Animal Behavior (4 page)

“But this was empty,” he said. “They did not want me. How
could they? They did not know me. They only wanted to find out how big my cock
is and see how they could get some of my money.”

Gwen nearly spit out her wine. She was pretty well set for
money—at least for the time being—but she had to admit that the former question
had crossed her mind. She felt a twinge between her thighs.

“Ach,” he muttered, and said something in Russian. “Why can
I complain? I have been blessed. For three years I played a game. I was paid
much money and with that money I have bought my beautiful farm and my house and
my cows and chickens. I have everything I want—all because I was big and strong
and could play a game. And now,” he said, gathering up Gwen’s hand, “and now
John Chaney’s granddaughter has come home and I have a new neighbor and a new friend.”

He kissed the back of her hand. Gwen smiled.
Friend,
huh?
Well, so much for learning if the “big feet” myth held water.

Releasing her hand, Sergei stood and stretched. “And so good
night, friend. It is late, and I have chores in the morning. We will meet again
soon? I hope you will come to see me.”

“As soon as I get settled,” she promised, rising to show him
out.

Jezebel lumbered to her mistress’ side and sat down with a
HUMPH. Gwen scratched the sweet spot behind the dog’s ear. “I think tomorrow
morning old Jez and I will go for a hike. We could use the exercise after three
days on the road.”

Gwen thought she saw a look of concern cloud the big man’s
face. “Just be careful. Be alert and stay on the path,” he said.

Before she could respond, Sergei drew her into a firm but
surprisingly gentle hug, then released her and stepped out onto the porch. As
he was lacing up his boots, he looked up as if a thought had just occurred to
him.

“Do you play chess, Gwen?”

“Not a bit,” she laughed.

He stood and brushed off his knees. “Just as well. Your
grandfather was for chess—chess and sitting quietly. You will be my friend for
eating and drinking wine, and talking.”

He didn’t wait for her to reply. He just stepped off the
porch and walked down the gravel drive. Gwen thought that with his long strides
he could travel the two miles back to his farm in no time at all.

* * * * *

Three Years Ago

The months after Alex met Sergei Markov were a blur. He had sold
his practice and his loft in Minneapolis—both transactions were handled by a
pack member with a real estate license and unique negotiating skills. Alex
resigned himself to settling in Talbot. He had been hired to teach at the
Northwoods College of Veterinary Medicine and purchased twelve acres from the
pack. He set up a small animal clinic at one end of the property and lived in a
travel trailer behind the building.

Being able to read dogs’ thoughts had allowed him to see
twice as many patients and bill twice as much as he had before the change. His
bank account had grown exponentially and he’d begun sketching out plans for a
modest cottage.

A local news team had caught wind of the handsome young
doctor’s unusual talent for solving behavior problems in dogs and a reporter
decided to put Alex’s purported abilities to the test on camera. The interview—which
showcased Alex curing a two-hundred-pound mastiff of his aggressive tendencies
in a matter of minutes—had become a viral internet video. The tape caught the
attention of the Pet Channel and before the next full moon Alex had found
himself the star of a new show.

The network executives were so enthusiastic about the
program’s potential—and the lucrative merchandising plans—that they were happy
to give in to the host’s quirky list of demands. He would not relocate to L.A.
He would only film for six months out of the year and have every fourth week
off. He would do limited promotional tours and any post production work was to
be completed during his limited work schedule.

The fan base for The Dog Talker had grown enormous in a very
short time. Kids loved it. Animal enthusiasts loved it. And the women—they
especially loved it. Alex was uncomfortable with his new rock star status, but
he was grateful to have an outlet for his boundless libido. He always felt
horny and soon learned that there was a willing female at every turn. They were
all one-night stands—almost all of them. Sometimes the trysts would last two or
three nights if he was at a convention or on a promotional tour, but mostly he
just fucked them and left. Very few of the women objected. He made it clear at
the outset of every encounter that he wasn’t looking for a long-term
commitment, just a lay.

He knew he often scared the women. It wasn’t unusual for him
to wake up to a note on the pillow stating that, while the sex had been
mind-blowing, Alex was just “too intense”, “too focused”, “an animal”.

Occasionally he’d get an adrenaline junky with a penchant
for bad boys. Those women wanted to stretch one-nighters into something more
permanent. The unconventional arrangement with Charlene saved him a world of
headaches. She seemed drawn to the darker side of him, but had never asked for
a commitment.

Alex had never hurt any of his sexual partners, but he was
aware that was only because of his full-moon moratorium. Every time the moon
was bright, he made sure he was safely back in Talbot, away from the all-too-willing
but completely clueless groupies.

Alex had spent his first few
fourth-weeks
under the
direct care of the pack’s human consort, John Chaney. Chaney had been
ministering to the pack’s unique needs for nearly sixty years and was the only
human in Talbot aware of their existence. Sergei explained that every pack had
such a human—someone who understood their social structure and “curse”, didn’t
judge, and had the unique demeanor to help new werewolves weather the early
days of their journey. Most of them were “legacy consorts”, those who came to
their vocation by way of inheritance.

The first month that Alex stayed with the pack had been the
hardest. He’d met Sergei just two weeks after drinking the potion and two weeks
before the full moon. The big Russian had spent fourteen days trying to prepare
Alex for what was to come.

They’d talked about the physical changes that Alex had
already undergone. His size had continued to increase. He’d gained several
inches in height, only some of which could be attributed to his improved
posture. His body had become lean and muscular and his strength had grown to
unimaginable degrees.

He first understood how powerful he’d become while helping
Sergei around the farm. A cow had fallen into the creek and Sergei instructed
Alex to rescue it. Alex had started to head to the barn to get the tractor when
his mentor stopped him. “Pull it out with your hands.” Alex had thought the man
insane, but he loped down the bank, grasped a horn in each hand and easily
pulled the half-ton animal from the water.

And he was fast. Alex awoke each morning bursting with
energy and an overwhelming urge to run. He would fly out of the front door and
through the woods with his black Lab, Bob, struggling to keep up. When Sergei had
learned of his new morning routine, he had chastised Alex. “You cannot have the
citizens of Talbot seeing you streaking through the woods! You have night
vision now and you will contain your running to the moonlight!”

Staying focused had been Alex’s most daunting challenge.
Every sense was heightened and every stimulus a distraction. Three days after
the spell, he had thrown out his prescription glasses. He could see everything
in amazing detail and his vision had become especially attuned to movement. He
could pick out a sparrow hopping through pine boughs at three hundred yards.
And everything smelled wonderful. If Sergei had a pot of stew on the stove,
Alex could pick out each individual ingredient. It wasn’t just stew—it was
carrots and onions and garlic, potatoes and meat, salt and pepper.

The acuity of his nose had become bothersome when he was in
the company of women. He could tell which were menstruating, which were
ovulating and which were sexually aroused. The scent of female arousal had been
a distraction he could barely overcome. Sergei had taught him to keep a small
tube of mentholated cough and cold rub in his pocket. When the scents became
too much to bear, he could smear a line of the ointment under his nose to mask
the smell. The technique only helped to dull his longing.

Alex’s ears picked up every sound. In the early days, he was
so distracted by a rustling sound that he’d had to put down the book he was
reading and seek out its source. He’d followed the noise far into the tree line
before he’d located the garter snake that had been causing the racket by
slithering through the dry leaves. Sergei had taught him how to use a simple
meditation technique to focus on the task at hand and let all other noises
recede into the background.

By the time the first full moon of his change was at hand,
Alex had only the most rudimentary coping skills. He’d felt like he was a
newborn and everything in the world around him was foreign. Everything was
magical—and everything was terrifying.

Present

Gwen glanced up at the pines trees surrounding her as she
adjusted the volume on her MP3 player.
“Cómo estás?
How are you?
”
she
repeated, trying to mimic the native-Spanish-speaker’s voice.

Jezebel trudged beside her, tongue lolling despite the chill
in the air. Clearly, both of them needed more exercise. With twenty-seven acres
to explore at their new home, they’d have plenty of opportunities.

Getting healthy and learning a foreign language topped
Gwen’s new list of goals. On her first morning in Talbot, she planned to kill
two birds with one stone.

“
Estoy bien, gracias
,” Gwen enunciated. “I am fine,
thank you.”

She was concentrating on getting the “r” in
gracias
right when all hell broke loose and suddenly she wasn’t
bien
at all. By
the time Gwen noticed the cougar, it was upon them, squaring off with Jezebel.

In an instant, an afternoon stroll in the forest had turned
into a nightmare. The cat was huge and he seemed plenty pissed off. Once the
initial shock wore off, Gwen was pissed too. The cougar took a swipe at
Jezebel, sending the dog flying.

Instinct and adrenaline kicked in and Gwen charged the big
cat, waving her arms and screaming. “Get the fuck away from my dog!”

When the cat spun around to face her, Gwen stared into his
face and in that instant it seemed that there was intelligence behind his amber
eyes. The animal was huge and sinewy muscles flexed under the thick fur. Gwen’s
stomach knotted and she immediately regretted her impulsive act of bravery.

Gwen jogged backward and her boot lodged between two rocks.
She lost her balance and fell, dashing her head against the hard, frosty earth.
Pain exploded in her skull and when she opened her eyes, tiny dots of light
danced in her field of vision. Stunned, she groped blindly for something to arm
herself with.

All these years I worried about eating refined sugar and
avoiding antibiotics in my chicken and I’m going to die in a mountain lion
attack? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!

Jezebel had scrabbled to her feet and charged the cat. She
was barking madly despite the bloody claw marks staining the fur around her
neck. The cat turned as if readying to strike again when another set of barks
and the shouts of a man issued from the woods.

Gwen blinked away the fog and saw a black Lab rush into the
clearing, followed closely by a hunter. The man pointed his shotgun toward the
sky and fired off a warning shot. The cougar snarled and bolted into the
underbrush.

Struggling up on her elbows, Gwen touched the back of her
head and felt the goose egg that had already puffed up under her scalp. She
brought her hand to her face and was surprised to find that it wasn’t covered
with blood.

The hunter strode into Gwen’s field of vision, glanced at
her, then at Jezebel. He locked eyes with the golden retriever for a moment, and
the dog quieted and flopped down on her uninjured side. The Lab stood beside
his master’s knee and let out a single bark.

“The cougar is gone, Bob. Go lie down now,” the man
instructed and his pet dutifully complied.

The stranger slid a leather pack from his shoulders and
knelt next to the Jezebel, presumably deciding that the dog was in worse shape
than the woman. He rummaged through the pouch, pulled out some first-aid
supplies, then began tending to the golden’s wounds. He kept his attention on
his work as he spoke. “Lady, are you nuts? What are you doing out here alone
anyway? And why are you off the trail?”

“I was…it was… I was trying to… Is my dog going to be okay?”

The man glanced up. “She’s going to need stitches, but it
could have been much worse. I’ll just—” he stopped mid-sentence and craned his
neck to the left and right, as if trying to take in all angles of Gwen’s head.
He slowly shook his head and huffed, “Are those earphones?”

She yanked on the dangling cord and it took her a moment to
realize that her MP3 player was no longer attached. She shoved the tangle of
white wire into her coat pocket. “Ear
buds
,” she said quietly.

“Sorry?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

She cleared her throat, “They’re ear buds. They fit inside
your ears. Earphones sit on the outside. I was listening to my Spanish language
course.” She grinned sheepishly and shrugged. “You know? Multi-tasking.”

The man looked Gwen over, top of head to tip of toes. “Oh.
You’re one of those.”

She’d been slapping the dirt from her skinned palms and
froze mid-clap. “One of
those
? One of
what
?”

“Well, I’m looking at a girl sitting in the dirt with brand
new three-hundred-dollar hiking boots—the blisters are killing you, right?”

She squinted, searching her mind for the right words to fire
back, but he continued.

“Let’s see, the jacket must have run about the same as the
boots and I’d bet my left nut that if I searched every last one of those eighty-seven
pockets I wouldn’t find an emergency match, a bandage, a compass or even a
granola bar.”

Gwen dug into her right breast pocket and triumphantly held
up a foil-wrapped granola bar.

“Don’t tell me—fat-free, right? Yeah, limiting your fat
intake is always a great idea when you’re roaming around in the woods. And speaking
of fat intake, it looks as if that dog of yours is about to have a heart
attack. I’m guessing that you and the barrel with four legs don’t take too many
nature hikes.”

She glanced over at Jezebel, who was lying on her side,
still panting.

The man continued, “And finally, there are the earphones—sorry,
ear
buds
. Who in the hell comes out to one of the most beautiful spots
on the planet on one of the most perfect days imaginable—sun shining, breeze
blowing, birds chirping and river singing—then shoves those things in her ears
and blocks it all out just so she’ll know how to say “Where’s the can?” the
next time she goes to Puerto Vallarta?”

Gwen thought briefly about correcting him. She was, in fact,
hoping to go to Ixtapa. Instead, she held her tongue and narrowed her eyes—daring
him to finish his thought.

“I’ll tell you who—a spoiled little yuppie. Thinks she can
throw her imported water bottles into the recycling bin, pay four times too
much for something stamped
organic,
whip out her gold card and buy some
overpriced clothes off the Internet, then
bam
, she’s ready to take on
the great outdoors.”

“First of all, I don’t think anyone’s used the word ‘yuppie’
since 1992 and secondly, I’m not some tourist. I spent every single summer here
when I was a kid and I used to know these woods like the back of my hand.” She
paused to point through a clump of pine trees, “My grandpa taught me how to
fish in that river over there.”

The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the opposite
direction, “River’s that way.”

“Whatever!”

“If you would have been paying attention to your
surroundings instead having those things jammed in your ears you might have
heard the cougar and your dog wouldn’t be injured. Do you have
any
idea
how much worse this could have been?”

She could feel the angry tears burning in her eyes. The man
looked away briefly and she couldn’t tell if it was out of pity, embarrassment
or disgust. He wrapped gauze over Jezebel’s neck wound, looping it between her
front legs. She whined when he lifted her shoulder. “Shh,” he soothed, and the
dog settled again.

“Let’s get her back to my place. I’ll help you up,” the man
said, standing and holding out his hand.

“I’ve got it,” Gwen hissed.

He dropped his arm to his side. “Suit yourself.”

He snatched up the leather bag and slung it over his
shoulder.

“And another thing,” Gwen said to his back, mustering up her
best self-righteous tone, “I don’t appreciate you toting your gun around here.
This is private property, you know?”

“Yes. You’re right. This
is
private property.
My
private property. I assume you’re John Chaney’s granddaughter.”

She nodded.

“Which would mean that
your
private property is about
three hundred yards that way.” He pointed to a spot over her left shoulder,
squeezing one eye shut as if he were aiming for a target. “And it’s a rifle, by
the way.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a rifle, not a gun, and if I hadn’t fired a warning
shot over that big kitty cat’s head your dog would have been shredded and you
probably wouldn’t be bitching at me now,” he said.

“What are you—some kind of professional mountain man?”

He smirked and reached up and ran his hand through his
copper-colored hair. “In a manner of speaking.”

Gwen sized him up. He was tall, handsome, and he knew it.
She planted her hands, palms down, popped her feet underneath her hips and
stood quickly. A blinding white flash of pain raced from her left ankle to her
brain, and as quickly as she’d been up, she was back in the dirt. The adrenaline
had ebbed from her bloodstream, leaving her brain free to register both the
confrontation with the cougar and the pain from the resulting twisted ankle. A
wave of nausea rolled over her and she began to quake.

“Let me have a look,” he said and crouched beside her. He
unlaced her boot and grasped the heel. “Deep breath,” he said and gently
removed it.

Gwen sucked in air through her clenched teeth and wondered
if her foot had come off with the boot.

“Sorry,” he whispered. He gently walked his fingers up and
down both sides of her foot and ankle and instructed her to try to point and
flex.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked.

“Veterinarian,” he answered, still prodding at her throbbing
ankle, “I don’t think it’s broken. But you can’t walk on it. Let me run back
and get the golf cart.”

Fear twisted in Gwen’s belly and must have shown in her
eyes. The man pointed through the trees. “See that green roof? That’s my
clinic. I’ll be back in five minutes and Bob will stay with you. Won’t you, Bob?”
The Lab barked in response then flopped down in the dirt at Gwen’s hip.

While she stroked the dog’s silky black head, a thousand
thoughts and images screamed through her mind, churned up further by the pain
from her ankle. She saw with shocking clarity the image of the cougar streaking
out of the underbrush and squaring off with Jezebel. The trembling intensified
until Gwen’s teeth chattered. She could hear her pulse
whoosh-whooshing
in her ears. The pain started to fade and her head felt as if it had detached
from her body and was floating away on a balloon string.

I’m going into shock.
She heard her own, surprisingly
calm voice offer this explanation in her mind. The man must have realized it
too, because she heard him mutter, “Oh, shit,” as he hurried back to her side.

Wrapping his arm around Gwen’s shoulders, he laid her back
on the ground and yanked off his jacket, rolled it up and slid it under her
feet. She suddenly remembered her sixth-grade health teacher, Mrs. Brewer, and
her little first aid rhyme,
If the face is red, raise the head. If the face
is pale, raise the tail
.

The veterinarian leaned in close to her face. He smelled
like cedar and orange peels. “Listen…” it must have dawned on him that they
hadn’t exchanged names.

“Gwen,” she said through chattering teeth.

“Gwen. You’re going to be okay. You’ve been through a big
deal. We’re just going to get you calmed down and we’ll take a closer look at
that ankle. Okay?”

The setting sun splashed golden light across the man’s
profile. Gwen scanned the angular nose and the wavy hair framing his tanned
skin and hazel eyes. She could make out the line of an impossibly square jaw
under his razor stubble. Her muddled mind tried to grasp at a faraway glimmer
of recognition.
I know this guy.

“Gwen? Okay?”

His voice seemed so familiar. Gwen almost had it, but before
the thought could fully form, she noticed that the outer edges of the world
were beginning to turn inky black. Her ears were ringing and the field of
vision was getting ever narrower.
I’m going to pass out
, was the last
clear thought she had.

Within an hour of returning from L.A., Alex’s cell phone had
been chirping with incoming texts. The new human consort had arrived in Talbot
the night before and the entire pack was buzzing with the news. It was strictly
against policy to broadcast pack business, and all the texts were coded. They
referenced a “new deputy in town” and speculated when they’d get to meet her.

Introducing Gwen Chaney to the pack would be up to their
alpha, not Alex. Sergei explained to him that these things had to be handled
carefully. Passing the mantle usually only happened once in a generation and
the incoming human consort had no idea what he or she was in for. Sergei would
determine how and when Gwen would be told.

Alex had planned to do a little hunting in the morning, then
introduce himself in the afternoon. His visit would just be one neighbor
welcoming another. He hadn’t counted on Gwen wandering cluelessly through the
woods, putting herself in harm’s way.

Yet, there she was, passed out on the ground after facing
off with the big cat. Alex tried to concentrate on first aid as he knelt beside
her.

There wasn’t much of a family resemblance, but there was no
doubt that Gwen was John Chaney’s granddaughter.
She definitely has his
courage
, Alex thought. She hadn’t cried or freaked out during the cougar
attack. When Alex had arrived on the scene she was waving her arms and
screaming at the big cat to get the fuck off her dog.

This woman was no damsel in distress. Still, he wondered if
she would be able to pick up where her grandfather had left off. The Chaney
family business was not for the squeamish. He doubted if she had any idea what
John had meant to the pack, let alone the expectations that she would step into
his very specialized role.