Wolf's Ascension

by Lauren Dane

  She heard noise downstairs. Laughing and talking and the smell of coffee rose, strong enough to motivate her to get out of bed. She padded into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower.

  She towel-dried her hair and got dressed, leaving her hair free behind a headband. She had a moment of dizziness as she pulled a sweater on over her head and realized she was starving.

  Outside the door Phillip and Ryan sat at the table in the loft area playing cards and drinking coffee. Phillip smiled sheepishly when he saw her. Still feeling bad about the pictures, she guessed.

  “Morning, boys,” she said, reaching out to touch them both as she walked past. Andreas saw her and yelled up to Phillip to keep playing his game, that he’d take it from there.

  As she descended the stairs, Kari took a long, greedy look at her man. Wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a T-shirt, he looked quite edible. He smiled, drawing her to him when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Good morning, little wolf.” He kissed her lightly.

  “Mmm. You taste like coffee with cream and cinnamon. I want more. Lots more.”

  “Oh you’ll get more. After breakfast we’re going right back to bed. Let’s get you fed. You’ll need your strength.” His voice was low, eyes glimmering with sensual promise. “Anna made you cinnamon buns but let me have one. Let’s go into the dining room, see if she’ll let me have another.”

  Seated at the table and watching the byplay between Andreas and Sean over the cinnamon rolls, Kari rolled her eyes but shortly afterward broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Are you all right?” Laurent asked her, coming over to crouch next to her chair.

  “Elaine! Come in here, please,” Andreas bellowed.

  “I’m all right. I just felt a bit nauseated for a moment. I’ve been through a bit in the last week, you know. It’s probably just the flu.”

  Andreas shooed everyone away from her when Elaine came into the room.

  “Kari isn’t feeling well. She went all pale,” Laurent told Elaine.

  “Just a dizzy spell. A bit of nausea. I’m all right,” Kari insisted.

  “Just the same, let me look at you.” Elaine put her medical bag on the table and popped a thermometer in Kari’s mouth, causing her to gag. “Okay. Well, let me check your pulse and look into your throat and ears.”

  After she’d given Kari a cursory look-over, she put her things back into her bag. “You look okay. You’re a bit warm but we run warm anyway. Why don’t you go and lie down for a bit?”

  Before Kari could protest, Andreas swooped in, picked her up and carried her toward their room.

  “Bring her some tea and toast please, Anna,” he said as he started up the stairs, leaving Anna scurrying into the kitchen to make her a tray.

  “I’m fine! Put me down!” Kari protested as Andreas walked into their room. Phillip followed behind them, looking worried. “Are you going to be like this every time I sneeze, Andreas Phinney?”

  He laid her gently on the bed, propping pillows up behind her. “I’ll be however I need to be to protect you,” he said shortly.

  Anna came in with the tray and set it down on the bed. “Here, eat it slow. You’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  “Thank you, Anna,” Kari said, patting her hand.

  Andreas started to pick up the toast and feed it to her. She grabbed his wrist. “That is not necessary. I can feed myself, you know.” And then she had to bolt into the bathroom to throw up.

  She could hear Andreas yelling for Elaine again and then he pounded on the door to be let in.

  She sat on the bathroom floor, trying to catch her breath. “Leave me alone for a moment!” she yelled back, thanking her ability to shut and lock the door as she’d entered the room. A girl needed a bit of privacy now and then. Jeez.

  “Kari, you will open this door right now or I’ll break it down. You know I can.”

  She crawled over to the door and unlocked it and he nearly fell in over her body as he rushed inside. He fell to his knees beside her. “Baby, are you all right?”

  “Yes. I told you, it’s probably just the flu.”

  “We don’t get the flu, Kari. You’re beginning to spike a fever,” Elaine said once she’d entered the room, checking Kari’s lymph nodes again. “Open.”

  Kari opened her mouth and Elaine made a distressed sound. “This is more irritation in the mucus membranes than I like to see after vomiting. Damn it. Your eyes are clear. You haven’t eaten anything that others haven’t, have you?” Elaine asked, looking worried.

  “I had chicken salad yesterday that Anna made just for me but I don’t think that’s it.”

  Cramps racked her body and she doubled over in pain. “Kari?” Elaine said, but it sounded to Kari like she was underwater. A thick sweat broke out all over her body and she started shivering. Elaine spoke but Kari couldn’t understand her.

  “I... Oh shit,” she mumbled and everything went black.

  * * *

  Andreas looked down at the shivering, doubled-over body of his Mate, trying not to panic. She smelled wrong. “Elaine, what’s that smell?”

  “Poison. Jesus, she’s been poisoned.” She started pressing Kari’s stomach to see what her kidneys felt like, if her internal organs were swollen or hard.

  Kari looked up at them, mumbled and passed out.

  Elaine stood up and took charge. “Andreas, get her to one of the cars. We’ve got to get her to a hospital right now.”

  Andreas picked her up and they all ran down the stairs. Phillip had started the SUV and waited for them. Sean didn’t know what was going on but jumped into the backseat, helping Andreas hold Kari. Phillip got behind the wheel, Elaine got in next to him and Ryan shoved into the front seat with them.

  “We’re taking her to the hospital in Wenatchee. I’ll call later,” Elaine called out to the puzzled group left behind as they tore out of the drive and onto the two-lane highway.

  “She’s going to be all right,” Sean said to Andreas, who looked more scared than Sean cared to admit. Elaine was on the phone, speaking to the hospital to get them ready for Kari.

  Ryan called the lodge and explained to Anna what had happened. Anna was to set aside any of the leftover chicken salad, just in case. He admonished her not to say anything about poison to anyone other than Tomas, Skye, Laurent or Devon.

  “Laurent and Devon are on their way. Your dad had to take your mom back to their cabin, she’s very upset,” Ryan said over his shoulder to Andreas, who nodded blankly before going back to rocking Kari’s unconscious form, stroking her hair and speaking softly to her.

  Sean stroked gentle hands over Kari’s legs, up under her pants. She was soaking wet and clammy. Her eyes fluttered beneath closed lids.

  “What’s taking so long?” Andreas’s voice was laced with fear.

  “I’m driving as fast as I can, Andreas. This road is narrow. If we got into an accident, it would kill her,” Phillip answered calmly.

  Ryan turned in his seat and put his hands over Andreas’s as he stroked Kari’s hair and face, lending his strength to his Alphas.

  Twenty minutes later—a land-speed record—they pulled into the emergency lane of the hospital. Andreas jumped out, directed by Elaine, who had him place Kari on a waiting gurney. Ryan went to move the car, and Sean, who practiced out of that hospital, helped Elaine get Kari through the ER quickly.

  “We need to pump her stomach right now,” Elaine said to the attending physician as he approached them. “We think she’s been poisoned. She’s vomited. She’s got a high temperature. She passed out less than half an hour ago and has been in and out of consciousness.”

  She continued to fill the other doctor in as they ran toward a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. There a nurse approached Andreas. “You’ll have to wait here.”

  “Like hell, I will. That’s my wife!” His hands shook as his voice cracked with anguish and rage. The nurse took a step back, pale at the sight of such a large man so close to losing cont
rol. The emotion radiated from his body in waves.

  Elaine had never heard him in such a state before. She turned to him. “Get yourself together, Andreas. You can’t come in. We need you to stay out here. Someone will be out to tell you when we know anything.”

  Grabbing his arm, Sean pulled him back. “If you don’t calm down, they’re going to kick you out of here. You terrified that nurse.” He put his face close to his brother’s. “Focus, damn you! Get it together. Come back to the waiting room.”

  Andreas blinked, seeing his brother, anguish twisting his features. “I can’t leave her.”

  “You aren’t leaving her. You’re right here. Elaine will stay with her the whole time. Now, please.”

  Numb, Andreas allowed Sean to lead him into the waiting room. A moment later Ryan, Laurent and Devon came in and sat down around Andreas. Phillip stood there, looking down the hallway, before striding over to Andreas. Dropping to his knees, he exposed his throat. “I failed her. Kill me, Andreas.”

  Snapping out of his numbness, Andreas looked at Phillip. Then at Ryan and Devon, at Sean and Laurent. Men whom he’d grown up with. Men he loved. His stomach clenched and he reached out to draw Phillip close.

  “No, Phillip, I failed her. Someone poisoned her. A member of our Pack. If you can’t trust your Pack, who can you trust? You did your best by her. You’ll continue to do so when she recovers. For now, get up. This is a public place.”

  “I don’t deserve your trust.” Phillip’s eyes remained downcast.

  “Did you poison her?”

  “No! Of course not! I’d die for her. I love Kari like a sister.”

  “So, why don’t you deserve my trust? Enough, Phillip. Enough guilt. I don’t blame you and you know she won’t, either. I need someone to call Skye. Have him ask Anna who was in the kitchen yesterday when she was making those sandwiches for Kari. I know it wasn’t the bread, I ate some of that. Everything else she ate, at least that I know of, others ate too.”

  Glad to have a task, Phillip got up, taking his phone outside to make the call.

  “Oh, and Phillip?” Andreas called to him.

  “Yes?”

  “No one leaves yet,” Andreas said and put his head back in his hands.

  * * *

  Back at the lodge, Skye listened intently as Phillip relayed Andreas’s orders. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll call you back.”

  He hung the phone up and went to go speak to Anna, who was beside herself thinking that it was her fault that Kari was ill.

  He did his best to reassure her and get her to focus on who might have been in the kitchen around the time she’d made the chicken salad. Right then it was the only thing they had to go on.

  “Well, you know how it is at a Gathering. Everyone under my feet. You were in here, grabbing milk and stealing apples. Drew brought me a flat of peaches. Alex came in and got something out of the pantry. Johanna was here to grab a cup of coffee. Andreas came in with Tomas and tried to get me to make him a sandwich with the chicken salad. I relented later and made him a turkey sandwich with the bread I made that morning. Thank god he didn’t eat the chicken salad too. Ryan came in and got a beer and Ellen came by for a bowl of ice cream. I think that’s it. At least within an hour or so before, during and after.”

  Alex and Johanna. The two Pack members he trusted the least. Johanna certainly hated Kari. But Kari, the sweet but surprisingly vicious little wolf she was, had taken care of that threat. Alex had sniffed around Kari a bit long for Skye’s tastes but had been properly submissive at all times. He trusted Drew with his life. There was no way Tomas would hurt his daughter-in-law and he didn’t believe Ryan or Ellen capable of hurting a woman they had both seemed to really take to. He knew that he hadn’t done it. Hell, if Andreas hadn’t been around, he’d have jumped on a woman like Kari.

  Kari would unite the Pack as never before, in his opinion. He knew Andreas adored his Mate. He knew Anna’s loyalty to Cherchez ran so deep she’d die herself before allowing any of them to be hurt. So back to Johanna, who was dead. And Alex.

  After a quiet word to Gregory about the issue of the missing poison from a few days prior and an order to check on what they had on hand and if anything else had gone missing on the property, Skye went out to speak to the rest of the Pack, who’d gathered in the great room. They’d kept the number of people who knew Kari’d been poisoned as small as possible. Laurent wanted to see what people’s reactions were as they all found out.

  “I don’t know anything new. Kari’s being examined now,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you all to see if you saw or heard anything that might help us figure out what’s wrong with her. She’s still unconscious and hasn’t been able to say anything.”

  * * *

  At the hospital, Elaine held Kari’s hand while they pumped her stomach. Her blood—which was handled personally by Sean, as werewolf blood was so different from humans’—showed positive for a common poison often used illegally on animals. Whoever had poisoned Kari did it knowing that she wasn’t human.

  The doctor administered a medication meant to counteract the poison. All they could do now was wait. Kari’s newly transformed system could fight off illness and damage ten times better than any human’s could and that gave them hope. If she’d been human and given the poison, it would have killed her within hours.

  But the more Elaine and Sean talked about it, the more they doubted it was the chicken salad. With their metabolisms, it seemed unlikely that the poison would have taken so long to affect Kari, and then so severely. Kari had transformed the night before and had been in a fight with Johanna. If she’d been poisoned before that, why hadn’t it affected her then?

  They moved Kari to intensive care and Sean went out to talk to Andreas and the others to fill them in.

  Andreas looked up at his brother expectantly.

  “She’s stable now. Her temperature is still high but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the body’s way of fighting off illness. She tested positive for poison, Andreas. They had to pump her stomach and give her a medication that will help counteract the effects to her system.”

  “Will she be okay?” Andreas’s jaw tightened.

  “It’s hard to say. We don’t know when or where the poison came from. But Elaine is with her and she thinks that the chances are good. Kari is strong, Andreas. Very strong.”

  Andreas looked over at Devon. “Call the house. Get them to bring that chicken salad here so it can be tested. Also, have Gregory check the shed. That’s where he keeps stuff like fertilizer, weed killer and the like. If there’s poison anywhere at the lodge, it’ll be in there.”

  “Wait a sec, Devon,” Sean interrupted. “We’re not so convinced it’s the chicken salad. The time between Kari eating the sandwiches and her getting sick is really long. She transformed and fought off a challenger without a whole lot of effort last night. When you two came back to the lodge, did you eat or drink anything?”

  “We had champagne. Both of us did. Two bottles. They should still be either in our room or in the recycle bin in the pantry. There were chocolate-covered strawberries. I only ate half of one but Kari, the little piglet, ate a whole tray.” He paused. “Do you think it could have been the strawberries?”

  “I don’t know. Anything else?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We drank the champagne and ate the berries at around midnight. We came downstairs and didn’t eat or drink anything that others weren’t drinking or eating. I know before she came to bed, the women all went out to Maman’s cabin to drink wine and gossip but I think they all drank the same stuff.” Andreas turned to Phillip. “You were there. Did they eat anything? Did Kari eat or drink anything that anyone else didn’t have?”

  “They drank a few bottles of wine. Jade had a bowl of peaches and everyone ate a few, me included. I think they might have eaten popcorn or chips, but they all did. I didn’t see Kari take anything that others weren’t also eating or drinking.”

  “Devon, have Anna send
the chicken salad anyway. Have Skye ask her about the berries.”

  Devon went out to make the call.

  “Can I see her?” Andreas asked.

  “Yes, for just a few minutes. She’s still in intensive care.” Sean led him down the hallway to the double doors of the unit so they could get to the elevators to ICU. They rode the elevator in silence.

  As they entered the ICU, Elaine stepped out. “Stay with her. I’m going to call a friend and see what he can tell me about this poison. I want some idea of time so we can narrow it down. We have a murderer in our Pack,” Elaine said in his ear.

  The truth of it sliced through him as he walked into the room and looked down at Kari’s small, frail form. She was so pale, eyes sunken, lips nearly blue. He sat and took her hands in his own, stroking her soft skin.

  “Little wolf, I’m here. You need to wake up now. The time to be sick has passed. We have so much to do—a new wardrobe and a ring to buy. A wedding to plan. I need you. I love you,” he said, trying to stay strong for her sake.

  Running his hands along her legs and arms, he smoothed his face over hers, through her hair, kissed her lips a thousand times. Listening to the steady beeping of the heart monitor, he sat and spoke to her of their future.

  * * *

  For the second time in a week Kari awoke to the sound of a hospital heart monitor. It was bright, but even as her eyes adjusted she could smell that Andreas was nearby. Immediately she calmed, his very presence a balm to her.

  She took a deep breath and swallowed hard, trying to speak.

  “Kari?” Andreas moved toward her, hope lighting his eyes.

  “Water,” she whispered.

  “Nurse? Elaine?” Andreas walked to the door and called out. A woman entered the room. “My wife’s awake and asking for water.” Andreas’s voice was gravelly from emotion and strain.

  The nurse leaned over Kari, checking her eyes with that damned penlight she’d come to hate. “How’re you feeling, Kari? I bet your throat is pretty raw about now.”