Page 14 of Doctor Wolf's Human Nurse

Sawyer stood up and made a beeline for the door. He smiled at her as he stepped onto the porch. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and then he disappeared into the darkness.

Abby shut the door behind him and leaned against it. She put her fingers up to her lips and closed her eyes, wondering what it would feel like if he had kissed her.

Would it have been as wonderful as I imagined it to be or would it be terrible?

Somehow, Abby couldn’t see Sawyer doing anything terrible.

She took a quick shower, dried her hair, and went to bed. As usual, Sawyer was on her mind. He lay beside her, naked. Their hands and mouths roamed over each other. She could feel him enter her.

Abby sighed and fell asleep imagining him holding her.

The next day, both she and Sawyer acted like nothing had happened the night before and he hadn’t almost kissed her.

During lunch, she brought up the subject of the lab on the hill. “That thing gives me the creeps. It just gives off an evil vibe. If buildings could have auras, that one would have a dark one.”

“I agree. There’s something not good about that place. A friend of mine is checking it out. He does investigative work.”

“I know that some places do good things, like find cures for cancer and HIV, but something inside of me tells me that’s not what’s going on up there. It gives me the chills.”

“That’s my fear. Hopefully, we’re both wrong.” He took a bite of his sandwich and after he swallowed it, he said, “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. There’s been a lot of drugs that have gone missing from the clinic. It started before I took over, but it’s become more frequent lately. I’m going to have to report it to the DEA, and I’m afraid that it’s going to look bad on me. I’m hoping to find out who’s responsible before the feds do.”

“I’ll keep an eye out and keep my mouth shut,” Abby promised.

He told her about the types of drugs that had gone missing. Her stomach sank. The last thing that she needed was to beinvolved with a clinic that had this kind of problem. She also worried about Sawyer. She had come to care for him a great deal – as a friend, of course.

6

Sawyer

Sawyer looked at his patient curiously. “Good morning, Erin. What seems to be the problem? Abby says that you didn’t want to tell her the problem you’re having.”

Erin, a wolf shifter and a member of Sawyer’s pack, replied telepathically.It’s a shifter problem.

Sawyer replied aloud, “Abby knows all about shifters and she can be trusted, I promise.”

After casting Abby a suspicious glance, she said, in almost a whisper, “I can’t shift.”

Surprised, Sawyer looked at her for a minute. “What do you mean?”

“Jarred, my boyfriend, and I went for a run yesterday. Everything was fine. Then, we headed up to the mountain this morning, and we couldn’t shift, no matter how hard we tried. We visited the clan doctors, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with us. The clan doctors suggested that we come to see you. Jarred, a bear shifter, is in one of the other rooms waiting for you.”

After giving Erin a physical, he shook his head. “I don’t see anything wrong that would keep you from shifting. Let’s take a blood sample and see if it can tell me anything.”

They left the room, and Sawyer asked Jennifer to take a couple tubes of blood from Erin.

Sawyer and Abby went immediately into Jarred’s room and he told the same story. His exam didn’t show any anomalies or physical reasons that they couldn’t shift.

Jennifer was just coming out of Erin’s room. He sent her into Jarred’s room with the same request. Curious, he went straight to the lab to analyze Erin’s sample under the microscope.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

Sawyer looked up from his microscope and looked at Abby. “There’s something here that I’ve never seen before. It seems to be some kind of virus that is multiplying rapidly. Take a look for yourself.”

Abby peered into the microscope and gasped. “That is terrifying. I’ve never seen viruses or bacteria move like that or multiply like that.”

Jennifer walked in and handed Sawyer two more vials of blood. “Here’s Jarred’s blood.”

“Thank you,” Sawyer said absently.

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