Half Wolf. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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 didn’t tell the others about you because I wanted to make sure you were all right first. Otherwise...”

      She finished the remark for him in a voice that was stronger than he would have expected. “Otherwise there might not be any me to tell them about, since I’d be dead.”

      He could sense the fear radiating off her in waves similar to the rippling heat of a desert mirage. Only colder. He felt that fear from six feet away. Yet Kaitlin was showing an inkling of the spirit that had attracted him to her in the first place. Even half-dead, he’d sensed she was a fighter.

      He couldn’t look away from the tight, pale face that wasn’t quite like any other human’s face he’d seen. Light, this time from streaks of morning sun, seemed to caress Kaitlin’s delicate contours. He’d noticed those contours from the start, too. What he’d failed to remember correctly was the impact she had on him when those big eyes of hers were open. This fragile flower took his breath away.

      And if he admitted that to anyone, or took it too seriously, he would no longer resemble the wolf he’d always thought he was, and he would dishonor his fallen mother’s memory.

      Humans were a fickle, dangerous species. Some were even his enemies. And here he was, protecting one from things that went bump in the night.

      He observed Kaitlin steadily. “You’re pale, but looking better. Does your neck hurt very badly?”

      “Bad enough,” she said.

      Life pulsed beneath her skin. In this case, he could sense anger, an indication of her turnaround, and yet Kaitlin looked even more waifish than before. Already thin, she’d lost more weight in the past two days—a sign of her new, faster metabolism kicking in. If she didn’t eat something soon, her nerves would fry.

      Michael lifted the paper bag in his hand and watched her glance at it. “Breakfast.”

      She didn’t acknowledge that.

      “Do you feel sick, Kaitlin?”

      She shook her head. “I’m not sick, I’m scared. I’m not sure who you are, why you’re here or what’s going on.”

      He nodded. “I do realize how difficult this must be. Let me just say that I found you in the park, injured pretty badly, and that I helped in the best way I could.”

      She pointed to the bandage. “You did that?”

      “Yes.”

      “You brought me here?”

      He nodded. “As soon as I found out who you were and where you belonged.”

      Her hand went to her neck. “I can’t feel stitches.”

      “You didn’t need them.”

      “I didn’t go to a hospital?”

      “No. No hospital.”

      “Then the injury wasn’t so bad after all?”

      “It could have been your death,” he said, “if untended.”

      She took a moment to reply. “If you hadn’t come along with a bandage, you mean?”

      Her eyes were pleading with him to lie. She wanted him to laugh and tell her this was all a big joke of the worst kind and that things would be fine now. Of course, he couldn’t say any of those things and mean them. Though she had been faced with this situation for only fifty-some hours, she would have to come to terms with what had become her new reality.

      “Lucky for you, I did come along,” he said.

      Kaitlin’s shaking intensified, though Michael didn’t sense shock setting in, and that was another miracle. Her fragile exterior hid a decent backbone that made her want to try to deal.

      “Public places are bad for us,” he explained, driven to speech by the intensity of her gaze. “Finding out about what we are would mean the end of many of us. Humans aren’t partial to sharing their planet with those who are unlike them. Given that, I couldn’t take you to your real home, either.”

      She didn’t immediately press him for more information about that. Her attention moved again to the paper bag in his hand before coming back to his face. When her eyes met his, an electrified shudder passed through him that Michael didn’t like at all.

      Her bloodless lips parted. “I dreamed that I had a near-death experience. Could that be true?”

      “Maybe now isn’t the time for details.”

      “Because you don’t have any details?” she challenged.

      “Timing is everything, Kaitlin. Those details might hinder the healing process.”

      Would you want to hear how you nearly bit the big one, and that your life force was drained by a fanged parasite? Or that you now will be initiated into the moon’s cult?

      He kept those things to himself.

      Her gaze remained nearly as steady as his was. “Maybe you’ll tell me that I’m going to be a wolf, and that you really are one, too,” she said. “Like in my dreams, and according to Rena.”

      Michael glanced to the corridor before turning back to the bed. Rena had gone, but had obviously spilled some of the dirt he had intended to hold back.

      Moving slowly, he stepped inside the apartment and closed the door behind him. “If we’re to have a chat, mind if I come in?”

      “I thought only vampires had to ask for permission to enter a building.”

      He smiled. “I was being polite. We have no such rule governing our behavior.”

      “No. I don’t suppose animals have a need for rules,” she said.

      She was still staring at him, and hadn’t moved. Michael didn’t attempt another step in her direction.

      “Did it really happen?” she asked. “Was I attacked?”

      “Yes.”

      “You helped me?”

      He nodded.

      “None of it was a dream?”

      “Afraid not.”

      She rubbed her eyes, daring to momentarily take her attention from him, and whispered, “Shit.”

      “I’m sorry,” Michael said.

      “For helping me?”

      “For how that’s going to turn out.”

      She sat up straighter, resignation in her expression. “Okay. If it wasn’t a dream, tell me about what’s going on. That’s what you meant, isn’t it, by withholding details? There’s a surprise in store?”

      “Truly, now might not be the time for the tough ones.”

      “Tough for me, or for you?”

      “Both of us, actually,” Michael said.

      She fingered her neck. “Your friend came here to tell me I’m going to become something other than human. Since she was pretty convincing, does that make me crazy if I decide to believe her?”

      “Not crazy,” Michael said. “Enlightened.”

      He watched Kaitlin briefly close her eyes and exhale a slow stream of the air that he had helped to preserve