She swore he smiled in a big, bad wolf way.

* * *

Naked, the redheaded woman of his lakeside fantasies, the same little wolf biologist who had stirred his interest earlier, stroked Leidolf's back and rubbed her cheek against his, a throwback to their wolf ways, not only a form of endearment but something deeper. Her brows furrowed, her expression remained concerned. When she was in her wolf form and had nuzzled his muzzle with her own, the wolf scent glands in her skin had rubbed against his, indicating she had claimed him as part of her pack. Whether she had done so consciously, or as a way to get him on his feet and hadn't meant anything by it, he wasn't sure.

He took another deep breath of her scent, memorizing it, and managed a feeble wolf smile. Her swim in the river had washed off the hunter's spray, and now he could smell her delectable scent just fine.

Hell, if he hadn't been so dead to the world, he would have responded to her touching him and claimed her right back, tenfold. Her fingers swept over his fur, examining every inch of him, sensually like a lover would in the wolf's courtship phase. Or like a pack member would groom an injured wolf, comforting him both physically and mentally. He would have been in heaven, if he hadn't been so out of it. Damn it.

Her breath tickled his ear as she whispered into it and stirred his need to have her as she pressed her heavy breasts against his shoulder. Then she moved her fingers to his head between his ears and began to scratch. Her touch wouldn't scratch the itch she'd started. The scent of her stirred-up feminine pheromones was an enticing concoction as she leaned in close to him.

He should have had a raging hard-on. Why was he too tired to respond to her loving ministrations? He couldn't fathom why his body didn't react to her shoving at him or her whispered words in his ear. Or even earlier, when she was a wolf, licking his face, kissing him wolf style. He sure as hell wanted to show her just what her attentions meant to him and give her back so much more in return.

The couple of times he'd managed to get his eyes open, he'd seen the woman of his dreams kneeling before him, the red curly thatch of hair between her legs teasing him, her delectable breasts tantalizing him.

But the last words she spoke really got his attention. Something clicked in his tired brain--"Hmm," she'd said in such a sultry, heated way--and he was ready to flip her on her back and take her, forgetting for the moment he was a wolf and she was a redheaded woodland nymph taunting him with her sexual prowess, urging him to do wicked things with that sweet naked body of hers.

He tried to pry an eye open again as her body pressed heavily again against him. He swore nerve endings in every hair follicle in his fur coat responded to her touch, sending an urgent message to his brain. Get up, shape-shift, and show the woman just how wickedly bad you can be.

The rest of her words were purred in his ear, and if he hadn't learned she was a wolf shape-shifter, he might have mistaken her for a big beautiful cat, a sleek panther type.

... The big bad wolf isn't so big and bad anymore, she had said, the words hauntingly seductive, encouraging him to take her.

He smiled. Oh, yes, he could be very bad. If he just wasn't so damned tired. Had she kept him up all night? Had his way with her for hours? He couldn't remember.

His thoughts drifted again, and he didn't remember anything until she shook him hard. "Get up, you lazy lout."

He managed to peel one eye open again and blinked. He sensed that the position of the sun had slipped a few notches in the sky. The air had grown colder. Her brow furrowed, Cassie kneeled before him. Lazy lout, she'd called him, he finally realized. He lifted his head slightly and looked at her.

The scowl remained fixed in place, her lips pursed, her red brows furrowed, her hair drifting in red curls over her shoulders. He stared at her hair, wanting to sift his fingers through the silky strands in the worst way. His gaze refocused on her eyes, sea green, heated... God, she was beautiful.

He had to shift. Show her what he could do with her after she had so blatantly called him out. He could barely lift his head. He tried to lie on his stomach but couldn't get the strength to lift his body in that direction.

Frowning, she looked worried and then leaned over, dangling her breasts in front of his nose as she tried to push him so he was lying on his stomach. He licked a breast, unable to help himself, wishing he was in his human form. She shook her head, rose to stand beside him, and folded her arms across her breasts, which left the rest of her bared for his viewing pleasure: long legs, the red thatch of hair covering her mound, pink feminine lips peeking out, teasing him to come and play.

"The hunters could be here any minute now, and you'd be in real trouble."

He refocused on her face. She spoke angrily, but no matter how much she growled at him, he loved the sound of her voice, her narrowed green eyes spitting fire, her full lips turned down. Which triggered the craving to hug her tight and kiss her into submission.

As soon as she said the words, they heard someone coming. The redhead's eyes grew big. Then she crouched next to Leidolf, her enticing breasts at eye level and his focal point as she whispered, "Lie down, and I'll bury you. Then I'll lead them away. Just stay here and sleep off the tranquilizer. Then go home. And leave me alone."

His gaze shifted back to hers, her expressive eyes showing a mixture of worry and pleading. He wouldn't lie down on his side again, not when he was finally lying on his stomach and felt more in control. But more than that, he was going to protect her, not the other way around.

Before he could tell her no in a wolf's growling way, she pushed him back on his side and started burying him with leaves--him, an alpha leader! Damn it. Then she shifted into the prettiest little red wolf he'd ever seen, her coat a rich red, a slightly lighter mask on her face highlighting her almond-shaped eyes, her ears perked, listening for danger, her tail tipped in black ink sticking straight out... an alpha female for sure. Before he could lift his head to tell her what to do in his wolf's commanding way, she dashed off. And if he could have, he would have cursed out loud.

* * *

Cassie started to run off in an attempt to lead the hunters away from Leidolf in his drugged state, until she smelled more lupus garous. Men, all of them, four or five, she thought. She stopped, hidden in the mosaic of evergreens and listened to their movement, no one saying a word. They had to be Leidolf's pack members. Thank God, for his sake.

She hoped they would find him without her having to give herself away. And if they located him, she was out of here.

"Elgin, do you smell what I smell?" one of the men asked, his voice hushed and a little nervous.

Crap. She figured they must have smelled her. Why wasn't the hunter's spray... oh, hell, the swim across the river must have washed it away. Having believed they were hunters to begin with, she knew she hadn't anything to worry about them smelling her, until they turned out to be lupus garous.

"In addition to Leidolf's scent? A red female. That one he said he smelled earlier, most likely. Maybe we shouldn't have come this way looking for him. He'll be pissed if he rendezvoused with that female and didn't want us to know about it yet," Elgin said, his voice a whisper.

"The female wolf howled, and we had to make sure she was all right," one of the men said.

"All right, Fergus. But I still say if we find him humping a redhead, we leave before he sees us, or you do all the talking."

The other two men, silent up until now, chuckled. One said, "Glad the two of you are his sub-leaders."

"Here, oh crap. Leidolf's..." Fergus said, shuffling through leaves. "Hell, he's alive. Heartbeat's really slow though."

Lots more rustling of leaves. "No bloody wound," Elgin said, sounding relieved. "He's... damn, he's been tranquilized. Let's get him out of here, now."

"What's he doing in a wolf coat?" one of the other men asked.

"You have to ask?" Elgin said.

They thought he was rendezvousing with her as a wolf in broad daylight? What kind of an alpha leader was he?

"He changed into his wolf form to track her more easily," Elgin added, in case the others hadn't figured it out. "I know he said he wouldn't, but if she was in need and called out to him, he would have found her more easily as a wolf."

Oh. Well they'd sure had her going for a second. She sighed. Good. She hated believing they thought she was fooling around with a lupus garou as a wolf before she'd even made his acquaintance as a human. Not that she intended to see any of these people again, but... still, she did have some pride.

"What about the female?" Fergus asked.

Cassie could envision the man's raised brows at the question, waiting for Elgin's response.

For what seemed like an eternity, although she was certain only a few seconds passed, no one said anything. Which didn't bode well. Then Elgin said, "We've got to get Leidolf back to the ranch. And we've got to send more of our men out here to search for Sarge and the twin brothers."

For a second, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Leidolf must have fallen asleep because he didn't make a peep. She was sure he would have thrown a fit when he learned his men planned to spirit him away from the woman who had been seducing him right before his groggy eyes and no one went looking for her.

No other words were spoken, but as the men began moving, they didn't all head in the same direction. Some returned the way they had come, but others began stalking her way.

Hell, they had to have used hand signals, figuring she might be nearby and didn't want to scare her off. Which meant? Some were trying to track her down. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they worried she'd been tranquilized nearby also.

Still in her wolf form, she dashed off. The river trick could work again.

* * *

Omigod, Aimee thought as she caught sight of the scrawny red wolf moving her pups into a new den. Her fur-covered skin clung to her ribs, and she was way too gaunt to be able to nurse her pups well. Aimee had heard her howl and knew it wasn't Cassie's, but she'd lost Cassie some hours ago, if she was the woman in the safari outfit she'd tried to track. And the howl probably meant the female was in trouble. Aimee wanted to help her. But a real wolf? I mean, Aimee was a real wolf, too, at the moment, but this one was an honest-to-God lupus-only kind of wolf. The pups began crying.