Guardian Bears: Karl (12 page)

What am I doing? What’s going on?
So far she’d been working on instinct, but she was starting to think again, slowly and hesitantly. She didn’t understand what she was doing, why she was here. She straightened, straining up to look up into the mirrors. Bracing herself against a sink, she got high enough to look herself in the face.

It wasn’t her face. It was a wolf, fur gray and black, eyes bright amber. Blood on the jaws. Allison felt a disorienting whirl of feeling as she both recognized and didn’t recognize the face she looked at. She couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t accept it as her, and yet it clearly was.

She screamed, noise that was as much human as it was wolf, and threw herself against the mirror, glass shattering and biting into her hide.

K
arl leaped
to his mate’s side as she screamed, the sound of her fear and pain tearing at his soul. She clung to him, sobbing wordlessly and shaking, her body tense in his arms.

“I can’t do the this,” Allison said at last, her voice raw. “I just can’t!”

“You can,” Karl said, squeezing her tight, trying to sound reassuring. He could see the fear in her eyes, and behind it, the feral hunger of the wolf, barely contained. “I know it’s tough, I know it isn’t easy, but you can succeed. Once you’ve learned it, everything will be okay.”

“But it’s impossible!” Her voice was raw, tears welling in her eyes. “It’s so horrible, the things I’m remembering, that can’t be me! I, I nearly
killed
Jeremy. And when I looked in the mirror, it wasn’t me I saw!”

Karl kept his voice firm and confident, not showing the fear he felt for her. “Allison, you have to make peace with your wolf. It’s part of you, she’s your soul, and if you don’t learn to control your transformations she’ll consume you. You have to try.”

“I
have
tried! I have done my best, but I just can’t do it!”

She pulled away, turning and staring out into the night sky. Her shoulders shook, silently crying, and Karl felt his heart break at the look of her.
I can’t be too late to save her
, he told himself.
Fate wouldn’t be so cruel. Would it?

He’d finally,
finally
met the woman fate had set for him, and she was being consumed by her own shifter nature.

“I’m not going to give up on you,” he said grimly. “And neither are you. I won’t let you.”

Allison sniffled, but nodded. He had to admire the strength of her – this had to be more terrifying than anything he’d ever done, but she wasn’t giving in.

Lifting her, he set her back on her feet and looked into her eyes.

“There has to be something we’re missing, something that can make this work for you,” he said, trying to think of anything that could help. He’d had his father’s den, his family around him, and he’d started earlier. She had nothing. “Damn Harper for letting this get so far!”

His anger threatened to overwhelm him. If Harper had come out himself, as soon as he’d heard there was a problem, it might not have been too late to save Allison. At least he could have dealt with it himself, and spared Karl the misery.

No, that’s not what I’d want. Even if it comes to the worst, I’d rather be here with Allison, have these few days with her, than never have met my mate.
He turned his anger inward, focusing it into determination.
And I won’t let it come to the worst.

Forcing himself to relax, he looked back at Allison and realized she was staring at him, wide-eyed. He frowned, and she shook her head, shaking off the shock before speaking.

“Harper? That’s the name of your wolf friend?”

“That’s right,” Karl told her, puzzled and wondering where she was going. “What difference does that make?”

“Maybe it’s nothing, but that was my father’s name. Jack Harper.”

* * *

“
Y
ou knew
! You knew who she was all along!”

Allison almost shrank back as Karl roared his anger into the phone. Only her own anger kept her from pulling away, but there was no way she was missing this!

“Please, Karl, be calm,” the rich, cultured voice on the other end of the line answered. “We can’t have a discussion like this.”

He didn’t
sound
like her relative. He didn’t sound like anyone she knew, in fact. But her parents had passed away when she was too young to really remember them – all she had was flickers of memory, nothing solid.

I’m not sure I
want
to be related to this man, anyway
, she thought, pursing her lips. Karl’s face was flushed with anger, and she was glad for Harper’s sake that the wolf shifter was nowhere nearby.

“Mr. Harper,” she said, surprised at how cold her voice sounded. Where Karl’s rage was running hot, hers was like ice in her veins. “I think you should start over and tell us what’s going on. You owe us both an explanation, at the very least.”

A long second stretched out, and then the older wolf sighed. It was a sad sound, not that Allison could be moved to sympathize with him so easily.

“I suppose that is only fair,” he admitted. “Where to start?”

“How about telling her how you’re related,” Karl suggested in a snarl. “Let’s make this a family reunion.”

“Very well.” Another sigh, then Harper continued. “I was born in Mayfair, and so was my brother Jack. Our family’s pack used to live there, too, but it’s a dangerous place for wolves. There’s something in the black stone to the North, something powerful.”

Karl drew a breath to speak, but Harper hurried on before he could interrupt. “Not anything dangerous to you, Karl, or to anyone in the short term. Whatever it is, it calls to the wolf and brings the beast out. That made Mayfair prime territory for our pack, and for our rivals.

“Jack found his mate there, of course. That settled him, and I remember how proud he was when his daughter arrived. We were all so happy for him.”

Allison gritted her teeth, feeling a long-suppressed anger rising up again. “Why don’t I know you, then?”

“Because when your father died, it was a terrible time for our pack. We were locked in a battle for control of the territory with another pack, and everyone was going a little too far. By the time the fur settled and we could arrange a peace, I’m afraid we thought that you’d died with your parents. I made my peace with that.”

Could that be true? Allison tried to think back to the time of her parents’ death, but all she’d been told was that it was a car accident. And that the Harpers were bad news; her aunt hadn’t talked about them much, but when she’d had a little too much to drink she let her feelings show.

She realized that she was growling, a low angry noise, and the hair on the back of her neck was rising.

“You just abandoned your brother’s family? Like we were nothing to you?”

“Please, Allison, understand: I thought you were dead along with him and your mother. And the rest of your family didn’t want anything to do with me or my pack. Now that I know you’re alive, I realize that they might have wanted us gone so that they could hide you from us,” Harper said, his voice carefully pitched, oh-so-reasonable, and infuriating. “I do wish I could go back and undo the harm that’s been done, but I had no reason to think you’d survived.”

Karl’s fist struck the table with jarring force, bouncing the phone into the air. “No reason until you heard about a werewolf in town. And then what did you do? You sent me here, to
kill
your niece.”

Allison could feel the anger radiating from him, and reached out a hand to hold his. Her own anger was threatening to overwhelm her good sense, but they needed Harper’s help.

“I didn’t know, Karl,” Harper said, a little passion finally making it into his calm and controlled voice. “I promise you, I didn’t! But it’s true that I didn’t want to look into it myself. I – I couldn’t risk finding out, and that’s why I sent you instead. That, and I told the truth. My pack has sworn an oath never to go back to Mayfair, so I had to get someone else to deal with this.”

“Convenient.” Allison couldn’t keep her anger out of her voice. “You chickened out of looking after me, when I was going through all – all
this
. Do you know how scared I’ve been, how much I questioned my sanity, and now I find out I’ve got family who could have been helping out this whole time? But you were too scared!”

“I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Really, truly, Allison. I knew that as soon as I heard the news out of Mayfair – once the wolf-soul has its teeth sunk into you, it
will
consume you. That’s what I couldn’t face. Watching my brother’s daughter become a monster.”

“Or killing me,” Allison said coldly.

“Or killing you.” Harper sighed, this time sounding sad rather than exasperated. “Honestly, I had hoped that I’d never need to know if it was you. If there was any other way…”

“There is,” Karl said. His voice was dark, angry, and certain, and it sent shivers through Allison. There was no arguing with that tone, no fighting it. “And you are going to help me find it. I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.”

“No one ever does, until they lose,” Harper answered. “There’s
nothing,
Karl. Don’t you think that I’ve looked since you first told me who the werewolf was? She’s tasted human blood, and that is the end of it. A wolf shifter who does that before they’ve learned how to control themselves won’t have time to do so afterward. The hunger will consume her and we’ll both lose her.”

“No,” Allison broke in, surprising herself with how calm she sounded. “That’s not true. You lost me when you abandoned me, back when I was born – and Karl won’t lose me now, because the two of you are going to find a way to help me.”

Karl’s fist opened up and he took her hand in his, looking up from the phone. His eyes shone bright in the night and his powerful hand squeezed hers tightly as he smiled down at her. The smile was small, and not very hopeful, but still it warmed her heart to see him look at her like that. And the thought of losing him, so soon after she’d met him, was like a knife in her heart. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

And neither was he. She could see it in his eyes.

Harper sighed again, unhappy and unconvinced. “Very well, I shall do what I can, and I shall not give up until the end. At least I can do that much for my brother’s memory. But there is a promise you must make in return for my assistance, Karl.”

He paused there, a long silence stretching between the three of them. It was a painful wait as he put together the words for his request.

“If we fail, if Allison cannot conquer her wolf –
when
she cannot,” he corrected himself, “then you must promise me you will keep to our original arrangement. You must kill her before she brings disaster on us all. That promise is the price of my help.”

Allison gasped, looking down at the phone and then back to Karl. The big man didn’t take his eyes off her, and she saw a great sadness blossom there.

“I promise,” he said with infinite sorrow, holding her hand tight.

* * *

K
arl watched
Allison’s face fall as she snatched back her hand from his, and felt his heart shatter.
There’s no choice,
he wanted to tell her.
It’s not just that we need Harper’s help, I also don’t want to watch you turn into a savage animal. Better to go quickly, with dignity, than that.

But Harper was still speaking on the phone, and chasing any lead on this was the most important thing. If he could save Allison’s mind, save her
life
, at the cost of her hating him, that would be a price he’d pay gladly.

“There is only one idea that I have which might help,” Harper said, unaware of the atmosphere at their end of the call. Or perhaps he was aware and simply didn’t care. “I told you that there were several packs fighting over the area, did I not? The reason for it is the black rocks to the North of you. There’s a place of power there, something that connects to the wolf nature. I don’t know what it is, or how you might use it. I hoped to find out, but we were driven away before I could.”

“Can it help me?” Allison’s voice was harsh, and her eyes didn’t leave Karl’s.

“I don’t know. I know that it called to me when I was in Mayfair, and my brother spoke of it too. It made the shift easier for us. Whether that is a good thing for someone in your position, well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Drawing your wolf closer to the surface might make things worse, rather than better – but it will at least make things different, and if you can’t make your peace with her now, then you have to try something.

“And meanwhile, I will try to send you what help I can from here. We are kin, after all. Maybe I can reach you.”

“I’ve dreamed of the rocks,” Allison said, sounding a little less upset as she thought about them. She glanced aside from Karl, out into the darkness of the night. North, where the mountains rose from the desert. “I’ve always dreamed of them, they scare me but they call to me, too. And I think my wolf feels the same – at least, from what I remember of being in wolf form.”