“Only one way to find out.” Lelandi called his cell phone, but there was no answer. Carol’s jaw tightened. Lelandi smiled. “Always another way to get around the big boss.” She punched in another number and was instantly rewarded.
“This is Tom.”
“Lelandi here, visiting Carol at the hospital. She’s pretty down. Can you authorize her parents’ visit if I stay in the room while they’re here?”
“Silva can stay, too,” Carol hurriedly said.
Silva smiled and pulled up another chair.
“I’ll check with Darien and get back with you.” Tom sounded so concerned, she wondered what was up.
“Where is he? I tried calling, but there wasn’t any answer.”
“The silver mine. An accident occurred with one of the tourist cars on the train.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, Lelandi, not until Darien approves. But, Angelina and Hosstene were on the car that Darien said was rigged to break free. The car tumbled down several hundred feet, striking a number of trees before it impacted with a boulder.”
Lelandi stared at Silva in disbelief. “Were… were they injured badly?”
“Hosstene was decapitated. Angelina is on her way to the hospital now.”
“Why would they have been riding on the train? Only the tourists take that trip, right?”
“Meeting someone? We don’t know.”
“Murder.”
“Seems that way. Darien suspects Angelina, Hosstene, and Ritka were three of the ones blackmailing your sister. He believes whoever rigged the accident is the fourth and wants to eliminate his partners in the crime.”
Lelandi sat down hard on the vinyl chair next to the bed. “How bad is Angelina?”
“Several broken bones. Internal bleeding. Not sure of the severity of all her injuries until a doctor takes a look. Darien didn’t want to tell you until he was more certain of the women’s guilt. Let me speak to Doc Mitchell, will you?”
Lelandi’s face warmed. “He’s… well, he had to check out Mrs. Fennigan’s dog who was having symptoms of a stroke.”
Tom didn’t say anything for a moment. She was in trouble now. “Who’s watching you?” Tom’s voice was deep with barely repressed anger, and he sounded like Darien, except he would have sworn.
“Silva.”
“Damn it, Lelandi. The murderer is still out there and someone has to watch you at all times. Why the hell didn’t Doc Mitchell call in someone else? Forget it. He would have. But you didn’t wait. Who’s watching Carol’s room?”
“Deputy Trevor.”
“Fine. Stay there until I can get someone else to the hospital to escort you straight home after your visit.”
Not liking that she had to be constantly watched, Lelandi clenched her teeth. “Will do. What about Carol’s parents?”
Tom grumbled, “Darien will go ballistic when he learns you’ve been running around without protection. I’ll make arrangements for her parents’ visit. But don’t you leave there until I have a security detail for you.”
“Yes, sir.” She smiled and hung up the phone.
“I could hear Tom’s voice all the way over here,”
Silva said.
Carol was frowning so hard, Lelandi took her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Tom will make the arrangements.”
“You… you risked your life to be with me?”
“Nonsense,” Lelandi said.
But Silva disagreed. “Yes, she did. We were all set on coming here when Doc Mitchell got the emergency call. Peter was supposed to meet us at the house, but when he didn’t show on time, Lelandi insisted we get to the hospital. She worried about you and didn’t want to wait any longer, assuming Trevor would be here in case anyone threatened her.”
“You shouldn’t have risked it,” Carol scolded.
“How are you feeling?” Lelandi hated that everyone worried about her like she was a child who couldn’t deal with adversity.
“My throat still hurts. Tom gave me blood and I’m feeling a little better, but…” She laid her head back against the pillow, her eyes soggy, dark circles coloring the skin.
“Do you… want to talk about it?”
Carol inhaled deeply. “It’s driving me crazy. Like Silva, I heard everything Tom said over the phone, he was so angry. I heard him say Hosstene was dead. And Angelina’s in a bad way. That Darien thinks they were in on the blackmail. That the car they were riding in was sabotaged. I can even hear your heart beating rapidly. The smell of antiseptics in the room is overwhelming and burning my eyes. Even when the lights were out last night, I could see as if it were daylight. Although it wasn’t exactly like daylight. More like a dark day when the clouds are getting ready to dump rain.”
“I’m sure it’ll take getting used to.” Lelandi wished she could give her better advice.
“Is this how it felt when you were turned?” Carol asked.
Silva shook her head. “We were born as lupus garous. In fact, you’re in the presence of a royal.” Her voice full of pride, she motioned to Lelandi with a bow of her head, and Lelandi rolled her eyes at her.
Carol’s eyes grew big. “A royal?”
“What Silva means is I’m a direct descendent of the original lupus garou. We believe he was a Norseman, although no one knows exactly how he contracted the lupus garou condition.”
“Some say a wolf bit him but instead of dying, his blood fought off the infection by mutating,” Silva suggested.
“I didn’t think Lelandi was a werewolf because she’s so small compared to the rest of you.”
“We’re gray wolves.” Silva sat taller. “Lelandi’s a red.”
“Are… are there Mexican werewolves, too? Other kinds?”
“Mexican wolves are really grays,” Silva said. “In the Southwest they call them Mexican wolves. And in the Northeast, timber wolves are also grays.”
“I don’t know about other kinds of lupus garous. ” Lelandi motioned at the window. “Normally, we don’t go searching for other packs unless someone’s looking for a mate, and even then, many find rogues instead. But we don’t write down the histories about our lines either. Too dangerous. All we know is what’s passed down orally from generation to generation.”
Carol touched the bandage on her neck. “What kind am I?”
“A red bit you. So now there are two of us in the pack.” Lelandi smiled.
“The pack. I’m one of you now?” Carol seemed unsure as to whether this was good news or bad.
“Yes. As long as you wish. Some become loners, rogues. Most stay with a pack for protection.”
“What about real wolves? Do they get you mixed up with them?”
Lelandi chuckled. “One time a female wolf in heat lifted her tail and was trying to entice my brother to mate with her. My sister and I couldn’t stop laughing. Except the next day, a male loner wolf tried to mate me. Then it wasn’t so funny. Leidolf went after him and that was the last we saw of him in our territory.”
Carol laughed, then her expression turned contemplative. “I’ve read a lot about wolf behavior. How once they’ve chosen a mate, they’ll copulate with them several times over and over again, then back up to them, sometimes even putting their leg over them to protect their mate.”
“A defensive measure, sure.” Lelandi smiled. “But lupus garous are a little more civilized.”
“So reds were the first kind of werewolves?”
Silva laughed.
Lelandi looked at her, surprised at her reaction. “Yes, Carol, a red was the first lupus garou.”
“A gray.” Silva bit her lip, suppressing another giggle.
Carol’s brows and lips raised. “The problem with oral history? I thought since Lelandi was a royal and a red, the first must have been a red.”
“She’s a royal because she has ties to the original, this is true. And she’s had very few human influences afterward, but my ancestors say the first was a gray who mated with a petite redheaded Celt. One of her sons mated with another. And so on until eventually a line of reds was born.”
Lelandi frowned. “Not true. The first was a red. One of his daughters mated a gargantuan of a berserker, a king of the Norsemen. That’s where the first gray line began.”
Carol grinned. “I can see living with a gray pack, but being a red, is going to cause me problems already.”
Lelandi patted her hand and whispered conspiratorially, “The reds came first. That’s all you have to remember. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”
Silva gave her a devilish smirk. “I’ll bet Darien’s never heard that version before. Wonder what he’ll think.”
“He’ll agree with me.” Lelandi turned to Carol.
“But I have a question for you that’s been nagging at me. Darien said you must have seen what happens when we ditch our clothes and mate in the woods. That you didn’t see humans wearing animal skins like you said.”
Carol’s cheeks blossomed with color, and she began playing with her thin blanket. “I… I did see you as werewolves. I was trying to find out if you were one of them. I… I wanted to protect you. I knew it was too late for me.”
“Too late for you?”
Carol looked steadily into Lelandi’s eyes. “When I had the vision, the scene was set in the woods at night, but I could see as if it was a cloudy day. Just like last night in the hospital room. Which could only mean one thing.”
“When the scene you envisioned finally occurs, you would be one of us,” Lelandi said.
“Wow,” Silva said. “You really can see into the future?”
Sam burst into the room, slamming the door against the wall, his look feral. “Darien read the riot act to the pack. You are not to go anywhere unescorted,” he directed at Lelandi.