by Laina Kenney
She dropped the ham to the ground and crouched down. The dog didn’t growl, so she reached in, moving with care so that the strange animal wouldn’t bite her. She didn’t want to startle it.
She touched its head gently, rubbing one silky ear. The dog whined a little, whimpered, and flinched when she stroked down its neck. Her hand came away sticky and glinting dark in the low light.
Blood?
The poor thing was hurt. The unpleasant thought occurred that perhaps it had been abused by its owner.
“Hey, boy, what happened to you?” She spoke gently in spite of her sudden rush of anger. “You’re in rough shape, fella. We’ve got to get you to a vet.”
At the word “vet,” the huge head rose and shook in a definite back-and-forth motion.
Angel watched, startled. Had the dog understood her? No, it was impossible. She knew some breeds of dogs were shockingly bright, but the idea of carrying on a conversation with a dog was ridiculous. Still, she couldn’t help but test the bizarre theory.
“You didn’t like that. Did you understand the word ‘vet’?”
The eyes narrowed, and the big muzzle dipped once and rose in a nod, but then his head dropped again with a whimper.
Angel blinked. She must need sleep more than she thought, if she was entertaining the idea that a dog was giving her instructions as to his own care. She was starting to imagine things and believe her own strange hallucinations.
She couldn’t quite understand it, but she really didn’t want to take this animal to the vet. Any sensible person would call the nearest veterinarian and hand the creature over, but her instincts were against the idea. Surely no one would take better care of him than she would. Why she should want to keep him close and care for him when he was hurt, she couldn’t say.
“Okay, then. But you do need help.”
She looked around. The light out here was terrible. Maybe he wasn’t in such bad shape, but she’d have to get a better look. She would be able to give him some doggy first aid and let him sleep on some blankets in the mudroom. Then in the morning when her brain was functioning again, she could figure out what to do with him.
She needed to find the dog’s owner. For sure she wasn’t keeping a big dog as a pet. Her back yard was the size of a postage stamp. This monster would be across it in two strides.
The first problem was how was she going to get him out of the car and into the mudroom? She couldn’t carry a dog that size. She looked him over and snorted. Mr. Universe would have trouble carrying a dog that size.
She grabbed the old quilt out of the trunk and folded it on the ground just under the open door of the car. She grimaced.
“Come on, boy. I’m going to help you, but you’re going to have to help by not biting me. I’m sure this will hurt, but I’ll go slow.”
Not that he could understand, but Angel continued talking to the animal in slow soft tones. Her initial fear was fading in a rush of pity for the injured animal. He seemed so smart. Maybe he would be able to tell from her voice that she didn’t want to cause him any more pain.
To her surprise, when she reached in to lift him, the dog heaved himself up and half climbed half fell out onto the quilt. He lay there panting for a moment, and she felt a pang of sympathy.
“That’s good, that’s good,” she crooned. “Let’s get you in the house.”
It probably wasn’t the greatest idea she had ever had to bring a strange dog into her house, but she couldn’t think about that. Her deepest instincts were telling her to get him inside now.
She pulled and tugged on the quilt, leaning with her full body weight, and finally got it to edge forward a foot or so. It was hard work and it took time, but she managed to get him to the low side porch and up the short wheelchair ramp she had installed for her mom a year ago, when Lou Gehrig’s disease was taking its final toll. She hadn’t had the heart to remove it after her mother’s death, and at this point, perspiring and short of breath, she was grateful for her stubborn sentimentality.
She got him into the mudroom and dropped to her knees by his head, lungs heaving as she dragged in air. The dog whimpered once but quieted, watching her with his big dark eyes.
After a few minutes, she could breathe again, and she rose to turn on the light. She couldn’t believe her eyes. He was enormous, and up close like this he looked a lot more like a wild wolf than an ordinary dog, if wolves could be the color of golden retrievers. The thick golden fur was matted and stained dark with blood in four or five places.
“My god.”
Working in a hospital, she had seen a few gunshot wounds in her time. Even an admitting clerk could learn to recognize a perfectly circular hole.
“What happened to you? Have you been shot?” she asked, and the dog sighed. Did he roll his eyes at her? No, surely not.
She ran for towels and water. She intended to use the water to wash the wounds, but the dog raised his head and drank most of it. She got more.
He let her clean and tend his injuries, which turned out to be three long, shallow gouges and one large, deep hole at the top of his back leg. When she touched that one, he froze and so did she.
The deepest wound was still bleeding freely, where the others had mostly sealed themselves. She pressed down and the dog yelped. She wanted to pull back, but she felt something hard. Was there something lodged in the wound, a bullet perhaps?
She stopped for a moment and moved to the dog’s head. She looked into his intelligent navy-blue eyes and reached deep for calm. She wanted to help, but this was beyond any meager skills she had in first aid.
“I don’t know what to do for you, boy. I think there’s a bullet in there, and I don’t know what to do. I really should call a vet for you.”
The dog heaved his front half up and started to chew at the wound.
Angel gasped and shoved his head away, but he persisted.
“No,” she said firmly, but he kept on. His sharp teeth glinted red in the light. He was doing more damage than the gunshot had and she felt like crying.
Finally, a huge lump of blood-bright metal came to the surface, and she pushed his head away and pulled it out. It rang like a bell when she dropped it to the floor, but she was more concerned with getting the wound cleaned out. She used the last of her saline solution to clean it. The dog was whining now with every gentle swab as if he couldn’t keep quiet against the pain.
“I know it hurts, boy. I know. I’m sorry.”
She finished bandaging him and wiped the blood off his muzzle.
He licked her fingers then closed his mouth tenderly over her hand. Shocked, she didn’t move and he released her hand. The rasp of his tongue chased a shiver up her spine, but the too-intelligent eyes were almost shut. He was barely holding on to consciousness. Was that like a doggy thank you?
“It will do you good to get some sleep. I’ll worry about what to feed you in the morning. You don’t look like you could eat right now anyway, but you’ll need breakfast.”
She blinked and forced herself to stop rambling. She usually only did that if she was nervous, and she didn’t feel scared of this dog. There was no good explanation, since he was by far larger than any other dog she had seen in years, maybe ever. But even though he was in obvious pain, he was gentle. Her heart went out to the poor suffering creature.
She folded up a clean towel and lifted his furry head to gently place it on the makeshift pillow. She covered him with another old quilt to keep his temperature up and refilled the huge bowl with clean water in case he became thirsty before she came back to check on him.
Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she got the night-light out of her bathroom plug and installed it in the outlet in the mudroom. If he woke in the night, at least he would be able to see where he was.
She picked up the chunk of metal off the floor. It was cool and heavy in her palm. She wiped it clean and placed it carefully on the windowsill. She wasn’t sure what she intended to do with it, but when she reported the abuse of this anima
l, she might need to present some evidence.
She gathered up the bloody towels and shoved them in the washing machine with her work clothes. She would worry about drying them in the morning. She took the time to put the medical supplies back in the bathroom cabinet.
Stripped down to her panties and bra, she walked back through the house to fall on her bed. The digital clock told her that it was nearing midnight, and she sighed. So much for a good night’s sleep.
She crawled between the fresh sheets and dropped immediately into a fitful sleep full of crazy dreams of wolves howling and strange men with guns chasing a gorgeous blond man through meadows and woods.
Chapter 3
Valeri groaned in pain before he even fully awakened. It was a struggle just to open his eyes. He would be better able to assess his wounds in human form, but he was weak still. He didn’t want to take the energy away from healing to change just yet. His instincts told him to wait a few more hours. But he thought maybe he could push it if he had to.
He wasn’t feeling the hunger yet, but he knew from experience that once the healing process had reached a certain stage, he would be ravenous. He hoped there was some red meat in the little cube freezer, because he was going to need it.
He tested his limbs with a careful stretch. He could maybe make it as far as the vulfen Clan estate, if he was slow and stuck to cover, but his overall condition wasn’t good.
He was better off than he had been the night before, exhausted and hiding in the shrubs. Safe in the home of his mate, he was still sore, but healing.
His mate.
Who could have guessed that the worst moment of his adult life would lead him to the greatest gift of all? When she had touched his head and looked into his eyes with her innocent caring for a wounded animal, he had felt his heart turn over in his chest. Her long blonde hair and shining blue eyes were the perfect physical representation to accompany her generous heart. Even in the form of the wolf, he had felt a lump in his throat at the beauty and caring nature of his mate.
Truly, her mother must have had a birth vision to have so accurately named her child Angel.
Her delicate scent covered him like a blanket, and he reveled in it. He took his time, separating the scent layers to paint the clearest possible portrait of his mate. He knew that she was physically beautiful, rounded in all the right places to make his mouth water, but he wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to know her thoughts on every topic, her dreams and her fears.
He drew in her scent with every breath, and it puzzled him even as it gave him comfort.
Did she know that she carried the blood of the vulfen people? She was clearly living as a human female, and for the most part she was human, but there was something more. She carried the same scent as Adam, the young boy who had recently been adopted by his friend and fellow second, Miros Reitn. The scent of the extinct Perrault Clan flavored her blood, not bitter and tainted like the insane former Alpha, but subtle, like wildflower honey. She was related to the young boy somehow, Valeri’s sensitive nose was certain of it.
There were no other vulfen scents surrounding her. He wasn’t sure if he hoped she did know of the existence of the vulfen people, or not.
If she did know of her heritage, why was she living as a human? Was it because she couldn’t shift? Had she been cast out of her Clan? Or had she never known a Clan at all? Had she been raised to believe she was human?
And even if she didn’t know, she was working with one of the human hunters who targeted their people. Valeri felt his heart skip at the thought of Angel being hunted, perhaps captured and tormented before being killed. It wasn’t unheard of for the human hunting society to try for a capture instead of a kill. His blood chilled at the thought of his gentle mate in the hands of such merciless predators.
If he was going to pursue her as his mate and give her the mating bite, knowing that she had some vulfen blood, she might become a true shifter. He would have some explaining to do if it ever came to that.
And as much as he respected his cousin and Alpha, he couldn’t say what Rylek’s response would be when he announced that he was bringing home another Perrault.
Valeri was not a superstitious man, nor was Rylek, but the Perrault Clan was said to be blessed with great powers and cursed with insanity. They had strayed too far in their quest for power. Many in the vulfen community had been secretly glad when that Clan was dissolved and absorbed into Guichard.
Troubled by his thoughts, Valeri rose from his makeshift pallet. Moving with care to avoid jarring his wounds further, he made his way unerringly to the room where his Angel slept. He stood at the foot of her bed for some time, watching her face. Her features were soft in sleep, and she looked like a sweet child with one hand curled by her cheek.
She twitched and started, and he could tell she was dreaming. He curled up by the door with his head pillowed on his paws. In this position he could watch over her, and it was both a duty and a deep pleasure to do so.
He was almost asleep when he caught the scent of rising fear. Instantly alert, he sent his senses out searching for the threat. There was no one near, nothing to threaten her, but his heart still beat fast.
Even in a dream, the scent of fear coming from his mate was intolerable to him.
She twisted, kicked, and cried out, caught in her nightmare. He barked sharply to wake her.
She jackknifed to a sitting position and cried out, “Mom!”
He whined soft and low. He just wanted her to know he was there for her, even if he hadn’t quite figured out how to deliver the news that he was her mate.
She turned on the bedside lamp and he was startled to see tears on her cheeks. She patted the bed and he jumped up, ignoring the twinge of pain from his deepest wound. He lay down beside her, and his heart ached for her when she tucked her face into the thick fur of his neck and cried.
Chapter 4
Angel rose later than normal in the morning. She was usually up at the crack of dawn on an off day because she didn’t want to waste a moment. But her body felt heavy and her head thick. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t functioning yet.
She looked at the dog taking up more than half of her bed and had to smile. He had his head on the pillow with his tongue hanging out, and he was snoring.
He seemed so comfortable, so peaceful after last night’s pain. She didn’t have the heart to wake him just to make him get off the bed. He needed sleep to heal.
She took a quick shower, dressed, and put the coffee on before going to the mudroom. She transferred the clean wash to the dryer and gathered up the old quilts from the floor. She sprayed them with stain treatment, stuffed them in the washing machine, loaded up the soap, and chose the longest wash cycle available.
Her mother had made both of those quilts, and she had to get that blood out.
She refilled the empty water bowl and rummaged in her freezer until she found two steaks and some stewing beef. She set them on the counter to thaw. She would go to the store later and get dog food, the good kind, but while he was wounded she didn’t want to leave him.
Angel frowned at her thoughts. Why would it matter to a dog if she left for an hour to shop? But her instincts were sure that it would.
As a child, she had often done strange, unexplainable things that made the other children laugh. Her mother had made allowances, saying only that Angel’s instincts were better than most people’s and she should always listen to them. Well, she listened, but that didn’t mean that she always understood why she did the things that she did.
Or why, when a good-looking doctor made a pass at her, she backed away with a sick feeling in her stomach. There was no sensible reason why Dr. Novaks should make her feel anxious and ill. And she could never come out and say to him that he always stood too close and smelled like strong vinegar. His scent made her stomach hurt. He would think she was crazy.
Angel sighed and poured her first cup of coffee with cream. She just might be crazy. She was more interested
in getting to know a stray dog than she was in getting to know an eligible man.
Her mother had always told her that the man destined for her would have blue eyes. Angel wasn’t a dreamer to believe in fortune tellers, but she was willing to admit that her mother had been right about a lot of unlikely things over the years. As hard as it was to explain, some part of Angel believed her mother’s vision.
And last night a gorgeous blond man with dark-blue eyes had run through her dreams, pursued by sinister men with guns. The dream man had stopped and urged her to run, too, had offered his hand to her, but the dilemma of whether or not to reach out had woken her.
Angel shook her head and sipped her coffee. She was really having trouble waking up this morning.
She shrugged into a sweater and went out front to bring in the rest of the boxes.
One box was sitting on the ground beside the back door of the car. She racked her brain, but she couldn’t remember when she had left it there. It was sometime during the excitement of finding a dog in her car last night, since the cardboard was damp with dew, but still.
She carried boxes back and forth, just stacking them in the corner of the living room until she could go through them properly.
Her mom had wanted her to have these things, but she didn’t know if she wanted everything. Her mother’s clothes had already gone to a local clothing drive, but there might be other things she could donate. If she knew someone who needed them was getting them, she wouldn’t have to feel guilty for giving away anything of her mom’s.
She pulled the last box out of the trunk and stifled a scream when she looked up.
Dr. Novaks was standing right beside her with two cups of take-out coffee and a bakery bag in his hands. A crooked smile was on his handsome face, but the tang of his scent overrode the smell of fresh-baked goods.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Angeline. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time,” he said, looking at her old sweater, ratty jeans, and sneakers. “I brought coffee and donuts.”