He had good control for one so young. Asil felt the drop in tension as if it had been a balloon pierced by a nail. When the other turned around, his eyes were human blue and they met his own frankly before dropping in deference to Asil’s dominance.
“I’m Tom Franklin,” he said, “Angus’s second. In the name of my pack, I bid you welcome to Seattle.”
Ruby sat on the front porch of the huge old Victorian mansion that was the subject of their current ghost hunt while winter rain pounded the roof overhead and rushed merrily out of aged, but mostly intact gutters. Normally she’d have been helping to place the team’s cameras and various bits and pieces of electronic gadgetry, but not today.
She should have been traveling in a bus headed for some anonymous city where she could lose herself again. Instead she sat on the railing surrounding the Victorian’s extensive covered porch, her back against one of the square posts facing Alan, who was similarly situated at the opposite post.
They waited for her Internet date to show up so they could use him to kill a monster.
“It’s perfect,” Alan’s wife, Miranda, had said enthusiastically.
Miranda had caught Ruby packing to run. Her very pregnant downstairs neighbor and best friend was a force to be reckoned with. Ruby found herself making tea and telling Miranda the whole story—something she had sworn never to do again. Miranda had summoned Alan—who had come up with a solution: a blind date.
“Perfect?” Ruby had said, repeating Miranda’s words incredulously. “Take some poor werewolf who is already being pranked with blind dates from Internet dating sites—and throw him into a battle to the death?”
Miranda shrugged. “You don’t know these kinds of werewolves the way I do. Those old ones, the powerful ones, they deserve everything they get.”
Both Alan and Ruby had known that Miranda was talking about Alan’s Alpha.
Alan had laughed. “This will be fine. I called up an old friend who knows this wolf. Unless your captor is one of the fae’s Gray Lords—” He paused with a little question in his voice and Ruby shook her head. He wasn’t that, she was sure. She’d seen him bow and scrape before other fae. A Gray Lord wouldn’t do that.
“Then this Asil Moreno can handle him. My contact was pretty sure he wouldn’t even be upset about it. He has something of a hero complex.” Alan frowned a little. “Unusual first name. I feel like I should know something about that name.”
“He’s old,” said Miranda briskly. “You’ve probably run into someone who told you a story about him or something.”
Ruby thought,I bet he won’t be so quick to use a dating site after we get through with him. And felt horridly guilty.
“Moreno comes here,” Miranda pronounced blithely. “You be nice to him long enough that he likes you.”
“Sort of like a hooker,” muttered Ruby. Being nice to people wasn’t her best thing.
Miranda smacked her hand lightly. “And then you use magic. Your tormenter, called by your magic, appears to take you. And this werewolf kills him. Easy.”
Even Alan had given Miranda a thoughtful look at that. “Easy,” he murmured. “Hmm.”
And that was why Ruby was watching the rain pour down instead of being miles away. She had her earbuds in, listening to music, because music calmed her down and Alan had warned her that she didn’t want to be in a full-blown panic when her date appeared.
She didn’t hear Alan’s phone ring, but she saw him put it to his ear. After a moment, his head tilted just a little away from her as if he was watching the rain fall on the mostly quiet road. If she hadn’tknown him so well, she probably wouldn’t have known he was making sure she couldn’t read his lips.
It was a moot gesture, because half a second later, quiet, sweet Alan said something in Mandarin in tones that made the words a universal curse.
Her noise-canceling earphones were not designed to quiet raised voices. She pulled them off as soon as he disconnected. He grimaced. “Stevie Nicks? Really?” Alan liked his music modern and raucous or classical, and nothing in between.
“Stuck in the eighties,” she said without apology. “Do you need to go? Family emergency?” More quietly, “Miranda?”
She didn’t think it would be Miranda. If something had gone wrong there, he wouldn’t be hanging around with that look on his face—he’d have been off the porch and running for his car. But Alan’s family owned an herbal shop and Alan should have been there helping out. He’d taken the day off for her sake.
“No,” he said. “That was Tom.”
Tom was Alan’s packmate, second only to Angus Hopper in the pack that ruled Seattle.
“What did Tom have to say?” she asked. “Pack business?”
Alan sighed. “I wish. Sort of. Your date—”
“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.”
