Wolfs curse, p.4
Wolf's Curse, page 4
“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!” Lynette’s voice from the doorway held some odd combination of teenage disdain and pleased-with-herself smugness. “Naked nooky! I’m going blind!”
I’d hoped to learn how adept Drake was with his fingers in a different way than to find him buttoning his shirt over my nakedness even as he turned to face our ward. “I take it,” he rasped, “that I need to start at the beginning with that overdue birds-and-the-bees lecture.”
“Gross!” Now Lynette’s cheeks were flaming bright red. She stuck her fingers in her ears and spoke a little too loudly. “I can’t hear you!”
Our ward often resembled a young woman, but at this moment she was all child. It was sweet…and it shattered the heat between me and Drake as effectively as if she’d sprayed us with a water hose.
I took a step away from Drake’s deliciousness and waved one hand at Lynette to speed along her recovery. When she tentatively unstoppered her ears, I assured her: “You didn’t walk in on naked nooky. I lost my clothes…”
I glanced at the hatch in the floor. Okaasan’s warning applied to Lynette as much as it did to Drake, so I couldn’t continue that explanation. There was, however, one issue they could help me with.
“We need to leash the cat.”
Neko skittered away from me as if he understood English, but Lynette had closed the door behind her so he had no escape route. Well, no escape route other than the cat flap I’d just noticed, a cat flap through which a much larger, orange-striped feline was stalking with the fur spiked between his shoulder blades.
“Does Kira have a pet?” I asked Drake, not taking my eyes off the newcomer.
“Thom has as pet,” Kira corrected, her mate’s name sweet on her tongue as she entered through yet another door at the far end of the room. I caught the tiniest glimpse of a parking lot before she ordered: “Pumpkin. Cool it.”
The large tomcat dropped to the ground to lick his privates, but at least he didn’t pounce. And now Kira turned her attention to Drake, who’d managed to scoop up Neko and was fashioning a harness out of his necktie. “We also have bigger problems than cat fights. Erik has been exposing himself to humans all over town.”
Chapter 7
Tru
The young werewolf had been exposing himself in shifter lingo, not in human lingo. He hadn’t donned a trench coat over nakedness and run around flashing old ladies. Instead, he’d done something ten times worse.
He’d shifted in front of human after human and was still doing so, although Kira reported that her mate was hot on his trail and likely to catch up at any moment. At which point Erik’s stupidity would turn into a death sentence, one Drake would be forced to dole out personally. No wonder Lynette looked like a train had run over her foot.
“You can’t…” she started.
“I’ll try not to,” Drake rasped. Without another word, he left through the door into the parking lot, shifting in the shadows beyond so Lynette wouldn’t complain about being scarred for life by the view of his nakedness.
Despite my best intentions to remain focused on Erik’s dilemma, I found myself following Drake outside. I was too slow to catch even a glimpse of bare skin, though, just the sight of him loping away into the darkness. As a consolation prize, I gathered up the puddle of warm fabric he’d left behind and brought it up to my nose for a sniff.
“So…” I hadn’t realized Kira and Lynette had joined me in the parking lot until the former broke the silence, managing to imbue that single syllable with the promise of sisterhood underlain by just a hint of amusement. “Wanna grab your own clothes so we can take care of crowd control?”
My clothes. Right. “I seem to have misplaced every stitch of clothing I had with me,” I admitted. “Perhaps you have castoffs I could borrow?”
Which is how Lynette and I came to be standing in front of an absurdly well-furnished closet with instructions to take whatever we wanted. I half expected my ward to pull out the skimpiest outfit present, but her eyes were shadowed as she picked at her cuticles instead of offering feedback. And she was right. We didn’t have time for a repeat performance of our recent shopping spree, not with Erik digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself with every moment that passed.
“Stuck?” Kira asked, returning with the spare cell phone and dagger she’d offered after I admitted to losing both of those tools along with my apparel. “I get it. Clothes definitely help define your identity. But look at it this way—we get a new chance to invent that identity every day.”
Kira’s analysis of my dilemma was spot-on…and shouldn’t have been guessable from my momentary indecisiveness. Perhaps Drake had spoken about my lack of memory on one of the jobs they’d shared, overcoming the pain of his rasp to dole out information I’d thought was private between the two of us?
I winced and Kira took that as confirmation she was on the right track. “How about you treat it like one of those game shows where you have a deadline to fill your cart with the most expensive stuff in the store? Don’t think; grab. Go!”
I hadn’t agreed, but time was of the essence. So I didn’t overanalyze. Didn’t try to decide what would be modern enough to pass muster without baring more skin than I felt comfortable revealing.
And my fingers seemed to know what they wanted. Faded jeans, a turtleneck sweater, a black leather jacket that looked shiny but indented beneath my fingers almost as softly as Drake’s undershirt had slid across my bare breasts.
Kira nodded. “Good choices. See if these fit you.”
It felt oddly intimate to pull on another woman’s bra and panties, but Kira wasn’t the one I thought about as unfamiliar lace landed at the edges of erogenous zones. And maybe that’s why Lynette’s face lit up the tiniest bit as she gave me yet another side-eye.
Despite the momentary lessening of her angst, our ward still wasn’t entirely in command of herself though. Because her fingers burned mine when she grabbed my hand the moment I finished pulling on boots to complete my outfit. “Are you done?” she demanded, voice vibrating with tension. “Then let’s go.”
On the drive across town, Kira explained that she’d turned on location-sharing on her mate’s cell phone then snapped the device around his neck using a collar they’d created just for that purpose. So we didn’t have to hunt aimlessly. We could travel right to the source of the drama, which was, unfortunately, also one of the most hopping places in Gate City from a human point of view.
“The circus.” Kira’s expressive face wrinkled up into a moue of disappointment as she parked and led us to a ticket booth then past that into the mass of laughing, feasting humanity. “He couldn’t have picked somewhere just a little less busy?”
“Erik wouldn’t have done this on purpose,” Lynette started, then her words petered out as the crowd parted to reveal three wolves barreling toward us. Erik was less bulky than the others, but what he lacked in size he made up in speed.
He was also about to shift again. I could taste the energy pulling out of the air and into his body even though dozens of humans milled around him. Humans who, according to shifter law, would have to be killed if they learned about the existence of werewolves. Humans including a toddler up past his bedtime, a pair of teenagers holding hands, and an old man leaning on a cane to keep his balance.
There would be dozens of other humans scattered around the circus who had already seen more than they should have. Humans whose newly opened eyes might have to permanently be closed by Drake.
I could do nothing about the past, but these dozen bystanders I could save. I could also prevent Lynette from remembering faces that matched upcoming murders.
So, ignoring the bared fangs that reminded me of memories better off forgotten, I took a running leap and dove atop the sprinting werewolf.
Chapter 8
Tru
Erik spun in my grip, biting down hard around my forearm. But his fangs didn’t break through to my skin. Looked like leather jackets were good for more than mere style.
Ignoring the crushing pressure, I used the point of contact to my advantage. Roll. Twist. Hold…
I’d hoped Drake would be waiting for an opening just like this one, and he was. His huge lupine body blocked out the lights streaming down onto me and Erik as we lay on our sides, locked together by Erik’s lupine tenacity. Behind us, someone bellowed warning, but Drake was unflinching. One huge paw grazed my neck as he stepped into the fragment of space between me and Erik, then his much larger jaws stretched open in preparation for clenching down around the younger wolf’s throat.
Unfortunately, Erik wasn’t ready to surrender. Before Drake’s teeth could snap back together, Erik had torn his mouth away from my arm and scrambled to his feet. I followed suit, rising while at the same time drawing the dagger Kira had given me. A knife fight with a human audience was nearly as bad as a wolf fight, but both were better than giving Erik time to shift as he apparently had multiple times already tonight.
“Bad dog,” I said aloud, speaking around Drake as I tried to bring Erik back to reality without providing additional clues to the watching humans. If the excited chatter was anything to go by, the number of watchers was growing rather than shrinking. Belatedly, I realized I should have tried to draw Erik out past the gate rather than forcing a confrontation in the middle of this entertainment-seeking crowd.
Whatever Drake thought of my strategies, he backed me up with a deep growl aimed at Erik. The younger wolf didn’t flinch but a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye suggested the toddler’s parent had swiped at least one audience member off his feet and was carrying him away.
Two fewer humans to be dealt with once all this ended was a boon. But others kept arriving in pairs and larger groups.
And now Erik was turning in a tight circle, seeking an exit. We’d fenced him in though, me, Drake, and another huge wolf I guessed was Kira’s mate.
And that’s when the magic of incipient shift began gathering in the air around us a second time, the taste of fur awful on my tongue when I breathed in through my mouth. Erik had intended to turn human a moment ago and I’d managed to sidetrack him only briefly. If we didn’t come up with another distraction…
I’d forgotten Kira was present. Or, rather, I’d supposed she was guarding Lynette when she didn’t dive in to help us. But I’d been wrong.
Because the pair were abruptly flanking me, four huge plastic cups grasped in their hands. “One, two, three,” Kira called. Then bright pink liquid splashed over Erik, turning oily as it slid down his fur into the trampled grass.
And…the same wolf who’d caused so much havoc slid bonelessly earthward along with the liquid. Dropped to his belly then, after a sidelong glance at Drake, flipped over onto his back.
He was exhibiting immediate and total submission due to being drenched with some kind of fountain soda. It made absolutely no sense.
“Lynette will fill you in,” Kira murmured. Then she was brandishing a string of tickets and attracting the crowd’s attention with her sparkle as she raised her voice and told lie after lie. We’d been publicizing a new show, apparently. One full of wolf fights! Terror! Hand-to-hand combat! Only five bucks to see it all!
A woman’s query—was it safe?
“Not in the least,” Kira answered. Her grin was tremendous but her teeth were carefully human-blunt. “No showmanship. Just real, live battles.”
“Naw. Couldn’t be real.” This was a man. “Ten minutes ago, I saw a wolf turn into a…a kid.”
“A kid?” Kira laughed in such an inviting manner that the guy joined in. “You sure you saw that? What, like a werewolf?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged then shook his head at his own gullibility. “Another show, huh? Here, give us four tickets.”
No longer the focus of human attention, Drake nudged Erik back to his feet and Kira’s mate Thom sidled up on the other side to sandwich the younger wolf between them. I kept one eye on the crowd and one on our problematic prisoner as the two larger wolves guided us out the gate and around the edge of the parking lot until darkness obscured us from sight.
One moment, Drake was wolf. The next, something blanket-like seemed to slide off his back to the ground near the rear tire of my car as he became human.
I blinked, trying to make sense of what I’d seen. No one else appeared to have noticed the oddity, but Thom was on guard, staring out into darkness, while Erik was lost in some personal reverie and Lynette had eyes only for Erik.
So maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it had just been a trick of the darkness. Because what I could see of Drake now appeared just as naked as I would have expected.
Naked only momentarily, unfortunately. He opened up the trunk of my car, hiding himself from view only to reappear wearing jogging pants and a sweatshirt while carrying another pair of the same.
Meanwhile, his words, aimed at Erik, were so cold the spillover made me shiver despite my leather jacket. “Shift. Then explain.”
Drake’s order did more than make Erik shiver. The teenager was wrenched back to humanity, first whining through a lupine muzzle then moaning through human lips. He didn’t quite manage to catch the clothes Drake tossed him and Lynette took a step forward then stilled as Drake shook his head once then glared harder at the teenaged boy.
“Sir.” Erik coughed out the word as if it stuck in his throat. “I don’t know what happened. I…”
Now Lynette found her tongue at last. “Kira said liquid would break the spell if it was some kind of possession. And it did break the spell. So what happened wasn’t Erik’s fault. He…”
“Enough.” Drake’s rasp wasn’t as gentle as usual when addressing Lynette. “You understand my job. If Kira can’t put a lid on this, if someone videoed Erik’s shifts, then my hands are tied.”
“You can’t kill Erik!” Lynette’s words were a sob and I inserted myself between them, trying to bear some of the brunt of her evident pain.
“You and I should leave,” I murmured, reaching out to cup Lynette’s shoulders then giving her a nudge in an effort to turn her away from a scene she really shouldn’t see.
She didn’t let me move her. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”
Our ward knew as well as I did that Drake wouldn’t disembowel someone she cared about in front of her. She intended to guard Erik the only way she was capable of—with her presence and the reminder of her traumatic past.
Only, this time it didn’t work. Because Drake pressed himself into Erik’s personal space and demanded, “Talk.”
Thankfully, Erik didn’t fight the compulsion. He talked, filling in as many blanks as he was capable of, shooting glances at Lynette all the while. He hadn’t stayed with the Reed pack much longer than we had, he told us. After making sure his cousins were safely tucked into bed, he’d texted Lynette, asking if he could see her again. When she didn’t answer, he’d followed the lines of heavy traffic to the fairgrounds to cool his heels while waiting for a reply.
“I wasn’t ignoring you.” Lynette’s voice was timid. “I fell asleep.”
“I figured it was something like that,” Erik started.
But Drake interrupted with another command. “Talk to me, not to her.”
Beneath my hands, Lynette’s bird-like shoulders quivered. She craned her neck, trying to focus on Erik even though it was too dark for her to make out more than his shape and even though Drake had situated himself between the two of them as a living shield for his ward.
For his part, Erik seemed to be doing something similar, trying to find a way to look at Lynette even though his neck was on the metaphorical chopping block. They were sweet…but they were also veering off track and I could sense Drake’s impatience, impatience that was likely to upset Lynette even more when it came to fruition.
“Why did you shift in front of humans?” I asked Erik before Drake could, keeping my voice soft for Lynette’s sake even though I wanted to shake Erik in an attempt to dislodge residual stupidity. “You knew better. You wouldn’t have done it on purpose.”
“I don’t actually remember the shifting part. Some lady was handing out free drinks.” A growl from Drake and Erik talked faster. “Not alcoholic drinks. Lemonade or something sweet like that. I took a sip and next thing I remember I was soaking wet in my fur.”
Erik didn’t appear to be withholding information. Still, my chest tightened as I drew connections I very much hoped were wrong. “What did the lady look like?”
The teenager shook his head even as he answered. “I wasn’t really paying attention. She was about your age, maybe. Blond. Pretty.”
Just like Kami when she’d walked away after I severed the connection between us. I tightened my grip on my borrowed dagger, remembering how it had felt to wield a sword.
Drake followed the same thought pattern but took it one step further. “The woman was handing out multiple drinks,” he rasped, directing the words at the only one of us still four-legged, Kira’s mate Thom who’d provided furry backup until this point. “You know where your entire pack is?”
A silent head shake. Alpha gazes connected and Drake nodded once. “I’ll take care of this while you check into it.”
Then Thom slid off into the darkness to ensure there weren’t other werewolf bombs about to detonate. At the same moment, Drake’s hand landed on Erik’s bare neck.
Chapter 9
Tru
Lynette squeaked out a wordless protest and tried to slip away from me, but I was a shifter and she was merely human. I was able to grab back onto her before she intervened.
I was able to and I did so. Because I trusted Drake to know what he was up to. I trusted him to do everything he could to get around the duties that demanded he make a public and awful example of Erik as a warning to shifters everywhere.
I trusted him to take into account the fact that Lynette was watching everything with tears in her eyes.
