The Alpha Won’t Be Denied

Copyright 2015 by Georgette St. Clair

This book is intended for readers 18 and older only.  It is a work of fiction.  All characters and locations in this book are products of the feverish imagination of the author, a tarnished Southern belle with a very dirty mind.

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Alphas? Wolf shifter Virginia Battle has had her fill of them. She’s grown up with an Alpha dad and four bossy, overprotective older brothers - so there’s no way in hell she’s going to give arrogant, sexy Carver Lawrence the time of day. Yet he keeps showing up everywhere she goes, scaring off all the guys who want to date her – and not making a single move on her. Then after one drunken night in a casino, she wakes up next to him in bed…with a wedding ring on her finger.

Now her pack is howling for his blood (literally), he’s insisting that she’s really his wife, and before she knows it she’s whisked off to a sexy honeymoon at a mountain resort. Carver’s known from the minute he laid eyes on Virginia that she was meant to be his – but can a strong-willed woman (with some pretty big secrets) and a demanding dominant Alpha ever find love?

Just when Virginia’s starting to see the advantage of being married to a sexy, dominant Alpha, she and Carver learn that there’s something very wrong at Honeymoon Mountain.  Does it have anything to do with the secret she’s been keeping from her family? And with guests disappearing from the mountain resort, the townspeople hiding a deadly secret of their own, and someone – or something – very scary sniffing around at her cabin, will she survive long enough to find out?

Chapter One

              It was feeding-frenzy time at The Zoo. Techno music pumped through speakers hung from the rafters, women in tiny dresses gyrated on stage, and the dance floor was packed. Hormones were so thick they fogged the air, almost visible to the naked eye.

“They’re a bunch of animals in here tonight,” Sally Reynolds said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the music and the din of the crowd. She was correct, both figuratively and literally; every species of shifter came to The Zoo on Saturday nights.

              “Oh, I don’t know, I like that one.” Virginia Battle pointed at the muscular wolf shifter who was leaning against the far wall and watching her. He had thick, dark hair and wore a motorcycle vest over his T-shirt.

              Sally looked him up and down doubtfully. “If you like them tall, dark, and stupid, he’s perfect.”

              “That’s exactly what I’m looking for!” Virginia leaned close to Sally and yelled into her ear as a particularly loud song blared over the speakers. “Someone I’d never be tempted to go out with more than once. I’m not looking for anything permanent.” She deliberately met the shifter’s gaze across the crowded room, then returned her attention to her friend. From the corner of her eye, she could see him nursing his beer andchecking her out.  Working his way up to coming over and asking her for a dance.

              She glanced down at her outfit. She was wearing black silk slacks that flowed over her long legs, high-heeled boots, and a scoop-neck top. She’d spent some time on her makeup, something she neverdid at work, , and had even added a pair of big hoop earrings to the mix. 

              Sally, who was crabby tonight, wore an adorable flowered halter dress that showed off her great figure, but was ruining the effect by standing with her arms crossed defensively over her chest and her shoulders hunched, with a scowl on her face.

              The wolf looked at Virginia again, and took another sip of his beer.

              “He’s interested.  I’d say your chances of success are a hundred percent,” Sally said. “I mean, as long as nobody from your family, or Mr. Hot Stuff, shows up tonight.”

              Virginia’s gaze swept the crowd. “I don’t see any of them here yet. Maybe we got here early enough. I’ll dance with him once and give him my number and leave. Then we could meet up somewhere else. Preferably out of town.”

              “Good thinking!” Sally nodded, looking over the crowd again with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.  A while ago she’d told Virginia that she liked her brother Pierce, but she never had worked up the courage to tell him. Now she seemed like she was in a funk, no longer interested in the men who came to the Zoo. Or any other men, for that matter.

              “I have to use strategy to get around my brothers. And him.” Virginia said the word “him” with particular venom, and there was no need to explain who she was talking about.

              Carver Lawrence. The man had been the bane of her existence ever since she’d met him – and even more so since he’d moved to Timber Valley a few months ago.  Just thinking about him made her pulse quicken and her palms grow sweaty.  Whenever he came near her, he had an unfortunate physical effect on her, and he knew it. And he always made sure she knew that he knew it.

              His gaze would sweep over her body and deliberately rest on her swollen nipples as they strained against the fabric of her shirt. Or he’d sniff the air and smile, letting her know that his wolf was scenting her arousal.

              Virginia looked around one more time, just to be sure. If any of her brothers was there, or Carver, there would be no point in dancing with the man. Or any other member of the male species, for that matter.

“I am so sick of this,” she muttered to herself. “Next thing you know my brothers will be trying to give me a curfew.”

Virginia felt someone tap her shoulder and she jumped. She swirled around with a snarl on her face, ready to confront her brothers or Carver, but it was just Edward.

              “Virginia!” Edward said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you! Would you like to dance, maybe? I mean, with me? Now?” There was a hopeful look on his blandly handsome face. He was the wolf who had the lowest place in the pack. He was the opposite of dominant; a nice guy, but Virginia just wasn’t attracted.

She struggled not to openly wince.  She’d known him since high school, and he’d always had a crush on her. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten sick of it and moved on.

              “I’m sorry, Edward, but I already agreed to dance with somebody else,” Virginia said gently, and she turned away before she could see his face fall in disappointment the way it always did. He nodded, then turned and walked away.

              “He’s been leaving flowers and poetry on the clinic doorstep for me,” she said. Virginia, a healer, worked in the town’s clinic a few days a week, when she wasn’t at the clinic on her pack’s property. “It’s creepy.”

              “At least someone is leaving you flowers and poems. I got nothing!” Sally heaved a melodramatic sigh.

              “You’re wasting your time pining after the wrong guys,” Virginia said. She really didn’t think that Pierce was ready to settle down.

              Edward was still watching them, she realized. She needed to go dance with someone, or he’d realize she’d lied to him to get rid of him. “I’ll be back!” she yelled into Sally’s ear.

“I’m going to get a drink. I’ll be at the bar,” Sally shouted back, and turned and hurried off. Apparently Edward had the same effect on her that he did on Virginia.

She started to make her way through the crowd, then saw that the handsome wolf shifter whom she’d been eyeing earlier was headed her way.

With a quick glance back at Edward, she put her arm around the wolf shifter’s waist and said, “Come dance with me.”

A grin spread across his face. “With pleasure,” he said, and led her onto the crowded dance floor.

The music was slower now.  He circled his arms around her waist. Virginia leaned in to him and they moved across the floor in the midst of a crowd of other shifter couples.

He didn’t make her heart beat faster, but he’d do for a distraction. It wasn’t as if she could commit to anyone permanently right now anyway. There were too many things about her future that were uncertain.

“So, do you live around here?” he said, leaning close to her so she could hear him.

“Oh, not far,” she said. She still lived on pack property; she definitely wouldn’t be inviting him back to her pack lands, where her family hovered like avenging angels, ready to smite any man who sullied their little Virginia with so much as a glance of interest. If he wanted to see any more of her, they wouldn’t do it in Timber Valley.

She realized that she wasn’t able to summon up much enthusiasm at the thought of going on a date, and possibly more, with this guy. What was wrong with her?  She was single, and it had been a long time since she’d been with a man. He was handsome, he smelled nice, he clearly worked out and had a great body. He was no Alpha wolf…but that was a good thing, wasn’t it? She had an Alpha father, and three older brothers who treated her like she was a fragile china doll.  She needed someone like this guy – a nice level of Beta. Not a total wimp, but not some macho A-hole who always had something to prove.

“So, what do you think about…” His voice trailed off and he suddenly stiffened.

Oh, no. Not again.

She glanced across the room. Sure enough, Carver was leaning against the bar, and he was staring intently at them. Not scowling. Just staring.

Unfortunately, that was enough. The guy she was dancing with was big; Carver was much bigger. Taller. Broader.  Muscles everywhere. Like most Alphas, he worked out all the time and trained in martial arts in his human form, and ran for dozens of miles at least a few times a week in his wolf form.  Strong jaw, thick brows over piercing brown eyes. And he had a very intimidating air about him. In fact he’d gotten more intimidating since she’d first met him a year ago.  He’d been the Beta of the Killingworth pack at the time, but he’d been borderline Alpha, to the point where he’d finally had to leave the pack. Two Alphas couldn’t spend more than a few hours with each other without getting irritable and then angry and then violent.

Carver had apparently come into his own as a full-fledged Alpha, which meant he would have to start his own pack.  For some reason, he’d decided to move to Timber Valley, where he hung around all the time and somehow managed to scare off all the men who wanted to date her – any men who hadn’t already been scared off by her family. Awesome. Wasn’t she a lucky girl?

“I should, uh… I’m going to get a drink, I’ll be right back,” the wolf shifter mumbled. He turned and rushed off through the crowd, and she heaved a sigh. Of course he wasn’t coming back. She watched him elbow his way off the dance floor and then hurry out the front door.

She headed towards the bar, sliding between couples who were so wrapped up in each other that they were practically mating while they danced. She felt a twinge of envy. She wished her life were that uncomplicated. They saw someone they liked; they went for it. End of story.

“I see your taste hasn’t improved any.” Carver’s deep, rich voice rumbled in her ear, and she jumped, startled.

She turned around to demand what the hell business of his it was anyway, but he glided right past her…leading a woman by the hand. Onto the dance floor. He was going to dance with her. The woman.

“Virginia!” She heard Sally shout her name and felt Sally’s fingers closing on her arm. With a start, she realized she’d half shifted without even noticing it. Her head had gone wolf. Her snout had extended, her lips curled back in a snarl, and she was salivating.  She quickly shifted back to human form and swallowed the saliva. Great. Now her makeup would be all messed up and her hoop earrings had fallen off.

She looked around on the dance floor; the earrings were gone. 

She stared at Carver and the woman, a pretty blonde in tight jeans. They were bumping and grinding on the dance floor, and it took all her strength to remain in human form. She knew that she couldn’t stand Carver and she had no desire to mate with him, but her wolf didn’t seem to get the message. Her wolf wanted to shift and race through the crowd and attack the woman he was dancing with. Her wolf wanted to taste blood.

Chapter Two

“Virginia, are you all right?” Sally’s voice came from a million miles away. Her fingers were locked on Virginia’s arm.

“Fine. I’m fine!” She shook herself and ran her hands over her face, trying to force her wolf back down. She could feel her animal lunging inside her, hurling itself against the cage of her consciousness and struggling to burst free.

Claws briefly curved out of her fingertips, and she forced them back down. Okay, so there went her manicure.

Had Carver seen her shift? If he had, she would die of mortification. He was a stuck-up, smug bastard and he would assume that she was jealous. Which she wasn’t.

She couldn’t care less if he was grinding with some over-made-up ho.  He’d already asked Virginia out, and she’d turned him down, despite the fact that she found him as sexy as hell.  It wasn’t just the fact that he was a bossy, pushy Alpha and she was so sick of being pushed around that she was ready to scream. His pack had also kidnapped her cousin last year as part of some stupid pack negotiation issue.

Yeah, yeah, Carver’s former Alpha had ended up marrying Virginia’s cousin and they were ridiculously happy. She still hated Carver.

              Still, she couldn’t believe he was dancing with another woman. That had never happened before. He usually hung around long enough to scare off any guy who was interested in her, until she gave up in disgust and went home. From what she’d heard, he always left soon after.

              Was this someone he was actually interested in? That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?  Then he’d leave Virginia alone. The woman was certainly interested in him. Flinging her arms around his neck, draping herself all over him, rubbing herself against his body…

“Virginia, you’re shifting again!” Sally yelled at her, and she dragged Virginia towards the front of the night club.

“Am not,” Virginia argued after she’d shifted back.

“Okay, of course, you drool like that all the time. Wipe that saliva off your cleavage, it’s disgusting. What the heck is wrong with you?” Sally pulled her over to the bar.

“Where do I start?” Virginia settled onto a barstool with a scowl.

“Two shots of tequila with lime and salt,” Sally said to the bartender, slapping a twenty down on the bar as Virginia grabbed a napkin and mopped up the saliva.

Virginia leaned against the bar, deliberately looking away from the dance floor as the bartender poured the tequila shots.

The bartender quickly set them down in front of the women. Virginia grabbed one in each hand and slammed them down, one after the other; she didn’t bother with the lime and salt.

“Hey!” Sally squealed. “One of them was mine! You lush.”

Virginia dug in her pocket and pulled out a twenty of her own. “Give my friend a drink, please,” she said.

“Oh, heck, make it a Margarita,” Sally called out to the bartender. “Jeez, woman. You’re seriously losing it tonight. You can’t let him get to you like that,” she said, shaking her head.  Then she looked thoughtful.

“You know, you could just get it out of your system once and for all. You could just give in to the inevitable and let him take you out.”

“Ha!” Virginia snorted. “And no. It’s not inevitable, and also he’s no longer interested. Thank God.”

Sally stared at her. “He’s not interested in you? Are you crazy?”

“When he first moved to town a few months ago he came over and asked me out to dinner. Actually, it was more like, ‘So, when are we having dinner?’ Typical stuck-up Alpha. So I said, ‘When there are skating rinks in Hell.’ And he was like, ‘We’ll see about that.’ Then he walked off. And he’s barely spoken to me since.”

She scowled down at her two empty shot glasses. “And yet he insists on showing up everywhere I go. It’s like he has some kind of freaking Virginia-seeking radar. It’s beyond me how he does it.”

“Well, if it wasn’t him, it would be your brothers,” Sally pointed out.

“I know, I know. Anyway, Carver’s just doing it out of spite. Like, if he can’t have me, no-one else can. He’s not actually interested.”

“Oh, okay.” Sally’s knowing look was really getting under Virginia’s skin.

“Anyway, I might as well go home. No chance of getting lucky tonight.”

“That’s for sure.”

The bartender set down a margarita glass in front of Sally and she tipped it back and took a healthy swig.  She set it down with a pouty look on her pretty face. She was sinking into her glum mode.

Virginia glanced towards the front entrance of the nightclub and saw that her brother Pierce was there.  Great. His appearance wasn’t going to help Sally’s mood any.

Pierce was making his way through the crowd, shooting suspicious looks at Carver. Since he mistakenly believed that Carver wanted his baby sister Virginia, he couldn’t stand him.

“I have a great idea,” Sally said suddenly. “How about next week we leave town and go to a different place?  Friday night, say? There’s that new casino up north – we could go there. I’d drive an hour for a change of scenery.” She cast a scornful, dismissive glance at the crowd.

“Yes!” Virginia brightened. “Let’s leave early in the day, like noon. Book a motel room, hang out for the day, go for a run in the woods, get some shopping in.”

Then she glanced at Sally. “You know, if you feel so strongly, if you like him that much, you should just tell him. His response might surprise you.”

Sally looked startled. “Really? I don’t know.”

“It makes more sense than sitting around sulking about it and watching him hit on someone else. If you don’t make a move, you’ll never know what might have been. And he’s obviously not going to make the first move.”

“Obviously.” Her tone was bitter. “I just don’t think he’d ever like me in that way.”

“Sally, you’re gorgeous, you’re sweet, you cook a mean steak. You cook a mean everything. Any shifter would be lucky to have you as a mate.”

“It’s very kind of you to say so.” Sally downed the last of her drink. “All I want to do is get married and stay home and have a million cubs and make a man happy. I feel like that makes me super boring.”

“Plenty of men would love that in a mate. If they don’t want that, they’re not the right guy for you. And stop coming up with excuses!”

Sally looked down at her almost empty glass, staring into it for a long time as if she’d find answers at the bottom of her margarita.  Then she looked up and nodded. “You’re right. I’m going to do it. Tomorrow,” she declared, to Virginia’s surprise.

“Wow.” Virginia couldn’t believe it. Sally had finally listened to her advice for once? She must really be getting desperate. “Well, tell me how it goes. And I’ll see you tomorrow. You don’t need to wait for me right now.  There’s something I want to do before I go.”

“Let me guess. Carver? Oh, you said something, not someone.” Sally flashed her a smirk, then dashed off before Virginia could smack her.

Virginia waited until she was gone, then stalked over to her brother, who was entwined with a jackal shifter with streaked hair and heavy eye makeup. He held a beer in his free hand, and his other was running up and down the jackal’s back.

“Yo!” she yelled, to get his attention.

“Hey!” The woman who was rubbing up against him pouted. “He’s mine! Back off, bitch.”

Pierce promptly shoved her off him.

“That’s my sister you’re talking to,” Pierce said, turning on the woman with a growl. “Get away from me. Now.”

She skulked off, shooting hurt and angry looks at him until she walked straight into a drunk bobcat shifter. Then she threw her arms around his neck and started kissing him enthusiastically.

“Nice,” Virginia said sarcastically. “I like your taste in women.”

“Don’t you start.” Pierce took a swig of his beer. “I’m not looking for Ms. Right, I’m just—”

“Just looking for Ms. Right Now,” she finished for him. “My God, is that line getting old. Maybe you should consider looking for a higher class of female. Someone you could actually bring home to Mom and Dad. Someone to be the mother of your cubs.”

Pierce shrugged and took another swallow of beer. “Maybe in a few years. Not now.”

Virginia wasn’t surprised. She’d hoped he’d at least say that when he met the right wolf he’d settle down, but obviously he wasn’t in that state of mind yet.  It probably wouldn’t go well with Sally tomorrow, but at least she’d finally know that Pierce wasn’t interested in a relationship, and she’d be able to move on.

Pierce glanced over at Carver, who was still on the dance floor. With the same woman. “I see your boyfriend is here again. Has he been bothering you?”

Virginia shook her head in exasperation. “He is not my boyfriend. He is not bothering me. And if he did, I could take care of it.”

Pierce shook his head stubbornly. “That’s what we’re here for!”

Virginia wasn’t sure exactly what her brothers wanted her to do; die a virgin while they screwed their way through the female population of Timber Valley and surrounding counties? Eff that.

“It is time for you guys to back off. I can take care of myself.”

“How, exactly, would you do that?” Pierce scoffed.

“Like this!” Virginia’s fist lashed out and she hit his arm so hard that he let out a yelp of pain and staggered back, staring at her in surprise.

“Since when did you hit that hard?”

She didn’t bother to answer him. She couldn’t tell him the truth about the training she’d been doing recently anyway; his head would explode. Then he’d run straight to their father and tattle on her.

She suppressed a smile at the thought. It was nice to have one small part of her life that didn’t belong to her family.

“I’m going home now. Have fun with the skank-hunt.” She gestured at the room, then left the bar.

As she walked down the hallway that led outside, a blast of cold air swirled around her.  It was October, and she was skimpily dressed, but she relished the chill. Shifters were very resistant to cold, even in their human form.

She walked outside, and as she stepped out of the front door, a huge, heavy body slammed into her, knocking her off her feet.

Chapter Three

“Virginia! Are you okay?” A member of her pack, a young shifter named Anna, pulled her to her feet.

“I’m fine, thank you. Don’t worry about me.” Virginia moved away from the doorway entrance, and Anna headed off to her car, with a quick backward glance to make sure that Virginia really was okay.

A coyote and a jackal, circling each other in human form, were shouting drunkenly.  The jackal’s mouth was bleeding.  They were staggering, taking drunken swings at each other. Morons. She doubted they’d even remember what the fight was about tomorrow.

The crowd of shifters that had gathered wasn’t helping any. They were gleefully chanting “Fight! Fight!” and clapping their hands.

“Jackal!” some of them screamed.

“Coyote!” others shouted.

Virginia stood on the sidelines, hands on her hips.  All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed, but as a healer, she should stay in case either of the two morons seriously injured the other.

Two bouncers rushed out from inside the bar. They were bear shifters, which was typical of bouncers.  Shifter bars and nightclubs tended to hire the bigger species as bouncers – lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

The bouncers muscled their way through the cheering spectators, but before they could separate the two, the jackal’s fist lashed out and hit the coyote’s jaw with a sickening crunch.

“Mother-frickin’ hell,” Virginia muttered, shouldering her way towards him.

“Let her through! She’s a healer,” yelled one of the bouncers, who recognized her.

Members of the crowd started throwing punches at one another, and more bouncers ran outside. Yelling and cursing and snarls ripped through the night air.

Virginia ignored them all and walked through the crowd, stepping past flying fists and snarling, snapping wolves and bears and various species of feline.  She knelt down next to the coyote, who lay on the frost-rimed ground, clutching his shattered jaw and moaning.

She placed her fingers on his jaw, closed her eyes, and let her power flow through her. She could feel inside his body, feel the bones of his jaw moving back together and setting. Ruptured blood vessels, spilling blood, sealed themselves.  Teeth settled back into their sockets.

He was also sober now. Healing had evaporated the alcohol from his system.

He sat up, blinking hard. “Wow, thanks.” Then he stared into her eyes. “You’re beautiful. Uh, want a date?”

“With a drunk who gets into bar fights? Thank you anyway.” She stood up, flexing her fingers and feeling good. When she’d first come into her own as a healer, a session like that would have sent her reeling and she’d have been curled up on a couch for hours, but over the years her powers had gotten stronger and stronger.

She’d started out by training with the pack healer, and then had begun travelling around the country to train with different healers, learning new skills and techniques. Within a few years, she’d be training new healers herself.

She glanced around to see if anyone else had serious injuries. She saw nothing but bruises and scrapes and split lips. She wasn’t going to waste her energy healing them; they deserved to wake up with black eyes. Most of them would probably be fine by morning anyway; shifters tended to heal fast.

She waved at the bouncers, who had gotten the crowd under control now, and headed towards her car, which was parked at the far end of the parking lot. She’d tucked it away behind a big minivan, hoping that if Carver came by to check the place out, he wouldn’t see her car and he’d just go home.

She heard footsteps trudging along behind her in the dark, and whirled around. It was the jackal.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Interfering bish.” He was very drunk, swaying and glaring at her.

“I’m sorry, did you mean bitch? Yes, I am, in fact.” She smiled politely. She stood there, keeping her stance casual.  There was nothing in her body language to give away the fact that if she needed to, she could snap him in two. That was one of the things she’d learned; if confronted by violence, act meek and helpless, draw them in close, then lash out and disable the attacker while she still had the element of surprise. By the time they realized she wasn’t some skinny little she-cub, they’d be doubled over in pain and spitting out teeth.

His foul breath reeked from his mouth, and she took a step back, fanning the air with her hand. “Whew. Halitosis, brother. Listerine – it’s your friend.”

“That ash-hole desherved getting his ash beat. He shaid my mother… He shaid…” The jackal tried to remember what the coyote had said about his mother. His eyes were glazed. He staggered back and flailed his arms, trying to keep his balance.

Something big and angry flashed past her with lightning speed, grabbed the drunken jackal, lifted him off his feet, and hurled him into the bushes.

“You okay?” Carver asked, as the jackal crawled out of the bushes with a whimper. The jackal glanced over his shoulder with a fearful look and then ran for his life.

Carver walked over to her, his hair slightly mussed, which made him look even sexier. He had a hint of stubble on his jaw, and his thick brows were drawn together in anger as he glared at the running jackal.

“Carver, for God’s sake. He didn’t lay a paw on me, and if he had I would have kicked his butt.” Virginia shook her head, annoyed. “I’m glad you didn’t injure him, because I already had to heal one idiot today.”

“Are you actually saying that you would have healed that loser?” Carver asked incredulously.

“Of course,” Virginia said, with a hint of impatience. “I am a healer. That is my obligation and my calling. Besides, he was just drunk; he was basically harmless.”

Then she tipped her head back to glare up at him. “What are you even doing here? I thought you were inside dancing with your new girlfriend.”

To her annoyance, Carver looked amused. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have a problem with me dancing with another woman?”

“I have a problem with the fact that you keep deliberately scaring off every man who comes near me, and you can’t seem to stand seeing me dance with anybody else, but it’s fine for you to dance with whatever throws itself at you.”

His smile stretched wider. “My, my, Miss Virginia. That sounds like jealousy. I’m flattered.”

“I most definitely am not jealous.”

“As for my scaring off men who want to dance with you, all I’m doing is standing there and looking. Is it so wrong for me to be concerned about the company you keep?”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, or at least I would be able to if you and my entire family weren’t constantly following me around interfering in everything I do.”

“You are lucky to be so universally loved.” Carver grinned at her.

“Universally stalked is more like it,” Virginia said angrily.

“I do understand why your family wants to keep an eye on you. Given what happened,” he said, surprising her.  So now he was siding with her crazy brothers?

Several years earlier, someone had tried to kidnap her when she’d been out for a run by herself. It had turned out that the would-be kidnappers had been human military who knew about shifters and had been kidnapping shifters with mutations from all over the country.

Those humans had all been wiped out now. She still felt that dark shadow hovering over her, still looked over her shoulder more often than she cared to admit, and checked her closet and under her bed before she went to sleep. But she couldn’t keep living as if she needed a group of bodyguards all the time.

She shook her head. “That was years ago, and the threat is gone. And dance with whoever the hell you want. We’re not an item.”

“And isn’t that a shame?” Carver said. He had somehow moved closer to her without her even noticing. She couldn’t help but draw his scent into her nostrils, and that sent her inner wolf crazy, howling with need. She went rigid with the effort of not rubbing up against him.

“Trust me, Carver, you’re not my type,” she said through clenched teeth. “I am done with Alpha men bossing me around and trying to run every aspect of my life.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Carver said. “I’m only bossy in certain areas.”

“What areas?”

Now why had she asked him that? She already knew she’d regret it.

He leaned down.  “Oh, I think you know, Virginia,” he breathed into her ear. “You want to hear me say it, don’t you? Good, I like that. The bedroom. I always dominate in the bedroom. I’m quite old-fashioned there. In fact I believe in spankings for my woman when she’s been naughty.”

The rush of desire that flooded Virginia’s body left her speechless. Her panties were suddenly drenched, and the skin on her arms was goose-pimpled as the hair stood straight up.

“Of course, I would never, never take a woman against her will,” his low voice growled into her ear, his hot breath tickling her.  “I would wait for that woman to come to her senses and come to me when she is willing to admit to herself how badly she wants it.”

Virginia felt herself flushing self-consciously. She knew that Carver could scent how much he turned her on.

She should leave right now before she did something she’d regret. She really needed to. Right now. Instead she found she was rooted to the spot. Her stupid feet wouldn’t obey the orders her brain was frantically telegraphing.

A sudden, crazy thought occurred to her. What if Sally was right and she should just get it out of her system? What if she went home with Carver, just this one time, screwed his brains out and then left? It would be like bingeing on chocolate until she was sick of it. That would work, wouldn’t it? Or was it just her hormones talking? She couldn’t think straight at all.

Carver wasn’t moving.  He wasn’t coming closer; he wasn’t backing off.

The hell with it, she thought. Just one night wouldn’t be so bad. She hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, which was the only explanation for how incredibly aroused she was right now. She might as well use Carver the way he clearly wanted to use her.

Then she would go to the casino with Sally next Friday, and from now on they’d go hang out there on weekends instead of at the Zoo.

“Okay,” she said to Carver. “Fine. Just one night. Let’s do this. Let’s get it out of our systems and then never speak again.”

Carver shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

“Nope?” She echoed disbelievingly. “What the hell? Did you seriously just turn me down? Isn’t this what you’ve been after ever since you first laid eyes on me?”

“You’ll figure it out.” He turned and walked away, leaving her standing behind him, fuming. She blinked back tears of anger and humiliation. Not only that, but she finally understood what men meant when they talked about “blue balls”.

She was about to scream something really insulting at his back when she saw Pierce walking towards his car with an ebony-haired jaguar shifter. Well, that hadn’t taken him long.

With Pierce there, she couldn’t yell anything at Carver, or run after him and confront him, because she didn’t want to start a fight between Pierce and Carver.

Instead she climbed into her car and raced home.

Once she got there she went through an entire dishware set, hurling it against the wall and screaming and swearing and stomping her feet. She was never setting foot in the Zoo again. She was utterly mortified, which was obviously what Carver had wanted. First he’d danced with another woman in front of her, then he’d actually had the nerve to turn her down and walk away.

Fine. She was glad she hadn’t ended up going home with him; he didn’t deserve her.  And she couldn’t wait to go to the casino next week.

* * *

Jab. Jab. Carver slammed his fist into the punching bag so hard that he rocked it with every blow. Sweat plastered his hair to his scalp and trickled down his forehead. He blinked it out of his eyes and kept punching.

He’d hung up a punching bag in the living room of the in-law apartment he was renting. It was attached to the main house of a couple who lived in a suburb of Timber Valley. He did handyman work on the property to pay his rent, and worked as an auxiliary deputy for the sheriff’s department.

He’d taken a cold shower and indulged himself in a very unsatisfying jerk-off session, during which he’d pictured Virginia the whole time. Oh, how he’d been tempted to accept her offer. Just thinking about it sent the blood rushing to his crotch again.

His front door opened; like most shifters, he didn’t bother to lock his doors. For an Alpha, that would be a sign of weakness.

His landlord, Bert Thompson, stood there yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Carver stopped punching and took a step back, breathing heavily. He grabbed a towel from a side table and mopped his forehead.

“It’s three a.m.,” Bert, a cougar shifter, noted. He walked in and settled himself on the old leather couch.  He was wearing a T-shirt and boxers.

“Oh, sorry. Was I keeping you up?” Carver walked over to the reclining chair and took a seat.

“Nahh, the cub woke me up. I changed her diaper, put her back to bed, and saw that your light was still on.” Bert yawned again. “Babies. God bless them. And their complete disrespect for anyone else’s sleep schedules. Oh well, sleep’s over-rated. Speaking of which, what did that punching bag do to piss you off so bad?”

“Nothing.” Carver shrugged. “Just maintaining my god-like physique. I didn’t wake up your wife, did I?”

“Nah, she’s fine. She gets the next diaper change. So, any progress with the lady?”

“What lady?”  He leaned back in his chair and pretended ignorance. He’d never discussed Virginia with anyone. His feelings were his own, and he wasn’t the type to cry on anyone’s shoulder. An Alpha didn’t have that luxury.

“Whatever lady’s got your head so wrapped up that you always come home from the Zoo by yourself. Rumor has it that when you lived over in Greenville you were quite the player.  And yet here you are, living the life of a monk. An angry monk who’s gone through half a dozen punching bags since he moved here three months ago.”

Carver managed a smile. “Rumors, eh? Gotta love the shifter universe. I’m hours away from my old stomping grounds, but my reputation precedes me.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it? That’s fine.”

Carver stood up. “Want a drink? I’ve got whiskey, and…whiskey.”

“Sure, why not? I’ll have one before I toddle off to bed.”

Carver walked over to the cupboard, pulled out a bottle, and poured whiskey into two tumblers. He gave one to Bert and sat down on the couch with him, taking a long sip. The whiskey burned pleasantly, and he savored its smoky flavor.

Bert downed half his tumbler and set the glass down. “Have you thought about where you’re going to start your new pack? Thinking of going back to Greenville, or will you stay here?”

Carver shrugged. “I’ve got various ideas. Probably not near Greenville. Almost got in a fight with my former Alpha before I left.  Maddox is a good guy, but he can be a stubborn, opinionated ass with a hair-trigger temper.”

“Huh. Doesn’t remind me of anyone I know at all.” Bert grinned at him and finished the rest of his whiskey.  His chin was stubbled with two days of beard growth, and he had circles under his eyes, but he looked happy.  For all his grumbling about the cub and how he never slept any more, he was the proudest dad Carver had ever seen.

Would that ever be him? Carver wondered. Up until a year ago, he had never even pictured it. He’d picked good-time girls who had no more desire for a relationship than he did. Now he felt an odd stirring in his chest every time he saw Bert carrying his daughter around the kitchen, with her little head resting on his shoulder as Bert’s wife hovered over the stove making dinner.

“I know the Wardens were interested in offering you a job,” Bert pointed out. “Are you interested in that? Travel, adventure…”

The Wardens were the law enforcement body who oversaw matters affecting shifters across the nation. They rarely involved themselves in local disputes, leaving that to the individual packs or local law enforcement.  They dealt with matters like drug dealing, or shifters who risked exposing their existence to humans, or hunting down shifter fugitives.

“Maybe. I’m not ready to move just yet.”

Bert nodded and stood up. “So there is a woman, and you’re hanging around here until you can seduce her with your charm.  And you don’t want to talk about it because you’re a big, tough wolf. I’m off to catch up on some sleep before her Royal Hiney needs her diaper changed again. Good luck with your future mate. She must be some woman, if she’s tamed your roving wolf.”

Carver merely flashed him an enigmatic smile, but after Bert left, he poured himself one more tumbler full of whiskey and held it up in a silent toast. “To Virginia,” he said, and drained the glass.

Chapter Four

The scent of sizzling bacon and rich, dark coffee swirled in the air, and Virginia’s stomach rumbled as she jabbed her fork into her stack of pancakes.  She hadn’t grabbed anything to eat before heading out to meet Sally.  Henny Penny’s, a small diner smack dab in the middle of Timber Valley, was packed as usual.

              “Can you believe I got fired from another job?” Sally moaned. She’d been working as a secretary and she’d been called up before work and notified that she didn’t need to show up on Monday.

              Virginia crammed a big forkful of pancakes in her mouth so she wouldn’t have to answer, then smiled and shook her head sympathetically. It had been her family who’d just laid Sally off – after trying really hard to put up with her for several months now.

              Sally was a great person, but her mind was never on her job, so she was fairly awful at whatever she tried. In her little apartment she was a domestic goddess, but put her in a work environment and she was a disaster.  Every person who’d called the office where she worked got cut off; Virginia had experienced this numerous times.  The letters she’d typed up had been riddled with errors; she’d accidentally erased emails. She’d sent the wrong emails to the wrong people. She’d kept putting faxes the wrong way up, so she ended up faxing blank sheets of paper.

              Virginia washed her pancakes down with coffee and wiped syrup off her mouth.  She was on her third cup already. She’d barely slept last night, tossing and turning and dreaming up ways to utterly humiliate Carver Lawrence.

              “At least they gave me a month’s severance,” Sally sighed. She glanced down at her plate; she’d barely touched her scrambled eggs. “Is it too early to start drinking?”

              “At eight a.m.? Gee, kinda. Why are you even upset? It wasn’t your dream job anyway,” Virginia pointed out. 

              “I know, I know. I just don’t want to run out of money and have to go home to my parents and hear my mother nag me about why I’m not married yet.”

              Speaking of which…maybe today wasn’t the best day for Sally to tell Pierce that she had the hots for him, Virginia realized. Not when he was certain to shoot her down.

              “Remember what we were talking about last night? Maybe today’s not the best day for it,” Virginia suggested kindly.

              “Probably not. Since I’m the world’s biggest loser.” Sally pushed her eggs around the plate with her fork, picked up a forkful, then set it back down again.

              “Oh, quit. Listen, I don’t work today – we can go shopping. My treat. And breakfast is on me.” Out of the corner of her eye, Virginia saw someone approaching the table – slowly, hesitantly.

              “For God’s sake. Speaking of losers.” Virginia set her coffee cup down with a bang. Edward. Of course.

              “Argh! I’m leaving now. Thank you for breakfast, and I’m actually just going to go home and sulk for the day.” Sally rushed off as Edward sidled up to the table with a hopeful smile on his face. He was holding something behind his back.

              “Is that a bunch of flowers?” Virginia asked before he could say hello to her.

              “Well, I, ah…”

              “And you’ve been leaving flowers and love poems at the clinic for me. I know it was you.”

              His face flamed red with embarrassment. “Not necessarily. It could have been anybody.”

              “Edward. This stops now. I told you a while ago that I didn’t return your feelings.  For you to keep pursuing me after I told you that is inappropriate and getting annoying. Stop asking me to dance. Stop bringing me flowers. This is never, ever going to go anywhere, and you’re wasting your time and mine.”

              He glanced around fearfully. “Are you…are you going to tell your brothers I’ve been bothering you? If you are, just let me know so I can say goodbye to my grammy. I’m all she’s got.”

              Irritation flared up inside her. “I do not need my brothers to protect me. I’m quite capable of standing up for myself, which is why I’m telling you to back off.” Her tone was harsh, and it finally seemed to do the trick.

His eyes widened with hurt and he took a step back, then turned around and walked away. He paused to toss a small bouquet of flowers into the wastebasket and let the door slam behind him without looking back.

              Virginia let out a groan of exasperation. She could see him through the window, slouching down the street like a whipped dog. Had she been too harsh? She was doing him a favor, really.  He was completely wasting his time with her when he could be out dating and at least have some hope of meeting the wolf of his dreams.

              She put money down to cover breakfast, and headed to the clinic, dreaming of this weekend and the casino. Carver’s face swam into her consciousness, as it had been all morning, and yet again she forced him out of her mind.

* * *

“You’re cancelling?” Virginia gripped her phone and tried not to sound upset, but her heart dropped to her stomach. She had been looking forward to this night all week long. She desperately needed the distraction.

“I’m sorry.” Sally’s voice was meek. “I just don’t feel up to it. I think I’ve got some kind of flu virus coming on.”

Yeah, right. Virginia could have healed that in five seconds, and Sally knew it. However, if she really didn’t want to go, there was no point in trying to drag her out.

“All right then. Well, get some rest. See you soon.” She hung up the phone and flopped back on her bed with a huge sigh.

Sally had barely answered her phone this whole week. She’d clearly just given up on dating. Should Virginia do the same? She had her family hovering over her shoulder, she had the new obligation she’d taken on…it wasn’t as if she could have a real relationship.

Then again, she was a single, heterosexual female with hormones and needs and, damn it, she liked men.  She’d worked long hours all week and she wanted to let off some steam.

“The hell with it,” she said, sitting up. “I’m going by myself. And the fact that I’m talking to myself isn’t weird at all. I clearly need to get out more, and…my God, I’m still talking to myself.”

She quickly put together an overnight bag, with a sexy dress and high heels for that evening.

The thought of Carver going to the Zoo and waiting all night for her to show up made her smile. She hadn’t seen him all week, and it had rattled her nerves. She kept looking around, expecting him to pop out from behind every tree she passed, and he was never there. It wasn’t that she missed his constant presence, it was just that she’d gotten so used to it that she felt as if she had lost a limb or something.

Once she got out of Timber Valley, she sent a text message to her mother.

I’m spending the night at a friend’s house. Call you tomorrow. Love you, don’t work too hard!

Then she turned off her cell phone completely so there would be no way for them to track her. She was sure her parents would get on her case tomorrow, going on and on about her safety, but she didn’t care. Tonight was about forgetting Timber Valley, forgetting herself, and having the best damn time of her life.

She checked into the motel next to the casino under a fake name and paid in cash, just in case her family started calling around looking for her.

She changed into a slinky black dress with spaghetti straps, a low neckline and a ruffled hem. She took her time putting on her makeup, carefully drawing on cat eyes with a liquid eyeliner pencil, and hoop earrings and high heels completed the picture.

She left the room with a tiny black beaded clutch purse.

And that was the last thing she remembered about Saturday night.

* * *

Pound. Pound. Pound.

Her head was spinning; the room was spinning.  And her ring finger felt strange. Virginia opened one bleary eye; she was still in her motel room. So far, so good.

She had no memory of last night or how she’d gotten back to her room.  Not good.

The sun had come up and its rays blazed through the window. She didn’t even know what day it was. She hoped it was Sunday.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on healing herself. She evaporated the poisons in her body, and the pounding in her head quickly cleared. The dizziness subsided.

She glanced at her hand and realized why her finger felt odd. There was a plain gold band on her wedding finger.

Really, really not good. Thank God Carver was there, she could tell by the scent of him, and she could ask him—

Carver was there and she had a wedding ring on her finger?

She threw the blankets off her, panic racing through her body. She was wearing the pajamas she’d packed. Carver was sprawled out on the bed next to her, fast asleep. She peeled the blankets back; he was wearing boxers.

Oh my God, she thought, horrified. I got blackout drunk and that pervert took advantage of me?

She sniffed the air. If they’d had sex, she should have been able to smell it.  She patted down her body. No bites, no delicious ache…there was no way they’d had sex. He hadn’t touched her.

              Oh my God, she thought, furious. I got blackout drunk and he didn’t even bother to take advantage of me?

              “Carver!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She hoped he had a wicked hangover.

              He sat up, yawning, hair mussed, and smiled at her.  He looked gorgeous and smelled sexy, with a hint of cologne and his earthy animal musk. No hangover. Bastard.

              “Good morning, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

              “Did we actually, really get married last night?” she demanded furiously.

              “Yes ma’am. All-night wedding chapel. The wedding certificate’s on top of the dresser.”

              She stared at him, clutching at the bedspread as a sudden wave of dizziness washed over her.

              “Why did we get married?”

              “You proposed and I accepted.” He looked so smug, so self-satisfied, that she wanted to beat him to death with the nearest heavy object. “I mean, as proposals go, it wasn’t the greatest. You didn’t get down on one knee or anything…”

              “Aaaaah!” she screamed furiously, and launched herself at him, fists flailing.

              He caught her easily, and before she knew it he’d flipped her onto her back and pinned her wrists above her head. She tried to jerk them from his grasp, but his hands were like iron manacles. She tried to knee him in the groin, but he easily dodged it, and somehow ended up with her pinned under his body and his legs between hers.

              Obviously the self-defense training she’d been taking needed to be stepped up a notch. Then again, this was Carver. He was freaking huge and he worked out all the time and trained in fighting techniques constantly. That was what Alphas did.

              She glared up at him. “Did you take advantage of me?”

              He laughed at that. “You mean did we have sex? No, we did not. I like my women conscious and aware, not crawling across the floor asking which way is up.”

              “Such a gentleman. Let go of me or I’ll kill you.” She glared up at him.

              “Ask nicely.”

              She let out a stream of curses and thrashed underneath him, and the more she squirmed and struggled, the more turned on she got.  And clearly so did he. His cock was diamond-hard and his breathing was growing heavy, but he didn’t move a muscle or try to take advantage of the situation.

              Finally, exhausted, she glowered and muttered, “Please let go of me.”

              Instantly he released her and she sat up in bed. “And if you even think of spanking me…”

              He flashed that sexy smile at her again. “Oh, I think about spanking you all the time, Virginia. But the time’s not right.”

              She climbed out of bed and looked for her clothes.  They were neatly folded in her overnight bag. “Did you put me in my pajamas, or did I?” she asked.

              “That was me. I thought they would be more comfortable than your dress. Although that dress was as sexy as hell, might I add? You have no idea how many wolves I had to threaten to kill for looking at my woman.”

              “Your woman? Ha,” she scoffed as she grabbed her clothes and hurried into the bathroom. She dressed quickly and washed her face with ice-cold water.

              When she emerged, he’d gotten dressed. “Any thoughts about where you want to spend your honeymoon?” he asked. “I know a place.  Honeymoon Mountain.  About eight hours drive from here, nice and far from your family, which should make you happy. A few friends of mine have honeymooned there, they all gave it rave reviews.”

              “Seriously, quit pretending this is real. What time is it?” she asked him, rubbing her face with her hands.  Then she stared at the ring on her hand again.

              “You came here with a wedding ring?”

              He flashed that infuriating smile again, sticking his hands in his jean pockets.  His white T-shirt looked as if it had been designed just for him, molded to his body.

              “Yep, I was hoping I’d meet some she-wolf looking to get hitched, and lo and behold, there you were.”

              “Riiiight. How did you even find me here?”

              “The bartender from the Zoo told me. He overheard your conversation with Sally last weekend. And no, I did not really come here with a wedding ring. The wedding chapel sells rings. I’m going to get you a nicer one, of course. You can help me pick it out.”

              Virginia just stared at him.  Had he heard a single thing she’d said?

              The room felt stifling. She turned and walked away, opening the window and breathing in deeply. She needed the fresh air.

              As she stared at the road ahead, she saw the sunlight glint off the windshield of a car that was heading towards the casino, and she felt uneasiness ripple through her.

              That car is coming here awfully early, she thought. She peered at it more closely – and then ice-cold panic shot through her veins.

Chapter Five

“Honeymoon Mountain sounds great!” she said brightly, grabbing her overnight bag and heading for the door, walking fast. 

“It does?” he said suspiciously, hurrying after her. “I expected to have to do a lot more persuading.”

She ran down the hall, with him following.

“What’s the rush?” He was jogging next to her now.

“No rush,” she lied. “I want to stop by and say hi to my cousin and your old packmates before we go. I miss my cousin. Haven’t seen Katrina in ages. We should just go see her right now.” She was babbling in her panic.

Her family’s station wagon was heading down the road that led to the casino.  She didn’t want to tell Carver, because he’d feel like he had to stay there and fight. She was positive that her father and all her brothers were in that car, come to take her home, by force if necessary. Carver would refuse. It would end badly.

She was very, very angry with Carver, but she didn’t want him to die.

She broke into a run and practically leaped into the driver’s seat. Carver slid into the passenger seat, a puzzled look on his face.

“We can send someone to pick up your car from here later,” she said, taking the back road away from the casino.

“What’s this all about?” he asked with a frown, as she stepped on the gas.

“My family just pulled in.” She glanced over her shoulder. They weren’t following her yet. Hopefully they’d go to her room first, looking for her, and that would buy her some time. “How did they know I was here?”

“Maybe Sally told them.”

“Nah, they fired her last week.” She slowed down a bit to steer around a curve, then sped up as soon as the road straightened out.

“Well then, they probably just called around. I mean, this place may be an hour away, but your father does have considerable pull with shifters all over Colorado.”

“I checked in under a false name!” she protested.

He shrugged. “You’re a healer – you stand out because of your eye color.  If they called the front desk at the motel they’d have remembered you.”  All healers had one green and one blue eye. It made it very hard to go incognito.

Note to self; buy contact lenses, she thought.

Carver glanced behind him.

“Do you see them?” she cried, panicked.

“No, but you don’t need to worry about them. Virginia, I’m your husband. It’s my job to stand up for you. I won’t let them make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

She didn’t even bother answering that they obviously weren’t really married. She was too busy concentrating on staying on the road and driving a hundred miles an hour at the same time.

She knew he’d be at least an even match for her father, but her oldest brother Maxwell was also an Alpha, and add in her other three brothers…that wouldn’t be a fair fight.  Somebody might get injured beyond her ability to heal. She couldn’t actually bring people back from the dead.

She whipped around the curves, foot pressed flat on the accelerator.  The casino was only an hour from the Killingworth pack’s lands, so at least they had that going for them.

              She didn’t relax until they’d pulled up in front of the Killingworth pack’s main building, where shifters were already coming outside to see who’d just roared through their property at jet speed.

“Do not tell anyone we’re married,” she said severely. Carver just grinned at her.

“They’ll be able to tell, honey. You’ve just got that glow about you.” He was positively smirking. “Also the wedding ring.”

“I absolutely hate you,” she snarled, flinging the car door open. She could have sworn she heard Carver say, “Hate sex is the best,” before he climbed out and walked with her up to the front steps.

The Killingworth’s main house was huge, a structure with dozens of rooms where many of the pack’s single males lived until they got married.  Maddox Killingworth, Alpha of the pack, strode up to them, smiling, followed by a dozen of his men.

“Welcome back, brother!” he said, giving Carver a big manly kind of hug that involved some hard back-slapping.

Virginia’s cousin Katrina, Maddox’s wife, ran up and hugged her.

“Congrats!” she cried, stepping back. “Jeez, I thought you two would have been married ages ago. What took him so long to pop the question?” Then her eyes lit on Katrina’s ring.

“Man, did you cheap out on that wedding ring,” she said to Carver disapprovingly. “I’m not sure I give this marriage my blessing.”

Virginia burst out laughing. “Oh, Katrina, don’t ever change.”

“We got married at the casino last night,” Carver said, looking dismayed. “I assure you, I am going to buy her a proper ring.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Katrina fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare. “This is my favorite cousin we’re talking about here. Treat her nice; you know what a bitch I can be.”

“And how,” Carver agreed, which drew a low growl from Maddox. It was true, though; when Maddox had kidnapped Katrina to hold her hostage during a negotiation with her pack, Katrina had given all the men in the Killingworth pack major grief.

“Hey!” Virginia spoke up quickly before the Alphas could start doing their macho thing and snarling at each other. “We have a small problem. My family is probably following us here, wanting to drag me back home by force. And possibly eviscerate Carver.”

Maddox let out another growl, but this time he was defending his former packmate. “Not gonna happen. And yes, your family is almost here; one of my men in town called me.”

“Should we go inside?” Virginia asked nervously.

“Nah, might as well just get this over with.” Carver folded his arms across his broad chest as Virginia’s family roared down the road.

They pulled up in front of the house and screeched to a halt, raising a cloud of dust.

Her father piled out of the car, along with her brothers Maxwell, Pierce, Lance and Troy. Virginia’s stomach was tied in knots and she clenched her fists, rigid with tension.  Please don’t fight, she prayed silently.

“It’ll be fine,” Katrina whispered reassuringly to her, rubbing her shoulder.

Her father stormed up to them, fur rippling on his face and hands and rage blazing in his eyes. “That is my daughter. You will release her at once,” he growled, not even looking at Virginia.  Her brothers followed, looking ready to shift and rip out some throats.

Oh, the hell with it, she thought.  She wasn’t going to tell her parents the marriage was fake.

She’d been working up the courage to tell them she was moving off the pack property whether they liked it or not. This would give her an excuse, and she’d figure out how to tell them she wasn’t really married in a month or two when they’d calmed down.

She waved her ring finger at her family. “Hello,” she called. “I’m here of my own free will; nobody kidnapped me. I am twenty-one years old, and I’m married. This is my husband. We will be starting our own pack.” She almost strangled on the words, they felt so foreign in her mouth.

Carver stood between her family and her, growling. His ears had gone wolf and the bones in his face flowed and shifted. His arms were hairy as his pelt rolled over his skin.

“You took advantage of her!” her brother Lance snarled, his fangs descending.

“I did no such thing.” Carver’s eyes glowed with rage. “She’s an intelligent woman of legal age, and she wanted to marry me.”

“Virginia, this is childish.  Get in that car now.” Vince pointed at his car.

“She’s an adult, and she’s married,” Maddox said to Vince. “I always thought the Battle pack respected the rights of their females.”

“Don’t you dare turn this around on me,” Vince growled. “This is my daughter we’re talking about. Any man who wants to marry her is expected to get my permission to court her first, and if he has my approval, then he may start—”

“Oh, shut the hell up!” Virginia yelled at the top of her lungs. Everyone turned to stare at her in astonishment. Virginia had gotten angry and had heated words with her father over the years, but she’d never gone this far before.

“I am sick to death of this!” she screamed at him. “You never would have approved of anyone I wanted to date anyway! You have literally scared off every single man who’s ever been interested in me! I am married to Carver, and you have absolutely no legal right to stop it! Shall we take it up with the Council of Elders?”

“You didn’t even have a traditional wedding!” her brother Lance protested.

“Well, he doesn’t have a full pack of his own yet. We’ll probably do it again with a real ceremony sometime after the honeymoon.”

“This marriage is a sham. You hated him last week!” her brother Pierce argued.

“That was what we had to do to get away with going out on dates,” Virginia said quickly. “We’ve been dating ever since he came to town. In fact, that’s why he came to town. We had to put on this big charade of me hating him, because you all are ridiculous and you think I’m still twelve. My husband I are leaving for our honeymoon, and I will talk to you in two weeks when we come back – if you can be civil to him.”

And before her father could argue, she quickly stepped behind the Killingworth pack members.

She heard growls and snarls of anger.

“Listen up!” Maddox shouted, his voice ringing through the air. “She is an adult. Carver is one of the best men I know, a wolf of honor, an Alpha, and he will protect her and treat her like gold. If you want to issue a Death Challenge to him right now, then do it, but know that either outcome will ruin her life. If you kill her husband, the man she loves, she will hate you forever. If her husband kills you, it will destroy her marriage and she’ll have lost both her father and her husband, because she’d never forgive him.”

Carver stepped closer to her father and boldly met his gaze. Virginia drew in a sharp breath and clenched her cousin’s arm.

“What he says is true,” Carver said. “I will protect her and treat her like a queen. I would lay down my life for her – and that includes fighting to the death for the right to claim her as my mate. Now, either issue that Death Challenge or go home, because we’ve got a honeymoon to plan.”

There was a long, long pause.  Vince was still furious, but he couldn’t argue with what Maddox Killingworth had just said.  A Death Challenge would hurt Virginia one way or the other.

“Virginia. Is this what you really want?” he said, finally looking at her.

“It is. I truly want to be married to this man. We’ve dated for months and I know this is what I want, and we are going to form our own pack.” She hated lying to him, but it was the only way to avoid an all-out pack war. “You know how it is with shifters; when you meet the right one, you know. We’ll give you more details when we get back from the honeymoon.”

He nodded abruptly, then directed a final cold stare at Carver. “I do not like how this went down, and we will talk about that when you return.  And if you ever hurt my daughter, rest assured, I will kill you.” He looked at Virginia again. “You can come home at any time.”

She managed a shaky smile. “I do love you, Dad, even though you’re also the world’s most overprotective pain-in-the-tail parent. Tell Mom I love her and I’ll see her soon. And you know I would never be with a man who mistreated me. You did raise me to respect myself.”

Vince gave a short, sharp nod, turned and walked back to his car, his back stiff and straight.  Her brothers followed him reluctantly, casting angry glares back at Carver.

She didn’t fully relax until their car was out of sight, and then she was so relieved that she actually let herself sag into Carver’s arms.

That was a mistake, because his arms closed around her in a tight embrace, and it felt so deliciously right that she never wanted him to let go.

After a minute she forced herself to push him away.

“Thank you,” she said to Maddox. “I’m sorry to bring that to your doorstep.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “Carver was my packmate for a long time. I’ll always have his back, as he would have mine.”

After they’d gone inside and eaten breakfast with the pack, and Carver had had a chance to say hello to his former packmates, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside.

“So we’re in the clear,” she said.  “We just need to figure out where I should I go for the next few weeks so my family doesn’t see through this sham.”

Carver looked puzzled. “Uh…on your honeymoon? I’ve got someone calling and making the arrangements right now. We leave in the morning.”

“Our honeymoon? Carver, seriously, you know we’re not married, right?”

“I’ve got a wedding certificate that says we are married. So you might as well stop pretending you don’t want me just as badly as I want you.”

“Carver…” She blew out a breath of frustration.  She couldn’t deny her physical reaction to him. He could always tell.  “All right, listen, I’m not going to deny that I might be a little bit attracted to you. But – quit laughing!”

“A little?” He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Last night I literally had to fight you off. You begged me to fuck you till you screamed.”

“You turned me down a second time?” She was stricken.

“Sweetheart, I already told you, I do not want you when you’re drunk and completely unaware of what you’re doing. I want you to come to me. I want you to want it.”

“Whatever.” She blushed, mortified. She was sure he was telling the truth about her begging him.  “The point is…I have been raised by a loving but incredibly overprotective, domineering, bossy family. I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like the only person who has any faith in my independence and ability to live on my own is me. I can’t be married to an Alpha.”

“Does your father boss your mother around? Is she downtrodden and submissive?”

“Of course not!” Virginia cried, horrified. “I mean, they each have their roles in the pack. He obviously takes care of pack security and pack alliances and settles matters with pack members, and she oversees a lot of the social stuff and family matters and a lot of the business end as well. She’s got a great head for numbers.” Then she looked at him indignantly.

“That doesn’t mean that’s how you’ll be when I’m your wife. I mean…damn it! If I was your wife, not when.”

“Have I ever tried to force you to do anything you didn’t want to do?”

She was about to say, how about getting married, but he had her there.  She’d been the one to propose.

“We have a honeymoon booked for the next couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s as good a place to hide out from your pack as any. You can decide what you want to do when that time is up, and I assure you, I won’t make a move on you unless you ask me to.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” she muttered, flushing. She hoped she could hold out for two entire weeks.

“Good. Then your virtue is safe.” He grinned at her and headed for the pack lands.

“Carver, you don’t know everything about me,” she protested as she followed him.  There were things she didn’t dare tell him, and the new part of her life wasn’t going away. That alone was likely to be a dealbreaker.

Carver didn’t look the least bit concerned about whatever secrets she might be keeping. In fact, he looked downright cheerful.  “I look forward to finding out.” 

Chapter Six

She spent her wedding night hanging out with Katrina and catching up on old times. Katrina, infuriatingly, refused to believe that Virginia’s marriage was fake. Virginia had confided the entire story to her, making her swear not to tell Virginia’s family.  Katrina had just shrugged and gone on talking about where Virginia and Carver should start their new pack and wondering whether Virginia’s cubs would be healers like her.  Apparently whatever madness had infected Carver was catching; neither of them could hear a word Virginia said when she insisted that her drunken marriage was a sham.

“I thought you hated Carver,” she protested, settling into her bed, a comfy four-poster with a down mattress. “Why do you want me to be married to him?”

“I did hate him when I first met him. I mean, his Alpha, my darling husband, had just kidnapped me. And Carver was an ass to me when I first got here. But in fairness to him, he knew about some horrible things that my pack was doing, and he assumed that I knew about their abuses and was okay with it.”

Katrina flopped onto Virginia’s bed next to her and lay down, spreading her arms out. “Whee, comfy bed! I shouldn’t be here,” she added. “You really should be spending your wedding night with your husband. That’s kind of a traditional thing.”

Virginia ignored her suggestion. “Okay, so you don’t hate him. That doesn’t mean that I should be married to him.”

“You guys have had incredible chemistry from the time you first met him. He’s meant to be your mate. You’re just such a stubborn donkey that you haven’t admitted it until now.  This honeymoon will change your mind.”

Virginia let out an unladylike snort of contempt. “The first time I met him, I dumped a pitcher of beer on his head. Because his pack had kidnapped you.”

“Exactly! Sparks flew!” Katrina insisted happily.

“Ugh. You’re still in that honeymoon bliss phase where you think everyone is meant to find their one true love. Excuse me while I barf.” Virginia settled into bed and rolled over with her back to Katrina. “I appreciate your pack saving our butts, but I assure you, once we leave Honeymoon Mountain, I will get the marriage annulled and find an apartment far away from him and far away from my family.”

“All righty then, coughcough noyouwon’t coughcough whosaidthat? Well, I’m off. I actually do have a husband I want to have sex with, because it’s been at least a few hours since he mauled me and I’m feeling rejected.”

“Ew. You’re my cousin. Too much detail.”

“So I shouldn’t tell you that men from the Killingworth Pack are particularly well known for their skill in oral matters?”

“Aaaah! Get out!” Virginia sat up and threw a pillow at Katrina, who dodged it, laughing, and left the room.

Virginia spent the rest of the night cursing her cousin for putting those unwelcome thoughts in her head.  She couldn’t stop thinking of Carver parting her thighs with his strong hands, kissing her hungrily, tasting her, thrusting his tongue inside her…

He never even came into the room, however. He didn’t even try to spend their wedding night with her. Was he still sticking by what he’d said back at the motel room? He was going to wait until she came to him? Well, he could wait until his dick dropped off, because she was never going to ask him for sex.

She woke at sunrise. They had a long drive ahead of them.

As she was about to leave,  Katrina came into her room with a suitcase.  “A little wedding gift. We’re about the same size, so I packed you some of my clothes and some toiletries and stuff. Given that you’re eloping and haven’t had time to pack. That’s terribly romantic, by the way.”

“You just really want me to hurt you, don’t you? Thank you for the clothing. And stop trying to pimp me out.” Virginia opened the suitcase to look inside. “Where did all this lingerie come from?

“Don’t worry, it’s all brand new. I sent some of the girls over to the lingerie shop in town to buy it for you. The honeymoon package.”

“Crotchless panties? Velvet mask? Furry handcuffs? And what’s with all these bottles of edible oils?” she held up a bottle of Kahlua Flavored Love Likker and glared at Katrina. “I told you, there will be no sex. And since I don’t plan on cooking with Kahlua flavored oil, I don’t need it.”

“Talk to me after the honeymoon, babe.” Her cousin winked at her.

              Virginia slammed the suitcase shut and grabbed the handle. “Fine. I’m leaving for my sex-free vacation on Honeymoon Mountain,” she said, and walked out of the room with a scowl on her face.

              Carver had sent a friend from the Killingworth pack to fetch his pickup truck from the casino, and he insisted on driving. As they drove, Virginia texted friends of hers to tell them about the marriage. They’d hear about it on the grapevine anyway, and it would seem weird if she didn’t let them know.

              She was cringing at the thought of having to tell everyone that things hadn’t worked out once the honeymoon was over.  She was probably just going to go hide out on the other side of the country for a few months, maybe in California. She wouldn’t tell her family where she was; she’d let everyone calm down before she checked back in.

              Sally sent her a quick, simple text in return.

Congrats! I hope you enjoy your honeymoon.

              Virginia couldn’t believe it. No interrogation? No demand for details?

              She sent a text back.

Are you all right? You’re acting odd. Haven’t heard much from you lately.

              A reply came quickly.

Everything’s great! I have a new job, actually. I will tell you about it when you get back. Talk to you in a few weeks.

              “Hmmph,” Virginia muttered skeptically, staring at the screen. She wasn’t buying it. Something was off, but she could hardly go running back to Timber Valley right now to interrogate her friend.

              “What’s that?” Carver said.

              “Oh, nothing, just letting all my friends know about our happy union. I’m going to take a nap now, if you don’t mind.” She’d barely slept the night before, and also, if she was sleeping she wouldn’t have to make awkward conversation with her new husband.

              When she woke up, they were high up in the mountains and apparently they’d driven straight into Paradise. Or Switzerland.

              “What is this place?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “It’s beautiful. Did we leave the country?” She wouldn’t put it past him.

              “We’re still in the good old U.S. of A.  We’re in the village of Wysshorn, named after a mountain in the Alps. The town was founded by Swiss shifters who came over here in the 1800s because human villagers there had started to suspect their existence.  A honeymoon lodge was built here in the early 1900s, and since then the whole area has been nicknamed Honeymoon mountain.”

              They were driving into the town center. All the buildings had a Swiss chalet feel to them, with wide gables overhanging porches and decorative latticework lacing the eaves.

              “Ooh, a café! I’m starved! Is that place actually called Café Edelweiss? Can we go there?” As they parked, Virginia perked up considerably.  There was a delicious chill in the air, and in the distance the silver-capped mountain peaks thrust jaggedly up into an azure sky.  The town looked as if it had been scooped up from Switzerland and gently set down in on these mountains. She loved how different it looked from Timber Valley; it made her feel as if she’d finally escaped.

              “My wife’s wish is my command,” Carver said as they climbed out of the car.

              “How about if I command that we don’t pretend we’re husband and wife?” Virginia yawned and stretched.

              “While we’re on our honeymoon? That might raise some suspicions. And then word would get back to your parents. And then they’d come storming up here to take you home.”

              Virginia shuddered at the thought.

              “So we should play it up as much as possible,” Carver continued, and he slung his arm around her shoulders and ran his fingers along her neck, a light, feathery touch that sent ripples of heat through her despite the cool, crisp mountain air.

              “Stop that,” she hissed, but she found herself unable to step away from him. He stopped stroking her instantly, and a part of her howled in protest.

              “Just trying to be helpful.” There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes as they walked into the café. He knew exactly what his touch did to her body, and clearly loved tormenting her.

              A  cheerful, pink-cheeked waitress dressed in lederhosen seated them at a table by the big picture window and handed them menus. The window framed the mountains in the distance like a landscape painting.

“I’m Greta; I’ll be your server today. And congratulations!” she said to them. “You’re staying at Honeymoon Mountain Resort, I can tell.”

              “We’re just about to check in,” Carver said, reaching across the wooden table and stroking Virginia’s hand. She forced a big, bright smile and grabbed his hand between hers. He needed to stop before he stroked her into orgasm right here and she pulled a Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally.

              “How about the fondue? Honey?” She forced that last part. She wanted to order, eat, and get to the resort as fast as possible.  She needed to shift and go for a run soon, to burn off steam. At least she hoped that would work. It hadn’t lately.

              “Excellent choice, my darling bride.”

              When the waitress left, she pulled her hands away and folded them across her chest. Then she smiled at him and said through clenched teeth, “You’re laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”

              “I’m not laying anything. Yet.”

              He looked her right in the eye, and the carnal hunger in his gaze made her want to crawl across the table and publicly mate with him in front of the half-dozen families who were enjoying their fondue. He didn’t have to say a word. His gaze lured her to him and promised sensual delights beyond her imagining.

              Why not just do it? a treacherous little voice in her head whispered enticingly. He’s your husband. All you have to do is ask. You know you want to.

              Because if I do, I’ll be saying this marriage is real and I’ll be married to an Alpha and I will never, ever know freedom. And he wouldn’t tolerate the new path I’ve chosen. And I wouldn’t tolerate him not tolerating it.

              “I need some fresh air. Be right back,” she choked out, and hurried outside.  She took deep breaths, drawing the crisp air into her lungs. Now that she wasn’t sitting right across from him, she felt a little bit more under control.

              She realized that a young woman was walking towards her with a tentative, questioning look on her face. She had dark hair and pale skin and circles under her eyes. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said. “My name is Darlie; I’m the nurse at the local clinic. I see that you’re a healer. Are you here for the skiing or the honeymoon resort?”

              “Honeymoon,” she said.

              Darlie’s face fell. “Oh, never mind, then. Congratulations!” Her smile was strained. Worry was pinching her forehead and she had a nervous air about her.

              “Did you need a healer?” Virginia asked. “I’m around during the day if you need any help.”

              “Are you sure? I mean, our current healer is…she’s taking a break for a few days. We could use the help. But it’s your honeymoon.”  She looked doubtful.

              “Tell me where it is, and I’ll be there at nine a.m.”

              The woman pointed down the street. “Even a few hours would help. It’s walking distance from here. You turn right at the corner and go two blocks and it’s on the right side of the street – you can’t miss it.” She favored Virginia with a smile. “Thank you so much. Ask for me when you come in.”

              She walked away quickly, back in the direction of the clinic, but that faint air of worry lingered in the air after she’d gone.

Chapter Seven

              They were staying in a small cabin close to the main lodge. Their cabin looked like an adorable little Swiss chalet, white and brown, with exposed beams and decorative molding.

              There was one bedroom with a big, sturdy bed. The posts of the bed were topped with carved wooden hearts. Virginia glanced through the doorway and quickly backed away, dropping her suitcase on the floor, but not before she saw the big wicker basket on the bed, filled with various types of naughty honeymoon gifts. She spotted edible underwear and chocolate body butter before she shut the door.

              Damn it, of course a honeymoon suite didn’t have a guest bedroom. Well, someone was sleeping on the couch, because she could not sleep next to Carver all night long, fighting off her raging hormones.

“I’m going for a run,” she said to Carver. She hurried into the bathroom to strip off her clothing. Normally she wasn’t shy about stripping in front of shifters, but she didn’t want to do it in front of Carver. It seemed too intimate.

When she walked into the living room, however, Carver was there, stark naked. She concentrated very hard on not looking at his enormous cock, thick and erect and thrusting up from a thatch of dark, curly hair.

“What are you doing?” she asked, shielding her eyes, which made Carver roar with laughter.

“Going for a run with you. It won’t look good if you go for a run by yourself on your first afternoon here. People might talk.”

She nodded, still avoiding looking at him.

She stepped outside and he followed her, closing the door. Then they both shifted to wolf form. Her wolf was white and had one blue and one green eye even in her shifted state. His was an enormous gray wolf.

She turned and ran into the forest. Carver kept pace with her. They streaked through the quaking aspen and ponderosa pine, leaping over fallen trees and scrambling over rock outcroppings.  There were only a few inches of snow on the ground, but it was enough. It smelled so clean and fresh, Virginia couldn’t resist. She stopped to roll around in it, her heart racing. Carver dropped to the ground and rolled too, and she struggled against the feeling of rightness, of connection. Her wolf wanted to be in his pack. She thought she was Carver’s packmate.

She leaped back to her feet and headed back to the cabin with snow clinging to her fur.  Carver was right alongside her, panting happily as he ran, and for just a brief moment she let herself pretend it would always be like this.

As they ran, an odd scent drifted in the air, and she felt herself sniffing hard, trying to figure out what it was. It was some kind of animal scent, but she couldn’t figure out what kind of animal it was. She’d never experienced that before. There was something about the scent that she didn’t like, an odd sense of something unnatural.

She put it out of her mind when they got back to the cabin, rushing into the bathroom so she could get dressed in privacy.

When dinner time came, they had the option of having their meals delivered to the room or eating at the lodge with other couples.  Virginia was torn between not wanting to have to keep up the charade in front of other couples and not wanting to spend another minute in the room with her husband. Carver was annoying her greatly by sitting there reading a book and being sexy.

Finally, getting out of their room won out.

They trudged up to the lodge as a light snowfall dusted the air like powdered sugar, making everything sparkle under the glistening street lamps that illuminated their way.

The lodge was like a much bigger version of their cottage, with latticework and exposed beams and a steeply pitched roof. Everyone was gathered in the dining room, near a flagstone fireplace with a roaring fire.

Carver and Virginia took their places at the table, where a dozen other couples were chatting happily.

Under other circumstances, this would have been fun. Virginia loved meeting new people, and everyone was glowing with joy and they all had that freshly sexed look about them. Dinner was delicious, with big slabs of prime rib and fluffy baked potatoes dripping in butter and sour cream.

If only she wasn’t living a lie. Carver kept touching her, leaning against her, feeding her bites of his food, stroking the back of her hand, and she couldn’t shake him off in front of all these people.  Every time he touched her, she felt lightning bolts of desire shoot through her body. 

“You two are going to have quite the night tonight, I can tell,” a young female coyote shifter named Tricia said to her.

“They sure are,” her husband Devon said. “Smell those pheromones!”

“Um…uh….” Virginia muttered, and kicked Carver under the table. Hard.

“Oh, we’re embarrassing you. I’m sorry. Devon and I are still in that ‘doing it all day long every day’ phase, and I can tell you are too. Isn’t it wonderful?” Tricia leaned over and passionately kissed her husband.

Then she giggled and looked back at Virginia. “Did you hear about that other couple? All locked up in their cabin, and they told the management that they weren’t planning on leaving their room the whole time they’re here. They just want their meals left on their doorstep three times a day. Now, that’s a honeymoon!”

After dinner, the owners of the lodge, Clifford and Delores, insisted they all go into the lounge area. It was a huge room with a cathedral ceiling, massive picture windows, and flagstone flooring. Plump leather sofas and love seats were grouped in a big half circle facing another fireplace.

Then they all had to play “How well do you know your spouse?” games, with fill-in-the-blank questions like, “Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…” The host would read the question, then each spouse would write down their answer on a card and see if their answers matched.

Ha, Virginia thought. If she answered that one honestly, she couldn’t even imagine his reaction.

Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…my life is nowhere near as safe and predictable as everyone thinks it is. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Instead she gave a nice, safe answer.  I’m petrified of thunderstorms, she wrote on her card. Oddly enough, Carver got that one right. How had he known that?

She was mortified by the end of the game when she’d gotten more than half the questions wrong.  She didn’t know what his favorite color was, or his favorite dish, or his favorite movie. And Carver had somehow kept getting all the questions right.

She’d scored the absolute lowest on the game. She shouldn’t have cared, but it made her look like a woman who couldn’t care less about knowing what her husband liked or wanted. Argh, everyone must be pitying Carver right now, she thought, mortified.

Carver jumped in gallantly. “I’ll be honest here, folks,” he announced, “We didn’t date that long before we realized we were so in love that we had to get married right away. But we’ve got the rest of our lives to learn everything about each other.” This brought forth a chorus of awwwwws from all the couples there.

Then he leaned forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and kissed her. She had no choice but to go along. Her lips parted and he kissed her hungrily, his tongue swirling around hers. He tasted of the port he’d been drinking, and he smelled of sex and his bergamot-scented cologne.

Carver pulled away first, and she sat there with her eyes closed for a second before she leaned back in her seat, flushing.

They were sitting across from an older couple on their second honeymoon – a pair of silver-haired wolf shifters. The man had his hand on his wife’s thigh. They were gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.

              Carver nodded at the older couple.  He leaned in close and breathed in her ear, “Look, honey, that will be us in twenty years.”

              Virginia shot him a look of derision. She leaned in close to him in return, looking as if she were whispering sweet nothings in his ear.  “In your dreams,” she murmured. 

His hand settled on her thigh, and she jumped.

              “You’ll eat those words someday.” His voice was low and he smiled at her, a lazy, knowing smile that sent a rush of moisture between her legs.

“I think we’ll go back to our room now,” she announced. “Thank you for a lovely evening!” She stood up quickly and headed for the lobby without bothering to see if Carver was following, but of course he was.

* * *

              Carver leaned back in his chair and pretended to read, but all the while he watched Virginia with a smile of satisfaction. She could pretend all she wanted, but he could tell how much she wanted him. And he was willing to wait.

              Her pupils were dilated with desire. Her breathing was fast. The delicious scent of her arousal perfumed the air, and she was doing everything she could to avoid him. Hanging out at the other end of the room.  Trying not to walk too close to him.

              He kept finding little ways to get close to her and brush up against her, because he enjoyed her stifled moans of frustration and arousal. Then he’d walk away. He’d told her he wouldn’t push sex on her, and he’d meant it.

              She was sitting at the other end of the room, pretending to be reading when she’d just been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes, when her phone rang. He saw the look on her face when she saw the number. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she stepped out onto the front porch to take the call.

He partially shifted so he could eavesdrop with his enhanced wolf hearing.

He heard her explaining the fake marriage to someone. Interesting. He knew she didn’t want her family to find out, and he knew that if she told anyone in Timber Valley, word would be all over town by the next day. So who was she talking to? It sounded like a male voice on the other end, but he couldn’t make out what the person was saying.

A lover? One whom she was reassuring she wasn’t really married? That thought made the hair sprout on his face and sent his fangs shooting out.

He frowned, concentrating. There was no passion in her voice; she was all business. He really didn’t believe that Virginia would deceive him on that level. If she had a man in her life, she would have told him.

“You’re sure you can find a replacement? I could come if it’s a real emergency… All right then,” he heard her say.

So it was work-related, he thought with relief, forcing his wolf back down.

              She came back in with snow dusting her long, shiny brown hair.  “Isn’t this snow amazing? There’s something about mountain snow that’s just better than regular snow,” she said. “We should go for another run tomorrow.”

              “Yes, we should. Who was that on the phone?” he asked.

              “Nobody.” She shrugged. “Just the clinic back at Timber Valley.” She avoided his eyes when she said that.

              So she was lying. Interesting. Part of him wanted to push it, but he was consciously trying to avoid being the big bossy Alpha she perceived him to be.

              Instead he got his revenge on her for the little lie by seizing her hands between his, bending down and running his lips over the back of her hand.

              She let out a small, pained gasp, and her pupils grew huge.

              “Don’t,” she choked, backing up against the wall.

              He looked at her with big, innocent eyes. “Don’t what?” he asked. “Your hands are cold. I’m just warming them up.”

              “You’re a bastard.” She stifled a whimper but didn’t try to pull away.

              His cock was swollen and straining against his pants, and every time he moved, the friction of the fabric sliding across it drove him mad. But he refused to give in.

              “All you have to do is say the word.” He smiled down at her. “Ask me for it.”

              “Never,” she groaned, her cheeks flushed.

              Good God, he was going to split her in two when she finally gave in. He’d pound her so hard that the walls would shake.

              “That’s not the right word,” he said with a wink, and turned and walked away.

              “I hate you!” she screamed after him as he headed for the bathroom.

              “I’m going to take a shower before I hit the hay,” he called. “Plenty of room for two!”

              “I hope you drown!” she shouted after him as he walked into the bathroom. “And I won’t heal you, either!”

              He let out quiet laughter as he stripped off his clothes.  Of course she’d heal him. She’d healed the dirtbag jackal shifter. She had a deep well of compassion that would never run dry, and it was one of the many things he loved about her.

              He turned the shower on full blast and climbed in.

              He was surprised to see the door to the bathroom open a minute later.

              She walked into the shower, her magnificent body stoking the blazing arousal that roared through him. She kept her pubic hair shaved into a neat little triangle of brown curls, and her pussy lips were bare. Her nipples were swollen and he yearned to take them in his mouth and torment them with his teeth, to hear her moans and shrieks as he suckled her.

              “All right, you win.” She glared up at him.

              “I assure you, we both win.”

              “You are a stuck-up, arrogant—”

He shut her up by kissing her. His mouth devoured hers, hungrily, tongue thrusting into her and probing the recesses of the sweet, silky cave of her mouth.  She whimpered into his mouth, and he nearly lost it right there.

              Then he backed her up against the shower wall and pressed up against her. His rock-hard cock pressed against her stomach. Warm water streamed over them and beaded on her breasts, glistening.

              “Say it,” he commanded her sternly. “Or I’ll walk right out of here.”

              “You would not!”

              He let go of her and took a step back, and she groaned in frustration.

              “Say you want me as much as I want you. And don’t try to say we’ll have a one-night stand, because that’s not what I want from you. Once I have you, I’m never going to be able to stop.”

              She stared up at him, blinking as droplets of water beaded on the thick fringe of her lashes. “All right,” she groaned. “I want you so badly I’m ready to cry.  For as long as we stay here, I’ll be with you.  That’s the best I can do. When we go home…I don’t know what’s going to happen. I really don’t.”

              Not exactly what he wanted, but it was a compromise he could accept. He knew he’d bring her around. “I’ll accept that for now. Mostly because if I don’t bury myself in that sweet pussy of yours, I’m going to die.”

Chapter Eight

Virginia gazed up at him, taking in his intent eyes, his high cheekbones and the plump, wryly curved temptation of his lips. Her eyes dropped lower to his muscular chest, rising and falling in deep, steady breaths, and the taut planes of his stomach. And lower…

She swallowed and met his eyes again. A twitch of his lips told her that he had scented the rush of slick arousal that had moistened her pussy as she took in the eager length of his erect cock. There was a needy intensity in his eyes that made her catch her breath, and the heat radiating from his body made the water feel almost lukewarm in contrast.

“You’re beautiful,” Carver growled. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this.”

She ran a tentative finger down his chest, catching his nipple with the tip and watching with fascinated desire as it beaded under her touch. Drops of water clung to the sparse hair on his chest.

“Oh,” she said, surprised to hear how husky her voice sounded, “I think I know.”

Carver stepped forward to close the narrow distance between them, pressing her back against the cool tiles and providing a shocking contrast to the intoxicating warmth of his skin against hers.

She was sure he must be able to feel the rapid hammering of her heart and scent the arousal that fluttered in her belly and slicked the insides of her thighs. She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted to feel him inside her, thrusting deep. His cock was a delicious length against her belly and she twined her arms around his neck, pressing herself closer to him and squirming in blatant invitation.

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. It was slow at first, tender. His lips were firm, his kisses sweet and assured. She sighed into his mouth, the sheer relief at surrendering to his touch making her knees weak. Then he groaned and kissed her more deeply, working his tongue between her lips. He framed her face in his large hands and tilted her head so he could devour her mouth. Their tongues danced and dueled and Virginia found herself giving desperate little whimpers of need as he ran his hands down her throat and décolletage then kneaded her breasts, glorying in the soft flesh and trapping a nipple between two of his fingers, sending an electric bolt of lust tingling to her clit.

His hands wandered farther down, tracing the curves of her waist and clutching at her hips. Then without warning he broke away from her mouth and hoisted her into the air, bracing her back against the cold tiles and urging her to wrap her legs around his hips, anchoring her effortlessly with a strong hand under each thigh.

They fought for breath for long moments, their lips hovering millimeters apart. The velvety length of Carver’s hard dick slid tantalizingly against the desire-slick folds of her aching pussy, and Virginia found herself mouthing silent pleas for him to enter her, to take her, to utterly possess her.

She was so wet, wanted him so much, that he slid inside her in a single smooth movement that had him seated to the hilt as he held her, squirming and gasping, against the wall. They froze for a moment, panting for air, and then he drove into her again with a swift, sure movement of his hips and she locked her ankles at the small of his back, clawing at his shoulders in an effort to draw him even closer.

He buried his face in the side of her neck and thrust hard, working his hips against her, pounding against her clit and stroking her G-spot with every deep, desperate thrust.

The water pounded down on them, running in rivulets down the smooth muscles of Carver’s back. Virginia dug her fingers into the flexing muscles and cried out, the sensations between her legs building. Her thighs quivered and she moaned and panted as Carver nipped at her collarbone with his teeth then soothed the spot with the flat of his tongue.

She could do nothing but cling to him as he stoked her passion higher with every thrust, filling her again and again then withdrawing to leave her feeling empty and needy again.

A heated, heavy sensation swirled in her belly and she groaned, mindless with pleasure, then called out his name as he carried her, trembling and panting, over the brink of orgasm and she fell into mindless oblivion, her whole body wracked by spams of unbearable pleasure.

Carver continued to thrust, his brow creased with concentration and the muscles of his jaw clenched, as she rode through every last thrill of the orgasm.  Then he gritted his teeth and withdrew, setting her down on unsteady legs and wrapping his arms around her for support. She was so limp with pleasure that without the strength of his muscular arms, she might have fallen.

She laid her head on his chest and could feel his heart pounding its heavy, hypnotic beat and the frantic rise and fall of his chest as he struggled for breath, for control. His cock was still as hard as iron, throbbing with his need for release.

When she could speak again she looked up at him, blinking beads of water out of her eyes. His pupils were dilated with lust and there was a flush of color on his high cheekbones.

“You didn’t come,” she murmured, feeling suddenly shy after such a wanton release of her inhibitions. “How are you going to get this – us – out of your system if you don’t—”

He gave her a lingering kiss that cut off her words, then looked down at her, his eyes steady and serious. “I don’t want to get you out of my system,” he said. “I want to get into your system.” He kissed her again. “I want to get under your skin.”

He swept her up into his arms, holding her against his chest, and carried her through into the bedroom with long, purposeful strides.

He laid her gently on the bed and looked at her for a long time as she lay naked and exposed on the coverlet.

She shivered, partly because of the drops of water cooling on her skin but mostly because of the frank appraisal in those jewel-like eyes. A tingling between her thighs and a sort of restless desire had her shifting on the bed, then she sat up, puzzled, as Carver strode over to her suitcase and started rummaging among the spare clothes and the outrageous lingerie her cousin had talked her into packing. Light dawned when he emerged with the pink fluffy handcuffs and a bottle of flavored body oil.

“A little bird told me—” he began.

“Katrina,” Virginia said, then let out a stream of exceptionally unladylike curse words. “It’s a conspiracy.”

He smiled smugly and stalked towards her, cuffs in one hand and body oil in the other.

“I don’t think…” Virginia stammered.

He settled between her thighs and silenced her with a brief kiss. “I don’t want you to think,” he insisted. “I just want you to feel.”

He ran his fingers up the sensitive inside of her arm, raising it gently over her head, and fastened one of the soft fur-covered cuffs around her wrist before looping the chain around a slat in the headboard and securing the other. It left her breasts upthrust towards him, her nipples peaked, and he took one rose-colored tip between his teeth and gave it a playful nip before drawing back to look at her again. She squirmed.

Carver grinned at her, then squeezed a generous pool of oil into his cupped palm before rubbing his hands briskly together, generating friction. When he placed his palms on her breasts, she gasped at the slick heat, and he ran his hands down her ribcage, spreading the scented oil over her skin and leaving a trail of burning sensation with his fingers. He spread the oil over her belly, allowing a few drops to puddle in her navel, then coating her bare pussy lips with the warm liquid, gently tickling her clit and gathering some of her intimate moisture before pulling his hand away and sucking on his fingers.

“Delicious,” he murmured, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the oil.

Then he bent his head to lick and suckle her breasts, holding himself above her on strong, muscled arms. His mouth was hot, his tongue clever, and she moaned and arched her back, pressing closer. She ached to run her fingers into his hair, but she was pulled up short by the chain of the handcuffs. Although she squirmed, she was trapped, helpless to fight the wicked pleasure of his tongue and teeth on her sensitive flesh.

He worked his way down her body, trailing tender kisses over her stomach and making the muscles twitch as she giggled and writhed against him, then dipping his tongue briefly into her navel and licking the flavored oil from his lips. He parted the lips of her pussy, separating the damp petals with deft fingertips before lapping at her slit, then circling the tip of his tongue around her clit. She gasped as sensation shot straight to her core, her nerve-endings still singing after the soul-shattering orgasm he’d given her in the shower.

She parted her thighs even wider and he ate at her pussy, sucking and licking and lashing her with his tongue until she was crying out in wordless ecstasy, trembling on the verge of coming harder than she ever had before.

He pulled away and she could have wept, aching for him to return to her needy clit and drive her wild with his talented tongue. But then he plunged two fingers inside her and she was lost in the building swirl of sensation that melted her spine and liquefied her limbs.

He took his cock in his hand and briefly closed his eyes as he ran his fingers over the head, spreading the drop of pearly precum that had gathered there as he touched and tasted her. Then he drove his fingers into her, almost roughly, as he pumped his shaft. His breathing grew labored and his lips parted as he matched the movement of his fingers in her pussy to the rhythm of his fist around his cock. His eyes never left hers as she moaned her bliss, clamping her thighs around his hand.

Carver didn’t stop the push of his digits into her drenched pussy, driving her higher and impossibly higher until she was all but screaming with the insistent, unstoppable waves of pleasure that washed over her whole body and made her cunt clench.

He gave a low, desperate moan, pumping his shaft faster and harder until he froze, groaned again, and spilled his cum over her belly and thighs in sticky spurts of released passion. He shuddered above her, fighting for breath, then rolled to one side before gently releasing her wrists from the cuffs.

It was a long time before they regained their breath and their senses.

Carver went to the bathroom – Virginia didn’t know how he could stand, let alone walk – and returned with a warm, wet washcloth, which he used to tenderly clean the flavored oil and the evidence of their passion from her skin.

All the while she watched his face, feeling a sort of exhausted wonderment at the gentleness of this strong man as he concentrated on his task.

Then he lay down beside her, pulled her against his chest and tucked the coverlet around them. He gently stroked her hair and kissed her temple. There was no need for words.

Exhausted, replete, feeling safe in his arms and surrounded by his scent, Virginia allowed her eyes to drift closed. A deep sense of contentment suffused her as she allowed herself to fall into the embrace of sleep.

Chapter Nine

              The next morning, she got up early while he still slept.  He was on his side, turned towards her, his face beautiful in slumber.  A part of her yearned to stay with him today, just to lie there in his arms and talk to him, to make love to him again, to run in the woods, to stare at his handsome face.  She shoved that part of her into the back corner of her mind; she couldn’t let herself get dependent on him. 

              She showered and dressed quietly, and slid silently out the door and shut it behind her so she wouldn’t wake him.

              As she walked out, a faint, strange odor drifted through the air. It was the same odd scent she’d smelled when she’d been out running the day before.  She trudged through the snow to follow it, and realized that it was lingering outside their bedroom window.  She didn’t see any footprints, but then it had snowed in the night and had probably covered them.

              She’d ask the lodge owners about it later, she decided.  Surely they would know if there was some unique species of animal here.

              The scent made her feel strange on a deep, visceral level. Wrong. Something’s wrong. It made no sense; it wasn’t even that strong, and it was definitely some kind of animal…why did it bother her so?

She didn’t want to take Carver’s truck and leave him without transportation, so she shifted and ran the two miles into town, changing into her clothes when she got to the outskirts.  She found the clinic easily, at the end of a small side street. She walked through the door, introduced herself to the receptionist and asked for Darlie.

Before the receptionist had a chance to do anything, a lean, angry-looking woman stalked out of a room next to the receptionist’s office. She had long, stringy brown hair and a haggard face, with deep lines carved into her forehead. As she pushed her hair out of her face, Virginia realized her hands were shaking.

It took Virginia a moment to recognize her.  Natasha Stinson. She was a very famous healer in shifter circles, one of the most powerful in the nation.  She’d been based out of California but spent a lot of her time travelling around the country to teach and lecture – a decade ago, anyway. Virginia had learned about her during her training. In fact, her teacher had compared Virginia to her, in terms of power and talent, numerous times.

Virginia vaguely remembered hearing something about Natasha giving up the lecture circuit to settle down.  Apparently this was where she’d settled.

Virginia was sensitive to people’s energies, and she picked up on a deep sense of exhaustion from this woman. She wouldn’t have the strength to do much healing.

Natasha apparently wasn’t one for social niceties. “Darlie mentioned that she’d asked you to come in here today. She shouldn’t have done that without consulting me,” she said without bothering to say introduce herself or say hello.

Virginia saw Darlie standing  in the doorway with a frown on her face.

“I’m Virginia Battle. Pardon me, I mean Virginia Lawrence. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I don’t mind at all.”

She glanced around the waiting room.  As usual there were a lot of children there. Shifter children hadn’t developed their full healing powers yet.About a dozen people were waiting, mostly with minor ailments. However, there were several families sitting there with young children who had measles.  That was the kind of thing a healer would be called in for, because measles could cause serious complications.  Lesser ailments were generally handled by regular medicine.

Natasha shook her head, her demeanor icy. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. We don’t need you.”

Wow. This was something Virginia had never seen before. Healers were a very supportive bunch, and they always helped each other.

The receptionist, a bobcat shifter, hung her head, looking embarrassed. 

Darlie strode over. “Natasha, that was completely unnecessary. She came in here and offered to help.”

Anger flared in Natasha’s eyes. “No, Darlie, what was completely unnecessary was you disrespecting me and going behind my back to sneak this woman in here. If you do it again, I believe you should seek other employment.”

“How about today?”  Darlie fired right back at her. “Because I can’t stand by and watch this happening.”

“Then don’t,” Darlie said coldly.

“Well, sorry to impose,” Virginia said, and she left with a sympathetic glance back at Darlie.

What the hell? she fumed as she let the door slam behind her. It wasn’t as if she’d been seeking to move into her territory permanently. Was that what Natasha thought, that she wanted to replace her? As if there wouldn’t be room for two healers, even if Virginia actually had wanted to move in on her.

As she walked out of the parking lot, she heard Darlie calling out behind her. “Wait up!” She turned and waited as Darlie jogged over to her.

“I’m going for breakfast,” Virginia said.  “Care to join me? I hope I didn’t just cost you your job.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. This has been a long time coming, and I actually don’t think the firing’s going to last long,” Darlie said, shaking her head impatiently.  “She doesn’t own the clinic, she just works there. Also my daddy’s the mayor – did I mention that? Anyway, I’d love breakfast.”

They went to the Café Edelweiss. After the waitress set menus and coffee down in front of them, Virginia said, “So what gives back there, anyway?”

A look of caution came over Darlie’s face. “It’s…Natasha is very proud. And stubborn.  She insists on doing things her own way.”“What’s wrong with her? I couldn’t sense a specific illness in her.”

“Terminal bitch syndrome?” Darlie let out a semi-hysterical laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t say that – she’s really sick. Anyway, let’s look at that menu.”

It was obvious that she didn’t want to discuss it further, so they sat there and made idle chit-chat over breakfast.  Darlie had grown up there, was married to a local lumberjack who, like Darlie, was a wolf shifter. They’d been married for five years and didn’t have cubs yet. Virginia privately wondered why. Did they not want them? Were they not able to? But that wasn’t the kind of thing one asked; if Darlie wanted to volunteer the information, she would.

They were finishing up when Carver walked in, looking annoyed. 

Darlie glanced at him, then back at Virginia. “Husband? Trouble in paradise?” Darlie stood up quickly.  “I’m going to pay for our breakfast. It’s the least I can do after this morning. No, I insist,” she added as Virginia tried to protest.

As Darlie left, Carver sat down at the table across from her. “Waking up to find my wife gone wasn’t quite the morning-after I was hoping for,” he said with an edge to his voice.

“I went into the clinic to help out because a nurse asked me to yesterday.” Virginia pushed her plate away from her. “But it turned out that the healer didn’t need any help, so I left.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?” Carver raised an eyebrow. He was sitting up straight, body tense, forehead furrowed.

She looked up defensively. “I already told you I don’t need to have someone shadowing my every move.”

He shot her an angry look, and she could see a flash of hurt in his eyes. “This isn’t shadowing, Virginia.  This is me expecting you to treat me with basic courtesy. I was worried when I woke up and found out you’d vanished.” Before she could answer, he stood. “Do you want a ride back to the lodge?”

“Thanks, I’ll do the ol’ shift-and-run.”  The last thing she wanted was to be sitting next to Carver with him radiating anger and disapproval. She could hang out with her father if she wanted that kind of treatment.

He nodded curtly without bothering to reply, and walked out.

Chapter Ten

A sharp twinge jabbed inside her chest as she watched him leave. She suddenly realized that she wanted to tell him about how weird the village’s healer had behaved, and also talk about the strange smell outside their cabin. She wanted to just share her day with him, sit there and talk to him.

She spent the rest of the morning glumly wandering around the downtown area, then drove back to the lodge.

When she got there, Carver was gone. He’d left a note for her taped to their door  – Gone for a run.

Just as well, she thought. He was probably still mad at her and she didn’t want to get in a fight.

She spent the afternoon reading. She didn’t want to go up to the main house by herself, because she was afraid it would look odd.

Around mid-afternoon, she called an older healer she knew, a woman who had been acquainted with Natasha back in the day.

“Virginia!” Leslie said. “What a surprise! Why are you calling me from your honeymoon?”

Oh my God, Virginia thought, stifling a groan. The woman lived in Wyoming and she knew about Virginia’s marriage? How was she ever going to explain this?

“I just had a quick question. I was going to help out at the local clinic here, but the healer there, Natasha Stinson, acted mortally offended and threw me out.  It was weird, because she seemed really weak and tired, like she’d just healed a whole football team from critical injuries, but she wouldn’t accept my help.  I know she used to be pretty famous in healer circles. What do you know about her?”

Leslie gave a snort. “Doesn’t surprise me that she acted that way. So, Honeymoon Mountain, that’s where she went. The thing with Natasha – she was very talented, but she was also far too aware of it. She just became more and more full of herself as more and more people started coming to her with the most difficult cases and she always healed them when other healers had failed.  She just got so rude, and generally unpleasant to be around, that people began turning against her and gradually fewer and fewer packs invited her to visit. Last I heard, she seemed to have had some kind of mental breakdown.”

“What do you mean? Was she actually harming anyone, or threatening people?”

“Oh, no, she was going on and on about how she could bring people back from the dead and cure any disease, even the incurable ones, and then she had a big falling out with the Council of Elders for some reason. And disappeared. And we all said good riddance.”

The Council of Elders didn’t usually deal with healers; they ensured that all of the shifters followed their code of law. Then again, Natasha seemed as if she could pick a fight with just about anybody.

“Huh. I’d always heard how brilliant she was, how she discovered new herbs and uses for them, and taught people to enhance their healing powers and all that stuff,” Virginia mused. “The healer from my pack was a big fan. Never heard what a bitch she was. But she really is.”

“Last time I saw her, which was eleven years ago, she came out to my pack’s lands to teach. While I was healing a young boy with pneumonia, she came over and literally pushed me out of the way and insisted on taking over, then told the parents that it was a good thing she’d gotten there in time or he might have died. I’ve healed plenty of people with pneumonia.”  Leslie’s voice took on an offended tone. Virginia couldn’t blame her. “Hey, if you run into her again, would you please let her know that I said she can kiss my furry ass?”

“Tempting. I just might,” Virginia said with a laugh. “All right, well, I’d better get back to honeymooning. See you soon.” She winced as she hung up.  Honeymooning. The lie was getting bigger and bigger. Now it was a nationwide lie.

And where the hell was Carver? Why wasn’t he here annoying her?

Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to call his cell and try to track him down. She was right and he was wrong and she was not a stubborn ass.

Instead she shifted again and ran by herself until she was tired, then went back to the cabin and showered. Carver still wasn’t there.

It was late afternoon, and she felt annoyed. Shouldn’t he at least have told her how late he’d be out?

She wished she could call Sally and bitch about it, but she couldn’t tell Sally what was up.  And she didn’t want to call her cousin, because then she’d also have to admit that she’d had super-hot sex with her husband, and Katrina would be unbearably smug.

All right, she grudgingly acknowledged to herself. Maybe she should have told Carver where she was going that morning. Maybe that was common courtesy between friends, which they sort of were. Friends who were married to each other and who had hot sex.

“When did my life get so weird?” she said out loud. Unfortunately, there was nobody there to answer.

Really bored now, she headed back to the main lodge. Carver was already there, sitting with Tricia and Devon and the hotel owners, sipping brandy from a crystal snifter.

“Done with your nap?” Carver called out to her. That was Carver, always covering for her.

“Yes, thanks. I feel utterly refreshed.” She sat down next to him on the leather sofa. She could tell he was still hurt; that mischievous gleam in his gaze had been replaced by a polite, social friendliness.  He didn’t put his arm around her or do anything to sexually tease her, she noticed. Maybe he’d given up on her.  She guessed that would be easier for them both, but the thought sent a surprising feeling of gloom and loneliness through her.

“I knew he was going to wear you out!” Tricia said with a wink as Delores poured her a brandy.

Virginia managed a weak smile. 

“Delores, I smelled something really odd recently,” she said to change the subject.  “I smelled it when I went for a run yesterday, and then again this morning right outside our bedroom window.”

“Define ‘odd’,” Carver said with a frown of concern on his face.

“It smelled kind of like an animal, but it wasn’t like any animal I’ve ever smelled before.  And it smelled…off. Different. Wrong. I can’t even explain it. Did you notice it?”

“Now that you mention it, I did scent something kind of strange when we went for that run, but I didn’t really put a lot of thought into it at the time,” Carver said. “I didn’t smell anything this morning, but it was pretty windy for a while there, which might have dispersed the scent.”

“Ooh, it’s the return of the Monster of Honeymoon Mountain,” Clifford said dramatically.

“Oh, dear, don’t.” Delores shot him a reproving look. “It’s not funny.”

But he’d seized everyone’s interest.

“What monster?” Devon asked eagerly.

“Ten years ago in the village, there was a terrible fire at a local family’s house,” Clifford intoned dramatically. “The house was burned to cinders. The mother, father, and two children weren’t just burned, they were basically charcoal. And a local man swore that as the flames leaped higher and higher, before the firefighters arrived, he smelled something inhuman and saw huge, dark, monstrous shapes running away from the house.” Clifford’s voice grew deeper and more melodramatic as he described it.

“A drunk local man,” Delores added.

“Monsters that set fire to a house?” Virginia said skeptically.

“There were a few more sightings after that,” Clifford continued, undeterred. “There were different people who swore they saw these dark shapes that resembled some monstrous, distorted beast, lurking in the forest near the village. An evil, beastly pair.  And the one thing in common that everyone mentioned was that odd smell.”

There was a long moment of silence, as the couples stared at each other, wide-eyed. Tricia clutched at her husband’s arm, and he hugged her protectively.

Finally Virginia cleared her throat and broke the silence.

“It makes a good campfire tale,” Virginia said. “You just need to throw in a hook hand hanging off someone’s car door.”

Delores shook her head. “That was all before our time, anyway. We moved here, bought the lodge and renovated it five years ago. And I’m sure there weren’t any monsters, because nobody has seen or spoken of them since the year of the fire, from what I’ve heard.”

              “Nonetheless, if something strange is sniffing outside the bedroom window, you need to be careful. You shouldn’t run in the woods by yourself anymore,” Carver said.

              “Oh, please, I can take care of myself,” Virginia scoffed.

              Then she saw his expression change. “Yes. You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he said, his tone harsh.

              Silence fell on the group.

              “Well, back to the cabin!” Virginia said brightly. She stood. “Delores and Clifford, thank you for the scary entertainment and the drinks. We’ll see you tomorrow!”

              She headed for the door with Carver by her side, simmering with resentment. Neither of them spoke as they walked back to the cabin.

              “I’ll sleep on the couch,” she said when they walked through the door.

              “Fine.” He nodded and headed straight for the bedroom.

              Wow. He hadn’t even tried to argue. The honeymoon literally was over, she thought with a dull ache in her chest.

Chapter Eleven

              She slept poorly, tossing and turning all night. Her mind knew that she and Carver weren’t speaking, but the animal within her screamed for release. And only Carver would do.  She wanted to be in bed with him again, wrapped up in his arms, moving underneath him…

              She woke up early to a knocking on the door. Who would be visiting her cabin here?

              Hugging her plaid flannel pajamas to her, she padded over to the door.

To her surprise, Darlie stood there on the doorstep, wringing her hands nervously.

              “I am really, really sorry to bother you again on your honeymoon. I wouldn’t come if it wasn’t desperate,” she said. “The clinic called me in this morning and un-fired me.  Yesterday Natasha was only able to heal a couple of people and then she passed out. She had to be taken home, and she hasn’t come in today  – her husband said she’s too sick.  Several of the families with measles are back. They never got treated yesterday and now their kids are really, really sick. Like life-threateningly sick.”

              “Good God, why are we still talking?” Virginia grabbed her purse and pushed past her, running out the door still in her pajamas and slippers.

              “Do you want to get dressed?” Darlie asked, following as Virginia sprinted over to Darlie’s car, which was still running.

              “Nope. I’m good. It’s an emergency – let’s hit the road. People may judge me if they choose.” She glanced back at the cabin. “Damn it. I didn’t tell Carver where I was going.”

              She couldn’t take any time to run back inside, so she reached into her purse, grabbed her cell phone and called him as they drove; it went to voicemail. She hung up and sent him a text.

Going to the clinic again, some kids are really sick with measles. I’ll text you when I’m done.

              Darlie steered expertly down the country roads, zipping around corners with ease, and they were at the clinic within minutes.

              None of the cubs were past Virginia’s help, she realized with enormous relief. She quickly assessed which ones were the sickest, healed them first, and moved on.  She knelt next to them, hands on their feverish little bodies, and poured all the strength from her body into theirs.

She healed all seven of the sick kids while their worried parents hovered over her and wrung their hands.

              After she’d healed the last one and the grateful mother had carried her out of the examination room, she leaned back in her chair, dizziness swirling around her. 

              “Whoa. Maybe you should have paced yourself a little.” Darlie sat down next to her and handed her a big mug of coffee.

              “Couldn’t. They were really sick – it needed to be taken care of immediately. I’ll be fine, I just need a few minutes to recover.” Virginia took a really big sip of the coffee, enjoying its bittersweet taste as it rolled down her throat.

              “Take all the time you need. There aren’t any other urgent cases.”

              Virginia nodded, took another swig, then leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. “Darlie, I’m just curious. Some of the kids…there’s an interesting genetic mutation in their blood.  Three of them.  It doesn’t seem to affect them in any way, but it might be worth referring them for further testing.”

              Darlie shook her head, looking hesitant. “In all honesty, the parents probably wouldn’t go for it. The town itself is also a fairly private community, in its own way.”

              “Well, they seem perfectly healthy, so I guess there’s no need.” Virginia had obviously ventured into sensitive territory.

              A bell chime sounded. “Oh, that means a new patient walked in – let me go see what they need,” Darlie said.

              Virginia sat back and drank more coffee, and a minute later Darlie poked her head through the door.

              “Hey, you’re lucky. You’ve got one more urgent case, and it’s an incredibly hot, sexy wolf.”

              “Can’t be sexier than my husband, because that’s not possible,” Virginia said without thinking, then she nearly choked on her coffee. Had those words just come out of her mouth? They had. And it had felt so natural.

              She really missed him, she realized. She missed him so much she could swear that she scented him there. In fact…

              “Well, well, that just did my ego a world of good.” Carver was standing in the doorway with a huge grin on his face. “Of course, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

              Virginia cleared her throat. “Carver! You startled me! I texted you to let you know where I was.” Then she glowered at Darlie. “Very funny. Now, he’ll be unbearably smug all day.”

              “Ha! You two are adorable. I’m glad you made up.” Darlie beamed at them both happily.  “You should take her to get something to eat,” Darlie said to Carver. “She did a lot of healing this morning. She was a healing maniac.”

              “She’s a maniac, all right.” Carver walked over as Virginia stood. Her legs were shaky. “Whoa. You all right? You’re a little pale.”

              She leaned on him as they walked out. “I’m fine,” she assured him. “My strength is coming back already.” It was. Carver was warm and smelled delicious and his energy and strength seemed to flow into her.

              “I came to apologize,” Carver added.

              “You did?” Virginia asked, surprised.

              “Yes. I overreacted last night when you said you can take care of yourself. I snapped at you in front of a bunch of people, and actually, you should just punch me really hard right now. That was completely unacceptable of me.”

              “I would if I thought it would hurt,” Virginia said regretfully, “but you’re just one big slab of muscle and I doubt you’d even feel it.”

              “You could use a baseball bat or something. I’d feel that a little bit,” Carver suggested.

              “No, I owe you an apology too. I shouldn’t have just snuck out without telling you where I was going. You’re right, it was rude. I wouldn’t do that to any of my friends. I guess I’m still just super sensitive because of my crazy family. I can’t believe they haven’t followed us here to spy on me.”

              Carver steered her into the café.  “You know, seriously, I can’t believe it,” she said. She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe it,” she mused. “They’re here somewhere. I know it.”

              “Or you’re a crazy woman. I mean, you’re my crazy woman, and I love that about you,” Carver added hastily. “I mean they couldn’t be at the lodge, right? You’d have scented them or spotted them.”

              “What about that couple who are staying in their room the whole time and never coming out?” she asked.

              As Carver ordered for her, she called the lodge’s main office and spoke to Delores. “I’m just wondering, some friends of mine said they might come up here, but I haven’t seen them around,” she said, as Carver shook his head and rolled his eyes at her.  “The people who were staying in that cabin and never coming out…is their last name Battle?”

              “Oh, no. It’s Jorgennsen,” Delores said. “They’re from upstate New York.”

              They could have used a fake name, she thought. “Is the guy a big, beefy-looking wolf?”

              “Nope.  Meek and mild-looking.  He seems very nice. He and his wife are so in love, it just melts your heart.”

              “Thank you,” Virginia said as the waitress set a basket of fresh, hot rolls in front of them. Carver was laughing at her.

              “What?” she demanded. “You don’t know my family like I do. They may not be in that cabin, but they’re here somewhere.”             

Virginia and Carver ended up heading back their cabin after they’d finished eating, at Darlie’s insistence. She promised she’d call Virginia if there were any emergencies, but she refused to take up any more time on their honeymoon, she said.

Virginia felt a strong sense of anticipation as Carver parked the car, a pulsing of desire that throbbed throughout her body and made it hard to concentrate. She wanted Carver. She wanted him badly. She’d promised him that they could be together as man and wife while they stayed there, and it was certainly important to keep a promise, wasn’t it? Very important.

In fact, it was so important that she should probably rip his clothes off as soon as they walked through the door. So that he could see that she was a woman who kept her promises.

Good God, she’d become so lust-crazed that she was babbling even in her private thoughts.

“No, that last bit was out loud,” Carver said, grinning hugely. “But I’d love to hear what you were saying in your head right before that.”

“Argh!” Her cheeks flamed red with embarrassment. “It was all that healing – it scrambled my brain!”

“Of course it did.”

Smug bastard. She shouldn’t have said he was sexier than anyone earlier. Now there’d be no living with him.

“The door is ajar,” Carver said as they walked towards the cabin.  He stopped. “I smell it. Do you smell it?”

“Yes. That thing. Whatever it was. I smell it really strongly this time.” Alarm blossomed inside her. Damn Clifford and his ghost stories. “It’s been inside our cabin.”

              Chapter  Twelve

Fur shot through Carver’s skin, and a low growl rumbled up from his throat.  It angered him on a primal level. Danger. Danger to his woman.

              “Stay here,” he said brusquely. He flung the door open and walked in to the living room.

The scent hung heavy in the air, sharp and offensive to his nostrils.  It was entirely unnatural.  His natural instinct was to recoil, to move away from it, and he never recoiled from anything.

He stood and listened for a moment. He heard nothing; whatever had been there was almost certainly gone now.

Couch cushions had been tossed onto the floor and a vase from a side table had been knocked over. Other than that, nothing else was disturbed.

He walked into the bedroom, where he saw the comforter and pillows scattered on the floor and the nightstand lying on its side.

Nothing was disturbed in the kitchen or the bathroom – but on returning to the living room, he realized there was another smell there. It was the smell of a male wolf, and it was somehow familiar to him. He snarled instinctively; a male trespassing on his territory?

“You can come in,” he called to Virginia.

She walked in and slowly scanned the room, then walked around the cabin with him.

“I smell the creature, or creatures, but I also smell someone else,” he said. “A male wolf was here too.”

She nodded and sniffed, then confusion clouded her features.  “I swear to God, I smell Edward,” she said.

“I think you’re right. I haven’t been around him as much as you, but I think you’re right. That little mutt just made a fatal error.”

Virginia winced. “Maybe you could just talk to him first.”

“After he broke in to my honeymoon suite looking for my wife?” Carver struggled to keep his rage down as his fur itched underneath his skin.  He knew that Edward was absolutely no threat to him, but the insult, the offense of any wolf putting the moves on an Alpha’s wife…it was unforgiveable.

“I know, I know.  It was a really stupid thing for him to do. I’d really appreciate it if you gave the pathetic little bastard one last chance,” she pleaded. “Only one, I swear, and then if he ever comes around again, he’s pretty much issued you a Death Challenge.”

“We’ll see.”  That was the best he could offer, and it was a huge concession. Carver didn’t want to distress his bride, but he also didn’t know if he could keep his fury under control when he found Edward. And find the little weasel he would, no matter how long it took.

Virginia looked around the room, puzzled.  “You know, not that much is broken. The damage could be a lot worse. Given how…awful, how wrong, these things smell, I somehow would have expected the room to be completely destroyed.”

“True, but God only knows what those things would have done if you’d been here when they broke in. Let’s go back to the lodge where there’s more people, and then I’m going to do some tracking.”

When they told Clifford and Delores what had happened, they both burst out with exclamations of dismay.

“Nothing was stolen?” Delores asked, looking puzzled.

Virginia shook her head. “Nothing was stolen. A few things were knocked over. It’s very odd.  Have the other guests mentioned anything?”

“No, and I’m sure they would have, but I’ll go start calling them all right now to make sure. And I’ll call the sheriff,” Delores said, and hurried behind the counter, where she grabbed the phone.

“Maybe we should have locked our doors,” Virginia mused.

“We’ll probably need to start doing that until this is resolved. We’ve never needed to before,” Clifford said.  Shifters typically didn’t lock their doors. They lived in small towns; they all knew each other. If somebody was a bad apple, they were typically discovered pretty quickly and either moved on out or were culled from the pack. Shifter justice was harsh but efficient.

Carver growled impatiently. “I need to get out there and start tracking,” he said.

“The sheriff will be here in a few minutes,” Delores called from behind the desk. “He’s asking that you wait until he gets here.”

Carver nodded, stifling the urge to argue. He wanted to get out there right now, but he’d respect the local Alpha’s request. He and Virginia settled in to wait. Sheriff Peter Marsh, who arrived ten minutes later with five deputies, was also the local pack’s Alpha. He was a man in his fifties, his face lined and his hair shot through with gray.  Privately, Carver immediately noticed that the man was one of the weaker Alphas he’d ever encountered, and he could sense it in the way his men behaved towards him. It wasn’t blatant, but they weren’t particularly deferential, interrupting him several times and shooting him looks of impatience as he slowly drawled his questions.

              When the sheriff and his men went to Carver and Virginia’s cabin so they could pick up the scent, Sheriff Marsh stopped before they even walked through the front door.  His jaw set with anger.

              “That’s the same scent that I picked up at my sister’s home when it burned down ten years ago,” he said, his tone turned grim.

              “I didn’t realize it was your sister and her family,” Carver said, nodding sympathetically.  “My condolences.”

              “My sister, her husband, their two children.” The sheriff’s face twitched in a grimace. “My son was born that year. He never even got to meet them.”

Carver felt the anger inside him swelling. Shifter women and cubs, murdered? Not even safe in their own homes? He wanted to get out there and rend flesh with his fangs. “Let’s go out and find these monsters and make sure they don’t hurt anybody else.”

* * *

“There they are,” Delores said.  “All of them,” she added to Virginia, who let out a sigh of relief.  Most of the male guests had joined the hunt, forming teams and fanning out over the countryside. Virginia and the other females had gathered inside the lodge and downed brandy and tried to distract themselves.

The men ran up to the front door in one big pack, shifted, and came inside the mud room entrance to get dressed. They didn’t look happy as they trooped into the living room.

But on the bright side, everyone was alive and nobody was bleeding, Virginia thought. She felt the tension inside her uncoil as Carver walked over to her and settled down next to her on the couch.

“We didn’t find anything,” Sheriff Marsh said, shaking his head. “We followed the scent, but they made it down to the river, where we lost them. We’re going to be stationing twenty of my pack out here around the clock until we catch those things. We’re also going to send patrols out into the woods every day.”

“Edward did the same thing – ran to the river, so we lost him,” Carver added, speaking quietly to Virginia.

She was actually relieved. She’d feel terrible if Carver killed Edward, and she couldn’t believe that Edward had been stupid enough to pursue a woman who had been claimed by an Alpha. Surely he didn’t think he could stand up against Carver in a fight? He wouldn’t last ten seconds.

“I understand, under the circumstances, if you want to end your stay here early. We’d issue refunds,” Clifford said to the assembled group.

“Hell, no. We’re not going to run out on you while you’re in danger,” Devon said, and the other shifters there nodded. Shifters might scrap with each other frequently, but when faced with a major threat, they always banded together.

“We’ll go out on patrol with you,” Carver agreed. “I do think that everyone should move to the main lodge, if you have enough room for us. Not quite as much privacy, but much safer.”

“Absolutely!” Delores said.  “We’ll get your rooms ready immediately.”

              Virginia and Carver hastily packed their clothes, wrinkling their noses at the bitter scent in the room, which lingered even though all the doors had been left open.

              They were relocated to a room at the far end of the hallway on the first floor of the main lodge.  It was a generously sized room, with a hot tub and a big, sturdy four-poster bed. 

              Delores confided that the loved-up couple in the far cabin had insisted that they would be fine, and refused to come to the main lodge. They’d promised that they would call if they heard or smelled anything suspicious.

              “Isn’t that romantic,” she sighed dreamily. “Well, you two call if you need anything.” She shut the door and left them alone.

              “Well, this honeymoon is turning out to be far more exciting than I expected,” Virginia sighed, setting her suitcase down by the closet.

              “Hey!” Carver’s tone was indignant. “You thought a honeymoon with me was going to be boring? Okay, that just got added to the list.”

              “List of what?” Virginia scoffed.

              His lips curled in a slow, sensual grin that made her stomach flip-flop. “List of reasons that I’m going to spank your hot ass right now. Let’s see, didn’t tell me where you were going yesterday, thought our honeymoon would be boring, and generally gave me a hard time from the minute I first met you.” He rubbed his hands together. “You’re going to be sitting down very gingerly for the rest of the night.”

              “Oh,” Virginia breathed, and she felt her nipples swell into tight little buds.  Carver moved towards her slowly, with a feral gleam in his eyes. She met his gaze challengingly, leaning against the footboard of the bed.

              “Tell you what. If you can catch me, you can spank – hey!” she shrieked as he grabbed her, sat down, and flipped her over so she was lying across his knees. It happened so fast she barely had time to catch her breath.

              “You were saying?” he taunted as he yanked down her pants. She squirmed and kicked, but he just pinned her arm behind her back and ran his free hand lightly over the skin of her butt cheeks. “You sure didn’t put up much of a fight.”

              “You son of a bitch!”  How dare he mock her? She writhed, but he had her pinned and helpless, and she was panting so hard with desire that it made her dizzy.

              “Time for your punishment. I’m thinking ten smacks on your delightful ass ought to do it. Then I’m going to make you beg me to let you come. And if I’m feeling generous, I might.”

              “Screw you!”

              “Okay, twelve smacks it is. Care to make it fifteen?”

              She gritted her teeth and kept silent, tensing as she felt him raising his arm in the air.

Chapter Thirteen

The first blow wasn’t hard, just a light, brisk smack that warmed her bottom. She caught her breath and squirmed on his lap as he gently ran his hand over her buttock, kneading the flesh and allowing his fingers to play over the slight tingling of her skin. Electrical impulses skittered up her spine and she wriggled again, feeling the pressure of his erect cock where he held her pinned over his lap.

“One,” he said, and raised his hand again.

She tensed with anticipation, giving an involuntary squeak when his hand landed on the lower slope of her ass cheek, spreading a light, sensual heat through her flesh. A trickle of arousal slicked her upper thighs and her pussy tingled. She could feel her nipples beading against the fabric of her bra, and her breathing came faster.

“Two.” Carver’s voice was low and commanding, and although part of her chafed at the control he was exerting over her – both emotional and physical – another part gloried in the sensation of being helpless in his arms, subject to his every sexual whim.

On the third blow the warmth spread, a delicious heat that radiated up her spine and down the backs of her thighs, making every inch of her skin feel sensitive and alive with nerve endings that sang beneath his touch. He stroked the flesh again, the slight roughness of his palm amplified by the heightened sensations.

The fourth blow stung – a kind of delicate pleasure-pain that made her gasp and bite her lip, aware of the trickle of moisture from her aching core. Her skin felt sore and hot, and though she wanted to cry out for him to stop, to soothe the tender flesh with soft kisses and whisper gentle words of reassurance to her, she also longed for the firm impact of his big hand on her helpless body.

She could feel the blood rushing to her head as she hung over his lap, making her feel intoxicated and strange. And she could feel blood, too, pooling in the sensitive tissues of her pussy as her clit throbbed and her folds became engorged and slick with desire.

With each successive blow, each ringing slap to her upturned ass, the heat intensified and a thrilling soreness began to blossom across her flesh. She found herself panting and whimpering, squirming on his lap, rubbing against his twitching erection. She tried to part her thighs, to urge him to touch her most intimate flesh, but her ankles were still tangled in her pants, holding her legs together.

But Carver knew what she wanted. He ran his  free hand over her buttocks then delved between her legs with two fingers, gathering her juices and setting up a gentle, persistent rhythm that had the blissful sensation spiraling higher before he paused to administer another slap to her behind.

She should have felt ridiculous sprawled over his lap with her butt in the air, but she could picture the pale globes of her ass marked with rosy pink handprints where Carver’s blows had fallen, and her cunt clenched with need and want.

He started to circle her clit with his fingers again, strumming at the sensitive bundle of nerves and teasing her to the brink of orgasm, and she didn’t know if she could bear the anticipation. Was it possible to die of desire? She desperately wanted to come, but at the same time she knew how the next blow to her tender flesh would sizzle and sting, and she craved it.

“Ten.” Carver’s voice was rough with desire. She knew he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. But she also knew he wouldn’t let either of them slake their desire until she asked for it. Until she begged for it.

“Please…” she cried, her voice weak, her thighs trembling, heart battering against her ribs as if trying to escape.

Carver stroked her flesh, sending shudders of sensation over and through her entire body. “We haven’t finished yet,” he said. “You earned yourself twelve smacks.”

“Please…” she repeated, unable to summon the words to tell him how badly she needed him inside her, knowing only that she couldn’t bear the sweet anticipation any longer.

Carver grunted, then lifted her off his lap, steadying her briefly as she swayed on her feet, woozy and lost in passion. “Take off your clothes,” he growled, “and get onto the bed, on your hands and knees.

Virginia scrambled to comply. She was trembling with adrenaline and lust, her fingers clumsy as she negotiated buttons and fasteners, but then she was naked, and she positioned herself on the bed. She braced herself with her hands and arched her back in wanton invitation, displaying the slick, swollen pink petals of her pussy.

She vaguely heard the sound of Carver’s zipper and the whisper of cloth as he divested himself of his clothes, and then he was behind her, above her, working the head of his cock against her tight opening. She whimpered as he entered her, and curled her fingers into the coverlet, throwing her head back and glorying in the sensations.

“Don’t come,” he growled as he started to move inside her. “Don’t you dare. Not until I say you can.”

He grasped her hips as he thrust into her channel, rolling his pelvis to go deep, and Virginia moaned. It was a hoarse, lost sound. She panted as the feeling of fullness built and she felt herself rising on a wave of bliss.

“I’m going to…I’m going to…” She tensed and bit her lip, trying to hold back the crisis – she didn’t want to displease him – but everything inside her quivered and clenched, and she blurted, “Please, Carver. Oh god, please, let me come.”

His hand cracked down on her ass as he thrust hard inside her and she cried out and clenched around him. She hovered on a knife-edge of release.

Carver wrapped her hair around his fist and pulled her head back, administering the last sharp slap to her aching flesh. “Come for me now,” he said.

He rode her with wild ferocity, pounding mercilessly into her as she cried out and clenched around him, and as she surrendered to the sweet spasms and cried out her pleasure, he gave a long, low groan and spilled himself inside her.

Later they lay entwined together, sweaty and sated. Virginia had one leg thrown across his hips and he played idly with her hair. They were too tired and to contented to speak. The light that bled into the room through the gap in the drapes was strange…an eerie bluish half-light that spoke not just of dusk but of winter. The air smelled slightly of tin to Virginia’s sensitive nose – a subtle scent that predicted snow and ice and aching cold.

The wind howled and raged around the cabin, biting at the evening with icy teeth, but wrapped in each other’s arms, they were safe and warm.

Chapter Fourteen

              The next morning, Darlie called Virginia on her cell and asked her to come to the clinic for a couple of hours, because there were five new cases of measles. Carver insisted on driving her into town. “I’m not trying to be all Alpha about it, but I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I would prefer it if you didn’t go anywhere without me as long as we’re here.”

              “Very diplomatically stated,” Virginia said. “I accept your terms.”

              “See what a reasonable creature I can be?” Carver flashed her a grin.

              “Ha. That’s once, so far.”

              “Excuse you, how many times do you want me to spank you tonight?” His grin grew wider.

              “I thought you were trying to pretend to be a nice guy,” she scoffed as he pulled up in front of the clinic. “Okay, I’ll call you when I need you to pick me up. No more solo runs for me. I believe that earns me a get-out-of-spanking-tonight card.”

              “I’ve got terrible news for you, princess, there is no such card.” He cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her gently before she got out of the car. The brush of his lips on hers made her tingle, and she fought the temptation to lean in and kiss him back.

              Darlie greeted her when she walked in. “Any news on those creatures?” she asked anxiously. “I heard they actually went inside your cabin.”             

              “Yes, they did,” Virginia said. “But they didn’t do that much, just knocked a few things over.”

              “Well, good news, these measles cases aren’t anywhere near as bad as the ones you saw yesterday. I think within a few days the measles outbreak should be contained, as long as we keep healing each new case quickly. There’s a couple of adult cases here I’d like you to look at too, and a teenaged boy.”

              Virginia was in an examining room and just about to start healing a measles-spattered two-year-old when she heard angry voices arguing in the hallway.

              “I’m here now, and I can take care of the rest of the cases. I told you I don’t want her here.” She could just make out Natasha’s low, angry voice.

              “If I hadn’t brought her in here yesterday, several children would have died. That is something I will not tolerate, no matter what. You can’t go on like this much longer, so that’s something you’ going to have to think about.” That was Darlie.

              “I’m perfectly fine, just needed a little rest. I’m back to normal now and I don’t want her in here again. It’s too risky.”

              What the hell was risky about her being here? Virginia wondered irritably.

              “I’ll be right back,” she said to the cub’s mother, and walked into the hallway. The healer glanced up at her and her expression turned icy. “You can leave now,” she said.

Natasha didn’t look rested at all. If anything, she looked paler than she had the last time Virginia had seen her and there were deeper lines in her forehead. Her hands were trembling and she swayed slightly where she stood.

              Virginia shook her head. “The last time I let you chase me out of here, you were unable to heal several very sick children, and you put their lives at risk. I am not leaving today until the children with measles are fully healed, and I will examine them myself to ensure that they are healthy before I go.”

Natasha’s eyes widened with anger at Virginia’s defiance, and she drew a deep breath.

Virginia spoke up again. “I’ve heard about how your arrogance and refusal to work with other healers has alienated you from the community all across the country. I’m not going to let your misplaced pride endanger any shifters.”

Natasha’s nostrils flared and gray fur shot through the skin of her face before it subsided.  Her voice came out in a growl. “No, what alienated the other healers was jealousy. My methods and discoveries were so far advanced that they all felt threatened.”

              What a supremely arrogant bitch, Virginia thought. She stood her ground. “Nonetheless, I am not leaving until I see that these children are healthy. You can barely stand up straight right now; you won’t have the strength to heal them properly.”

              “Then I will call my husband, who is also our Alpha, and have you removed from here. Permanently.”

              Virginia hadn’t known that Natasha’s husband was Sheriff Marsh, but she didn’t care.

              “In that case, I will call the Council of Elders to report the situation, and let them decide what action to take next. I expect I know what it will be.” There was no way they’d tolerate this kind of behavior.  A pack member who couldn’t fulfill her duties needed to step down; there was never any question about that. Except, apparently, with Natasha.

              Natasha’s face went even paler at that. “You’re threatening me?” she demanded angrily.

              “Take it any way you want.”

              “Fine. I will heal the children, and then you will leave.”

              Trembling like a leaf, she pushed past Virginia and made her way into the examination room, slamming the door behind her.

              “Why did she say that my being here is risky?” Virginia asked Darlie. Darlie avoided her gaze and shrugged.

              “Who knows what goes on in her mind?” 

              Virginia let out a growl of frustration. She liked Darlie, but she was getting sick of everyone keeping secrets here. Darlie obviously cared about her pack members and her community enough to stand up to Natasha, so why wouldn’t she just explain what was happening?

              Of course, going any further meant defying Natasha’s husband, the pack Alpha, and that was never a thing to be done lightly. Virginia understood that, but it was clear that matters were reaching crisis level here.

              A minute later they heard the thud of a body falling to the floor, and a shriek. They pulled the door open and the mother was standing there, clutching her cub, who was crying with fright.

              Natasha lay sprawled on the floor, eyes fluttering. She mumbled incoherently and made weak attempts to move.

              “She…she started to heal my daughter, and then she just fell over!” the cub’s mother wailed, wringing her hands.

              “It’s all right,” Virginia said soothingly. “Let me look at her, and we’ll fix your daughter in just a minute.”

              Virginia knelt down next to Natasha and put her hands on her. What she felt was puzzling. Natasha was weak, almost drained of her life force and the energy that gave her healing power, but there was no explanation for it. No cancer, no sickness, no reason for her to be in this state.

              Virginia suspected that Natasha knew why she was so weak, but would never tell, or ask for help. And she didn’t have the energy to bring Natasha back to health; she would have to flood all of her own energy into her, and even that might not be enough.  She felt like Natasha was a bottomless well, a black hole that would suck in all her strength, leaving Virginia unable to heal anybody.

She pulled back and shook her head. “She needs to go home. She can’t heal at all for at least the next few weeks. I’m serious. I can help you out as long as I’m staying here, but in a couple of weeks, when I leave, you’re going to need someone here to replace her. She should have retired already, but she’s obviously too stubborn and self-centered to do that.” She knew Natasha could hear her. She didn’t care.

              Natasha struggled into a sitting position, breathing hard.

              Darlie nodded, a troubled expression clouding her features. “Let’s get her into another examination room, and then I’ll call her husband to come get her.”

              “I can contact the Council of Elders so they can start searching for a new healer who could come out here,” Virginia said as, with Darlie’s assistance, she helped Natasha stagger to her feet and walked her out into the hallway.

              “No. Don’t do that,” Natasha moaned, her breathing labored.

              Darlie shook her head. “It’ll be best if we take care of it,” she said. “I’ll be in to help you in a minute,” she added.

              With a sigh, Virginia returned to the examination room. She turned to the worried wolf mother and gave her a big, reassuring smile. “All right, we’ll have your baby healed in no time.  Let’s get started, shall we?”             

* * *

              The sun shone down on sparkling snow, the air smelled crisp and new, and Carver had his target in his sights.

              Edward was in wolf form, strolling through the woods about a half-mile from the main lodge.  Carver had scented him from afar, with the wind in his face, so Edward hadn’t scented him yet.

              Carver put on a burst of speed and ran forward. Edward looked up, finally scented him, and started to run, but then he skidded to a stop and hung his head. As soon as Carver caught up to him, he flopped onto his back and waved his paws in the air, signaling submission.

              Carver shifted back into human form so he could speak. “Shift, you pathetic little weasel!” he barked.

              Edward shifted and scrambled to his feet. The two men stood there naked, ignoring the cold; Edward hung his head as Carver bunched his fists and struggled to cage the angry beast within him, the one that wanted to burst free and shred Edward’s flesh to ribbons.

              “Are you here to kill me?” Edward’s voice was shaking.

              “I should.”

              “But you won’t?” Edward asked hopefully, glancing up quickly before averting his eyes.

              “Virginia asked me not to.”

              “That was nice of her.” He stared at the ground.

              Carver lunged forward, grabbing Edward by the neck and lifting him into the air. He held him up high, fingers tightening as Edward’s legs kicked wildly and his eyes grew huge.

              “I’m going to tell you this one time,” Carver snapped. “Stay the hell away from my wife, or you’ll drown in your own blood.”

              He dropped Edward to the ground.

              Edward gargled frantically, struggling for air and clutching at his throat as the purple slowly faded from his face.

              “I won’t…come near her…again…”

              “Did you have anything to do with letting those monsters into our cabin?”

              “What monsters?” Edward looked genuinely bewildered. “I didn’t let anyone in. I went in, I walked around, I left.”

              “You went into the room of a married woman who has repeatedly said she has no interest in you, trashed the place, and then left. Do you have any idea how pathetic that is?”

              Edward nodded, his head hanging low and his shoulders hunched.

              “Yes. Sir. Sorry. Sir.” Then he glanced up. “But I didn’t trash the place – I would never do that to Virginia.”             

              Carver stared at him, narrow eyed. Edward had no reason to lie at this point – so that meant he wasn’t the one who’d tossed the cushions and night tables around.

              “Did you leave the door open when you left?”

              “No. I shut it behind me.”

              “They must have come in after you. That means they can open doors,” Carver said, scowling. “Believe me, if they had been there before you, you’d have smelled it.  They smell like…I can’t even explain it. They just smell wrong. Like toxic waste.”

              Edward nodded. “I’ve smelled something like that, faintly, when I’ve run through the woods over the past few days.”

              “You mean when you’ve run through the woods stalking my wife?” Carver’s voice was laced with menace.

              Edward hung his head again, shrinking into himself. “Uh. Yes. But I’ll leave her completely alone forever from now on, I swear.”

              “Do that. I’d threaten to issue a Death Challenge, but I couldn’t even call you a challenge. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

              Edward quickly shifted and ran, disappearing into the distance with his tail tucked between his legs.

Chapter Fifteen

              There was one burning, gnawing question on Carver’s mind, only one. Who in the hell was she talking to?

Virginia was headed back to the clinic again, as she had the last few days.  She’d told Carver that she needed to make a phone call before she went, and had headed outside the lodge to make the call.

Carver knew Virginia didn’t want him interfering with her private life, but he couldn’t help himself. This was his wife, and she was keeping secrets from him. He knew just asking her wasn’t going to get him the answers he wanted. If she wanted him to know, she would have told him.

“Yes, definitely some kind of genetic anomaly,” Virginia said into the phone. “And I’ve found it in both children and adults.  No, it’s got nothing to do with those monster creature things.  Those monsters smell like poison; I’ve never smelled anything like it.  These people who’ve come in to the clinic are normal except for whatever odd mutation is in their blood. I’ve got the samples. When do you want to meet?”

              Who was Virginia talking to? Carver wondered as he lingered in the doorway.  She stood a few hundred feet away, with her back to him. He’d shifted, his head only, so he could eavesdrop with his enhanced hearing.

              He listened as she described a meeting place in town and agreed to meet the person on the other end of the line the day after  tomorrow at two p.m.

              When she came to get him, he’d shifted back into human form.

              “All right then, off to work. And by the way, I’m still limping from last night, you bastard.” She said that with a smile, which he didn’t return.

              “Well, you’re unusually crabby this morning. What’s up?” she asked, as she followed him to the pickup truck. He held the door open for her without answering, and she climbed in.

              “I’m going out with the sheriff and his men to search the woods again,” he said. “We probably won’t be back until lunchtime. Do you think you’ll need a ride before then?”

              “I doubt it, but if I did, Clifford and Delores would come get me, or send some of the male guests to pick me up. So…any particular reason you’re not your usual annoyingly cheerful self this morning?”

              Carver shrugged. “Not really. How are things at the clinic?”

              “Oh, the usual stuff. Townspeople are nice. Mostly wolves, coyotes and bobcats, I’m noticing. Not as much shifter species variety as there is in Timber Valley. People are starting to recognize me and leave little gift baskets for me.”

              “No problems at the clinic, then?”

              She shook her head.  “Natasha hasn’t been back in for the last couple of days. I mean, there would be no point – she passed out the last time she tried to heal someone. I’m sure when we get ready to leave and I notify the Council of Elders of the issue here, she won’t be happy, but tough titty.  A couple of weeks of rest are not going to cure whatever is wrong with her.” She paused. “Apparently she married the Alpha the year she moved to town, and they have a son.  She really should let someone try to help cure whatever ails her, for their son’s sake if nothing else.”

“Yep. She should.”

Virginia looked at him with exasperation. “All right, whenever you feel a little more talkative, you let me know.”

Whenever you feel like telling me what you’re hiding from me and why, you let me know, Carver thought, but he only said, “I’ll do that.”

After he dropped her off, he headed back to the lodge.  Before he headed out to meet the sheriff, he picked up the phone and dialed Bert.

“Carver, old buddy! So you heard the news!” Bert crowed.

“News? What news?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? Guess whose little princess is going to be having a baby brother in about another seven months?”

“Bert, you’re an animal! Congratulations.”

“Of course, I’ll never sleep again, and my wife’s moaning about how she just got her figure back, and…don’t take this the wrong way, but I assume that you and your wife are moving into your own house? We’re going to need your bedroom to move our daughter into at some point.”

“By all means. I’m very happy for you.”

“So,” Bert said, “if you didn’t call because you heard about the new cub, why did you call?”

Carver hesitated. He was a very private person. He wasn’t one to share his troubles with anyone, but the fact that Virginia kept lying to him was an ache that wouldn’t go away.

“Does your wife tell you everything?” he blurted out.

Bert laughed. “I doubt it. I mean, the important stuff, sure. I think. Why?”

“Let’s say your wife was keeping work-related stuff secret from you. What would you do about it?”

“Work stuff? I would assume she had a good reason for not telling me. I mean, when you work as a deputy, do you tell anyone every detail of what you’re doing? If you were conducting an investigation and it was supposed to be confidential, would you go home and tell Virginia about it?”

“Probably not,” Carver conceded. “But she’s a healer, not an investigator.”

“Well, there’s patient privacy and all that.”

“I guess,” Carver said. “All right, I have to get going. Congratulations again, and as soon as the honeymoon is over, I’ll be back to get my stuff. Couple weeks, I’m thinking.”

“Carver, I’ve known Virginia Battle a long time. She’s not the sneaky type. If anything, she speaks her mind to a fault.” 

Carver let out a growl, then caught himself. He did not want to hear the words “fault” and “Virginia” in the same sentence. 

“You know what I mean,” Bert said quickly. “She’s very honest. She doesn’t hold back – she says what’s on her mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll see you soon, Bert. Thanks.”

Carver hung up, only slightly mollified. Virginia was the honest type, he knew that – except now she was lying to him. Or at least hiding things from him.

Well, nothing to be done about it now.  He hung up the phone and headed out to meet the sheriff and his pack.

* * *

Darlie rushed into the break room where Virginia was snacking on a sweet roll.

“We’ve got incoming,” she called out. “A badly injured sheriff’s deputy, and the sheriff has some minor injuries.”

“What happened? Is Carver all right?” Virginia dropped the roll and hurried out to the reception area.

“As far as I know.  They only mentioned the sheriff and his deputy.” Darlie saw the look on Virginia’s face. “They would have told me,” she assured her.

The ambulance pulled in minutes later. The sheriff climbed out of the back, and two EMTs wheeled a stretcher into the clinic’s reception area.  The shifter was in wolf form now, curled up on his side. He had been savagely slashed and had lost a lot of blood. 

Virginia could smell it all over him – monster.

“He’s having a hard time healing,” one of the EMTs said.  Adult shifters had strong powers of self-healing, but if their injuries were too severe, they needed a healer’s assistance.

She stood next to the stretcher and put her hands on the deputy’s flank. She slid her hands into his fur and pressed down, closing her eyes and concentrating.  As she let her energy flow, she felt the taint of the monster, infecting him and fighting her.  She poured in all her strength and absorbed the poison. The deputy’s flesh knit back together and the blood flow slowed and then stopped.

Within minutes, he sat up and shifted into human form, breathing hard.  Virginia looked up and realized that Carver was there.

As the EMTs helped the deputy off the stretcher, she gave Carver a quick nod, then walked over to the sheriff, who had also shifted to accelerate his healing. He was sitting in a chair by the reception area.  Darlie knelt next to him, pressing gauze bandages against his leg.

Virginia sat down next to him and laid her hands on his shoulder.  She felt the same oddness when she healed him, the taint of the beast in his wounds.

When she’d finished, the sheriff shifted back into human form and stood. “Whew. That was a nasty feeling,” he said to her, shaking his head in dismay. “Never felt anything like it before. It was like being snake-bit but worse.” One of the other deputies handed him his clothing and he stepped into his pants.

“How many of those things are there?”

“There were two, but one’s probably dead, because we wounded it with a silver bullet,” he told her. “I’m surprised it didn’t die on the spot.”

“They overpowered all your men?”

“My men split up to cover more ground, so they got my man alone,” the sheriff said defensively.

“Peter?” Natasha stood in the doorway of the clinic. She finally looked better.  Her hands weren’t shaking, her color was starting to come back, and the lines in her face were less pronounced.  She had a young boy with her, who was clutching at her arm and looking at Sheriff Marsh anxiously.

They walked in, and she hurried over to the sheriff and stroked his arm. Then she glanced at Virginia resentfully. “She healed you? I could have healed you.”

“This isn’t a contest,” Virginia said between clenched teeth. Natasha ignored her, fussing with her husband’s hair and straightening his collar.

The little boy tapped the sheriff’s arm.

“Daddy, did the monster hurt you?” he asked his father.

“No, I’m just fine. Don’t you worry.” He gave the boy a quick hug.

The boy let out a growl. “It tried to hurt you. I want to help hunt for it,” he said.

Sheriff Marsh’s expression shifted. “Don’t even think about it,” he said to the boy. “We will handle it. We’re very close to catching these things. Now, promise me you won’t go out in those woods until I tell you.”

“But I could—”

“Kyle!”

The boy hung his head. “I promise.”

“All right, now let your mother take you back to school.” He glanced at Natasha, and patted her arm.  “I’m fine, honey,” he reassured her. “I’ll see you tonight. Have some pot roast on for me?”

“Of course, dear.” Then Natasha walked over to Virginia. “I’ll be back at the clinic in one week,” she said, her tone neutral.  Virginia could see the resentment in her expression, the furrowing of her brow.

Virginia shrugged and didn’t bother to reply. A week might be enough, it might not.

“Thank you for substituting for me while I recovered. See you in one week.” Natasha repeated loudly, and walked out with her son.

Carver gestured at Virginia to come talk to him. She walked over to where he stood; he still had the same guarded, unhappy expression he’d had that morning. “Virginia, I’m not sure when I’ll be available, but Clifford and Delores said they’ll pick you up,” Carver said. “We’re going after these things hardcore. The Sheriff’s bringing in reinforcements.”

Alarm rippled through her. “You’re going right back out? After what just happened?”

“The sheriff made a mistake in letting his men patrol alone. We’ll be dividing into groups of four from now on, and I’m organizing the search.”

Sheriff Marsh, overhearing that, looked startled and then angry.  Virginia waited for him to argue…but he didn’t. He just turned and walked out of the clinic. There was open contempt on the faces of his pack members as they watched him go.

Not my business, Virginia thought. But she did have a problem that needed to be addressed.

“Carver, what are you upset about?”

“Are you telling me everything?” His gaze bored into hers, and she flinched. Had he overheard her phone call? She should have walked farther away from the cabin.

Well, no point in lying.

“No,” she said.

He stared at her for a minute more, giving her time to answer, but she stayed silent. Then he nodded and turned and left without a word.

Chapter Sixteen

              Virginia sat at the edge of the clearing, in wolf form, staring at the main lodge. Carver had slept on the couch last night, and had been curt with her this morning.

Her secret meeting was tomorrow; should she just leave after that? Or should she tell Carver first, and at least give him the opportunity to make a choice?

              Carver and the other men had received a report that the monsters had been spotted in the forest several miles to the east, so they’d all headed over there. That had given her the opportunity to sneak out, shift, and hang out in the woods so she had some time to herself. Carver would blow a gasket if he knew she was in the woods by herself, but she was very close to the main building. She could see it from where she was sitting.

              She heaved a sigh, pacing back and forth in the snow.  The more time she spent with him, the more she realized that she could see herself spending a life with him. He was sexy. He was funny. He challenged her, but in a good way.  She needed to be with a strong man; she had a strong personality herself, and if she were with a weaker man, she’d run right over him and they’d end up hating each other.

He didn’t actually try to boss her around and run her life.  Ever since the monsters had been sighted, he’d hovered over her protectively, but that was what an Alpha was supposed to do. She could hardly fault him for caring about her safety.

              A gust of wind blew a terrible scent into her nostrils, and she froze where she stood.  Then she started to run, but before she’d made it a few dozen steps, the beast was upon her. How had it moved so fast?

              To her utter shock, it didn’t attack her. Instead it grabbed her and slung her over its shoulder, then ran to the west at top speed.  It was incredibly strong and incredibly fast.

              They ran and ran, the beast’s feet crunching through the snow, leaping over fallen logs, dodging around boulders.  It shouldered through thick forest and branches whipped her face.

              Finally they came to a clearing, and she saw that they’d stopped at the bottom of a stony hill with a small cave system inside.  The beast carried her in and set her down, blocking the exit.

              There was another beast there, lying on the ground, panting.  It had a bullet wound in its flank, which was festering. That must have happened when the sheriff and his men had shot at them yesterday.

              How was it not dead? Silver was deadly. Then again, it was only deadly to shifters, and God only knew what these beasts were. Not shifters, that was for sure.

              She looked more closely at the two animals in the dim light of the cave. The monsters were covered with thick black fur, and their shape was like nothing she’d ever seen before.  They were somewhat human in form, although bigger, probably seven feet.  They were hunched over, and their faces were lumpy and deformed. They looked somewhat ape-like and somewhat wolf-like.  They had large pointy ears and intelligent yellow eyes.

              The bones of small animals littered one corner of the cave.  The female lay on a bed off moss and leaves. This was where they lived, then, bringing their food back here.

              The beast who’d kidnapped her pointed at his wounded companion. A female, Virginia saw. His mate?

              She knelt down next to the female, feeling the feverish heat radiating from her body. This beast knew that she was a healer; he had scented it somehow. Was that why he’d been sniffing around her cabin? But he’d been sniffing around since she got here – before the female had been wounded.

              Whatever. She was a healer, and she had a patient.

              She put her hands on the beast’s flank and closed her eyes. As she did, she forced herself not to shudder in revulsion.  It was wrong. Its cells were distorted, mutated.  She concentrated on the healing instead, burning out the infection, killing the invading bacteria, and knitting wounded flesh back together. The animal’s hide sealed itself and the fever that had raged through its body cooled.

              The female slowly rolled over and moved into a crouching position.

              Virginia glanced up at the male, wondering what he would do next. Would he kill her now?

              He looked at her and gestured at himself. He wanted healing too?

              She put her hands on him and felt his wrongness cascading through her mind, his furious cells rebelling, but there was no sickness.

              She pulled her hands back and looked at him.

              He made a sweeping gesture, indicating himself and then the female. 

              She looked at him, puzzled. “Do you want me to cure you of…being a beast? Of whatever is making you what you are? I don’t know how.” He just looked at her. Could he understand her words?

              She shrugged and held her hands open, palms up, signaling her helplessness.

              The beast waited a long, long moment, and she stood there, breathing in the foul scent and trying not to gag.  Finally he hung his head, in a clear sign of dejection and defeat, and moved out of her way, unblocking the cave exit. She could see moisture leaking from his eyes and running down his furry cheeks. He was crying, she realized, stricken.

              “I can try to find help for you,” she said. “There are other healers out there, with different expertise than me. We can try to fix this.”

              He just stood there, not moving, and finally she left the cave.  A new understanding was dawning. The creature had smelled or sensed that a healer was there, and had wanted her to heal him and the female. That was why he’d gone into her room, and sniffed around the cabin.

              Why had they never approached Natasha for help? she wondered, as she headed back towards the honeymoon lodge.

              Her heart was heavy. She was leaving patients behind, patients who needed her help.  They could have killed her, and they hadn’t.  They had attacked the sheriff and his deputy the day before – but only because they were being hunted.

              Still, there was the matter of that family who’d been killed long ago. Had they done that? She didn’t get that impression from them. They hadn’t even done that much to her room when they’d entered it. They’d knocked some things over, but that could have been because of their large size and clumsiness. 

              Would they have burned a house down? Was there even any proof that they were the ones who had been at that scene?

              She wondered if they would know enough to flee that cave, now that she knew where their lair was. She somehow doubted it.

              She stopped, pacing restlessly. She had to go with her gut on this one. Those things weren’t dangerous unless they were being directly attacked, and they wanted help. She wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about them yet. Now she knew where to find them, at least.  And perhaps, now that they knew she couldn’t fix whatever ailed them, they would stop coming around the lodge.  They were a good hour’s run from it.  She was pretty sure that the only reason they’d come so close was because they’d scented her when she and Carver had gone for a run in the woods.

              After all, if they had first been seen in town ten years ago, and hadn’t been seen since, as a rule they must try to avoid all contact with shifters.

              She began rolling around in the snow to get their smell off her, until her fur was soaked.  She rubbed up against tree bark. Then she ran towards the river and dunked herself in the freezing water.

              She was thoroughly chilled as she ran back to the lodge, but the scent was gone.

              When she got there, she hurried to the main lodge, shifted, and dashed inside, picking up the clothing she’d left in the mud room.

              Carver was in the lounge with the sheriff and a group of the sheriff’s packmates. They were drinking Irish coffee and sitting grouped around the fire. Virginia couldn’t help but notice that the packmates were gathering around Carver, asking him questions, while the sheriff sat off on the sidelines, looking disgruntled.

              Carver looked up as she strolled in.

              “Where were you?” he asked. “Is your hair wet?”

              “I just went for a very brief run near the cabins,” she said.  She held up her hands. “If you don’t want me to do it again, I won’t.”

              “I don’t.” He frowned at her. “We didn’t have any luck today. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

              She nodded and followed him out of the lounge. As they left, he called out to the men there, “I’ll meet up with you this evening for the patrol, and then we’ll go out on the hunt again tomorrow.”

              “I think you just handed the sheriff his testicles in a box, figuratively speaking,” she said as they headed for their room.

              Carver shrugged. “His fault. He really should step down. He’s a weak Alpha.”

              “Him and his wife both need to retire,” Virginia said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with them.”

              Once they were in their room, he shut the door and turned to Virginia. “You were gone for a while. I was about to send out a search party for you. Did you really just go for a short run near the cabins?”

              She shook her head. “No, I went for a long run, but it was in the opposite direction from where you guys said the creatures were.”

              His voice was harsh with anger. “Why would you take a risk like that?”

              She paused for a moment. “I was upset when I left the lodge, because of how we’re getting along right now.” That was actually the truth. She didn’t want to have to lie to Carver.

              “If you’re upset, you just need to talk to me about it. Not put your life at risk.” He stared at her. “I made your family a promise. If anything happened to you, not only would your father issue me a Death Challenge, but I’d accept it and not fight back.”

              She gasped in horror. “No!” she cried out involuntarily, her eyes filling with tears at the thought of Carver sprawled on the ground, blood pooling around his cooling corpse.

              He managed a smile. “Well, at least you care about me a little bit.”

              “Good God, Carver, do you think I don’t care about you? Of course I care about you, you enormous jackass.”

              Now his smile was a full-on grin. “Oh, terms of endearment, I like it. Say some more sweet things to me.”

              “You’re a complete jerk, and a stubborn moron, and you frequently drive me crazy and make me want to brain you with a lamp.” Now he was laughing. “But what stops me is the realization that you’d actually have to have some brains for that to work.” She smiled at him. “Okay, my turn. Feel free to insult me all you want.”

              “You’re a beautiful, sexy, infuriating, kind, generous, mysterious, she-wench who is far too nice to shifters who don’t deserve it.”

              “That’s all you got?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

              “’Fraid so.”

              She moved closer to him and circled her arms around his waist, leaning in to him. She felt the thick, throbbing length of his erection pressed against her stomach and sucked in her breath, her body going liquid with desire.

              He pulled her closer to him, the muscles of his arms bunching. 

              “I’m sorry I can’t tell you everything,” she said. “I don’t want us to fight. Overall, I feel like we’re really getting along. I don’t hate being married to you anywhere near as much as I thought I would.”

              At that, he threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I’m restarting my list. Of reasons I am going to spank your ass.”

              “All right, I kind of miss you all the time when you’re not with me,” she grudgingly admitted. “Every single second. Don’t let it go to your head. And I hate that you slept on the couch last night.”

              “I hate it too. You know what I miss?”

              “What?”

              A predatory gleam flared in his eyes. “I miss fucking my beautiful wife.”

Chapter Seventeen

              It didn’t take her long to strip out of the clothes she’d hastily donned in the mud room, and by time she was done, Carver was gloriously naked, his erect cock standing up proudly from its nest of crisp dark curls.

He sat on the bed and patted his lap, a wicked gleam in his eyes, his lips curled in a crooked smile that made her heart skip a beat.

He patted his lap and raised an eyebrow. “Just because I want to fuck you doesn’t mean I’m not mad with you,” he informed her. “You shouldn’t have gone running by yourself. I think you’ve earned yourself another spanking, don’t you?”

She started to protest, but then she noticed the determination in his eyes, behind that playful gleam, and she remembered the incredible sensations their spanking session had sent through her the last time.

Adopting a mutinous expression in an attempt to hide the fact that her pussy was suddenly pulsing with desire, she stomped over to him, hips swinging, and positioned herself across his lap. “You are such a jerk,” she taunted him, then squealed and jerked as his palm landed hard on her bottom.

Her flesh was still a little tender and the impact stung, but it was a pleasant ache that spread throughout her body, making her toes curl. The hair on her nape stood on end and every nerve in her body came alive with anticipation as she waiting for the next smack.

Carver didn’t disappoint her. He alternated crisp, controlled blows and kneading her tingling flesh in his big palms until she was gasping and writhing, unsure where the pain ended and the pleasure began. Her pussy was clenching and weeping, her thighs sticky with desire, and she ached for the rock-hard length she could feel pressing against her belly.

Carver grunted with satisfaction and bent down to place tender kisses to her hot flesh. He nipped playfully at her sore buttock with his teeth, making her squeak, then groan as he soothed the skin with patient lapping of his tongue.

He lifted her off his lap and sprawled back on his elbows, exposing the long, muscled lines of his body and the eager jut of his cock. He smiled lazily at her, a look of blatant invitation, and heat pooled in Virginia’s belly and cunt.

She straddled him, moving slowly, taking her time. His shaft nestled in her sopping folds and she ran her hands over the muscles of his chest, kissed his throat, tweaked his nipples between her fingers, making him jerk beneath her touch.

Then she took his hot, heavy length in her hand and positioned him at her tight entrance, quivering around him at the mere thought of him filling her.

She sank down slowly, inch by exquisite inch, moaning long and low with abandoned pleasure as she took him deep inside.

His eyes fluttered shut and he groaned, pushing his hips up to meet hers so that he was buried to the hilt in her throbbing pussy. The look on his face was one of concentration, his brow slightly furrowed as he focused on every nuance of sensation.

Her body clenched around him and he responded with a sigh and a shudder, moving his hands to clutch her hips and encourage her to move above him.

Virginia rose above him, rotating her hips, drawing back until he was barely inside her. Then she sank down again, glorying in his unsteady breathing, his soft moans. It was a heady sensation having such carnal power over this most alpha of Alphas. He might be maddening in his desire to protect her at all costs, but when it counted – when it was just the two of them, raw and naked and vulnerable – he was willing to give her power over him. The thought made her heart clutch in her chest.

As her arousal built, she began to move faster, biting her lip as she found an angle that made his head rub over her G-spot each time she bore down on him. A fine sheen of sweat covered his chest, and she leaned down to lick the salty musk from his skin and nip briefly at one pebbled nipple.

He groaned, then grinned up at her before catching her off-guard with a swift roll of his hips that made her clench around him.

She rose and fell above him, heart pounding in her chest, thighs trembling. She lifted her hands to play with her breasts, displaying them to him, tweaking at her nipples and rolling them between her fingers.

He groaned and flexed his hips again.

Virginia leaned down and took his mouth. She flicked his tongue with hers and suckled at his lips, enjoying the slide of her breasts against his muscular chest and the new angle that abraded her clit every time she moved over him.

Carver wrapped his arms around her back and held her close as her body began to pulse and contract around his. An explosion of pleasure detonated inside her and she cried his name, rolling her hips again and again, unable to get enough of the sensation of sweet release.

As the flutterings of her orgasm subsided, Carver gave a low, tortured groan and spilled himself inside her, pumping his seed into her grasping channel as she panted and whimpered above him.

She collapsed on top of him, spent. Their skin was damp, the air filled with the musky scent of their sex. She wanted to stay there forever.

Every time she thought she knew her husband, she saw a new side to him. A strong man. A stern man. A playful man. A man who would do anything to please his woman.

His woman… She caught her breath, realizing she was allowing herself to hope. Maybe, just maybe, if she was luckier than she’d ever been in her life, they could make this thing work. Maybe she could be the Alpha’s mate, and still remain herself.

Chapter Eighteen

              Virginia stood outside the clinic, sipping her coffee as Carver drove off. Her rear end was still tingling from last night, but she had decided not to heal it. She liked the way it felt. It made her feel as if Carver were there with her.

              The sun was climbing higher in the sky, warming the chill air, but a wintry gust brought her back to reality, reminding her of all the urgent matters that needed her attention.  The healer would be wanting to come back to the clinic, and she still needed to decide what to do with that.  Now that she had come around to wanting to be really married to Carver, she was realizing it might not be possible. And there were two creatures in the woods that were in terrible danger from the sheriff and his pack, and they needed her help and she didn’t know how to help them.

              Her cell phone jangled, making her start.

It was Katrina.

“Good morning. Did you call me up to quiz me about whether or not you were right?” Virginia asked. Truthfully, she didn’t know how she’d answer that question.

              “Hey, cuz,” Katrina said. “No, I called to ask you, have you stumbled over any of your family’s spies yet?”

              “What?” Virginia said, outraged. “Why would they be here? You mean actually, really here at the lodge?”

              “Yes, really really. Apparently. I heard it from a wolf who heard it from a coyote who heard it from a jackal…you know how it goes with shifters, it’s like high school with the gossip…”

              “Go on.”

              “I didn’t get details, but apparently someone was sent up there to keep an eye on you and report back to your family. Strictly for your own good, of course.”

              “Of course,” Virginia said, furious. “Because I’m such an idiot that I can barely tie my own shoes without help.”

              “Well, I just thought I’d warn you. Sorry your family’s crazy. Then again, you could have a mother like mine who was ready to sell me off to some rich A-hole Alpha who’d apparently, quote unquote, ‘teach me some discipline’. Urgh. I just went hairy all over thinking about it.” Katrina’s tone turned bitter.

              “True, your mother was a grade-A bitch. But my parents are no picnic either. Damn it. All right, I’ve got to go figure this out.  Thanks for letting me know.”

              She went back to work, rushing through her morning duties.

              Carver came to meet her for lunch at noon.  As they settled in at the table, she was about to tell him what Karen had told her about her family sending someone to spy on her, but a thought occurred to her.  Carver had been speaking about her family an awful lot since they’d been up here. Why was he suddenly so concerned about what they thought and felt?

              “Hey, Carver, can I see your cell phone?” she asked as the waitress set menus in front of them.

              He glanced away and then looked back up at her. “Yours is broken?”

              She met his gaze challengingly. “No. I just want to look through the numbers you’ve been calling.”

              “Uhhh….” He had a guilty look on his face.

              She speared him with a furious glare.  “So you’ve been talking to my family, then? Behind my back?”

              He winced. “Wait. I can explain!”

              “Oh, there’s no need for that, I understand completely. And I just lost my appetite. I need to get back to the clinic right now,” she said, and left the café, storming off.

              “Wait!” he called after her. “They were just worried about you!”

              Oh. My. God. She wasn’t free from supervision anywhere. Even on her honeymoon. She flipped him a middle finger and then ran at full speed back to the clinic. At least he had the good sense not to follow her.

              She was actually done for the day, because they gave her all the more serious cases in the morning, and handled the less serious cases themselves in the afternoon. However, she healed a few minor cases just to pass some time – an infected hangnail, a youngster with a bloody nose.

              She left at 1:30, jogging to the outskirts of town to where she’d arranged the meeting.                           

* * *

              Carver had hung back far enough that Virginia couldn’t scent him, but he still had her in his sights.  He stood in an empty lot behind a row of hedges, watching her through a gap.

              She was standing on the corner of two small rural streets, in the shade of an oak tree, waiting.

              This was probably not the ideal time for him to be spying on her, what with her being royally pissed off with him for talking to her family behind her back, but he had to know. Who was she meeting, and why?

              He wasn’t particularly reassured when he saw the man who climbed out of the car and strolled over to Virginia. He recognized him – a wolf shifter named Julius Kostechi.

              Virginia greeted  the man with a brief hug, which made hair burst through Carver’s skin all over his body. His snout shot out and he let out a growl of rage.

Virginia stepped back and greeted the man, and her demeanor was all business.

              Carver forced himself to go human again, stepped out from behind the hedge and strolled towards them. As he did, he saw Virginia’s hand dip into her bag and come out with a small package, which she handed to the man.

              Virginia looked up, suddenly. She’d scented him. Her expression grew wary as he stalked up to them.

              “Wait, Carver, this isn’t what it looks like!” Virginia cried.

              “You aren’t secretly working with the Wardens?”

              She winced. “Oh. Okay, then yes, that is what it looks like. I was afraid you thought I was having an affair and you were about to throw down.”

              “What did you just hand him?” he asked.

              She let out a sigh, glanced at Warden Kostechi, then said, “Blood samples that I secretly took from several of the children who’ve come in to the clinic. There’s something weird with their blood, and I can’t tell what it is. I think that it somehow has something to do with the healer, and why she doesn’t want me here. I’m afraid that maybe she’s experimenting on them somehow.”

              Carver shook his head. “Why would the villagers allow that?”

              “Maybe they don’t know? I don’t know. I just find it very suspicious that she’s so incredibly territorial, even when she was too sick to heal anyone. I’ve heard that she’s very arrogant and thinks she’s smarter than any other shifter, and it’s possible that’s why, but…I don’t know, there’s something off.”

              “We’ve also been notified about the strange creatures in the forest. We’re going to bring in a team, a few hundred men, sometime in the next day or two. This has to be dealt with soon,” Warden Kostechi said to Carver. “We’ve just informed the sheriff.”

              Virginia gave him a startled glance. “I think the best thing to do is just capture them,” she said.

              Now that was odd. Why was she worried about the wellbeing of misshapen monsters that had murdered an entire family and were now roaming around the outskirts of the village?

              “As long as that can be done without risk to any of my people, we’ll certainly try,” Warden Kostechi said. “But given how violent they’ve been, it may not be possible.”

              “Oh.” Virginia stared at the ground, clearly troubled. Then she glanced back up at him. “I need to talk to Carver.  Do you mind waiting in your car?”

              “No problem,” the warden said. He headed back to his car.

              Carver watched him climb behind the wheel with a scowl on his face.  “How many times have you worked with the Wardens?”

              She met his gaze steadily. “I work for them, not with them. They approached me about a year ago to help with certain types of investigations. My family doesn’t know, but when I’ve been travelling to healer’s conferences and to visit with other healers, I’m generally using that as a cover to work with the Wardens on a new case.”

“Why you?” he demanded.

“My healing powers are very strong, and I can do more than heal. I can sense things that other healers can’t. I’m not saying it to brag, it’s just a fact.”

              “But what do they want from you? What do you investigate?” This was very troubling. It sounded dangerous. He couldn’t let Virginia be in danger, ever.

              “I can sense and stop contagious diseases before they spread too far. I can detect illegal drugs, and I can usually even trace them to their origins – what kind of plant or chemical was used to make them. That means the Wardens can move in and shut the operations down quickly. I can sense when Shamans are making people sick illegally, or using other spells in a manner that is not permitted by law.”

              “And why did you keep it a secret from everybody?”

              “Aside from the fact that my family would have flipped out, working undercover gives me an advantage. I can go into clinics and work there, acting as if I’m just a regular healer. That means that drug users will come in and let me heal their ailments without knowing I’m also secretly analyzing what drugs are running through their systems. I get access to a lot of people who wouldn’t let me near them if they knew I worked with the Wardens.”

              Carver stared at her, amazed. There was so much more depth to his beautiful wife than he’d ever known. She was brave. She had talents he’d never dreamed of.

              But her bravery exposed her to danger. Drug dealers didn’t like to be exposed and arrested or put to death.  Neither did Shamans. Drug users didn’t like to have their supply cut off.

              He thought of Virginia being hurt. Virginia being killed. Virginia lying sprawled out on the ground, bleeding…

              An involuntary growl burst from his throat. He shook his head angrily. “No!” he said.

              She took a step back away from him.

              “Excuse me?”

              Anger rumbled through him. Anger at those who would take her from him. “You can’t do this anymore! I forbid it. End of story.”

              Her expression turned stony. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you, or my family!  And this is why I can’t be with an Alpha. I have gifts, and I can use them to save lives. You will not tell me what to do. And furthermore, I know that you’ve been spying on me for my family.”

              “Spying on you?” he said, astonished.

              “My family sent someone here to keep an eye on me. And you admitted that you’ve been talking to them since I got here.”

              “They did not send me here to keep an eye on you. And yes, I did call them to smooth things over with them. You and I are going to be together forever, and they will always be your family, so I need to make peace with them.”  He narrowed his eyes at her. “I just finished promising your family that I would do anything to keep you safe. I always keep my promises.  And you are not going to work for the Wardens.”

              With a wave of queasiness, he saw her pull off her wedding ring and toss it to him.

              “I knew this would happen,” she said. Tears spilled onto her cheeks, but her expression was determined. “That’s why we can’t be married. I can’t have you spying on me and acting as an extension of my family, and I cannot stop doing my job; it’s too important, and few other people have my powers. I just put off telling you because I wanted to pretend to be your wife for as long as I could, but we’re done, Carver.”

              “Hold on a minute, right now!” He moved towards her and she took a step back.

“You cannot tell me what to do!”

              Then she climbed into the Warden’s car, and his stomach turned over as he watched his wife drive away with another man.  He desperately wanted to shift and run after them, to haul the Warden out of the car and kill him, but that would solve nothing. He couldn’t force Virginia to do anything against her will; he wasn’t that kind of man.

              He should have told her that he was calling her family. He hadn’t thought she’d take it well, given how frustrated she was with them.

              He should have explained to her the reasoning behind his ultimatum. How much he loved her, how he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, of her being exposed to any danger.

              He swore furiously as he walked back to town. He should have, he could have… Was it too late now?  Had he lost his only chance with her?

Chapter Nineteen

Virginia sat behind the wheel of the car that Warden Kostechi had loaned her, uncertainty rumbling through her. She felt like she should leave the honeymoon lodge and go stay somewhere else, but something was nagging at her.  Carver was infuriating in many ways, but she really didn’t believe that he was a liar.

So if he wasn’t the one her family had sent to spy on her, who was?

Whoever they were, they’d have to be physically close to keep an eye on her.  The sheriff’s packmates were patrolling the whole area, so they couldn’t be camping outside somewhere.

They’d have to be in one of the cabins.

She thought of the loved-up couple who’d been staying in one of the cabins and had never emerged. Not even once.  And they hadn’t chosen to move into the main building, even when everyone else had. Now, that was kind of suspicious.

She climbed out of the car and trudged through the snow to the cabin, which was located towards the back of the property. When she got there, she stood outside the door and sniffed at the air.  The scent was very, very familiar, but it wasn’t anyone who was related to her.

It was Sally.  Not just Sally. Sally and…Edward?

She banged on the door. Nobody answered. She heard movement inside the cabin.

“Sally, Edward, open the damn door! I know you’re in there!” she yelled.

She heard rustling, and then banging, and then Sally flung the door open, looking sheepish. She was wearing a lacy, see-through nightgown and crotchless panties.

“Um. Hello,” she muttered, red-faced. “What a surprise. Seeing you here. Amazing coincidence.”

Virginia sniffed the air again. “What the hell are you wearing? My God, I smell sex. So much sex.” She stared at Sally in astonishment. “You two have been having lots of sex. I am so confused right now. Also wanting to rip both your heads off, but mostly confused.”

“Well, let’s stick with the confusion,” Sally said hastily.  “Come on in,” she added as Virginia pushed past her into the room, which looked as if a hurricane had swept through it. Clothing was strewn everywhere. Panties hanging off the bedpost. A bra dangling from a ceiling fan.

Edward was standing by the bed, in his boxer shorts…holding a purple plastic vibrator. “Oh!” he said when he saw Virginia staring at him. He quickly tossed it onto the bed.

“Sorry!” he squeaked.

“You came up here to spy on me.” Virginia swung around to glare at Sally. “How could you do that to me?”

“Well, aside from the fact that I didn’t have a job and your family offered to pay me, I also wanted to make sure you were okay. You got married so fast, I was worried that something was wrong.” There was a pair of binoculars on the windowsill, behind the closed shade.  Ugh. They’d been watching her.

“You two are together. I thought you hated Edward.”

“You were the one who told me to tell him how I felt.” Sally’s smile vanished as she spotted Virginia’s ringless hand. “Wait, you don’t want him for yourself, do you? You and Carver broke up and now you want Edward? You can’t have him!” she wailed, rushing over to him and throwing her arms around him, and he hugged her back, shrinking away from Virginia as if she were about to abduct him. “He’s mine!”

“For God’s sake, I do not want Edward!” Virginia yelled. “And I don’t know what’s happening with Carver! Sally, I don’t get it. Every time Edward came close to us, you turned and ran.”

“Well, of course,” Sally said, as if it should be obvious. “I couldn’t stand watching how much he wanted you, when I wanted him to love me that way.”

“But…when I told you to just say how you felt, I thought you had a crush on my brother Pierce. You had feelings for him. You got upset every time he came to the club.”

                “Oh, god, you thought I was talking about him?”  Sally waved her hand dismissively. “Eww. Please. I was upset because Edward was there ignoring me.  If Pierce was there at the same time, I didn’t even notice. I had a crush on your brother for a little while, but then I moved on. He’s way too full of himself.” She looked at Edward lovingly. “I wanted a man who’s humble and sweet and devoted.”

                Virginia choked back a laugh. “Well, none of that describes my brother, that’s for damn sure. But…Edward, you came up here to stalk me.”

                Edward shook his head vigorously. “No, I came up here to be with Sally while she spied on you. I went out for a run to scout out the area, and that’s when Carver grabbed me. I couldn’t tell him why I was really here, since it’s supposed to be a secret. And I’d do anything to help my hunny bunny wunny.” He gazed lovingly at Sally.

                “Ack.” Virginia took an involuntary step back, fighting the urge to barf. If Carver ever dared to call her that…well, they were through, so it wasn’t an issue. Weren’t they?

                Edward glanced over at Virginia. “I was heartbroken the day you told me to leave you alone. And then Sally called me that afternoon. When Sally told me she loved me, it took me a couple of days to process it. But then I thought about it and I realized that my feelings for you were just infatuation. Sally actually loved me for myself, and that made me fall in love with her. I realized how much better she is than you. How much sweeter, and kinder, and prettier, and—”

                “All right!” Virginia said with exasperation. “I get the picture.” She narrowed her eyes at Sally. “So. That’s why you didn’t call me back all that week. And why you cancelled on the casino.”

                “Of course, why would I want to go out when I had the best man in the world at home waiting for me? Isn’t he just the sweetest bestest darling cuddlebuns?” Sally cooed at him. “And soooo sexy. We’re going to get married and then come back here on our honeymoon. Won’t that be romantic? And we’ll rent the same cabin. Just me and my handsome sweetums.”

                “If you’re trying to get rid of me, it’s working. Ack, quit that!” she added as they started kissing passionately. “Could you even wait until I leave, you exhibitionists? No? All righty then.” She turned and ran out of the room.

                Back at her car, she sat in the driver’s seat and tried to decide what to do next.  Was there any point in trying to work things out with Carver? He’d told the truth that he hadn’t spied on her. While she was angry that he’d talked to her family without telling her, she also had to appreciate that he wanted to be with her so badly.

The Wardens were going to be descending on this area in force, looking for the two creatures. How could she save them? She needed to try to communicate with them again. She’d given up too easily before.

                She went to her car, stripped off her clothing, and set it down in the driver’s seat. Then she shifted, dropping to all fours and feeling the wind ruffling through her fur.

                She didn’t get very far before she smelled two things: Natasha, and silver.

                A quick search revealed Natasha trotting through the woods, wearing a gun-pouch. They were used by shifters who needed to be able to carry a gun while in animal form. And Natasha must have silver-coated bullets in the gun.

                She easily caught up with Natasha, and they both shifted, standing barefoot in the snow.  Natasha looked at her with annoyance and dislike, clutching her gun defensively.

                She seemed much healthier now; apparently the days of rest really had helped her.

                “Why are you out here hunting, alone?” she asked Natasha.

                Natasha’s snorted. “I could ask the same thing of you.”

                “I’m not hunting.” Virginia looked at her coolly. “You’re keeping some kind of secret about this village. Something big.”

                “Spare me the paranoid conspiracy theories.” Her lip curled in contempt. “I see what’s happening here. You and your husband are looking for a place to start a new pack.  You’re trying to take over my clinic. Your husband is undermining my husband’s status as Alpha, making him look bad.”

                Virginia let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Carver doesn’t have to do a damn thing to make your husband look bad. He’s a weak Alpha, and he needs to step down, because he’s not serving the needs of your pack.”  Natasha let out a bark of rage. Virginia ignored her.

              “And as for me trying to take over as healer, your own nurse begged me to come to the clinic and help out, and thank God she did,” she continued.

                “Well, if you’re not trying to take over our pack, then you’ll be on your way soon.” Natasha, like everyone else, glanced at Virginia’s bare ring finger.  “Sooner rather than later, apparently. No need to stay here now that the honeymoon’s over,” she said with a sneer.

                That stung, but it was true. Virginia nodded. “You’re right,” she said, and Natasha stared at her in surprise. “However,” she continued, “I need to pass my concerns about you and your behavior on to the Wardens.”

                The surprise was replaced by a dark, ugly anger, and Natasha’s hand flashed up, clutching the gun. The gun full of deadly silver-coated bullets.

                “Not if I kill you first,” she snarled.

               Dear God, the bitch really was crazy. Virginia felt anger and shock surge through her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’ll be put to death.”

               A mad light glowed in Natasha’s eyes. “If they never find the body, they’ll blame it on the beasts.”

                Virginia thought quickly. Pride. Natasha was all about her foolish, bitter pride.

                “You’re doing this because you royally screwed up. You caused those genetic mutations, and you just can’t bear to face your failure,” she guessed.

                “Failure? What I did was a success. I am the first healer ever to have cured Con-Rab,” Natasha bragged.

                Contagious Rabies? That was impossible.  It was a rabies that had mutated to become airborne. It affected only shifters, and even a healer couldn’t cure it.

                “Even you aren’t capable of that,” Virginia argued. Feed her ego and keep her talking…maybe someone would come along and spot them.

                “Of course I am. When I moved here, I originally did it for the sole purpose of testing the serum I’d developed without people watching over me and interfering with my work. I gave it to a local family who had shown up with the symptoms of Con-Rab, and they were all cured. So, of course, it made sense for me to start giving the vaccine version of it to all the people who came to the clinic.”

                “How would you know if a vaccine had worked?” Virginia demanded.

                “Well, by injecting them with Con-Rab after I gave them the vaccine, of course.” At Virginia’s expression of horror, she sneered. “You’re just like all the other jealous, short-sighted bureaucrats who wouldn’t let me carry out my experiments. I suggested to the Council of Elders that they let me experiment on prisoners who were condemned to death, and on the mentally defective and other undesirables, and they refused. It’s their fault this happened. I could have perfected my formulas on the dregs of society instead of having to conduct experiments on the general population.”

                The light was beginning to dawn, and Virginia felt sick and horrified.  “All those people with genetic anomalies…”

                The healer’s face fell. “Everyone who took the vaccine was immune to Con-Rab, but a few months after I gave them the vaccine, they got sick. Very, very sick. By that point I’d injected half the town.  If I’d been able to do more experimenting, perfect my work…”

                “You had to stay here and cure the sick people,” Virginia said. “That’s what’s been draining you.”

                “Yes. The sickness won’t go away, it keeps pushing back, and I have to heal them again and again. Over the years it’s been draining my energy, but I realize now that all that I have to do is pace myself. I can take one solid week off every month and I’ll be fine.”

                “Why didn’t they turn you in?” Virginia demanded.

                The healer’s face flushed. “Because they had no idea that the vaccine is what caused it. I told them that they had some kind of terrible contagious virus that only I could cure. I told them if they went to the Council of Elders, the Elders were likely to remove them from town and quarantine them forever, or do experiments on them. I told them that was common practice among the Elders, and that I had been asked to do such experiments myself, and that was why I quit travelling the country and stayed here to settle down.”

                “So here you were, the big famous healer, trapped in this little town,” Virginia marvelled. “Living a lie.”

                Natasha glared at her. “I am not trapped. I’m married to the Alpha, I am a vital part of the community, and I have a son I love very much. I stayed here for my family.”

                “You stayed here because you had to keep it quiet, or the Council of Elders would have killed you,” Virginia said angrily. Then a horrible thought dawned on her. “Oh God, tell me you did not experiment on your own child.”

                “Of course I did. My vaccine was at the forefront of shifter medicine. I was protecting him from a deadly disease,” Natasha said with wounded pride.

                A voice cracked through the air. “You bitch.”

                They both turned to face Sheriff Marsh.

                He’d managed to creep up on them by staying downwind, and both Natasha and Virginia had been distracted by their heated confrontation.

                He was pointing his gun at Natasha. His face was distorted with fury.

                “I should kill you right now,” he raged. “You did that to our son? You’re the one who poisoned him?” Then tears flooded his eyes. “I thought you loved us. How could you?”

                “I do love him! I’m the only one who can keep him alive,” Natasha said quickly. “She’ll ruin everything. You have to help me. Even if you want to leave me, you need to at least keep me alive. Without me, Kyle will sicken and die. Shoot her. She’ll ruin everything.”

                His hand wavered.

                “She’s lying!” Virginia snapped. “You just heard her admit what a liar she is. There are thousands of healers across the country, many of them who are extremely powerful. I already sent some people’s blood off to be tested by the Council of Elders. Healers will come here and they can help these people. They can find a cure, or at least keep it at bay.”

                Natasha flashed a look of fury at Virginia. Then she turned her attention back to her husband.

“Are you going to risk your son’s life finding out?” Natasha demanded. “Kill her! We can go on the run. I can keep him alive. You have to kill her. It’s her or Kyle.”

                Sheriff Marsh stared at Virginia, his eyes growing huge. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and pointed the gun at her head. Virginia braced herself for the sharp stab of silver, for the searing agony that would consume her alive. 

Then a startled look crossed his face. He smelled something. He smelled it at the same time Natasha and Virginia did.

                “That’s my husband,” Virginia said, the words falling naturally from her lips. “He’s very close. If you shoot me, he will hear the gunshot, and you two won’t have time to stage a damn thing. It’s over.”

                Natasha promptly shifted, and turned and ran. Marsh swung the gun to point it at her, then he stood there blinking back tears as she vanished into the woods.

                “Carver!” Virginia screamed. She heard him crashing through the woods to get to her.

                She turned to Sheriff Marsh. “Does your son have anyone else to care for him?”

                Tears trickled down his cheeks. “Nobody else in my family. Not after my sister died.”

                “Then I’m not going to tell Carver the part where you were going to kill me, but you will step down as Alpha. You don’t deserve to lead a damn cub scout troop, much less a pack. You will tell your pack tonight.”

Chapter Twenty

“I still can’t believe it,” Sally said, shaking her head in disgust. “I hope when they find that bitch they skin her alive.”

“I hope they can save all the people she poisoned,” Edward said anxiously. He and Sally sat in front of the fireplace at the lodge, no longer hiding now that they’d been discovered. Their hands were entwined.

 “You see why I love him?” Sally cooed. “Because he’s the sweetest fuzzy wuzzy ever.”

Carver and Virginia both made retching noises at the exact same time, then looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“Seriously, if you ever speak to me like that…” Virginia told Carver.

“No worries.” Then he whispered, “Cuddlebuns.”

“I’ll kill you in your sleep,” Virginia said. “You’ve seen what we Battles are like when we’re really, really mad.”

“I think it’s precious,” Edward said proudly.

Virginia stifled laughter behind her hand. “I am very happy for you,” she said.

The front door of the lodge swung open, letting in a blast of cold air. The sun was setting. She caught a glimpse of Darlie rushing in. She hurried over to Virginia, who stood up to greet her, and hugged her hard.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on,” Darlie said. “We were all afraid that if Natasha left, all of the people she was healing would just die. I put your life at risk. I would never have forgiven myself if you’d been harmed.”

“I’d never have forgiven you either, “Carver said with a growl of anger. His eyes flared yellow and he pinned her with an ice-cold glare.

“Carver!” Virginia admonished.

“No, he’s right,” Darlie said.

Virginia shook her head. “You were all victims of her manipulation. She held the entire town hostage. That’s why you and your husband haven’t had children so far, isn’t it?”

Darlie nodded. “We couldn’t be sure what was causing the sickness. We were afraid there might be some kind of contagious virus, and we would never risk having a cub who would be exposed to that.”

Virginia squeezed her hand. “Well, I look forward to sending you adorable baby presents at your baby shower.”

Darlie blushed. “Maybe you can come to the baby shower. When we have one, I mean. If you stayed here. We have a position open for a healer.”

Virginia glanced at Carver. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Darlie. I would need to discuss that with my husband first, of course.” Carver’s eyes lit up at that.

“In fact,” she said to Darlie, “I think we should go chat now. Thank you for coming up here. I’ll see you tomorrow at the clinic.  I can at least come in to work while everyone figures out what they’re doing.”

The lodge was a bustle of activity.  A number of local pack members were there, milling about restlessly, murmuring amongst themselves.

Sheriff Marsh, his face drawn and grim, was standing in the lobby talking to Warden Kostechi.  He’d already announced that he was stepping down as Alpha to care for his son.  Word was being sent to shifters all across the country – a Kill on Sight order for Natasha.

“I’m sorry I told you to quit working for the Wardens,” Carver said to Virginia as they walked back to her room. “When I thought about it, I realized it’s no different than me being a deputy, or me being an Alpha, for that matter. It’s risky, but someone has to do it. I admire you for being willing to take on that risk for the sake of our kind.”

“I’m sorry I accused you of spying on me, although you really shouldn’t have talked to my family without letting me know.”

“No, I shouldn’t have,” he agreed.

“So…do you, uh, want to give me my ring back?”

He shook his head solemnly. “Nope.”

She looked at him to see if he was serious. He was. “Really? All right. You, uh, just want to take it slow, see if things can work out between us?”

He shook his head again. “Nope.”

She felt her heart crush itself in her chest. “You want to end things?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d been the one to push him away, she’d told him she was leaving as soon as they were done with their honeymoon – and now the thought devastated her. She didn’t want to be without him. She didn’t feel complete without him.

“Nope.”

Fury boiled up inside her and she struck his chest with her fists. “Say something other than nope, you grade-A jerkoff!”

“At least I’m grade A.” He broke into a grin. “A man does not take things slowly with his wife. I am not giving you back that cheap ugly ring from the casino. I’m going to buy you a beautiful ring that shows my pride and love for you. And from now on, neither of us keeps secrets from the other. Capiche?”

She laughed at the gangster slang.

“Capiche,” she said. Then she realized there was still one secret she was keeping.

“Last thing I didn’t tell you,” she said. “The monsters. One of them grabbed me while I was out running in the woods the other day, and took me to heal its mate. There’s something we’re not getting about this, Carver,” she added as he looked at her with alarm. “They didn’t harm me. They only attacked the sheriff when the sheriff’s men were shooting at them.”

Carver frowned. “The first sighting of them was ten years ago. Natasha started her experiments ten years ago.”

“Oh my God.” Comprehension dawned. “Natasha gave a cure to a local family, and then after that seemed to work, she gave the vaccine to other families. Two different formulas – a vaccine and a cure. The cure is what created those monsters. I know it. We need to talk to Sheriff Marsh.”

She looked at him. “I want to try to bring those things in and figure out if we can help them. If we can’t help them, we have to protect them.”

“They killed a family,” Carver pointed out.

“We don’t know that.  All we know is that they were seen running away from a house on fire.  Maybe they went there to seek help. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to kill people, and they haven’t.”

                “I can only tell you that I’ll try my best, but if they attack you, I’ll kill them,” Carver said.

* * *

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon as they set out. “I know you think I’m weak for not wanting to kill my wife, after all she’s done,” Sheriff Marsh said mournfully as they trudged through the woods. He, Virginia and Carver had managed to slip away unnoticed.

After Virginia had told him her theory about the monsters, he’d agreed to take her and Carver to the place where he thought his wife was hiding out – a small fishing shack that the two visited every year.

“I understand not wanting to kill your wife – well, most of the time,” Carver said, with a quick glance at Virginia, who shot him a derisive look. Then he turned serious again. “And yes, I think you’re weak.”

“I guess it’s no secret that my men have been approaching you to see if you want to be the new Alpha.” Sheriff Marsh looked even more hangdog as he said that.

                “They have?” Virginia asked.

                “They have,” Carver acknowledged, “but I was going to discuss it with you first.”

                It wasn’t really coming as any surprise. “Well. I do like it here,” Virginia said. “It’s sufficiently far from my family that they wouldn’t drive me insane. I would still need to travel when the Wardens needed me, but as a home base, it’s a lovely place to be.”

                “I still have mixed feelings about helping these things. They may be responsible for what happened to my sister and her family.”

                “Well, if she can turn them back into people, we can ask them about it,” Virginia said. “We can’t leave them in that form if we have any way to help them.”

                A few minutes later, Sheriff Marsh said, “We’re getting close. Stop here before you get close enough for her to scent.  She’s still armed, as far as we know, so I should go first and get her to come out.”

                “Do you think he’ll just warn her to run for it?” Carver asked as the sheriff jogged through the woods.

                “No, he knows she can’t escape. All she can do is try to fix what she’s broken.”

                A minute later, Sheriff Marsh led his wife through the woods. “I knew you wouldn’t abandon me!” Virginia heard her crowing triumphantly. “I knew you’d come back for me. We can get Kyle and we’ll go—” Then she came through the trees and stopped when she saw Virginia and Carver across the clearing.

                “You betrayed me,” she said accusingly to her husband. “Your own wife. The mother of your child.”

                “Don’t even try that on me,” Sheriff Marsh said as Virginia and Carver jogged up to them. “You don’t deserve the title of mother.”

                Natasha tensed and shot Virginia and Carver resentful looks as they approached, but she didn’t try to run. There was no point. It was all over for her.

                “Natasha, I know where those creatures are staying,” Virginia said to her. “Can you heal them? Can you make them what they were before?”

                 “I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “It would probably kill me if I tried. That’s why I haven’t done it before. I’d have to pour all my life essence into them to even have a chance of success.”

                “You need to try,” Marsh said urgently.  “Turn them back into whatever they were before.  You’re a dead wolf walking no matter what, Natasha – you might as well do something that your son would be proud of before you go.”

                At that, Natasha’s expression became resolute. “Yes. I can do it,” she said, and followed them through the woods.

                They took off their clothes and shifted to move faster, carrying their clothing in their jaws.  It was still a long run, and when they got to the cave, they were panting heavily as they shifted back into human form.

                “It’s me!” Virginia called out at the cave mouth. “We’re here to help you! Please, come out!”

                There were rustling sounds, and then the two creatures emerged from the cave, blinking and staring suspiciously at the shifters. The male let out an angry growl at Natasha.

                They knew, Virginia realized. That was why they’d never approached Natasha – they knew she was the one responsible for what had happened to them.

                Natasha took a deep breath. Then she nodded to herself, held up her hands and slowly knelt down next to the male. She placed her hand on his flank, and he growled again, but didn’t attack her. She put her free hand on the female’s flank.

                Then she closed her eyes. “Tell Kyle I love him,” she said, and tears trickled down her cheeks as she bowed her head.

                After a minute she began breathing hard…and the creatures were changing. Their bodies were rippling, moving, shrinking.

                She kept at it, groaning in pain.  The creatures writhed on the ground. They looked as if they were melting. They were growing smaller and smaller.

                Natasha turned paler and paler, growing waxen.

“She needs help,” Virginia said, and she flung herself down next to Natasha.

                “No!” Carver cried, grabbing at her.

                “Let me be!” she shrieked, and shut her eyes, concentrating. She forced her energy into the monsters, forced it through the filth and wrongness that she felt there. She could feel Natasha’s energy intermingling with hers, battling the mutation. The mutation was subsiding. Natasha’s life was draining away; Virginia could feel her dying.

                She heard whimpers that sounded human and felt smooth skin beneath her hands. She opened her eyes and pulled her hands back.  Natasha fell onto her side with a thud and lay as still as a stone. Virginia looked around, dizzy and nauseated.

                Curled up in the snow in front of her were a little boy and a little girl. Both blond. Not mates – brother and sister.

                They sat bolt upright, looking around, then leaped to their feet. “Uncle Peter?” the boy cried.

                “Oh my God. Oh my God.  Lacey. Rory. Oh my God.”  He choked out the words, his eyes wide with shock. The little boy and girl flung themselves into his arms.

                “They look exactly the same as the day…the day of the fire,” he said wonderingly to Virginia and Carver.

              That was the family that Natasha had cured of Con-Rab and accidentally poisoned. Her own husband’s family. And she’d kept silent all these years, knowing that those two monsters in the woods were Peter’s niece and nephew. She’d have let them be hunted down and killed to protect her secret.

                “Daddy killed Mommy, Uncle Peter. He turned into a monster, and then she turned into a monster, and he killed her, so we ran away,” Lacey said mournfully.

                “So you’ve been hiding out here the whole time?” Tears poured like rivers down Sheriff Marsh’s cheeks.

                “It just happened yesterday,” Rory said. “When we ran away we saw a fire. I think our house burned down too. Are we living with you now, Uncle Peter?”

                Dear God. This was a miracle greater than Virginia could have hoped for. Now that they were back to normal, they remembered nothing of their terrible previous ten years. All that fear and misery and desperation…gone.

                “Yes, you are. Me and my boy Kyle. You haven’t met him yet, but he’ll be the best big brother in the world,” Marsh said, sobbing so hard he could barely speak.

EPILOGUE

Twenty years later…

                Snow flurries swirled outside, but inside the lodge it was warm and toasty.  The flames in the fireplace leaped and cracked. Half a dozen shifter couples were gathered around it, toasting marshmallows on sticks and playing “Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…”

                Carver had insisted that the whole family gather at the lodge today, but he hadn’t told them why. They sat in leather couches near the fire, waiting expectantly to see what Carver was fetching from the kitchen.

“Dad’s up to something,” Penelope said to Virginia.  Her younger brothers Carver Junior and Mark nodded their agreement.

Virginia glanced at her eighteen-year-old daughter with amusement. “Isn’t he always?” she said. “And are you going to keep that purple streak in your hair?”

Penelope rolled her eyes at her mother. One green eye, one blue eye. She was a healer, a very powerful one, although she was just beginning her training.

“Hudson likes it,” she said.

“I’m not sure I like Hudson.” Virginia frowned.

“Oh, please. I bet when you were a teenager, Grandpa and Grandma didn’t like all of the boys that you liked.”

Virginia looked her daughter straight in the eye. “In fact, they did. I was a very sensible teenager, and I never gave them any trouble, so they trusted my good judgement and had no problems with anyone I dated. Because I dated only nice guys.”

Carver, who’d walked up behind them, hooted with laughter so loudly that everyone turned around to look at him.  He was carrying something wrapped in foil; it looked like a cake.

“Say what, now?” he guffawed.

Virginia fixed him with a threatening glare. “Carver. Tread lightly. Very, very lightly. I am not a wolf to be trifled with.”

Her sons were snickering behind their hands. “I’m going to call Gramps and ask him,” Junior said to Mark with a devilish grin. It was a grin so similar to Carver’s that it frequently made Virginia’s heart catch in her throat.

“You all. I am the Alpha’s wife and I have the power. I can make your life very, very difficult.” She tried to sound threatening, but from their continued snickers, it appeared she was failing.

“Forget that. Dad, what’s this about? Why are we here?” Mark asked.

“One minute. I just wanted to say, Penelope, honey, that before you go out on your first date with Hudson, I will meet him. And I will talk to him.” The gleam in Carver’s eye promised that this would not be a comfortable meeting for Hudson, and Hudson, in fact, would be well advised to bring a change of underpants.

“But Daaaaaad…fine,” Penelope muttered, pouting. Carver didn’t even notice. He was pout-proof when it came to Penelope’s safety.

“Now, my darling wife. You know how I can never resist a chance to say I told you so?”

“Never,” Virginia agreed. “Literally never.”

“Oh look,” Mark interrupted. “There’s Uncle Edward and Aunt Sally.”

The two of them hurried across the lounge, followed by their cubs. All eleven of them, ranging in age from nineteen to two. Sally’s stomach bulged out, indicating that her newest cub was due soon.  The two of them had decided to move to Honeymoon Mountain after their wedding, and now they helped run the Honeymoon Lodge.

Penelope hugged Sally and made room on her lap for Sally’s youngest cub Minerva, then they all formed a circle, looking expectantly at Carver.

“I bet you’re wondering why I gathered you all here today,” Carver said.

“Oh, a mystery!” Edward said excitedly.

“He sure knows how to milk it,” Virginia whispered to her daughter, who giggled.

“Twenty years ago today,” Carver announced loudly, “we sat here in this lounge, and we looked at an older couple who were still madly, passionately in love with each other, and I told you that would be us in twenty years. And you said, in your dreams. And I said, you’ll be eating those words.”

He dramatically ripped the foil off the cake. It was a home-baked cake, and across the top of the cake, he’d written, “In Your Dreams”.

Next to the cake was a knife and a fork. He handed them to her and said triumphantly, “Start eating, darling. All of it.”

Virginia spluttered in shock, and realized that tears were running down her cheeks.

“Is that because Dad’s a bad cook?” Mark whispered. Penelope punched him in the arm. “No, stupid, it’s because she’s happy.”

“Carver Lawrence, I love you, and I have never been happier to eat my words,” Virginia said, and she dove into the cake, to the applause of all her friends and family.

THE END

Thanks again for buying this book, I hope you enjoyed it!  Please sign up for my newsletter at http://madmimi.com/signups/83835/join so I can notify you of my newest releases. I blog at www.georgettewrites.com, and I can frequently be found chatting/posting mildly smutty pictures of hot dudes/reporting on my writing progress on Facebook at: http://facebook.com/georgettewrites