Read Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) for Free Online Page A

run.
    Yet.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    “So what happens now?” she blurted. “I grow fangs and fur? I howl at the moon?”
    Silence answered—that vast, squeezing silence of the desert, where only the wind whispered through the brush. She would have screamed in frustration if Kyle hadn’t finally murmured a reply.
    “We don’t howl at the moon.”
    We? She wasn’t sure she wanted to be included in that club.
    From the corner of her eye, she saw him run an uncertain hand through his hair, making the short ends spike even more.
    “We howl to…get things out.”
    “Like what?”
    Kyle kicked a rock into the undergrowth then shrugged. “Things you can’t put in words.”
    She was about to shout something about having a lot of words to speak right now—four-letter words—until she saw his face. Drawn and dark, he stood staring at something in his past. What things did Kyle have to say that couldn’t be put into words? Did it have to do with the fact that he lived alone, so far from the rest? If wolves were social creatures who needed a pack, what kept him apart? Kyle had always kept to himself, though, even as a kid. Why?
    A thousand questions she couldn’t ask. Maybe she should try howling them to the moon sometime.
    So not funny,
said that inner voice that seemed to get louder with each passing hour. She set off walking again, going somewhere—anywhere. Kyle stayed three steps behind, brooding but silent.
    In any other situation, she would have reveled in the long, open vistas, the undulating terrain that hinted at a thousand corners to explore. But her eyes were as unsettled as her soul, darting suspiciously about, examining the ranch for any outward sign of its secret.
    “It looks so…normal.”
    “It is normal,” he insisted. “Kind of.”
    Which just about summed it up. On the surface, it looked all the world like any other rural community. An inner ring of tidy homes with flower pots and hummingbird feeders formed the heart of the ranch. Beyond that cluster, an outer circle of fenced-in fields dotted with livestock gradually gave way to open desert.
    “It’s a good place, Stef. Good people.”
    “It’s not much different than North Ridge.”
    His voice went growly at that. “This is nothing like North Ridge.”
    The truth was, the vibe was totally different. Maybe it really was as nice as he said. But werewolves? Who was she trying to kid?
    She stalked past a barn that had been converted into a community hall where a wall fluttered with flyers that announced ordinary community events: barbecues, soccer games, reading clubs. Someone somewhere was practicing the piano, and there was even a one-room schoolhouse and a playground full of energetic kids.
    “Hey, Miss Luth!” The voice of one of the children carried as they walked past. “What do you call an alligator in a vest?”
    “What, Timmy?” The teacher sounded like she had all the patience in the world.
    “An investigator!”
    Stef walked on. It was all perfectly normal—except for one thing. They were all wolves. At any point of day or night these people—these shifters—could twist their bodies into wolf form and tear off into the hills. Voluntarily, according to Kyle, though she couldn’t see the appeal. Apparently, their Navajo neighbors were a pack, too—a pack of coyote shifters.
    Right, coyote shifters.
She had just nodded at that point. Nothing could surprise her any more.
    Or so she thought. Because when Kyle led her to lunch in an oak-beamed dining hall where pack members shared meals several times a week, she balked. The sight of all those people—kids, families, elders—all of them werewolves? It looked like a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and that’s what tipped her over the edge. There was no way to tell shifters from humans. The harmony of the scene seemed a lie; any minute now, the fangs would come out and the feeding frenzy would begin.
    Her knees locked as she stood frozen on the