Page 28 of Shattered

A bright light shone directly into her eyes, and she threw up her arm to block the beam. “Aurora? You okay?” A gruff voice she swore she recognized came from a few feet in front of her. “We got a couple calls about a large wolf in the vicinity.”

“Logan?” She shielded her eyes again and grimaced at the smell, still unable to see much of anything other than the outline of a man. If it was Logan, like she assumed, she’d only worked with him on a couple shifts while she’d been in training. From what she’d seen and heard of him, he was a nice man

“Shit.” The bright light clicked off.

She blinked, and it took her eyes a second to adjust. “It is you.”

“Sorry, Aurora.”

“No worries,” she replied.

Logan’s gaze dropped to the wolf at her feet. His brows scrunched up as he took in the large animal. “Who the fuck is that?”

The wolf growled, and Aurora had to fight back a giggle at the deputy’s slip from a professional police officer to an everyday man. Seemed her wolf was an overly protective bastard, and Aurora didn’t care. It felt good to be protected for a change, instead of always being the protector.

“Just a poor lost puppy looking for some scraps,” she lied, shrugging off his question.

Logan snorted. “That’s not a fuckin’ puppy, Aurora. That’s a full-grown wolf! I don’t recognize him.” The deputy reached for the mic attached to his shoulder and started to speak into it.

“It’s fine, Logan. Honest. He’s harmless.” Considering her boss was the head Raferty and brother to the wolf at her feet, she didn’t want to cause any issues for Mackenzie. The poor man already had enough on his plate.

Logan stopped speaking into his shoulder. “Do you know him?”

“He’s not unfamiliar to me,” she admitted. “He’s just visiting, and I wasn’t in any distress.” Aurora made sure to use the lingo she’d been picking up at the department during her training, hoping it would ease whatever worry the deputy may have.

“He’s a shifter,” Logan stated, as if she hadn’t realized.

Aurora nodded while making sure to keep her lips firmly zipped. She also wondered if Logan was a shifter, too. She knew the man had shown up with a woman named Sage to the party, but they’d left when the kids had gone to Danielle’s house for movies and the others had gone for their run. She’d have to ask Keeley if there was some sort of shifter etiquette about asking if someone was one or not. She knew the town was heavily populated with a variety of shifters, but there was still a strong human presence in Window Rock, too. And, in all honesty, she couldn’t tell who was human and who was a shifter.

“Abby okay?” Logan made another attempt to move closer to her, and Mackenzie was having none of it. He let loose with another growl of warning. Logan frowned at the wolf and raised both hands in surrender while stopping mid-stride.

Mackenzie sat down once more, keeping his back to her, watching the other man.

Aurora smiled at the deputy.

Logan had met Abby just the other day when Aurora had to hand in the last of her hiring paperwork the other day. Logan had generously given the little girl one of his two chocolate chip cookies he’d purchased at the bakery. He now had a fan for life with her niece.

“She’s asleep.” Aurora stood and brushed the dirt from the steps off of her butt. “An example I need to follow since tomorrow is officially my first shift.”

“I’m sure we’ll be talking again later. I’m on the night shift a couple more days this week.”

Aurora nodded, aware the other man had no intention of leaving until the wolf did. She ran her fingers through the coarse hair of the animal’s back, then leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “If you want him to leave, you gotta go also, handsome.”

The wolf turned his head and his long, pink tongue ran across her cheek before he trotted off, back into the woods. Aurora felt the loss of the wolf’s presence, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Abby was asleep, Aurora knew she’d be half tempted to follow him. “Goodnight, Logan. I’ll see you, tomor—er rather, I’ll catch you on the late shift.”

She headed back up the stairs without waiting for Logan’s response. Aurora pushed open her door and stepped over the threshold. She didn’t have to turn around to know the man was still there, waiting for her to close the door behind her. Aurora couldn’t fault him, he was, after all, protecting the town and its residents. Just like she protected Mackenzie’s secret.

Wait.What?Where did that idea come from? Protect Mackenzie?Not likely. He’d scoff at the idea of her trying to do anything to keep his secret from getting out.

Aurora locked the door behind her and went straight for the sink. Not only did her hands smell like rotting garbage, but she also had wolf on her and, though it cut through the yuck, it also made her yearn for things she couldn’t have. After washing her hands twice, she shut off all but one light in the kitchen. Abby sometimes went searching for a drink in the middle of the night, and they’d both learned the hard way, walking half asleep in the dark was a hazard to their health.

Pausing at Abby’s bedroom, Aurora glanced inside and smirked. The little girl had kicked off all her covers and was clenching her stuffed sloth. She’d had it since birth, and the stuffed animal had engulfed her small frame for many years. It was well-loved and had a lot of miles on it. Slothy, as Abby liked to her call plushie, had been a faithful companion, going with Abby to every doctor visit and every hospital stay. Aurora had to bribe the little girl every time Slothy required a trip to the washing machine just so she would let go.

After pulling the covers back over Abby’s frail shoulders, Aurora made her way to the single bathroom. She needed a hot shower and sleep. Tomorrow was a big day for both her and Abby. She couldn’t allow herself to wallow in her wants or needs. She had to focus on her priorities as Abby’s guardian. Instead of cooling the lust flowing through her veins, it only tempered it enough to grab a shower and throw on her night shirt.

When she slipped into her lumpy bed, her clit continued to ache, and her cream dampened her panties. Deep down, she knew no matter how hard she’d try, she’d never find any relief with her vibrator or with her fingers. Her body was addicted to the one person who didn’t even remember what he was doing and most likely didn’t know he’d shown up at her apartment no more than twenty minutes ago. Aurora curled herself into a ball and closed her eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, a lone wolf howled in the distance, and she knew he was still out there.

Mackenzie woke to his alarm, face-down in his bed, completely naked, chilling him to the bone. He’d meant to have a conversation with Kalkin about putting him down, because he was becoming too much of a liability to his family. For almost two weeks now, he’d woken as he did, unsure of how he got there or why he’d been buck naked. He couldn’t remember where he went or what he did, nor could he remember if he’d hurt anyone, though there wasn’t any blood on him or his covers. Plus, he still had a raging erection. It hadn’t gone away in days even though he hadn’t had one since he’d been shot.

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