I was picking my way across the ground on bare feet, trying to dodge rough spots, when Wolfie's parting shot hit me like a rock to the back of the head. "One more thing," he added, the wolf winning out in his voice. "I would have had Chase ask you to go out on a date with me."
Ignoring the damage to my feet, I took to my heels and fled.
When I returned to the house, it became clear how Dale had slept in the same bed as a werewolf for five years without figuring out his wife's secret. My brother-in-law was clueless.
"Just in time for dinner!" he greeted me as I walked in the door wearing a different set of clothes than the ones I'd left in. The house smelled of browned beef and grated cheese, and I could tell my wolf was a little more awake than usual from the intensity of the odors and from the unwelcome ache in my bones, stronger than I'd felt in years. Ignoring the pain, I smiled warily at Dale, expecting the third degree, but all he wanted to know was how long I'd be staying.
"Well, I'm kinda between jobs at the moment," I began, trying to figure out how to invite myself for an extended visit. I needn't have worried.
"Brooke always assumed we'd have people living from the basement to the attic," Dale confided as he pulled warm tortillas out of the oven. "That's why we built such a big house. You'd be doing me a favor if you stayed for a few weeks and helped me get Keith sorted out. He looked a bit better after you left, but I know one session isn't enough to fix everything."
The man was almost pleading with me to come into his home and convert his son, and I felt a twinge of guilt that my purpose here wasn't more charitable. It was either Keith or me, though, and the kid made me feel better about my traitorous plan as soon as he showed up for dinner. Dale had to beard his son in his lair and argue the teenager into sitting down with us, and even then, the youngster refused to eat the soft tacos his father had assembled. Instead, my nephew brought a box of cheerios and a jug of milk to the table and downed bowl after bowl of the floating cereal, ignoring his father's attempts to draw him into conversation. Even as a bystander, the one-sided exchange was painful, and I was relieved when Dale gave up and turned to me instead.
"I understand we have a mutual friend," my brother-in-law said to open the adult conversation. I struggled to figure out who he might be referring to, but Dale was quick to illuminate the mystery. "Chase called about an hour ago, hoping to catch up with you," he continued. "I told him you'd gone out for a run, and invited him to the clinic-cleanup day tomorrow."
I was saved from answering because Dale's words drew a reaction from his son at last, although not the one Dale had been looking for. "
Dad
," Keith whined. "I don't have to go, do I?" I raised my eyebrows, thinking Dale must be roping people into hard labor, but instead it turned out the doctor was helping get a drug-rehab clinic up and running and was looking for volunteers for the last day of mopping and window cleaning before patients moved in. Like the good guy he obviously was, Chase had volunteered to help out.
And while I had a feeling our get-together was more Wolfie's idea than Chase's, the gathering did seem like safe, neutral ground to hash out our differences, so I acted enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet up with my "old friend." Keith didn't even try to feign excitement, but unlike his dining choices, the volunteer work wasn't optional. "You're going," Dale said simply, and Keith rolled his eyes before returning to his study of the last cheerios melting in the bottom of his bowl.
"I hate to miss the cleanup," Dale continued, returning his attention to me, "but I have to do my rounds at the hospital tomorrow morning...."
"I can take Keith," I offered quickly, my guilt making me want to simplify my brother-in-law's life, at least a little bit. I was eating the guy's food and planning on stealing his son—the least I could do was a bit of ferry duty. But Dale had other plans.
"No, that's all taken care of," he replied. "I didn't want to try to give you directions since it's a bit tricky finding the place, so Chase will pick you both up tomorrow at ten." The gangly doctor smiled at me as if he was doing me a big favor, and he probably thought he was—giving me an opportunity to spend more time with my old friend Chase.
Unfortunately, the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a car with Wolfie, depending on the alpha's good will to get me home. But there didn't seem to be any way to wiggle my way out of the appointment, so I pasted a smile onto my face, thanked Dale for dinner, and did up the dishes like a good house guest. I might have been trying to turn his son into the heir of a bloodthirsty werewolf alpha, but I didn't want Dale to think I was a layabout.
***
My basement room felt like a retreat after running the gauntlet of Keith's indifference and Dale's kindness during dinner, all while my wolf gnawed soundlessly but very noticeably at my bones. I sank onto the pull-out sofa with a sigh, ignoring the way the bar in the center dug into my back. As a ranger, I'd learned to sleep on anything, and since I was 100% sure the roof didn't leak, this room met with my instant approval.
It was nearly dark outside and I could easily have fallen asleep, wiping the trials of the day away, but I had one more problem to overcome before I'd earned my rest. My father had given me a month to do his bidding, but he wasn't a patient man, and I wanted to deliver Keith well under deadline. That meant teaching the kid to shift ASAP, and I was unlikely to do a good job as a mentor unless my wolf and I were on speaking terms. Our run today had given me hope that I might be able to push myself into a shift at will, and there was no time like the present to test that hypothesis.
After making sure the door was locked and the shades were drawn, I lay back on the couch and slowed my breathing. My most recent change had been the wolf's idea, and my failure while searching for Melony could easily be dismissed as caused by stress during a difficult day. The truth was that I hadn't tried to pull up my wolf in years except for those recent endeavors, preferring instead to act as human as possible while forced to live in a non-werewolf world. So I had no clue how hard or easy the shift would be.
Two hours later, I was forced to admit that the shift was neither hard nor easy—it was simply absent. My wolf refused to nibble at the bait, and I felt entirely as human when I finally gave up and flipped on the lamp as when I'd first laid down to meditate. The only change was that now I was 100% frustrated.
A soft tap on the door drew me away from my brown study. The room was small enough that I could turn the knob without leaving the bed, and I pulled the door open to reveal my nephew's tall form. Keith was built like his father, but was even more awkward-looking since his muscle development was lagging behind his bone growth. There was another difference too—Keith was obviously more clueful than his father, as was evidenced by the first words out of his mouth.
"There's a lot more going on than you're telling Dad, isn't there?" he asked.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. No way did I have the mental energy to have the Talk with an uninitiated werewolf right now. I was exhausted from my run and from the mental gyrations of the last few days, but I also didn't want to blow Keith off when he was giving me an opening into his teenage psyche. Dale's disjointed dinner conversation had proven one thing, at least—teenagers talked so rarely that you should listen when they did.
"Have you been sitting out in the hall all evening hoping my light would turn on?" I asked, stalling for time as I tried to decide on a plan of action.
Brooke's son jerked one shoulder up into a shrug, then his mouth quirked upwards as well. "I had a feeling you weren't sleeping," he answered, and I couldn't help smiling back at him. In that minute, his eyes looked just like my sister's had when she'd stolen the last piece of pie that was supposed to be our father's, then had shared it with me instead. The hint of innocent mischief was enough to raise a lump in my throat. Was I really going to turn this kid over to my father to be turned into a monster?
And, if not, was there any other way to get out of this situation with my skin intact?
Just like figuring out how to help Keith tune into his werewolf identity, that question was far too difficult to answer at the end of the world's longest day. "Look," I said, making up my mind, "I promise I'll tell you far more than you ever want to know very soon, but tonight I'm so exhausted I can't think straight. What do you do for fun around here?"
And that's how I ended up playing Dance, Dance, Revolution with a fourteen-year-old boy at midnight in a mansion on top of a hill. It was the most fun I'd had in years.
The ceramic crack of pool balls drew me into a part of the basement I hadn't yet explored. I'd thought Keith was still sound asleep, recovering from his near-shift the day before, but instead my nephew was carrying on the family tradition—practicing to be a world-class pool hustler. He had his feet apart, one hand resting on the table as he lined up a shot with the cue stick.
"I've been thinking," the kid said without looking up, knowing with a wolf's sensitivity to the surrounding world that I was standing in the open doorway behind him.
"Your grandfather likes to think at a pool table too," I answered, my mind inexorably drawn backwards to childhood memories of my father honing his skills. Business meetings always happened in the pool house, which for us had nothing to do with swimming and had everything to do with pocket billiards. I'd never bothered to learn the game, but Brooke had been nearly as good as our father. No wonder her house had a pool table in the basement.
"That's just what I was wondering," my nephew continued, oblivious to my trip down memory lane. He hit the two ball into the far pocket and walked around the room so he could face me across the table while planning out his next move. "Dad obviously knew you existed, but I had no clue there was anyone alive on Mom's side of the family. Then you show up without calling. Are you in trouble?"
I was glad that Keith didn't look up to gauge my response to his question, and instead just sank another ball into the near pocket. The youngster's lack of attention was helpful because my mind was racing. This wasn't good. Why couldn't Keith have inherited any of his father's cluelessness?
Insightful questions like Keith's weren't going to make my mission any easier, but the ensuing interruption was even less welcome. "Yes, Ms. Wilder,
are
you in trouble?" Wolfie asked from the open glass doors leading to the outside. I'd scouted the area briefly when I carried in my belongings the previous afternoon, and I'd noted the security issues resulting from the way the house was built on a hill and opened into the woods on the basement side. But I had figured my wolf would keep an eye out for danger. Too bad she'd been caught napping at just the wrong moment.
Now, my wolf woke with a vengeance, causing Wolfie's musky scent to swallow me in a sudden cloud even as pain ran down my arms and legs. Despite the danger, the smell was enticing, and I had to shove my wolf out of the way to focus on the alpha. I could sense Keith behind me feeling the first symptoms of a shift, brought on by my wolf's alertness, so I walked away from my nephew and toward the alpha wolf who had invaded our home.
Not just invaded our home; he'd invaded my past. Wolfie's words made it clear that he'd done enough research to track me back to my father, and his next question elucidated what he thought of said alpha. "How
is
Crazy Wilder doing?"
"What are you doing in my house?" I growled back, my words low enough that Keith might not even hear if his wolf had drifted back to sleep after I moved away. I knew I wouldn't be lucky enough to get out of this situation without doing some major explaining for the kid, but right now I was more concerned about keeping a bloodling alpha away from my young nephew.
Before either Wolfie or I could throw down the gauntlet, though, a new voice drifted in from outside. "Hey, guys!" Chase was out of breath in his rush to perform crowd control, but I was still able to recognize the more stable wolf without taking my eyes away from the threat in front of me. Although Chase was clearly Wolfie's second in command and probably would obey the alpha's orders regardless of their sadism, I instantly relaxed when I realized the beta was present. Chase seemed to have a similar effect on Wolfie since I could see the wolf retreating out of the alpha's eyes at the same time Keith stepped up beside me, a smile on his young face.
"Hey, Chase," the kid said. "We're ready to go."
***
If I hadn't been so tense, the battle of wills as we piled into Chase's car would have been hilarious.
"Aunt Terra calls shotgun!" my useless nephew noted as Chase got into the driver's side of the car. The teenager shot me a knowing glance, and it dawned on me that Keith probably thought the tension earlier was purely sexual. He'd apparently parsed Dale's description of Chase as my "old friend" to mean that we'd dated, and was bound and determined to throw us back together. But despite the kid's cuteness, there was no way I was letting my pre-change nephew ride in the backseat with a bloodling. Yes, it seemed unlikely that the alpha would attack Keith in plain view, but bloodlings cared a lot less about human social standards than the rest of us did. I wasn't going to risk it.
"No, really, I'd rather ride in the backseat," I demurred, stepping toward the back of the car. Unfortunately, Keith wasn't easy to override.
"You get
carsick
in the back. Remember, Aunt Terra?" he said pointedly, jerking his head toward Chase. If I actually had harbored a crush on the beta, my nephew's gestures would have been mortifying. As it was, they were just annoying, especially since Wolfie seemed to have picked up on my real purpose in dragging my feet. The alpha smirked at me and began to open the back passenger-side door, and I knew I had to squash this farce right here. Even if Keith was safely ensconced in the front seat, I still wanted Wolfie as far away from my nephew as possible, which meant the alpha needed to get into the
other
side of the car.
"Thank you," I said to Wolfie, pretending he'd been holding the door open for me, and I quickly slid past him into the car. "I'll really be fine in the back," I tossed out to Keith. "Your long legs would be cramped back here."
Keith shrugged, and I could have sworn Wolfie's smirk grew even wider as the alpha strutted around the back of the car to get in beside me. I should have felt victorious, but somehow ended up thinking I'd been played.
***
"How are you feeling?" Chase asked Keith a few minutes later as we turned onto another winding country road. It was clear that Chase and my nephew knew each other well and were on good terms, presumably because of the volunteer work the beta performed with my brother-in-law. I gathered that this clinic project had been in the works for years and was just now coming to fruition, so I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that Chase treated my nephew as an honorary little brother.
As Keith chattered away about how his father was pretending he had mono and keeping him home all week, I turned my attention to Wolfie. Despite the fact that the alpha was in human form, I could tell the wolf predominated since he'd rolled down the window so air could rush over his face, a very dog-like thing to do. My wolf nudged me, asking for the opportunity to partake of the same heady array of odors from the surrounding farmland, but I denied her the simple pleasure.
We don't have time for games
, I warned, returning my wolf's focus to Keith.
Remember the young wolf?
She muttered sullenly, but shifted her attention back to my nephew and away from the scent-laden air.
"Still having trouble with your darker half?" Wolfie breathed, his voice so low that I was sure Keith couldn't hear. The guy was three for three today—he'd only asked three questions, but each one hit on an issue I truly didn't want to address. I was silent, and Wolfie turned to look at me, leaning in a bit so he could speak even more quietly. "Chase reminded me how strange it is for a female werewolf to be packless." He tilted his head to the side, inviting me to fill in the blanks, but I just shook my head and looked away.
My wolf was now toeing the line, staying below the level of my conscious thoughts, but I could feel her attraction to the striking alpha beside me. As much as I hated to admit it, I agreed—the man was every bit as eye-catching with clothes on as with clothes off, but he was also dangerous, both to me and to Keith. I couldn't figure out how my father's scouts could have neglected to report on such an obvious threat to my nephew, which made me concerned that there was even more going on than met the eye. Was Wolfie part of some plan to manipulate me, and if so, toward what end?
"We're here!" my nephew exclaimed, bouncing out of the front seat before Chase had even turned off the engine. I had never been so glad to see a drug-rehab clinic. I unfastened my seat belt, which had started to feel like a torture restraint, and rushed after the teen werewolf.
***
Cleaning windows brought out my anal-retentive side, so I couldn't really blame Keith for wandering off to work with the guys. Unfortunately, it didn't make my task any easier to have to keep my nephew in sight while scrubbing down grimy glass.
"Oops, was that your face?" the kid said. "I thought it was the window." Wolfie wiped a dribble of window-cleaning fluid off his forehead and I tensed, waiting for the explosion that was bound to follow. But Wolfie merely reached calmly behind them for the mop bucket and upended it over my nephew's head, foamy water spilling down over the teenager's ears. Before long, the two were wrestling on the industrial-tile floor, which, given their soapy exteriors, could loosely be considered mopping.
"They're like wolf cubs," Chase said, coming up behind me and handing over a paper mug of hot chocolate. I turned to smile at the beta, enjoying his presence despite myself. The packless ache in my stomach returned in a rush, and the warm liquid I was sipping didn't do much to dull what was obviously a psychosomatic pain. "Wolfie told you he's a bloodling," his friend continued, watching the rough-housing in front of us with fond eyes.
"My little brother was a bloodling," I answered, the non sequitur drawing Chase's gentle attention back to me. "Father drowned him," I added. "I always figured there was no way for bloodlings to fit in around humans, or even around other werewolves, but Wolfie seems to manage." I hated to admit it, but the evidence in front of me also suggested I had been overreacting about the alpha's potential for harming Keith, and I wondered how else I'd misconstrued Wolfie's actions.
"He takes some getting used to," Chase said thoughtfully, parsing my mood correctly. He scuffed his boot against the floor before continuing tentatively. "Maybe you'd like to come and meet the pack sometime. I think you'd understand Wolfie better if you saw the outcasts he's pulled together into a solid family."
"Outcasts?" I was intrigued in spite of myself. Not that I didn't have plenty of issues of my own without getting sucked into Wolfie's drama, but it felt good to spend a minute not worrying over my wolf, Keith, and my father.
"Halfies and full humans, and a few crazy purebloods like me," Chase said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Although Wolfie says you're a werewolf princess, too good for the likes of us."
I turned away from Keith, giving Chase my full attention at last. "I hope you know that's crazy," I chided him. "That's not what's going through my head at all." There was a little zing of heat between me and Chase suddenly, although nothing like what Wolfie had yanked out of my baser nature in the car. Chase was a good-looking guy, and I wished I wasn't irresistibly drawn to the bad boys—troubled alphas like my father. Not that attraction made any difference since I was celibate by choice given the options: human men, who I might accidentally change in front of, or asshole werewolves.
Focus
, reminded my wolf, for once proving herself the smarter half of our alliance.
"I know," Chase said, checking in with his alpha with a quick flick of his eyes before looking back at me. "I just meant that if you're in trouble, Wolfie will want to help. Heck, we'll all want to help."
He paused, giving me the opportunity to spill my guts. And I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But no matter how nice Chase seemed to be, he was a male werewolf, and I knew I couldn't trust him.
I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say next, but footsteps echoing off the tile floor put an abrupt end to our conversation. We turned to see who was walking through the front entrance, and I squinted against the strong light beaming in from the outdoors.
Werewolf
, my wolf reported before my eyes had adjusted to take in the stranger's features.
Only he wasn't a stranger. "Milo?" I asked, recognizing a cousin who had been Keith's age when I left home.
"Terra the Terror," Milo answered, the smile on his lips not reaching his eyes. "The Chief sent me to check on you."