The Lure of the Wolf

by Jennifer St Giles

  In his early to mid-twenties, with dark brown hair and gray eyes, Nick had enough good looks and sex appeal to have tumbled in more than his share of haystacks. But he was so totally not the type of guy her sister went for. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned this to her before? Why hadn’t he mentioned this to her before? He’d had plenty of opportunity. She had a flash of all those detective shows where the date had killed the girl.

  “What did you say?” She turned to look at Nick with an eagle eye, thinking that if the SOB had had anything to do with Stef’s disappearance, she’d become a werewolf herself just so she could torture him.

  “Hell,” he said, sinking back into the seat with a puzzled frown. “That isn’t what this is about?”

  “You’d better start talking, or this will damn well become what this is about, deputy,” Annette said between clenched teeth.

  “Listen. It was no big deal. A friend of hers from work—you remember Sharon Wills?”

  Annette nodded, recalling the teary-eyed woman who’d searched for Stef. Annette had spoken a number of times to the woman in the first few weeks after Stef’s disappearance, but then, as with all of Stef’s other colleagues, Sharon stopped keeping in touch after the search parties had ended.

  “Sharon set us up on a date. I chose the restaurant, and Stefanie chose the show. I took her to a steak house, and she ate a salad because she doesn’t eat meat. Then we went to see some subtitled film that I fell asleep in. We ended the date planning to do it again, only this time she was going to pick the restaurant, and I would choose the show. She had a mystical quality about her that I didn’t know what to do with, but it intrigued me. I called her the next week, and she said that she was hung up with a project from work and couldn’t go out, but would call me as soon as she was free. I took it as a brush-off, or that she had come to the conclusion that our karmas didn’t mesh. Only…she disappeared that weekend, okay. And I feel like shit, which is nothing to what must have happened to her…. Sam knows about it.”

  Annette didn’t know whether to believe Nick or not. She’d like to think that she was a good judge of people. She’d like to believe in the honest emotion of frustration and guilt on his face. But what if he was another Ted Bundy? What if he was some psycho who didn’t like to be told no?

  “Did she say what the project was?” she asked.

  “The project?” Nick’s brows knitted with surprise. “She didn’t say anything more than it was something she was working on at Sno-Med. Sharon would know though…. You think that it might have something to do with her disappearance?” he asked sharply. “What’s going down at Sno-Med anyway? The fire yesterday. Sam’s insistence on keeping it under tight surveillance. And why in the hell are you sneaking around looking like a Charlie’s Angel nightmare?”

  “Thanks,” she said, putting the car in gear and speeding to the clinic. “I can’t tell you anything about Sno-Med. Not until we talk to Sam.”

  “Then let me loose,” Nick demanded.

  Annette shook her head. She couldn’t trust Nick just yet, and Aragon didn’t need to do any fighting.

  They’d just hit Twilight’s outskirts when the sheriff pulled in behind her, lights flashing. Annette wasn’t about to stop and have an argument with Sam. She needed to get to the clinic, and she wasn’t going to let anything slow her down. She turned on her flashers and kept going.

  Sam hit his horn and his siren.

  Annette kept going.

  She arrived at the clinic with the sheriff riding her ass. The trip had been a nightmare, and she was sure Aragon’s first impressions of mortals ranked subzero, all of which ratcheted up her irritation. She’d been spinning her wheels for six months, searching the forest and focusing on spreading flyers, hoping someone would have information on Stef. She should have stopped beating the bushes and started on the people that Stef knew, so to speak.

  The sheriff jerked her car door open before she could kill the engine.

  He reached into the car, either for her or for the car keys. “What in the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  Aragon didn’t give the sheriff an inch. He leaned in front of Annette, grabbed the sheriff’s wrist, and twisted, bringing the sheriff to his knees in the parking lot outside her car door with a loud umph.

  Aragon’s arm was plastered along her breasts. She gasped for air and fought for reason amid her rocketing nerves.

  “Damn!” Nick muttered.

  Aragon had moved as fast as lightning, like a blur, but Annette could feel his body trembling from the effort.

  “Do not harm the mortal woman,” Aragon said.

  The shock cutting across Sam’s rugged face would have been laughable were it not for Aragon’s grimace of pain and the click of Sam’s gun. He’d drawn it from its holster with his other hand and had it pointed in Aragon’s direction. Being stuck between the two of them was like standing in the way of magma ready to blow the top off a volcano.

  “Don’t shoot, Sam. He’s already been shot once tonight saving my ass, and he needs treatment pronto.”

  “Who in the hell is he?”

  “His name is Aragon. He’s like Jared.”

  “You know of Jared?” Aragon asked, frowning at her. “I am not like him, though. Jared was poisoned. I am not. I am worse.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?” Nick demanded from the back seat.

  Sam stared hard at Aragon, then asked her, “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. I’ve, uh, seen him change myself.”

  “Shit.”

  “That’s no way to welcome him to Earth,” Annette quipped, wincing with guilt over her own treatment of Aragon. Then she realized Sam’s voice sounded harsher than she ever remembered, and he looked worse than hell. Had something happened? “Where’re Jared, Emerald, and Erin?” she asked.

  “Jared’s still locked up, and Emerald and Erin are keeping watch. Nothing has happened so far. You women generate more trouble than Job ever dreamed of having.” Sam looked back at Nick. “You all right?”

  “Just get me out of here,” Nick demanded, jerking roughly on the handcuffs. He’d probably scarred her leather interior for life.

  “Aragon, let go of Sam,” Annette urged. “He won’t harm me, and he’s the man who helped save Jared.”

  She could feel Aragon struggle with the decision, and she clasped her hand around his wrist as she had done before. This time the electrifying contact went even deeper. Did the man have invisible electrodes targeting her erogenous zones? “Please,” she whispered past the sudden dryness of her throat. Meeting his gaze while they were this close together was a mistake. She knew it would be, but she did it anyway.

  He inhaled sharply, as if he too needed more air. There was no mistaking the heat in his eyes. He released his hold on Sam and pulled back from her as if burned.

  “I’ll take care of Aragon, and you deal with Nick,” Annette told Sam, forcing herself to move before she melted. “The handcuff key is in the glove compartment.” She exited the car the instant Sam stood. Then she moved fast, intending to get Aragon out of the car and into the clinic, but Sam held her up with a hand to her shoulder.

  “You’ve been bitten,” he said under his breath.

  Annette blinked. “What are you talking about?” she whispered.

  He nodded at the car. “The whole Beauty and the Werewolf thing sizzling between you two. What in the hell is going on, Annette? When did you meet him? How long has he been here?”

  “You’re seeing things,” she said, pulling away from him, refusing to face any of the answers his questions evoked. They were just too damn scary for words. “Aragon just needs help, and I’m it. We’ll talk later, after I take care of him, and you can explain why you never mentioned that your deputy had been out with my sister.” Two steps later she realized that she didn’t need to “get” Aragon out of anything. He stood at the end of the car, arms crossed he-man style, his dark gaze centered on Sam.


  “Follow me,” she ordered, before either Sam or Aragon could erupt. Mount St. Helens versus Vesuvius, a no-win situation no matter what angle you tried. What was it about tonight? The thunderstorm had left way too much tension brewing in the air, and everyone seemed to be sucking it up.

  She led the way inside the clinic, flipping on lights as she passed. Once in the exam room, she snatched up a blanket and motioned Aragon to the stretcher, much too aware of him as a man. In the bright light, he seemed even more larger-than-life, but also more vulnerable than ever. Pain had tightened his features and his bearing, something her hands and heart ached to change. Though as a doctor, she was familiar with the feeling, tonight with Aragon it seemed sharper for some reason.

  He wasn’t just a patient.

  She clenched her hand. He had to be.

  “Lie on your stomach so that I can look at your back,” she ordered, assessing his condition so she wouldn’t dwell on the heat in his eyes or the intriguing cleft in his chin. As he moved toward her, she noted the broad expanse of his shoulders, then dipped her gaze along the hard contours of his chest, past the strap of her bra holding his bandage on to his abs and—hell—riveted her eyes to the pink claw mark bisecting his torso. His chest where Pathos had scraped him wasn’t the raw and oozing wound that she felt stinging along her back. Yet she was certain Aragon’s injury had been worse. Rain had washed the blood away, revealing pink lines of healing skin. You’d have thought weeks had passed since he’d been injured.

  With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten that Jared had also healed rapidly from injury. Still, seeing the evidence herself was miraculous—unless…“Turn around,” she ordered, urging him about. He was so tall, six-five or taller, she thought. She had to stretch on her tiptoes to see part of his shoulders. The cuts from the glass had healed as well, only now glass was embedded in the tissue even more, which meant getting it out was going to be harder and more painful.

  Snatching up the bandage scissors, she cut the elastic strap holding her pressure bandage bra on him and eased the cups back from the bullet wound. The healing process had already started there as well, which meant she couldn’t delay more before getting the bullet out.

  “I see the blood, but that doesn’t look like a fresh gunshot wound,” Sam said from behind, startling her. Nick stood next to Sam, his glare at her alternating between disbelief and “you’re-a-dead-woman.” Being brought to his boss handcuffed had to bite.

  “Another thirty minutes, and you’ll swear he’d been shot a month ago,” she told them. “Aragon, I need to extract the bullet and the glass from your back. Otherwise, you’ll suffer major pain in the future and may end up with a serious infection.”

  Aragon rolled his shoulders, making her wince. He had to be in pain. But he swung around to face her, shaking his head. “There is no need, mortal woman. I have no future to be concerned with. My time is limited. We have important things we must discuss, for Pathos will move against me, and now, I fear, against you as well.”

  What did he mean his time was limited? Her breath hitched as she wondered if Aragon would do the same thing Jared had tried—eliminate himself before any harm could come to another. He’d thought he would harm her while he was a werewolf, but she hadn’t felt any real danger from him. Not like Pathos.

  Somehow the notion of sacrificing himself as Jared had tried to do didn’t fit in with Aragon’s commanding presence. He seemed more the type to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many of the enemy with him as he could.

  “Pathos?” Sam asked.

  Aragon grunted with disgust. “Leader of the Vladarian Order and a scourge upon all Blood Hunters’ honor. He and the Vladarian vampires terrorized the mortal world a millennium ago, feasting ravenously upon Elan blood, and slaughtering many others as well. I have come to eliminate him.” Aragon narrowed his gaze at her. “Are you sure you know nothing more about Pathos and Nyros, the red demon I found you with tonight?”

  “A demon?” she gasped. “You mean, as in a creature from hell that does horrible things? That kind of demon?” She shuddered hard. The chill of Nyros’s touch would never leave her memory. “Until they attacked me, I’d never seen either of them before in my life.”

  Aragon grunted. “I can see you speak true.”

  “I am not hearing this conversation,” Nick said, backing away. “This whole Twilight Zone episode is not happening.”

  Annette narrowed her gaze at Nick. “I’m still not convinced you’re an innocent in all of this.”

  Sam answered. “He had Sno-Med under surveillance. I trust him completely.”

  “Well, he isn’t doing such a hot job. I heard tonight that the blood samples have already been shipped out, and tomorrow they have trucks arriving for the computers and files. Neither of you saw fit to mention that Nick knew Stef. Had, in fact, invited her out again the night before she disappeared. So what else aren’t you saying? How do we even know that she didn’t go out with him that night?”

  “You don’t trust me,” Sam said, his voice low and tight.

  “I trust you, Sam.” She shifted her glare to Nick. “Everything else is going to have to wait until I have time to think about it. Right now I’ve got a bullet to dig out.” Annette started gathering the supplies she needed to treat Aragon.

  Nick cursed. “I told you that—”

  “I’ll handle this,” Sam interjected. “I know he didn’t go out with Stef that night because he and I went camping on Mount Kinleigh. And I advised him not to say anything about going out with Stef, because I wanted him on the case. I knew he would look harder because he knew her.”

  “Provided he can be trusted, I would agree.” Annette respected Sam’s opinion, but she wasn’t ready to accept Nick’s story as the whole truth. She wasn’t about to accept anything at face value. Hopefully, the information she’d gathered off the computer would lead to both Stef and Mr. X. Mr. X might or might not be Dr. Steven Bryers, but just because the man’s lab coat was in the office she’d accessed the files from, that didn’t necessarily mean he was involved. If Dr. Steven Bryers was Mr. X, then it seemed incredibly stupid to leave ID lying around. Then again, someone could be framing Bryers as the culprit. And what about the demon and Pathos’s appearance? Bad luck on her part, or had someone set her up?

  But all the considerations running through her head would have to wait, no matter how anxious she was for answers. First she had to tend to Aragon, then get a disinfecting salve on her own scrape—something she wasn’t going to do with three overprotective men around. Only then could she check out the flash drive and try and puzzle out the night’s events. These past few minutes since arriving at the clinic seemed to be dragging on and on.

  “I’m out of here,” Nick said. “Just for the record, not a damn thing has been taken out of that building, and the only disturbance was the Moe’s To Go beeping delivery. That number is what sent me scouting the perimeter and led me to your car. Lousy smokescreen. And I’m not buying this B movie bullshit about demons and—what?” He looked at Aragon. “A man from outer space?”

  “Werewolf,” Annette said. “Make that plural. Aragon is the second Blood Hunter to show up.”

  Nick gaped at her and started backing out of the room. “You’re out of your mind.”

  Sam turned his razor-sharp gaze to Nick. “You’d best bite the bullet and chew hard, Nick,” Sam said, unrelenting steel underlying his softened tone. “Or your ass will be sitting in a cell until I have time for a heart-to-heart. This shit is as real as it gets and infiltrates to the top all over the world. You’re going to have to help keep the lid on it. We don’t need a bunch of government bozos taking over our lives. This also has a trail to Belize.”

  Nick stopped his retreat, but didn’t move closer. “What trail?” he demanded, harshly.

  “I’ll tell you later, in private.” Sam cut his gaze her way, making Annette swallow hard. Not because Sam frightened her, but because she was frightened for him. She’d never seen
such a look of utter pain in his eyes before. Haunted didn’t even begin to describe what she saw. “And you’ve got less than two seconds to explain why in the hell you were at the Sno-Med Center tonight, or things are going to get extremely unpleasant really fast,” he said.

  Annette shook her head. Sam would have to wait; she had more pressing matters right now. “Sorry, Sam, I’ve already been there and done that. And things weren’t just unpleasant. They were downright nasty.”

  She squared her shoulders in determination, then winced at the pain clawing at her back. She couldn’t wait to ease the scrape with a hot bath and salve. “We’ll talk after I extract the bullet—”

  “No!” Aragon and Sam shouted at the same time, exchanging a look that made her very uncomfortable.

  She held her ground, at least part of it. “I’ll explain while I take the bullet out.” She patted the stretcher. “Aragon, lie face down here.”

  “Fine,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Let the woman make her magic; otherwise we’re going to be here all night.”

  Annette groaned, thinking her chances of getting Aragon to cooperate had just nosedived.

  Instead Aragon lay on the stretcher, turning to look at her with an assessing eye. “I will observe this magic of yours, mortal woman.”

  Annette slipped a clean lab coat over her damp clothes and set to work, giving them her spiel. “I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to find out information. I went to Sno-Med, looking for information about Stefanie before anyone could take any evidence away. While I was hiding in the restroom, Pathos and his demon appeared. He sniffed the air once, then practically flew through the hall and nailed me to the wall. Then Aragon rescued me.” She smiled brightly. “End of story.”

  “That’s not good enough, Nette, and you know it,” Sam said. “What aren’t you telling me? As we left it this morning, we were all going to wait until tomorrow. I just don’t buy you had an itch to go groping around in the dark all by yourself.”

  “That’s what happened,” she said. “And it’s damn good that I went, because I just may know how they are getting things out of Sno-Med without being seen. Pathos mentioned that he’d have trucks at the tunnel’s entrance in the morning.”