Wolf Whisperer

Talks had reportedly been going well until tragedy had forced them to disperse and go into individual hiding. No one knew of Mac’s connection with the Tearlachs, and for now, he wanted to keep it that way.

Once the family had scattered to the winds, Kelly was the only one they’d been able to locate, and only because of a chance encounter with a Pack newspaper reporter who’d known her father and had recognized her. The rest of her extended family had managed to stay hidden, despite extensive searches.

Mac knew how extensive. He’d searched privately as well, aware he’d never find his missing children unless he found them.

Meanwhile, the Protectors silently kept an eye on the lone representative of the McKenzie clan, attempting to make contact from time to time, always rebuffed, and always retreating to observe from a distance. Mac had pulled strings to be allowed to be sent to talk to her, preparing to go on his own if his request was denied. Luckily, it wasn’t.

The Protectors wanted to have the Tearlachs as allies. After Douglas McKenzie’s death, no one had emerged as a new leader, no one had stepped forward indicating they were willing to resume negotiations. So they had begun contacting Kelly, with the plan of remaining in the background, and letting her know they were available should she wish to form an alliance.

After all, they were The Protectors, the Pack equivalent of the CIA and FBI, all rolled into one. They were highly respected among all the Pack, especially now that they’d vanquished the corruption inside their own organization. They were certain that sooner or later, surely even Kelly McKenzie would welcome their assistance.

This time, Mac had been successful with his machinations and he had been sent as their representative. He was supposed to wine and dine and charm her, talk her into agreeing to take a tour of the Protector headquarters.

No one knew that he planned to get the truth out of her, one way or another, use her in whatever way possible to enable him to find his children and bring them home again.

After hanging up the phone, Kelly paced, restless. She had to come up with a plan, since apparently the rest of her family wanted only to continue their passive lives, remaining in hiding, doing nothing. Ian had said that as far as he knew, they were making no attempt to rescue her sister.

This shouldn’t have surprised her. After all, these were the same people who’d refused to organize and avenge her father’s death. Green and gullible at sixteen, Kelly had let them talk her out of her pain-filled, planned vendetta, aware as they so carefully pointed out that her father would have wanted her to live.

But no longer. This time, she refused to roll over and play dead. As long as there was a chance she could save Bonnie, she’d take it. Now all she had to do was formulate a method of attack and go for it. Since her father had taken pains to engineer their reputation as peace-loving sorts, no one would even expect it.

The Protectors—or whoever was responsible—would pay.

The weather mirrored her mood, almost as though the downpour with its booming thunder and flashes of lightning fueled her inner turmoil. She blazed through one pot of coffee, started another, then mentally yanked herself up by the scruff of her neck and made herself stop. Overindulging in caffeine would only make things worse. She needed to be calm and focused in order to come up with a coherent plan of action.

The first thing she did was go online and purchase plane tickets to Canada. According to Ian, Bonnie had been living on Vancouver Island when she vanished.

Outside her window, nature raged. Still. Odd.

The force of the rainstorm didn’t bother her. The duration did. In Wyoming, a sudden, swift downpour was common. One that lasted all day was not. An omen of things to come? She hoped not.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was about to happen. One of her premonitions. Her family had called her the witch of the wood for that reason. Her premonitions usually were accurate.

Finding herself at the front window for the sixth time that day, she frowned. What the …? A soft blur of headlights cutting through the murk as they swung onto her long, narrow driveway.

Immediately, every nerve on alert, she located her pistol and loaded it with silver bullets. Were her sister’s attackers now coming to attempt to take her? Holstering the gun, she shook her head and bared her teeth. Let them. She’d make sure they died trying.

As the unfamiliar vehicle slowly approached, one by one her dogs came to attention, climbing to their feet, cocking their heads and adapting various poses of alert anticipation. Eerily still, they listened as though they could hear what, in her human form, she could only anticipate.

Closing them off in the den, she went to the front door and opened it. Standing in the doorway, under the overhang, she drew her weapon and watched as the rain-lashed car coasted to a stop in front of her garage. Since she didn’t know exactly what to expect, she was ready for just about anything.

She knew one thing. If her visitor thought she’d go without a battle, they had another think coming.

Annoyed and tense, she watched as her unwanted visitor opened the car door. Without an umbrella, the tall, broad-shouldered figure, unmistakably male, pulled up the hood of his jacket as protection against the downpour before striding up the path toward Kelly. She noted he didn’t even flinch as the brisk wind slapped the cold rain at him like a sodden whip. Something about his bearing said military. Great. Another one of those Protectors. The last thing she wanted or needed.

As the stranger stepped up onto her covered porch and lowered his hood, Kelly got her second shock of the day. Even drenched, the man was beautiful. Breathtakingly, stop-your-heart gorgeous. Worse, she’d seen his face somewhere—in her dreams perhaps? She didn’t remember.

To her disbelief, she felt her body stir to life deep inside. While she tried to grapple with this unpleasant surprise, she drew her weapon, pointing it directly at his heart.

“Inside,” she ordered. “Hands where I can see them.”

He blinked, clearly shocked. As he raised his hands, she saw a muscle working in his jaw, revealing his anger, as he stepped into her foyer.

Tough.

“Who are you and what do you want?” she snarled, kicking the door shut behind him.

She could see his aura, that fine identifying shade encircling him like a faint halo. This—his aura—told Kelly he was a shape-shifter, like her. Which meant he was Pack, as she’d thought. The ones she avoided like the plague. They were the only ones who had even the slightest inkling of what she truly was, and they didn’t even know the half of it. They never gave up, especially those known as the Pack Protectors.

She wondered if she was like a trophy to them and if her constant refusal to join them had turned her into The One That Got Away. She also suspected that they’d finally gotten tired of her constant rejections and had resorted to grabbing what they wanted instead. Like her sister.

Ian’s phone call proved it. They’d started with Bon nie and now had come for her. But she was ready for them. She’d neatly turned the tables.

“Tell me where my sister is,” she demanded. “Or I’ll kill you where you stand. I have silver bullets.”

The too-perfect-to-be-true man stared at her, silently dripping onto her Italian tile floor.

“You’re trespassing,” she warned. “I’m well within my rights to shoot you.”

Ignoring this, he gazed down at her, unafraid and boldly confident. Then, with water running off his tanned skin like diamonds, he flashed a smile so brilliant Kelly felt it like a punch to the gut.

“Afternoon, Tearlach,” he drawled.

She froze at the casual use of the old, now-forbidden word. She’d not heard it spoken out loud since she’d been a teenager living in the wild, distant mountains of Scotland, and even then it had been uttered in a whisper, under the breath, with reverence.

Tearlach. Her father had died because of this word. This stranger, this man had no right to use it so brazenly. She felt a flash of irrational anger, which she quickly tamped down. He wouldn’t understand. The uninformed never did.

While she formulated a response, the stranger continued to stare at her, his amazing eyes boring into her. “I don’t know anything about your sister, but I think you might know about something of mine. How about it, Tearlach? You tell me, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Ignoring this, she clenched her jaw. “Did the Pack send you?” she asked. Then, without giving him time to formulate an answer, she dismissed him with a flick of her hand, keeping her pistol trained on him. “Of course they did. I don’t want to join your little club, so they sent you to grab me, just like they did my sister. Too bad I’m going to make you tell me where they’ve taken her instead.”

“Put the gun down.” Narrow-eyed, he glared at her as if she was the one in the wrong. “Or at least be careful where you’re pointing it.”

“Answer me and I’ll let you leave,” she told him. “I promise.”

Instead, he smiled again, no doubt well aware of his effect on women. “I’m with the Protectors. I came to offer you our assistance. As many as you need, all armed and ready to help. You say your sister’s been abducted? We can help you find her.”

She sensed he was ad-libbing, making it up as he spoke. “I’ll bet you can.” She stared him down. “Especially since you’re the ones who took her. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Inconceivably, he smiled again, a pleasant and oddly compelling smile that infuriated her. “We didn’t have anything to do with her abduction, I swear to you. You’re the only one of your kind we’ve been able to locate, since your father died when you were sixteen. You are aware he was in the middle of negotiating with us?”

“Liar,” she snarled.

“I assure you I’m telling the truth.” He met her gaze. “I have nothing of yours, but you do have something of mine. I’ll help you if you’ll help me. How about it?”

She clenched her teeth. Something of his? What that could be, she had no idea. Nor did she care. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to hear your lies. You aren’t the first one they’ve sent to talk to me. Now, I’ll tell you like I told them. I have no interest in joining your Pack. Not now or ever. The answer will always be no.”

As he lowered his hands, reaching for his pocket, she snarled in warning, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”