Welcomed her, and her attitude, and—
He forced himself to stop that train of thought and listen to the wonderful ideas emanating from her.
He’d already become attracted to her aroma, slightly floral and all woman…
“So who here heard the wolves the other night?” she was asking. Her arms seemed to hug the podium’s stand as she leaned forward against it and scanned the crowd.
Ryan had a sudden recollection of her hugging him last night but shrugged it off as he, too, looked over the small sea of people. A lot had hands raised, including the Sharans and Lesterman and Trev, and a few called out replies like “Me!” and “I did.”
“That’s so great!” Maya said. She launched into some of the talk she had presented the other day, about how wolves had disappeared from this area ages ago and were only now reappearing in small numbers. They remained particularly rare in this part of Washington, and all were protected under the law.
The audience seemed interested, even though what Maya was saying now wasn’t anything new. What she was showing on the screen behind her, though, included some shots of the area Ryan recognized as where she had gone in the middle of the night after hearing the wolves.
And showed first the two wolves that seemed ready to attack her, then joined by a third wolf.
Him.
Ryan attempted not to react. He should have anticipated that, since he’d seen her wielding her camera and knew she had taken video clips. If she knew what she was doing, it was easy enough to pull still shots out. And she clearly knew what she was doing.
As long as she didn’t confront any more wolves…
And hopefully she wouldn’t. She now began talking about how wonderful it was as an officer of WHaM to be able to potentially see and count wolves around here.
She didn’t admit she’d already seen any or where she had gotten those pictures.
“But the thing is, even those of us who are real wildlife advocates have to understand, and remember, that wildlife is wild. I say that often, and I mean it. The animals, especially these wolves, are wonderful, and we all love seeing them, but we nevertheless have to be careful. If we get too close, they don’t understand that we appreciate them, want to see them and get to know them better and all. They could get frightened, consider us enemies and attack. That means we should never get too near them. Appreciate them, yes. Approach them, no.”
She had the grace to look away from the audience and down toward Ryan, as if looking for his reaction—and approval.
He smiled a bit grimly as a reminder to her that what she was saying worked for her, too, and nodded.
“Okay, then. I’m going to start describing a few scenarios that could happen under present circumstances, where potentially dangerous but oh, so wonderful wildlife is present in an area and what you should do to protect yourselves. First of all, did any of you see those wolves that were howling and barking the other night?”
No one raised their hands, not even the Sharans. Smart to lie about that, though, if they did happen to be shifters.
Or maybe he was all wrong and they weren’t, in fact, shifters—although he doubted that. As a shifter himself, even before he had heard of Alpha Force and joined it and gotten access to the elixir, he and his family had been well aware of others, some who mixed with them in the remote area of Wyoming where he had grown up, and others who had stayed to themselves.
The old-timers knew who they were, in any case—even when they had just moved to the area. And Ryan’s own parents and grandparents had given him pointers on how to figure that out, such as recognizing the special scents that shifters might give off even when in human form.
It didn’t really matter what the Sharans admitted—or didn’t. One way or another, whether he remained here or returned, Ryan would be here during the time of the next full moon and hang around them enough to see for himself if they were shifters.
Since sighting of wolves was fairly new to this area, any shifters were newcomers, too. They might already know how to protect themselves, but if Ryan, and Alpha Force, could help them, all the better.
But for now, he would hang around at least long enough to—
Hey. Maya was still talking, asking the audience to respond to various scenarios she was creating in which wolves might become too close to people, but the crowd was parting close to the podium.
Coming closer was someone who had apparently not just been in some fictional scenario, but had actually been attacked.
At the forefront was Morton Fritts, followed by his wife, Vinnie and by their wolf-hating friend, Carlo Silling.
They were stealing attention away from Maya, which wasn’t surprising in this crowd that mostly consisted of locals who would know who Morton was—and what had happened to him. And Morton wasn’t walking fast but appeared to be limping.
Rocky seemed to sense the tension in the crowd and stood. Piers had a good hold on his leash and looked at Ryan, who shook his head slightly to express his concern but tell his aide to stand down for now.
Maya finally saw what was happening and stopped talking. She seemed to hesitate for a minute, and Ryan quickly weighed whether he could help her better by joining her or staying where he was.
She sort of removed the choice from him when she began talking. “Oh, my goodness. I’m afraid we have an example of what can happen to people who meet a wolf under bad circumstances. Morton, I’m so glad to see you here and hope you’re okay.”
That was appropriate and sympathetic, yet it sounded sort of like an invitation for him to talk, Ryan figured. And apparently so did Morton.
He reached the far side of the podium from where Ryan stood, and Carlo helped him climb the couple of steps. Ryan got closer to the steps on the other side but didn’t go up them—yet.
Morton wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans that hid any of his injuries beneath. But his face was injured, too. The damage could have been bites or claw marks; Ryan wasn’t certain.
Maya started talking again into her microphone but Morton grabbed it from her. “What the hell are you doing here again?” he shouted into it, glaring at Maya. “And saying things about how people should be welcoming wolves back to this area? I could have been killed by the one that attacked me. I was just trying to find it, see where one of the animals that was making noise that night was hiding out, and it leaped out at me. And there were more around, too. Wolves back here? That’s dangerous. Horrible. And I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure the local laws are changed and we can kill them the way that one tried to kill me.”
Chapter 12
“No!” Maya shouted, then took a deep breath as she scrambled to think of what to say next. “No,” she repeated, still yelling since she no longer had the microphone. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. But we need to find ways to get along with the wolves, stay away from them, not kill them. We—”
She was surprised to see a young man who looked familiar join them up on the podium and wrest the mic from Morton, who appeared equally surprised. Staring at Morton, he interrupted her. “Don’t the laws of this country mean anything to you, like protection of endangered animals? Don’t—Never mind. Why don’t you tell everyone here exactly how you supposedly were attacked by that wolf the other night.”
Supposedly? From what Maya could see, Morton did look injured. And even though she hated to admit it to herself, his injuries could have been inflicted by a wolf. His middle-aged face had clearly been mauled, and he had been walking slowly enough to indicate that it wasn’t only his face that had been hurt.
Even so…
Well, she could have shared a lot with Morton, maybe for the same reasons, if it hadn’t been for chance—like that other wolf appearing and shooing the others away.
But she would never have complained about it if she’d survived. She would have realized she had brought it on herself.
And this man? Was he going to do as asked and tell what had happened?
Maya glanced past
the others on the podium toward the crowd below. Some people she recognized from the restaurant were there, as were a few of the storekeepers. Trev was there, too. Unsurprisingly, they all seemed to stare toward the two men who now occupied the podium with her. But no one else said anything. Not yet, at least.
Then there were Ryan and Piers. Ryan watched what was going on with a grim but very interested expression.
Piers was working with Rocky who, for the first time since Maya had met the lovely wolf-dog, appeared almost out of control, as if he, too, wanted to join her up here with the quarreling men.
At the moment, the young man was trying to thrust the microphone back into Morton’s hands. “Here,” he kept saying. “Tell us.”
“Yeah, I will,” Morton said, finally grabbing the mic. He spoke into it. “I heard those howls and other sounds like everyone else in town. Like all of you, I was curious. Yeah, I’m not a tree hugger or animal freak but figured I should find out what was going on, so I drove as far as I could to where I thought I’d heard the wolves.” He turned to point toward the nearby roadway that looped somewhat around the forested hillside behind them. “I parked, got out of my car and went to look for them.” He turned to glare at Maya. “And before you ask, I brought a flashlight and a large stick to defend myself. That’s all. No gun, which I regret now.”
The rest of his story sounded both familiar and somewhat heartrending to Maya. He’d found a pathway, followed it up to a clearing—which could have been the one where they’d found the patch of possible blood just off it. Looked around, saw nothing, then decided to head back down.
“But before I did, I heard noise in the underbrush and suddenly a big, ugly wolf leaped out. Kind of like that thing.” He pointed off the podium toward Rocky, who was standing now, and Maya saw that Piers had him restrained close beside him. Now, he hugged Rocky even closer as Morton continued to stare at the dog.
“So didn’t you just walk away from him?” the young man asked. “Run away? Go back down the path and leave?”
“Hell, no. Not that I could have. He got close to me, too close, and then, before I could hit him with my stick, he leaped up on me and I wound up on the ground.”
“That’s not—”
“And then he bit me. My legs. My side. My face.” Morton’s voice shook and his eyes seemed to stare into the distance.
“But—”
Morton seemed to pull himself together and aim his rage at the other man. “You think it was fun? Or I should just suck it up and forget what happened? Well, no way. Forget that. I don’t want it to happen to anyone else, and neither should you.”
With that, he shoved the microphone back at the other guy and headed toward the steps at the edge of the podium. Vinnie and Carlo helped him down the steps.
The young man looked at the mic in his hand, then spoke into it. “Er—look, everybody. I’m relatively new to town, and so’s my family. I’m Pete Sharan, and my parents are right there.” He pointed toward the edge of the crowd where the grocery store owners stood. “I just don’t believe what that man said. I’ve studied wildlife for a long time, especially wolves. And unless they’re in protective mode, to take care of themselves or their families, they mostly just run away when there are humans around. They don’t trust humans.”
“Right. They don’t trust us? Well, we don’t trust them, either.” That was Carlo Silling shouting from where he now stood nearby with the Frittses. “Kill ’em all. That’s what we need to do.”
Pete Sharan looked as if he was about to leap down from the podium and attack the other man, so Maya drew closer. Arguing here, or, worse, getting into a physical altercation, wouldn’t solve anything.
She reached out and gently pulled the mic from Pete’s hand, at the same time touching his arm as if soothing him. Or at least easing his temper—hopefully.
“I agree with you,” she said into the mic so that others could hear her despite how softly she spoke. “But we don’t know all the circumstances. Despite what Mr. Fritts said, that wolf could have been in protection mode. Mr. Fritts might just not have seen what scared the poor animal. It’s terrible that he was hurt, of course, but—”
“But the damn wolves have to go!” That came from someone else in the audience, a person Maya didn’t think she’d met.
The call was echoed by others, and Maya felt as if she wanted to cry.
Pete Sharan did cry out. “No! You people just don’t understand. They’re not—”
Ryan was suddenly on the podium with them. He was the next to take control of the microphone.
“Please listen, everyone. I’m Ryan Blaiddinger of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. What happened to Mr. Fritts is, of course, terrible. I’ll report it to my agency. But we need more information, as Mr. Sharan said. We want to prevent anything like this from happening again, and going after any kind of protected animal, like wolves, is not permitted except by obtaining an official exemption under the law. My colleague and I will conduct an investigation while we’re here, but in the meantime everyone needs to listen to what Ms. Everton said before. No one is denying that there are wolves around. We all need to stay safe—and that means staying away from them. Now, let’s all go to our homes or hotels and get out of here.”
Maya wanted to hug Ryan not only for what he said, but also because he glared at the people who’d been arguing to kill the wolves, including Morton Fritts.
She could understand his rage, his desire to do something to the wolf that injured him.
But all wolves?
That man needed to be watched.
*
Something was going to happen.
Staring down at the crowd, Ryan could sense it—and not as a result of his enhanced natural senses.
But he saw the glares that the Fritts side leveled against the Sharans and other townsfolk who supported Maya and what she said and the return of the wolves.
He saw the equally hostile glares shot back in return.
He felt the anger. The emotions. He thought he understood why, at least from the Sharans’ perspective—assuming he was correct in what and who they were.
He assumed that the Frittses’ antagonism was partly because of the attack on Morton, yet he felt it was somehow more than that. That faction had been upset by the influx of wolves to the area even before.
Why?
“May I?” He heard Maya’s whisper from beside him and looked down. She regarded him quizzically, her head cocked as one hand reached for the microphone. Before he could respond, tell her he had more to say—did he?—she added, “I just want to finish up here.” How could he say no? He handed over the mic.
She thanked him with a nod, then said into the device, “Once again, I tell you all to be careful and stay away from any wolves you happen to see or hear—but please let me know about them, or let Ryan know, so WHaM and Fish and Wildlife can follow up. And now, I thank you all and say goodbye. Enjoy the sounds of the wolves—and stay safe.”
Then she shut off the mic and placed it back on the stand.
“This is becoming even worse,” she said to Ryan. “Dangerous. The two sides are getting even further apart, at least somewhat because of that attack on Fritts. I’m not sure how to handle this, how to protect the wolves. Can you feds do anything to make it better?”
“The wolves are protected here under the law,” he said, staring right into her lovely, troubled eyes. “You know that. Under some circumstances we might capture and relocate them, but not now. And if we started searching for them, we would most likely have to look for the one that attacked Fritts and put it down if we found it. Maybe we should do that anyway, but for now I intend to let it go, as long as that’s the end of it. But we all—you and us—want to see how things progress with the wolves now that they’ve returned to this area. We just need to try to ensure there are no further incidents.”
At least the likelihood was that, if the wolf who’d attacked Fritts was a shifter, there’d be nothing else that could happen for
a month.
But if it had been a feral wolf?
“I…I understand,” Maya said hoarsely, and he wished he could sweep her into his arms and hold her tightly to comfort her. And maybe to comfort himself, as well.
This hadn’t been what he had anticipated when Alpha Force had sent him here to investigate the slow influx of wolves and determine if any happened to be shifters. He had thought he would be here simply observing, in whichever form made sense at any particular time.
But now? Now he had an urge to protect. Who? Individuals of many kinds: wolves, and those who cared for them, and people who turned into them. And the wolf who had attacked Fritts? If it was feral and ferocious, was it legal not to put it down? He didn’t know, didn’t want to find out.
“Okay.” He put a dose of strength and encouragement into his voice. “It’s time for us to leave. Good presentation, by the way. You handled Morton’s interruption well. Now, we’ll wait and see what happens.”
“Right.” She clearly tried to shake off her anxiety, too. She started toward the steps.
And stopped. Ryan saw why immediately. The Fritts group was gathered at the bottom, facing one another and talking. They seemed to block any ability to get by them.
That didn’t deter Maya for long. Ryan attempted to place himself in front of her but she walked down the few stairs and said, “Excuse me,” edging her way around them.
“No, you are not excused,” Vinnie Fritts asserted, planting herself in Maya’s path. “Do you want more people hurt by those terrible creatures?”
“I am very sorry about what happened to your husband.” Maya’s voice sounded exasperated, as if she didn’t like repeating what she had already said. “But really, I’m not sure we know the whole story. And even if we do—well, it was a regrettable incident but that doesn’t mean anyone who does as I said, and stays far away if they happen to believe a wolf is nearby, will also get hurt.”
Protector Wolf Page 11
