“But they’re all right?”
“They’ll be extra drained when they regain human form. But you’ve done no lasting harm.”
The rest of the drive was quiet. At the head of Malachi’s driveway, Ember got out of the car but leaned back in. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
“You won’t do it again.”
The words were spoken without a smile, but Nicole’s eyes held warmth, even acceptance. Ember drove home to Aaron’s, trudged in through the unlocked door. She stepped into the house—a house that wasn’t hers, a house that had been opened to her out of nothing but kindness—and wanted to weep at what she’d done.
Instead she fell to her knees on the foyer rug as the memory of the wolf pack under the moon blindsided her again, this time with no reason to keep her composure. She saw the golden wolf, his amber eyes, the warning of his teeth. She whimpered. And then she cried for the jagged pieces of trust she had shattered tonight.
As for checking her original mission off a list—understand lupines, verify their characteras if somehow their different DNA made their personhood less complex—Sydney wasn’t wrong. Ember had come here with exactly such a goal.
But she hadn’t held onto it as she got to know and care for Aaron. That goal hadn’t driven her out to the paddock tonight. Fear had driven her, deep-down childhood panic that beat at her until she beat back and made her people safe. Tonight her panic had hurt those people instead. Tonight her panic had hurt all the pack.
When the sky was tinged with pink sunrise, before the air began to warm, Aaron woke draped in a coarse plaid picnic blanket. He stirred beneath it, testing fingers and toes. They curled. He ran his tongue over his teeth. No longer pointed, no longer arranged within a snout; they were flat-edged and inhabited a human mouth again. He tugged the blanket closer around him and sat up.
“Here’s your clothes,” Quinn said from beside him. The pup had already dressed.
“Thanks.” Unlike a few of the other wolves, Aaron stayed under the blanket until he’d pulled on his boxers. Then he shrugged the blanket off him and put on jeans and the gray T-shirt he’d worn the night before. The scent of the wolf clung to his body, and he’d swear he woke every morning after the full moon with dog breath. No matter, he was heading home to shower anyway.
Home.
He covered his face. Ember.
“It wasn’t a dream, was it,” Quinn said quietly.
“No. Is Mal gone?”
“Nobody saw him leave, but his collar’s in the shed.”
Crap. Aaron carefully unbuckled his own collar and used two fingers to deactivate it before pushing to his feet and crossing his personal electric boundary. Then he took it to the shed and hung it on the pegboard beside several others including Quinn’s.
“How’s your neck?”
Quinn shrugged. “Fine, why?”
“No burn from the prongs?”
Quinn’s eyes grew wide. “That can happen?”
“Only if the current zaps you over and over.” Usually took more than twice, and Quinn likely would have told him without being asked. But he had to be sure.
“Nah, I’m fine. Wait, what about you? You were trying to get out last night. You never try to get out.”
He’d never before been forced to watch his pack snarl at, bluff-charge, and otherwise terrify his mate. He shuddered. Corbin had lost it for a minute, trying the fence repeatedly with Quinn unable to deter him. The shock they received was fifteen times the jolt of a normal dog fence, and the current had three backup systems in the event the main one malfunctioned, and Malachi replaced the batteries in every collar the day before the full moon. Yet seeing Corbin brave the pain until Malachi stopped him, knowing Ember was within easy chasing distance if somehow the fence shorted out…
Well, it had been one of the most panicked moments of Aaron’s life.
“I’m okay, pup,” he said. “Barely scorched. A little cream on it, and it’ll heal fast.”
“Good.”
Post-moon mornings usually held banter as the wolves put on last night’s clothes and then dispersed to their homes. Today the pack hovered quietly until Aaron caught the eye of the closest one—Rhett, of course, least willing to wait for a confrontation—and gave him a nod.
They approached together. Trevor, Ezra, and Jeremy. Cassius and Patrick, Nathan and Corbin. Rhett and elder Arlo. Their gamey post-change stench was heavy with various mixtures of fatigue, concern, and stress. Of course, at the head of the group, Rhett smelled like homicidal rage, but on him that was no new odor.
Quinn inched closer to him, and Aaron set a hand on the pup’s shoulder.
