Carver and Virginia both made retching noises at the exact same time, then looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Seriously, if you ever speak to me like that…” Virginia told Carver.
“No worries.” Then he whispered, “Cuddlebuns.”
“I’ll kill you in your sleep,” Virginia said. “You’ve seen what we Battles are like when we’re really, really mad.”
“I think it’s precious,” Edward said proudly.
Virginia stifled laughter behind her hand. “I am very happy for you,” she said.
The front door of the lodge swung open, letting in a blast of cold air. The sun was setting. She caught a glimpse of Darlie rushing in. She hurried over to Virginia, who stood up to greet her, and hugged her hard.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on,” Darlie said. “We were all afraid that if Natasha left, all of the people she was healing would just die. I put your life at risk. I would never have forgiven myself if you’d been harmed.”
“I’d never have forgiven you either, “Carver said with a growl of anger. His eyes flared yellow and he pinned her with an ice-cold glare.
“Carver!” Virginia admonished.
“No, he’s right,” Darlie said.
Virginia shook her head. “You were all victims of her manipulation. She held the entire town hostage. That’s why you and your husband haven’t had children so far, isn’t it?”
Darlie nodded. “We couldn’t be sure what was causing the sickness. We were afraid there might be some kind of contagious virus, and we would never risk having a cub who would be exposed to that.”
Virginia squeezed her hand. “Well, I look forward to sending you adorable baby presents at your baby shower.”
Darlie blushed. “Maybe you can come to the baby shower. When we have one, I mean. If you stayed here. We have a position open for a healer.”
Virginia glanced at Carver. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Darlie. I would need to discuss that with my husband first, of course.” Carver’s eyes lit up at that.
“In fact,” she said to Darlie, “I think we should go chat now. Thank you for coming up here. I’ll see you tomorrow at the clinic. I can at least come in to work while everyone figures out what they’re doing.”
The lodge was a bustle of activity. A number of local pack members were there, milling about restlessly, murmuring amongst themselves.
Sheriff Marsh, his face drawn and grim, was standing in the lobby talking to Warden Kostechi. He’d already announced that he was stepping down as Alpha to care for his son. Word was being sent to shifters all across the country – a Kill on Sight order for Natasha.
“I’m sorry I told you to quit working for the Wardens,” Carver said to Virginia as they walked back to her room. “When I thought about it, I realized it’s no different than me being a deputy, or me being an Alpha, for that matter. It’s risky, but someone has to do it. I admire you for being willing to take on that risk for the sake of our kind.”
“I’m sorry I accused you of spying on me, although you really shouldn’t have talked to my family without letting me know.”
“No, I shouldn’t have,” he agreed.
“So…do you, uh, want to give me my ring back?”
He shook his head solemnly. “Nope.”
She looked at him to see if he was serious. He was. “Really? All right. You, uh, just want to take it slow, see if things can work out between us?”
He shook his head again. “Nope.”
She felt her heart crush itself in her chest. “You want to end things?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d been the one to push him away, she’d told him she was leaving as soon as they were done with their honeymoon – and now the thought devastated her. She didn’t want to be without him. She didn’t feel complete without him.
“Nope.”
Fury boiled up inside her and she struck his chest with her fists. “Say something other than nope, you grade-A jerkoff!”
“At least I’m grade A.” He broke into a grin. “A man does not take things slowly with his wife. I am not giving you back that cheap ugly ring from the casino. I’m going to buy you a beautiful ring that shows my pride and love for you. And from now on, neither of us keeps secrets from the other. Capiche?”
She laughed at the gangster slang.
“Capiche,” she said. Then she realized there was still one secret she was keeping.
“Last thing I didn’t tell you,” she said. “The monsters. One of them grabbed me while I was out running in the woods the other day, and took me to heal its mate. There’s something we’re not getting about this, Carver,” she added as he looked at her with alarm. “They didn’t harm me. They only attacked the sheriff when the sheriff’s men were shooting at them.”
Carver frowned. “The first sighting of them was ten years ago. Natasha started her experiments ten years ago.”
“Oh my God.” Comprehension dawned. “Natasha gave a cure to a local family, and then after that seemed to work, she gave the vaccine to other families. Two different formulas – a vaccine and a cure. The cure is what created those monsters. I know it. We need to talk to Sheriff Marsh.”
She looked at him. “I want to try to bring those things in and figure out if we can help them. If we can’t help them, we have to protect them.”
“They killed a family,” Carver pointed out.
“We don’t know that. All we know is that they were seen running away from a house on fire. Maybe they went there to seek help. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to kill people, and they haven’t.”
“I can only tell you that I’ll try my best, but if they attack you, I’ll kill them,” Carver said.
* * *
The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon as they set out. “I know you think I’m weak for not wanting to kill my wife, after all she’s done,” Sheriff Marsh said mournfully as they trudged through the woods. He, Virginia and Carver had managed to slip away unnoticed.
After Virginia had told him her theory about the monsters, he’d agreed to take her and Carver to the place where he thought his wife was hiding out – a small fishing shack that the two visited every year.
“I understand not wanting to kill your wife – well, most of the time,” Carver said, with a quick glance at Virginia, who shot him a derisive look. Then he turned serious again. “And yes, I think you’re weak.”
“I guess it’s no secret that my men have been approaching you to see if you want to be the new Alpha.” Sheriff Marsh looked even more hangdog as he said that.
“They have?” Virginia asked.
“They have,” Carver acknowledged, “but I was going to discuss it with you first.”
It wasn’t really coming as any surprise. “Well. I do like it here,” Virginia said. “It’s sufficiently far from my family that they wouldn’t drive me insane. I would still need to travel when the Wardens needed me, but as a home base, it’s a lovely place to be.”
“I still have mixed feelings about helping these things. They may be responsible for what happened to my sister and her family.”
“Well, if she can turn them back into people, we can ask them about it,” Virginia said. “We can’t leave them in that form if we have any way to help them.”
A few minutes later, Sheriff Marsh said, “We’re getting close. Stop here before you get close enough for her to scent. She’s still armed, as far as we know, so I should go first and get her to come out.”
“Do you think he’ll just warn her to run for it?” Carver asked as the sheriff jogged through the woods.
“No, he knows she can’t escape. All she can do is try to fix what she’s broken.”
A minute later, Sheriff Marsh led his wife through the woods. “I knew you wouldn’t abandon me!” Virginia heard her crowing triumphantly. “I knew you’d come back for me. We can get Kyle and we’ll go—” Then she came through the trees and stopped when she saw Virginia and Carver across the clearing.
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“You betrayed me,” she said accusingly to her husband. “Your own wife. The mother of your child.”
“Don’t even try that on me,” Sheriff Marsh said as Virginia and Carver jogged up to them. “You don’t deserve the title of mother.”
Natasha tensed and shot Virginia and Carver resentful looks as they approached, but she didn’t try to run. There was no point. It was all over for her.
“Natasha, I know where those creatures are staying,” Virginia said to her. “Can you heal them? Can you make them what they were before?”
“I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “It would probably kill me if I tried. That’s why I haven’t done it before. I’d have to pour all my life essence into them to even have a chance of success.”
“You need to try,” Marsh said urgently. “Turn them back into whatever they were before. You’re a dead wolf walking no matter what, Natasha – you might as well do something that your son would be proud of before you go.”
At that, Natasha’s expression became resolute. “Yes. I can do it,” she said, and followed them through the woods.
They took off their clothes and shifted to move faster, carrying their clothing in their jaws. It was still a long run, and when they got to the cave, they were panting heavily as they shifted back into human form.
“It’s me!” Virginia called out at the cave mouth. “We’re here to help you! Please, come out!”
There were rustling sounds, and then the two creatures emerged from the cave, blinking and staring suspiciously at the shifters. The male let out an angry growl at Natasha.
They knew, Virginia realized. That was why they’d never approached Natasha – they knew she was the one responsible for what had happened to them.
Natasha took a deep breath. Then she nodded to herself, held up her hands and slowly knelt down next to the male. She placed her hand on his flank, and he growled again, but didn’t attack her. She put her free hand on the female’s flank.
Then she closed her eyes. “Tell Kyle I love him,” she said, and tears trickled down her cheeks as she bowed her head.
After a minute she began breathing hard…and the creatures were changing. Their bodies were rippling, moving, shrinking.
She kept at it, groaning in pain. The creatures writhed on the ground. They looked as if they were melting. They were growing smaller and smaller.
Natasha turned paler and paler, growing waxen.
“She needs help,” Virginia said, and she flung herself down next to Natasha.
“No!” Carver cried, grabbing at her.
“Let me be!” she shrieked, and shut her eyes, concentrating. She forced her energy into the monsters, forced it through the filth and wrongness that she felt there. She could feel Natasha’s energy intermingling with hers, battling the mutation. The mutation was subsiding. Natasha’s life was draining away; Virginia could feel her dying.
She heard whimpers that sounded human and felt smooth skin beneath her hands. She opened her eyes and pulled her hands back. Natasha fell onto her side with a thud and lay as still as a stone. Virginia looked around, dizzy and nauseated.
Curled up in the snow in front of her were a little boy and a little girl. Both blond. Not mates – brother and sister.
They sat bolt upright, looking around, then leaped to their feet. “Uncle Peter?” the boy cried.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Lacey. Rory. Oh my God.” He choked out the words, his eyes wide with shock. The little boy and girl flung themselves into his arms.
“They look exactly the same as the day…the day of the fire,” he said wonderingly to Virginia and Carver.
That was the family that Natasha had cured of Con-Rab and accidentally poisoned. Her own husband’s family. And she’d kept silent all these years, knowing that those two monsters in the woods were Peter’s niece and nephew. She’d have let them be hunted down and killed to protect her secret.
“Daddy killed Mommy, Uncle Peter. He turned into a monster, and then she turned into a monster, and he killed her, so we ran away,” Lacey said mournfully.
“So you’ve been hiding out here the whole time?” Tears poured like rivers down Sheriff Marsh’s cheeks.
“It just happened yesterday,” Rory said. “When we ran away we saw a fire. I think our house burned down too. Are we living with you now, Uncle Peter?”
Dear God. This was a miracle greater than Virginia could have hoped for. Now that they were back to normal, they remembered nothing of their terrible previous ten years. All that fear and misery and desperation…gone.
“Yes, you are. Me and my boy Kyle. You haven’t met him yet, but he’ll be the best big brother in the world,” Marsh said, sobbing so hard he could barely speak.
EPILOGUE
Twenty years later…
Snow flurries swirled outside, but inside the lodge it was warm and toasty. The flames in the fireplace leaped and cracked. Half a dozen shifter couples were gathered around it, toasting marshmallows on sticks and playing “Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…”
Carver had insisted that the whole family gather at the lodge today, but he hadn’t told them why. They sat in leather couches near the fire, waiting expectantly to see what Carver was fetching from the kitchen.
“Dad’s up to something,” Penelope said to Virginia. Her younger brothers Carver Junior and Mark nodded their agreement.
Virginia glanced at her eighteen-year-old daughter with amusement. “Isn’t he always?” she said. “And are you going to keep that purple streak in your hair?”
Penelope rolled her eyes at her mother. One green eye, one blue eye. She was a healer, a very powerful one, although she was just beginning her training.
“Hudson likes it,” she said.
“I’m not sure I like Hudson.” Virginia frowned.
“Oh, please. I bet when you were a teenager, Grandpa and Grandma didn’t like all of the boys that you liked.”
Virginia looked her daughter straight in the eye. “In fact, they did. I was a very sensible teenager, and I never gave them any trouble, so they trusted my good judgement and had no problems with anyone I dated. Because I dated only nice guys.”
Carver, who’d walked up behind them, hooted with laughter so loudly that everyone turned around to look at him. He was carrying something wrapped in foil; it looked like a cake.
“Say what, now?” he guffawed.
Virginia fixed him with a threatening glare. “Carver. Tread lightly. Very, very lightly. I am not a wolf to be trifled with.”
Her sons were snickering behind their hands. “I’m going to call Gramps and ask him,” Junior said to Mark with a devilish grin. It was a grin so similar to Carver’s that it frequently made Virginia’s heart catch in her throat.
“You all. I am the Alpha’s wife and I have the power. I can make your life very, very difficult.” She tried to sound threatening, but from their continued snickers, it appeared she was failing.
“Forget that. Dad, what’s this about? Why are we here?” Mark asked.
“One minute. I just wanted to say, Penelope, honey, that before you go out on your first date with Hudson, I will meet him. And I will talk to him.” The gleam in Carver’s eye promised that this would not be a comfortable meeting for Hudson, and Hudson, in fact, would be well advised to bring a change of underpants.
“But Daaaaaad…fine,” Penelope muttered, pouting. Carver didn’t even notice. He was pout-proof when it came to Penelope’s safety.
“Now, my darling wife. You know how I can never resist a chance to say I told you so?”
“Never,” Virginia agreed. “Literally never.”
“Oh look,” Mark interrupted. “There’s Uncle Edward and Aunt Sally.”
The two of them hurried across the lounge, followed by their cubs. All eleven of them, ranging in age from nineteen to two. Sally’s stomach bulged out, indicating that her newest cub was due soon. The two of them had decided to move to Honeymoon Mountain after their wedding, and now they h
elped run the Honeymoon Lodge.
Penelope hugged Sally and made room on her lap for Sally’s youngest cub Minerva, then they all formed a circle, looking expectantly at Carver.
“I bet you’re wondering why I gathered you all here today,” Carver said.
“Oh, a mystery!” Edward said excitedly.
“He sure knows how to milk it,” Virginia whispered to her daughter, who giggled.
“Twenty years ago today,” Carver announced loudly, “we sat here in this lounge, and we looked at an older couple who were still madly, passionately in love with each other, and I told you that would be us in twenty years. And you said, in your dreams. And I said, you’ll be eating those words.”
He dramatically ripped the foil off the cake. It was a home-baked cake, and across the top of the cake, he’d written, “In Your Dreams”.
Next to the cake was a knife and a fork. He handed them to her and said triumphantly, “Start eating, darling. All of it.”
Virginia spluttered in shock, and realized that tears were running down her cheeks.
“Is that because Dad’s a bad cook?” Mark whispered. Penelope punched him in the arm. “No, stupid, it’s because she’s happy.”
“Carver Lawrence, I love you, and I have never been happier to eat my words,” Virginia said, and she dove into the cake, to the applause of all her friends and family.
THE END
Thanks again for buying this book, I hope you enjoyed it! Please sign up for my newsletter at http://madmimi.com/signups/83835/join so I can notify you of my newest releases. I blog at www.georgettewrites.com, and I can frequently be found chatting/posting mildly smutty pictures of hot dudes/reporting on my writing progress on Facebook at: http://facebook.com/georgettewrites
The Alpha Won't Be Denied Page 13