John gave him a curious look. “You’re a vampire with a werewolf girlfriend? How does that work?”
“Good question,” Phineas muttered. He just hoped she was all right and he could find her.
As he dashed back to the security office, he spotted Jack coming in the side entrance.
Jack shook his head. “She stayed at the school. Caitlyn’s been shifting back and forth, scaring the shit out of Dr. Lee, so Carlos is the only one allowed in the delivery room with her now.”
“No babies yet?” Phineas asked.
“Yeah!” Freemont opened the security office door and peered outside. “Did she have kittens?”
“Not yet,” Jack replied. “I came back to see if you guys had captured Corky.”
“We have another problem now,” Phineas said. “Brynley could be in danger. Rhett Bleddyn knows she’s back, and he’s a vicious bastard. Nearly killed a mortal. Zoltan is in the clinic right now transforming the guy. And Brynley—she’s alone.”
Freemont winced. “Wolfie-Girl’s in trouble.”
Jack nodded. “Let’s go.”
Phineas zipped through the trees for another half a mile, then paused to listen. Nothing.
This wasn’t working. He and Jack had teleported back to the cabin and split up to cover more ground. So far, no sign of Brynley. No word from Jack. And they’d been searching for almost an hour.
Bleddyn was one nasty character. Attacking a guy in a wheelchair? Sheesh, he’d nearly killed Nate. And Kyle, that creep deserved to die. The thought that those two bastards could have shifted and gone hunting for Brynley, it made his heart clench in his chest.
She’d been hunted down once before. And raped. He couldn’t let that happen to her again.
He needed a new strategy. He gazed up a tall pine tree and zeroed in on a strong branch. A second later, he materialized there and grabbed hold of the trunk. This was better. He had a bird’s-eye view. And eyes as good as a bird. He scanned the area and listened carefully.
A small herd of elk at twelve o’clock. At one o’clock, a small lake glimmered in the moonlight. Farther off to the right, Jack was searching. He turned to the left. Bushes thrashed far ahead at ten o’clock. Something was being chased.
He focused on a treetop and teleported there. The chase was just ahead of him. He teleported to another tree.
There. A mule deer darted into a small clearing, and a wolf charged from behind. A large wolf, moving at an incredible speed. It had to be a werewolf.
He teleported closer and materialized on a tree branch just as the wolf pounced on the deer. Within seconds the deer was down and its neck broken with a mighty wrenching of the wolf’s jaws.
Damn. If that was Brynley, she was amazing. He whistled softly to see if the wolf would look up.
It did. Sky-blue eyes.
He grinned. He’d found her, and she was fine. More than fine. She was freaking powerful.
A loud growl emanated from the forest.
Phineas tensed, his fingers digging into pine bark. Was it Bleddyn?
Brynley froze, her ears flattening, the fur on her back bristling.
Out of the woods lumbered a huge black bear. It reared up on its hind legs and roared.
Brynley stood her ground.
“Back off,” Phineas whispered.
The bear roared again, and moved toward the deer. Brynley bared her teeth and growled back.
“Damn.” What was she thinking? Phineas took out his automatic and fired a warning shot to scare off the bear.
The bear shifted into a large, hairy man. He lifted his hands in surrender and looked frantically about. “Don’t shoot!”
Phineas’s mouth fell open.
Brynley shifted into human form. “You’re a were-bear?”
He stared at her. “You’re a werewolf?”
Phineas teleported down, and with vampire speed, he whipped off his jacket and covered Brynley.
Digger gasped. “You’re one of them damned aliens!” He shifted back into a bear, and with a growl, he charged.
Chapter Eighteen
Phineas teleported Brynley across the clearing.
Digger roared when his pounce hit nothing but air. He spun about and spotted them.
“Digger,” Phineas began, but quickly levitated with Brynley when the bear charged again.
“Digger, stop!” Brynley yelled at him.
Digger shifted back to human form. “You need to get away from him, little lady, so I can kill him. He’s an alien.”
“I’m not an alien,” Phineas muttered.
“Maybe you can kick him in the balls,” Digger told her, then frowned. “But I ain’t sure them aliens have balls.”
She gave Phineas a wry look. “Shall I verify that you have balls?”
He arched a brow. “This is not how I envisioned our first intimate encounter.” He glanced down at Digger. “Can we come down now?”
“Sure. But I’ll have to kill you.”
“I’m not an alien!”
“You are, too! You appeared out of nowhere. You must have beamed down from the mother ship.”
Phineas groaned. “I was in a tree, watching Brynley. And what the hell were you doing, attacking her?”
“I wasn’t gonna hurt her,” Digger mumbled. “I just wanted the deer.”
Jack zoomed into the clearing at vampire speed. His eyes widened at the sight of Phineas and Brynley hovering twelve feet in the air. “I heard a gunshot. Are you all right?”
“Dagnabbit! Another alien!” Digger bellowed.
“Where?” Jack glanced behind him, then gasped when Digger shifted back into a bear and charged. He levitated, too. “
“Cut it out, Digger!” Brynley yelled at him. “These are my friends.”
Digger changed back to human form. “You shouldn’t make friends with aliens.”
“We’re not aliens,” Phineas ground out. “And would you please cover yourself? There’s a woman present.” He adjusted his jacket around Brynley. Luckily, it was long enough to hit her at mid-thigh.
The corner of her mouth curled up. “You seemed a bit concerned about my virtue.”
“Damned straight. And what the hell were you doing, growling at a bear?”
She winced. “I know it was crazy. My inner wolf has been acting so weird lately. Like it thinks it can take on the world.”
Phineas’s attention shifted back to Digger when the old man whistled. His dog, Jake, trotted into the clearing. He still wore the foil-covered football helmet on his head, but now also sported a pack strapped to his back.
“The dog plays football?” Jack asked.
Digger snorted as he pulled a pair of jeans out of the dog’s backpack. “Dogs don’t play football. You aliens ain’t as smart as you think.”
Phineas’s eyes watered as he caught a whiff of Digger’s clothes. “Did you run into a skunk?”
Digger chuckled as he pulled on the jeans. “I spray my clothes down with skunk oil. It covers up my scent.”
That was true. Usually Phineas could always tell a shifter by his scent. Digger had caught them by surprise.
