Legend of the White Wolf hotw-4

by Terry Spear

  Rescue? Her heart lifted. Or Kintail's men? Her hopes took a dive. She stared at the spruces, figured she'd better get back to protect Charles and the dogs, and prayed Cameron would be all right.

  With no sign of the snowmobiles yet, although they were headed this way, she raced to feed the dogs, who pranced and danced around her, eager for breakfast.

  Hurry back, Cameron. Now, she silently pleaded.

  After putting food out for the dogs, she returned to Cameron's tent to get the first aid kit and change Charles's bandage before the snowmobiles arrived, three of them, she thought. They continued to roar toward them and as they drew closer, the dogs let out a chorus of wild barking.

  Listening to the noisy snowmobiles, she loved how much quieter and in tune with nature dog sledding was. Then as she saw the three machines in the distance, she felt the heavy metal gun in her pocket and held onto the can of pepper spray.

  The three men drove into camp, wearing ski masks and snow goggles, their fur-trimmed hoods hiding their faces so she couldn't see their expressions. Then Cameron, or at least she hoped it was, loped back into camp as a wolf. He eyed the newcomers, sniffed the air, moved in closer to her in a protective mode, bumping her leg, nuzzling her. She was glad to have him on her side.

  "Where's Charles?" one of the men asked, climbing off the snowmobile. He glanced at the wolf, but he didn't seem surprised.

  He knew Charles? Had to be a friend the way he sounded worried. Which would have eased her concern but the fact he didn't act shocked to see a wild wolf in camp meant he knew Kintail and his wolves. But then again, it seemed everyone knew of Kintail and his wolves.

  "He's been injured. How do you know him?"

  "I'm his cousin. He didn't tell us he had paying customers for an overnight sled ride, and he's late arriving home. His sister is worried sick about him. How was he injured?"

  A cousin. Relieved, Faith motioned to the tent. "It's a long story. We became separated from him and when we found him, he'd been hurt. He was struck in the head and appears to have a concussion."

  "Separated?" The man frowned at her, then stormed inside the tent and spoke in French, but she couldn't understand what he said.

  At once, she felt as though they thought Cameron and she were party to a crime.

  The other two men dismounted and began taking care of the dogs, putting on their booties, packing up the sleds. The dogs' barking was nearly deafening.

  His brow deeply furrowed, Charles's cousin exited the tent. "I'm Michael Roux. Charles is conscious and said you need to return to the cabins, pack your bags, and leave for Millinocket at once. You and my brother, George, can take the snowmobiles in. The rest of us will follow with the sleds when we've finished packing."

  Cameron loped past them into his tent and after a few minutes, reemerged in his human form, dressed for the weather. Faith closed her gaping mouth. Guess he had the wolf change business under control.

  Michael and the others took notice, but didn't say a word. They knew. She wondered how many other local area residents knew about Kintail and his wolves. Or were Charles and his cousins also some of the same kind of creatures?

  Cameron hauled out his sleeping bag, and Faith's and his bags, avoiding looking at anyone, appearing uncomfortable as hell. Faith hurried to help him.

  "You must be with Kintail," Michael said to Cameron as he worked on the dogs' harnesses.

  Faith felt her blood pressure rise.

  Cameron sliced him a glare. "Not in this lifetime."

  Michael and the other two men stopped harnessing the dogs, and he glanced back at Charles's tent and swore under his breath, "Damn, Charles." He considered Cameron's torn parka sleeve. "When did it happen?"

  "A couple of days ago."

  Michael considered Faith. "Were you bitten also?"

  "Not by one of Kintail's wolves." Faith avoided eye contact with Cameron.

  Cameron threw their bags on one of the snowmobiles. "Yeah, she was... by mistake."

  Michael shook his head. "Best if the two of you leave the region pronto, if you know what's good for you."

  Cameron gave him a caustic look. "I'm still looking for two of my friends."

  "We admire you and your kind." Michael bowed his head slightly in reverence. "Kintail and his people have been here for centuries—magical creatures, powerful and at one with nature. They have always lived in peace with our people, the tales passed on from generation to generation, while we have honored their ways. Which means we don't interfere in their… your business. What goes on with Kintail's pack, territorial disputes, internal encroachments or external ones, will be decided by you and your kind."

  Faith closed her gaping mouth. Kintail was one of them. For centuries this had been going on? It had to have been what her father's research was all about!

  What about what the men in the hot tub had said? They hadn't found Bigfoot, but something else? The man killed in Kintail's office… with silver. Hell, he was a… werewolf?

  The fairy tales were true? But then again, silver in high amounts could kill anyone.

  "We appreciate your helping us out, and we'll take it from here." Cameron took the gun from Faith and shoved it in his pocket.

  The notion they were out on a twig of a limb without a safety net crossed Faith's mind. This was so not good. Wanting to thank Charles and say good-bye, she stalked into his tent, but his eyes were shut and when she crouched next to him and spoke, he didn't respond.

  "Thank you, Charles, for everything." She kissed his cheek and pulled the blanket higher. "We appreciate everything you did for us, and if I can ever pay you back… just contact me." She hoped he was really awake, or enough so that he could hear her. But she intended to check on him after they returned to Millinocket later.

  When she reemerged from the tent, she asked Michael, "Will Charles be all right?"

  "That hard head of his has taken a lot of knocks. Yeah, he'll be fine, but he shouldn't have gotten into Kintail's business. He knows better."

  "I can't understand how you can treat Kintail as if he should get away with this," she said, waving toward Charles's tent, "as if you don't care." Faith's voice was much higher pitched than she meant it to be, but she couldn't believe Charles's family would allow such brutality to one of their own. Maybe they didn't care about Cameron's friends, but Charles was their cousin! "You act as though Kintail's a god!"

  "I'm certain you'll come to understand Kintail's ways before long. All I can say is that we were not put here to judge him or his kind." Michael turned to George. "Get them to the resort and make sure they leave for the trailhead after that. We'll be headed that way shortly. And don't talk to anyone. We don't want any more trouble."

  George barely let Faith and Cameron mount their snowmobiles before he took off. He drove so fast she wondered if it was because he didn't want Kintail or his people to catch him aiding them, he hoped to lose them, or he just wanted to get back as quickly as possible to help Charles.

  She glanced at Cameron driving behind her. Was he getting the wolf change more under control? She hoped so or he'd have to live like a mountain man. Find a job where he could work out of his home. No dealing with people on a regular basis. Only private eye investigations under the cover of dark.

  Then she worried about her own situation. What if she began to change? There went her job, too.

  She didn't feel any urge in that regard, though. Thankfully. Through her balaclava, she smelled the air, crisp, clean, and cold. Nothing unusual about it. Maybe the only time someone like Cameron had the wolf sense was when he was a wolf. That would be understandable. At least as much as turning into a wolf could be believable.

  But the whole time back, she worried about what they would report to the police. That a wolf attacked Cameron, changed him into something mythical? And maybe she was in the same boat, too? That he'd killed two wolves defending her who happened to be men also? That Kintail or one of his men had nearly killed Charles?

  Officers Whitson and Adams
would believe every bit of it. Right.

  In half the time it took to travel with the dogs, they arrived on the snowmobiles back at the cabins. As soon as they dismounted at the lodge, Faith hoped to understand more of what they were up against. She asked George before he could run off, "What do you know about Kintail's wolves?"

  He cast a disgruntled look her way. "You're not one of the Cree and you're not an accepted member of Kintail's pack. If I were you, I'd do what my brother suggested. Get out of here before Kintail or his people make you vanish for good."

  "But Cameron is one of them," Faith insisted.

  George shook his head and took the keys to the snowmobiles from them. "Kintail hasn't made him part of his pack and none of his people will welcome him here while the leader wants him dead. My own people won't willingly take sides with an outsider who's one of Kintail's kind but on his terminal list. So Cameron will have to leave and…" He lifted a shoulder. "… maybe start his own pack. Since Cameron bit you…," George said, his lips lifting slightly, "for all practical purposes he's already claimed a mate."

  Faith's mouth gaped, and she quickly looked at Cameron.

  He cleared his throat and took her hand. "We don't know that you've been infected."

  George looked like he didn't believe she'd escaped Cameron's fate. "Kintail's pack rules this territory. The best thing for the two of you to do is return to your own region. Although blending in someplace else might be hard to do when the shift occurs. No Arctic wolves in the States, except for Alaska. Unless you manage to win the populace over like Kintail and his people have here, pretending that the wolves are pets."

  George's expression darkened. "The problem if you go to Alaska is it's the only place in the United States that animals can be shot from an aircraft through some loophole in the law. So, hunters will either kill from the air, or run the wolves or other hunted animals down until they're too exhausted to escape, land the aircraft, and shoot their prey. A magical wolf would then be just as much at risk of being hunted down while in its wolf form. Many hunters oppose aerial hunting because it violates the ethics of fair chase, but the ones who don't..." His jaw taut, George shook his head.

  "You can leave the keys to the cabins on the kitchen counters." Then George went inside the lodge and shut the door.

  "You might be all right, Faith," Cameron reiterated. "You might not have contracted my… condition."

  But she wasn't just concerned about herself. "What will you do? And what about your friends?"

  Cameron took Faith's uninjured hand, walked her past the shower facility, and headed for the path through the woods to her cabin. "I can't leave until I find them. It appears you don't need to stay here any longer though. Seems your father might have seen something of what I've become while he was doing his research. And I doubt that even if the flash drive still exists, Kintail will want your father sharing the information with the world. In fact, it's too dangerous for you here. Until I can get you on a plane out of here, you'll stay with me, but then you need to return home."

  She frowned at him. "I agree that my dad probably found out about Kintail and his people and that's what he wrote about. Maybe someone was following him like he thought because of what he'd known." Faith pulled Cameron to a stop. "What if Hilson is dead? If he tried to blackmail Kintail with the information, he or his people most likely would have killed him. Maybe that's why he's no longer at the cabin. Or maybe he's one of them." She took a deep breath. "But even so, I can't go, not now."

  "Listen, I've got to find my friends and free them from Kintail's clutches if they're still alive. Somehow. It's not going to be a walk in the park. But I can't be watching your back also. It's too dangerous."

  She "humpfed" and headed off to the cabin. "For your information, Cameron MacPherson, I may already have your, uhm, problem, condition, whatever. So I'm not about to get on an airplane and fly home before I know for sure. What if I changed in the middle of the flight? No pets allowed, and certainly no feral wolves.

  "I could see myself having an episode and having to hightail it to the bathroom. Then the seat belt lights go on, and I'm stuck in the privy as a wolf. The stewardess is pounding on the door, trying to get a stubborn passenger to retake her seat. And I can't say a word. The stewardess uses a key on the door, afraid there's something terribly wrong. And there is. I've got big sharp teeth, an extraordinary sense of smell, and better vision—all the better to see, smell, and eat her with. So I'm staying here until I know the whole story."

  He didn't say anything for quite a while, his hand still tight around her arm as he held her close, helping to keep her warm from the bitter breeze. Then he cleared his throat. "Okay, but you continue to stay with me for the time being. And," he turned to look at her and added, "if you don't show any signs of what I have, you go home, pronto."

  She glowered at him. "It would be my pleasure." Although she didn't mean it in the least. Had to be a case of immediate rebound. Hell, she was ready to settle down with a wolf-man?

  "What if this condition affects people differently? What if I take longer to change?"

  Cameron let out his breath in a frosty huff and hurried her faster toward her cabin, but didn't reply. Then he mumbled, "I shouldn't have gone with you and Charles. I put you at risk."

  Surprised, she glanced up at him. He was feeling this was all his fault? "Right, you protected me from the big bad wolf behind the shower room."

  When he raised his brows at her in disbelief, she frowned. "He was coming for me. You got in his way. So you just delayed the inevitable. He still got me, only through you." She gave a half smile. "Besides, I've been in worse predicaments."

  He opened his mouth and she figured he planned to contradict her.

  She shook her head. "Okay, maybe not anything worse than this. Although I did have a mad killer after me once."

  He snorted.

  "I did. In my line of work, sometimes the crazies go after the forensic scientists. He didn't want me to learn how he'd murdered three of his victims."

  A look of admiration crossed Cameron's face for a second, then he was back to being annoyed. "Okay, so that was one mad killer. This is a pack of them. And I'm serious about sending you home." Cameron took Faith's hand and continued walking her down the path to Black Bear Den cabin. But as soon as he stepped on the deck, he paused to smell the air, and frowned.

  She smelled something, too. A hint of spice, and something else.

  Cameron pulled the door open.

  Leidolf Wildhaven, his brows lifted, stood in the middle of the cabin amongst Faith's colorful bras and panties, which were strewn about the floor.

  Chapter 14

  "WHO THE HELL TOLD MY MEN TO GO AFTER CAMERON and the woman at their campsite?" Kintail asked Lila, suspecting she had everything to do with it as he glowered at her, and then he switched his deadly look to the rest of his pack.

  Twelve males and six females stood around his great room, their expressions wary, looking rebuked. The only two who didn't seem that way were David and Owen. But then they wouldn't have had anything to do with it. And if anything, they seemed pleased to hear that things went so well for their partner and friend.

  Kintail growled. Two people murdered at the hands of fanatical killers and two more dead because of this damned Cameron MacPherson. Although Kintail didn't blame him. The newly turned wolf was protecting what he felt was his property. But she wouldn't be for long.

  "Who?" Kintail asked again, his voice just as hard. No one spoke. He motioned to one of the older women. "Katina was the only one who did what she was told. Well, she and Vance and Luke." He bowed his head slightly to them, glad they'd been so quick thinking when Charles appeared out of the blue with his sled teams and Cameron and Faith. Katina locking Cameron and Faith in the barn while they were snooping around couldn't have been better planned, and Vance and Luke guarding the building in their wolf forms was the perfect touch. Even if it didn't work to keep his hostages where he wanted them, at least some of his people
were making the right effort.

  "Despite that he's newly one of us, Cameron is an alpha, folks, if any of you are too shortsighted to see that. He's not one to mess with. But from what I could see of the track marks at their campsite, Baker targeted Faith. To kill her? Or to have her? Since he's dead, the case is moot. But if anyone else tries to touch the woman, you won't only have her newly turned protector to deal with, but me. Understood?" He gave Lila a hard look.

  Her expression sulky, she lifted one brow, not to be cowed.

  David and Owen exchanged glances.

  "As to the ones murdering our people without provocation, I want them brought to me alive. Understand?"

  Officer Whitson and Adams shifted a little in their stances. Hell, why have a couple of his people on the police force if they weren't going to learn who the murderers were pronto? Except for getting his wolves out of hot water when need be, this was the first real test of trouble, and they hadn't been able to do anything about it.

  Although Kintail suspected Faith might have a clue. "Get the woman to share her theory about the killings, Adams."

  "But you said not to involve them."

  "They're involved up to their hairlines, damn it. Find out what Faith suspects. Maybe as a forensic scientist, she can uncover the truth."

  "She'll cause problems," Lila said, sounding as if she hoped the woman would.

  Kintail suspected she was going to be trouble, but in a different way than Lila was. He had every plan to keep Faith under his control better than he had Lila.

  "And Cameron? He's a private investigator and former police officer. We checked his credentials and he's been at this a lot longer than we have," Adams said.

  Kintail should have gotten Adams and Whitson on the force and trained a long time ago instead of just six months ago. "How long has he been in the business?"

  "Eight years."

  Hell, no way did he want to solicit the outsider's help. On the other hand…

  Kintail nodded. "Yeah, see if he can shed any light on the situation." Once they located the murderers of his people, Cameron wouldn't be needed any longer.