She relaxed against him—and he thought she was more than half-asleep. But she was still caught in wolf form. Instead of letting her scare herself again, he coaxed her wolf to let the girl back out. It was still a use of force, of the dominance of his wolf over hers, but it wasn’t brutal or abrupt.
When she began changing back, he slid out from under her and quit touching her because he didn’t want to hurt her—and touching something made the shift hurt more. Quietly, because she was caught up in the change, he slipped out to his house to gather sweats for her to change into. It took her the better part of a half hour to emerge from the rose room garbed in clothes that were much too big for her.
“Thank you,” she told him, eyes averted. “I couldn’t change back. He called me to his study, made me change, then pushed me outside. Told me to come home in my human skin. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t change back.”
“Miss Kara,” he said after weighing his words. Not from him would she get any criticism of the Marrok, especially when he’d suggested it to Bran in the first place. There was no reason for him to be angry with Bran—though he was. “My greenhouse is flattered to have been your refuge from the storm.”
“I failed,” she said.
“Did you?” he asked.
She gave him an irritated look, and he smiled. “Let’s get you home, shall we?”
He carried her out to his car because although he had sweats she could wear, he didn’t have shoes. He handed her the leftovers from his vegan-restaurant excursion. She ate the food as fast as she could move fingers to mouth.
He drove up to the sprawling manor that was Bran Cornick’s house. Before he turned off the engine, Leah was there to collect his charge. She didn’t look at him—he’d scared her once, and she had learned her lesson about flirting with the Moor. She smiled at Kara, though, and his irritation with his Alpha’s mate died away. He waited until Kara was safely in the house before he drove off.
He hadn’t quite pulled into his driveway before his phone rang.
“Asil,” said the Marrok’s voice. He wasn’t happy.
“Bran,” replied Asil, who was still fighting down his own temper.
“It does her no good for you to help her to change. She has to be able to do it herself,” Bran said.
Asil took a deep breath and turned off his truck before he answered.
“When she came to my greenhouse and asked me to help, she was in full control of her wolf—even though she was scared because she couldn’t change back.”
“She has to do better than that,” snapped Bran uncharacteristically. He knew as well as Asil that it was a big step for her to be in control. It was a sign that she had finally begun accepting what she was—and it was a bigger sign that she’d be one of the ones who made it.
The people who would be Changed a couple of days before the next full moon would have one year to prove they could control their wolf—which included changing at will from one form to the other. Those who failed would be killed—no one could afford to have werewolves who couldn’t be trusted. Especially not now that the werewolves had revealed themselves to the humans. It was imperative that the public not know just how dangerous werewolves really were.
“Is she in danger?” asked Asil, trying to keep the menace out of his voice. Kara couldn’t afford for him to challenge the Marrok over her, not unless she was truly at risk.
“Not right now,” said Bran after a moment. He sounded exhausted. Asil thought about how he had not been able to face all the impending grief coming—and how the Marrok had to be in the center of it. His rules about Changing had saved countless lives—and probably the werewolves as a species—but it had not been without personal cost.
Bran sighed. “She’s just a baby. But unless she can control her shift and her wolf, I’m going to have to take her out with the new wolves—and that’s going to mean trouble. She’s too dominant to go without challenge, and she’s too young to prevail.”
Asil hissed at the thought of his Kara out in the First Hunt with a double handful of new werewolves out of control and ready to kill each other and anyone else who got in their way. Bran’s rules were good ones—they gave wolves a cage to protect themselves with. That did not mean those rules were without cost.
“Send her out tomorrow, too,” Asil said. “Tell her that I’ll be home around sunset and she can come to me for help if she needs it.”
“No,” said Bran. “She has school tomorrow.”
“This is more important than school.”
Bran sighed. “It is. I’ll send her out, but she needs to do the shift on her own. I might have Leah mention that you’ll be out doing things until sunset tomorrow.”
• • •
She wasn’t as frightened when she showed up the next night. He took her to his roses, where she tried to change back to human—tried very hard. But only with his help could she regain her human shape.
She was examining the sweats she wore doubtfully (today’s were gray and had a hole in the knee) when a car pulled up outside. She stiffened and gave him a panicked look.
“Peace,” he told her.
And Sage came in the door a moment later, looking as though she’d stepped off a walkway in Paris instead of a breezy autumn in near-wilderness Montana. She was tall, cool, and elegant with sun-streaked hair and warm blue eyes, and if he weren’t so old and fragile, he’d have been courting her as none of the idiots in the pack seemed able to do properly.
“Hello, hello,” she said. “How is my favorite evil monster who wants to die?”
Asil made a point of looking over his shoulder and all around before saying, “I don’t know. Had you asked where the handsomest, most noble creature on earth was, I could have told you. Had you asked where the most dangerous wolf in all the world was, I could have told you that as well. But there are no monsters here.”
She grinned at him. “Well, kitten,” she said to Kara, who was watching them openmouthed. “When I told him I was headed up to the big house tonight, Bran asked if I’d mind picking you up and save his Nobleness a trip.”
“Sure,” said Kara.
He closed the door behind them and put his forehead against it. His keen ears picked up a conversation he was not meant to overhear.
“He really likes you,” Kara said. “Really, really.”
“Well,” Sage’s voice was dry. “That’s not news, sugar. But he won’t do anything about it until it dawns on him that though he’s been waiting more than fifteen years for this famous ‘madness’ that is going to break him and turn him into a ravening monster—it just might not happen.”
“Fifteen years,” said Kara.
“Asil,” said Sage clearly, “needs to get over himself.”
Asil smiled at the acid tone that told him that she knew he was listening in. Clearly, she deserved him. If this were fifty years ago, he’d hunt her down and take her as his.
• • •
For a week, he managed to stay away from his home until sunset. When he got home, Kara would be waiting, a smallish half-grown werewolf. First she waited by the door of his greenhouse—but then Devon came and waited with her, his nose turned away and his eyes shut. After that, she came to his front porch and lay on the mat because Devon would not intrude so far into Asil’s territory.
On the seventh day, while she got dressed, he cut a few long-stemmed roses and put them in a pretty vase. Four of the peachy-colored ones because they smelled the best, and one (because that bush had only one rose that wasn’t too old) that was a deep red with a hint of blue or purple along the edge of each petal.
“Why are you bringing that?” Kara asked him in the truck when he gave her the vase to hold.
“Because a week is a unit of time,” he told her. “As in, let’s give this a week and see what will happen.”
She touched the rose petal sadly. “You think
he’s going to be disappointed.”
“I never make predictions about other people’s responses,” Asil lied easily. She was not experienced enough to see through his lies, and he was happy to soften her life with them where he could.
The Marrok met them at his door.
“I need to see you both in my study,” he said, not unkindly.
Asil handed him the vase, and Bran took it—a bit bemused by the gift. Which is why Asil had brought it. He would not, would not defy the Marrok. He needed to be in this pack, so that when his wolf finally broke, there would be someone strong enough to hunt him down and kill him before his body count grew too high. Sage might disagree, but Asil knew his own fate. But that did not mean he intended to sit back and watch what might come. He would request leniency in such a way as not to challenge Bran’s authority.
Vase in one hand, Bran pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly with the other.
Asil didn’t wait for him to say anything, just led the way to Bran’s study, conscious of the reluctant teenager behind him. His wolf wanted to growl and protect her—but he knew better. Bran had nothing but her best interests in mind. Her best interests and the bribe of Bran’s favorite roses to let Bran know that Asil would do whatever he could to help.
Asil ignored the curious looks they got from the other people in Bran’s house. They would know Kara. Asil would learn their names if they made the transition, not before.
Bran closed the door to his study behind them.
“This isn’t working,” he said, setting the vase down on the desk.
Asil didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yesterday, when she came, I met her as a wolf. She was able to change to human when I did.” He’d hoped that would have kicked her into doing it herself—which is why he hadn’t tried it today. But she hadn’t been able to change on her own.
Bran raised an eyebrow and looked at Kara. “What do you think?”
She swallowed, ducking her head under the weight of the Marrok’s gaze, but her voice was strong. “I think I’m better. I can take charge almost as soon as we are out of sight of the house. I can’t manage it right when I change to a wolf yet—but until this week I couldn’t do it at all. I can’t change back on my own. But yesterday I think I figured out how to do it. How it should feel to start the change on my own.”
Bran frowned at the pair of them.
“Okay.” He tapped his desk and looked at Asil. “Any insights you might have would be helpful.”
Asil raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’ve never seen a wolf as young as she is survive. I think we had a fourteen-year-old once. We had to kill him—but she’s a lot better adjusted than he ever got.”
“After three years,” the Marrok said, “she should be adjusted.”
Asil nodded and told Bran the things he already knew. “Not her fault. It would have been easier if someone had worked with her right away. Three years of incarceration encouraged her to build walls between herself and the wolf that they wouldn’t have had when she was first Changed. She’ll get it. It might take a few weeks or a few months.” He shrugged. “The roses are to let you know I’m willing to aid any way I can.” He seldom cut his roses, even the ones meant to be cut—it made them more valuable when he decided to bestow them upon someone. “If you decide to take her on First Hunt, I’ll come”—he smiled, knowing Bran would read the threat in the smile that wasn’t in his voice—“help.”
Bran’s mouth pinched, and he said silkily, “Is that a threat, Asil?”
“Would I threaten the Marrok?”
Bran laughed, and Asil’s wolf settled down as the tension in the room dissipated.
“Never,” said Bran mockingly. But his voice was kind when he told Kara, “So you have another reason to get control. First Hunt is not where either of us wants to see you. And no one wants Asil there.”
Her chin raised.
“Most of those who survive the Change will be male,” he said. “And all of them are fully adult. They won’t make allowances for your being young. Half the business of the First Hunt is establishing how dominant the wolves are. It will get bloody.” He glanced at Asil. “Very bloody if Asil joins us.”
He took a deep breath. “Fine. One more week. That gives you until the day before First Hunt. Kara, keep trying. Don’t go to Asil unless it doesn’t work. We won’t make Asil keep making himself scarce—but I don’t want you to go to him until sunset.”
“If she changes outside this time of the year, she’ll freeze,” Asil said. “Why don’t you let her come to the greenhouse—I’ll open the push door so she can get in.” He would never call it a dog door. “That way she’ll have clothes and warmth.”
“It is easier to work pack magic in the woods,” Bran said.
Asil snorted. “Not that I ever noticed. For a girl raised in the middle of the city, the woods are frightening and lonely. Her wolf will never let her change when she’s afraid.”
Bran regarded Asil without favor. “You didn’t think to mention this earlier?”
“You didn’t ask,” said Asil, who refused to say that he hadn’t thought of it before.
Bran saw through him—which was one of the reasons Asil liked him. “Too many strangers here for her to be comfortable—Leah’s said the same. Hah—I thought that might bother you. But that’s why I sent her out on her own.” He nodded. “Fine. But you leave her alone until sunset—and let her try her best to change herself.” He smiled at Asil and got back at him for every moment of stress Asil had put him through by saying, “I’m very glad to see that you care.”
Asil opened the study door—and there was another wolf in human skin standing with a hand raised to knock. The wolf looked vaguely smug and raised his eyes to meet Asil’s. The smug look—and the knock, no one knocked at the Marrok’s door when it was closed—annoyed Asil. He was more annoyed and a fair way to terrified by how his affection for Kara had blindsided him. He’d sworn not to make serious ties with anyone as he neared the end of his life.
So he vented by letting the unfortunate stranger feel the full weight of his wolf—driving him to his knees with the power he let roll out. He ignored Bran’s sigh and stalked out of the house without talking to anyone else.
Behind him he heard Bran say, “Eric. I thought we agreed that you would stay in the hotel until—”
• • •
The next evening he went out to his greenhouse and found a very sad-looking wolf. She was panting with the effort of trying to change. He went back to the house, brought her a plate of raw steak, and sat beside her while she ate. When she’d finished the plate, he pulled her into her change. She wouldn’t talk to him on the way home.
“It’ll happen,” he said.
“Don’t pat me on the head,” she snapped. “You don’t know anything!”
“Don’t,” he said softly.
Jaw jutting out, she turned her head away from him, while he fought his wolf hard enough to break into a sweat.
“You can’t challenge me like that,” he told her when he’d won his battle. “You are a wolf—not just a teenager. Bran won’t allow it, either.”
She hunched her shoulders, so he thought that Bran hadn’t allowed it.
“But my control isn’t as good as his. Look.” He held out a hand so she could see that it shook. “My wolf is unhappy with you, and he’ll enforce his dominance any way that he needs to. He’ll hurt you if you try that again. I don’t want that to happen.”
“I don’t want to be a werewolf,” she muttered, the scent of her fear filling the truck. She wiped her cheek with her hand. He couldn’t comfort her because his wolf was still angry.
He gave her a bitter smile she didn’t see because she wasn’t looking at him. “Neither do I.”
• • •
She didn’t come the next night. Asil waited as long as he dared, then called Bran.
&nb
sp; “She’s here,” Bran said. “I helped her change, and it was harder than the last time I did it.”
He didn’t ask, but Asil told him anyway. “I scared her. She snapped at me, and my wolf was unhappy.”
“She’s dominant,” Bran said. “Too dominant for old wolves like us to be able to let things slide. I’ll talk to her.”
“No,” Asil told him. “She needs to be afraid. If she goes on First Hunt, it might make her safer if she is afraid.” Too much fear might cause the new wolves to hunt her, but not enough fear and she’d put herself in harm’s way. She needed not to go on First Hunt. But that was not why he had scared her. “She is safer if she is afraid of me. I almost hurt her, Bran.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” It had been too close. And all she had done was show a little disrespect.
“She is safe with you, Asil.”
He laughed. “No one is safe with me. No one.” He hung up the phone—something, he told his wolf fiercely, that was much more disrespectful than Kara had been yesterday.
• • •
It snowed that night, dumping six inches before morning. Asil waited until it stopped around noon to go out and shovel it. He heard the howls of hunting wolves and frowned. All of the people in Aspen Creek—not that there were many of them—knew about the werewolves. But to hunt like that was still taking too many chances. Besides, he frowned, werewolves were not hounds, they did not need to make noise when they hunted.
And then he heard her; wolf or human, he knew her voice. Kara yipped, a high-pitched, terrified sound. Those bastards weren’t hunting deer. He dropped the shovel and ran, wishing he was on four paws, wishing his human body was faster, wishing the snow had not fallen so deeply. He howled, the cry sounding odd coming from his human throat, but it would carry, telling Kara he was on his way.
Who would dare? he thought with shock that slowed him not in the least. Who would dare hunt one of the Marrok’s pack in his own territory? Idiots, he decided grimly. It wasn’t an accident that Charles was feared as much as he was. That other werewolves thought of the Marrok as some magical wolf far removed from them—because it wasn’t in a werewolf’s nature to tamely bow to authority just because it was presented to them. Most especially it wasn’t in an Alpha werewolf’s nature. And sometimes Bran’s chosen means of presenting himself as a quiet, thoughtful, and intelligent leader became something of a liability.