Rebecca Royce: Wolf's Valentine

He's a wolf. Trust me on this .

Never having doubted her wolf's knowledge on this subject before, Jana narrowed her eyes.

"Surprise." Malcolm's voice sounded rough, like sandpaper, much different than he had in their earlier encounters. "I didn't want to stand you up. Sorry I was a little late."

She sucked in a breath. "What are you?"

"I'm like you, Jana. I'm a shifter."

He was and he was much bigger than she was. It might have been thirty years since she'd gotten to live like a wolf but she remembered the rules of these things well enough.

He was male and large in human form. He'd be huge as a canine. Sitting back in her seat she tried to make herself as small as possible, as non-threatening as she could be.

There was no way she was going to be murdered on the train to Woodstock by a cursed Westervelt male who could somehow disguise his scent from her.

He reached out and touched her arm. She tried not to jump and swallowed the lump of anxiety in her throat.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you. I'd rather cut off my own arm.

Take a deep breath; now that you can smell me you'll see I'm your mate."

Jana nodded. "I'm sure that is what I would find. That's why I'm terrified. You are not going to be killing me on this train. I will fight you to the death before I let you do that."

Closing his eyes, Malcolm smiled. "Good. That's exactly what I would want you to do if I threatened you in any way."

"You want me to challenge you?" Something was off and Jana couldn't get her senses around it yet.

He is our mate. And he is yummy.

Don't start purring. You're a wolf, not a cat. And he might psychotic or struck by a curse .

"The curse has been removed from Westervelt. It was in play for thirty years but now it's gone. Almost four years ago."

Four years? Had it been more than thirty years since she'd been home? Had four more years passed somehow and she hadn't marked them? Her mind whirled as she counted backwards in her mind. Yes, he was right. The thought made her slightly sick.

"So why didn't I feel compelled to come home? And how come I couldn't smell you earlier?"

Still not opening his eyes, Malcolm sighed. "I took an herb that disguises my scent.

It's how the bad wolves that are running around hide from us. In terms of going home, as far as we can tell, it has to do with the danger not being entirely gone. The curse is off of the island, it's off of us, but Kendrick is still out there, still wreaking havoc, and so very few of the female wolves are feeling the compulsion either from Mary Jo's spell or Ashlee's advertising to come home."

"Why should I believe you?" She wanted to. Oh man did she want to think he told her the truth. That would mean possibilities opened up she hadn't considered and Malcolm was her mate. Her wolf was right, he was yummy.

Opening his eyes just enough to look down, he pulled his phone out of his coat.

Pressing a button, he handed it to her.

"It's ringing."

She stared at the phone, dumb struck for a moment. "Who is it calling?"

"Theo Kane."

Now there was a name she hadn't heard in a long time. She pushed the phone to her ear.

"Malcolm. Are you hurt?" Theo's voice, which brought immediate memories of home through Jana's head, sounded frantic.

"Theo?" She had no idea if he'd remember her or not. She'd been slightly older than he was.

"Jana. I see Malcolm finally approached you. Is he hurt? Tristan is going crazy here.

He says he can feel Malcolm's pain, that he's been injured."

I smell the blood.

Thanks for saying something earlier .

Staring at Malcolm, Jana couldn't see any obvious injuries but that didn't mean it wasn't true. "I'm not sure if he's injured. Um, Theo." She stuttered. "Is the curse really lifted?"

"It is. He's safe to you. Take care of him."

Theo disconnected. She stared at Malcolm for a moment before shutting the phone and moving into action.

She shook his arm. "Malcolm, you're hurt. Where? What happened?"

"It must have been strange to talk to a Kane again."

"Don't avoid the question."

Coughing, he smiled with his eyes still closed. "Think of it this way, we haven't yet technically mated so if I die on this train, you won't have to follow."

"You're funny. You're also hurt so let me help you." She paused. "At least tell me what happened and I think you'd better fill me in on what's going on with Westervelt. I'm really confused."

"What was the last thing you heard?"

She shook her head. "The last thing I heard? It was Kendrick's wife pounding on my door and running me off the island, telling me all of the mated wolves were going to go nuts…that I had to hide from all the male shifters until the curse was broken.

"It was gruesome. You can imagine. Utter betrayal at the hands of our Alpha and in the most horrendous way." She watched him shiver. "When all the men came back to their senses and discovered they had killed their mates, it was mass ritual suicide. The unmated men tried to find all of you but Mary Jo had put a spell on the unmated women so they couldn't be found until the curse was lifted."

She looked up at him, eyes inscrutable. "When did it get lifted?"

"About four years ago, Tristan Kane found his mate and took the role of Alpha.

Since then, everyone has been slowly finding their other halves…but Kendrick is still a problem. Ashlee, that's Tristan's wife, thinks that we can find the women even though Kendrick is still a threat because we need the women to come home to beat him."

That was a lot to digest and she needed to sit with it for a while. "What about the here and now? What are you doing in New York?"

"We're looking into your boss, Carl Elders. Finding you, it was like a dream in the midst of a nightmare."

His words made her heart flutter. She hadn't missed that he'd changed the subject.

"Do you not trust me? Is that why you won't tell me?"

This time his eyes flew open and she didn't miss the pain illuminating them. "When I pictured finding my mate, I never imagined I'd have to discuss with her, issues of security and danger. It was more about romance and love notes."

"I think it's adorable that you're a romantic. However, there are some things we're going to have to get out of the way between us before I will listen to any of that."

"Tristan had Theo and Gabriel put together their best warriors and sent us out to find out what is happening with Kendrick and his newly made wolves. It became immediately obvious that too large a majority of wolves were hanging out in Manhattan. Your boss, Carl, funds a lot of projects for Kendrick. We think the wolves are here working for him but we don't know how or in what capacity yet. That's my job to find out. When I left your office today, five of the wolves jumped me on the street. They had some pretty serious mojo magic. None of the humans could even see us." Malcolm coughed. "That's why I was late."

"What's a newly made wolf?" Her mind whirled. All of the years she worked for Carl, had he known what she was? No. She didn't believe that. Her status as a shifter was protected.

"Kendrick has found a way to create wolf-shifters. But not like us. It's really grotesque and they're entirely dependent on him for a drug we have not yet been able to synthesize. They're entirely controlled by him, and if they don't get their dose of this drug, they die. It's horrible."

Jana narrowed her eyes, as for the first time she saw the blood seeping out of his coat. A shifter didn't bleed like this unless they were really hurt. "Malcolm." His name was more like a gasp as the reality of just how hurt he really was hit her. "You should be in your wolf form; you can't heal as well like this."