“Nicolai Vashchenko in the great ever after, I ask you to meet me on other side,” Katarina whispered.
Gritting her teeth, she screamed, but it only came out a croak. Her hands stung like fire as she made one last attempt to rip the silver collar off before she hit the ground.
2
Ariel drove them in the SUV Matt bought for her so she wouldn’t have to shift and run everywhere she needed to go while he was busy in town. Brandi sat in the passenger seat pointing out turns.
Heidi’s comfort level with the two women still amazed her even after all the months that had passed since their turning. They said “let’s go” and without questioning, she climbed into vehicles with them and just went. Why? She wasn’t sure. Reed told her innate trust was just a natural part of pack mentality.
Brandi pointed up ahead. “There… see that grove of trees off to the right. There’s a field just beyond it. I think there’s a path from the roads to the woods. Pull along the edge if you can’t find a place to park.”
Ariel glanced at her excited Beta. “Thought I was the Alpha in this group.”
“I have three words for you,” Brandi said, her smile widening as she pointed a finger at her own chest. “Agent. Bossy. Visionary.” She reached out and patted Ariel’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doc. You’re still the smartest among us.”
“Is that sarcasm?” Ariel demanded, trying not to laugh.
In the backseat, Heidi decided Brandi was like a werewolf GPS. The woman never got lost, and even when madder than Heidi had ever seen anyone get except Ariel, Brandi always remained in control. She secretly longed for just a little of that emotional cool—or whatever the quality was.
Ariel pulled off the road into a grassy lane and put the vehicle against the edge as much as possible. “That’s the best I can do. If someone comes along, they’ll never get by us.”
“Not likely. From the looks of things, this road hasn’t been used in ages. I’m guessing three years or more,” Brandi said, walking ahead of them.
Heidi zipped up her jacket and stuck her hands in both her pockets. She matched her stride to Ariel’s. Brandi walked quickly ahead, soon disappearing among the trees in her hunt.
“You and Ryan have a bad morning?” Ariel asked.
Heidi sighed as they walked. Guess everyone in the inn had heard at least part of their fight.
“I’ve worked enough hours at the center to get my own place. Apparently healers earn their living differently than normal people. The rest of what I take in will be in store credit and donations. Basically, I have accounts with money in them all over town. It took me some time to get used to that sort of bartering goods for my services, but I’m ready to own it now. Several people are even looking out for the perfect house for me.”
“I’m guessing Ryan doesn’t like you being so independent,” Ariel said.
Brandi sighed. “I don’t know what his problem is. It’s like Ryan wants me to be completely dependent on him. Maybe he thinks it gives him a convenient excuse to keep suggesting we move in together. We’ve been having the same argument for a month now. I want… space. I need time to figure myself out. He wants a commitment I’m not ready for—that I may never be ready for.”
Ariel shrugged. “Then you should take all the time you need.”
Heidi nodded. “I know. I’m going to take the time, no matter how mad Ryan gets at me over it.”
Ariel reached out an arm and let it rest lightly around Heidi’s shoulders. “If he truly loves you, he’ll deal with letting you find your way.”
“Do you think he really loves me?” Heidi asked.
“Don’t you?” Ariel asked back.
Heidi sighed and shrugged. Ariel moved her arm and Heidi instantly missed the comfort of it. Her need for her Alpha’s approval was strong. “All I know for sure is that sex and love are two different things.”
“Don’t you mean two parts of the same thing?” Ariel asked, putting her hands in her coat pockets to keep them warm. “When my human marriage starting falling apart, my husband and I lost our sex life first. He rationalized it by saying I was boring in bed. Maybe I was at that time. Whatever the case, divorce soon followed for us. But I can’t even imagine having sexual issues with Matt other than his intention to make me pregnant if he can. Our life is balanced with our mutual need of each other. I think this is the way it’s supposed to work.”
Heidi put her hand on Ariel’s arm and made them both stop. “But he knows a baby might not even be possible. Are you sure Matt’s trying to get you pregnant?”
Ariel nodded. “Yes. He makes no secret of it. Luckily, I’ve only been in heat that one time. He was supposed to tell me when it happened, but he conveniently forgot until the third night I’d kept him up and busy. He obviously didn’t think my human self-control could hold out during that phase, but changed his tune after I slept in his guest room for the remaining two nights of the cycle.”
Wide-eyed at the news her Alpha was sharing, Heidi let her hand slip away. “Eva and I talked about werewolf heat cycles. I haven’t had one yet. Brandi thinks she may have had one when she and Gareth mated, but no babies resulted. Do you think Brandi would tell us if she got another cycle?”
Ariel chuckled. “Yes. Us… Gareth… and whoever else upset her while it was happening. It makes PMS look like a small headache. When it happens to you, you’re going to know, Heidi. Unless some scheming male tells you that you have the equivalent of a werewolf flu. If Nanuka hadn’t come by to visit, I might never have known the truth. She glared at Matt and didn’t back down or leave until I’d processed what was happening for myself.”
“Wow. He must want children very badly,” Heidi whispered as they started walking again.
“Or he wants to prove my scientific theory about it being impossible is wrong,” Ariel suggested.
Heidi sighed again. “Are all males just controlling jackwagons?”
“Jackwagons?” Ariel asked, chuckling over the term.
Rolling her eyes, Heidi picked up her pace. “Yeah. Yeah. I know my swearing sucks. I’m a wimp.”
Ariel laughed loudly. “You are hell and far from being a wimp. You may be behind a bit in your personal evolution, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You saved my life when it was supposed to be impossible. Who knows what you’re capable of doing? Cut yourself a break and just be happy to be you, honey.”
“Thank you, Ariel.” Heidi launched herself at her Alpha who laughed as she pulled her in for a comforting hug.
Brandi’s yell and subsequent swearing had them both pushing away from each other to run in the direction of her voice.
“Hey, I found her! Ouch—damn silver! You sorry ass motherfuckers. Shit, that hurts like a mad bitch.”
They cut through the trees and brush in the short stretch of woods separating the road from the grassy field behind it. They found Brandi bent over something hidden in a bunch of tall grass.
Heidi was almost completely out of breath by the time she stopped running. Her Alpha was hard to keep up with when she was moving at top speed, even in human form. She dropped to her knees beside the woman Brandi had rolled over. The werewolf was medium height with a curvy, no-nonsense kind of female build. A mile of long, reddish brown curls had been woven into a braid and slung over one shoulder to fall down the front of her.
She wore a silver collar around her neck, which had left burn marks against any skin the silver had touched.
The three of them looked up at the same time and stared at each other. Shared memories of their time with Crazy Crane precluded the need to talk. Someone had made sure this woman couldn’t shift. The question was… why?
Brandi dug out her phone. Seconds later, she said in a rush. “Gareth, check on the kids. Tell Jesse and Marilyn that someone may be after them. The kids know the drill to disappear and stay gone until they hear from us. We found the collared female werewolf I dreamed about and someone’s obviously…”
Interrupted by a loud growl, Heidi
watched Brandi hold the phone away as Gareth yelled through the connection, and then she pulled it back to her ear.
While Brandi argued with her mate, Heidi examined the woman. Did Ryan really expect her to jump into mating madness with him? No thank you. She needed a much calmer life and she intended to have one—even if it meant living alone.
“Gareth—if you’ll shut up for a minute, I’ll explain. I didn’t tell you about the vision because I thought it was a damn dream. Stewart didn’t say anything this morning, and you know he always does when I’ve had a real vision. I couldn’t stop thinking about it though, so I talked Ariel and Heidi into taking a little road trip with me just to check. Now I have to go because this person I’ve found may actually be dying. Next time don’t freaking yell at me when I call and need your help. Okay. Good. I love you too. Check on the kids.”
Brandi flipped the phone closed. “Gareth should be grateful he’s so good in bed because most of the time he’s hell to live with outside of it. Him and his stupid cows drive me fucking crazy on the best of days. Cattle farmer, my ass. Controlling werewolf bastard is more like it.”
Ariel cleared her throat and looked over Heidi’s bowed head. “Ix-nay on the astard-bay stuff, Brandi.”
Heidi grunted in disgust. “Pig Latin? What am I? Two?” She shook her head as she tried to ground herself to the earth as Eva taught her. “Could I please have some quiet so I can concentrate here? I may have to shift if I can’t get centered as a human.”
From the beginning, Eva had taught her to diagnose without shifting. They did a meditation to call her wolf power up without becoming a full wolf. What she hadn’t told Eva is that her nanos scrambled anyway, preparing her body for the transmutation whether she went through with it or not. Using the power of her wolf sent a million ants crawling just under her skin. She’d often had to learn to ignore their clamoring to fix what wasn’t broken.
Heidi held her hands above the woman’s midsection. “She has bruising on her spleen and two cracked ribs. I’m also sensing there’s some internal bleeding which could kill her. Seems like she had to fight to get away from whoever had her. The internal bleeding is bad news, but the real problem is that collar. It’s keeping her wolf from helping. We need to get it off.”
“I tried to break it,” Brandi said, showing her wounded fingers. Silver caused what looked like third degree burns on all werewolves.
Heidi looked at Ariel, who just shook her head sadly. Ariel couldn’t do it either. “We’ll have to take her to Eva. She has tools to remove the collar safely.”
Now it was Heidi’s turn to shake her head. “No. She’s fading too much. I don’t think she has that long. But I have a theory about how to get it off.”
“Her breathing is getting more shallow. Better try something fast,” Brandi added, still crouching by the woman.
Nodding again, Heidi rose to her knees, leaning over the woman. She closed her eyes, but instead of calling her wolf, she called to the human side of herself. She thought about being a human teenager. Her best friend at the time had given her a sterling silver necklace with half a heart that fit like a puzzle with the other half her friend wore. She mentally put on the silver friendship necklace again, envisioning the silver chain resting comfortably around her neck. Her nanos went on high alert for the task, scrambling so hard under her skin that they made her wince in pain.
“What is it? What are you doing?” Ariel demanded.
“Shush,” Heidi ordered, not opening her eyes. “I’m fine. I’m talking to my nanos.”
Then she opened her eyes, reached behind the woman’s neck, and felt for a clasp. The silver was cool to her touch. She unclipped the latch of the collar, amazed that it came undone so easily. The woman gasped, rolled to her side, and coughed as she fought to breathe normally again.
Ariel pulled off her t-shirt and held it out. Heidi dropped the silver collar in the middle of it. They watched the woman open her eyes and stare at them.
“Shift to wolf so you can heal,” Heidi ordered.
“Collar,” the woman said hoarsely.
“It’s gone now,” Heidi answered. She also nodded to emphasize it was true. “You’re safe with us. I promise. Now shift to heal.”
Nodding briefly, the woman crawled to her knees and morphed into a stunning silver wolf, quite surprising since her human coloring was just the opposite.
“Is it me or does she remind you of someone?” Brandi asked, watching the large wolf walk around.
“Her wolf is an unusual color for around here, but everything else looks like she could be one of Reed’s pack,” Ariel supplied.
Heidi raised an eyebrow as she watched the silver she-wolf now attempt to run. Empathy had her remembering how it felt to let your animal side roam freely. Her nanos instantly scrambled again, changing her body back to werewolf. She accepted that now as just normal. It had felt strange being completely human again anyway, even for such a short time. How strange it had felt had surprised her. Her wolf side made her stronger, wiser, better. That was evident in her healing work.
The last of her resentment about her fate drifted away on the breeze blowing by them all. It was one of those moments you treasure quietly and tuck away inside you as profound. Heidi sighed as her gaze came back to the silver wolf who looked at her and whined.
“You’re fine. I’m a pack healer. You can trust what I say. Shifting should be enough to get you functional again. Do it a couple more times.”
Heidi turned to see Ariel and Brandi looking at her instead of the werewolf they’d just rescued. “What?” she asked, slightly uncomfortable with their intense interest.
“You sound just like Eva when she’s giving orders,” Ariel finally said.
Heidi smiled, and then she laughed. “You always say the nicest things to me, Ariel.”
She swung her gaze and grinned at Brandi, nearly smirking—okay, maybe completely smirking—over her Alpha’s compliment. “Want to say something nice to me as well?”
“No,” Brandi said, fighting her twitching mouth. “I want to know how in hell you removed that silver collar without burning your fingers to the bone.”
Ariel chuckled. Heidi’s smile for both of them was wide. “Healing secret,” Heidi declared.
A naked woman walking up to them wearing only her shoes interrupted their private conversation. The size of the silver wolf seemed out of proportion compared to what the small female looked like in human form. They stared, each fighting her own reaction to seeing such big breasts on someone shorter than any of the three of them. Unable to fight off the urge, they each looked down at their own much smaller breasts and then back at the stranger’s.
Brandi looked off and said nothing. Heidi bit her lip to stop herself from giggling when Ariel covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. The woman facing them didn’t seem embarrassed a bit, just uncomfortable to be standing there nude in front of them.
“Forgive please my nudeness. Clothes are back on plane they used to steal me. Soon the handsome one will come. We go now so I do not have to kill again, yes?”
“Kill again?” Brandi asked carefully.
“Yes. I kill pilot who help steal me from home,” she said.
“Are you Russian?” Brandi asked.
“Some would say. Mostly I am werewolf without country or pack. My name is Katarina Volkov. My thanks for you to save me,” she said.
When Brandi spoke to her in her native language, Katarina lifted both eyebrows, but answered back. Then she held up a hand. “No wish to be rude. I speak English to honor all those the great Nicolai sent to rescue me.”
“Nicolai?” Ariel asked, her brow furrowing.
Katarina nodded. “Da. Nicolai Vashchenko, great werewolf who left his pack and found a new home in Alaska. I prayed to him to help me. He sent you.”
Brandi laughed. “Actually…”
Ariel cleared her throat and shook her head. “I’ve heard that name before. Nicolai was a visionary like Brandi. He joined t
he Black Wolf pack and knew Reed’s grandfather. Are you looking for Reed?”
“Reed? Who is this Reed?”
“He’s the Black Wolf Alpha now. His grandfather was Nicolai’s friend—I think.”
Katarina nodded. “Reed,” she said again, letting it settle in her mind. “Is good name, yes?”
The three of them nodded in answer.
Ariel smiled. “We’re part of Reed’s pack too… and we also have our own just the three of us. To complicate matters further, two of us have taken mates in the Gray Wolf pack as well.”
Katarina snorted. “Is very complicated.”
“You’re safe with us, but let’s get back to town,” Ariel said, turning the way they needed to go. “I have some spare clothes in the car you can wear. They might be too big for you, but they’ll beat being naked and cold.”
Katarina sighed and fell into step beside the tall, blonde Alpha. “This is for me—how you say—great humiliation. Shift then—no clothes. Just shoes. Always.”
Ariel snickered. “Welcome to the club, Sister.”
“Club? What is this club?” Katarina asked.
Heidi giggled. “Ariel shifts and loses her clothes too. She only keeps her boots. Brandi and I get to keep our clothes.”
Katarina elbowed Ariel. “You are Alpha. Why you allow them such disrespect?”
No longer surprised when any werewolf immediately knew what she was, Ariel shrugged. “These women are more than my pack. They are my friends. I disrespect them back when the mood hits me.”
Katarina nodded. “Understood. Nice to have pack. Better to have friends.”
“Yes, it is,” Ariel agreed.
3
“It’s not fancy, but it’s clean and far enough away from the heathens that you should have a modest amount of peace.”
Heidi smiled at her pack mate and friend. “What are you talking about? It’s every bit as nice as the room at the inn. I had credit built up for several more weeks, so I was happy to let Katarina have it. Poor thing fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed. I appreciate you and Gareth letting me stay with you for a while.”
Heidi: Nano Wolves 3 Page 2
