Silence of the Wolf (9 page)

But what if Carol's suspicions were right and her family
was
causing her trouble again? What if
North
had betrayed her? And told her uncle she was here? Or he might have unwittingly revealed her whereabouts or been forced to give Uncle Quinton the information.

“Where was your pack from?” Carol asked.

Elizabeth hesitated to say.

Carol chewed on her lower lip. “Not from around here, are they?”

“Southeastern part of the state.”

“About seven hours from here?”

“Yeah… so not all that close.” Elizabeth had a bad feeling about this. How would Carol know how far the pack was from here?

Carol looked disconcerted, her forehead wrinkled, and she chewed on her lower lip again. “You're part of
Bruin's
old pack?”

Heart pounding, Elizabeth gaped at Carol for a second, and then she clamped her lips closed. Carol
knew
them. Elizabeth hadn't thought anyone from the gray wolf pack would know them. Then again, both Lelandi and Carol were red wolves. Dr. Weber was, too, Elizabeth remembered.

As much as possible, Elizabeth had stayed clear of the red pack while living with her mother and father. Her uncle and half brother had visited her—and caused all the trouble for her. She hadn't been able to get to know the other members of the pack, except North. He had come to see her a few times, the only red wolf she knew at the time who
didn't
wish her any harm.

But she'd truly believed everyone would regard her the same way as her family, no matter where in the country she ended up. She hadn't found many wolves who treated her like Tom's pack had.

Carol paused, then said, “You and Lelandi don't seem to know each other.”

“I didn't live with the pack.”

“Okay. I understand. But the red wolves can't think they're any better than you. They're just like you.”

“They're red wolves. Not half coyote.” Elizabeth couldn't see how Carol wouldn't know that. “What happened to the red wolf who turned you?”

“He was killed after he bit me.”

“Good.”

Carol sighed. “As a nurse, I try to save people. I think that's the hardest part of being a wolf for me. When wolves do really bad things, they can't go to jail and live among humans. Not for extended periods of time. They'd have to shift at some time or another, and that could be a disaster. The concept of achieving justice by killing is hard for me to live with.”

Elizabeth moved to sit up and groaned, still sore.

“Just lie still. I'll leave you in a second to sleep. I just wanted to share that I read an article you might find interesting. In some parts of Canada, the wolves and coyotes are mixed. Most of the wolves actually have coyote blood,” Carol said.

“Really.”

“Yeah. Not as much down here. The wolves and coyotes are often enemies, and the wolves will kill the coyotes that enter their territory. But up there, some red and gray wolves mix with coyotes when they have slim pickings.”

Elizabeth sighed. Of course wolves would only consider coyotes when they had no other option. “Why research it?” she asked, curious.

Carol laughed. “Some controversy exists between red and gray wolf shifters. The red wolves claim they were first and gray wolves came after them. Of course, the gray wolves assert that they came first.”

“The red wolves were first,” Elizabeth said. “At least that's what my father and the rest of his red wolf pack said.”

“That was the thing. I was curious because one had to have come first, and I wanted to know the truth. So I did some research. According to some scientists, red wolves were
not
first.”

Elizabeth contemplated this, frustrated with arbitrary pack problems. What difference did it make in the scheme of things which wolf came first?

But then Carol said, “Gray wolves were first. Some mixed with coyotes and created the red wolf.”

Elizabeth rolled over on her back to look at Carol. “You're kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Have you told Lelandi?”

“No. It's our secret.”

Elizabeth felt a tremor of excitement at this new knowledge. As soon as she did more research, she would write about it in the
Canyon
Press
. If any of her red wolf pack heard about it, well, it was a good one on them. “How come nobody knows about it?”

“Some still say the gray and red wolves are separate species, but with DNA evidence to the contrary, it's kind of hard to refute. Apparently, those of us who are red wolves are not pure wolves at all, but a mix of coyote and gray wolf.”

Elizabeth smiled. “My wolf family would
love
to hear that.”

“I'm sure they'd want to keep the status quo. I'm so glad to meet you. I've been dying to tell another red wolf what I'd learned, but not Lelandi. I figure she wouldn't be happy to hear the news and have to admit to the grays that she's part coyote and that her kind didn't come first. You, on the other hand, have every reason to want to know the truth.” Carol smiled.

If red wolves were coyote-gray wolf mixes, that had Elizabeth worried for Lelandi because of the way Elizabeth's people had treated her. “What would Darien think if he learned that about his mate?”

“She could be a pink poodle for as much as he adores her.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Pink poodle?”

Carol grinned.

Elizabeth loved Carol. As for Darien, if he truly felt that way about his mate, he had to be all right. “How did you come to be turned exactly?”

“I saw the future.” Carol smiled as if that's all she cared to remember about it.

Was Carol bottling up feelings, just as Elizabeth had been, not wanting to share them with anyone?

For the first time ever, Elizabeth wanted a friend like Carol so they could talk about their pasts and maybe she could work through some of the hurt.

***

“What have we got, Tom?” Darien asked as he leaned down. They both were peering at pictures on Tom's computer screen in the den, the room warmed by a cheery fire, the big windows looking out on the snow-covered woodland landscape.

“She takes lots of photos. These are the last few. The guy on the lift chair behind them was blurred, the camera's focus on the trees. He wore a black balaclava, a matching ski hat, and reflective sunglasses. He has on a blue-gray ski jacket and a black ski bib. There's no telling what his face looks like, just his approximate build. The guy waiting down the slope from her is wearing a brown jacket, black ski pants, and a blue knit hat. Can't see if he's wearing goggles or some face covering since his back is to us. We can call it in and be on the lookout if they are still on the slopes,” Tom said, sitting back against the leather chair.

“Yeah, but if they broke into her room at the B and B, I wouldn't imagine they're skiing right now,” Darien said, straightening.

“That could be. One other thing,” Tom said, glancing up at his brother.

“What's that?”

“I checked her camera. It's not working.”

“I'll have Jake look at it. He's a whiz at fixing minor problems with cameras,” Darien said.

“I hoped maybe he could. Her ID was stolen from the B and B, and she won't be able to get her flight out without it.” Tom considered the picture of the man further, wishing he could decipher who he was.

“Peter can take care of that.”

That was another thing about running their town; they lived by their own set of rules. Since wolves had extended life spans, they needed to update their IDs periodically with no questions asked. That was easier in a town where no questions would even be raised.

“It could take a while, though,” Darien added.

Tom shifted his attention from the skier's picture to Darien, not sure what he meant.

Darien smiled. “If you wanted it to take a while for her to get her ID replaced.”

“I might want her to stay longer, but the lady has a deadline on a story and a life back in Texas.” And some male friend living nearby who had planned to meet her. Tom had never heard anyone in the pack talking about a beautiful red wolf-coyote shifter, so the man couldn't be with their pack.

“All right. Just saying.”

He appreciated Darien for mentioning it. With that one comment, he told Tom that he approved of the lady, and Tom thought the world of him for that.

“Thanks, Darien.” Then he frowned at him. “You… didn't happen to see a certain video taken at the ski resort today, did you?”

He'd hoped Maggie, the receptionist at the hospital, had been pulling his leg that both Jake and Darien had bought the video from Cantrell. He couldn't imagine his brothers wasting their money. Though he supposed they might have demanded a copy free of charge to ensure that the video wasn't somehow damning.

Darien laughed and folded his arms across his chest. “Cantrell's quite the entrepreneur. Others took pictures and passed them along in emails for those who didn't want to pay for the video version. I told you to take care of the lady. Good job. Everyone knows to keep their paws off her now. I don't think I've ever seen anything go viral that fast in the pack. Someone even sent the video to Carol.”

“Lelandi saw it,” Tom guessed. He didn't think anyone else would have made Carol aware of it.

“Yeah, she did. She called me and told me to buy my own copy because it was well worth it. I figured she sent a copy to Carol. The ladies viewed it again right before you drove up.”

Tom shook his head and turned his attention back to the situation on the slope. “If these guys targeted her because she took pictures of them, why would that bother them?”

“Maybe because they are wanted men. Are they human?” Darien asked.

“The way the wind blew, she couldn't tell. The guy who sat on her chair acted like an alpha.”

Darien squinted his eyes as he looked closer at the picture. “The way they're bundled up, I can't tell if they're anybody I know. Half of our males could look like these men, as far as size and build go. What did you gather about the mess they made of her room at Hastings B and B?”

“The men who broke in left no scent there. That's what made me think of the wolves in the vicinity of the livestock. They haven't left a scent, either.”

“You think they're wolves?”

“Possibly, but I can't be sure they're the same ones I've trailed,” Tom said. “With all the clothes the guy that ran into her wore, I couldn't capture any scent on her, human or otherwise. But what if he masked his scent in the first place?”

“You think they could be using hunter's spray?” Darien asked. His face brightened at the same time that Tom had a thought.

“The last person who pulled that trick with the pack was Uncle Sheridan,” Tom said.

Darien nodded. “Just what I was thinking. What if this has to do with our cousins, and they're out for revenge because of the death of their father?”

Elizabeth
slipped
into
the
summer-warmed water, far enough from the pack, she thought, that they wouldn't bother her. She was wrong. Uncle Quinton, her father's brother, stalked toward the swimming hole, his face red with rage, his red hair nearly the same color. His blue-green eyes were narrowed in contempt.

Now
what
had
happened? After her parents had died, she'd stayed far away from the wolf pack. They shouldn't care about her any longer. She was no longer in their territory so they should have left her alone.

“You are an abomination!” he yelled.

He'd often used those words before. She disgusted him. She was a disgrace to the pack. She'd heard it all before.

She
feared
him
now
and
swam
farther
away
from
the
bank. She'd seen that look in his eyes right before he killed a wolf who had tried to steal a prospective female mate from their pack.

He
stalked
into
the
water, still in jeans and shirt and sneakers, and swam toward her. He was a powerful swimmer, and though she swam well, too, she was only sixteen and didn't have the strength behind her strokes to keep out of his reach.

He
seized
her
hair
and
jerked
it
back, pulling her to where he could stand in the water. “Your brother…” he started.

Half
brother, she wanted to say as she grabbed her hair to try to keep him from yanking it out of her head. Streaks of pain radiated through the roots all the way to her brain.

“…met a pretty wolf. You know what transpired?”

She
knew
what
must
have
happened
without
him
saying. The same thing had happened before to her uncle, and now to her half brother. The she-wolf her brother was interested in must have learned about Elizabeth. That he was of her blood and she was part coyote
—
and
rejected
him
because
of
it.

“Well, no longer,” he said, and she knew then her uncle intended to kill her.

She
fought
Uncle
Quinton
with
all
her
strength, scratched and kicked and even managed to bite his arm with her human teeth, drawing blood. He hit her in the head so hard that she nearly blacked out. She knew then the only way to survive was to play dead.

Limp
and
no
longer
fighting, she attempted to fool her uncle. Then four male teens appeared, laughing and joking loudly as they headed for the water hole. Guardian angels. Her uncle released her, waded back to shore, and ran off. She couldn't smell the teens as they slowly approached her, their previous good humor gone. She knew none of them—all dark-haired, all staring at her as if they didn't know what to do with her.

She
managed
to
make
it
to
the
shore
and
collapsed, coughing and choking, vowing she'd move again before her uncle made another attempt at killing her.

“Elizabeth?” Carol said, waking her from the nightmare she hadn't had since she moved to Canyon. What had brought it back?

She stared up at Carol for a minute, trying to get her bearings.

“Time for dinner. You slept all afternoon,” Carol said. “Everyone is dying to see you. How are you feeling?”

Without moving? Fine. “Much, much better. Thank you.”

Elizabeth wasn't used to all the concern and would have been just as happy without it. Her wrist felt much better, though.

“I'm glad you feel better,” Carol said.

Elizabeth knew Carol judged the way she moved. She was certain the nurse recognized that she still felt some discomfort, but she appreciated that Carol didn't make a big deal of it.

Elizabeth
would
get better soon.

“Just a little background before we go down. Darien's a gray wolf and Lelandi a red wolf, like I mentioned. Alicia was human, turned by a gray wolf and now mated to Jake. Ryan, my mate, is a gray wolf, and you already know I'm a human turned red wolf. We're an unusual couple of wolf packs, so don't feel you won't fit in. We're all different in our own ways.”

“Thanks, Carol.” Elizabeth couldn't help but feel that she was more of an oddity, being a wolf-coyote mix, and she still had a hard time believing that anyone could truly accept her for what she was. She was just a novelty to them.

“Let's go down to dinner, shall we?” Carol said.

Elizabeth wished she'd had a meal with Bertha back at the B and B and could have skipped all this fanfare. Even if she had it all wrong and they would accept her, she felt like she would be the center of attention she didn't want any part of.

***

Tom met Elizabeth on the stairs and escorted her to the table, introducing everyone right away. He loved his family, each of them smiling and trying to make her feel welcome.

She appeared a little overwhelmed. Even though she was an alpha, meeting each of their gazes as she greeted them back, he noted that she glanced at the floor several times, and he saw the tears in her eyes when she caught his gaze.

Had no one ever treated her the way a family should? He hated to think that was the case.

He ushered her to a seat beside him. Everyone had already taken their seats at the large oak dining table and started passing around spaghetti and meatballs, Italian loaves, parmesan cheese, and salad.

“Can I help with anything?” she asked, looking uncomfortable that she couldn't assist.

“No,” he said almost too vehemently. She had been pushed down a ski slope only hours ago, for heaven's sake. This woman didn't know when to quit.

“I'm not usually pampered like this.”

He smiled at her. “Let me get you whatever you need tonight.”

“Okay.” She let out her breath as if the notion didn't agree with her but let him dutifully scoop up whatever she wanted. “Did you look over the photos I took?”

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing to hear what Tom had to say.

“We couldn't see any faces, but we've got a description of what the two men were wearing. Jake will look at your camera to see if he can fix it,” Tom said as he returned to his seat, setting a plate piled high with spaghetti and plenty of meatballs in front of Elizabeth.

“Thank you,” she said.

Jake cleared his throat. “I'll take good care of it. See what I can do.”

Darien turned to Carol. “Do you see anything about what happened to Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth stared at Carol. “You actually do have psychic ability? When you told me you foresaw what would happen to you before you were turned, I hadn't thought you meant it literally.”

“Yeah, I see things sometimes.” Carol shook her head at Darien. “Since I've joined Ryan's pack, my focus has been there. I haven't seen anything new about members of your pack.”

“Did Trevor or Peter discover anything at the B and B?” Elizabeth asked.

“The two men left a trail through the woods behind the B and B, backtracked into town, and must have driven off in a vehicle parked out front,” Darien said.

“With all my stuff,” Elizabeth growled. “Did nobody see them?”

Tom wanted to touch Elizabeth to calm her, but he didn't think she'd appreciate it. What the hell. He reached over and took her good hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She glanced at him, and at first he thought she'd be annoyed with him. Instead, she looked at him with those crystal eyes as if trying to read him. He gazed back at her, wanting to take care of her. To find the bastards and beat them to within an inch of their lives.

He wanted to wrap his arm around her and hold her close, to let her know she had him to count on, but he couldn't. Not yet.

“We've put out the alert to all the pack,” Darien said, studying them. “If anyone saw anything, they'll let me know. Nobody's been following you?”

“When I rode with Tom to the ski resort, I didn't pay any attention to traffic.” Elizabeth glanced at Tom to see his take on it.

He shook his head. “I didn't really notice on the way to the resort.” Between the snowy roads and Elizabeth, he hadn't been able to concentrate on anything else. She was a total distraction.

“Why would they take all my stuff?” she asked.

“Sounds personal to me,” Lelandi said.

“Taking my ID forces me to stay here,” Elizabeth pointed out.

Jake said, “More likely it's for identity theft. It doesn't necessarily mean they wanted to keep you from leaving here.”

“Okay.” Elizabeth seemed more relaxed about that, which Tom took as meaning she wanted to leave as soon as she was able. He stiffened.

He had hoped she'd feel comfortable with his pack and remain with them for more time than she'd planned. But what had happened to her here, he could understand her reluctance to stay any longer than necessary. She couldn't even ski if she wanted to take more pictures for her story.

“Is there any way that I can get a replacement ID so I can travel?” she asked.

“Yeah, we can do it. You don't want to stay until we can unravel who did this to you?” Darien asked.

Tom gave Darien points for trying to convince Elizabeth to stay longer. He couldn't think of a thing to say.

“I've got a deadline on the newspaper back home. And I probably won't be able to ski again while I'm here.” Elizabeth grimaced as though she were loath to admit the fact.

“Do you want me to take some pictures for you?” Jake asked, looking like he was ready to go, not just to help her out, but because he loved taking nature photos. The sideways glance he cast Tom said he was attempting to keep the lady here longer, too.

Why couldn't Tom come up with something to say?

“I'll have to look at the photos, but I might already have what I need for the article. Thanks for the offer, though.”

The conversation then shifted to other topics, some about Jake and Alicia's upcoming babies and about Darien and Lelandi's toddlers, and then everyone looked at Carol and Ryan to see if they were in the family way.

Carol smiled, shaking her head. “We're waiting for a while. I'm not ready to raise babies who can turn into wolves yet.”

Tom had talked to Ryan about Carol's progress. She was doing fairly well with shifting only when she wanted to and not at awkward times. He could understand her reluctance to have children until she had the ability fully under control. Wolf-shifter mothers usually had multiple births—like a she-wolf and her litter. The babies all shifted when their mother did until they became aware of their own ability. But if a mother couldn't even control her own shifting, that could be a disaster for both her and her pups.

Tom glanced at Elizabeth. He shouldn't have, but he couldn't help wondering what it would be like to raise some pups of his own. Surely
his
kids wouldn't be as messy as Darien's.

Elizabeth had grown quiet and sat stirring her spaghetti with a fork. He reached over and patted her leg and smiled at her. She smiled back, but she looked exhausted even though she had napped all afternoon. He suspected she hadn't slept all that soundly.

Pack politics were discussed, despite Carol and Ryan being from another pack and Elizabeth being there, too.

Jake and Alicia begged off after dinner to return home, claiming they were two tired, old wolves, which Tom knew meant that they were off to bed but not to sleep. Jake took Elizabeth's camera with him to try to repair.

Carol said to Elizabeth, “I'd stay overnight with you, but we have a problem coming up in the pack that Ryan and I need to deal with. Darien can call Nurse Matthew or Nurse Grey to stay the night if he thinks you need someone to watch over you.”

“No, I'm fine,” Elizabeth said. “I just ache a little. With a good night's sleep, I should be great by morning.”

Tom said, “I'll be next door if you need anything.”

Elizabeth smiled at him. “I never knew ski patrollers made house calls.”

Everyone laughed.

“If nobody minds, I'm off to bed. Thanks so much for dinner. It was delicious,” Elizabeth said. “But I feel wiped out.”

Everybody said good night except Tom, who walked up with her. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Like?”

“An ice pack on your back again?”

She smiled, walked into the guest room, and lay down on her stomach on the bed. “Okay.”

Surprised she was agreeable, Tom hurried to get her a fresh ice pack. On the return trip, he raced up the stairs sounding like a pack of wolves and entered the room. “If you think of anything tonight that might clue us in about this, just let me know. You can wake me anytime.” He placed the pack on her back.

“Hmm,” she said sleepily.

He sat down next to the bed, waiting for time to pass before he removed the ice pack. Her breathing soft, her eyes shut tight, Elizabeth fell sound asleep.

Tom was glad she didn't have any trouble falling asleep because she needed complete rest to feel better.

Darien poked his head in the door. “She out?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Tom said, realizing twenty minutes had passed while he'd been daydreaming. He removed the ice pack from Elizabeth's back and headed out of the room to join his brother. As he closed the door, he asked, “What's up?”