted. She chewed briefly on her thumbnail before letting it go and once again hitting the Talk button. “What’s going on?”

“We found the owner of that scream.”

Sarah dropped her hand to her thigh. The cold plastic of the walkie hit her flesh, making her wince. So she had heard a woman scream. But that trail was miles away. How had she heard it?

“Sarah?” This time the voice was Dmitry.

“Yeah,” Sarah said into the speaker.

“Stay in the house till one of us gets there.”

Sarah frowned. ”Why?”

“Don’t ask why. Just do it,” Dastan commanded.

Sarah huffed at his tone but knew enough about Dastan to know when he got that bossy, something was up.

“Sarah?” Dastan snapped.

“I heard you. Dastan growl. Sarah stay put.”

“Smart-ass,” Dastan murmured, but Sarah could hear the amusement in his voice.

She gave the walkie a tight-lipped smile before reaching to grab the phone.

* * * *

“What the hell is taking him so long?” Dmitry snarled as he glanced down the trail for any sign of the sheriff.

“I hear him. He’s not too far away now, but we still have a few minutes.”

“He’s never going to believe that grays did this, Dastan.”

“What choice do we have?” Dastan murmured as he studied the human tracks mingled with those of a shifter.

The killer had apparently been following her as a wolf, then shifted to human form just before attacking. At some point he’d shifted back to the wolf and mangled the body to make it look like an animal attack. “We can claim the human tracks are ours.”

Dmitry sighed. “They don’t match.”

Dastan looked and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation when he realized that Dmitry was right. He and Dmitry wore cowboy boots. Whoever attacked the woman wore shoes that left tracks nothing like theirs.

“A man killed her. Then the wolves ate the dead body,” Dastan said with a shrug.

“In what world do you think those massive prints left by the shifter look anything like a regular wolf’s?”

Dastan glared angrily at his friend. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m pointing out the flaws.”

Dastan stared toward the trail and listened to see how close the sheriff was. He could hear his labored breathing as he began the short climb to the overlook where they’d found the body.

“He’s close,” Dastan said. “Let’s stop talking about it and let him come to his own conclusions.”

Mike Sims topped the hill and stopped. With his hands on his hips, he stared at Dastan and Dmitry suspiciously. Even though the previous owners of the Keller Ranch had introduced them to Mike, the sheriff still had a hard time accepting them. He constantly pointed out how strange it was that Sam and Cody had decided to up and sell out of the blue without telling him.

He hated having to always be on his guard, but Mike had been a friend of Sam’s and Cody’s since school, and Mike had made it clear he didn’t trust them. In Mike’s mind, despite the story Sam had given him about Keegan being from Europe and how he and Cody wanted to go live with her there, Mike believed that Dastan and Dmitry had somehow suckered his friends into giving up the ranch.

“What’s this about a dead body?” the sheriff asked.

“Where’s the coroner?” Dastan asked. “Or do you do that here?”

“Yeah, we got a coroner. I told him I’d check it out first.”

Dastan nodded and moved aside so that Mike could see the woman’s body. Mike made a face and looked away. “Aw, damn. How the hell did you find her up here?”

Dastan glanced at Dmitry. “We were checking out a few things last night, and we heard her scream. It took us a while to find her.”

Mike looked as though he wasn’t sure whether to believe them or not. He walked up to get a better look at the mangled mess.

“Is it normal for the grays to attack a woman like this?” Dmitry asked.

With a snort, Mike gave Dmitry a hard look. “What makes you think it was the gray wolves?”

Dmitry shrugged. “I can’t see a bear doing it.”

“The doc will determine what the actual cause of death was. The wolves may have just fed off her body once a human left her for dead.”

Dmitry shared a cautious look with Dastan. The woman was found on their land. The sheriff was already suspicious of them. The last thing they needed was some small-town officer with a bone to pick thinking they did it.

Sarah stood back and studied her second attempt at cooking a casserole from scratch—the human way, no magic. It didn’t look too bad. She inhaled and smiled. It smelled good. It felt good doing things without magic, like she’d really accomplished something.

As she moved it to the table, her mind drifted to the dead woman. Who was she? What was she doing on the trail so late at night?

The door opened, and she looked up just in time to see Dmitry walk in. He looked tired, and not for the first time, she felt a tug of sympathy for him that overrode her usual agitation. His eyes met hers, and she started in surprise at the worry darkening the blue-gray of his irises. Dmitry wasn’t a worrier. That was Dastan. So for Dmitry to be worried, something must be up. She wanted to ask him if he was okay, if something was bothering him, but instead, she kept the conversation about food.

“There’s dinner if you’re hungry,” she said.

Dmitry raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I’m sorry. Were you just being nice to me?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. Any sympathy she felt just went right out the window. “God forbid,” she snarled. “Eat or not. Doesn’t matter to me.”

She turned away and opened the refrigerator to grab the tea. Since living here in the mortal realm, she’d begun to do things the mortal way. She found she liked it. She enjoyed keeping herself busy and felt a great sense of pride at what she could accomplish, even when it was small.

Dmitry sighed as he pulled one of the stools away from the kitchen island. “Sarah…” he began, but whatever it was he meant to say was halted by Dastan’s entrance into the kitchen.

“What did you find out?” Sarah asked as she set the pitcher of tea on the island.

She wanted a quick change of subject. Her fingers always seemed to tremble whenever she was in the presence of both Dastan and Dmitry, so to hide it, she busied herself getting ice for the tea.

“Shifters,” Dastan replied tiredly.

Sarah dropped the ice in her hand onto the floor. “Excuse me? What the hell are more shifters doing here?” It was bad enough she had to deal with Dastan and Dmitry. Now there were more?

Dastan gave her a pointed look. “Probably for the same reason Dmitry and I are. Just living their lives outside the protected dimension. There are a lot more of us here than you might think.”

“That I know,” she snapped. “But why here? Why did he kill a girl here?”

Dastan sighed. “We don’t know.”

“For that matter, why was he killing a girl at all?” Dmitry asked. “Was this something random, or is there something else going on?”

“How do you know it was a male? Was the girl a shifter?” Sarah asked.

Dastan shook his head. “No, and we don’t know it was a male. We’re just assuming.”

“And you know what they say about assumptions,” Sarah said with more of a snarky tone than she’d meant to.

“I am not in the mood for that smart mouth of yours, Sarah,” Dastan replied.

Sarah immediately backed down. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, unsure why she’d even gotten so snappish. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The fact that a shifter was so close, killing women, made her nervous, and when she was nervous, she was a smart-ass. “I didn’t…”

She left the kitchen and walked into the living room. She dropped onto the leather sofa and stared at the fireplace. She’d been here a month and had fallen in love with the ranch and the land. Dastan and Dmitry scared her. They were shifters, which she hated, but they were incredibly attractive and so sexy. Every time they entered a room, her heart would skip out of rhythm. How could she hate someone and at the same time want them so bad her whole body ached with it?

Dastan walked over, then sat down on the coffee table, facing her. She winced, waiting for the table to crack under his weight. It didn’t, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you, Sarah. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Now with this…this just complicates things in a way I never wanted.”

“The sheriff is suspicious of you guys, isn’t he?”

Dastan nodded as he leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands in front of him and sighed. “He didn’t come out and say it, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Having you here doesn’t help matters any either.”

“I know what you mean. There’s a lot of unneeded tension in the house.” She frowned. “Dmitry hates me about as much as I hate him.”

Dastan snorted. “Dmitry does not hate you. He wants to fuck you so bad he can hardly contain himself, which is why he’s such an ass most of the time.”

Sarah’s stomach fluttered wildly at Dastan’s words. Her mouth opened to say something, but nothing would come out. Instead, she stared at Dastan in shock. Dmitry wanted her? If that was true, he hid it well. And why did the very idea make her heart race and her palms sweat?

Did Dastan feel the same? She looked into his eyes, trying to see what he might be thinking. Unfortunately, just like Dmitry, he hid his emotions well.

She swallowed. “And you?” she croaked. “Do I need to worry about your libido as well?”

Dastan lifted one corner of his mouth in amusement, and a spark of interest lit his eyes. “Yep.”

“Well…” she said before taking a deep breath to steady her suddenly tingling nerves. “Thanks for the warning.”

Dastan turned serious, which always put Sarah on edge. “The sexual tension doesn’t bother me. I’m worried about you being here alone during the day. That murder was too close for comfort, and it was a murder, plain and simple. Shifters don’t eat people. He mangled her body to make it appear as though it was animals. I just don’t understand what his reason was.”

“They’re not all docile, Dastan. My mother was attacked by shifters years ago. Before I was born. It was bad, from what I understand. There were three. Two watched and held her down while one beat and raped her. That’s why she hates them, and she instilled a lot of that hate into me. I have trouble trusting you, but I also know deep inside that you wouldn’t ever hurt me. Same with Dmitry. I’ve watched the two of you protect Keegan all my life.” She looked down at Dastan’s hands, which were still clasped between his knees. “I don’t want to leave. I like it here,” she whispered. “I feel…free here.” She looked up and met Dastan’s curious gaze. “My mother isn’t here to nag at me and constantly watch over my shoulder.”

Dastan grinned. “I understand what you mean about feeling free. Hiding who I am or what I am from the ranch hands can sometimes be difficult, but I can put up with that to finally be able to work with my hands again. Now I know why so many of us come here. It’s a chance to be somewhat normal.”

“Maybe that’s why this other shifter is here. Maybe he just wanted to be normal.”

Dastan tilted his head to the side, studying her. “Why did he kill the girl?”

“Maybe she saw him shift?”

Dastan shook his head. “I wouldn’t kill someone for that.”

“That’s you. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t.”

Dastan rubbed the back of his neck and then dropped his hand back to his leg. “It’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right. If this were just a human man who was killing women, I wouldn’t be as concerned about you. But it’s not. It’s a shifter, and while I’m sure you can handle your own, a shifter can overpower a witch.”

“Not all of them. Shifters can only do magic if they’ve been trained to draw from the magic that makes them shift.”

“How do you know he hasn’t been trained?” Dastan asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of other shifters as powerful as you and Dmitry.”

“We’re an exception. We were council guardians, and therefore our training was more in depth, but I’ve learned over the centuries that the council isn’t the only group that has trained shifters.”

“That’s a pleasant thought. But I still don’t want to leave.”

Dastan pinned her in place with those beautiful gray eyes, and Sarah could feel her whole body heat. For a split second, she wondered what it would be like to be seduced by either of them. Incredible, she had no doubt.

“If you stay here, Sarah, I can’t promise that a seduction isn’t somewhere in your future.”

Had he read her mind? Had he seen her thoughts in her eyes? Was she that easy to read? The very idea made her incredibly uncomfortable but not uncomfortable enough to leave. Not yet, anyway. Shifters couldn’t read minds. She just had to get better at covering her desire. That was all.

She shrugged. “I have mace.”

Dastan laughed. “It’s cute that you think mace will work.”

Sarah started to say something but was cut off by Dmitry. “So are we good?” Dmitry asked from his spot behind the couch.

Sarah jumped in surprise and turned to glare at him. “I swear I’m going to put a cowbell around your neck if you don’t stop doing that!”

Dmitry snickered. “Well, sounds like everything is pretty much back to normal. Thanks, by the way, Dastan, for spilling the beans.”