Page 11 of Tracking the Alpha (Project Therianthrope #1)

Chapter Seven

The man Tanis followed was a shapeshifter.

Talk about unexpected. To think she’d laughed when her grandmother told Tanis stories of other tribes and their beliefs.

Heck, a young Tanis had smirked when the elders began recounting tales of Wisakedjak, the trickster, and Gitche Manitou, the supposed great spirit.

Oh the fun she’d had mocking Asin, the spirit of the rock—which got her so many extra chores.

Her people, the Cree, had long believed that spirits imbued everything and lived all around.

That it was their duty to live in harmony with nature and thus please the spirits.

The Cree didn’t have shapeshifters as part of their lore, but the Navajo did.

They believed in skinwalkers, people who could literally change their outer appearance to mimic an animal.

Europeans had something similar with their legends about werewolves, which had become commercialized in movies and books.

No matter the name used—werewolf, skinwalker, lycanthrope—the consensus in this day and age had them as fictional. Not real. Impossible.

Tell that to Barrett.

How had the military managed to change him? And not just Barrett. The rabid coyote woman who’d attacked Tanis and, according to Barrett, many others being held prisoner in the guarded facility she’d not seen much of.

“These needles and transfusions,” she said abruptly into the silence they’d been walking in. “Do you have any idea what was in them?”

“I’m not a doctor or a scientist.”

“Best guess?” she asked, rolling her eyes behind his back. A fine back, she should add. Wide and muscled, leading to lean hips, toned legs, and a body part she’d done her best to not stare at. Hung like a wolf should apparently be a thing because calling him a horse didn’t fit.

“Definitely some DNA tampering,” he replied, his voice low and serious. “Whatever it was, it burned like liquid fire and looked like swamp water.”

“You were awake during the procedure?”

“Yes,” a short, terse syllable. “They liked to monitor and gauge every aspect of their experiment. Pretty sure they even measured the range of my screams.”

She winced. “That sounds brutal.”

“It was dehumanizing in more ways than one,” was his dry retort.

“You said the general shot you to trigger the change into the wolf.”

“As a last resort. Apparently, I took too long to show an effect from the treatments. So on a full moon, he took me out in the courtyard and shot me.”

“Ouch.”

“It hurt, but not for long. The pain triggered the wolf. When it took over, my injury healed.”

“And you escaped.”

“Barely.” He paused walking and glanced at the sky. “That night is a bit of a blur. I remember the general shooting me and the pain of it. A pain that didn’t last long and left me feeling discombobulated.”

“Big word.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder and grinned. “And finally, a way to use it in a sentence.”

“The wound forced the shift.”

“It did, but even better, it forced the general to release me from the manacles he had me in, and the major was slow with the tranq gun. Somehow, I got over the wall and made it to the forest, where I’ve been hiding since.”

“The courtyard you speak of has eight-to-ten-foot-high concrete walls topped in barbed wire.”

“Wasn’t any wire on it when I escaped.”

She hesitated before asking, “Are you the one who sliced open the general’s face?” Upon their first meeting, it had been impossible to ignore the dark patch over an eye and the scarring that ran down the general’s cheek to his chin.

“Yeah.” He didn’t wait for a reply before adding a vehement, “Wish I’d not frozen in shock when I saw my paws. I could have ended things right then and there.”

“Do you think if he’d died those backing the project would have abandoned it?”

“No.” A reply so low she barely heard it.

“What would it take do you think?”

“Failure to churn out a viable product, but that could take years before they admit defeat.” He resumed a brisk pace; however, Tanis suddenly paused.

“What if the general lost all his expensive test subjects?”

“We’ve already ascertained he doesn’t care how many die.”

“I mean lost , as in everyone he’s tampered with escaped.”

Barrett kept walking. “One, releasing everyone would be almost impossible. As you mentioned earlier, I’m one man against a guarded facility.

The chances of me freeing one person, let alone everyone, is pretty much one in a zillion.

Two, if the general has implanted trackers, they’d be quickly found. And three, what would it accomplish?”

“Those who escape could tell their stories.”

“I’m pretty sure the woman I killed back there was beyond being coherent.”

“As a coyote, yes, but what if you could have brought her back to herself?”

“That would assume the injury trick works for everyone. We have no idea if that’s the trigger for everyone Davidson has tampered with. Not to mention, what if everyone is like her and not me? Freeing what basically amounts to rabid wild animals could have murderous consequences on innocent people.”

“Are you just going to shoot down every one of my suggestions?” she huffed in annoyance.

Rather than reply, he went still and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered. He’d obviously noticed something she hadn’t.

“Company heading our way. Move faster,” he advised as he began to trot, agile in his bare feet, and silent. Just like her. If he weren’t so damned white, she’d have thought him Indigenous-trained.

She kept pace behind Barrett, meaning she could admire his agility as he navigated the pitfalls of the wild terrain.

His body moving fluidly. His skin smooth perfection.

His hair, black with slight hints of gray, lush and curling at his nape.

A handsome man who, despite circumstances, stirred something inside Tanis.

Desire.

What a strange time and place for it. And with a stranger to boot.

The sudden attraction suddenly made her better understand her mother, though.

Her mom, Mika, a supposedly very smart woman, who’d been attending university studying to be a doctor, had come home on a break and run into Todd, Tanis’ father, while collecting some plants used in Cree healing practices.

Grandmother said Tanis’ mother had been instantly smitten to the point Mika spoke of taking a year off school to help Todd with his work.

But the seducing cad took off the moment he discovered he’d impregnated Mika.

Left without any way for her to contact him.

And when Mika died from complications in childbirth, Grandmother chose to simply raise Tanis on her own.

As for Tanis, she’d never had any interest in meeting the man without any honor.

But Barrett had already shown himself to be different in character from Todd.

For one, he could have fled this area and kept running until he found a safe place without hunters or the military seeking him.

Instead, he’d remained, though, wanting to free his friends and do something about the travesty happening.

Second, he’d not killed Tanis, despite having every reason to.

He knew she’d been sent to capture him, had no reason to trust, and yet, he walked ahead of her, his back wide open for a stabbing knife.

He’d chosen to place his faith in her, and Tanis couldn’t help but respect that.

His jog brought them to the edge of a creek, where he paused as he glanced back at her. “We need to get wet for the next part, and I’ll warn you right now, that water is cold.”

“Okay.”

“Not going to argue?” He sounded surprised.

“My pack is impermeable, and while water isn’t the greatest for my gun and bow, you know these woods better than me.

” Not to mention entering the creek would make them harder to track if the military used dogs.

Doubtful, seeing as how she’d not seen or heard any, but then again, she’d never suspected they had a giant coyote or a bunch of people being used as test subjects in their custody either.

“The water isn’t super deep. If you want, I can hold the gun above my head so you can do the same with your bow.”

Voluntarily arm him with a weapon? She’d trusted him thus far, seemed kind of dumb to balk now. She unstrapped the firearm and handed it over.

His brow arched. “I seriously thought you’d tell me to go fuck myself.”

“Either we’re allies or we’re not.”

His teeth gleamed as he smiled. “Definitely allies. I’ve seen how well you can shoot that bow.”

“I missed.”

“But you got the closest of everyone who came after me,” he pointed out as he gripped the gun and began wading into the water.

“You moved faster than expected,” she admitted.

“And you still managed to nick me. I was impressed.”

“Is that why you were stalking me?” she blurted out as she followed him into the creek, which chilled the flesh upon contact.

“You were interesting.” His reply rather than denying it.

“You wanted to eat me.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.” A comment tossed over his shoulder with a teasing smile and a wink.

Her mouth rounded. Had he just… Her foot slipped as a rock rolled underfoot, and she only barely managed to keep her bow out of the fast-moving current.

“We need to move quickly over the next hundred paces or so, as we will be exposed to anyone on shore.”

“How far is this hiding spot?” she murmured, concentrating on her footing as the creek deepened and tugged at her body.

“Not too far. Once we reach it, we’ll have to climb to keep your weapons dry.”

The moving water made it hard to hear, for her at least. Barrett, on the other hand—or should she say paw?—once more proved he’d kept some of the wolf even in his human shape when he informed her, “They found the coyote woman’s body.”

The news hastened their pace. The creek curved and went between two mounds of ragged stone, the channel cut through them, but Barrett didn’t follow. He paused and glanced at Tanis.

“This is where we climb. Want me to take the pack so you have less weight?”

A feminist would have blasted him for even suggesting it. A soaked Tanis, who knew she’d be heavier already with her sodden clothes and footwear, simply removed it and handed it over. “Put it on and then I’ll strap the rifle to it.”

He loosened the straps first before threading his arms through, and when he presented his back, she quickly affixed the rifle. “You’re good to go.”

“Okay. Follow me, but keep in mind I’ve never climbed into my den this way. Oh, and I lost my skirt to the current so maybe don’t look up.”

She couldn’t help but snicker. “Is this a bad time to sing ‘Do your balls hang low?’”

“Very bad and thanks for putting that stupid song in my head,” he groaned as he started the ascent.

“You’re welcome,” she chirped, keeping an eye up the creek in case anyone had followed. The full moon made it easy to see.

“Be careful on your way up. Some of the rock is crumbly,” he warned as pebbles of it rained down.

“Okay.”

“You can probably start climbing. I’m almost there.”

She kept her gaze on the stone in front and resisted the urge to glance upward.

She would most likely laugh if she saw any of his man bits swinging to and fro.

The guy had been through enough without her giggling.

Her fingertips found grips easily enough; her sodden hiking boots however protested.

She should have taken them off. She gritted her teeth and forged ahead, making her way more slowly than she liked.

“Just a few more feet,” he advised, drawing her gaze upward.

He leaned out from atop the jutting rock, in plain sight of anyone looking.

“Trying to make yourself a target?” she hissed.

“There’s no one nearby.” He sounded quite certain.

Who was she to argue with the man who could hear like a wolf?

Tanis kept inching and had almost reached the lip when catastrophe hit.

Her left foot, hiked higher than her right, bore down with all her weight as she pulled herself up.

The rock proved less than sturdy and sheared before her right foot had a chance to wedge.

Her fingertips dug into the abrasive stone, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Before she could fall though, a hand grabbed her wrist, a strong grip that kept her from plummeting, and heaved her up the final two feet with enough force that she landed on Barrett.

The very naked Barrett and, judging by the hard poke against her lower belly, he was very happy to see her.