by Terry Spear
He smiled wickedly at her and rejoined her on the bed, his eyes hungry with need.
“God, how I love you.” She ran her hands through his hair, and he began kissing her mouth again, his groin resting against her naked thigh.
He moved his hand down her breast, sweeping lower until he found her clit and began to stroke. “Wet, hot, mine,” he whispered with a ragged breath against her cheek.
She was ready for him, on the verge of climax when she tugged at him to join her. She wanted to come when he was inside her. He obliged, sliding into her, then building a thrusting rhythm that had her teetering on the edge. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, moaning, nearing the top, ready to splinter when she felt the end slam into her. But he didn’t quit, deepening his penetration, thrusting until his explosive, wet heat filled her.
He groaned with satisfied release and held her tightly for some time, his cock still inside her, stirring.
“Damn, Aidan,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Hot, huh?”
“God, yes.” And she wrapped her arms around him. She wasn’t letting go until he was ready for her again.
“If you can hold on…”
“I’m holding.”
It didn’t take long for him to begin kissing her again. She loved her hot wolf.
“Love you, Holly,” he whispered against her ear, his cock lengthening, growing.
“Love you right back, Aidan.” She anchored her heels against the backs of his thighs and encouraged the building rush to sweep them away again.
Now she knew what other mated wolves had. Two people who were different, similar, sharing an unbreakable bond that would last their lifetimes, and being there for each other, not just like family and pack members, but sharing an intimacy that only mated wolves could.
* * *
Early the next morning, Holly was all set to head into the clinic to look through the old records, but Aidan, still waking up after their last bout of lovemaking, had another idea. He was sure Mike and Ted would think they’d never leave the bedroom this morning.
“Why don’t we get a few things done at the same time,” Aidan said. “We can look over the records in the comfort of your living room while the guys help pack. That way, they’re with us, but doing something useful. You can direct them about what you want to have them pack and what you’re leaving behind.”
“All right. Sounds like a winning idea.”
They got a call from Jared a little after that. “Ronald told me to call and see if you could use my help in going through the records.”
Aidan agreed.
“Yeah, sure,” Holly said.
“Okay, I’m supervising moving the files, but several other pack members want to help,” Jared said.
“Sounds good. Bring them to my house.” This was the way it should have been all along, the pack members helping each other and working with other wolves.
When they finally arrived with the records and had spread them all over the long dining room table, Holly began organizing those with changes and those without.
“I wish the doctor who had kept these records was still alive. I can barely read his hen scratches,” Holly said, looking at one of the records.
“Is his nurse still around?”
“Yes, actually. She probably would be able to read them better than anyone.” Holly called Anita and asked her to join them at her home.
Anita Wellington soon came, her blue-gray eyes assessing them, her step slow but steady as Ted assisted her to the table. “Oh my,” she said, looking at the first of the records, her eyes filling with tears. “I do miss that man.”
“I never knew him,” Holly said.
“He was a good man, would help anyone at any time, and had an absolute weakness for apple pie. Okay, tell me what we’re looking for.”
Sally arrived at the house to help them too, because she knew a lot of the medical abbreviations.
“Anything that makes those with the change in their longevity different from those who have stayed the same,” Holly said.
Aidan had a messy pile of records in front of him, and Holly wanted to straighten them out for him. She couldn’t see how he’d learn anything that way. On the other hand, if that was his process and it worked for him, she would leave him alone. She was busy looking through her own neat stacks of records, having separated them out into different categories. She’d put Jared to work with the other men packing her clothes, food, and household items. If they couldn’t find anything after they had gone through all the records, she was ready to drop this stuff off at her new home and go visit Jade, Rafe, and Toby.
“I’ve got records for some of the earliest years that we had records for,” Anita said. “What are we looking for exactly?”
Aidan sat back on his chair and studied her for a moment. “Anything that could affect DNA.”
“We’re looking at blood tests to see when those in the pack changed?” Anita asked.
“Blood transfusions,” Holly said. “What about blood transfusions?”
“Yes, look for those. Or, hell, bite wounds,” Aidan said.
“From fights with other packs?” Sally asked.
Jared walked in with an empty box and asked, “Paintings go too?”
“The wolf paintings. Everything else can stay with the house,” Holly said, but she saw Aidan staring at Jared, his brows raised. “What?”
“Check all the records for the time when Jared’s father fought the pack. All the bite wounds where the patient was treated but lived. We need to know which had bite wounds, and if any of them have the decreased longevity.”
“You’re thinking Jared’s father had something to do with this?” Holly asked.
“Maybe not, but think of it this way. A lot of blood was spilled, Jared’s and Ronald’s blood hasn’t changed, but they weren’t even born yet. They had half their father’s blood. Now, this is only speculation, but what if their father’s pack was one of the oldest? What if the dad’s people were the key, only they were wiped out in the fight?”
Everyone was searching through the files, looking for the ones relevant to that time.
Jared just stared at Aidan. “Even though he tried to take over the pack and killed off several of our people, he might have saved all wolf-kind in the end, if what you’re thinking is true.”
“Yeah. Only he hadn’t known it. None of us knew this was coming,” Aidan said.
“Then some of the pack who are still living received some of the blood during the fight,” Holly said. “Both my mother and father were in the fight.”
They found the files for all the pack members still living who had been alive during the last wolf fight and sorted them into four piles—some of each going to Sally, Anita, Holly, and Aidan.
“August 20 is when the wolf fight occurred,” Anita said. “Look for that day and a couple of days following that. If anyone was badly injured, they would have been treated that day, but the ones who didn’t need any treatment might not be recorded. You know how some men are when they don’t want to look like a sissy wolf, even if they have a wound deep enough to require some attention.”
“I’ve got Nick’s records. He’d been the pack leader, so he’d led the attacks and was chewed up pretty badly. Says he had thirty-four stitches for eight severe bite wounds, a broken leg set, and bed rest for a week, though the doctor said after two days, he was up and checking on the rest of his pack,” Holly said. Nick put the current pack leaders to shame. She noticed Jared was listening. She hoped he could see what a difference one man could make. Nick had saved their pack from Jared’s own father and then was put out to pasture when his mate died.
“Here’s another one,” Anita said. “Geoffrey, an accountant for the pack, had received twenty-two stitches for claw marks and bites. He came down with a fever two days later but then recovered.”
“And he has the longer life-span. I’m thinking that Clifford wouldn’t have been born back then, just like Holly, Jared, and others,” Aidan said. “They more than likely received the genetics from their parents.”
“Which means we’ll have to look through any of the deceased members who are the biological parents of those who haven’t been changed.” Holly pulled out her phone to have Trudy pull more files.
“I’ll take care of it,” Jared said. “Be back in a little bit.”
Aidan gave him a list of the pack members’ names.
Holly was hoping to God they’d finally find the clue they needed.
Half an hour later, Jared returned with a stack of files, but this time, Ronald was with him. “He said he thought you had a breakthrough on this case,” Ronald said.
“We’re not sure,” Aidan said.
“Holly, I checked your mom and dad’s records, but neither of them showed they had any treatment,” Sally said.
“I’ll call them.” Holly immediately got on her phone and reached her mom. “Mom, I’m going to put this on speaker because we’re going over the older medical records to see if we’ve found the reason why some wolves haven’t changed.”
“Oh my, that’s good news. Okay, dear. Go ahead.”
“When the third wolf war occurred, you and dad were involved in the fighting, right?”
“Yes. Every able-bodied wolf was.”
“Were you and dad wounded?”
“Both of us were. As much fighting as went on, we all were chewed on, just as much as we clawed and bit the aggressor wolves back.”
“You didn’t see the doctor to treat your wounds.”
“No. He was concentrating on those who needed a lot of care. We licked our wounds, went to bed, and healed on our own. A day later, the doc asked if anyone else needed their bites tended to, but we were on the mend, so we didn’t bother seeing him.”
“Then others could have done the same thing.”
“Many did. Only the badly injured needed his care. Everyone else took care of their own wounds. You think that fight had something to do with it?”
“Possibly. Maybe Jared and Ronald’s dad had an immunity to the change in his system, and he shared that with Jared and Ronald. Then anyone he bit, possibly Nick and others, received the immunity. Maybe others in his pack also had it, and that’s why so many were affected. But not all, if they didn’t fight because they were too young or infirm. Did Clifford’s parents fight in the battle before he was born?”
“Yes. His dad nearly died. He was the first to go down, and we thought he wouldn’t make it. But he survived and lived to a ripe old age.”
“Okay, thanks, Mom. Got to go. I’ll let you know what else we find.”
* * *
By midnight, they had narrowed the list down to only two men and a woman with the longer longevity that they hadn’t found a reason for.
“We’re going to need everyone who lived during the war and is still alive try to recall anything they can—” Aidan said, but Anita cleared her throat.
“Judith was just a baby at the time, but her dad fought in the war.”
Holly wondered how that explained anything regarding Judith.
“When Judith was fifteen, she was horsing around with some other kids at night, ran into the corner of an old wagon, and gashed her head. Her father gave blood to her. She was at the clinic for five days.”
“If the other two cases have similar results, we might have our solution,” Aidan said, smiling.
Holly thought he looked like he was the happiest wolf on earth. She was too.
To think they could have eliminated the pack that saved them all in the end was sobering.
“Okay, we need to look for any time after that when they received blood from anyone who might have the immunity up until today’s date.” Holly was ecstatic. If they were right, that meant blood transfusions from immune wolves could be used to make other wolves immune. Or bites even. Jared had bitten Mike and Aidan. He might have passed on his immunity to them.
“We’re going to make some lunch for everyone,” Ted said. “Taking sandwich orders.”
“I’ll help,” Jared said.
She couldn’t believe he was turning around. Maybe the Seattle pack would become the kind of pack it should be. Like others that were more welcoming. Sure, wary to an extent, but not threatening if other lupus garous had to go to Seattle for human business.
“I’ve got the records for Phil. If we can divide up the dates of the records between two of us, the other two can divide up Mixon’s records,” Holly said, joining Aidan.
Sally and Anita split up the records and started hunting.
Ted and Mike made ham, roast beef, and turkey sandwiches and brought them over to the table. Everyone grabbed what they wanted and took a break in the living room.
“If what you think could be true, I’m willing to donate my blood,” Ronald said before he took a bite of a ham sandwich.
“Me too,” Jared said.
“Once we’ve proven those who have the old longevity were changed by blood, we need to verify that those whose longevity has changed didn’t receive blood from anyone whose blood hasn’t changed,” Aidan cautioned. “It’s still a small sample compared to the whole of the wolf population we know of, but I believe if we find both to be true, we can assume this will work. At least in theory. And we can test it out on a small group of volunteers. Mike is already carrying Holly’s blood.”
Holly wanted to tell Roland See what a little cooperation can do? But she refrained from commenting. Ronald was smart enough to see the consequences of working together with them.
“She didn’t give you her blood?” Jared asked Aidan, sounding surprised.
Mike spoke up. “It’s my job to protect Aidan, in case anything goes wrong with this.”
Then Jared frowned. “When we fought, I could have given you and Aidan some of my blood.”
“Yep.” Aidan finished off his chicken sandwich and went back to work.
Holly finished her ham sandwich and rejoined Aidan to search Phil’s records some more.
Sally and Anita returned to their records for Mixon, and after another hour, Sally said, “Yes! Okay, he got into a wolf fight over the woman he took as his mate some years after the wolf fight. He’d been too young to participate in that. The wolf he’d had the conflict with was—”
“Me.” Ronald sounded annoyed over it. “I should have known she’d go with him.”
“They’d been courting for some time already,” Anita said. “Now we just need to figure out Phil’s situation.”
“We need to learn if any of the wolves who have changed had blood transfusions or fights with other wolves that could have given them a mix of blood. If they did and their blood is still changing, we could be wrong about this,” Aidan said.
“We’ll get on that,” Sally said, sorting through the files.
“So far, I don’t see anything in the medical records on Phil that indicates he went to see the doc about any issues.” Then Holly frowned. “Wait, not in the old records. About a year ago, his boy bit him while he was a wolf pup and broke the skin. Phil came in just in case he needed a tetanus shot. We’ve already determined his mate probably received the immunity from her parents who had fought in the battle. When Phil and his mate had the boy, he had his mother’s immunity.”
“All right, then everyone who hasn’t changed has been verified to have received blood from someone whose blood hasn’t changed.” Aidan sounded pleased but reserved too. Finding one person who didn’t fit with the scenario could still blow their whole theory out of the water.
They had dinner later that night after clearing four of the fifteen people whose blood had changed, though if they were like some of the others, they might not have seen the doctor, but taken care of injuries on th
eir own.
“That’s good enough for me,” Ronald said. “I want everyone who has an immunity to the change to give blood to those in our pack who don’t.” He got up from the sofa and headed for the door.
“We have to see if there’s a chance any of these people did receive blood and it didn’t help,” Aidan said. “If that’s the case, it might not help anyone else. We need to do this right.”
“You know what? We need to just call each of the people. Ask them if they recall being bitten by anyone on the list who’s been cleared,” Holly said. “We haven’t found any blood transfusions that were given to these four. I think it might be faster to just call them. We’ll have to anyway afterward if we can’t find anything in the records.”
Jared was talking privately with his brother in a corner of the living room, and Holly wondered what was up. Especially since both of them glanced her way and then looked away just as quickly.
“Offer less,” Ronald told Jared.
“How much less?”
Ronald said something, but she couldn’t overhear him this time.
“I think Jared’s interested in buying your house. Don’t let him steal it from you,” Aidan whispered to her.
“I’d let Rafe handle it, but there would be harder feelings that way. I’d much rather a wolf from the pack buy it.”
“I’ll buy it,” Sally said. “We could use the room, and the family that bought your parents’ place are good friends of ours. Our kids play with each other all the time. They’d love it out here in the country.”
Holly smiled. She’d much rather sell it to her nurse than Jared. “At my asking price?”
“Yes.”
“We have a deal then. I’ll let Rafe know that it has sold.” Holly got on her phone to Rafe and said, “Good news. My nurse is buying my home. We’re all set. Thanks for selling my mom and dad’s home.”
“Tell them to keep their money for setting up their new shop and any furnishings they want to pick up. I’ll take care of building their new home.”