“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.
If Carol hadn’t been worried about how they might all become just like him, stuck forever as wolves with human brains, she would have admired his ability to guide them in the right direction. Even more, she worried that she might not be able to find the cure.
She took a deep breath, tried to give up thoughts of failure, and considered another situation that concerned her—bringing were-kids into the world, where they had to live in secret. She didn’t think she could cope with taking care of them, not when she hadn’t been raised as one. She thought about her mother’s comment that she should talk with Ryan about children before they were married, or in this case, mated. Better late than never.
“I don’t want children,” she blurted before she thought better of it. Now really wasn’t the time to discuss this.
Ryan’s hands tightened a little on the steering wheel as he continued to watch the road. “It’s a little late to consider that now.” He didn’t sound mad, just a little concerned.