“Not me. Camping is a pretty ordinary interest.”
He went alone and ran around as a bear for a few days. Totally ordinary. And the reason why he didn’t get too involved or too attached. Jude was attractive and passing through, and right now that was all that mattered.
Chapter Two
Maybe Jude’s luck had turned. Standing right in front of him was a shifter. Mack’s brown eyes shimmered with the animal patina for just a moment. Most people wouldn’t notice, or if they did, they didn’t know what it meant. Jude did, and he hadn’t expected to see it. He rocked back on his heels. He’d bet the man enjoyed camping—though he doubted he took a tent with him. Jude blinked slowly and let his focus waver so the shadowy aura around the man took shape…as a bear.
His heart froze before remembering its job. If anything would be running amok and mutilating cows for fun, it would be a bear shifter. He hadn’t expected to find the cow killer this fast, and it didn’t feel quite as good as he’d thought it would.
The happy lust that had formed when he’d first seen Mack dissipated. He’d have rather gotten lucky. Mack was the kind of guy Jude would usually be into. Tall and with biceps that were about to rip the sleeves off his shirt. His jeans hugged his thighs, nice and tight. Well-muscled but not hulking, and probably good with his hands. It would be nice to know exactly how good.
And while he could spot a shifter in a crowd, if he made the effort to look closely at someone, he’d never gotten tangled with other paranormals. His life was already complicated. Getting mixed up with Mack was never going to end well. Though what did he say now?
He kept his smile fixed, even though he didn’t know what to do. His body still thought Mack was a sure thing, and from the heat in Mack’s eyes he was thinking along the same lines, but Jude couldn’t sleep with a man and then hand him over to the Coven. That was too deceitful. He could, however, enjoy a couple of drinks and pretend that things would go further. He’d need to get Mack alone to knock him out. One quick zap. He’d have to make sure it wasn’t strong enough to stop his heart. If he killed the suspect, he was sure the Coven would call the mission a failure.
So Jude smiled and let himself enjoy the moment—and the snap of attraction. He’d never once been attracted to a shifter until now. Would Mack be wild in bed? Shifters had a reputation.
“So, what’s so interesting about ghost towns?” Mack’s voice was like campfire smoke, hot enough to melt Jude’s insides but sweet enough that he wasn’t going to step back.
Jude would have to keep up the lie instead of asking Mack outright about the cattle mutilations. He didn’t even know how to ask that, and if Mack was guilty, he wouldn’t just admit it. “History and mystery.”
He knew enough about ghost towns and Mercy North to get by. But if Mack started digging, his cover story would come undone.
Mack laughed. “There’s no mystery about North. People left after a string of accidents. They believed the mine to be cursed.”
“But the people here stayed?” That was curious. There wasn’t that much distance between the two towns, and he was sure the bridge had existed back then. The river it crossed wasn’t particularly wide.
Mack shrugged and sipped his beer. “Maybe farmers are less superstitious than miners.”
Now was the time to raise the cattle deaths and get the gossip he’d come to the bar for. He could ask what Mack really did in his spare time. The words stuck in Jude’s throat. He didn’t want Mack to lose interest and brush him off. So he said nothing.
He needed to do something.
Was Mack being friendly or did he want more?
Jude wanted more. Why couldn’t Mack have been a nice boring human?
“How about instead of showing me Mercy South you show me Mercy North?” His fingers brushed Mack’s sleeve for a second. If it was nothing, Mack would pull away and put some distance between them.
Mack’s lips parted, and his tongue darted over his lower lip in a way that made Jude regret that he was here for other reasons, reasons that didn’t include hooking up with the local mechanic. Couldn’t the Fates give him one night of wild sex with a shifter?
Just once he’d like something to go his way.
What did he have to do? Pass the Coven’s test and show them he could protect the paranormal community would be a good start. Although, the killer walking up to him was a pretty big stroke of luck. One he shouldn’t be knocking back.
“First up, no one round here calls it Mercy South, just Mercy. The ghost town is North, that’s it. Kids go up there to drink underage and tell ghost stories.” There was a quirk to the corner of his mouth when he spoke that suggested he’d done exactly that. “But the rest of us just leave North well alone.”
“You believe it’s cursed?” As a witch, he knew a little about curses, and they didn’t close a mine. That would take several witches all working together. Maybe the town had pissed off the wrong people, and it had been cursed. He’d be able to tell if he went out there. That kind of magic left a residue that stuck around. The bigger the magic, the longer it left traces. If people felt the place was haunted, there was a good chance they were sensing the remains of magic without realizing what it was. He was now tempted to go to North. Population zero.
“I don’t believe in stirring up old trouble.” Mack pressed his lips together. Conversation over.
“What about making some new trouble?” Jude held
