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His wolf stirred again, restless, eager to run. Slamming the lid back down on the place in his mind where his wolf-self resided, he took a moment to compose himself before answering. “Thank you, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.”
He cleared his throat, uncertain how to respond. “Let me check my notes one last time,” he said evenly, putting the discussion back where it belonged. Business. “Give me a moment, then we’ll start the next round of tests.”
To his surprise, she left him alone while he recalibrated his machines and readied his slides. This lasted all of five minutes.
“How did you lose your vision?” she asked, her voice an interesting combination of determined and hesitant. “I heard that you were involved in an accident. Is that true?”
Braden set down a slide and considered. Though normally he disliked talking about what had happened, he figured he owed her an explanation. After all, he’d already given one to the king.
“Yes, though I suspect it was no accident. I’d completed my surgery for the day and stopped by my lab at the university to retrieve some materials before giving a lecture.”
He took a deep breath, seeing it all again inside his head. “A few minutes after I arrived, there was an explosion in my lab. A fire. I was injured, badly burned but not incinerated since the explosion knocked me out of the lab itself. They found me unconscious in the parking lot.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”
With a nod, he acknowledged the truth of her words. “So they said. I had burns, a concussion and a few broken bones as well. They healed, but my vision did not come back.”
When she spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “Since you are Halfling, I know you don’t heal as quickly as a full shifter, but why have you not visited the Healer? I looked on a map and Texas is not all that far from Colorado.”
“I did visit her,” he said reluctantly. “Her name is Samantha. She’s a very nice woman and really tried to help.”
“And?”
“She put her hands on me, did whatever foolishness she apparently does. It didn’t work.”
She gasped. “I’ve never heard of a Healer failing.”
“Neither had she.” He shrugged. “She was shocked. She said there was no reason for me not to see.”
She’d also told him his blindness was all in his head and that she thought he felt he needed to make retribution for something. More bullcrap. Of course Samantha hadn’t been able to heal him, despite her much-touted successes with other Halflings.
But he was no ordinary Halfling. He was a doctor, a scientist. And, in the history of both mankind and Pack, snake charmers were never successful around those that really questioned.
He didn’t say those thoughts out loud. In the past, whenever he’d dared to voice them, the reactions had ranged from anger to derision. At him, rather than the Healer.
A brief, uncomfortable silence fell, during which he refused to fidget or otherwise reveal how uneasy this line of conversation made him feel. Instead, he went back to reviewing his notes, listening as the mechanical voice replayed them for the fourth time. This time, he eschewed the headphones and played them out loud so that she could hear, too.
Listening with him, she waited only a few moments before interrupting. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
With a sigh, he pushed Pause, then clicked the machine off. Why not? He wasn’t getting anywhere with these test results. “Another one?”
“Yes.” She must have leaned closer, because he caught a whisper of her unique scent. She smelled feminine and delicious, making his head spin and sending his wolf into bouts of pacing again.
“How did you manage to talk my parents into agreeing with this nonsense?”
He lifted his chin, wishing he could see her expression. “Your parents are honestly worried about you,” he told her. “After all, your ability to remain in the human form for so long is abnormal. Since this usually brings about madness, they didn’t want you to go insane.”
“Always? You said usually. Does it always bring about madness? Surely someone, somewhere has done this without going crazy?”
Aware that she—unless she’d been living under a rock—already knew the answer, he nodded. “Without exception, not changing often enough has always meant madness. Until now, until you. That’s why you’re such a puzzle.”
“In that case, let me give you another aspect to look at.” She sounded triumphant, as though he’d played right into her no doubt elegant and perfectly manicured hands. “How do you know I’m not already mad?”
After a second of startled silence, during which he imagined the horrified faces of her worried parents, he couldn’t help it, he threw back his head and laughed. Long and robustly and full of genuine amusement. Part of him was amazed. He hadn’t laughed like that since the explosion.
“I’m glad you find me humorous,” she finally said, her voice an interesting combination of frosty and hurt. “It was a serious question.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Crossing his arms, he tilted his head in her direction. She intrigued him, with all her apparent contradictions.
“What do you mean?”
“You know you’re not crazy. Therefore, your question was completely rhetorical. Though I do promise if you have real questions, ones that actually pertain to my work, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
She muttered something that sounded like a curse, and then he heard the scraping sound of her pushing back her chair. Murmuring her apologies in a falsely sincere voice, she hurried off without another word to him, her high heels clicking on the floors.
Rubbing his chin, he listened to her go. Damn. Despite his best efforts—and what he considered success in keeping himself reined in—he’d still managed to anger Princess Alisa, cutting short his already inadequate time to work with her.
For maybe the fifteenth time, he wished he’d been able to locate another subject. He’d certainly searched hard enough. But every single time he’d thought he actually might have found someone, when he’d checked them out he’d found their story to be false.
In that regard, he’d spoken the truth to the princess. Not changing often enough meant madness for shifters, whether full or Halfling. Every single time.
Until now. He had verification from her parents, her teachers, her friends and her doctors. Princess Alisa was the lone exception known in the entire world. And for that reason alone, she was vital to his research.
But working with her wasn’t going to be easy. Not with the way his wolf reacted to her. If not for the possible magnitude of the reward to his kind once he was proven right, he knew damn good and well that he’d already have decided this was too much trouble and hightailed it out of this tiny European country and back home to Boulder, Colorado, to work on something else. Hounds knew he had plenty of interesting projects on the back burner.
Yet none of them were vital. Not like this. Why, if he were to discover a way for any shifter to maintain their human form longer than a few weeks, then a Pack astronaut could actually go to the space station. Or on a ship out to sea without having to be confined to a tiny cabin to shift in misery and unhappiness. A wolf that couldn’t hunt and roam wasn’t pleasant to deal with. To say the least.
Rolling his shoulders, he smiled ruefully. No matter how unpleasant the chore might be, he must figure out a way to work with Princess Alisa and to make it as painless as possible. For both of them.
The doctor was a bore. Eyeing him, shaggy black head bent over his machine, she couldn’t figure out what it was about him that was different. But he was. He infuriated her, enraged her, and made her wolf restless and uneasy.
He also made her feel alive.
Which made no sense. Alisa had always had an analytical mind. Though she’d had her share of crushes when she was younger and affairs through college, without exception she’d been able to dispassionately examine every single one. She’d known why she’d been attracted to Damian (sex appeal), or Theo (rakish charm), or Ian (blond good looks combined with a brilliant, acerbic mind). In the past, she’d chosen male companions for their ability to make her laugh, or because they had an interesting hobby (like Christoff with his hang gliding). She’d had no delusions at all why they wanted to be with her—she was the proverbial brass ring, bringing with her a title and riches, despite her dismaying lack of beauty.
Dr. Streib cared little for either the money or the title.
So despite being aware of her attraction to Dr. Braden Streib, she was fully cognizant of the exact reasons why she shouldn’t be even remotely interested in the man.
One, he was not the usual type of man she attracted. He was rough-hewn rather than polished, disheveled rather than neat, his craggy features were compelling enough to warrant a second look, but no more than that.
Second, his personality left much to be desired. He was rude, not charming or deliberately sexy, and apparently the man had absolutely no sense of humor.
He was brilliant, true. But intelligence by itself made a cold bedfellow.
The only good thing she could say—if one were to consider this good—was that her wolf had the hots for his wolf. It was true. Her beast wanted to do the nasty with his.
This alone was reason enough for her to sit up and take notice. In all her relationships, her wolf side had affected bored disinterest at best.
Now, though, for the first time since childhood, her wolf refused to be contained, pacing and whining and snarling. Wanting out.
It grew worse every time she was around him. This afternoon in his laboratory, while verbally taunting him, keeping her wolf contained had required so much effort that she’d finally had to leave the room. Which she’d hated, since doing so felt so much like retreating and Alisa never retreated.
Perhaps she should give in, let her wolf win just once, and suggest that the good doctor and she find a place and shape-shift together. Later, in the normal rush of arousal that always accompanied the change back to human, they could make love with abandon. No strings, no messy emotions, no ties.
Even as the thought flashed into her mind, her long-suffering beast went wild with joy. Definitely something to consider. Taking a deep breath, she did an abrupt about-face and headed back to the lab. Because, after all, Alisa never retreated from a challenge.
Even with the sound of her high heels announcing her return, Braden sensed her presence the instant she stepped into the room, though he didn’t acknowledge her.
“I’m back,” she finally said loudly, as though he’d lost his hearing as well as his sight. Of course, to be fair, he was wearing headphones.
Still, he didn’t immediately answer, grateful for the distraction of his computer program that relayed information from the sensitive sensors on his fingertips to the auditory program playing in his headset.
Though she had no way of knowing, he hadn’t yet turned the audio portion on yet. In fact, he’d been debating the wisdom of even bothering to do so. After all, how many times could he listen to the same information?
“Hello?” Again the heels clicking on the hard floor. Tap, tap, tap as she crossed the room to stand near him. Though he couldn’t see her, even with his limited human olfactory senses he could smell her. Absently he made a mental note to find out what brand of perfume she wore and have it analyzed—the stuff smelled absolutely wonderful. From this day forward, he’d be unable to smell vanilla and peaches without thinking of her.
“Good afternoon,” he said, removing the headphones and forcing a smile all at the same time. “I’m glad you decided to come back. How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” she answered, then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I left earlier. Nature called.”
Accepting her obvious lie without comment, he gestured toward the area where she could take a seat. “Please, sit. We’ll get started in a moment.”
She didn’t move. Naturally. If he wanted her to sit, he should have insisted she stand.
“Get started on what?” she asked.
“Tests. Nothing you need to concern yourself with. I won’t bore you with the details.”
Again he heard her sharp intake of breath, telling him that once more, albeit unintentionally, he’d offended her.
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” she said.
“Okay.” And he waited, knowing there would be more.
He wasn’t wrong. “How about this?” she asked. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re working on today and what you need from me? I’d like to know the schedule in advance, before we get started.”
“The schedule?” He caught himself wishing he could read her expression, because her voice gave nothing away. If she was taunting him, he couldn’t tell.
“Yes,” she drawled, making him imagine her studying her no doubt perfectly manicured nails. “Surely you’ve planned out the rest of the afternoon’s tests, have you not?”
“Yes.” Sort of. “It’s actually not a strict kind of plan. We’re simply going to run as many tests as we can fit in.”
“How long will each one take?”
“I don’t know. I don’t work that way.”
Still, she persisted. “What kind of tests?”
Focusing on her amazing voice instead of his irritation, he debated how much to tell her. As a socialite whose main concern was no doubt the latest fashion or which party to attend, he didn’t expect her to know much about science. Much? Ha. Change that to anything.
So how many details should he reveal? His research, though complicated, could be simplified, put into layman’s terms that would be easy enough for an average high school student to understand.
But would she even care? Judging from the bored impatience with which she greeted his every statement, he doubted she would. Which meant she only asked in order to annoy him. Fair enough. He refused to give her that much satisfaction.
Instead, he’d give her information.
“We’ll start with your voice. I want to run some sound tests, to check out your pattern of speech. Then I’ll do more blood work and take tissue samples, especially of your hair, skin and even your nails, if you can spare one.”
“My nails?” She sounded surprised rather than offended, interested instead of bored. “I don’t know about that. If I cut one, I have to trim all the others so they’re all the same length. Why do you need them?”
“I’m going to run several tests on your DNA and I want to run the same test on different bodily sources. I’d like to try to isolate the areas where you are different.”
“Different?” She sounded both haughty and … hurt? “There is only one way I’m different. I’m descended from centuries of royalty. My Pack lineage can be traced back to those who made up the first Pack. Beyond that—I’m the same as everyone else.”
Though his research had already turned this information up, hearing the words said out loud made him realize what an incredible opportunity this was. There were very few shifters anymore who could trace their heritage back to the first Pack.
Of course he couldn’t help but wonder if this rare pure blood contributed to her amazing abilities.
And then there was the single anomaly. Both her parents had blond hair and blue eyes, as did her two sisters and one brother. From what he’d read, Alisa was a brunette, with green eyes. Though not common, this was not impossible. Still he had to wonder how her genetic makeup differed from the rest of her family.
“None of your siblings can do what you can do.” He spoke his thoughts out loud.
“No. But still—”
“Then your lineage is irrelevant.”
Her audible gasp made him smile.
“Insulting me isn’t going to help,” she said.
“I wasn’t insulting you. I said irrelevant, not unremarkable. Don’t confuse the two terms.”
After a second, she laughed. “Thank you for clearing that up. By the way, you should do that more often.”
Confused, he cocked his head. “Do what more often? Clear things up for you?”
“No.” She laughed again, the husky sound sending a second shiver through him. “Smile. It becomes you.”
“Oh.” Unsure how to take her words, he returned his attention to fiddling with the microphone, even though his wolf had gone completely and utterly still at the compliment.
Compliment. Hmmph. Pushing away the rush of warmth, he willed himself to concentrate. Nothing but the science and his work mattered. Nothing. Least of all his insane and inappropriate attraction to a spoiled princess.
“Excuse me, Dr. Streib?” Her voice brought him right back to where he didn’t want to be—the present. “You keep zoning out on me while I’m talking. Are you all right?”
“Zoning?” He raised a brow. Sometimes he thought she sounded more like she was from Boulder than he did. “That’s a very American term.”
