“We’ve got to find the lab where these men made the virus and destroy it, Jake,” Ryan said, taking Carol’s arm and guiding her toward the house.
Wolves in motion, Tom and Sam bolted from around the side of the house, and Carol jumped. Her heart took a dive. They shouldn’t have shifted.
“Hell,” Jake said to his brother and Sam. “You better be able to shift back.” He opened the door to the house, and the wolves dashed inside and up the stairs, tails straight out, indicating both were tense.
“I should go with you, Ryan. To identify the vaccine, if they have one.” Carol figured Ryan would say no because he’d worry about her safety, but she really thought it was the best way to handle this. “If they have a lab that produced the virus, they may have created a vaccine.”
“Lelandi wants to see you,” Jake said to Carol, motioning to the stairs.
“Don’t you dare go anywhere without me, Ryan McKinley.” She gave him a hard look, hoping that he wouldn’t take off to search for the lab and leave her behind. Then she ran up the stairs.
“I see who’s in charge in your family already,” Jake said with a smirk.
Ryan folded his arms and watched her disappear upstairs. “I would leave her behind for her own safety. But she’s got a valid point. We need her with us. You need to stay with Lelandi. I’ll take Tom and Sam with me.” As an afterthought, he added, “If that works well for you.”
Jake shook his head. “Can’t give up being a natural born leader, can you, Ryan?”
“Nope, it’s in the blood.” He just hoped he wasn’t making a grave mistake by taking Carol into the enemy’s territory.
Carol knocked on Lelandi’s bedroom door, not wanting to intrude on her and Darien and their new dilemma. She felt terrible. If she couldn’t solve this situation, Lelandi’s children would never know their father as human.
“Come in, Carol,” Lelandi said, opening the door, her voice tinged with alarm as she waited for Carol to enter the bedroom. Lelandi wrung her hands and watched Darien pace back and forth in his wolf form. Thankfully, someone had removed the dead wolf’s body.
“What’s happening? I don’t understand what’s happening. How can we stop this?” Lelandi asked. Her green eyes turned to Carol, and tears filled them. “He can’t change back. You have to do something!” Lelandi pleaded, her voice strained and choked with emotion.
Carol took Lelandi’s hands and guided her to sit down on the bed.
“Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. We’ll figure this out and reverse the effects.”
At least she hoped so. What if they could only vaccinate against the virus before someone contracted it, but there was no hope for those poor souls who already had it? “Do you know who Darien just killed?”
“Yeah, Connor. Darien killed his brother after the guy bit you. During the initial battle, Connor had given up the fight so Darien had let him live. Not this time.”
Carol rubbed Lelandi’s arm. “So he came here to avenge his brother’s death, I suppose. His plan to make us all sick hadn’t worked out the way he wanted, so he’d decided to kill Darien. I wonder if they thought they could take over Silver Town if all of us had gotten sick and couldn’t change back.”
“Possibly. The renegade reds left their pack. What better way to start over than to come into a town already run by werewolves, eliminate the leadership through the use of the virus, and take over.”
“Except that it backfired, because now they’re getting sick, too. What happened to the men who were protecting you?”
“They chased the other three reds off. Connor stayed to fight Darien.”
Carol nodded, figuring this was one thing she’d never get used to, fighting amongst wolves. “Where’s Silva? She was supposed to be staying with you.”
“Downstairs making me hot cocoa.”
“All right. I’m going to leave with Ryan and some others to try to find the reds’ lab. In the meantime, Darien and Jake can protect you.”
“Be careful.”
“I will be.” Carol gave Lelandi a hug, fought the urge to pat Darien on the head—figuring he probably would not appreciate it—and hurried out of the master bedroom. When she reached her room, she ditched her scrubs and changed into jeans and a sweater, and then joined Jake and Ryan downstairs in the great room. To her profound relief, she watched Tom and Sam exit the kitchen, tall and dressed and very human.
Ryan asked, “Ready to go?”
A big gray wolf loped out of the kitchen, headed straight for her, and her mouth gaped. “Doc Mitchell?”
“Some of the men found him on his way to the house to see Darien. He’s been trying to tell us something, but we’re not sure what. We think he may have been searching for these guys long before we were aware of what was going on,” Jake said.
“All right, let’s go.” Ryan took hold of Carol’s arm and hurried her out to the truck. Doc Mitchell loped alongside them.
“Guess he thinks he can help,” Carol said, and she prayed he could.
Driving south from Darien’s place, Carol and Ryan were quiet as Doc Mitchell rode in the backseat of the truck while Tom and Sam followed in Tom’s truck. Carol watched Doc Mitchell’s antics and interpreted them. He wagged his tail when they took the right roads and growled when they didn’t.
If Carol hadn’t been worried about how they might all become just like him, stuck forever as wolves with human brains, she would have admired his ability to guide them in the right direction. Even more, she worried that she might not be able to find the cure.
She took a deep breath, tried to give up thoughts of failure, and considered another situation that concerned her—bringing were-kids into the world, where they had to live in secret. She didn’t think she could cope with taking care of them, not when she hadn’t been raised as one. She thought about her mother’s comment that she should talk with Ryan about children before they were married, or in this case, mated. Better late than never.
“I don’t want children,” she blurted before she thought better of it. Now really wasn’t the time to discuss this.
Ryan’s hands tightened a little on the steering wheel as he continued to watch the road. “It’s a little late to consider that now.” He didn’t sound mad, just a little concerned.
“I’m on birth control.” She hadn’t needed it for a long time, but she always wanted to be prepared—just in case. At least she’d been careful and not reckless.
She couldn’t read his expression at first, but his pause made her think he wasn’t happy with the idea.
“Pills?” he asked.
“Yep. Not that I’ve needed them, but…” She shrugged.
“Doc give them to you?”
She didn’t like the way he asked, as if he was investigating one of his cases. She folded her arms. “No. I had enough of a supply before he came to work here.”
“So… no one told you they won’t work for us.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“They don’t work for all women,” he said.
She knew that from personal experience because a friend of hers had gotten pregnant while on the pill—but at least her friend had been married. Her friend’s sister also had gotten pregnant on the pill, only she was in love with the guy, not married. The day she learned she was pregnant, she also discovered her lover had a wife and two daughters. Bastard. And he had no intention of leaving his wife, because her dad was a rich man and would have ruined him.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, annoyed.
“Well, our women are like that. We normally don’t use birth control. Like humans, some of us can have children without any problem. Others never do. But as with any pack mentality, procreation of our species is important and most of us want children. As a pack leader, it’s essential. Are you afraid they’ll have your psychic talents? And be ostracized?”