Alaskan Sanctuary

by Teri Wilson

  “So I guess you don’t know why he’s going to Seattle tomorrow.”

  “What? Ethan’s going to Seattle?” Tomorrow?

  Zoey nodded. “Early in the morning. I’m flying him out there on my charter plane. Lucky for him, the group I was supposed to take up to Barrow canceled. Ethan’s reservation was just made yesterday morning.”

  “I see.” Yesterday morning? So he’d been planning on not returning to the wolf sanctuary without offering an explanation and fleeing the state. Interesting.

  Piper stopped short of asking for more information. What Ethan did and where he went was none of her business. Period. At least if he was planning to disappear without a backward glance, she’d been warned this time around.

  Someone knocked on the door. Considering she lived on a remote mountainside, her property had been hopping with visitors lately. Too bad none of them were actual paying guests who were interested in the wolves. It seemed she could attract only willful reindeer, their apologetic keepers and journalists with acute cases of wanderlust.

  She was pretty certain this most recent caller fell into the last category. “Sorry, Zoey. He probably has a question or something.”

  “Take your time.” Zoey reached for another cinnamon roll.

  Piper paused for a deep breath before swinging the door open. Do not think about the kiss. Do. Not. It instantly became the only thing she could think about. Okay, fine, just don’t let him know it’s the only thing on your mind. Act like you don’t even remember it.

  Hopeless.

  “Ethan, hi.” She opened the door and focused intently on his neck, not quite trusting herself to meet his gaze or, heaven forbid, accidentally look at his lips.

  Unfortunately, like the rest of his physical person, his neck was rather nice. Strong. Manly. Good grief. She forced herself to look him in the eye. “This isn’t a good time. I have company...”

  The protest died on her lips when she took in his grave expression. Something bad had happened. It was written all over his too-handsome face.

  “Ethan? What is it?”

  “It’s Koko.” Ethan was near frantic. A caged lion pacing back and forth. “Come quick.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “No.” Piper shook her head, clearly not willing to accept that anything could be wrong with her beloved Koko, the favorite of the bunch.

  Ethan had worried about this when he’d determined that something wasn’t right with the wolf. He knew Piper wouldn’t take the news well, especially coming from him. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell her. He’d hoped he was just being overly cautious when he’d noticed Koko stumbling in his enclosure. But then the wolf had collapsed, and Ethan knew something was wrong. Really wrong.

  “I think you need to call someone,” he said, as calmly as he could.

  But before he got all the words out, Piper ran past him, heading for the wolf enclosures. He started after her, and Zoey quickly caught up with him.

  “Ethan, what’s going on?” Zoey tripped on a rut in the snow.

  He hauled her up by the elbow and kept pressing forward. He could see Piper ahead, already fumbling with the lock on the gate to the pen. “Koko’s sick. It doesn’t look good.”

  “I don’t understand. Piper said she’d made rounds early this morning. She didn’t mention anything wrong. She even said how frisky and playful Koko seemed.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. I just got here, and as soon as I climbed out of my car, I saw him lose his footing. Then he went down.”

  They reached the enclosure, where Koko lay on the other side of the fence, motionless. Just as he’d been when Ethan had left him. Piper was in a near state of panic, tears falling down her cheeks as she tried to force the gate open.

  She dropped her keys, scooped them back up, but couldn’t manage to get the proper one in the lock. “I can’t.” She shook her head and held the keys toward Ethan.

  He took them from her trembling hands and released the heavy padlock. “I’ve got it.”

  Piper pushed the gate free with a clang and waited for him at the next one, her face pale and her teeth chattering. She’d darted outside without her coat, and the temperature hadn’t climbed much since sunup. It still hovered somewhere around the freezing point.

  Ethan had an intense urge to wrap his arms around her. For warmth. For comfort.

  “Ethan, hurry.” Her eyes pleaded with him every bit as much as her words.

  “I don’t know which key.” He held up the ring.

  She thumbed through the keys, nearly dropping them twice, and finally landed upon the right one. “Here.”

  He pushed it into the lock and turned. The second padlock snapped open with a click, and Piper shoved the gate open. She ran to Koko’s side and dropped to her knees in the snow. Ethan pocketed the keys and crouched next to her while she rested her hands on the wolf’s unconscious body.

  “He’s breathing.” She nodded. A silent sob racked her tiny frame, and she took a deep, shuddering breath.

  Ethan could see how hard she was trying to stay composed. He placed his hands next to hers on the animal’s broad side. Even in the snow, Koko’s coat should have felt warmer than it did. Ethan held his palm to the wolf’s nose, expecting to find it cool and wet, as it should have been.

  “Dry as a bone,” he muttered.

  “What’s going on? Half an hour ago he was fine.” Piper ran her hands over Koko’s flank in soothing circles.

  Ethan shouted for Zoey, looked up and found her still watching from outside the pen. “Call Stu Foster at the Gold Rush Trail race headquarters. Tell him it’s an emergency. And call Tate.”

  “Will do.” She nodded and ran back to the cabin.

  “Wh-who’s St-Stu Foster?” Piper peered up at him. Her teeth chattered so hard she could barely talk, and her delicate face was beginning to take on a bluish tint.

  “You’re going to freeze to death out here without a coat. Here.” He pulled off his parka and wrapped it around her shoulders, half expecting her to argue with him.

  She didn’t. She slipped her arms inside and let him zip her all the way in. He tried not to worry about the fact that she was too upset to even argue with him, but she looked so small and uncharacteristically fragile in his oversize parka that he couldn’t help it.

  “Ethan, who is Stu Foster?” The circular movement of her hands slowed and she balled Koko’s pelt in her fists, as if she held on tight enough, maybe he wouldn’t slip away. “And why did you ask Zoey to call Tate?”

  “Dr. Foster is the lead veterinarian for the Gold Rush Trail sled dog race. He runs a clinic down at race headquarters. He’s the most skilled veterinarian in the entire state.”

  “A specialist? I can’t afford that, Ethan.” Piper shook her head. “I can barely afford to keep this place running.”

  No thanks to you.

  She didn’t say it. She didn’t need to. The sentiment hung there in the space between them. Like a thick, impenetrable wall.

  “Don’t worry about it. I know Stu very well. He flew up to Denali a few times to help out with sick animals in the park. I’ll talk to him and see if he’ll waive his fee.” Ethan was inserting himself deeper and deeper into Piper’s world. How long could he keep this up? How long could he straddle the fence like this before he created a mess that he couldn’t clean up?

  He gazed down at the wolf at his feet. Perhaps now wasn’t the time to focus on such an uncomfortable question.

  “You’d do that? For one of my wolves?” Piper asked, biting her quivering lower lip. He’d dreamed about her lips last night. Behind her, the sun shimmered white on the snowy landscape. She almost looked as if she was surrounded by spilled diamonds. The visual was such a dazzling, beautiful contrast to what was happening that it made Ethan’s chest hurt.

  “For you, Piper.” He cupped her face in his one of his hands. A lonely tear slipped down her cheek and into his open palm. “I’m doing it for you.”

  She gave him a
bittersweet smile. “Thank you.”

  Had she thought he would sit there and watch Koko die? He couldn’t do that. Not when the animal belonged to Piper. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  “I’m not completely heartless, Piper.”

  “I know.” She nodded, but he wasn’t quite sure he believed her. “Wait, you never said why you asked Zoey to call Tate. What can he do to help?”

  How could Ethan answer that question without alarming her even more? Especially when he so desperately hoped that he was wrong about the source of Koko’s distress.

  He looked down at the wolf, resting so still and silent in the snow. Ethan had seen this sort of thing before. In Denali. He’d had the unfortunate experience of seeing it enough times to recognize the warning signs—immediate and severe onset of symptoms, breathing problems, inability to move. If he looked closely, he could see scratches on Koko’s muzzle, a sign that the wolf had been pawing at his face, a behavior indicative of pain or a burning sensation in the mouth.

  Koko’s eyes fluttered open and his paws twitched, as if he was running through an imaginary forest.

  Piper bent closer and ran her hand over his head, smoothing back his ears. “Koko? I’m right here, boy. You’re doing just fine. You’re going to be okay.” Her gaze flitted to Ethan. “He’s waking up. Surely that’s a good sign.”

  Koko coughed a few times, loud hacking coughs that shook his body from head to tail. He struggled to stand, but his legs folded beneath him and he fell back to his side. His craned his neck, lifted his massive ebony head and blinked a few times. He coughed again, then retched. His stomach churned and he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the snow.

  Nausea and vomiting. The only remaining symptoms. It was a textbook case. A chill passed through Ethan that had nothing whatsoever to do with the weather.

  “Poor guy. He’s got an upset stomach. Maybe that’s all it is.” Piper looked at him for reassurance, her emerald eyes shining with hope now that Koko had awakened.

  Ethan shook his head. “I’m afraid it might be more than that, lovely.”

  “What aren’t you saying?” Her voice broke, and that little hitch was nearly his undoing. “Ethan, tell me. What is it?”

  He hated the words that were about to come out of his mouth. Hated them so much. He would have given anything not to have to say them.

  He reached for Piper’s hand, still buried in Koko’s fur, and covered it with his. Beneath their intertwined fingers, the wolf’s wild heartbeat grew weak. Come on, Koko. Hold on. Hold on, you beast.

  A sound like waves roared in Ethan’s ears. This can’t happen. I won’t let it. “Piper, it looks like Koko may have been poisoned.”

  * * *

  “Poisoned?” Piper flew to her feet. “No. That can’t be possible. It just can’t.”

  She looked around, her gaze darting from the trees to the cluster of rocks in the far corner of the pen. Maybe whoever had done this was still there, hiding behind a tree. Watching. Waiting. But she was too panicked to make herself focus on any one thing.

  Nothing made sense anymore. How could this be happening?

  Ethan planted his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. His expression was calm, too calm. Beneath his collected exterior, she could see the threat of anger about to overflow. The telltale sign was the sharpening of his gaze. His eyes glittered charcoal-gray. Dark. Deadly.

  She shook her head again. “No. No, that can’t be it. He can’t be poisoned. He’s just not feeling well.”

  But no matter how many times she protested, she couldn’t convince herself it was true.

  “Piper, listen to me, lovely. We’re getting him some help.” Ethan was looking at her with the kind of concentration it might take to hold the world together when it was on the verge of falling apart. He’d called her lovely. Only this time, it had actually been sincere.

  Which meant this was serious. Gravely serious. The realization hit her with the force of an avalanche—Koko could die.

  Her pulse ticked like a bomb in her throat. No. Please, God. No. “But who would do something like this? Who?”

  Ethan crushed her against his chest and held her so tight that she almost couldn’t breathe. Too much was happening. Too much. Too fast. “Help will be here soon.”

  She wanted so desperately for him to promise that everything would be okay. She needed that reassurance more than she needed oxygen. “Ethan, he’s not going to die, is he? Tell me he’s not going to die. Promise me.”

  Lie to me, just this once. Lie to me.

  “We’re getting him help,” he whispered, his voice low and as soft as dandelion puff.

  But that wasn’t the same thing, was it? It wasn’t the same thing at all.

  “Tate and Stu Foster are both on their way,” Zoey called from the other side of the fence, her fingers curled around the chain link that kept Koko from escaping. From hurting people. So much worry, so much precaution. But things had turned out the other way around, hadn’t they? Koko was the one who’d been hurt.

  Piper should have seen this coming. The wolves were her pack, and she was their leader. They were her responsibility. She’d made a promise to them and to herself to always protect them. To give them sanctuary.

  She’d failed the one and only family she’d ever had.

  What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she make things work, even with a pack of wolves? Was it really such a bad thing to want a family? To want someone to love, and to be loved in return?

  She took a deep breath and smiled through the tears she could no longer keep from falling. “Thank you, Zoey.”

  “Piper, they’ll be here any minute. I promise.” Zoey stood no less than fifteen feet away, but somehow that space felt impossibly large. A cavernous gulf. Everything seemed different. Distorted. The morning sun moved behind the clouds, and the sky, swollen with snow, felt as if it was pressing down on Piper. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t get enough air.

  Because for the first time, the wild, beautiful world she had created for herself—the only world where she felt safe enough to live and love—felt as if it might be nothing but an illusion.

  * * *

  “Describe to me again exactly what you saw when you first arrived on the property this morning.” Tate scanned the contents of his police notepad and looked expectantly at Ethan. He’d been jotting things down all day, and it was beginning to grate on Ethan’s nerves.

  He wanted action. He needed Tate to do something.

  “Do we really have to go over this again?” He felt like jumping out of his skin. How long did Tate expect him to stand here on the opposite side of the fence while Piper was in there beside Stu Foster? They were bent over Koko, who’d managed to wake up before help arrived. But the wolf’s copper eyes were cloudy and distant. He didn’t seem capable of focusing on any one thing. Not even Piper.

  On a normal day, she was his sun. The center of his orbit. That wolf never took his eyes off her.

  “Look, I know you want to get back in there. I know Piper needs you right now,” Tate said.

  Ethan glanced at Piper. Did she need him? Really? He wasn’t even sure. But he knew one thing—he needed to be beside her.

  “I’m just doing my job,” Tate added. “You want me to get to the bottom of this, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Ethan lowered his voice. “But you and I both know who did this.”

  “Who?” Tate asked blithely. His composure was beginning to grate on Ethan’s nerves.

  He knew Tate was simply doing his job, being a professional. But it was hard to understand how anyone could be so calm, when Ethan himself felt as if there was a wild animal inside him, trying to claw its way out.

  Get ahold of yourself. Losing your mind isn’t going to help anyone, least of all Piper. “The person who left the graffiti is the same person who poisoned the wolf. It’s rather obvious, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not obvious.” Tate shook his head. “For starters, we don’
t even know for sure that the wolf was poisoned.”

  He couldn’t be serious. Had they not just witnessed Stu Foster administering activated charcoal to Koko so all the toxins could be purged from his system? “The animal was poisoned, Tate. Without a doubt.”

  “We’ll see. Stu is taking three vials of blood for testing. We won’t have the toxicology report back until tomorrow morning. Maybe even tomorrow afternoon.”

  Ethan’s fists involuntary clenched at his sides. He felt like punching someone.

  Tate sighed. “Look, I know this is frustrating. But we can’t make assumptions. Investigations don’t work that way, and I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do. Got it?”

  On a purely cerebral level, Ethan understood what his friend was saying. He even agreed with it. But every time he thought about the faraway, wounded look in Piper’s eyes when he’d told her that he’d suspected Koko had been poisoned, all rational thinking flew right out the window. “Got it.”

  “So once again, describe everything that you saw.”

  Ethan’s gaze flitted back toward the pen, where Stu was setting up an IV for the wolf. Piper looked shell-shocked, smaller and more vulnerable than he would have ever imagined, still wearing his oversize parka. Someone should get her a blanket. And some mittens. Maybe even a sleeping bag. He knew there’d be no dragging her from the enclosure until Koko was out of the woods. If that didn’t happen, if things ended as badly as Ethan thought they might...

  He couldn’t even imagine how she’d react if Koko didn’t survive. He remembered with heartbreaking clarity what had happened when the alpha female of one of the oldest wolf packs in Denali had been shot by a hunter. For eight straight nights, the canyon echoed with the mournful howls of her pack. They’d stood by her, even in death. We are here. We are here and we remember you.

  The other wolves, five in all, had remained loyally by her fallen carcass and refused to move. The hunter hadn’t even been able to collect his kill, fearful for his life. At last they’d moved on, but without the fallen wolf’s mate, the alpha male. He’d buried himself in the snowy hillside, so still that Ethan had mistaken him for a downed log. He’d abdicated his role as alpha and abandoned his pack. He’d become a rarity, a lone wolf. A beaten and broken prizefighter.