by RJ Blain
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
Richard chuckled. “I try.”
Elliot carried me into the hotel, cradling me in the crook of his arm. People stared, and I burrowed closer to him to hide from their scrutiny.
“She’s scared.” My two-legger cuddled me against his chest. “It’s like people have never seen a squirrel before.”
“Most people don’t bring them into luxury hotels. Most hotels ban rodents, too. They’re typically considered pests.”
I squeaked my indignation over being called a pest.
“Don’t you own this hotel? Change the rules.”
“Maybe.” Richard chuckled. “Let me tell the front desk we’re here, then I’ll take you up to our room. I might own and operate the hotel, but I keep getting told you own me, so you can probably do whatever you want.”
“It’s good to be the king.” My two-legger waited near the elevators while Richard spoke to the woman at the desk.
When Richard rejoined us, he hit the up button for the elevator, and once it arrived, he selected the top floor. “Someone will bring the stuff out of the car later. There’s several witches waiting for us in our room, and I’ve been told they have a gift of painkillers for you.”
“I hope this doesn’t take long. I’m exhausted.”
“You’re tough, but you’re not Fenerec tough. Don’t worry about it. Just do what the nice ladies tell you to, take your medicine, and get some sleep. I’ll stand guard while you rest.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re a tired, grumpy man who needs sleep and painkillers.”
While my two-legger grumbled and smelled of annoyance, he stopped arguing with Richard. When we reached the room, Richard stole me. “I’ll take care of your squirrel while you talk with the witches.”
My two-legger sighed but nodded. Three female two-leggers were waiting in the room, and I bristled at their presence. Richard stroked his hand down the length of my back and carried me into the bathroom. “Easy. They’re going to keep him busy until the sedatives kick in,” he whispered. “He needs the sleep, and I need them to help you without him getting in the way.”
Help me? How could Richard help me? I squeaked, staring at him with my fur standing on end.
Was Richard my man? The thought seemed wrong, so I discarded the idea as a possibility. Richard set me on the vanity beside the sink and turned his attention to a box on the floor. Chuckling, he pulled out a brush and a comb. “Shall we start with grooming your fur? By the time I’m finished, Elliot should be asleep so we can get to the serious business.”
I had no idea what sort of business Richard had in mind, but I liked the gentle strokes of the brush.
Chapter Five
By the time Richard finished grooming my fur, my two-legger was asleep, sprawled across one of the beds. A female sat beside him, her hand pressed to his throat.
“How is he?” Richard asked, setting me on his shoulder and stroking my back.
“He’ll be fine. Heart rate is steady, and his temperature is normal. His aura is in flux, but that’s no surprise. How much did he manifest?”
“He dumped all the snow in his yard and the water from his swimming pool into his kitchen.”
The female chuckled. “I’d guess it’ll be at least a week before he’ll be a risk to anyone. It took five minutes for the sedative to start kicking in. We should have eight hours before he wakes up.”
“That was fast.”
“It’s not uncommon, especially when a witch has used a lot of power. It’s doubly worse when it’s an uncontrolled manifestation. In a week, we’ll need to start his training. If he has trouble with control, we’ll dose him with rue until he can get a handle on his witchcraft.”
Richard nodded. “Good. I’ll keep an eye on him. Do you have new phones for us?”
The female pointed at the nightstand, which had two boxes stacked on it beside the lamp. “Temporaries, unsecured. You’ll have secure replacements this evening.”
“Good. Those sedatives are strong enough to keep him knocked out for this, right?” Richard hesitated before reaching up and giving me another stroke. “I’d rather not have to fight them both at the same time. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, why she’s a squirrel, or how bad this’ll be, which is why I asked for three of you to help. If she panics and the sedative wears off, I don’t want to find out how strong he is compared to his brother—and I don’t think I need to remind you about what had happened in Montreal.”
The three females grimaced, and the one beside my two-legger nodded. “You’re worried his manifestation was the opening volley rather than the main show.”
“Considering how strong his brother’s witchcraft is and the fact he’s capable of dampening it within at least a hundred-mile radius, I think it’s safe to say flooding his house was just the opening volley. Since the twins have been spending time at the lodge, we’ve been keeping a close eye on them, especially Amber.”
“And Mr. Anderson has never showed any signs of being a water witch?”
“Amber’s checked his aura countless times, and all the Fenerec had a sniff. Elliot smells almost exactly like his brother, and his brother has only the faintest hit of earth magic about him. We’ve always assumed Dante’s scent has been rubbing off on Elliot, but considering his manifestation, it’s likely Elliot has been influencing Dante instead. What I question is why Elliot wasn’t manifesting whenever Dante went on business trips.”
“Perhaps he’s so attuned to his twin his range is far larger than a hundred miles? It could also take longer for him to gather enough power to manifest. It’s been three weeks. A completely drained witch would need at least that long to recover. When we’re finished here, I’ll return to headquarters and make some phone calls. While water witches aren’t exactly rare, it’s unusual for them to manifest quite as dramatically as Mr. Anderson has.”
Richard chuckled. “At least he did so in the comfort of his own home. Can you ask someone to handle the repairs? Charge it to my account.”
“That’s unnecessary, Mr. Murphy.”
“He’s part of my pack, so it’s necessary, especially since I deliberately made threats to see what he would do. His pool is going to need repairs as well. Charge me, and don’t skimp on anything. I want everything that was damaged upgraded. Cost isn’t an issue.”
“Very well, Mr. Murphy. How do you want us to help?”
“We’re going to have to wing it. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Just be ready to jump in if it looks like I’m having trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
Richard took hold of me, sat on the floor, and set me on his lap. “Here goes nothing.”
Every nerve in my body burned, and long after I should have combusted and crumbled to ash, I writhed in pain. I tried to scream, but my voice failed me, leaving me to suffer in silence.
I hung in complete darkness, a captive within my own body. Everything hurt, and I didn’t understand why. When I did recognize something, be it a scrape against raw skin or the breaking of a bone, before I could identify the cause, my thoughts scattered.
With the pain came fear, and time warped until I couldn’t tell seconds apart from minutes or hours. The terror of being trapped for an eternity in agony took hold and stole my breath.
A dull, persistent ache in my chest offered something to focus on, and when I finally won a little ground, I heard a low murmur. As the pain receded, I began to shake, and I alternated between flares of heat and bone-deep chills. A whimper worked its way out of my throat.
When I inhaled, a pungent odor stung my nose. My eyes watered, and I blinked, giving a shake of my head. My tight skin stretched and ached, and a groan slipped out of me.
“That did it,” a deep voice murmured near my ear. “Vicky, you need to take deep breaths. You’re hyperventilating.”
My name was Vicky, that much I remembered. The rest of my memories scattered like leaves on a gusting southern wind. While
I recognized the man’s voice, I couldn’t place from where or why it was important. He was right, though. My breaths burst out of me in rapid pants, which made my chest hurt even more.
It took far too much effort to slow my breathing.
“There you go. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
I blinked and shook my head again, and the gray in my vision began to recede. A blood-stained towel covered me, and I was sprawled on someone’s lap—someone I thought I knew.
Recognition hit me so hard I gasped. “Richard?”
The Alpha of Yellowknife’s pack held me against his chest and brushed my hair out of my face, tucking the wayward strands behind my ear. “You worried me for a few minutes there, Vicky. I won’t ask how you feel. I need to get you in the tub, okay? You tell me if anything hurts.”
“Everything hurts,” I whispered.
“You went through a bad shift—a really bad one. It took you over six hours, and for a few minutes, I thought we were going to lose you. It took me and three fire witches to get you through it. You’ll be fine.” Richard worked his arms under me, grunted, and rose to his feet while holding me close.
I wanted to protest, but my traitorous body refused to cooperate. “What happened?”
Richard grimaced. “I was hoping you knew.”
It felt like I stood on a precipice, ready to leap into an ocean of memories. If I remembered anything, I’d remember everything, and I shivered. “I don’t know.”
Richard carried me to a large tub, secured a hold on me with one hand, and unwrapped me from the towel with the other before helping me slide into the warm water, which was covered in a thick layer of bubbles. Lavender teased my nose.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
I leaned back, relaxing in the water’s warmth. What was the last thing I remembered? Swallowing, I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”
“How not sure are we talking about here?” Richard reached behind me, grabbed a wash cloth, and dunked it into the water before wiping my face. “Are we ‘I don’t remember my name’ not sure, or ‘I’m embarrassed and don’t want to talk about it’ not sure?”
“I know my name.”
Richard frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Address? Age?”
My reluctant memories refused to provide me with an address, and my age was such a large number I didn’t want to admit it. “I don’t remember my address, but I remember my age.”
“Fuck.” Richard straightened, clenching the washcloth. “Do you know who I am?”
“You’re Richard.”
“Anything else?”
“You’re the Alpha of Yellowknife’s pack.”
“Your pack.”
My pack? I blinked, but while too many of my memories were hazy, I didn’t doubt his words. I remembered what a pack was.
The memories of being a squirrel, the wrongness of that shape, and my search for Georgia slammed into me so hard I jerked upright.
Richard slapped his arm across my chest and force me to lie back. “You’ll faint if you get up like that. Relax, Vicky. Take it easy. One step at a time. Start with what you remember. Tell me what you’re comfortable with sharing.”
My face burned from my embarrassment. “I’m not a squirrel!”
Richard’s soft laugh rumbled. “You’re not a squirrel anymore. It took a bit of work to wake your wolf, though. I practically had to perform the ritual on you to get you to start shifting, and once I did, it was a battle every step of the way. Unless I’m mistaken, your wolf’s out like a light, isn’t she?”
I frowned. My wolf? Puzzled, I canted my head to the side. Another memory teased me, and while apprehensive about what else I’d remember, I braced myself for the inevitable.
A soothing, gentle warmth kindled in the middle of my head and spread through me. I should have feared my wolf’s presence.
Without Samantha, I couldn’t control her and, as though understanding what would happen to us if she took over, she had fled to the deepest recesses of my mind, waiting for when she could come back without destroying us both.
“I don’t know.”
Richard sighed. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Do you know what happened to Dante and Nicole?”
Their names woke fear—fear of something terrible looming on the horizon with the same ferocity of an encroaching storm. I remembered them.
We’d been doing something, traveling together, I thought, but instead of the sense of having forgotten something—something I’d eventually remember—there was nothing. “We were going somewhere.”
“That’s right. Do you remember where?”
I shook my head, and because Nicole and Dante were important to me and Richard, I forced myself to concentrate on what little I could recall. “Dante was driving. Nicole was checking something.” I hesitated.
The short, beautiful woman with a temper had been rummaging through boxes, cursing about something. Dante had been driving fast enough to worry me.
“Nicole was angry about something, and Dante was in a hurry.” I paused, frowning. “Then there’s nothing.”
The nothing was a big, black wall in my memory, where everything just stopped.
“Do you remember where you were going?”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on Dante. I liked the man, but thinking about him hurt. He was too much like his brother.
I shook my head. “We were in a hurry. That’s all I remember.”
Richard ran his hands through his hair. “Okay. Do you remember how you became a squirrel?”
Once again, my face burned. “No.”
“You do remember being one, right?”
“Vaguely.”
“Do you remember me talking with Elliot?”
I did, and I turned my head so I wouldn’t have to look Richard in the eyes. “Some.”
“Dante and Nicole are gone. We don’t know what happened to them. If you can remember anything at all, I need to know. I need to get them back, too.”
The desperation in Richard’s voice hurt, as though he plunged a knife deep in my chest and twisted the blade. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember why we were there. Why were together. I don’t know. Why can’t I remember?”
“It’s okay, Vicky. None of this is your fault.”
The sourness of Richard’s lie hung in the air between us, but I pretended I didn’t notice. I understood the pain of telling lies, hoping if I repeated them often enough, I would believe they were the truth.
Somehow, I was at fault for their disappearance, but I couldn’t remember why.
Chapter Six
Richard cursed my uncooperative hair, which remained tangled despite his best efforts.
“Just cut if off,” I mumbled, contemplating if I could escape the tub without falling. Soaking in the warm water had helped, but my body still refused to do what I wanted. “I’m turning into a prune, Richard.”
“I’m not cutting your hair,” my Alpha snarled, attacking the ends with a comb. “I’m also not taking you to Elliot when your hair looks like it was tortured by a blender.”
I sucked in a breath at the mention of Elliot, and a blush heated my cheeks. “Richard!”
“I think he was right. You really might be the shiest living thing on this planet. We’ve been over this how many times, Vicky? The man’s your mate. Get used to the idea already. It’s been months. These things happen. There are far worse people you could end up with, and that idiotic shaman is one of them. That fucker abandoned you and took your puppies.”
When my Alpha started growling, bad things happened to someone. I tensed. “They aren’t my puppies.”
My nose didn’t seem to be working quite right, but I could smell the stench of my lie souring the air.
“Like hell they aren’t. You took them in, you’ve done your absolute best for them, and you’ve provided everything they could want. You gave them as much time as you could, at least when that fucker wasn’t getting in the way and hauling them off to w
ho knows where. Elliot told me about your custody problems.”
I flinched. While my memories weren’t fully intact, I remembered I’d made a point of avoiding the subject with Richard.
Alpha males became unreasonable when it came to their mates, puppies, and pregnant bitches. Because of me, Nicole was missing, although I couldn’t remember what I’d done.
Guilt had a scent, too, and I stank of it.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Vicky. It’s not your fault.”
Maybe he’d lied before, but his scent remained clean of the sour taint born of lies. I forced myself to nod my acceptance of his apology.
“Once I get these knots out of your hair, I’m going to tuck you into bed with Elliot, so when he wakes up, he won’t try to drown us again. I know you’re uncertain, and I know you’re uncomfortable, but he really needs a chance to reassure himself you’re all right. You need the rest. No one is going to come near you while I’m on guard.”
I hesitated then nodded.
Someone tapped on the bathroom door. “Mr. Murphy?”
“I’ll be right back,” Richard murmured, rising from his perch on the edge of the bathtub. He cracked open the door, and while I could hear the deep tones of his voice, I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
My ears weren’t working quite right, either, which unnerved me almost as much as my deadened sense of smell. It didn’t take long for my Alpha to return, and he carried folded clothes with him. Once he set them on the vanity, he returned to sitting on the bathtub’s ledge.
“I don’t have my allergy medicine,” I mumbled.
“Are your allergies bothering you? Your eyes don’t look red, nor are you trying to scratch them out for a change.” Deep lines marred Richard’s brow, and he reached over to press his hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel fevered. No sniffles?”
I shook my head.
“I’ll have someone get you a new set of prescriptions just in case. I consider myself fortunate you’re more susceptible to medications than the average Fenerec. It’s bad enough you wheeze when you get within ten minutes of the lodge, but I don’t think I could handle it if your inhalers didn’t work.” Arming himself with the comb, he took hold of my hair and went back to work. “I’m amazed I’m not making you sneeze.”