Silence of the Wolf

  Now what had happened? After her parents had died, she’d stayed far away from the wolf pack. They shouldn’t care about her any longer. She was no longer in their territory so they should have left her alone.

  “You are an abomination!” he yelled.

  He’d often used those words before. She disgusted him. She was a disgrace to the pack. She’d heard it all before.

  She feared him now and swam farther away from the bank. She’d seen that look in his eyes right before he killed a wolf who had tried to steal a prospective female mate from their pack.

  He stalked into the water, still in jeans and shirt and sneakers, and swam toward her. He was a powerful swimmer, and though she swam well, too, she was only sixteen and didn’t have the strength behind her strokes to keep out of his reach.

  He seized her hair and jerked it back, pulling her to where he could stand in the water. “Your brother…” he started.

  Half brother, she wanted to say as she grabbed her hair to try to keep him from yanking it out of her head. Streaks of pain radiated through the roots all the way to her brain.

  “…met a pretty wolf. You know what transpired?”

  She knew what must have happened without him saying. The same thing had happened before to her uncle, and now to her half brother. The she-wolf her brother was interested in must have learned about Elizabeth. That he was of her blood and she was part coyote—and rejected him because of it.

  “Well, no longer,” he said, and she knew then her uncle intended to kill her.

  She fought Uncle Quinton with all her strength, scratched and kicked and even managed to bite his arm with her human teeth, drawing blood. He hit her in the head so hard that she nearly blacked out. She knew then the only way to survive was to play dead.

  Limp and no longer fighting, she attempted to fool her uncle. Then four male teens appeared, laughing and joking loudly as they headed for the water hole. Guardian angels. Her uncle released her, waded back to shore, and ran off. She couldn’t smell the teens as they slowly approached her, their previous good humor gone. She knew none of them—all dark-haired, all staring at her as if they didn’t know what to do with her.

  She managed to make it to the shore and collapsed, coughing and choking, vowing she’d move again before her uncle made another attempt at killing her.

  “Elizabeth?” Carol said, waking her from the nightmare she hadn’t had since she moved to Canyon. What had brought it back?

  She stared up at Carol for a minute, trying to get her bearings.

  “Time for dinner. You slept all afternoon,” Carol said. “Everyone is dying to see you. How are you feeling?”

  Without moving? Fine. “Much, much better. Thank you.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t used to all the concern and would have been just as happy without it. Her wrist felt much better, though.

  “I’m glad you feel better,” Carol said.

  Elizabeth knew Carol judged the way she moved. She was certain the nurse recognized that she still felt some discomfort, but she appreciated that Carol didn’t make a big deal of it.

  Elizabeth would get better soon.

  “Just a little background before we go down. Darien’s a gray wolf and Lelandi a red wolf, like I mentioned. Alicia was human, turned by a gray wolf and now mated to Jake. Ryan, my mate, is a gray wolf, and you already know I’m a human turned red wolf. We’re an unusual couple of wolf packs, so don’t feel you won’t fit in. We’re all different in our own ways.”

  “Thanks, Carol.” Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel that she was more of an oddity, being a wolf-coyote mix, and she still had a hard time believing that anyone could truly accept her for what she was. She was just a novelty to them.

  “Let’s go down to dinner, shall we?” Carol said.

  Elizabeth wished she’d had a meal with Bertha back at the B and B and could have skipped all this fanfare. Even if she had it all wrong and they would accept her, she felt like she would be the center of attention she didn’t want any part of.

  ***

  Tom met Elizabeth on the stairs and escorted her to the table, introducing everyone right away. He loved his family, each of them smiling and trying to make her feel welcome.

  She appeared a little overwhelmed. Even though she was an alpha, meeting each of their gazes as she greeted them back, he noted that she glanced at the floor several times, and he saw the tears in her eyes when she caught his gaze.

  Had no one ever treated her the way a family should? He hated to think that was the case.

  He ushered her to a seat beside him. Everyone had already taken their seats at the large oak dining table and started passing around spaghetti and meatballs, Italian loaves, parmesan cheese, and salad.

  “Can I help with anything?” she asked, looking uncomfortable that she couldn’t assist.

  “No,” he said almost too vehemently. She had been pushed down a ski slope only hours ago, for heaven’s sake. This woman didn’t know when to quit.

  “I’m not usually pampered like this.”

  He smiled at her. “Let me get you whatever you need tonight.”

  “Okay.” She let out her breath as if the notion didn’t agree with her but let him dutifully scoop up whatever she wanted. “Did you look over the photos I took?”

  Everyone stopped whatever they were doing to hear what Tom had to say.

  “We couldn’t see any faces, but we’ve got a description of what the two men were wearing. Jake will look at your camera to see if he can fix it,” Tom said as he returned to his seat, setting a plate piled high with spaghetti and plenty of meatballs in front of Elizabeth.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Jake cleared his throat. “I’ll take good care of it. See what I can do.”

  Darien turned to Carol. “Do you see anything about what happened to Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth stared at Carol. “You actually do have psychic ability? When you told me you foresaw what would happen to you before you were turned, I hadn’t thought you meant it literally.”

  “Yeah, I see things sometimes.” Carol shook her head at Darien. “Since I’ve joined Ryan’s pack, my focus has been there. I haven’t seen anything new about members of your pack.”

  “Did Trevor or Peter discover anything at the B and B?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The two men left a trail through the woods behind the B and B, backtracked into town, and must have driven off in a vehicle parked out front,” Darien said.

  “With all my stuff,” Elizabeth growled. “Did nobody see them?”

  Tom wanted to touch Elizabeth to calm her, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate it. What the hell. He reached over and took her good hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She glanced at him, and at first he thought she’d be annoyed with him. Instead, she looked at him with those crystal eyes as if trying to read him. He gazed back at her, wanting to take care of her. To find the bastards and beat them to within an inch of their lives.

  He wanted to wrap his arm around her and hold her close, to let her know she had him to count on, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  “We’ve put out the alert to all the pack,” Darien said, studying them. “If anyone saw anything, they’ll let me know. Nobody’s been following you?”

  “When I rode with Tom to the ski resort, I didn’t pay any attention to traffic.” Elizabeth glanced at Tom to see his take on it.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t really notice on the way to the resort.” Between the snowy roads and Elizabeth, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else. She was a total distraction.

  “Why would they take all my stuff?” she asked.

  “Sounds personal to me,” Lelandi said.

  “Taking my ID forces me to stay here,” Elizabeth pointed out.

  Jake said, “More likely it’s for identity theft. It doesn’t necessarily mean
they wanted to keep you from leaving here.”

  “Okay.” Elizabeth seemed more relaxed about that, which Tom took as meaning she wanted to leave as soon as she was able. He stiffened.

  He had hoped she’d feel comfortable with his pack and remain with them for more time than she’d planned. But what had happened to her here, he could understand her reluctance to stay any longer than necessary. She couldn’t even ski if she wanted to take more pictures for her story.

  “Is there any way that I can get a replacement ID so I can travel?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we can do it. You don’t want to stay until we can unravel who did this to you?” Darien asked.

  Tom gave Darien points for trying to convince Elizabeth to stay longer. He couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “I’ve got a deadline on the newspaper back home. And I probably won’t be able to ski again while I’m here.” Elizabeth grimaced as though she were loath to admit the fact.

  “Do you want me to take some pictures for you?” Jake asked, looking like he was ready to go, not just to help her out, but because he loved taking nature photos. The sideways glance he cast Tom said he was attempting to keep the lady here longer, too.

  Why couldn’t Tom come up with something to say?

  “I’ll have to look at the photos, but I might already have what I need for the article. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  The conversation then shifted to other topics, some about Jake and Alicia’s upcoming babies and about Darien and Lelandi’s toddlers, and then everyone looked at Carol and Ryan to see if they were in the family way.

  Carol smiled, shaking her head. “We’re waiting for a while. I’m not ready to raise babies who can turn into wolves yet.”

  Tom had talked to Ryan about Carol’s progress. She was doing fairly well with shifting only when she wanted to and not at awkward times. He could understand her reluctance to have children until she had the ability fully under control. Wolf-shifter mothers usually had multiple births—like a she-wolf and her litter. The babies all shifted when their mother did until they became aware of their own ability. But if a mother couldn’t even control her own shifting, that could be a disaster for both her and her pups.

  Tom glanced at Elizabeth. He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to raise some pups of his own. Surely his kids wouldn’t be as messy as Darien’s.

  Elizabeth had grown quiet and sat stirring her spaghetti with a fork. He reached over and patted her leg and smiled at her. She smiled back, but she looked exhausted even though she had napped all afternoon. He suspected she hadn’t slept all that soundly.

  Pack politics were discussed, despite Carol and Ryan being from another pack and Elizabeth being there, too.

  Jake and Alicia begged off after dinner to return home, claiming they were two tired, old wolves, which Tom knew meant that they were off to bed but not to sleep. Jake took Elizabeth’s camera with him to try to repair.

  Carol said to Elizabeth, “I’d stay overnight with you, but we have a problem coming up in the pack that Ryan and I need to deal with. Darien can call Nurse Matthew or Nurse Grey to stay the night if he thinks you need someone to watch over you.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Elizabeth said. “I just ache a little. With a good night’s sleep, I should be great by morning.”

  Tom said, “I’ll be next door if you need anything.”

  Elizabeth smiled at him. “I never knew ski patrollers made house calls.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “If nobody minds, I’m off to bed. Thanks so much for dinner. It was delicious,” Elizabeth said. “But I feel wiped out.”

  Everybody said good night except Tom, who walked up with her. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Like?”

  “An ice pack on your back again?”

  She smiled, walked into the guest room, and lay down on her stomach on the bed. “Okay.”

  Surprised she was agreeable, Tom hurried to get her a fresh ice pack. On the return trip, he raced up the stairs sounding like a pack of wolves and entered the room. “If you think of anything tonight that might clue us in about this, just let me know. You can wake me anytime.” He placed the pack on her back.

  “Hmm,” she said sleepily.

  He sat down next to the bed, waiting for time to pass before he removed the ice pack. Her breathing soft, her eyes shut tight, Elizabeth fell sound asleep.

  Tom was glad she didn’t have any trouble falling asleep because she needed complete rest to feel better.

  Darien poked his head in the door. “She out?” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” Tom said, realizing twenty minutes had passed while he’d been daydreaming. He removed the ice pack from Elizabeth’s back and headed out of the room to join his brother. As he closed the door, he asked, “What’s up?”

  “Peter called to say his brother’s come into town with a mate in tow.”

  “Yeah, he told me earlier. I meant to mention it to you, but it slipped my mind. Is his brother in trouble already?”

  “No… not yet. But Peter said he doesn’t know what to think of them. He put them in his spare bedroom and told them to go ahead and fix themselves dinner while he conducted an investigation. When he came home, they were battling it out in the guest room.”

  “Case of mate abuse?” Tom asked, shocked. “Did he arrest his brother?”

  Darien shrugged. “He said they were getting it on hot and heavy, a big-time sparring match. Peter asked if they could stay here.”

  Tom couldn’t believe it. Peter was so good-natured, so how could he have a brother like that? “You told him no, right?”

  Chapter 12

  Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night feeling much better. She wanted to check the footprints in the snow outside her room at the B and B before winds covered them up or the sun melted them away the next day. She was an excellent tracker, her father had said, because of her coyote heritage. She’d found a couple of lost dogs and several lost or runaway human kids because of her keen sense of smell and tracking ability.

  She would have inspected the men’s trail earlier if not for all the fuss Tom made about her accident. She’d leave right from the house, but she was so far out in the country that she’d prefer driving back into town and then exploring a bit while wearing her wolf coat.

  She hated to wake Tom. But she was certain that if she asked to borrow his truck, he’d either say no to her going, worrying about her condition, or insist he go with her. She didn’t need his help at tracking, which she almost always did alone. She really didn’t want to trouble him at this hour of night, but she didn’t have much choice.

  She hadn’t taken two steps out of the guest room when Tom walked out of his bedroom wearing only a pair of black-plaid flannel boxers. “Did you need something?”

  She considered his nearly naked body and tried very hard not to stare and sigh. Well, kind of tried not to. He was in excellent shape, rugged and hot. She rarely thought of a wolf in those terms. She didn’t think anything of a man being ripped if he was cruel to her. But Tom was so different. Actually, everyone in his pack was. Kind, welcoming, sincere. If only all families were like that.

  “Sorry. Did I wake you?” she asked.

  “Very light sleeper. So, did you need something?”

  “Yeah. Your truck? Can I borrow the keys?”

  He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “It’s three in the morning. You’ve been injured. You don’t have your driver’s license.” He glanced at her wrist. “Where’s your wrist wrap?”

  She wiggled her hand back and forth. “All better. I want to take a run and do some tracking.”

  “At the B and B.”

  “Yeah. To see if I can learn anything.”

  “In your wolf coat.”

  “My back feels a hundred percent bet
ter.”

  One eyebrow raised, he gave her a skeptical look.

  “Eighty-five percent.”

  He smiled.

  “Seventy.”

  He didn’t budge from the wall.

  “Nearly seventy percent.”

  He exhaled heavily and moved toward her. She stood her ground, and this time she folded her arms. She knew that look on his face. He didn’t believe she could track better than his wolves. Nobody ever believed it until she proved it to them.

  “We’ve got pack members on it.”

  “I can do better.”

  He smiled.

  She reached out her hand for his keys.

  “Darien would have a fit.”

  “Don’t tell him.”

  “I’m part of a pack.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I still have to tell him.”

  She sighed. “So tell him.”

  “He’ll say no.”

  She turned and stalked toward the bedroom at the end of the hall. She didn’t know which room was Darien and Lelandi’s, but this one had more of their scent leading up to it. Others had been here also, probably doing what she was about to do. Bother them for pack business.

  Tom said, “I’ll call him. It’s less likely to disturb Lelandi than knocking on the door.”

  He slipped into his bedroom and walked back out with his phone in hand. She’d already headed in his direction, and he put his arm around her. “Darien—”

  “No,” Darien said over the phone. “I heard everything. Wait until tomorrow.”

  Tom looked to see if Elizabeth had heard what Darien said.

  Elizabeth made a face. “Help me strip out of my clothes.”

  Tom smiled just a little.

  “I’m going running, no matter what Darien says. Since I’m only seventy percent healed, I might need a little help pulling off my clothes.”

  Tom still had the phone up to his ear, still smiling, but Darien didn’t say anything.