by Abby Blake
Suddenly Wolf, Too
Okay, time out! It was not appropriate for the sheriff’s deputy to be lusting after the mysterious stranger in town or the man’s brother, especially not when she was dating the sexiest man in the whole county, Cal Sanders. Confused, embarrassed, and completely unnerved by her out-of-control libido and nightly dreams of ménage a quatre, Louise tries to avoid all three men. But that might prove to be a fatal mistake.
Aiden and Zeb have been tracking a rogue werewolf, but when they finally manage to corner the criminal in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, the local sheriff’s deputy is caught in the melee. Injured and bleeding, the only way to save her life is by making her one of them.
But a certain wildlife expert, who also happens to be Louise’s current boyfriend, might have a thing or two to say on the matter.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 37,084 words
SUDDENLY WOLF, TOO
Abby Blake
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
SUDDENLY WOLF, TOO
Copyright © 2011 by Abby Blake
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-121-9
First E-book Publication: December 2011
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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SUDDENLY WOLF, TOO
ABBY BLAKE
Copyright © 2011
Chapter One
Her lips still tingled.
Nearly fifteen minutes after Cal Sanders had kissed her good-bye, and all of her brain cells were still complete mush. It did not bode well for her job as a sheriff’s deputy to be so distracted. Thank heavens this was a small town.
Louise and Cal had known each other for years, but a few weeks ago their comfortable friendship had taken an unexpected turn. Considering how well the man kissed, that was a very good thing. Sexy memories of last night wandered through her brain. The things that man could do. Wow. Had it suddenly gotten hot in here?
She fanned herself with a file folder as she tried to think of something, anything, else other than Cal’s clever fingers and oh-so-naughty tongue. She was almost grateful for the interruption when the phone rang. It wouldn’t do her reputation any good to go up in flames while she sat there remembering some of the things Cal had done with her last night.
“Sheriff’s department,” she said, grabbing up the phone before Ethel managed to wake up. She was a sweet lady, but it was probably time the eighty-three-year-old retired from her unpaid, self-appointed mission. Although, considering that they could literally go days without the phone ringing, sleeping at a desk in the sheriff’s office was probably as good a place as any.
“Lou, it’s Jed Hawthorne. There seems to have been some mischief over at Andrea’s jewelry store. It’s probably just kids, but I thought I better report it.”
“No worries, Jed. I’ll go over and have a look around. Thanks for letting me know.”
Louise hung up the phone but couldn’t stop the small smile forming on her mouth. Jed Hawthorne used to be the town drunk, but an incident nearly a year ago had left him so rattled that he’d joined AA and turned his life around. He now seemed to go out of his way to be a good citizen.
She grabbed her hat, diverted the office phone to her cell—Ethel could use the rest—and quietly slipped out the front door. Even though Andrea had left town a long time ago, the locals still referred to the store as Andrea’s jewelry store. In the last ten months, the building had been a cheap clothing store, a fancy Internet coffeehouse, and one of those bargain bookstores that sold everything ninety percent off. None of them had lasted long, and Louise suspected it would be called Andrea’s place for a long time to come. She hadn’t been in town long, but the woman had certainly left an impression.
Louise crossed the street, heading to the front windows of the empty store. From there everything seemed in order—abandoned but undamaged—but a quick check around the side alley, where a set of fire stairs led up to the apartment above the shop, revealed some broken glass and general disarray. There weren’t any windows on this side of the store, so the glass was most likely broken bottles, but it was the blood that drew Louise’s attention.
She followed the bloody smears, her heart pounding as images of what she might find sped through her mind. She pulled out her flashlight, trying to stay calm as she stepped deeper into the shadows of the building. The half-eaten lamb wasn’t so shocking once she realized what she was looking at, but it was the injured wolf sleeping nearby that had Louise backing away.
It wasn’t unusual to see the occasional wolf around the outskirts of town, but it was quite rare for them to venture into the main street—even rarer for them to steal livestock and drag it into a populated area. But it was the sheer, overwhelming size of the thing that sent fear skittering down her spine. She’d never seen one that big in her life. Hell, it was damn near twice the size of an average wolf.
She’d almos
t made it out of the alley when the damn thing woke up.
* * * *
Aiden sniffed the air. Their quarry was close, but being in a small town, they couldn’t afford to attract attention. City folk tended not to notice them wandering around, poking their noses into strange places, but in small towns like this there was a far greater risk of being observed.
Aiden and his brother, Zeb, strolled down the street trying to blend in with the small number of tourists wandering along the main street. He followed his nose, surreptitiously tracking their target, but by the time they located the silver wolf, all hell was about to break loose.
* * * *
Louise backed away slowly. She had one hand on her gun, the other around her flashlight, her eyes never leaving the growling monster in front of her. She needed to get to her cell phone, but the flashlight was big enough and heavy enough to use as a club. If the animal attacked, she’d much rather whack the creature than try to kill it, so she slowly moved her hand away from the gun and reached for her phone.
The loud growling noise was damn near terrifying. It rumbled over her skin, drawing fear to the surface. She took a quick glance behind her, relieved to see Jed Hawthorne had hung around.
“Call Cal Sanders,” she tried to say in a voice loud enough to be heard but calm enough to not upset the beast in front of her. Jed nodded and rushed into the nearest store. The poor wolf looked undernourished, and if the way it was dragging its hind leg was any indication, badly injured. There weren’t many people on the street, but she couldn’t afford to let the wolf get past her. The safety of the citizens and tourists in the area was her first priority. She stopped, held her ground, and hoped like hell that Cal would get here with a tranquilizer gun before the wolf decided it was time to leave.
* * * *
Zeb and Aiden found the local sheriff’s deputy staring down the rogue wolf. They knew a human was no match for a pissed-off werewolf, but short of revealing their own identities, there wasn’t much they could do to apprehend the criminal at this moment.
With a few simple hand signals—a silent communication they’d developed between them over the last thirty years—Aiden explained what he intended to do. Zeb nodded and stepped toward the woman. He could smell her fear, but she held her ground, willing to put herself at risk in an attempt to keep the rest of the town safe.
“Excuse me, deputy,” he said in a quiet voice, trying not to startle the woman. “My brother and I work for Parks and Wildlife. We’ll handle the wolf. You go get everyone off the street.”
She shook her head without looking at him, her focus remaining on the growling silver wolf. The thing was crouched and ready to attack if Zeb didn’t get her out of the way. “My responsibility,” she said very clearly.
The growling stopped a moment before the wolf launched itself straight at the deputy’s face. Unable to stand by and let the woman get hurt, Zeb stepped in front of her, his back to the wolf just as its jaws reached them. The bite on the back of his neck hurt like hell, but it was the tearing of the skin on his spine that pissed him off. The wolf used the momentary distraction to literally climb over his body and leap into the middle of the road. Aiden took off after it, but with so many witnesses, he couldn’t afford to run faster than a normal human.
“What the fuck was that?”
He shrugged slightly, hissing as the movement pulled at his torn skin. “A wolf,” he offered in reply.
“I know that was a fucking wolf, you dipshit. I want to know what the hell you thought you were doing.”
“I don’t know. Saving your life maybe,” he answered angrily, feeling his own temper grow. He was aching all over, bleeding profusely, and completely pissed off that they couldn’t capture the rogue wolf because there had been too many human witnesses. He was absolutely not in the mood to play the blame game.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t need saving. What the fuck are you doing in my town?”
He had a smart-ass answer all ready, but he touched a hand to the back of his neck where the wolf had bitten him and realized the injury was far worse than he’d first thought. She stood in front of him, hands on hips, her annoyance with his interference very clear. Geez, he’d just saved her from getting her face ripped off. The least the woman could do was offer him a thank-you.
Majorly pissed at the woman’s attitude, Zeb’s annoyance rocketed sky-high when his legs wobbled. He landed heavily on his knees. “Apparently,” he said with every bit of sarcasm he could muster, “I’m bleeding in your crappy little town.”
He heard his brother laugh a moment before Zeb swooned and passed out like some frightened maiden. Great, he was never going to live this down.
* * * *
“He needs an ambulance.”
“No, he’ll be fine. I’ll just patch him up.”
“But he’s unconscious from loss of blood. He’ll die if we don’t get him help.”
The deputy was kind of cute in her tenacity, and without a believable explanation, she wasn’t going to let this go. “Look, deputy, he’s the squeamish type. He always passes out when he sees blood.” And wasn’t his brother going to rip him to shreds over that lie? “Just give me ten minutes. If I can’t get him to wake up and tell you himself that he’s fine, then I’ll let you call in the cavalry.” She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded and handed over the first-aid kit she’d retrieved the moment they’d made it into the local clinic.
It was such a small town that they didn’t even have a full-time doctor. He glanced around the stark little room full of concerned townspeople. “Maybe you could clear everyone out,” he said to the deputy. Thinking quickly for an excuse, Aiden tried to hide his smirk as he added one more lie. Zeb was going to kill him. “I assure you he doesn’t need an audience. He’s going to be embarrassed enough when he wakes up.”
“Oh, yeah…um, sure.” She moved away, herding onlookers back out the door. As soon as Aiden felt confident that he could check the wounds without someone looking over his shoulder, he peeled back the ruined shirt. The bite had been deep and ragged but, thanks to Zeb’s physiology, was already starting to heal. The deep gouges left by the claws had also started to close over, but it was going to be difficult to explain the copious amounts of blood.
He quickly grabbed sterile gauze and started taping it over the open wounds. Most of them would be closed in a few minutes. At least with the covering, Zeb would still appear to be injured.
“Fuck,” Zeb groaned as he finally regained consciousness. “The mongrel is going to regret that.”
“Oh, thank God you’re awake,” the deputy said as she stepped back into the room. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking,” he said in the most sarcastic voice Aiden had ever heard his brother use around a beautiful woman, “that you looked better with your face attached to your head.”
“I would’ve moved,” she said, sounding defensive. “You’re the idiot who made that impossible.”
Aiden actually felt anger ripple through his brother’s muscles, but as he tried to lever himself off the doctor’s bench, Aiden held him down with one hand. “Stay still. You’ve been injured, and it’s going to take several weeks for you to heal.” Zeb groaned at the reminder that he needed to at least seem to be human, but he took a deep breath and relaxed just a little.
The deputy stepped closer, peering over Aiden’s shoulder as he placed sterile bandages over the deep cuts on Zeb’s shoulder blade. “Shit, that could probably use a few stitches.”
“I’ll check it in a couple hours or so,” Aiden said, trying to remember human physiology. “If the skin hasn’t started to knit together by then, I’ll drive him to the nearest hospital and get them to check him over.”
Again the sheriff’s deputy didn’t look happy, but she nodded and stepped back.
“Where are you staying?”
“We’re not. We were just passing through, so we’ll be out of your hair in an hour or so.” Aiden raised an eyebrow at his brother’s wo
rds. It was true that the wolf had run out of town and they needed to follow, but Zeb’s words seemed fueled by a different sort of urgency.
The deputy’s cell phone rang, and she took a step away to answer it. Thanks to his better-than-human hearing, Aiden could hear both sides of the call and learned two important things. One being the pretty deputy’s name—Louise—and the other being that some guy named Cal had managed to do what Aiden and Zeb hadn’t been able to accomplish—he’d captured the wolf.
“I need to go,” she said as she closed her cell phone.
“I’m coming with you,” Zeb said as he levered himself off the bed.
“Like hell you are,” Louise said in a startled-sounding tone. “You’re going to lie here and wait for Nurse Jenny to come check those wounds. You’ll need to get rabies shots as well.”
“The hell I am,” Zeb said as Aiden took off his jacket and handed it to him. “That wolf didn’t have rabies, but it is dangerous. You and your friend have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into.”
“I’m sorry, Louise,” Aiden said as he stepped toward the door, “but you need to trust us on this. That wolf is why we’re here in your town.”
* * * *
Okay, something screwy was going on.
She was certain she hadn’t given either of these men her name, but even if they’d overheard someone else call her Louise, it didn’t explain how they knew Cal had caught the wolf. Surely nobody had hearing that good.
