by RJ Blain
I had so many questions and no way to ask them, which frustrated a low growl out of me. What did James have to do with Andrea or me?
Instead of flinching away like a sane woman in the presence of a huge, growling wolf, Captain Ramirez smiled and scratched me behind one of my ears. “Welcome home, Sean.”
I had no memory of leaving the police station, nor did I recognize the rustic living room or leather couch I was sprawled on. My cheetah, however, recognized Andrea’s scent, which was partnered by the sweet cinnamon scent from the police station. My head was nestled on her lap, and she ran her fingers through my fur, pausing every now and then to flick one of my ears.
Captain Ramirez crouched beside me, digging her fingers into my fur. “He’s coming around, I think. Sean? You with us?”
I was amazed they recognized me, and hundreds of questions rattled in my head without any way to ask them. Shaking my head, I struggled to rise, but Ramirez pushed my shoulders down, and Andrea tightened her grip on me.
“Easy, Sean. Lie still. We’re going to help you, but you need to stay calm, okay? It’s going to hurt, but once it’s over, we can answer all of your questions. Stay still for Andrea.” Ramirez gave my ears a brisk rub. “That little girl you were keeping company started singing like a canary about an hour ago. She’ll be all right, and I had some strings pulled, but she won’t be going back to Kentucky any time soon, not unless she wants to.”
I turned my ears back, wondering how Ramirez knew I cared about what happened to Kimberly. Puzzled but unable to figure out a way to communicate, I relaxed against Andrea’s leg and sighed.
My cheetah was pleased by how close she held me, and my wolf was intrigued by the strength of my cheetah’s emotions.
“Hopefully, we won’t need the males for this,” Ramirez muttered, shaking her head. “Are you ready, Andrea?”
“Ready,” the woman my cheetah adored replied, digging her fingers into my fur and securing her hold on me. “Everything’s going to be fine, Sean. Just trust us.”
Worry and fear marred Andrea’s scent, and I whined.
“Here goes nothing,” Captain Ramirez said, and she, too, smelled worried and anxious.
While Ramirez’s touch was gentle, fire burned through me, and the pain of every bone in my body breaking at the same time seared away all thought.
It took an eternity for the agony of my bones shifting under my skin to subside, and when it did, I trembled. The presence of my spirit beasts had faded so much fear choked me. A shudder coursed through me. The fire in my bones ebbed, and as the pain receded, I shook, too weak to do anything other than fight to catch my breath.
The cool air bit at my raw throat and lungs, and the stench of my blood filled my nose. My cheek rested on something soft and warm, and the pleasant sensation intensified as my body recognized it no longer hurt.
A gentle touch on my brow woke me to the fact I had hair instead of fur. Without fur to protect me, the chilly air forced a groan out of me, and I curled towards the source of warmth near my head.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Ramirez said. I cracked open an eye in time to watch the woman drape a blanket over me. She knelt beside me, pressing her fingers to my throat to check my pulse, her gaze fixed on her watch. “Sean, first you need a soak, then we’re going to fill you in on what’s been going on. In thirty or forty minutes, you won’t feel so raw. It might take you a bit to remember how to talk in something other than growls. It’s normal.”
Nothing was normal about werewolves, and after swallowing several times, I said, “There’s nothing normal about this.” She was right about the growling; while I could speak, my words came out as a snarl.
Ramirez huffed before smiling at me. “You’ll get used to it. You okay, Andrea?”
It wasn’t until the police captain turned her attention to the defense attorney I realized my head was pillowed on Andrea’s leg. My cheetah wanted to purr, but the sound I made was far closer to a growl.
“I’m fine. I’m more worried about him.”
“Of course you are. You need a shower yourself. I should have some clothes that will fit you. Let Dan and his devil brother take care of Sean. Then we’ll get together for a talk.”
“Probably wise.” Andrea sighed. “Tell them to be careful or I’ll skin them for their pelts.”
“I’m sure they’ll be careful, but I’ll let them know. Don’t worry. They’ll take good care of him.”
Chapter Eleven
Marcello and Dan took charge of me and showed no sign they were disturbed by my recently being a wolf. I should have protested against their plan to situate me in the jacuzzi to their liking, but exhaustion warred with gut-cramping nausea, leaving me easy prey for the Albano brothers.
It didn’t take long for chills and fever to set in, and I clenched my teeth to keep from whining.
Humans didn’t whine, and my wolf seemed determined to force me to behave in accordance to my species rather than his. My cheetah was amused by my wolf’s decision to restore me to how I had been before Idette had attacked me.
Life had been so much easier as a wolf.
Wolves, however, couldn’t enjoy jacuzzis in the wild, and the jets massaging my sore muscles made the fever and nausea tolerable. I sighed, leaning my head back against the ledge. Marcello perched on the side of the tub nearby, probably waiting to fish me out of the water.
“You have to have some questions.” My friend poked my shoulder. “Obnoxious attorneys always have questions.”
“You mean reporters,” I croaked, wincing at the ache in my throat. There were no obvious scars or wounds left from Idette’s attack, but it felt like I had swallowed broken glass and rusty nails.
“Fair. If you aren’t going to start asking questions like a good attorney, I’ll make up questions for you and answer them in the most annoying way I possibly can.”
“Let’s start with why the hell none of you are surprised I was a wolf,” I suggested, and I winced as I realized I had growled out the words.
Maybe my wolf was pressuring me to behave in a fashion more appropriate to humans, but I wanted to bite something and snarl my frustration.
“I’m equally curious that you’re taking this in stride, too, Sean.”
“Point,” I conceded but refused to elaborate. Just the thought of trying to explain I had plenty of experience shapeshifting to a cheetah exhausted me. “What’s going on, Marcello?”
“I guess I’ll take it from the top and you can fill in the blanks for me. The captain will want to go over it again, but at least this way, you can go into the interrogation a little better prepared.”
Letting Marcello handle most of the talking sounded good to me, so I nodded my agreement.
“We’ve been pretty worried about you lately, but after you disappeared, O’Mallory pulled us all aside and explained he had pressured you into going ahead with filing for divorce as the trial was coming to an end.” Marcello scowled at me, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s been dealt with, to say the least.”
“I should have listened. I should’ve done it sooner.”
“You didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. You’ll understand in a few minutes, just give me a chance to explain.”
While I didn’t understand how I hadn’t had a choice about staying with Idette, I gave Marcello the benefit of the doubt and nodded for him to continue.
He sighed, long and heavy. “Since we were worried, we decided to check in with your resort after your expected arrival. The captain called in a favor with some of her cop acquaintances in New York, and they requested the resort management keep track of the two of you. The next night, they reported to the police that one of the kayaks was missing and your rental car was gone. They waited until after nightfall since it’s pretty common for people to head out for the day.”
My memories of the first day or two with Idette were a pain-filled blur, but I had a very clear recollection of when she had attacked me in the forest
. While there was a lot of explaining I could do, I waited in silence.
When Marcello wanted my input, he’d ask for it.
“Ramirez’s New York friends had a look and found the kayak, your clothes, and your wallet. Your glasses were a write-off. Fortunately, we did find an older pair of your glasses in your house so you won’t have to run into the walls until you get a chance to go to the eye doctor.”
I hadn’t even given my glasses a second thought; feeling as crappy as I did, my blurred vision didn’t even rank as a problem, not yet at least. Later, however, I’d appreciate not being as blind as a bat. “Thanks.”
“No sweat, Sean. It’s a problem we’re all relieved to have at this point. When they called to report found a bloody mess—literally—we all assumed the worst. What the hell happened out there?”
“My psycho wife decided to go for my throat,” I replied, and it surprised me how easily the words came out.
“After seeing the pictures, I believe it. She’s left us with a hell of a mess to clean up to say the least. There are about six different stories, none of which are official, and thanks to your high profile cases, you’ve been a news sensation. Attorney missing, believed murdered. There are so many theories on what happened to you I don’t even know where to begin explaining them.” Marcello shook his head. “It wasn’t until we saw the pictures we realized what had happened and got a warrant to go to your house.”
“How did you know what happened, anyway?”
“This is where we make a sharp left turn out of reality and take a bumpy side trip into the insane,” my friend warned.
“I figured out my wife is a werewolf. What I don’t understand is why she decided to take a bite out of my throat.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be in denial right now, Sean.” Marcello frowned at me.
“I’m a man of many surprises. I’m surprised I’m a man at all right now. What I am most surprised by is the fact you aren’t surprised. How the hell did you all recognize me?”
“We’re Fenerec, that’s how. It took me one sniff to know who you were. I about shit my pants on the street when I realized that teen’s spotted wolf was none other than you. Since you were unaggressive, we decided to scope out your behavior. Honestly, after over a month missing, we thought you were a goner—or mad. Ramirez has been at her wit’s end dealing with Andrea. You’re going to have to make nice to her, Sean. You scared her a lot.”
“Ramirez?”
“No, Andrea.”
I frowned, wondering why Andrea would be so worried about me. In court, we were the best of enemies. A one-sided relationship never went far. My cheetah’s interest in the defense attorney had bled over to me, although we had both been charmed by Andrea’s strength from the very beginning. “Fenerec. Explain that first.”
There were only so many problems I could deal with at a time, and I’d need a lot more than a long soak in a jacuzzi to figure out how to handle my feelings for Andrea Morgan.
“Fenerec is the word you’d use for werewolf. Most of us consider the term werewolf an insult, not that there’s much we can do about the name without outing the fact we actually exist. I’m one, Dan’s one, and so is about half the bureau. Captain Ramirez and Judge O’Mallory are our Alphas; they’ve been mated for about ten years now.”
I straightened and blurted, “They’ve been what for how long?”
“Mated. They’re a couple. To our kind, it’s a pretty big deal. Unlike with Normals, there’s no such thing as a divorce among the Fenerec. You dodged a very nasty bullet with Idette, Sean. Fuck, if we’d known she was a Fenerec, we would have gotten you out of the situation the instant we found out about her. She’s a rogue, and part of our job is catching them so they don’t hurt anyone. You’re a perfect example of someone targeted by a rogue.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. Along with the ache of fever, I was getting a headache, which only made my nausea worse.
“Idette was clever, I’ll give her that much. None of us had any idea she was a rogue. Normally, Fenerec have distinctive scents, but you’re around us so often it’s hard to pick out a specific wolf. Had she been your mate, we would’ve known right away there was a rogue in town and she was close to you.”
“I’m not sure I follow. What do you mean by ‘had she been your mate’?”
“She might have been your wife but she sure as hell wasn’t—isn’t—your mate. I’m willing to bet Idette wanted to change that and was making some pretty hard advances on you, too. Unfortunately for all of us, we underestimated you—and how positively stubborn you can be. O’Mallory was pretty riled up over how hard it was for him to influence you enough to file the papers.”
“If I had known she was going to change into a wolf and try to rip my throat out, I would have done it years ago,” I grumbled.
“No one is judging you for it, Sean. We have a better understanding now of what was going on. The fact O’Mallory got you to the filing stage at all is impressive. I don’t want to dump too much on you at one time, so please believe me when I say you really didn’t have much of a choice about staying with her. You were the equivalent of her hostage.”
I didn’t buy into his half-hearted explanation, but I also didn’t fight him on it. It wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, I considered what he had told me. The difference between wife and mate eluded me.
Until Idette was out of my life, it didn’t really matter.
“You, your brother, Captain Ramirez, and Judge O’Mallory are all Fenerec. Werewolves.”
Marcello grimaced at my use of the popular term but nodded.
“So is Andrea.”
“Correct.”
“You’ve been under our noses the entire time, hiding in plain sight. I guess the myths about werewolves changing under a full moon aren’t entirely true, are they?”
Marcello chuckled. “Oh, they’re true. They’re very true. We can fight the transformation if we need to, but most of us shift to a wolf during the full moon. The hour the moon’s at its peak during the night is when it’s most potent and hardest to resist. We avoid putting Fenerec on duty for night patrols during the full moon, and we’re careful about daytime patrols, too, although it’s much easier to resist when the sun is up.”
“That explains why Idette became a wolf. Why did she go for my throat?”
The way Marcello sighed warned me I wouldn’t like his answer. “Fenerec are jealous by nature, Sean. We’re ruled by instinct and impulse, and very little is more important to a Fenerec than their mate. Males live and die to protect their bitch, be she human or Fenerec. Watch Captain Ramirez and Judge O’Mallory when they’re together. Observe their body language. O’Mallory tenses if anyone even thinks of touching her.”
I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Ramirez, the eternal single woman of the West Bureau, was in a relationship with Judge O’Mallory, who had a reputation for being a fair judge of rare intellect and an unobtainable bachelor.
“That doesn’t explain why Idette did what she did,” I pointed out. What did Idette have to be jealous about? I had given her my vow, and I had remained loyal to her. We had grown distant, but her violence was to blame for that.
“It’s simple, Sean. Idette wants what Andrea has.” Marcello glanced towards the closed bathroom door. “They’ll skin me for my pelt once they find out I’ve told you this, but there’s no use hiding it. Maybe Idette’s your wife, but she’s not your mate. Andrea is.”
I gawked at Marcello. My cheetah’s smugness partnered well with my wolf’s satisfaction at the cop’s proclamation. How could Andrea, who ignored me on the best of days, be anything other than a cool acquaintance and competition in court?
My cheetah had adored her from the moment we had seen the defense attorney, and I had fallen for the woman’s smile not long after. There was nothing more to our relationship than our battles in court despite my long and uncomfortable nights of dreaming of a woman who wasn’t my wif
e.
Marcello slapped my shoulder and said, “It’ll work out, you’ll see. All you need to know is that you’re not alone and we’ll help you adapt to life as a Fenerec. A skilled attorney like yourself will be welcomed in almost any pack, and where you go, Andrea will follow. You two can talk about it once you’ve had a chance to settle and get used to things.”
The talk left me with more questions than answers, but I kept my misgivings to myself. Before I could worry about Andrea, I had to deal with Idette.
If my wife was willing to kill me, she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Andrea or anyone else, especially if Marcello’s statements about Fenerec jealousy were true. In that, werewolves were like humans, and I had prosecuted more than my fair share of men and women who had killed their partners in fits of jealous rage.
I had no hope of any future with anyone as long as Idette remained a risk. My wolf’s agreement fed my anxiety until I could think of nothing other than how to protect those with the misfortune to be too close to me.
I had meant to learn as much as I could about what it meant to be a Fenerec, but my body betrayed me. The nausea partnered with a blinding headache and fever to flatten me, and my awareness of the world faded to an incomprehensible blur.
I spent an eternity wishing Idette had finished me off instead of turning me into a werewolf, and when I finally clawed my way to tolerable coherency, I wanted nothing more than to find some dark, quiet corner to sleep away the rest of my life.
My stomach, however, had other ideas. Instead of torturing me with nausea, it demanded sustenance. I had dim memories of someone trying to get food down my throat.
It hadn’t ended well for anyone.
I cracked open my eyes to darkness. My cheetah’s vision was far superior to my wolf’s. With his help, I found glasses on the nightstand and even managed to get them onto my face without dropping or breaking them. While the glasses were mine, the prescription was old, and I had to squint to determine I was in an unfamiliar bedroom, similar in rustic styling to the log cabin in New York. A sliver of light under a door provided enough illumination for me to locate a bathrobe draped over the back of a chair beside the bed.