“Blake and Poppy don’t have the physical means to confine a wolf pup safely every full moon, and just as important, they’re not a wolf pack. Every wolf needs a pack. So they did the responsible thing and found Quinn a pack.”
“And signed him over.”
“Why did I think you might hear me on this? I’m only your best friend and a decently apex-informed vampire. Whatever.”
It wasn’t as simple as hearing and believing, hearing and trusting. Life didn’t work that way. And it was Quinn. He and Ember had had such an easy rapport all his life, sometimes more brother-sister than nephew-aunt. She had held Quinn the week he was born, herself barely older than Quinn was now and Poppy only nineteen, just married to her high-school love. Ember had pledged with all the ferocity in her body that this tiny boy in the mint-green receiving blanket would know he was safe, know he was protected by his Aunt Ember even if by no one else in the world.
No matter that adolescence had brought recessive gene traits to the forefront of her nephew’s life. Had ripped through his young soul with claws and fangs and terror of the full moon. Ember would keep her pledge if it killed her.
“The last time we talked…” She swallowed hard. The tears were vying for release again. “He’s so confused. He said he felt completely alone in the world, and I promised he wasn’t. And now he’s gone, and I don’t even know if he’s being treated well, and…”
“I’ll try,” Claire said. “I might not get anywhere.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry. And thank you.”
She was Claire. If she said she would try to find a way, then she would find it.
Eyes closed, ears open, just like he was teaching the pup. Nothing like a forest in July for a lesson in sensory exploration, and Quinn was an eager study. Aaron stood in the clearing and breathed long and deep. Peace seeped in through his very pores, but he wasn’t here today for the tranquility. He turned his senses to the pup’s approach. Quinn was trying something new.
When he sprang from behind a rotting, lightning-split tree, Aaron leaped past him and pivoted to sweep a leg under Quinn’s feet. The pup tipped onto his back, cushioned by a bed of ferns.
“Not bad,” Aaron said. He extended a hand and helped Quinn up. “You went upwind on purpose, didn’t you.”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “You noticed and it still didn’t fool you?”
“Nah. I never lost your track.”
“Why can’t I do that?”
Aaron laughed. “Because you’ve been a wolf for five months, and I’ve been one for fourteen years.”
“Were you thirteen too?”
“Fifteen.”
They were quiet awhile as Aaron led through the woods, staying off anything resembling a path. Quinn was already sure on his feet in a way that suggested his coordination had been decent before his first change. The twigs that cracked along his passage had grown fewer in number the last four weeks.
“Sounds,” Aaron said when they reached the fork toward home.
“My feet.” The words came with a sigh.
Aaron held in a chuckle. Quinn had said on day one that if he had to be a wolf, he would become the best wolf he could. The pup had meant it, and his pride and determination brought salve to an old wound in Aaron, a wound that might be starting to close after all, after fourteen years.
Back to the lesson though. “What else?”
“When am I going to be soundless, walking?”
“In time. What else do you hear?”
“Wind at the top of the trees. Birds—um, blue jay, sparrows, a hawk cry a few seconds ago way up in the sky. Squirrels chittering like nonstop, not on the ground though. They’re all high in the trees.” Quinn paused a moment. “Oh, there’s something moving in the brush on our left, but it’s not close. Probably…um, a quarter mile? Maybe a deer? It’s not moving fast. Sort of picking its way along.”
“Avoiding us,” Aaron said.
“That’s why the squirrels are all high up too, right?”
“Right.”
“This is weird, man. I donotfeel like an apex.”
