They moved away from the girls, and Alice's phone vibrated again. But the men were still too close for Alice to risk opening it.

Once the men's footfalls completely faded away, Alice opened her phone and looked at her missed calls. "One from Dad, and the other from Evan," she whispered to Sarah.

Since Evan was in the woods and in more danger, she called him first. "Evan," she whispered, "Irving's trying to kill Leidolf."

"Lock all the doors. Deadbolt them. You're home, right?"

Tears in her eyes, she shook her head. "No, we didn't make it. Irving started shooting, and we dropped to the ground."

A significant pause followed. "All right. Stay where you are. I'm tracking them."

"No, Evan. Stay away from them."

"My dad called to check up on me when they headed back to town and he could get reception again. He told me Irving and Tynan are to be taken into custody and held at the ranch. They tried to kill Ca.s.sie's cousin."

"Ca.s.sie's cousin?"

"Yeah, Aimee is her name. Just stay there. I'll call you later."

"Did you tell him about Leidolf and Ca.s.sie being at the zoo?"

"No. I figured since they're headed into town, he probably already knew. I didn't mention I was here. Figured I'd get an earful. Especially when he learns I drove the Jag here. I've got to go. Just stay quiet."

"Irving is armed, Evan. You can't risk going after him."

"He might be armed, but not the way he thinks. Keep yourself safe, Alice. I'll call you." Then he clicked the phone off, and the deafening silence stirred her into action.

She called her father. He immediately answered.

"Dad--," she said.

"Where--"

Alice broke in before she got a big lecture. "Irving and Tynan are trying to kill Leidolf. We're in the woods about a mile from home. Sarah and I are keeping still, but you need to save Leidolf and Ca.s.sie! Evan's trying to track Irving and Tynan down, but he's going to get himself killed." Unwelcome tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Are you safe?"

"Yes, we're fine. But the others aren't."

Her dad's voice an order, he said, "We're on our way. Stay put."

But staying put wasn't at all what Alice had in mind.

As soon as the gunshots sounded in Forest Park, Leidolf's heart leaped, and he prompted Ca.s.sie in their wolf forms as he b.u.mped her shoulder to run in a more westerly direction. How did the zoo men locate them so quickly? He didn't think it could be hunters. But no matter what, whoever was shooting at them couldn't keep up at a wolf's pace. Police sirens soon wailed as they headed in the direction of the zoo.

His heart thundering, all Leidolf cared about was getting Ca.s.sie safely to Carver's place. The idea that she would get shot again made his blood run cold.

The sirens wailed louder as they drew closer. Thompson and Joe must have discovered that Ca.s.sie and he had escaped from the red wolf exhibit. Or maybe the police were after whoever was shooting unlawfully in the closed park.

Leidolf and Ca.s.sie were less than a quarter of a mile from Carver's house when the forest came alive with his men--Elgin, Fergus, Carver, armed with a rifle, and at least fifteen others--and a redheaded woman who resembled Ca.s.sie, her eyes wide when she spied Ca.s.sie. Her sister? Astounded that she had family still, he couldn't be more thrilled for Ca.s.sie.

"OmiG.o.d, Ca.s.sie! It really is you!" the woman said, hurrying toward Ca.s.sie with her arms wide open.

Ca.s.sie hesitated and then dashed to greet her, jumping at her like she was at play and nearly knocking the woman down.

But while the woman was hugging Ca.s.sie, Carver quickly spoke to Leidolf, "My girls are out there. Irving and Tynan were planning to kill you, but my girls are still out there."

"And Evan," Fergus said, his expression both worried and angry.

Leidolf quickly shape-shifted to speak with his men. "Police are on their way. I'll grab a change of clothes. Ca.s.sie can stay at the house, and you, too," he said to her relative.

"Aimee Roux," she said. "Ca.s.sie's cousin."

"Welcome to the pack, Aimee. Carver, lose the gun. If the police catch you with it, they'll suspect you've been doing the illegal shooting." Leidolf shifted back to his wolf form, nuzzled Ca.s.sie's face, and then encouraged her to race with him the rest of the way to the house. He hoped she'd be sensible and not want to come with them.

At the house, Carver hurried to get a change of clothes for both Ca.s.sie and Leidolf, and once they had shape-shifted and dressed, they met the men in the living room.

"The women will stay here and call us if the girls reach the house before we locate them," Leidolf said. He preferred chasing Irving and Tynan down as a wolf, but he didn't want to get caught that way if the police descended on the area in droves.

Ca.s.sie was fighting tears as she hugged her cousin again, but then she released her and gave Leidolf a tight embrace. "Don't get injured. Promise."

He smiled and kissed her lips. "Can't afford to. If the men come this way, don't let them in. Just call us." Then he kissed her again, squeezed her one more time, and hurried outside with his men. Irving and Tynan were dead men.

As soon as Leidolf and the others left, Aimee took Ca.s.sie's hand and led her to the couch. Although she was more filled out, more womanly, she was just as pretty and the way Ca.s.sie remembered her. Same light smattering of freckles bridging her nose that made her impish-looking in a sweet way. With her hair curled down about her shoulders, her eyes bright and moist, she was Aimee. Her cousin, as close as her sister had been.

"What... what happened to our family was all my fault," Aimee said. Tears filled her eyes as she sat down with Ca.s.sie and held her hand as if she never wanted to let go.

Ca.s.sie hugged her again, not accepting that their family's deaths were Aimee's fault, but still she couldn't believe that Aimee was really here, not dead as Ca.s.sie had thought all those years. "I... I can't believe you're all right. Better than all right, Aimee. But you're wrong about our families."

"No, you don't know what happened. I saw two of the rancher's sons, the Wheelers, stealing from your home while your father was fishing. Your mother was washing clothes at the river with your sister, and I thought you were with them. I heard noises coming from your house, believed it was that pesky racc.o.o.n that kept breaking into our places, and went to investigate. I caught the men red-handed, carrying a feed sack bulging with stuff--your mother's treasured silver candleholders and a silver tray that I could see.

"I should have gotten out of there before they saw me. But I was so shocked it wasn't the racc.o.o.n that I hesitated. They shot me a couple of times, and I cried out." She looked down at the floor and brushed away more tears.

Tears streaked Ca.s.sie's face, too. She hadn't known what had preceded the fire, only what she'd seen at the end.

"I shouldn't have made a sound. I should have played dead. Instead, because of my stupid screaming, your family came running from the river. Your father killed both boys at once, no hesitation, as he found them in the house and me bleeding on the floor. Old man Wheeler must have been in the woods nearby with his other two sons. Probably sent the first two to do his bidding.

"He and his remaining sons ambushed our families. I managed to crawl out of the house and into the woods. My only thought was to escape. I believed we'd all be all right. That we'd heal from our wounds. But later when I came to, I found the houses all burned to the ground, still smoldering."

"It wasn't your fault, Aimee. It was theirs! They were always robbing from all the neighboring houses. They caused our families' deaths. They should have been dealt with long before that. You couldn't have known how it would play out."

Aimee shook her head and hastily wiped away more tears dribbling down her cheeks. "I could barely get around because of my own injuries, but I tore off my clothes and shape-shifted. That was the only way I figured I had a chance to survive. I thought you must have died in the fire, too."

"I was with the wolves," Ca.s.sie said, swallowing hard. "I was with them when I should have been with my family."

"You would have been dead, too." Aimee patted Ca.s.sie's shoulder. "We're all that's left of the family. Will you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive, Aimee. G.o.d, I'm glad you're here with me now." Ca.s.sie hugged her again. "You did nothing wrong."

"When I healed up, I planned to kill our families' murderers. But Wheeler cheated over cards, got into a confrontation with the sheriff, and was shot and killed in the street. His remaining sons got into a brawl with a couple of drunken cowboys later that night. I planned to kill them after they were bodily thrown out of the saloon and began to stumble home in a drunken stupor." Aimee hesitated and took a deep breath. "But I... I lost my nerve."

Recalling how she'd moved silently as a wolf, carefully staying in the shadows of the buildings night after night, following them, Ca.s.sie said, "I stalked them for several days right after they killed our family. Then like you, I couldn't do it. I gave up, left the town, and joined the wolf pack. The wolves I lived with were killed later that year. I vowed to help people realize that the wolves deserved to live in the wilderness like we did."

"I should have guessed that if you had survived, you'd go to live with them. But I was sure no one in our family had lived. Then again..."

"What if...?" Both Ca.s.sie and Aimee said at the same time.

"What if our families didn't all die?" Ca.s.sie finished for them both. "You and I didn't. What if some of the rest of our family survived?"

Aimee took her hands and squeezed. "They might not have. We might get our hopes up for nothing."

Excited to think of the possibility, Ca.s.sie stood up from the couch and paced. "But what if any of them are alive?"

Aimee didn't say anything right away as if she was mulling over the possibility. Finally she asked, "How could we hope to locate them?"

Ca.s.sie shook her head. "I don't know. I've been published in several magazines. Wouldn't they have heard of me and then contacted me?"

"Science types? Nature magazines? Regional? Would our families have read them?"

Ca.s.sie had to agree with her cousin. "The chances would be pretty slim."

"Wait." Aimee stood. "Your mother and mine were always researching genealogy, curious if they could discover out how far back our royal lines go. They found a relative in France and two in England, corresponded with them even. Remember? Of course, back then it took a year to hear from them."

"You... you think maybe if they were still living, they might still be researching genealogy roots? They probably have stuff like that online now. Come on."

Ca.s.sie and Aimee rushed through Carver's house until they found a computer in an office, but when she turned it on, the access was locked. The same with the computers in the girls' rooms.

Exasperated, Ca.s.sie said, "We'll have to do this later." She led her cousin back to the living room, still hopeful they might locate some of their family. "How did you end up here?"

"I teach botany at Portland Community College." She shrugged. "I went from climbing trees when we were young to teaching about them. Well, and other kinds of plants. The nature lover in me, I guess... except I concentrated on plants rather than animals."

"Did you ever run through Forest Park in your wolf form?"

Aimee sighed. "Yeah. I hadn't shifted in eons, but the moon was full and I'd broken up with a geology professor and I just had to run as a wolf to get back on track. You know how it is for us."

"He wasn't one of our kind, was he?"

"No, just a lover and friend. Was a friend. Then he got the hots for a biology teacher at a high school." Aimee growled at the last.

Not wanting to upset her cousin further with the discussion of her former lover, Ca.s.sie asked, "Didn't you know about the pack living here?"

"No. I never ran across them. Not as big as Portland is. And many of them live outside of the city limits."

Ca.s.sie nodded. "Here I thought it was the she-wolf whose scent Carver and Leidolf had run across in Forest Park."

"No, probably me. But I'd run into Irving and Tynan at a convenience store and overheard them talking about taking over a pack and how they'd picked up a woman who wasn't pliable. They'd murdered her, Ca.s.sie. Left her body in the woods. That's when they saw me in a security mirror, listening to them from another aisle. I got out of there as fast as I could, but they followed me. Tried to shoot me, but I shifted and tore off into the woods. After Irving tried to kill me and I saw you, I couldn't leave. Not before I knew the truth. That you were indeed my cousin." She leaned back on the couch and smiled at Ca.s.sie. "You took Leidolf as your mate, didn't you?"

"Yes, but only with the agreement that I would continue to do my wolf studies."

"And he agreed?"

"Sure, he had to." Ca.s.sie turned to listen to the back door. She swore she heard a noise.

"I believe you've finally met your match." Aimee glanced at the kitchen. "Did you hear someone using a key on the back door?"

Chapter 25.

Leidolf and his men combed the woods, careful not to alert Irving and Tynan that they were looking for them. If Irving thought to kill Leidolf, silver was the only kind of bullet that could do the trick.

Carver had tried calling his daughters' cell phones several times, but neither was answering. Fergus had tried Evan's phone also, but his son didn't respond, either. Everyone was tense and silent as they continued the search through the forest.

No more gunfire had sounded. Had Irving and Tynan aborted their mission?

Then lights suddenly appeared like specters, filtering through the thick woodland landscape, bobbing here and there and everywhere. And noisy footfalls. Men approaching. Several. No conversation, though. Silent.

Leidolf motioned for his men to stop. Either they were police or zoo officials, Leidolf a.s.sumed. He figured Irving and Tynan would head out of the area p.r.o.nto before the police caught them carrying rifles.

"Police!" a man shouted, identifying himself to someone deeper in the woods. "Put your hands up where I can see them."

h.e.l.l, one of Leidolf's men was in trouble. Leidolf hurried in the direction the police officer's voice came. "We're searching for three teens, Officer," he called out, hoping he wouldn't alarm the man and get shot himself. "Two men are shooting in these woods, and three of our kids got lost. When they called to tell us, they heard gunshots and are hunkered down somewhere."

"And you are?" the officer asked, tall, focused, his brows knit in a frown, gun in hand.

"Leidolf Wildhaven. Own a ranch out of the city, but Carver's house is located right next to the park. His twin sixteen-year-old daughters went for a walk, and Evan, Fergus's seventeen-year-old son went to find them. They may be separated. We don't know. They're not answering their cell phones now, though."

"All right." The man called the specifics in to someone else and gave his location, and the place was soon swarming with police.

"We found them," a policeman said, hurrying through the trees, bringing the girls with him.

They broke free and ran to hug their father, their eyes filled with tears.

"Where's Evan?" Fergus quickly asked.

"We couldn't find him," Alice said. "He went..." She glanced at the police officers and hesitated. "We don't know."

"If it's all right with you, Officer, we'll take the girls back to their father's house in case the shooters are still out here," Leidolf said.

After verifying names and addresses, the police officers released them with a warning. "Until the woods are secured, stay at the house."

"h.e.l.l, Leidolf, I've got to locate Evan." Fergus tromped back through the woods to Carver's house, looking like he was ready to kill anyone if they said anything more to him.