Lelandi gave her a slight smile. “The other women are not any real competition, you know. The men are much more intrigued with you, especially after you played so aggressively on the field this afternoon. And taking Darien’s ribbon?” Lelandi gave a bright laugh. “They loved it.”
“Everyone was shocked into silence.”
“Well, all right. At first, sure. But once they saw how good-naturedly Darien took it, they loved how you stood up to him. No one would have dared. Although Silva does from time to time. As to the men, they still don’t know about the other women. You’re more of a known commodity.”
“They don’t like it that I haven’t shifted.” Suddenly a thought occurred to Carol. Why couldn’t she just pretend that she had shifted when she was alone? Then they’d quit worrying about her. “Not that I haven’t shifted when no one is around to see it.”
Lelandi tilted her head to the side and gave her a look that said: Get real. “I know you haven’t shifted. If Darien learns you were having trouble with it tonight, he’ll want to know what brought it about and how you managed to stop it.”
Carol was dying to know how Lelandi suspected she had never shifted. Must have been a werewolf thing. She zipped the low-cut back of her dress and slipped into a pair of slinky heels, still feeling underdressed but like she was on a manhunt.
“I love the dress, Carol. You should wear clothes like that more often.”
“I bought it to go to a party held by one of the student nurses in one of my biology classes. Sat like a wallflower during the whole affair when I discovered the male medical staff in attendance had significant others, who were not at the party, but were looking for some extra nighttime entertainment. I didn’t have a ride home or money to call a cab, so I stuck it out.
“But I loved the color.” She ran her hand over the silky fabric. And the cut looked good on her, so she hadn’t had the heart to get rid of the dress. Now she felt way overexposed for the current event, like she was trying to prove something to the other women or to the men, when she had no intention of doing so.
“Are you going to be all right?” Lelandi asked, as Carol disappeared into the adjoining bathroom.
Carol touched up her lips with a shimmering peach gloss. “Yep, as right as can be.” Under the circumstances.
“When you went into the woods with Ryan last night, did you see any sign of a red wolf?”
Frowning, Carol walked out of the bathroom. “No, why?”
“Have you had any premonitions that we’ve had trouble with a red wolf?”
“No.” Lelandi’s worried voice concerned Carol. What was up now?
Lelandi crossed the room to the door and opened it. “Ryan claims the wolf was skulking around the woods surrounding our home. Since there are only the two of us reds here, other than Doc…” Lelandi shrugged, but Carol could tell she was trying to hide her apprehension.
“Would it have been your cousin, Ural?”
“No, I called him, and he’s still in my uncle’s pack. Whoever it was, he was wearing some kind of hunter’s spray,” Lelandi said.
If it wasn’t Ural, was it someone else from Lelandi’s old pack? Someone who had survived the battle?
Carol opened her mouth to speak, but remembering how those who had attempted to kill Lelandi had worn hunter concealment sprays brought back a horrible flash of memory. She clamped her lips and eyes shut, the terror of the night she’d been bitten coming back to her in an instant. The red wolf’s wicked canines primed to bite her, lips curled back, nose wrinkled, the growl, the sharp teeth sinking in, the stabbing pain, the numbing cold, and then blackness.
“Carol?”
Attempting to hide a shudder, Carol opened her eyes and gave a wan smile.
“What were you thinking of?”
“Being bitten.”
Lelandi gave her a heartfelt hug and then pulled her to the door and into the hallway. “That’s what I thought. But Deputy Peter Jorgenson killed the wolf that bit you.”
A deep frown marred Lelandi’s forehead, and Carol got the impression she knew something else. “Was there someone from your old pack who was at the battle and survived?”
Lelandi stopped halfway down the hall and took a deep breath.
“Connor. Darien killed his twin brother. Connor appeared harmless enough to the others when he quit fighting to watch Darien battle with my former pack leader, so they let him go. But later, we had word that during the battle another was downstairs called North, cousin of the one who bit you. Like Connor, he gave up the fight and Jake let him leave.”
A chill spiked up Carol’s spine. “Would either of them want revenge for their kin’s death?”
“Possibly.”
But the way Lelandi said it as she headed down the stairs sounded more like she thought the red had some other agenda.
“What’s another possibility?”
Lelandi looked over her shoulder at Carol, her expression worried. “Connor’s brother turned you, but he died. Now either of the men, the brother or the cousin, might want to claim you, partly because you’re a red and partly because in the old days when a man needed a woman, and sometimes a woman wanted a particular man, they bit and changed them. Then they took the newly turned werewolf as a mate.
“In this case, their kin changed you, but you still don’t have a mate, so Connor or North may feel you belong to the family. But also, they might want you for revenge. Of course, I’m just guessing here. I have no idea if any of this is true.”
Carol swallowed hard as uneasiness swept over her.
“Another possibility is that it’s just a red wolf who smelled you or me in a gray territory and was curious about the two of us.”
“Unlikely, right?” Carol asked. Just the inflection in Lelandi’s voice told her Lelandi didn’t believe it.
“You’re right. The whole area is filled with gray lupus garous, which should be enough of a deterrent.” Lelandi clasped Carol’s hand and squeezed reassuringly. “Darien’s put out the word you’re to have a bodyguard at all times. The bachelor males have all eagerly signed up to take turns.”
How could things get any worse?
Carol hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. Returning to the sunroom after her flight from the great room was a major feat. She wasn’t shy, but she wasn’t a stage personality, either. She was sure she would be the center of attention when she returned, while she would have much rather blended in.
When they entered the great room, all eyes were upon them. Brows and lips lifted as the bachelors’ interest was piqued by the sight of Carol in the dress. Ryan seemed to be grilling Mervin in a corner of the room, the poor barber’s back to the wall and Ryan nearly nose to nose with him. Ryan’s jaw dropped when he caught sight of Carol out of the corner of his eye, his fearsome expression instantly vaporizing. Now she wished she hadn’t changed out of her more casual, conservative clothing to something that really got the guys’ attention.
She stiffened her back and glanced at the two women, who were staring at her and exchanging words with one another, both of them giving her a chilly look. Hell, Carol wasn’t going to be a wallflower any longer. The guys were single, and while she didn’t think she’d really get interested enough in any of them to mate, she had to remind herself that if she just got to know one of them, she might find he truly was someone she could care for. Still for now, all she intended to do was have fun.
“Can we have some music?” she whispered to Lelandi.