CHAPTER ONE
The forest was his, and he no longer questioned it. Other wolves, natural wolves, roamed the same land, but they didn’t bother him. They acknowledged his place in their territory and both sides were content to leave the other alone.
Adam paced the tree line to the north of his cabin, uneasy. Something was off in his territory and he needed to figure out what it was. He’d run across two seemingly rabid wolves, one the week before, the other just yesterday, that he’d had to put down. He’d felt sick doing it, but there’d been no choice. He couldn’t risk the wolves making the others sick or getting too close to town. The farmers in the area already disliked the wolves, were pushing to have their protected status revoked and hunting season declared once again.
Adam had checked the werewolf database and forum—and wasn’t it a kick in the pants that such a thing even existed—and managed to find out that the nearby werewolf pack, headquartered about thirty miles away, had also experienced something similar. Only, their incident hadn’t been a natural wolf, but a sick werewolf who’d attacked its own pack members.
Adam shook himself in irritation, resettled his fur and headed back to the cabin. The information he’d seen online about the local pack’s experience was sketchy. A young member had come out of the woods fighting, and it had taken a much stronger wolf than necessary to put her into submission. She’d finally gone unconscious, with a high fever, and when she woke, hardly remembered a thing. The worry, of course, other than not understanding what was making her and the natural wolves sick, was that if a stronger wolf were to be affected, they might cause real damage before someone powerful enough could stop them.
More worrisome was word from the town. There’d been talk about the rabid wolves, even though the local vet had stated that no rabies had been found. Talk about getting some hunters together to take care of the problem if the local officials weren’t going to handle it. Adam wasn’t sure which idea was worse, local hunters invading his land, firing willy-nilly, or the government coming in thinking they could do whatever it was government employees thought they should do to handle the situation.
He had to consider the possibility that the pack had more information than had been posted online, and if he didn’t figure out what was going on, he was going to have to talk to them. Which irritated the hell out of him.
Pulling his human form to the front, he let the wolf fall away and strode into his cabin. He stepped into sweatpants and moved to the kitchen area.
A quick jiggle of his old teapot confirmed there was plenty of water in it and he turned on the stove. He pulled his not-so-old coffee press out of the cupboard and went through the mindless steps of producing coffee while he mulled over the problem. If the townspeople thought there was an outbreak of rabies, even though he was pretty sure that wasn’t what was happening, they could go on the offensive. The last thing he needed was human hunters invading his property, firing at anything that looked like a wolf, including himself. Been there, done that, no need to repeat the experience, thank you very much.
When the coffee was ready, he moved to the couch and sipped thoughtfully. The first taste was perfect, and he smiled. He may live with very few of the trappings of civilization, but no way was he giving up good coffee.
Not getting shot again was also a priority, but so was keeping humans and werewolves out of his territory, just for his own peace of mind. Getting kidnapped, tortured and turned into a werewolf had been a bit more than his already somewhat introverted nature could stand, and he’d given up on wanting anything to do with people.
When he’d found and hacked into the werewolf site, he’d searched for stories like his, but come up blank. Apparently the crazy-as-fuck pack that had kidnapped, tortured and turned him had been the exception, not the rule.
Still, even after he’d come to that conclusion he hadn’t been much interested in meeting up with others of his kind. He’d roamed the states for a couple of years until he’d hit on this part of Montana. Close enough to the pack that he could pretty much identify, and therefore avoid, where they lived and worked, but far enough away that he didn’t have to work too hard to remain unknown.
He didn’t remember a lot from that week six years ago. He recalled being invited out to a ranch by Paula Cage and enjoying a lovely barbecue before her crazy-ass brother had turned into a werewolf—an honest-to-god fucking werewolf!—and attacked him.
After that, things got hazy, though he still had uncomfortable flashes of Paula trying to get him to have sex with her while he was bleeding and only half-conscious. Fucking nuts, all of them. When the full moon had risen the next night, and he’d turned into a wolf himself, he’d taken off. Which was when the fuckers had shot him.
The whole thing still struck him as completely bizarre, even after all these years. He’d eventually come to realize that the pack he’d first encountered wasn’t the norm, and he’d discovered there were plenty of werewolves out there who were normal, law-abiding citizens, but that didn’t mean he had any desire to socialize with them, any more than he was willing to hang out with humans and risk being found out. Or risk hurting them; losing control somehow and turning them by mistake.
He finished his coffee and contemplated the teetering stack of books by the couch. It was almost time to make a trip into town, drop off the books he’d read, pick up some new ones, as well as other supplies. If he waited too long, it was a pain in the ass to haul the larger quantity of books to and from the old pickup he kept on the east side of his land. He divided up his trips, hitting the town that was closer to pack land only a couple of times a year, and interspersing that with trips to the other side of the mountain.
So far, he’d managed to avoid running into any of the pack while in town, and as far as he knew, they weren’t aware he existed. He’d learned enough about their ways to figure he’d be able to talk himself clear of any situation, mostly due to the fact that he wasn’t breaking any of their laws, other than remaining anonymous. Technically, he was supposed to let the Bitterroot hierarchy know he was there so they could make sure he was following said laws, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He’d been in the area three years with no contact and until now he’d seen no reason to change that.
With a sigh at the idea that it might finally be time to come out of the werewolf closet, he moved to turn on the generator, get some hot water going. He’d make dinner, run a load of laundry, wash the dishes, and take a nice hot shower before going to bed, sleeping on the problem.
Just before flipping the switch, he frowned at the distant buzzing sound coming from outside. It wasn’t often he heard low-flying planes in the area, but it seemed like lately it had been more frequent.
He turned on the generator and grabbed a sweatshirt on his way to the front door, having cooled off from his earlier run.
The sun had set and the light was nearly gone, but he could just pick out the plane a couple of miles to the west, heading toward town. Something else to look into, he figured, though he wasn’t sure where to start on that. Maybe he could hack into the local airport, see if it was possible to identify the plane that way. He made note of the time and went back inside to make his dinner. If he didn’t have any brilliant ideas before morning, he was going to have to suck it up and do what needed to be done.
Two days later
The vast expanse of forest called to Myra, beautiful in twilight. She wished she could shuck her clothes, her shoes, those trappings of civilization that usually grounded her, stand naked in the cool mountain air for just a minute, before allowing the fur and simplicity of her wolf to overtake her. The wind whistled softly through the branches, birds called out cheerfully to each other, and the crisp, clean smells vouched for the two-hour drive out of the city.
Sighing, she turned her back on the enticing sight and faced the wolves who’d come out of the pack house to greet her.
She could feel their nervousness, should do something to calm their worries, but was too on edge herself. They’d called in to the National Council to report a problem but hadn’t expected her, the current National President, to show up. What they didn’t know was that their problem seemed to be coinciding withherproblem, one she wanted to clear up as soon as possible. Needed to clear up.
Not that she could just fix it. That was the real tragedy. No matter what she did, what the pack did, there was no fixing this. An innocent man had been brutally attacked, turned into what he would surely perceive to be a monster, then escaped to live the life of a werewolf without the support of those like him.
If they’d found him, like she believed, she could offer that support now, answer any questions he might still have after all these years, let him know that the evil shits responsible for his attack had been taken care of. But she couldn’t fix it. Couldn’t give him back the life he’d lost.
The alpha pair gave her a slight bow and she nodded and managed a distracted smile before preceding them inside. She’d known Michael and Linda for years, but they weren’t particularly friends. All reports she’d studied while flying north to meet them indicated that Bitterroot was a healthy pack, not very large considering the vastness of land available in Montana, but tight knit and happy.
They settled into seats and the pair waited for her to begin while Simone, the third in their pack hierarchy, brought in a plate of refreshments. Myra thanked her, accepted a cup of tea and took a sip, waiting for Michael and Linda to take their drinks as well.
