My dreams were strange. At first, I was falling, and then I ran through the aspen grove. The blue sky above was mottled with clouds, the grass dotted with wildflowers, but I couldn’t seem to find our aspen grove. Every turn led me back to where I had started, a strange, dark forest where the trees crowded so close together they felt like the bars of a cage.
“Vali!” I screamed. “Vali, can you hear me?”
For one horrible moment I almost thought I heard a response, some distant, echoing cry. I bolted toward it, but the further I ran, the more the trees closed in around me, their leaves snapping in my face, their twigs snagging my hair. The dream shifted, and I found myself back where I’d started, my legs trembling and my chest heaving as I screamed Vali’s name over and over. There was no further response.
I blinked open my eyes, forcing myself awake. My lungs still burned from sprinting through the dream forest, and the backs of my hands and arms felt raw with scratches. For a heartbeat, before the glowing blue numbers of my alarm clock came into focus, I thought I might still be dreaming.
It was four in the morning. Just fucking great.
Grumbling, I tossed the covers off and wrapped myself in my ratty old blue robe. Falling back asleep was going to be impossible. Might as well answer my bajillion emails.
By the time the sun rose over Bozeman, I’d finished an entire pot of coffee and my empty inbox was a thing of beauty. Amber, our department secretary, sent me a cryptic email two days ago about a “message” she had for me. Of course, she couldn’t just send me the message; Amber was not one to miss the opportunity for drama.
“Please don’t be a message from Barry,” I said to my kitchen as I washed out my coffee pot.
I packed up my laptop and filled the back of my Subaru with all the transmitting equipment we’d used in the park, ready to return it to the lab.
“Please not Barry,” I whispered as I drove toward campus. “Anyone but Barry.”
AMBER WAS ON THE PHONE, laughing shrilly as she leaned over the hundreds of baby pictures decorating her desk. It sounded like our department head had a huge, public argument with his rival in the math department, and she was giving someone on the other end of the line a blow-by-blow recap. She waved her hands at me, hung up the phone, and launched breathlessly into a painfully detailed description of exactly everything I’d missed. I nodded, smiled, and tried not to look too anxious.
“And you had a message for me?” I asked as soon as she paused for breath.
“Oh, you got a call from Stanford,” Amber said.
“What?”
“Yeah, someone at Stanford wants to talk to you. Something about the wolves.”
“I don’t know anyone at Stanford,” I said.
“Hold on, I took a message. It’s in here somewhere.” Amber bent over the chaos of her desk, shifting staplers, Post It notes, coffee mugs, and picture frames. “Oh yes, here it is. Professor Laufeyiarson. And there’s the number.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the paper and edging out of the office.
I rattled my office door open, dropped my laptop into the pile of course requests covering my desk, and sat down.
“A collaboration with Stanford would be huge,” I whispered, fingering the note from Amber.
But who the hell was Laufeyiarson? Wildlife biology is a pretty small field, and I was almost positive the only person at Stanford who studied predators was Garcia. I dialed the number as I pulled up Google, typing in Laufeyiarson Stanford and clicking the first link.
Stanford’s website loaded as the phone rang. I blinked at my computer screen. Laufeyiarson was a woman. A young woman. And she studied...I squinted to be sure. Norse mythology? What the actual fuck?
“Hi! This is Professor Caroline Laufeyiarson,” a cheerful voice said on the phone.
“Oh! Yeah, this is Karen from MSU—”
“If you’d like to leave a message, please press one. If you need immediate assistance, please press two for our administrative assistant. My office hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from ten to—”
“Right,” I muttered, trying to pull myself together enough to leave a somewhat coherent message. “This is Karen McDonald from MSU, returning your call about, uh, wolves.”
I hung up the phone and rocked back in my chair, feeling more or less like an idiot. Someone cleared their throat behind me, and I turned to see Colin in the doorway.
“Yes?” I asked, mildly surprised to see him here before ten in the morning.
Colin nodded toward the lab. “Zeke’s got something to show you.”
“Zeke’s here? This early?”
Colin grinned. “He thought he noticed something in the park and wanted to check it out. He called me this morning.”
“Okay, you’ve got my attention.”
I grabbed my water bottle and followed Colin to the lab. Zeke sat hunched over his workstation, surrounded by empty energy drink cans, Frito bags, and three computer screens, all filled with numbers.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Zeke spun around in his chair, frowning. “I just finished crunching the latest numbers. Something’s weird.”
He tapped a few keys and a map of Yellowstone came up on the screen. Glowing red triangles filled the map; the location of various packs.
“That’s old data,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” said Zeke. “Two years ago.”
He bent over the keyboard, and the red triangles shifted around the map. “Here’s last year. Now, look at what happens when I enter the data from our trip...”
The map changed again. Only now the triangles were spreading, or dispersing, leaving a ring of empty darkness in the center of the map.
“That...that doesn’t make sense,” I said. I tapped the blank space in the center of Zeke’s screen. “That’s prime territory in the middle of the park.”
“No shit,” said Zeke. “And look what it matches.”
He pulled up another map. I took a deep breath. The bright red outline of the volcanic caldera, the super-volcano sleeping beneath Yellowstone, perfectly matched the pattern of red triangles.
“They’re leaving the caldera,” I whispered. “But why?”
“Maybe it’s about to blow,” Colin’s soft voice said from behind me.
I shook my head. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Yellowstone National Park is the largest volcano in the world. The last time this volcano erupted, six hundred thousand years ago, it sprayed volcanic ash as far south as Mexico. It blotted out the sun. It may even have triggered the ice age.
“Well, maybe you should ask your friend what’s going on,” Zeke drawled, his eyes still fixed on the computer screen.
“Good thought,” I said. “I’d bet Diana’s noticed this...this bizarre migration pattern. But why didn’t she say anything when—”
My voice faded as I realized Zeke was staring at me with a raised eyebrow. “Nah, I meant your, uh, your other friend. You know, Wolf Man.”
I glanced to make sure the door of the lab was closed, then I shook my head and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Zeke, what about, ‘What happens in the park, stays in the park?’”
“Hey, all I’m trying to say is that sexy Mr. Wolf Man might have a unique and valuable perspective on this particular situation.”
I turned to Colin for support, but he was nodding along with Zeke. “Karen - I mean, Professor McDonald - you should do it. This could be important. You can talk to him, right?”
I opened my mouth to respond and couldn’t think of a single word.
Zeke leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. “Boss Lady, I know you’re all about pretending none of that crazy shit in the park ever happened, but seriously. What the fuck’s going on with the wolves? These are not normal migration patterns. They’re leaving primo habitat. There’s got to be a reason.”
I sighed and looked out the window. The leaves on the elms were already starting to change from deep g
reen to a bright, sunny yellow. “I don’t even know how to contact him,” I said.
Colin and Zeke exchanged a look that worried me.
“Well, you could try—” Zeke started.
“And this conversation is over,” I said, cutting him off and desperately hoping my cheeks didn’t look as red as they felt.
“Okay,” Zeke drawled. “But if the park is getting ready to blow, it might be nice to have some advance warning.”
“Thanks,” I said, backing out of the lab before either one of them could make another Wolf Man comment.
I bit my lip as I sank back into my desk chair. If the Yellowstone caldera blows, I thought with a numb, sinking feeling, we’re all totally fucked.
CHAPTER TEN
“Vali Lokisen, huh? What kind of a name is that anyway? Japanese?” Susan looked up from her enormous white coffee mug, her brunette curls bouncing in the morning light.
“Uh.” I pushed back from the table. “I think I’m going to get a scone. Would you like a scone? Or more coffee?”
Susan’s smile widened, and my cheeks burned. I stood and walked away from the table with as much dignity as I could muster. We were having coffee at the Whole World Cafe, a vegan, gluten-free, co-op sandwiched between the bars and art galleries on Bozeman’s Main Street. The place was packed with college students and dirtbag climbing bums. I rubbed my forehead; the headache nipping at my temples was getting worse, and the cafe’s weird New Age electronica music wasn’t helping matters.
Very stupidly, I finished an entire bottle of wine by myself last night as I tried to think of a plausible story to tell Susan. By the time I poured myself the very last glass from the overpriced bottle I bought after cashing Barry fucking Richardson’s alimony check, I had a brilliant story. It was totally believable, not at all creepy, and didn’t sound half as batshit crazy as the truth.
This morning, I couldn’t remember a word of that story, and it didn’t help that I woke up crying for some stupid reason. I’d walked to the coffee shop, trying to at least remember the premise that had sounded so appealing last night. Nothing. I showed up twenty minutes late. Susan was already on her second soy milk latte, and she looked suspicious.
The kid behind the counter had aggressively orange hair under his cowboy hat, gauges in his ears, and a barbell through his nose.
“Hi,” I squeaked, feeling old and significantly lamer than everyone around me. “I’d like a scone, please.”
He grunted something, and I handed him my credit card. After another five minutes someone shoved a blue plate at me with what must have been a scone on it. I took a deep breath and walked back to Susan’s table.
Susan was beaming. “So, you met him in the park,” she said. “This....Vali.”
My mind raced as I took an enormous bite of the scone. It tasted like sawdust. I took a sip of coffee to force it down before I finally managed to stutter, “Yes, this last trip.”
“With your grad students?”
I shook my head. “Before they showed up.”
“And he was, what? Tall, dark, and handsome?”
“Well, he, uh—” I coughed and glanced at the front door. “He—”
Susan started laughing. “Oh, Karen! You had a real wildlife encounter!”
I stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve got no idea the kind of things that happen in the backcountry,” she said. “That’s what we used to call it when I was a park ranger. A real wildlife encounter.”
I opened my mouth to disagree with her and then closed it again. A real wildlife encounter. Actually, that pretty much summed it up.
“So, did you sleep with him?” Susan’s wide smile and sparkling eyes said she’d already guessed the answer to that question.
“Really, Susan? That’s all you want to know? If I slept with him?”
Susan shook her head, and her wild curls bounced. “Nah, I don’t really care if you actually slept with him. I was more wondering if you fucked him.”
I rolled my eyes. That was Susan in a nutshell; she was not a euphemism type of gal. “Well, uh, kind of,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
Susan made a face. “Kind of? How can you ‘kind of’ fuck someone?”
“Stop it,” I hissed, casting a furtive glance around the coffee shop to make sure none of the kids in here were my students.
Susan leaned back and waved her hands in surrender. “Hey, good for you! I guess I don’t need all the details.” She sighed into her latte, her pained expression making her disappointment very clear. “So, did you get his number? You going to see him again?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He doesn’t exactly have a phone.”
Susan sighed again, a dreamy look on her face. “Damn, do I ever miss being a backcountry ranger.”
I choked on my coffee and coughed so hard Susan reached across the table to hit me on the back. After that, everyone in the coffee shop stared at us. Under the scrutiny of several dozen hipster twenty-somethings, Susan mercifully changed the subject.
“You coming fishing with us on Saturday?”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“What? You haven’t been in ages. We’re hitting up the Gallatin canyon, and there’s a late stonefly hatch.”
“I know,” I said, running my fingers along the blue plate holding the scone. I did love the women’s fly fishing group, but if I didn’t get another grant this year, the whole tenure process might be in jeopardy.
“If you tell me you have to work, Karen, I swear to God I will force feed you the rest of that scone.”
I winced.
Susan threw her hands up in the air. “Seriously? Did you move to Montana to work on a Saturday?”
Anger flared deep in my chest, hot and sudden, and I smacked my palms against the formica table, making my blue plate jump. “I moved to Montana to be a professor, damn it! So, yes, I suppose I did!”
Susan’s eyes widened and she looked around the room. Everyone was staring at us again.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I sank into my chair, wishing I could hide behind my sawdust scone. “It’s just...the semester just started, I’ve got a ton of data to analyze, and my latest grant proposal got rejected.”
She smiled. “Hey, it’s no problem. I wouldn’t be your friend if I couldn’t handle your crazy.”
I grinned back and drained the last of my coffee.
“Maybe you just need another real wildlife encounter,” Susan said, pushing back from the table.
“God, wouldn’t that be nice,” I said with a sigh.
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL Saturday morning.
I tried not to think about the women’s fly fishing group driving up the Gallatin Canyon as I watched the morning sun illuminate Hyalite Peak on the far side of the valley. I hated working on Saturdays, but there was no way around it. If I wanted money to fund my research, I had to get my grant approved this year. And that meant reading through all the feedback, finding out why they rejected me, and changing the entire proposal. Even if I thought they were all wrong.
Especially if I thought they were all wrong.
I parked my Subaru in the empty faculty lot and slammed the door shut. First thing Saturday morning, and I was already in a bad mood. Great. Just fucking great.
The lights in the science building hallway flicked to life as I walked through the echoing corridors, trying not to think of all the other things I could be doing with a beautiful Saturday morning in early fall.
The lights above me flickered and buzzed as I froze in the hallway. The door to my lab was ajar.
“I locked this,” I whispered to myself. “I locked this Friday night.”
My heart jumped as I approached the open door. My lab doesn’t have a plethora of valuable equipment, but still. I’ve got a half dozen computers, and meth heads are always looking for stolen scales. If someone took one of our notebooks, we’d have no way to retrieve that data.
I stopped just outside the door and made a fist around
my keys. The lab was totally dark, and a weird, labored rasping drifted through the open door, like a machine that had been left on and was starting to die. I eased the door open as quietly as possible.
Zeke. It was Zeke. He was sprawled across his desk, face down and snoring. Loudly. The lights flickered to life when I entered. He barely stirred.
“Zeke? You okay?” I called.
Zeke shifted and sat up, blinking bloodshot eyes. He smelled like cheap beer and cigarette smoke.
“Hey, mornin’, Boss Lady!” he said with a wide smile, showing off his broken front tooth.
“Zeke, what the hell are you doing in the lab?”
He yawned, stretched, and wiped drool off his cheek. “Sleepin’.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out on my own. But why? Don’t you have an apartment in grad student housing?”
“Well. Funny thing about that.” Zeke scratched himself and yawned again. “The missus wasn’t too happy to see me last night.”
“The missus? Since when do you have a girlfriend?”
He grinned. “Since August.”
“Zeke, it’s September. Early September.”
“Yup,” he said, twisting his neck to both sides. “She moved in last week. Then things kinda went downhill.”
“Ah,” I said, briefly wondering if I should try to look sympathetic. “Well, good luck with that. Listen, if you really need a place to stay—”
“Nah, nah. Although hell, sleepin’ at a desk. Shit. I think you’ve got the right idea, Boss Lady, what with your whole long distance, inter-species—”
“Stop. Stop it right there,” I said, holding up both my hands.
“Fine, fine.” Zeke held his hands up in surrender. “But hell, what are you doing here? Isn’t it Saturday?”
“Yeah. It’s Saturday,” I said, opening a window to air out the lab.
“Well, don’t you know Saturday’s are for cookin’ a pound of bacon and nursing a hangover?”
The Wolf's Lover_An Urban Fantasy Romance Page 7