Shades of the Wolf

He gave a quick dip of his head to show the apology had been accepted. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“I’m going up to the college where your sister works. I want to talk to some of her friends.”

“Sounds good.” Action, finally. He approved. “What about?”

She gave him a long look, clearly debating what she had to say. “I need to find out about her boyfriend.”

“I can save you some time on that. Dena didn’t have one,” he answered, confident.

One eyebrow raised, she nodded. “Okay, then I need to find out about anyone she might have dated or slept with.”

“No need.” He shook his head. “Between work and school, she didn’t have time. She would have told me if there was anyone special.”

Making an exasperated sound, she grimaced. “Tyler, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure your sister isn’t a saint. This man who has her had to have met her somehow. I’m going to try and gather information to see if we can figure out who he is.”

Chapter 5 (#ulink_3e8a1f78-0a1f-5d40-91a8-48a3af933dad)

Tyler started to speak, then thought better of it. No doubt she was right. Not only was she pretty and socially active, but Dena was a healthy twenty-five-year-old. He shouldn’t be acting like the overprotective big brother, not now. Not only had he managed to get himself killed and leave her without any family, but clearly he hadn’t succeeded in teaching her to be careful.

Unless, as Anabel said, the man who’d grabbed her had been someone she’d trusted.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “But you have to consider that it could be a teacher, or a janitor, or even one of her coworkers.”

“Or some guy she’d dated,” Anabel pointed out. “There are a lot of crazies masquerading as normal in the dating scene, let me tell you.”

He cocked his head. “You’ve been dating?”

“I tried. Once or twice—that was it. Just a month ago. I thought it might help me to, you know, get over David. After that, I gave up and deleted my profile from all the dating sites.”

Jealousy stabbed him, completely unwarranted.

“Good for you for trying,” he said, aware of the lie and feeling like a fool. “I think after eighteen months, Dave would approve of you getting back out there.”

“No,” she said softly, her expression shutting down. “He wouldn’t. David was my mate. You were Pack. You know what that means. He’s the only one I will ever love.”

Slowly, he nodded. “I do, though I’m not sure I believe in that particular myth.”

“Myth?”

“Yes. I honestly don’t know anyone who actually met their mate.”

She pointed to her chest. “Now you do. Me.”

Ignoring the emotions swirling inside him, he eyed her. “How did you know? I mean, we all have people we’re attracted to, even people we love. What made you think Dave was actually your mate?”

“I didn’t just think it. I knew, the instant he kissed me.”

He thought of what he’d learned from Juliet. “And Kane McGraw? Did you also know he was your mate?”

At his words, her eyes filled with tears. “I had a breakdown, Tyler. I wasn’t myself.” Holding herself stiffly, she turned away from him.

Clearly, he’d gone too far. He’d realized it the instant he finished speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to point out to you that it was possible for you to find love again.”

Like with me. More foolishness, as he was nothing but a shade of a man. He waited for Anabel to shoot him down.

But she didn’t respond. Instead she hurried away. A minute later, he heard the sound of her bedroom door closing.

* * *

Though initially she’d been hurt by Tyler’s words, the more she considered them, the more Anabel understood his thought process. Of course he’d doubt her conviction once he learned she’d erroneously dubbed a second man her true mate. As if she’d ever been unsure about David, or he about her.

No, she’d been lonely, stumbling around close to the end of a ledge, and when she learned Kane McGraw had come back to town, she’d sought a way to end the dark cloud of loneliness. Back in school, she’d always had a crush on Kane, even dated him a few times despite his being several years older than her, and with the twisted logic of depression, she’d managed to convince herself that the impossible was real.

When he rejected her, saying he loved another, it had been the final shove and she’d gone under. Her bewildered pain and her burning desire for vengeance had blinded her to the truth and to the light. In a moment of weakness, she’d let the darkness in and had nearly caused a good woman to lose her life. Worse, she’d later learned that Lilly Gideon, the woman Kane loved, had spent fifteen years imprisoned by her own father and his religious cult. She shuddered to think she’d nearly sent Lilly back to that awful life.

After that, she’d lain low. Gradually recovering, aware no one in town would ever look at her the same way again.

She’d made several clumsy attempts to make it up to Lilly McGraw, until finally the other woman had hugged her and told her to stop, that she forgave her. For that, Anabel had been grateful.

Now, for the first time in a long while, Anabel had hope. Never once had she imagined she’d be given the chance to atone by saving Dena Rogers.

While she didn’t personally know Tyler’s sister, she could only imagine what kind of hell the younger woman now faced. Similar, she thought, to what Lilly Gideon had once faced. The parallels of the two women’s predicaments didn’t escape her.

Once she freed Dena, she would have wiped her own slate clean once more.

And Tyler could... She couldn’t help wondering what would happen to Tyler once they’d succeeded in freeing his sister. He’d go back into wherever ghosts went when it came time to move on. The light, she assumed. At least she hoped so. The alternative would be very bleak.

Glancing at her watch, she saw it was nearly nine. If she wanted to get her day started, she couldn’t hide out in her bedroom forever. One thing she’d learned since her meltdown was she had a lot more inner strength than she’d ever suspected. Magic would be a definite bonus.

So she straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath and opened the door. When she walked back into the kitchen, Tyler’s ghostly form hovered exactly where she’d left him.

Again struck by his large, masculine frame, she sucked in a breath. How he, even though a ghost, could practically radiate virility stunned her. Though this time, she noticed an air of isolation around his tall, broad-shouldered figure.

The question in his hazel eyes made her heart skip a beat.

“I’ll do it,” she said, not giving him a chance to speak. “I need to see if I can take a crash course in learning how to access my magic. Once I have some sort of grip on that, I can seriously hunt for whoever abducted your sister.”

He bowed his head, a swath of dark hair falling onto his forehead. “Thank you.”

Uncomfortable with her visceral reaction to so much male beauty, she nodded. Keeping busy would be the best distraction from those kinds of crazy thoughts. “Let’s go.” Snatching up her car keys, she headed toward the door. “We’ll stop and talk to Juliet. I think her first yoga class of the day just finished up. I’m hoping she’ll have some pointers for me.”

Trying not to smile as Tyler crammed his long legs in the passenger seat of her Fiat, she sang along to the radio during the short drive downtown.

As it turned out, Juliet had a lot more than pointers to help Anabel. “You’ll need to read these,” she said, grabbing a short stack of books from a bookcase behind her desk. “This will be a good starting place. Once you have, come back to me with questions.”

Anabel glanced at the books, then at Tyler, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Juliet, I’d love to read them—and I will, eventually—but right now I’m short on time. Tyler’s sister’s life is in danger, and I’m afraid I’m going to need a crash course in magic in order to save her.”

Appearing nonplussed, Juliet swallowed and slowly put the books down on top of her desk. “It’s not that simple,” she began.