Wolf Fever (4 page)

With a loping gait, he hurried into the kitchen. The scent of strawberries and whipped cream, sugar-powdered cakes, roasting duck, and spears of asparagus grilling in olive oil met with his approval. He took another whiff, which made her smile.

“Dinner will be served in a couple of minutes. What are you
really
doing here, Ryan McKinley?” Bertha asked as she pulled a key off a rack and hurried down the hall, the key clinking on its chain.

He guessed, as many years as she must have lived, she didn't believe he was just attending the spring festival the next day as he'd said. He followed close behind her, wanting to slip into the room before a human guest saw him and went into hysterics.

Bertha unlocked his door and let him in. “I closed the window because heating this place is difficult enough. I didn't realize you'd taken a run on the wild side. I do have an electronic wolf door in the kitchen if you need to go out. No human guests are staying at the bed and breakfast right now, so feel free to come and go as you please in whichever form you prefer.”

He'd seen the wolf door when he'd first checked in, but he hadn't wanted Bertha to know he was headed out, figuring she would have been curious about what he was up to. And he hadn't known if she had any human guests, although that could have changed if one had checked in while he was on his run.

She motioned to the bedroom with its floral prints in varying shades of green on white backgrounds, dark forest-green walls, white furniture, and a vase filled with fresh green-and-white carnations. The place made him feel as though he was staying in a room in the forest, minus bugs and weather problems.

“This is the room Lelandi used when she first arrived. She sure brought a hornet's nest of trouble with her, although in the end it all turned out for the best,” Bertha said and then raised a brow. She gave a resigned sigh.

“You aren't planning on stirring up the town also, are you? I should warn Darien you're here. But I doubt you're any real threat. I take it you're not here to see Lelandi this time.” Then Bertha's brows both elevated as if she'd worked out the mystery on her own. “Oh, not Lelandi. Carol, then?” Her lips curved up in a sly way.

He waited patiently for Bertha to leave, but she seemed preoccupied with sorting out why he was here and letting him know what conclusions she was drawing from the situation.

“Oh… now I see. I'll leave you to your business.” She turned to go but stopped and said over her shoulder, “Darien's getting ready to encourage one of our pack members and Carol to mate. So if you're interested…” She sighed. “I shouldn't be saying so since you're not one of our pack, but I think you could handle her best of all since you're an alpha and patient to boot.

“She puts on airs that she's strong and doesn't need anyone to look after her while she's supposed to take care of everyone else. Don't believe it. Under that competent, no-nonsense, skilled nurse is a woman who needs someone for moral support from time to time. Jake would be a good candidate for her, but they quarrel a lot in a lighthearted way. And Tom, well, I'm not sure what he's thinking half the time. You might want to step in and make a bid for her. I can only say she'd be worth it.”

She smiled broadly, then closed the door and left Ryan in peace.

He didn't like hearing that Jake was quarreling with Carol. After all she'd been through, she needed someone who was supportive and not confrontational. He shifted
and threw on his clothes, thinking about what Bertha had said about him being patient. Yeah, he guessed he could be described in that way. Also methodical, dogged, and thorough.

But in the market for a mate? He shook his head. All he needed were answers.

His cell phone rang and he grabbed it.
Rosalind.
“Hello? What's wrong?”

“Did you see her?”

No matter how many times he told his sister this was strictly business, he couldn't convince her. “I plan to see her tomorrow.” At least that
was
the plan.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, APPREHENSIVE AS TO WHETHER
Jake or Tom had caught up with Ryan last night, Carol hurried to dress in jeans, her favorite soft violet sweater that always made her feel ready for any adventure, and a pair of tennis shoes. If the brothers had had heated words with Ryan, no one had said a thing about it to her. Which made her worry more that they were hiding the truth from her.

Sneaking away to see Ryan privately was going to be a real challenge,
if
Darien and his brothers hadn't warned him off and Ryan still managed to slip into the festival. Not knowing what to expect at the spring affair, since only werewolves were allowed and she hadn't been to one before, she had been excited to participate.

She had barely slept, wondering what Ryan had wanted of her and hoping he hadn't gotten into a lot of trouble with Darien and his brothers the previous night. Not to mention that twice more the damned hot flashes had invaded her body, an annoying prelude to the shift. Thankfully, she'd been able to stop it both times with a recurring vision of the man in red and white stripes.

Festive pipe-and-whistle music could be heard playing in the meadow near the woods, and that lifted her spirits. Darien's pack gathered in the meadow for werewolf-only functions due to its private location, and the
music made it sound like a fairy troupe had descended on the area.

Downstairs, she smelled bacon frying. Had to be Jake. He was always up the earliest and loved to cook.

Then the aroma of rose and lilac wreaths pelted her senses—the fragrance of spring, well, and summer. The roses and lilacs had arrived, compliments of the local florist shop, while the rest of the flowers were grown in Lelandi's own garden. Everything from the staircase to the fireplace mantels was decorated in nature's finest: pine cones, feathers, crocuses, tulips in red, purple, and yellow, and a soft sprinkle of white lights—as if a floral garden had found a warm, cozy niche in a spacious wolves' den to escape the still cool spring weather.

What really enlivened her step was the notion that she would meet with Ryan again and learn why he wanted to see her.
Was
he interested in her? It wasn't that she didn't want a mate; she simply wanted some choice in the matter. So far, she hadn't been attracted to anyone in the pack except Darien's brothers, and they weren't showing any interest back. Maybe the reason she'd had the vision of Ryan was because he was the one meant to sweep her off her feet.

Or not
. Her visions could be irritatingly deceptive, unenlightening, or just plain ominous.

When she entered the kitchen, Jake's back was facing her while he turned bacon in a cast-iron skillet. “Morning, Carol,” he said without turning around.

She lifted her nose and took a whiff of him. He had a spicy scent, a fresh woods smell—as if he'd just been outside and brought in another load of firewood. Even though it had been five months since she was turned,
she wasn't used to everyone using their sense of smell to know she was around. She kept thinking they had psychic abilities like she did, although Lelandi assured her they didn't. Except for Lelandi's strange ability to feel her brother Leidolf's strong emotions.

Leidolf.
He was now a red pack leader in Portland, Oregon, and totally intriguing. He had been single and very available but not interested in a newly turned red. Nope, he was a royal. That meant his lineage could be traced close to the first
lupus garou
, and very few humans had tainted his family's line. She would have tainted it big time if he'd ever thought of mating her. But only a couple of days ago, Lelandi had sprung the news on them: it looked like her brother had finally met his match.

Jake scooped some eggs onto a plate, rousing her from her thoughts about Lelandi's brother. Jake was an interesting character. He was tough, hiding his emotions, and dark and brooding like his older brother, Darien. But unlike Darien, Jake wore a beard, and his eyes were nearly black. Whenever he had the time, Jake headed into the wilderness, not to hunt or fish or be a macho man, but to take pictures of wildflowers. And he played down the fact he did.

“Eggs, bacon?” he asked.

No longer did she crave fruit for breakfast. Eggs and bacon were much more her style now. She let out her breath in a heavy sigh, hating all the changes she'd experienced.

Jake cast a small smile at her over his shoulder. “Don't tell me you used to be a vegetarian and have been keeping it secret from us these past few months.”

“No.” She didn't even bother to hide the annoyance in her voice.

He chuckled. She'd heard him arguing with Darien, that she needed a mate and in a hurry. But Jake wasn't offering himself. And as sweet as their youngest brother, Tom, was, he didn't seem interested, either.

So what did that leave her? A mess of males of various ages, all bachelors, who were dying to locate a female for a mate because females were so rare, or so she'd been told. Sam the bartender was a hunk, but Silva and he were a match, although they were still in the courtship phase of their relationship.
Lupus garous
did not have casual sex, so that meant the courtship would probably end soon, as hot and heavy as the petting was getting between them.

“It'll get better.” His tone more serious, Jake set the plate piled with eggs and bacon in front of her. “You'll adjust.”

“Right.” She didn't believe she ever would.

“Darien says you're fighting the change. Five months.” Jake's gaze pinned her with the accusation. “Can't put it off forever, and if you keep trying, it's bound to get you in trouble.”

“I've heard the lecture before, Jake.”

“Yeah, but you should heed the warning.” He finished his coffee and went back for more. “If you don't change, you'll force Darien's hand to ban you from working at the hospital.”

She stifled a gasp. Darien couldn't take that away from her. Could he?

Jake cast a sympathetic look at her. “You won't have any control over the change pretty soon. All of a sudden,
you'll be ripping off your clothes and turning wolf anywhere at any time. Wouldn't bother the rest of us, but what would human patients think? We can't let them know what we are. And you're a big risk right now.”

She couldn't allow the shift. She'd felt the urge growing as the full moon approached, but from what Lelandi said, any time the moon was out, even half moon or crescent,
lupus garous
could change. And they had to at least once during the cycle. Lelandi didn't have to, being a royal. She could change anytime or not at all. Except for one time: when Lelandi had feared for her brother in his fight to the death with Larissa's murderer, she hadn't been able to shift back right away.

Carol thought that was part of the reason she herself feared if she shifted, she'd be a wolf forever. But the vision she'd had worried her even more. The red doctor from Lelandi's former pack, Dr. Weber, would shift and then be unable to shift back. At least she thought that was the case.

Certain Darien and the rest would all shake their heads at her in disbelief, she hadn't voiced her concern to anyone yet. But she had to. Lelandi was like a sister to her now, and if anyone would believe her, Lelandi would. Or at least Carol hoped she would.

Sitting across from Carol, Jake smiled. A gleam of mischievousness sparkled in his eyes as he paused, his fork carrying a scoop of eggs to his mouth. “Ready for your coming out?”

She ignored him and poked at her eggs.

“Darien won't wait much longer. Not when ten of the men in our pack are insisting he make you available to court.”

Her lips parted for a second, and she couldn't disguise her surprise quickly enough. Darien hadn't allowed the men to get close to her? To an extent, she was relieved to think the bachelors hadn't just been avoiding her because she was such an oddity. And that Darien was concerned enough about her well-being to wait until she was more ready for this.

But she was incensed that she would be treated like a heroine in some historical romance. Available to court. Right.

“Oh, come on, Jake. It sounds like medieval times instead of the twenty-first century!”

She wrinkled her nose in annoyance at the disagreeable thought. Even though she loved
reading
romances like that, she didn't want to be treated like one of those women. Although, in the fictional versions, they always
eventually
ended up living happily ever after.

“Hey, when a shortage of women existed in the Old West, women were prized. You should feel honored. Besides, we've told you we base a lot of what we do on age-old traditions. When a good thing works…” He shrugged.

“Honored? Ha! All a man wanted then was a woman to darn his socks, cook his meals, and warm his bed.”

Jake smiled. “No need to darn socks or cook meals here. Warming beds…” He raised a brow, his smile still lingering. “…that's another story.”

She gave him an annoyed look. “I feel pushed into making a decision I don't want to even consider right now.”

He shook his head, his tone an attempt to be reassuring. “You're not going to be made to do anything right away.”

She didn't believe that for a minute. And “not right away” meant what? She had days? Weeks? A few months to make a decision? She understood their concern—that she had to be watched constantly, that a wrong move on her part could put them all in jeopardy, and that having a mate would help her adjust more easily to her new role. Still—

His chestnut hair lighter than Jake's and his eyes more amber, Tom sauntered into the kitchen and cleared his throat. “Give it a rest, Jake.”

Tom was always her knight when she needed one, but even he had kept his distance as far as any kind of emotional attachment since the Thanksgiving feast. She'd wondered if Jake and Tom had only stuck close to her then because Darien had told them to watch her, to keep the other males away from her until he said the timing was right.

She harrumphed under her breath, and Jake raised his brows. “Got something you want to share?”

She cast him an irritated look and chomped down on another piece of bacon.

“Mervin's
real
interested,” Jake said.

She didn't care that Jake was teasing. She was tired of the conversation.

“Jake.” Tom slanted him a warning look. Being the baby of the triplets, even only by five minutes, Tom couldn't help that the pecking order was well established. Jake wasn't about to listen to his younger brother.

“Get free haircuts if you mated with him,” Jake persisted.

“He's the barber. He doesn't cut women's hair.” Carol knew Jake's comment was intended to ridicule her for having a chin-length haircut and not growing it
longer like other
lupus garou
women.
That
she wasn't going to change.

“A bunch of us are going for a romp through the woods late tonight,” Tom said casually. “Did you want to go with us, Carol?”

“Thank you, Tom, I'd love to.”
Not.
Poor Tom. His heart was in the right place; he kept trying to make her feel like one of the pack. But she couldn't shift. Not willingly. For five months, he'd been trying to encourage her to really join in and be one of them. “But not tonight.”

Jake and Tom shared looks—as if they agreed their houseguest was impossibly difficult to deal with.

To change the subject to one she wanted to resolve, she asked, “When is Puss going to be allowed to come home to me?”

Even if it wasn't her home, and even though she stopped to visit him at the kennel every night after work, she wanted her fur ball curled up in her lap at night when she relaxed and read a book or watched TV, or to play with him with a flashlight beam as he tried to capture it, or to run her hand under the covers as he tried to tackle the hidden object. Sure, Doc Mitchell, the vet, let Puss have free reign over the clinic and kennel, but she wanted Puss home with her to cuddle and play with! She'd considered sneaking him home with her, hoping Darien would see how much her cat meant to her.

Her words met with silence, and then Lelandi and Darien walked in. He had his arm wrapped around her waist, and they both looked perfectly satiated. Carol caught herself before she shook her head, wistfully wishing that she had someone in her life like that. They
seemed perfect for each other, even though they had their disagreements. Carol would cheerfully suffer discord with a prospective mate, if she could have the glow that Lelandi had worn ever since taking Darien on.

“Good morning, everyone,” Lelandi said, giving Carol a big smile. With her long red hair curling over a navy blue velour running set, Lelandi looked ready to compete in the festival games, although Carol had heard that Darien had suspended the tug-of-war competition. He wouldn't say why, and no one would even speculate, which she thought was odd.

Casting a cursory glance at Carol, Darien was back to his business look, as usual. “Jake, I need you to make arrangements for a gathering tonight.”

Jake turned his attention to Carol.
Great.
What now?

Could they be thinking of having her debut to polite society as if she'd just reached the age of maturity and was eligible to “court” like they did in the Regency novels she loved? Some regions
still
held coming-out parties or balls for groups of well-connected young women. She supposed
she
was
now well connected—if living with Darien and Lelandi was the werewolf equivalent. Yet presenting her to “werewolf society” at her age seemed preposterous.

“Did
you
have a coming-out?” she asked Lelandi. She'd learned Lelandi's mother and father had both come from pack-leader families, so she imagined they'd been high in werewolf social circles.

“Oh, yes.”

Carol fidgeted with the napkin in her lap. “But you mated with Darien,” she said pointedly.