“The werewolf with the hero complex and the kind of friends who set him up on blind dates for their own entertainment?” she inquired.
Alan was upset enough he didn’t snark back. Instead, he said, “You know when werewolves enter another pack’s territory they have to check in with the Alpha.”
She nodded. He’d already told her that was going to happen.
“Angus was tied up and he had Tom do the welcome,” Alan said. “Tom just got through talking with him. We might have to rethink this whole thing.”
“He’s not strong enough?” Ruby asked.
“Tom said Moreno is scary as hell.” Alan’s voice was neutral.
“Which is what I need,” Ruby said slowly, wondering, not for the first time, why she’d let Miranda talk her into this. “Scary as hell” did not sound at all reassuring.
Alan nodded. “Yes. But maybe not this scary. I’m going to call my pack mate, the one who let me know about the way Asil Moreno was set up with these dates. He’s the one who told me Moreno could run off anything bad we were likely to run into. Let me grill him a bit. If I don’t like his answers, we’ll call the whole thing off.”
“Can we?” she asked. Alan was a submissive wolf—low in the pack power structure. She was pretty sure that her blind date wasn’t a submissive wolf.
Alan dropped his chin and looked away. “Maybe. Probably. Go back and listen to some ancient pop music and I’ll figure something out.”
She’d met Alan and Miranda a half dozen years ago. He shouldn’t have belonged to the small group of lesser magically enhanced people, including Miranda and Ruby, who had clustered together for mutual protection. As a werewolf, Alan was much more capable of defending himself than any of them were, and he also had a pack of stronger wolves to back him up.
But a couple of the witches in Ruby’s group of friends bought herbs from his shop and brought him with them to one of their meetings. His soft, unthreatening manner had quickly led them all—even Ruby, who was as wary as a beetle in ahenhouse—to consider him one of theirs. He’d married Miranda, the only one of their group with enough magic to mix anything stronger than sleeping draughts, a couple of years ago. There was no question that Alan made their little group of mostly powerless misfits safer than they’d ever been.
Alan never complained about playing guardian, but he’d also never claimed to be a Power in his own right. The werewolf part was enough to keep most of the other predators at bay, though. Larger predators walked warily in Seattle because his pack was diligent about removing anyone who made trouble on that scale.
She worried that someday they’d ask Alan to help them, and he’d get hurt or die trying to keep one of them safe. She hoped it wasn’t today.
She should have left Seattle already. She was going to get someone killed. Again.
Ruby hadn’t stayed alive and free as long as she had by playing long shots. She’d agreed to this ridiculous scheme because Miranda had been frighteningly adamant—and there wasn’t much Ruby wouldn’t do for her. And because Ruby had been dreaming for the past couple of months about the dark fur and golden eyes of a werewolf—and that werewolf had not been Alan Choo.
She rubbed her wrist, feeling guilty and scared and unhappy. Well, the guilty she might be able to do something about. Alan seemed pretty sure Moreno would help if asked—it was his reputation. She could just ask him.
She didn’t know if she would. A lot would depend upon what she thought about him when she met him.
This wasn’t the first time she’d escaped her captor—thoughthis was the longest any of her bits of freedom had lasted. She wondered, bleakly, if she shouldn’t stop trying to get away. He would, eventually, kill her. The first time he’d caught her, she’d had people who tried to help her. They had all died. She hadn’t tried to find help again. Until now.
She rubbed her wrist where the tattoo burned.
“This is wrong,” she told Alan. “I can’t bring someone else into my trouble. And this poor man doesn’t even know what he’s getting into. He thinks we’re going to explore a haunted house and eat dinner.”
“Ruby,” said Alan in the tone of a man called upon to use more patience than he had.
“He’s a werewolf. Not someone who uses magic as a weapon,” she said, as she had when this had first been proposed. She hoped Alan would be more reasonable than his wife had been. “That’s like wielding a club against a submachine gun.”
“Hold up,” Alan said. “I understand you are having second thoughts—I might be, too, if for a different reason. But we don’t have time to panic right now. I need to make a call before we have the wolf himself at our door.”
Moreno was supposed to be here in a half hour.
“Alan—”
Alan met her eyes. “Ruby, I have been assured this wolf can help. He is supposed to be a most efficacious club, even against a magic-wielding fae. But I need to make sure you will be safe with him.” His eyes narrowed and he brought out the big guns. “Afterward, feel free to explain to me why you aren’t going to try everything we can come up with in order to be here for Miranda when the baby’s born.”
She gave a huff of frustration. “All right,” she said, because her common sense was no match for Alan’s ploy. They both loved Miranda.
He nodded. “Okay. I can’t have you overhearing our secrets, Ruby. Not even you. Put your headphones on, listen to some Air Supply, and let me make a call.”
She did as he asked—though not Air Supply. Twisted Sister seemed more appropriate somehow. She closed her eyes because she didn’t want to betray Alan by reading his lips—because he was right, she could do that.
