No one rose with her except Kim. Shifters didn’t stand when a woman did; they stayed put and watched for danger. Kim, human, said she found this rude, but it seemed natural to Glory that males waited so they could spring on an enemy if necessary. How humans had survived this long with their strange customs, Glory had no idea.
Kim came to Glory and gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Glory. Good night.”
Glory hugged her back. She’d grown to like Kim, especially now that Kim had erased the sorrow in Liam’s eyes. Andrea was busy erasing the same kind of sorrow in Sean. Now if only Dylan would let Glory try with him.
Time to leave.
“Good night.” Glory gave Kim a kiss on the cheek, squeezed the hand Eric held out to her, patted Connor on the shoulder, and descended the porch stairs. She put a little wiggle in her hips, hoping that Dylan noticed.
I so need a run.
West of town lay hills that folded along the river, wild spaces where Shifters could pretend they were free. Glory drove there, parked her car well off the road, stripped off her clothes, shifted to her wolf, and started to run.
It felt good to pound along the hills, under the wide sky and the bright moon. She smelled water and woods, damp earth and open spaces. The wind was cold but just right for a wolf with a thick coat of fur.
Glory wanted to throw her head back and howl for the joy of it, but she kept a grip on herself. The land wasn’t truly wild; it was owned by farmers and developers now, humans who didn’t want to hear wolves on it. The other wild animals out here—coyotes, rabbits, snakes—kept silent, sensing her.
Glory slowed, then sat on her haunches and sniffed the air, trying to calm herself. Dylan was finished with her. She needed to come to terms with that, even if it broke her heart.
The run helped a little, but Glory was still restless by the time she made it back to her car. Shifting back to human, she stretched, dressed, started her car, and drove back to town.
It was only eleven, and Glory wasn’t ready to go home yet. She turned along streets until she found a bar she occasionally visited on the outskirts of town. The bar wasn’t a Shifter hangout, but when a woman was six feet tall with a well-packed body and blond hair, the clientele seemed happy to accept her. Now that the shooters had been driven off it was a relatively safe place where she could sit and brood.
She believed in its safety until she walked out to her car again two hours later, which she’d parked at the edge of the lot. A human male stepped out of the dark, shot her twice in the torso, and disappeared again.
Glory’s Collar sparked as she instinctively tried to attack, but all feeling left her limbs, and she slid down the side of her car in a mass of pain. She quietly collapsed on the pavement, the gravel cutting into her face.
As she lay there bleeding, dying, she felt great regret that she’d never see Dylan again. She’d never be able to apologize for her stupid pride, which had made her throw away what little he was able to give her. That giving had cost him dearly, and Glory had thrown it back in his face.
A wolf scent came to her, sharp and pungent. She recognized the scent, which surprised her. Before she could form either hope or fear, the Lupine, in wolf form, walked up to her and sniffed her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“You’ve never been inside a grocery store, love?” Sean asked Andrea. “What, never ever? You’re missing a grand experience.”
Andrea gazed at the vinyl-tiled aisles stretching away from them with some trepidation. Not only did the aisles go on forever, they were filled with shelves upon shelves of boxes, cans, bags, and jars that all looked alike. “How is anyone supposed to find anything?”
Sean leaned on the handles of a wire cart, a luscious man out to do his morning shopping. “You soon figure out where they put the things you like.”
“I thought you handed a list to someone, and they found the food for you.”
“That was the old days. The village grocer would get in what he knew you liked and make up an order for you, in his friendly little shop on the high street.”