Broods Of Fenrir - By Coral Moore Page 0,5

his back on them and stared out the window at the darkening street.

Grant"s gruff voice came over the line a few seconds later. “I need to know if you"ve had any nuisance animal complaints at the factory site recently.” Brand watched the cars roll slowly to the stop sign at the corner. “None of my guys have reported anything. Why?”

“When we canvassed the neighborhood, someone said they saw a wolf about a week ago. I"m wondering if that"s the answer to our bite mark dilemma.”

Brand hesitated before responding. “Isn"t a coyote a lot more likely? There hasn"t been a wolf pack in Colorado since the nineteen twenties. The closest wolf is probably hundreds of miles away.”

If Grant wondered why Brand had such detailed 14

knowledge of wolf movements, he didn"t ask. “According to the witness, the animal was huge with dark red fur.” Brand rested a hand on the windowpane and leaned his forehead against it. Red. Perhaps a dozen of their kind had that coloring, including Erik"s mate, Bera. The red coat was a trait specific to her father"s line. Björnkarl"s offspring were troublesome and, like their sire, tended to follow their own rules. That the wolf had transformed so far from the full moon considerably narrowed the list. Few among them were powerful enough to transform more than a week away from the moon"s peak.

The image of the murdered woman flickered through his mind. Her tortured face wrenched his gut. He"d been witness to similar scenes more often than he cared to remember. With tension tightening his chest, he realized the woman"s condition bore an eerie resemblance to how he"d found Alice years before. His pulse raced, thudding in his ears.

The moment it took to compose himself seemed to go on forever. “It"s probably a stray dog.” His voice sounded choked. “I have a meeting.” Brand hung up without waiting for a response and ran from the lobby.

* * *

Alice smiled when heavy footfalls echoed down the hallway to her lab. Only one person could make the simple act of walking sound so urgent. She straightened from the enzyme analysis she"d been working on and stretched her back with a sigh. Brand didn"t usually come to her work, and she wondered what had brought him there.

His shadow fell across the doorway a few seconds before he came into view. Long-limbed and muscular, he looked the same as he had the day he"d saved her life nearly a century ago, like an oversized helping of trouble. He wore his dark hair—almost unheard of among their kind—shaggy and 15

unkempt. His jaw was set in an angry expression that an observer might assume he meant for her, but she knew better.

Still, she felt her smile slip. “What"s got you so wound up?” His shoulders relaxed as he leaned against the doorjamb. “Don"t know what you mean. I came to say hello.” His eyes slid away from her and scanned a row of test tubes on the lab table between them.

Alice bit her lower lip. Brand didn"t avoid eye contact with anyone. He also didn"t lie. The combination of the two made her heart race. His evasion covered something terrible, and she could only think of one thing that bad—Arnbjörn.

Memories of the agony he"d inflicted on her rose to the forefront of her mind. Fear climbed from her chest into her throat. She couldn"t breathe.

Brand"s attention snapped back to her. He darted into the room and caught her as she fell from the high lab chair, his arms too tight around her.

Panicked, she pushed at him in a pointless attempt to escape the trapped sensation that pulled her under a veil of terror. In the dark place she retreated to in her mind, she felt, or perhaps heard, a deep, resonant beat. The note pulsed through her, and drew her attention from the desperation spiraling out of control.

She opened her eyes, which she hadn"t realized she"d closed, and stared up at Brand. His wolf"s power wrapped her in a blanket of warmth that kept the fear at bay. She found it so easy to believe, while he was near, that Arn could never hurt her again.

He smoothed her hair with one hand. Concern tightened his mouth while his blue eyes searched her face.

“Better?”

She nodded, but still couldn"t speak.

His calloused fingers moved over her cheek, rough, but gentle. “I"m sorry.”

She leaned her head against him and sighed. He was the only one of the brood ever to have apologized to her. An 16

apology was