Guardian Wolf

chapter 10



This was a bad idea, Grace thought a short while later.

She had shown up at the hospital cafeteria at the time Simon had said he would be there and bought a steak sandwich to satisfy her canine appetite, along with a small salad for her health-conscious human side.

He was already sitting in the area where they had dined previously, munching on a hamburger.

He stood quickly when he saw her and took her tray. His hand brushed hers momentarily before he placed her food on the table. The pleased expression on his great-looking face nearly took her breath away. “Glad you made it, Grace,” he said. “One of these days, though, we’ll have to try a real restaurant.”

“One that doesn’t pass along shigellosis.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Grace took a seat across from him. As always, the cafeteria was crowded, both with staff and visitors. No one near them sat alone, so there was some degree of privacy for their conversation.

Even so, Grace knew the moment she sat down what a mistake this was. Judging by the way he regarded her with sexy, suggestive eyes, he had the wrong idea about why she had joined him. Sort of wrong, anyway.

She wasn’t about to engage with him in hot, mindless sex tonight. Even though, despite all her qualms, the idea ignited her insides, made her wish things were different.

Made her body beg for her mind to toss away all rational thought.

But she had come here for a sense of camaraderie with a fellow shifter. Even so, she couldn’t possibly have that with Simon. There were too many complications. She didn’t even dare to hint now that they had such a background in common.

She grasped for a neutral topic, finally deciding on Tilly. But it didn’t stay neutral.



“I’m not sure, but I think she might have sensed some disease in a geriatric patient who came to watch her. He was an accident victim and had apparently undergone no tests for cancer or anything else, but Tilly seemed to catch some underlying smell.” So had Grace, but she wasn’t about to mention that.

“It’ll be interesting to see if the tests reveal anything.”

“Sure will. I know of dogs trained to scent diseases. I’ve sometimes thought—well, certain people might have that capability, too.” Like shapeshifters, at least those who didn’t rein in their abilities out of self-preservation.

“No kidding,” he said. “Interesting possibility, but I don’t know of anything like that.”

He was lying, or at least edging around the truth. He surely smelled disease as much as she did, working in a hospital.

She considered asking him obliquely about what he did pick up around here, scents or sounds that normal but alert nonshifters might also become aware of, but decided against it. She’d already gone about as far as she dared—for now—on that subject.

When they were done eating, Simon looked at her. “Are we friends again?”

She knew what he was asking. Everything inside her wanted to shout a gleeful yes…everything but her mind.

“I don’t think we’re arguing right now, so, yes, we’re friends. But not friends with benefits, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not now, maybe. But I’m hoping to change that again, Grace. I think you enjoyed the other night as much as I did.”

“The sexy part, yes,” she agreed, smiling at him. “But you hated the rest even more than I did. Anyway, it’s been nice eating with you again. See you tomorrow.”

Ignoring her regret, she left to return to her apartment.



To Grace’s surprise, Drew Connell did call her back that night. “How’s Melanie?” she asked right away.

“We’re now the proud parents of a beautiful little girl. Emily. She’s bound to be a shifter like her dad, and her mom says she’s thrilled about it.”

“Congratulations to all of you!”

“Now tell me what you wanted to discuss.”

It seemed a little anticlimactic after his news, but Grace told him about Tilly and her possible scenting of illness in a patient.

“Did you try to confirm it with your own senses, Grace?” Drew’s voice was wry.



“Yes, and she was right. I smelled a scent of illness, too, when I approached the man. It’s interesting how many smells there are in a hospital setting—cleaners, the meds and narcotics used by the PTSD patients, the odor of the shigellosis epidemic…”

“You were warned to control your canine senses as much as possible there, Grace. Those of us who’re doctors mostly work in small practices, or in labs like we do at Alpha Force. The additional smells and sounds can be pretty overwhelming if you let them.”

“I know. But I’m still a doctor as well as an Alpha Force operative. I intend to help people.”

“That’s fine, as long as you don’t do it at the expense of our mission—or yourself.”



A long while after dinner with Grace, Simon returned downstairs to the lab he had virtually commandeered as his own—not that anyone had officially approved of it. Or even really knew about it.

When there earlier that evening, he had hidden the pills he was working on, as always, more or less in plain sight. Now, he unlocked the deep drawer among the many cabinets in this room that comprised its elongated lab stations. Wearing disposable latex gloves and a sanitary lab jacket, he pulled the bottles containing his special pills from among the preparations he did discuss with others—the homeopathic healing formulations he was working on to help his infectious-disease patients regain their strength.

His shifting formula had worked well that evening, but not perfectly. As usual, he had felt light-headed after changing back to human form. Consequently, he still hadn’t reached the degree of success he sought, and with all that had occurred on the night of his last shift he had not had much opportunity to return here and work on it.

Maybe he should thank Grace for declining his invitation for another night of nonstop sex. He snorted to himself. No, thanking her for that wasn’t on his agenda. No matter how eager he was to get his pills to work perfectly, a delay to accommodate making love with Grace would be worth it.

The smell here of antiseptic solutions used to clean the counters frequently, as well as the gleaming gray-patterned linoleum floor, was nearly overwhelming, as always. He figured that even people without an improved sense of smell would find it miserable. But he accepted its necessity.

Now Simon booted up the mini notebook computer he had brought along and typed in his password. The way he entered data about his supplements and other creations, no one but he could interpret them anyway, but he took no chances. He had already determined what tweaks he would perform to his shifting formulation but wanted to double-check it before he gave it a try.

What would Grace think if she knew what he was really doing here?

Why had she stopped teasing him about whether he could be a werewolf? Had she been serious the other day in her extreme hinting that she now knew he was one?

He hoped not. He might be damned attracted to her, but her knowing for certain what he was could only cause a lot of complications.

He suddenly stopped typing as some of what Grace had said before carved a curious thought into his brain, one that nagged at him. She had indicated that Tilly, trained as a service dog to entertain hospital patients, might have smelled something more serious in an accident patient. She had suggested that certain people might have the same abilities. Was this a prod at him, more subtle than in the old days, suggesting that shapeshifters might have that ability?

Simon did, in fact, often sense previously undiagnosed diseases in hospital patients. He then had to find a way to discreetly ensure that the patient underwent appropriate testing.

He was almost always correct.

Did Grace have that ability? The fact that she no longer hinted that she might be a shifter made him more suspicious that she was one.

Not that it mattered. Not really. He had too much to hide from her to play games with her, no matter what rules she seemed to be imposing these days.

“Too bad, Grace,” he muttered aloud. He would love to believe they’d get together again soon, and often, for sex.

But for his self-preservation, even if she suddenly became interested again, that wasn’t going to happen.



“Dr. Andreas? This is Lotty Gail. I’m the head nurse on duty at the Charles Carder E.R. tonight.”

Grace was in bed at her quarters on the air-force base. She had been lying there for what felt like hours, her mind too keyed up to allow her to sleep. “Yes, Lotty?”

“Sorry to bother you so late when you’re not on call, but we’ve got some emergency cases that just came in. We’re drawing blood for tests, but the problem seems to be some kind of infection. There are four patients, and all we have here at the moment is one resident. Could you—”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”



Simon received the call on his cell phone while he was finally walking home to his apartment that night. He turned back toward the hospital immediately.

As he reached the door to the E.R., he saw Grace approaching through the parking lot. “Do you know what’s happening?” she asked.

“Only that there’s some kind of outbreak.” He held the door open for her, and she hurried in, her silver-blond hair shining beneath the artificial hospital lights. Her determination and dedication appealed to him. Hell, everything about her appealed to him—when their topics of conversation didn’t hint of shapeshifting.

Lotty Gail, the nurse in charge that night, rushed toward them, looking harried. She was a small, middle-aged woman with whom Simon had worked in the E.R. before. She always seemed a little nervous, but her competence was unwavering.

“You’re the doctors and have to make the final diagnosis,” she said, “but the patients are all in one family that went camping and came back with this. They have rashes and other symptoms that look to me like the outbreak of Rocky Mountain spotted fever back in 2004. The mother did say she was grossed out when they found ticks in their sleeping bags.”

“Sounds possible,” Grace said, and Simon agreed.

They both went immediately to the clean room, where they donned sterile clothing, disposable gloves and face masks. Then they divided up who would see which patients. Simon got the father and older son, and Grace got the mother and younger son.

The E.R. resident was in the cubicle with the father when Simon arrived. While keeping up cheerful banter with the patient, the resident conveyed to Simon what tests he’d taken and the man’s vital signs, and Simon checked the chart that had been started.

He then went to consult with Grace. The nurse’s preliminary diagnosis appeared potentially correct. They would not wait until test results were back, but would begin treating these patients with appropriate antibiotics immediately.

Simon couldn’t help wondering what would happen to the blood and other fluid samples taken from the patients after they were tested. Would they become yet another target for the thieves?

Rocky Mountain spotted fever might not present as much of a risk as an extreme strain of shigellosis as the basis for a biological weapon, since it could be treated more easily. But that hadn’t stopped the thieves before. The fact that it was passed along by ticks might stop them, though—if the thieves knew that.

In any event, the disease rated a biohazard level 3, so that might make it attractive to whomever was stealing samples here.

Simon was glad he’d had even a brief opportunity before to work on his own pills. A secretive wolf just might be the most appropriate observer of the storage building if the samples were again taken there before incineration.



“Yes, sir,” Grace said to Major Drew Connell over their secure satellite phone. She had him on the speaker.

It was early morning, and she was back in her quarters with Tilly—along with the rest of the Alpha Force contingent at Zimmer Air Force Base. They’d had to pull Autumn in. She had been on duty under her cover assignment of being a communications officer.

“We know the risk of these materials getting stolen,” she continued. “Our thieves might feel drunk with power that they’ve gotten away with it so many times.”

“It’d be a good thing if you could catch them this time, before we get our alternate plan in order and send a bunch of military guys who’ll play sick. As much as I like the concept, it might be a problem keeping it secret there.”

The others had all congratulated Drew already on becoming a father. Then they’d discussed the importance of keeping all their operations completely under wraps. Grace had not been able to cross off any of the people in charge from her suspect list. That included the guy who’d grumpily called them for help in the first place, Colonel Nelson Otis, and the chief medical officer in charge of the Infectious Diseases Center, Captain Moe Scoles. And definitely the head security officer, Major Louis Dryson.

So far, Grace had not been able to account for Captain Scoles’s whereabouts last night. Not that his absence made him more of a suspect. But it didn’t make him any less of one, either.

“Acknowledged, sir,” Grace said. She looked first at Autumn, then at Kristine and Ruby. “If these guys dare to try to steal the biohazards this time, we’re going to get them.”