Linda O. Johnston

by Alpha Wolf

  “You bitch!” Ripkey shouted at Melanie. “I should have killed you before. I need him to change back, now. Tell me how to stop this and get him back!”

  “Damned if I know.” Melanie sat on the floor beside the writhing, moaning man as he transformed into wolf form, wanting to hold him, to keep away his pain. Hating herself, for putting him through this, especially now. He was hurt. The change could kill him. What had she done?

  “You do know,” Ripkey insisted. “Tell me. Tell me now, or I’ll shoot you.”

  “Shoot me or don’t. It won’t make a difference. I can’t stop it now.”

  She flinched as Ripkey brought up his gun, aimed it at her face. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Drew to die. She continued to shield him, even as she waited for the bullet that would end her life.

  “Do it!” Ripkey yelled. He seemed to squeeze the trigger.

  A ferocious growl sounded from behind Melanie. She was thrust aside by a lithe, fur-covered, leaping body. She felt something hot tearing at the side of her head—and watched as the wolf tore Mike Ripkey’s throat.

  Chapter 23

  “O f course a werewolf killed Mike Ripkey,” said Angie Fishbach, shaking her head sadly. Dressed in her usual shirtwaist uniform—blue this time—and comfortable shoes, she had the podium at the latest Mary Glen town meeting, where the most recent occurrences were being discussed.

  Sitting beside Carla, who had come with—who else?—Nolan Smith, Melanie started to rise, slowly and still somewhat painfully. Was the cover story that the Alpha Force guys had created to explain all that had gone on at Ft. Lukman two days earlier about to be torn to shreds?

  “Come on, Angie,” Nolan said, his voice raspy. Looking pale but resolute, he, too, stood on the stage by the microphone, one of the evening’s scheduled presenters. White bandages covered his throat, contrasting with his black shirt, but fortunately his wounds had been severe but not life-threatening.

  “No, really. A werewolf did kill Mike,” Angie said, elbowing her way back to the microphone. “Maybe a little like the one that killed my poor Bill. I can’t swear now about what I saw that night, but I’ve been willing enough to blame my own actions on the Mary Glen werewolves. They’ve caused so much havoc. So what if the werewolves don’t exist? The legend is so ingrained here that it’s part of the area. Part of us.”

  “So you’re saying—” Nolan began.

  But Angie didn’t stop talking. “The legend made Mike Ripkey go crazy trying to prove it—crazy enough to hurt the animals in Dr. Harding’s clinic and then attack you, Nolan, and then the doc, and Major Connell, who came to help her, and—”

  “Then you are saying,” Nolan said even more loudly, “that the fact that Mike drove off too fast and hit that tree and burned up in his car…that in a way it was the werewolf that did it? The imaginary one in his mind?”

  “Exactly,” Angie said. “Like the one I imagined I saw that awful night. I was just tired. And upset from fighting with Bill. And didn’t want to accept responsibility, so I unconsciously latched onto the legend. It’s all just a convenient excuse we use around here.” Her plump shoulders sagging, she moved away from the podium at last.

  Applause followed her, along with sympathetic calls from the audience. Melanie relaxed enough to look around. Most townsfolk seemed to nod in understanding and agreement.

  The few SST shapeshifter-chasers who were left didn’t seem too happy. But Sheila Graves, who’d allegedly been attacked by a werewolf, had admitted that what attacked her looked a whole lot like the costume Mike Ripkey had created. And her wounds had been a lot like Nolan’s—probably caused by the metal gadget with realistically damaging fangs and the ability to drip saliva taken from real dogs that had been found with Mike’s costume.

  “Thank you, Angie,” said Mayor Ed Sherwin, taking the podium. “And Nolan.”

  “Mayor!” An abrasive female voice resounded from the back of the meeting room. Melanie didn’t have to turn around to realize it was June Jenkins, that miserable reporter from the Maryland Reality Gazette. “Are you, on behalf of the town, willing to make a statement repudiating the entire notion of the Mary Glen werewolves?” She strode down the aisle in black stiletto heels. She was, as always, dressed in a suit for her on-camera work—lime green this time. A technician with camera and microphone hurried behind her.

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Ms. Jenkins,” the mayor said in a loud drawl. “You want a statement? Here you go. The City of Mary Glen deeply regrets the terrible death of Mike Ripkey, President of the ShapeShifter Tracers. However, evidence suggests—” He looked behind him toward Chief Angus Ellenbogen, who sat, looking uncomfortable, on the stage behind him along with members of the Town Council. Angus nodded as if approving how the mayor was phrasing his comment, and Mayor Sherwin continued, “Evidence suggests that Mr. Ripkey was possibly overzealous in his attempt to show that the werewolf legend was true, possibly taking it on himself to stage attacks on a fellow SST member, Nolan Smith, and our town veterinarian, Dr. Melanie Harding, as well as on some of Dr. Harding’s animal patients. He even went so far as to break into our local military base to stage his costumed attack on Nolan Smith before driving off so erratically. But such evidence did not need to be manufactured. We stand behind our legends. We hope that Nolan, our local expert and webmaster, will continue to look for evidence and post photos that prove the possibility that such creatures do exist.”

  Nolan, who’d taken a seat, nodded vehemently. “Of course I will, Mayor.”

  June Jenkins asked a few more questions. Everyone seemed to support the mayor’s position, which was probably a good thing, Melanie thought. The Alpha guys’ cover had been jeopardized, but not completely compromised.

  And why should that matter to her now? She was still their chief veterinarian. But with the recent mysteries solved, and their perpetrator dealt with for good, there wouldn’t be much need for her to visit Ft. Lukman often.

  The meeting continued for only a short while longer. After the mayor said his final words and hurried from June Jenkins, Melanie rose, wanting to get out of there. She moved into the aisle, which was already filled with people exiting the room.

  “Wait a minute, Melanie,” Carla said. Her assistant had also gotten to her feet. “Nolan said he wanted to ask you to write your story, in your own words, to put on the Web site.”

  “That’s right.” Nolan slid into the row behind Carla. “Will you?” As always, he wore his belt with the silver wolf buckle. His eyes looked tired but hopeful behind his small-framed glasses.

  “Give me time to figure out what I can say that won’t blast away at the whole legend idea after this fiasco,” Melanie said, considering both her need to maintain friendly relations with the townsfolk and protect the Alpha cover story. “Then, sure, I’ll give you my take on it.”

  “Great! Thanks.” His broad grin showed his large teeth, nearly as white as the bandages at his throat.

  As Carla turned and went into Nolan’s arms, Melanie saw her opportunity to slip away. She walked up the aisle as quickly as possible in the crowd, careful to stay far from June Jenkins and her microphone, as well as the other reporters who’d shown up.

  She stopped when she saw Major Drew Connell near the exit door at the top. He wore a denim workshirt tucked into jeans, and he looked like one really hot guy. It didn’t hurt that he gazed straight into her eyes and smiled.

  She didn’t want to smile back, but she did. Reaching him, she asked, “How are you, Major?” There were too many people around for her to ask the other questions on her mind. Was everything now all right at the lab? Had they learned anything more about Mike’s motives and plans for stealing the formula and tonic—and Drew?

  “I’m fine, Doc.” She heard some undefined emotion in his deep voice and blinked. “And you?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” she lied cheerily. Being in his presence again had reminded her of all they had shared—and not just the danger. His tall, broad body shouted to her o
f the steamy sex that had turned her into a mass of lust.

  But that was in the past. He’d obviously come here tonight to listen to the town meeting.

  “How’s Grunge?”

  “Just fine. I left him back at the base. I had some things to take care of that didn’t call for canine company.”

  “Oh.” They walked outside and down the City Hall steps.

  “You going back to your place now?” Drew asked.

  “Yes. And you?”

  “Going back to your place?” She started to explain that what she’d meant was whether he was heading back to the base, but he laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She laughed, too—a little.

  The crowd had nearly dispersed. It was late enough on this Saturday evening for the sun to be setting and the streetlights along Mary Glen Road to start to glimmer on.

  “Seriously,” Drew said, “may I walk you to your clinic?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Melanie had attempted to sound flippant, but the tone came out much too seriously. To hide her gaffe, she said, too softly for anyone else to hear, “Is there anything you can tell me that explains…well, you know.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Quite a bit.”

  But they chatted about the warming spring temperatures and the latest unclassified training planned for the base’s K-9s, even as Melanie’s mind churned about what they weren’t saying. About all she had been thinking about over the last days since Mike Ripkey’s attack at Ft. Lukman.

  She already knew a lot about that night, after Drew, in wolf form, had saved her life by killing Mike Ripkey.

  The Alpha Force guys, who had sped back from D.C., had gone off with Mike’s body and staged a terrible, fiery car accident that appeared to have taken Mike’s life—and obliterated any sign his throat had been savaged by a wolf. They had also planted Ripkey’s werewolf costume near Nolan, complete with the false fang gadget, before calling for Chief Ellenbogen and the EMTs.

  She had joined their assertions, based on what had happened, that Mike must have gotten carried away with wanting to prove werewolves were real, so he created his own werewolf costume and went nuts in the manner discussed at the town meeting. That fateful night, he had attacked Nolan to provide ostensible proof of the local legend, then went after Melanie to get her to admit to the “real” proof she had—that she had treated animals that turned into people in the morning. When he got nothing helpful from her, and Drew showed up to help her, he got desperate and shot them. That’s when others from the base finally arrived. He panicked, drove off fast and erratically, and hit a tree so hard his car burst into flames.

  Some of it was, of course, true. The rest—well, weaving partial truths into outright lies made them more believable.

  Drew and she turned onto Choptank Lane—alone. Melanie asked urgently, “What have you found out about Mike?”

  She looked up to find Drew shaking his head. “You’d think that guys involved with covert military operations would know to dig deeply enough into backgrounds of all potential subversives to look for problems, but we didn’t. Turns out Ripkey’s real name was Michael Ripkey Prager. His maternal uncle was Charley Drake, like he told you…that night. The family wasn’t close, so Ripkey hadn’t spent much time here before. Drake died in—not entirely coincidentally—a car crash, last year. We believe he murdered Eva Worley—Patrick’s mom and Martin’s wife—by shooting her with silver bullets.”

  “Oh, no.” Melanie stopped walking and looked up at Drew. “Do you think Martin knew and killed Drake?”

  “That’s what we surmise. Drake had apparently saved data on his computer that suggested Eva was a shapeshifter. He’d called Prager—Ripkey—that night before he died, babbling into his cell phone, according to notes on Ripkey’s computer. And from what Ripkey said, he inherited Drake’s data—handwritten notes, computer drives, and all. Ripkey believed Martin was also a shapeshifter who’d been turned because his wife bit him. Which of course—”

  “Isn’t possible despite legends to the contrary.” Melanie nodded and started walking again. “See, I’m smart when it comes to shapeshifters now. I’ve learned a lot.”

  “Yeah, you have.” Melanie heard what sounded like amusement in Drew’s voice and looked up at him. He was striding beside her—and he took her hand.

  She liked the feel of it. She gripped his hand firmly, too.

  “But here’s some stuff you don’t know.” Drew explained how the Alpha guys had unearthed Ripkey’s real identity—and then had done a thorough search of his travels and contacts.

  Several years ago, Ripkey had been in the U.S. Marines, stationed at several foreign embassies for security. Those embassies were located in countries not particularly friendly to the U.S. “That’s where he met some of the officials he intended to sell me and my shapeshifter tonics to,” Drew said grimly. “He visited those countries again this winter, between the SST visits to Mary Glen, and even got audiences with some of those leaders—presumably those who had some indication of shapeshifters in their countries, too. Maybe even recruited some of them for their military forces. I’d guess not many, if any, had something like my formulas.”

  They had reached Melanie’s clinic, and she turned off the security system, unlocked the door and went inside.

  There, Drew helped her check on her patients—only one of which, Jake, the friendly mutt, remained after the savage attack a few days ago, and he was doing well. Then they sat in Melanie’s reception area, where Drew told her the rest.

  When Ripkey got out of the military, he went to college, studied technology and biology, and worked his way through with jobs in medical research labs. And then his uncle died. Mike apparently intended to avenge his death, which was why, when he came to Mary Glen last year as an SST, he killed Martin Worley. But that wasn’t all. He had scoped things out, confirmed at least some of his uncle’s allegations about local shapeshifters and what was going on at Ft. Lukman, and returned this spring to use it for his own enrichment. They still weren’t certain how he got a working key card to enter the base, but he had bragged about his high-tech skills, and the assumption was he had used them somehow to bypass all security systems.

  “That’s the best we could figure.” Drew scowled. “And we were too involved with our own activities to search deeply enough to find all this…before.”

  “Well, you know now. And that part is finally over. From what went on at the town meeting tonight, you should still have the cloak of some shapeshifting legends to hide behind if anything going on at the base gets out. And now you’ll also be able to get people to laugh nervously at the idea, since a loony werewolf aficionado really went nuts.”

  “Yeah, that part might actually be to our benefit. People will pretend to believe in shapeshifters to keep tourist bucks flowing around here.”

  “Exactly.” Melanie made herself smile. He’d told her what she’d asked. There wasn’t much left to say. Now he could thank her for her help, ask for it to continue, shake her hand and go.

  She closed her eyes. That wasn’t how she wanted things to end. It wasn’t as simple as not wanting to feel used. Being with him despite everything, including who he was, felt right.

  She loved him.

  “Drew,” she began, opening her eyes once more.

  “Melanie,” he said at the same time. Standing in front of her chair now, he reached down and drew her to her feet.

  And then they were kissing. Melanie wasn’t sure who initiated it. No matter. Fire melted her entire body. She tasted his lips, his tongue, the hot, rough skin of his face, as her hands tugged his shirt from his jeans. Her fingers ran up his hard, smooth skin, along his chest, then down, where she tugged at the fastening of his pants. Her body almost made her quest to bare him impossible as she rubbed against his hardness.

  His laugh rumbled deep in his throat. “Let’s take this a little slower, okay?”

  “No,” she protested. Soon, very soon, they were both naked. “We should hav
e gone next door to my house,” she said. “The rug here isn’t—”

  “Shh,” he said softly, then followed up the order by silencing her with his mouth as he drew her down to that less-than-comfortable rug. He kissed her lips. Then her sensitive, straining breasts. Then even lower, until she moaned.

  She stroked him, held him, reveled and writhed under his touch and the sensations he caused.

  And when he entered her, she gasped…and smiled.

  A long time later, she lay panting beside him, feeling the rough fabric of the rug against her back. She held his hand, watching the rise and fall of the expanse of his chest. At least they had sex. Great sex. Maybe that could be enough. Only—

  He turned suddenly onto his side. “Melanie, I’m sorry. We didn’t use—”

  “Protection? I just thought about that.” She tried to frown as if angry, but at his worried expression she smiled. “So shapeshifting is passed on genetically. And if I happen to get pregnant from tonight, that means what chance that the baby would have the werewolf gene?”

  “Probably ninety percent if it’s a boy. A little less if it’s a girl. We’re still researching why, but—You don’t look particularly upset.”

  Somehow not bothered by her nakedness, even here in her clinic—with the doors locked and, fortunately, the blinds closed for evening security—she sat up. “Turns out I happen to know a number of shapeshifters. I like them all.” She studied his expression. He looked hopeful. And lustful all over again as he looked at her body. And…loving? Well, now was the time to find out. “And I happen to love one of them.”

  “Yeah?” She was suddenly engulfed in a tight hug against that amazingly muscular and hard body of his. “And I happen to love a veterinarian who seems to know just how to treat not only regular animals, but shapeshifted ones, too.”

  They kissed again. It led to more. Much more.

  “You know,” she said when she could no longer move except to snuggle against Drew on the floor, “Good thing I’m an animal lover.”