“What does this have to do with shifting?” he asked.
Buck sat down again. “Who said it had anything to do with shifting?”
“This is a camp for shifters. I thought that was the whole point of this place. Shouldn’t you be teaching us something useful?”
Buck shrugged. “It’s a summer camp. I’m teaching you summer camp things.”
“But…” Ignatius still looked like he was suspecting some kind of trap. “When do the real lessons start?”
“This is as real as it gets, kid. Shifting isn’t part of my job description. You don’t like that, take it up with your uncle.” Buck leaned back on his elbows, to all appearances completely unconcerned. “Now scram. Go collect kindling with the others.”
With clear reluctance, Ignatius obeyed. Honey waited until he was across the clearing, well out of earshot of even shifter hearing.
“I think,” she murmured to Buck, “I’m beginning to see your plan.”
Buck stretched out his legs, still keeping a close eye on the kids. “Thought you might. His uncle sent him here to learn shifter crap from a dominant alpha. I’m going to comprehensively fail to deliver.”
“And you think Ignatius will figure that out and complain to Lord Golden about you?”
“He’s a bright enough kid, under the attitude. With any luck, he’ll be bitching on the phone to his uncle by sunset. Then Zephyr can transfer Ignatius to another pack, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.”
“I’m not sure he’ll get on any better with a different set of campers,” Honey muttered. “Or counselors, for that matter. Buck, that boy needs a mentor. Someone he can respect.”
“Not your problem,” Buck said firmly. “Honey, the kid’s a walking time bomb, not a lost chick you can gather under your wing. He doesn’t want to be here, and I’m damn sure he’d throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it meant he could go home. Every day he’s in this pack increases the risk of discovery. Wehaveto get him transferred to a different pack. And the only way his motherloving uncle will allow that is if it comes from Ignatius himself.”
Honey shook her head. “And if he doesn’t demand a different counselor?”
“Don’t worry. He will.” Buck shot her a sidelong glance, one eyebrow twitching up. “I’m just getting started. Trust me, I can keep that kid way too busy planning my untimely demise to spare so much as a thought for you. Everything’s going to work out fine.”
Honey’s gaze drifted back to Ignatius. He was at the edge of the woods, picking through fallen branches without notable enthusiasm He was still keeping his distance from the other kids, ignoring them with pointed disdain—but, as Honey watched, he glanced back at Buck.
“Yes,” Honey said under her breath. “I think it just might.”
CHAPTER19
Aweek later, Buck stood on the lakeshore, and contemplated the complete and utter failure of his plan.
Despite his best efforts, Ignatius showed no signs of surrender. After seven solid days of Buck’s carefully crafted camp curriculum, he still hadn’t gone running to Zeph, demanding to call his uncle. He hadn’t insisted to be transferred to another pack. He’d even stopped asking when the real lessons would start.
In fact, if Buck hadn’t known better, he’d have said the kid even seemed to be starting toenjoyhimself. Oh, he bitched and moaned about everything from the cookouts to the canoes, until Buck harbored fond daydreams of grabbing his tongue and using it to demonstrate a range of useful knots. And he still kept a pointed distance from his fellow campers, treating the other kids with the resigned disdain of a cat surrounded by panting puppies.
But sometimes Ignatius’s mask seemed to slip a little. A few times—out in the woods watching deer, or up to his elbows in clay during art session—Buck had even caught an expression almost like a smile on the kid’s face.
Only when he thought he was unobserved, though. Even now, as Ignatius caught sight of Buck watching him splash about at the edge of the lake, the boy’s expression instantly shifted to a scowl.
“I’mnothaving fun,” Ignatius informed him.
Buck took a sip of his coffee. “Join the club, kid.”
This was notentirelytrue. Camp, Buck had to privately admit, did have its good points. And several of those good points were on spectacular display at that very moment.
“Buck!” Honey surfaced from the lake, water streaming from every curve. “Come on, the water’s perfect! You can’t just stand there and watch.”
Buck followed the slow progress of one particularly enticing droplet down the side of Honey’s neck. “Believe me, I can.”
Honey gave her bikini top an unselfconscious tug that went straight to his groin. “Maybe if you joined in, it would set a good example for certain other people.”
“Woman, if I joined in, it would not set a good example for anyone.” He kept half an eye on the kids, making sure no one was trying to drown each other. “Innocent young eyes are not ready for the sight of me in swim shorts.”
