Jolie vaguely noted the parody in Hope's show of annoyance, but she was in hyper-defensive mode and determined to redeem herself, so once again pointed at Mouse.

"She didn't tell me how the d.a.m.ned tree worked," she said.

"She dragged me miles in the cold and rain until I was starving." Mouse fought back.

"She ran away," Jolie almost squeaked in indignation.

"She lost Tadpole," Mouse almost shouted.

"Oh, you little-" Jolie flushed scarlet with mortification.

"Tadpole?" Hope's voice filled with alarm. On hearing his name, Tadpole wandered over from a bush he had been exploring and pressed his fore paws on her knees begging for a head scratch. His tartan coat stretched along his body and the little bell on his new tartan collar jingled. "He's in tartan?" Hope blinked in confusion.

"We've had to listen to that bell for the last ten miles," Jolie grumbled.

"What have you done to him?" Hope demanded.

"Jolie lost him," Mouse piped up, "and she made me eat possum b.u.t.t."

"I did not!" Jolie protested. "The d.a.m.ned dog followed me following her and he got lost, as usual. And the possum was a lesson about a.n.a.l glands and-"

"We get the idea." Marie had a little smile on her face. A few Garouls had gathered around her and were being entertained by the series of denouements.

"It was ick," Mouse continued to complain. "I was poisoned."

"I bought you sandwiches and a c.o.ke didn't I, you little weasel." Jolie was not letting her get away with it.

"With money you took from the tree!"

"You never told me not to take from the tree!" Jolie shouted.

"Did the tartan jacket come from the tree?" Hope demanded. "Did you do this to him, Jolie?"

"No." Jolie felt ashamed. "Norman Johnston from the general store dressed him like that."

"What!" Hope was aghast. "That horrible old man tortured my dog?"

"And he called me a brat," Mouse heaped on the drama. "And he said we were witches and he chased us and we had to run away and Tadpole followed us and Jolie told me Luc was my mom."

Chapter Twenty-three.

Luc raced to her tree and stopped to draw breath. She slumped to the ground and rested against the gnarled trunk, ignoring the p.r.i.c.kling discomfort on her skin. She hated running through the woods in human form. It always made her feel so vulnerable and so...hunted?

It was blissfully cool under the leafy branches of the maple and she sat for a moment watching the knickknacks she had pilfered dance in the breeze. Sunlight glinted off b.u.t.tons and buckles, insects droned, and the forest floor smelled sharp and resinous where her feet had churned up the dust and debris. Her skin was still flushed from her sprint through the forest, and the silver collar lay cold and lumpish around her neck and shoulders.

The rest allowed her time to think. Had she made a mess of things? Probably. She usually did. But then she remembered Emily was the one who had initiated intimacy, and in her own way was as clumsy as Luc in that area. She let her stronger emotions lead her, heart over head, instinct over logic. It was comforting to Luc that Emily could lose control. And Emily had bit her! Okay, so she had no idea what she was doing, but a bite was big news in Were world. Luc felt rather smug about that. It was nice for someone to try to make a claim, especially when she was feeling so confused and low herself.

Emily would make a great mate, and that was the trouble. Luc chewed her lip. She had not planned on finding a mate, was not even looking for one, and especially not this close to Little Dip. She needed to get away from here as fast as possible, and instead she was building nests and decorating trees. Why was that? Was it because Ren had made an initiation tree for Isabelle? Luc hoped their petty jealousies weren't that trite. She liked to think of herself as above Ren and her petty pack politics, but had to admit sometimes she did feel lonely and left out. As twins, Ren and Luc had their share of rivalries. In Luc's opinion, she was the self-styled adventurer, the independent, lone wolf type, while Ren was the nerdy party p.o.o.per, always worrying about this and micromanaging that while Luc just got on with it.

Those first few minutes that Ren had all to herself in this world did not give her the divine right to boss everyone else around. And definitely not Luc. As soon as their parents had died, Luc had set out on her own and was doing quite well in her career as a loner, thank you. Sometimes she did miss the twin connection. Like now for instance. It would be nice to talk to Ren about her problems, especially the emotional ones. Not that Ren was an expert. If anything, she was even less qualified.

Luc pondered the problematic route her sister's love life had taken. If she had just done what I said and bitten Isabelle, then it would have been much easier. Luc was all for the bite 'em, love 'em, and leave 'em school of relationships, believing in the old adage that a true mate would follow her Were to the ends of the earth. At least Luc used to believe that. Since meeting Emily, she was having a lot of problems with her old mottoes. She could bite and love Emily easily enough, but leaving her was impossible. The woman was Super Glue.

Maybe I'm still affected by the virus? Why not? Or maybe she was just tired of running. Little Dip was her birth den, no matter how much she detested the fact. It would always have a hold on her. And now it held Mouse, and it was harder than Luc expected to leave her behind. She was having a lot of trouble walking away these days. She missed Mouse so much she swore she could smell her...Luc frowned. She sniffed harder but was unsure. To her human nose, the scents of the forest were strongest. Pine and cedar with their high, sharp tones. .h.i.t her sinuses first. But something tugged at Luc, something skirted on the edge of her memory, taunting and elusive. She was rested now and crouched down to grunt into wolven form, ignoring the popping and tearing in her body, pushing through the change until she stood upright, tall and bold and sniffing the breeze. And there it was, under those sappy, resinous high notes, and the fuggy herbaceous cut of the surrounding greenery came the subtler spiced scent of her daughter...and of another Were.

In three short bounds, Luc pressed up through the boughs of the big maple to her nest. The growl in her chest was deep and venomous. A Were had been here with Mouse. A Were she did not recognize. Panicked thoughts of when Patrick grabbed Mouse bombarded her. Had some remnant of Patrick's pack come after Mouse? Luc had thought them all dead. She had tracked down as many as she could. They'd all been infected with the virus, dying on their feet and cruelly abandoned by their creator. It had been a pleasure to catch up with Patrick the pretender, and remove him permanently from her life, and Mouse's and Ren's, too. He had caused enough trouble.

A quick glance around the nest told her things were missing. Things suffused with Emily's scent. There was no doubt in her mind, this new Were was posturing for a fight. It had Mouse and was after Emily, too. Her growl bubbled into a throaty hiss and her ears flattened to her skull. She would rip its throat out.

With one almighty leap, she flew from the nest, landing on the ground below with a resounding crash that threw the forest's inhabitants into silence. Unhesitating, she thundered through the shadows in a direct line to Emily's house. She had to reach her before the other Were did.

"You blabbed that Luc was Mouse's mother?" Ren looked furious and Jolie felt her muzzle twitch under the muscles of her jaw. If this newcomer thought she was going to throw her weight around, Jolie would soon snap a bit of order into her. It made no difference to her that they were now in Marie's cabin trying to sort out a way forward. Jolie was sick and tired of Ren and Luc. The twins had been a royal pain in the a.s.s when they were young and were an even bigger pain in the a.s.s now that they'd grown up.

"I did not blab," she said. "It just came out in the heat of the moment, and you should have told her ages ago anyway. It's not as if the cub can't cope. She could face down a grizzly if she needed to."

"Even so-"

"Even so nothing," Jolie interrupted. She did not like Ren. Hope had been placed in danger because she had helped Ren's mate, Isabelle. If anything, it was Ren who owed Jolie's den some respect. "I was the one who went after your charge when she high-tailed it out of the valley," she said hotly. "Where were you, huh? Off hunting shadows, that's where." She alluded to the failure of the hunt with relish. They should have taken her with them. And where had Ren been anyway? She had returned to Little Dip long after the pack had come home. Jolie didn't like Ren having secret missions she knew nothing about.

"Mouse was worried for Luc. That's why she ran away," she continued. "She was trying to find her before you did. So maybe she didn't know Luc was her mom, but she sure as h.e.l.l acted as if she was. The instinct was already there." Jolie was pointing at Ren now that she was on a roll. How dare she treat Mouse that way! "It's ingrained. You can't lie to the cub, or hide the scent of her own G.o.dd.a.m.ned mother from her."

"Jolie." Hope spoke softly and placed a hand on Jolie's arm to calm her. Jolie turned to her.

"And let me tell you something, Hope. Our cubs won't be wandering around the woods all night without a chaperone. They'll be brought up right, and know how to cross roads and do as they're told and G.o.dd.a.m.n know who their parents are!" Silence greeted this outburst. Marie and Connie looked amused, and Hope blinked up at her in surprise.

"Our hypothetical cubs, I mean," Jolie quickly added, and felt a flush covering her cheeks. She was excruciatingly embarra.s.sed. "Anyway," she continued, much more subdued. "I didn't plan to tell her. I was tired. And up a tree." Her scorched face mercifully began to cool down. "And it was windy."

"Well," murmured Hope, "if you were up a tree. That explains it." She rolled her eyes and Jolie scowled at her.

"Thank you for looking after Mouse," Ren said stiffly. "I'm glad you were there when she needed help." Then her voice relaxed to its normal tone and she said, "It seems you and Hope always manage to save the day where she's concerned. No wonder she loves staying at your place."

Jolie's hackles subsided. She had been a hero, of sorts. She had cared for the cub, and struggled to get her back home. In a curious way, she already considered Mouse an extended member of her den. A bond had been struck somewhere along the journey, and Jolie was pleased. Emotional entanglements were not her strong point, but she had easily managed with Mouse. Something had shifted inside her. Maybe living with Hope was changing her, too?

"So what do we do now?" Hope asked. "Mouse is all tucked up at our place playing cards with Paulie, but she knows Luc is out there. It won't be long before she sneaks off to go looking for her again."

Marie turned to Ren. "What did you find out? Is Luc still in the vicinity?"

"Very much so," Ren answered.

"How would she know?" Jolie asked. "Is this some twin thing?" Because if it was, she and Andre didn't share it, thank Luna.

"I had Ren split from the pack to do some scouting for me," Marie explained.

"Luc's going nowhere fast and that confuses me. Normally, she'd be away in a blink," Ren said.

"Jolie and Mouse found an initiation tree," Marie said. "I think that affects a lot of things." Ren looked stunned.

"It had a nest in it." Jolie enjoyed knowing something super scout Ren did not. "That's why I was up a tree." She needed to underscore that point. It was not every day Jolie Garoul climbed a G.o.dd.a.m.ned tree and Ren had better appreciate that.

"A nest takes time to build, and it explains some of the things I've seen," Ren said. "You remember the woman at the logging camp?"

Marie nodded. "It looked as if Luc was shielding her?"

"How the h.e.l.l did Luc get away?" Jolie couldn't hold it in any longer. Now if she had been there it would have been- "It was deliberate," Marie said with a challenge in her eyes. Jolie backed down.

"Oh?" she said. "That's..." She had no idea what it was. "But why?"

"Because we knew Luc had a human with her," Marie said. "We found traps all over the place. Someone was trying to catch something big, and that big thing turned out to be Luc."

"We have to be careful if humans get involved. You know that," Connie added.

Jolie snorted. Every Garoul knew that. But who was trapping whom?

"At first, we thought Luc had a hostage. Turns out she was doing her utmost to protect the woman who was hunting her? Which is just weird. So now I need to know who she is and what the h.e.l.l's going on," Marie said. "I let Luc escape for now, so that Ren could follow the woman. Luc may be as slippery as snake oil, but I'm the rattler the oil came from. Do you think they're in this together?" she asked Ren.

"That's my bet," Ren said. "The woman oozes Luc's scent. I'm sure they've mated."

"What?" Connie looked shocked. "Luc's on the run. How the h.e.l.l did she have time to hook up?"

"And you're sure this woman knows Luc's a werewolf?" Hope asked.

"Looks like she was trying to trap one," Marie said.

Ren looked troubled. "That's the weird part. The woods to the back of the woman's house are full-on with her scent. It's as if she's been marking the area?"

"In an aggressive way?" Marie asked. "As if she's marking a boundary?" She did not look happy at this news.

Ren shook her head. "No. It's more like in a come hither way."

"Come hither?" Jolie echoed. "Like a s.e.x scent, you mean?"

Again, Ren shook her head. "Maybe. To be honest, I'm not sure if this woman knows what she's doing."

"It's hardly wise to knowingly seduce a werewolf. They're not very good with the old flirtation thing, more like leap, bite, and maybe smooze a little later. And we have no idea who she is?" Hope said.

"No idea," Ren said.

"I wonder if she has something to do with that curious collar around Luc's neck. I've never seen anything like it before. Have any of you?" Connie asked Marie and Ren.

Ren shrugged. "Luna only knows with Luc. Could be a piece of jewelry she s.n.a.t.c.hed that happened to catch her eye. She's a law unto herself."

"This woman she's mooning after, she lives in Lost Creek?" Marie said.

"It's hard to tell who's mooning after who. Between come hithers and initiation trees, it sounds like they're both a bit addled." Ren looked troubled despite her throwaway comment.

"I think it's time I paid a visit to Lost Creek," Marie said. "I haven't been in town for ages, and I have some library books to return."

"Well, don't take Tadpole anywhere near the general store," Jolie muttered. "You might end up in an ownership dispute."

Chapter Twenty-four.

Luc hurtled toward Lost Creek slowing as she approached the outskirts, swerving toward the general store and Emily's house. She crept in directly from the backwoods this time, rather than her usual oblique line of approach where the neighboring outbuildings shielded her. Nightfall would obscure her now; no need to slink behind woodpiles and outhouses to plot her final sprint to the house.

Luc entered the thicket of trees just behind the house. She could see Emily's bedroom window from here. There were no lights on, or anywhere else in the house. It must have been much later than Luc supposed. She couldn't detect the little dog either. That meant he had kept on running. Either that or they locked him indoors at night. Luc hoped he was out of the picture. She did not need a dog barking at her, even if it was about as dangerous as a dust bunny.

As was her habit, she hunkered down by a tree and contemplated the yard, waiting to make sure all was quiet before she made her next move. She was still rattled. Her hackles raised at the thought of the Garouls running around out here with Mouse, and now zoning in on Emily. Maybe it was a trap?

Her nose twitched. She turned her head slightly and sniffed. She made for the nearest tree and examined the trunk. She snorted in the brackish bark smell. There was an underlying scent. She growled at the familiarity of it. It was Emily's scent, but altered. Befuddled, Luc traced the smell up and then down the rough surface of the tree.

This was not the Emily she had first come to know, the Emily with the Winchester and crossbow and the dubious ham sandwiches. This was the Emily of the RV. The woman who had leapt on her and covered Luc's throat with her bare teeth and scratched at her back with blunt nails. The same woman who had lain in her arms chilled to the bone, who had stroked the fur on her face and tweaked her ears while they both slipped into drugged slumber. The scent was intoxicating and s.e.xy and it made Luc's blood run riot. She buried her claws in the bark of the tree and clawed deep parallel lines into the living wood, enjoying the flex of her muscles and the rip of wood under her claws. Saliva moistened her muzzle. She was excited at this unexpected waft of Emily's scent. She rubbed her face against the splintered trunk, uniting their odors. Emily's was seductive, beckoning, coaxing even, as if she was expecting her-It's another trap. Luc's euphoria spluttered to a halt and she slumped onto her hindquarters. b.i.t.c.h never gives up.

If silver had a taste, it would be Emily. If it had a scent, it would smell like her, too. Emily confused her. Sometimes Luc couldn't quite make out who was hunting whom? She was definitely drawn to the woman, and if she were being honest, which she rarely was, she'd have to admit to being fascinated with someone who could give her a run for her money the way that Emily had. Her claws strayed to the metal collar snug around her neck and pinged softly against the shiny surface. She could kid herself that all she wanted was the key to this contraption, but she knew she wanted more. She wanted Emily. She wanted her by her side running through the woods, stalking prey, sharing a kill, and afterward, rolling in meadows of sweet gra.s.s until their coats were thick with seeds and pollen dust. She wanted a mate. She wanted Emily wolven.

Was this more of Ren's actions rubbing off on her? They were twins after all, and twins tended to develop simultaneously. Luc had decided not to answer the blood call and mate for life. Ren had found Isabelle. To be honest, Luc had never expected to find anyone until Emily came along with her snares and weaponry, and sneaky stealth skills and sheer b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness...in fact, she was everything Luc ever wanted in a girl.

Another scent came to her on a twisting, turning breeze. And this one was much more exciting. Luc crawled on all fours toward another tree several yards away and found another scent, and this one agitated her even more. It was pure s.e.x. A come-on that had to be for her and her alone. Emily had urinated here, but the ground had been disturbed. Luc was not the only one to have found this secret message. The forest floor was churned with the unmistakable paw prints of another werewolf. It had zoned in on Emily's scent. Luc's ears slicked to her head and she bared her teeth in a savage snarl. She recognized this scent, too. She had known it from the cradle. It was as familiar to her as her own scent. It was her sister's.

It was clear to Luc the Garouls were not waiting up ahead for her to make a run for the Canadian border. They had not been tricked. They knew she was here, and they were using the people who mattered to her the most to flush her out. They were closing in on her using every weapon they could. They had her daughter, though that she had allowed because Mouse needed the security of Little Dip. But they could not have Emily. Emily was hers alone. Luc threw back her head and howled her outrage into the night.

Emily shot out of bed. The howling made her blood run cold. She had been struggling to sleep all night, sick with worry over the werewolf who had brazenly approached her on the porch. Was her uncle safe? The brute must be a Garoul on the lookout for Luc. And why hadn't she warned her about the werewolf she had spied that morning? Because we were too busy rolling over each other naked, that's why. Emily worried at her forgetfulness and flighty behavior. She had meant to tell Luc about it, to warn her that the Garouls were not far away, but as usual, her intentions had turned to mush the moment Luc got within twenty feet of her.

Alarmed at the howling, she pulled open the blind, certain she would see a huge beast skulking on the lawn, its moonlit shadow stretched hideously across the gra.s.s. The howls were so close she was sure it came from her own backyard. It had to be the werewolf from earlier. Luc was too smart to draw attention to herself. Already both wolf and woman were blurring into one amorphous being in Emily's mind. The ebony of Luc's eyes so easily overwritten with that eerie amber glow, the silkiness of her hair hazing into dense black fur, and that silly bent ear that made Emily's heart flip like some dreamy teenager. She was unsure what was happening to her. She felt overheated, overexcited, and in over her head.

The yard below was empty. Beyond the painted fence, the forest was a tangle of shadows, and if she looked hard enough she could imagine anything out there. With no more howling and nothing to see, she turned away and toyed with the idea of locking the window tight. But it was a stifling night and she preferred it left open just a crack to allow a flow of air into the room.

Emily slid back into bed. There was no hope of sleep tonight. She rolled onto her side and lay looking out at a swollen moon hanging lopsided in the sky. The full moon was days away. What would happen then? Bedlam, she supposed, and wondered if she should try to take Uncle Norm away for a short break, just to be on the safe side. At first, she barely registered the creak of the shingles, but her eyes widened at the glint of claws sliding in under the window frame, wriggling through the small crack she had left open to let the air flow.

Emily leapt from the bed and slammed the window down hard on the intruding claws. An angry bellow had her recoiling backward. With an enormous strength fueled by pain, the window flew up and open with such ferocity the gla.s.s shook in its panes. The beast leapt into her room. Emily backpedaled to keep clear of it. It snarled and scoured the room with seething amber eyes, its glance barely grazing her, and when it did, she felt scorched. She noticed the misshapen ear and breathed out her tension. It was Luc, but as she'd never seen her before. This Luc was preoccupied and frightening. She was pacing the room, and brushed roughly past Emily causing her to stumble back onto the bed.