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“Three. I win.” She did a little victory dance. “I choose staying here with this handsome guy. You go get the utility vehicle. It’s in the barn. You’ve got the key, right?”
Parker headed back to the fence after handing the tranq gun to Brandy and taking the flashlight. “Yup. Right here.” He dug in his pocket then keys jingled in the darkness. “You’ll be all right without a light?”
“Sure,” Brandy said. “I’ll tap into my wolf side.”
“You spend enough time with them that you having a wolf side is almost not a joke anymore.” The light retreated with him. “Be right back.”
Brandy heard him hop the fence, land on the other side, and take off at a run through the woods back toward the sanctuary’s barn. She took this opportunity to run her hand over the wolf’s fur. It was a little coarse, but still soft enough to make her want to snuggle with it. Did that make her a weirdo? Who wanted to snuggle with a wolf?
Just crazy Dr. Brandy Wendon.She exhaled a loud breath. No wonder she was alone in the man department. She was too nuts about the wolves to give a man attention even if she could find one she wanted. Besides, she had Dylan to take care of. Her time was stretched tight. A relationship would only pull those strings tighter.
And tight strings tended to snap.
“But I always have time for a big beauty like you,” she whispered to the sleeping wolf and mentally composed a list of what she and Parker would need to operate tonight. Fortunately they kept the clinic well stocked and this guy would get exactly the right care.
In the darkness, she couldn’t see too much, but something about having her hand on this wolf was… comforting. The gentle rise and fall of its side under her palm. The quiet hush of its inhales and exhales filling her ears. The musky scent of its warm body teasing her nose.
She always felt connected when with her wolves, but this was different.
This was like an empty space inside her had been colored in and had changed the entire picture.
Chapter Four
Reardon’s tongue felt as if someone had dumped sand onto it and his eyes did not want to open. With great effort, he forced his lids up, and a blurry scene wavered in front of him. A blurry scene with iron bars crisscrossing over it.
He raised his head off his paws and moved it to the left then to the right, his eyes slowly focusing but not giving him images that made any sense. What were those small suns above him? Why were the many contraptions surrounding him so shiny? What was that smell?
What contained him?
Lifting up onto his two front paws, Reardon attempted to get a better look around, but the pieces of the vision before him still didn’t add up to anything he recognized.
I’m no longer home.
His men. His wolves. Flidae’s wrath. The woods. The pain in his leg.
He wrenched his head back to inspect his injured leg. It didn’t hurt. Why didn’t it hurt? And where had those angry metal jaws gone? Why couldn’t he move the leg at all? What was that hard white substance surrounding it?
Why did he have so many questions?
As a man who rarely questioned anything, now all he could do was question. Unfortunately, he wasn’t getting any answers.
First order of business is to get out of here.
Whereverherewas. He hoisted his back end up, but fell down immediately when pain coursed through his injured leg. Luckily, he had three other legs and after a few tries, he managed to stand on only them, putting no pressure on the leg wrapped in the hard, white substance. He couldn’t bend that one at all or put any weight on it.
Eying the door to the cage, Reardon inspected what appeared to be keeping it closed. Little more than an iron stick wedged into an iron loop, the door didn’t look all that substantial. If he shifted, he could easily lift the stick out of the loop, but the uncertainty of his current environment kept him in wolf form. His teeth were his best defense against potential threats.
Coiling up at the back of his prison, he lowered his head and rammed into the door.
Stars exploded in his vision and he hobbled back a few steps, shaking his head from the contact he’d made with the iron bars holding him. After a moment to recover, Reardon clamped his jaws around one of the bars at his level. Tugging and tugging, nothing budged.
He. Was. Captured.
As he was about to have another go at the door, a female voice traveled in from his right. Reardon turned his head toward the sound.
The melodic, merry, comforting sound.
“He’s a big one,” the voice said.
