Wolf Ways (The Madison Wolves Book 9) (16 page)

“Of course,” Michaela said.

“And I told you never to ask that question,” Lara said. “Just ask.”

“Will my enforcers be able to work on specialties with me, or are they like secret service agents, scanning for trouble?”

Elisabeth answered my question. “They can work on the specialty classes, if they want.”

“There are a couple of specialties I would enjoy, but I think I’d be happy with whatever you’re doing, Michaela, or whatever Portia and Monique want to do.”

“Which ones interested you?”

I lowered my eyes and didn’t answer.

“Oh,” Michaela said. “Let me guess. Underwater Photography and… Hmm. Videography.”

I nodded. “But a housing for either of my cameras is so expensive, and I’d be terrified of ruining the camera, anyway. I have a video camera as well, but a housing for it is just as expensive.”

“Zoe,” said Michaela gently.

I looked up. “No, you aren’t buying more prints so I can afford a housing.”

She smiled. “That’s not what I was going to offer. I did photography last year. My mate gave me a very nice early Christmas present. You may borrow my equipment.”

“I couldn’t.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Um. Alpha,” I added with as much contrition as I could put into my voice.

“You are under no obligation, but really, you should borrow the equipment. I’m bringing it, but I’m going to have my hands full with my newest toy. I’m working on the videographer specialty this trip.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Michaela. But what will Zoe and Monique do?”

“Mine isn’t the only underwater camera we have,” Michaela said. “Or they could use the same time to work on something else.”

I nodded.

“And we can switch if you want to do video,” Michaela added.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. Anything else?”

“Isn’t that enough?” I asked with a smile.

“Who else has any preferences?” Michaela asked. From around the room, people threw out night dives, wreck diving, and fish identification.”

“Good,” said Michaela. “Karen, what do you think?”

“I would like the advanced divers to work on Search and Rescue while the beginning divers are doing their Advanced Open Water. After that, we have four more days of diving.” She looked around. “If you have any other requests, get them to me before you sleep tonight. I’ll come up with a schedule and obtain all the course materials tomorrow.”

We all grinned at each other.

* * * *

I spent the night. She made me scream.

* * * *

Two days later, we were winging our way to Key West.

I moved into Elisabeth’s arms and laid my head against her shoulder. She gently held me.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “It’s been a long day of travel.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I want to talk to you a little bit.” She pulled away and drew me to the bed.

“Oh, I like where we’re going already,” I said with a grin.

“Yes, we’re going to sit. We don’t have time for more.” She pulled me to the bed, and we sat down on the edge, side-by-side, partly facing each other.

“Trips like this are stressful for me. We’re in unfamiliar settings here, and danger could be anywhere.”

“That seems dramatic and paranoid.”

“To a human, yes, I can understand how you would see that. The paranormal races have cause to be paranoid. We really are after each other.”

I laughed, but then realized she was serious. “Sorry.”

“I just want to warn you that I won’t be able to give you the attention we both would prefer. This is vacation for the alpha family, but the enforcers are going to be busy.”

I thought about it and nodded. “I think Karen intends to keep me insanely busy. I tell you, I am starting to appreciate wolf muscles when they’re used to carry my things. All that stuff she gave me to study!”

Elisabeth chuckled.

“There are things I want from you.”

“Oh good,” I said. “These?” I waved my breasts at her. She smiled.

“Those are nice. Please, Zoe, we only have another minute or two.”

“I’m sorry.”

“First, I want you to enjoy yourself. Michaela knows how I get on these trips, so she’s probably going to engineer ways to keep you entertained. Let her. Don’t worry about what I’m doing. Enjoy the trip.”

I nodded.

“I do not want a hard time if you don’t get enough attention.”

“I won’t, on one condition.”

“Excuse me?”

“When we do have time together, you must tell me how I can help you. If you want a massage, you tell me. Don’t make me guess. I’m not good at guessing.”

She leaned over and kissed me quickly. “Deal. And when we’re done diving for the day and come back here, I want you to dress up a little.”

“Oh, I hear the feminist in you.”

“I like looking at you.”

It was hard arguing with that. “Of course.”

“When we go shopping, I’ll be buying a few things for you. The appropriate reaction is, ‘Thank you, Elisabeth. I love it.’ All right?”

I thought about it and nodded.

“All right. Thank you, Zoe. The plan is cocktails, a little conversation, and then we’re heading to dinner somewhere. Maybe you want to freshen up.”

“Do I need a shower?”

“Oh. No. I’m not that subtle about that.” I had traveled in comfortable clothes. She fingered my shirt. “But have you already forgotten my request that you dress up?”

I laughed. “Got it.”

I got another quick kiss, then we hugged once more before I headed into the bathroom.

* * * *

I decided to shower anyway. I pulled my hair up first and took a quick, cool shower so I wouldn’t heat up. I stood around in my undies while I worked on my appearance. I didn’t want to take a lot of time, as I didn’t want anyone to have to wait for me. But I had time to spruce up a little.

I hadn’t brought that many clothes, and most of what I brought was casual daywear: shorts, golf shirts, and the like. But I brought two casual summer dresses, a pair of light grey slacks, one skirt, and a couple of simple, white blouses, plus two pairs of sling back sandals. I had tried to bring fewer choices and double up more, but then something possessed me, and I brought a few extra choices.

I usually packed even lighter than this.

I went with one of the dresses. It was a simple, V-neck, belted, baby blue dress, light and comfortable and, I thought, perfect for the Key West weather. I grabbed the cream sandals and was all set.

I wasn’t much of a clothes horse. Okay, I wasn’t a clothes horse at all. I rarely put much thought into what I was wearing, and what little shopping I did was always based first and foremost on finding bargains. My look tonight was simple and casual, but I thought Elisabeth would be pleased.

If not, she could just get stuffed.

I stepped out of our bedroom.

We were all staying in two, four-bedroom bungalows. The two buildings shared a private courtyard with a pool. It was all lovely.

Elisabeth and I had one of the rooms in the same house as Lara and Michaela. The girls had a room, and Nora and Monique shared a room. The second house held the rest of the enforcers.

From the sounds of it, everyone was already in the living room, a suspicion confirmed as fact when I presented myself in the doorway. I stopped and watched the dynamics.

As was typical, Michaela was at the center of the activity. The girls, along with Nora, were watching television in the corner. Rory was standing near the window, looking out, and Emanuel held an alert position near the doorway leading to the kitchen. Everyone else was clustered around the two sofas, with some squished into the available seating and a few either standing in back or sitting on the floor.

Michaela was in what I called “teacher mode”. She was relating a story from Key West’s history. I listened for a minute and realized she was talking about Hemingway’s arrival in Key West.

It was Michaela who first noticed me standing there.

“There she is,” she said, interrupting her story. “We’re having cosmos.” She held up her drink. It was a bright, frothy red.

“I’d love a cosmo,” I replied. “I’ve never made one.”

“Then it’s a good thing Rory is expert at them,” Michaela said.

And I watched as Angel climbed from her place at Michaela’s feet and moved to stand next to Rory. It wasn’t until he’d been replaced that Rory turned and said, “Did you guys finish those already?” Then he saw me standing there. “Ah ha!”

He moved to the side of the room, and I realized they had set up a bar. The wolves normally drank beer as their preferred form of alcohol, and so I was a little surprised to see a bar set up with more than cans of brew.

“We saved a spot for you,” Michaela said. “Right next to Elisabeth.” She pointed.

It wasn’t much of a spot. Three wolves readily consume the available space on a sofa. But Elisabeth and Portia moved apart slightly, so I moved further into the room then carefully stepped around those seated on the floor, taking the offered space. It was tight, and I found myself dwarfed by a wolf on either side of me.

It was cozy, but Elisabeth took my hand, and I relaxed in place.

“You look nice,” she whispered into my ear. I squeezed her hand.

“Well,” Michaela said. “We were just talking about some of the more colorful history of Key West.” She then continued her story.

A moment later, Rory leaned over from behind me and presented me with my own cosmo. I accepted the martini glass with a nod of thanks then watched as he collected empty glasses. Over the next several minutes, several people received fresh drinks.

I sipped at mine and realized I wouldn’t be drinking more than one. Rory’s cosmos packed quite a punch!

Then I noticed Rory hand one to Monique. I leaned over to Elisabeth. “Isn’t she a little young?”

“I’m sure it’s a virgin,” Elisabeth said.

Michaela finished her story and then looked at me. “So, Zoe.”

“Yes, Michaela?”

“I’ve heard bits and pieces of a certain arrest, but never the entire details.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Which one. There have been so, so many.”

I earned chuckles.

“I think perhaps the most prominent one.”

“Ah, so you want to know about the sit in at the capital building? We had the press there in droves, and I don’t know how many cops were summoned — in full riot gear — to break up a protest staged by such lethal, vegan, tree-huggers. It was quite dramatic.” I paused. “I got tased.”

“What?”

“Well, the governor’s wife was vexed with me. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn fur to a rally of environmental activists, or, as she called it, expletive tree-huggers. Speaking of which, GreEN is endorsing the Green Party candidate for Governor.”

Lara chuckled. “Was that a hint?”

“No. It was a blatant request for support.”

“Well, as intriguing a story as that sounds,” Michaela said, “especially if you were a victim of police brutality, that’s not the arrest I had in mind. I wanted to know about your events at a nuclear power plant.”

“Oh, that,” I said. I knew it’s what she had really meant. Protests at state capitals happen every day, but if you tell people you broke into a secure nuclear power plant facility, that gets their attention. “That wasn’t remotely as prominent. The corporate overlords and their oligarchic political slaves didn’t want to bring attention to what we had done.” Yes I had really called the district attorney a slave. To his face.

“Well, perhaps you can tell us anyway,” Michaela said.

“All right.” I paused. “This was about ten years ago. There’s a nuclear power plant they built in the 70s in a dicey location on the Illinois River. The plant was running out of space for storing their waste, which is a problem the environmental movement has warned about since the dawn of nuclear energy. We had been trying, quite unsuccessfully, to bring attention to the issue.”

“Was this GreEN?” Lara asked.

“This was before I was associated with GreEN. We decided to do something dramatic. We waited until there was going to be a press briefing. And then we dropped in. Literally.”

“Literally?”

“I was part of a group that included a few X-games kinds of guys.”

“Oh no,” said Karen. “You went in via parachute.”

“We sure did!” I said with a grin. “Four people, two parachutes. And we dragged a couple of banners along behind us. The press got real good photos. One banner said, ‘We’re Just Treehuggers’ and the other said, ‘But what if we were terrorists?’ We dropped down right next to the existing storage facility.”

“Oh, I bet that drew some attention,” said Portia.

“Oh yes. It took them about fifteen seconds to surround and arrest us. They tried to label us terrorists and hit us with the Patriot Act, but we hadn’t damaged anything, we surrendered peacefully, and the district attorney was adverse to looking like a fool. We got a rap on the wrist, a lecture from the judge, and a quiet conversation with the facilities manager for the plant.”

“Oh?” asked Lara.

“He related activist break-ins with the boy who cried wolf and asked us whether we wanted security to view all such break-ins as peaceful. He also pointed out that if he were a terrorist, he might stage a break-in to look like environmental activists in order to lull the security forces. I don’t know about my compatriots, but I realized he had a point. I haven’t broken into any more nuclear power plants since then.” I shrugged. “Maybe I just got tired of being arrested.”

There were a few chuckles.

“So, sort of a boring story,” I said. “The governor’s wife was far more exciting, what with being tased and all that.”

“What happened at the plant?” Michaela asked. “Did you stop their request?”

“Oh hell no,” I replied. “They’re just piling up more and more waste. It’s not going to stop until big business stops buying politicians.” I didn’t say more. I’d made my point. Instead, I sipped my drink and leaned against Elisabeth.

* * * *

Leaving for dinner was a production. It was a four-block walk to the restaurant. While they couldn’t all run there in fur, I didn’t think such a short walk would require such military precision.

It started with Karen giving a nod to Elisabeth. Elisabeth got to her feet, squeezed my hand, and then whispered to me, “Stay here.”

A few minutes later, Rory, Angel and Karen slipped from the house. Elisabeth nodded to Lara, who stood up then pulled Michaela and me to our feet. A moment later, I found myself flanked by Portia on one side, Monique on the other. Portia turned me to face her.

“Have you had a bodyguard or security detail before?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to do anything special, but I’m going to ask you to avoid sudden movements. If I try to steer you, go where I nudge.”

I nodded.

“And don’t try to distract us.”

“All right.”

“If there’s an emergency, don’t fight us.”

“Like it would do me any good.”

“It wouldn’t, but it might slow us down. If we’re facing real violence, stick to Monique and do whatever she tells you.”

I leaned closer. “She’s a child.”

“She knows her job. You do not.”

I nodded.

“All right. Are you going to be offended if I touch you?”

“Of course not.”

And so, I found a hand on my shoulder. She turned me towards the door. I saw everyone else waiting for us; they hadn’t needed a last-second briefing.