Alaskan Wolf (11 page)

And then, suddenly, she was in Patrick's arms. Held tightly against him. Looking into his beloved brown eyes.

Beloved?

“Thanks,” she whispered as the cracking behind her became a roar.

“Let's go!” He grabbed her arm. Together they skied quickly away from the edge.

When they stopped and turned, the ice had again separated, eliminating a substantial part of what remained of Kaley Glacier. Mariah stared toward where she'd been standing—now a void.

The sun had just reached the edge of the horizon and was beginning to settle below it, its glow receding. They would not have light much longer to look down into the water and watch what had happened to the newest ice floe, at least not until the moon had risen.

But Mariah wanted to see all she could. “Come on,” she said to Patrick as she eased her way toward the new edge.

He let go of her arm. She didn't look toward him until he said, “You shouldn't have come here, Mariah. And now you're on your own. You'll need to find your way back to town yourself.”

Shocked, she turned but he had disappeared. There
were plenty of icy mounds here, of different sizes. He must have ducked behind one.

But why, after helping to save her life—again—had he just left? Right now, she craved the comfort of being with him as she headed back to town.

“Patrick?” she called.

No answer.

Okay. He'd helped her, sure. But why just leave her here? Anger started warring with her shock, terror and relief. She didn't need him…now.

She pulled out her camera from the bag that was over her shoulder. Shot some photos of the ice, including the new, enormous iceberg that surfaced in Tagoga Bay below.

But when she was finished, she still had an urge to look for Patrick.

As she maneuvered around some of the small ice cliffs, she was relieved to see that the edge of the moon had started to appear at the far horizon. In a few minutes, when it rose in the sky, she would be able to see her way back to her vehicle, and civilization, without a light and without Patrick.

But where was he?

She skirted the nearest ice hill, looking for him, and then a few more.

She didn't see him skiing away. Was he hiding from her? But why?

And then she heard something that sounded like a faint moan of pain.

Patrick? Had he been hurt? But why not stay with her, let her help?

She felt disoriented, with all the craggy ice surrounding her, but she nevertheless slid on skis in the direction she thought the sound had come from.

Nothing there, but she heard it yet again and hurried around the next mound. And then another.

She saw him then, kneeling on the ground behind one of the farthest mounds, where the surface was nearly flat beyond it, the full moon now completely visible on the horizon. Patrick was backlighted.

Only—was that Patrick?

As Mariah watched, his tall, fully-clothed form appeared to stand, stretch, then contract as he cried out. The material shrouded him, yet she could see his form writhing beneath it and he shrugged it off—out here, in the cold!

Was he crazy? On drugs?

“Patrick, what's wrong?” she cried, hurrying toward him.

He moaned louder. It sounded more like a growl, an enraged canine's snarl.

As she drew closer, he crouched on the ground on his hands and knees—but he wasn't exactly kneeling. She could see—oh, Lord, what was happening?

His hands and feet receded. Was it a trick of the light? How? His appendages grew smaller, covered in fur. They no longer looked human, but doglike. And when he turned toward her, she could see his features change, agonizingly, from his handsome human face into the visage of a…wolf!

Had
she
unwittingly taken some of his drugs from his mysterious bottle—a hallucinogen? What she was seeing could not be real.

And yet, she recalled, suddenly, what she had read online about the Patrick Worley from Mary Glen, Maryland—home of werewolf legends.

But those stories were unreal. Had to be unreal. She could buy into whatever had gotten him booted out of the military—but not werewolf nonsense. Patrick could not be a shapeshifter. They didn't exist.

Yet the vision in front of her, the form of a silver-gray wolf, pulled its amber-eyed gaze from her and lifted its face toward the full moon.

And howled.

M
ariah hadn't really seen what she thought she had—had she? Quickly, she yanked her camera from her tote bag and started snapping pictures.

The silvery-furred creature growled menacingly, then ran off behind a nearby ice crag.

She attempted to follow, but with all the irregular formations here she could no longer see him. She did, however, hear the diminishing sounds of crunching on the ice that meant something was running away.

“Patrick?” she called. No response.

No surprise.

She returned to the pile of clothing on top of
cross-country skis. They were there. They existed. She couldn't have imagined it all.

When she looked at her photos, the creature on her digital camera was all wolf. No indication that it had been human.
Had
it been human? She could have daydreamed the vision—right?

Patrick could have ditched his belongings. They could have been found by a prowling wolf, and she had seen that creature exploring them.

That was the most logical explanation—except that it meant she had experienced one heck of a hallucination. And Patrick was still out there somewhere, without the clothing she had last seen him in.

No, there was no logic to be found here.

Mariah stumbled as she started skiing slowly back toward her vehicle. She had made her way in daylight. Now, in bright moonlight, she could see well enough, but her body felt as disjointed as if she had fallen apart and sewn herself back together haphazardly.

And her mind? She had yet to put her sanity back on an acceptable track.

So now she knew Patrick's secret. She laughed hysterically into the icy air until she then stopped herself.

What she
knew
was that something had occurred at the edge of Kaley Glacier. Something dangerous that had almost cost her her life.

And when she had been saved—saved herself?—she either hallucinated or had seen something that simply could not happen.

Shapeshifters didn't exist. Her mind was just playing tricks on her, thanks to its recollection of that dumb website that talked about where some Patrick Worley had once lived.

This
Patrick Worley had not pulled her to safety, then gone off by himself to change into a werewolf.

Ridiculous…wasn't it?

 

His rage was vast, yet tinged with sorrow.

He loped forward on the ice, beneath the stunning light of the full moon, barely feeling the frozen arctic air, the bitter chill beneath his paws. Almost unseeing of his surroundings. Ignoring the scents and sounds that were deliciously enhanced while he was in wolf form.

The woman was not supposed to have seen what she did.

But neither was she supposed to have nearly fallen to her death.

A sound penetrated his angry thoughts. A feral growl to his right.

He looked. A grizzly bear raised onto its hind legs, standing its ground along a nearby icy slope, ready to leap into a fight should he draw closer.

But he had other matters to accomplish this night.

He continued on, away from the bear, toward the next glacier.

He slowed down, prowling now. Allowing his anger to recede.

To his left, he heard a grumbling within the ice, near the edge of the closest glacier.

He headed that direction, in time to see the glacier calve.

Not a huge chunk of berg-sized ice, as he had seen so often recently, but a small outcropping of ice from the middle of the glacier.

A calving that, he assumed, was normal.

No explosive sounds. No orca calls. No unusual scents.

No tremendous cracking upheaval that ripped off huge portions of ice and set them adrift.

What made this calving different?

That was what he had been sent here to learn. But at this moment, he only had more questions.

And another difficult situation to deal with—the woman who had seen him shift.

Difficult? No, impossible.

But he had already learned to live with what most humans considered impossible.

 

Mariah couldn't sleep that night.

Even with the room's temperature turned way up, she lay shivering under the duvet on her bed in the
inn. She had left a light on but closed the blind, not wanting to glimpse the full moon and all it reminded her of.

Not that avoiding it helped her forget.

Had she really seen what she'd thought? In any event, what should she do next?

Visit Patrick at the dogsled ranch and ask offhandedly, “Hey, Patrick, did I see you turn into a wolf last night after you saved my life?”

She knew what Harold would want. Her editor would insist that she investigate further. Not just stop at the wildlife photos she had taken last night, including the wolf. He would want her to confront Patrick, get him to admit or deny what she'd seen. Explain it, either way. It wouldn't even have to make a lot of sense. He could then decide which of his publications to include it in—not the one she had signed on to write for, but most likely his gossip rag.

Could she do that?

 

Dawn. While still in wolf form, Patrick had loped back to where he had changed.

He had not intended his shift to occur in this location during last night's full moon. But neither had he intended, initially, to have to follow Mariah onto the ice and rescue her.

Writhing with sensation and discomfort as always,
he shifted back and stood naked and freezing over his belongings.

Fortunately, everything still seemed to be there. Mariah hadn't run off with his stuff, nor had any glacier creatures. But his clothing was stiff, and covered with ice.

As always, he was prepared—especially now, with no human backup when he shifted. Hoping to act quickly enough to avoid hypothermia, he reached inside his backpack and extracted dry underwear and socks, as well as small, battery-operated heating units. Shivering so hard that it took a lot longer than it should have, he put on his frigid jacket, allowing his minimal body heat to start warming it while he clasped one heating unit to warm his hands and held others against his clothes till he could don his woolen shirt and long pants.

At least it was only November. Cold, yes. But it could have been much worse.

As soon as he was able, he began the trek, on skis, back toward his car. Moving quickly helped also to heat him. His skin tingled as it warmed, but he did not believe he'd suffered any frostbite.

His luck was holding. His vehicle was where he had left it, too. He unlocked it and slid inside, quickly turning on the motor and letting the increasing heat roll over him.

Next time, he would ask his superiors for an Alpha Force assignment in Florida or Hawaii.

Once Patrick's hands had thawed enough to easily control the steering wheel, he called Major Drew Connell.

“How'd everyone do last night?” Patrick asked, driving slowly along the ice-slicked narrow road toward the highway. All shapeshifting members of Alpha Force would have changed last night under the full moon, no matter what animals they shifted into. And no matter where they were.

“No problems,” Drew said, then paused. “You sound…were you okay without a handler? Did you shift safely, where you couldn't be seen?”

Patrick's turn to pause. “Not exactly.” He described what had happened, why he'd followed Mariah to Kaley Glacier. What he had heard, smelled and seen. And how he'd had to pull her back to safety moments before the sun set and he started his shift.

“She saw you change?” Drew's voice was ominously quiet.

“Yeah,” Patrick said tersely. He turned onto the main road toward town. “Couldn't be helped.”

“Maybe not. But what will you do about her now, damn it? She writes articles for national publications, about wildlife, right? And now she knows you're among the wildest.”

Patrick couldn't help laughing at that, and felt somewhat relieved when he heard Drew chuckle, too.

But it was far from being a laughing matter.

“I haven't had much time yet to figure things out,” he told Drew. “But I'll have to talk to her. Reason with her. Explain, without giving up more secrets, why it's a matter of national security that she not say anything.” Something occurred to him. “What if I ask if she'd be willing to get a quick security clearance, then become my backup here, assuming she passes? It's a way to keep her from writing about it.”

“Bad idea.”

“But you did something similar when Melanie learned the truth about you and Alpha Force. Of course she'd suspected it, but—”

“My wife and I were already involved by then,” Drew reminded him unnecessarily. Dr. Melanie Harding, now Harding-Connell, had been a veterinarian in Mary Glen, Maryland, and Patrick understood that she had seen Drew shapeshift before they had gotten romantically involved—or too involved at least. He heard his superior officer draw in his breath. “You don't mean—hell, Worley, are you sleeping with that writer?”

Patrick turned onto the road that would soon take him to Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch. “We didn't exactly sleep,” he responded wryly.

Drew was silent for a few long seconds. Was
Patrick about to be reamed? Given orders to return to Ft. Lukman without fulfilling his mission?

That might, in some ways, be best, but he'd never failed at anything before. Didn't intend to now.

“Okay, then,” Drew said. “Do you trust her?”

Strangely, despite their disagreements, he believed that she'd keep what she'd seen to herself, if he asked her to—if for no other reason than to keep from being labeled nuts.

But more than that…well, there was something about Mariah that he liked. And not just her body.

“Let me talk to her,” he told Drew. “I'll ask for her discretion and get a sense of whether she'll comply.”

“Fine. But if she's about to start telling the world what she saw, let me know right away. We'll have to figure out how to deal with her, for the good of Alpha Force. Even if it means discrediting her as a journalist. Ruining her reputation. Whatever.”

“Right,” Patrick said, keeping his reluctance to himself. He hung up as he turned into the ranch's driveway. And considered the best way to approach Mariah. Fast. For the sake of Alpha Force…and her, too.

If her inclination was to blab what she'd thought she'd seen, he needed to learn that ASAP. At least she'd probably wait long enough to stick it into an
article in print, and not throw it out on the internet first.

He hoped.

The dogs weren't loose outside that morning in the yard. As Patrick exited his vehicle in the area between the house and mushers' building, Wes Dawes came up to him. “You okay, Patrick?” His face looked even rounder than usual beneath the hood of his parka, and his hands were thrust into his pockets.

“Sure. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Well, you weren't here last night, were you?”

“No. Had somewhere I needed to be.” He didn't intend to give any details.

“No problem, but Mariah called early this morning and asked about your availability to take her out sledding later today.”

So she was checking up on him? A good thing or not?

“Unless you have me scheduled for something else, I'll be available. I'll call and let her know.”

“Okay. And—” He drew a little closer. “I thought you might be on some official business last night, was all. You know I'm available to help whenever you need me.”

“Thanks, Wes.” But the fewer people who knew the true nature of Alpha Force, the better. And until Patrick was certain Wes had nothing to do with
Shaun's death, he wasn't going to get him more deeply involved.

As Wes headed for the house, Patrick pulled his backpack out of the passenger seat, then dug inside for his cell phone.

He needed to call Mariah.

But before he scrolled down to her number, captured on his cell, he saw her walking along the driveway toward him.

“Hi, Patrick,” she called. “I'm ready for another dogsled ride this morning. That okay?” She reached his side and said softly, “I think we need to talk.”

 

Mariah had thought long and hard about what to say to Patrick the next time she saw him.

“Much as I enjoy our outings together,” Patrick responded with a sexy, ironic grin, “we'd be better off talking somewhere besides a dogsled ride. Okay?”

“Sure.” She attempted to sound casual. “Any ideas?” Like, someplace private. Except for the dogs, they'd always been alone while out sledding. And she felt certain he wouldn't want anyone listening in.

Neither would she, for that matter. She might sound totally off her rocker when she asked the questions she needed to ask.

At least she'd sound that way to someone who'd never seen what she had.

“Let's take Duke for a walk in the woods,” he suggested.

“Fine.”

“I'll just run this inside and get him.” He motioned to the familiar backpack he had hitched over his shoulder.

Did it have the same stuff in it that she had seen inside it…when? Had it only been yesterday when she'd been here, making love with him—and then getting into that nasty argument?

And then there'd been the events of last night…

Patrick soon came back with Duke on his leash. “The path's over there.” He gave a gentle tug on Duke's leash. They all walked briskly in that direction.

Once they reached the area covered by bare-limbed trees, Patrick slowed down to let Duke sniff the ground. He turned toward Mariah. Neither said anything for a moment. And then, Patrick said, “Mariah, out there on the ice—”

At the same time, she began, “I never thought—”

They both stopped. And laughed. And then Mariah said, “Okay, you talk. I know I saw something I can't explain, but you can. Or maybe I can. I'm not sure I ever mentioned it, but I looked you up on the internet when I tried to find out something about Shaun after he was killed. I wasn't sure then that you were
the same Patrick Worley as one who captured my interest, but…well, looks like you could be the one who came from Mary Glen, Maryland. The former military guy who came from an area where there are lots of legends about werewolves.”