The room went quiet. The others were watching with a little too much interest. This wasn’t the usual squabble—people were always duking it out, jockeying for positions in the middle of the pack. But this was me. I didn’t fight. At best, as the pack’s baby I was subject to good-natured teasing. At worst, I ended up on the wrong end of roughhousing. I always cowered, giving up status in exchange for safety. Not this time.
I couldn’t break eye contact with Zan. I’d gotten myself into this. Let’s see what I had to do to get out.
Those tricks I’d been learning in the self-defense class depended on the opponent’s making the first move. It was supposed to be self-defense, not kick-ass. And here I was thinking a few cute punches made me tough. I’d made the challenge; Zan waited for me to start.
I feinted down, like I was going to tackle him in the middle. He reached to swipe at me, and I sidestepped, shoving into his back to topple him. He rolled, smacking into the back of the sofa. I rushed him again, not sure what I thought I was doing. But the Wolf knew. Before he could find his feet, I jumped on his back, hands around his throat, digging my nails into him.
He roared, grabbing my arms and rolling back and forth to dislodge me. My back hit the corner of the sofa, stinging my spine. But I held on, gripping with arms and legs. I wanted to use my teeth as well. At his next lunge, a floor lamp tipped.
Then Meg was there. Meg was Carl’s mate, the alpha female of the pack. She was tall and lean, her straight black hair giving her an indefinable ethnic look. She wore a tank top and sweats, and would have looked at home on an exercise bike at the gym, except she vibrated. That was the only way to describe it. She vibrated with power, strength, and dominance. I could feel it across the room, usually. But I was so angry at Zan I didn’t notice her until she grabbed my hair and pulled back. Her other hand held a chunk of Zan’s hair.
She regarded me, brow lined with confusion. “Are you sure you want to do this?” She was giving me an out; protecting me from my own stupidity.
My blood was rushing. I wanted to rip out a piece of Zan so bad it hurt. I nodded quickly.
“Then take it outside,” she said, pushing us away. Someone opened the kitchen door that led to the backyard.
I backed toward the door, holding his gaze. He followed, pressing me. I could hear his heart pounding. His sweat smelled like fire. He clenched his hands into fists. When his muscles tensed, I knew he was going to rush me the last couple of feet to the door.
I ducked, letting him trip over me. He flew headfirst, ungracefully, out the door to the concrete pad outside. I didn’t wait; I jumped, landing on top of him as hard as I could. His head cracked on the concrete. Effortlessly, he spun me over, turning the tables so he pinned me to the ground. He backhanded me—I saw stars, my ears rang. He hit me twice more, wrenching my head back and forth while his other hand held my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
He was going to kill me.
I’d wanted to learn to fight to defend myself against enemies, not engage in pack power struggles. What was I doing?
Anger and fear. That was what this whole life was about, anger vying with fear, and whichever won out determined whether you led or followed. I had spent almost three years being afraid, and I was sick of it.
I kneed him in the crotch.
He gasped, and while he didn’t release me, his grip slackened. Grabbing his wrist, I squirmed out from under him. I kept hold of his arm as I slid onto his back, wrenching the limb around. Something popped and he cried out. I twisted it harder. With my other hand I grabbed his hair and pulled as hard as I could, tilting his head almost all the way back. It took all my weight pressing down on him to keep him at this angle, which made moving too painful for him. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to let go to smack him around. So I bit him. Right at the corner of his jaw, taking in a mouthful of his cheek. I bit until I tasted blood, and he whimpered.
Finally, he went slack. I let go of his face, licking my lips, sucking the blood off my teeth. I’d taken a chunk out of his flesh—a bite-sized flap of it was hanging loose.
I leaned close to his ear. “I don’t like you. I still hold a grudge against you and I always will, so stay out of my way or I’ll rip you apart.”
I meant it, too. He knew it, because as soon as I eased my weight off him, he scrambled away, cowering on all fours—submissive.
I crouched and stared at him. The blood was clouding my mind. I saw him, smelled his fear, and wanted to tear into him again. But I couldn’t, because he was pack, and he was apologizing. I walked to where he was crouched, curling in on himself like he might disappear. This fight could have gone so differently—I didn’t see fear in his eyes so much as surprise. I’d won this not because I was stronger, but because he hadn’t expected me to fight back. I’d never have a fight this easy again.
He rolled onto his back. His breaths came in soft whines. I stood over him. Then I turned my back on him and walked away.
A part of me was nauseated, but no way would the Wolf let me go puke in the corner. She was hungry.
I swayed a little. I had a raging headache. I wiped my face; my hands came away bloody. My nose was bleeding. I tried to soak it up with my sleeve, then gave up. I healed fast, right?
The thing was, Zan hadn’t been bottom of the pack. Now, others would challenge me in order to keep their places in the pecking order.
Carl stood at the kitchen door, arms crossed.
“He pissed me off,” I said, answering the silent question.
“You don’t get pissed off.”
My first thought was, how the hell would he know? But the last thing I needed tonight was to challenge Carl. Carl wouldn’t waste any time in knocking the snot out of me.
I dropped my gaze and meekly stood before him.
He said, “You may have a big-time radio show, but that doesn’t make you anything here.”
That reminded me. I groped in my jeans pocket and pulled out the envelope I’d shoved there before leaving home. It was filled with this month’s payoff, in cash. I gave it to him. The blood I inadvertently smeared on it glared starkly.
He opened the flap and flipped through the stack of fifties. He glanced at me, glaring. It might not have made everything all better, but it distracted him. He handed the envelope to Meg.
If Carl was the bad cop, Meg was the good cop. The first year, I’d come to cry on her shoulder when this life got to me. She taught me the rules: Obey the alphas; keep your place in the pack.
I didn’t want to make her angry. Inside, Wolf was groveling. I couldn’t do anything but stand there.
Giving me her own stare, she crossed her arms. “You’re getting stronger,” she said. “Growing up, maybe.”
“I’m just angry at Zan. He wouldn’t leave me alone. That’s all.”
“Next time, try asking for help.” She prowled off to stash the money.
T.J., beta male, Carl’s lieutenant, had been standing behind her. I forgot sometimes that within pack law he had as much right to beat up on me as Carl did. I preferred having him as a friend.
I leaned into T.J., hugging him. Among the pack, touch meant comfort, and I wanted to feel safe. I—the part of me I thought of as human—was slipping away.
“What was that all about?” T.J. said, his voice wary.
“I don’t know,” I said, but I—she—knew, really. I felt strong. I wasn’t afraid. “I’m tired of getting picked on, I guess.”
“You’d better be careful—you might turn alpha on us.” He smiled, but I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Because the pack hunts together this night, she feeds on deer. An injured buck, rich with flesh and blood. Because she is no longer lowest among them, she gets to taste some of the meat instead of being left with bones and offal.
Others prick their ears and bare their teeth at her in challenge, but the leaders keep them apart. No more fighting this night.
She runs wild and revels in her strength, chasing with the others, all of them sin
ging for joy. Exhausted, she settles, warm and safe, already dreaming of the next moon, when she may once again break free and taste blood.
I woke up at dawn in a dog-pile with half a dozen of the others. This usually happened. We ran, hunted, ate, found a den and settled in to sleep, curled around one another, faces buried in fur, tails tucked in. We were bigger than regular wolves—conservation of mass, a two-hundred-pound man becomes a two-hundred-pound wolf, when a full-grown Canis lupus doesn’t get much bigger than a hundred pounds or so. Nothing messed with us.
We always lost consciousness when we Changed back to human.
We woke up naked, cradled in the shelter of our pack. Becky, a thin woman with a crew cut who was a couple of years older than me, lay curled in the crook of my legs. Dav’s back was pressed against mine. I was spooned against T.J.’s back, my face pressed to his shoulder. I lay still, absorbing the warmth, the smell, the contentedness. This was one of the good things.
T.J. must have felt me wake up. Heard the change in my breathing or something. He rolled over so we faced each other. He put his arms around me.
“I’m worried about you,” he said softly. “Why did you challenge Zan?”
I squirmed. I didn’t want to talk about this now, in front of the others. But the breathing around us was steady; they were still asleep.
“I didn’t challenge him. I had to defend myself.” After a moment I added, “I was angry.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I know. But I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“You’ve been teaching yourself how to fight.”
“Yeah.”
“Carl won’t like that.”
“I won’t do it again.” I cringed at the whine creeping into my voice. I hated being so pathetic.
“Yeah, right. I think it’s the show. You’re getting cocky.”
“What?”
“The show is making you cocky. You think you have an answer for everything.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The observation caught me off guard. He might have been right. The show was mine; it gave me purpose, something to care about. Something to fight for.
Then he said, “I think Carl’s right. I think you should quit.”
Not this, not from T.J.
“Carl put you up to this.”
“No. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You’ve got a following. I can see Carl thinking that you’re stepping on his toes. I can see this breaking up the pack.”
“I would never hurt the pack—”
“Not on purpose.”
I snuggled deeper into his embrace. I didn’t want to be cocky. I wanted to be safe.
Chapter 5
Next caller, hello. You’re on the air.”
“It—it’s my girlfriend. She won’t bite me.”
Bobby from St. Louis sounded about twenty, boyish and nervous, a gawky postadolescent with bigger fantasies than he knew what to do with. He probably wore a black leather jacket and had at least one tattoo in a place he could cover with a shirt.
“Okay, Bobby, let’s back up a little. Your girlfriend.”
“Yeah?”
“Your girlfriend is a werewolf.”
“Yeah,” he said in a voice gone slightly dreamy.
“And you want her to bite you and infect you with lycanthropy.”
“Uh, yeah. She says I don’t know what I’d be getting into.”
“Do you think that she may be right?”
“Well, it’s my decision—”
“Would you force her to have sex with you, Bobby?”
“No! That’d be rape.”
“Then don’t force her to do this. Just imagine how guilty she’d feel if she did it and you changed your mind afterward. This isn’t a tattoo you can have lasered off. We’re talking about an entire lifestyle change here. Turning into a bloodthirsty animal once a month, hiding that fact from everyone around you, trying to lead a normal life when you’re not fully human. Have you met her pack?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then you really don’t know what you’re talking about when you say you want to be a werewolf.”
“Uh, no.”
“Bobby, I usually make suggestions rather than tell people flat out what to do, but I’m making an exception in your case. Listen to your girlfriend. She knows a heck of a lot more about it than you do, okay?”
“Uh, okay. Thanks, Kitty.”
“Good luck to you, Bobby,” I said and clicked Bobby off. “And good luck to Bobby’s girlfriend. My advice to her is dump the guy; she doesn’t need that kind of stress in her life. You’re listening to The Midnight Hour with me, Kitty Norville. The last hour we’ve been discussing relationships with lycanthropes, bones to pick and beef to grind. Let’s break now for station ID and when we come back, more calls.”
I waved to Matt through the booth window. He hit the switch. The On-Air sign dimmed and the show’s theme song, CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” played. Not the usual synthesized goth fare one might expect with a show like this. I picked the song for its grittiness, and the joy with which it seemed to face impending doom.
I pulled off my headphones and pushed the microphone away. If I’d gotten tired of this, as I expected I would during the first six months, quitting would be easy. But I liked it. I still liked it. I hated making T.J. angry, though. Not in the same way I hated making Carl angry. But still. If they were both pissed off at me, what could I do? I didn’t want to give up something that I was proud of, like I was proud of the show. I hated them for making me this stressed out about it.
A werewolf pack was the most codependent group of beings in existence.
“You okay in there?” Matt said. His dark hair was just long enough to tie in a ponytail, and he was a few days late shaving. Anywhere but here he’d have looked disreputable. Behind the control board, he looked right at home.
I had my elbows propped on the desk and was rubbing my temples. I’d been losing sleep. My head hurt. Whine.
“Yeah,” I said, straightening and taking a big swallow of coffee. I’d have time enough to stress myself into an ulcer later.
Could werewolves get ulcers?
The two-minute break ended. Matt counted fingers down through the window. The On-Air sign lit, the lights on my caller board lit. Headphones on, phone line punched.
“Welcome back to The Midnight Hour. We have Sarah from Sioux City on the line.”
The woman was in tears. She fought not to cry, a losing battle. “Kitty?”
“Hi, Sarah,” I said soothingly, bracing myself for the onslaught. “What do you need to talk about?”
“My husband,” she said after a shuddering breath. “I caught him last week. I mean, I spied on him.” She paused, and I let her collect herself before prompting her.
“What happened, Sarah?”
“He—he turned . . . into . . . into a wolf. In the woods . . . behind our house. After he thought I’d gone to bed.”
“And you had no idea he’s a lycanthrope.”
“No! I mean, I suspected. The business trips once a month during the full moon, eating his steaks rare. How could he keep something like this from me? I’m his wife! How could he do it?” The woman’s voice quavered until she was nearly screeching.
“Did you confront him? Talk to him about it?”
“Yes, yes. I mean, I asked him about it. He just said he was sorry. He won’t look me in the eye anymore!”
“Sarah, take a breath. That’s a girl. I know this is a blow, but let’s look at it together. How long have you been married?”
“Six—six years.”
“And did your husband tell you how long he’s been a werewolf?”
“Two years.”
“Now, Sarah, I’m going to ask you to look at the situation from his point of view. It was probably pretty traumatic for him becoming a lycanthrope, right?”
“Yes. He was working the night shift alone, locking up the store, when it happened. He—he
said he was lucky he got away. Why didn’t he ever tell me?”
“Do you think maybe he was trying to protect you? You had a good marriage and he didn’t want to mess things up, right? Now I’m not saying what he did was right. In a great marriage he would have told you from the start. But he’s having to keep this secret from a lot of people. Maybe he didn’t know how to tell you. Maybe he was afraid you’d leave him if he told you.”
“I wouldn’t leave him! I love him!”
“But people do leave their partners when something like this happens. He’s probably scared, Sarah. Listen, does he still love you?”
“He says he does.”
“You know what I’d do? Sit down with him. Tell him that you’re hurt, but you want to support him if he’ll be honest with you from here on out. Before you do that, though, you have to decide whether or not you can stay married to a werewolf. You have to be just as honest with yourself as you want him to be with you.”
Sarah was calm now. She hiccuped a little from the crying, but her voice was steady. “Okay, Kitty. I understand. Thank you.”
“Good luck, Sarah. Let me know how it turns out. All right, I’ve got lots of calls waiting, so let’s move right along. Cormac from Longmont, hello.”
“I know what you are.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know what you are, and I’m coming to kill you.”
According to Matt’s screening, this guy had said he had a question about lycanthropy and STDs.
I should have cut off the call right there. But the strange ones always interested me.
“Cormac? You want to tell me what you’re talking about?”
“I’m an assassin. I specialize in lycanthropes.” His voice hissed and faded for a moment.
“Are you on a cell phone?”
“Yeah. I’m in the lobby of the building, and I’m coming to kill you.”
Good Matt, he was already on the phone with security. I watched him on the phone, just standing there. Not talking. What was wrong?
Matt slammed the phone into the cradle. “No one’s answering,” he said loud enough to sound through the glass of the booth.