Heart of the Winter Wolf Read online

  As he had lapped the dirt from the torn skin, he was shocked to discover that he had tasted this blood before. Her blood. But he had no idea where or why. James eased himself away from the woman and sat up on his haunches, but remained close enough to share his warmth with her. He knew he had done that before, too. Last night her words had resonated with truth and deep emotion, but they had shed no light on the mystery. He wished she had said more--not only in hopes of learning more about her, but because he liked the sound of her voice.

  The sun had almost topped the horizon when James slipped away into the forest. He paused and looked back at the small figure in the brush by the side of the trail. For a split second he saw another trail, another forest. Saw the woman much younger, barely a teenager, lying just off the path and looking more like a discarded doll than a human being. Her blonde hair was long and matted with blood. But her eyes opened. Green. Sea green. And infinitely sad as she observed the wolf--and waited for it to kill her. As she grieved not for the ending of her life, but for being alone.

  James shook himself hard, looked again, and there was only the woman sleeping peacefully as before, full-grown and uninjured except for skinned knees. Her hair was short, and tufts of it stuck out in odd directions as if it had a mind of its own.

  What the hell had he just seen? A vision? A memory? A hallucination? Was it confirmation that the white wolf had encountered her before? Come to her aid, even comforted her? And last night he had certainly comforted her again. Even though his human self was controlling the wolf this time, he had wanted to comfort this woman even though he didn't know who she was. He wished he knew why. And why being near her somehow comforted him, why he didn't want to leave ....

  * * * *

  The wolf was licking her face again. Jillian was reluctant to awaken from the best sleep of her life and shoved at the creature's soft muzzle, mumbled at it to stop but it persisted. An excited whine had her fluttering her eyelids, wondering what on earth was ….

  "Hey!" Her shout caused the young Labrador to bounce back and fall over its own big feet, but it was too friendly to stay away. Jillian sat up hurriedly, trying to keep the silly black creature from licking her face again.

  "Good God, are you all right? I'm really sorry, ma'am. Buster, get down! Get off her!"

  Jillian looked up to see a stranger trying to offer her a hand and shoo the dog off at the same time. The man looked to be in his forties, dressed like most of the farmers who came into the clinic, including a baseball cap advertising the local grain buyers. Wiry red hair curled out from under the cap. "I'm all right. I'm fine. Really. Don't worry about the dog." She tried to wave him away but instead he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet as if she weighed exactly nothing. "Ouch!"

  "Oh, Christ, are you hurt? Damn dog. He just gets so excited. I'm sorry he knocked you down. Jesus, just look at your jeans."

  Luckily the man was trying to put a leash on an unwilling Buster and was too distracted to notice the faces Jillian made as she gingerly flexed her legs. Her knees were stiff and sore, although not as bad as she had expected. They didn't look too bad either, but she'd better get some peroxide on them soon. The wolf ….

  "Where's the wolf?" Panic grabbed her by the throat. Jillian looked frantically over the spot where she'd been lying, looked off into the woods, scanned the brush in every direction. "Where is he?"

  The man came back with the now-captive dog, frowning. "What's wrong? Did you lose something?"

  "The wolf, he was right here. He was here with me and I don't know what happened to him." She whipped around and grasped the man's shirt, causing him to back up a step. "Did you see a white wolf? Maybe you just saw part of something, a big white animal? Maybe you thought it was a dog or a--a calf or something?"

  "No. No, nothing." The man backed up further, pushing her hands from his shirt. His face seemed very pale and his eyes darted about. "There's no wolves around here, lady."

  She stared at him. "Of course there are. I saw prints all over Elk Point yesterday, big ones. And there was a white wolf right here …." Jillian realized suddenly how bizarre she sounded. The dog's owner was glancing down the trail, sidling away from her and giving every sign of wanting to be gone. The morning air was cool, but she could swear the guy was sweating. Small wonder. She was probably coming across as a little deranged. The guy must think he had a crazy woman on his hands. She ran her hands through her untidy hair, straightened her jacket and decided to make light of her outburst. "Well, I guess I must have seen something else and made a mistake. City girl, you know. Maybe this is how those Sasquatch stories get started." She chuckled, expecting him to laugh along. He didn't. She tried something different. "Say, I work at the North Star Animal Hospital. Buster's a great-looking dog. Has he had his shots?"

  "What? Oh, yeah. A couple months ago when Dr. Taku was at our place doing a herd check."

  She leaned down and petted the ecstatic canine straining to reach her even as his owner was moving slowly but surely in the other direction. "George Taku? Guess you must go over to the Spirit River clinic then. Well, I guess I won't see much of you, Buster." She looked up at the man. He didn't look receptive to shaking her hand so she didn't offer it. "I'm Jillian by the way. Thanks again for stopping. And you are?"

  There was the slightest hesitation before he answered. "Douglas. Douglas Harrison. See you, ma'am." He turned and walked quickly down the trail with the reluctant dog in tow. Suddenly he called loudly over his shoulder, "You be careful in these woods now."

  She shook her head as she watched him disappear around a bend. "Be careful in the woods, he says. Too late. I've already spent the night with a wolf. Even Red Riding Hood didn't do that."

  Chapter Five

  The day promised to be a hot one. There was no dew on the fields and few birds were singing from the roadside brush as Dr. Connor Macleod struggled to drive, stay awake, and keep tabs on the bundle on the seat beside him. He'd been called out of bed to deliver twin calves and discovered there were actually three in the tangle. Two were already dead and it had taken the better part of the night to make sure the lone survivor wouldn't join them. The first-time mother had completely refused to bond with the undersized calf. Now it was wrapped in a blanket on the front seat, another orphan to be nursed at the North Star Animal Hospital. At least the weather was good--cattle producers in the Peace region tended to calve their herds in either January or May. If he had to get up in the middle of the night to attend a calving, Connor certainly preferred it to be at this time of year.

  Thank God for Birkie. He was going to be late for his surgeries but at least the North Star Animal Hospital was in capable hands. The receptionist's efficiency bordered on the superhuman. By now, Birkie would have opened the clinic, noticed his absence, checked his whereabouts with dispatch--and formulated a battle plan. Anything that didn't require a licensed veterinarian would be passed to Caroline. Anything that did would be rescheduled.

  And next weekend Connor wouldn't have a single qualm about directing their dispatch service to call the new vet instead of him. He was pleased with how well Jillian had fit into the practice in such a short time. She was highly skilled, passionate about her work, and eager to learn more, a potent combination in his books. He'd just have to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't work herself into the ground.

  I should take her to lunch this week.

  The thought surprised him, but he warmed to it readily. He liked Jillian and it was entirely possible he could like her a whole lot more. Birkie was often on his case about putting all his passion into his practice instead of finding a nice girl. He had to admit it was true. The work he did absorbed him. He lived and breathed it. And when he wasn't working with animals, he became one. There was nothing like it--to call the Change and run as a wolf was freedom and joy and a tremendous sense of wholeness wrapped together. Small wonder he didn't get around to dating very often, but luckily he had a long lifespan to work with.

  Like all of the Macleods,
Connor was far older than he appeared, would live beyond several human lifetimes, but there were few Changelings left in the world. Most of his kind built relationships with humans. Fortunately, a human could become a Changeling too, could share in the gifts. Legends and folk tales claimed that anyone bitten by a Changeling would become one. They were absolutely right. The secret was in the saliva. A single bite, even a small one, placed saliva in the bloodstream. The saliva activated an otherwise innocuous gene already present in every human body. Not all human partners chose this path, but most did.

  There were success stories all around him. The Pack leader, Jessie Watson, had Changed her human mate, Bill. Within his own family, Connor's mother had done the same for his father half a millennia ago. More recently, the vet's youngest brother, Devlin, had married Bill's sister, Glenna. She embraced the Change readily, allowing her mate to gently nip her hand--which was much harder on Devlin than Glenna--and welcomed the world of the wolf with joy.

  James and Evelyn had discussed the Change many times, but then she had become pregnant and they had decided to wait until after the baby came. Connor had wondered for years if Evelyn might have been able to save herself if she had been able to call forth the Change. Did James wonder that, as well? Was it one more weight to an already unbearable burden? Connor questioned anew if his brother was ever going to return to his human self. Would he ever even want to after losing so much? Jessie seemed so certain that James was improving but Connor just couldn't see it.

  Come to think of it, he was probably too tired to see anything. Even Changelings had to rest sometime. He'd been out on farm calls almost every night this week, and the second calving season of the year had barely begun. The tall vet left off thinking about his brother and focused instead on hopes of hot coffee and a hot shower as he pulled into the bay at the back of the North Star Animal Hospital. He tucked the blanket more securely around the tiny calf and carried it inside--and suddenly every wolfen sense flared to attention. A Changeling had been inside the clinic in wolf form. And it wasn't just any member of the Pack. There was no mistaking the white wolf's scent. It hung in the air, as three-dimensional as a holographic image to Connor's lupine senses. What the hell?

  He blinked and found that Caroline had already taken the undersized calf from him and was asking something about an I.V. He rubbed a quick hand over his face and found his voice. "Sorry, I'm not all here. Yeah, an I.V. would be good. And I milked out some colostrum from the mother--I almost forgot. Thanks." He pulled the quart jar from a deep jacket pocket, thankful that he'd remembered it before he broke the damn thing, and handed it to her. "It's not much. I left the owner milking out the rest. He'll bring it by in an hour or so."

  Calf and assistant disappeared from his sight and his mind. Connor inhaled carefully, certain that thoughts of his brother must have influenced his senses. But there was no mistake. He walked slowly forward, following the airborne traces to the large livestock area ... the stack of bales ... the hallway. What on earth had brought James inside the clinic? He had no answer for that.

  A noise from down the hall signaled the arrival of another truck in the bay. A moment later Jillian came through the doorway with her knapsack--and something else-- the scent of the white wolf enveloped her, swirled around her and preceded her down the hall like a live thing. A human would never have detected it, but to Connor it was as powerful as a punch to the head. He found he couldn't say a word or form a thought, only stare at her.

  "Hey there," she said as she approached. "I'm a little messy, but I don't look that scary do I?"

  Connor shook himself mentally and found his voice. "No, not at all. I mean, you look a little tired maybe." The scent of the wolf was overwhelming, the scents of the forest strong as well. Connor could have named the places she'd been right down to the plants she'd touched. "Did you get to see Elk Point?" He knew full well she had.

  "Sure did. It was great, even better than you described. I'll have to bore you with my thousands of photos one day. Say, do you know that a wolf pack has been in that area?"

  "Really? How do you know?" Good Christ, there was white hair all over her jacket. Had James lost his mind?

  "Tons of prints everywhere."

  Connor nodded, tried to act casual. Normal. Anything other than how he felt. "You're a pretty good tracker for a city girl. Maybe you'll get to see more. I know you're interested in wolves." And one of them seemed to be interested in her for some reason. How the hell did she get so damn close to him? And why did he let her? There were a hundred questions Connor was dying to ask the young vet and no plausible way to do so. What on earth could he say? Hey, did you see my brother the wolf?

  She didn't give him any more information either. Instead she studied him intently. "Are you sure you don't need me today? It's barely Monday, and you look like you've already been busy."

  "No, you go ahead and enjoy your day. In this business, you take your time off when you can get it." Connor glanced down at his stained coveralls. "I was just on my way to get cleaned up. I'll look perfectly human after some coffee and a shower, honest."

  "Same here. Okay, well, I've got some errands to run downtown, so I'd better tidy up, too. Thanks again for the use of the truck, by the way."

  "You're going to use it often enough when you're called out to a farm. Might as well get some enjoyment out of it, as well." She smiled at that, then continued on past him down the hallway and into her apartment. When her door clicked, Connor leaned on the wall for support and rubbed both hands over his face, hard.

  "Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ." He knew he wasn't going to get much more information out of Jillian, not without raising suspicions. That was okay. He would Change tonight and go looking for his older brother himself. James Macleod had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

  * * * *

  Douglas sat in the kitchen and poured a double shot of Jack Daniels into his coffee, drank it down. Tried to reassure himself that it didn't mean a thing when she said there were wolves. Of course wolves lived around here, just like bears and cougars did. Good God, he had even hunted wolves, ordinary wolves, when he was a kid.

  But the woman had been looking for a white wolf. White. Maybe he didn't hear her right. Maybe she was mistaken completely. Maybe she saw just what she suggested--a dog or a calf or who knows? But he knew who she must be. He'd heard about the clinic's new lady vet and figured that anyone who made it through seven years of veterinary college wasn't stupid or prone to seeing things. If she thought she saw a white wolf, she likely did.

  "But so what, Dougie?" He refilled his cup with more Jack Daniels than coffee and pondered the question. So what if she saw a white wolf? Wolves were known to come in a wide variety of colors, and white wasn't uncommon. Hell, most of the wolves in the arctic were white for Christ's sake. And none of them lived for thirty fucking years either. It wasn't the same creature. It couldn't be. It just wasn't possible.

  But then he hadn't thought it possible for werewolves to exist, and wished for the millionth time that he had never seen one.

  Wished he hadn't heard the back door close just after midnight. Wished he hadn't been so fucking nosy, wished he hadn't crept outside to find his father loading the Remington 12-guage as if to go hunting--and hunting for something big, too. Jesus, he'd all but begged to go along. After all, they'd stalked deer and moose since the boy was old enough to walk, sometimes even bear or wolf. Maybe the old man was going for the cougar their neighbor had spotted recently. His father had hesitated at first, tried to make him go inside. Then he had relented--and told him a story that made his young blood chill. He'd grown up thinking his mom had simply left them. His sister, Rosa, was old enough to remember their mother, and said she had run away when he was still a baby. His father had never said anything at all. Roderick had refused to talk about her or answer any questions, had refused to even let the subject be mentioned. But now his father was telling him that his mother hadn't run away at all, that she'd been killed, and not by anything ordinary. By
werewolves. Holy fucking crap, werewolves for real, just like in the movies and the comics. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. No way could Douglas stay home.

  But when they'd made their way to the Macleod farm, it wasn't what he expected, not at all.

  "Dad, she don't look like a wolf," he dared to say at last. He didn't look at the crumpled figure in the middle of the bloody floor but saw it all too clearly in his mind. Douglas had owned a gun since he'd been large enough to carry one, gone on countless hunting trips and had never once been squeamish. But this was different and his stomach felt like it had crawled into his throat. "Isn't she supposed to turn into a wolf after she's dead?"

  "That's an old wives tale. They don't change unless they want to. Don't need a full moon either, but they're stronger at the full moon. That's why we had to come tonight, when the moon's getting small."

  "But she ... she looks like Rosa. She looks like Rosa and you shot her anyways." Dougie's voice quavered in spite of himself. Rosa was married now and expecting a niece or nephew for him any day now. At fourteen, he had thought it was going to be really cool to be an uncle.

  His father had turned on him at once, shoved him hard into the wall and gripped the front of his shirt. The old man's voice was a whip. "Don't you go feeling sorry for these damned creatures. That's how they fool you, by looking like us. You get it through your head that they're predators, deceivers and predators through and through." He gave the boy a sharp shake to underscore the words, then tossed him back to slam against the wall again. "Once you get a pair starts breeding like this, we'll be hip deep in the bastards before you can blink. You want that, Dougie? You want them going after our livestock? Maybe going after Rosa like they did your mother?"