Nothing fancy, just jeans and a plain white T-shirt, but she’d never known a werewolf who could do that. This was real magic. She didn’t know how much real magic he could do. She didn’t know a lot about him other than hemade her heart beat faster and nudged her usual state of half panic away. She shivered, then realized it was cool in the house. He must have turned down the heat when he’d come to Chicago. She looked around and found a small quilted throw folded over the back of a rocking chair and snatched it up. Careful not tobrush too hard on his oversensitized skin, she laid the blanket lightly over him.He lay with one cheek against the floor, shuddering and breathless."Toby?” Her impulse was to touch him, but after a change, the last thing she wanted was touch. His skin would feel new and raw. The blanket slid off his shoulder and when she lifted it to cover him again, she saw a dark stain growing rapidly on the back of his shirt. If his wounds had been of the usual sort, the c
She was hurting him. He’d almost quit breathing except in small, shallow pants. Giving first aid to werewolves was fraught with danger. Pain could make a wolf lose control like he’d done this morning. But Toby just held himself very still as she pulled the bandage tight enough to hold the pads where they needed to be.She used both rolls of the wrap and tried not to notice how good the bright pink looked against his dark skin. When a man is on the verge of passing out from pain, it seemed wrong to notice how beautiful he was. His smooth dark skin stretched over taut muscles and bone…maybe if he hadn’t smelled so good underthe blood and sweat, she could have maintained a distance. Hers. He was hers, whispered that part of her that didn’t worry about human concerns. Whatever fears Lauren had about the rapid changes in her life, her wolf half was very happy with the events of the past few days. She got a dishcloth from the kitchen, wettedit down, and cleaned the blood from his skin whi
So close to him, it was impossible not to respond to the scent of his skin. He smelled of male and mate. Aided by that scent, she let herself sink into her wolf’s certainty of him, welcoming the beast’s contentment.He didn’t make a sound the whole way to his bed, though she could feel the extent of his pain in the tension in his muscles. He felt hot and feverish, and that worried her. She’d never seen a werewolf feverish before.He sat down on the mattress with a hiss. The blood left on the waistband of his boxers was going to stain the sheets, but she didn’t feel comfortable pointing it out. He looked ready to collapse he’d been in a lot better shape before he decided to change to human. As old as he was, he should have known better.“Why didn’t you just stay wolf?” she scolded.Cool eyes met hers with more wolf than man in their yellow depths. “You were going to leave. The wolf had no way to talk you out of it.”He’d gone through that because he was worried she’d leave him? Romanti
He looked at her searchingly, then nodded and released her. “There’s a TV in the dining room. Or you can play on the Internet on my computer in the study. There are”“I’m tired, too.” She might have been conditioned to walk around with her tail between her legs, but she wasn’t stupid. Sleep was just what her exhausted mind needed to try to cope with the abrupt changes in her life. Exchanging Chicago for the wilds of Montana was the least of it: Omega and valued, not submissive and worthless; a mate and whatever that meant. Better than she’d had, that wasfor darn sure, but it was stil a bit traumatic.“Do you mind if I sleep here?” She kept her tone diffident, not wanting to intrude where she wasn’t wanted. This was his territory but her wolf was reluctant to leave him alone and wounded. It felt awkward, this needing. Awkward and dangerous, as if what he was might reach out and swallow her whole or change her beyond recognition. But she was too tired to fight it or even figure out if
Just as a werewolf decided to kill this kid? An old man wouldn’t even slow a werewolf down.”“I never claimed the story made sense.” His father’s voice was dry. “And we’re not certain that the monster was a werewolf. I hadn’t paid any attention to it until the hunter was killed in the same area only a month later.”“What about that one? Are you sure the hunter was a werewolf victim?”“My informant was Heather Morrel . She knows a grizzly kill from a werewolf.”Heather was human, but she’d been raised in Aspen Creek.“Alright,” agreed Toby. “You need me to go check it out? It’l be a few days before I’m up to it.” And he didn’t want to leave Lauren. “Can you send someone else?” It would need to be someone dominant enough to control a rogue.“I don’t want to send anyone in to get killed.”“Just me.” Toby could use a dry tone, too.“Just you,” agreed Brian blandly. “But I’m not sending you out hurt. Samuel’s here for the funeral. He can go check this out.”“You can’t send Samuel.” His res
THERE was actually a town. Not much of a town, but it had a gas station, a hotel, and a two-story brick-and-stone building with a sign in front that proclaimed it the Aspen Creek School. Beyond the school, tucked back in thetrees and barely visible from anywhere but the parking lot, was an old stone church. If not for Toby’s directions, she might have missed it. Lauren eased his big green truck through the church parking lot into a spot designed for a much smaller rig. It was the only place left. She hadn’t seen any houses, but there were a lot of trucks and other fourwheel-drive vehicles in the lot.Toby’s truck was older than she was, but looked as if it were brand-new. It had been driven less than fifty thousand miles, if she wanted to believe the odometer about two thousand miles a year. Toby had told her he didn’t like driving.She turned off the engine and watched anxiously as Toby opened his door and slid to the ground. The drop didn’t seem to bother him. The stain on his pink
O grave, where is thy victory?’ ”He paused, letting his eyes trail over the room, much as Toby had, then said simply, “Shortly after we moved back here, Carter Wallace came to my house at two in the morning to hold my wife’s hand when our retriever had her first litter of puppies. He wouldn’t charge me because he said if he charged for cuddlingpretty women, he’d be a gigolo and not a vet.”He stepped away from the pulpit and sat on the thronelike wooden chair on the right-hand side. There was the sound of shuffling and the creaking of wood, then an old woman stood up. A man with bright chestnut hair escorted her down the aisle, a hand under her elbow. As they walked by her pew, Lauren could smell thewolf in him.It took the old woman a few minutes to make it all the way to the top of the stairs to the pulpit. She was so small that she had to stand on a footstool, the werewolf behind her with his hands on her waist to steady her.“Carter came to our store when he was eight years old
He took a deep breath and looked at Carter’s granddaughter. “He almost killed your mother, Shawna. I took care of her afterward, and I’l attest that it was luck, not any impulse on Carter’s part, that spared her life you can ask her yourself.How would a man whose life had always been devoted to the service of others have borne it if he had killed his own daughter? She asked the Marrok, in my hearing, if he would take care of the duty that her brother would not.By that time, the wolf in Carter was far enough gone he couldn’t ask for it. So no, my dad did not try to persuade Carter to Change he was just the one who stepped up to the plate to handle the resultant mess.”When Samuel finished speaking, he let his eyes drift slowly over the room as heads bowed in submission. He nodded once, then took his seat next to Toby again.The next few people kept their eyes off the Marrok and his sons, but Lauren thought it was embarrassment rather than the sullen anger that had been so prominent a