“You tellin’ me your gods said he was gonna hook up with Queen Tess?”
“He didn’t know she was going to be the queen. He’d been having those dreams for years, probably even before his first wife was killed, which should tell you something. He’d never met Tess, hadn’t seen her in person, and didn’t even know her name.”
“Huh.”
“Nowadays, those gods-ordained matches don’t happen very often, because either they don’t care any longer, or they don’t trust us to listen.”
“Ollie listened.”
“Of course he did. As soon as he figured out who she was, he went after her and made sure she knew he wasn’t going anywhere. She doesn’t love him because the gods said she was supposed to, but because she just does. They suit each other. They balance each other out in a lot of ways. They are for each other.”
Finn certainly thought Graciella was for him, but he didn’t think the reverse was true. What could he possibly do for her but bring her down?
He toyed with the blade of his pocketknife and watched Ollie snatch the receipt from the pump.
Ollie opened Maggie’s door a crack and asked, “Want anything from inside?”
“Ooh. See if they have those really hot beef sticks,” Maggie said.
Ollie furrowed his brow. “You’re gonna have bitchin’ heartburn.”
“I’m an old lady. That’s the least of my problems.”
Ollie looked at Finn. “Want anything? Maybe a Red Bull or a swift kick to the ass?”
“They bottle that now?” Maggie asked.
Finn groaned inwardly. “Maybe a Mountain Dew, if they got it out here.”
“I’m sure they do.” Ollie closed the door and headed to the store.
Maggie turned back to Finn.
He wrung his hands. “Our goddess makes matches, too, usually through the pack alpha. We sometimes have mate calls to find females. Alpha will call out for a bunch of ladies to come from other packs, and the goddess’ll tell Alpha who they’re good for, if she likes him.”
“Uh-oh.”
Finn chuckled. “Yeah, I reckon a lot of alphas pretend they can hear her so they don’t lose face. It weren’t like that for me. Graciella didn’t come to be matched, and I weren’t looking, but I couldn’t leave her alone.”
“And what’s so wrong with that? She didn’t like you?”
“No, she likes—liked me.” Past tense, probably.
“But?”
“We all thought it’d be best to give her some time. Let her finish her degree and whatnot. Wolves tend to start having kids not too long after they move in together.”
“I’m sure abstinence is out of the question, but does birth control not work on werewolves?”
“Not the ones who have—”
The ones who have bites. He hadn’t bitten her yet.
“I didn’t bite her!” he exclaimed.
Maggie raised one thin, gray eyebrow. “Ohhh-kay?”
He gave his head a shake and put up his hands. “I mean, it’s just not done. It usually doesn’t work. Hormones are weird, I guess, ’cause of the moon shifting stuff, but she don’t shift ’cause she ain’t been bit.”
“And so—”
“And so, being with her won’t necessarily mean I’m ruining her?”
“Are you asking me or are you telling me?”
“I don’t know. Both?”
“Take it up with her. If you’d like me to counsel the pair of you, I’ll be happy to.” She fluffed her short gray hair and grinned. “Ollie will tell you that I love sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, and I’m a sucker for true love.”
“I don’t think I’ll need it, but thanks for offerin’.”
“You’re sounding mighty brave, wolf.”
Braver than I feel.
ELEVEN
Graciella stepped out of Lora’s apartment, locked the door as always, shifted her laptop bag to her other shoulder, and stepped into something loud and crinkly.
The movement of her foot sent whatever was in it sliding down the dim hallway. She sighed. The people in Lora’s building had a penchant for pranking each other, and often left booby traps outside each other’s doors.
The one time I forget to look…
She looked down at the mess on the hallway floor and furrowed her brow.
It didn’t seem like one of the usual traps. Whoever had left it hadn’t even tried to hide a corner of it under the mat, but of course, they couldn’t have. What she’d apparently stepped on and kicked was a paper grocery bag that had been propped up beside the doorway.
She picked up the bag and looked inside. She ferreted out the piece of paper at the bottom as she walked toward the thing she’d kicked.
“Hope it wasn’t something for Lora.”
She squatted to pick up the tissue paper-wrapped lump on the floor and shook open the paper that had been folded once in half.
FOLLOW THE WOLF HOME.
“The wolf?”
She set the paper down and unwrapped the object, again praying that it wasn’t something for Lora, because now that Graciella had gotten involved in the mystery, she was too damned curious to let it go.
She peeled back layers of paper and tape to unwrap a carved wolf figurine that looked like it could stand on its own if she were to set it down. She didn’t have to look for a maker’s mark, and she didn’t worry any more about it being for anyone else. That wolf was Finn, and he had a note tied around his neck.
“Aw. Don’t choke yourself, baby.”
She unlooped the little tag and read,
YOU KNOW THE WAY?
For a while, she thought she did. She rubbed the smooth, dark wood between the wolf’s ears meditatively, while chewing on the inside of her mouth.
What’s he getting at?
He was probably lonely, which she certainly understood, but he should have known that he was going to be when he’d rejected her.
None of the wolves even talked about him. They all acting like nothing had happened, and she never saw him anymore. He was like a ghost in the compound. Maybe they thought she’d lose control or something if she had to face him.
Or maybe he would.
She sighed. “No, he wouldn’t.” Not her mate. He’d be more likely to run. She didn’t want him to run, though, unless he was running home.
She tucked the wolf inside the bag and headed downstairs, fondling the tag bearing Finn’s nearly illegible handwriting.
At the foot of the staircase, there was small, locked wooden box on the table folks used to get rid of junk or mislabeled mail. Shiny and smooth like the wolf, she bent for a closer look and turned it over. Finn’s mark was on the bottom. She tugged the little padlock, but it didn’t give, and she knew for certain she didn’t own the key.
So, she took the box, too, and put it in the bag that was getting heavier by the minute.
Graciella stepped outside onto the sidewalk and was about to cross the street to head toward Finn’s, but then she saw a paper wolf cut-out on the light post with its nose pointing in the direction away from his apartment.
She looked around, and seeing no one, took the lonely wolf down and put him into the bag with his friend. Then she crossed to the other corner, and another wolf pointed her to the coffee shop. She grabbed that wolf, too, and also the one inside the shop’s window.
The barista waved her over and held out a big cup of something hot, which Graciella curiously and gratefully took.
Shifting her load to one arm, she took a sip, and a key fell out of the cup’s paper sleeve. She bent to pick it up, and got out of the way of the folks queuing in line.
The latte was just the way she liked it, and the key looked like it’d fit her newly acquired, locked box.
She set her things onto the top of a table near the door, quickly worked the lock open, and then tossed it into the bag.
Inside the box was another pretty piece of turquoise, this time embedded into the setting of a silver ring that matched he
r pendant. It was rustic, though not badly made, and it fit her perfectly. He always made her feel so spoiled, but the truth still remained that she would have rather had him than the stuff.
She unrolled the piece of paper that had been pushed into the circle of the ring and read,
YOU NOT HOME YET?
“Damn it, Finn.”
She put everything into the bag except the coffee, obviously, and the ring—which she kept on her right hand—and somehow managed to get the door open with one shoulder.
She didn’t see any more wolf signs telling her to do otherwise, so she started towards Finn’s alley again, picking up more speed as she went along.
She pounded up the metal staircase and found his door cracked open.
“Hello?” She put her shoulder to the wood and peered inside.
The curtains were open, and the place was tidy—for a single male wolf’s domicile, anyway—and it looked like he’d added some things since her last visit.
Near the door where she stood was a secretary desk that looked familiar. It took a moment for her to figure out why. That desk had come out of the executive mansion’s dusty turret—the long-abandoned library she’d spirited Finn off to before Christmas. The old desk had been repaired, and its lower doors replaced. The Afótama matriarch had probably happily sent the battered old thing away with Finn to do with as he pleased, glad someone could make use of it. That sounded like something Muriel would have done, though she might have asked Finn if he wouldn’t have rather had a new one. Muriel had more money than time, and for her, it was cheaper to buy certain things than to fix the old ones.
On top was a ceramic mug holding pens, pencils, and a little New Mexican flag, which Graciella picked up, giggling. A roll of paper fell off the end of it, and she grabbed it before it hit the floor. “I’m getting this game now.”
Clutching the little scroll in her fist, she set her computer bag on top of the desk and her other things on the seat of the simple Shaker-style chair in front of it. Then she smoothed the paper under her palms.
LEAVE YOUR THINGS HERE LIKE THE REST.
“Like the rest of what?” she asked the paper, but obviously, it gave no response.
She looked up to scan the rest of the apartment, and it was then that she saw her luggage on top of the chest at the foot of the bed, and some of her things amidst the clutter on the bookshelves.
“What the—”
She clamped her lips on the words, because the how and who were obvious. “Lora. Sneaky.”
Lora must have snuck the bags out during the night before, when Graciella was at the library.
Graciella moved farther into the room, peering at the items on the bookcase. Some of her textbooks had made it there, along with some things that were obviously Finn’s. Then she saw the piece of paper hanging out of her chemistry book. Being fairly certain that wasn’t a part of her notes from last term, she wriggled it out and read,
SHOULDN’T YOU BE AT WORK?
“Damn it, Finn.”
She hurried out of the apartment and locked up, then jogged all the way to the greenhouses, panting.
Her boss was outside, accepting a parcel delivery, and he just waved at Graciella as she approached. She wasn’t actually supposed to be at work until around four, but apparently her boss was in cahoots with the wolf.
Graciella walked the aisles of the right-most greenhouse, where she spent the bulk of her work hours, and finally found a paper wolf at the end of a stake shoved into a tomato plant.
She grabbed the stake and turned the wolf over.
WOLF’S TIRED OF ALL THIS RUNNIN.
“Yeah, me too, Finn.”
She read on,
YOU LEFT SOME THINGS AT YOUR SISTER’S.
“Ugh. I gotta go to Lisa’s?”
She and Lisa weren’t exactly speaking at the moment.
Graciella left the greenhouse, carrying the stake with her, and waved to her boss as she started up the path.
What the hell is Finn up to?
Obviously, he wasn’t sending her on a scavenger hunt around Norseton for the sake of exercise—not that she didn’t need it, given how much ass-in-chair time she’d had lately—but she couldn’t guess what his end goal was…besides getting himself ‘in trouble,’ which seemed increasingly likely if he was anywhere near the Baylor home.
With that thought, she ran, awkwardly and breathily, because she was not a perfectly fit wolf by any stretch of the imagination, and didn’t slow until she heard the laughter coming from the wolf courtyard.
Furrowing her brow, she slowed. They weren’t yelling. And she smelled food.
Curious, and with her stomach growling, she power-walked the rest of the way, and found Colt at the grill where he tended to sausages. Lisa stood nearby with a pan of eggs, which she was spooning onto large flour tortillas.
And there were other wolves. Maybe all of them—but Graciella didn’t see the one who mattered most.
“Come get some breakfast,” Lisa said. “I won’t even baby you by rolling your burrito for you.”
“Gee, thanks, sis.” Graciella accepted the plate and moved to the table that held breakfast burrito fixings. “What’s going on?”
“Can’t wolves just gather to enjoy a hearty breakfast together?” Colt asked.
Graciella narrowed her eyes at her brother-in-law and he put up his hands.
“Okay. You’re right. We don’t like each other this early in the morning.”
“So, what’s going on?”
“It’s a full moon night, so we have to do stuff during the day,” Lisa said.
“What is the so-called stuff that we’re doing?”
“We’re celebrating. Want a—actually, no. I’m not going to offer you a mimosa, because you’re underage.”
“I can vote and I can join the military.”
Lisa nodded slowly. “I know that.”
“What pleasure do you get, exactly, out of reminding me of my age?”
“None. It’s…just a trigger for me, Graciella. I always forget that we wolves have to grow up fast sometimes. As much as Ma, Papí, and I tried to keep you girls sheltered, I know you saw things and had to deal with things, just like I did.”
“That’s right. Nobody would have said that at eighteen you weren’t an adult, because you were behaving as one long before that.”
“And so were you. I know you tried to take care of Leticia as much as you could after I left, and I guess I didn’t stop to think that if you were mature enough to think ahead and care for her, then perhaps you were ready to make decisions for just yourself, too.”
Bingo. She finally gets it.
“So, what does all this mean, Lisa?”
“It means that I’m getting out of your way.”
“You’re—”
“Yeah.” Lisa closed her eyes and gave her head a slight shake. “Just promise me that you’ll try not to have any kids until you finish school. It’ll save me some angst. You can’t travel to the university to take exams with a baby latched onto you.” She opened her eyes. “You don’t have to promise, and I have no right to ask, but damn, Graciella. I just want things to be easier for you than they are for so many of us.”
“I can promise that.”
“You really don’t want to get a bite?”
Now it was Graciella’s turn to shake her head. “Nah. I don’t feel the pull. I’m still a wolf, though. Through and through, right?”
Lisa let out a ragged exhalation and pulled Graciella in for a hug. “It’d make some things easier. But in this pack, we have free will. No one makes us do anything we don’t want to do.”
“That’s right. And I’m not taking a mate because someone’s making me. I have to, and I want to. Do you understand?”
Lisa sighed. “I do.”
“Where’s Finn?”
“Probably over at the Denis house. He didn’t look so great this morning.”
“I can help him.”
“Once I thought about it, I
figured you could. You’re like Ma, right?”
Graciella nodded and gave Lisa’s shoulder a bump. “Yeah.”
“And you want to?”
“More than anything. It makes me happy to help him.”
“Then that’s all that matters. Ignore all the other noise—including any I might make. Old habits die hard, but I’m not going to get in your way.”
“Thank you.”
“He fought for you, Graciella. In his own way. He came over here and he demanded we back off, and no one in his right mind would do that against two dominant wolves. But he was so insistent and earnest, that we didn’t know what to do but listen.”
“He’s not used to having anything.”
“Yeah. We all know that feeling.” Lisa dragged her shirtsleeve across her damp eyes and canted her head toward Anton and Christina’s house. “Go ahead. Eat the burrito first, though. Your stomach’s loud, and if he thinks you aren’t eating, he’s going to freak out.”
“Silly wolf. He can’t take care of me until I take care of him.”
“Go away. You’re breaking my brain.”
TWELVE
Graciella found her wolf in the rocking chair in Cecily’s nursery, though he wasn’t holding the baby. With eyes closed, he rocked slowly back and forth, his ragged breaths a symphony with the hiss of the air vents.
He worked so hard to keep control, and no one had ever bothered teaching him how to. He tried the best he could for the benefit of the people around him—he didn’t want to scare them away from him. Other wolves might not have tried so hard to be calm. They probably would have wanted people to fear them, but Finn was like the rest of the wolves in Norseton. He was an aberration, and he wanted to belong. The differences that made him a threat to his old alpha were probably why Graciella wanted him so much.
Obviously lost in his thoughts, he didn’t move or open his eyes when she walked in.
She padded quietly toward him and knelt beside the chair, just looking at him for a while.
My handsome mate.
He was rough around the edges, unrefined, and probably a little colorblind, given the way his clothes sometimes didn’t match, but that suited her fine because he was honest about it. He didn’t try to be anything but himself, but was considerate about it.
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