to see you and find out why Michael would do something like this. I suppose he wanted to ease you through the process on his own first, before letting us know what he’d done.”
“What process would that be?”
In Kaitlin’s mind the word wolf kept flashing. Fragments of what she’d begun to worry had not been a dream began to coalesce. In it, the man this woman spoke of had turned into an animal right before her eyes.
The fine line between reason and insanity made Kaitlin’s nerve endings fire. As she wrapped her arms around her knees and considered Rena carefully, fear continued to make her heart race.
She looked again at the scratches on her arms. Had she gotten those from being pressed to the bark of a tree, or from a madman trying to kill her in the park?
Rena’s smile suggested that none of these panic attacks Kaitlin was having might be warranted. Whoever this Michael guy was, and whatever kind of trauma she had been through, she couldn’t believe there were alternate species in the world. If she’d had an accident and some guy named Michael, acting like a Good Samaritan, had helped her home, possibly jealousy was what had brought Rena here today. Rena could be Michael’s girlfriend. His lover.
As calmly as she could, Kaitlin met Rena’s scrutinizing gaze. “Where did your friend go?”
“To the corner store, probably to bring you something to eat,” Rena said. “We need to keep our strength up and require lots of fuel. More than usual.”
“We, as in what? Wolves?” Kaitlin asked cynically.
Rena smiled again, flashing very white teeth that almost made the idea of wolves seem plausible.
“He didn’t have to bother. I’m not hungry,” Kaitlin said. In fact, she was sure she’d never be hungry again.
“You’ll be hungry as soon as you smell the food,” Rena told her. “Our metabolisms run hot.”
In her dream, Michael had been hot in more ways than one. But Kaitlin couldn’t turn inward to look for answers to the problems at hand with this woman staring at her. In another minute, she’d sprint for the door.
“It wasn’t a dream, you know,” Rena said as if she had the ability to read Kaitlin’s mind. “You’ll find that out soon enough.”
Rena seemed to be waiting for her to say something, as if they were going to have a conversation that made sense. All Kaitlin could get out was, “What day is it?”
“Monday.”
“That can’t be right. I couldn’t have lost two days.”
With another glance at the discarded bandage, Kaitlin added, “What is going on? Really going on, I mean?”
Rena stood up. “I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you, Kaitlin. For the time being, I guess I’m not supposed to know you exist. Imagine my surprise in finding out that you do.”
Kaitlin was feeling stranger by the minute because Rena was fairly convincing. She decided to go for broke, hoping that when this woman she had never seen before heard what she had to say, Rena would laugh her head off and hit the road.
“Are you a wolf, Rena?”
“You can’t tell?” Rena countered noncommittally.
“Hell, I’m not even sure I’m awake.”
“Then the answer is yes.”
Yes...
The room suddenly felt cramped. Too many ridiculous ideas were taking up space, and the air seemed to beat with a foreign rhythm. Kaitlin blinked slowly to get her bearings and went for round two of the most inconceivable questions possible. “So, that would make you and Michael part of a group of...wolves?”
The question sounded silly in a truly horrifying way. Rena didn’t laugh, though. She said, “You call us werewolves. And we call ourselves a pack.”
Werewolves. Pack. Kaitlin’s stomach tightened. Her next question bordered on hysterics. “You believe that? For real?”
Rena held up a hand in a gesture that indicated she was telling the truth. Scout’s honor, or some such equivalent thing for females.
Kaitlin stared at the pretty, rather feline-featured visitor. “How many of you are there in this pack?”
“Four. There are four of us here, and then there’s you.”
The hairs at the nape of Kaitlin’s neck stood up. Chills iced her spinal column as phrases came back with a startling clarity—bits of words the Michael in the nightmare had used.
It’s the only way you’ll make it. And Remember that I gave you a choice.
She did not want to ask the next question and knew Rena anticipated it, because the scent of Rena’s excitement wafted in the air.
“Are you hinting that I’ve become one of you?”
Glancing sideways to view her image in the wall mirror, Kaitlin found a pasty-complexioned, tangle-haired version of herself. But it was Kaitlin Davies who looked back.
Rena smoothed the creases from her jeans with both hands. “Not quite one of us. I suppose you’ll be accepted by the pack if he wants you to be, though, since...”
“Since what?” Even short pauses in Rena’s partial explanations were intolerable.
“Well, it’s not my place to assume anything or tell you more. You’re Michael’s pet project, so he will have to explain.”
“What is he, the king?”
“Alpha,” Rena corrected, walking to the door. She opened it before anyone had knocked, and then stepped back to make way for the man who suddenly filled the doorway.
Michael stopped on the threshold of Kaitlin’s apartment. He looked first to Rena, who nodded her head before slipping past him. Damn it. Rena knew about Kaitlin, which meant they probably all knew.
His gaze slipped to the waif on the bed who had compressed herself into a tight ball near the headboard. The auburn-haired beauty was staring at him with a wide-eyed, stunned expression, as though she’d seen a ghost.
Because the bandage he’d taped to her neck had been removed, he knew what was coming. Hard questions and demands for explanations would be the next things out of her mouth.
Really, this nursemaid routine didn’t suit him. He was better at chasing bad guys. And Rena had no right to jump on his parade.
“I see you’ve met Rena.”
He leaned against the doorjamb, not quite sure what to say now that Kaitlin was fully awake. She was staring. Her eyes were clear and focused.
“I
