he’d been reduced to a feeble man who looked as old as he should be were he mortal. And for no apparent reason. Werewolves did not suffer mortal ailments. He’d not been physically injured. How to understand his failing health?
“I’ll contact Monsieur Hawkes and ask for a recommendation on someone who practices on our breed,” she said, and kissed her father’s cheek. “I’ll have him flown here as quickly as possible to look over the casualties in the keep and then I’m going to assign him to your bedside. I love you, Father.”
She took the case and left, blowing him a kiss as she closed the door behind her. She’d bring this to Natalie. She trusted the witch any day.
Chapter 3
The day had been long, and Lexi startled awake from her sitting position by the arched door opening into the keep. Her room had not been damaged, yet she hadn’t made it back there after overseeing the disaster and establishing triage in the keep. Now she stretched her legs out before her and arched her back. She hadn’t removed her long coat and she was warm. Too warm, almost stifling here in the windowless room that may have, in centuries past, often housed the entire castle inhabitants as they waited out the enemy.
Rubbing her eyes beneath the sunglasses—she never took them off—felt great. Checking her watch revealed it was three in the morning. Most of the keep was quiet, save a few who sat near the cots with wet towels and worried looks as they tended the wounded.
She stood, stretched again, and decided she could manage a few hours of sleep in her own bed, and a shower. Her kingdom for a shower.
She did have a small kingdom, actually. Well, Lana was the one who insisted on exploiting the princess title. Lexi thought it was ostentatious. Daughters of werewolf principals were referred to as princess—their sons were princes—but that didn’t make them royalty or heirs to a nonexistent castle and crown. But they did live in a castle and, despite the lacking crown, Lana certainly liked to play up the privileged princess routine. It worked well for her. Entitlement had always been her mien.
Lexi would rather choke on a watermelon than play soft, pink and delicate. If she didn’t have a hand and nose to the action, she wouldn’t know how to function. It was a natural compulsion to show her father how much she was willing to help. It was hard enough to get his attention, what with Lana’s pandering. Her sister could win a new Porsche with a bat of her lashes, and she had two in the shed to prove the power of that expert move. Lexi owned a battered old Range Rover. It got her where she needed to go, and that included flooded roads, muddy ditches and icy drives.
Wandering through the darkened halls of the castle, Lexi tugged off her coat and pushed the sunglasses up onto her head. It always took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust and color her surroundings a little brighter than when wearing the glasses, even despite the darkness inside the castle. Her breed had excellent night vision.
Her exhaustion felt as if she were dragging lead pipes for legs, and her shoulders ached. A cup of chamomile tea after her shower would relax her into a restful slumber.
Suddenly she stumbled and, before falling, caught herself with a balance of her hands. Turning swiftly, she saw she’d tripped over a man’s legs. He sat sprawled on the floor across from the lobby doors that had been blocked off with wood boards. Bitter cold air whisked through the hallway about her shoulders and she shuffled her coat back on and tapped down her glasses before kneeling to shake the man’s shoulders.
“Monsieur Hawkes?”
He mumbled something but didn’t open his eyes. His coat lay over his legs, and melted snow from his heavy pack boots puddled around his feet and legs.
“What are you doing here?”
“No place to sleep. Tired. Still missing … one man.”
It had been a good eighteen hours since the avalanche had struck. And this wolf had been working steadily to rescue the missing men. Only one left? He must have fallen asleep standing or, apparently, sat down and nodded off. Even wolves eventually got exhausted and couldn’t go without sleep.
She tugged his arm, provoking him to a grudging stand. “Come with me. We’ve a few open rooms.”
He twisted toward the boarded doors, which swung her around ungracefully as he looped an arm over her shoulder and stumbled a few steps as if a drunken man. “Have to find last one.”
Walking and talking in his sleep, this guy. “You can resume the search after you’ve rested. Is there a backup team out now?”
“Yes, three men volunteered. They’ve had rest. But I should help. Can’t let them down.” With a shake of his head, as if to chase off the exhaustion, he suddenly set back his shoulders and assumed a modicum of alertness. The move stretched him a head taller than she. He blinked a few times in the cool darkness. “Princess Connor. Sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”
“It’s Lexi,” she said, and tugged him toward the south wing. “And you’re not going anywhere but to bed.”
“Best offer I’ve had in a long time.”
She rolled her eyes. She had walked right into that one. For lack of practice in defense of horny males, surely. She couldn’t remember when a man had last flirted with her.
“We’ve a guest room that you can use. Shower, have something to eat, and sleep. I’ll make sure the night shift doesn’t stop until you rise to replace them. I want to thank you for your hard work. You certainly went above and beyond the call of duty for our pack.”
“It’s nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
Actually, she believed it was a lot, and anyone else would have thought twice before jumping into the fray such as Hawkes had.
“Sorry about how rudely I treated your dad. I wasn’t thinking. My dad grilled me on the correct protocol before I traveled here, but my mind was elsewhere. I haven’t had experience with a pack before.”
“Don’t let it bother you. Father is already over it, I’m sure.”
“Did the elixir help?”
“Not sure. Our doctor administered a dose not long after you saw him. If you pray, Monsieur Hawkes, please pray for my father.”
“I do pray to the universe, and I will put in a good word for your father.”
She unlocked the guest room door with a slash of her control card, which worked on all doors in the castle, and strode inside the dark bedroom lit by a ray of pale moonshine. Nearing fullness. Perhaps three more days? She’d lost track of the monthly cycle since her father had become ill. While normally instinctual about the moon phases, she was too discombobulated by the day’s events to summon clear thought.
Hawkes trudged inside, his boots forming small lakes in his wake. He pulled off his sweater and tossed it aside without care. The wolf slapped a palm to his bare abdomen and rubbed it, looking about the room with a long yawn.
He had a fine form. Not so bulky as the wolves in the pack, but certainly one of the biggest. Trystan was long, lean and hard with muscle that ridged his chest and stomach. Was it solid to the touch? Would her cool fingers warm against his pale skin?
Lexi stopped the divergent thoughts when she realized
