Legend of the White Wolf

Chapter 5

FAITH WAS POINTING AT THE SNOWMOBILES PARKED BEHIND the shower and hot tub building, the one snowmobile's back end dented. But that's not what got Cameron's full attention. The wolf lunging in their direction, materializing out of the snow without any warning, made his heart nearly stop. He wasn't sure which one of them the wolf was aiming for, but he didn't have time to do anything but block Faith's body with his own, and throw his arm up to protect his throat. She screamed. The wolf bit through his jacket and into his arm.

"Your gun!" she shouted.

"In the cabin." He never thought he'd need it at the hot tub.

He tried to shake loose of the wolf as if it were a friendly old dog with a big bone, playing tug-of-war, growling, eyes narrowed, hair on the back of its neck standing on end, but just in good-natured fun. Only Cameron's arm was the bone and it hurt like hell as the pain radiated up and down through every nerve ending. Plus he felt the blood seeping from the wound, the tear in his parka letting in the chilled air.

Suddenly, Faith swung a snow shovel, striking the beast in the hip. He yelped, released his hold on Cameron, and jumped back from Faith. For a second, his eyes stared at hers as if he was reading her inner soul and every thought she had.

She stomped at him and swung the shovel in an effort to hit him again, and this time Cameron swore the wolf smiled. Then the beast bent down, whipped around, and melted into the snowy woods before she struck him again.

Faith dropped the shovel and grabbed Cameron's good arm. "We've got to get you some help."

The pain in Cameron's arm throbbed even harder now. "You mean, ask for it from those clowns in the hot tub? When Charles Roux returns, we can get him to send for help. Just take me back to your place for now."

She didn't listen to him and instead helped him to the hot tub. Everyone had left. She opened the door to the changing room, letting some of the heat out. The place was empty. "No one here," she said.

"Guess when you left, the party was over."

"Oh, Cameron, your face is so pale. I'll get you to my place, but I don't have any first aid kit, and I didn't see any in the cabin. What about you?"

"Bandages for blisters, but nothing for wolf-sized bites."

"Then we'll have to check out the main lodge."

He was going to object, but Faith had a mind of her own and helped him to the main lodge porch, then up to the door. She tried the handle. Locked.

He could have told her it would be. Otherwise, people like him might just wander in and make themselves at home.

"Sit here, for a second, Cameron. I'll see if any of the windows are unlocked." She helped him to one of the knotty pine rockers, put her ski cap on his head—which reminded him he should have brought his own—then she started tugging on windows.

Watching for any sign of the wolf that attacked him, he let out his frosty breath, cradled his injured arm against his body for warmth, and tried to ignore the streaks of sharp pains like needles jabbing into the muscle.

Faith tried to open the rest of the windows on this side of the lodge.

When she began to venture around the backside, Cameron said, "No, Faith. I don't want you out of my sight."

She frowned at him. "It'll only take me a minute. If I can find an unlocked window, they might have antibiotics and better bandages inside. I have to try."

"No, it's not worth it. If the wolf's still lurking out there… it's just not worth it to me. Come on. Take me back to your cabin so we can get warmed up." His blood had soaked his shirtsleeve and sweater and it had chilled him even further. Now, due to the shredded parka sleeve, everything that had been wet was coated in ice. Shivering uncontrollably, he didn't think he could get any colder.

Still frowning, Faith helped him down the steps and back to the cabin. "I can use my towel maybe, to stop the bleeding. How bad does it feel?"

"Not too bad," he lied, afraid she might still try to go after the windows on the other side of the lodge once he was settled in her cabin. "With as many layers of clothes as I'm wearing, he didn't hurt me too much."

"A German shepherd can crush a bone. I imagine a wolf could do even more damage. Are you sure you're not too bad?"

"I was feeling better."

She chuckled, a little hysterically.

"Sorry. I guess I shouldn't have told you that."

As soon as they reached the cabin through the path to the woods, she assisted him inside and helped him to one of the dining room chairs, then locked the door. After removing his coat, she pulled off his sweater and stared at the blood and rip in his shirt.

"Not too bad," he said. "It's not even bleeding any longer."

A flitter of concern slipped across Faith's face, but she quickly removed his shirt and wrapped the towel around the wound without saying a word.

"Tetanus shot up-to-date," he said. But he knew that probably wasn't what was worrying her. Rabies. What if the animal had rabies, and that's why he'd attacked?

"We have to go back to town tomorrow if Charles doesn't return to the lodge by then."

He agreed with a nod. Now that their snowmobiles were back and if the weather had cleared up by then, he figured that was the best move.

"Wonder why the men stole the machines, then brought them back," Faith said, as if she was trying to get his mind off his injury. "Really bizarre."

"I don't know. What made you go around that way when the way I went was closer to your cabin?"

"I was drying the edges of my wet hair when I looked out the window and saw the snowmobiles. I didn't really think they were ours. How weird would that be? But I had to check it out. Do you think it might have been somebody joy riding who doesn't have a snowmobile here at the camp?"

"Who first threatened you with a gun?"

"Well, then, maybe somebody stole them from these guys and brought them back." Faith helped Cameron into bed, pulled off his boots and socks, and covered him with his sleeping bag.

"Highly unlikely," he said.

"Well, you're a former cop. What do you think?"

He gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm, but when Faith caught his action and glanced out the window, he started talking to distract her from leaving him to seek help. "It's hard to say why anyone would do what they do. I rode around with some petty criminals once while I was undercover. Their reasoning for not stealing a young woman's purse? She had a kid. Not that morality had anything to do with it. They figured the kid would scream and attract too much attention. Another scenario? A woman was carrying a big purse. Which to them meant she had lots of money."

"You're kidding? A woman with a big purse might not have a bit of money, just lots of useless junk."

"Right. So you see, it's hard to predict what goes on in the criminal mind." He patted his sleeping bag on the mattress. "Are you going to join me?"

She rubbed her arms, her brows furrowed. "I'll add some more wood to the fire."

"Don't go outside."

"Enough wood is stacked in a basket by the stove. Just sleep, Cameron. I'll get you help as soon as I can."

"Don't leave the cabin, Faith," Cameron reiterated in his police officer's voice, obey or else. No way did he want her to risk going outside alone to get help for him. But they needed to get word to the other guests also. Later though. He figured no one would run around much in this weather, and he wasn't in any shape to go anywhere, nor did he want Faith out in it by herself.

Faith's cold hand touched his forehead. She gave him a worried smile. "No fever."

"No, I'll be fine. I just need some rest." Tired beyond belief, he closed his eyes, a dull pain throbbing from the wound and radiating down to his fingertips, the thought of cuddling with her still lingering in his thoughts despite the pain.

She moved away from the bed, added firewood to the stove, paced across the wooden floor a bit, her footfalls muffled when she walked on the braided rugs. He wished she'd join him in bed, still worried she might leave, but then he drifted off into the world of snow and wolves. The wind howled and then the sound shifted, changed, morphed into the howl of a wolf. One, the alpha male, deep and low and long. Then another joined in, and more until a whole chorus of wolves sang their lonely song. One part of him longed to join them, but part of his conscious mind warned him the consequences could be deadly.

"Hmm," Lila said, lounging before a roaring fire in the great room of Kintail's lodge, her bare foot rocking up and down off the sofa, her manner an attempt at seductive, and Kintail wished she really was up to seducing him.

The woman was a master manipulator when she wanted her way, or just plain sarcastic and antagonistic when things weren't going her way. He noted the subtle change in her demeanor since he'd had the run-in with Cameron earlier today.

He knew sarcasm was her ploy this evening before she even spoke further. "So you bit Cameron but you didn't kill him. And his feisty girlfriend struck you with a snow shovel."

Situated at the massive oak dining room table that overlooked the sitting area in the great room, Kintail lifted another spoonful of hot and spicy chili to his lips. Feisty, that's the way to describe the woman named Faith O'Malley. But seeing her in her low cut bra and bikini panties before she entered the hot tub, gave way to more erotic fantasies. He hadn't liked the way Cameron was kissing her in the tub and Kintail had the notion of biting her instead of Cameron, get it over with, change her, and see what transpired, but she had to call out to Cameron about the snowmobiles. Kintail hadn't predicted the guy would race around the building as if the world was on fire and get in Kintail's way.

Served him right to get bitten first. Still, Kintail couldn't quit thinking about the woman. She might be trouble, but she was damned intriguing. And here she'd only just met Cameron, but instead of screaming for help after Kintail had bitten him, she'd slugged Kintail in the hip with a shovel to save the guy.

Kintail hadn't expected that. The bruise would heal up soon, so no big deal. But he liked her character, protective, loyal in the face of danger, striking in the flesh. An alpha female.

He finished the bowl of chili and motioned to Trevor to get him some more.

"Well?" Lila snarled.

He knew she wanted him to kill the woman. Competition. Good competition, too. Faith was the first woman he thought might have enough gumption to fight Lila and win. Not that he wanted Lila hurt, but he needed a mate, damn it. And she wasn't cooperating one iota.

Trevor set a fresh bowl of chili before him, his gaze shifting to Lila.

"She's intriguing," Kintail said, knowing his words would antagonize Lila. They had sort of a love/hate relationship, and he supposed someday he'd have to take her for his mate. Unless he could find someone else he truly cared for, if he couldn't break the impenetrable barrier Lila had erected around her heart. Miss O'Malley was growing more interesting all the time even though he'd never considered changing a human to suit his purpose. Those born as lupus garous already knew the role they had to play in their society. Much easier to deal with. Normally.

"Intriguing, my ass. She's real trouble. And why did you just bite Cameron and then let him go? I saw the way you looked at that woman and didn't attack her when you easily could have. No damned shovel would have stopped you. Particularly when some weak human woman was wielding it. One lunge and she would have dropped the shovel and fallen flat on her backside. Then we could have been done with her."

Even though Lila sounded tough, he noted a hint of insecurity in her voice, which couldn't help but trigger his interest in her again. He liked her better when she let her vulnerability slip, and suspected she could be right for him if she ever let go of her past hurt.

He thought again about the way Faith clobbered him with that shovel and it wasn't in the least bit done meekly. She let the whole force of her slight body go with the flow. Of course if he'd seen it coming, he would have nimbly dodged the blow, and at most the shovel would have only glanced off him. Next time, he'd be more prepared for the woman's tactics so the outcome would be much more agreeable.

"When have I killed a man for the sake of killing him?" Kintail asked, fingering a slice of buttered French bread. "Even with the intent of keeping our people's secret safe?" He took a bite of the crunchy bread, then scooped up another spoonful of chili.

"I'm sure you used to."

"A long time ago. Before there were that many people. When we had to. Not now. What do you think would happen if someone found his body and thought one of our wolves killed him? With DNA testing of hairs and saliva left at the crime scene, they could pin it on an Arctic wolf. And who else has Arctic wolves in the region but us? Is that what you want?"

Lila rolled her eyes. "I just wondered if you'd decided to let Cameron join our little merry gang of wolves."

An alpha male? Not on Kintail's life. But he'd draw Cameron into the wilderness where human traffic rarely went, somewhere no one would ever discover his body, and fight him wolf to wolf. Much more sport that way.

The wolves' howls faded into the misty snow and the moan of the wind returned. Cameron jerked awake, feeling strangely unsettled. Faith was curled up against his chest, her breathing light in sleep, her body soft and huggable. He held her with his good arm, reached over with his bad, and stroked her golden hair. But she was sound asleep, and he didn't want to wake her. His wounded arm didn't even give him a pinch of pain now. Maybe it hadn't been as bad as he thought.

But what he couldn't comprehend was the restlessness stirring deep inside him. He'd never felt that way before. On cases he was close to solving, he might not be able to sleep, his mind working overtime in solving the puzzle. But this was something more primal, more physical. He was torn between staying with Faith and enjoying her comforting heat, the sound of her steady heartbeat, and her subtle fragrance—and squelching the craving to ditch his clothes no matter how cold it was and run through the snow.

Trying not to disturb Faith, Cameron slipped out from under her, making sure his sleeping bag still covered her, and then he left the bed. He was surprised to experience no dizziness or fever from the wolf's bite. He stretched out his arm, but no matter how he moved it, the ache was completely gone.

After pulling the towel off his arm, he examined where the wolf had bitten him. Except for faded bite marks, dried blood, and light bruising, he was nearly as good as new, although it had seemed so much worse when he was first bitten.

He went to the door and opened it, stared out at the moonlight reflecting off the snow, the clouds having moved away, the storm spent and gone, leaving mountains of snow in its wake. It looked as though the day was already upon them instead of the dead of night. Mystical, magical, even romantic, if Faith had been awake and here to share it with him.

But the moon compelled him to do what no sane man would ever have done. He couldn't repress the urge he had to—well, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do. Leave. Maybe. But it wasn't exactly that either. Despite not being able to see the actual moon, he could feel its presence. Like the moon's gravitational pull on the tides, he felt an odd connection. A seduction, a caress of wills, his against the moon's. Come to me, and I'll make your dreams come true. Fight me and you'll suffer.

He was going mad.

Without another second's hesitation, he stripped out of his jeans and boxers, and stood watching the tree limbs stirring in the breeze. The bitter cold surrounding him shook him to the marrow of his bones, but then dissipated when a strange warmth quickly worked its way through every fiber of his being, his muscles twisting, bones reshaping, all painless, effortless, exhilarating.

He stood on four pads, a thick, double white coat covering his skin, making him impervious to the cold. He stared at his large front paws, black wicked-looking claws touching the wooden floor. He sniffed at his fur, which smelled of spicy aftershave.

The moon again called to him, the branches of the trees waving at him, beckoning him to join them. Without another thought, he lowered his forequarters, keeping his hindquarters straight and did a slight bow, then raced out the door, bounding over the piles of snow left by the storm and took off through the woods.

Cameron raced through the forest, brushing against the snow-covered branches of towering spruces, shaking loose torrents of snowfall. The snow falling down on him didn't touch his skin though. A thick coat of fur kept the snow from melting, and he felt toasty warm. He expected the snow and cold to chill his "bare" feet, but it didn't bother his paws, maybe, he thought, because of the fur between the pads.

He ran on the tip of his toes, which seemed weird, but it lengthened his stride, and he covered more ground that way. Whenever he began to slip on an icy patch, he instinctively spread out his pads, increasing the surface area that he stepped on, the additional friction preventing him from taking a spill.

A fresh coat of snow, looked to have been a foot or more, covered everything, but he found that he didn't sink into the fluffy white stuff as he would if he was running as a human. The freedom this gave was exhilarating as he raced through the trees, only stopping momentarily to smell a whiff of a rabbit or bird and fresh clean air.

When he came across a fallen tree angled toward the sky, propped against another tree, he would have had to climb slowly over it in his clunky human form, but instead, he leapt, his feet sprawled, gripping the trunk with ease, propelling him over the top. And then he was down again, running on his tippy toes.

He'd run for miles, although it hadn't seemed like any time at all, when he heard the sound of voices. Curious by nature, but even more so now, Cameron headed toward them.

"Hell, she was interested," a male voice said, and instantly Cameron recognized it as the guy who'd joined them in the hot tub. Chris, the redhead with the unruly hair.

"Interested in Bigfoot. Sure. But she might not be interested in what we've found. And besides, the fewer who know what we're doing, the better," said Matt, the guy with the cold, calculating voice.

Then a woman spoke up. Mary, it sounded like. "Chris doesn't just want her to be on the team. He's looking for something a little hotter than that, Matt, I suspect."

"Her father was writing a research paper about Bigfoot. When we got separated, I swear he saw something like we have since then. Hell, I'm sure she already knows all about them. That's why she questioned us more about what we knew. She wanted in." Chris sounded annoyed with his companions, ready to take them on.

"Says you," Matt countered. "We can't just trust anyone, especially when it's your dick talking for you."

Cameron drew closer to the mammoth-sized tent in the small clearing. A stovepipe vented smoke out the top of the tent, while lanterns inside shown through the orange tent fabric, silhouetting four figures sitting inside. Were they talking about Faith? About her father? According to the police, her father was conducting a sociology study. About Bigfoot? Cameron would never have guessed. Was that why Faith hadn't wanted to talk about it? But if he could discuss it with these men, maybe he could find out what they knew. Then, perhaps Faith would have some of the answers she was seeking. But then again, maybe they were talking about someone else, not Faith at all.

He moved in even closer, wanting to clear his throat to warn them he was here, before he intruded or startled them too much. But all that came out was an alien huffing sound.

"What the hell was that?" Chris said, as all of them began to stand.

"I've got my gun," Matt said, and that's all it took.