The Patient Wolf (Wicked Urban Fantasy #1)

by Karen Hodges Miller

  “And do these traits carry over when they are in human form?”

  “No, not really. At least,” she amended carefully, “that is what my grandfather says.”

  “I must meet your grandfather someday,” Alexander said. Ana did not encourage the thought. She didn’t want her grandfather, who while quite wise in his own way, and definitely the head of the family, had little formal schooling, subjected to the urbane wit of Professor Alexander Fontaine.

  “Don’t you think we had better discuss the details for your seminar? It is only a month away and I need to start getting notices in all of the local online bulletin boards, the campus paper…”

  “Yes, of course you are right,” Alexander said, and launched into a detailed list of things Ana would need to do immediately, if not sooner.

  Suddenly Ana looked up from her notes and realized they were the last ones left in the cafeteria.

  “Oh no, I’ve taken twice as long as I should have for lunch. Dr. Tormisano is going to have my head—or maybe just my neck, if he is a vampire, like in the one tale I told you.”

  Alexander laughed. “I don’t think he could be a vampire. He is much too mundane for that. You have to be bitten to become one, and I don’t think he would appeal to many vampires.”

  “You’re right.” They began to head for the door. “But I’ve still got to get going. He expects the class drop/add lists on his desk before I leave today, and I wanted to have time to study for my test.”

  “You are taking a class?”

  “Classes. I’m getting my education degree. I should be able to leave my admin job at the university when I have to do my semester of student teaching at the end of next year.”

  “I have been remiss. I have talked only of myself, and not asked anything about you. We will have to remedy that situation at our next meeting. How is tomorrow for lunch again for you?” Alexander closed the distance between them, but when she held out her hand to shake, he took it and held it gently. Again, she had a faint whiff of his woodsy cologne.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. The history department holds a special lunch for the professors once a month and I have to be there to make sure they have everything they need.”

  “I think Dr. Tormisano doesn’t realize the prize he has in you, Ana. I will have to let him know how valuable you are.”

  It was an odd comment, but again, Alexander delivered it with a brilliant smile, so Ana felt he must be teasing her.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, and hurried away. As she rounded the corner of the building she looked back. Alexander was still standing in front of the building, studying her with a brooding look on his face.

  Chapter 6

  Ana didn’t have time to finish the drop/add lists for Dr. Tormisano, or study for her evening class that afternoon. Shortly after returning to the history department a police detective arrived to ask more questions about the dog attack.

  “You say you’ve never seen the dog in the neighborhood before, even though you walk to and from the university almost every day,” the detective was asking her just as Dr. Tormisano returned to the office from an afternoon meeting.

  Ana’s heart sank. The fussy professor would probably have apoplexy at the thought of one of his staff being questioned by the police in his office.

  “What is going on here?” the professor interrupted.

  “Detective Leon Sawyer,” the cop said standing and holding out his hand to shake. “Your administrative assistant was attacked by a dog last night; very probably the same animal that later killed a man a few blocks away from her home.”

  “Ana, you were attacked by a dog? You didn’t say anything. Are you all right?”

  Ana was astonished. Most of the staff and faculty who knew him swore the professor’s heart was a history book. He didn’t care about anything that had happened after World War II, his own particular specialty. And here he was actually showing concern for her.

  “Yes, professor. I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt at all. A neighbor heard me, came to my rescue, and scared the dog away. Unfortunately, we didn’t stop it. It seems it found someone else to attack a short time later.”

  “Yes, of course. I’d heard about the murder. Do you call it murder when the perpetrator is an animal?” he asked the detective in a reflective way, then continued without waiting for a response.

  “My students have talked about nothing else all morning, since it is occurred only a few blocks from the campus. I’ve had a difficult time keeping their attention focused on the class discussion, where it belongs. Well, Ana, I’ll let this detective get the information he needs from you. But please, officer, keep it brief. Ana needs to finish several reports for me this afternoon.”

  “And he’s back,” Ana thought irreverently. A few moments of genuine concern for another human being were apparently all the professor could handle in one day. But she would have to remember to tell Monica about it later.

  “As I was saying,” the detective brought her attention back to his questions. “You are sure you have not seen this animal in your neighborhood before?”

  “No. Never. I’m pretty familiar with any animals that live in the houses on my regular route to and from here, and I’ve never seen him. I’d remember. He was very large. Very black, with blue eyes.”

  “You’re sure about the eyes? Did the dog have some white on it somewhere? Chest? Paws?”

  “You mean like a Husky? No.” Ana shook her head.

  Sawyer added, “I’m pretty familiar with a lot of different dog breeds. Huskies are one of the few dogs about that size with blue eyes, but an all-black Husky, with no white anywhere, would be extremely rare.”

  “I’m sure about the coloring. He was right up in my face. I would have noticed white paws or a white chest. In the street light it looked as if he might have had a little grey around his ears, but more like he was a mature dog, not like white markings.”

  Sawyer continued to take notes as she spoke. Ana was glad he wasn’t looking at her. She’d been so caught up in the attack last night, there were things she hadn’t really processed at the time. Now, as she thought about it she added, “I’m sure it wasn’t a Husky. It was shaped wrong, more like a German Shepherd or a…”

  “A wolf?”

  “A wolf! Why would you say a wolf? Why would there be wolf in a city neighborhood like this one?”

  The detective looked up and studied her closely. Maybe she had seemed too astonished, she thought. “Did you find out who the man was who was killed?” she asked to take his attention off questions of wolves.

  “Yes, we have, but I can’t give you his name until all of his next of kin have been notified. He lived a few streets away from you. Poor guy, he’d just gone out for a walk, just like you and your friend Chris Spier, but his walk ended a lot worse than yours did. Speaking of Spier, how long have you known him?”

  “I don’t really know him at all. I just met him last night. He heard me shouting and came running to the rescue.”

  “Hmm. The ‘dog’ couldn’t have been his?” Ana could almost hear the quotation marks Detective Sawyer put around the word, “dog.”

  “He really does believe it was a wolf,” she thought.

  “Well no, of course not. He said it wasn’t his,” Ana said, realizing that this police officer was the second person in as many hours to suggest that the dog—or wolf—had actually belonged to Chris. Could Chris really know more than he had let on? It was awfully convenient he had been right there when the attack occurred.

  “Right. Well, I’ll let you get back to work,” he said just as Monica came in the door. “But I’d be careful getting too close to a stranger. A woman like you could easily be taken advantage of.”

  “Now what did he mean by that,” she wondered.

  Monica interrupted her thoughts. “Wow, how come you get all the hot guys today?” she asked once the detective was safely out of earshot. “First Professor Fontaine, now this detective.”

  “I didn’t notice,” said A
na.

  “Really? What a body. You really have had a bad day if you didn’t notice Detective Tall, Dark, and Handsome.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Ana said glumly, putting her elbows on her desk and her head on her hands. “I never had a chance to tell you about last night. The one I’ve met who seemed the nicest, suddenly everyone suspects of owning a killer dog.”

  Chapter 7

  As Ana approached the main entrance to the campus shortly after her class ended at nine o’clock that night, she began to feel a nervousness she had never before experienced on her walks home.

  The entrance consisted of a large stone archway that covered the two-lane street. The school’s name, University of Rivelou, was painted in gothic letters across the top. Two smaller arches on either side of the auto entrance had paved cobblestone paths running through them for pedestrian use. The arches were covered with ancient Zephirine Droughin roses. The bushes climbed over both halves of the two smaller arches, and for most of the summer turned the two pedestrian entrances into miniature tunnels of the pink petals of the old fashioned Bourbon roses. Now, though a few late-blooming flowers still decorated the branches, the leaves had begun to drop off, and those that remained had turned a deep bronze, melding with the color of the old stone arches. Ana shivered. She wasn’t nervous, she told herself. It was just that the weather had turned colder this evening. She would not let yesterday’s attacks take away her enjoyment of her walk home.

  On one side of the arches the campus was brightly lit, on the other side there were just a few streetlights, and very little traffic this time of night in the mostly residential section of town. The shadows seemed to close in around Ana as she approached the archway, and, for a few moments, she considered stepping off of the pedestrian path and crossing under the larger, brighter arch designed to accommodate cars. But she shook her head and chided herself.

  “How silly of me. I’m more likely to get run over by some student speeding to get home after class than to meet the boogie man, or anything else, in the sidewalk tunnel.”

  She took a deep breath and headed into the arch, then jumped and screamed as a tall shadow brandishing a sword loomed at the end of the passageway.

  “Ana? Is that you?”

  The image of a threatening figure wielding a sword dissolved into something much more familiar.

  “My lord, Chris! Is that you? You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here?”

  “It was time for my evening walk and I thought I’d come this way and walk you home. I’m sorry. Maybe I presumed too much. I certainly didn’t mean to frighten you.” Chris, seeming embarrassed, turned as if he would walk away, but Ana quickly put out a hand to stop him.

  “No, of course not. I mean, well yes, you did frighten me, but I was just being silly. After last night, you know. I’m sure you had another visit from the police and heard about the man who was killed. So yes, though I hate to admit it, I would love to have someone walk home with me.”

  As she said the words she remembered the police detective and Alexander’s accusations. But she dismissed the allegations. Her own instincts should count for something. She was tired of everyone else telling her what to think and who to believe. From her family, to Jonathan, and now even that police detective seemed to think she was still wet behind the ears. She was going to start thinking for herself and quit listening to everyone else. She felt defiant as she put her hand on Chris’s arm and she started to walk across the street.

  This man seemed much too open and friendly to be hiding a killer dog—or wolf. Dogs were supposed to be a good way to meet women, but really, rescuing the woman from a killer animal seemed far too risky, when the tried and true ploy of walking a friendly dog would certainly be an easier and more effective method of introduction.

  They crossed the street and headed into the old familiar neighborhood, which no longer seemed dark and threatening now that she had someone to walk with. Chris, she noticed, had a cane in his hand. That was what, in the shadows, she had mistaken for a sword.

  “The cane. Please don’t tell me your leg was that badly injured yesterday.”

  “No, of course not. That was just a scrape. And this isn’t really a cane, but an old German walking stick my dad picked up when he went to Europe years ago. It’s more decorative than useful if you really are hiking in the mountains, but I thought after yesterday’s experience, it was better to bring my own stick with me than to rely on finding something on the ground again.”

  “I guess the attack has affected both of us. I think I’m glad I’m not the only one who still feels a little spooked after yesterday. So you do think the animal is still around?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the old Boy Scout coming out in me, I guess, but better to be prepared. Particularly after hearing about Dennis Halworth.”

  “That was his name? The man who was killed? How do you know? The police detective who came to see me said he couldn’t tell me his name because the next of kin hadn’t been notified.” How did Chris know the man’s name when no one else seemed to have known it all day?

  “They just announced it a short time ago on the evening news. You were probably in class at the time.”

  Ana, nodded, satisfied with his answer. She was suddenly tired of thinking about the attack, and everyone’s suspicions about Chris. She wanted to find something else to talk about. “I can see you as a Boy Scout, in those cute little shorts and knee socks and a sash full of badges on your chest,” she teased. “Were you an Eagle Scout?”

  “Guilty as charged,” he replied with a smile.

  As the conversation became general, Ana relaxed and enjoyed the light banter with Chris as they walked. Even though it was cooler than the night before, with a bit of a breeze, the moon was still full, making the sidewalks easy to navigate. And Ana was finding that having someone to talk with on her way home suddenly seemed a lot more interesting and fun than the solitary walks she had always professed to enjoy.

  “Yes, I’ve always loved camping, hiking, rock climbing, the whole adventure thing.”

  “And now you’re a consultant sitting at a computer all day?”

  “Well, I do my share of computer work, but a lot of what I do takes me out in the field.”

  What, exactly, do you consult about?”

  “I solve problems for people. It’s really rather boring, and I’d rather hear about you. How do you like working at the university? And what are you studying?”

  Ana didn’t notice that Chris had quickly deflected the talk away from himself and his work. They sauntered on through the neighborhood chatting about her classes and her goal of becoming a teacher within the next year, and before Ana was ready to end the interlude, they were standing on the sidewalk in front of Joe and Lindsey’s house.

  “I have to go in and get Sophie. Would you like to come in and say hello?”

  “Maybe next time. I’m not sure I’m ready for the third degree Joe and Lindsey would give me if I showed up in your company two nights in a row.”

  Ana laughed, understanding. “They are just being protective of me. Jonathan, my ex, was a bit of a jerk right after the divorce. And knowing I could call on the Lessings throughout that time made things a lot easier for me.”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining. It’s good you have such great friends right next door. Tomorrow’s Friday; I assume you don’t have class after work. How about dinner with me?”

  “I’d love to, but that is the one night Sophie and I have a chance to have dinner together, just the two of us. We have a whole tradition—order pizza, watch a movie. It’s our mom and daughter bonding time.”

  “I would never want to interfere with that. So how does your weekend look? I’d be happy to take both you and Sophie out to dinner.”

  “She spends most of her weekend with her dad. He’ll pick her up on Saturday morning—or more likely Melanie, his wife, will pick her up. For all the fuss he makes about sticking religiously to the rules of the custody agreeme
nt, sometimes I think he does it just for show. He wants to be in Congress someday, and being an absentee dad wouldn’t look good to the voters.

  “He…there I go again. Stop me before I get on another Jonathan rant. What I was trying to say is that I have from ten o’clock on Saturday morning until noon on Sunday free, and yes, I’d love to do something with you.”

  “Well that’s great then,” Chris said, smiling. “I’ll just have to wait until Saturday. I’ll pick you up about six o’clock and we’ll find something fun to do.”

  “Great. Well, I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”

  It had been a long time since Ana had been dropped at the door by a date. She felt awkward. Should she shake his hand? Give him a kiss on the cheek?

  Apparently Chris had the same doubts. He laughed nervously. “How come I feel like a teenager leaving his date in front of her parents’ house, wondering if her dad is going to come out on the porch with a shotgun?”

  “Well, Joe and Lindsey are a bit overprotective of me, as I said, but I don’t think you’re in any real danger,” she smiled.

  “That’s good to know. Because I’ve been wanting to do this since yesterday.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers in a soft, slow kiss, as if he had all the time in the world; as if Mrs. Andres wasn’t peeking out her curtain to see what was going on, as if Ana didn’t have a curious eighth grader and two over-protective friends waiting just on the other side of the door.

  She let go of all those thoughts, enjoying the kiss, and let her body relax. Chris must have felt the change because he deepened the kiss as she gave in and just enjoyed it. Her body dissolved against him, every thought leaving her mind as she surrendered to sensation: He tasted like coffee and mints, he felt strong and solid, and he smelled delightfully of soap and, well, man. Her knees wouldn’t hold her and she leaned against him even more, so he had to catch her when the front door suddenly opened and Sophie’s voice called out, “Hi, Mom. I got an A on my algebra test today.”