“Get some sleep,” he tells me. “You know some of the packs will turn up early. They always do, the dickheads. And we’re going to have to put on a show, babe. Game faces all around. You ready?”
“I know,” I assure him. “I’m ready,” I lie.
He gives me that crooked smile I know is only mine. And then he is shifting before me, one moment a beautiful man and the next a stunning, enormous wolf. I smooth my hands over his wide snout, move them up behind his ears, and then I return his kiss. I go up on my toes and I kiss him on his furry forehead.
Ty licks me, then takes off for the hills.
I should do the same, but I walk instead. I walk all the way back to Jacksonville, breathing in the mist that flows and ebbs around theshops. I take my usual path through the woods, a little more aware this time that there should be more pack guards around.
That I shouldseethem instead of sensing, vaguely, that there are pack members in the wider vicinity.
When I get to my cottage, I’m delighted to find that there are no bloody sacrifices demanding my attention. I lock the door behind me, crawl into my soft bed, and sleep.
But it feels like four seconds later that I’m woken up again, abruptly.
To the sound of strange wolves howling, right outside.
8.
Cold Moon, waning crescent
Still dazed with sleep and not entirely sure if I’m dreaming or not, I throw open the door to my cottage to find about five wolves—none of them members of my pack—milling around in the front yard.
Another breath, and I recognize them. Scent helps lock it in.
It would be polite to shift into my wolf form. I don’t.
I lean against the doorframe instead, cross my arms like I’m bored instead of unpleasantly jolted awake, and wait for the howling to stop.
But they’re clearly here to make a point, so that takes a minute.
When it finally dies down—a good five minutes later, which is a long time for them to be making such a ruckus in someone else’s territory—the biggest wolf sits there, regarding me cannily. I return the favor. I can see that there’s more salt than pepper on his snout these days. His fur is not as lustrously black as it was five years ago.
“Little bit of a brash greeting, McCaffrey,” I point out, mildly. Very mildly, so I can’t be accused of aggression. “First of all, you’re very early for the gathering. Did you not know it starts a week from now?” Of course he knew. He doesn’t respond to that, so I keep on. “Second of all, who takes up battle howling in someone else’s yard?”
He shifts and then he’s there before me in his human form, the stocky, belligerent leader of the New England pack.
Not my biggest fan.
“This is not a den,” he says, and then makes a big show of looking all around, as if he expects to see a whole wolf den appear from the forest. “If I had to guess, I’d say that this looks a lot like a place where humans live. Did you sleep here last night, Maddox? With humans?”
Hard to say if he’s accusing me of oversympathizing with humans in general, sleeping with one specifically, or just being a shitty wolf. Probably all of the above and more, so I don’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.
Another wolf shifts behind him, because of course she does. It’s McCaffrey’s sanctimonious queen, who I privately refer to not as Deirdre, mother to the New England pack, but Deirdre, the poor, surrendered wife.
She keeps her head piously bowed and remains a full body length behind McCaffrey. She folds her hands demurely in front of her, the very picture of mated submission. That she’s beautiful is no surprise. Once female wolves hit about fifty years, they only get better. Deirdre embodies that rangy, lupine glory that all the little wolfing girls aspire to. Ten years ago, I’d aspired to beexactlylike the gorgeous, elegantly fierce Deirdre.
Then I met her.
These days, fully grown, I can’t stand Deirdre. Not because she surrendered, because hey, we all make the choices that make sense to us. It’s because she’s so deeply snotty about it. In rooms where only women are present, she makes no bones about the fact that the performance of perfect queenly submission is a competition. One she intends to win. In every possible arena.
Weird,I said during a meeting of all the queens and fated queens at the last gathering five years ago.I thought the role of a queen was to support her pack in a way that brought glory to the pack itself, and particularly her king, but you do you.
I fear that Deirdre and I were never destined to be friends.
Still, I’m aware that right now, McCaffrey himself is the bigger threat. Going down a rabbit hole of interpersonal queen issues is probably what they want, so I’m not going to let that happen.
I smile at McCaffrey instead. I don’t answer his questions.
