He grimaced. “I know. The wings are a bit much.”
Honey stared at him for a second.
“Buck,” she said after a moment, sounding like she was only connected to her sanity by a single, rapidly thinning thread. “The wings are not the issue. Or rather, I have very definite questions about the wings, but they are not my foremost concern. Forget the wings. At this precise moment, I am most interested in the question of whether I am losing my mind.”
“What?” Now it was his turn to stare at her. “Why?”
“Because apparently, you turn into a… a…” Words seemed to fail her. “A giant glowing wolf!”
“Will you please stop calling me that?”
“Well, what are you then?”
“A man,” he said firmly. “Who has a slight issue. That’s all.”
“Aslightissue?” Honey pinched the bridge of her nose. “You call that a—right. Okay, let’s start again. Why do you turn into a gia—a, a big shiny canine?”
“Believe me, it wasn’t my idea.” He turned a little, showing her the scar circling his upper arm like the devil’s own cattle brand. “Come on, you must have recognized the signs. I thought everyone knew about hellhounds.”
“No, I do not know about hellhounds! And what do you mean,everyone?” Honey sucked in a breath, her eyes widening. “Wait, when Moira said she’d warned Ragvald about your problem—is this what she meant?”
“Well, I wasn’t there, but I assume so. It’s not like I have another problem.”
This was not precisely true, given that his other problem was currently standing in front of him, inexplicably hyperventilating. A cold feeling trickled down his spine, not entirely due to his lack of pants.
“Look, sit down before you pass out,” he said, now worried in several directions at once. “Why are you being so damn odd about this?”
Honey did not give any sign of having heard him. She seemed to have shut down, like she simply couldn’t process any more input.
“Moira knows?” she said, sounding more like she was talking to herself than him. “And Ragvald… and then there was Leonie, she didn’t seem surprised… does everyoneexcept me know that you’re a—an actualwerewolf?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said over the growing alarm bells ringing in his mind. “I’m not a motherloving werewolf.”
“Oh, no, of course you aren’t!” Honey’s voice took on a shrill, sarcastic edge one step short from a full-blown meltdown. “How silly of me! You just turn into a giant wolf! That’s not at all the literal definition of being a werewolf!”
“Damn it, woman!” The alarm bells had turned into full on sirens, and were getting louder by the second. “Why are you acting as though you’ve never seen anyone shift before?”
Honey flung her hands in the air. Buck was pretty sure that if he’d been wearing a shirt, she would have grabbed him by it and shaken him until his teeth rattled. He took a prudent step back.
“Because no, I’ve never seen anyone shift before!” she yelled. “If that’s what you just did! Buck,what is going on?”
And looking into those wide, panicked, utterly baffled eyes—those eyes thatstilldidn’t recognize him, when every beat of his heart echoed hers—he finally understood.
“Oh fuck,” Buck breathed. “You aren’t a shifter.”
CHAPTER8
It took all Honey’s willpower not to turn around and stare at Buck in disbelief. With a heroic effort, she kept her gaze fixed on the trees.
“Are you trying to tell me,” she said, her voice rising with incredulity, “thateveryonehere is a werewolf?”
“Shifter.” Behind her came therrrrptof a zip being done up. “That’s what they call themselves. They come in all kinds of flavors, not just wolves. Bears, hawks, sharks, dragons—”
“Dragons?”
A snort from behind her. “Yeah, that was my reaction to that one too.”
Buck came into sight, fully dressed apart from one sock. He scowled up at the missing garment, still fluttering gaily from a branch above their heads, well out of reach.
