I explained the story to him as best as I could, without telling him about Kip.
There was stunned silence before he spoke. “You’re telling me a werewolf from another pack attacked you? Burned your house down? Doesn’t he realize what a war between packs will do?”
“There isn’t going to be a war! It wasJeromethat attacked me, not the pack. I was hoping you could call Alpha Donnelly so he doesn’t find out about it from the police.”
John sighed. “Yeah, I’ll call him. This’ll kill him. He loves that jerk.”
I knew he did.Someonehad to. “He’s just lucky Kip showed some restraint.”
“Kipfound him?” John asked incredulously.
“Yeah, he—” Kip put a hand on my arm and when I looked up, he shook his head. I bit my lip. “He’s a lot stronger than he looks.”
“He’d have to be to beat a werewolf.”
I recalled the six wolves Kip had flattened at Alpha Donnelly’s place.
You havenoidea.
Kip was stronger than any of them—any of us—knew, but unlike them, I was going to find out.
Why was it so wrong that the thought excited me?
Kip
The police had taken Jerome away, and I’d persuaded Donald and Rachel to give us a little breathing space before things got hectic. Then I whisked Mase off to the motel.
I have a lot of talking to do.
I just hoped he was in the mood to listen.
At least he waited until we were inside the room before he launched into his interrogation.
“What are you?”
That was my Mase, shooting from the hip, right from the get-go.
I cradled the cup of coffee I’d bought on the way over. I needed a jolt of caffeine.
“Before I answer what I am, it might be easier to tell you what I’mnot.”
Mason held his hands up. “Any way you wanna play this is fine, so long as I get some answers.”
“I’m not a shifter.” He arched his eyebrows, and I shrugged. “Okay, not a typical one anyway. For all of you, the change is physical. You and the wolf share the body. That’s not how it is with me. But to explain, I need to go back a bit, to around the fifth century.”
He managed a smirk. “I was always crap at history. So what happened way back then?”
“Dragons were decimating the land.”
Mason blinked. “Nowthere’ssomething that never made its way into the history books.”
“Knights fought them valiantly, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. So a sorcerer at the time”—I rolled my eyes— “and no, itwasn’tMerlin, before you ask—came up with a spell that would fuse dragon and man, making a creature that was stronger, more agile, far more aggressive, and loads more powerful.”
“A spell. Magic.” Mason stared at me. “Where’s popcorn when you need it?”
I knew his attempts at humor were only a mask.
“So how did they merge dragons and men?”
