by Brenda Bryce
He grinned as he contemplated his next move. He surreptitiously glanced behind him to where Lannie was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace and looked back out the front window. He stepped toward the front door, opened it, and stepped out. Pulling the door closed behind him and holding it, he ignored Lannie’s shout and held on tight to the doorknob.
“I am the alpha in North America,” he called in a strong voice sure to carry to the ears of the intruder. “You are killing innocents and have threatened my mate. For these crimes, you will die. You want me, so come and get me. Let’s find out who the real wolf is.”
Chapter Eleven
Lannie pounded on the door, trying to get out. Maybe she was just trying to get Kyle in. That was a much better idea, she decided. She didn’t really want to be out there with that maniac.
“You know,” she yelled through the door, “If he kills you, there isn’t going to be anyone around to protect me!” Okay, so her logic was slightly self-centered, but hey, a girl has got to have her priorities. And when the only thing between you and several sharp teeth is a chest-pounding, male chauvinist pig, you use him to the best of your abilities.
She quit yelling for the moment to see if she could at least hear what was going on, and pressed her ear to the door.
And almost got knocked on her butt. The opening door caught her on the side and pushed her back several steps. She stumbled, but kept to her feet.
“Hey!” Lannie hollered.
“You shouldn’t have been so close to the door,” Kyle stated calmly.
“You shouldn’t have been out there egging on a maniac.”
Kyle shook his head and watched as Lannie stomped toward him. In a futile attempt to forestall her yelling at him, he tried to explain. “He has to be stopped, and soon. I need to know who’s doing the killing so Donovan and I can track him. By goading him, I’m hoping that he’ll become enraged enough to make a mistake and let us know who he is.” He waited until she was only inches from him and, with a lightning-quick move, wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her off the floor, and against his body. “He’s a cocky son of a bitch, and I’m sure that he’ll be unable to dismiss my taunts.”
Lannie glared into his eyes. “You want him to kill you? Donovan isn’t even here to back you up. How can the two of you take him on if your backup isn’t here? Hmm?”
“Good point.” He whipped out the cell phone and dialed. “Donovan, Kyle. Right. I just sent an invitation to our killer, and Lannie pointed out that my backup isn’t here.” He laughed at Donovan’s reply, then hung up the phone. “There. Happy now? He’s on his way, and my backup will be at my back.”
“Fine. Just great. And what if that psycho comes before your backup gets here?” Lannie squeaked when he squeezed her in retaliation.
“You have no faith in me whatsoever, do you, woman? I am alpha, not because of my good looks -- though if it were a qualification, mine would definitely excel -- but because of my strengths. I am an agile thinker and a winning fighter.”
She sighed, giving up. “It isn’t that I have no faith in you; it’s just that I’ve seen what this creature can do. Not even on television or in the movies have I seen that degree of carnage. I don’t want you to face that kind of craziness.”
Kyle rubbed his chin on the top of her head soothingly. “It has to be done. He has to be stopped before he kills more humans or tries to come after you again.”
“Why don’t you let the sheriff and his deputies take care of him? That’s what they’re trained for.” She gripped his arms tight and sniffed dejectedly into his chest.
“The sheriff and his people are great at what they do when it concerns humans. But the killer isn’t a human. He’s a werewolf, and as such, it’s my duty to take care of him. If we don’t want our species to become common knowledge, we have to police ourselves.”
“Why don’t we want to let people know we’re around?” Lannie didn’t sound condemning, only curious.
He ran his hands over her back and pulled her scent into his lungs. “Our people have to stay secret, or there will be an all-out hunt. Scientists would want to test us. Militaries would want to exploit our hunting and killing abilities. Humans would fear us and hunt us into extinction. We would be treated worse than lab animals.”
“How do you know that, Kyle? Maybe it’s possible to live among humans without their wanting to hurt us. I love you, and you’re a werewolf.”
His insides glowed. She had finally said the words. He’d thought he would have to wait longer for her to acknowledge her feelings for him, leaving the memories behind them, but she surprised and delighted him. Tilting her chin up, he kissed her softly, thanking her silently for her words.
“You were a most uncommon human, and you’re female. If they find out that we change humans to become our mates, they will drag us into a war. It’s simpler for our kind to keep our differences secret and go on as we have for millennia.” He looked into her eyes to gauge her understanding. This subject could mean life or death to their race. She had to comply.
“I suppose I understand, and I’ll keep the secrets, but you showed Sheriff Kendricks that we’re werewolves. What are you going to do about that?”
“It’s strange, but I have a feeling about him. Something not quite human, I think.” Kyle was quiet for a moment, then shook himself. “Come, Donovan should be here any second, and I would like you to make some lunch for the three of us, please.”
“Sheesh, should I get out my little maid’s costume and parade around in that?”
He looked her over contemplatively. “Do you have one?”
Lannie laughed and threw a kitchen towel at him, then started making sandwiches.
He watched her covetously and smiled to himself without letting her see. She didn’t realize why she had been eating like a lumberjack, but he did, which was why he had denied her coffee. Unfortunately, this was going to complicate matters exponentially. They were going to have to eliminate the danger to her soon.
Just as she was finishing up, a knock on the door signaled Donovan’s arrival. Kyle invited him inside, and Lannie offered him a drink. She purposefully didn’t offer one to Kyle. She did however offer Kyle a scathing look. After retrieving his own glass, he joined Donovan. They sat around the table in the kitchen talking.
“This creature is smart.” Donovan shrugged. “I caught a faint trace of a scent at Lannie’s house. Thinking I was on to him, I followed the scent trail. Not ten yards from the house the scent changed.”
“Changed?” Kyle held up one hand inquiringly. “Changed how?”
“It was weird. The scent was different.” He looked at Lannie. “A scent is personal. Each being has its own scent, and the only change in the scent can be when the being takes a mate and their scents combine.”
He shook his head. “The scent of the wolf was there. The wolf changed form there. I found his human footprints leading away from the area. Then, it was as if the creature disappeared and another took his place. I was following the new scent toward town when I got the call from the sheriff. I informed him I would be there as soon as possible and continued to follow the new scent. If nothing else, I thought I could get some answers from whomever I found. No such luck. I followed it to a road, and I am assuming that he either had a vehicle waiting, or he caught a ride from someone driving by. I could find no trace of either scent.” He looked up from the depths of his glass and asked Kyle, “Have you ever heard of anything remotely like this happening?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been documented. I can have it researched. This is just the kind of thing Amalee loves to investigate.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
While he was giving his orders to whoever was on the other end, he heard Lannie talking to Donovan very quietly. “I wonder if Kyle would survive having his phone taken away from him, since he seems to live on it. He’s kind of like a toddler with his blankie.”
Kyle growled at her, and she stuck her tongue
out at him, then turned back to Donovan.
“Who is Amalee?”
“Amalee is our scientist and pack doctor. She has her hands in anything that’s werewolf related, medically speaking.”
“Ah. I think I understand.” Lannie went back to drinking her juice and glaring at Kyle with each sip, while he pretended to ignore the looks.
Kyle’s call didn’t take long and he turned his attention back to Donovan.
“While we are waiting for some kind of answer from the doc, tell me again, step by step, what you encountered at Lannie’s and the site of the latest killing. Perhaps another perspective might help solve this dilemma. We also need to figure out when and how he ended up following Lannie and me home from the sheriff’s office. There might be two individuals that we’re looking for. The one you followed and the one that followed us.”
Donovan nodded, and in fine detail, he explained every movement he’d made since receiving the phone call from Kyle about the attack on Lannie.
Kyle had finished his drink and reached for Lannie’s hand. He ran his thumb along the palm, tracing circles, until she relaxed and leaned her head against his shoulder.
Donovan came to the point in his story where he’d reached the road and essentially lost the scent. “I was wondering which way to go on the road when I received your second phone call. I stayed and checked several yards in each direction to see if maybe I could pick up the scent.”
He shook his head. “No dice. It just wasn’t there. I tried for a little while, then I headed to the site of the latest murder.”
Taking a drink from his glass, Donovan sighed. “It was a mess. The sheriff and his deputies are good, but the site had been trampled over by civilians before they arrived, and the spoor of the killer was lost to me. It’s as if everything and everyone is conspiring to keep us from finding this creature. And I don’t understand the change in the scent. It wasn’t a combined scent as yours and Lannie’s is, but a completely different scent.”
Kyle stood and paced thoughtfully. “Do you know if the victim had been driving? He might have picked up a hitchhiker.”
“I thought of that, but we couldn’t rule out or confirm that option.”
Lannie tuned out the men as they tossed ideas back and forth. She was tired of the adrenaline rush all this stress was causing her. Up, down, up, down. It seemed never ending. She just wanted to go back to her workshop and create. She could almost feel the clay as it slid through her palms as she formed her sculptures, the details of the body and just the right expression for each one. It’s what kept her sane. Right now she had nothing to put her overblown energies into. Fidgeting and pacing wouldn’t work. Reading wouldn’t work. She looked at Kyle. Sex might work, but he was busy with Donovan.
The men stopped talking and became silent so suddenly, it jerked her to attention. Both Kyle and Donovan had their heads cocked to the side, listening, and in synchronous movements, turned their gazes toward the door.
Both men jumped up and headed for the front door. Donovan reached behind him for the hem of his black sweatshirt and pulled out a wicked-looking black gun. Kyle reached into a drawer of an end table near the front door and pulled out an equally wicked-looking black gun, but this one could qualify for cannon status.
Donovan glanced at Kyle’s gun, then his own, and looked back at Kyle, raising his eyebrows.
Kyle shrugged and muttered, “It makes a huge hole.”
Donovan nodded and took up a defensive position beside the door. Kyle, barely moving the curtain at the windows, looked into the yard.
Lannie had her retrieved coffee mug halfway to her gaping mouth, when the men went into Rambo mode. She was about to ask what had caused it when she heard what they had. A car. Coming toward the house.
“Not again!” Eyes darting around the small house frantically, she wondered where the best place to hide was. Okay, so she wasn’t brave. She was a certified coward. But, hey! She could only take so much, and the end of her tether had run out days ago. She was in fight-or-flight mode, and her fight had turned chicken. That left flight. She could do that. If only she could find a safe place.
The two men’s attention was pulled away from the approaching vehicle by the commotion in the dining area. As they watched, Lannie ducked under the table, looked around, and scooted back out from underneath it. She then ran across the room and dove headfirst under the bed.
Donovan looked at Kyle, and one eyebrow rose in question. Kyle shrugged his confusion at his mate’s actions.
A sneeze erupted from under the bed, but before they could mutter a gesundheit, she had slid from under the bed and run for the bathroom.
The slamming of the bathroom door punctuated the sound of the vehicle pulling in front of the house and the car door opening and closing.
Kyle pushed the curtain aside enough to spot the intruder, then motioned for Donovan to lower his weapon. “It’s the sheriff.”
Kyle lowered his own weapon, cleared the chamber, and returned it to the drawer. While Donovan opened the door to let the sheriff in, Kyle went to the door of the bathroom.
“Umm, Lannie?”
“Yes?” Lannie asked in a loud whisper.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You didn’t change, did you?” He put his hand on the doorknob, ready to force the door open if he had to.
“No.”
“Are you going to come out?” Calmer, he took his hand off the knob and placed his palm against the warm wood of the door.
There was silence for a moment, then, “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether I have to worry about the size of the windows out there or not.”
Kyle rubbed his forehead. He was getting a headache trying to figure out what she was getting at. “What, exactly, does the size of the windows out here have to do with you coming out of the bathroom or not?”
“Well ... in the bathroom, the window is teeny-tiny, and in the rest of the cabin, the windows are really huge.”
“And ...?”
“And ... the bad guy isn’t likely to be leaping through this teeny-tiny window any time soon,” she concluded.
Finally understanding what was running through her mind, he reassured her. “Lannie, the car that arrived carried the sheriff and not the bad guy, as you call him.”
“Oh. Well, then, okay,” he heard from the other side of the door. “I’ll be out in a minute, then.”
Kyle waited, but when she didn’t open the door, called out, “So, you are going to join us soon?”
“Yes, yes, just as soon as I’m done.”
“Done doing what?”
“Feeling stupid.”
Lannie emerged from the bathroom, slightly embarrassed, but her curiosity as to why the sheriff was there outweighed the feeling of having made a fool of herself.
The three men were sitting around the table, faces grave, and the testosterone was thick enough to cut with a knife. None of the men spoke. They just stared into their coffee mugs as if the answers might be found at the bottom.
She was afraid to ask, but had to know. “What now? What’s happened?”
Kyle glanced up at her, shook his head, and returned his gaze to his mug. “After Donovan left the scene of the latest killing, the sheriff’s men found an abandoned vehicle.”
“So the killer did get a ride on that road?”
“Apparently.” Kyle took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But the car isn’t all they found.”
“No?”
“No. The victim wasn’t the only one in the car when the killer was picked up.”
“Who ... who else was in the car?” Lannie asked tentatively, not sure she wanted to know.
“The driver was a family man.” Another deep breath, and he continued. “His family was in the car.”
She squeaked, unable to say anything.
“The man’s wife and two small children were also victims.”
“Oh, no
,” Lannie cried. “Oh, no ... no ... no.”
Kyle stood and wrapped his arms around her. “An infant survived. We don’t know why the killer didn’t kill the baby as well, but for some reason he didn’t. Maybe someone interrupted him. We may never know. The sheriff called the victims’ family, and the sister of the man is on her way.”
Donovan looked up from his cup. “Where is the baby now?”
Ross mumbled into his mug, “She’s at the clinic getting checked over. I was hoping you would come and see her. You might be able to figure out something we couldn’t.”
Donovan stood. “Let’s go. The sooner I get to her the better.” He looked to his alpha pair. “I will see to the infant and will return as soon as possible. It would be best if you accompanied us to town.”
* * * * *
While the alpha pair visited with the doctor in a small examining room down the hall, Donovan followed Sheriff Kendricks to where the baby was being kept. They stepped into the small room and approached a collapsible bassinet. Donovan reached inside, wrapped his thickly muscled arms around the tiny bundle, and lifted it out. He pulled the blanket from her face and beheld an angel.
She was no bigger than his forearm. Bright green, wide eyes stared back at him as he took in her tiny round face and her pert little nose and her puckered red lips. He smiled when he saw the tuft of bright-red hair sticking straight out of her scalp. Someone had tried to tame it with a tiny blue barrette, but the unruly mass was escaping in every direction.
“Hey, sweetheart. How ya doing?” he asked softly and ran a fingertip down her cheek.
When she smiled at him, he lost his heart.
He brought her up to his chest and kissed her on the forehead, breathing in her scent deeply. She smelled of warm baby and talc. When she giggled, he lowered her so he could see her smile again. Without glancing away from the baby, he spoke softly to Ross. “I know why he didn’t kill her.”
