by Dani Harper
The wolf closed the gap between them and licked her outstretched fingers. Omigod, omigod. She couldn’t move at first, both enthralled and terrified—until the animal nudged its head under her hand like a dog asking to be petted. Jillian moved her fingers lightly across the broad skull, scratching hesitantly at first. Then fear fell away, and she worked both hands behind the sensitive ears, into the glossy ruff. The wolf stood panting mildly, the immense jaws slack and the great pink tongue lolling out in apparent pleasure. Jillian had no illusions about the animal’s power—it might behave like a big dog but those jaws could easily crack the leg bones of a moose, those teeth could tear out the throat of a bull elk in full flight. And as surely as she knew those facts, she knew the wolf would not hurt her. It wasn’t sensible, it wasn’t logical, but the certainty was core-deep. Instinct? Intuition? Insanity? She didn’t know and didn’t care. The wolf held steady as Jillian wrapped her arms around its great neck and buried her face in its thick white fur. “I thought I dreamed you. You came to me. You came when no one would come, but they all told me I dreamed you because no one saw you but me. And I looked and looked for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
Here now. Found you.
The voice in her mind was real. The fur beneath her hands and face was real. The heat radiating from the wolf’s body was real. Her voice hitched as joy overwhelmed her. “You’re in my dreams all the time. I’m so glad that you’re here, that you exist.” And that I am not crazy. Although her rational brain told her there was certainly something crazy about being in the forest at night, hugging a giant wolf. But she couldn’t think about that right now; she had this moment in time and she had things to say. “I owe you a lot; you don’t know how much you’ve done. You saved my life all those years ago, but you saved my sanity too. When things were hard and horrible, and I didn’t want to face them, I thought of you and it helped me get through. I got through the hospital and the counseling and the therapy and came out on the other side, because of you.” She wiped her cheek on the soft fur, but couldn’t stop the tears. “I thought I was done then, I really did. But after a while I felt like it wasn’t enough to be alive, that I hadn’t really survived until I started living my life again. And you helped me do that too. I thought about what to do with my life and it was so plain to me—I wanted to work with animals, work with wolves. Because of you, I found that dream inside me. You did that for me, and I can’t tell you how thankful I am, how grateful I am that you were there for me. Even now, just handling ordinary life, I feel like I’m never really alone.”
Not alone. Here with you. The wolf nuzzled and licked at her hair, then lay down beside her. Gradually the tears subsided, and Jillian tumbled into an exhausted sleep with her arms still around the wolf’s neck.
He couldn’t remember who she was. Within the body of the wolf, James struggled to understand how her scent could be so familiar yet her identity elude him. All he knew was that she was important. Vitally important. In her presence, both his wolf and human natures were strangely in accord, balanced. Almost at peace. As she slept, he had nudged her to softer ground by the side of the trail as he would do for a cub. He had even felt compelled to try to heal her injured knees as he would do for a Pack-mate. Yet she was neither cub nor Pack-mate. Not a stranger. What was she?
As he had lapped the dirt from her torn skin, he was shocked to discover that he had tasted this blood before. Her blood. But he had no idea where or why. James eased himself away from the woman and sat up on his haunches, but remained close enough to share his warmth with her. He knew he had done that before too. Last night her words had resonated with truth and deep emotion, but they had shed no light on the mystery. He wished she had said more—not only in hopes of learning more about her, but because he liked the sound of her voice.
The sun had almost topped the horizon when James slipped away into the forest. He paused and looked back at the small figure in the brush by the side of the trail. For a split second he saw another trail, another forest. Saw the woman much younger, barely a teenager, lying just off the path and looking more like a discarded doll than a human being. Her blond hair was long and matted with blood. But her eyes were open. Green. Sea green. And infinitely sad as she observed the wolf—and waited for it to kill her. As she grieved not for the ending of her life, but for being alone.
James shook himself hard, looked again, and there was only the woman sleeping peacefully as before, full-grown and uninjured except for her skinned knees. Her hair was short, and tufts of it stuck out in odd directions as if it had a mind of its own.
What the hell had he just seen? A vision? A memory? An hallucination? Was it confirmation that the white wolf had encountered her before? Come to her aid, even comforted her? And last night he had certainly comforted her again. Even though his human self was controlling the wolf this time, he had wanted to comfort this woman. He wished he knew why. Why being near her somehow comforted him, why he didn’t want to leave. . . .
The wolf was licking her face again. Jillian was reluctant to awaken from the best sleep of her life and shoved at the creature’s soft muzzle, mumbled at it to stop, but it persisted. An excited whine had her fluttering her eyelids, wondering what on earth was—
“Hey!” Her shout caused the young Labrador to bounce back and fall over its own big feet, but it was too friendly to stay away. Jillian sat up hurriedly, trying to keep the silly black creature from licking her face again.
“Good God, are you all right? I’m really sorry, ma’am. Buster, get down! Get off her!”
Jillian looked up to see a stranger trying to offer her a hand and shoo the dog away at the same time. The man was dressed like most of the farmers who came into the clinic, including a baseball cap advertising the local grain buyers. Auburn hair curled out from under the cap, amber freckles dusted the strong face but his eyes were an unexpected golden brown. And far older than the rest of him, as if he had seen too much. He would have been handsome—very much so—if he’d smiled, but something told her that happened rarely, if at all.
“I’m all right, I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry about the dog.” She tried to wave him away but instead he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet as if she were weightless. “Ouch!”
“Oh, Christ, are you hurt? Damn dog. He just gets so excited. I’m sorry he knocked you down. Jesus, just look at your jeans.”
Luckily he was trying to put a leash on an unwilling Buster and was too distracted to notice the faces Jillian made as she gingerly flexed her legs. Her knees were stiff and sore, although not as bad as she had expected. They didn’t look too bad either, but she’d better get some peroxide on them soon. The wolf—
“Where’s the wolf?” Panic grabbed her by the throat. Jillian looked frantically over the spot where she’d been lying, looked off into the woods, scanned the brush in every direction. “Where is he?”
The man came back with the now-captive dog, frowning. “What’s wrong? Did you lose something?”
“The wolf, he was right here. He was here with me and I don’t know what happened to him.” She whipped around and grasped the man’s shirt, causing him to back up a step. “Did you see a white wolf? Maybe you just saw part of something, a big white animal, maybe you thought it was a dog or a—a calf or something.”
“No. No, nothing.” He backed up further, pushing her hands from his shirt. His face had paled and his eyes darted about. “There’s no wolves around here, lady.”
She stared at him. “Of course there are. I saw prints all over Elk Point yesterday, big ones. And there was a white wolf right here—”
Jillian realized suddenly how bizarre she sounded. The dog’s owner was glancing down the trail, sidling away from her and giving every sign of wanting to be gone. The morning air was cool, but she could swear the guy was sweating. Small wonder. She was probably coming across as a little deranged. The guy must think he had a crazy woman on his hands. She ran her hands through her untidy hair, straightened her jacket and decided to
make light of her outburst. “Well, I guess I must have seen something else and made a mistake. City girl, you know. Maybe this is how those Sasquatch stories get started,” she chuckled, expecting him to laugh along. He didn’t. She tried something different. “Say, I work at the North Star Animal Hospital. Buster’s a great-looking dog. Has he had his shots?”
“What? Oh, yeah. A couple months ago when Dr. Taku was at our place doing a herd check.”
She leaned down and petted the ecstatic canine straining to reach her even as his owner was moving slowly in the other direction. “George Taku? Guess you must go over to the Spirit River clinic then. Well, I guess I won’t see much of you, Buster.” She looked up at the man. He didn’t look receptive to shaking her hand so she didn’t offer it. “I’m Jillian by the way. Thanks again for stopping. And you are?”
There was the slightest hesitation before he answered. “Douglas. Douglas Harrison. See you, ma’am.” He turned and walked quickly down the trail, with the reluctant dog in tow. He called loudly over his shoulder, “You be careful in these woods now.”
She shook her head as she watched him disappear around a bend. Too late. I’ve already spent the night with a wolf. Even Red Riding Hood didn’t do that.
Chapter Five
The day promised to be a hot one. There was no dew on the fields, and only a few birds were singing from the roadside brush as Dr. Connor Macleod struggled to drive, stay awake, and keep tabs on the bundle on the seat beside him. He’d been called out of bed to deliver twin calves and discovered there were actually three in the tangle. Two were already dead and it had taken the better part of the night to make sure the lone survivor wouldn’t join them. The first-time mother had completely refused to bond with the undersized calf. Now it was wrapped in a blanket on the front seat, another orphan to be nursed at the North Star Animal Hospital. At least the weather was good—cattle producers in the Peace region tended to calve their herds in either January or May. If he had to get up in the middle of the night to attend a calving, Connor certainly preferred it to be at this time of year.
Thank God for Birkie. He was going to be late for his surgeries but at least the North Star Animal Hospital was in capable hands. The receptionist’s efficiency bordered on the superhuman. By now, Birkie would have opened the clinic, noticed his absence, checked his whereabouts with dispatch—and formulated a battle plan. Anything that didn’t require a licensed veterinarian would be passed to Caroline. Anything that did would be rescheduled.
And next weekend Connor wouldn’t have a single qualm about directing their dispatch service to call the new vet instead of him. He was pleased with how well Jillian had fit into the practice in such a short time. She was highly skilled, passionate about her work, and eager to learn more. A potent combination in his books. He’d just have to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t work herself into the ground.
Meanwhile, it would be a real treat not to work himself into the ground. Before he’d married Zoey, Birkie had often been on his case about putting all his passion into his practice. It had been hard not to. The work he did absorbed him; he lived and breathed it. He still did, to a degree, but he had to admit he’d rather spend time with Zoey whenever possible. She was busy too, and loved her newspaper as much as he loved animals, but nothing else existed when they were together at the end of the day. Sometimes they just collapsed on the couch like any hard-working couple. Most of the time, they called the Change and chased each other all over the farm and throughout the river valley.
To run as a wolf was freedom and joy and a tremendous sense of wholeness wrapped together. And it was all the more so now that Zoey was by his side. He’d lived a very long time, but nothing he’d experienced held a candle to the wonders of having a mate.
Like all of the Macleods, Connor was far older than he appeared, would live beyond several human lifetimes, but there were few Changelings left in the world. Most of his kind built relationships with humans. Fortunately, a human could become a Changeling too, could share in the gifts. Just like in the old werewolf tales, anyone bitten by a Changeling would become one. Their saliva contained a unique peptide. A single bite could inject enough of the substance into the bloodstream to activate a gene, one that existed in every human being. Not all human partners chose this path, but most did.
There were success stories all around him. The Pack leader, Jessie Watson, had Changed her human mate, Bill. Within his own family, Connor’s mother had done the same for his father half a millennia ago. Both had been well prepared and welcomed the gift of the wolf with joy. It had been different for Connor’s wife, Zoey. The gift was forced on her by a Changeling gone rogue, before she even knew that such creatures existed. Despite such a rough beginning, however, Zoey loved her new life. She’d not only adapted well but displayed a talent for shapeshifting beyond Connor’s own abilities.
James and Evelyn had discussed the Change many times, but then she became pregnant and they had decided to wait until after the baby came. Connor had wondered for years if Evelyn might have been able to save herself if she had been able to call forth the Change. Did James wonder that as well? Was it one more weight added to an already unbearable burden? Connor questioned anew if his brother was ever going to return to his human self. Would he ever even want to after losing so much? Jessie seemed so certain that James was improving but Connor just couldn’t see it.
Come to think of it, he was probably too tired to see anything. Even Changelings had to rest sometime. He’d been out on farm calls almost every night this week, and the second calving season of the year had barely begun. The tall vet left off thinking about his brother and focused instead on hopes of hot coffee and a hot shower as he pulled into the bay at the back of the North Star Animal Hospital. He tucked the blanket more securely around the tiny calf and carried it inside—and suddenly every wolfen sense flared to attention. A Changeling had been inside the clinic in wolf form. And it wasn’t just any member of the Pack. There was no mistaking the white wolf’s scent. It hung in the air, as three-dimensional as a holographic image to Connor’s lupine senses. What the hell?
He blinked and found that Caroline had already taken the undersized calf from him, and was asking something about an IV. He rubbed a quick hand over his face and found his voice. “Sorry, I’m not all here. Yeah, an IV would be good. And I milked out some colostrum from the mother—I almost forgot. Thanks.” He pulled the quart jar from a deep jacket pocket, thankful that he’d remembered it before he broke the damn thing, and handed it to her. “It’s not much. I left the owner milking out the rest. He’ll bring it by in an hour or so.”
Calf and assistant disappeared from his sight and his mind. Connor inhaled carefully, certain that thoughts of his brother must have influenced his senses. But there was no mistake. He walked slowly forward, following the airborne traces to the large livestock area . . . the stack of bales . . . the hallway. What on earth had brought James inside the clinic? He had no answer for that.
A noise from down the hall signaled the arrival of another truck in the bay. A moment later Jillian came through the doorway with her knapsack and something else. The scent of the white wolf enveloped her, swirled around her and preceded her down the hall like a live thing. A human could never have detected it, but to Connor it was as powerful as a punch to the head. He found he couldn’t say a word or form a thought, only stare at her.
“Hey there,” she said as she approached. “I’m a little messy, but I don’t look that scary do I?”
Connor shook himself mentally and found his voice. “No, not at all. I mean, you look a little tired maybe.” The scent of the wolf was overwhelming, the scents of the forest strong as well. Connor could have named the places she’d been right down to the plants she’d touched. “Did you get to see Elk Point?” He knew full well she had.
“Sure did. It was great, even better than you described. I’ll have to bore you with my thousands of photos one day. Say, do you know that a wolf pack has been in that a
rea?” “Really?” Good Christ, there was white hair all over her jacket. Had James lost his mind?
“Tons of prints everywhere.”
Connor nodded, tried to act casual. Normal. Anything other than how he felt. “You’re a pretty good tracker for a city girl. Maybe you’ll get to see more. I know you’re interested in wolves.” And one of them seemed to be interested in her for some reason. How the hell did she get so damn close to him? And why did he let her? There were a hundred questions Connor was dying to ask the young vet and no plausible way to do so. What on earth could he say? Hey, did you see my brother the wolf?
She didn’t give him any more information either. Instead she studied him intently. “Are you sure you don’t need me today? It’s barely Monday, and you look exhausted.”
“No, you go ahead and enjoy your day. In this business, you take your time off when you can get it. I’m looking forward to having the next weekend when my wife will be home.” Connor realized Jillian was looking at his stained coveralls. He probably looked like he’d delivered a dozen calves. “I was just on my way to get cleaned up.”
“Okay, well, I’ve got some errands to run downtown. Thanks again for the use of the truck.”
“You’re going to use it often enough when you’re called out to a farm. Might as well get some enjoyment out of it as well.” She smiled at that, then continued on past him down the hallway and into her apartment. When her door clicked, Connor leaned on the wall for support and rubbed both hands over his face, hard.
“Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ.” He knew he wasn’t going to get much more information out of Jillian, not without raising her suspicion. That was okay. He would Change tonight and go looking for his older brother himself. James Macleod had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
