I froze where I stood, resisting the temptation to drop flat or hide. Motion attracts attention, and my fur is colored to blend in with the desert.
Ben didnt even glance my way, and as soon as he rounded the cornerobviously heading toward my front porchI took off through the sagebrush and dry grass, off into the desert night.
I was on my way to the river, to a rock beach where I could be alone, when a rabbit broke out of the brush in front of me. And it was only then I realized how hungry I was.
Id eaten a lot at dinnerthere was no reason for me to be hungry. Not just a little hungry. Starving. Something was wrong.
I set that thought aside as I gave chase. I missed that rabbit, but not the next, and I ate him down to the bones. It wasnt nearly enough. I hunted for another half hour before I found a quail.
I dont like to kill quail. The way the lone feather sticking up on top bobs in opposition to their heads when they walk makes me smile. And they are silly, without a sporting chance against a coyote, at least not against me. I suppose they cant be that vulnerable because Im not the only coyote around, and there are a lot of quail. But I always feel guilty about hunting them.
As I finished my second kill, I planned what Id do to the person who made me so hungry I had to eat quail.
A werewolf pack can feed off of any of its members, borrowing energy. I wasnt sure exactly how it worked, though Id seen it often enough. Its part of what makes an Alpha wolf more than he was before he took on that mantle.
None of that had ever affected me before Id become a member of Adams pack, so I hadnt worried about it. No one had been able to get inside my head and make me think that throwing a bowling ball at a toddler was a good idea. Or make me take out my frustration on Adam.
Finished and full, I made it to my final destination without further incident.
I dont know if anyone owned this little bit of the river; the nearest fence was a hundred yards away, the nearest house a little farther than that. There were a few old beer cans scattered around, and if the weather had been a little bit warmer, I might have run into people.
I climbed on the big rock and tried to feel the pack or Adam. I was alone. Just me, the river, and, far up on the Horse Heaven Hills, the little lights from the windmill farms. I dont know if it was the distance, or if there was something special about this little bit of ground, but Id never been able to feel the touch of mate or pack bond here.
Thank goodness.
Only when I was certain Adam couldnt hear me did I let myself dwell on how creepy it was to have someone else in my head, even Adam, whom I loved. Something I would never, if I could help it, allow Adam to know.
Oddly, because Adam had been a wolf for longer than I was alive, I accepted him as a werewolf more easily than he did himself. Knowing that I was freaked-out by the greatest gift any wolf could give another wouldnt surprise him (as it did me), but it would hurt him needlessly. I would adjust in timeI didnt have any choice if I wanted to keep him.
If I had to deal with only the mate bond between Adam and me, it would be easier. But hed made me pack, too, and when the link worked as it was supposed to, I could feel all of them there, with me. And with that bond, apparently, they could suck energy from me and make me fight with their Alpha.
Alone in my head, it was easy to look back and see how it had happeneda nudge here, a push there. I would do a great deal to keep Adam from being hurt, but not endanger an innocentand I have never in my life given anyone the silent treatment. Anyone who offends me deserves to hear exactly how they trespassedor needs to be lulled into a false sense of security before the sneak attack when they arent paying attention. But silence had been Adams ex-wifes weapon of choice.
Whoever had worked on me was trying to drive us apart.
So who had it been? The whole pack? Part of the pack? Was it deliberateor more that the whole pack hated me and was trying to force me away? Most important of all, to me anyway, was: how did I stop it from ever happening again?
There had to be a waydoubtless if a werewolf could influence a pack member as easily as theyd influenced me, Alphas would have much tighter control of their packs than they did. A pack would run more like a cult and less like a bunch of testosterone-laden wild beasts momentarily subdued by the threat of immediate death under their leaders fangs. That or theyd have killed each other off entirely.
Id needed Samuel to be home so I could ask him about how things worked. Adam doubtless knew, but I wanted to go into this conversation knowing how to approach him.
If Adam thought one of his pack members was trying mind-influencing tricks on me . . . I wasnt certain what the rules were for something like that. That was one of the things I wanted to find out from Samuel. If someone was going to die, I wanted to make sure I approved, or at least knew about it before I pulled the trigger. If someone was going to die, I might just keep this to myself and create a suitable punishment of my own instead.
Id have to wait until Samuel got back from work. Until then, maybe Id just keep a good hold on the walking stick and hope for the best.
I stayed out on the little rocky beach watching the river in the moonlight as long as I dared. But if I didnt get back before Ben realized I was gone, hed call out the troops. And I just wasnt in the mood for a pack of werewolves.
I stood up, stretched, and started the long run back home.
* * *
WHEN I ARRIVED AT MY BACK DOOR, BEN WAS PACING back and forth in front of it uneasily. When he saw me, he frozehed started realizing something was wrong, but until he saw me, he hadnt been sure I wasnt there. His upper lip curled, but he didnt quite manage a snarl, caught as he was between anger and worry, dominant male protective instincts and the understanding that I was of higher rank.
Body language, when you know how to read it, can be more expressive than speech.
His frustration was his problem, so I ignored him and hopped through the dog doormuch, much too small for a wolfand straight to my bedroom.
I changed out of my coyote form, grabbed underwear and a clean T-shirt, and headed for bed. It wasnt horribly lateour date had been very short, and my run hadnt taken much longer. Still, morning came soon, and I had a car to work on. And I had to be in top form to figure out just how to approach Samuel so he wouldnt tell Adam what I was asking.
Maybe I should just call his father instead. Yes, I decided. Id call Bran.
* * *
I WOKE UP WITH THE PHONE IN MY EARAND THOUGHT for a moment that Id completed the task Id decided upon before falling asleep, because the voice in my ear was speaking Welsh. That didnt make any sense at all. Bran wouldnt speak freaking Welsh to me, especially not on the phone, where foreign languages are even harder to understand.
Muzzily, I realized I could still almost remember hearing the phone ring. I must have grabbed it in the process of waking upbut that didnt explain the language.
I blinked at the clockId been asleep less than two hoursand about that time I figured out whose voice was babbling to me.
Samuel? I asked. Why are you speaking Welsh? I dont understand you unless you talk a lot slower. And use small words. It was kind of a joke. Welsh never seems to have small words.
Mercy, he said heavily.
For some reason my heart started beating hard and heavy, as if I were about to get some very bad news. I sat up.
Samuel? I addressed the silence on the other end of the phone.
Come get
He fumbled the words, as if his English were very bad, which it wasnt and never had been. Not as long as Id known himwhich was most of my thirty-odd years of life.
Ill be right there, I said, jerking on my jeans with one hand. Where?
In the X-ray storeroom. He barely stumbled over that phrase.
I knew where the storeroom was, on the far end of the emergency room at Kennewick General, where he worked. Ill come for you.
He hung up without saying anything more.
Something had gone very wrong. Whatever it was, it couldnt be catastrophic if he was going to meet me in the storeroom, away from everyone. If they knew he was a werewolf, there would be no need for storerooms.
Unlike Adam, Samuel was not out to the public. No one would let a werewolf practice medicinewhich was probably smart, actually. The smells of blood and fear and death were too much for most of them. But Samuel had been a doctor for a very long time, and he was a good one.
Ben was sitting on my front porch as I ran out the door, and I tripped over him, rolling down the four steep, unyielding stairs to land on the ground in the gravel.
Hed known I was coming out; I hadnt tried to be quiet. He could have moved out of my way, but he hadnt. Maybe hed even moved into my way on purpose. He didnt twitch as I looked up at him.
I recognized the look though I hadnt seen it from him before. I was a coyote mated to their Alpha, and they were darned sure I wasnt good enough.
You heard about the fight tonight, I told him.
He laid his ears back and put his nose on his front paws.
Then someone should have told you that they were using the pack bonds to mess with my head. I hadnt meant to say anything about it until I had a chance to talk to Samuel, but falling down the stairs had robbed me of self-control.
He stilled, and the look on his body was not disbelief, it was horror.
So it was possible. Damn. Damn. Damn. Id hoped it wasnt, hoped I was being paranoid. I didnt need this.
Sometimes it felt like both the mate and the pack bonds were doing their best to steal my soul. The analogy might be figurative, but I found it nearly as frightening as the literal version would have been. Finding out that someone could use the whole mess to make me do things was just the flipping icing on the cake.
Fortunately, I had a task to take my mind off the mess I was in. I stood up and dusted myself off.
I had planned on waiting and talking to Adam directly, but there were some advantages to this scenario, too. It would be a good idea for Adam to know that some of the pack were . . . active about their dislike of me. And if Ben told him, he couldnt read my mind to figure out that I wasnt weirded out only by the mind control, but also by the whole bond thing, pack and mate.
I told Ben, You tell Adam what I said.
He would. Ben could be creepy and horrible, but he was almost my friendshared nightmares do that.
Give him my apologies and tell him Im going to lie lowAdam would know that meant stay away from the packuntil I get a handle on it. Right now, Im going to get Samuel, so youre off duty.
Chapter 3
I DROVE MY TRUSTY RABBIT TO KGH AND PARKED IN the emergency lot. It was still hours before dawn when I walked into the building.
The trick to going wherever you want unchallenged in a hospital is to walk briskly, nod to the people you know, and ignore the ones you dont. The nod reassures everyone that you are known, the brisk pace that you have a mission and dont want to talk. It helped that most of the people in triage knew me.
Through the double doors that led to the inner sanctum, I could hear a baby cryinga sad, tired, miserable sound. I wrinkled my nose at the pervading sour-sharp smell of hospital disinfectant, and winced at the increase in both decibels and scent as I marched through the doors.
A nurse scribbling on a clipboard glanced up at my entrance, and the official look on her face warmed into a relieved smile. I knew her face but not her name.
Mercy, she said, having no trouble with mine. So Doc Cornick finally called you to take him home, did he? About time. I told him he should have gone home hours agobut hes pretty stubborn, and a doctor outranks a nurse. She made it sound like she didnt think that should be the proper order of things.
I was afraid to speak because I might thrust a hole into whatever house of cards Samuel had constructed to explain why he had to go home early. Finally, I managed a neutral, Hes better at helping people than asking for help.
She grinned. Isnt that just like a man? Probably hated to admit he trashed that car of his. I swear he loved it like it was a woman.
I think I just stared at herher words made no sense to me.
Trashed his car? Did she mean he had a wreck? Samuel had a wreck? I couldnt picture it. Some werewolves had trouble driving because they could be a little distractible. But not Samuel.
I needed to get to Samuel before I said something stupid.
I better
Hes just lucky he didnt get hurt worse, she said, and turned her eyes back to whatever she was writing. Apparently she could carry on a conversation at the same time, because she continued. Did he tell you how close he came? The policeman who brought him in said that he almost fell into the waterand thats the Vernita bridge, you know, the one on Twenty-four out in the Hanford Reach? Hed have died if he made it overits a long way down to the river.
What the heck had Samuel been doing all the way out at the bridge on the old highway north of Hanford? That was clear on the other side of the Tri-Cities and then some, and nowhere near any possible route between our house and the hospital. Maybe hed been running out in the Reach, where people were scarce and ground squirrels plentiful. Just because he hadnt told me that he was going out hunting didnt mean he hadnt. I wasnt his keeper.
He didnt say anything about danger to him, I told her truthfully and followed it with a small lie designed to lead her into telling me more details. I thought it was just the car.
Thats Doc Cornick, she snorted. He wouldnt let us do anything other than get the glass out of his skinbut just from the way hes moving, you can tell he did something to his ribs. And hes limping, too.
Sounds like it was worse than he told me, I commented, feeling sick to my stomach.
He went all the way through the windshield and was hanging on to the hood of the car. Jackthats the policemanJack said he thought that Samuel was going to fall off the hood before he could get there. The wreck must have dazed Doc because he was crawling the wrong wayif Jack hadnt stopped him, hed have gone over.