by Roxie Noir
“Seven fifteen,” said Jasper.
“So you’ll be home by ten?” called one of the men from the couch, grinning.
Olivia turned bright red.
“Papa,” she said.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, fighting to get the smile off his face.
“She’s twenty-seven, Gary,” said Lydia. “Ten-thirty at least.”
Olivia rolled her eyes.
“They think this is funny,” she said to Craig and Jasper. “Come on, I don’t want to be late.”
Without saying anything, Lydia waved a camera in the air. Olivia just closed her eyes and looked like she was counting to ten.
“The light’s better outside,” said Lydia. “You three stand on the front steps.”
Taking photos really, really made Craig feel like he was back in high school, taking a girl to prom. Somehow, Jasper seemed to be taking it all in stride, but Olivia herself barely managed to hide her annoyance.
“Stop fidgeting,” admonished Lydia. “I didn’t get to take your prom pictures, or your graduation pictures, so hold still and let me do embarrassing mom stuff.”
Olivia stopped fidgeting. Lydia snapped a final photo, then put the camera down and turned it off.
“Okay, you can go,” she said. “Have fun. Be safe.”
Olivia sat in the front seat with Craig driving and Jasper in the middle of the back.
“When I was in high school, I used to drive my parents’ Buick around,” said Craig. “That thing was as wide as a four-lane highway, but you could fit three people in the front, no problem.”
“Do they make those anymore?” asked Olivia. She’d spent three months catching up to the world, and whether they still made a specific model of car hadn’t really been on her radar.
“Oh, god no,” said Craig. “That thing was twenty years old at least way back then. Had a stick shift on the steering column. Almost impossible to drive, but that front seat was nice.”
Very nice.
“Craig was a big stud in his glory days before we met,” Jasper teased.
“I didn’t say that,” Craig said. “And besides, my glory days are yet to come.”
“Sure,” said Jasper, grinning.
Craig mock-frowned, then looked over at Olivia.
She looked mostly amused, though also a little curious.
Hey, she’s not horrified, thought Craig. I’ll take it.
“I’m just saying, they should make shifter date cars,” Craig said. “They can be short and squat. Three seats across the front and a trunk. Like a very wide sports cars.”
“That sounds like the world’s ugliest car,” said Jasper.
Olivia nodded.
“Sure, take his side,” grumbled Craig.
He was rewarded when her mouth twitched upward into a smile.
At the restaurant, they showed up and were seated right away, even though they were a few minutes early for their reservation.
As he looked around, Craig felt relieved. It had crossed his mind that, even though they weren’t near the wolf parts of Cascadia, wolves could still show up and freak Olivia out.
Hell, Buck himself could show up, though Craig didn’t consider himself above ripping out the other man’s throat, breaking his neck, and then stomping on his —
“Welcome to L’Aubergine,” the waiter said. He was an older man — human, by the smell of him — and he looked like he’d worked long and hard to perfect the proper snooty face for a waiter in a French restaurant.
“Would you like to hear our specials?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” Jasper said.
As his mate listened attentively, Craig let his mind wander. Specifically, he let it wander to Olivia, who was watching the waiter with a slightly baffled look on her face.
His eyes caressed her shoulders, the way they curved down into her slightly plump arms, supple and muscular at the same time, and then her bosom, which filled out her dress so lusciously every time she took a breath—
“And you, monsieur?”
Craig blinked, and then looked up to find the waiter looking at him.
“Sorry?”
“What will monsieur be having to drink?”
Craig looked down briefly at the menu.
“Red wine, please.”
The waiter just stood there, his eyebrows slightly raised, his lips slowly drawing into a look of disapproval.
“He’ll have the 2013 Cabernet,” said Jasper, coming to his rescue.
“Two cabernets, a sparkling water for the Mademoiselle, and our charcuterie plate,” the waiter said. “It will be out shortly.”
Shit, thought Craig. What the hell is a charcuterie?
For at least the fourth time that day, he was glad that he had Jasper as his mate so he wouldn’t embarrass himself too much.
Across the table, Olivia stared down at her place setting, face carefully expressionless.
Then she looked up and leaned toward them a little, casting a glance around at the other patrons.
“I don’t know which fork to use,” she whispered.
Craig leaned forward toward her, a smile sliding onto his face.
“I don’t know either,” he whispered back.
“It’s outside in,” whispered Jasper, pointing at his silverware. “This one, then this one, then this one. Dead easy.”
“Why’s there one on top?” whispered Olivia.
“Dessert fork,” whispered Jasper. “Also, why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said, at normal volume this time.
The waiter came and sat glasses of wine in front of Craig and Jasper, then a glass of sparkling water in front of Olivia.
“So you don’t drink?” Craig asked, taking a sip himself.
Jasper also took a sip, and nodded in approval.
Tastes like wine, thought Craig.
“Alcohol isn’t really recommended for the formerly feral,” she said. Her tone was casual, but there was a steel behind it, like every time she mentioned that she’d been feral, she had to brace herself for something.
“Makes sense,” said Jasper.
He swirled his wine glass between his fingers, looking thoughtful. Then he looked up at Olivia.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Sure.”
“You can tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to answer,” he said, leaning forward.
At the next table over, a lady with pearls and gray hair pursed her lips and glared. Craig ignored her, fighting down the urge to flip her off.
“Sure,” Olivia said, sounding less certain.
“Why did you go feral?” he asked.
Strangely, Olivia looked relieved, and even a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t have a good reason,” she said. “I mean, my best friend got hit by a car and died, but that happens to plenty of people and they don’t go feral.”
“That’s a good reason,” said Craig.
“It was really just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Olivia said. She took the stem of her sparkling water glass between the fingers of both hands and turned it back and forth, making the bubbles rise to the surface in a zig zag.
“It was probably going to happen anyway. Matilda dying just made it happen earlier, you know? But I was pretty miserable in high school. And before that, honestly.”
“Why?”
“The usual stuff. I got teased, there were mean girls, I felt like I was weird for being a grizzly. Really normal stuff. Most people deal with it by going to college and finding new friends, I dealt with it by turning into a bear for ten years.”
She smiled an odd half-smile and looked up at them.
“Sorry if we’re prying,” said Jasper.
Olivia laughed.
“God, no,” she said. “I don’t mind talking about it. I hate it when people dance around it and try to pretend like I’m normal, and then cover up when I space out and start scratching myself on trees.”
Craig grinne
d.
“I do that all the time,” he said. “You can’t reach back there, what are you supposed to do?”
“Right?” said Olivia.
The waiter showed up again, carrying a large board filled with prosciutto, sliced salami, three different cheeses, and tiny pickles. He put it on the table along with a basket of bread.
“Thank you,” said Craig, and the snooty man nodded, then walked away.
“Is this a charcuterie?” he whispered to Jasper.
“Yes,” Jasper whispered back.
“Next question,” said Olivia, her voice low. “Do I use a fork for this?”
Fifty feet behind Olivia, a group of men walked in. There were at least eight of them, and to Craig’s irritation, they were all wearing denim and flannel.
Craig frowned, then elbowed Jasper.
“They’re all wearing—”
Then he stopped short.
The man standing right in the middle of the group was Buck Reynolds.
9
Olivia
Very carefully, Olivia cut a sliver of brie cheese, then spread it onto a tiny slice of baguette. She cast a quick glance over to the side, where another table had also gotten the meat-and-cheese plate, whatever the word for it was.
The guy there was also putting cheese and then meat on his bread, so she took it as permission to do the same, forking a piece of prosciutto onto her creation.
She put it into her mouth, fighting the urge to cram the whole morsel in, and took a tiny, dainty bite.
Delicious, she thought.
As she was chewing, thinking that she should probably add brie and cured meat to her list of good things about being human, and then worrying that the list was starting to really skew toward food, she caught the look on Craig’s face.
It was half shock, half fury, and he was staring at someone behind her.
Mouth still full, baguette slice in her hand, she turned to see what Craig was staring at.
“Don’t—” she heard him say, but it was too late.
Buck was standing there, along with seven other wolves.
Olivia’s heart dropped through the floor. Her pulse skyrocketed. Her vision started to close in, and she dropped the rest of her appetizer, not even noticing where it went.
Another wolf was arguing with the maître d’, but Buck just stood there.
Watching her.
He’s waiting to see what I’m going to do, she thought, and she turned her head back toward the table, staring down at her plate, taking deep breaths.
“Olivia,” Craig said, reaching out and taking her arm.
“I’m okay,” she said.
She could already feel the heat rising, that warm-and-sweating all over feeling that preceded a shift, but she fought it. Her bear starting growing, filling her skin.
Olivia hung onto Craig’s hand, and then Jasper’s, like she was dangling from the edge of a building. Around her, the other patrons were starting to stare, but Olivia barely noticed.
All that mattered was that she not shift in the middle of the restaurant. She held her breath and braced herself, harder than she’d ever braced herself before.
Marshmallows, she thought. Showers, hot water, brie and salami.
Mom and Dad and Papa.
Jasper and Craig.
She gave their hands a hard squeeze, trying to let them know that she counted them among her good things.
Slowly, her bear receded.
Her hands were sweaty and shaking when she opened her eyes again, and she could feel the wetness running in a rivulet down the back of her neck, but she’d done it.
She was human.
“Fuck this,” said Craig. “Let’s go.”
“No,” said Olivia. “We stay. He can’t control my life like this.”
Despite her shakes, she stabbed a piece of meat with her fork and brought it to her mouth defiantly.
Then, behind her, she heard, “Hello, Olivia.”
She didn’t have time to brace herself.
Her bear expanded inside her in a heartbeat, and before Olivia knew it, while she was still chewing her salami, she was shifting.
She almost felt like she was watching herself grow claws and fur and teeth, her brain folding in on itself and simplifying as she struggled to stop the shift, but it was too late.
For a moment, Olivia looked around L’Aubergine as she stood on all fours, baring her teeth as Buck. Screaming patrons ran everywhere, but she hardly noticed them.
Olivia looked at Buck with bear eyes, and suddenly, she recognized something. Not the human who’d locked her in the barn.
No, she recognized the wolf.
Memories came back to her in a flood: blood and fur and teeth and claws. A surprise ambush.
Then she had one final, lonely human thought:
NO.
The tiny human part of Olivia screamed and pushed, pushed harder than she ever had before.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, at least, she felt her bear recede, the fur and claws and teeth folding back into her, her whole self collapsing, and suddenly she was falling to the floor, naked and sweaty.
Behind her there was a crash and liquid splashed across her. Then someone — either Craig or Jasper — covered her with a table cloth and then with himself. Both of them were shouting something, everyone in the restaurant was screaming, but Olivia could only think about one thing.
From the floor, she looked up, slowly pushing herself to her feet. She held the tablecloth in front of herself, wrapped tightly around her, and she felt someone put a huge, tentlike dress shirt around her.
She stared at Buck, right into his steel-gray eyes.
It was the eyes that she remembered.
“It was you,” she said.
Buck raised his eyebrows mockingly.
“It’s still me,” he said, his tone cruel and cold.
The restaurant patrons who hadn’t left were all gathered around the walls, broken dishes and plates everywhere. It was mostly shifters still present, and Olivia’s over-sensitive nose could scent the adrenaline rolling off of all of them in waves.
“Call the police,” she heard someone mutter.
“Call animal control,” a tart female voice responded.
“She’s getting locked up for sure now,” said someone else.
Olivia ignored them all and kept staring at Buck, the tablecloth wrapped tightly around her, the dress shirt over her shoulders.
She didn’t give a shit what anyone said about her, because she finally remembered.
“I killed those wolves,” she said, staring Buck in the eyes. “You know I did, because you were there.”
A slight crease formed between his eyebrows, and instantly, Olivia knew that she was right.
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“There were three of you,” she went on, ignoring him. “It was spring, and I’d just woken up form hibernation, and I was so hungry. I was rooting around for grubs and berries somewhere, and then I turned, and there were three wolves right behind me,” she said.
Buck’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything. One of the other pack members he was with gave him a sideways glance.
“There was one in front and two behind, and the front wolf was huge, with these yellow-gray eyes and gray-brown fur with one black streak right down the middle of his forehead.”
She reached out and tapped Buck on the forehead, and her hand didn’t even shake.
“Right there,” she said.
The rest of his pack looked at Buck, and Olivia could sense a change coming over them.
“You lunged at me,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. Wolves never attack grizzlies, especially shifter wolves, so I had no idea what was going on. You got me on the shoulder but I knocked you off, and then the other two attacked.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head quickly, trying to shake the memories free, get them in the right order in her head.
“I was so tired an
d weak and hungry, but I got them off of me. I didn’t mean to kill them, I just wanted them to stop, especially because I thought you were going to attack me too. But instead, there were two dead wolves and then I watched you slink off.”
Buck’s face hadn’t changed. He said nothing, but then his eyes darted from Olivia to Jasper to Craig, and in that tiny motion, she could sense that she’d won.
“You watched as they died and you did nothing,” she said. “You goaded them into attacking me, and then you ran away.”
Buck snorted.
“That’s a nice story,” he said.
“It’s a true story,” she said.
“It’s bullshit is what it is,” Buck said. He puffed up his chest, drawing himself to his full height, and behind her, Olivia could sense Jasper and Craig doing the same, and they had a couple inches on Buck, easy. “I’d never put my own peoples’ lives at risk, and for what? To kill some feral girl? Ferals do a pretty good job of that themselves. They don’t need our help.”
“You’ve got that black streak, Buck,” one of the other wolves said softly.
Buck shrugged.
“And you were acting pretty odd that day,” added another one.
Buck turned to face them.
“You’re not going to believe a half-crazed grizzly over me, are you?” he asked. He kept his tone genial, his hands spread before him beseechingly, but everyone there could hear a slight wheedling tone, a note of worry, in his voice.
A big wolf stepped forward, going nearly nose-to-nose with Buck. Olivia didn’t recognize him. She didn’t recognize anyone besides Buck; the wolf who’d brought her meat and been nice to her while she was in the cage wasn’t there.
“Let’s talk about it back at the ranch,” the man said to Buck.
It was clear from his tone, and from the way that the other wolves closed in, that it wasn’t merely a suggestion.
“We can talk about it here,” Buck said.
“Do you fellows want to talk about it here?” the other wolf ask.
They answered in the negative and started to walk out, the wolves surrounding Buck in a circle.
“She’s a hysterical liar,” Olivia could hear Buck saying. “She just wants attention.”
When they disappeared from sight, Olivia collapsed into a chair. The tablecloth she’d been holding around her slipped, and the restaurant burst back to life, with people rushing everywhere, streaming out, and waiters trying to get them to pay their bills first.
