by Lisa Kessler
I could relate, but I wasn’t ready to resign myself to this particular fate.
The curtain closed again, and I turned toward Chandler. “Did you enjoy it?”
He nodded. “I did. Thank you.” He chuckled. “I’ve chased a lot of stories, but none of them have ever gotten me great seats at the opera.” His smile faded as he lowered his voice. “You…surprise me.”
Oh, he had no idea.
CHAPTER 4
Chandler
I followed Wendy out of the theater, still baffled that she hadn’t reacted when I had showed up. Before I had gotten to her row, I caught the scent of a wolf, and as I’d neared her, it had gotten stronger. By the time I’d sat down, I had known she was a werewolf. Maybe even the white wolf I’d seen during the full moon.
She must’ve noticed my scent, too. But she didn’t seem surprised or shocked in the slightest. I had a million questions.
And ones about Brad Newport’s financial backers slid down the list of importance rapidly.
She stopped at the valet and handed over her ticket before glancing up at me. Her long blond hair was up, but a strand brushed her shoulder, accentuating her long neck and making me wish this was more than a professional meeting.
“We can probably find a quiet corner to talk at Jake’s if you’d like to meet over there.”
“Sure.” Jake’s was a high-end night club at the top of the Hyatt. The incredible view made the cover charge worth every penny, but she could’ve suggested a dive bar and I would’ve agreed. To say I was intrigued by this woman was a huge understatement. What if she was the wolf from Lookout Mountain? I needed to find out.
The valet pulled up in a black BMW and returned the keys. She gave him a tip and glanced at me. “I’ll see you there.”
I lost myself in her silver eyes for a second. She had to be the white wolf I’d seen last night. But what was she doing in Phoenix? There was no wolf pack here. Again, I had more questions and no clear answers that I could see.
She got into her car, snapping me out of the trance I’d been in. I shook it off and headed for the parking structure. On the way, I took out my cell phone and searched the Arizona Opera website for any mention of Wendy. Those seats were too good to have been available for a one-time purchase. And between her designer dress and that BMW luxury sedan, I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to recognize she had money. I’d bet she had more than season tickets, too; she had to be a donor or something.
But I came up empty. I perused the donor page, clicking through links of the businesses that were listed. Nothing. I popped the locks on my car as I clicked the final link: the Cain Foundation.
And there was Wendy. Wendy Cain. Those eyes might haunt me forever.
I got in the car and clicked the “About” page. Wendy was the founding partner of the philanthropic foundation. Could they have donated money to Newport’s campaign? Is that how she knew about his donors?
I stuffed my phone in my pocket and got behind the wheel. Questions multiplied as I drove to the Hyatt. Hopefully, she’d give me some straight answers.
When I stepped through the doors of the rooftop club, her scent called to me. She smelled like the rainforest, wild and clean. A wolf in the desert. I had no trouble locating her in a dark corner by the window. She lifted her gaze, her silver eyes locking on mine. The thumping bass of the music, the buzzed laughter at the bar, and the gyrating bodies on the dance floor all faded away. She was the only thing in this room that mattered.
“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.” I took the chair across from her and lowered my voice to a whisper, knowing full well she’d be able to hear every word. “What are you doing in Phoenix?”
She frowned, her expression making it clear she had no clue what I was talking about. “I grew up here.”
I leaned in closer. “You can talk to me. I’m part of the Sedona Pack.”
Still no sign of recognition. She raised a brow. “Is that some sort of biker gang?”
Shit. What the hell kind of game was she playing?
“Fine. Never mind.” I shook my head, thinking of another angle. Maybe she just didn’t want to mention werewolves in a busy night club. “Does Brad Newport know…about you?”
“Know what?”
Frustration knotted the muscles in my shoulders. I was used to asking probing questions that were often met with answers meant to deflect and distract, but I wasn’t expecting it from her. She had contacted me. This wasn’t making sense.
I raked my fingers through my hair. Why was she hiding from me? She had been visibly moved during the opera. She didn’t seem to have a rich-girl game-playing agenda, but clearly, I had misjudged her.
“Fine.” I set my phone to record and placed it on the table between us. “You said you had information on Brad Newport’s backers. What do you know?”
Her gaze lowered to the phone and back to my face. “This might have been a mistake.”
“You’re shitting me.” I groaned. “You called this meeting, not the other way around.”
As much as I wanted to say fuck it and save what was left of my night, I did need information on Newport’s donors, and if she was the white wolf I’d seen on Lookout Mountain, I should bring her to meet my Alpha and get her the hell out of Phoenix before she exposed all of us to the world.
“I know.” She pressed pause on my phone and met my eyes. “But it’s not really about Newport. Not directly. And I’m not ready to be recorded.”
“I need this on the record.”
She pushed my phone toward me. “I don’t think you’re going to believe me anyway, so I’d rather not have a recording go viral so the world can laugh at me.”
Now I was baffled. What the hell was she talking about? I put my phone in my pocket, my gaze locked on hers. “Try me.”
She scanned the room and leaned in closer. “I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true. I have video footage to back me up.”
I sucked in a slow breath, trying not to notice how amazing she smelled. “All right.”
“I’m a werewolf.”
My eyes widened, and a laugh escaped my throat before I could stifle it. “Did you think I didn’t know that?”
Her jaw dropped. “You know what, screw you. This was a mistake.” She stood up, purse in hand.
I caught her wrist. “Wendy, wait.”
Her balance faltered, and she gasped. I shot up and slid my arm around her waist, keeping her upright. “I’ve got you.” I helped her back to her seat, searching her wide eyes. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She shook her head, narrowing her eyes. “What just happened? Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?” I sat across from her, unsure if I should whisk her out to Sedona to see our pack doctor.
Shifters couldn’t risk hospital visits. If a medical laboratory ever got a peek at our altered DNA, we’d be lab rats—or worse. My pack had a healer, though, Cole Vega. He owned a veterinary hospital in Sedona, and he was the closest thing we could see to a doctor.
“I…” She clutched her throat staring at me like I’d grown a second head. “What are you?”
I did a double take. Could she seriously not know I was a shifter, too? She should’ve caught my scent as soon as I walked into Symphony Hall. Unless…
The werewolf gene was carried on the Y chromosome, so women weren’t born werewolves; they were typically bitten by their mates. Who bit Wendy? Did she have a mate in the city? I doubted it. Lone wolves were rare, and a couple would draw attention.
Unless she was just messing with me, she really didn’t know I was like her. How was that possible?
I searched her eyes, my tone softening. “Maybe we should go someplace more private.”
She started to shake her head, reaching for her purse as if she might bolt at any second. “Wait.” She froze and then whispered, “You believe me?”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “I do.”
“Let’s go.” She surprised me by knocking her drink back and
stood up, steady this time. “I’ll drive.” She lowered her voice. “But you should know, I have a gun in my purse, and I know how to use it.”
I got to my feet to follow her out. “You don’t need to threaten me.”
She tucked her clutch under her arm. “Since I was bitten, I don’t take any chances.”
I followed her out, musing on that information. No mention of a mate.
A flash of memory of the night a huge black jaguar smashed through the window of a coffee shop up in Lake Tahoe and attacked me filled my head. I’d been bitten and angry and scared. I’d wanted to warn the world about the danger lurking among us.
Maybe I was starting to understand her after all.
CHAPTER 5
Wendy
Chandler got into the passenger seat of my Beamer, and being trapped with him in such a confined space agitated the wolf inside me on. I gripped the wheel until my knuckles turned white.
The moment he had caught my wrist in the club, my wolf had howled deep in my soul, my legs had buckled, and my vision had blurred. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. Usually my wolf was only present and close to the surface during the full moon. I’d shifted last night so why was it suddenly clawing forward, primal and possessive?
Yes, Chandler was attractive, but this feeling went beyond infatuation. My wolf seemed to recognize him somehow. I’d watched him on television, sure, but until tonight, we’d never met.
“Where are we headed?” he asked, breaking the thick silence.
I had no idea. Someplace private so we could talk openly about things others wouldn’t believe. I shrugged keeping my eyes on the road as I merged onto the interstate. “We can talk here.”
“All right.” He paused. “Who bit you?”
He wasn’t laughing. This whole night had been surreal and nothing like what I’d envisioned in my head. “You really know about werewolves?” I glanced over at him as I drove. “How is that possible?”
“You can’t tell by my scent?”
I allowed myself to breathe him in again and shrugged. “You smell good, like leather and musk…and you have a cat.” I looked over at him. “Am I close?”
He smiled and nodded. “Close.” He sobered, his tone softening. “I don’t own a cat. But I was bitten, like you. I’m a jaguar shifter.”
A what? I took the next exit and stopped the car before I dared to meet his eyes. “There are other…?” I held my head in my hands, struggling to keep from losing it. This couldn’t be real. I had to be dreaming. I peered over at him.
Nope. Definitely real.
I shook my head. “I won’t be like this much longer. I’m finding a cure.”
His brow quirked. “Who told you there was a cure?”
“Evolution Defense.”
“Fuck.” His entire demeanor changed. Worry colored his blue eyes as he checked the mirrors. “Is this all a trap?”
“A trap?” I frowned. “No.” I placed my hand over his without thinking about it. The simple touch made my wolf claw forward into my consciousness. My pulse thrummed as I yanked it back into my lap. Maybe the wolf had sensed he was a cat. “Evolution Defense is a biotech defense contractor.”
“Oh, I know who they are.” He met my eyes. “They’ve been trying to kidnap werewolf children from my pack.”
The image of the monster that bit me biting a child turned my stomach. “Children?” I couldn’t fathom it. Did Deidra know there were kids too? Did she want to experiment on them too? “No. That can’t be.”
Chandler scanned the dark streets. “We shouldn’t talk out in the open like this. Let’s get back to your place. We can compare notes there.”
By the time I pulled into the garage, my hands were trembling with adrenaline. I hit the button to close the door and heaved out a breath. “Let’s go inside.”
I showed Chandler into my living room. My house was a mirror of the painted desert, all sand and rust tones from the walls to the motorized vertical blinds to the adobe-tiled floors. We had sold my childhood home after our parents had passed away, and this had been my home ever since.
We sat on the leather sofa, and I took off my shoes. “How is it that the one reporter I reached out to is a…a shifter? Is that what you called it? Or a were-jaguar?” I let out a humorless chuckle. “God, it sounds like a low-budget horror movie.”
Chandler took off his tux jacket before he sat down. His dress shirt strained across his broad shoulders as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “When that jaguar shifter attacked me and bit me, I was changed against my will, too.” He lifted his head, meeting my eyes. “I was angry.”
Now that was something I could understand. “There were two that cornered us. One attacked, and the other one turned into a man. He gave me a few quick instructions about my new life, and left.”
“How long ago did it happen?” Chandler frowned. “There was an Alpha in Sedona not long ago who tried to rapidly grow his pack numbers. He was sending his wolves out to bite people, but they would have brought you back to the pack.”
I ran my hand up my arm to quell the goose bumps. “They took my brother. He was the target; I was collateral damage. Or at least that’s what the other guy told me. He said he was supposed to kill me, but he couldn’t do it. He told me I’d change during a full moon, and I needed to stay away from hospitals and Sedona.”
Chandler straightened, shaking his head. “That’s…shit. I’m sorry, Wendy.”
“After my first full moon, I wished he had just killed me. I guess I don’t have to tell you how much it hurts.”
“Like a son of a bitch,” Chandler replied under his breath.
“Exactly.” I stared at my hands in my lap. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”
“Sorry.” Chandler cleared his throat. “All my questions were going to be about Brad Newport. I wasn’t prepared for…any of this.”
A sad chuckled escaped my lips. “To be fair, this wasn’t how I imagined things would go tonight either.”
“Do you really have information on Brad Newport’s backers?”
“Yeah.” I looked over at him. “At least I think so. You’ve interviewed him a few times so I figured it would get me a meeting with you.”
He crossed his arms, and a muscle in his cheek tensed. “How did you get mixed up with Evolution Defense?”
“Long story.” I got up, pacing the room. “My parents were killed in an accident at an oil refinery five years ago. There was an explosion. A fire…” My voice trailed off as I swallowed the lump growing in my throat. “My brother, Brock, and I used their estate and the wrongful death settlement from the refinery to start the Cain Foundation.”
I finally allowed myself to look at him again, gauging his reaction. “Then after an art gala opening in Sedona, we were cornered in a dark parking lot by two gigantic wolves. One of them attacked us and took Brock. I was left me behind, bitten and unable to go to a hospital.” I crossed my arms, the memories leaving me vulnerable. “The one who shifted back and told me to never come back couldn’t have known I had the money to search for a cure unconventionally and very privately.”
He shook his head. “What did he look like? If they’re still in my pack, I want to know.”
“That’s the weird thing.” I dropped my hands to my sides and stopped by the window, staring into the darkness. “I don’t remember. Maybe it was shock. I don’t know. I can tell you what he told me, but I try to see his face and…nothing.”
“You were bitten by a wolf and your brother was abducted. I’d be surprised if you weren’t in shock,” he said.
I turned around to face him. “After the attack, I tried to keep busy while investigators searched for my brother. I was cleaning out my parents’ house to put it on the market and stumbled across a folder of business cards. One of them was for Deidra Harlow, biochemist. I figured it couldn’t hurt to contact her and ask some questions. It turned out she owns controlling stock in a defense contracting firm. She invited me i
n for tests. Apparently, they had some federal funding for biological research projects. She seemed like my best bet for a cure.”
Chandler stood up, raking his fingers back through his hair. “Wait. Your dad knew Deidra Harlow?” He crossed to stand beside me. “Can you remember anything he might have said her or Evolution Defense?”
“No.” I sucked in a breath. Why did he have to smell so good? Something about him had my wolf restless, making it tough for me to concentrate.
Chandler clasped the back of his neck, a crease forming on his forehead. “I need to ask you something. Why did you want to meet with me? It obviously wasn’t really about Brad Newport. What were you hoping to gain?”
“I didn’t know you were…like me then.”
His expression was tense and tight. His scent had changed, too. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I caught a faint tint of sweat. He was nervous.
“Do you understand what Evolution Defense is trying to achieve? Are you on board with that?”
“All I’ve ever wanted from them is a cure…” I reached to touch his arm and stopped myself. The wolf was messing with me, urgent to comfort this man I just met. “That’s all.” I searched his eyes. “My only intent behind our meeting was to give you the story of the century. I wanted you to show the world that werewolves were real.”
“Even if I showed the world the video footage you claim to have, most people would think it’s a stunt. And the government already knows about us.”
No trace of a smile. He wasn’t joking. Oh my god. What other secrets were they keeping? Why weren’t they protecting us from the monsters? Like me. My stomach twisted.
He took my hand, jolting me from my inner turmoil. “Wendy, they’d come for you.”
