by L. E. Horn
“Who needs enforcers when you have vet techs?” I headed out of the parking lot and turned away from Beausejour. “Please don’t eat her, though. Good techs are hard to find.”
She snorted. “Where are we going?”
“Lazy Tuesdays at Seddon’s corner. They have great food if they’re open.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Sometimes they’re lazy on Wednesdays too.”
She fell silent, watching the farms slide by.
“You okay?” I asked.
She straightened in her seat. “Yeah, fine. Just didn’t sleep much last night.”
I started to laugh, but it came out as more of a choking sound. “Helps if you don’t suck on my finger.”
“I licked your finger. And you were the one that walked into the kitchen half naked, all damp and bruised.”
The memory sent tingles down my spine to pool somewhere best not dwelled upon. I opened my mouth to reply but closed it. She was right. I might have forgotten to bring a shirt into the bathroom, but I should have put one on before going to the kitchen. Subconscious flirtation?
“Sorry. Next time I’ll wear flannel.”
“Oh, no. Half naked was fine by me. Just not conducive to sleep.”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah.” I remembered her eyes turning silver, as though the wulf had taken control. I didn’t think loss of control was a wulfan characteristic. Especially an enforcer wulfan. Glancing at the lines of exhaustion on her face, I decided it wasn’t the time to ask questions.
We pulled into the restaurant at Seddon’s corner. It was open, although the sign indicated that some Wednesdays, they were indeed lazy. When you’re this good, you can afford to be eccentric, I thought as I rolled the windows down for Keen. The day was not that warm, but I worried about how fast heat built up in a vehicle. For our many farm visits, I’d trained her to stay in the SUV with the windows opened all the way. In parking lots, I left her fastened in her safety harness, and parked where I could keep an eye on her. She gave me her best don’t-forget-the-doggy-bag look as we departed.
The food was casual but delicious. Whatever had started between Sam and me continued to sizzle with zaps of electricity throughout the entire meal. Awareness reached a new plane of existence, ensnaring and holding me captive. Watching Sam’s white teeth nip and nibble at the food became an exercise in seduction. Long fingers stroked each fry as she made her selection before raising it to her mouth. Her lips opened to extend a pink tongue, wrapping around the thick home-cut piece of potato and pulling it in with a move that left me breathless. Her scent drifted to me, making my nostrils flare.
I thought at first the seduction was unconscious, or even my overactive imagination, but when she glanced at me through her lowered eyelashes, her eyes had turned silver.
My big brain kicked into gear. Her wulf was at the surface. In a public restaurant. What the hell?
“Sam, your eyes have changed.”
They widened, and she dropped the fry. Her gaze locked with mine. “Christ”—she hissed—“yours have too.”
I blinked. Borne on the wings of emotion—one I was afraid to examine too closely—the change had sneaked up on me. I smelled the wulf erupting from every pore. I closed my eyes and breathed, but that only pulled more of her scent in, making my wulf leap.
Sam’s hand was halfway to my arm, but she stopped. “Go,” she said. “I’ll wrap things up here. Meet you at the truck.”
I glanced at her, but her eyes had returned to a normal, human, pale gray. I wasn’t so lucky; the wulf surged in me, fighting for control. I pushed my chair back, stood up quickly, and left the restaurant. Breathing deeply, I paced beside the vehicle. Without Sam’s scent and presence, the wulf snarled but slowly gave in, and the surrounding world took on a distinct human blandness.
Keen whined, either because she was concerned by my odd behavior or because I hadn’t brought the promised doggy bag. Fortunately, when Sam emerged with tension written all over her, she had the bag in her hand.
“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to leave you with the bill.”
“Better that than wulfing out in a family restaurant. As it was, the owner mentioned us steaming up the windows.” She exhaled through gritted teeth. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, moving around to the driver’s side. When she slid in beside me, I said, “That’s the closest I’ve come to losing it in public. I know I’m still new at this, so correct me if I’m wrong—you were losing it too.”
She fastened her seat belt with unusual aggression. “This is my fault. My job is watching over you, not—I can’t seem to stop it.” Her voice hitched with apparent self-recrimination. “Maybe I should switch with Garrett. Me being here is causing the thing we are supposed to be avoiding. I’ve never . . . this is new.”
This? I jammed the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. “What if I don’t want to avoid—whatever this is?” I kept my gaze fastened ahead, through the windscreen. The wulf still lingered near the surface, and I couldn’t even breathe, waiting for her response. Because maybe this was all just in my head, or some kind of wulf lust thing that meant nothing to her.
She remained silent, and I turned the ignition, thinking I had my answer. Her hand wrapped around my arm. I looked at her and was instantly lost in that pale gaze. Gray—but the silver shone through it—like the moon. Beautiful.
“That’s the problem. I don’t want to avoid this, either,” she said, and my heart leaped.
I reached across the console to run fingers along her face. They shook and my entire body trembled with suppressed—what? Lust? Desire? The colors surrounding us changed, sharpened. Every detail of her hair and skin achieved a startling clarity, and her scent almost took me over the edge.
But the virus, and the threat it represented, stopped me cold.
I pulled away and stared once more out the windshield. The restaurant’s neon sign sizzled against the window, trapped like I was.
“Is this some wulf thing?” I asked. “Because I’ve never felt anything like it before.” I put the SUV in gear and backed it away from the restaurant.
“I . . . I have an idea.” Her voice was so soft that even the enhanced hearing of my wulf barely made it out. “But I’m not sure. Josh said—”
Josh said? Is this why she was talking to him? What did he tell her? I opened my mouth to ask, when she spoke again.
“I’ve never felt anything like this either.”
Something inside me danced for joy that she seemed as lost as I was, but my heart ached. Because I remembered Dillon and his obsession with Chloe. Is that what’s happening to me? Is this real or is it the virus?
I pulled onto the highway. “Well, you can’t switch with Garrett. You might bring out one kind of wulf in me, but he’ll bring out another. And that one has bigger teeth.”
23
I was scheduled for clinic duty all day, so when we returned from lunch, I had Sam call Doc Hayek to ask about rabies and wulfan. She intercepted me down the hall from the clinic’s shower facilities—I’d washed the wulf smell off me and done a complete change of clothes—to tell me she’d made an appointment at Beausejour clinic for that afternoon.
“The doc said considering the virulence of rabies, it’s a good idea. Can I take your vehicle?” Her gaze seemed emotionless, like she’d locked herself down.
Darlene was in the clinic, so if we got emergency calls her vehicle and gear were available. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Sam appeared relieved as she headed off, no doubt to tell Mandy that she’d be gone. I watched her walk away before entering the examination room where my next client waited.
I barely saw Sam for the remainder of the afternoon. Once she returned, Mandy had her immersed in her version of “how to be the best—and most unusually profane—animal technician ever.” When I extricated her at the end of the day, she looked a fraction of her usual bouncy self.
“Chris invited us to supper,” she said, slumped on the passenger s
ide of the SUV. Keen reached between the seats to lick her hand.
“You look beat.”
Her eyes flashed with a hint of her usual feistiness. “You’re not supposed to tell a girl she looks beat. Radiant, beautiful, goddess incarnate—all those are acceptable. Beat is not.”
“Those go without saying,” I commented with a wolfish grin.
“That does not get you off the hook.” Her smile acquired teeth, more like my usual Sam.
She’s not yours. Echoes of Dillon’s possessive attitude resonated through me. I concentrated on breathing deeply as I started the truck and pulled out.
As I drove, a silence fell over us, and not an entirely comfortable one. Sam seemed lost in thought, as well as tired. It worried me that the enforcer side of her might be winning.
“You’d better not be thinking of switching with Garrett,” I stated.
She chewed on her lip. “I should switch with Garrett.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
She glanced at me. “Liam, whatever this is, it’s skating us too close to the edge. I’m not behaving in a professional manner, and I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Not your fault,” I pointed out. “I’m irresistible. One look at my naked chest and women swoon.”
“Not funny. This thing is testing your control. And mine.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Garrett will push me over the edge, and not in a good way. The man is annoying just standing there.”
One corner of her mouth did a little hitch. “Yeah. He’s a stickler for rules too, but he’s a good enforcer. He’s had my back lots of times and always comes through.”
I wasn’t proud of the wave of jealousy that passed over me. They work together. Stop being an idiot. Fighting to keep my voice calm, I replied, “Doesn’t change the fact we’d be at each other’s throats in no time.”
She sighed. “He does have an issue with animals. They don’t like him. He can bury his wulf like the rest of us, so it’s something else that causes it.”
I remembered Keen and Havoc avoiding him. “Some people just have toxic energy. That could cause issues for me at work.” I glanced at her. “I want you to stay.”
She tilted her head as she considered. “Okay. For now. But any more signs of us losing it, and you’ll have to learn to like six-foot-plus Ken dolls.”
The yo-yo effect when my relief swung me the other way from the jealousy made my head spin. Much as I didn’t want Garrett, I had to admit this thing between Sam and me took me closer to the edge than anything I’d yet experienced.
“I already promised to wear flannel,” I said.
She snorted. “Oh, the sacrifices we make.” She laid her head back against the seat and sighed. “But it might be for the best. Although with my luck, you’ll be one of the fortunate few that looks delicious in long underwear.”
“Well, my other career is lingerie model, you know.”
Her lips twitched. “You could give Garrett a run for his money. I’m sure that’s one reason he doesn’t like you.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right. Vet by day, model by weekend, wulf by night. Now there’s a resumé.”
“Well, you’ve got my vote. You’d have to get over your naked-in-public phobia, though.” She grinned.
“Hey, just because I don’t parade around in the buff—well, not completely, anyway—doesn’t mean I’m shy.” I glanced at her. “We’ve got twenty minutes to Chris’s, why don’t you try a power nap? I promise I won’t wulf out while you’re under.”
“Man, I must look rough. Okay, you drive, I’ll sleep.” She kicked off her runners, squirmed in her seat until her feet were up on the dash, and was out like a light.
* * *
I drove slowly on the highway, stretching the trip out to half an hour and forcing traffic to zip by me. As her breathing slowed and deepened, a sense of contentment stole over me. This is how it could be. Unbidden, the thoughts popped into my mind. Just her and me. Together.
Only at the moment, it wasn’t just her and me. A lot of uncertainty, wrapped up in one nasty virus, lay between us. If I tested positive, this could be one of the last normal days of my life. By our figuring, Dillon was already losing it by the time he’d been infected as long as me. If our initial timeline was correct, I reminded myself.
A car passed me on the highway, and I realized it looked familiar. Sure enough, as I turned down Chris’s access road, I followed it in. As soon as I slowed, Sam roused, rubbing her face. “Wow. I zonked.” She bent to retrieve her runners and put them on without undoing the laces. Looking up, she squinted ahead of us. “Is that Chris?”
“I think so. Garrett must have let him off leash to pick something up in town.”
“Either that or he couldn’t stop him, which is more likely.”
When we pulled up to the house in Chris’s wake, Garrett stood in the middle of the back lawn, staring at his tablet with a concentration that set off alarm bells. The rigidity of his body only added to my concern. As did the fact that he didn’t turn to acknowledge us, even though he had to have heard the vehicles pull up.
Sam agreed with me. “Something’s wrong.” She bailed from the SUV as I reached to unsnap Keen from her restraint harness. My furry friend bounced out the door after me.
Chris emerged from his vehicle wearing a frown and not bothering to unload the bags of food I could see in the back seat.
“What’s up?” he called to Garrett.
“They’re gone.”
The words sent a shiver through me. Peter and Josh. How could they be gone? He was supposed to be watching them.
Garrett didn’t turn as we walked up. Keen sniffed near him, keeping her distance, and then trotted across the lawn, her nose to the ground.
“Garrett, what the hell?” I sensed the anger coming off Chris in waves. “I was only gone an hour. They were playing Grand Theft Auto when I left. Where did they go?”
Grand Theft Auto? Since when does Peter play games? I knew Chris and Josh had a major man cave in the basement, complete with an elaborate entertainment system, but I didn’t know Peter liked to play. Of course, a month ago I didn’t know he was a wulf, so what do I know?
When I stepped up beside Chris, I saw that Garrett had an app open on his tablet. It showed a satellite view of the area, with two bright-red dots on the move. A blue dot indicated Garrett’s position, and three more reds clustered around him.
“I thought only Jason had our tracker codes,” I said. My heart pounded.
“Yeah, well, he gave them to me,” Garrett growled. “They were in the middle of their game. I went to the barn to work out, and when I came out to check on them, they were gone. The damned dog, too.”
“Havoc’s with them? Maybe they took him for a walk.” Chris sounded strangled, like he wasn’t breathing.
“They’re moving too fast to still be on two legs,” Garrett ground out. He handed Chris the tablet and stripped.
Chris’s face had lost all color. He transferred the tablet to me and started to rip off his shirt, but Garrett grabbed him by the arm. Chris shook him off, and I caught a flash of gold wulf eyes.
“No. You’re on lockdown—remember? Sam and I will go. You stay here with Liam.” The sympathy in Garrett’s voice surprised me. “We’ll bring them back, Chris, in one piece, I promise.”
Chris shot me a glance, and I read his mind—if he broke the rules and shifted, I would too, and he wasn’t wrong. Peter and Josh were out there running as wulves in broad daylight. My wulf strained to be let loose.
“They wouldn’t consciously break the rules,” I said through gritted teeth.
Chris shook his head. “It’s another memory thing, got to be.”
“It’s on me,” Garrett said, his jaw lengthening. “Shudn’t huve luft thum.” Black hair raced across his body and I winced as the collarbones gave way with two loud snaps.
Sam beat him to the wulf, her smaller cinnamon-haired form tracking across the yard in Keen’s wake. I c
alled my furry friend back. I didn’t want her with them if Peter and Josh’s wulves were running wild.
“If you need us, you damned well better howl,” Chris yelled after them.
Keen whined beside me, wanting to run with the wulves, even if she didn’t like Garrett. “Sam will find them.” I said it as much to reassure myself as Chris. I barely recognized my own voice with the hoarse undertones of wulf laced through it.
Chris must have heard the wulf and recognized my efforts to maintain control. He put a hand on my arm. “Sam’s a good tracker. And Garrett doesn’t give up, ever. They’ll find them.”
I looked at the tablet and watched the red dots move. They had to be flying on four legs, moving deeper into the Mars Hill Wildlife Management area, which ran behind Chris’s property.
My brain raced through possibilities. I can’t just sit here and wait. I looked at Chris, who’d pinned a lip beneath a fang with enough force that it bled.
“Is there any way to access the area by vehicle?” I asked.
He nodded. “ATV trails run through part of it, but they aren’t anywhere near them. I’ll take us out there anyway, but I don’t know how much good we’ll be.”
At my feet, Keen whined, and it gave me an idea. “Havoc might still be with them. If you can get us within hearing range, he might come if Keen barks. It could bring them right to us.”
Chris was already moving toward the barn. “Do you have portable med gear?” he asked.
I darted to the SUV and dug around in the back. Finding my emergency vet kit, the same one I’d used the night Peter was injured, I shoved the tablet into it. I’d just slammed the door when Chris drove something out of the barn.
It was a side-by-side, but not one I’d ever seen before. Looking like a golf cart on serious steroids, it had six wheels, a large bed in behind and a big rack out front. It looked like it could tackle just about anything.
So that’s what was under that tarp. I thought it was a couple of quad ATVs. As I jogged across the lawn, Chris got out to dig through a hard-sided storage compartment behind the seat and slung something over his shoulder.