Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Half Wolf

“It wasn’t a dream, you know,” Rena said as if she had the ability to read Kaitlin’s mind. “You’ll find that out soon enough.”

Rena seemed to be waiting for her to say something, as if they were going to have a conversation that made sense. All Kaitlin could get out was, “What day is it?”

“Monday.”

“That can’t be right. I couldn’t have lost two days.”

With another glance at the discarded bandage, Kaitlin added, “What is going on? Really going on, I mean?”

Rena stood up. “I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you, Kaitlin. For the time being, I guess I’m not supposed to know you exist. Imagine my surprise in finding out that you do.”

Kaitlin was feeling stranger by the minute because Rena was fairly convincing. She decided to go for broke, hoping that when this woman she had never seen before heard what she had to say, Rena would laugh her head off and hit the road.

“Are you a wolf, Rena?”

“You can’t tell?” Rena countered noncommittally.

“Hell, I’m not even sure I’m awake.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

Yes...

The room suddenly felt cramped. Too many ridiculous ideas were taking up space, and the air seemed to beat with a foreign rhythm. Kaitlin blinked slowly to get her bearings and went for round two of the most inconceivable questions possible. “So, that would make you and Michael part of a group of...wolves?”

The question sounded silly in a truly horrifying way. Rena didn’t laugh, though. She said, “You call us werewolves. And we call ourselves a pack.”

Werewolves. Pack. Kaitlin’s stomach tightened. Her next question bordered on hysterics. “You believe that? For real?”

Rena held up a hand in a gesture that indicated she was telling the truth. Scout’s honor, or some such equivalent thing for females.

Kaitlin stared at the pretty, rather feline-featured visitor. “How many of you are there in this pack?”

“Four. There are four of us here, and then there’s you.”

The hairs at the nape of Kaitlin’s neck stood up. Chills iced her spinal column as phrases came back with a startling clarity—bits of words the Michael in the nightmare had used.

It’s the only way you’ll make it. And Remember that I gave you a choice.

She did not want to ask the next question and knew Rena anticipated it, because the scent of Rena’s excitement wafted in the air.

“Are you hinting that I’ve become one of you?”

Glancing sideways to view her image in the wall mirror, Kaitlin found a pasty-complexioned, tangle-haired version of herself. But it was Kaitlin Davies who looked back.

Rena smoothed the creases from her jeans with both hands. “Not quite one of us. I suppose you’ll be accepted by the pack if he wants you to be, though, since...”

“Since what?” Even short pauses in Rena’s partial explanations were intolerable.

“Well, it’s not my place to assume anything or tell you more. You’re Michael’s pet project, so he will have to explain.”

“What is he, the king?”

“Alpha,” Rena corrected, walking to the door. She opened it before anyone had knocked, and then stepped back to make way for the man who suddenly filled the doorway.

Chapter 4

Michael stopped on the threshold of Kaitlin’s apartment. He looked first to Rena, who nodded her head before slipping past him. Damn it. Rena knew about Kaitlin, which meant they probably all knew.

His gaze slipped to the waif on the bed who had compressed herself into a tight ball near the headboard. The auburn-haired beauty was staring at him with a wide-eyed, stunned expression, as though she’d seen a ghost.

Because the bandage he’d taped to her neck had been removed, he knew what was coming. Hard questions and demands for explanations would be the next things out of her mouth.

Really, this nursemaid routine didn’t suit him. He was better at chasing bad guys. And Rena had no right to jump on his parade.

“I see you’ve met Rena.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, not quite sure what to say now that Kaitlin was fully awake. She was staring. Her eyes were clear and focused.

“I didn’t tell the others about you because I wanted to make sure you were all right first. Otherwise...”

She finished the remark for him in a voice that was stronger than he would have expected. “Otherwise there might not be any me to tell them about, since I’d be dead.”

He could sense the fear radiating off her in waves similar to the rippling heat of a desert mirage. Only colder. He felt that fear from six feet away. Yet Kaitlin was showing an inkling of the spirit that had attracted him to her in the first place. Even half-dead, he’d sensed she was a fighter.

He couldn’t look away from the tight, pale face that wasn’t quite like any other human’s face he’d seen. Light, this time from streaks of morning sun, seemed to caress Kaitlin’s delicate contours. He’d noticed those contours from the start, too. What he’d failed to remember correctly was the impact she had on him when those big eyes of hers were open. This fragile flower took his breath away.

And if he admitted that to anyone, or took it too seriously, he would no longer resemble the wolf he’d always thought he was, and he would dishonor his fallen mother’s memory.

Humans were a fickle, dangerous species. Some were even his enemies. And here he was, protecting one from things that went bump in the night.

He observed Kaitlin steadily. “You’re pale, but looking better. Does your neck hurt very badly?”

“Bad enough,” she said.

Life pulsed beneath her skin. In this case, he could sense anger, an indication of her turnaround, and yet Kaitlin looked even more waifish than before. Already thin, she’d lost more weight in the past two days—a sign of her new, faster metabolism kicking in. If she didn’t eat something soon, her nerves would fry.

Michael lifted the paper bag in his hand and watched her glance at it. “Breakfast.”

She didn’t acknowledge that.

“Do you feel sick, Kaitlin?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sick, I’m scared. I’m not sure who you are, why you’re here or what’s going on.”

He nodded. “I do realize how difficult this must be. Let me just say that I found you in the park, injured pretty badly, and that I helped in the best way I could.”

She pointed to the bandage. “You did that?”

“Yes.”

“You brought me here?”

He nodded. “As soon as I found out who you were and where you belonged.”

Her hand went to her neck. “I can’t feel stitches.”

“You didn’t need them.”

“I didn’t go to a hospital?”

“No. No hospital.”

“Then the injury wasn’t so bad after all?”

“It could have been your death,” he said, “if untended.”

She took a moment to reply. “If you hadn’t come along with a bandage, you mean?”

Her eyes were pleading with him to lie. She wanted him to laugh and tell her this was all a big joke of the worst kind and that things would be fine now. Of course, he couldn’t say any of those things and mean them. Though she had been faced with this situation for only fifty-some hours, she would have to come to terms with what had become her new reality.

“Lucky for you, I did come along,” he said.

Kaitlin’s shaking intensified, though Michael didn’t sense shock setting in, and that was another miracle. Her fragile exterior hid a decent backbone that made her want to try to deal.

“Public places are bad for us,” he explained, driven to speech by the intensity of her gaze. “Finding out about what we are would mean the end of many of us. Humans aren’t partial to sharing their planet with those who are unlike them. Given that, I couldn’t take you to your real home, either.”