Wolf Fever (8 page)

Carol gave her a quick smile. The woman gave her a guarded smile back.

Marilee was a brunette with the same kind of luxuriously thick hair that caressed her shoulders, dark brown
eyes, and a plunging, silky orange neckline that also showed off ample cleavage.

Both wore black jeans and spiky black heels, and looked dressed to kill. And both towered over Carol by a good four inches. Which made her feel inadequately short—from her bobbed haircut to her petite height— and not half as sophisticatedly dressed or sexy. She'd describe herself as more casual sporty. Not a siren at all.

She glanced at Darien and his brothers, expecting someone to make a formal announcement, but no one did. The event appeared to be just a meet-and-greet affair where the guys would eventually garner the courage to speak to the women looking for mates. Although Carol was
not
in that category willingly.

None of the men were very alpha, and neither of the two women appeared to be, so no one made an effort to speak to anyone else.

Lelandi and Darien and the other mated couples talked freely among themselves about general news, but Carol felt that was more of a ploy to set everyone at ease. To make it appear that they were not chaperoning the women.

Dressed in a fresh red-and-white-striped jacket, no grass stains evident, Mervin walked across the room, headed in her direction, and gave someone a chilling glare. Carol turned to see who.
Ryan
. Where had he come from? But where he was going bothered her even more. He was headed straight for Marilee.
Of course.
The sexy masseuse.

“Sorry about earlier today,” Mervin said, getting close—too close—to Carol and pulling her attention away from Ryan.

If her back hadn't already been up against a wall in a defensive wallflower mode, she would have stepped away from Mervin.

A cloying cologne clung to him like a cloud of heavy allspice, when normally their kind didn't bother with heavy human fragrances.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Thinking of the way he'd pinned her to the ground during the game and wouldn't let her up, Carol gave him a scornful look.

“It was supposed to be a game of tag, not a wrestling match.”

She wouldn't let him get away with believing she thought his behavior acceptable. If she did, she was sure he'd continue to behave that way.

He didn't seem in the least bit remorseful and glanced at Ryan. “I don't know what he sees in Marilee.”

Carol didn't mean to, but she nearly growled when she spoke. “Maybe he needs a good back rub.”

Mervin snorted. “He shouldn't be here. This is a gathering for our pack, not for outsiders like him.”

“I'm sure he doesn't have any intention of going after any of the women here tonight.” Or maybe he did. What did she know?

Mervin gave Carol a look like she couldn't be serious. “He's an alpha male. They always go after available women and take their pick. I hear you have a date with him. Break it.”

A short laugh tumbled from her lips. She doubted he'd say anything like that to Ryan, but he thought he could order her about, and she'd wilt and agree? “Why?”

“He's trying to make you jealous by talking to
Marilee. But we all know you're the one he wants. Why else would he have sneaked around Darien's place last night? Why else would he have kissed you the way he did outside the house?”

She dismissed Mervin's concern and folded her arms in an annoyed fashion. Not for an instant did she think Ryan was talking to Marilee because he wanted to make Carol jealous. And he had only kissed Carol because he was trying to prove something to Mervin and the others who had been watching their interaction. She still wondered why Ryan had been sneaking around Darien's house.

She considered Ryan, who was standing relaxed and casual with Marilee. The woman's eyes flashed with intrigue. Her lips curved up in a smile. She might not be an alpha, but she had seduction down to an art. Hell, whatever he was saying to her, he'd sure got her number. She reached over and slid her hands over his shoulders. Instantly, Carol wanted to jerk her hands off him, as if he was hers. Where that unwelcome notion came from, she hadn't a clue.

Marilee fluttered her long lashes.

Which was another of Carol's shortcomings. Both of the women had thick, long lashes that fluttered beautifully. Carol's were pale blonde and
short
. Even with mascara that claimed to make lashes longer and more noticeable, hers were not meant to flicker in a provocative way.

The woman was now looking adoringly into Ryan's eyes, her tongue sweeping over her already shimmering lips, which were coated in dusky pink gloss. If the lout kissed her, the date was off.

Everyone seemed rabidly entranced with Ryan and Marilee's actions. Some of the bachelors appeared annoyed, frowns creasing their temples, arms folded or
hands shoved in pockets. Some seemed in awe as they watched Ryan, small smiles on their faces. Maybe making mental notes of what worked when attempting to get a woman's attention?

“Let's go to the tavern and get a drink, Mervin.” Carol had had enough of this fiasco. Even though she'd rather be anywhere with anyone else, at least Mervin had the guts to pursue her.

Mervin played with his bowtie and looked at Darien.

Oh, for heaven's sake.
Did he have to get permission from Darien?

She headed for the great room, figuring everyone was so intrigued with Ryan and his conquest that no one would notice she'd left. As soon as she exited the sunroom, Mervin hurried after her. “We can't leave the gathering. Not without Darien's permission.”

Grow some balls, she wanted to say. That was one thing she liked about Ryan.
He
stood up to Darien, no matter what the circumstances.

She strode through the great room toward the stairs.

Mervin hurried after her and roughly seized her arm. She clenched her teeth, her whole body taut with raw irritation.

Whipping around, she yanked her arm free. “Do
not
grab me like that again,” she growled low, unable to curb her anger. Partly at being accosted and partly because the masseuse was fawning over Ryan—and he seemed to like it. With Carol, he was strictly business. Psychic business, and what she could do with it, was his only interest in her.

As soon as the fury at being waylaid had washed over her, heat swept through her, and she cringed. Oh hell… not… the…
change
.

R
USHING THROUGH THE GREAT ROOM
, C
AROL HURRIED
off toward the stairs to her bedroom before she did the unthinkable—got naked and shape-shifted in front of Mervin. Heaven forbid! If he grabbed her again, she wouldn't be responsible for her actions.

“You can't leave the gathering,” Mervin said, half angrily, half pleading as he stalked after her.

Without giving him a backward glance, she ran up the stairs two at a time, praying she'd make it to her room and could concentrate on stopping the shift before it caught hold. And that Mervin wouldn't follow her.

As if instinct moved her, she tackled the buttons on her sweater before she reached the top of the stairs. Her heart was pounding so hard that the sound of Niagara Falls rushed in her ears, but at least Mervin must have paused at the foot of the stairs and didn't follow her up them. She imagined if it had been Ryan, he wouldn't have let her go. Then again, she didn't think he would have accosted her the way Mervin had, triggering the damnable shift in the first place.

“Carol!” Lelandi called out from the great room.

Hell. Carol raced to her room, sweater unbuttoned, her fingers struggling to undo her belt. Now she knew why more of their kind didn't wear accessories. Or blouses or sweaters with buttons, either.

She dove into her bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.

Lelandi's frenzied footsteps grew closer down the carpeted hallway, or at least Carol assumed that's who was coming after her.

Carol squeezed her eyes shut and stood still, hoping her second sight wouldn't fail her now. Anything that would thwart shifting.

“Carol?” Lelandi tapped lightly on the door, her voice soothing.

She tried to ignore Lelandi's entreaty, the heat still coursing through every muscle, through every vein.

“Carol, open up so we can talk.” This time Lelandi used a little more force in her words. A command, not a suggestion.

Go away
, Carol wanted to shout. She
had
to concentrate.

“Did Mervin upset you? Darien wants to know. And Mervin's going to be ostracized from the whole pack if he did.”

“No, Lelandi, I'm fine. Just… I'll be down in a second.” Gritting her teeth, she stripped down to her bra and panties.

Then the room blurred into oblivion as a window into the future filled her mind.

“Come in, Carol,” Lelandi said, her voice tinged with dread as she hurriedly motioned for Carol to enter her bedroom. Lelandi wrung her hands as she watched Darien in his wolf form pace back and forth. “What's happening? I don't understand what's happening. How can we stop this?” Her green eyes turned to Carol, and tears filled them. “He can't change back.”

Darien. First the doc, now their pack leader? But
what could Carol do? What could she ever do in a situation initially conjured up in her mind's eye? It was too late for Darien. Too late for the doc.

“Carol, you have to do something!” Lelandi pleaded, her voice strained, choked with emotion.

The feelings of inadequacy swamped Carol, as they often did when she had no control over future events. The fear of what could happen to her increased her resolve never to shift.

The door lock clicked open, instantly shattering Carol's vision. Lelandi had to have used a hairpin to unlock the bedroom door, damn it.

Her lips parted, Lelandi stared at Carol wearing only her peach lace bra and panties. “Oh, Carol.” She quickly shut the door as more footsteps tromped their way down the hall. “Don't fight the change. It'll only make things worse.”

How did Lelandi know?

A knock sounded, heavier, more masculine.

“We're all right,” Lelandi called out in her most assertive way.

“Did Mervin upset Carol? I've got an outsider gray who's ready to tear him apart, not that I sure as hell won't take Mervin to task,” Darien growled through the door.

Lelandi raised her brows at Carol.

She shook her head. “No.” Although she thought Mervin's grabbing her arm had resulted in the urge to change, he really hadn't done anything to her to warrant all the fuss. Oh hell, she had to find a way to control the compulsion to shift in case something like this happened again.

“Are you certain?” Darien asked, his control slipping.

Lelandi studied Carol, but she shook her head and frowned again.

“Nothing's wrong,” she whispered.

Lelandi didn't look like she believed her. “I'll speak to you later, honey,” Lelandi said to Darien, “but she says no.”

“All right. But I want her returned to the party posthaste.” Darien stomped off.

Carol was sure he didn't believe her, either.

“What happened to trigger the need to shift?” Lelandi asked in a soothing way, as if Carol was fragile and would break if Lelandi wasn't gentle.

Carol clenched her teeth. If there was one thing she wasn't—fragile was it. “I wasn't getting ready to shape-shift.” She went to her closet and yanked out a sparkling peach dress with a low neckline and a gored skirt that caressed her legs when she walked. She slipped it on. “I just didn't feel dressy enough.”

Lelandi gave her a slight smile. “The other women are not any real competition, you know. The men are much more intrigued with you, especially after you played so aggressively on the field this afternoon. And taking Darien's ribbon?” Lelandi gave a bright laugh. “They loved it.”

“Everyone was shocked into silence.”

“Well, all right. At first, sure. But once they saw how good-naturedly Darien took it, they loved how you stood up to him. No one would have dared. Although Silva does from time to time. As to the men, they still don't know about the other women. You're more of a known commodity.”

“They don't like it that I haven't shifted.” Suddenly a thought occurred to Carol. Why couldn't she just pretend that she had shifted when she was alone? Then they'd quit worrying about her. “Not that I haven't shifted when no one is around to see it.”

Lelandi tilted her head to the side and gave her a look that said:
Get real
. “I know you haven't shifted. If Darien learns you were having trouble with it tonight, he'll want to know what brought it about and how you managed to stop it.”

Carol was dying to know how Lelandi suspected she had never shifted. Must have been a werewolf thing. She zipped the low-cut back of her dress and slipped into a pair of slinky heels, still feeling underdressed but like she was on a manhunt.

“I love the dress, Carol. You should wear clothes like that more often.”

“I bought it to go to a party held by one of the student nurses in one of my biology classes. Sat like a wallflower during the whole affair when I discovered the male medical staff in attendance had significant others, who were not at the party, but were looking for some extra nighttime entertainment. I didn't have a ride home or money to call a cab, so I stuck it out.

“But I loved the color.” She ran her hand over the silky fabric. And the cut looked good on her, so she hadn't had the heart to get rid of the dress. Now she felt way overexposed for the current event, like she was trying to prove something to the other women or to the men, when she had no intention of doing so.

“Are you going to be all right?” Lelandi asked, as Carol disappeared into the adjoining bathroom.

Carol touched up her lips with a shimmering peach gloss. “Yep, as right as can be.” Under the circumstances.

“When you went into the woods with Ryan last night, did you see any sign of a red wolf?”

Frowning, Carol walked out of the bathroom. “No, why?”

“Have you had any premonitions that we've had trouble with a red wolf?”

“No.” Lelandi's worried voice concerned Carol. What was up now?

Lelandi crossed the room to the door and opened it. “Ryan claims the wolf was skulking around the woods surrounding our home. Since there are only the two of us reds here, other than Doc…” Lelandi shrugged, but Carol could tell she was trying to hide her apprehension.

“Would it have been your cousin, Ural?”

“No, I called him, and he's still in my uncle's pack. Whoever it was, he was wearing some kind of hunter's spray,” Lelandi said.

If it wasn't Ural, was it someone else from Lelandi's old pack? Someone who had survived the battle?

Carol opened her mouth to speak, but remembering how those who had attempted to kill Lelandi had worn hunter concealment sprays brought back a horrible flash of memory. She clamped her lips and eyes shut, the terror of the night she'd been bitten coming back to her in an instant. The red wolf's wicked canines primed to bite her, lips curled back, nose wrinkled, the growl, the sharp teeth sinking in, the stabbing pain, the numbing cold, and then blackness.

“Carol?”

Attempting to hide a shudder, Carol opened her eyes and gave a wan smile.

“What were you thinking of?”

“Being bitten.”

Lelandi gave her a heartfelt hug and then pulled her to the door and into the hallway. “That's what I thought. But Deputy Peter Jorgenson killed the wolf that bit you.”

A deep frown marred Lelandi's forehead, and Carol got the impression she knew something else. “Was there someone from your old pack who was at the battle and survived?”

Lelandi stopped halfway down the hall and took a deep breath.

“Connor. Darien killed his twin brother. Connor appeared harmless enough to the others when he quit fighting to watch Darien battle with my former pack leader, so they let him go. But later, we had word that during the battle another was downstairs called North, cousin of the one who bit you. Like Connor, he gave up the fight and Jake let him leave.”

A chill spiked up Carol's spine. “Would either of them want revenge for their kin's death?”

“Possibly.”

But the way Lelandi said it as she headed down the stairs sounded more like she thought the red had some other agenda.

“What's another possibility?”

Lelandi looked over her shoulder at Carol, her expression worried. “Connor's brother turned you, but he died. Now either of the men, the brother or the cousin, might want to claim you, partly because you're a red and partly because in the old days when a man needed
a woman, and sometimes a woman wanted a particular man, they bit and changed them. Then they took the newly turned werewolf as a mate.

“In this case, their kin changed you, but you still don't have a mate, so Connor or North may feel you belong to the family. But also, they might want you for revenge. Of course, I'm just guessing here. I have no idea if any of this is true.”

Carol swallowed hard as uneasiness swept over her.

“Another possibility is that it's just a red wolf who smelled you or me in a gray territory and was curious about the two of us.”

“Unlikely, right?” Carol asked. Just the inflection in Lelandi's voice told her Lelandi didn't believe it.

“You're right. The whole area is filled with gray
lupus garous,
which should be enough of a deterrent.” Lelandi clasped Carol's hand and squeezed reassuringly. “Darien's put out the word you're to have a bodyguard at all times. The bachelor males have all eagerly signed up to take turns.”

How could things get any worse?

Carol hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. Returning to the sunroom after her flight from the great room was a major feat. She wasn't shy, but she wasn't a stage personality, either. She was sure she would be the center of attention when she returned, while she would have much rather blended in.

When they entered the great room, all eyes were upon them. Brows and lips lifted as the bachelors' interest was piqued by the sight of Carol in the dress. Ryan seemed to be grilling Mervin in a corner of the room, the poor barber's back to the wall and Ryan nearly nose to nose
with him. Ryan's jaw dropped when he caught sight of Carol out of the corner of his eye, his fearsome expression instantly vaporizing. Now she wished she hadn't changed out of her more casual, conservative clothing to something that really got the guys' attention.

She stiffened her back and glanced at the two women, who were staring at her and exchanging words with one another, both of them giving her a chilly look. Hell, Carol wasn't going to be a wallflower any longer. The guys were single, and while she didn't think she'd really get interested enough in any of them to mate, she had to remind herself that if she just got to know one of them, she might find he truly was someone she could care for. Still for now, all she intended to do was have fun.

“Can we have some music?” she whispered to Lelandi.

Lelandi smiled back. “Silva, want to get the music going? Let's dance!”

That was all it took. One of the men hurried forth to grab Carol's arm, and she tried to tell herself she wanted this—
Do not
shift!

When he grasped her arm, she took a deep calming breath and concentrated on his flyaway dark brown hair and intense air, his chocolate suit and matching tie at odds with his wild look, and attempted not to think of the force of his enthusiastic touch, which might trigger the shift.

“My name is Christian, and I couldn't have been more proud of you for stealing Darien's ribbon during the game today.”

“Really,” she said, holding him at arm's length as he moved her across the tile floor to dance. His darkened eyes looked at her as if he was fascinated with her, but
his voice was a little too high pitched to make her feel anything serious about him. “Everyone seemed shocked into silence.”

He grinned. “Only until we saw how Darien would take it. I realize you don't understand everything about pack politics yet, but Darien's the pack leader so what he says is the law. Not that we don't disagree with him sometimes, but we keep it to ourselves.”