His wolf was moved by her, moved by the precise way she ran, by the mark her footpads left in the soft forest floor, by the grace of her muzzle and the quiet of her movements.

He wanted her all to himself, wanted to mount her, dig his teeth into her neck and bury himself inside her. Wanted to see her hanging heavy with his children. It was real to wolf and man, the immenseness of the presence of Grace in his world.

No one would threaten that.

Chapter Nine

Grace looked at the information on the screen and then back to the slide.

“What we need to do is create an anti-virus. I’ve got what Warren has so far. It’s not a complete or whole copy of the lycanthropy virus. But you have that here. We can take elements from that and elements from what Warren has and go from there.”

It was the end of the first week she’d been working in the lab and to her great relief, the rest of the staff had taken to her authority with relative ease, despite her familial ties.

“Those newest bodies in Montana are bad news. They’re getting closer, I think.” She sighed. “What I think we need is to focus on something to inoculate our wolves with. We’ve got the virus here, a perfect copy. And we’ve got a working copy of what Warren has. At least two versions. They’re close enough in structure and I think we can work with it. I’m going to bring it up to Cade. For now—” she looked up from the slide to the wolf who was just below her in power, “—let’s get a team on that. Keep two people on the data I brought with me and the samples we were couriered today from Montana, but let’s get working on a vaccine.”

The wolf she’d spoken to raced off to obey.

Dave cleared his throat. “Grace, it’s nine-thirty and Cade has called four times. Just five minutes ago he threatened to come here and carry you back home himself. You’ve been here since seven this morning. You’ve got to get some rest.”

The lab was a state of the art facility with special lighting and it had been built with all the latest biohazard security precautions. No windows to the outside, layers upon layers of security. She’d been inside for fourteen hours and hadn’t noticed.

“I’m so sorry, Dave!” She stood and buzzed the wolf she’d just spoken to. “Go home. I apologize, I didn’t realize it was so late. Please, next time just tell me if I’ve kept you here over twelve hours.”

Dr. Stewart, the other wolf, shook her head. “This is important. Really, please don’t apologize. I’m just glad you know so much about virology.”

“Me too. I had no idea that my fascination would actually be of such great use someday. Heck, I’m an ER doc, I sew people up, pull weapons out of them, set bones, that sort of thing. The lab stuff was sort of a weird hobby.”

They cleaned up, discarded their lab clothes and all headed out. She had two guards on her now. Cade insisted since she’d begun to work in the lab and he couldn’t be with her all day. She understood, he had his own work do to on Pack business and as a member of the Council of War.

“I’ll drive,” Dave said, opening her door. “You call Cade and let him know we’re on the way.”

Hiroshi, the other guard, sat on her other side in the back seat as Dave took them home. They were only ten minutes away but she pulled out her phone and called.

“You’d better be at the gates right now, Grace.”

“Fine way to answer the phone when your wife calls. We’re leaving now and on the way. Do you want me to stop and pick anything up?”

“Have you eaten?”

“Um. Yes.” At lunchtime.

“You forget I can feel you through the link even when you’re miles away. When was the last time you ate?”

“You sound really tense. What’s up? I’m sorry I’m so late in coming back. I just got caught up in this new strain.”

His voice softened and his anger lessened through the link. “No, it’s not you. I’ll talk when you get here. I take it you haven’t eaten since noon so I’ll make us dinner and you’ll eat it after a hot shower. I love you. Get home safe.”

The rest of the ride went relatively quickly as she continued to work through the issues they faced with the virus.

Cade met them in the garage, sent Dave and Hiroshi to bed and escorted her to their bathroom. “Shower. I’ll be in shortly with dinner so just get in bed.” He kissed her softly and disappeared after turning on the water.

True to his word, when she emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam, clean, warm and more relaxed, the scent of stew and fresh bread greeted her.

“You’re so good to me.” She crawled in bed and he tucked her in, putting a tray over her legs. She realized how hungry she was and wasted no time in getting started.

“Grace, you really shouldn’t go so long without eating. You of all people should know how bad it is for your metabolism.” Wolves had fast metabolisms. They needed about eight thousand calories a day to stay healthy and she’d not even gotten a third of that.

“I know. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just got caught up. I want to talk to you about something but you need to tell me what’s up first.”

He put another big bowl of stew before her, removing the empty and slathering another slice of bread with butter before settling in next to her.

“There were more attacks today. A family in Northern California. Their five-year-old was beaten severely, the wife as well. The male and female managed to repel the attackers but he later died. In Charleston, a female was attacked in the parking lot of her bank. She’s in serious condition but they think she’ll pull through. Two attacks using silver injections. Both of those wolves died. There weren’t any wolves nearby who were strong enough to bring their wolves to heal them. They died in human form.”