by Anne Bishop
“You don’t have to wear the harness anymore.” He wished the boy wasn’t so focused on that harness and leash. It made the other Wolves uneasy. Well, it wouldn’t bother any of them much longer. The pup had grown sufficiently in just a few days’ time that the harness wouldn’t fit him in another week.
Sam gave him an incredulous look. “If I don’t wear the harness, how am I supposed to pull Meg out of a snowbank when she falls in?”
Simon kept his eyes on the road. The boy had said when, not if. Just how often did Meg fall into a snowbank? Was she clumsy, or was it play? Or did she end up in the snow after getting tripped by a puppy?
“And Meg isn’t a good digger,” Sam continued. “As Wolf, I’m lots better at digging.”
“Is that why you were the one digging out the BOW when it got stuck in the snow yesterday?” Simon asked mildly.
Sam scooted down in his seat and mumbled, “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
“Uh-huh.” He had fielded a dozen calls from Hawks, Owls, Crows, and a couple of Wolves who had watched that piece of idiocy and couldn’t wait to tell him about it. He found it interesting that none of them had offered to help. In fact, the Wolves told him they had deliberately stayed out of sight, letting Meg and Sam work it out for themselves. And they had. Between them, they had gotten the BOW unstuck and continued with the deliveries.
It also explained why, when he’d returned from an hour’s run with Blair and a few other Wolves, he’d found the television on and pup and prophet sound asleep on the living room floor.
Since she was spooned around Sam to keep him warm, Simon had figured it was only sensible to stay as Wolf and tuck himself against her back to keep her warm.
The fact that tucking up against her made him feel content had nothing to do with that decision. Nothing at all.
When they arrived at Meg’s office, Simon helped Sam fold his clothes and place them in one of the back room’s storage bins, then opened the door to the sorting room after the boy shifted to Wolf. The pup gave Meg an exuberant greeting, arroooed at Nathan, then began sniffing around the room for the cookies Meg had hidden.
“You have anything you want me to walk over to the consulate?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” Meg replied. “Darrell came by and picked up the mail.” She paused, looking puzzled.
He caught a whiff of uneasiness in her scent and took a step toward her. “Something wrong with him coming by?”
She shook her head. “Just that no one from the consul has come for the mail before this week.”
He debated about whether to tell her about Darrell’s scheduled monkey fuck, but he didn’t say anything because she suddenly yelped.
“Your nose is cold!” she said, looking down at Sam. “And don’t think I’m buying that ‘I was just checking for cookies’ look as an excuse to stick a cold nose against my ankle!”
Sam talked back at her, sounding quite pleased with himself, then trotted around the sorting table to resume his quest for cookies.
Grinning, Simon left the office and walked over to the consulate.
Darrell was at a desk, looking like he’d already caught the scent of a female in heat and was about to lose his brains over it. Giving the human a nod, Simon went up the stairs to Elliot’s office.
“You wanted to see me?” he asked when his sire looked up.
“Yes.”
Elliot gestured to the visitor’s chair, and Simon wondered which politician he was mimicking. He also wondered why the other Wolf looked uncomfortable.
“Everything still going well with Ms. Corbyn?” Elliot finally asked.
“Some reason it shouldn’t be?”
“I saw Nathan and Sam chasing her yesterday afternoon behind the office. They seemed . . . serious . . . in their pursuit.”
Ah. “Henry talked Meg into playing deer hunt, claiming that Sam needed to work on his skills in chasing game. I think he was mostly making sure that she got some exercise. Meg is convincing in her role as designated prey, which is why Henry wanted to keep them in sight—in case Nathan became too enthusiastic or another Wolf mistook the game for a real hunt. In the end, it will build up Meg’s muscles and stamina, and build up Sam’s muscles and stamina, and Nathan will have a good time romping with them as a reward for guard duty.”
Of course, listening to John whine yesterday about not being allowed to go out and play hadn’t done anything for his own eroding self-discipline—especially because he could tell just by watching that Meg really did make a good squeaky toy.
Elliot smiled. Then he chuckled. “It’s good to see the pup playing again. Now, if we can just get him out of that harness.”
“He says he needs it to pull Meg out of snowbanks,” Simon replied, his voice bland.
Elliot laughed. As the laughter faded, he sobered. “I’m sorry I struck her. Her instincts are odd but from the heart, I think.”
Simon nodded. It was a little annoying to have Sam quoting Meg about human things when she actually knew less about the regular human world than every member of the Business Association, but her lack of knowledge about the Others was working to their advantage. What other human would accept the label of prey in order for a little Wolf to chase her?
“Darrell is having his assignation this evening,” Elliot said.
“We agreed to let him use one of the rooms above the Liaison’s Office,” Simon said.
“He also wants permission to bring his companion to the Meat-n-Greens for dinner.”
“Why? It’s not a fancy place, if you want to impress a woman. You go to a human-run restaurant for that.”
“But it is in the Market Square, a place very few are allowed to see. Some women become quite stimulated by the thrill of the forbidden.”
“Do you know who he wants to bring in?”
“It’s the female who was sniffing around you. At least, Ferus said he smelled Darrell on her.”
Simon nodded. “Asia Crane.” Forbidden thrill. That explained why youngsters from the university or the business and technical college were always sniffing around HGR and A Little Bite, or spending an evening in the social center in the hopes of rubbing up against the terra indigene. But he’d had the impression Asia had been sniffing around for something more. Did humans gain some status among their own kind if they were allowed in the Courtyard’s Market Square? Maybe he would ask the Ruthie the next time she came into HGR. She was proving to be quite reliable for a human.
“Give him a guest pass for the Market Square,” Simon said. “Tell Darrell he can take his female into any stores that are open. But make sure he knows it’s a one-time pass.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Simon pushed out of the chair. “I have to go. Vlad is handling the store today, but I promised to deal with some of the paperwork.”
He walked back to HGR, detouring at A Little Bite for coffee and a fruit tart that he’d sniffed earlier in the day. Taking his treat up to the bookstore’s office, he growled his way through some paperwork—and tried to shake the uneasiness he felt about giving Asia Crane any kind of access to the Courtyard.
* * *
Meg kept her eyes on the road as she followed the familiar route to the Chambers. “Today you are not going to jump on me and scare me into driving into a snowbank because you saw a deer and wanted to get out and chase it. Right? Because we do not need to get stuck two days in a row.”
She had really, really, really hoped that Simon—and Blair—hadn’t heard about the snowbank. Finding a short-handled shovel in the back of the BOW next to the snow brush and ice scraper had been proof enough that one—or both—knew about yesterday’s adventure.
Sam grinned at her and wagged his tail.
No help there.
Of course, she had never seen real deer before, and seeing a handful in what looked like a snow corral had been the other reason she hadn’t focused on the road those few seconds too long.
Not that she was going to admit that.
As she drove past Erebus Sanguinati’s marble home, she glanced to the left. Then she stopped and stared at one of the interior roads. Most weren’t plowed with any consistency, and the few that were led to buildings that had no designation. Since she didn’t need to drive along those roads to make her deliveries and didn’t think the BOW could muscle its way down them anyway, she stuck to the outer ring and the interior roads that provided access to all the complexes, as well as the Pony Barn and the girls at the lake.
Maybe in the spring, when those unmarked roads were accessible again, she would drive around the interior of the Courtyard and find her own little spot where she could go when she wanted some solitude.
But as she looked at that narrow, snow-covered road again, the skin just below the newest scars—the ones that had shown her where her life would end—began prickling so fiercely she wanted to scream. If Simon was right and this was some kind of instinctive defense the cassandra sangue possessed, then that road represented some kind of danger.
When she drove past the road, the prickling didn’t fade. In fact, it got worse, becoming more concentrated under the skin below those new scars.
She turned on the BOW’s headlights, wondering how she could have forgotten that she needed lights to drive at night.
Except it wasn’t night. She and Sam were making the afternoon deliveries, and she didn’t need the lights to see the road.
Shaking, Meg stopped the BOW and put it in park, ignoring Sam’s whining as he tried to climb into her lap and lick her face.
The prickling turned into a harsh buzzing under her skin.
It had been more than a week since her last cut, and that one had been a paper cut, an accident. Maybe that’s why she felt so edgy, so desperate to relieve the prickling.
Maybe that’s why she had just slipped into something that wasn’t quite a vision. Or wasn’t a vision in the same way she had been trained to see them.
This was new, unknown, frightening. This was worse than being distracted by a deer for a few seconds. If she hadn’t remembered when she was driving, would that weird vision have continued until she crashed the BOW?
She’d been driving alone. At night. So whatever this was, it was personal. It was about her. And there was only one way she was going to find out more.
This wasn’t about a physical craving. There wasn’t going to be any euphoria. But she had to find out why she’d reacted so strongly to a road that she’d experienced inside a vision for a few seconds.
Have to wait, she thought, gritting her teeth as she put the BOW in gear. Have to wait until I finish the deliveries and get Sam home.
“Not many packages today,” she told Sam as she drove to the last section of the Chambers. She left him in the BOW while she tucked a couple of items in the delivery boxes outside the fence, but she clipped his leash to the harness when she reached the Hawkgard Complex and let him come with her to the mail room.
Two packages to the Wolfgard Complex, then four boxes of another building-block toy for the Corvine social room. She had no idea what the Crows were building, but based on the comments made by Jenni and Crystal when she saw them in the Market Square, the Crows gathered each evening to work on these constructions and were having a great time.
By the time she reached the Green Complex and parked her BOW in the garage, her emotional need to make the cut was as fierce as her need to relieve the prickling in her skin. She tried to sound and act normal, but Sam’s anxious whines told her plainly enough that the pup knew something was wrong.
And if Sam sensed it before she did anything, she was going to have to avoid Simon until the cut scabbed over. She just didn’t know how to do that when he would be here soon to fetch the puppy.
When they were inside her apartment, she hung up her coat, took off her boots, and smiled at Sam. “I have to use the bathroom. Do you want to change while I’m doing that?”
It didn’t surprise her that he followed her to the bathroom and tried to go in with her instead of going into her bedroom to shift and put on the clothes she had ready for him.
She locked him out, then stripped off her sweater and turtleneck. Taking the razor out of her jeans pocket, she opened it and laid the blade flat on her arm, its back against the previous scar. Then she turned her hand, bringing the honed edge against virgin skin—and pressed down lightly.
The sensation of skin parting, as if it were fleeing from the steel.
Lifting the blade, she placed the razor on the sink and braced for the pain. It flowed up from some dark place inside her while the blood flowed from the wound.
That interior road, just past Erebus’s home. Not much snow on the pavement, but snow falling, heavy and fast. Dark outside, but she couldn’t tell if it was early evening or late night. A sound like a motor mated to hornets. Driving alone in the dark at a reckless speed, no lights to give away her position. That sound closing around her. And behind her, Sam howling in terror.
But safe. This time, he was safe.
Coming out of the prophecy, Meg braced herself against the sink and swallowed the need to scream from the pain. So much worse than that little cut on her finger. Maybe even worse than the cuts that had shown her the Courtyard and Simon Wolfgard.
At least the prickling under her skin had stopped. She had gotten that much relief from the cut.
Gasping and crying, she washed the cut before putting on antiseptic cream and taping a thick pad over it, hoping to hide the smell of blood. Then she cleaned the razor and made sure she wiped the sink. As a last step, she used the toilet, not sure how long scents could be picked up by a Wolf nose.
She put on the turtleneck, careful not to pull the bandage, then the sweater, and left the bathroom. She expected to find Sam dressed, more or less, and waiting for her in the kitchen with his list of desired snacks. She found him still in Wolf form, huddled by her front door. He looked at her and whined but wouldn’t come to her, wouldn’t move away from the door.
Uneasy, she didn’t push him. She brought him a couple of puppy cookies, which he refused to eat. He just huddled by the door, shivering.
She knew the moment Simon started up the stairs to her front door. Sam alternated howling and clawing at her door.
“Get out of the way, Sam,” she said. “I can’t open the door with you standing there.”
As soon as the door was open, he bolted out of her apartment and down the stairs, racing past Simon.
“He’s upset,” she said. She tried to shut the door in Simon’s face, but she wasn’t fast enough. He didn’t force his way in, didn’t make any demands, but she was sure that the flickers of red in his eyes and the way he sniffed the air meant he knew exactly why Sam was upset.
Returning to the kitchen, she poured a glass of orange juice. Then she sat at the table and waited for whatever Simon was going to do.
* * *
He had washed the cage and put it in one of the basement storage bins. He was willing to look the other way about the harness and leash for a while longer, especially now that he knew why Sam wanted to keep wearing it, but he couldn’t tolerate looking at that cage anymore.
And yet, when he opened the door to their apartment, Sam ran for that spot and huddled where the back corner of the cage used to be.
Simon removed his boots, went into the living room, and knelt beside the shivering pup.
Whining, Sam climbed into Simon’s arms.
Stupid bitch, Simon thought as he cuddled Sam. Why slice herself when the pup was still with her? Why couldn’t she wait until he’d gone home and wouldn’t pick up the sc
ent of fresh blood?
Why indeed?
As the scent of her blood faded, replaced by the familiar scents of his own den, Simon’s anger also faded.
No euphoria if the words of a prophecy weren’t spoken. Only pain.
There were other reasons for a blood scent, especially in a female’s bathroom. Could have been an accidental nick. Could be a different kind of blood that a pup wouldn’t know about yet.
No. That kind of blood wasn’t mixed with a medicine smell.
He didn’t realize he was growling until Sam began licking his chin and making anxious sounds.
He’d been wrong the last time he accused her of cutting herself. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Relief washed through him. Maybe his own memories of finding Daphne and Sam that terrible night made it hard for him to be rational about Meg being hurt. Maybe he was just as vulnerable as Sam in that way.
“Sam? I need to talk to Henry. Can you stay by yourself, or do you want me to ask . . . Elliot or Nathan to stay with you?” It told him how much she had become one of them that Meg was his first choice to stay with the pup.
Sam shifted. Simon enclosed the naked boy in his coat, letting his own heat warm cold skin.
“Can I watch a movie?” Sam asked.
“You can watch a movie.”
“Can I have a snack?”
“You can have a snack that I will make for you.”
Worried gray eyes looked into his. “Simon? Is Meg going to die and leave us?”
Simon shook his head. “If Meg was badly hurt, she would tell us. And she didn’t look hurt, Sam.” Actually, she did. Her face, her eyes, still showed signs of pain when she answered the door and tried to pretend everything was fine. “I’ll check on her after I talk to Henry.”
He couldn’t do more than that for boy or woman, so he made a snack for Sam and put in the movie before he went over to Henry’s. The Grizzly had returned and was making tea when Simon walked into the Beargard’s kitchen.
