Page 43 of Quest of the Wolf

I rolled my eyes. Not this again. “No. That’s hard to do when the bad guys have him. I’m sure they wouldn’t allow conjugal visits.”

“You’d think that sex would invigorate him so that he would treasure-hunt better. But that medallion was lost long ago. I doubt it’s in this area.”

“I guess their research suggests otherwise. You don’t know anything more about it than what you’ve told me? Anything that could be helpful in finding it?”

She shook her head. “I can ask the family archivist if she knows anything.”

“Okay, good.” I hadn’tknownthe family had an archivist, but that sounded promising. “I want to get Duncan away from those guys, but I would also prefer to keep them from acquiring more werewolf artifacts. It worries me that they want them. They’ve got to beupto something.”

“It is strange that someone would put so much effort into stealing them. Men with money and means.”

“But who aren’t magical themselves. Most of these artifacts regular humans wouldn’t even be able to use, I don’t think.”

“Perhaps if you get Duncan back,” Mom said, “they’ll be handicapped and unable to find any more of them.”

“That’s not the main reason I want him back, but it would be a perk.”

“I’m sure.” She smiled at me, looking smug.

“If you start talking about mating and offspring again, I’m going to pelt you with these berries.”

“Is that how the health benefits are delivered? Through physical contact?”

“That’s how the free radicals are knocked out of your body, yes.”

Mom shook her head and gazed out the window in the direction of the road. “Those men have been attacking us and stealing from our kind and others for weeks now. They deserve to have their throats torn out.”

“Probably, but I haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet.” I shifted on the bed, worried she would suggest I plan their murder. Maybe theydiddeserve that after all they’d done, but it still disturbed me that I’d lost control of the wolf and killed the underlings that had attacked me at Sylvan Serenity.

“Perhaps you should seek that opportunity out. You said you have a list of their addresses?”

“I have a list of properties that Radomir’s company owns. Whether he and Abrams live at any of them…” I tilted my palm toward the ceiling.

“Search them. You need to find those men and deal with them before they deal withyou.”

After the previous night’s attack, it was hard to deny that logic.

“And if you could take or destroy that control device, you wouldn’t need to worry about Duncan turning on you or working for them.”

I blinked. That hadn’t occurred to me. Of course, it wasn’t as if I’d had the opportunity to take it—I hadn’t seen it since the night I’d escaped the potion factory, and I’d been busy staying alive then. Still, it might make as much sense to try to finditas Duncan. Assuming they sent him out again to search for the werewolf medallion, he could end up anywhere in the state. Or anywhere atall. Those guys would presumably be at one of their facilities around Puget Sound.

“Probably not destroy it,” I murmured, “since I don’t know what that would do toDuncan. He’s linked to it through some magic embedded in that scar of his.” I touched the spot on my forehead where it existed on his.

“But if you took it, they could not control him.”

“Yeah.”

“Youcould control him, though he is a strong werewolf and would not appreciate such.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that. I could just… hide the device in the heat duct under my bed.”

Mom’s eyebrows twitched.

“Or in my sock drawer next to my hormone cream. That would ensure no guy would ever touch it.”

“Your time among humans has made you odd, my daughter.”

Out front, someone let out a sound similar to, “Yeehaw!”

---