So even though I knew it was a stupid move, I crouched and nabbed the offered food, ripping open the box with trembling fingers. Goat guts will only take you so far, and it had been months since I’d tasted anything as good as this Big Mac looked. Still, I kept my attention trained on the alpha, who stood carefully at ease, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling like a clueless kid instead of like the nineteen-year-old near-adult I actually was. I hadn’t realized I was this close to animal-mode starvation, so I forced myself to pause before I took my first bite. Trying to regain both humanity and adulthood, I tore the burger in two and held out one portion to my benefactor. “Here, you have half.”
“No.” The word was almost a bark, and I looked across the space between us quizzically. What was this dude’s problem?
Then I glanced down at the two burger portions cradled in my hands. The top of the bun had slipped partially off one patty, exposing a white powder liberally sprinkled atop the exposed meat. A white powder that didn’t look at all like salt.
He’s trying to drug me.
Now I was glad my wolf was asleep because she—like most animals—lacked a poker face. My human self, on the other hand was a prime bluffer. So I feigned nonchalance and pretended to take a bite, using the stolen instant to rewind through the preceding moments in my mind.
Had the packaging on my gift been as well latched as the offerings I’d received during past fast-food experiences? Nope. The cardboard notch had been slightly torn, as if the box had been opened and then re-closed after leaving the restaurant.
He looks like Wolfie. He won’t hurt us, my wolf whispered. But I’d learned the hard way that she was the world’s worst judge of character.
And, after all, hadn’t Wolfie hurt us when I admitted my crush and he broke my heart? Sure, my former pack leader had tried to present his words in as kind a manner as possible, and I’d been the one to take the rebuff as an invitation to turn my back on our shared home. Still, it was a proven fact that my track record at reading the intentions of alpha werewolves was sorely lacking.
So I mentally bound my wolf’s will in chains so she wouldn’t bother me, and I flung the untouched burger into the stranger’s face. Then I donned fur and I ran.
Chapter 2
The stranger was nothing if not tenacious. My paws bled and my tender nose was coated in scratches by the time I tore through half a dozen brier patches and shook him off our trail. And even after I was pretty sure he’d fallen behind and been snookered by the oldest trick in the book—that wading-through-the-creek standby—I still forced myself to run flat out for another hour just to be on the safe side.
I didn’t want to see the back-stabbing stranger’s face ever again.
Hungry, my wolf murmured from deep inside our shared body, breaking me out of the rhythm of my footsteps.
She was like a two-year-old sometimes, quick to tell me what she needed but slow to help figure out the steps required to get there. Still, I paused and raised our shared nose to the breeze, knowing there was little chance we’d smell anything edible as deep as we were in the woods. We’d left roads and humanity behind hours earlier, so there was zero chance of my usual backup plan for dinner—dumpster diving.
Of course, being a wolf and all, the forest should have been the perfect spot to find a meal. Unfortunately, my lupine half was the world’s worst hunter. And when my human brain took charge of our furred form, the layer of fog between will and body always made us miss our pounces. I was ashamed to admit that, at an age when most shifters had brought down deer all on their lonesome, I’d never so much as captured a mouse. Some werewolf I am.
But the aroma filling the air now wouldn’t require any pouncing. Strawberries, their sweet/tart aroma coating my tongue so strongly I didn’t know how I’d missed it before. Must be the layer of fog, combined with a lupine half who was barely strong enough to get out of bed in the morning.
It was hard to grumble about my subpar wolf, though, when I followed the fruity scent and stepped out of the trees into a vast valley completely coated with strawberry plants. Wow. The view looked so much like paradise that I shook my head, convinced that the adrenaline, the wrong-body fog, and the number of hours since I’d last eaten had combined to produce a hallucination.
If so, it sure seems like a tasty one.
And it also seemed like a hallucination more fitted to my human form. Because while a wolf stomach could handle fruit, I’d pick the berries more easily with hominid fingers and would enjoy their flavor more with a human tongue.
So I leapt upward onto two legs, steadying myself with one hand against the trunk of a nearby tree. I almost expected the fields of fruit to disappear as the lupine fog receded. But, instead, the strawberries remained, and a clothesline at the edge of the field even offered clean clothes to shield my nakedness.
“Too good to be true.” I’d like to say I was talking to my wolf, but I’d actually gotten into the habit of just mumbling thoughts aloud since leaving Wolfie’s clan. The sound of my own voice, I’d found, took some of the sting out of being packless and alone in the world.
And now my words reminded me to sniff at the air again, searching for human scents amid the warm, tantalizing aroma of berries ripening in the sunlight. Too bad my nose was even more hopeless in human form than when four-legged. I smelled nothing and resolved to simply be careful as I ate.
Skirting the edge of the trees, I looked in all directions before darting toward the clothesline. And even though I knew that whacking one foot off my height would have no effect on shielding me from view, I still found that I was running hunched over, my eyes on the ground.
If we can’t see them, they can’t see us, my wolf promised.
Ah, yes—lupine logic. Just what I needed to get out of this mess with skin intact.
Still, my wolf and I together had managed to achieve our goal. A long line of women’s clothing stretched out before us, and I tested a piece of fabric between forefinger and thumb.
The underwear was dry and warmly aromatic with the scent of fresh air and laundry soap. My hand settled on a clothespin...and then a voice rang out from the other side of the line.
Busted.
Chapter 3
“Not that one,” the woman said.
I didn’t see how I could have missed her earlier since she was only ten feet away from me, albeit on the other side of the fabric-covered line. At first glance, she seemed harmless, reclining on a lounge chair outside a little building’s back door. But a second glance proved that her relaxed posture was deceptive. Instead, the forty-ish woman looked tough as nails, and not just because her hair was cut short and her skin was roughened from spending many hours under the sun. No, there was something about the set of her shoulders that exuded power and strength.
But despite the tough persona, her voice didn’t seem angry. If anything, the woman appeared amused to find a naked stranger walking out of the woods with clear intents upon her clean underwear.
“That belongs to my mate,” the laundry’s owner continued. “And it would confuse me to no end to see you wearing it.” She pointed lazily to less frilly panties further down the line that, I had to admit, suited my tastes much better. “Those pairs are mine, and you’re welcome to them. The jeans should fit you too, and...hmmm....that navy tank top.”
I was light-headed from hunger and fear, and my brain yelled at me to bolt. But, instead, I found myself following her instructions in a daze.
Ah, right—she’d met my eyes. And my wolf had been awake enough to force us both to roll over and do a dominant being’s bidding at a glance.
Slapping down the annoying animal, I took another gander at my supposed benefactor. It was obvious that, despite her easygoing manner, this woman was dangerous. After all, even if my subpar nose and the forced behavior hadn’t clued me in, the term “mate” would have made the truth obvious. I was nabbing clothes from another shifter. And one whose wolf, predictably, wa
s miles stronger than my own.
“Let’s see how you look,” she said after I’d pulled on the indicated garments. I didn’t think I could make it to the tree line before she shifted and pulled me down, so I obediently stepped around the pole to stand before her. I’d meant to be wary, but instead had the surreal notion that I was coming out of a dressing room to get a girlfriend’s advice on an intended purchase. The sudden impulse—barely restrained—to twirl in a circle and show off all sides made me cringe.
Yep, this is definitely a hallucination.
“Not bad,” the woman said. “I’m Quetzalli, by the way. And you’re starving.”
It was true. I’d lost at least twenty pounds since hightailing it away from Wolfie’s pack, and my stomach now seemed to be perpetually stuck to the inside of my ribcage. But after my experience with the Big Mac, I wasn’t about to accept food offerings from a stranger.
The berries were another matter since even my paranoid human brain couldn’t believe that anyone would go to the effort of drugging such a vast reserve of found fruit. “Do you think I could...?”
I pointed vaguely in front of us, although now that I was closer I saw that the remaining fruits were rotting atop a plastic mulch. The crop was clearly past its prime, only damaged berries remaining at the tail end of the harvest season. Not that I would mind putting even so-so fruit in my belly at this point.
“The boss-man won’t care,” Quetzalli said easily. “Picking season’s over and we’re moving on tomorrow. But you’ll make yourself sick eating spoiled strawberries on an empty stomach.”
Our gazes locked for a moment as we sized each other up. To a human eye, Quetzalli seemed to be halfway asleep as she lounged beneath a broad straw hat that covered most of her head. But I’d been around shifters all my life and knew that her muscles were tensed and ready for action.
If her mate was present, she’d have already sent me on my way with a shotgun blast aimed over my head. At least I hoped the blast would have been pointed at the sky.
Hunching my shoulders, I did my best to reduce my height so I’d look less imposing. But who was I kidding? My body was just skin and bones now, and Quetzalli could have knocked me over with a feather. I was the one who should be taking to my heels and getting as far away from this strange shifter as possible.
One side of Quetzalli’s mouth quirked upwards into a sardonic smile. “I’ve got canned soup inside,” she said in what would have resembled a motherly expression of concern if my companion hadn’t sported a buzz cut and a nose piercing. “That’s probably about all your stomach will handle without upchucking all over my flower beds.”
There were no flower beds. And as I peered around the barren yard, it finally occurred to me that Quetzalli and her partner were migrant laborers, here to pick the strawberries then gone again when the season ended. She had no territory to protect, and my muscles relaxed a trifle.
Still, when the other woman swung her legs over the side of the recliner, I stumbled ten feet in the opposite direction before my brain could tell my feet to stop.
“Hnnh.” The sound emerging from behind my back resembled the snort of a quizzical wolf, and I couldn’t resist looking over my shoulder to see if fangs and claws were heading in my direction. Instead, Quetzalli was still two-legged. In fact, she’d turned away to walk in the other direction rather than toward either me or the house.
“I’m heading over to the creek for a few minutes,” she said calmly, as if speaking to a starving stray about to bolt. Who was I kidding—she pretty much was speaking to a starving stray about to bolt. “You can make your soup then come outside to eat it where you can watch all exits.”
The woman paused, then finished: “I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.”
Then Quetzalli turned her back on me and made her way out of sight.
Chapter 4
“So what’re you running from?”
I nearly dropped the spoon when Quetzalli snuck up behind me. But there was still nourishment to be gleaned from its metal surface, so I was careful to snatch the utensil before it hit the ground.
Gourmet meal this was not, but I still wasn’t willing to spill a drop. Not after those twenty nerve-wracking seconds spent hunting soup, spoon, and can opener, the process taking twice as long as it should have since my gaze remained trained on the door the entire time.
Then, rather than heating my find, I’d carried the congealed glob of salty goo outside to eat where I could scan the horizon for predators. Despite all that effort—and the fact that cold, condensed soup is pretty darn disgusting—I’d gotten so lost in the enjoyment of filling my belly that I hadn’t even noticed when my hostess returned.
Now I jumped to my feet at the same time Quetzalli rolled her eyes and slumped back into the recliner. “Look, kid....”
“Fen.” I wasn’t sure why I told her my name. It wasn’t like I was still that fresh-faced kid who’d greeted every new shifter with a handshake and a smile during my early days of trying to carve out a place for myself in the cold, hard world. Even at that time, my naive younger self had never offered up any identifying information to strangers. Not my name, not my outpack status, not the fact that I was only part shifter and boasted the world’s most half-assed wolf.
And I quickly became glad of those evasions when sadistic drifters entered my radar. No, this afternoon’s alpha hadn’t been my first close call, which was why I’d taken to hiding in the woods and hunting at the slaughterhouse rather than continuing to look for a pack worth calling my own.
We should just go home to Wolfie, my lupine conscience muttered. And, for once, she was right. Our former leader had cobbled together a clan of shifters who wouldn’t have fit into any other pack, and they were clearly the only werewolves willing to welcome a halfie like me into their midst.
But I refused to trot home with my tail between my legs. No, I’d either find another pack, or I’d come up with a way to return as an asset rather than as a hindrance.
“Look, Fen,” Quetzalli corrected herself, breaking into my thoughts. “I’ve got a mate to look out for. She’s sugar and spice and everything nice.” The other shifter waved her hand in the air as if making fun of this absent better half, but I could tell from the glint in her eye that she adored her mate. “I need to know what kind of trouble’s following in your footsteps.”
I looked down at the feet in question, noticing for the first time that I’d tracked smears of blood across the wooden porch. Even though I’d never given out my name before now, my scent trail was likely to lead the slaughterhouse stranger to my door sooner rather than later.
The can of soup was empty and I set it down gently on the dirt as I rose to my feet. I felt like an octogenarian, my muscles having solidified into one continuous ache. So much for relaxing in the seeming safety of the strawberry field. “I should go.”
Quetzalli rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying, kid.” Apparently, knowing my name made no difference in how she saw me. “What I’m saying is—knowledge is power. So spill.”
Chapter 5
I told her everything. I started with the alpha who’d tried to drug me, a danger that Quetzalli brushed off with a roll of her expressive eyes. She seemed confident that she could handle the drifter dubbed “Big Mac.”
Then, when my hostess brought out a second serving of soup, this one watered down and heated up on the stove while I waited outside, I spewed forth the long tale of my own stupidity. How I’d left a perfect found family through childish mortification when my advances had been rejected by the pack leader. How I yearned every day to return home and how I knew I’d be welcomed with open arms...but my pride kept me wandering in outpack territory.
How I was still in love with an alpha eleven years my senior who had looked at me with kind, brotherly eyes as I tried to pull his head down for a kiss. “You’re one of my best friends,” he’d told me, “But you’re not my mate.”
Wolfie evidently thought I was a kid with a crush, and he’d be
en painfully careful not to give me the wrong impression of his own feelings in the days that followed. Yes, he’d been so careful that I’d had to leave in order to avoid the pity that seemed to perpetually drift in the depths of his beautiful eyes.
“He’s right, you know,” Quetzalli said when my words finally wound down. “You’re not in love with him.”
“He didn’t say that,” I shot back. “He said he wasn’t in love with me. There’s a difference.”
A kinder woman would have patted me on the back and said, “Oh, you poor dear, of course you’re right.” But I found Quetzalli’s eye roll more heartening.
“It’s what he meant,” she countered. “But, whatever. You have to learn these things on your own. It’s a tough row to hoe being a strong woman shifter, and I’m afraid there aren’t any shortcuts to get where you’re going.”
Now I was the one tempted to roll my eyes. A strong woman shifter? Quetzalli met that description for sure. Being a lesbian werewolf wasn’t going to fly in 99% of the packs out there. No wonder she and her mate were wandering alone in the human world. I knew firsthand how hard outpack life could be, and the fact Quetzalli was alive at all was a testament to her spunk.
But I wasn’t any kind of strong shifter. Case in point—my own wolf was so quiescent that I hadn’t heard a peep out of her this entire time. She should have been hovering beneath my skin as I listened for intruders in the kitchen, but instead she’d easily relinquished control to my human brain as soon as we’d shed our fur. The idea that suffering from a hearty bout of unrequited love was going to toughen me up seemed laughable.
Thirteenth Werewolf and Other Stories Page 4
