Dreaming of the Wolf

Chapter 10

Alicia was cloaked in the warmth of her dream state, still wrapped in Jake’s arms when he turned to look at the rickety motel-room door that could easily have been shattered with a swift booted kick. His hand froze in midcaress along Alicia’s arm, as if he could recognize that someone was trying to break into her room. Then he set Alicia aside, climbed out of bed, and stalked toward the door like her knight without his armor.

For a second, she didn’t know what to do. Get dressed, her mind shouted at her. Get her gun, do something—

before Jake is killed.

Her heart had picked up into a flight-or-fight mode, and the adrenaline was already pouring through her veins.

But she couldn’t move. She was frozen in place, only able to stare at him and at the door.

Then she felt her mind awakening. She was still in a dream. Jake wasn’t really here!

Still half-asleep, she tried to break free of the dreamy fog that shrouded her mind. If she didn’t fully wake from the dream, whoever was trying to break into the scuzzy room would be in soon, and she could be in real danger.

Unless… she sighed deeply… that was only part of the dream.

The card scraping between the door and frame sounded louder, more urgent, and she opened her eyes in disbelief. She sat up in bed, pulling completely free of the dream, and found herself alone, but the plastic card continued to jerk up and down in the doorjamb in an attempt to disengage the lock.

Heart pounding as if she was running a race, she quickly considered her options as she thrust her covers aside and got out of bed.

If she turned into the wolf, she could face the would-be intruder with a set of frighteningly wicked canines. He’d most likely believe she was someone’s guard dog. And run like hell. Or she could get her gun, which she was still licensed to carry. But it was in her bag on the other side of the room. She might not be able to shift. She’d never tried to force herself to shift into the wolf, only to shift back into her human form. That knowledge sent a prickle of worry skittering over her skin.

Naked, she sprinted across the room, only to reach her bag when the lock clicked open on the door. Thoroughly immobilized, she shifted her gaze to the doorknob. And prayed her ability to shift would kick in.

To her profound relief, she felt the shift coming on.

With heat suffusing every cell, her bones and skin and muscles painlessly melted into what felt like heated taffy —like her grandmother, God rest her soul, had made when she lived with Alicia and her mother.

In the next instant, Alicia was standing as a gray wolf next to a small dresser, her fur fluffed in offensive mode to make her appear larger and more threatening, her ears twitching back and forth, listening for every sound the intruder made, her tail straight out, her eyes focused on the door, her mouth still closed. She backed even farther into the dark corner.

A human couldn’t see her in the lightless room. Not unless light reflected off her eyes. And then? Her eyes could appear to glow yellow, green, or even red, she’d noticed when she’d glanced in a mirror one night and thought, “How cool.”

But she’d never bitten a human before, or a wolf for that matter, and the only notion she had was that she’d snarl and growl and look threatening. If he had a gun, though, would he be all that scared?

Getting shot didn’t appeal. They’d broken Ferdinand’s neck, so she knew she could die in more ways than just by a silver bullet. She laughed at herself over that. Would a silver bullet really kill, or was that strictly fantasy?

She remained quiet and watched, seething that this creep would break into her room. Yet it reminded her of the thugs who’d come to Ferdinand’s apartment, threatened him, and then killed him. Killed the other man he knew, too. If they had known she was there in his apartment, hiding under the bed, she was certain she would have faced the same death.

The door remained closed while her heart pounded pell-mell. What was he waiting for? Was he afraid?

Waiting to see if she responded with a phone call to 9-1-1?

She glanced at her phone. Still charging. But if it had a partial charge, she could still use it.

The door opened just a hair, then farther, with no squeaking, no sound, except that she could hear heavy breathing and hearts pounding, both hers and his. He was scared. As much as she hated to admit it, so was she.

The door opened a little wider. A pinprick of illumination poked into the blackness from a flashlight.

The lamp on the outside wall appeared to be out. It hadn’t been when she’d checked into her room, so the intruder must have knocked it out and was working virtually blind.

The flashlight’s faint beam was pointed in the direction of the bed, but it didn’t stretch farther than a few inches and so didn’t reach beyond the door, which still shielded her view of the intruder.

With what appeared to be fresh resolve, he moved quickly beyond the door, headed for the bed with flashlight and gun poised. Shit. He was armed and looked like he wanted to play really rough.

Despite the black hoodie hiding his hair and some of his profile, she saw his large hooked nose, and he looked damn familiar. She narrowed her eyes.

The creep that had tried to force her out of the restaurant in Breckenridge before Jake came to her aid.

The same one who had been with the man she’d shot on the trail where she’d laid her mother’s memorial wreath.

His light flicked over the empty bed, the covers tossed aside. His flashlight swept over the chair where her clothes now lay. Hell. He would know she was still in the room. That she hadn’t gone out to party. Party, right.

The town boasted one rickety motel, and the whole place looked to have rolled up the sidewalks hours before sunset.

His gaze shifted to the bathroom. She barely breathed.

Not once looking in her direction, he headed slowly for the bathroom.

Had he followed her all the way here from Breckenridge? She wondered if he’d watched her when she arrived at the hotel and then waited until she’d taken her shower, turned out the lights, and climbed into bed.

Maybe waited until sufficient time had passed for her to fall asleep. Or had he just located her car and was working blind?

She didn’t think she had enough time to shape-shift and then dress and bolt from the room, start the car, and leave. No, she knew she didn’t have time for all that.

The thought of running out of here in her wolf form terrified her. She wasn’t equipped to deal with the wolf angle in the wild. She didn’t want to leave her car behind or her other possessions. And if she bolted out of here, the thug would discover that Alicia, the woman, wasn’t here and most likely would wait for her to return.

He slid the shower curtain aside with a swift jerk, the metal rings sliding across the metal pole with a scratching sound.

Now he knew for certain she wasn’t in there, and he’d come out, maybe try looking under the bed, or maybe glance in her direction and see her standing here as a wolf, staring him down in the dark.

He’d shoot her, and no one would ever know she’d disappeared, and no one would even care.

She changed her mind and was able to summon the shift again—to her astonishment and guarded relief—before he left the bathroom. Maybe having been a werewolf for seven weeks with a couple of weeklong breaks and then the trouble she’d had with it earlier, like she’d just had to get used to it again, had finally enabled her to get some control over this shape-shifting business.

She grabbed the gun from her purse.

As soon as the pinprick of light headed out of the bathroom and he followed, she wondered if she had made another mistake and should have stayed in her wolf form. Standing naked with only a gun in her hand for defense made her feel horribly vulnerable.

But then again, she could see well in the dark while he couldn’t.

That’s when he must have caught a glimpse of her, and he aimed his weapon with cold-bloodedness. She’d already anticipated his action and moved right before he fired a shot. The round hit the wall behind her, and she fired three times, all three slugs hitting something solid.

His only response was a grunt, then he slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood.

Oh, God. She stared at him in disbelief as the acrid odor of gun smoke wafted through the air. How could this thug do this to her? The past few weeks had already been bad enough!

Then she shifted her attention to the open door. What if there were more of them? What if he wasn’t acting alone? They never acted alone. A t least she didn’t think so.

Her hands shaking, she quickly shoved her gun in her purse, sprinted across the floor, and closed the door, locking it—although that hadn’t done a lot of good before. She rushed to the man and checked his wrist and then his neck for a pulse. None.

She returned to her suitcase, pulled out black jeans and a black sweatshirt, and hurriedly jerked them on.

She looked back at the man, his mouth open, his eyes staring lifelessly at her, his head leaning against the wall.

Dead. He was dead.

Perspiration trickled down her breasts despite the cool air, and she rubbed her arms as her heart continued to beat at a racer’s pace. God, what was she to do now?

She had to call this in to the police, as much as she didn’t want to. If any of this guy’s buddies were about, and she hung around to meet with the police, she’d be dead meat. And no number of police in this rinky-dink little town could protect her. If they even had any police here.

But she was one of the good guys, she had to remind herself. She couldn’t kill a man and leave the scene of the crime without just cause.

She paced.

Hell, if she didn’t call it in, someone else in the motel was sure to have heard the gunshots and would dial 9-1-1, and then the police would question her as to why she hadn’t called it in. She would sound guiltier than she already felt. Even though he had broken into her room and tried to kill her first.

She jerked the phone off the hook next to the bed and punched in the number, then lifted the receiver to her ear. A n eerie silence met her ear. The line was dead.

Another spiral of fear cascaded down her spine. He’d cut the phone lines. This was so not good.

Then she heard two car doors open and shut just outside her room. Either a couple of legitimate hotel guests were arriving late for the night… or they were cohorts of the dead guy. She was certain she wasn’t hearing the police because it would be too soon for them to arrive and no police lights were flashing outside the window.

She stood frozen with indecision and went back to her earlier plan. Change into the wolf, or hope that, fortified with only a gun, she could be as lucky against two armed men, if that’s what she faced, as she had been against one. With the way her luck was going, she was sure it had just completely run out. She raced across the floor, grabbed her cell phone, and flipped it open. Thank God, it had a little bit of a charge.

After punching in 9-1-1, she watched the door, waiting for someone to answer the phone, waiting for anyone to touch the doorknob. Then in her panic, she couldn’t remember. Had she locked the door?

The doorknob twisted. Her heart thundered.

Someone spoke into her ear, “Sheriff’s department.

What is the nature of your emergency?”

Alicia nearly dropped the phone in surprise at hearing the woman’s deeply brusque voice.

The doorknob didn’t twist any farther. It was locked.

Alicia didn’t say anything into the phone, afraid that if she did, whoever was trying to gain entrance into her room would hear her. Which was probably crazy. He had to have figured she’d killed the other thug already.

Startling her, the woman repeated the question, more insistent this time. “This is the sheriff’s department. What is the nature of your emergency?”

Alicia licked her lips and said in a whisper, “Someone broke into my motel. Crest—” But the miniscule relief Alicia felt that the person at the door couldn’t open it without unlocking it didn’t last long.

Astrong kick at the door broke a lower section of the paneling away, the crash making Alicia jump back.

“They’re trying to kill me! Crestview Motel. They’re breaking in!” she shouted, the need for secrecy a moot point, as she hoped the sheriff’s department was close by. But she hadn’t seen any sign of one when she had stopped there for the night.

She dropped the phone, still open, still charging, on the dresser, but she didn’t have any more time to speak to the operator.

The woman was trying to get her attention. “Miss, stay on the line. What’s happening? Police are being dispatched to your location. Your name?”

So they could identify her in the event these men killed her and stole her identity? Or took off with her and left her for dead in some deserted place? What would it matter then?

Alicia decided that, for better or worse, she’d shift—if she could. She thought she was really getting the hang of this, and she figured it was her only chance.

She tugged out of her clothes and dropped them on the floor. The woman on the phone kept talking to her, although Alicia’s attention was riveted to the door, where the man kept kicking at the splintering wood, while she tried to force herself to shape-shift again. She couldn’t make out the woman’s words over her own.

“Shift, damn it,” Alicia ordered herself. “Now. Shift.”

Fresh fear rippled through her. What if she could only shift so many times in so many hours?

Yet it was her only chance. If she could startle the intruder enough when he saw her as a wolf, she might manage to flee past him and run into the woods surrounding the small town.

And then? She didn’t know what to do, just get away from here as far as possible, find a way to steal some clothes, shift, and then keep moving on to somewhere new and different and far, far away from the life she had known.

Jake was already pacing as he dressed. He knew the woman in his dreams was real, if Darien’s dreaming of Lelandi was any indication. And Jake knew Alicia was in trouble, damn it. Yet he couldn’t reach out to her, couldn’t learn where she was or what had happened to her. She wasn’t in the usual places, the nicer hotel rooms with large beds and mirrors and pictures and dressers.

In his dream, she’d been in a dirty, rundown motel, he guessed. The bed had been covered with a comforter of brown palm trees, hideous and garish, along with the picture of palm trees on the wall. Yet… he didn’t sense it was Florida. Why not Florida? Because Mary from the art gallery hadn’t called him that long ago. He didn’t believe Alicia would have had time to reach an airport by car, then fly to Florida and get a room.

The phone book. Sitting on the bedside table in Alicia’s room, it had “Crestview” printed on the front. That was a town one hour southeast of Silver Town.

And someone had been about to break in.

He called Silver Town’s sheriff, waking him from a dead sleep. “Peter, call the sheriff who oversees Crestview. See if a woman has called in a 9-1-1. Get back with me A SA P.”

He clicked off the phone and headed into the hall.

Everyone in the family was still asleep. He didn’t intend to wake them if it was all a wild-goose chase. How in the hell could he explain he was attempting the rescue of a woman from his dreams? Darien didn’t even believe Jake could be dreaming of her for real. Not as his dream mate. Not when she was human.

But how else could he explain the motel room and the phone book, when he’d only passed through the nearly nonexistent town a few times during his life? He was climbing into his truck when Peter called him back.

“There was a 9-1-1 call from the Crestview Motel, just like you said. The caller was a woman who said men were breaking in and were going to kill her. The operator said loud bangs could be heard in the background, and she figured a man was trying to break down the door.

But she couldn’t get anything more from the woman.

Then shots were fired.”

Hell. “And?” Jake was already barreling down the highway toward Silver Town and would go south on the road toward Crestview from there.

“Her name was Alicia Greiston, with an e-i rather than an a-y.”

Jake felt sick to his stomach. “Was?”

“Well, I’m not sure. She’s gone. By the time the sheriff got there, he found one dead male, his torso riddled with three bullets, and a bullet wedged in the wall across the room. Her purse, clothes, gun, pepper spray, and stun gun were there, and her still-active cell phone was charging on top of one of the dressers, but there was no sign of the woman. And her car is still locked and parked at the motel, driver’s side window bashed in. The car battery was gone, so she wouldn’t have been going anywhere in the car anyway, if she’d tried. Either the man who was dead had broken into the room, and she ran off, or there were others and they’ve taken her.”

He cursed under his breath, not liking any of the scenarios. “Alicia.” Jake frowned.

Peter hurriedly said, “What did you want me to do?”

“For now, nothing. I’m heading out there.”

“Had she called you?”

Jake didn’t say anything.

Peter cleared his throat. “The woman who called from that art gallery in Breckenridge said she gave Alicia Greiston your number.”

“Yeah, but Alicia didn’t call.”

“The phone line was cut to the room, and the cell phone was being charged, so she might not have been able to earlier. But how did you know she needed help if she didn’t call?”

“Family thing,” Jake said vaguely.

“Oh, okay.”

“Thanks, Peter. If I need backup, I’ll give you and Darien a ring.” He wanted to tell Peter not to inform his brother, but Darien was the pack leader and if Peter thought Darien needed to know about this, he’d fill him in. And Jake knew Peter would. Darien would most likely be pissed that Jake was continuing to leave him out of the loop.

Sure enough, Jake wasn’t more than five minutes down the road when his cell phone’s familiar jingle alerted him.

He yanked the phone off his belt and said, “Yeah.”

“What the hell is going on?” Darien said hotly.

“She’s in trouble. The woman I keep dreaming about.

She’s not pregnant. Or at least she sure as hell doesn’t look that way.”

“Then why would she say…” Darien didn’t say anything for a moment, then he grunted. “You said she’s not a gray wolf. A re you certain?”

For a split second, Jake mulled that over. Then he frowned. “Of course, I’m certain. I was with her in Breckenridge that first day.”

“What if she was bitten after you saw her?”

Jake considered that scenario, his hackles instantly rising. “Hell. If she’s been bitten recently, she most likely has very little control over the shift.” But that would explain why he was dream mating with her. She needed him desperately.

“She could have shifted at the gallery and didn’t know what else to do about being stuck in the ladies’ room.”

“It makes sense.” Jake let out his breath. It changed everything between them. “Then who turned her?”

“Someone who’s after her possibly, or someone who’s dead. That may be the reason she’s never tried to hook up with you. Without knowing you’re also a wolf, she wouldn’t want to risk discovery.”

“Hell. Alicia has to be frantic.” He only hoped to hell she was still alive so he could rescue her once again. And then they’d deal with all the issues she had to face—these men, a possible pack, her werewolf genetics, her need for a mate—him.

Silence met Jake’s ears, then Darien finally said, “A ll right. Well, Peter said she’s in a hell of a lot of trouble.

You can’t go it alone.”

“I’m going to track her down, locate her scent, see what I can come up with.”

“Fine. But I’m sending Peter and Tom for backup. And next time you have the urge to rescue some damsel in distress, let me know first, will you?” Darien hung up on Jake.

Jake let out his breath in an exasperated huff. Yes, they worked together as a pack. And Jake was obligated to let his pack leader know what he was up to when there was trouble in the wind.

But that was under normal circumstances. This was way beyond normal. And he wasn’t about to wait for everyone to get a move on when he was well on his way to locating his dream mate, with or without his pack’s help.

Jake was doing this his way.