Wolf Fever

Chapter 1

THE WAXING MOON WAS CALLING TO HER. AGAIN. LYING on the soft mattress in Darien Silver’s guest room early that spring evening, Carol Wood tried to sleep. But she felt the growing white sphere begging her to shed her human frailties and run with the magnificent grace of the wolf, strong and agile, with purpose in every stride in the crisp, cold Colorado night air.

She did not wish to be one of them—at least as far as being a part-time wolf—no matter how much several in the pack had encouraged her to embrace this new side of herself. The moon would soon be whole, but deep down she rebelled against the werewolf’s curse. Because it was a curse to her, just the way her premonitions and psychic touch often were.

She’d grown up with her revved senses and had realized she couldn’t do anything about that aspect of her life, once she’d learned it wasn’t normal to have the abilities she did. But now to be—she squeezed her eyes tighter and rolled onto her back—a werewolf… No matter how much she wished the truth could be changed, she knew she’d have to deal with it before long.

With all her heart, she prayed to keep her newly acquired bizarre condition—shape-shifting—at bay. Her body tingled with heat and her mind with apprehension. Even in the darkness of her half-asleep mind, she fought the change, fought the feeling she was losing control of her physical form. Fresh tension made every nerve ending prickle while she clutched the comforter underneath her chin.

The heat, like the sun shining on a bright and warm Caribbean afternoon, invaded every pore, signaling the unwanted craving to shift. She moaned, tightening her hold on the comforter, her nails digging into the white eyelet. The moon was growing day by day, just like the damnable desire to shape-shift. No, not desire. Compulsion.

Then, as if her psychic side finally gained some ground against the wolf, her second sight kicked in. The room and the need to shift dissolved into blackness, and the wolf in her vision appeared again like a lucid dream.

As big as it was, with massive shoulders, broad muzzle and forehead, and long legs, the wolf had to be a male, standing proud and tall, watching her from the edge of the spring-green forest. Cloaked in rich bluish-silver fur with a lighter mask, and with his ears perked like an alpha male’s would be, he panted until he caught her gaze. His amber eyes focused on hers: the wolf wanted her. Beckoned her to come to him. But not as a human.

As a wolf.

Even in her visions, the scene was one of cajoling, begging her to recognize her destiny, to give in to her wolf’s half. At least that’s the way she viewed him.

Carol refused the wolf’s alluring gaze and the moon’s sensuous serenade.

But the moon commanded her! Aroused her to do its bidding through its seductive pull, yanking her abruptly from the vision.

The heat invading her body intensified now, like a fever that couldn’t be squelched. Never had the shift overtaken a vision in progress. The urge was growing. Yet she knew she still had some influence over the shift, like those born as lupus garous had an inborn ability to prevent humans from catching them during the conversion. Like them, if she wanted to change, the shift happened in a flash. And since she hadn’t just automatically shifted, she must have some control.

Still, her muscles twitched with need as she shrugged off the comforter and blankets. She lay in her silky gown on the soft mattress in the pack leader’s chilly guest room, ready to yank off her garment before the transformation took over in case she couldn’t stop it. She envisioned the horrifying image of getting hung up in her gown as a wolf. Trapped, snarling, and growling, she’d try to free herself until she woke someone in the household. He or she would find her struggling in a cocoon of silk—furry legs kicking and sharp, wicked canines snapping.

She gritted her teeth and pressed the palms of her hands flat against the soft mattress, battling the moon’s domination. She would not give up control and shape-shift! Not when she couldn’t rule her paranormal abilities. Not when she would now have to relinquish control over her physical form as well.

But more than that, she feared the shift would change her forever. Forever! Doomed to live life as a wolf with the conscience of a human. Even a single moment as a wolf could permanently seal her fate. At least that’s what she thought a new vision was telling her, yet she couldn’t know for certain. That’s why fear consumed her to a greater degree every time the damnable shift threatened to overtake her.

Cursing her fate, she ground her teeth and clenched her hands into fists, her fingernails biting into the palms of her hands, and attempted to think of anything that would halt the raging need to shift.

She visualized Lelandi, the pack leader’s mate, throwing a first-ever All Girls’ Night Extravaganza the previous week exclusively for women in the pack—complete with werewolf-romance writer Julia Wildthorn’s latest novel made into a feature film, Wolfly Desires, popcorn, margaritas, and lots of laughter. They were still finding popcorn underneath cushions and beneath the couch in little clusters. Carol smiled at the memory, hoping they could repeat an activity like that soon.

But then the heat rushed through her body again with a new wave of warning. Every muscle tightened, preparing for the fight. As if she’d called to the gods of psychic phenomena and they’d taken pity on her, her thoughts began to blur, and she knew her psychic sense was trying to take control again.

Holding her thoughts hostage, the dreamlike image showed an out-of-focus man, dressed in red and white stripes, who had knocked her down and was holding her there. Instantly, her blood cooled, the need to shape-shift withdrawing. A scrap of relief trickled through her. She focused, trying to see the mental picture more clearly, attempting to determine who had tackled her and why. Annoyance was the driving feeling she experienced from the encounter. Not fear. Loss of control, maybe. But the strongest emotion was definitely annoyance.

The vision grew mistier, the man’s shadowy face becoming hazier and the red and white stripes blurring into pink until they faded completely from her mind. She was in control again—of her thoughts and her physical form.

Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her arms, which were covered in chill bumps. Once more, she’d successfully stopped the change, and she felt some measure of triumph in overcoming the need to shift. She shivered. The compulsion grew stronger every month with each full moon. She could also shape-shift anytime a crescent moon appeared—waxing or waning. Only the royal werewolves, whose roots had not been diluted by strictly human genetics in their recent ancestry, could shape-shift during the phase of the new moon.

She feared that one of these times she wouldn’t be able to conjure up a vision quickly enough or maybe not at all. The arrival of her visions was as unpredictable as the timing of the craving to shape-shift. But what if she did manage a vision and the shift superseded it again? Worrying about that wouldn’t change a thing.

She meant to dream up a fantasy world that would distract her so she could fall asleep again, because she desperately needed the sleep, but her thoughts drew back to the wolf in her vision earlier. He would come for her. Why? She didn’t have a clue. But she knew she couldn’t put off the inevitable.

Her ragged sleep interrupted, Carol stared at the white eyelet comforter, canopied bed, and antique dressers filling the guest bedroom at Darien Silver’s home and making her feel like a fairy-tale princess. She snorted. Right, like Rapunzel locked away in the tower. Except that Carol had chin-length hair. She had no long golden tresses to toss out the two-story window, allowing her princely rescuer to climb to her room and take her away from her imprisonment.

She touched the bed beside her where her tabby cat would normally sleep. Poor old Puss. Stuck at the kennel until Carol learned to control this werewolf-shifting business. But for now, her cat was happy, sprawled out on the receptionist’s counter every afternoon greeting customers, even though Carol wanted him home with her. She suspected Darien didn’t worry that her shifting into a wolf would frighten Puss to death as much as he really wasn’t fond of cats.

She sighed. Darien wasn’t just the owner of the silver mine and the leather-goods factory, nor was he just on the school board, the hospital board, and every other board in Silver Town. He ran the place… as a gray lupus garou pack leader, along with his triplet brothers, Jake and Tom.

Lelandi, the red wolf, was his mate. And Carol was now a red like her.

With her skin covered in a light sheen of perspiration, compliments of her continuing night terrors of being attacked and the shifting urge she continued to experience, she rose from the bed and walked toward the room’s sole window. The filmy nightgown she wore caressed her skin with every step, her bare feet pressing silently against the springy golden carpet.

Not believing how upside down her world had become, she touched the place on her throat where five months ago a feral red werewolf had savagely ripped her open, turning her into one of their kind. No scar existed, not even a trace of one. She sighed deeply. She’d known for some time that a wolf would turn her. Damned psychic visions. But she hadn’t seen how or when or what the ramifications would be. Nor had she realized that the change would force her to take a mate sooner rather than later.

Once she’d had the vision of what they truly were before she’d been turned, everyone had scrutinized her—Darien, Lelandi, his brothers. And the rest of the pack. They had watched her and made sure she didn’t slip and spill the guarded secrets of the werewolf kind once they realized she knew what they were because of her psychic visions. They had supervised her, barely ever allowing her out of their sight.

She was still a danger to them. An unknown quantity. A newly turned wolf who could fight the shift, which was an oddity in itself. But something more about her was off. She could see glimpses of the future. And sometimes she could touch an object and gather a psychic impression from it. This bothered them, too. Even Lelandi, who had become like a sister to her, was troubled somewhat by Carol’s paranormal abilities.

She sighed. She would never truly fit in, never belong. Yet for now, she was stuck under Darien’s thumb, living with him, his mate, and his brothers until he could secure a mate for her. Barbaric! But it was the only way to ensure their safety and hers.

Not that she was going along with it.

She pulled aside the heavy, pale-blue velvet drapes and the matching silky sheers, her wolf senses allowing her night vision so that she didn’t have to turn on the lamp. She peered into the forest and actually could see, as if the woods were merely cloaked in shadows. Chilling the air further on this cold night, a stiff breeze tugged the branches, making them dance to its tune.

Then she saw him, the wolf from her visions, stepping lightly out of the woods, watching her, and catching her eye. Her lips parted in surprise, and she took a shuddering breath. Who was he? She still didn’t know all of Darien’s people in their wolf forms. Someone who was guarding the house? Watching that she didn’t leave in a crazy attempt to run away and start her life anew without Darien’s intervention? That would be plain ludicrous. She could never manage on her own, nor did she want to live that way.

Because of the wolf’s posture—his ears perked, his head lifting even higher—he had to be an alpha. It wasn’t one of Darien’s brothers. Someone from another pack then? Someone who wanted to fight Darien for leadership? He’d have to battle Darien’s brothers also. Jake and Tom would never allow some outsider to take over the pack.

The lone wolf’s gaze settled lower, studying the way she was dressed. Could he see well enough from that distance to note that her nipples had grown hard against the silky gown in the chilly air? Observing a wolf and realizing it was probably a werewolf, who would have a man’s desires even in wolf form, seemed surreal.

His gaze returned to hers.

Somehow, she was tied inexplicably to him, although the hazy visions weren’t clear enough to tell her how. She didn’t feel any apprehension, nor fear. He was safe, she thought.

Taking matters in hand, she would find out just who he was and, if she could, why he was here. She yanked the drapes closed, then with as much wolf care as she could manage, she slid a drawer open, hoping not to alert Lelandi, who was sleeping in the master bedroom down the hall.

Carol often got herself into trouble because of everyone’s heightened sense of hearing. She kept thinking they could foresee things as she did. Not at all. They were just very good at eavesdropping to spy on what she was up to. Not in a mean way, of course. But to protect her and themselves.

Intending to find out who the stranger in the wolf coat was, she yanked out a sweater and a pair of jeans and began to dress. If she could get close enough, she would be able to smell and recognize him if she ran into him later in his human form.

She hated how everyone watched her every move. She felt as though she lived in a glass exam room where everything she did or said was monitored. But what was said behind closed doors rattled her even more. She was one of them, but not.

Yet—she tilted her chin up a hair as she left her room and then crept down the stairs with the utmost caution—she wasn’t about to lose the person she had been before the change. She smiled as she got to the bottom of the stairs without signaling Lelandi that she was up after retiring to bed early and was planning an adventure she was certain none of them would approve. Now she only had to cross the living room to the back door and hopefully unlock, open, and close it without drawing attention.

The house was quiet, Lelandi also having retired unusually early to bed. Darien and his brothers were working late at the leather-goods factory as usual, so for once Carol wasn’t being monitored closely. Because she’d been so tired from her nursing shift and unable to sleep when she had the chance, no one expected her to leave her bedroom before daybreak.

Slowly, she twisted the handle on the door to the back patio. Without anyone’s permission or supervision, she’d be free for a few precious minutes and prove she could manage her own life without disastrous consequences.

Disgruntled with himself for slinking through Darien’s forest as a wolf so he could watch the house for any sign of Carol Wood, Chester Ryan McKinley hated his obsession. Even now when his P.I. practice had taken a back burner to his position as mayor and pack leader of Green Valley, he couldn’t give up thinking about Carol, whom he’d met five months earlier while investigating a murder case involving Darien’s pack. Ryan had found a lot of evidence against the murderer, but Carol’s testimony had solicited the confession and the truth of the matter.

Long-legged and stacked, with hair the color of the golden sun and eyes as deep and mysterious as a shadowed blue lake, she had often worn a troubled expression during the investigation. Most likely due to the mess she’d gotten herself into as a human. The fact she’d managed to get herself into such a predicament bothered him more than he liked to consider. As was his rescuing nature, he’d wanted to save her from her plight, ensure she didn’t become one of his kind, and shield her from what they were.

But how could he have? She’d recognized his kind were lupus garous through strange visions, or so she had said. There had been no way to change events. During an ensuing fight between gray and red lupus garou packs, a red had bitten her and turned her. Ryan sure the hell wished he’d been protecting her.

Carol had been an innocent, unprepared for what would happen and unable to fight back. He imagined she’d never before witnessed wolf combat, which for a human had to have been extremely unnerving. Although every ounce of logic he possessed told him that people couldn’t foresee the future, something about her—maybe her sincerity, the fear she’d exhibited, or the notion that she couldn’t have learned all that she had through any other means—chiseled away at his wall of doubt.

Most of all, he admired her for her fortitude and dependability. She hadn’t panicked or fought against her fate. Now he was sure Darien would be pushing for her to take a mate. For life… that’s how they mated. That she would need one bothered him more than he liked to admit. Those who were born lupus garous could do with or without having a mate. Their choice. But a newly turned lupus garou? Allowing a new werewolf too much freedom was too dangerous.

The drapes suddenly were thrust aside in the guestroom Lelandi had once used. And there, standing in the window in a diaphanous gown of pale blue silk, the blonde pondered the woods. Almost as if she knew he was there watching for her. Which sent an unexpected surge of feral desire through his bloodstream. What was wrong with him that she had such an effect on him?

Her appearance in the gown at this early evening hour surprised him. Had she worked a long shift at the hospital?

The lovely rounded form of her breasts and nipples, peaked in anticipation of a lover’s touch in the nearly see-through gown, became the focus of his attention. Hell. Not intending to enjoy the sight of her as a voyeur would nor to give into his wolfish yearnings, he stepped forward so she could witness she was not alone. He meant to encourage her to close the drapes and return to bed, to warn her that the wolves in these woods were much more than just wolves. They were also men, like any of his kind, with earthly desires that needed to be sated.

Instead of closing the curtains, she challenged him with those eyes of hers. What had caught his attention about the woman, even during the investigation, were her classically attractive facial features—the high cheekbones and the perfect skin, framed by golden hair, and the large, striking blue eyes that could swallow a man whole. When she had spoken, full kissable lips had captured his attention more than once. She wasn’t movie-star gorgeous, having instead the wholesome, girl-next-door look, but that appealed to him even more.

She frowned at him and then yanked the drapes closed. Good. She’d finally come to her senses.

He couldn’t let go of the notion that the nurse thought she had the ability to make psychic predictions. It was the principle of the thing, he told himself. He intended to prove to himself, and to her, that she had come by her information about the murder through means other than some form of sixth sense. Either she had subconsciously learned the truth, or she had meddled in the investigation and was unwilling to tell about it.

Yet something deeper plagued him about the woman. Some elusive feeling that she could be in trouble. She could be trouble—that was more like it. Any newly turned wolf certainly could be that.

He tried to tell himself his being here wasn’t about anything other than resolving the doubts that plagued him; although… something else bothered him, and he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

Ears perked, he sat on his haunches, unable to take his gaze off her window and thinking of her returning to bed and then buried under her blankets. The unsolicited wish that he could be with her, snuggling and heating her up, flashed through his brain. Hell, he didn’t need to be sidetracked anymore than he already was.

Despite the case having been solved, and him having no real reason to come back to Silver Town, Ryan was attending the spring festival the next morning to learn more about Darien’s celebrations. Like he’d done before, Ryan would take the information back to his own people who wanted something of what Darien and his people had—a town run by the werewolf kind.

But Darien had only reluctantly allowed Ryan to investigate as an outsider to discover the murderer in the pack. He was sure Darien wouldn’t favor seeing him again under the circumstances, not when Ryan intended to question Carol further about her visions.

Darien sure wouldn’t approve of Ryan lurking about his woodland estate early in the evening. Especially when Ryan didn’t have one good reason for being near Darien’s house like this, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he did.

A click on a backdoor lock got Ryan’s attention, and he quickly rose and backed into the woods to keep Darien or his people from seeing him. The door opened. Ryan’s jaw dropped.

Little Miss Nightingale stepped out of the house onto the flagstone patio, peering in his direction. Not dressed warmly enough for the out-of-doors this evening, she wore a robin’s egg blue tam that was perched on top of her head, a matching fluffy sweater that caressed her perky round breasts, pale blue jeans that showcased her shapely legs, and a pair of fuzzy blue slippers that made her feet look twice their size.

He raised his brows. Hell. She had no business coming out into the night looking the way she did—soft and cuddly and vulnerable—with no way to defend herself in the event someone dangerous was lurking about. What had she intended to do? Search for him? Ask him his business?

At first, she stood stock-still, just staring into the woods. At the very place from which he watched her through a grove of Douglas firs. But he didn’t think she could see him.

And then? She rubbed her hands together as if she were on a wolf-hunting mission and stalked toward the woods, headed straight for him! The notion that she’d hunt him down appealed on a strictly primal level. Her hell-bent determination wreaked havoc with his need to keep this on a purely professional basis. Willful is how he’d describe her actions. What if he’d been bad news?

But he wasn’t, although right now he had the strongest urge to circle around her through the woods and stalk her right back. A game between wolves. A competition. And more. Which made him wonder if she’d understand their wolf ways, not having grown up learning them. He also was curious just how far she’d go to discover who he was.

Instead of tracking her down, he moved deeper into the woods, as if luring her into his trap, and listened to her steady footsteps. They were more hurried now as she tried to reach the forest before he disappeared for good, he figured. Or maybe the fact he wasn’t in plain sight gave her more courage.

She stopped only a few feet away, the gray-green leaves of a Douglas fir brushing her arm, her eyes searching the dark woods as he watched her. His heart beat harder—the urge to hunt in his blood. Then she lifted her nose in a wolf’s way, trying to catch his scent. Seeing her react the way his kind would—smelling for scents, tilting her head as she listened more carefully, attempting to track him down like a wolf on the hunt—he felt a new wave of respect for her wash over him. He hadn’t seen this side of her before. It suited her.

Quickly, she turned her head, and when she saw him, her eyes widened. Luminescent. Huge. Bewitching.

Unable to help himself when he should have been annoyed with her impulsivity at leaving the house without protection, he gave her a slight smile. The woman would be his undoing.

What now? He wanted to force her to return to the house. On the other hand, he’d probably never get another chance to question her in private like this. He laughed at himself. Yeah, he’d shift, stand here naked in the cold as a human, and question her as if she was a suspect in one of his cases. He’d make such an impressive and frightening inquisitor that she’d quickly spill her story.

He took a deep breath and inhaled her feminine scent. Sweet like peaches and jasmine mingled together in a tantalizing combination, it triggered the lingering memory of when he’d managed to get close to her before. But not too close. Darien and his people had made sure of that. It was as if she were a fairy-tale princess in a gilded cage, and only those in Darien and Lelandi’s close inner circle were allowed to draw near.

A feeling of satisfaction swept through him that he finally had a private audience, although it didn’t do him much good while he was in his wolf form. He didn’t smell any indication that she was fearful, which could have gotten her in trouble if she’d come out here without worrying about his intentions.

“Who are you?” she asked, her brow deeply furrowed as she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, defensive but firm in her stance.

He had half a mind to shift. She’d asked a question she knew he couldn’t answer any other way. What would she do then? Run screaming for the house to alert Darien and everyone inside? He’d shock the hell out of the woman, he was certain.

He swung his head toward the house in his wolf’s way, ordering her to return.

Determination etched in her brow, she shook her head. “Shift. Tell me what you want.”

Without his express permission, his jaw dropped again. He couldn’t believe she’d order him about. Him, an alpha male and pack leader. She smiled a hint, her eyes narrowing. Devious. Appealing. She didn’t think he’d shift?

She had asked for it. He stood taller, tail straight out, summoning the urge to change. Her brows lifted a little.

Heat poured through every blood vessel, spilling through every vein and artery. His muscles stretched, reforming, and then in a flash, he was standing as a man before her. The cold breeze swept across his heated naked skin, and he expected Carol to vamoose or, at the very least, stare him in the eye to avoid looking at his nakedness.

A whisper of an intake of breath caught his attention, but she quickly recovered and took her fill of him, her gaze drifting all the way down to his bare feet, appraising him in an unhurried manner. He’d never had a woman peruse him in such an arousing way.

She snapped her gaze back to his face. “You look nice and healthy to me. I thought maybe you needed medical attention.”

That’s when it dawned on him. Miss Nightingale wouldn’t be bothered by his nudity. She was used to seeing naked men. Why did that thought irk him? Maybe not so much that she had seen a lot of nude men, just like their wolf kind would when shifting, but that she didn’t think his maleness was special in any way. Just… healthy. Yet he could have sworn she looked him over in much more than a clinical manner.

“Well?” she prompted.

“To the point, Ms. Wood—”

“Call me Carol. If you’re going to talk to me in the dark forest without a stitch of clothes on, it seems silly to be so formal.”

“I’m—”

“Chester McKinley. I didn’t recognize your wolf form, but I remember you so gallantly wanting to help Lelandi find her sister’s killer, no matter how much Darien disapproved.”

The tone Carol used didn’t sound as though she was impressed with Ryan’s gallantry. In fact, she seemed downright irritated to see him. Despite her tone, he couldn’t shake loose of the fascination she held for him.

“I go by Ryan.”

She hesitated to speak and then asked, to the point, “So, Ryan? Why are you here? Does Darien know?”

“No. I wanted to speak to you about—”

Lights suddenly flooded the back porch and Jake yelled, “Here! She’s taken off into the woods this way!”