Wolf Fever (28 page)

Carol finished removing the bullet from the third wounded man, although concentrating had become an
effort as soon as Ryan and Jake left the operating room to discuss some new trouble with Darien in private.

Matthew said, “Wonder what else is going on.”

Carol took a deep breath. “Nothing good, we can be sure.”

“You did it with him, didn't you?”

She glanced up from stitching the man's wound closed. Matthew looked slightly annoyed, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “If you mean Ryan and I are mated, yes.”

“He'll expect you to leave right away. To move to Green Valley. To take care of his people.”

“I'm staying here until we resolve this.” Beyond that, she hadn't really thought of leaving. Just that she'd be Ryan's mate. Why hadn't she even considered it? Did they have a hospital in Green Valley? Certainly not one that was run by werewolves, she imagined. Would she be able to get a position? Should she even try, considering her shifting problem?

She ground her teeth and sighed. “Like you heard Jake say, if we're all infected because we've been exposed to this, we can't go spreading it to other packs.” She figured that went without saying.

“He won't think that, Carol. He's a pack leader. His place is with his pack. He'll want to be there in case this hits his people. His sister and his aunt are there. Family takes priority. You wait. If one case of this sickness hits Green Valley, he'll want to drag you back there pronto.”

She finished with her patient and was about to reply that Ryan wouldn't be that way when Nurse Charlotte came in for her work shift. Jake accompanied her, but Ryan wasn't with them.

Carol had a bad feeling about that.

Charlotte sighed heavily. “Looks like we have an epidemic of our kind getting sick and then not being able to shift back to their human forms. Now the humans think the wolves are invading Silver Town and the surrounding area. So they're taking up guns to get rid of the menace.”

Jake shook his head. “Five men have already been arrested and thrown in the slammer. One said something about Darien being a wolf lover, and Darien just smiled in a sinister way. None have lawyers, so the court will appoint them.” Jake gave an evil smile.

“All werewolf lawyers. They'll get the maximum fine—$20,000—five years suspended hunting license, and sixty days in jail for harassing wildlife on private property, carrying loaded weapons in a vehicle without a permit, firing across a road, and anything else witnesses will attest to.”

“
Lupus garou
witnesses,” Carol said, half commenting, half questioning.

“Exactly. Silver Town is werewolf run, and we plan to keep it that way.”

Carol chewed on her bottom lip and rubbed her arms. “Someone needs to take care of Doc Weber and watch him around the clock.”

“I'll do it,” Charlotte said. “You run along now. My shift. You've already worked yours and more hours than you ought to have.”

“Thanks, Charlotte. Hopefully you'll have a quiet night.” Carol left the hospital with Jake, flanked by Mervin and Christian. She expected Ryan to be waiting outside the operating room, but he wasn't.

“Where's Ryan?”

“He and the sheriff had to question Marilee and Becky at the bed and breakfast,” Jake said as he walked her to his truck. “When I called Bertha to learn if the women's pack members were sick, she said a man had infected the two women to get back at Darien. Only now the man won't give them the cure. This isn't just a normal virus.”

“It's not just a mutation of some sort that affects our people?” Carol's head spun with the ramifications. “Some sick bastard bioengineered this?”

“Yeah, and then Miller gave it to them to infect our pack. Connor paid the
lupus garou
scientist to come up with the plague. Becky and Marilee wanted to start their own businesses, and Connor was going to give them a hefty sum for carrying the plague to our gathering. The only satisfaction any of us have is that Connor and some of his pack have come down with it. The women will have the same trouble dealing with it.”

Ryan drove into the parking lot, parked next to Jake's vehicle, and hurried out of his truck. His jaw was hard, his eyes dark. The news wasn't good.

“Did the scientist make a vaccine?” Carol asked both Jake and Ryan.

“That's what we're trying to learn.” Ryan hauled her close and held her tight as if he'd been away for eons. He brushed her cheek with his lips and then said to Jake, “We're headed back to the house.”

Jake had an odd look on his face and didn't move toward his own truck to follow them.

“Jake?” Carol said.

He frowned at her. “You saw me shift and not be able to change back.”

He finally seemed to believe her. “Maybe I'm wrong,” Carol said. “Maybe I just see you shift, but like everyone keeps reminding me, I don't see the end result. That you shift back.”

But Jake's expression remained dark.

She patted his arm. “We'll find a vaccine. And a cure.”

“And this damned Miller,” Ryan said, hauling Carol into the truck. “See you at Darien's place.”

“I'll be right behind you,” Jake said.

As soon as they were on the road, Carol said to Ryan, “I wish I hadn't told Jake what I'd seen.”

Ryan shook his head and tugged her close. “We'll get this under control.”

But behind his words she was certain she heard the worry that they might not.

“Darien's going to be pissed about us mating when we didn't say anything to him about it beforehand.”

Ryan let out his breath, wanting Carol away from this nightmare immediately. “Even more so when I tell him that you're coming home with me tonight.”

She looked up at Ryan as if he'd lost his mind, and he knew as soon as she did that she wasn't going to agree with his plan. But he had his own pack and his own place. Staying as a guest at Darien's wasn't in the plans. He had to investigate Connor and Miller's hideout, but he thought that if Carol was with his pack, Connor and North and the rest of them would never learn of her whereabouts and she'd be safer.

“I want to take you home with me,” he said, a little more amenable this time. He hadn't even considered she might object.

“I have to stay and figure out a way to cure this.
Unless you have a doctor in Green Valley who might have some idea of what to do.”

He sure wished he did. If the doctor had been a
lupus garou
, he might have helped. But as a human, he couldn't.

“No, Carol, he's human.”

“Human?” She said it like the man was an alien just arrived from another planet when she'd been strictly human herself not that long ago.

“We can't allow him to learn what we are.” Ryan was unsure why the fact the doctor was human distressed her. Unless she'd had high hopes he could help with this.

“You didn't see Doc Mitchell change in a premonition, did you, Carol?”

C
AROL SIGHED DEEPLY AND RESTED HER HEAD AGAINST
Ryan's shoulder as the truck rumbled toward Darien's house. She was tired, but this virus had to be stopped and the effects counteracted.

“No, I haven't seen any visions of Doc Mitchell.” Carol wished she had—anything to know what had happened to him. She snuggled closer to Ryan, feeling more chilled by the situation they were in than by the weather.

“But the way the doc disappeared makes me surmise that either North and his men kidnapped him, thinking that he might be able to help with their medical problem, or he shifted, ran off, and was unable to change back. If North and his newly formed pack came down with this before we did, I need to interview them.”

Ryan stiffened beside her. “You can learn what you have to over the phone. You're not meeting any of North's people face-to-face. I'll be leading a force to learn their whereabouts, the lab they've been using— and hopefully find a vaccine.”

She tapped her fingers on her lap. “It's remotely possible our people could
eventually
change back on their own.”

“But that most likely would mean only a few like Lelandi, who is a royal, could avoid shifting during any phase of the moon.”

“What if…” Carol's eyes brightened. “What if when the new moon appears, the condition vanishes? Those of us who aren't royals can't maintain our wolf forms. So what if the condition ceased to exist?”

“Maybe. But the first full moon made its appearance this morning. The three-quarter moon appears in the morning nine days later, and the new moon, eight days after that in the evening. That's a long time to wait to see if we make it out of this on our own.”

Surprised he'd know the exact timing of the phases of the moon, she raised her brows.

He shrugged. “I'd considered the moon's phases might knock out this anomaly, so I checked the timing of the phases for Colorado for this month.”

“Hmph, you could have told me you'd already thought of it.”

He rubbed her arm. “You haven't been a werewolf long enough to think in those terms all the time. So what happens if half our pack or more can't keep from shifting while we wait about seventeen days for the new moon to appear? What if the town is no longer run by the werewolf kind? And humans decide to take over? Worse, what if those who are stuck in their wolf shapes are still unable to shift back when the new moon appears?”

Ryan's phone rang, and he saw it was his assistant mayor. “Yeah, Grandbury?”

“Your admin assistant is fine. Ingrid had already shifted and changed back. She knocked out whatever ailed her—she suspected food poisoning and that whatever she ate could be more easily tolerated by her wolf's stomach—and she returned to work. She didn't want me to tell you in case she shouldn't have shifted,
per your orders. But she didn't get word until it was too late.”

“Thanks. I'll check on her shortly.” Vastly relieved, Ryan put away his cell phone. “My admin assistant was sick, shifted, knocked out what appeared to be food poisoning, and shifted back to her human self,” he told Carol.

She relaxed against him.

“We may have an isolated case of this virus here in Silver Town. Which probably means that Connor and his bunch did engineer this sickness and brought it specifically to Darien's people.”

“Thank goodness. If we can immunize enough people in the area—it's called ‘herd immunity,' in our case the term ‘pack immunity' suits us better—we could stop the spread of the virus. But letting other packs know about a vaccine wouldn't be easy, would it? Lelandi said that the packs are not very open about where they're located.”

“Let's worry later about other packs contracting it.”

“All right. So we need to know who was sick in our pack first.”

“When they were dancing, Mervin said Becky told him she was worried about shifting and not being able to change back. He thought it was a strange thing to say and just figured she'd had some weird nightmares. But the word has spread through the pack that Doc Weber can't shift back due to this virus, and now she's really scared.”

“She should be.” Carol frowned and then shook her head. “A virus can be contagious from a day before a person becomes aware of having it to five days after. What if Marilee and Becky brought the virus from their pack?”

“I've checked,” Ryan said. She admired the way he could put his investigative skills to use and was one step ahead of her. He continued, “Their pack is clean. But it doesn't matter.”

“Why not?” Carol asked.

“Becky and Marilee haven't been with the pack for a couple of weeks. I suspect they've been with Connor's people all this time.”

Carol swore under her breath. “And you danced with Marilee.”

“Only because she was acting nervous.”

“So you danced with her out of concern for her?”

He chuckled darkly. “
No
, because she seemed unduly nervous. Like she'd set an explosive device in the house and wanted to leave. It made me curious, but when I tried to learn what the matter was, I didn't get anywhere with her. I assumed she was just anxious about finding the right mate. Now it seems she was even hotter than I suspected—germ warfare.”

Carol pressed her lips tighter together. “I can't imagine anyone doing anything so despicable.”

“Offer money and a lot of people will do something they'd never do otherwise.”

A frisson of dread suddenly worked its way up Carol's spine. Before she could analyze what was making her feel so antsy, her vision blurred and she closed her eyes, not welcoming the vision and what it might foretell, but having no choice. Ryan's words faded into the background like a conversation in the distance as the vision clarified.

As a wolf, Darien paced, panting, his teeth and lips bloodied. Wounded, he limped. A dead wolf lay
near the bed on the blue carpet in his and Lelandi's bedroom. Carol felt Darien's satisfaction that the wolf was dead
—
and his frustration and dread because he couldn't change. He was stuck as a wolf.

Lelandi looked miserable, tears streaking her cheeks as she wrung her hands. Carol wanted to help and console her. But then Lelandi grabbed her phone off the bedside table and punched a button.

Carol's phone rang and nearly gave her a heart attack, yanking her from the vision. Perspiration trickled between her breasts, and her heart rate accelerated as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the Caller ID. “Lelandi?”

“Come home quick. I need to see you. But no one else.”

“All right.” Lelandi didn't have to tell Carol what had happened, that Darien had been victorious in a wolf fight, but he couldn't shift back. It was too late for Darien, too late for Doc.

“Not a word to the others,” Lelandi made Carol promise.

“All right. We're nearly there.” Carol hung up her phone, trying not to shake. Everyone would have to know their pack leader was in a real bind. Jake and Tom would have to take over until Darien could change back.

“What's wrong?” Ryan asked, pulling into the drive and parking in front of Darien's home.

“Nothing.”

“Your face has lost every ounce of color, Carol. Your voice shook when you spoke with Lelandi. You're not a good liar.”

She ground her teeth and looked at Ryan. Lelandi didn't want her to tell, but everyone would know before long anyway.

“Darien's shifted. And he can't change back.”

“Hell.”

Jake parked his truck next to Ryan's vehicle and hurried out. “Lelandi just called me. Told me the news.” He gave Carol an anxious look.

Lelandi must have realized she couldn't hide the fact that Darien couldn't shift back. Did Jake worry he would be next?

“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.