Forever Werewolf

She gave it a pull. It opened freely, and she was not hit with snow. Rushing up the stairs, the brisk winter air smacked her in the face and she tugged up the coat hood over her head. The sun shone too brightly for the disaster that had just occurred, which reminded her how deadly Mistress Winter could be beyond her deceptive cloak of glittering white snow.

A crew loitered at the edge of the roof, shovels in hand, and one held a long thin stick. A ski pole? The snow wall had pushed all the way up to the roof. As Lexi approached the men, she saw that the entire courtyard at the front of the castle, where visitors and pack members arrived and departed, had been covered over with snow. Probably ten to twelve feet deep, she decided, and it had pushed all the way up to the doors of the storage shed, where they kept the snowplow and pack vehicles.

Two men were carefully making their way down the snow mountains formed up against the castle walls.

“What’s the situation?” she asked anyone who would answer, noting that Vince was not standing in the crew. “Who is that?”

“Said his name was Trystan Hawkes,” one of the men offered. “He’s the one that suggested we go down with shovels and sticks to start looking for men. Just jumped right in and took charge. Said time is of the essence.”

Lexi lifted her chin, not sure how to take that. She liked a man who took charge and, especially in a situation like this, they needed someone to take command. But did he know what he was doing? He could be risking his life by stepping on unstable ground.

“Said he helped rescue a couple after an avalanche in Germany,” another said. “The guy knows what he’s doing. Where’s Vince?”

“I think he was with the skiers this morning,” the other man replied.

Lexi’s heart dropped. If the scion was trapped in the snow, they had only hours to get to him before the unforgiving snow crushed his lungs. While werewolves could withstand much, they were not immortal, and his death would prove slow and suffering.

She cast a glance at the man with wavy red hair who appeared to be sniffing as he walked. Even if a man were buried deeply, the werewolf’s senses should be able to track him. He towered over the pack members. A natural leader who stood out among the average. He calmly delivered instructions to the men. That command appealed to her inner need for order, and touched a curious part of her that lifted her chin and kept her eyes pinned to the bold newcomer.

“Trystan Hawkes,” she whispered against her gloved hands as she clasped them to her mouth to keep her face warm. “What have you brought to Wulfsiege?”

Chapter 2

Wind whipped icy crystals up about the site where Trystan had sensed a heartbeat under the hard-packed snow surface. He’d stowed the titanium case in a cubby near the cafeteria on the way outside. Now he instructed the three men digging to be cautious: a live body was beneath the snow. They didn’t want to cause further injury with a misplaced shovel. But, as well, they had to act quickly.

None of the pack members had been wearing transceivers, as skiers often did, so the search proved difficult. They had been digging for over an hour and the sun was falling toward the horizon. Tryst left the diggers to continue the search for more live bodies. Using a makeshift probe, a ski pole he’d broken off the basket to poke through the snow where he sensed life, he directed another team of shovelers.

“Here. He’s closer to the surface. Can you sense the heartbeat?”

The first rescuer to arrive nodded and knelt to the ground, listening. “Can’t be more than a foot under. I can hear him breathing.”

Thank the gods, werewolves had supersensitive noses and hearing.

Tryst rushed over to another trio who dug where the snow was perhaps only five feet high, near to the front of the storage shed. The ski team must have been heading in for the day, or else the avalanche had carried them this far, which seemed unreal but not out of the realm of possibility.

“Another?” he asked.

“Yes, here’s his hand.”

Tryst bent and clasped the hand sticking out of the snow. The cool fingers clasped back, strongly. Good energy there. “Hurry,” he instructed. “He’s going to be okay.”

Shouts from the first dig site brought him around to assist as they pulled a limp body from the snow. Tryst bent to listen at the wolf’s chest but didn’t hear a heartbeat. He grabbed his wrist, but the man did not react and his hand fell limply across Tryst’s leg.

“Hell, it’s Vince,” one of the wolves who had been digging said. He knelt beside Tryst and bowed his head. “Pack scion.”

Not good, Trystan knew. If the principal was ill, then the scion was the next in line to take charge. This news would shake the Alpine pack to its core.

“Bring him inside. Carefully,” he said. “There may yet be life in him. Get him to—” He didn’t know if there was a medical team on site. “Bring him to the female wolf. What’s her name? The one walking around like she’s running the place?”

“Alexis?” The man who had knelt next to Tryst smirked at him. “She likes to think she’s in charge. But yes, she’ll know what to do with Vince.” The wolf stood and ordered the men to place the scion’s body on a stretcher. “I’m Liam. Just Liam. No last name.” He offered his hand to help Tryst stand. He had a good, firm clasp and friendly eyes, and he actually met Tryst’s stare straight on because he was the same height. “What’s your name?”

“Trystan Hawkes. I had just arrived at Wulfsiege with a delivery to the principal when the avalanche roared in through the castle wall. I’m here to help for as long as you need me.”

“We can definitely use another man, especially one who has had experience with avalanche rescues before.”

“No problem. I’m going to find the female and make sure they’ve got triage set up.”

“Before you go, one thing you should know about Alexis.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s the principal’s daughter. One of two Connor daughters. Alexis is a cool number. Watch you don’t get on her bad side.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll be too busy for that to happen.”

On the other hand, if he clashed with the gorgeous Alexis again, he’d welcome the experience. A bad side? Let it be naughty bad….

By midnight the men who had been digging nonstop since the avalanche had occurred before noon, were called in for the night. They’d found six men. Five had been alive, all with brutal injuries, yet, Natalie, the witch doctor on staff who had lived with the pack for decades, had diagnosed they would heal. The sixth, the scion, was dead; no methods of revival had proved successful.

According to Lexi’s count, that left six still missing. She doubted any could still be alive, yet Trystan Hawkes insisted, with blind determination, they continue the search.

“You never know what we wolves can withstand,” he said as he accepted a change of gloves and boots from Lexi’s assistant, Rick, because his were soaked.

He walked up to her and met her with his bright blue stare that seemed so out of place in this dire time. His gaze sparkled with an innate sort of well-being she couldn’t understand. When had a man ever truly looked at her in such a nonthreatening manner? She had to look up at him because he was so tall. Imposing, in a strangely gentle manner.

“If a pocket of air is trapped near the victim’s face, he may stand a chance of survival,” he explained. “You’ve got six men still missing, and I’m not stopping until we’ve found them, dead or alive. No man should be left out there as his final resting place.”

“Why?” She had to ask. The wolf was not aligned with the Alpine pack. He should care little for a few strangers.

“Why?” He frowned, yet that expression did not dilute the radiance glowing from his eyes. “How would you like it if you were the one trapped and someone asked me why?”

She nodded, taking his curt response as the admonishment it had been. Lexi was accustomed to male dominance, but this time it didn’t rankle her as much as it usually did, because he was only trying to help. And his devotion to the rescue touched the hard, cold place in her heart that she often wished could grow warm.

“At least eat a bit before you go out again. We’ve prepared sandwiches and there are sports drinks just around the corner on a table outside the cafeteria. Don’t be stupid, Hawkes. You need the energy.”

“I can manage a few minutes.” He headed toward the food, his heavy boots clomping with his lanky strides. Shaped differently than the pack wolves, he was longer, leaner, but no less muscled.

Lexi watched as he tilted back a sports drink in one swallow, then grabbed another and sucked that down as quickly. Accepting a turkey sandwich stuffed with veggies, and thanking the women manning the food table, he ate it as he marched out the lobby door and back into the brisk winter night.

Outside, the winds whipped relentlessly, nearing thirty miles an hour. Here in the valley, where one would think they’d be protected, it was as if the winds scooped down to scour the land. Lexi knew the weather had to be brutal, yet Trystan Hawkes’s determination glowed like a bright aura only a psychic could see.

The other wolves helping the rescue efforts were all as determined, but seeing this stranger step into the role without question or ties to the pack intrigued her. What kind of man would do such a thing? Sacrifice for others he didn’t even know? Exemplary—

“Who’s the tall redhead with the freckles? He certainly stands out from the pack like a bright red warning beacon.”

Lexi turned to find her sister, Alana, looking fresh as ever with perfect makeup and blond hair swept into a smooth, tight bun. She never went anywhere without bright red lipstick. Or the five-inch stilettos. Lana Connor was a Tiffany kind of girl stuck in bargain-basement hell. Apparently she had not been volunteering in the keep with the wounded, but then Lexi would have been knocked over had Lana even asked after the well-being of the survivors.

“I don’t know who he is,” Lexi offered. “But he just may be the most honorable wolf I’ve ever met.”

“Is that so?”

She sensed her sister’s eligible bachelor radar go up. Lana might be engaged to Sven Skarson, but that didn’t keep her from flirting with every wolf who risked his life by returning the heartless flirtation. She was beautiful, spoiled, and could have any man at whom she batted an eyelash. It was a game, Lexi sensed, a defense mechanism of sorts. Because she knew she was safe, Lana played with social and pack boundaries. Lexi was her sister’s opposite—she put up a cold front, knowing she was safe from any of the pack’s amorous attention.

Lana was the pretty one; Lexi was the smart one. She’d grown to accept the distinction between them, and for some reason, Lexi had never cared about Lana’s random flirtations.

Until now.

“He’s not your type,” Lexi said quickly. “He’s a hard worker, and is more concerned with helping others than himself.”

Leaving that verbal slap hanging, Lexi marched off toward the south wing to look in on her father.

“I almost forgot!” a man shouted down the hallway as she neared him.

Trystan Hawkes had a way of putting himself near to her, not touching yet just a little too close, challenging her own personal boundaries. He huffed from running and carried a titanium suitcase that she had remembered seeing when he’d first come into Wulfsiege.

“I came here for a reason, and I think what I have with me may be timely. I’m supposed to hand this directly to the principal. Your father?”

“Principal Connor is my father. But I can take that for you.”

“No, I, uh … can’t.”

“Monsieur Hawkes, with the events that have occurred, protocol has changed—”

“Sorry. I have specific orders to put it in only your father’s hands. Instructions stipulated by your father to mine according to the contract he signed with Hawkes Associates when assigning us as security advisors for his stored items. Please, can you take me there quickly? I need to get back outside.”

It wasn’t a breach of protocol, but it could be dangerous for her ailing father to have visitors. Still, if her father had requested whatever was inside that case—something he had chosen to store at Hawkes Associates and not here at Wulfsiege, so it must be valuable—then she would not question.

As well, she didn’t mind spending a few more minutes with Hawkes. She wanted to observe him, figure out what made the handsome wolf tick.

“Come with me.”

The principal’s private quarters were set in the south tower of the castle, as far from the damage as one could get. Lexi thanked the nature gods for that small blessing.

Though the principal’s room was located in the tower, the space was massive, but Tryst couldn’t move his thoughts from the urgency of the rescue to do more than flash a look around the room, not really taking in details. There were still wolves outside. It had been over eight hours since the avalanche hit. They were likely dead, but if the slightest chance existed any could be alive, he had to find them.

Alexis, still dressed in white leather and still sporting the sunglasses inside—though the conference room she led him into was lit with low light—gestured he approach the man seated in a leather chair at the end of a long table. It was an easy chair, and the leg rest was up. A plaid blanket covered him to the chest.

Tryst laid the titanium case on the table and said, “Sorry to be in such a hurry, Principal Connor. My father sends the elixir inside this case with his blessings and wishes you a speedy recovery.”

The elder wolf stared at him with mouth agape. Salt-and-pepper hair curled about a narrow face with loose skin that indicated he must have lost weight and perhaps was normally much more fit. His heavy-lidded eyes made him appear old and weak, yet they stared at Tryst, stunned.

It was then Tryst realized his lack of protocol. He should bow or kneel, or—something—before a pack leader. His father’s instructions rang loudly in his thoughts. He should have waited to first be spoken to.

No time.

“Forgive me. I apologize for the protocol I am stepping on and of which I probably made a huge mess. But I have to leave. The avalanche. There are still many from your pack missing.”

Principal Connor didn’t say a word, merely lowered his tired eyes to the titanium case.

With that, Tryst did bow and backed from the room. He looked to Alexis, who also gaped at him with her soft pink mouth parted, and then knowing he hadn’t the time or the fortitude to make political amends, he turned and raced down the spiraling tower stairs.

“What the hell was that disaster?” Edmonton Connor rasped at his daughter.

Lexi should have explained protocol to the man on the way up to the tower, but she had blindly expected him to behave. Or to have a rudimentary grasp on pack procedures. He’d shown such courage and leadership so far. Was he not a member of a pack? Had he never approached a principal before?

“He’s heading the rescue team, Father. Please accept my apologies for his rudeness. If I had known …” She sighed. She’d been running on full throttle since the disaster, hadn’t eaten, and right now was feeling as tired as her father looked. “Trystan Hawkes has helped our men bring up six who were buried under the snow. And he seems determined to find the remaining six.”

“I see.” Her father looked aside and smoothed his palm caressingly over the titanium case. “I suppose I can overlook it this time. Knowing his father, Rhys Hawkes, I should have expected the insubordinate behavior. He didn’t bring up his son in a pack.”

“He’s an omega?”

The principal nodded. “Where is Vincent?”

Lexi sucked in a breath. This was the part of chatelaine duties she did not enjoy. Reporting to her father was easy. She’d been doing it all her life, ever since her dreams of growing up like Lana had been smashed at puberty. But she never liked delivering bad news to her father, which had to be done on occasion, and most especially now, when he was not well. Stressful news could make him weaker, but neither would she dream to hide the truth from her father.

“Vincent Rapel didn’t make it. Natalie and Reese looked him over and suspect all his bones were crushed. She also concluded he died instantly as a rib bone appeared to have pierced his heart.”

“The witch doctor?” He named Natalie that because she was a real witch who had been taken in by the pack decades earlier. She’d been nurse to Lexi and Lana when they were little, and Lexi had great respect for her, though she knew her father often conflicted with the woman’s “spiritual” ways. “She suspects? She concluded? We need a real medical doctor here, Alexis. Immediately. If there are wounded, they’ll need more than herb-craft and moon voodoo.”

“Father, don’t worry yourself, please. Reese is working alongside Natalie, and you know he has medical training.”

“Veterinary training.” He grunted and slammed his shoulders into the easy chair. “We are not dogs. Why I allowed Natalie to recruit him is beyond my ken. Call Paris. There’s a few practicing werewolves in the city. Check with Rhys Hawkes, he’ll have their contact information.”

“I will. You should be in bed resting. How are you feeling?”

“The same. Weak. Like my blood is sinking to my feet. I’m so light-headed. But this.” He slapped the case. “I’ve had this for ages. This may be my last hope.”

She had no idea what was inside the case but would learn soon enough. “Do you want me to call Natalie here to help you with it?”

He sighed, his drawn face saggy. “Yes, she is my only option at the moment. And Alexis?”

“Yes, Father?”

“I’ll have to elect a new scion since I’m not doing so well.”

“Don’t talk like that. Whatever Monsieur Hawkes sent along in that case will help you recover, I’m sure of it.”

“You don’t even know what it is. Nor do you have any idea who Rhys Hawkes and his son Trystan are.”

That statement took her back for a moment. What did it matter if the man had helped only since arriving?

“Trystan seems trustworthy and a man to have around when the chips are down. He’s focused. He impresses me.”

“Yes, well.” Edmonton sighed and gestured she help him to stand. “Be wary, Lexi. He is not from this pack.”

“I will.”

Lexi walked her father into the attached bedroom suite and helped him onto a bed topped with a plush goose-down coverlet.

Her father was a young wolf, only a century old, and had been the picture of health two weeks ago. But he’d begun to decline, slowly yet steadily, and three days ago he’d taken to his bed. The witch doctor hadn’t a clue, but Natalie kept divining her father’s blood, with no results.

Edmonton wouldn’t let her cast a healing spell upon him, because he didn’t believe in witchcraft.

Another reason Edmonton’s mistrust of Natalie ran deep was due to the affair he’d had with her twenty years earlier, after Lexi and Lana’s mother had died. Edmonton Connor was a rogue of the first water, and never apologized for it. Lexi understood he needed connection, love and, yes, to answer the physical cravings all werewolves felt. But the past few years, as far as she knew, he’d not taken any woman under arm or even to his bed. Instead, wanderlust had brightened Edmonton Connor’s eyes, but he tamped down the urge to travel because he had a pack to look after.

Now he’d been reduced to a feeble man who looked as old as he should be were he mortal. And for no apparent reason. Werewolves did not suffer mortal ailments. He’d not been physically injured. How to understand his failing health?

“I’ll contact Monsieur Hawkes and ask for a recommendation on someone who practices on our breed,” she said, and kissed her father’s cheek. “I’ll have him flown here as quickly as possible to look over the casualties in the keep and then I’m going to assign him to your bedside. I love you, Father.”

She took the case and left, blowing him a kiss as she closed the door behind her. She’d bring this to Natalie. She trusted the witch any day.

Chapter 3

The day had been long, and Lexi startled awake from her sitting position by the arched door opening into the keep. Her room had not been damaged, yet she hadn’t made it back there after overseeing the disaster and establishing triage in the keep. Now she stretched her legs out before her and arched her back. She hadn’t removed her long coat and she was warm. Too warm, almost stifling here in the windowless room that may have, in centuries past, often housed the entire castle inhabitants as they waited out the enemy.

Rubbing her eyes beneath the sunglasses—she never took them off—felt great. Checking her watch revealed it was three in the morning. Most of the keep was quiet, save a few who sat near the cots with wet towels and worried looks as they tended the wounded.

She stood, stretched again, and decided she could manage a few hours of sleep in her own bed, and a shower. Her kingdom for a shower.

She did have a small kingdom, actually. Well, Lana was the one who insisted on exploiting the princess title. Lexi thought it was ostentatious. Daughters of werewolf principals were referred to as princess—their sons were princes—but that didn’t make them royalty or heirs to a nonexistent castle and crown. But they did live in a castle and, despite the lacking crown, Lana certainly liked to play up the privileged princess routine. It worked well for her. Entitlement had always been her mien.

Lexi would rather choke on a watermelon than play soft, pink and delicate. If she didn’t have a hand and nose to the action, she wouldn’t know how to function. It was a natural compulsion to show her father how much she was willing to help. It was hard enough to get his attention, what with Lana’s pandering. Her sister could win a new Porsche with a bat of her lashes, and she had two in the shed to prove the power of that expert move. Lexi owned a battered old Range Rover. It got her where she needed to go, and that included flooded roads, muddy ditches and icy drives.

Wandering through the darkened halls of the castle, Lexi tugged off her coat and pushed the sunglasses up onto her head. It always took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust and color her surroundings a little brighter than when wearing the glasses, even despite the darkness inside the castle. Her breed had excellent night vision.

Her exhaustion felt as if she were dragging lead pipes for legs, and her shoulders ached. A cup of chamomile tea after her shower would relax her into a restful slumber.

Suddenly she stumbled and, before falling, caught herself with a balance of her hands. Turning swiftly, she saw she’d tripped over a man’s legs. He sat sprawled on the floor across from the lobby doors that had been blocked off with wood boards. Bitter cold air whisked through the hallway about her shoulders and she shuffled her coat back on and tapped down her glasses before kneeling to shake the man’s shoulders.

“Monsieur Hawkes?”

He mumbled something but didn’t open his eyes. His coat lay over his legs, and melted snow from his heavy pack boots puddled around his feet and legs.

“What are you doing here?”

“No place to sleep. Tired. Still missing … one man.”

It had been a good eighteen hours since the avalanche had struck. And this wolf had been working steadily to rescue the missing men. Only one left? He must have fallen asleep standing or, apparently, sat down and nodded off. Even wolves eventually got exhausted and couldn’t go without sleep.

She tugged his arm, provoking him to a grudging stand. “Come with me. We’ve a few open rooms.”

He twisted toward the boarded doors, which swung her around ungracefully as he looped an arm over her shoulder and stumbled a few steps as if a drunken man. “Have to find last one.”

Walking and talking in his sleep, this guy. “You can resume the search after you’ve rested. Is there a backup team out now?”

“Yes, three men volunteered. They’ve had rest. But I should help. Can’t let them down.” With a shake of his head, as if to chase off the exhaustion, he suddenly set back his shoulders and assumed a modicum of alertness. The move stretched him a head taller than she. He blinked a few times in the cool darkness. “Princess Connor. Sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”