by Laina Kenney
Angel took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding with fright and annoyance. What she really wanted to do was drop the heavy box of books on his foot, but she tried for a smile instead.
He didn’t mean to scare her? Then why sneak up in the first place? He must have done it on purpose.
“Hello, Dr. Novaks, I really wasn’t expecting—well, anyone. I’m in the middle of unpacking the last of my mother’s things, and I have a full day ahead.” She laughed a little, trying not to sound angry. She had to work with him, after all.
“Please call me James,” he said.
He had said that before. In fact, he said it all the time, but Angel just couldn’t think of him as a James, so she kept calling him doctor.
He clearly expected an invitation to come inside, but Angel was strangely averse to the idea of having him in her home. Manners warred with instinct for a moment as she searched for a compromise.
“Come up to the house and I’ll bring out some plates. We can have coffee and donuts on the porch and watch the neighborhood wake up,” she improvised. He was wearing a light jacket, so the cool morning shouldn’t bother him.
He frowned, but nodded. She could tell he wasn’t pleased. Well, he wasn’t the only one. She had refused him several times. Why did he have to choose today to be pushy about it?
She hurried into the house with the box and hurried to the kitchen. The big golden dog was standing there, so she dumped the stewing beef into a bowl for him before she rushed back out to the little table on the front porch with a tablecloth, plates, and napkins.
“I noticed there was blood on the door handle of your car. I hope you aren’t injured,” Dr. Novaks said, and Angel choked as she inhaled powdered sugar from her donut.
There was blood on her car door? She had washed the floor and the quilts and towels, but she hadn’t thought to check outside. Of course, the way the poor animal had been bleeding the night before, it was no wonder. There was probably blood everywhere. She should have been more careful.
She didn’t bother trying to hide her surprise, since he was watching her so closely.
“How strange. I’m not sure what happened there. I’ll have to have a look at that,” she said. She made a show of examining her hands as if she thought she might have cut herself. She peeped at him under her lashes while she sipped her coffee. “Are you sure it’s blood?”
She wasn’t sure why she was keeping the truth from him. There was nothing wrong in what she had done. It was just that she felt protective of the dog and couldn’t bring herself to talk about the wounded creature in front of him. He would probably be able to help, being a doctor, but she didn’t feel right about it, somehow.
And the doctor might feel the need to lecture her about having a strange animal in her home. She was lecturing herself quite enough already, and she didn’t need someone else’s opinion added to the mix.
He drew himself up. “Of course it’s blood. Doctors recognize blood.”
Angel was startled into laughing.
“Was that a joke, Doctor?”
After a moment he smiled. “I am capable of making jokes, Angeline. You needn’t sound so surprised.”
Angel dipped her head in acknowledgement. She had been surprised, and there was no point pretending otherwise. If Dr. Novaks had a sense of humor, she hadn’t seen any evidence of it before. His reputation at work indicated that he was strict and by-the-book, and he didn’t like it when the nurses joked around to relieve some of the inevitable tension of the job. His manner wasn’t great with patients either, but he did the job so well, no one ever complained.
She was about to reply when she saw a flash of gold out of the corner of her eye. Was the dog watching out the window? Without making any sudden moves, she picked up her coffee and sipped, casting her eyes to the side.
She didn’t see anything. There was no big doggy head staring out of her window.
Good. She would have a hard time explaining his presence when everyone at the hospital knew she habitually refused the offers of kittens and puppies that came every spring because she didn’t want a pet. Why this dog should be different, she didn’t know.
“I want you to be careful when you come into work tomorrow, Angeline. I heard a report of a rabid dog near the hospital, or at least in the neighborhood. A police officer friend of mine was out searching for him, but he hasn’t been found.”
A rabid dog was lurking at the hospital?
She swallowed her bite of donut with difficulty.
“When was this?” she asked. “And how does your friend know the dog has rabies?”
“Well, he did bite someone, another friend of ours, and tore up his leg quite badly. We gave the man the proper shots, of course, but we’ll have to watch him very closely.”
The look in his eyes was intense and it made Angel uncomfortable, but she said only, “That’s terrible. I hope your friend is all right.”
The doctor watched her for a moment, but when she didn’t go on, he picked up his coffee again. After a quiet moment, he started talking about his practice and the cactus plant that his receptionist had killed by overwatering.
Angel’s attention was caught by a big golden head that popped up behind the doctor. The dog was glaring at her through the white railings of the porch.
How had he managed to get outside? How was she going to explain him when she hadn’t mentioned him in the conversation before? Did he really have rabies? What if he bit the doctor?
Her thoughts were whirling, but when the doctor laughed and squeezed her hand briefly, she had the presence of mind to smile at him. Hopefully she looked like she had been paying attention, because she had no idea what he had said that could possibly be funny.
The dog looked pointedly at the doctor’s hand on hers and then back at Angel. His fangs were showing. He seemed to be telling her to get rid of the doctor.
She withdrew her hand and frowned. If only she could. It wasn’t her fault that the doctor had appeared with coffee. It wasn’t like she had invited him over, not that she should have to justify herself to a dog. What was wrong with her?
She made a shooing motion with her hand under the little table, but the dog ignored her. The bandage on his shoulder was gone. His ears were back, and his eyes seemed to be almost glowing. He edged even closer, and the little pear tree shivered with his movement. If he would just lie down, the tree and the side of the porch would help to hide him from the doctor’s view, but he just sat there.
The dog and the doctor were driving Angel crazy. She wasn’t a good actress, had participated but never excelled in school theatre productions. On stage, her nerves got in the way. She was trying to hide the anxiety churning in her stomach, but it was only a matter of time before she cracked under the strain.
She stole another glance behind the doctor and her heart jumped.
Was it her imagination, or did the dog look like he wanted to get close enough to bite the good doctor? The delicate railing would do nothing to protect the doctor if a dog that size decided to attack him. He would break it into kindling, injured or not.
She had to get the doctor to leave before her new pet bit him or she had a heart attack from the stress of worrying about it. She had the disturbing idea that the doctor would sit there talking all day if she let him.
She gulped down the rest of her coffee as fast as possible without choking. Her throat burned.
“Oh goodness, look at the time,” she said before she realized that she wasn’t even wearing her watch. If the doctor noticed that, he would think she was a lunatic.
When she stood up, so did he.
“Angeline, I hope I didn’t say something wrong? I know you don’t like animals, so I hope all my talk of a rabid animal didn’t frighten you.”
As soon as he said it, she could tell from his tone that he was lying. She always knew when people were lying. He had been trying to frighten her.
Was the dog rabid? She doubted it very much.
She cast her eyes do
wn so that the doctor wouldn’t see the knowledge of his lie on her face.
“No, no, I’m not frightened. I’m sure the police will catch him, or someone will. Thank you so much for coming over and bringing the breakfast. It was so thoughtful,” she said, clearing up the plates and stuffing the napkins into her empty coffee cup.
Dr. Novaks looked startled, but he took it in stride, helping her to fold up the tablecloth.
Angel glanced quickly behind him, but the dog was gone. She experienced an acute feeling of panic.
Where was the animal? What would he do?
Oh Lord, he was standing on the street out in the open and…staring at the license plate of Dr. Novaks’s car?
Angel did a double take then quickly tried to cover it. Why would a dog stare at anyone’s license plate? It wasn’t as if he could memorize it and call it in to the police for some infraction.
She blinked and turned away. She was imagining or misinterpreting or just plain going crazy. There just was no way.
She left everything stacked on the little table and walked Dr. Novaks down the steps. Another look assured her that the dog wasn’t in the street any longer. She glanced around, but didn’t catch sight of him.
She couldn’t see the dog anywhere, but she didn’t relax until Dr. Novaks was in his car and driving away down the road. She waved madly with a big fake smile on her face until he was out of sight. Then she turned and put her hands on her hips.
“Well, come out,” she said crossly. “I know you’re still out here watching. I can almost feel it.”
There was no movement she could see, but suddenly the dog was beside her. She was so annoyed that she didn’t know where to begin.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” she scolded. “What were you thinking? Don’t you realize his friend is probably the man who shot you? And you bit the man, apparently. If the doctor had seen you, I would have had a devil of a time explaining why someone who doesn’t even want pets took in a stray dog that had been shot, a dog with rabies, and didn’t even report it to the authorities.”
He looked up at her and yipped once, as if offended that she would say he had rabies.
It made her realize that she was standing on her front lawn and yelling at a dog. She rolled her eyes at her own behavior. The way she had been behaving since she saw this animal, she was one step away from the loony bin.
“Come on,” she said and marched up to the house. The dog followed, tail held high. All the bandages were gone, and he was hardly limping on that injured back leg at all.
He seemed quite pleased with himself, now that the doctor was gone. On a human face she would say his expression was smug.
Angel was annoyed with him, yes, but she was more annoyed with herself. She had chased away a man who was interested in her so she could spend her day with a dog who might have rabies, a dog that had already bitten someone.
She waited for the fear to come, but when she looked at the big blond dog, standing on her porch waiting for her, she couldn’t feel afraid. He had gleaming teeth and a rangy body she imagined was perfect for hunting over long distances, but he perked up and wagged his tail at her when he saw that she was watching him. His ears pricked forward as if waiting to hear what she would say.
“Doofus,” she said with the beginnings of true affection. “Get in the house.”
Chapter 5
Valeri was happy to get back in the house with Angel. The doctor who polluted the property with the scent of his twisted lust was gone, his mate was by his side giving him a hard time for almost revealing himself, and he was healing. Things were looking up.
The pain was still bad in his back haunch, but the other wounds were almost gone. A couple of pounds of raw beef had done wonders for him, but his metabolism was revved up from the rapid healing and he was starving.
He thought longingly of his family’s restaurant. His father was head chef and ran the kitchen with almost military precision. The food there was critically acclaimed, excellent and plentiful. He wasn’t far from there, in fact, but he would not leave his mate while the doctor was close, even to eat, and he didn’t want to shift yet if he didn’t have to. It might tear open the deepest wound, which had only just sealed over.
Perhaps his mate could be persuaded to make him a sandwich or two.
He trotted over to the refrigerator and looked at her.
“What do you want, fella?”
He looked at the fridge and looked back at her. Maybe she would get the idea without him having to transform and speak to her. He wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that kind of a shock, and he wasn’t quite healed enough to do it. He needed a few more hours and a deer or a side of beef to be back in fighting shape. Even then, a good night’s sleep and a day or two of rest and ravenous eating would put him back in peak form, but he knew it wouldn’t happen. In his job as second to a busy Alpha, he was a businessman, diplomat, and enforcer. He just didn’t have enough hours in the day lately to accomplish what was needed, so rest and relaxation was something he had to schedule into his week.
For the moment, though, he was happy. His mate was heading for the fridge.
“Are you hungry?” She opened the fridge and surveyed the contents.
He crowded against her leg. It smelled so good his stomach cramped. He wanted some of everything.
“I don’t think I have much to feed a dog. I don’t even know what a dog would like to eat. I can see you’ve eaten all the beef, but let’s see what we’ve got.”
She stared into the fridge for another minute before she started grabbing things, humming a little to herself. The sound of her humming soothed something in him.
She dumped an armload of food on the kitchen counter and pulled a loaf of sourdough bread out of the cupboard.
“How about a nice thick bologna sandwich?” she asked, and Valeri’s mouth watered. He was salivating on her floor, but he couldn’t stop it. A bologna sandwich sounded wonderful.
He ate three sandwiches piled high with sliced bologna, cheese, lettuce and mayo while Angel nibbled on a piece of cheese. It wasn’t what a dog would want, but Valeri loved it.
He licked the last of the mayo off his chin and looked hopefully at his mate, but she said, “Oh no. You’re not getting any more right now. I don’t want you to be sick on the floor.”
He whined before he could stop himself.
“No,” she said firmly. “You’ll have to wait a bit. Have some water and let your stomach settle.”
He trotted over to the water bowl and drank it dry. She filled it again with an indulgent smile and he drank more. By the time he had had enough water, he was exhausted. It was hard to admit, but maybe his mate had been wise in telling him to stop.
Angel was sitting on the big white couch with a box of her mother’s things. She rested her hand on the top of the box for a long moment, and he could tell she was fighting tears. Then with a sigh she opened it and started to sort through the things inside.
From the scent on the boxes, Angel’s mother had been full human. The vulfen blood must have come from her father’s side. He wondered if she had known her father, but wouldn’t know how to phrase the question at such an early stage, even if he had the power of speech.
Valeri flopped down on the fluffy rug in front of her couch and rested his head beside her pretty bare feet. He could reach out and lick her from this close.
It was such a good feeling to be with his mate at last. Underneath the low-level arousal she inspired was a profound contentment.
When his Alpha, Rylek, had found his mate and queen, Valeri had rejoiced for him and for their people. And when his friend and fellow second, Miros, had discovered his mate, Lia, and claimed her son as his own, Valeri had been truly happy for him. But a part of him had wondered if he would ever be as lucky.
Not every vulfen warrior found a mate. Some worked for their Clan every day of their lives with no reward other than the satisfaction of serving their people and never found a mate of their own or ha
d any children. Deep down inside, he had felt that he would end up in that category, using his strength and intelligence for the betterment of his Clan without ever asking for more.
It hadn’t upset him to believe that he would be alone, but it was so much better to be lying on the floor right beside his mate. The feelings of love and protectiveness that swept over him were so powerful, so beautiful and right they brought a lump to his throat. He would just close his eyes for a moment and enjoy.
Chapter 6
Valeri woke with a start and almost shifted before he caught himself. He hadn’t meant to sleep at all.
He stood up to get his bearings. The sky outside was pink and bright with the sunset. He was on the floor of his mate’s living room and he felt…good. Better than good.
He stretched out his back leg and tested the range of movement. Just a twinge here and there, but it was mostly healed. Another day would have him running smoothly again, but even now he would be able to shift without any trouble. He had shifted and fought before in worse condition. He had done so first as a teenager, supporting his cousin Rylek’s Alpha challenge. The Sidarov blood was strong, and his plain stubbornness worked in his favor.
The relief he felt was intense. With his enemies close, he needed every advantage he could get. He wasn’t at full strength, but he was still stronger than a human.
His mate was on the couch, sleeping beneath one of the pretty quilts she had used to cover him the night before. It smelled of laundry soap and Angel, and the combination was wonderful. He looked around. She had accomplished much while he had slept. Half the boxes were gone and the other half were open, with three stacks of sorted items on the carpet.
He padded over and examined the pots and pans. Expensive copper-bottom pots, the sort his father used in the restaurant. His tail wagged in involuntary approval. Her mother must have been a very good cook.
Angel moved and made a low moaning sound that lanced through him like a lightning strike.
