Someone rushed through the living area at a gallop, and Ryan assumed either Tom or Doc Mitchell was coming to his rescue. When he saw Carol as a wolf, Ryan’s heart did a flip.
Miller turned to face the snarling, growling female wolf that was Ryan’s mate, and as he did, Ryan tried to shove him off. Unsuccessfully.
Miller stayed where he was, his hefty size pinning Ryan down, but his attention remained focused on Carol.
She snapped at his flank with her wicked teeth, and he moved out of her way, still trying to keep Ryan—the greater threat once he shifted—pinned to the floor.
She moved behind Miller and bit his stiff tail. He yelped and Ryan’s heart raced, but he still couldn’t get out from underneath the big wolf.
She lunged at Miller’s backside, like a small fish poking at a shark, and nipped his rump.
Again, he yelped, but this time he turned to retaliate.
Unencumbered, Ryan shifted. His natural instinct was to growl and draw Miller’s attention, to let him know he had real trouble in the form of an alpha male gray and give him a fighting chance, but he couldn’t risk Miller tearing into Carol. The red who had changed her had torn into her once. Ryan couldn’t have her traumatized all over again.
He leapt at Miller’s back as Miller railroaded Carol into a corner of the office between a file cabinet and a chair. Her teeth bared, she growled, her eyes narrowed into slits, the blue color when she was human transformed into rich dark amber. She was beautiful and threatening.
Ryan grabbed Miller on the back of the neck, crushing his spine with one bite, and regretting it as soon as the wolf collapsed. What if he’d hidden the vaccine? What if they couldn’t discover a cure? How would they survive?
Chapter 27
A WEEK AND A HALF AFTER RYAN HAD KILLED MILLER, Carol sat at the kitchen table in Doc Weber’s rental home, tapping her bare foot on the floor and reading through books written over the ages that discussed various herbal and other home remedies for getting rid of viruses or colds or werewolfism. She wasn’t any closer to finding a cure for the pack.
Darkness had descended on the house hours earlier, so fluorescent bulbs flooded the kitchen with light. Ryan was still annoyed with her for having come to his rescue in Miller’s basement. But as soon as she’d realized that her vision of the room involving gunfire was the same place Ryan was investigating, she’d had to rescue him. She just hadn’t realized he was the one doing the shooting and not Miller.
Tom and Sam still weren’t talking to her, both mad that she’d taken off and nearly gotten herself killed. But she had been the only one not standing guard against the other red males! Besides, wasn’t that what mates did for each other?
She took a deep breath and continued to study one of the books, while Ryan examined papers spread all over the other end of the golden-oak table. He was looking for a clue to where Miller might have hidden a vaccine.
On a whim, Lelandi had mentioned that Doc Weber had a personal library that he’d accumulated before he’d had much medical training. A lot of his remedies had been passed down from their ancestors. Carol figured that trying those remedies on the sickened wolves was worth a shot, since nothing else seemed to work. For days, she’d been studying the books and testing the remedies on any willing participant.
If a person didn’t die from complications of the flu, which thankfully no one had, he or she would eventually get better. But for the lupus garous, the real problem was being able to shift into wolf form and then not being able to shift back. She was trying herbal remedies for lessening the effects of the flu and supposed cures for shifting, if any of them seemed in the least bit sound. Piercing a werewolf’s hands with nails and striking a werewolf in the head with a knife were supposed remedies for getting rid of the werewolf problem but she would leave them to myths and legends.
She rose from the table, crossed the linoleum floor, and opened the black fridge door. Inside, a bowl of diced onions sat in a thick, golden syrup of honey. She shuddered at the thought of anyone having to eat it.
A warm hand swept down her back, and she turned slightly to see Ryan looking down at her. His dark amber gaze was tender, and she knew that look in his eyes. It said she had been working at this for too long and she needed to sleep.
“In a little while,” she said.
He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m going to take a shower. Join me?”
“Sure.”
He smiled, but she could tell he didn’t believe her. She wanted to shower with him and enjoy what would happen between them if she did, but he probably assumed she’d never make it to the shower before he was finished.
“In a little while,” she said again, trying to reassure him.
He kissed her forehead, let out his breath, and headed for the guest bathroom.
Carol closed the fridge door and turned on the teakettle. More of Darien’s pack had shifted to their wolf forms, including Jake, and none could revert to their human forms. Tom and Sam were still fine. And Lelandi had said she had no urges to shift, so was all right for now. Silva had been fighting the shift for a couple of days.
Those who hadn’t shifted were taking care of those who had. Everyone who was left was short-tempered, feeling the tension, and worried about shifting and about family members who were stuck in their wolf forms.
A small tickle in Carol’s throat had bothered her for the last hour or so, but it was probably just allergies. She prayed. She also felt a little warmer than usual, which she hoped only meant that the heater was on too high.
She thought of Nurse Matthew and Charlotte handling the patient load at the hospital while she wasn’t doing her fair share. Sure, she was trying to find an antidote, but it seemed too much like being on holiday. Except that she was worried sick she wouldn’t discover a way to stop the virus.
Doc Weber and Doc Mitchell remained at the hospital in their wolf forms. They urged Carol to use her experimental cures on them. Those ranged from herbal remedies like garlic and onion, Echinacea, licorice— which didn’t go over with any of the wolves—and Vitamin C for improved antibodies to fight the virus in an infected person. She had even tested the medieval concept that exercising the werewolf into exhaustion in his wolf form would force him to shift back to his human form. Nothing worked. Darien also had tried all of the remedies in good spirit, although he wouldn’t go along with the brutal exercise plan, probably figuring that was a bunch of medieval bunk.
Carol lifted two packages of licorice, one red and one black, and took a deep breath as she pondered the results of yet another attempt at creating a cure. She’d tested Darien, Jake, and both the vet and Doc Weber, but no one seemed to respond to the home remedies. The vet and Jake had both gone along with the exercise program, willing to try anything to snap out of the inability to shift back to their human form. But Darien was right. It didn’t work.
Her mind frazzled, she poured herself another cup of ginger tea, and took it back to the table. On page fifty-five of a set of handwritten notes on werewolf myths and legends, she had found a possible cure, or death. She closed her eyes as she sat at the table and rested her head on her arm, willing herself to think. Think, what hadn’t she tried that might work? Something that wouldn’t possibly result in death.
Her thoughts shut down, and as if in a dream or out of the mist of her mind, a lush green meadow appeared.
The sun was shining down on Ryan as he lay on the grass. Hands behind his head, he had his eyes closed and his leg cocked, resting peacefully, until two small boys attacked him with childlike exuberance. The boys were identical in size, maybe three years of age, chubby, with dark hair like Ryan’s, and smiles and dimples like his, too. Startled out of his peaceful pose, he laughed and tackled them, tickling them amid giggles and squeals. Twin boys.