This morning, the night came back to me with the clarity of a photograph. Darren’s solo hunting expedition. His sheer … stupidity. What did he think he was doing? He’d put us all in danger.
I propped myself on my elbows and let my nose widen, taking in scents. The pack was here, curled up together after the previous night’s anxiety and chaos. A dozen and a half naked human bodies tucked up against the shelter of the rocks that formed the night’s den. Gaze alert, body tensed, Shaun was awake and looking back at me. I gave my head a small shake. No need to panic. We could handle this, calmly, sensibly, like human beings.
“Where is he?” I growled.
“Hmm?” Ben murmured. He wasn’t awake yet.
I shook his arm. “Come on.”
“What … oh.” He scrubbed his face, waking himself up, but I was already on my feet and stalking around the edges of the den, looking for Darren.
He’d curled up to sleep a few paces off from the others. And Becky was with him. They were naked, together, his arms around her body, her legs tangled up with his, and I didn’t want to know what they’d been doing all night and into the morning. Was this how it felt to walk in on your teenage kid?
I stood in front of them and crossed my arms. I might have tapped my feet.
Darren woke first, moving arms and legs, nuzzling the back of Becky’s neck. Becky started to roll over, to place herself more firmly in his arms, then stopped. Her nostrils widened, taking in my scent, and her eyes shot open, looking at me.
“Morning, sunshine,” I said. She froze, ducked her gaze, and suddenly seemed trapped in the other werewolf’s arms.
“Isn’t it a little early?” Darren mumbled. Still hadn’t opened his eyes.
“Kitty, don’t you want to put some clothes on?” Becky said.
Yeah, I was naked, standing in the middle of the woods, chewing out a guy I barely knew. Didn’t much matter when we were all naked.
“You should talk,” I said.
She shrank, slouching and curling up. Darren leaned over her protectively. Ben, who’d come up to lean on the rocks behind me, straightened and took a step forward. This was not how I wanted my morning to go.
“You look kind of angry,” Darren finally said. “I know I was supposed to meet you last night—”
“That’s actually not what I’m pissed off about,” I said. “Do you remember what you killed last night?”
He thought a minute, and donned a slow smile. “That was pretty sweet. You have a great territory up here. Easy pickings.”
He didn’t get it. Not even a little bit. I yelled, “We do not kill cattle! How are we supposed to stay under the radar if we eat someone’s livelihood?”
“You’re getting this worked up over a cow? What’s the big deal? One dead cow isn’t going to hurt anything.”
“Have you ever seen a UFO investigator go after a cattle mutilation investigation? This is exactly the kind of thing they live for, and if they go looking for aliens and find us instead … sure, people know about werewolves, but if they knew exactly where to find us, and came hunting for us—”
“I think you’re overreacting.”
“I think you flunked your audition,” I said.
“Whoa, wait a minute.” He extricated himself from Becky’s sleepy embrace, and she shuffled out of his way as he stood. If I really thought about it, I couldn’t blame Becky in the least—he was a good-looking guy, with well-defined muscles and a confident stance to his body. A little too confident—chin up, shoulders back. Looming over me, and not bothering to show a bit of submission. He was taller than I was, which meant I had to figure out how to stare down at him. Fortunately, I had help. Ben stalked forward, arms crossed. Shaun joined me on the other side. Darren took a step back. Good for him.
“Okay, okay, fine,” he said, glancing away, letting his shoulders slump. As if he had to consciously think about showing signs of submission the way I had to think about showing dominance. “You’re right, if I want to be here I need to follow your rules. I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“If you’d shown up when and where you were supposed to and hunted with the rest of the pack, you’d have known what the rules are.”
“I thought you had a reputation for being different. For being more free-spirited than other wolf packs. ‘Don’t be stupid’ left it pretty wide open, I thought.”
“Disappointed?”
“Maybe surprised. I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”
“Well, now you do. We have rules, just like grade school.”
He tensed for a moment, maybe getting ready with another snappy comeback. I’d have had some words for him then. Ben and Shaun probably would have had a little more.
But he lowered his gaze and said, “Okay. I understand.” He slunk away, to where Becky was getting dressed near a stand of trees.
He knew what he needed to say to get me off his back, even if he wasn’t entirely submissive about it. Same thing in the end, and did it matter when I got the result I wanted? This was going to take some negotiating if Darren really wanted to stick around.
And we were all still naked, like some weird low-intensity Lord of the Flies re-creation. I could tell my human self was slipping back into place, because my skin prickled in the breeze, and I suddenly wanted to put clothes on.
“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered.
The rest of the pack seemed happy to abandon the standoff. The tension in the space faded as people retrieved their clothes, spoke in low voices, and moved back toward the road. Wearing a wry smile, Ben held my shirt and jeans out to me.
“You look like you need coffee.”
“I need coffee,” I muttered, pulling the shirt on, not caring if it was inside out or straight or what, and hopping awkwardly to get the jeans on. Then came the epic debate that I had with myself every morning after a full moon: coffee first, or shower? Which one would make me feel more human? Which did I need more: to clear the morning fuzz, or to feel clean? Some months the coffee won, some months the shower did. I still hadn’t decided what I wanted this morning.
Side by side, Ben and I turned to make our way to the road. We stopped, though, because Trey was standing there, in rumpled T-shirt and dirt-streaked jeans, his frown taut, wary.
Our talk. I’d said we could talk. I closed my eyes and turned my gaze to the sky. I was juggling. Been juggling for a while. This was what it felt like to watch balls drop to the floor in front of me with a thud. Nothing for it but to pick them up and try again.
“You up for coffee?” I asked him.
He blinked, surprised. “Sure.”
“You?” I said to Ben.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“The coffee, or me trying to dig myself out of this hole?”
“Yes?” he said, smiling.
The predictability of his answer was somehow comforting.
* * *
WE HAD a favorite diner that we ended up at mornings like these, the kind of place that had coffee cups already on the table and poured without asking if you wanted some. I breathed in the scent—hot, bitter, rich—and felt my skin settle over my body a little more comfortably. Wolf curled her nose at the scent and retreated even further into the background, calm after her night out. Sleeping. Staying human would be easier for the next week or so.
Trey held his cup but didn’t drink. His gaze darted, his leg bounced under the table. He was nervous. I did what I could to set him at his ease, trying not to seem too earnest and demanding. Ben was doing a better job of not looking worried, slouching back against the booth, expression bland. He’d ordered a plate of bacon. Along with coffee, bacon made everything better, right?
“So,” I prompted. “Your girlfriend. Sam.”
His smile was strained. “We talked. I told her.” He sighed.
“And? How did she take it?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. She said she had to think about it. That she wanted some time alone and she’d call me
when she was ready. That’s a bad sign, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know that I’d jump to that conclusion,” I said. But he was right, this certainly didn’t sound good. “Telling her what you are, that’s a pretty big deal. She probably really does need to think about it.” I hoped I sounded confident.
“I’m worried I’m going to mess this up,” he said, putting his head in his hands, despairing. “I think I’ve already messed this up. She’ll never talk to me again.”
“If she’s really the one, she will. You won’t mess it up.”
“But if she’s really okay with it … with me…” He clamped his mouth shut, looking away, struggling for words, then said, “Wouldn’t she just say so? But I scared her off, I know I did.”
“Not really,” I said. “Not until she really doesn’t call you back.”
“I can’t wait that long. I have to call her.”
“When did you talk to her?”
“Yesterday.”
I grimaced. “You probably shouldn’t have waited until the day of the full moon to talk to her.” We were at our worst on days of the full moon, stressed and irritable. He must have looked slightly mad to her eyes.
“I know,” he moaned. “I just kept putting it off.”
“Give her time, Trey. For real. More than a couple of days. If she hasn’t called back in a week…” Then what? Give up on her? Call her back? Stalk her? “Try giving her a call. Don’t crowd her.”
“That’s your advice. That sounds like something you’d say to anyone.”
“Yeah, it kind of is,” I said. “Why should my advice to you be different? You’re both still people.”
He huffed. “I’m not exactly normal.”
“You are for us.”
He seemed startled, sitting for a moment with his gaze turned inward, eyes looking blankly at the surface of his undrunk coffee. The bacon arrived, its fatty scent cutting across the coffee. Another wake-up call, a summons to humanity. Ben nibbled on a piece. Trey looked at him, maybe for confirmation, maybe for a different opinion.
“She’s the expert,” Ben said. Trey raised a disbelieving brow, and Ben added, “Unless of course Sam wants you to chase after her, to prove you really love her, and if you don’t call she’ll feel neglected—”
“Don’t try to game the system,” I said. “Give her a couple of days at the very least. Then call.”
“Can you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Call her. Put in a good word for me.”
“No! I mean, I’d love to meet her, but only when she’s ready. If she’s nervous now imagine what’ll happen when she faces a whole room of werewolves.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Besides, imagine what she’d think if this strange woman she’s never met butts into business that ought to be between you two.”
He sagged again. “I guess that would look strange.”
More than a little. “I know it’s tough, but you can get through this. If she’s as great as you say she is, she’ll come around. She’ll be fine.” Please, let Sam be a sensible woman, let this all work out …
Trey was about to respond when my phone rang. Still shoved into my jeans pocket after last night. One of these days, I was going to take a hammer to the device. Justifiable technocide. I checked the caller ID.
“It’s Detective Hardin,” I said, as justification for taking the call. I wouldn’t have, for just about anyone else, but I clicked the talk button.
“Kitty?”
“Detective Hardin?” I said, worried, but at least I didn’t start declaiming about how I’d done nothing wrong and it wasn’t my fault.
“I’m here at the emergency room at St. Joseph’s with your buddy Cormac.”
She kept talking, but I didn’t hear anything. Something had gone wrong, and it didn’t matter that he’d been keeping his nose clean, trying to stay out of trouble—at least as best he could. Someone from his past had found him, he’d gotten into a fight he couldn’t get out of—
“Kitty?” she said. “Are you there?”
“What’s wrong, what happened?” Ben had gone tense, sitting up and leaning forward, straining to hear, bacon and coffee forgotten. Even Trey responded to the anxiety, straightening, as if we faced danger right here.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. But he asked me to call you and Ben. You should probably get down here.” It couldn’t have been too bad. She sounded almost amused, not at all like someone delivering bad news. In fact she may have been enjoying this. That still could have meant bad news, knowing how she felt about Cormac …
“What happened?” I squeaked.
“He said he’ll explain it when you get here.”
“Right. Okay. We’re on the way.” I clicked the phone off. I stared at it for a moment.
“Go,” Ben said, pushing at me to let him out of the booth. “I’ll drive.”
“What is it?” Trey said. He hadn’t been close enough to hear Hardin over the phone. “You’ve gone completely white.”
“Ben’s cousin’s in the emergency room,” I said starkly. I looked at him despairing. “Can we pick this up later? I’m sorry—” Wolf, curled up deep in my gut, growled a little. We were alpha, we shouldn’t be apologizing. But I was human, and Trey had asked for help.
I couldn’t do everything.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Trey said. Ben had the presence of mind to slap a twenty on the table as we were leaving. At least we didn’t stick him with the check.
Ben took my arm and pulled me toward the door. Shaken out of my shock by his urging, I hurried to keep up.
Once outside, we ran to the car and drove to the downtown hospital in silence.
Chapter 10
FINDING PARKING took forever. Of course it did, we were in a hurry. I suggested just parking right outside the big sliding doors with the red EMERGENCY sign posted over it, but Ben indicated that that would be a bad idea when the next ambulance plowed into his sedan. Never argue potential traffic violations with a lawyer.
Walking to the emergency room after finding a parking spot also seemed to take forever, as if the space between us and the doors kept expanding.
“What did she say?” Ben asked for the millionth time. “Did she say what happened?”
“You heard as much as I did. She said he’d be fine, but that was it. Said that Cormac wanted to explain it himself.”
“God, if he’s broken parole…” he muttered.
Detective Hardin’s involvement did seem to suggest Cormac had done something illegal. He’d been doing so well, and he only had a couple more months on his parole. Surely this couldn’t be that bad.
“We should have more faith in him,” I said, as much to myself as to Ben.
“You haven’t known him as long as I have. Him and trouble, they’re like magnets.”
“Like somebody else you know?” I said, my grin lopsided.
He huffed at that, and we were inside.
The lighting was oppressively artificial, and the mood in the waiting room was dour. A dozen people slouched in plastic chairs watching a talking heads news show with the sound off on a TV hung in the corner. A kid sleeping in his mom’s lap coughed. The place smelled like illness, and bodily fluids covered over with antiseptic. My nose wrinkled.
Ben marched straight to the reception desk. “You’ve got a patient, Cormac Bennett? We’re his family.”
The nurse, a tired-looking woman whose brown hair was coming out of its clip, checked a sheet of paper and nodded. “Yes, let me take you back.”
She led us around the corner to a series of exam spaces separated by curtains. Halfway down the row, she held back a curtain and gestured us in.
Cormac was sitting on the side of the bed, his legs hanging over, slouching and looking annoyed. At first glance he didn’t look different; he was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt. His leather jacket lay over a nearby chair. But he smelled of sweat and adrenaline—of pain. His left arm was r
esting on a rollaway table that fit over the bed, wrapped in a bandage and covered with blue cold packs. Hardin stood a few paces away, arms crossed. She regarded us with amusement, eyes crinkled, smirking.
“What happened?” I burst. I had an urge to rush over and hug Cormac and make protective cooing noises over him, but I didn’t. He wouldn’t have appreciated it. I was just so relieved to see him alive, conscious, sitting up, and being himself.
Cormac’s moustache curved with the strength of his frown. “I fell.”
“We’re waiting for the X-rays to come back,” Hardin said. She was definitely smiling now. So, it wasn’t parole he’d broken.
“Is he in trouble?” Ben said. “He’s not under arrest or anything?”
“Nope,” she said. “Just feeling kind of dumb, I bet.”
Cormac made a noise like a growl.
“Okay, there’s a story here,” I said. “Who’s going to spill?”
“She’s been tailing me,” Cormac said, jutting his chin at Hardin and scowling. “Can we sue her?”
“Probable cause,” she said. “I’m tracking down the same vampire you are. You’re a possible witness. That vampire, he’s there, isn’t he?”
“I’m doing your work for you,” he said.
She merely shrugged in assent. “It’s a good thing I was following you, so I could drive you here.” I tried to imagine that car ride, Cormac in the passenger seat next to Hardin, cradling a hurt arm, both of them snarling at each other. It was almost cute.
“I ought to charge you consulting fees,” Cormac said.
“Not a bad idea,” Ben added.
The detective brushed them off. “We can discuss that later.”
“Right,” Ben said, with a sigh that indicated impatience. “But what happened?”
“I fell,” he repeated.
“Something knocked him down,” Hardin said. “Outside St. Cajetan at Auraria. What exactly is going on over there?”
I turned to Cormac, glaring. He’d been staking out the church, Columban’s hideout. I couldn’t yell at him for it without revealing to Hardin that Columban was there. I couldn’t say anything with her standing there. So, he’d found something. Something had happened. Something had attacked?