Page 36 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

I told you I’d let you run later, he said mentally to it, his aggravation with the beast growing by the minute. It was behaving as if they were brand new to one another again, not like they’d had over a hundred years of being tied to each other.

“Do we interrupt the boss or let him keep growling?” asked Reggie, jerking him from his thoughts.

Had he been growling? He hadn’t realized as much.

“Uh, boss, what’s up?” asked Leo cautiously.

Jonathan cleared his throat and was about to tell them not to worry about it, that he was fine, when the sense of dread came flooding back to him, this time accompanied by sheer panic. It exploded through him so fast that he shot to his feet, staggered, and fell back, tripping over a chair in the process. He ended up on his knees, his hands going to the sides of his head, and he was bombarded by sounds that didn’t make any sense.

They were sounds associated with the forest. Not the city. Moreover, he could hear female voices. Familiar ones. Ones he’d heard not long ago.

Instantly flashes from outside of the airport, near the parking lot, struck him. His mind filled with a clear picture of the young woman who had become something of an obsession for him. The vivid image of her in his head changed quickly. Instead of being in a darkened parking lot near the airport, doing her best to hold up broken glasses, she was suddenly standing in the center of a grove of trees he knew well with glasses that were heavily taped.

The trees were so completely and distinctly recognizable that his breath caught. He was seeing her standing in thePoiana Rotunda—the round glade—of the Hoia-Baciu Forest, west of Cluj-Napoca, in Transylvania, Romania.

Why in the hell was his mind showing her there, of all places?

Jonathan struggled for clarity and tried his best to thrust the bizarre images from his head. Deep down, he knew she wasn’t there. That the odds were simply stacked against her being in a spot that held such significance for him—such horrid memories.

His wolf wasn’t having any of his attempts to subdue it. As Jonathan continued to see the young woman standing among the crooked trees in the darkened forest, the sounds and even smells of the forest intensified. It was as if Jonathan was there, in the flesh, experiencing it all.

Danger.

Protect.

He held his head tighter, still on his knees, still fighting to remain in control.

One shining moment of clarity struck him. The young woman wasn’t in the glade itself. No. That was simply a representation of the location, not her exact one. That much he knew deep in his gut. But he also knew that while she might not be in that exact spot, she was in that vicinity, and she was without a doubt in mortal danger.

Romania was too far away for him to rush to her aid in time to prevent whatever was about to happen. That much he understood. What didn’t make sense was why his wolf was so invested in her that it had managed to link to her when she was halfway around the world.

It’s not just my wolf, he thought, easing the hold on his head, his mind still locked on an image of her in the forest.I want her safe too.

He snarled.

“No,” he managed. “Ineedher safe.”

“Who the fuck is he talking about?” Leo demanded, his voice slicing through some of the insanity. “Who does he need safe?”

“What in the hell is wrong with him?” asked Reggie frantically.

“No fucking clue!” shouted Leo, sounding close.

Leo spun around. “Did Dwayne leave yet?”

“Yeah,” said another man. “He’s probably to the parking garage by now.”

“Fuck,” stammered Leo before he shot a desperate look in Jonathan’s direction. “I don’t know what to do. There isn’t a playbook for what-to-do-in-the-event-your-boss-turns-furry.”

Reggie grunted. “After this, we’re totally writing one!”

Jonathan grabbed his shirt collar, tearing at it, wanting freedom from the confines of his clothing. Everything felt too constricting. He snarled and pounded on the floor, trying to will his beast to obey.

It was having none of it.

Flashes of the young woman from two weeks ago came flooding back into his mind. No longer was his brain showing her in the glade, clearly having gotten that point across. Now it was showing her moving through the Romanian forest with her sister. But they weren’t alone. Something deadly was there, stalking them. Slinking along beside them, staying in the shadows, herding them in the direction of its choosing.

“No!” he shouted so loudly that all the men in the conference room took a giant step back from him. “Stay away from them—from her!”

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