Sneak Peek at Sedona Scandal

I had to think about things like that now that I was a werewolf.

Some days I wished the wolf had just killed me.

By the time I crested the mountain, my first canteen was nearly empty. Good thing I had brought a backup. After the shift, I would be famished and parched. I took off my backpack and dropped it onto the rocky ground at my feet. Lookout Mountain was composed of ancient volcanos, making the rocky terrain tricky for hikers. In the dark, the mountain peak became even more treacherous, killing more than a few people over the years.

The danger kept it deserted at night and made it the perfect place for me to shift without being seen. But with any luck, I wouldn’t have to worry about it for much longer. Deidra Harlow promised me a cure was on the horizon.

Growing doubts gnawed at my insides. She’d been making me that same promise for months. Just over three years had passed since the night two massive wolves cornered me and my brother. One attacked us, while the other stayed back. Maybe a lookout. I’d probably never know for sure.

One bite from a rabid wolf had ruined my life, and hundreds of blood samples and tests later, I was still spending full moon nights alone on this mountain.

So damned alone.

How much longer could I keep living like this?

A gust of hot wind pulled at my ponytail. My long blond hair obstructed my view of the sunset as I unzipped my pack. My monthly tradition had evolved over months of trial and error. After being bitten, one of the werewolves shifted back. I remembered looking way up, but somehow, his face…I couldn’t remember. Maybe the shock had stolen that memory, but his instructions were burned into my consciousness. Stay away from humans during the full moon, and never come back to the Sedona.  

I discovered the rest on my own.

I took my cell phone out and opened my e-mail.

Let’s talk.

Chandler Williams

CBS Phoenix

Chandler Williams was the co-anchor of the evening news. I’d been watching him for weeks as I weighed my options. If I decided to give him my story, to tell the world werewolves were real, my hope was that the government would take notice and help me find a cure. Chandler was a well-respected journalist. People would listen if he reported my situation.

I stared at the email a second longer. This was my last chance to back away and keep hiding. Was I ready to talk? I lifted my gaze to the painted desert below, surprised to find tears rising in my eyes. If I took this step, there would be no turning back. Once I went to the press, my life would never be the same. I could kiss the Cain Foundation goodbye and the final link to my parents and my brother would be destroyed. Not to mention the world would know werewolves were real, that I was a werewolf.

Did I care? If Deidra and all her researchers at Evolution Defense couldn’t unravel the mystery of the new mutation in my DNA, maybe the scientists at the Pentagon could. This might be my only chance at a cure. And if I went to the press first, the government wouldn’t be able to eliminate me and erase the problem. Too many people would know for them to sweep me under the rug.

But on the other hand, what good would a cure be if my life was ruined?

I swiped a tear from my cheek, tipping my attention back to my phone. My life had been ruined the second a giant wolf bit my brother and me. The wolf took Brock and left me behind. After a year of private investigators coming up empty, I gave up searching for him and began mourning him instead. Grief was something I understood. Intimately.

This new existence, living in the shadows, this wasn’t a life. I had nothing more to lose.

Before I could change my mind, my thumbs flew across the digital keyboard.

Tomorrow night after the evening news. Symphony Hall. A ticket will be waiting under your name at will call.

Wendy

Since Brock’s disappearance, I had taken the reins at the Cain Foundation. My brother and I had started the charity with the trust fund our parents had left behind after an explosion at an oil rig took their lives. I’d been studying music in college at the time. The substantial inheritance did little to ease the pain of losing my folks, but building a foundation to support the arts gave me a new focus and a way to channel my grief. Brock planned investments to keep the foundation financially sound, and I fielded the grant requests. We’d been a good team.

Arizona Opera was my pet project. My mother had raised me on the classics, and my happiest memories were of dressing up to go to the opera with her. Tomorrow was opening night of Romeo and Juliet. Charles Gounod’s twist on Shakespeare’s tragedy never failed to touch my soul.

I stuffed my phone back into my pack, resisting the urge to email Chandler Williams back and cancel. This was going to work as long as I could make Chandler believe me. When he had interviewed Brad Newport, a candidate for the Senate recently, and although Newport had tried to spin the interview toward the military, Chandler had been relentless in his questioning, refusing to be drawn off topic. I admired his tenacity and unwillingness to be bullied. That’s exactly the kind of journalist I needed to help me.

After the last treatment from Evolution Defense had failed, I realized I needed a new tactic, something to get the government’s attention but also protect me from a swift elimination. Going to the press with my story would keep me in the spotlight. People would notice if I suddenly disappeared.

Hopefully, Chandler would be the key.

First, I would need to convince him I was telling the truth. I’d never met him in person, but something about him tugged at me, demanding my attention. Sure he was handsome, but it wasn’t his looks. In fact, from what I’d seen, his blond hair and bright-blue eyes made people underestimate him, assume he was nothing more than a thirtysomething, empty-headed television personality reading a teleprompter. He had leveraged those assumptions to his advantage, catching his guests off guard and digging deep into his interviews and investigative stories.

Maybe it was the fire inside him, the drive and hunger for a story, that called to me, reminding me of the woman I used to be. I barely remembered that kind of passion. I had given up on my dreams when my parents died. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, more of a slow drowning.

First, I dropped out of college and engrossed myself in building the philanthropic foundation with Brock. My life filled up with meetings with nonprofits and fundraising galas. The busier my calendar, the better. Then I lost Brock and my own humanity in a one-two sucker punch.

I just wanted another chance at life, at finding new dreams.

The sun began to sink below the horizon, hiding behind the jagged mountains. I unlaced my hiking boots and set them aside. For now, Chandler didn’t know my last name, and he damned sure had no idea I was a werewolf. I had enticed him into meeting with me with the promise of information about Brad Newport’s campaign donors. It wasn’t a lie. Evolution Defense had a substantial financial stake in the ex-military officer’s campaign. And once I was sure I could trust Chandler, I would let him in on the biggest story of the century.

Shifters lived among us.

He would be sitting beside one tomorrow night at the opera.

I stripped off my clothes, stuffing them into my pack before stowing it behind an outcropping of rocks. Pain shot down my spine like an electrical current, dropping me to my hands and knees on the rocky ground. The change was coming. I panted through the agony as my joints popped, breaking and mutating in a painful process that changed me from a twenty-eight-year-old woman into a giant white wolf.

This monthly torture hadn’t gotten any easier since I’d been bitten. The shift from woman to wolf didn’t even remotely resemble the smooth transition they showed in movies, and I knew that for a fact. Over the past three years of full moons, I’d done some of my own experiments with a GoPro clipped to my pack, and I had discovered that the transformation itself took about ten minutes. It felt like ten hours. The video footage was also how I found out my wolf was snow white, and massive, with my same silver eyes. For months, I had resisted thinking of her as mine. She was a monster, not a part of me.

I had spent hours watching the video over and over. Seeing the physical carnage of my body reshaping, hair jutting out from my smooth skin, was like something straight out of a horror movie. Then the monster would stand and shake off the last traces of humanity. There had been an instant, though, a moment I would never forget.

The wolf had come forward, staring directly into the camera, into my soul, and then she tipped her head back and howled. The first time I heard it, I wept. Her cry had seemed as if it had been ripped from the depths of my spirit, full of pure loneliness and the raw ache for…a pack?

That howl haunted me. It was mine. Ours.

I’d lost my family, and this wolf had never had one.

As the animal panted, enduring the painful last moments of the shift, my human consciousness took a back seat. My first couple of full moons had been terrifying and mentally exhausting as I fought for control of the animal. The wolf possessed instincts I still didn’t fully understand, and if a human ever tried to approach us or threaten us, I didn’t think I stood a chance in hell at keeping the wolf from attacking.

The faceless man who had given me quick instructions the night I was bitten had insisted that during a full moon, I needed to stay miles away from any humans. It had been good advice. Because once the wolf came forward, I was only a passenger.

However, he failed to mention that for the rest of the month, the creature within would still be present, like a shadow in my mind. My sense of smell and hearing were so heightened that I no longer made trips to the mall. The onslaught of scents from hairspray, sweat, perfume, candy, and fast food were dizzying. It was more stimulation than I could handle.

It wasn’t all bad, though. As the months passed by, I learned emotions carried scents, too, giving me deeper insight into my interactions with others. My enhanced hearing also allowed me to hear someone’s pulse speed up when they lied.

That’s what had prompted me to entertain the idea of talking to the press in the first place. A couple of weeks ago, Deidra had lied to me. I still didn’t know what she was covering up, but I was determined to find out.

The wolf scrambled to her feet and violently shook off the gravelly dirt. She sniffed the air, our senses reaching out, taking inventory of the terrain. Walking to the edge of the mountaintop, she lifted her head and cried out to the full moon, a lonesome call that reverberated across the valley. I allowed my human consciousness to settle into the background. It would be over soon.