Page 84 of To Challenge a Wolf

As Malachi carried Rhett into the house, the other three followed. Two sets of female footsteps headed for the kitchen as Malachi laid Rhett on the leather couch. Its coolness hit Rhett’s skin and brought blessed relief. He let himself sink. He sighed.

April and Kelsey came back a minute later. One of them had made a second washcloth-wrapped ice pack. Ice cubes clinked together, muffled by the cloth, as Kelsey took it to Trevor.

“Thanks, babe.”

“Now hold your hand above your heart,” Kelsey said.

Part of Rhett needed to rest in quiet, at least for a minute. But a thought had taken shape in his head. “Malachi, you said the experiment happened in the thirties.”

“Yes.” The alpha’s scent gained a flavor of caution and knowing. He already knew what Rhett had put together. But he would let Rhett say it.

“So you found it in a lorebook kept in the thirties.”

“Correct.”

“Uh-huh.”

Rhett didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t know when he’d be able to. His head throbbed so strongly, pulses of pain in time with his heart, and now his stomach was beginning to ball up. He really didn’t want to throw up on his couch. For a few moments he breathed, long pulls of air to quell the nausea. Then he could continue his questions.

“Who was the source?”

“An escaped wolf. Nearly dead when he reached our pack, but the alpha gave him sanctuary, and the pack cared for him.”

Rhett tried to do the math, but his head hurt too much. The one wolf who might be old enough…no, Arlo had been born a decade later. “Did he live long enough for Arlo to meet him?”

For a long moment, no one spoke. Scents grew heavy as moods grew somber. Rhett focused on the alpha. Deep grief wrapped around the essence of musk and ginger.

At last Malachi said, “His name was Lars, and he lived with our pack for eight months. He wasn’t able to recover.”

“Because of the crippled attachment.”

“Yes.”

Rhett forced open his eyes and met Malachi’s. The alpha was so…sad. “Somebody should’ve arm-wrestled with him.”

Trevor’s quiet bark of laughter choked on tears. Always this wolf was most affected by a friend’s hurt, seemed now to feel along with Malachi whatever details from the lorebook had grieved him so deeply.

“You were already breaking out of it, Rhett,” Malachi said. “Trevor helped, pushed you through when you might havemanaged to keep the walls up again and prolong your own pain. But you’ve been breaking out since the night of the rogue attack, when you and I spoke about your mate.”

“Because of the fever?”

Malachi nodded.

Maybe without the worst headache of his life he’d be able to parse what they weren’t saying, but… “I don’t get it.”

“You”—Trevor jabbed one finger at him—“are starting to smell like more than steel and gunpowder.”

No. No way. It wasn’t possible. To Malachi he said, “You told me there was no black tea in my scent.”

“There isn’t,” Malachi said. “But when you kissed Vivian after the fight, there was desire. When the fever came over you while we talked about her, there was anger and fear.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

Malachi arched one eyebrow and stared him down.

“You tried,” Rhett said. He pressed his palms to his aching eyes. “That wolf Lars. His death wasn’t easy.”

“No.” Malachi’s rasp grew rougher. “It wasn’t.”

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