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Too deep. No way I can remove it without magic. She tugged on the metal with her power until she could feel it sliding back through the torn tissue, healing as she pulled out. She was surprised how easy it was to remove the bullet. Bright metal shone back at her as she grasped it with the forceps. Silver. Ana stared in disbelief. She had her answer to the copious blood loss, the fever, but she wasn’t ready to believe Howl could be…
    I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. My would-be lover is a werewolf.
    No way. No freaking way. Her gypsy granny had told her stories of men who morphed physically into wolves, either by curse or blood. Hand shaking, she dropped it into a specimen jar, and lifted it to get a better look.
    She had intended to turn the slug over to Cade as evidence to ID the shooter. An odd numbness invaded her limbs. With exquisite care, she drew one finger down the jagged opening. The skin melted together to cover the wound. She went to the sink to wash her hands and made her choice.
    I can’t go to Cade now . He’s a fair man, but he won’t understand. He will see him as a threat and… No. Howl was in danger. There was only one reason someone would use a silver-coated bullet unless they were a nutbar. She turned to stare at her patient warily, as if he’d suddenly morphed into that phenomenal creature. Someone wants Howl dead. Painfully dead. If he shifted, she could use her powers to protect herself if need be, but it wouldn’t come to that.
    She washed him up, and then cleaned the kitchen around him. It looked like her long day had turned into an early morning. Her good deed had just put her between the proverbial rock and a very hard place.
     
    * * * *
     
    Van Michaels slid his pistol back in its holster and silently waited in the pounding rain. He scanned the woods for any sign of wolf or man. Finding none, he continued the search, working his way toward Raven’s house. His cousin had walked right into his trap. No more sounds from the wolf. No padded feet beating a rut into the forest floor. Still, he had heard the eerily human howl of pain as his bullet hit the mark.
    He’d followed Howl from Seattle and a dozen other places since his awakening. The moment it occurred, Van felt a change within him and knew what he must do. Raven had become wolf, and he, the wolf’s bane, must end him, just as his father had been forced to end his own twin. Damn that curse!
    Van walked slowly through the woods toward the old farmhouse Howl had been renting. He needn’t find Howl’s body, only confirm the hit. So many times he’d seen it before. Inhumane but necessary, the silver would poison the wolf’s blood, until it ran like water. Howl would bleed out and die. And if the blood loss didn’t kill him, the silver would burn him alive from the inside. Van noted blood on the forest floor and the smeared handprint. Death would come, slowly.
     

 
    6
     
    Howl woke lying flat on his back on the floor, a fuzzy blanket under him and a soft, warm quilt covering his nakedness. He sniffed the air, caught the coppery scent of blood under the strong smell of cleaner and coffee.
    He’d kill for a cup of coffee. Hell, why stop at a cup? Why not the whole damn pot? Maybe then he’d feel something a little closer to human. The slightest movement made his arm ache like a throbbing tooth. To make matters worse, he was hard as a rock. Yeah, Raven, like this little blanket is going to hide it from her. Sensing the subject of his desire was close by, he noted his blood was no longer boiling with poison, just pure animal lust.
    Opening his eyes, Howl stared at the wooden beams exposed in the ceiling. He’d taught himself to take stock of his surroundings before reacting to any situation. More than once the precaution had saved his life. The events of the previous evening came back with a rush. Ana’s cabin. I made it here. He remembered being shot, the light in the woods, and Ana’s magic sliding through him like a