“…met a pretty wolf. You know what transpired?”
She knew what must have happened without him saying. The same thing had happened before to her uncle, and now to her half brother. The she-wolf her brother was interested in must have learned about Elizabeth. That he was of her blood and she was part coyote—and rejected him because of it.
“Well, no longer,” he said, and she knew then her uncle intended to kill her.
She fought Uncle Quinton with all her strength, scratched and kicked and even managed to bite his arm with her human teeth, drawing blood. He hit her in the head so hard that she nearly blacked out. She knew then the only way to survive was to play dead.
Limp and no longer fighting, she attempted to fool her uncle. Then four male teens appeared, laughing and joking loudly as they headed for the water hole. Guardian angels. Her uncle released her, waded back to shore, and ran off. She couldn’t smell the teens as they slowly approached her, their previous good humor gone. She knew none of them—all dark-haired, all staring at her as if they didn’t know what to do with her.
She managed to make it to the shore and collapsed, coughing and choking, vowing she’d move again before her uncle made another attempt at killing her.
“Elizabeth?” Carol said, waking her from the nightmare she hadn’t had since she moved to Canyon. What had brought it back?
She stared up at Carol for a minute, trying to get her bearings.
“Time for dinner. You slept all afternoon,” Carol said. “Everyone is dying to see you. How are you feeling?”
Without moving? Fine. “Much, much better. Thank you.”
Elizabeth wasn’t used to all the concern and would have been just as happy without it. Her wrist felt much better, though.
“I’m glad you feel better,” Carol said.
Elizabeth knew Carol judged the way she moved. She was certain the nurse recognized that she still felt some discomfort, but she appreciated that Carol didn’t make a big deal of it.
Elizabeth would get better soon.
“Just a little background before we go down. Darien’s a gray wolf and Lelandi a red wolf, like I mentioned. Alicia was human, turned by a gray wolf and now mated to Jake. Ryan, my mate, is a gray wolf, and you already know I’m a human turned red wolf. We’re an unusual couple of wolf packs, so don’t feel you won’t fit in. We’re all different in our own ways.”
“Thanks, Carol.” Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel that she was more of an oddity, being a wolf-coyote mix, and she still had a hard time believing that anyone could truly accept her for what she was. She was just a novelty to them.
“Let’s go down to dinner, shall we?” Carol said.
Elizabeth wished she’d had a meal with Bertha back at the B and B and could have skipped all this fanfare. Even if she had it all wrong and they would accept her, she felt like she would be the center of attention she didn’t want any part of.
***
Tom met Elizabeth on the stairs and escorted her to the table, introducing everyone right away. He loved his family, each of them smiling and trying to make her feel welcome.
She appeared a little overwhelmed. Even though she was an alpha, meeting each of their gazes as she greeted them back, he noted that she glanced at the floor several times, and he saw the tears in her eyes when she caught his gaze.
Had no one ever treated her the way a family should? He hated to think that was the case.
He ushered her to a seat beside him. Everyone had already taken their seats at the large oak dining table and started passing around spaghetti and meatballs, Italian loaves, parmesan cheese, and salad.
“Can I help with anything?” she asked, looking uncomfortable that she couldn’t assist.
“No,” he said almost too vehemently. She had been pushed down a ski slope only hours ago, for heaven’s sake. This woman didn’t know when to quit.
“I’m not usually pampered like this.”
He smiled at her. “Let me get you whatever you need tonight.”
“Okay.” She let out her breath as if the notion didn’t agree with her but let him dutifully scoop up whatever she wanted. “Did you look over the photos I took?”
Everyone stopped whatever they were doing to hear what Tom had to say.
“We couldn’t see any faces, but we’ve got a description of what the two men were wearing. Jake will look at your camera to see if he can fix it,” Tom said as he returned to his seat, setting a plate piled high with spaghetti and plenty of meatballs in front of Elizabeth.
“Thank you,” she said.
Jake cleared his throat. “I’ll take good care of it. See what I can do.”
Darien turned to Carol. “Do you see anything about what happened to Elizabeth?”