The Mountain's Shadow

It didn’t matter right now. She strode to the front door and pulled it open.

“Hello.” She looked down at the little blond boy first. He stared at her with big eyes, a bit wary but also interested, excited about something new. A good sign, and she found herself smiling naturally. “You must be Storm.”

She made it a point not to obviously pull in a breath, as the boy himself did. Very wolflike, and she didn’t want to reveal herself to Storm or his guardian.

Storm bit his lip, perhaps in reaction to her scent, and nodded.

Sally inwardly braced herself as she raised her gaze to greet Zach the possible horse shifter.

“Come in, Mr…?” She took in an expressionless face, brown eyes, auburn hair.

“Call me Zach.”

She stepped backwards and gestured them inside. “Please call me Sally.”

Zach nodded while Storm concentrated on getting out of his winter gear. She breathed in, once the door had shut, caught Storm’s distinctive wolf scent and something from Zach. He was different, though if she hadn’t been told he might be a shifter, she wouldn’t have realized he had a not-quite-human scent.

Attractive, a kind of wild-man smell that pleased her wolf whose ears pricked, whose tail lifted.

Not here, not now, not anywhere. Sally rolled her eyes at herself, and at her wolf who wanted to make friends and who remained undiminished by past violence.

She glanced at Zach, wondering if he’d noticed her strange reaction, hoping it all remained inward and invisible. Fortunately, he focused on helping Storm divest himself of boots, mitts and jacket, which would have all gone flying if Zach wasn’t gathering them up and setting them right.

He straightened to inform her, “I’ll be staying.”

“Yes, of course. You’ll be part of the lesson.”

He stiffened. “Pardon me?”

“You’ll be part of the lesson so you can help Storm with his practice at home.” She smiled.

Zach blinked. Just once. “I know nothing about music.”

“All the better,” Sally declared, absurdly pleased to have put him in a quandary about this.

“Jason’s mom sat with him,” Storm piped up.

“She did,” Sally agreed.

“Please, Zach?” Storm tugged Zach’s hand, and the man’s expression, one of appearing out of his depth, hardened into something like determination. It was quite sweet. He looked at her again, a more assessing gaze now, and she wondered if he’d identified her as wolf. But he kept to the topic at hand.

“I guess,” he said as a wry note entered his voice, and it was very appealing, “I’m about to learn something about music.”

“She was nice!” Storm announced on their walk home. Excruciating piano lesson completed, thank God, they were off to pick up milk from the corner store. Yes, most of their groceries were delivered, arranged by Connie, but they always ran out of milk.

“I’m glad you think so,” replied Zach.

“Do you think she was nice?”

“Yes,” he said. Any other reply would lead to endless questions. Storm expected Zach to like everyone. A glance down revealed a small, furrowed brow. Storm, being a wolf, was perceptive about truths and lies.

It hadn’t been a lie, but he offered Storm a reason for the ambivalence he must have sensed around Zach’s answer.

“I don’t know piano, so it’s new to me.” To be precise, he’d never had anything to do with music that he could remember and had no feel for it. Sitting there listening had left him feeling uncomfortable and ignorant. “Sally is certainly musical.”

“Jason likes her too,” Storm said with a bounce, deciding Zach liked Sally after all. “I want to be musical.”

“You will be.” There was no reason Storm couldn’t excel at things Zach hadn’t the first clue about. He just wished he didn’t have to be involved, listening to Bach and staring at the black-and-white keyboard. He suspected Connie had purposefully neglected to mention to him this important aspect of the Suzuki method—parental involvement.

Music wasn’t the only thing which made Zach uneasy. The woman did. Sally had been attentive when it came to Storm, observing him, watching any interaction between Storm and himself. Maybe it was normal. People were often surprised by a male guardian, and at least her demeanor hadn’t suggested she was being judgmental.

Her scent had unnerved Zach, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. It was almost familiar, yet entirely new to him. He remembered individual scents well, so they hadn’t met before, he didn’t think. He gave an internal and irritable shrug. He wasn’t around women enough—Connie didn’t count—so it had felt strange to sit in Sally’s living room for half an hour.

She was pretty, he could admit as much. Having to stay there, with nothing to do but listen, it had been difficult not to observe the gray eyes, the brown-blonde hair, the quick smile when she interacted with Storm. She managed to be tall yet fine-boned. Supple.

Zach stifled a sigh at the last observation. This was one reason he tried not to interact with people. He didn’t want to react. He just wanted to be—be there for Storm until Storm was old enough to function on his own.

Maybe he could talk Connie into being an important part of the Suzuki method, given she already had a piano in her house.

Two pianos for Storm. Nothing done by half, as if to make up for absent parents and a werewolf heritage.

Zach glanced down at the child, amazed anew he was part of Storm’s world. He remembered when he’d first spotted a lost wolf pup and had almost ignored him, had almost trotted on. It had been the forlorn way Storm had yipped at the moon, as if he didn’t know what to make of it, the way he’d circled around to lie down to sleep.

The way he’d shifted to a too-young boy all by himself in the woods.

Zach had shifted then too, and in the early-morning light, he had carried the child home to frantic grandparents who didn’t know who to turn to because of a missing wolf child.

It had been the end of one life and the beginning of another. He sometimes couldn’t get over it, or the relief that had assailed him when he realized he could become something more than a feral horse.

If only he could figure out what that more entailed.

The Mountain’s Shadow

Cecilia Dominic

Some mistakes can literally come back to bite you.

The Lycanthropy Files, Book 1

First it was ADD. Then pediatric bipolar. Now the hot behavioral disorder in children is CLS, or Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome. Public health researcher Joanie Fisher was closing in on the cause in hopes of finding a treatment until a lab fire and an affair with her boss left her without a job.

When her grandfather leaves her his multimillion-dollar estate in the Ozarks, though, she figures her luck is turning around. Except her inheritance comes with complications: town children who disappear during full moons, an irresistible butler, and a pack of werewolves who can’t seem to decide whether to frighten her or flirt with her.

Joanie’s research is the key to unraveling the mysteries of Wolfsbane Manor.  However, resuming her work means facing painful truths about her childhood, which could result in the loss of love, friendship, and the only true family she has left.