"Just so everyone knows,” Rowdy announced, “I’m still interested in being turned. It would be the best Christmas present ever." He figured he wouldn't have this perfect opportunity to tell the pack while a whole gathering of wolves was in one place again in case Justine’s bite didn’t take. The notion plagued him that he was immune to shifters’ bites.

  "You do realize how difficult it can be if you are turned and can't control the shift on airplanes, while driving a vehicle, or just being out and about in public?" Faith asked. "Right now, you can conduct all your investigations any time of the month."

  If anyone knew the trouble new shifters would have, the Arctic wolves had had their share of it.

  "And during the new moon phase, you won't be able to shift," David said. "So if you have a wolf girlfriend, she might not like it. That is if she's a royal and has no issues with shifting."

  "Which brings up another point," Cameron said. "If you mate with a royal, your offspring will have issues like you do and not have the wolf lineage that the royals have that keeps them from having trouble with shifting."

  "And multiple births run in shifter families." Faith smiled.

  "I've considered all these things." Though Rowdy hadn't thought of a royal not being interested in him because his human roots would dilute the wolf lineage. He figured Justine and her family were royals since she’d never once mentioned having trouble shifting. Nor had he really thought of having a bunch of kids all at once. He was ready for kids, enjoyed them, but he was thinking more of learning how to be a parent slowly—one child at a time. "But even during the new moon phase, I'd have your enhanced senses. And let's face it. The wolf always gets the woman."

  Everyone laughed.

  "There’s something magical about that. And night vision. I could have been looking for clues in the case we’re now looking into before dawn and last night even. " Rowdy was so hoping that if Justine’s bite didn’t produce results, someone in this group of wolves would take him up on it. Several cast glances in Justine's direction. She only smiled. He was glad she hadn’t seemed perturbed that he would solicit other wolves to bite him when she planned to later tonight.

  Finally, after playing a number of Christmas games, including the Santa Limbo where everyone had to wear a pillow under their shirt who took a turn, Christmas charades, Christmas carol Pictionary, drank assorted Christmas drinks and ate lots of food from chicken wings to barbecued beef, potato salad and a number of pies and Christmas cookies, the wolves began to take off to their homes to strip out of their clothes, shift, and run as a pack through the woods along the lake. Her parents had already taken off into the woods and several other families were joining them.

  Some were still hanging around the beach as if they didn't want to abandon Rowdy, though he told them, "Go on. Run. I'll be fine."

  To their surprise, the teen bear shifters, Kenny and Andrew, showed up and Rowdy thought they might have some more information about the jaguar-wolf fight.

  "We heard about the party. We can join you, can't we?" Andrew asked. "It's not just for wolves and one human, is it?"

  "You can eat, drink, and come running with us," Cameron said, and then he and Faith and their three kids went to their home to change.

  The boys hurriedly scarfed down a couple of barbecued beef sandwiches apiece. Then Andrew looked thoughtfully at Rowdy. "You know we could turn you."

  "Yeah. Dad might get mad at us, but it's for a good cause. You help shifters," Kenny said.

  "He wants to be a wolf," Justine said.

  The teens eyed Justine and then Andrew said, "So turn him. You don't have to mate him. You're partners. He can stay here and work with you and that would be a good thing, right?"

  "Except when he can't control his shifting," Kenny said. "See, with being a bear, there are no worries."

  The bears ate some slices of wild berry pie and then stripped, shifted, and took off after the wolves.

  "You don't have to stay on my account," Rowdy told Justine. He poured himself another eggnog. "Go. Enjoy your run."

  Justine made herself another eggnog too. "You seriously still want to be a wolf?"

  "Yeah. I know there's no going back on it once I’m turned. I will keep asking wolves until someone turns me if your bite doesn’t work for a second time."

  Justine took a deep breath. "Okay." She started stripping out of her clothes in front of him like most wolves and jaguars did, used to doing it in front of each other of a necessity. Then she shifted into a beautiful gray wolf.

  She turned her head, looking into his eyes with her green-tinged ones, studying him for a moment before she snapped at his hand with such a quick movement, he didn't have time to prepare himself mentally for the attack. He cried out, jerked back, pulling his hand free of her mouth, and then took a deep breath and smiled.

  He would never get used to her biting him unless maybe he would feel differently if he was a wolf. "Thank you, Justine.” He hugged the beautiful wolf and hoped her bite would take this time.

  He thought she would run then, but she shifted back and began getting dressed.

  "After having to be bit twice, I hope you don't regret it. Or that I won't," she said.

  "I don’t regret it. Go, run. I'll be fine. I know the transformation can take a while, or not, depending on the person's resistance to the change. Just enjoy yourself on a wolf run and if I can shift, I will hurry up and catch up to you."

  "No. I wouldn't bite you and then leave you to your fate. I want to know if it works this time. Did you want to stay at my place tonight? We can run later in the woods there, if you finally feel the urge."

  “Yeah, that would be great.” He didn't feel any differently at all. He expected to feel the wound where she had bitten him begin to tingle and heal, but he was still bleeding, and it wasn't healing. She took his hand in hers and looked at it. "I'll get my first aid kit out of the car."

  He was thrilled she wanted him to stay at her house tonight.

  After she tenderly bandaged his hand, they sat out on the chairs on a deck with the fire still flickering in one of the fire pits.

  They finished their eggnog drinks and then he asked, "Are you ready to go home?"

  "Yeah, it's cold sitting out here," she said. "Do you feel any urge to shift?"

  He looked at the full moon reflecting off the ice-covered lake. "No. But I'm cold too." Plus, his hand throbbed like hell. At least his shoulder was feeling better today. But he wasn't going to tell her that and make her feel bad. He had to be a wolf like her now and he'd heal in half the time that humans did.

  When they dropped by his cabin to pack an overnight bag, he said, "For turning me, I will be forever grateful.”

  "You say that now but wait until you can't control the shifting and tell me how you feel then.”

  He would always be grateful to her no matter what.

  After he packed his bag, they went to her place. This time, they made unconsummated love, in case he was now a wolf, or they’d be mated for life, but he was glad they could do that much and were able to sleep together again.

  When she was sound asleep, he got up and took some over-the-counter pain medicine out of his bag, careful not to wake her. He felt feverish. Again, he knew the shifter genetics would quickly heal him, so he ignored the fevers and accompanying chills and the throbbing ache in his hand.

  The next day when he woke, his hand didn't feel any better. He was still running a darn fever. He knew his body was fighting the infection. He wondered if he'd run as a wolf last night and hadn't remembered it. He didn't recall any dreams about it either, if he had run and thought he'd dreamed of it.

  He realized Justine had left the bed already and was making coffee and breakfast for them. He dressed and joined her. She’d made French toast and they hugged and kissed, then ate breakfast, and after he cleaned up the dishes, they headed into the office.

  Not long after they arrived, Kenny and Andrew’s dad and uncle came into the office. Rowdy lifted his nose and tried to smell them so he could now recognize the wolves by their scent, but he couldn't smell what they were.

  “We wanted to thank the two of you for being a good influence on the boys. They told us what a great time they had running with the wolves last night after the party. They wouldn’t have gone to it except they knew the two of you were going to be there.”

  Rowdy couldn’t believe he couldn’t smell them. Come to think of it, he couldn’t smell that Justine was a wolf either. At least he didn’t think so. And his hand wasn’t healing up. In fact, he assumed it was infected. He was feeling just as sick today as he was last night. At least his shoulder wound was healing.

  He didn’t think he smelled like a wolf either and he still didn’t feel any urges to shift. After all the warnings his old team had given him and then the wolves here had done the same, he really expected to have some trouble with this.

  “If you need any help with anything, just let us know,” Simon said.

  “Thanks, we will,” Justine said.

  The men left the office and Justine came over to check on Rowdy. He didn’t want her to know how rotten he was feeling because he was certain she had caused it. And it certainly wasn’t working out the way he had planned.

  “Are you all right, Rowdy? You look…feverish.” She quickly placed her hand on his forehead, and her hand felt cold to the touch. “You are burning up. Let me see your hand.”

  He didn’t want her to see it. “I don’t think it’s healing up as quickly as I thought it would with having wolf genetics.”

  She lifted her head and smelled his neck and frowned. “You don’t smell like you’re a wolf.” She removed the bandage from his hand and checked the injury. “It’s infected. Okay, I’m taking you to see the wolf family physician at the clinic where the surgeon took care of the wolves. He should be able to administer some antibiotics and you’ll get over this soon enough, but you could be feeling poorly until that happens.”

  “So you didn’t turn me this time either?” He couldn’t help being surprised. He was certain she had turned him last night. Not that he knew about all the turned cases the world round, but he thought when someone was bitten, they were turned. Period. And being bitten twice would have guaranteed it.

  “Unless you belatedly show signs of it, I’d say no. Which makes me think that you have a strong immune system that’s fighting the alien invasion of wolf genes, but that means it’s working doubly hard to fight an infection.”

  “Well, damn. Don’t tell me I can’t be turned. What if I’m immune to a lupus garou’s bite?” After all the wishing that someone would help him and finally a wolf was nice enough to do it, he couldn’t believe he wouldn’t be turned. Not only that but he was really thinking he and Justine could be headed for a mating but not if he wasn’t a wolf.

  “I can bite you again,” she offered. “I’ve never heard of anyone being bitten and not turned though.”

  They pulled on their coats and scarfs and climbed into her vehicle.

  “Okay, yeah, I’m game.”

  She laughed. “For now, you need to fight off that infection and get well.”

  They finally reached the doctor’s office and he made room in his busy schedule to work Rowdy in.

  “Yes, he’s human, working with me as a USF special agent,” Justine quickly told the doctor when he came into the exam room.

  “How did this happen? Did a wild dog bite you?” Dr. Carmichael asked as he checked over the wound. He was a crusty old, gray-haired man, wearing a lab coat, a gray wolf, with dark brown eyes.

  “I bit him,” Justine said. “He wanted to be turned.”

  Dr. Carmichael raised his brows. “You could do it in a more medically acceptable way.” Then he frowned. “The bite didn’t take effect?”

  “No. He doesn’t smell like a wolf. He isn’t healing quickly like he should, and he doesn’t have any shifting urge,” Justine said.

  “I’ll give you a shot and you can take some antibiotics for the rest of the week,” Dr. Carmichael said. “You really want to be a wolf? You know the drawbacks of being a wolf, right?”

  “Yeah, Doc.”

  “He wants our superpowers,” Justine said.

  Rowdy smiled at her. She seemed to get a kick out of his saying that.

  “And he would get the girl,” she added.

  Doc smiled. “He would, would he? I haven’t had any luck…so far.” He gave Rowdy the shot.

  “Okay, we’re out of here,” Justine said.

  “Wait. Do you want to try this again? My way?” Dr. Carmichael asked.

  “Yeah, what did you have in mind?” Rowdy wasn’t giving up on this.

  “Justine will have to shift and then I can take some of her saliva and introduce it into your bloodstream.”

  “Okay, yeah, let’s do it, if Justine doesn’t mind.”

  Justine shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment.”

  “I’ll be back in a little while after checking on one of my patients,” the doctor said.

  “Thanks.” Rowdy felt renewed hope. If he had the wolf genes, he’d heal faster, and he wouldn’t have to keep telling everyone why he was working with the shifters or knew about them when he was human.

  Justine began to remove her clothes. “Are you sure you don’t want me to just bite you again? You already have the antibiotics for the infection, but this time hopefully, it will turn you.”

  Rowdy chuckled. “I’m going to try the doctor’s way first. Then we can go back to you biting me if that doesn’t work.”

  She smiled. “You are a glutton for punishment.”

  He would do just about anything to make this happen.

  After they did the procedure, the doctor left, and Justine shifted and dressed. “The things I do for you.”

  “I know. I was supposed to be the one here to help you, but I really appreciate this.”

  Then they thanked the doctor again on the way out and they picked up Rowdy’s prescription for more antibiotics.

  “I’ll drop you off at your place and you can get some rest. You can call me if your fever gets worse or if you have the urge to shift. I want to know as soon as you know.”

  “Are you sure that you don’t need my help?”

  “No. You can’t be feeling well, and you’ll probably be as good as new tomorrow.”

  He hated that he couldn’t help her with the case when he had come all this way to do so. He should have waited to be asked to be turned after they caught the jaguar. But he figured no time would ever be right and he thought he could assist her better if he had all the wolves’ enhanced senses.

  Once she dropped him off at the cabin, she said, “I’ll come by with lunch later. Chicken and potato soup.”

  He smiled. “I won’t turn that down.” He might not be feeling all that great, but she knew how to brighten his outlook in a hurry.

  10

  Justine hadn’t thought she would ever want to turn a human, but she knew to an extent now how Rowdy must feel about being such an outsider among them. But once she had decided it, she was giving it her all. And she really had wanted to run with him last night when everyone else had.

  She called Everett about the jaguar who owned the car, hoping he had learned something. She didn’t want him calling Rowdy with the news when she hoped he would be sleeping. “Hi, this is Justine, and I was checking in with you to see if you had learned anything about the jaguar from Tomball.”

  “Yeah, I just got some information, and I was going to give you all a call. Mason Talbot and his buddy, Elan Powers, had gone up to your neck of the woods to meet up with a friend they went to college with. The name is Barney Browning.” Everett gave her the address and phone number for Barney. “I couldn’t find anything about any of them that indicated they’d been in trouble before. I don’t know if Barney is a jaguar or not.”

  “Okay, thanks so much.”

  “Is Rowdy there?”

  “No, he’s at home, sick.” She didn’t want to say why—that she had made him sick when she tried to turn him. Until it was a done deal, she really didn’t want to tell anybody about it—other than the doctor, of course.

  “I hope it’s nothing too serious. I can’t imagine him not going to work no matter how he feels.”

  “He’s just running a fever.” She almost told Everett she had taken him to see the doctor and he was on antibiotics, but she stopped herself before she gave herself away.

  “So how are things going between the two of you?”

  “Great. He’s a super nice guy like Martin said.”

  “Yeah, everybody likes him.”

  “But nobody would turn him.”

  “Hell, if he wanted to be a jaguar, he would have been one of us all along. But his heart is set on being a wolf and the wolves know that he’ll have issues with the full moon phase. He needs to be one of us though.”

  “I have to agree. Even some bears offered to do the deed.”

  Everett laughed. “See? Believe me, if we had trouble with him, we wouldn’t have hired him.”

  Justine sighed. “Well, just so you know, you might not be getting him back.” Not that Rowdy had said he absolutely wanted to stay here with her, but if she turned him, she hoped he would.

  Everett didn’t say anything for a moment, processing what she was saying, she figured. “Well, if he’s ready to stay up in the cold north, and I’m not surprised about that, we will wish him all the best. Oh, and though the men I investigated hadn’t had any brushes with the law that I could find, I wouldn’t go on your own to see them. Take Rowdy or get backup from the bears who enforce their laws, or the wolf PI group there. Any of them will be glad to assist.”

  “Thanks. I’ll ask someone to go with me.” She knew she’d have a whole bunch of offers. But she hated to ask, and she knew Rowdy would want to go with her.