SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(61)

“Great. So only during the phase of the new moon do I get to pretend I’m human and won’t have to worry about shifting at the wrong time, like in front of the world.”

“Right. That means a week of no difficulty at all. As we get closer to the full moon, the pull to be a wolf is stronger, and it’s strongest the night of the full moon.”

“Great.” She scrambled the eggs in the frying pan. “And there’s no cure for it.”

He sighed. “We don’t have a virus or an infection. And we’re not cursed. You’re one of us until the end. The good news is you’ll be able to smell, hear, and see better anytime, not just when you’re in your wolf form.”

“That could help with investigations if I was able to conduct them any longer,” she said dryly.

“We can do night dives. During the week of the new moon, no trouble at all. We can check areas out at night otherwise. As a wolf, you’ll be able to see better at night.” He glanced at the kitchen light and realized it wasn’t on. And it was still dark at this hour.

Her gaze followed his. “I guess that saves on electricity.”

“Some. We still turn on the lights when it’s pitch-black out.”

“I’m not done being angry about this. I should have had some say.” She served up the sausages and eggs.

He hurried to set the table. “And what would you have said? It was too late to ask. You were in bad shape.”

“Dead or near death, you mean? What if I hadn’t seen Tara shift? Or thought it was just my imagination?”

“Like you said, you were doing poorly. No way would you have been making eggs and sausage this morning. You could have had serious and permanent heart damage after what you went through. Health-wise, you might never have been the same.”

“Like no longer being as physically active?”

“Right. As a wolf last night, you were raring to go. If you had been strictly human, you would have had months of recuperation and rehabilitation.”

They sat down to eat and she let out her breath. “Okay, I get it. But I still don’t have to like this wolf part of me.” She picked up her fork and pointed it at him. “I’m not dating you or any other wolf.”

“You can’t go out with humans.”

“Just for sex? No commitment?” She snorted.

“All right, you’ve got me there. But only once you’ve been a wolf for several months and only during the new moon.”

“Like that would ever happen now. What a disaster. Not that sex with a human is high on my list of priorities.” Then she looked up from her dish and asked, “Is Rowdy one of you?”

“No.”

“I thought maybe because of all his talk about werewolves, he might be one.”

“If you notice, we don’t talk about werewolves in general unless drawn into a discussion about them.”

“True. So how can you tell if he’s one or not?”

“We would smell the wolf on him.”

Her mouth gaped a little, and then she nodded. “Okay. Getting used to all of this.” Then she poked at her eggs. “What if I was injured and ended up in a real hospital?”

“The clinic is like a real hospital, scaled down in size.”

“Right. But you know what I mean. If a real—if a human doctor had to take my blood, wouldn’t that show that I was a…well, mix of wolf and human?”

“No. Our entire system is either wolf or human, not a mix of the two. So if someone draws your blood as a wolf, they’ll be looking at pure wolf DNA.”

“So when Rowdy said he asked to check Sarah for wolf DNA, they wouldn’t have found any.” She relaxed a little, and he was glad some of his answers seemed to put her at ease.

“Correct.”

Then she stiffened again and frowned at him. “Did Rose have her babies as…babies or wolf pups?”

Allan smiled a little. “Frankly, I wasn’t in the birthing room at the time. You’d have to ask her.”

Debbie’s eyes widened. “She might have had them as pups?”

“Only if she’d shifted into a wolf first,” he hurried to say. This was going to be so much harder to explain than he ever thought possible.

“Oh.”

Again, the tension slipped from her expression, and he thought she might be okay with that.

“We need to learn who the shooter was who nearly killed me. And who nearly murdered Tara,” Debbie finally said.

Allan didn’t say anything, just watched her, wondering if she knew what she was saying. Someone who got rid of the werewolf kind had to be good in her world, because he and his kind were all mad wolves—according to Debbie.

She finally made an annoyed face at him, wrinkling her nose, and said, “All right. Yes, I can see what you’re thinking. I would now praise the man for what he did because I’d realize he wasn’t a nutcase after all. But I can see your point. Tara’s done nothing wrong, has she? She hasn’t killed any people and that’s why he’s after her, right?”

“As a wolf, have you killed any people lately?”

Debbie frowned at him. “Of course not.”

“Do you have any urge to kill humans? Or anyone else, other than me?”