Did they, though? Dan and Sean had certainly felt better at the end of the conversation than the beginning, since Lydia hadhandled it so well, but there had been moments when they’d both been flustered and resigned. They’d lost a good chunk of their evening coming here, when there was every chance they could have resolved the problem on their own or talked about it with someone who was closer to hand.
Maybe this setup wasn’t sustainable for anyone: not for the pack and not for the alphas. No one liked to be told they weren’t up to solving their own problems, and no one liked being told they had to solveeveryone’s.Relationships that were too lopsided were a recipe for unhappiness. He didn’t know if Ruth had started it when times were tough and unity had seemed more important than anything else, or if she had only been continuing an old and already-broken pattern, but either way, he didn’t think it was working.
Even in the midst of worrying about Ruth and Reeve, Case’s wolf lessons had perked the town up. Horace looked ten years younger now than he had when they’d started. People liked feeling like they were contributing. Why didn’t they get to do that more often? Why did it often seem like they didn’t even know theycould, unless someone specifically asked for it?
And how could he help Lydia feel like she wasallowedto ask for it?
He had been mulling it over since the conversation had wrapped up, and he still didn’t have any answers. It felt wrong to charge into Mountainview and demand that they change things, but even if he was a new arrival, he wasn’t a stranger here anymore. He had a stake in the village, and he had even more of a stake in Lydia.
But if he was going to propose changing the way things were done, he would have to wait until after they all felt sure Reeve would stay gone for good. So for now, all he could do was hold Lydia tight and hope for the best.
“Did you call your moms?” Lydia said.
“Not yet. Every day I wait is another day I’m going to have to explain the hell out of, because I usually don’t keep things from them like this, but I figured it would be better to do it once we had everything settled.”
“And it’s probably hard to tell them about werewolves over the phone,” Lydia said.
“That too. They’ll have to see it with their own eyes before they know forsurethat I haven’t lost my mind. And the story doesn’t make sense without the werewolf part.”
“I don’t know.” She moved to rest her head further down on his chest so she could listen to his heartbeat. “A gallant knight riding to the rescue of an imperiled maiden—”
“Who is also, herself, a gallant knight.”
“Thank you. Or you could be a heroic cowboy. We’re in the right state for cowboys.”
That suddenly made him think of something. “Are cows going to be afraid of me now?”
Lydia tilted her head to look up at him, her soft black hair tumbling back down her shoulders. “Why would cows be afraid of you?”
“I mean, can they sense the wolf? I assume cows wouldn’t be huge wolf fans.”
Technically, if cows knew better, they wouldn’t be big human fans either. He and Lydia had grilled up some burgers for dinner, and his inner wolf hadn’t had anything to do withthat. But even though he wasn’t a vegetarian, he had to admit that he didn’t like the idea of animals suddenly shying away from him. He might never be around cows enough to notice how they felt specifically, but dogs and cats ....
To his relief, Lydia was shaking her head, further tousling her hair against his chest. “No, it doesn’t bother them. Not unless you’re actually a wolf at the time.”
A sigh of relief escaped him. “Well, that’s good.”
“You care a lot about what cows think of you?” she teased.
“I couldn’t be a heroic cowboy if I didn’t, could I?”
“That’s true. Speaking of heroic cowboys—”
She nudgedShadowstowards him. The heroic cowboy, Milton, had been introduced in the last chapter, and neither of them could tell if he was flirting with Levi or if he had mistaken him for the evil twin and was trying to kill him. Little Susie kept saying that the cowboy’s horse was a unicorn in disguise, and itdidhave a silver sheen to its mane.
They were a hundred and fifty pages in and still had no idea what on earth they were reading.
Case found their dogeared page. “‘What was it Milton had said last night?Your little girl’s smarter than you, hoss. Maybe she takes after her mother.’ Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Is Miltonnegginghim?”
“Maybe he’s not that heroic of a cowboy after all.”
“‘It was like Milton had surveyed the terrain of Levi’s life—’ Okay, I get that he’s a geography professor, but not every metaphor needs to come back to that. ‘It was like Milton had surveyed the terrain of Levi’s life and understood it better than Levi himself ever had. Milton saw him from a height. His pale eyes had the same silver glow as the horsehair.’”
“He’s amagiccowboy. Maybe—"
The rest of the sentence never made it out of Lydia’s mouth. She moved with a ruthless, fluid grace that Case couldn’t help admiring, even though the air was now filled with dread. He was moving too, sliding to his feet as soon as she had straightened up enough that he was sure he wouldn’t send her spilling to the floor. His wolf’s senses were on high alert. There was a scent in the house—acrid and somehow overripe, too stinging and too rich at the same time. He’d been catching hints of it from the start, but now it was in full and horrible bloom.
Death, his wolf said solemnly, and then it threw its head back and let out a long and mournful howl that made a shiver run up Case’s spine.
