by Kathy Lyons
“Does she have a heart condition?”
“Yeah.” Then the girl suddenly brightened. “Yes! Hank gave her pills.”
“Get them.”
Sammy straightened up, but she needn’t have bothered. Hank had already grabbed Mother’s big tote bag and was bringing it over. And what a sight that was seeing the bright fabric handles clamped between his bear teeth, a big butterfly tote swinging back and forth. Cecilia grabbed it from him thinking that that was probably the most surreal thing she’d ever seen. And given this night’s work, that was saying something.
Meanwhile Sammy started digging in the bag without even pulling it from Cecilia’s hand. She yanked out a little plastic baggie of pills with triumph.
“Here!”
Cecilia looked at the bear. Seriously, she looked straight into the bear’s eyes and asked the question. “Nitro?”
Hank’s head dipped in an obvious nod.
She grabbed a pill and gently opened Mother’s mouth to set it underneath her tongue. Then she sat there, holding Mother’s wrist as she monitored the woman’s pulse. Five seconds. Ten.
Mother’s heartbeat stabilized and grew stronger. Her breath evened out, too. And in a moment, her expression eased, and her shoulders drooped.
“I’m getting too old for this wolf shit,” she murmured.
“Is there ever an age for wolf shit?” Cecilia asked.
The woman’s eyes narrowed then a grin split her face. “Oh hell yes, honey. Those wolves make the best damn lovers you ever seen. Wild and fast. But they do like it doggy style—”
“Mother!” Sammy cried in shock, and Cecilia felt herself chuckle at the hot color in the kid’s cheeks.
The woman snorted. “I wasn’t born this old.” Then she quirked an eye at the girl. “And you’re one to talk, parading around naked in front of Hank.”
So yes, Sammy had been naked all this time, but everyone had been focused on other things. Certainly Sammy had been until Mother’s words. And if she’d been blushing before, now her face burned red hot as she gasped and grabbed the blanket off the couch to wrap it around her thin shoulders. Then with a horrified look at the black bear—who was looking straight out the window as if it hadn’t even occurred to him to look anywhere else—she dashed down the stairs.
Mother chuckled, though the sound was weak. “Girl never thinks about clothes. Most shifters don’t. It’s how I knew she was one of ’em.”
“Really? What are the other signs?” Cecilia might’ve been shaky and splattered with blood, but intellectual curiosity always won out. And suddenly she had a whole new vista of study to explore.
“There’s the way they eat. Less cooking, more raw.”
“Even before their first shift? That’s what this was, right? The first time—”
“Yes. It’s a little early for her, but we knew it was coming. Hank could smell it on her.”
Cecilia wanted to ask more. Questions piled on top of each other in her brain, but she could see that Mother was exhausted. The woman needed her rest. So she suppressed her need to know in favor of Mother’s health, but it was a hard thing to do.
“I want to hear all about it,” she said, keeping her tone gentle. “But maybe in the morning. Can I help you to bed?”
Mother gave her a grateful look, but then her gaze skidded around the room at the disaster that surrounded them. “I should—”
“Rest. Hank and I will take care of things tonight. Don’t you worry.”
Mother’s expression was grateful as Cecilia helped her stand.
“And if you give me the name of your cardiologist, I can write up…well not everything.” They’d lock her in the loony bin for sure. “But I can tell him about what I saw…” Her voice trailed away. It was in her nature to document everything, especially an older woman’s heart episode. But she could see from Mother’s face that there were other problems with her suggestion than the fear that she’d mention werewolves in her notes. “You don’t have a cardiologist, do you?”
“I got Hank there.”
It took Cecilia a moment to remember that Hank had told her at the beginning. “An army medic is a far cry from—”
“He takes good care of me.”
Cecilia looked over to where Hank was watching them with a stoic expression. Or simply a bear expression. It was hard to tell.
“No insurance, then?”
Mother shook her head. “The neighborhood takes care of me.” And when Cecilia raised her eyebrows at that, Mother shrugged. “The wolves around here ain’t that bad. Not generally. It’s since this Flu thing that they’ve gone crazy.” She looked sadly at the two hybrid bodies. “Any way to know who they were? Before the Flu got ’em?”
Cecilia swallowed. She hadn’t wanted to think about that. She hadn’t wanted to look at the bodies and think anything but monster. Or attacker. That Mother was already aware of the person beneath the fur showed she had a bigger heart than Cecilia. The things—the sick people—had broken through her window and attacked them. Hank was even now standing guard as a bear to make sure no one came at them again. And yet here was Mother thinking of the souls beneath the monster masks.
“I don’t know,” Cecilia answered honestly. “I’ll do what I can before the coroner gets here, but the bodies decompose incredibly fast.” That’s something they’d learned after the first wave of the Detroit Flu. And they were now on their third.
“Find them. Everybody has someone who cares. A mother should know when her child is gone.” There was a wealth of sadness in her tone and Cecilia wondered whom the woman had lost, but she didn’t press. Mother needed all her strength to climb the stairs and collapse into bed. She didn’t even undress and when Cecilia went to help her, she waved her away.
“Go on and help Sammy. Hank said new shifters are starving at first, before they sleep for a couple days.”
Good to know. “I’ll bring you some broth to drink. You need to keep your strength up, too.”
Mother patted her hand, the gesture maternal and vague. The woman’s eyes were already closing. “Go on now.”
Cecilia did, listening carefully as Mother’s breath deepened into a steady rhythm. She resolved to do some quick research on how to care for cardiac patients, but in the meantime, she had a new shifter to feed and after that, a whole new species to investigate. And though she wanted to make sure the living were taken care of, the bulk of her mind was caught up in the desire to examine the dead.
She’d found her clue and boy was it a doozy. There were so many avenues of research to follow, and all of them so exciting she couldn’t decide where to start.
She made it downstairs and headed straight into the kitchen. Hank remained at the front window, his big bear body on alert as he sniffed the night air. He looked over his shoulder at her, and she smiled.
“Mother is resting. I’ll check on her soon. She said that Sammy would be starving so…”
Hank left the window to follow her into the kitchen. She smiled as he came close, wondering if this was what it would be like to have a large dog as a pet. One that followed you wherever you went, who listened and never talked back. Who stretched up onto his back legs to paw at a cabinet.
Well, probably not that last one. Damn, he had to be seven feet tall like this. Where did he find the mass? As a man, he’d been over six feet, but somehow during the shift, he’d gained height and at least a hundred pounds. She was still watching him, thinking about the difference between man and beast when he managed to get the cabinet open. But he didn’t have the dexterity to pull down a box of protein bars without risking the entire cabinet.
“I’ll get it,” she said as she stepped forward. He backed up, tottered a moment on his back paws, and then gracefully collapsed down. He didn’t touch her, though she felt his heat as he went down. And damn, she’d never been this close to a bear before.
All that inky black fur was beautiful. And the brown muzzle seemed cute and fuzzy. No trace of a scar on the bear, she realized. And were his eyes larger? Y
es, they had to be. She wanted to take measurements of both man and bear, but she got lost in the liquid depths of his gaze. He’d dropped to all fours and now they were staring at each other, nearly eye to eye.
She reached out without thought, but then held herself back. “Is it all right?” she asked. “Can I touch you?”
He dipped his head in a nod. She smiled then did what she’d wanted to do from the very first moment he’d changed in front of her. She started at his muzzle, the short brown hair feeling more bristly than she expected. He turned his face into her palm, and she grinned at the feel of his wet nose. His tongue licked her palm, soft and as sensuous as she imagined. It was sweet, the way he curled around her small finger. A single quick lick, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, and then he ducked his head.
Her other hand joined the first, and she stroked back along his muzzle, scratching the soft brown fur. He rumbled in appreciation, stretching closer to her until her fingers dug into what would be the ruff on a large dog. Apparently bears liked to be scratched there, too, and she sank her fingers into soft black fur.
No wonder Sammy had thrown her arms around Hank. As a bear, he was just the right size and feel to bury her entire face in his neck while her hands stretched around his back. She flashed for a moment on her favorite childhood books, The Chronicles of Narnia. Back then, she’d wanted nothing more than to hug the big lion Aslan. Now she knew that lions had nothing on bears. Hank was nuzzling softness, hot licks, and exactly the size to make her feel small and safe beside him. Like a child with a big, wonderful pet. Or maybe a woman looking straight at a feat of magic so incredible that it had silenced her scientific mind all together.
Well, at least for a few moments as she held on to him, her face in his neck, her body absorbing his heat and his strength. That lasted for as much as twelve seconds before the questions overran her pleasure.
She drew back long enough to look into his eyes. “You know I’m going to pepper you with questions soon. Am I right that you can turn back to human whenever you want?”
A slow dip of his head.
“I’ll take that as a yes. But you’re not doing it, right? Because you fight better in this form? And you want to protect us from whatever could come through the busted window.”
He nodded again, and if the curve to his mouth was any indication, he was smiling at her. Like a teacher when the slow kid in class finally gets it.
“Okay,” she said. “First things first. I’m taking protein bars to Sammy and then some hot soup to Mother.” She arched a brow. “Then it’s your turn while I look at the bodies. You’re going to answer questions while I work.”
He’d pulled back as she spoke, giving her room to get to the cabinet, but her last statements had him blowing out a breath. She had no idea what it meant. Could be a yes, could be a no way. Didn’t matter. Everybody in her life learned that once she got going on a research direction, she was impossible to stop. He might as well get used to the idea that she was going to pester him all night.
So she grabbed the box of protein bars and a soda from the refrigerator and headed downstairs. It was a small finished basement complete with TV, couch, and two sets of bunk beds against the back wall. Looked like Sammy wasn’t the only one who slept over, but she was clearly the one who’d been here the longest. Girls’ clothes littered the floor. A few pictures of her with her friends were tucked into the mirror. And the girl herself was curled up on the nearest bunk, fast asleep.
Cecilia didn’t know if it was more important for the girl to eat or sleep. Probably eat. Shifting had to take a ton of energy, so she nudged Sammy awake. “Eat something before you completely crash,” she said.
Sammy blinked then nodded. “Starving,” she mumbled as she grabbed the soda. She started drinking it while Cecilia ripped open two bars. “How’s Mother?”
“Same as you. Needs food and sleep.”
“Mmph,” the girl answered as she took a big bite of the first protein bar.
Cecilia smiled. “I’ve got questions, if you don’t mind answering them.”
Sammy didn’t respond as she finished off the bar and started on the second.
“Have you always known you’re a shifter?”
The girl shook her head. “Hank told me. I didn’t believe him.”
Join the club. “How old were you?”
The girl chugged her soda, then set it down empty on the floor. “Later,” she said as she curled onto her side.
“But—”
“Leave the box.”
“Um…okay. Maybe we can talk in the morning. I’d really like to know how it feels to shift.”
Sammy didn’t answer, and in a moment, her breath had deepened into sleep. Okay, so no more answers there. It was time to heat up some broth and get some pictures of the bodies before they decayed.
Her steps were light as she climbed the stairs. She made quick work of opening a can of soup. She doubted Mother would be awake to eat it, but she wanted it ready. She grabbed herself a protein bar as she cooked and even offered one to Hank. He nodded, and she had a great deal of fun peeling the wrapper off before tossing it to him. She wanted to know if he would try to catch it with his paws like a man or just open wide.
He opened wide, consuming the whole thing in one bite. And then she finally, wonderfully, got to do what she’d been aching to do for what seems like ages: she got to inspect the werewolf.
Chapter 7
I’m going out to your car.”
Hank’s ears twitched. He was back in the kitchen trying to peer through the back windows. Bears didn’t have great eyesight, so it hadn’t helped much. Typically, his nose more than made up for the lack, but all he could smell right now was Campbell’s chicken soup and Cecilia. She was a wacky combination of Mother’s lemon dish soap and persimmon. He’d had that spicy sweet fruit during his time in the military and he’d never forgotten it. And now that taste was inexorably mixed with her.
He shouldn’t have licked her, but she’d been stroking his face, curling her fingers into his fur, and looking at him like he was a Disney miracle and a Christmas gift all wrapped together. So he’d done what bears do. They taste, they mark, and they remember.
“I need my phone, and I think it’s in there. I’ve got your gun and your keys.”
Hank padded quietly back into the living room. She was at the front door holding his gun like it was toxic waste, but obviously determined to head out into the dark of a dangerous city gone crazy. Not a good idea.
He moved to her side before she could open the front door. She could have just climbed out the big front window, but she was classier than that.
“You don’t have to go with me—”
He snorted. She wasn’t stepping one foot outside without him. The wolves were out tonight in force, and no telling who was crazy and who wasn’t. But first things first.
He knocked the gun out of her hand. Terrible things happened when untrained people handled a weapon. And she was clearly untrained.
“Hey!” she cried as the gun went skittering across the room. “You could have shot something.”
The safety had been on, so he’d taken the risk. And when she went to pick up the gun, he slid in front of her.
“Fine,” she finally said. “No gun. I don’t like the thing anyway. It was used to abduct me.”
He arched a brow at her. He wasn’t sure if a bear could do that. They didn’t have eyebrows, but she understood the expression.
“Don’t look at me that way. It’s a fact. And maybe I don’t exactly see how you could have done it differently, but that doesn’t change the truth. You abducted me with that gun, and now it’s sitting in a pool of blood, so I suppose that’s just as well.”
He jerked his gaze sideways and sure enough, he’d be cleaning that weapon as soon as he was human.
She chuckled at him. He was sure of it. And then she went to open the front door, but he stopped her with a quick bite. He grabbed hold of her once white lab coat and tugge
d on it. Sure it sported stains of a variety of colors, not to mention a whole lot of blood from the hybrid she’d killed. But that didn’t change the fact that it was white enough to draw attention outside and so she needed to get it off.
She looked at him as he clamped down on her coat and promptly misinterpreted what he meant.
“I’m going out there. I need my phone.”
He gave her coat another tug.
“I’m not going to call the police or anything, and I’m not running. Everything I want to examine is right here.”
Her gesture suggested the two hybrids and the dead werewolf, but her gaze included him. Was she planning on inspecting him? Probably. He’d seen the gleam of scientific excitement in her eye. Did she want to turn him into her personal lab rat? Or lab bear? That wasn’t going to happen and yet, part of him was interested in exactly that scenario. If she were the one doing the inspecting. He wouldn’t let her bring out the knives or anything, but he sure would love to see exactly how she would explore every inch of him.
And that right there told him that he’d been awake far too long. His libido was running away with his brain. No rest meant no control of his body or his mind. He’d learned from his brother’s death that shifters needed control above everything else. And if he hadn’t known it then, the lesson had been repeated with every drunk patient he’d seen during his stint as a medic. A lack of discipline created problems. And lack of discipline in a shifter killed.
But he had no choice at the moment. He had to hold it together until morning. Werewolves settled down during daylight. He didn’t know why, but Mother had said it often and she knew wolves better than anyone.
Which meant that Cecilia was not going to go outside in an outfit guaranteed to attract attention. With the moon tonight, she’d light up like she was center stage at the opera. So he tugged again on her lab coat, tossing his head to give her the idea.
“What are—Ow!”
He eased up immediately; he didn’t want to hurt her. Then he huffed. The woman was a doctor. Why couldn’t she understand the basics of nighttime survival? He let go of her coat and then burrowed beneath it. The thing had two big buttons which he couldn’t manage in his bear form. Hopefully this gave her the idea of what he wanted.