Lone Wolf Read Free

shift.
    He ran up the porch steps of his house to find all the lights on inside. Jackson, the older of his nephews, met him at the door.
    “We tried to stop her,” Jackson said, panicked. “But you know what happens.”
    “Tell Andrea to come over,” Ellison said, pushing past him. Andrea, a wolf Shifter who lived in the house across the street, was a healer. They might need her.
    Ellison raced down the hall in the one-story bungalow to his sister’s bedroom, finding his second nephew, Will, waiting anxiously in the doorway. Will, twenty-four, the youngest of Denise’s cubs, had tears in his gray eyes.
    “She’s bad this time.”
    Ellison paused to put his hands on Will’s shoulders. “Jackson’s getting Andrea over here to help. Don’t worry.”
    Will returned the clasp, slightly comforted by Ellison’s touch, but he didn’t relax.
    Ellison stepped into Deni’s bedroom. In the middle of it, facing him, was a huge gray wolf with murder in her eyes.
    Deni wasn’t as large as Ellison, being female and about forty years younger, but she was a Shifter, and that made her powerful. She snarled at Ellison, no recognition in her expression.
    Deni’s room was a wreck—furniture overturned, clothing shredded on the floor. The window blind had been half ripped down, the slats tangled as though an animal had seen something through them and had gone for the window, not caring that the blind was in the way.
    Deni sniffed, smelling Ellison fresh from the bar, and then snarled again, ears flattening on her head. The Collar around her neck emitted several sparks.
    Ellison carefully didn’t move. He was Deni’s alpha, leader of their tiny pack. Though it broke his heart to see her like this, at the moment he needed to be less worried brother and more alpha wolf.
    “Den.” He made his voice firm but not harsh.
    Deni growled right through the word, an arc of electricity running around her Collar. Ever since whatever foul bastard had run her down on her motorcycle and left her mangled and half-dead, Deni had been having episodes of forgetting who she was, who Ellison was, who her own cubs were.
    Each time this happened, she reverted into her wolf and stayed there—threatening like a cornered animal.
    Deni’s body had healed fairly quickly—Shifters had incredible metabolisms that closed wounds swiftly. Plus, they had Andrea—half Shifter, half Fae—who had Fae healing magic, made greater when she channeled it through her mate, Sean, the Shiftertown Guardian. They’d brought Deni back from death and thought all was well.
    Then had come the first episode of Deni’s brain more or less shutting off and making her forget everything she was. Human doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, and Andrea couldn’t help.
    What Deni needed was a Shifter healer—one stronger than Andrea, well versed in ailments from which Shifters could suffer. The trouble was, Shifter healers weren’t thick on the ground, if any even existed these days, and Deni was sick
now
.
    “Deni,” Ellison said again, making his voice hard with command. “It’s Ellison.”
    Deni snarled one last time, then attacked.
    Ellison blocked her leap with arms folded to protect his face. He took the brunt of her weight, sparks from her Collar dancing across his skin, and they went backward together.
    Ellison’s heightened Shifter senses scented his nephews in the hall, scared and unhappy. He smelled Deni, enraged and terrified, as her wolf untangled herself from him, whirled, and leapt at him again.
    Ellison caught her in his arms this time and swung around with her, using the momentum of her impact to toss her away across the room. Deni smashed into a wall, the thud of the contact lost in her growls. She came to her feet with terrible swiftness, her eyes red with rage, her gray coat dusted with plaster that had cracked off the wall.
    Deni went for Ellison again, fangs bared. The Collar was taking its toll on her—Deni was a little slower this time,