Wolf Fever (13 page)

“Darien, Carol is willing to pay for his services, but it's our place to do so since the red in our territory most likely was from my old pack. So my responsibility, which means yours.”

“We don't need an outsider bodyguard,” Darien grouched. Now he sounded annoyed. “What is it with McKinley anyway? He's acting mayor of Green Valley, now full-time active pack leader, and he's still haunting our town.”

“He's got a thing for Carol. Surely you see that as well as anyone here does.”

Darien growled.

“What if he's the right one for her? I mean, Jake or Tom could be, but they haven't shown anything more than brotherly affection for her. Tom's more protective and Jake delights in teasing her, yet he'd protect her with his life. But Ryan… well, you saw the way he danced with her. And before that, the way he came to her rescue when Mervin tackled her. I didn't get to see it, but Silva said they shared
some
kiss outside by the house. You know how she is. She's an alpha. She needs someone
who's strong of character like she is. Ryan would make a good match.”

“We have plenty of pack members who would make her a good match. An alpha werewolf doesn't have to have an alpha mate. For all we know, she might need a man that she can boss around.” The floor creaked some more with his pacing. “All right, so McKinley comes here to fortify our forces, but it irritates the hell out of me that he thinks our men can't protect her. I'm only allowing this because you wish it.”

No more words were spoken. No need to eavesdrop any longer.

Carol started the shower and turned on some New Age music. Next would come the lovemaking. At least the shower and music drowned out the moans and groans.

Carol climbed into the shower and closed her eyes as the hot water sluiced over her skin. Was Lelandi right in thinking Ryan was truly interested in her? The sexual interest was there, that was for sure. Every time she got close to him, her blood sizzled. Her heart pounded at an increased tempo.

But it wasn't just her response to him. His actions triggered her hormones to skip around in an excited frenzy. The way he observed her—although she had to remind herself he was probably trying to figure her out—and the way his gaze filled with admiration at times, lust at others, she knew she had more of an effect on him than he was letting on.

Even if they weren't a match, she was determined to prove to him, while he served as her bodyguard, that her psychic abilities were real. She shouldn't have cared if he believed her or not. She imagined that more than
half of the world's population didn't have faith in such things. But she
did
care that he believed. That he knew she had been honest with him.

She grabbed the container of liquid body soap and squeezed some into her hand. Then she slid the pearl-like soap over her shoulders, breasts, and stomach.

A distinctive thump sounded nearby, muffled by the water rushing in a heavy spray out of the showerhead. Darien dropping a boot on his bedroom floor? It sounded like it had come from her guestroom, though. She listened intently but didn't hear anything further except for the continued stream of water shlushing out of the showerhead and the mystical New Age rhythm of drumbeats, flutes, and pipe whistles. Had to have been Darien or Lelandi making a noise. Or just her imagination.

She ran shampoo through her hair and over her face, the scent of peaches filling her nostrils with the sweet, refreshing fragrance. Her fingers swept the silky soap down her arms.

After that, everything happened so quickly that it was a blur. The rings of the shower curtain slid aside. The cooler air from the bathroom hit her wet skin. The smell of the onions and garlic the intruder had eaten permeated the air, right before a painful jab penetrated her arm. Her eyes and mouth shot open. Soap burned her eyes, tears forming instantly to wash away the stinging but further blurring her vision. A heavy hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her scream.

Heat quickly spread through her blood, and she felt as if she were slipping into nothingness. The hot water still ran over her, her eyes burning, and whispered words penetrating the darkness as someone held her
tight. The smell of man and woods, of sweat and fear clouded her senses.

“Asleep. Let's get her out of here before we get caught,” the man said in a rush, his voice hushed.

She didn't recognize his harsh and concerned voice. Her last thought was to wonder where her bodyguard was when she needed him so badly. Damn Darien for forcing Ryan to sleep in the sunroom on the other side of the house. If he'd even returned from Green Valley to watch over her yet. But she'd heard Lelandi arguing with Darien once they'd returned home from the tavern. Heard that Darien hadn't wanted Ryan in the same room with her. That it would stir up the other bachelor males. That it would encourage Ryan to want Carol for a mate.

Once they discovered she was missing, it would be too late.

She would have fought her kidnappers' confinement, if she could have oriented herself in this new world. But all she saw was blackness, no wolf's vision here. And all she felt was numbness spreading through every inch of her body. Huffing and puffing and grunting, not her own, filled her ears.

A jolt to her body and an abrupt change from cool air to frigid air startled her. Her wet, soapy body grew goose bumps as a chilly breeze whipped across her sticky, water-soaked hair, still coated in shampoo, and her naked skin. The biting cold encased her as silky red hair floated over her face. Her eyes filled with tears and soap, she briefly saw a blurry image of amber eyes narrowed as they looked down at her—a concerned-looking man with the start of a scraggily beard. Then she succumbed to a tiredness from which she couldn't free
herself. Vaguely, it was as if she was seeing the vision she'd witnessed in Ryan's truck outside the tavern all over again. Only the cold was too real.

She floated, was jostled, and heard the crunching of footsteps in the dark and the heavy breathing and hard-charging heartbeats that revealed her kidnappers' panic. One of the men held her tight against his body, his chest covered in a padded vest that made him feel cuddly, not hard and strong. Clothed in flannel, his arms also felt soft.

She wanted to bury herself deeply in every part of him that felt warm wherever he touched her. His warmth helped to heat her body, but she felt as limp as a chilled, soaked noodle. She tried to open her eyes to get a better look at the man, but they stung from the soap and she barely opened them. Her eyes were too blurry with tears for her to see anything. Her head felt empty and floated separately from her body.

Then it hit her—although she wasn't sure whether it was a vision of something to come or a nightmare, or a little of both. She couldn't tell as her mind slipped into another reality induced by the drug.

Jake paced in his wolf form through the great room after a jaunt in the night with several others. Only he hadn't changed back. None of them had changed back. Carol watched helplessly. Lelandi's green eyes pleaded with her to do something. Anything. But what could Carol do? Just warn their kind not to shift. And look at how well that had worked! Damn it!

Then the world faded into something else. A room she'd never seen before came into view. A big-screen TV clung to the wall. And the walls: the upper half-sunny
and lighted with fan-shaped brass sconces to give the illusion of light, and the lower half covered in light oak paneling. The room had no windows. No windows, as if buried in the bowels of the earth.

Rich brown leather sofas and a light brown rug added to the earthy tones. A man's room, she thought. But something wasn't right. Bright lights from another room intruded on the soft lighting in this one. With the greatest apprehension, she moved without moving toward the doorway bathed in brilliant white.

Someone was in there. Shadows crossed the doorway briefly as someone moved about, blocking the light marginally. She had to see into the room. Had to see who the someone was.

Two shots rang out.

“Hey!” From a great distance, Sam shattered the future world Carol was in. Instantly her thoughts became her own again, except that she couldn't remember what had happened, where she was, or what she was doing. Shots had been fired. Hadn't they?

The cold shook her from the fogginess—the shower, the soap, the kidnappers! She opened her mouth to speak, to call out, to get Sam's attention.

Shots rang out. Shots fired from close by. From the kidnappers. At Sam.

The acrid smell of gun smoke drifted to her.

Her mouth snapped shut. Silver bullets? She couldn't be the cause of Sam's death. Best to let the villains take her away.

“Raise the alarm!” Sam shouted.

The man carrying her swore under his breath and tightened his hold on her, stumbling at a slightly faster pace.

“What the hell's happening?” Darien asked, growing closer to Sam's voice.

They were coming for her. The sensation that she was one of the pack gave her some peace of mind, but the danger the gunman posed if Sam and Darien caught up with her was too great to ignore. The bullets would kill Darien and Sam and any others who got too close. They couldn't risk it.
Don't risk it!

“Three men running that way. They've got Carol!” Sam shouted back to him. “And they've got guns!”

Another shot rang out and Carol tried to squirm, but not a muscle obeyed her.

“Carol!” Darien shouted.

She tried to speak, to shout, but she had no voice.

Suddenly she felt herself falling, dropped like a sack of cold groceries. She should have felt a hard impact, but her body didn't feel anything but a slight jolt. Now she was left in the sweet-smelling grass, crispy with frost, to freeze to death. She curled up into a fetal ball, trying to get warm, when a large hand gripped her shoulder and she shuddered. They weren't leaving her behind after all. At once, she felt an odd mix of reprieve and regret.

“You're alive,” he said, his voice low and dark but comforting.

Ryan
? A sense of overwhelming relief washed over her. And a fuzzy question surfaced. When had he returned from Green Valley? She envisioned him racing to the rescue on a white steed while he wore the McKinley plaid, the kilt reaching his knees, sword belted at his waist, a shirt open to his collarbone, his face frowning as he scooped her up from the cold ground and—

“I've got her!” Ryan wrapped her in something warm
and soft that smelled of him, his distinctive male scent of fresh soap and heat. Of spices and the wind in the firs, of the wild. Was it his plaid? She imagined him now wearing only the long shirt that reached mid-thigh and sturdy leather boots that met his knees, his expression worried and stern.

“Are you all right?” he asked, lifting her off the cold ground. He jostled her as he ran, his arms so tight around her that she felt he was going to crush her. But the heat and his protectiveness comforted her.

And when they reached the laird's castle, he was going to kiss her and tell her how much he loved her, how he couldn't live without her. She would be a member of his clan as they would want her to join them. Despite her being a MacDonald. Did the McKinley clan fight with the MacDonalds? She didn't know but fervently hoped not.

“Carol, can you focus?” His darkened eyes studied her for a moment as he rushed toward their destination.

She parted her lips, couldn't get a word out, closed her eyes, and concentrated on him and the way he held her so… so possessively.

He squeezed her tight again and kissed her lips gently, which got her attention. As soon as she opened her eyes, even as blurry as her vision was, she saw his lips curve slightly upward, but his brow was still furrowed in a deep frown.

After what seemed like forever, his feet tromped on wooden steps—when she thought they should have been stone—and then inside. She felt the warmth of the castle keep and smelled the scent of apple pies coming from the kitchen far away.

“Ohmigod… Carol. Is she all right?” Lelandi asked. “What's happened?”

Lelandi? The Highland romance Carol was living instantly died, and she remembered the pies Lelandi, Silva, and she had made after returning from the tavern and her date with Ryan.

“I think she's been drugged. She's not said a word since I found her. She can barely open her eyes, and she is limp and unresponsive.” Ryan rushed through the house.

Carol smelled the scent of the roses on the mantel as they passed them. Felt his legs lift, his thighs bumping her back as he ascended the stairs. What was she wrapped in, if not his plaid?

“Where were you when Sam raised the alarm?” Lelandi's words were spoken close behind him, her footfalls on the carpeted stairs lighter but just as hurried.

“I was searching the woods out back when I heard gunfire and Sam's yelling. When I drew too close to her kidnappers, they must have heard me coming and dropped her.”

“Oh, Carol.” Lelandi's voice was clearly shaken. “Take her to her room. I'll call Doc.”

Then the hazy world seemed to fade away. Carol was safe and home for the moment with the man of her dreams. And free.

R
YAN HUGGED
C
AROL TIGHTER AS HER SLIGHTLY TENSE
body seemed to lose all strength again. He'd gotten Darien's approval to stay and guard her, but damn if Darien had said he'd stay in the sunroom, which was too far from Carol's bedroom to be any help. Although he'd planned to sit in the recliner in her room later that night anyway. If he couldn't serve as her bodyguard in the way he felt would offer her the right amount of protection, there was no sense in his being here.

If he hadn't been searching around the grounds outside before he retired for the evening, he'd never have heard the men take off with her on the other side of the rambling two-story house in time. And if he hadn't nearly reached them to identify them by sight, they wouldn't have dropped her and left her behind, he was fairly certain. For that, he was grateful.

“Carol, can you hear me? It's me, Ryan,” he said, his voice soothing, wanting her to know it was him and not one of the men who had taken her hostage.

“Hmm,” she said, stirring a little.

As little as it was, he was still glad to hear her response. “Until Doc gets over here with something to counteract the sedative they used on you, you're going to feel pretty out of it. Your skin and hair are caked with soap, and Lelandi doesn't have the strength to wash you in the shower. A bath would take too long to prepare,
not the way you're shivering. I'll have to wash you in the shower.”

“Hmm.”

He took that as a yes, although they hadn't any other choice.

When he reached the bathroom, the shower had been turned off, but the room was thick with warm moisture, the mirrors steamed, the scent of sweet peaches still lingering in the air. He lay Carol down on a towel on the tiled floor, but as soon as he released her, she reached her hands slightly up to him.

“I'm right here, Carol,” he coaxed, squeezing her hands, hating to have to leave her unattended for even a second when she didn't seem to understand what was going on.

Then he released her again and turned on the hot water. Once he had stripped out of everything but his boxers and when the water temperature felt right, he unwrapped her from his goose-down jacket and lifted her in his arms.

She shivered, and he squeezed her tightly against his body as he climbed into the tub.

“I'm going to set you down, wash the soap off, and then dry you and put you into bed. Doc will be here soon.”

Lelandi hurried into the bathroom. “What will the other bachelors think?” Her tone was more amused than alarmed. She eyed him as he stood in only his boxers with a naked Carol in his arms. “Here, let me help,” she said, reaching out to grab Carol's arm.

“I've got her,” Ryan said, setting Carol down in the tub, not wanting Lelandi to do any heavy lifting in her condition.

Lelandi handed him the handheld showerhead, and he washed Carol's face and hair, the spray wetting him also. “She's probably got soap in her eyes. If I can't get her to open them, Doc will have to flush them.”

“He's unable to come. He said the drug should wear off. Silva will pick up some medicine that will help counter the sedative. Doc's got three cases of swine flu and a human boy whose brother accidentally broke his nose playing basketball with him, and one of the pregnant humans is in labor now, so he has to remain at the hospital. Nurses Charlotte and Matthew are busy helping him.”

“I should have been with her. Those bastards would have never gotten near her.” Ryan lifted Carol's chin and applied a steady stream of water to her face.

Lelandi grabbed a towel from the nearby rack. “I'm sure Darien will agree now to allow you to stay close to her.”

“A little late,” Ryan muttered. From now on, he would do this his way.

“I feel the same way, but you know Darien. You're an outsider.” Lelandi handed Ryan a warm, wet washcloth. “He still wanted one of his bachelor males to woo her. Now you're becoming a real obstacle to his plans.”

His own feelings mixed on the subject, Ryan wasn't about to reveal his thoughts on the matter. “How do you feel about what he thinks?” When she didn't respond, Ryan looked back at Lelandi and noted the wry amusement on her face. He shook his head. “Jake or Tom would make tolerable mates for her but not the beta males.”

“What about you?” Lelandi asked softly.

With the rush of the shower as he ran the water over Carol's hair, he almost didn't hear Lelandi's words.
“I'm here to do a job. Serve as her bodyguard. That's all.” Yet even as he spoke the words, he didn't feel sincere in the least.

He gently washed Carol's eyes, finished rinsing out her hair, and ran the water over her face again and down her body, where a sheen of soap still covered her skin and goose bumps raised. It would take a saint not to notice her soft feminine curves, her vulnerability, and her beauty.

But he was trying his damnedest to keep his wolfish thoughts at bay, just as he knew she had when she'd observed him after he'd shifted and remarked,
You look nice and healthy to me
. He'd seen the admiration in her gaze, noticed she'd taken a gander twice at his size, and wasn't fooled by her pretense. Not when he heard her heart beating rapidly and saw the faint blush tinge her cheeks beautifully.

Her eyes suddenly blinked, and she squinted.

His heart hammering, he lifted her chin gently. If he hadn't had an audience, he would have kissed her lips, maybe enticing her to open her eyes again.

“Can you do that again, Carol? Open your eyes so I can wash the soap out?”

She tried, but she could barely lift her lids, her face grimacing. Then she went completely limp again, deep in drug-induced sleep.

“You're very good with her,” Lelandi said.

“I'm used to helping victims of crimes.” Although he wasn't capable of feeling impersonal in this case. Not when Carol was naked and so defenseless. Crouching in front of her, he squeezed the water out of her hair with one hand, his other holding her shoulder to keep her from sliding.

“Ah, and the kiss you shared with her earlier before the gathering?”

What could he say about that? A mistake? Was dancing too damn close to her at the gathering also a mistake? No, none of it was. Just some errant need to get closer, to possess, to quash his compulsion to learn how she scrambled his thoughts to such a degree. To show her he thought she was much more intriguing than the other women at the gathering. Hell, maybe she did have psychic abilities. The kind that included mind control.

Many of his Scottish ancestors believed in witches in the old days, many of the women having practiced the healing arts in their unusual ways. Carol was a nurse and had ancestral ties to the Highlands of Scotland, so maybe some of her ancestors were among those healers and she had inherited their genes. He shook his head at himself for even going there.

“Want to turn off the water?” He didn't say anything in response to Lelandi's question, figuring she had already decided he was hooked on Little Miss Nightingale. Not that she wasn't desirable as hell, but she really needed someone who could completely believe in her.

Lelandi handed him an oversized fluffy white towel. The cloth contrasted sharply with Carol's skin, flushed from the heat of the shower, as he wrapped the towel around her.

“Can you get something for her to wear other than that silky see-through nightgown?” he asked.

Lelandi's brows shot up as she handed him a towel for Carol's hair. “How do you know what she wears at night?”

“She was standing in the window watching me in the woods. Hard not to notice.”

Lelandi's lips parted. Then in silence, she shook her head and left the bathroom, while Ryan wrapped Carol's hair in the second towel and then lifted her from the tub.

Carrying Carol into her bedroom, he saw Lelandi holding up the shimmering translucent nightgown he'd seen Carol wear the night before. It reminded him of the silken goddess standing in the window, staring out at him, as beguiling as ever.

“Guess she's not used to sleeping naked like the rest of us yet. She's got some other nightgowns, but all are shorter and more revealing,” Lelandi said.

Carol looked small and sleepy in his arms, and beautiful. But the idea of her lying naked or wearing that silken piece of nightwear or anything even shorter and more revealing as she slept next to him in bed tightened his groin even further.

“Does she have sweats? A long T-shirt?” Damn, considering anything she might wear made him think of her as sexy as hell.

Lelandi glanced down at Ryan's soaking-wet boxers. “Don't let Darien see you like that.”

How could he help it if rinsing off Carol's naked body had left him hard as steel? Even though he'd done his damnedest to keep his efforts as professional as possible. He was only human and a lot wolf, after all.

“What made Darien realize she'd been kidnapped?” he asked, resting Carol in the bed.

Lelandi held out a light blue T-shirt. He helped Lelandi pull it over Carol's head. When they stretched it down Carol's body, it barely covered her feminine enticements.

Lelandi slid the comforter up to Carol's shoulders.
“Jake was still up, editing his photos of wildflowers on his computer.”

Ryan raised his brows.

“It's Jake's hobby. Sam was watching him work, but both thought they heard something bump against the side of the house. Sam ran outside, while Jake tore up the stairs to check on Carol. He found her shower on and a trail of water leading to the window. The men had used a ladder and left it there. Outside the house, Sam smelled the reds and a perfumed soap that lingered in the air. The same shampoo that Carol uses. Jake alerted Darien, and I woke Tom. And here you are, her knight to the rescue.”

Hell, if he'd been a true knight, he wouldn't have allowed her to be taken in the first place.

Ryan glanced at the bedroom door. He realized then that there was no sound of anyone else in the house, no evidence that the group chasing Carol's kidnappers had returned. Which wasn't good.

“I'll dry her hair. You get dressed.”

“We're alone? Just you, Carol, and me?” he asked. “What if the men had tried to take you also while everyone left you alone?”

“I've got big teeth if anyone is of a mind to show up who doesn't belong here. I called the sheriff and his deputy, and they're on their way.”

“Hell, that's not soon enough. And these guys have guns.”

“I heard. What is the world coming to?” Lelandi sounded flippant, but her worried look belied her true feelings as she hooked up a blow-dryer and began running the hot air over Carol's hair.

Ryan watched Lelandi comb her fingers gently through the damp strands the way he had done when he rinsed the soap out. Silky blonde curls turned from wet and dark to soft spun gold, and he thought of how it would feel to run his fingers through her hair when it was dry.

Shaking loose of the notion, he headed into the bathroom to strip out of his boxers. “At least three men were out there. Maybe four. See if you can recognize any of their scents tomorrow when it's daylight and you have plenty of protection.”

“I'll do that.”

Sam barged into the bedroom and gave Ryan a disparaging look. “Hell, what happened?”

“She was drugged.” Ryan dried off and jerked on his jeans in the bathroom. “Did anyone catch any of the bastards?”

“Not yet. Darien and his brothers shape-shifted and are tracking them. He sent me back to help you guard the women in case the men doubled back and returned to the house.” Sam walked over to the bedroom window and peered out.

“Think they were shooting silver bullets?”

“Might have been. Reds wouldn't be a match for us grays.” Sam turned around to look at Ryan and frowned. “Where were you that you got to Carol so quickly?”

Ryan grabbed his shirt. “Outside. I'd already circled the grounds once, and then I thought I heard whispered voices on the other side of the house headed for the woods. I came from a different direction than you and Darien. Since you were shouting and I was in stealth mode, they didn't hear me coming until it was almost
too late. They dropped their precious cargo and hightailed it out of here.”

“Damn good thing, too.”

The sound of footfalls coming into the house through the back door caught their attention. Sam stormed out of the bedroom.

“Lock the door,” Ryan warned Lelandi. Ready to shift and take care of the threat, he dropped his shirt on the end of the bed and took off after Sam.

As soon as they made it down the stairs, they saw Darien and his brothers stalking into the great room. “They shifted and took off,” Darien said, his brow furrowed, his face red. “Where are Carol and Lelandi?”

“Carol's sedated and sleeping in her room. Lelandi's with her,” Ryan said. “I'm staying with Carol until we catch the bastards.”

Jake growled, “You don't tell a pack leader what he's going to allow, not in his own territory, McKinley.”

Ryan suspected Jake was angrier about them losing the men who had taken Carol than that Ryan was making the rules in his brother's territory. “I'm not budging on this.”

Darien looked at how underdressed Ryan was, and his own scowl deepened. “Where the hell are the rest of your clothes? You didn't shape-shift out there, did you?”

Ryan had only managed to get his jeans on. Boxers were soaking wet, lying in the tub. Boots, socks, and a soapy down jacket remained on the bathroom floor, while his shirt was draped across the foot of the bed. No time for anything else when he thought the bad guys were storming the house and he might have to shift to take care of the menace.

Sam motioned to the stairs. “He had to wash the soap off Carol. But Lelandi was with him the whole time.”

Although Sam hadn't really known what had gone on, Ryan appreciated the backup. But Darien glowered at Ryan, waiting for him to give his version.