Nightshifter

and gave me a look that could intimidate even Fang.
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” I collected Keen from the outdoor kennel she stayed in while I was working the clinic. She’d been reluctant to separate from me and now stuck close to my leg as I wobbled my way out to the SUV.
Peter’s distinctive beater truck was missing from the driveway when I arrived home. My body poured sweat as we entered through the back door that led to my suite. I grabbed juice from the fridge, sank onto the couch, and unwrapped my arm.
The fever made me think bacteria had taken root in the wound, despite my precautions with the antibiotics. I expected the injury to be red and inflamed, but it was neither. In fact, it looked pink and healthy, with the skin already knitting.
Perplexed, I went to fetch my thermometer—the human implement, not the one that got shoved up animals’ butts—and after a few moments of digging in a drawer, found it. The temperature it revealed had my eyebrows climbing into my hairline. Maybe it’s the flu. Other possibilities passed through my mind, but I dismissed each one. It was too soon after the encounter for something like rabies. Besides, with the deadly disease so prevalent in the area, the local vets were vaccinated for it as often as our furry clients. I should have had that flu shot. My entire body ached like the muscles were being pulled from my bones. I staggered back out to the SUV, grabbed more pills from my vet kit, returned to pop them with the last of my juice, and stripped to the skin, checking for something I may have missed. I was covered with dark bruises from the collision with the deer, but I couldn’t find anything to explain my fever, so I dragged my sorry ass to bed. Keen took her customary spot beside me, lying closer than usual.
I dreamed of wolves.
Black, silver, gray, red, and brown, their multicolored forms leaped and snarled their way around my brain as I slept in fits and spurts. I don’t know how long I tossed and turned. When I awoke, the sun had dropped low enough in the sky to send its rays through the basement windows.
Voices. In all my years living here, I had never heard voices in Peter’s house. He had friends he often met in town, but no visitors.
He had them now, and they didn’t sound happy. Although I couldn’t make out the words, I could decipher that one was male and hostile, and it concerned me enough to get me heading for the door. Keen trotted at my heels, eager to go out as it seemed I’d joined the land of the living.
Peter never used his front door, and the deck that took you the three steps to that entrance had long ago rotted away. “The only ones who ever use it are those I don’t want to talk to anyway,” Peter had said when I offered to replace it. Instead, he directed my efforts to the back door, which now opened onto an extensive deck, perfect for enjoying a beer while we watched the sunset.
The steps seemed steeper than usual today. My head spun and I clutched the rail as I ascended. The voices had stopped. Had they been a product of my fever? Already on the deck, Keen paused outside the door she’d passed through many times and lifted her nose before growing still. The hair on her back stood on end.
Unsettled, I pushed her away with my knee and poked my head inside.
“Peter?” I shouted into the house. “You here?” I glanced into the familiar kitchen, painted a cheerful yellow, with a few of my wildlife sketches hung on the walls.
The kitchen was empty. A shuffling noise came from the living room, and I debated the wisdom of walking into what could be a home invasion in progress. Dammit. I should at least have brought my phone.
Peter’s voice rang out. “Liam? That you?”
“Yeah. Is everything all right?” I stepped through the door, blocking Keen with my leg. She was usually a wiggling mess, eager to see the older man, but today she remained stiff as a board, her hackles bristling.
To my relief, Peter emerged from the living area, looking as robust as Humphrey, only with silver hair sticking up instead of curly horns. My elderly friend would have struck quite the figure in his youth, and even now, in his seventies, the gray hair around his square-jawed face remained thick and long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail. His pale-blue eyes sparkled above broad shoulders and a big frame.
Behind him came a young woman with long hair the color of milk chocolate. On her heels followed a huge guy who had inches on me. He must have stood at least six and a half feet, with shoulders like a barn door. His hostile body posture made me straighten in response, inadvertently releasing the leg hold on my furry friend. To my shock, instead of barreling into the room with a wagging tail, Keen took one look at the Sasquatch and began to growl so seriously that her teeth showed.
“Keen, that’s enough,” I snapped at her, and she quit the growl but not the attitude, rolling a frustrated and disbelieving eye at me.
“Liam, meet my niece Chloe and her boyfriend, Dillon.”
I caught a slight hesitation at the word boyfriend as I nodded to Chloe. Dillon did not extend his hand, nor did I. Instead, I found myself smiling at Chloe. Peter’s niece—that he even had one was a shock because he’d never mentioned his family—checked every box in the attractive-female category. And beyond. After a moment, although something within me straightened and saluted, my brain put on the brakes. The last time I traveled this road, it hadn’t ended well. I’d lost not only the woman I loved but a man I considered a friend. So not going there again.
Before I finished that thought,