But Luna has never reacted to me with fear,Henry tried to tell himself.She’s the only person who’s ever seemed to like me right away. She’s never been frightened of me – I only hope she still won’t be frightened of me now.
Luna approached him slowly, Fillmore still in her arms… until the little dog wiggled its way free and made a beeline for Henry. Henry tensed for a moment, but Fillmore just flung himself at him, rolling around on the ground in ecstasy. Henry nudged at him a little with his nose, not wanting to make any sudden movements, and Fillmore writhed around happily, yipping a little, clearly telling him, in dog language, that he was simplydelightedto have made a new friend.
“He reallyisa good judge of character,” Luna said, and Henry looked up at her, barely daring to believe that things were going this well.
Not only was Luna not afraid of him in his human form, she also didn’t seem too terrified of his hellhound form either.
Is this because of the mate bond?he wondered, as slowly, Luna reached out to scritch the shaggy fur between his ears.
Before he could stop it, the hellhound had let out a low, almost purring sound of pure joy, its eyes half-closing as it leaned into the feeling of Luna’s fingers ruffling through its fur.
“Oh, is that nice?” Luna said, her voice still alittleshaky – but there was a clear laugh in there too. “Hellhoundsounds so scary, but you’re just a big puppy dog, aren’t you?”
Ordinarily, Henry knew the hellhound would be bristling with indignation at being called apuppy dog, but right now, it wasfartoo busy wagging its tail with unadulterated bliss to think about anything else.
“You said you could, uh, phase through things as well, didn’t you?” Luna murmured, as, much to his hellhound’s chagrin, she withdrew her hand and then sat down rather heavily in the chair she’d been sitting in before.
The hellhound’s ears perked up, just waiting for her to say she wanted a demonstration of that too, but then Luna shook her head.
“No, no… I don’t think I need to see that right now. One thing at a time, maybe.”
She still looked just a little stunned, and Henry couldn’t say he blamed her. Maybe he should shift back into his human form now – just to show her he still could, and she wasn’t stuck withtwobizarre-looking dogs now.
Without further ado, he shifted, watching Luna’s eyes grow bigger as she watched.
“Okay, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she said after a moment, shaking her head. “This is just… a weird day, I guess. I think I’m still in a state of ‘what’. So if you have anything else you need to get off your chest, now’s the time. Before I have a chance to really think through what all of this actuallymeans.”
Henry sat down at the table with her, watching as, with shaking hands, Luna lifted her cup of tea to her lips again, taking a sip.
Well, I guess there isonemore thing.
“Well,” Henry said, trying to sound less ‘this is the most important thing I’ve ever had to tell anyone’ and more ‘this is great news!’. “Thereissomething else I have to tell you, actually –”
He was cut off by a sudden buzzing sound emanating from Luna’s pocket. She bit her lip, a look of annoyance cutting across her face. “Sorry,” she said, putting her cup of tea down. “I hate to be rude, but… I just need to check this.”
Henry tried to untense his shoulders as Luna flicked her thumb across the screen of her phone. But then, as she read whatever was on the screen, her frown deepened and she sucked in a quick, sharp breath, as if shocked.
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Henry asked, leaning forward, his senses suddenly on alert.
Our mate is in distress,his hellhound insisted, baring all of its teeth, its hackles rising.She needs us – she needs our protection! Are you just going to sit here?!
Henry tried to push the hellhound’s intense reaction down from the forefront of his mind – though to be honest, after seeing the look on Luna’s face, he was feeling prettyintensehimself. Had Luna received bad news? Was something terrible going on that he, in his selfish rush to tell her about being a shifter, had failed to pick up on?
“Um. No,” Luna said after a moment. “It’s just… I don’t know. I’ve been getting these weird text messages lately, and I just got another one. It’s just some crank, I’m sure – it happens when you have a public profile, no matter how low of a one. Maybe someone didn’t like what I wrote about their restaurant or something, and now they’re having a tantrum about it.”
Henry blinked, but his hellhound’s fury didn’t recede. “Can I see the texts?”
“Oh… sure, if you like,” Luna said, giving him a quizzical look. “But really, it’s nothing to worry about. Just some weirdo.”
Still, she handed her phone across to him, open to the chain of text messages she’d been talking about. Henry frowned as he scrolled through them, his hellhound growing more and more incensed.
Luna had been right when she’d said they wereweird. Someone writing in all caps, using pompous, semi-arcane language – or what they imagined was arcane language, anyway – telling her things likeAll YOUR DREAMS SHALL TURN TOASHESandYOU MUST PAY THE PRICE FOR WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT.
From the sound of things, Luna was right when she said it was probably some disgruntled business owner who she hadn’t given a glowing enough review to – but Henry knew from having been a bouncer thatminor irritationcould becomemajor problemmuch faster than people would think.
“How long have you been getting these messages?” he asked, as he handed the phone back.
“Oh, only a couple of weeks or so,” Luna said, waving her hand as if to dismiss his concern – Henry could see she was a little shaky though, and he didn’t think it was only because of having just found out he was a hellhound. “It was just, you know, generic stuff at first, but today it’s all gone… weirdly specific.”
