Leader Of The Pack

by Karen McInerney

  “You, too,” she said, with obvious reservations.

  “I know I’m leaving you in good hands,” Tom said to me with a smile and a slight warning look. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “Thanks, Kayla,” he said, turning a full-wattage smile on her.

  “Sure,” Kayla said, looking less than thrilled by the assignment. I couldn’t blame her; my liberal application of Euphoria was curling my own nose hairs, and I’d had a couple of hours to get used to it.

  “I will see you both soon.” Tom gave me an intense look from his golden eyes before disappearing into the jeans-clad throng. It was just Kayla and me now.

  “So,” she said, reaching up to pry her eyelashes apart. The golden eyes shimmering behind the gloppy black mascara marked her as a born werewolf. The made werewolves’ eyes—most of whom were toting trays of sausages, I noticed—had the shimmer, but not the signature whiskey color. She raked me with an appraising up-and-down look. “How do you know Tom?”

  “We met a few months ago,” I said.

  “Huh,” she said. “I didn’t know Tom had a girlfriend.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend, really,” I said, hoping to dampen her curiosity. “We’re just… getting to know each other,” I continued. “Nothing official.”

  “He’s cute,” Kayla said, watching him weave through the crowded room. “Plus he’s got that royal blood, and those special powers of his … he’s got carte blanche to go anywhere he wants. A real catch. If you manage to hold onto him, anyway.” She looked me over a second time, with a hint of disdain. Which was pretty rich, considering her own personal makeup regimen consisted of half a tube of mascara per eye. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were his type, really. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said dryly. And then, because I couldn’t help myself: “Does he have a type?”

  “I’ve seen him with a lot of different chicks,” she said, and my heart plummeted a bit. “But none of them dressed like you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they were all a little less… well, they were classier, I guess. No offense,” she said again.

  Of course not. Granted, my ensemble tonight was more Britney Spears than Hillary Clinton, but still… “Well, maybe he’s looking for a bit of excitement, then,” I suggested, trying for a salacious grin.

  “Maybe,” she said, giving me a dubious glance that suggested he would have better luck spending a few hours in a pit full of vipers.

  I decided it was time to turn the conversation toward what I really came here to find out about. Which was not Tom’s dating habits, fascinating though they might be. “Here we’ve been going on and on about my love life, when you …”

  Her face clouded.

  “I’m sorry about your loss,” I said. “Tom told me something had happened to your fiancé, but he didn’t say what.”

  Kayla’s golden eyes misted up a little bit, and she spoke in a low voice. “My promised mate was … was murdered a few days ago.”

  “Oh, how awful! You poor thing.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness. “We were going to be joined next month.” I felt kind of bad for bringing up the subject—her face had paled, and although it was hard to tell through the mascara, her eyes seemed a bit hollow.

  But duty calls. I drew in my breath and feigned shock. “Oh, how awful,” I repeated, reaching out to give her arm a sympathetic squeeze. “What happened?”

  She turned her head away. “He … he had his throat ripped out by some savage French werewolf.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Luc Garou, the savage French werewolf with a weakness for undersized designer jeans. Yeah, right. “How dreadful!” I said. “And to have seen it happen …”

  She gave me a scornful look from under her gloppy eyelashes. “I didn’t see it. I was at my sister’s house, out in Galveston, for a couple of days.”

  “Still,” I said, studying her face and searching for a change in expression under the pancake makeup. “To hear about it from someone who did see it—that must have been terrible.”

  Kayla gave me a suspicious look. “What are you talking about? Nobody actually saw it happen,” she said.

  “Nobody saw it? Then how the heck do they know it was a French werewolf?”

  She rolled her eyes, her grief evidently swamped by a wave of annoyance. “Everybody knows it was Garou. He’s wanted to kill my Charles for a century—he was just waiting for the opportunity. Dudley saw them arguing just before it happened, and when Boris found him, he could smell the guy all over him.”

  “Who are Boris and Dudley?”

  “Elena’s guards,” she said. “Boris is really cute—wears these leather pants that make him look totally hot.”

  Ew. Unless wearing synthetic leather was common among werewolves, she was describing one of the pleather boys. And evidently, just because her beloved was dead didn’t mean she was; despite her bereavement, Kayla appeared to be already back on the prowl. But did she really think that Boris was hot ?

  Kayla sniffled dramatically, distracting me from an unpleasant mental picture of Boris’s pleather-encased backside. “Anyway, I’m so glad they’ve got that awful French werewolf locked up,” she said, wiping away an eyeliner-laden tear. “I just wish they could bring my Charles back.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would a French werewolf want to kill your boyfriend?” I asked. “Wasn’t your boyfriend a member of the Houston pack, too?”

  She shot me a suspicious look. “Why does it matter to you?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense to me, I guess.” And then there was the fact that the accused was my father, of course. “Maybe somebody else was mad at him,” I suggested. “Or maybe someone was jealous that he was seeing you, or something. I mean, I’m betting you’re a pretty hot ticket around here.”

  Unfortunately, my flattery didn’t work. “I told you, it was the French guy,” she said haughtily. “He’s had it in for Charles for years.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said quickly, not wanting to alienate her. “But are you sure there wasn’t… I don’t know. A jealous would-be lover, or something?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  “It was just a thought,” I said lamely. So far, not so good. I flailed around for something else to talk about. My gaze landed on a buck’s antler-studded head, which was affixed to a nearby wall. “Are you going on the hunt tonight?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Everybody’s going.”

  “I heard one of the alphas took a buck last night.”

  “Yeah, that was Wolfgang.” Her eyes gleamed slightly. “He’s really something, isn’t he?”

  Before I had a chance to respond, two male werewolves sidled up to us, their gold belt buckles flashing in the dim light. “Can I buy you a drink?” asked the taller one, who had long dark hair and a belt buckle that said BUD, as he sidled up to Kayla.

  “Why not?” she asked, flashing him a flirtatious smile. Despite her recent personal tragedy, she was certainly resilient.

  Bud’s slightly shorter friend gave me a measuring look, and his nose wrinkled a little bit. He wasn’t bad looking—medium-brown hair and a cute smattering of freckles on his nose—but he wasn’t my type. “I haven’t seen you around before,” he said. “My name is Anthony.”

  “I’m Inga,” I said.

  “She’s from Minnesota,” Kayla said helpfully. “She’s the one who’s with Tom Fenris.”

  Both werewolves pricked their ears at this, and their twin golden gazes increased in intensity. What was it with Tom that just saying his name got everyone’s undivided attention? “I’m not really with Tom,” I clarified quickly. “We’re seeing each other casually. I’m just in town for a dose of warm weather,” I said. “How about you? Are you guys from around here?”

  “We’re down from Texarkana,” Bud said.

  “I’m from Houston,” Kayla said, pushing her rather insubstantial chest out a bit.

&nb
sp; “I’m afraid I don’t know too much about the Texas packs,” I ventured. “How big are they?”

  “Houston’s the biggest,” Kayla said proudly. “I’m surprised Tom hasn’t told you. Five hundred and fifty members strong. It’s one of the biggest packs in the whole south. Texarkana’s got a couple hundred, too.” One over-tweezed eyebrow arched a little bit. “I thought everybody knew that.”

  I forced a laugh. “Oh, where I live is such a backwater, we never get any news.”

  “Where in Minnesota are you from?”

  “Oh, a little town outside of Minneapolis,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

  “Try me,” Anthony said, eyes glinting. “I used to travel up there on business a lot.”

  Uh-oh. I stared at him for a moment, racking my brain for the name of a town in Minnesota. “Saint Paul,” I finally blurted.

  His eyebrows rose. “I thought you said you were from a small town.”

  “Well, everything’s relative,” I said, anxious to shift the topic from my fictional hometown. “I mean, compared to Houston…” There was silence for a moment, and then I plunged ahead. “So, what about you? Have you always lived in Texarkana?”

  “Born and bred,” Anthony said. “But it’s so cool that you’re from Saint Paul, although I can’t believe you’d call it small. Who’s running the pack these days? When I was there it was Gunther and Helga, but that was a few years back.”

  I grabbed a beer from a roving waiter and took a long swig, stalling for time. “Still the same,” I said quickly, glancing at Kayla, who was now deep in conversation with Bud. Time for a subject change. “Did you hear about what happened to Kayla’s promised mate?” I asked Anthony in a low, conspiratorial voice.

  “The one the French guy killed?”

  “I heard it might have been someone else,” I said.

  “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. Everything I’ve heard pretty much places him on the scene. It looks like an open-and-shut case.” He shook his head. “Sad, really. I hear the guy just found his estranged daughter again, and then he has to act out during the Howl and get himself executed…”

  I shivered and took another long swig of beer.

  “You sure are thirsty. Want another one of those?”

  “No, no,” I said. “I’m good.” I glanced at Kayla to make sure she was occupied, then asked in a low voice, “Why does everyone think the French guy did it?”

  “History,” he said sagely.

  “Huh,” I said, feeling more than a tad frustrated. Everyone in the world of werewolves was ready to consign Luc Garou to a stake, and he hadn’t even had a trial yet. “But from what I heard, the whole thing happened like a hundred years ago. Don’t you think that’s a long time to wait?”

  “I guess so,” he said, shrugging. “But you know how werewolves are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Short tempers and long memories,” he said, giving me a toothy grin. “So, since you’re not with Tom, you want to join me in the hunt tonight?”

  “I’d love to,” I demurred, “but Tom asked me to join him.”

  He laughed, a low, guttural sound that made goose bumps rise on my arms. “You’d be better off with me, sweetheart. He doesn’t have the longest attention span, if you know what I mean.”

  “We’re just friends,” I said quickly.

  He studied me for a second. “Yeah, right.”

  Before I could respond, there was a loud gonging noise.

  “What’s that?”

  “Time for the hunt,” he said. He held my eyes for a long moment. “Sure you don’t want to join me?”

  “I can’t. But thanks.”

  “Good luck,” he said. “And if you change your mind …”

  “I’ll remember you,” I said. He conferred briefly with his friend before heading to the door. Bud lingered, shooting alternate glances at both Kayla and me.

  “Can you find Tom on your own?” Kayla asked in a low voice, picking a clump off of her eyelashes.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m gonna go with Bud then, if that’s okay.” She edged closer to her companion’s oversize belt buckle.

  “Go for it,” I said. “Nice to meet you, and thanks for keeping me company.”

  “No problem,” she said, walking off with her new interest and leaving me to finish my beer alone.

  As I swigged down the rest of the Shiner and followed the pack out into the cool evening, I felt a wave of despair wash over me. I’d just “interrogated” my most likely source of information, but all I’d managed to find out was that my father’s guilt appeared to be a fait accompli. And then there was the unsettling disclosure that Tom’s romantic history was, well, less than consistent. Or rather, consistently changing.

  Which wasn’t my problem, I reminded myself. It was Lindsey I should be worried about.

  I spotted Tom near the ashes of last night’s bonfire, scanning the crowd. Even with the olfactory load of hundreds of werewolves, his musky, wild scent was unmistakable, and as I approached him, his eyes swiveled to fix on me with an unsettling intensity.

  “Did you learn anything?” he asked as I followed him into a stand of cedar scrub and gnarled oaks.

  “Not much in terms of my dad. Other than that he’s already considered guilty as hell by the entire werewolf community.”

  Tom made a small sound.

  “But I had no idea you had such a reputation,” I said, my heels sinking into the soft, springy earth. The air had a wild smell to it—like a storm was brewing.

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked.

  “You’re evidently known as quite the Casanova,” I said. His back stiffened slightly in the twilight.

  “I was for a while,” he admitted. “At a different time in my life.”

  “So you’ve mended your ways?”

  “I had no idea my love life was of such interest to you,” he said, stopping in his tracks to turn and look at me.

  “It’s not,” I said quickly. “I mean, not to me personally. But you are dating my best friend,” I pointed out.

  “So there’s no … personal interest?” he asked, eyes steady on mine. They glowed slightly in the fading light from the sun.

  “Of course not,” I said, looking down. “There can’t be, can there? You’re with Lindsey, after all…”

  “And you are with Mark,” he reminded me.

  I gave him a wry smile. “So there we are, then.”

  “There we are,” he repeated. He stared at me for a moment, during which all sorts of declarations bubbled up inside of me, only to die in my throat. After a moment, he turned and continued down the path, with me stumbling along in his wake, trying not to break off one of my heels. I fiddled with the ring Mark had given me as I stepped over a fallen tree limb; it was uncomfortably warm on my finger.

  “Here we are,” Tom said, stopping next to a line of canvas tents. Small groups of werewolves loitered outside of each; as I watched, a lean, dark gray wolf slipped out of one of the farther tents and vanished into the trees. “Remember… the alpha takes the first kill.”

  “Got it. Keep the teeth sheathed.” I glanced at the line of tents. “These are the changing rooms?”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was thinking they might be something more … permanent.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said as we joined a short line a few tents down. We stood in awkward silence as the two werewolves before us—a stout redheaded man and an equally stout, platinum-blonde woman—slipped into the tent and emerged a few minutes later as a chunky reddish wolf and one that was almost blindingly white. Which made me wonder all the more how the whole hair-dye thing was going to translate.

  “Ladies first,” Tom said, indicating that I should precede him into the little canvas room. Which was a relief—I had been wondering whether we were supposed to go in at the same time.

  As the flap closed behind me, I unzippe
d my skirt and slid it over my hips, folding it and tucking it into one of the canvas cubbies that lined three walls of the tent. I followed it with my shoes, which was a relief, because they were really pinching my toes. Within seconds, I was naked in the tent, very aware that Tom was a mere couple of feet away.

  Then I took a deep breath and let the change pass over me.

  It started as a rippling sensation under the skin, a feeling of surrender. I closed my eyes and let the sensation wash over me, feeling a tingle as fur grew on my arms and the slight cramping sensation that accompanied my body’s reconfiguration. As always, the world around me took on extra dimension—the slightly mildewed scent of the canvas was so sharp I could practically taste it, and the woodsy perfume of the cedars enveloped me. Of course, so did the smell of Euphoria, maple syrup, and several hundred werewolves with varying levels of personal hygiene, so the transformation wasn’t quite as pleasurable as it normally was, but the sudden expansion of sensation was always a lovely little shock.

  I slipped through the tent a moment later, looking up at Tom, whose golden eyes had widened a hair at my exit.

  I gave a gentle woof that I hoped meant, “What?”

  “It’s your fur,” he said. I did my best wolfie version of cocking an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. “You’ve got this big black tuft on your head—it kind of looks like a beret,” he said.

  I woofed again and dropped my tail between my legs, utterly embarrassed.

  “It’s certainly distinctive,” he said, which helped not at all. Then he disappeared into the tent, leaving me wishing I had a full-length mirror, and glad that the remaining wisps of light were fading fast.

  It wasn’t until Tom had transformed into a huge, gorgeous golden wolf—I had been standing outside the tent sniffing squirrels and trying not to think about Tom peeling his shirt off, exposing his muscled torso—that I realized my oversight. I’d been so taken aback by the discovery of Tom’s Don Juan reputation that I’d completely forgotten to ask what the hunt protocol was. Or if there was one.