The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

8





Battle Scars





I CIRCULATED THROUGH THE VILLAGE, warning the older members of the pack to keep an eye out. And able-bodied pack members were going to be running perimeter a lot more often. We didn’t want the police traipsing around the valley. I couldn’t run fingerprint analysis on my own truck or my office door. So, beyond increased patrols, there wasn’t much I could do.

And that’s what had me on four legs, running along the lip of the valley on a Monday evening. Well, I was supposed to be running along the edge of the valley.

After Uncle Frank mentioned our possible intruder problem, Lee had shown up with “reinforcements,” big burly males from his pack to help run patrols. I think he saw it as some sort of courting gesture, a “see how well we will all work together when the two packs are in-laws” thing. He kept trying to organize us into pairs and send the troops to “strategic locations” in the valley, but he didn’t know where those points were. And again, he just wasn’t that smart.

The meeting spiraled into a chaotic mess, and it took Samson bellowing “Shut the hell up!” at the chattering mob of weres before I could get everyone calmed down and paired off.

Of course, Lee refused to be paired with anyone but me. But I’d managed to ditch him just outside the village while he was distracted. I took off through a tight passage under a bunch of scrub pines. He was too big to fit through and hadn’t managed to catch up to me in more than an hour.

Wandering aimlessly in the dusky, purpling woods, I wondered where Clay was. He’d been paired up with Teresa. I’d planned on partnering him with Samson, but my cousin suddenly had to pee during the assignments. He came back in just as Alicia stepped through the door, eager for a day outside since my mother had offered to watch the boys. And somehow, conveniently, Samson was the only wolf left without a partner.

My big dumb cousin could be downright devious sometimes. His interest in Alicia was an interesting development. It was a little strange, as werewolf males didn’t typically spark on widows, particularly widows with children. But if Alicia made Samson happy, I’d help negotiate for her paw myself.

On the other hand, Teresa was showing clear interest in Clay, which was a problem. Clay and I had gone on two dates so far, and we’d had a great time together. Clay could take my mind off the stresses of the pack, but I didn’t forget myself completely. It felt safer being with him than the constant emotional carnival ride I seemed to be stuck on with Nick. But how was that was going to work with Teresa? I hated to think of her seeing us and feeling jealous, upset, alone. She’d already been screwed over by Cupid once. Maybe I could try setting her up with one of Lee’s packmates. Some of them seemed smarter than he was, though not as handsome.

I was considering the various blind-date candidates when I caught the April Fresh scent of fabric softener lingering on the wind. I bolted after it blindly. Tactically, it was a stupid thing to do. But after tumbling that scent over and over in my head for nearly a week, it drew me like a beacon. My legs seemed to devour the ground as I raced through the trees, following the scent all the way to the town limits of Grundy.

I was running toward Cooper’s house, my feet crunching on the frosted ground. The faint, shadowy outline of the moon was rising high over the trees. I lost the scent somewhere near the little brook that babbled through Cooper’s backyard. It just disappeared. I slowed to a trot and tried to find some hint of it on the breeze, but I got nothing.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck rose with some electric charge. The faintest trace of that smoky-moss and Sunday-lunch smell wafted around my head. Nick was somewhere near.

And he wasn’t alone.

I dashed through the underbrush, charging headlong toward Nick. I broke through the tree line to find him sitting in the clearing, talking in a conversational tone to a huge tawny male wolf that was staring at Nick as if he were on the menu.

Seriously, what does it take to keep one human alive? It was as if he was the anthropological Evel Knievel.

I growled, announcing my presence to the male timber. Keeping his eyes on Nick, the wolf rounded his body toward me. He wasn’t about to give up Nick, which had me worried. Most sane wolves try to shy away from human contact whenever possible. This one was treating Nick like prize prey. Using one last quick burst of running energy, I threw myself between man and wolf. I felt Nick retreat behind me, as if he’d finally caught on that something wasn’t quite right.

I widened my stance, making myself look as large as possible, and growled. The timber’s lip curled away from his fangs, and he grumbled back. He advanced, thinking that because I was smaller, I would back down. I stepped forward, thumping my head against his chest and throwing my shoulder into him. He snapped his jaws, trying to catch my neck, but I’d slipped back enough to give me room for another shove. He shifted his weight, feinting left and then dashing right. I held, sinking my teeth into his foreleg and dragging him away from Nick, none too gently. He retreated slightly, only to rear up on his hind legs and come at me with its front. I ducked, then leaped up, pushing at his stomach until he fell onto his back.

The male leaped to his feet, gathering at his haunches to lunge at me. I braced myself for the impact and instead ended up dropping to the ground as a high-pitched shrieking noise made my head feel as if it was imploding. It was every annoying sound combined—nails scratching on a chalkboard, tires squealing, my aunt Edie singing. I pressed my head against the ground, rolling my ears against the dirt, just to try to block it out. The noise lessened just a little, allowing me to raise my head.

I looked back to see Nick, on his knees, holding what looked like an air horn. His face tensed as his eyes connected with mine. Did he recognize me? Did he know? Could I persuade him to throw that freaking horn into the woods and never use it again?

The wolf beside me rose wobbily to his feet and seemed to be trying to mount another attack. Cringing, Nick blasted the damn horn again, knocking my legs from under me. I lay there for what felt like hours, praying for the pressure in my ears to subside. The other wolf got tired of writhing on the ground in agony, shook his way to his feet, and dashed off. As soon as he was out of the clearing, Nick laid off the “pain horn.” I whirled around to find him patting the ground for his glasses.

Honestly, I could have strangled him, but at the moment, I didn’t have any thumbs. He reached his hand out, as if he was going to freaking pet me. I barked sharply at him and phased in mid-step.

“What in the name of holy hell where you thinking?” I demanded. “Do you have any idea what could have just happened to you? Do you have instincts that might not lead to your certain death?”

Nick gaped at me, a goofy look of astonishment and happiness twisting his moonlit features. “You’re a werewolf!” he exclaimed.

Damn it. I hadn’t meant to phase back in front of him. I’d just been so mad at him for putting himself in such a stupid situation that I’d put myself in the best form for yelling.

Honestly, I gave up. There was no way to keep Nick from finding out about us. He seemed to have some sort of unholy gift for putting himself in exactly the right place at the right time. He was just going to keep doing this sort of thing until he got himself killed. Maybe it was better this way . . . but there was no way I was going to admit that. I held my arms across my chest self-consciously and glared up at him.

“I knew it!” he cried, half accusing, half triumphant.

“Fine, fine,” I spat, throwing up my arms. “I’m a werewolf. Happy?”

“Actually, yes, a little bit,” he admitted, sliding his glasses onto his nose.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked, snatching the little air horn out of his hand.

“Oh, uh, a friend of mine in the bio department at U Dub came up with that,” he said sheepishly. “He’s still testing it as a defense system for hikers. It works at a decibel level and frequency that are almost debilitating for canines. If you come across a wolf on the trail and use it, the wolf will either run off or be too distracted to chase you when you run away.”

“He’ll make a fortune,” I muttered, slapping it back into his hand.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I was just trying to break up the fight—” Realization suddenly dawned on Nick’s face. “Oh, hey, wait a minute, so that means that whole scenario with the nudity and the kissing and the rubbing in your truck—that really happened!”

I blushed. Blushed! I never blushed, and here it felt as if my cheeks were going to burst into flames. “No, it didn’t!”

He grinned winsomely. “Trust me, I keep very careful mental records of the beautiful women I’ve seen naked. And you are a very memorable entry in my—”

“If you say ‘spank bank,’ I will literally knock teeth out of your head.”

“I was going to say—” He stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly aghast. “Where does a nice girl even learn a term like ‘spank bank’?”

“I’m not a nice girl. And I spend a lot of time with barely postadolescent men,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Look, can we have this conversation somewhere a little less secluded and open to attack? What are you even doing out here?”

“I heard Alan make some crack about this being a high-traffic area for the wolf sightings. I came out here to investigate. I saw the wolf . . .”

“And you assumed it was a werewolf and not, say, an actual timber wolf that could rip your throat out and leave your bones scattered all over this clearing?”

“I thought it was Cooper,” he said, paling. “Oh, shit, was that a real wolf?”

“No, that was a werewolf,” I said, shaking my head and eyeing the tree line.

“So, why are you so upset?”

“Because I didn’t know him.”



WE ENDED UP stumbling our way back to Nick’s, although Cooper and Mo’s place was closer. I didn’t want to have to explain to my brother that I’d phased in front of Nick again or endure Mo’s superior little smirks.

I called Samson to tell him I would be away for the night and to watch the borders of the valley for strangers. He was confused, but I was using my “don’t question me” tone, so he agreed. I turned back to Nick.

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling oddly naked. Well, I was naked. But I felt more naked than usual. How was I going to do this? I wondered. What would this mean for my family? How much of this was I telling him because I wanted him to understand the pack, and how much of it was I telling him because I wanted him to understand me?

We basically stood in his front hall and stared at each other. I turned on my heel and walked into his kitchen. On the wall, he had a map marked with red pins at the attack sites. He had tried to mark the estimated hunting range, with a list of average wolfhunting ranges posted on the wall next to mileage estimates from each attack site to Mo’s house. He had our accident scene marked with a blue pin. He had two huge lists written on two sheets of legal paper. One was marked “Proven” and was completely blank. The other was titled “Total Bullshit—Probably” and included “full-moon phasing,” “bipeds,” “bitten vs. born,” and, finally, “silver bullets” with a question mark next to it. And there was a stack of little notebooks, each one filled with scribbles.

“Technically, silver bullets will kill us,” I told him. “And so will real bullets. Bullets kill pretty much everybody.”

He nodded and pulled out a Sharpie to make a note on his chart. “Good to know.”

“You don’t have any other little James Bond gadgets I should know about, do you?” I asked, eyeing the air horn, which he’d tossed onto the counter. “A gun that’ll launch a net over me? Cufflinks that shoot bear mace?”

“Nope. That would be pretty cool, though.” His lips twitched a little when I glared at him. “But obviously not appropriate.”

Snickering, he tossed me a pair of old basketball shorts and a Reidland High School Greyhounds T-shirt. I turned my back to slip into it.

“What the hell is that?” he asked, suddenly very close behind me, running his fingertips along three slashing scars down my back.

“Angry bear. I was on a run with my brothers at Eagle Pass,” I murmured. “I was young. I thought I was the biggest, baddest thing on the mountain. The bear reminded me otherwise, when I got too close to her cubs.”

“But you heal so quickly; I seem to remember something about that,” he said.

“Sure, we heal, but we still scar. It’s not like we’re vampires.” Nick’s face lit up with delight and a million questions, so I had to add, “As far as I know, vampires are not real.”

“Damn it,” he grumbled as I pulled the shirt over my head and slid into the shorts. Nick lifted my leg and examined the waffle pattern of tiny dents along my thigh. He quirked an eyebrow.

“Never piss off a porcupine, no matter how jolly he may seem,” I explained gravely. “Cartoons are very misleading.”

He pointed to another long white streak on my shin.

“Softball game, sliding into second. Samson wouldn’t get out of the damn baseline.”

He laughed, then traced his fingers along the faint trio of short lines just over my throat. “I’ll get to that one,” I told him. His brows furrowed. “Ask me anything,” I offered. “I’ll tell you all about us, and then I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t share what I tell you with other people.”

His face lit up as if I’d just offered him the Holy Grail, a Babe Ruth rookie card and Megan Fox’s phone number.

Just to take the look off his face, I added, “That reason includes the words ‘because I’ll kill you and make sure no one ever finds your body.’ “

“I can live with that.” He nodded, making little “hurry up” motions with his hands.

“No, no,” I told him. “I don’t start the explanations until you have your little notebook and a number two pencil and all that crap. I don’t like interruptions.”

Patting his pockets frantically, he ran for his notebook, and it was clear that he had pages of carefully scripted questions. His eyes scrambled over the pages for a few moments before he finally looked up at me, pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, and said, “How?”

“How do we change?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s just genetics. Some people have good balance or are really good at making egg salad. We can change into abnormally large wolves.”

I explained to Nick that there were packs all over the world. Our pack happened to be descended from people who lived in the valley. An outsider crossed the frozen oceans, made his way over the mountains, and married a valley woman. He must have come from Russia or northeastern Asia, where there were a lot of packs. Either way, something about the mixing of their bloodlines produced the first wolf-sons, two huge, burly, probably pretty hairy fellas. There was a terrible winter, and the hunters couldn’t get enough food for their families. People were starving. The Northern Man’s elder son wished for the strength of the wolf, so that he could provide for his family and neighbors, and he wished so strongly that he was able to phase. And then his brother, seeing what the elder could do, joined in. They were able to hunt up enough food for the whole village and store some away, which was almost being a millionaire in the those days. The other villages kept asking how they did it, but my ancestors were smart enough not to tell. Instead, they shared what they had and prevented jealousy, which was pretty damned ingenious. I like to think my family invented public relations.

“Phasing just became a way of life,” I told Nick. “They had a lot of kids, all of whom could transform. So could their kids, and their kids, et cetera, et cetera. And here we are.”

He was silent, his eyes all shiny and bright like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

“I’m starved,” I said, motioning at his cabinets. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head. I took a carton of eggs out of his fridge and heated a pan. I opened his spice drawer and was shocked to find garlic salt that was at least five years old and what might, at one point, have been nutmeg.

“Mo would be appalled by this,” I told him, clucking my tongue.

“I’ll subscribe to the Spice of the Month Club if you keep talking,” he promised solemnly.

“Well, don’t do that online; you’ll be shocked by your search results.” I cracked eggs, beating them lightly. I poured them into the pan and took a hunk of cheddar cheese from the fridge. I sniffed to make sure it was mold-free. I wasn’t a cook. I didn’t have the knack or the time for it. Plus, my mom never let me near her stove. You melt one microwave, and the woman completely loses her sense of humor. But at the moment, it felt nice to move around the kitchen, to keep my hands busy and give myself some time to work through what I wanted to say.

“Can you make toast?” I asked.

He nodded, coming out of whatever contemplative fog he’d been in. “So, is the pack set up like a real wolf pack? Is there an alpha male?” he asked, sliding wheat bread into the toaster.

“Actually, there’s an alpha female,” I said. His jaw dropped. I grinned and pointed to myself.

“That is so hot,” he groaned. “Not to be a chauvinist, but how do you get dozens of big, burly guys and older, stubborn ladies to listen to your every command? Don’t they resent being bossed around by a woman?”

“Well, Dr. Dolittle, as you well know, there are lots of matriarchal setups in the animal kingdom, including killer whales, bees, and elephants. Mother Nature isn’t completely chauvinist,” I said, chuckling. “It’s not typical for werewolves to be led by a female, but in the absence of the rightful alpha, Cooper, it was the pack’s choice. The alpha serves as a sort of leader for the village. While the lesser pack members have property rights and general free will, all major decisions must be filtered through the alpha couple. Or would be, if I had a mate.”

When he frowned, I could almost see the “sounds like a cult” wheels turning in his head.

I added, “I know it sounds weird. Wolves work together to make sure that everybody in the pack is fed, safe. They’re conditioned to work in harmony under a clear social rule. They need a single voice to lead them, the alpha. So when the alpha tells you to do something, even if you know what he’s asking is stupid or dangerous, you’ll do it. And you’re happy to do it, because it’s for the good of the pack. You need that community, the family, to feel complete. It’s a little harder for me, because I’m not the rightful alpha. Sometimes I have to appeal to my pack’s collective common sense and, well, their fear that I’ll kick their asses, to get my way.”

“So, if the pack is so important, why did Cooper leave?”

I lifted an eyebrow and flipped an only slightly singed cheese omelet onto a plate. I poured more eggs into the pan and grated more cheese. I forked a huge mouthful of omelet into my mouth. “You really don’t know how to ask softball questions, do you?” I asked around my food.

“Well, it’s not like I don’t share!” he exclaimed, handing me a piece of buttered toast, which I promptly devoured. “Now that I know that the truck interlude was real, I know I told you about my crazy childhood. I can break out the stories about being left in the family station wagon while my mom gambled for twelve-hour stints. We can play the ‘whose childhood was more screwed up? game. Because I’ve never lost.”

I countered, “My dad was shot in the head by research scientists because they thought he was going to eat them.”

He pursed his lips. “So, you are a contender.”

Oh, hell. If I was going to do this, I was going all in. He was probably going to find out anyway. My mom would probably tell him over tea and cake. I took a deep breath and told him my story, that when I was sixteen or so, another pack came to the valley and tried to take it. Cooper had only been alpha for about a year. I guess at the time, I didn’t realize how young Cooper was. He was my big brother and always seemed so grown-up to me. But he was practically a kid, and not only was he taking care of me and my mom, but he was running the pack, too. Looking back, I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t see how much stress he was under. But I was young and, well, stupid.

Late one night, this other pack showed up and dragged me out of my bed into the street. I explained, “The alpha, this huge guy named Jonas, held me by the back of the neck and told Cooper that he’d wring it like a chicken’s if we didn’t just hand the valley over and disappear.”

“Like Roanoke?”

I squinted at him.

“Colonial Virginia . . . whole community disappeared into thin air. It’s like the first unsolved mystery of the New World.” He held up his hands as I flipped the omelet onto his plate. “I’ll tell you later.”

I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, these numb-nuts had apparently hunted their own packlands into nothing, and the valley is known to be a particularly sweet setup in the were community.”

He frowned while he chewed. “I assume that’s a werewolf faux pas?”

“Territory is all we have sometimes. You just don’t do that. Werewolves are genetically programmed to protect their packlands, to stay close. Ripping a pack away from that is just evil. A wolf’s brain is hardwired to protect a certain area of land, to hunt there, to live there. And that’s the way it’s been for our pack for almost a thousand years. So, if they’d managed to snake it out from under us, imagine fighting against that kind of draw, every waking moment of every day. It would be torture. The sick thing is, if they’d come to us and asked if they could stay, I know Cooper would have let them. Hell, he did offer them a place, even when they threatened us. He’s just that kind of guy. He’s better than me, kinder.”

“Eh, you’re not so bad.”

I pressed my hand over my heart. “Thank you, really, the praise, it’s heartwarming.”

“You know that you’re fantastic,” he said.

“Thanks. Back to my story. So, Jonas is shaking my head so hard I can actually feel my brain bouncing around in my skull. And I’m just laughing my ass off, because I know any minute, my brother’s going to open a case of whoop-ass on this guy. I could almost taste the fight, and it was going to be beautiful. I was so caught up in the anticipation that it took me a minute to realize Cooper was just standing there. He was frozen. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he wouldn’t know exactly what to do. I mean, how stupid is that?”

“Everyone idolizes their big brothers,” he said, shrugging, pushing my hair over my shoulder. “What happened?”

“I kicked Jonas in the balls and called him a jerkoff.”

He snorted. “Well, of course, you did.”

I shrugged. “I figured it would wake Cooper up, draw him into the fight. And man, Jonas was pissed. He phased faster than you could blink and went right for my throat.” I dragged my fingers over the faint white lines left behind by his claws. “I thought, Bring it. If Cooper isn’t going do his job, I’ll do it. But damned if Cooper didn’t phase and shove me out of the way. I tried to circle around, get at Jonas myself, but Cooper wouldn’t let me. When I finally got a shot in at Jonas, I jumped at him too early, and the f*cker pinned me. I would have felt like an a*shole, except he had his teeth at my throat. I was too busy panicking.” I twisted my fingers around the blankets and looked down. This was the part of the story I hated. The one I’d never talked about with anyone but Mom and Cooper.

“Go on, Maggie, please.”

“Cooper knocked him off me. And he, um, he killed him. You know what they say about cutting the head off the snake? Well, it just pisses the rest of the snake off. The enemy pack circled on Cooper. They were going to tear him apart, and he took them all on. He killed all of them. He wouldn’t let any of us near the fight. Except for a straggler male who tried to jump on his back. I killed him, without even thinking about it.”

Nick was quiet, picking at the remains of egg on his plate. “Does it bother you?”

“Oh, hell, no,” I exclaimed with false, exaggerated cheer. “It’s awesome to know I’ve taken someone’s life, that I’m responsible for taking a wolf out of this world, when there are so few of us left. My mom brings it up every Thanksgiving, so the whole family can relive the memory.”

“I’m glad you’re taking this seriously,” he dead-panned.

“Cooper had a hard time with it. He had nightmares. He lost weight, stopped running with the pack. He didn’t want to be near any of us. He couldn’t bring himself to touch our mother, wouldn’t even hug her, for the longest time. He said he was afraid of what he was, of what was inside him that let him kill people, even if it was in defense of the pack. If I’d known anything back then, I’d have known he probably had PTSD or something. But I thought he was being dramatic and stupid. Everybody tried to talk to him, to tell him how proud we were, how proud my father would have been. But nothing stuck. He just sort of retreated into himself. The pack suffered. It was like mass depression or something. Nobody wanted to run or hunt. Without a leader, we were more vulnerable than ever. I got scared, and I was hurt . . . and that’s not something I work through very well. There was a lot of, um, lashing out.”

“Imagine,” he said dryly.

“When Cooper talked about that night, he made it sound like he’d done something unforgivable. And that meant what I’d done was unforgivable, too. I’d depended on him to be everything, a brother, a father, and to have him snatch that away . . . well, needless to say, I got pissed. I mean, who did he think he was, being all tortured and selfish when we needed him? He was the alpha. He had a responsibility to us, and he was just pissing it away. I wouldn’t have wasted it. I knew that much. And that little seed of resentment started to grow and take root.

“Cooper decided we were better off without him and moved to Grundy. I went a little crazy. And for years, I kept expecting the hurt to go away, even just a little bit, but it just seemed to get worse.

“My cousin Eli air-quote ‘reluctantly’ stepped in to take over the pack. He’d been a sort of kindred spirit. He always said he was just holding Cooper’s place until Cooper came back. And I started to resent that, too. Without Cooper, I was the strongest in the pack. I was the fastest. Except for Eli, I was probably the smartest . . . which wasn’t saying much. Once we were back on our feet, I didn’t see why Eli should be holding the place at all. I thought I was ready to take Cooper’s place right then. And why shouldn’t I? He didn’t want it, so why shouldn’t I have it?”

Nick lifted his eyebrows.

“I know. But I was eighteen. How level-headed and mature were you at eighteen?”

He shrugged. “Well, I was living on my own and putting myself through school.”

“As a person, I sort of sucked,” I admitted. “For years, I was just horrible to Cooper. Every time he came around, I made it as painful as possible for him. As in, I took parts of him off. It wasn’t enough for him to be run from his home. I didn’t think he was hurting enough. And it helped that Eli was there, pouring poison in my ear. ‘See,’ he said, ‘Cooper’s fine. He’s making a life for himself. He’s not even sorry.’ And then Mo came along. Cooper was the one who saved her from John Teague. Mo figured out what he was, and she didn’t care. She loved him. I saw how happy she made him. And somehow that made it worse.

“I figured, I was hurt, so he should hurt more, you know? Eli fed into it, and I didn’t realize how deeply I’d fallen. He pulled the strings, and I danced. He said all the right things in all the right ways. Turns out Eli was the one who brought Jonas’s pack down on us in the first place. Sort of an ‘I’d rather serve at the right hand of the devil’ thing. When that fell through, he settled for running the pack himself. But he didn’t think Cooper had moved far enough away. He was afraid Cooper would get over his guilt and come back.”

I explained Eli’s reign of terror, the attacks, and how they drove Cooper away from home, family, and the woman he loved. But when Mo was pregnant with Eva, Eli realized that Cooper was never going to leave permanently, that people in the valley would always be waiting for him to come back. He snapped. He went after Mo. He figured Cooper wouldn’t want to go on without her.

“If we hadn’t gotten there in time . . . well, it was Mo. Given that she was swinging a wrench at Eli when we showed up, she might have had a chance,” I admitted.

“Wow.”

“She’s kind of a bad-ass under the apron,” I said, smiling fondly. “You know, this might be the most words I’ve ever strung together in my life. I don’t think I like it much.”

“You should do it more often. You say really interesting stuff,” he said, taking our plates to the sink.

“This is the part where I tell you that your body will never be found.” I walked across the living room and flopped onto the couch. “Werewolves don’t share their secrets with humans often. And if you screw me over, I’ll have to kill you. Not ha-ha, ‘joking around’ kill you. It will mean the actual end of your having a pulse.”

He blanched, as if during all of the information I’d just dumped on him, he’d forgotten that he wasn’t going to be allowed to share it with anyone.

“But this is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life!” he shouted. “Proof of an intelligent species besides humans! Proof that the folk tales, the fairy stories, the things that go bump in the night, they could all be real! This is one of those moments that redefines how we see our history. It’s electricity, the Rosetta Stone, and Darwin’s theory all in one!”

“All of which made the men who discovered them incredibly famous,” I noted dryly.

“That’s why you think—I don’t give a shit about being famous! Hell, I’ve already got more money than I know what to do with. I just want people to know what’s really out there, what’s possible. That there’s more to life than what we’ve been told.”

“Stop and think. You’re not the first human to know about us. Do you honestly think I would tell you this and just let you run to the nearest wacko tabloid? Do you think I would let you unveil the existence of my species on a whim? This is one of those sacred-trust sorts of things. We let you into our lives, and you keep our secrets . . . or we kill you. It’s not a particularly friendly sacred trust.”

“So, why tell me in the first place?”

“To keep you from wandering around in the woods, getting yourself eaten by random apex predators.” I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face. “You’re one of those guys who won’t stop until they stumble right into the path of certain death. You want to know everything. Well, I’m willing to share that with you, but you won’t be able to tell anybody about it. You have to decide which is more important, knowing everything or knowing a little and being published . . . and then dying. I can’t emphasize that last part enough.”

“I—you—I can’t possibly decide something like that right now!” he exclaimed.

“Well, you kind of have to.”

“Can I have some time?”

I considered. There was a possibility that he could use that time to run to said tabloid. But he didn’t have photos or recordings, just some scribbled notes that made him sound like a crackpot. I nodded, edging toward the door. “Sure.”

“Is it weird that after all the death threats, I still sort of want to kiss you?”

I nodded again. “A little.”

He chuckled and leaned in anyway. Opening the back door, I pressed my hand against his chest and gave him a gentle shove back. “I can’t.”

“Why? I happen to remember, now that I know I wasn’t having a concussion dream, that we’ve already done this. Several times. And a little more, now that it’s coming back to me.”

I smiled ruefully. “I just can’t. If you decide that you can live with the consequences of knowing about us, I’ll tell you why.”

“That’s sort of cruel.”

I sighed. “Welcome to the wacky world of werewolves.”