by Terry Spear
“Thanks, Rafe.”
“It’s my Christmas present to you and your family. I’ll get the paperwork drawn up for you and the new buyer.”
Holly couldn’t thank him enough, and they ended the call as Jared headed her way. “I’ll offer twenty thousand less than the asking price on your home, which is a damn good deal.”
“I just bought it for the full price. It’s totally worth it for the land and forests surrounding her place and her parents’. Sorry.” Sally smiled, not sounding sorry in the least, and then went back to work pulling a file. She got on her phone to call the patient.
Jared just stared at her like he couldn’t believe it. Holly was proud of Sally for offering and then sticking to her guns on it.
Holly called the next patient while Anita was already talking to hers. “Are you sure you never got into a wolf fight, even in playing, with any of the wolves who don’t have blood issues?” Anita asked. “No blood transfusions either? Yes, I know I have your records, but if you didn’t come in for any treatment… Yes, we’re trying to determine if a bite from an unaffected wolf would change those who… Yes, a blood exchange.”
Holly figured Anita was talking to Idabel, their sun lover. She would never let anyone finish a statement without making another comment.
“Okay, you’re sure? Yes, I mean, no, I’m not doubting your memory. Thanks. Yes, that could be good news.” Anita ended the call and put the file into a new stack for those they were relatively sure had never received blood from an unaffected wolf.
Sally placed hers on top of Anita’s. “Two, no blood transfers, right?”
“Yes. As far as she knew.” Anita called the next person on the list.
“Are you certain?” Aidan asked the patient he was speaking with. “Just sparring with the wolves who are changing? Best buddies. And you were too young when the last wolf war started. Gotcha. No blood transfusions. All right. Yes, we might have found the cure. We’ll let you know.”
“Need anything to drink?” Ted asked.
“Coffee,” both Aidan and Holly said. She didn’t think they were going to get through all these records. Not before midnight anyway. And she wanted to make love to Aidan again.
Holly was talking to one of the men, but he was having a hard time remembering some details. He’d been much older when the wolf war had occurred. “You weren’t bitten by any of the other wolf pack?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“You didn’t go in to be stitched up.”
“No, healed up in a few days.”
“But the attacking wolf was from the other wolf pack, and he broke the skin.”
“Um, no.”
“You said the wolf bit you.”
“Yeah, but he was one of ours.”
“One of ours bit you? During the war? Which wolf?”
“White. He and I were tearing into the same wolf, but the wolf twisted free and White accidentally bit me.”
“White died some years ago.”
“Yeah, we’d been friends forever.”
“You didn’t get any of the attacking wolf’s blood in an open wound of your own?”
“Nick finished the wolf off. How would I know if a drop of blood mixed with mine?”
“Okay, and no other wolf confrontations later with any on the list who haven’t been affected?”
“Oh, I had a few friendly confrontations later on, but I can’t remember which resulted in breaking the skin and which were on the list. Sorry, Doc.”
“No problem. We live long lives. It’s hard to remember so many details over the many years we live.”
When they ended the call, she set his file in another pile. But by the time it was one in the morning—luckily, no matter what the time was, everyone wanted this resolved—they had set the files all in one pile, except for Gadson’s. “He couldn’t remember who all he tackled in fun when he had some scrapes.”
“I’d say the odds are that this could work.” Aidan helped Holly up from the table. “That’s about all we can do for tonight.”
Ted helped Anita to stand. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“Jared drove me.”
“I’ll take her back.” Jared cast Sally an annoyed look, then he said, “Do you want me to take the clinic records back to storage?”
“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks,” Holly said.
Jared gathered the files and escorted Anita out to his vehicle.
“What’s next on the agenda?” Ronald asked.
“Now we wait to see if there’s any change in Mike’s DNA.”
“For how long?”
“We’ll check his blood work monthly and see if there’s any change. That’s all we can do for now. There’s a possibility it won’t change his DNA, or that it could only be temporary. We really have to give this more time.”
“If our wolves who received blood transfers developed the immunity, then I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with the rest of our people,” Ronald said.
“It could. We don’t know how long it took though.”
“All right.” Ronald was irritated he didn’t have all the right answers right this moment. “You’re leaving then?”
Aidan deferred to Holly. “Yes, to spend Christmas with Rafe and his family. I’ll have a mover here, picking up the rest of my stuff. My parents are already doing that at their home. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Aidan wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. He seemed pleased to hear she was ready to leave.
Holly said to Sally, “Rafe is getting the paperwork drawn up on the house.”
“Okay, good. Let me know if I need to do anything more with this other matter,” Sally said.
“We will.”
Then they hugged, and Aidan gave her a hug before she left.
Ronald said, “Keep me updated.” Then he left the house.
Ted and Mike were cleaning up all the dishes. “Nice thanks from their pack leader for all your hard work,” Mike said.
“Typical Ronald style,” Holly said.
“Well, I’m headed to bed if you folks don’t need me for the rest of the night,” Ted said.
“Night, Ted, Mike. Thanks for all your assistance,” Aidan said. “Glad we didn’t need you for a wolf fight.”
“Unless one of the unaffected wolves bit me,” Ted said.
Aidan chuckled.
Then they all went to bed.
As soon as Aidan and Holly had stripped off each other’s clothes, she got a call. “What now?” She checked the ID and saw it was Sally. “Yeah, Sally?” She was hoping she hadn’t changed her mind about the house or that Jared had changed it for her.
“We might have a problem. I didn’t want to call Ronald about it, and I’ll take care of it, but just so you know, Clifford bit Trudy to try to transfer the blood over that way.”
“But he has to be bleeding too.”
“Yeah, he cut his arm and rubbed his blood on her wound.”
“They’re not the same blood type.” Holly let out her breath. “Okay, that’s something we didn’t check. Blood types, to see if the mixing of blood had to be with the same blood type. We won’t know what the wolves’ types were in the other wolf pack, but we should be able to check the ones we know of within the pack.”
“Tomorrow, first thing?” Sally asked.
“Yeah, only make it a little later in the morning.”
Sally laughed. “I understand. Night, Doc. See you tomorrow.”
“Problem?” Aidan asked, climbing into bed with Holly.
“Yeah, expect a rash of wolves biting one another.”
Aidan shook his head. “We’d better handle this differently with the rest of the packs when the time comes. For now, this is all I want to handle.” He leaned down to kiss her breasts, and she combed her fingers
through his hair, ready to enjoy their mated bliss.
Chapter 29
Early the next morning, Aidan and Holly discovered it didn’t matter what blood type the wolves had in the cases where the wolves seemed to develop an immunity. Having done all they could there, Mike and Ted were flown by the other private jet to their family’s homes while Aidan and Holly stopped in at Aidan’s home to pick up more clothes for the trip. Then they left for Colorado to spend Christmas with Rafe’s family.
When they arrived at the chalet, Rafe greeted Holly and Aidan. Rafe looked similar to Holly’s mate, except he was about an inch taller and his brown eyes and hair were lighter than Aidan’s.
“Jade just put Toby down for a nap. He’d been playing with Marianne and Greg because he was excited to see you, and they were trying to keep him occupied before you got here. They finally wore him out,” Rafe said.
Aidan laughed.
“He’ll be up in about an hour. We have five separate suites, each with their own private bathroom and sitting area, and four more bedrooms that share two more bathrooms. One of the rooms is Aidan’s and yours,” Rafe said to Holly, and she was delighted to be here and welcomed to the family.
In the common area, a great living area was situated around a fireplace, and a live, seven-foot-tall Christmas balsam fir sat in a corner of the room, decorated to the hilt in red, gold, blue, and green.
They smelled steaks grilling in the kitchen and heard Ted and Mike talking to each other about which special drinks they were going to make.
Holly looked at Aidan, but he seemed just as surprised to learn they were here.
Rafe smiled. “Mike and Ted said they had a new mission. They diverted the plane to come here once they learned their parents are taking a Caribbean cruise together. They thought Mike and Ted were going to have to work with Aidan over the Christmas holiday, since neither had told them otherwise. Mike and Ted said they had to teach Greg more about cooking anyway. Though Marianne is in the kitchen learning some more too.”
“That’s good news. Where are Mom and Dad?” Holly smelled their scent in the living area. She knew they were here and would have come with Marianne and Greg.
“They went for a run in the woods. They should be back soon.”
“This is truly beautiful. Thanks for inviting my whole family here,” Holly said.
“All of you are family now. And we’re glad to have you. It just makes Christmas all the merrier. Jade’s delighted too.”
“And we’re a pack. You might not have bargained for it, but you’re now officially in charge of a pack. You and Jade,” Aidan said, glad his brother and Jade took on the role. He’d prefer solving the mysteries of the universe with Holly.
Jade joined them, her blond hair pulled back in a chignon. She had beautiful dark-brown eyes and was genuinely smiling when she welcomed Holly and Aidan. “We’re glad you’re both here, and that your family is also here for the holidays. And Aidan’s bodyguards too. They earn their pay in cooking meals. Since your mother and sister are here, I figured we’d have our special shopping excursion together tomorrow. The guys will figure out something to keep them occupied in the meantime.”
“I can’t wait,” Holly said. “Hey, Aidan, do you want to stretch our legs, and we’ll look for Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.” They’d had a long couple of days without any real wolf downtime. He was ready to play with his wolf mate.
Holly and Aidan ran as wolves to track down her parents and finally found them sitting on a boulder, watching a bear and her cubs at a lake a long way off.
They quickly greeted them, and Aidan was glad he’d invited her family to be with them for the holidays. They didn’t stay out for long, because he was certain Toby would wake and be upset he’d missed Aidan and Holly when they went on the wolf run. They were starting to head back to the chalet when they heard Jade and Rafe howl.
Aidan howled back to let them know they were on their way, but Rafe, Jade, and Toby met them halfway. Toby tackled Aidan, but once they had a tussle in the snow, he looked shyly at the other wolves as if he hadn’t realized they were even there. Recognizing Holly’s parents, Toby ran over to greet them, and they licked him.
Holly lay down on the snow to be more his size, and he inched over to see her. She smiled, and he moved a little closer. She leaned down and licked his cheek, and he looked back at Aidan to see if it was all right to greet her.
He nodded.
Toby snuggled up to her, rubbing his body against her. She was now officially part of his pack.
* * *
They spent the next few days enjoying the pool and the hot tub, making snowmen, and playing as wolves. One of the highlights for Holly was going out with the ladies for the tea party. And at night, Aidan and she slipped off to make love in their room at the chalet. It was finally Christmas Eve, and after a wild afternoon of building snow forts and having snow fights, they settled in to have Christmas Eve dinner with a fire crackling in the fireplace, all the Christmas lights sparkling, and Christmas music playing in the background. The aroma of the Christmas Eve dinner—tenderloin roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, fresh-baked bread Holly’s mother had made, and a fruitcake Jade had made—filled the air.
No packages were under the tree, but that was because Toby was young, and they wanted to keep the spirit of Santa Claus alive for him a little while longer. He was a cute kid, all blond curls, reminding Holly of herself and her brother and sister when they were little, except that they had blue eyes when Toby had dark-brown eyes like his mother.
What surprised them more was the doorbell ringing right before they sat down to eat.
“Who could that be?” Rafe asked, winking at Jade. “Be right back.”
Everyone waited to see who would be coming for dinner now.
Nick and Victoria, or Santa and Mrs. Claus, entered the house, surprising and pleasing everyone.
Nick was dressed in an old-world Santa costume—a long, red velvet coat and red pants, black boots, and all the white fur trimmings. Victoria looked too much like Mrs. Claus to be anything but in her red velvet Victorian gown trimmed in white fur along the hem and sleeves, with a matching bolero velvet jacket that was fur-trimmed along the collar, down the front edges, and all the way around the back.
Toby’s eyes were wide with excitement, but he didn’t budge from where he was standing with his mom.
“Come say hi to Santa,” Rafe said to Toby.
Toby looked up at his mom to get her okay. She smiled down at him. “Go ahead, Toby. Remember, we made cookies for Santa. Mrs. Santa came too, just for you.”
“And Marianne and Greg,” Toby said.
Jade chuckled. “Yes, for them too. Santa and Mrs. Santa Claus are going to eat dinner with us.”
“Then we have to get on our way,” Nick said. “Busy night of the year, you know.”
Toby ran across the room to give Santa a hug, and Nick lifted him off his feet and gave him a big hug. “This is the reason I needed to be with a pack.” Then Nick looked down at Victoria and smiled, holding Toby on his hip and wrapping his arm around Victoria. “And this is the reason.”
She blushed beautifully.
Aidan couldn’t have been happier for them. Then they all sat down to eat. Aidan had so many things planned for Holly to do in the next couple of weeks. For now, this was all just family fun. Though he knew the family would like to do things with them too.
After dinner, Santa read Toby bedtime stories and then said, “Now, all good little girls and boys have to go to bed and then I can unpack my sleigh.”
Toby looked at Marianne and Greg as if that meant them too.
Greg laughed. “Yeah, sure. Come on, Toby. I’ll read you some more stories, but then we’ve got to go to sleep, and then Santa can give us some presents. As long as we’ve been good.”
Marianne took Toby’s
hand. “Me too.” Then they headed down the hall to Toby’s room.
The adults all had coffee and fruitcake in front of the fire.
“I have to tell you, nothing’s the same since Nick came to stay with us,” Victoria said very seriously.
Nick smiled at her. “You can say that again.”
She blushed again.
“We couldn’t have been more surprised or thrilled that you came for Christmas Eve,” Aidan said.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. As soon as you left, I called Rafe to see if I could make arrangements to come,” Nick said.
“I couldn’t have been more thrilled to hear he and Victoria would make this night even more special,” Rafe said, and Jade agreed.
“We do have a bit of a problem with the pack though. Everyone has asked for samples of my blood. Somehow, the word got out that wolves were biting wolves in the Seattle pack. Paul and Lori laid down the law and said if anyone bit me on purpose, they would be banished from the pack,” Nick said.
Aidan laughed and shook his head. “Keep your doors and windows locked at night.”
“I’ll protect him,” Victoria said.
“Yeah, she’s got one helluva shotgun she keeps in case of trouble. Not that she’s had any need to use it. But she knows how.”
“You bet,” Victoria said.
“And if you haven’t guessed, we’re mated wolves,” Nick said.
“Congratulations, you two,” Holly said and gave them both a hug.
“We’re not getting any younger,” Victoria said. “And we were ready. Both of us.”
“I’m happy for you,” Aidan said.
Everyone else chorused the congrats, and then Greg and Marianne joined them. “He won’t go to sleep until his uncle Aidan reads him a story. He wants his aunt Holly there too, for real,” Marianne said. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to pretend I still believed in Santa Claus.”
“Me either,” Greg said.
“Just wait until you’re mated and have little tykes,” Holly said.
“But wait on getting mated,” their dad said.
Everyone laughed.
“We have to find new wolves to meet,” Marianne said, “like some more our age.”
