“Two females needed my help. I never decline helping those who need it, you know. The female’s ready to have her pups. We need to get them to some place clean and safe.”
Galahad rose from the ground, and Doc Mitchell eyed him warily. Galahad turned to his brother with a look of regret.
“It’s over, Hank. It was a harebrained scheme to begin with.”
He spoke to Ryan. “The scientist’s name is Miller Redford, a red wolf who was turned a decade ago and joined our pack a year ago. He gives the impression he’s a mad scientist, but he’s very sane.”
Sam grunted.
“That’s debatable, considering what his meddling could cost our kind,” Ryan said. “Where is he?”
“In the basement,” Galahad replied, motioning to the house.
“Hell. Everyone stay put.”
Ryan headed for the open bedroom window, ready to end this now.
Ryan held his gun at the ready as he located a door off the kitchen that he’d assumed was a pantry. Without bothering with the light switch, he moved in the dark down the creaking stairs to the basement, where the walls smelled slightly moldy.
Light came from around the edges of a door, but when Ryan reached it, he found it locked. The blood thundering in his ears, he holstered his gun and used his lock picks. Once he heard the soft click, he put away his lock picks, pulled his gun out, steeled himself for trouble, and then twisted the door handle.
He expected to face a man armed with a syringe or a gun, but instead he saw a room exactly as Carol had described to him from the earlier vision. The wide-screen TV hanging on the wall was dark. Sconces hung on the walls and shot soft light upward toward the ceiling, showing off the gold walls. Leather chairs were companions to a leather sofa, and all were brand new, their leather fragrance permeating the air. Brown carpeting smelled new, too. No moldy odor down here, and the paint was fresh.
If he’d had any doubts about Carol’s psychic talents, this was proof she had them. The analytical part of his brain still fought with him, reminding him that she might have been here once before. But he shoved the notion aside. The chances she would ever have been here were miniscule at best. She truly was psychic.
A door off the living area was shut, and soft country western music played overhead. Ryan moved quickly across the carpeted floor. He twisted the handle. No resistance. Miller wasn’t expecting the troops. Or he was just plain crazy, despite what Hank had said.
Slowly, Ryan opened the door. Definitely a lab with tables and a couple of stools, a microscope, beakers, some jars filled with liquids, and others filled with powdery substances, as well as all-white, sterile-looking cabinets. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air.
Something clinked in an adjoining room, and Ryan rushed through the open doorway. This room was smaller, set up like an office with books on shelves against one wall, a neat desk with all the papers stacked in a tray, and a toilet visible in another small room off this one. Next to a fridge, a coffeemaker, coffee mugs, and a microwave oven sat on a counter, and the aroma of cinnamon rolls permeated the air.
Miller hovered over the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup. He wore a lab coat, black pants, and brown slippers. He was a husky man, a little over six feet tall and much taller than most reds.
Ryan had hoped he’d catch Miller off guard. And he had, but only for an instant. Miller whipped around, his bearded jaw dropping, his yellow eyes narrowed, and blond hair sweeping his shoulders. Miller threw the hot cup of coffee at Ryan, yanked off his lab coat to reveal his bare chest, and then kicked off his slippers and jerked off his pants.
Ignoring the burning-hot coffee soaking his shirt and chest, Ryan fired two rounds as Miller shifted and lunged at him. The bullets both struck the wolf’s chest, but because of his hefty size and the shot of adrenaline that had to be running through his system, the hits didn’t stop him for long.
Ryan holstered his gun and yanked off his clothes as quickly as he could, but Miller knocked him to the tile floor before he could shift. Miller growled, his teeth bared.
“You’re a dead man…” Ryan said with authority— although the wolf bearing down on his chest made his breathing labored—as he gripped Miller’s neck with every ounce of strength he possessed “…unless you give us the vaccine.”
Considering the fate they all faced, Ryan was sure Miller wouldn’t be allowed to live. He was too dangerous—and he knew it. Then again, Ryan was at a distinct disadvantage, and he imagined Miller must be laughing at his boastful threats.
Someone rushed through the living area at a gallop, and Ryan assumed either Tom or Doc Mitchell was coming to his rescue. When he saw Carol as a wolf, Ryan’s heart did a flip.
Miller turned to face the snarling, growling female wolf that was Ryan’s mate, and as he did, Ryan tried to shove him off. Unsuccessfully.
Miller stayed where he was, his hefty size pinning Ryan down, but his attention remained focused on Carol.
She snapped at his flank with her wicked teeth, and he moved out of her way, still trying to keep Ryan—the greater threat once he shifted—pinned to the floor.
She moved behind Miller and bit his stiff tail. He yelped and Ryan’s heart raced, but he still couldn’t get out from underneath the big wolf.
She lunged at Miller’s backside, like a small fish poking at a shark, and nipped his rump.
Again, he yelped, but this time he turned to retaliate.
Unencumbered, Ryan shifted. His natural instinct was to growl and draw Miller’s attention, to let him know he had real trouble in the form of an alpha male gray and give him a fighting chance, but he couldn’t risk Miller tearing into Carol. The red who had changed her had torn into her once. Ryan couldn’t have her traumatized all over again.
He leapt at Miller’s back as Miller railroaded Carol into a corner of the office between a file cabinet and a chair. Her teeth bared, she growled, her eyes narrowed into slits, the blue color when she was human transformed into rich dark amber. She was beautiful and threatening.
Ryan grabbed Miller on the back of the neck, crushing his spine with one bite, and regretting it as soon as the wolf collapsed. What if he’d hidden the vaccine? What if they couldn’t discover a cure? How would they survive?
Chapter 27
A WEEK AND A HALF AFTER RYAN HAD KILLED MILLER, Carol sat at the kitchen table in Doc Weber’s rental home, tapping her bare foot on the floor and reading through books written over the ages that discussed various herbal and other home remedies for getting rid of viruses or colds or werewolfism. She wasn’t any closer to finding a cure for the pack.
Darkness had descended on the house hours earlier, so fluorescent bulbs flooded the kitchen with light. Ryan was still annoyed with her for having come to his rescue in Miller’s basement. But as soon as she’d realized that her vision of the room involving gunfire was the same place Ryan was investigating, she’d had to rescue him. She just hadn’t realized he was the one doing the shooting and not Miller.
Tom and Sam still weren’t talking to her, both mad that she’d taken off and nearly gotten herself killed. But she had been the only one not standing guard against the other red males! Besides, wasn’t that what mates did for each other?
She took a deep breath and continued to study one of the books, while Ryan examined papers spread all over the other end of the golden-oak table. He was looking for a clue to where Miller might have hidden a vaccine.
On a whim, Lelandi had mentioned that Doc Weber had a personal library that he’d accumulated before he’d had much medical training. A lot of his remedies had been passed down from their ancestors. Carol figured that trying those remedies on the sickened wolves was worth a shot, since nothing else seemed to work. For days, she’d been studying the books and testing the remedies on any willing participant.
If a person didn’t die from complications of the flu, which thankfully no one had, he or she would eventually get better. But for the lupus garous, the real problem was being able to shift into wolf form and then not being able to shift back. She was trying herbal remedies for lessening the effects of the flu and supposed cures for shifting, if any of them seemed in the least bit sound. Piercing a werewolf’s hands with nails and striking a werewolf in the head with a knife were supposed remedies for getting rid of the werewolf problem but she would leave them to myths and legends.
She rose from the table, crossed the linoleum floor, and opened the black fridge door. Inside, a bowl of diced onions sat in a thick, golden syrup of honey. She shuddered at the thought of anyone having to eat it.
A warm hand swept down her back, and she turned slightly to see Ryan looking down at her. His dark amber gaze was tender, and she knew that look in his eyes. It said she had been working at this for too long and she needed to sleep.
“In a little while,” she said.
He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m going to take a shower. Join me?”
“Sure.”
He smiled, but she could tell he didn’t believe her. She wanted to shower with him and enjoy what would happen between them if she did, but he probably assumed she’d never make it to the shower before he was finished.
“In a little while,” she said again, trying to reassure him.
He kissed her forehead, let out his breath, and headed for the guest bathroom.
Carol closed the fridge door and turned on the teakettle. More of Darien’s pack had shifted to their wolf forms, including Jake, and none could revert to their human forms. Tom and Sam were still fine. And Lelandi had said she had no urges to shift, so was all right for now. Silva had been fighting the shift for a couple of days.
Those who hadn’t shifted were taking care of those who had. Everyone who was left was short-tempered, feeling the tension, and worried about shifting and about family members who were stuck in their wolf forms.
A small tickle in Carol’s throat had bothered her for the last hour or so, but it was probably just allergies. She prayed. She also felt a little warmer than usual, which she hoped only meant that the heater was on too high.
She thought of Nurse Matthew and Charlotte handling the patient load at the hospital while she wasn’t doing her fair share. Sure, she was trying to find an antidote, but it seemed too much like being on holiday. Except that she was worried sick she wouldn’t discover a way to stop the virus.