This situation was different. The female was warier and had every right to be. She didn't have anyone to protect her litter of pups if Cassie turned out to be bad news. Unless the males she heard calling were from the she-wolf's pack. Then Cassie would have a whole pack to observe. It didn't make any sense that they wouldn't be near the she-wolf, protecting her and the pups.

A peace offering and a much needed meal for the she-wolf and her pups might help the mother accept Cassie. Sniffing the wet air, she smelled a rabbit nearby. Ready to hunt, Cassie turned and loped off, despite having hunted only for the sake of survival when she'd been a teen, too many years ago. How hard could it be?

She was a wolf, and hunting had to be instinctive. Like riding a bicycle was for a human.

Cassie poked her nose around and spied the elusive brown rabbit, half hidden in the dripping wet brush, his eyes wide. Cassie dodged for it, but with his big back feet, he shoved away from the ground and fled. Before she could reach him, he dove into a burrow. She poked her nose into the damp hole, her hope to provide a meal for the half-starved wolf and pups her overriding incentive.

The rabbit hopped out of another tunnel entrance to the den a few feet away and into a thicket of blackberries. Cassie thrust her nose into the brambles attempting to reach him, but he disappeared into another rabbit hole in the middle of the thorny shrubs. No matter how hard Cassie dug with her front paws, trying to reach him, and shoved her snout through the arching, twisting blackberry vines, scratching her nose on the barbed thicket, she could not reach the fur ball. Which made her think of Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter and how futile her efforts were. Exasperated with herself, Cassie smelled... water. And when she listened hard... the sound of running water. A creek or river nearby. Fish maybe?

With the rain still lightly falling, she ran in the direction of the water and soon came upon a rushing creek splashing over boulders. A fallen tree limb ambushed the creek's path on one side. Fifteen Mile Creek, if she recalled the map she had of the area. Dorsal fins surfaced all over the place! Salmon. And lots of them.

Nearer the center of the creek, the boulders were bigger, the water deeper, swifter, and darker. Entering the creek in her red-wolf form, her eyes glued to the salmon, Cassie watched them swim closer to her, and she began stalking them in the shallows. Clouds hung low in the sky, and the water was snow-chilled. The raindrops increasing in volume and frequency, striking the water with a loud slushing sound, but Cassie's outer guard hairs kept her from getting soaked and prevented her from freezing. The salmon swam nearer over the water-rounded stones, some drawing close to her legs, immersed in the flowing stream, and bumping her a time or two.

Just a minute or two more, patience being a great wolf virtue, she waited, panting, her jaws readied. Almost smiling. Then spying the biggest, fattest salmon headed in her direction, perfect for a wolf-litter feast, she lunged. Her paws spread wide, her footing sure even on the slippery moss-covered rocks, she snapped up what must have been about a ten-pounder.

The salmon struggled to get loose. She gripped him tighter, her mouth dripping with water, her outer dense coat of fur wet. She clambered over the rocks and left the stream, shook, and headed back toward the wolves' den, her head held high.

With a loping gait, Cassie raced back to the area where she had discovered the wolf and her pups, the Chinook salmon held tight in her jaws. When she reached the site where she'd seen the wolf, the female had vanished. Her stomach flip-flopping, Cassie hurried to the location where she thought the pups had been. She dropped the fish and poked around at the blackberry brambles.

Smelling the pups and the meat and milk the mother had fed to them, which meant they were around two weeks or older to be eating meat, but not hearing any sound from them, Cassie lifted her nose. She tried to get a whiff of the scent of the red wolf or her litter of pups and which direction she'd moved. Cassie headed away from the den, pausing to poke her snout into a hole that a badger had hastily dug. No scent of the wolf or her pups. She woofed low, attempting to get them to respond to her if they were nearby but hidden from sight.

A spotted owl hooted from a tree, and Cassie twisted her head in his direction, listening for sounds of the wolf pups mewling. Screeching its arrival, a peregrine falcon flew high above the coniferous treetops. But Cassie could detect no sounds of the wolf litter.

She retrieved the salmon and then brushed by a red cedar, the branches giving off an aromatic smell, momentarily adding spice to the fishy smell of the salmon in her mouth. She slipped through the lush ferns, ended up back on a hiking trail where humans traveled, and edged off it again through more ferns, rain droplets clinging to the feathery fronds as the rain grew heavier. Her heart beating harder, Cassie frantically searched the area for the new wolf's den and the pups that needed their mother close by. But where had the female red moved them?

Hell, Cassie knew she'd taken too long to reach the creek and fish. Not that fishing was the problem, she soon realized, but going after the blasted rabbit earlier had taken precious time when she should have found the creek first and gone fishing instead. Hunting for prey wasn't her usual job, nor did it interest her when she ran in her wolf coat, but she hadn't thought she could be that inept at it. Or that a cotton-tailed rabbit could outwit her so easily.

She reached a high point on a hill and stood still, listening, sniffing the air. Come on, where have you gone to now?

And then something moved in the distance through a clearing. A red wolf. Instantly, she froze. The wolf was bigger, not the she-wolf. It didn't see her yet.

Cassie remained frozen in the downpour, a sheet of gray coming straight down from the same-colored sky, the only other thing moving--the salmon, its tail and head jerking slightly in her mouth. And she knew if the wolf looked in her direction, he'd see her. His head suddenly swiveled her way. The wolf's amber eyes caught sight of the movement, of her and the fish.

The wolf was a male, had to be as large as he was. And a beautiful red. Was he the one that had called for a gathering? She hadn't seen any sign of other wolves anywhere near the female and her pups. She couldn't believe the mother wolf was on her own. Was he with her then? Protecting her? That would be good news.

But what if he was a lupus garou? Yet... he shouldn't be out here running in daylight in his wolf coat, just like she shouldn't be. Maybe he was just a lupus.

Like her, the male wolf didn't move, his gaze focused on hers. She stayed put, waiting to see what he did. She didn't want to try to locate the pups while another wolf watched. Most wolves adored young ones, played, fed, and taught them how to survive, but she'd read of a group of phantom wolves who killed off another wolf pack, leaving their pups to starve in a cave. And then the phantom wolves had disappeared from the area.

In another case, a rabid wolf had killed a whole pack he'd come across. Not that this wolf was anything like either case, but as much as she'd studied wolves' behavior, any of them could be unpredictable. In any event, she had no plan to lead him to the she-wolf's new den, if she could locate it herself.

The wolf continued to observe her, and then he gave a wolf's version of a smile as if he'd made a decision and headed straight for her.

Her heart took a dive. She was an intruder in their territory, and he was part of a pack. She damn well bet it was Leidolf's red lupus garou pack. And if she didn't find the female and her pups and soon, she was sure a whole gang of lupus garous--mate-hungry bachelor male types--would be in the area, searching for her.

Adrenaline flooding her veins, she ran down the other side of the ridge, her jaws growing tired of carrying the salmon. She had to lose the red male, find the she-wolf, give her the fish for the pups, and figure out a way to take care of the pups and the she-wolf somewhere beyond the vicinity of a lupus garou pack's territory.

But where was the blasted new den? And how was she going to lose the red male in the meantime?

* * *

She was too far away to reach quickly, but Leidolf hoped the red wolf on top of the ridge, carrying a salmon in her mouth, was Cassie. As soon as he reached the peak of the ridge, he sniffed the ground and caught her scent. And then raced off again. He was torn between locating his men and finding the little red female, but she could be in as much danger as his men. He reminded himself he had others looking for them, but no one else to look after her.

It was the oddest thing, though. Just when he thought he was within inches of locating her, Cassie's scent would disappear. Back and forth, he continued to track her, and then he'd get another whiff and take off again. Almost as if she knew he was tracking her, and she was trying to avoid capture.

His spirits soared when he believed he would soon catch her. When he came to the river, he lost her scent. Not liking that he was exposed to prying hunter eyes on the naked bank, Leidolf ran downstream anyway in a rush but, not locating her scent, tried upstream. Same thing. He couldn't sense her at all. He stopped and stared at the river. She had to have crossed it.

Hell. He dove in and wolf paddled through the choppy currents. When he finally reached the other side, he shook the excess water off his fur and then sniffed at the ground. No sign of her scent here, either. He ran upstream. Nothing. Then downstream. He found no smell of her there. He stared at the river. Had she been caught by an undercurrent, being not as strong as he was and unable to swim straight across?

"Hey, Joe," someone whispered, hidden in the woods on his side of the riverbank. "Do you see what I see?"

Leidolf's heart beat even harder.

"Hot damn, a red wolf, but it's too big to be Rosa, Thompson. You want to get the male or should..."

That's all Leidolf had to overhear. He darted into the river, swimming as fast as a wolf could, which he swore was a hell of a lot slower than he could swim as a human. Despite the sound of the flowing water muffling the noise, he heard the men scrambling across the riverbank, their boots scattering rocks. He just hoped their guns didn't have the range to shoot him across the river. And thankfully, they didn't fire at him while he was swimming.

As soon as he reached the other side, his natural instinct was to shake the water from his fur coat, but his human half compelled him to forget the ritual and head for the forest. A gunshot rang out, and Leidolf dodged into the woods, but not before he felt a prick in the meat of his left flank. Damn it. Which reminded him why he and his pack members were never to risk changing in broad daylight and run around as wolves unless they had no choice.