Off the Beaten Path
Author: Cari Z.
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: M M Romance; Shapeshifters; Paranormal; Romance; Fantasy; Military Fiction; Werewolves; M M Paranormal; Lgbt; Urban Fantasy
Description: When Ward Johannsen’s little girl Ava shifted into a werewolf, she was taken into custody by the feds and shipped off to the nearest pack, all ties between father and daughter severed. Ward burned every bridge he had discovering her location, and then almost froze to death in the Colorado mountains tracking her new pack down. And that’s just the beginning of his struggle. Henry Dormer is an alpha werewolf and an elite black ops soldier who failed his last mission. He returns home, hoping for some time to recuperate and help settle the pack’s newest member, a little pup named Ava who can’t shif
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

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Copyright

Off the Beaten Path

By Cari Z.

When Ward Johannsen’s little girl Ava shifted into a werewolf, she was taken into custody by the feds and shipped off to the nearest pack, all ties between father and daughter severed. Ward burned every bridge he had discovering her location, and then almost froze to death in the Colorado mountains tracking her new pack down. And that’s just the beginning of his struggle.

Henry Dormer is an alpha werewolf and an elite black ops soldier who failed his last mission. He returns home, hoping for some time to recuperate and help settle the pack’s newest member, a little pup named Ava who can’t shift back to her human form. Instead he meets Ward, who refuses to leave his daughter without a fight. The two men are as different as night and day, but their respect for each other strikes a spark of mutual interest that quickly grows into a flame. They might find something special together—love, passion, and even a family—if they can survive trigger-happy pack guardians, violent werewolf politics, and meddling government agencies that are just as likely to get their alpha soldiers killed as bring them home safely.

Huge thanks to my beta readers for waiting soooo loooong for this to be done.

Chapter One

Ward

YOU COULDN’T sneak up on a werewolf.

It wasn’t possible. Everyone agreed on that, from a million pop culture references to the people who actually ran ops with the real ones. Werewolves had hyperdeveloped senses, and they were incredibly protective of their territory and their pack. You could trap a werewolf, you could trick a werewolf, you might even be able to bargain with a werewolf―I was banking on that―but you couldn’t sneak up on one. They could tell where you’d stepped almost before your foot hit the ground.

So why was I standing outside a chain-link fence in the snowy twilight, slowly freezing to death while waiting for someone to notice I was there? I’d been counting on being found quickly; I really hadn’t packed for the snow. My bad―Davis had told me I needed more than a sweater and a jacket better suited to a California winter than a Colorado one, but I’d been too frantic to listen to him.

If I died clinging to a fence in the middle of nowhere, Davis might bring me back to life just so he could kill me again for being such an idiot.

“Avoid the guardian,” he’d said, thin lips terse as he’d handed me the map. An actual physical map, not GPS—nothing I could program into my phone. “You can’t take the obvious road without getting stopped, so you’ll have to hike into another part of their preserve. And burn that map when you’re done with it. I’m fuckin’ serious, Ward. If that’s found by the wrong people, it could cause a domestic terrorism incident.”

“I’ll destroy it,” I’d promised hastily, glancing at it before I stuffed it in my pocket. At that point, my daughter Ava had been gone for three months. At least she hadn’t been missing, not anymore. Davis had located the pack she’d been sent to. I’d just had to find it, get the nearest werewolf to ask questions before shooting or biting or whatever appealed most at the time, and persuade them to let me stay.

Well, at least I’d managed the first part of it.

“Don’t you people have cameras?” My lips were so cold I could barely articulate the words, but the act of speaking seemed to break through the layer of ice that had chilled my anger ever since I’d started hiking.

I’d gone seven miles through the snow after abandoning my car, the pale winter sun doing little to warm me as I trudged along, hoping against hope for a sign that I was going in the right direction. Finding the fence had felt like a godsend at the time, but I’d been there for over an hour now, waiting for anything and getting nothing at all. My breath rasped in my chest, and I’d had to stop and use my inhaler twice. Much more than that and I’d be courting real trouble, so I kept my breaths shallow and my scarf pulled across my mouth.

“Seriously,” I went on. “What wolf pack doesn’t have cameras covering every part of their territory? How can you not have seen me yet? If you’re not as goddamn paranoid as I was led to believe, I’m going to be so pissed.” Also probably deceased, but that was my problem, not theirs.

Actually, no, I was going to make it their problem too.

“I will climb this fence,” I announced to the growing darkness in front of me. “I’ll climb this fucking fence, and I’ll get all snarled in the barbed wire at the top, and then you’ll wish you’d found me while I was still alive, you assholes, because you’ll be untangling me for fucking hours!” I don’t think I’d sworn this much since my brother’s funeral.

Okay, I was angry, but I was also being serious. Someone should have seen me on camera by now. Davis had been very clear about that. Maybe the one I was closest to wasn’t transmitting—I needed to move, then. I needed to pick a path and go, because if I didn’t start walking now, I might not be able to before long. Right or left? Which direction had the road that passed the guardian been on, again? I’d already burned the map, shit, shit….

I went right. If I hit the road, at least the guardian would probably keep me alive if they found me. I wouldn’t be able to help my daughter if I was dead. My feet felt dangerously numb, and my nose might’ve been blue by now. The wind made my eyes water, and tear tracks froze on my cheeks. I clung to the fence, using it half for guidance, half for support.

“I’m gonna find you, baby.” I would. “I’ll find you.” I had to. I wasn’t going to sit back and let the government take her from me just because she’d turned out to be a werewolf.

The mutation had been around since the early forties, when a supersoldier experiment resulted in men that, instead of having all the heightened senses of wolves, actually turned into wolves. They escaped the confines of Pine Camp in northern New York, crazy with fear and adrenaline, and went on a biting spree. Most of the bitten died after turning into wolves.

A few of them managed to turn back into people, though.

The government took responsibility for their mistake and divided the surviving werewolves into packs. Hollywood loved them, scientists wanted to study them, and bigots wanted to kill them, but for the most part, real werewolves stayed firmly out of the spotlight. The only exception to that rule was when someone turned unexpectedly. Someone like my Ava.

The bite didn’t manifest in lycanthropy for everyone bitten. Some people, a tiny percentage of those exposed to the mutation, were simply immune to the shift. They could carry it, though, and they could pass it on. For Ava, the gene must have come from her mother. Carriers were almost always incredibly healthy, and I was far from a model of vitality. It was just as well I wasn’t usually attracted to people who could get pregnant.

Every now and then, maybe half a dozen times a year, a child would shift. Usually it didn’t happen until puberty, or some other time of extreme stress. For my daughter, it was her first day of preschool.

“Daddy, nooo.”

I could still hear her voice from that morning in my head. I’d been running late, stressed by the start of a new semester and the challenge of trying to get my daughter dressed, fed, and into her car seat before eight in the morning. She’d been clingy, more than usual.

“I want to stay with you!”

“But you’re a big girl now, sweetheart. Big girls go to school. You’ll have so much fun and make so many new friends.”

I’d gotten the call about her change at lunch, right after dismissing forty freshmen from my Physics 101 class at the community college where I’d taught. I hadn’t recognized the number at first―I’d almost let it ring through to my voicemail. “Hello?”

“Mr. Johannsen?” The woman’s words had been almost too warbly to make out. She’d cleared her throat. “It’s Maria Kostakis. Ava’s teacher.”

“Oh, boy.” I’d sighed and sunk down into my chair. “Is she okay? She’s not sick, is she? She was pretty unhappy this morning, but she wasn’t running a temperature back at the house.”

“She’s….” I’d never had a professional trail off like that with me. It made my heart beat harder in my chest.

“She’s what?” I’d snapped. “What?”

“She’s turning.” Those words seemed hard to get out, but once she’d managed them, Ms. Kostakis had continued faster and faster. “She told me at snack time that her hands hurt, and when I looked at them, I saw—there were claws coming out the end of her fingers, and her palms were changing color. I got her to the nurse’s office before things got much worse, but our school doesn’t have the sort of containment facilities needed to handle a shift, so—”

“Containment facilities?”

“It’s standard procedure, Mr. Johannsen. If a child shifts in a public environment, they have to be contained immediately so they can’t infect others. The nurse called the police, and when the SWAT team arrived—”

“A SWAT team? She’s four years old!” I knew the basics of dealing with an unexpected shift—I worked in public education—but SWAT seemed excessive.

“A four-year-old werewolf. The danger she put our entire school in, I just….”

“She’s a kid, not a bomb!”

“She might as well be a bomb!” Ms. Kostakis had shrieked at me.

It had taken longer than I’d wanted to get the rest of the chain of events out of her. SWAT had come, ushered my baby girl into a cage, and taken her to the nearest government facility equipped to deal with werewolves. By the time I’d gotten there, Ava had already been transported again. And this time—

“We can’t tell you where she’s gone, Mr. Johannsen.”

“The hell you can’t.” I’d never been so angry in all my life. Never: not when I’d been laid up in the hospital for weeks at a time, not when Rick and Davis had enlisted, not when Ava’s mother left us. “She’s my daughter. I’m her parent, her legal guardian. You can’t just take my child from me.”

The state official behind the bulletproof glass had weathered my outrage without batting an eye. “Actually, under the Safety in Isolation Act of 1946, we can. Your child is a member of a protected but dangerous species, and the best place for her is in a pack where she’ll get proper care and oversight. Werewolves need to be in packs in order to be mentally and emotionally stable.”

“How will ripping her away from everything she’s always known make her emotionally stable?” I’d demanded. “Ava is an only child―she just started school this morning! I’m all she knows, and she needs me. We need to be together.”

“Werewolves adapt differently to change than humans, and Ava is very young. She’ll do better in her new situation than you’re giving her credit for. Regardless, Mr. Johannsen, you’re not going to be allowed to see her.” Cool eyes had regarded me dispassionately. “It’s best if you accept the government’s transition payment and forget you ever had a child.”

“I refuse.” I’d stood, furious enough that I barely had any energy left for standing. My breaths had been so shallow I was light-headed, but I’d be damned if I showed any weakness in front of a soulless bureaucrat. “You can expect to hear from my lawyer.”

“If that’s how you want things to go. You won’t get anywhere with it, though.”

“Fuck you.”

I’d left full of righteous indignation, enough to drown out my fear. Eventually the tables had turned, though, and fear replaced confidence as I learned that the official was right. No lawyer would take my case. The law was ironclad: werewolves weren’t classified as human. They were a dangerous subspecies, and they were the property of the government. Any attempt to locate my daughter would result in my imprisonment, which I’d have risked if I could have gotten anywhere, with anyone.

In the end, the only person who would help me was Davis, and I still didn’t know everything he’d had to do to get the information he did. I’d asked, but he wasn’t sharing his sources. I didn’t care as long as he was right. His information had led me here, to Middle Of Nowhere, Colorado, where he said I’d find Ava.

God, I was so cold. And when had my feet stopped moving? I glared down at them through my frozen lashes, willing them to get going again, but they refused. How far had I come from where I’d first found the fence? Was there another camera? My arm felt as heavy as an anvil, and it was so hard to keep holding on to the fence when all I wanted to do was rest. Just for a moment. Just….

“Hey.”

Pressure so light I barely felt it against my hand made me turn. There was someone on the other side of the fence—an actual person. Hallucinations might be able to talk, but I wouldn’t feel them, right? She was mostly concealed by a hooded fur-lined parka, but I could see the top half of her face. Her eyes looked worried.

“Please,” I croaked. The cold had ripped my voice to shreds. “Let me see her. I need to see my baby.”

“Who are you talking about? How did you get here?”

“Ava. My kid. She―I know I’m not supposed to be here; they told me to just forget about her, but she’s all I have. Please. I’ll do anything to see her.” Anything at all.

Her mittened hand gripped mine harder. “What’s your name?”

“Ward Johannsen.”

“How did you find us?”

“Please.” I was so cold, and my hand was so heavy. It fell from the fence, even though she was trying to hold on to it. My knees collapsed, and I heard the woman cry out. “P-please.” I leaned my head against the unforgiving metal links, the only things that were keeping me from pitching into the snow. She knelt down on the other side of the fence and stared at me.

“Mr. Johannsen. Mr. Johannsen! Ward!”

I blinked at her.

“Shit.” She glanced away for a moment. “Henry’s going to kill me.” She looked back at me. “Fuck it. I’ll be to you in two minutes, Ward. Do you understand? Don’t lie down.” She shook the fence for emphasis. “Do not lie down! Say you understand me.”

“I….”

“If you lie down, you’re not going to get to see Ava. You hear me? Ava needs you to stay awake!”

My baby needed me. “I’ll stay awake.”

“Good.” She pushed to her feet. “Two minutes, Ward. I’ll be right back.” I heard the crunch of her footsteps vanishing into the dark, and I pressed my forehead hard to the fence.

Two minutes. I could do that.

As long as I didn’t die first.

Chapter Two

Henry

BY THE time I arrived at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, I’d been in the sky for over twelve hours. Twelve hours was long enough for the stench of my rescue unit’s fear to gradually give way to shivering, sweaty relief. Lo and behold, I hadn’t killed anyone. Not anyone they’d seen, at least.

None of these kids had experience working with a werewolf, and their ignorance showed in the furtive glances and whispered conversations that they clearly didn’t realize I could hear. Probably none of them had ever wanted to work with an operative like me―they weren’t curious or bold enough to ask me any questions. That didn’t stop me from asking them some, back at the beginning of their escort mission.

“What happened to the rest of my squad?”

“They were recalled before they could make their rendezvous with you, sir.” At least the lieutenant managed to look me in the eye while parroting things to me.

“Any casualties taken?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

“I need a line to my commanding officer to verify.”

“He informed me you should check your personal messages, sir.”

Personal messages. Classified data was being left in my goddamn inbox now. That alone told me how pissed off Colonel Hill was at me. I’d made use of the secure phone in the cockpit of the C-17, a completely excessive aircraft given it was transporting just five men, and checked in.

“You returned without the package, beyond the acceptable time table, and almost gave your presence away behind enemy lines. Consider yourself grounded until you get a better handle on your capabilities, Major Dormer.” Click.

Well, fuck. Not that I hadn’t been expecting that, but it was going to make life more complicated for me and my pack. More complications were the last things I needed right now, but at least my original team was all right.

My nervous nannies finally delivered me back home, and that was all that mattered. I needed food, rest, and the presence of my pack to ground me. I needed time, just a little more time. Things would be fine.

They had to be.

Getting out of that plane was a relief. I breezed through my verification and debrief―the on-site special ops director was well used to dealing with me―and got a ride to the gate, where my sister Samantha was waiting for me in her familiar red 4Runner.

No, scratch that. Her husband Liam was the one who got out of the car as I approached. Tension I barely even recognized I’d been releasing sprang back into my frame, tightening my shoulders. Liam seemed to notice, if the worried furrow of his brow was anything to go by.

“Henry.” His voice was low and clear, just the barest hint of a Quebecois accent evident in his pronunciation of my name. “Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be back.”

He extended a hand, and I took it, then drew him into an embrace, pressing my nose against the crook of his neck. Humans might see two grown men hugging the life out of each other in a parking lot and wonder, but for me, this greeting was as traditional as a handshake. Liam was pack―new pack, barely pack―but he carried my sister’s scent on every inch of his skin, and the scent of my wolves beneath that.

Liam scented me in return, and I could tell he didn’t like what he smelled. I hadn’t had a chance to clean up, and I still felt bathed in blood, dust, and death. It was no different than a dozen other missions, the price I paid as La Garita pack’s alpha, but Liam had grown up sheltered. I sensed his distaste and pulled back before I caused him any more discomfort. It was enough to have the smell of home in my head again. Soon the ache in my heart would ease.

I threw my duffel bag into the back seat in silence. Liam offered me the keys, but I waved them away. “I’m tired. I might want to nap a little on the way home.” It was a four-hour drive from Colorado Springs, plenty of time to be awkward with my new brother-in-law. God, I hoped I slept.

“Of course.” He got into the driver’s seat, started up the car, and turned on the heat. The radio was set to NPR. Naturally. No heavy metal or hard rock for Liam. I was lucky we weren’t listening to fusion jazz or French pop.

“Samantha wanted to come.”

Oh good, so we were going to talk about it. “And she didn’t because?”

“The littlest pup, the new one. Ava? She isn’t doing so well.”

Fuck. “What’s Tennyson’s diagnosis?”

Liam sighed. “Failure to thrive. He can’t find anything medically wrong with her. Her shift isn’t noticeably out of alignment, no impingement on the heart or lungs, but she’s completely listless.”

“Failure to thrive.” I shook my head. “He’s got to hate that.”

“He does, very loudly,” Liam agreed. Tennyson was another of the newer arrivals, a transplant from a disbanded pack on the East Coast. He was one of the few werewolves with medical training for both the human and the animal parts of us, and after what had happened to his last pack, he was edgy as hell. I should have been there for him. I should have been there to ease the way for both of them.

The timing of my latest mission couldn’t have been worse. Three new arrivals in under a month: one who’d just lost his pack, one who was marrying into mine, and a child stuck in her pup form who had howled endlessly, so despondent that she’d refused to eat for almost a week. I was the alpha of La Garita pack. It was my job to welcome new members, to help them integrate and feel like they were becoming part of a new whole. That was what pack was: a sense of wholeness, the anchor for a soul living in an unstable body. It was family, or that was what it aspired to be.

Tennyson had been settling in, his walls still high but his reluctance to socialize ebbing. Liam and Sam had come back from their honeymoon even more ridiculously in love than when they’d left for it, which made it a little easier for me to deal with the fact that I had to share my sister now. Even Ava had finally stopped crying, willing to take food directly from my hand. She was a strong-willed pup, completely adorable, and I had three different couples vying to welcome her into their homes once she shifted back to human. Then I’d gotten the call.

Almost a month later, here I was: returning home without the success that would sate my handlers, wiry and strung out from too much running and not enough sleep and with my own sense of pack so strained it was almost like I didn’t have one at all.

Sam would ask me about that. I knew she suspected, but she’d been too happy to really dwell on it before. I’d have to work at my lie this time if she was going to buy it.

“I’ll go and see her when we get back.” Maybe spending the night with Ava in my other form would comfort her some.

“Samantha has been with her every day since you left. She’s doing everything she can.”

Was that censure in his voice? “I know that,” I said with deliberate slowness. “I’m not accusing my sister of anything.”

“There was much to deal with while you were gone. Some that was difficult for a human.” Making Sam the acting head of the pack while I was gone was nothing new, but Liam didn’t understand the way we ran things yet. Sam might be human, the only human there, but no one dominated her. If she’d been born a werewolf, I was pretty sure she would have ended up the alpha, not me.

Given the work I did for the military, I was glad I’d taken on the responsibility instead.

“Sam knows how to handle things when I’m away.”

“She would be in trouble if a fight broke out.”

I could feel my jaw begin to creak. That was almost always where my shift began, and the last thing I needed right now was to alpha out on my new brother-in-law. “Did a fight break out?”

“No, but—”

“Wouldn’t you have been there to assist her if a fight had broken out among my wolves?”

“Of course I would.” His voice was soft now, deferent. He knew he’d overstepped—I could smell the faint sourness of his apology—but my easy mood was gone.

“You’ve never really been part of a pack like ours before, Liam.”

“My pack was—”

“Your last pack was a bunch of lone wolves loosely associated because your government didn’t know what else to do with you.” The vast majority of werewolves were American, but the gene had spread to a few other nationalities. There were enough carriers in Canada to form something of a pack in the Laurentian Mountains, but they hadn’t been raised together, hadn’t spent their whole lives together.

“La Garita pack is different. My mother was the alpha before me, and her father was the alpha before her. He was one of the original soldiers infected with the mutation. Our pack is firmly established, and most of our members have been a part of it their whole lives. They know us. They wouldn’t endanger Sam, but if you think she doesn’t have fail-safes in place for her own protection, then you don’t know her very well.” I let my irises bleed from blue to gold. “Don’t disappoint my sister by underestimating her.” Or else, my alpha glare added.

If Liam could have shrunk any deeper into his seat, he’d have been under it. “I won’t.”

“Glad to hear it.” It took more effort than usual to get my eyes to change back. Too much time spent shifted lately. I needed to get home, see my sister, settle in with the new pup, and rest. God, I needed to rest. I felt so tired now that I was back on somewhat friendly ground that I could barely hold myself upright. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window and shut my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to sleep with just Liam in the car, not after our little altercation, but at least I could spare myself the trouble of making any further conversation with him.

Apparently I was more tired than I’d thought, because the next thing I knew I went from dreaming I was hunched and quivering on all four feet over a body to suddenly waking up with a gasp, snapping my half-inch fangs in the direction of the disturbance. Liam had already pulled his hand back from my shoulder, apprehension clear in his face.

My jaw was distorted, painful in the aching, grinding way that always came with a partial shift. I forced my teeth back to human and got my bearings. “Ah.” It was dark now, but the 4Runner rumbled to the beat of washboards in the dirt road, and above the trees I could just make out the edge of familiar, moonlight-limned mountains. We were almost to the guardian’s home.

“I thought you’d want a moment to collect yourself before speaking with him.”

“Thank you.”

“Henry….” I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to say it, but Liam collected himself and pressed on. “Are you all right?”

I wanted to snap at him. Fuck that, I wanted to actually nip him, draw a little blood and put him in his place, but Sam would chew my head off if I did. And he was family. I needed to make an effort, even if it was harder now than I could ever remember it being.

“It was a rough mission.” Understatement of the year. “I just need a little time to reacclimatize. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” I could hear the doubt in his voice but didn’t have the time to pursue things—we were already pulling to a stop by the guardian’s home. John Parnell was waiting for us by the road, scowling as usual. His house was well lit, and I could see the silhouette of his daughter moving around the living room, probably cleaning up plates after another TV dinner. Things had been different for the family since his wife Clara left last year, and not in a good way. John had been our guardian for over two decades, but that didn’t mean he liked us.

He did his job, though. “Fuck, it’s colder than a witch’s third tit out here,” he grunted as I rolled down the window. He passed me a sheaf of handwritten papers. We could have transmitted all this information digitally, but the government was understandably wary about werewolf networks getting hacked. Information isolation was a necessary part of keeping the pack safe. “Upcoming delivery dates, incident reports, and the maintenance log. Camera nine is malfunctioning.”

“Another one?” I frowned as I glanced through the papers. “Last month it was camera six.”

“They’re not really built to withstand the weather, and your infrastructure’s getting old. You should ask for a system overhaul.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.” I wouldn’t get any favors from my handlers until I gave them a successful mission. I’d already pushed things, lobbying for and getting the new blood.

“Oh really?” John raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “Interesting times abroad?”

“You could say that.”

“Huh. Well, not to heap more damage on you, but you should know that there’ve been sightings of a large white ‘dog’ outside of Monte Vista. Nobody’s caught it doing anything wrong yet, but the weather’s just going to get worse over the next month. If it’s looking for food….”

Fuck. “I understand.” I couldn’t bring myself to think about “stray dogs” right now. Wilson had kept his head for the past fifteen years; he could handle himself for another winter. He’d be all right.

“I hope you do.” He slapped the side of the truck. “It’s out of your hands for now, at least. Don’t let it fuck you up too much. Welcome back, Alpha Dormer.”

“Thanks, John. Say hi to the kids for me.”

“I will.” He wouldn’t. He walked back to his house, and I rolled the window back up. We were almost there. The sense of disruption I’d been feeling ever since I left was finally ebbing away. My home was waiting for me. My pack. My family. It would be all right.

When we got to the fence, Liam opened a program on his phone and typed in a code. The gate slid open for us, automatically closing once it got to its apex. The compound was a little less than a mile ahead. I could already see the lights through the trees.

The first cabin at the end of the road was ours, in front of and slightly apart from the rest of our little town. It was larger than most of the other houses, a throwback to when our family had been more numerous. Dark logs and a tile roof gave it almost a Bavarian appearance, and the porch light glowed brightly. I was out of the truck almost before Liam stopped it, heading toward the front door at a jog. I was home, I was finally—

Wait.

I inhaled deeply, scenting the air just in front of the door. There was a smell here that I didn’t recognize. A person here that I didn’t recognize. Trespasser.

I slammed the door open so hard it rattled on its hinges getting inside. Liam was right behind me, and I followed the smell of the intruder into the living room, feeling the shift pull at my face again, readying my fingertips to burst into claws that would—

“Henry, stop!” Only here was Sam, right in front of me, smelling just fine. A little stressed, but healthy. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a disheveled bun on top of her head, and she was wearing one of my college sweatshirts. She smelled like us. She smelled like home. “It’s okay,” she said, and I wanted to melt onto the floor, collapse with my relief. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.” She smiled at me, broad and happy, and held out her arms. “God, I’m so glad you’re back.”

I hugged her, and it was almost perfect. Almost perfect. The scent of the intruder still lurked in the air, stronger than ever now, and even though I wanted nothing more than to relax at last, I couldn’t. I looked over her shoulder at the couch.

A man sat curled into a ball on the far right cushion, bundled up in what looked like every blanket in the whole house. His hands, clutching a tepid mug of hot chocolate, looked painfully red, and I heard an unhealthy-sounding rasp in his chest with every breath. His thin face peeked out from beneath lank straw-colored hair, but his expression was blatantly defiant.

He was also completely, utterly human. Not a werewolf―he didn’t even smell like a carrier. He had no place here, in my home.

“Who the hell is that?”

Chapter Three

Ward

FIGHT OR flight. Two warring biological imperatives meant to save your ass when you were feeling threatened. I’d fallen prey to fight plenty of times in the past―I didn’t run away from trouble, I met it head-on. My friends called me reckless; I considered myself scrappy. Fight was a familiar instinct, one I could handle.

I’d never felt the flight urge so strongly before in my life. Part of it was the way my hostess behaved as soon as she heard the front door open, her face a strange mixture of happy and apprehensive as she suddenly stood, leaving me alone on the couch. Part of it was Davis’s warning echoing in the back of my mind about what to do when confronted with a werewolf, how to behave when facing down an alpha: don’t look them in the eyes. Don’t move toward them―wait for them to come to you. And for fuck’s sake, Ward, don’t yell at them! The last thing fueling my instinctive urge to flee was the reality of the man—werewolf—person who ran through the door into the living room, teeth bared like he was ready to rip someone’s throat out, eyes bright and fierce and burning like stars.

The sight of him stopped my breath. For that moment, he seemed larger than life, despite the fact that he probably wasn’t that much taller than average. He was broad, though, barrel-chested, every exposed inch of skin browned by the sun, the rest of him concealed by dirty tan fatigues. His jaw was covered with auburn scruff, his hair a shade closer to brown. He was―captivating. I couldn’t look away.

When his eyes met mine, I scowled at him for all I was worth. This was the bastard who’d stolen my daughter. I might be quaking on the inside, but there was no way I was backing down to him.

When he spoke, his voice was a rumbling growl. “Who the hell is that?”

Oh, fuck no. He wasn’t going to talk over me like I wasn’t even here. I set my cup of cocoa on the end table, struggled out of most of the blankets, and got to my feet. It was harder than I liked to stay on my feet, but hey, at least I could feel them now.

Sam spoke up before I could open my mouth. “This is Ward Johannsen. He’s Ava’s dad.” She paused. “You remember Ava? The pup—”

“I remember.” Still growling. Not good. “What’s he doing here? John didn’t say anything about—”

Sam shook her head. “He didn’t come in on the road. I found him in Sector Eight.”

Finally, he actually spoke to me. “You hiked in?”

“Yes.” If I’d sounded a little hoarser, I might have passed for a Shetland pony.

“Over the river?”

“Is there a river out there?” Maybe that was the weird expanse without the trees. I’d thought it had been a little more slippery than usual.

He closed his eyes—still gold—for a moment, looking less like a wolf and more like a world-weary soldier. “Yeah, there’s a fucking river on one side of our territory. You’re lucky you didn’t fall in.”

“Right. Lucky,” I scoffed. “That’s what I am.”

“You are. You survived getting here, and you’re going to live long enough to leave. Sounds pretty lucky to me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“The hell you aren’t.”

The growl was more pronounced now, resonating down into his chest and through vocal cords that quite obviously weren’t entirely human anymore. My heart felt ready to explode, but I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“I’m not leaving without my daughter.”

“You aren’t going anywhere with her.”

“Then it looks like I’m staying here.” The idea made me a little queasy, but if learning to live with a bunch of werewolves was what it took to stay with Ava, then I’d manage.

“You can’t stay here. Do you have any idea how many laws you broke just stepping foot on our land?” He moved closer to me, his glare colder than the ice surrounding the house. “I’m within my rights to deal with trespassers however I see fit. The guardian wouldn’t even blink an eye if I handed your corpse over to him in the morning.”

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Sam put herself between the two of us, meeting her brother’s glare with one that matched it in intensity. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re not killing anyone, Henry.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past month, sightseeing?” He gestured at himself. “These are the first clothes I’ve worn in weeks, Sam. The wolf hasn’t been sitting idle. We’ve been hunting.”

Sam’s mouth tightened at the grim reminder, but she didn’t balk. “That’s work. This is home, and at home we act like the civilized people we are and talk through our differences without bloodshed.”

“He’s not supposed to be here.”

“Too bad, he’s here anyway.”

“He’s not pack, Sam!”

There was more than just anger making his voice rough. There was desperation there. I knew it well. It almost made me want to soften a bit, try to be a little more placating, a little kinder to a person who had obviously been through the wringer.

Almost, but not quite. I couldn’t afford to back down now. Any sign of weakness, and this guy—Henry—would walk all over me. I’d be out on my ass with the rising sun, and I wouldn’t be getting back in.

“But Ava is pack,” Sam said gently. She reached out and stroked both her hands down her brother’s arms. “And Ava needs help.”

It wasn’t news to me, not after spending an hour interrogating Sam in her own living room, but the reminder still made me shiver. Ava hadn’t changed back. She wasn’t adapting―because she didn’t feel safe here, not enough to relax into her human form. The longer it took her to shift back, the harder the transition would be. Three months wasn’t the breaking point, Sam had assured me, but after another three, Ava might be a wolf for good. And werewolves who couldn’t shift back to human were put down.

I watched, transfixed, as the gold finally faded from the alpha’s eyes. I couldn’t tell their color under the heaviness of his lids, though. He swayed on his feet, just a little, before shaking his head and pulling out of Sam’s grip.

“We should talk,” Sam said. Her fingers twitched like they wanted to reel him back in. “I kept your dinner warm in the oven. Liam.” She looked at the silent guy standing in the door, his eyes as big as saucers. “Can you take Ward to the spare bedroom upstairs?” She turned to me and smiled reassuringly. “We’ll go to the clinic to see Ava in the morning.”

“You swear?” She’d already promised me, but I wanted her to do it here, in the presence of her brother. I wanted him to see I had her support.

“I swear.”

Henry flinched. It wasn’t a big motion, barely noticeable, but Sam immediately reached for him again. He shied back from her hands. “Fine. Let’s get this done before I fall asleep on my feet.” He turned and walked out without another glance at me.

Sam patted my shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll go right after breakfast tomorrow, okay?” Her tone was calm, even though she had a worried crease between her eyebrows.

“Okay.” I nodded, and she followed her brother out of the room.

Liam—her husband, I assumed—met my gaze. “Ah. May I, um. Take you upstairs?”

The poor guy looked ready to jump out of his skin. Maybe literally—as a wolf, he could probably run away from all the drama a lot easier than as a human.

“Sure,” I said.

He glanced around the room. “Do you have a bag?”

“I’m wearing everything I brought with me.”

He murmured something in French, then gestured toward the hall. “Please, follow me.”

Now that I felt more alive, I actually took the time to notice my surroundings as we climbed the stairs. The entire house was made of wood: thick, heavy beams polished to perfect smoothness inside. They were pale, not dark, and made the house seem light despite relatively few windows. The floors were uncarpeted, although there were area rugs here and there. The bedroom I was led to looked like it had been decorated sometime in the 1940s, with lavender-and-blue floral wallpaper, a quilted comforter over the double bed, and an antique wooden vanity with a little navy stool perched in front of it. There was a ponderous-looking set of drawers against one wall and a chest at the foot of the bed.

“Is this acceptable?” Liam asked.

“It’s fine.” I honestly didn’t care as long as I could lay my head down for a few hours. I would have happily slept on the couch if it meant seeing Ava sooner in the morning.

“I’ll get you some clothes. Mine will be a bit long on you, but they’ll be better than Henry’s.”

“You really don’t need to go to the trouble.”

“Please. It’s….” Liam paused, like he wasn’t quite sure how to work out what he wanted to say. “We can smell you. Even in our human forms, our noses retain some of their lupine ability.”

“So, I stink.” I wasn’t surprised. Despite the cold, I’d been sweating like a pig on some of the uphill parts of my trek.

He shook his head. “Your natural odor isn’t the issue. It’s the fear you felt that is the sharpest scent. Smelling it tends to put us on edge.”

Holy shit. “You can smell fear?”

“And other strong emotions, but fear is the simplest. A shower would help.”

I bet it would. “I can do that.” I wasn’t here to torment a bunch of werewolves just to convince them to give me my kid. A shower would probably make me feel better too.

“Good.” He seemed relieved. “The bathroom is at the end of the hall. Take your time.” In other words, be thorough.

“Got it.”

I’d been expecting a tiny, utilitarian cubicle, not the enormous claw-foot tub on a heated floor. They might be werewolves, but they definitely had a hedonistic side. As soon as I saw the tub, it was like flipping a switch in my body. My clothes seemed to crawl across my skin, making me itch like I was having a reaction. Thank God, among the lengthy list of things I was allergic to, dog dander wasn’t one of them, or I’d be in real trouble when someone shifted.

I turned on the shower, shucked my clothes onto the tiles, and climbed into the oversize tub. I could lie flat in the thing and barely touch my toes and head to the ends of it. I lay in the warm-not-hot water, as Sam had warned me against too much heat on my frostbitten fingers and toes, and shut my eyes. The pound of the water was incredibly relaxing, and I exhaled heavily, breathing a little easier through my scarred lungs.

I was so close. So close to seeing my baby again. Just a few hours more.

She might not remember you. That had been one of Sam’s warnings to me. Ava was young for the shift, and occasionally with small children, their memories were affected, especially in the case of a traumatic separation. It was possible that Ava, in either form, wouldn’t recognize me. I wanted to imagine that I was prepared for that, but really I knew that if I went to see her and she didn’t know me, it would rip my fucking heart right open.

It didn’t matter, though. If that happened, I’d just have to stick around until she did remember me. I wasn’t going to let them send me away. Sam was on my side. I knew it. She’d help me with her brother.

Although from the look of him, he needed plenty of help himself. I knew he was military; most alpha werewolves were, according to Davis. Sometimes betas were called upon as well, or joined up voluntarily, but for alphas service wasn’t optional. They were given the roughest assignments, the things that normal people couldn’t do. Deep infiltration, covert operations, assassinations… the worst jobs went to werewolves. And however I felt about Henry Dormer, he was clearly coming off of a really bad job.

Having his sister on my side was good, but the only one who had the leverage to fight for me to stay here legally was the alpha himself. I needed to make his life easier. I needed to get him in my corner, however I could. There had to be some sort of work I could do here, some way I could improve life for the pack. I’d ask about it tomorrow, after I saw my daughter.

I almost fell asleep under the spray it was so soothing. Eventually I turned the water off and hauled myself out of the bath, only to find my clothes gone, an oversize terry-cloth robe left in their place. The idea that someone else had been in the bathroom while I was using it wasn’t pleasant, but I couldn’t deny being grateful I wasn’t going to have to put my grimy things on again. I made my way back to the bedroom without seeing anyone and found a pair of wool socks, flannel sleep pants, and a long-sleeved henley.

Huh. Looked like I’d be going commando.

The clothes were on the large side but comfortable. I had just enough energy to turn off the bedside lamp and crawl under the quilt before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I dreamed my daughter was calling for me and woke up over and over again to nothing but the sound of my own gasps.

Morning couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter Four

Henry

MY FIRST night back in my house I spent sitting on the floor outside the guest bedroom.

Not the whole night. The first part of the evening was spent confronting a madman with no common sense or boundaries, and the next part consisted of my sister and me whisper-shouting at each other in the kitchen over her supporting him.

“Are you out of your mind? You know that no one who hasn’t been cleared by Homeland Security is allowed on the reserve.” The kitchen was on the small side for me to pace in, but I was too on edge to sit down in the chair Sam pointedly pulled out for me.

“He was dying of the cold, literally dying, Henry.” Sam sounded exasperated. “What was I supposed to do, leave him on the wrong side of the fence?”

“You could have called John and let him take care of it. It’s his actual fucking job.”

“John would have turned him over to the feds.”

“That’s exactly what should be done!”

My sister pointed a finger at me. “Absolutely not. Ward isn’t a criminal. He’s a concerned father. He doesn’t deserve to be put away in a penitentiary for caring about his child.”

“He does if it involves infiltrating what’s supposed to be a secret location.” If our pack was no longer secure here, I was going to raise hell with the powers that be. “And are you sure he is who he says he is?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “No, because I’m a complete moron. Of course I checked his identity. He’s exactly who he says he is: Ward Johannsen, thirty-one, professor of physics at a community college in San Francisco. He was never married, and Ava is his only child.”

“Maybe he is.” And that was still a maybe as far as I was concerned. “But if that’s true, then he had help finding this place. The man should be interrogated, not given a cup of cocoa and a pat on the head.”

“Henry James Dormer.” Sam sounded exactly like our mother in that instant, as sharp and vicious as a mouthful of fangs at your throat. “If you ever again suggest to me that a civilian—no, not just a civilian, anyone at all—deserves to be interrogated for risking their lives for the sake of their child, you and I will have a real problem.”

“We already have a problem.” Even as I said it, I felt my will to fight ebb away. God, I was so tired. “He’s taking a shower as we speak.”

“Henry.” Sam got up from the table and came around to me. When she tried to take my hands this time, I let her. “Things will look better in the morning. You’re still coming down from your mission, but you’re here now, you’re home. You can relax, I promise.” She smiled her quirky little half smile, the one she saved just for family. “I’ve got your back.”

No, you don’t. I didn’t say it, but I knew she could see it in my eyes―my new reluctance to rely on her, to share everything with her the way I used to. Sam dropped my hands and turned away, busying herself with pulling my plate out of the oven, while I tried to get a handle on my fucking face. She didn’t say anything, but you didn’t have to be a werewolf to sense the newfound tension in the room.

Shit. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t stop myself. We had known things would change after she married Liam; marriage changed everything. Sam’s heart belonged to him now. She insisted that her heart was big enough for both of us, for all of the pack, but it was different. We’d been too close for too long, the two of us against the world, fighting for control of the pack after our parents died. We’d fought, and we’d won. The pack meant home, but Sam had always been the center of my personal pack, half of my own heartbeat.

When she’d gone away to graduate school last year, it had felt like any other departure: painful but ultimately temporary. Then she’d come back, and she’d brought Liam with her. Liam, who was shiny and new, angelically blond, and temptingly different. Liam who was a werewolf, but who had grown up in the human world. Liam who adored my sister, but whose nervousness around me made me want to snarl at him.

I never expected to marry. Somehow, selfishly, I’d thought Sam would end up the same way.

I tried not to resent him. Liam was good for my sister. He didn’t care that she was human, while her humanity was a definite strike against her in a traditional American pack, for all that ours was fairly progressive. He saw her brilliance and appreciated her sense of humor. He understood her priorities, enough that the idea of the two of them relocating to Canada had never even been in the running. Sam belonged in Colorado, in La Garita pack, and Liam belonged with her. He was her other half now. The rest of the pack would have to be enough for me.

“Henry.” I didn’t even notice her approach me. I was so lost in my own thoughts. That was dangerous. “Come and eat, okay? Take Ward to see Ava in the morning. If his being here can do her some good, then we might be able to spin this in our favor. I’ll make some calls.”

I nodded tiredly, then sat down at the table. The meal was pure comfort food: bison meatloaf, mushrooms sautéed in butter, and mashed potatoes so full of cream they might as well have come straight out of the cow. Sam had even made a salad, not normally one of my favorite foods, but fresh vegetables were something I tended to crave for a while after a mission. Usually I would have inhaled it. Tonight it was all I could do to lift my fork to my mouth, and I gave up on finishing it half a plate in.

“It’s delicious, but I’m going to face-plant onto the table in another minute,” I said to Sam, who looked serene but smelled worried. “I’ll put it in the fridge, polish it off later. Thanks for cooking.”

“You’re welcome. It’s your turn tomorrow night.”

“Whatever you want.” I smiled for her, and it hardly hurt at all. I was glad to see my sister after so long. I truly was. But I already knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight―not with a stranger in my home. That was no reason for her to stay up, though. “Liam’s waiting for you. You should turn in.”

She sighed quietly. “Fine.” She stood reluctantly, and as she passed me, she bent over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tight. I closed my eyes and let her scent settle me, as well as it could. Sam still meant home, in all the ways that counted. She might not be my home anymore, but that wasn’t her fault. I shouldn’t have relied so much on her after our parents died. I didn’t know how to share her, and rather than let my wolf go after Liam like it wanted, I encouraged it to push her away instead.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.” I looked at her as she straightened up. “Sleep well.”

“You too.” Sam poked me gently in the chest. “I mean it. You’ve got no reason to stay up tonight. You need the rest.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” I heard, but that didn’t mean I was going to obey. Sam had brought a stranger into the house, and she expected me to sleep? I’d sooner cut one of my own hands off.

In a way, though, Sam was right. Ward was ridiculously easy to keep tabs on. He didn’t even try to mask his noises the way most people in the pack did. I heard every scuff of his feet, when he fumbled for the soap at the sink, the tired sigh that escaped his lips as he got into bed. I listened downstairs for a while, and once he was asleep, I headed up to my room. A quick shower left me feeling rejuvenated enough to try meditating. When I couldn’t sleep, sometimes mediation could get me by for a few days, and it wouldn’t affect my hearing. I settled in a lotus position on the mat on my floor and took a few deep breaths, closing my eyes and trying to focus on the movement of the air inside of my lungs.

“Nuh.”

My eyes shot open. I was on my feet and down the hall in a second, stopping myself just outside the guest room door. Who was he talking to? Did he have a phone? Was he contacting someone who might—?

“Mmmno.”

Ward’s voice was still slurred with sleep. Oh. He was dreaming. And from the sounds of it, he wasn’t having a pleasant dream.

“Mmm, no, nobabyno—” A second later he gasped, and I heard the bedsprings creak as he suddenly sat up, a cough filtering through his throat as he tried to catch his breath. “Shit,” he whispered after a moment. “Shit.”

I waited to see what he would do. Was he a pacer like me? Would he need to go and get a glass of water? I could be down the hall and out of sight in a few soundless seconds―he’d never know I was here now, listening to the aftermath of his nightmares.

Instead of getting up, he burrowed deeper under the blanket—Great Aunt Molly’s quilt, if the rustling scratch of the fabric was anything to go by—and with a determined grind of his teeth, settled in to try to sleep again. I stood in the darkness of the hall, utterly silent, waiting to see if sleep would stick this time around. Five minutes. Ten. His breathing was regular again, if shallow, and I found myself breathing along with him for some reason. Fifteen minutes. I could leave, go back to my room, and continue my meditation. Listen from a distance. It was the safe thing to do.

Ward’s breath caught in his throat. He whimpered, and a moment later he jolted awake again. Something like a sob emerged from the darkness, and for some reason hearing it made me want to whine in sympathy. It wasn’t a healthy impulse, but I couldn’t quite quell it or make myself leave. He smelled like utter misery, something I was full to the brim with already.

I should have left him then. I needed to leave and go to the cold, safe company of my own stale sheets. Instead I listened to Ward gentle himself again, gradually drift off into an uncomfortable doze. I sat silently against the wall, my ear tuned to the crack in the door, and kept breathing at his pace, futilely willing it to slow down, to deepen. If he were pack, he would have felt my presence. I could have comforted him.

Of course he didn’t feel me, and we got no comfort from each other. I didn’t leave, though, compelled by my sense of duty to look after him through the night. He didn’t seem like the healthiest human. There was no telling what hell might rain down on us if he died of pneumonia while on the reserve, at least not until we knew how he found us.

Ward Johannsen woke up three more times that night, and I was there for every second of it. By the time he swore tiredly and gave it up for a lost cause, I was already downstairs making a fresh pot of coffee. It was just starting to get light out, and usually Sam would be up by now, but despite the soundproofing in their bedroom, I knew that she and Liam had had an enthusiastic night and probably needed their sleep. I contemplated getting a start on breakfast, but in the end decided coffee was enough. I wasn’t hungry, and besides, I didn’t want to seem too welcoming. As far as I was concerned, the endgame wasn’t any different.

Ward shuffled into the kitchen wearing a pair of Liam’s sweats and a sleepy, slack expression. That changed as soon as he caught sight of me, drowsiness instantly giving way to wariness that sharpened his delicate features. Delicate, but not youthful—even though he couldn’t be much taller than Sam’s height, maybe five foot six at best, he carried himself with the sort of confidence that only came with age. His skin was dotted with freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his ears, and his blond hair was cut short on the sides, long on top, and probably would have looked good if it had been styled. As it was, it was still tangled from sleep and partially obscured his dark eyes.

I held out a cup. “Coffee?”

“Um.” He looked at the cup like I was offering him a live scorpion. “Where’s Sam?”

“Still asleep.” I waggled the mug. “I won’t poison you in her absence, but once I’m done with my coffee, I’m going to the clinic, so this is your only chance at caffeine.” I wasn’t actually expecting Ward to take me up on it, but he exhaled loudly, then crossed the distance between us and took the cup from my hand. He headed over to the pot to fill it, and I watched the way he moved, a little clumsy on feet that seemed sore but not badly damaged. Good enough.

“No breakfast?” he asked after a moment, his voice almost calm.

“Don’t push your luck.” I had to hand it to the guy—he had balls. “You want to eat, you can wait for Sam to get up or make yourself something, but I’m not gonna wait for you.”

“Right.” Ward turned around, leaned his hips back against the counter, and downed his coffee, hot and black, in one long gulp. I almost expected him to start choking—I brewed it strong—but he lowered the cup and sighed with satisfaction. “There.” He set it in the sink and turned to stare at me. “Done. Just waiting on you.”

My mouth cracked a small smile, which wouldn’t do at all. I occupied it with draining my own coffee, leaving my empty mug on the table and turning for the door. After a moment, Ward came after me.

Tennyson would be awake by now. I’d see what he said, and then we’d find out if Ward could possibly have a place here. I wasn’t holding my breath.

Chapter Five

Ward

MY BORROWED boots were too big for my feet. Even with two pairs of socks and tying the laces as tight as I could, my toes didn’t quite reach the front ends of the shoes. I didn’t say anything about it, but Henry must have noticed the way they made me trudge in the crisp morning snow.

“Sam has an extra pair,” he said. “We can get them for you later.”

I was prepared to swallow my pride when it came to taking insults about my looks, but after a few seconds, I realized—that was it. There were no follow-up comments about my feet being girly or how little feet probably meant little other things too. It was a little shocking, the lack of condescending assholery.

“Um. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t want to be wearing anything you can’t run in.”

I bit my lip to keep from asking Why would I need to run? It didn’t take much imagination to think up, oh, a hundred reasons why it might be a good idea to be able to move fast around a bunch of werewolves. Henry didn’t seem to expect me to say anything and turned his stoic gaze back to the building ahead of us. It was another log cabin, just one level this time. A light glowed above the front porch.

“Is that the clinic?”

“Yeah. Don’t talk when we get there, okay?”

I frowned. “But I want to explain—”

“Actions will speak louder than words with Tennyson, and results will have him on your side faster than anything. Don’t talk until we’ve spent some time with Ava.” He stopped suddenly, turned, and looked me straight in the eyes. “There’s going to be glass between you and her. It’s got to be that way, for safety reasons.”

“But how will she know I’m there?” Even I knew that a werewolf’s strongest sense was their sense of smell. If Ava wasn’t responsive and I couldn’t get close to her, close enough to smell, how was I supposed to make a difference?

“She’ll smell you on me.” Henry’s deep breath in wasn’t too obvious, but the billowing plume of steam he exhaled was. “But you’ll have to get closer for any of your scent to rub off.”

Rub off…. Jesus Christ, it sounded like I’d just landed in a bad porno. But Henry looked serious.

“So, you want me to hug you?”

The guy looked like he was stepping into the line of fire. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

He blinked. “Really? Just like that?”

“Well, I mean, you could have asked me while we were warm and not in the brutal subzero temperatures outside—”

“It’s barely subzero. Don’t whine.”

“—but yeah, of course, if it’s for Ava,” I finished. I’d drop to my knees and suck this guy’s dick right then if it gave my daughter a better chance of mastering her shift. It definitely wouldn’t be a hardship.

“Good.” Permission given, Henry stepped right through the edge of my personal bubble and so far into my space that I could feel the warmth of his breath across my face. Still, he didn’t reach out to touch me. I guess that boundary had to be mine to take down, and the sooner the better. Barely subzero or not, it was fucking cold. I opened my arms, closed the distance between us, and wrapped him up in the best hug I could provide on the spur of the moment.

After a moment, Henry returned the hug, and whoa. It was like being dipped in a warm bath. He shouldn’t have felt so hot to me, not with so many layers between us. I didn’t even realize I was shivering until I suddenly stopped.

Henry lifted a hand and gently tilted my head to the side, then leaned in and pressed his face against my neck. Even the tip of his nose was warm, the only bit of skin I could really feel that wasn’t covered with beard. He inhaled once, twice. This was scenting, wasn’t it? Davis had said something about that….

They’re touchy-feely, like new-age hippie Unitarian touchy-feely. Hugs aren’t a big deal―it’s how they get scents. Basically the equivalent of saying, “Hey, how are you, I’m fine.” This didn’t remotely seem like a casual greeting, but I kept my breathing level, shut my eyes, and leaned into the heat. It felt… nice.

I chased the warmth as he began to pull away. The air seemed so much colder now that my body had remembered what heat was. After a few seconds, I remembered myself and opened my eyes. Henry looked down at me, his expression inscrutable.

If he was waiting for me to show my discomfort, he had another thing coming. “Good enough?” I asked.

“It should do.” He turned and started walking again, more briskly this time. I floundered to keep up in my damn boots, but after another hundred yards, we were there. I made it up the porch stairs without the things falling off my feet, then followed Henry to the front door. It wasn’t locked, and he didn’t bother to knock, just went right in.

Inside the entrance was an off-white waiting room, like you’d find in any other doctor’s office. There was a counter with a blank computer screen on it, a few chairs, and an end table, even some magazines in a basket on the floor. The door just beyond the counter was massive, though, probably solid steel and very decidedly closed. There was a PINpad next to it. Henry input a code, careful not to let me see, and something inside the door went clunk. He opened it, and we headed down a darkened hallway toward a room illuminated with warm, soft light.

The room was lined with shelves, each of them full of equipment that either looked like it fit the milieu perfectly—blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, and a narrow bed with stirrup attachments nearby—or really didn’t. The padded restraints, the enormous cage, and the veterinary-style scale all screamed serial killer lair to me, but Henry didn’t even bother to look around except to frown and say, “I’m surprised he’s not here.”

Surprise was bad. I didn’t like surprises. “Does that mean we can’t see Ava?”

“No, I can still get us in. I just expected him to be around.” He sniffed the air, then shook his head and went over to the far wall. One more door opened up, and then we stepped into a tiny anteroom with, of all things, a rocking chair in it. Three sides were steel, one was glass. And behind the glass….

It looked like a puppy. A small one, dark and fluffy, curled into a tight ball on a blanket in the far corner of the secured room. I could see its little chest rise and fall with every breath. Was it—

“Is that Ava?” I hadn’t gotten to see her after her shift. I didn’t know what she looked like anymore. The rich brown of the pup’s coat reminded me of her hair, though. Would her eyes be the same? She’d had blue eyes, like her mother; everything about her looked like it had come straight from her mother, not me, except for her slight frame.

“That’s her.” Something in Henry seemed to soften as he spoke, the lines of stress in his forehead easing. “She doesn’t look much different from when I left.” That provoked another frown. “It’s been weeks.”

“What will you—wait, what are you doing?” Because the guy had just ditched his jacket, shrugging it carelessly onto the ground before he started to pull up his shirt. I briefly lost my breath for objecting as his naked chest suddenly filled my frame of view, but found it again when he went for his pants. “Seriously, what the hell—”

“She knows me as a wolf,” he explained. “That’s the best way for children to connect to the pack, especially when they’re stuck shifted. They need to be with their alpha. Once they trust them, the wolf can coax them into shifting back. If I went in there as a human, it wouldn’t mean much to her.”

“Would she know me? If I went in there?” I was willing to try anything at this point. My baby, she was right there. Close enough that I could watch her breathe, but not hear her breaths.

“Maybe, but that’s not happening. It’s. Not. Happening,” he repeated over my protests. “I already told you, it’s too dangerous. You might not care about what happens to you, but I guarantee you your daughter does. Especially if she ends up feeling like she’s responsible for hurting you. I’ve got your scent―that should get her attention.”

“And if it doesn’t?” I asked, trying desperately to keep my eyes on Henry’s face while confronted with his casual, effortless nudity.

“We’ll try something else, maybe see what Tennyson has to say. In the meantime, though?” He rolled his neck, the joints audibly popping. Wait, no, it was his whole spine popping, curving over and drawing his head forward and down. His eyes looked different, too, and when he spoke again, his voice was guttural. “Close the door behind me.”

By the time Henry opened the door, his hands were little more than paws. By the time he was inside the room, he was down on all fours and I was trying not to have an asthma attack. I patted my pocket just to reassure myself that my inhaler was there if I needed it, forced myself to cough a few times to clear my throat, then carefully shut the door behind the man—the wolf—the werewolf who’d just shifted in front of me like it was nothing. He made it look so smooth—kind of nasty, but fast and relatively painless. He was beautiful, surprisingly large, with a thick red coat and golden eyes. I couldn’t imagine him taking months to learn to shift after making it seem so effortless.

I stopped imagining anything at all when he padded over to Ava, all my focus narrowed down to my daughter. He stood beside her and nuzzled her with his nose. She didn’t move. He did it again, then again. Ava made a whimpering sound but still didn’t get up.

“You’ve got to get up, baby,” I muttered, pressing my palm against the glass and leaning in close.

Henry whuffed, then opened his mouth and carefully closed his jaw around the scruff of her neck. He lifted Ava to her paws, ignoring the piteous whines that were about to break my heart in two. He set her on her feet, then took a sphinxlike posture in front of her and bumped his face against hers. She didn’t even look at him, eyes down, wavering on her feet like she was going to fall over any second. It was probably the saddest thing I’d ever seen in my life. Henry bumped her again, licked her face for a moment, and then laid his head down next to her little body. It was like he was inviting her to use him as a cushion, and she did, flopping over onto Henry’s furry neck with a little yowl.

She cried like that for a moment, sniffling in between each sound, when suddenly her head jerked up and her legs went rigid. She scrambled upright, turning to sniff Henry properly, and a moment later, she threw her tiny head back and howled. It was barely loud enough to qualify, but it was the most energy she’d shown so far that I’d seen. I watched hungrily as Ava pounced on Henry, digging her face into his fur and licking, crawling over his face and sniffing every part of him like she was desperate for more. Was it me she could smell? Or had something else caught her attention?

She howled again, tumbling over Henry’s side and following the scent of his paw prints back toward the door. I couldn’t help it; I tapped the glass with trembling fingertips. Ava tracked the sound, stared up at where I was standing for a moment, and then—

Her tail wagged so hard I thought she was going to fall over. She jumped up against the glass while I crouched down, our faces at the same level. She pressed in as close as she could get, her nose leaving a smear on the glass, before she licked the same spot. I laughed. It almost sounded like I was fine, and that my heart hadn’t shattered inside my chest.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said, feeling weirdly cloggy. Shit, was my throat closing up after all? I fumbled for my inhaler even as I stared at her, completely riveted. That was my girl, still my little girl, for all that she had four legs and a lot more hair now. And she knew me. She knew me, and she wanted me, and I wanted nothing more than to open that door up and climb into the cage with her, but—

I heard a growl behind me, so fierce and furious it could have come from a hellhound. I started to turn, only to have a clawed hand swing me around the rest of the way. Horribly long teeth in a distorted jaw snapped less than an inch in front of my face, and I did what any rational person would in the face of a supernatural nightmare.

I screamed loud enough to raise the dead, and fought back.

Chapter Six

Henry

“IT ISN’T that funny.”

Sam picked her head up from the exam table she was leaning against, took another look at Tennyson and snorted, then buried her head in her folded arms again. “No, I know,” she gasped. “I know, I’m sorry, T, just give me a sec.” Scowling, Tennyson rolled his eyes, then winced.

It wasn’t that Ward had actually managed to do any real damage to Tennyson. Short of an AR-15 or a chainsaw, nothing a single human could wield was going to do much to damage a werewolf. We healed so fast that it just wasn’t an issue. Ward, though, had been lucky enough—or skilled enough, but I was going with lucky for now—to get his inhaler up between him and Tennyson and fire a puff of albuterol straight into the werewolf’s face. It had been unexpected, and the chemicals irritated Tennyson’s eyes and made him sneeze. He’d staggered back, and that was when Ward had grabbed the rocking chair and, with a great deal of effort, brought it down on Tennyson’s head.

Ward wasn’t big enough to put a lot of force into his hit, but he’d tried his best. By the time Tennyson was getting back on his feet and Ward was lifting the chair again, I’d joined them in the anteroom, switching rapidly into my human form.

“Stop!” I’d shouted as I got between them. “He’s a friendly!”

“He tried to eat me!” Ward panted.

“He’s a stranger!” Tennyson growled.

It hadn’t gotten much better from there. Sam and Liam had arrived a few minutes later, which gave me a chance to put some space between the erstwhile combatants. Ward I left in the observation room with Liam to keep him company, while Sam and I squared off with Tennyson in the clinic.

It wasn’t the reunion I’d been hoping for with him. Of all our newcomers, Tennyson Castile came with the most baggage. His original pack had been forcibly disbanded after allegations of abuse by the alpha came to light. His seconds had covered for him for months, and it wasn’t until one of the human members of the pack was killed that there was a formal investigation. Every person not indicted was sent to another pack, and those who were found guilty of collusion were put to death.

It was brutal, but legal. The Safety in Isolation Act provided enormous protections for werewolves from humanity at large, but the price for those protections was high. Due process didn’t apply to werewolves. If you were a killer, at least a killer of people or things that the Agency of Shifter Affairs didn’t sanction, you had to be put to death. Werewolves who failed to finish their shift, or with severe mental illness, or anything else that might put people in harm’s way were either put down by their alpha or by their guardian. Alphas might rule their wolves, but guardians were responsible for keeping the entire pack out of the limelight, and sometimes that meant a very careful assassination.

Tennyson had lost everything he’d ever known, and I hadn’t been around to help him adjust. He needed to attach to the pack, needed to bond with us and get his sense of equilibrium back. I’d never had to kill a pack member before, and I didn’t want to start now.

It helped that he and Sam were friends. Of course, Sam was friends with everyone. She could afford to be affable and approachable, while I had to be more of a hardass. I wanted to be better with Tennyson, more open with him, but now we had Ward in the mix. Tennyson definitely wasn’t happy about Ward.

“I can’t believe you brought him here.”

He wasn’t happy with me either. I’d already decided to make Ward’s presence look deliberate on my part, rather than the result of an unknown intelligence leak and a faulty camera system. Neither of those things would inspire confidence.

“It was a last-minute decision,” I said. “Based on what Sam told me about Ava, I thought it was vital that we improve her chances.”

“You should have consulted me about it.” He extended his glare to Sam. “I’m the doctor here, aren’t I?”

“Of course,” she said soothingly, but he wasn’t about to be calmed.

“And you agreed to defer to my medical opinions when you accepted me into this pack, didn’t you?”

“Yes, within reason.”

“You can’t put caveats on my—”

“T,” I broke in. “C’mon, slow down and think for a minute. What would your reaction have been if I said I was considering bringing Ava’s father here?”

“I would have said you were crazy, and I’m not convinced I’m wrong.”

You and me both. “But you can’t deny that she wasn’t getting better. She’s been declining since I left, hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” he said guardedly. “But you didn’t even bother to try to revitalize her yourself before bringing her father here.”

“Because I wasn’t sure I’d be enough for her,” I said with complete honesty. “And I want to give her the best chance possible for survival.” Sam frowned, but Tennyson nodded.

“I can see that, but….”

I pressed my advantage. “And he’s having a positive effect on her well-being already. She’s up and moving. She’s hungry.” I’d felt the surge of heat in her little body as Ava’s metabolism had suddenly shifted from a state of torpor to activity. She was probably starving. “Her odds are improving. Look, a lot of crazy things had to come together for this to happen”―which was a massive understatement―“but it has, and I’m not going to apologize for it.”

Tennyson stared at me, and I met his gaze without flinching. “I just hope you don’t make a habit of it, Alpha,” he said after a moment. I understood his reaction. His former alpha had forced a lot of consequences on his pack without a second thought. I wasn’t that kind of leader, and I never wanted to be.

“I don’t plan to. If I’d had time to inform you beforehand, I would have.” Pure honesty, again, and some of the lines in Tennyson’s face smoothed out. I extended a hand to him, and once he took it, I tugged, gently enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. He came forward instead, and we embraced as pack. I scented him and found traces of adrenaline and stress, but both were dissipating now. He smelled like the clinic, sterile and warm, and a little like Ava. Not quite like pack, but getting there. He inhaled deeply, and his arms tightened around my rib cage for a moment.

When we separated, Tennyson frowned at me. “What have you been doing? You smell exhausted.” He politely didn’t mention the stench of death that probably lingered.

“It was a busy time abroad, and I didn’t sleep much last night.”

Now Sam was staring at me too. Great. “Well, get some sleep and some more food. And for God’s sake, shower before you get back in there with the pup. She doesn’t need to smell all of this. Besides”—he narrowed his eyes slightly—“you’ll need your strength if you’re going to be bargaining for a new pack member.”

He was right. I was going to have to make Ward pack now, whether he wanted it or not. I’d as good as sealed his fate by bringing him to see Ava and getting positive results. Shit.

Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission at this point. I was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do to my commanding officer, but if Sam’s connections with other packs and within the agency could help us, it might defray the consequences a little. I just hoped Colonel Hill didn’t send me out again before I had a chance to really solidify the pack.

“I’ll go and check on the pup,” Tennyson said, stepping away. “And bring her some food. Just hamburger, to start with. Something easy for her to chew.”

“Thank you.”

Tennyson shook his head. “Don’t thank me for doing what I’m supposed to. I’m a doctor. It’s my job to look after the health of my pack.”

“And I’m the alpha, and my job is the same. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate you for doing it.”

If anything, he looked confused. After a moment, Tennyson nodded, then headed toward his office. I turned to Sam and sighed. “Ward is still alive, so it could have gone worse.”

“You wouldn’t have let anything happen to Ward.”

Was that true? I’d been caged up with Ava, not even considering that Tennyson might smell someone unfamiliar and become unnerved, or that Ward might not be able to protect himself. He had protected himself, but he shouldn’t have needed to. I’d been trained to think tactically, and the situation that we’d just barely scraped through without incident wasn’t the result of sound decision-making on my part. I could have done better. I should have done better.

My sister didn’t need to bear the weight of my doubts, though. “I have to talk to Gerald before things go much farther.” Gerald Owens was a La Garita elder, the patriarch of the only other founding pack family. He was a decade older than me, a husband and father, and the pack’s resident carpenter. I’d been half convinced he’d challenge me for my position after my mother died when Sam and I were twenty-one, fresh out of college. I’d succeeded my mother without complaint, though, and Gerald and I had been friendly, if not best buds, ever since. He was staunchly traditionalist, and I didn’t know how bringing a human into the pack would sit with him.

Not that it mattered. If he didn’t like it, he could take it up with me. Part of me. The part that had tasted blood and torn flesh less than forty-eight hours ago was hungry for more of the same.

“I already invited him and Peggy over,” Sam said. “You can talk to them at breakfast.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “Which you’ll eat, if I have to spoon-feed you myself. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

I looked in on Ward and Ava before I headed back to the house. He was still pressed to the glass, watching avidly as Ava ate raw hamburger off of Tennyson’s fingers. Those two seemed to have buried the hatchet. I couldn’t sense any tension between them, despite their knockdown fight not half an hour ago. Liam watched from the rocking chair, silent. When he saw me, he stood and came over to me.

“I think they’ll be all right for the time being,” he said.

“Looks like it,” I agreed. “She’s eating well.”

“Better than she ever has before. Her father’s influence, certainly.”

I’d take it. “Ward. Ward!” It took a few tries to get his attention. “We’re heading back over to the house for breakfast. Ava isn’t the only one who’s hungry.”

“Go ahead, I’m fine,” he said instantly, although I could hear his stomach rumble beneath the lie. Or, not a lie, just… not the whole truth. I wasn’t going to pry him away from his kid yet, though. The entire room was filled with a sense of contentment, soft and soothing. Hell, I’d rather stay and bask for a while myself than go right now, but I had responsibilities. I’d send some food over.

Gerald and Peggy were sitting in the kitchen with Sam when Liam and I arrived, drinking coffee and chatting about the supply drop scheduled for next week. Gerald was a broad man with light brown hair and a beard twice as bushy as mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen his lips, which was funny since the man was always talking. Peggy was small with short dark hair dappled with silver here and there and clear, perceptive eyes.

“Roman wants to come along on the pickup,” Gerald was saying, “get a feel for how to handle these kinds of things.”

“That makes sense,” Sam said, flipping a pancake on the griddle. “He’s going to need more exposure to social interactions with other people before he goes off to college.”

Peggy stiffened, just barely, as Gerald chuckled and shook his head. “He’s already learning a trade from me. Living in a place like this, there’s always work to be done.”

“I thought he was interested in electrical engineering.” Sam was the pack’s teacher. She’d been working with Roman since he was six. “He’s all set to take his standardized tests this year. If he gets good scores, then those and his GPA will certainly be enough to get him into a local university.”

“Electrical work is one thing, but engineering? That’s a waste of time. He’s going to be living here, so he should have a job that will put him to work here. I mean, look at Henry.” He finally did look at me, just quick enough to keep his delay in addressing me from being outright insolence. “What did you get a degree in, art? History?”

“Art history,” I said as I sat down beside him. Peggy gave me a smile. Gerald just kept talking.

“Something with no real use to your pack. Not that it really mattered, with you. You were always going to go into the army.”

“It’s the alpha’s duty,” I said. “Speaking of my duties, we have a new pack member.”

I waited for their exclamations to die down before explaining the situation with Ward, again, making it seem like his inclusion had been deliberate rather than accidental. Fuck it, if I was picking a side, I was choosing wholeheartedly. Ava was a different pup with her father here.

“Oh,” Peggy said with a melancholy sigh at the end of my explanation. “I’d been hoping we could take her in once she’d mastered her shift. She’s a sweet little thing.” Peggy, I recalled, had wanted more than one pup herself, but werewolf reproduction was a fraught thing. I’d had two siblings die in the womb, victims of prenatal shift complications. If a child wasn’t born in human form, its chances of surviving were almost nil.

“You’ll still be able to see her,” I promised. “They’re pack, they’re not going anywhere.”

“Henry.” Gerald sounded pained. “You can’t keep doing this. You should be focused on gaining permission to bring a wife here, starting a family of your own. Not wasting favors on some human, not after you’ve already taken a degenerate pack’s leftovers and—”

I didn’t bother to resist the urge to growl. “Mind your words.”

Peggy looked down, but Gerald met my gaze, even if it was only for a few seconds at a time.

“You know I would never speak badly of Sam. She can’t help how she was born, but she was raised pack. She knows how to be pack. A new human, with no claim on our world except a child he couldn’t take care of—”

“She was taken from him,” Sam interrupted. She never had liked being talked about as though she wasn’t even in the room. “Ward didn’t get a choice in her care.”

“Because he’s not a werewolf,” Gerald said placidly, like she’d just proved his point. “We’re not human, and it’s no good pretending to be. We shouldn’t have to change to accommodate him.”

“He’s the one changing,” I said. “He’s accommodating us by coming here and talking to us instead of taking what he knows to the nearest news station. He’s got her best interests at heart.” Or at least, he’d better be fucking accommodating after all this bullshit.

“But the timing, Henry. It could be years now before you can take a wife.”

“I don’t plan on taking one.” I’d said I was gay a hundred times. Gerald was the only person who kept bringing up wives. “And my private decisions aren’t open to discussion.”

“But if Sam and Liam’s children are human, who will our next alpha be? Your family has led this pack since its inception.” When Gerald met my eyes this time, his seemed to gleam with disappointment. “What would your mother say, if she could see her son throwing away his status?”

I was on my feet before I knew it, fist slammed so hard into the middle of the thick wooden table it creaked. “Get out.” It was a gross breach of courtesy to throw them out, but I’d had enough. One more rude word out of his mouth and I’d rip his hairy lips off.

Peggy got to her feet instantly. “We’re pleased you’re home safe, Alpha,” she said formally. She didn’t come in to scent me, and I didn’t invite her closer. “You and your family are invited to dinner at our home later this week. Please bring Mr. Johannsen.”

“Thank you, Peggy,” Sam said when it was clear I wasn’t going to reply. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be gracious, but it felt like I couldn’t, like my throat was filled with fire, and if I opened my mouth again, I’d breathe flames all over both of them. They left, but Sam waited for the front door to shut to speak.

“Jesus, sit down!” She practically pushed me into Peggy’s abandoned chair, switching out the mug of coffee for a fresh one. “You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”

“If that means I don’t have to listen to Gerald be an asshole anymore, I’m for it,” I grunted. Liam put the platters of pancakes and bacon down on the table, and Sam briskly served me some before I could refuse.

“Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” I wasn’t, either. My stomach roiled with pent-up anger and frustration.

“I don’t care. You’re not leaving this table until you’ve eaten a real meal.”

“I don’t need another person telling me what I can and can’t do today!” I shouted.

Sam and I stared at each other for a long moment. “Honey,” she said finally, glancing at Liam. “Would you please make a plate for Ward and take it to him? We won’t be long here.”

He nodded and was gone in under a minute, food tucked safely away under foil. The door shut, and I braced myself for Sam to start yelling.

“Gerald’s an idiot sometimes.”

Some of my righteous indignation deflated. “Try all of the time. He knows I’m gay. I don’t understand why he persists in pretending I’m going to marry and bring home a wife someday.”

“He likes tradition. He likes to pretend things are the way they were before our folks died. But he doesn’t know better than you, okay? You’re our alpha, and you have been from the moment you stepped up to take care of this pack despite how awful everything was back then.” It really had been awful, utter chaos: our parents killed in an off-the-books operation, my sister and I both away from the pack when the news was delivered, the frantic unease of our people. The pack had nearly splintered before I could get back. “Gerald could never do what you do.”

“I know that.” The last of my tension eased out of my throat, and I could finally breathe easy again. “But that won’t stop him from causing trouble.”

“Trouble is for later. For now, eat. Please, eat something.”

I looked at the food, fresh buttermilk pancakes and crispy bacon, things I’d dreamed about having during my month away. “I can do that.” I cut a bite of pancake and stuffed it in my mouth.

It tasted like sand.

Chapter Seven

Ward

I DIDN’T move from my seat in front of the glass for hours. I stayed through Ava’s feeding, her meal a pile of minced, raw meat that I was fairly sure hadn’t come from a supermarket. I stayed through Liam pushing a plate of my own at me until I finally scarfed it down just to get him to stop being distracting. I didn’t budge through the series of tests that Tennyson decided to perform now that Ava was up and moving again. I winced at her piteous little howl when he drew blood, but Tennyson was unfazed.

“No child likes needles, whether they’re in pup form or human form,” he said, calmly corralling my daughter’s flailing paws as she batted at him. I don’t know what Henry and Sam said to him, but he’d gone from threatening to rip my throat out to being surprisingly chatty in short order. “This is the first time in a long time she’s had the energy to actively dislike it, though.”

I pictured Ava lying on her side, still as the grave while Tennyson poked her with a needle. It didn’t compute. She was a tornado of a kid, only still when she’d finally dropped from exhaustion. I watched her play, first with Liam, then with Tennyson once she’d forgiven him for coming at her with a syringe, and it was only after she finally curled up into a ball on a blanket made from the shirt I’d borrowed—Tennyson’s idea, since it carried some of my scent—that I realized my bladder was about to burst.

I pushed up to my feet with a little groan. How was I so stiff? All I’d been doing was sitting. “Bathroom?” I asked Tennyson, who was sitting in the rocking chair behind me and glaring at his tablet like it had just given him the finger.

“Out front, the first door on the right,” he said absently.

“Thanks.”

“Mmm.”

Compared to the safe room in the back, the front of the clinic felt cold. I finished as quickly as I could, then ran hot water over my hands until they were flushed with borrowed heat. I dried my hands off, then pressed my warm palms to my neck. God, that felt good. I had never retained body heat all that well, and my hands and feet were the worst offenders.

It looked like I could safely say at this point that Ava was going to dodge that bullet as she grew older. Could werewolves even have something like poor circulation? What kinds of illnesses affected them? That was definitely something I needed to know.

I opened the door of the bathroom with a new sense of purpose and almost immediately ran into a teenage boy standing in the front office. “Whoa—hey, sorry about that,” I said, stepping back to put some space between us. He had a book, a calculator, and pad of paper under one arm, and he was dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater, but no jacket. He had to be a werewolf, then; otherwise he’d be covered from head to toe like me.

“Wow.” His brown eyes widened as he looked at me. “You really are Ava’s dad. You smell a lot alike.”

“Who told you that?” And who was this kid?

“My parents went to talk to the alpha this morning, and they said he brought you here to help her.”

Well, that was one way of framing things. “Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”

“That’s cool.” We stared at each other for an awkward moment. “Um… it sounds like she’s doing better.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Great.”

“Yeah.” Jesus Christ, who was the adult here? It was time to get beyond monosyllables. “I’m Ward,” I said, extending my hand. “Ward Johannsen. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thanks.” When he smiled, the young man’s face went from boyishly charming to devastating. Those dimples were going to be killers someday. “I’m Roman Owens. My folks are Gerald and Peggy. They’re longtime La Garita, like the alpha.”

“Well, I’m so new to the pack I’m still shiny”―try raw―“but I’m here for the long haul.”

“Cool.” He really seemed to believe it too, pinching his lips together as he looked at me like he was holding back an explosion of questions.

“Tennyson’s in the back,” I said, probably unnecessarily because werewolves. Liam had taken off a while ago, as silently as he’d arrived. “If you need to speak with him.”

“Uh, yeah. He usually helps me with my calculus homework on Sundays if he has the time.”

“Nice.” I led the way back through the open door, and Roman followed at my heels. “Calc One or Two?”

“One, but I’m almost ready for two.”

“It’s easier,” I confided in him. “At least, I thought so.”

“Yeah?” He perked up. “Are you a math teacher?”

“Physics, actually, but there’s obviously a lot of math in that.” We entered the back room, where Tennyson was still frowning over his tablet. His expression made me nervous. He was the doctor around here, right? Why would he be making that face if everything was going well? “Is Ava okay?”

Tennyson sighed. “The answer to that is a clear yes—just look at her. Don’t be one of those hovering, helicopter parents, Mr. Johannsen. I’d hate to have to kick you out of my clinic, but I’ll do it if you can’t behave.”

The hell he would, but the last thing I needed right now was to start another fight. “No, of course not. You just look… upset.”

“Oh.” Now he looked surprised. “I’m fine. It’s nothing to do with Ava, I promise.” He turned to Roman. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to have time for math today. We’ll have to reschedule.”

In true teenage form, Roman’s whole body managed to radiate disappointment. “That’s okay,” he said, but it was so clearly not okay that even I could pick up on it. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe, but—”

“I can help,” I said.

Two pairs of hopeful eyes turned toward me. “As long as we can work in here,” I continued.

“That’s… fine,” Tennyson said. He looked at me like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of me, but Roman was already sitting down on the floor and opening his book. “I’ll go and work in my office, then. I’ll be back in an hour to check on Ava.”

“Thanks.” I sat down next to Roman and took a look at the chapter he opened to. “Limits already? So you’re good with all the basic notations and functions?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Great.” My hand itched for a dry erase marker. It felt like forever since I’d thought of my old job, beyond an occasional curiosity about how my classes were doing. Now, though, with my heart settled for the first time since Ava’s shift, I realized just how much I had missed teaching. “So, do you know the definition of a limit?”

Roman shrugged. “Not exactly.”

“Okay, let’s start there.”

Pure math wasn’t my strong suit, but Calculus One didn’t require a lot of brainpower. I spent an hour talking Roman through the basic definition of limits, what they could tell us about functions, and why it was important. We worked through a few sample problems together, and then he did more on his own with me checking his work. It was satisfying, using my head for more than strategizing and worrying. I was warm, I was comfortable, I had my daughter close by, and someone needed me for something. I was pretty damn close to content, all things considered.

Then Henry had to show up and ruin things.

Roman noticed it before I did, his back stiffening suddenly as his head whipped around toward the door. He stood up, and a moment later Henry entered the room.

“Welcome back, Alpha,” Roman said as I struggled to my feet.

Henry smiled at him, brief but sincere. “Thank you, Roman. It’s good to be home.” He held out a hand and Roman took it, and they embraced for a long moment. I knew, I knew it was normal for werewolves, but I still couldn’t help but stare a little. Roman was seventeen, and he already had two inches on me, yet he still looked dwarfed somehow in Henry’s arms. I didn’t know if it was the force of his personality or what, but I could only imagine how ridiculously small I had looked when we’d hugged earlier.

Or maybe it was the beard. I was going with that.

“Are you two busy?” he asked once the hug was over.

“As a matter of fact, we’re—”

“No, Alpha,” Roman said quickly. He glanced down at me. “I think I can do the rest of this page on my own. Maybe you could check my work tomorrow?” He shuffled his feet. “If you’re still here tomorrow?”

Oh, I wasn’t going anywhere. I opened my mouth to say just that, when—

“He’s not going anywhere.”

Well. That was a change in the party line. I stared in surprise at Henry, but he didn’t look away from Roman. “I have the feeling Ward will have a lot more availability in the near future, too. Miss Sam will talk to you guys about it tomorrow in class.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Ward.” He finally looked my way. I straightened my back, and I swear I almost saw a smile on his lips. “We’ve got an appointment with the guardian.”

“Oh.” My heart rate sped up so quickly that both werewolves were staring at me now. “Okay,” I managed. Henry put a hand on my shoulder.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. And for some reason, I believed him. “He’s waiting at the house.”

“I want to come back after we’re done.”

“As soon as possible.”

We left as Roman packed his supplies and Tennyson brought another meal for Ava, what looked like chunks of something meaty in a glistening broth. It smelled good; I had to admit.

“It’s liver,” Henry said once we were outside before I even drew breath to ask. “Probably some chopped kidneys, a little bit of stomach too. Bone marrow for the broth. It’s got a lot of nutrients a growing pup needs.”

I did my best not to wrinkle my nose. “Yum.”

“She’ll think so. Now, I need the name of the person who told you where to find us.”

The rapid change in subject almost had my head spinning. “I… no.”

“Ward.” Henry sounded frustrated. “I understand why you came here. You love your daughter. But a breach like this could endanger my entire pack, and I need to be able to seal it. I’ve already told John that Sam and I approached you when we realized how poorly Ava was doing, but that’s not going to fly with my superiors. Having you here goes against all security protocol, and someone has to answer for it. I’d rather that someone not be you.”

“It’s not a breach,” I argued, soft but fervent. “The person who helped me wouldn’t do this for anyone else, I swear.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know them! This person understands what a big deal this is, okay? They’re….” Shit, how could I explain how rabidly loyal Davis was to the people he cared about? “This person is the closest thing to pack a human can have, I think. There’s no way they would betray my confidence.”

Henry looked at me so closely I thought he might see right through. “You won’t be able to keep who it is a secret forever,” he said. “Not if you ever plan on seeing this person again.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Davis was a brother to me, my only family outside Ava since my brother Rick’s death. The thought of never seeing him again made me shiver. You can work it out later. One thing at a time.

I took a deep breath. “Let’s go meet the guardian.”

The guardian—John, if I remembered right—was sitting in Henry and Sam’s living room when we got there, drinking from a heavy mug that smelled like tea. Sam was with him, but there was no sign of Liam.

“—could have brought the kids,” Sam was saying as we walked inside. “I have a few more sample college essays I thought Genna might like, and I miss seeing the twins at school every day.”

“It’s cold for them to be out, and they have homework to finish,” the man replied. He had a gruff voice, and his graying hair was cut close to his head. His craggy face looked as stern as he sounded, and when he focused on me, it was almost like fielding a stare from Henry in alpha mode. “So. This is your stowaway.”

He sounded pissed. Fortunately, Henry spoke up before I could even open my mouth. “It was a medical emergency, and his paperwork hadn’t come through yet. I know you would have stopped us at the gate, but we couldn’t afford to wait on it.”

“Yeah, you said as much. Not sure if I buy it, but”—John shrugged—“it’s your funeral if I don’t get that paperwork by the end of the month.”

“Within a month from the day of arrival,” Sam corrected. “It’s already the seventeenth. We’ve got until the middle of February to get his paperwork to you.”

It was time to interject, before a fight broke out. “I’m Ward Johannsen.” I stepped forward and held out my hand for what felt like the tenth time that day. “It’s nice to meet you.”

After a moment’s pause, the guardian got up and shook. He squeezed hard enough to grind the bones of my knuckles together, and I winced. A low growl broke the air, and John let go of me, his expression going a little surprised as both he and Sam stared at Henry.

“Huh.” The guardian looked back at me. “You work fast, Mr. Johannsen.” I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but he barreled ahead. “I’m John Parnell, and if you’re lucky, we won’t see much of each other.”

“Uh… okay?”

“Sam, thanks for the tea. Henry.” He looked back at the alpha as he wrapped a scarf around his neck. “One month. Then I go digging.”

“I understand.”

Well, that was good, because I sure as hell didn’t. I waited for him to leave to ask about it, though.

Sam smiled reassuringly and patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s all have some tea, and then Henry and I can tell you what’s going on. Maybe have some cookies too. Sound good?”

A tea party with a werewolf? It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’d done so far today.

“Sounds great.”

Chapter Eight

Henry

I DON’T think I’d ever met a person as resistant to logic as Ward before, and given my commanding officer, that was saying something. He absolutely refused to give us the name of his person on the inside, and no amount of persuasion could change his mind.

Sam broke first. “Fine. If you can’t share it with us, you can’t. We’ll see what else we can do to fix this.”

That was code for Find someone else to take the blame. As confident in my sister’s networking capabilities as I was—I left all the interpack negotiating to her for good reason—I had a sneaking suspicion that this time around, the only person who’d be able to take the blame for a rogue human ending up on pack grounds would be me.

The thought should have enraged me. I wasn’t here to be anyone’s patsy. I was the alpha of La Garita pack, and I had a duty. That duty included being whole and present for my pack, not taking responsibility for a man without any care for the consequences of his actions. But for some reason, my sense of righteous indignation had taken a back seat to acceptance. I wasn’t sure if it was due to personal fatigue or just something about Ward, but either way, I was grateful not to have any more conflict shoved into my soul right then. Sitting at the table with a mug of jasmine tea and a plate of ginger snaps, with just Sam and Ward for company, was the calmest I’d felt in weeks.

“I’m really sorry for the trouble.” I could tell that he meant it, but while his scent carried a vague aroma of guilt, there was nothing of regret there. I appreciated his sense of commitment, at least.

“Don’t worry about it. In the meantime, we’ve got to find something for you to do around here while we work out a permanent solution.”

“What do you mean?”

“She means finding you a job,” I said. Ward raised one eyebrow, and I smiled. “What, you thought you could just waltz in here and freeload for the rest of your life?”

“The rest of my—no, I mean, of course not, but—” He picked up a cookie but didn’t eat it, turning it over and over and staring at it like if he tried hard enough, he might find a fortune written on it.

“Because that’s what we’re talking about,” I continued, pleased to have the upper hand for what seemed like the first time in way too long. “Until Ava is old enough for college, she’s staying here. Werewolves don’t leave their territory except in cases of emergency or prescribed absences, such as school or marriage.”

Ward looked up curiously. “How is marriage a prescribed absence?”

“A lot of werewolf marriages are arranged,” Sam said. “It’s the easiest way to find someone else like us, and werewolves aren’t allowed to marry regular humans. The agency doesn’t want the gene to spread to any more of the population than it already has.”

“That’s….” He blinked a few times as he searched for the word. “Disgustingly draconian.”

I shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“But how can you just accept that?” Ward exclaimed. “How can you just be okay with the fact that your entire pack is destined to spend their whole lives on however many miles of land you have here, with no chance to explore the world or choose their own spouse or, or just push back? How can you be okay with that, as their alpha? What does that even mean, if not that you stick up for the rest of your pack?”

I felt my claws start to emerge, and I clenched my fists. Ward was so stupidly innocent. He had no fucking clue what life was like for us, but by God, he was going to get one now. “Do you have any idea how easy it would be to kill us off? Any idea how many people want to kill us off? There are people in power, members of the United States Congress, who are trying as we speak to get people with the werewolf gene declared dangers to society and either hunted down or forcibly sterilized.”

Ward opened his mouth, but I rolled right over any protests.

“There are other people who think we should be used as diplomatic bargaining chips, others yet who think we should be put into a breeding program and weaponized for the sake of ‘national security.’ John isn’t just here to keep people out of our territory―he’s here to make sure we stay in it. We toe the line, yeah, because if we don’t? Everything we have can be broken apart with very little trouble to the folks in command. So no, I’m not okay with how things are, but I abide by the rules because that’s part of how I stick up for my pack. I get sent to the worst places in the world so we can—” I bit my words off before I went any further. It was one thing to stick up for our way of life, another completely to indulge in a pity party in front of someone I’d just met. Judging by the stunned expression on his face and the hurt I saw in Sam’s, I’d already given away too much.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “So, a job.”

“Right.” Ward shook his head a little and then thankfully got right back on track instead of chasing down the end of my last sentence, or even worse, apologizing. “Yes. I do need something to do. Actually, I was thinking maybe… I could be a tutor?” Given how incredibly defiant almost everything the guy said was, the way he wobbled a little bit now was strange. “I helped Roman out with his calculus homework today. I feel like I could do more of that pretty easily.”

Sam frowned. “I didn’t know he needed help on his calc work. He’s been getting perfect scores on his quizzes.”

“Well, regardless, I was happy to do it. So… what do you think?”

“Personally, I think you’d be a bit wasted as just a tutor,” Sam said. “I’d rather have you as another teacher.”

I chuckled. “She just wants someone she can shove grading off onto.”

Sam pointed a finger at me but kept her eyes on Ward. “Don’t listen to a word coming out of my brother’s lying mouth. I do as good a job as I can with the kids—”

“You’re a great teacher.” Ha, made her blush.

“But,” she continued, “my background is more soft science than hard science. It’s all I can do to handle calculus, and I’m pulling my hair out over physics and chemistry. I could really use the help, and the kids would love having another person around to mix things up.”

“How many kids are there in the pack?”

“Seven, including Ava.”

Ward’s eyes widened. “That’s all? How many people are there in the pack, total?”

“Twenty-five. Twenty-six, including you.” She smiled. “We’re about average, really. Packs almost never get bigger than thirty people. Fifteen would be considered small, almost too small to be healthy.”

“What’s their age range?”

“Ava will be the youngest. Josie is six, Pippa and Louis are both eight, Olivia is eleven, Terrence is fourteen, and you’ve already met Roman. He’s the oldest of the group. The problem isn’t so much that I’ve got a lot of kids to take care of,” she said. “It’s that they’re all at very different levels, and there aren’t many lessons I can do for all of them at the same time. I get Roman to assist me more often than I should, probably.”

“Oh.” At least Ward didn’t seem intimidated, tapping the edge of his crumbling cookie on his saucer as he cupped his face with his other hand. “Well, I’d love to help out. I’m not licensed to teach in Colorado, but I don’t guess that’ll be much of an issue up here, will it?”

“Not even a little bit,” Sam assured him.

“Oh, for shit’s sake.” I pushed his plate a little closer to him. “Eat that thing before it falls apart. Or don’t.” I didn’t really care, but it was annoying as hell watching him play with his food. “Just put it down, then. But drink the tea before it gets cold,” I added, because I could tell he was still feeling the effects of the weather.

Ward rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Mom,” he snarked, but he dunked his cookie in his lukewarm tea and took a bite. “Oh, wow.” He looked at the remnants in his hand. “That’s really good.”

Damn straight it was good―it was my mother’s recipe. “Have another. You’ve barely eaten at all today. You’re not going to be able to keep up with even one kid, much less seven of them, if you don’t eat.” I steadfastly ignored my sister’s curious gaze as Ward took another cookie. It was strangely satisfying to watch him eat, and I felt my own hunger stir for the first time that day.

“I’ll need time to see Ava,” Ward said after gulping at his tea. Fuck, he almost looked like he could be a kid, and here he was chasing his own down.

Sam smiled. “We take plenty of breaks, and the schoolhouse is very close to the clinic.”

“And I’ll… shit, I’ll need a place to… to stay, I guess? And I have some business to wrap up back home—I mean, back in California, not home any longer. And a computer? Can I get one of those?”

“You’ll be staying here with us,” Sam said easily. “Of course. We have the space, and since Henry is the alpha, it’s the hospitable thing to do. As for computers, there are a few in the schoolhouse. They’re all monitored, so you can’t do anything you don’t want to be tracked, just in case you’re thinking of reaching out to your contact.” Trust Sam to warn him about that.

Ward’s jaw dropped. “The government monitors your computers?”

Sam nodded. “All of our external communications are monitored.” And boy, was she ever pissed about it. That never changed.

“Another reason we have to be careful,” I said. “I don’t know how long your presence here is going to go unnoticed, but if the news of it doesn’t come from me, my superiors won’t be happy.” They weren’t going to be happy either way, but I didn’t want it coming from Gerald, for fuck’s sake. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” And that still felt too soon, like I was shouldering a burden I’d barely had a chance to put down.

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“No, really.” He reached out, and before I could pull away, Ward’s hand was on top of mine. “I get that I’m a major inconvenience for you. I’m really starting to see that, and the fact that you haven’t thrown me out and that you’re letting me see Ava, even if she’s still a puppy, it’s….” He drew in a deep, shuddery breath I could feel all the way down through his fingertips. “It’s everything I want. I’m grateful. Okay? I’m incredibly grateful to both of you.”

“It’s fine.” I didn’t feel fine. I felt like my hand was going to burst into flames. I eased it out from underneath his and pushed my chair back. “It’s getting late. Do you want to see Ava again before she beds down?”

“Yes!” He jumped up and was clomping back to the front door in his ridiculous boots before I could even stand. I looked over at Sam.

“Staying with us, really?” I murmured, soft enough that Ward wouldn’t hear but definitely loud enough for her to get that I wasn’t happy.

“It makes sense. He’ll be teaching with me, after all. It’ll facilitate making lesson plans!” she defended herself. “Besides, you can’t honestly tell me you’d be comfortable with him staying with someone else. Or worse yet, by himself.”

The thought was cringe-worthy. “I guess not. I just—” I rolled my shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension in them. “I guess I’m still mentally playing catch-up. Not thinking everything through yet. Is Liam taking care of Ward’s car?”

“Henry.” Sam looked at me intently, not playing along with my blatant subject change. “It’s going to work out. I promise, okay? I would be fighting this a lot harder if I didn’t think we could make it work out.”

“You shouldn’t have to fight at all. That’s what I’m here for.” It seemed like fighting was all I was good for these days.

“We’re a team,” she insisted. “You and me and Liam. I know you don’t really believe me yet, but you will.”

She was right. I didn’t believe her. I could tell she meant it, though, and I loved her for it. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Henry!” Ward called from the door. “I’m going to leave without you if you don’t hurry up!”

“I’m coming!” I drank the last of my tea and stood up. “Duty calls, I guess,” I said to my sister.

She smiled slightly. “Have fun.”

I didn’t know about fun. But as I tromped across the snow back to the clinic, listening to Ward make small talk about his daughter and, beneath that, the steady beat of his heart, I could honestly say that this was maybe the best I’d felt all day.

I’d take it.

Chapter Nine

Ward

I HAD to give Sam credit: she was a model of efficiency when it came to getting me settled. In retrospect, I’d been so ill-prepared when I came out here that I was still a little surprised I’d found the pack, much less survived to be accepted into it. I had one set of clothes, no toiletries, no personal belongings other than my phone and my car, both of which were probably at the bottom of a cliff now. Two days ago I’d had nothing, but I couldn’t say that anymore.

Sam had begged, bargained, or stolen three full sets of clothes for me that were close enough to my size that I hardly noticed the extra length in the sleeves or the way I had to poke a new hole in the old leather belt that came with it all.

“Oh, I just asked around,” she’d said when I expressed my surprise at dinner. “Pack shares with pack. We’re not exactly close to another town up here, so we all depend on each other to share what we need. I’ll requisition some more to be included in the next shipment.”

Well, now I felt guilty. Of course she noticed. “It’s really fine,” she assured me. “It’s good, even. These were all worn by werewolves, so now you smell more like pack than ever. It’ll facilitate your integration, especially with the kids.” She’d also found me a fresh toothbrush, a comb, and a half-filled bottle of combination shampoo and conditioner.

“I really appreciate it.”

She bumped my hip with hers. “I know.”

Without Sam’s chattiness, dinner might have been a solemn affair. Liam was quiet, which seemed to be his default, but he didn’t appear uncomfortable, mostly engaged in giving his wife the mooniest eyes I’d ever seen. Honestly, he could have worn a blinking sign saying I LOVE YOU with an arrow pointing to her and been less obvious. It was cute. I’d never seen a couple quite this enamored with each other before.

Henry was another matter. He was silent, but it was a grim sort of silence, enforced by the tension in his jaw that seemed to keep his mouth wired shut. He ate, methodically cutting his steak to pieces and consuming it without obvious pleasure or distaste. He spoke when Sam asked a question, but he didn’t volunteer anything. Honestly, he reminded me of a few of my older students at the community college who had come back from the war but not really left it behind. The situation was much like walking on eggshells just being in the same room with him, and I wished for probably the eleventy-billionth time that I could talk to Davis about it. Davis knew more about werewolves than anyone I’d ever met, before coming here. He’d worked with them, worked for them—he would know the right angle to take with a stony alpha.

But Davis wasn’t an option now. Continue as you’ve begun. I wasn’t going to treat Henry with kid gloves, even if it looked like he could maybe use them. He’d gone out on a limb for me to stay here—I realized that. The least I could do was not shy away from the subject like a shrinking violet.

“Do I need to be there when you talk to your commanding officer?”

Henry looked at me like I’d grown another head. “No.”

“Are you sure?” I pressed. “Because I could help explain things. I’d be happy to—”

“Trust me, there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make him happy.” Henry set his silverware down and pushed his plate away. “If we’re sticking to the fiction that I arranged for you to be here before I came back, then I technically broke the rules while on assignment. I don’t think you’ll be able to mitigate the fallout from that.”

“Jesus Christ, nail yourself a little harder to that cross,” I grumped. All three of my tablemates were staring at me now, and only Sam looked even vaguely amused. “I mean… you were off assignment once you got back to Colorado, right? You can say you contacted me then. If he asks, I was here on vacation.”

“You weren’t.”

“Yeah, but nobody knows that. My faculty basically thinks I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown. They wouldn’t be able to gainsay it if your boss decided to check your story. You called me when you got back, I was conveniently in the state, we met up, bam. Done.”

Sam nodded. “I like it.”

“You would,” Henry said, but he seemed a little easier. “If you’re sure, then.”

“Oh yeah, use me however you want.”

Sam snorted out a laugh, Liam’s eyes almost bugged out of his head, and Henry actually cracked a smile.

“You’re gonna regret that,” Henry promised me.

“We’ll see,” I replied.

The guest room was officially mine, at least for now, so I put my new clothes in the drawers, set my toothbrush in the bathroom next to what I assumed was Henry’s, and went to bed with a lighter heart than before. I slept through the night, and the next morning it was time for school.

I dressed in the most formal things available to me: a cream-colored sweater and a pair of black skinny jeans that had probably come from Roman. I had better boots now, which was a mercy, and two layers of socks, which was a necessity. I fixed my hair as best I could with no gel, brushed my teeth, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Disconcertingly, once again I was alone with Henry, who was wearing more flannel than a lumberjack. It looked good on him.

“Am I late? Where’s Sam?”

“You’re fine. She went ahead to the schoolhouse.” He shrugged his shoulders. “She likes the extra time to get prepared.”

“How long do I have for breakfast?”

“Long enough. How do you take your eggs?”

I paused midway to the coffeepot. “Oh, no, you don’t have to cook for me.”

“I’m going to anyway.” He set down his own mug and turned to the stove, where a few eggs were already sitting in a spoon rest. “Scrambled, I bet.”

“Over easy,” I shot back, because screw him; he wasn’t psychic. Although I did love scrambled eggs. “With toast.”

“Ah, toast is your responsibility.”

I stared at him. He stared back at me, his eyes almost twinkling. Was he fucking with me? I couldn’t quite tell.

“The butter and jam are in the fridge,” he added.

“Thanks.” I cut off two pieces for myself and another couple for Henry while I was at it. I toasted them all while he fried the eggs, then slathered the toast with butter and loaded it down with what looked like homemade peach preserves. When I presented Henry with his slices, he raised one eyebrow.

“These look so sweet they could double as dessert.”

“Lucky you, getting dessert for breakfast,” I said, digging into my eggs. They were perfect. “I want to see Ava before class.”

“Then you better eat fast.”

The urge to give this guy the finger was almost perpetual. I wanted to keep all my fingers, though, so I settled on the kind of glare that used to send my students running and shoveled my breakfast down. It didn’t take long to finish, but he was still done before me. It was the first time I’d seen him eat with any sort of appreciation for his food. Eggs and toast did it for him, huh? To each their own.

It was just as cold outside today as it had been yesterday, but I was a little better prepared for it now. My breath was a crystal fog in front of my eyes as we headed for the clinic, and I slipped about halfway down the path.

Henry’s hand grabbed my elbow, keeping me upright before I could tip more than five degrees. “Be careful.”

“I am.”

“Be more careful, then. The last thing you want to do is fall on this ice.”

“I’m not eighty, I won’t break a hip,” I said, but given all the times I’d fractured bones in my life, well… better not to tempt fate.

Ava was awake and messily working on her own breakfast when we got into the clinic. She abandoned her plate as soon as she saw me, and I knelt down by the glass and pressed my palm to the surface, right where she was rubbing her face.

“Hey, sweetheart.” God, I just wanted to reach in there and hold her. I knew it was dangerous, and if anyone was likely to die of the werewolf mutation, it was me. That didn’t stop me from wanting her. She was my baby, and I just wanted her, to comfort her and play with her and make her feel safe and loved. That was my job as her parent, and I had a major backlog to make up for.

“That’s her second breakfast,” Tennyson said from somewhere behind me. “She’s eating like a champ.”

“Good.”

“It’s very encouraging. There haven’t been any changes in her shift yet, but she’ll get there.”

“I know she will.” My kid could do anything. I waited for her burst of exuberance to fade a little, and then she fetched a ball from the far side of her pen and brought it back to the wall. “Aw, Ava. I can’t play with you yet.”

She whined and nudged the ball closer.

“Not until you’re a little girl again, sweetie. Change back for me and we can play all day long, okay?”

Her whine was louder now. Puppy dog eyes had never been such an apt description.

“Sorry, baby. Soon, I promise.” I saw Henry tap the top of his wrist over by the door, not that he was even wearing a watch, the dork. “I’ve got to go for now, but I’ll be back at lunchtime, okay? We can eat together and I’ll read you a story.”

Ava threw her furry little head back and howled.

I sighed. “And cue tantrum time.” At least it was familiar. I gave my daughter a smile and a little wave, and then got up and headed for Henry even though my heart felt like it wanted to rip itself in two. “I find it’s better to let her wear herself out when she’s throwing a fit,” I said quietly.

“I’ll come back a little later,” Henry promised. “See if it helps her to have me around for a while.”

I expected to feel a little jealous at that. I’d been Ava’s only parent for a long time, all she needed to rely on. Instead, I just felt relief. “Thank you.”

“Sure. This way.” We left the clinic through a different door and walked in easy silence for another few hundred feet, to a log-and-stone building with a few high windows and a smoking chimney. “That’s the schoolhouse,” Henry said about twenty feet out. “Have fun, Professor.”

“You’re not going to go in with me?”

Henry gave me a look that said Are you five? “It’s better if I don’t distract the kids. I’ll be back later.” He clapped me gently on the back, then turned and left me standing there in the snow.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Be that way.” Seven kids, or really only six without Ava. No problem. I could handle that.

The inside of the schoolhouse was wonderfully warm, probably a nod to Sam’s and my human fragility. The floor was wood at the entryway but carpeted farther in, and a sea of comfy chairs, couches, and sturdy handmade desks covered the floor between the door and the back of the classroom. Computers lined one wall, boxes of toys and equipment were stacked against the other, and in the center of it all was Sam, surrounded by small and not-so-small bodies.

“Ward! Come on over!”

“He has to hang up his jacket first,” one of the girls chided Sam.

“And take off his boots,” a boy added.

“And then he has to sniff us, so we can sniff him back!”

“Ah-ah,” Sam said with a little headshake. “Ward’s a human like me, remember? Humans don’t get as much out of sniffing newcomers as werewolves do.”

The child who’d suggested it looked crushed. “But I want to sniff him!”

“Then you can ask him politely.”

I left my jacket and boots by the door, but I kept the scarf on as I walked over to the group. I tossed a wave to Roman, which the kid returned, looking a little smug.

“No fair! Roman already got to sniff him!”

“Josie, settle down, or you don’t get any furry time.” Sam turned to me. “Furry time is when the kids get to practice their shift. It’s a nice break from the usual lessons.”

“It’s my favorite thing,” Josie said earnestly.

“No inappropriate sniffing and you can still take some furry time later.” Sam sat back in a comfy chair of her own and gestured to me. “I already told the kids to expect you, but I didn’t tell them much about you, so why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Mr. Johannsen?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t exactly like being in front of forty underclassmen, but I was used to public speaking at this point. I smiled. “I’m Ward Johannsen, I’m Ava’s dad. I was a teacher at a community college in California, but now that I’m here, I’ll be one of your teachers. It’s nice to meet you guys.”

A few of the kids’ hands went up. I pointed at a boy with warm brown skin and black hair. “Go ahead…. Louis, right?”

He looked impressed. It was nice that someone was. “Are you gonna become a werewolf?”

“Nope. I don’t think I’d do very well as a werewolf.”

“It’s usually too hard for adults to get through the first shift,” Sam said gently. “Who’s next?”

More hands swung up. “Um, Olivia? Go ahead.”

“Will the guardian’s kids come back to school now that we’ve got another human to teach?” she demanded. “He said he wanted them to have more human influences, so does this count?”

I had no clue what she was talking about. Fortunately, Sam did. “I’m afraid he still hasn’t changed his mind, although I did ask yesterday when he came to visit.”

Olivia’s expression went dark. “He’s so stupid.”

“Olivia.”

“He is! Bo and Riley were our classmates forever, and it’s stupid for him to change his mind just because his wife left!”

“Olivia, that’s it with the name calling. Why don’t you take your furry time early?”

“But it’s more fun when everybody does it!”

“Now, please.”

Olivia huffed but got up and headed for a little paneled-off section in the corner that I hadn’t noticed before. “And I want to see those paws, missy! Howling is not enough proof,” Sam called out.

Well. Okay then.

I answered a few more questions, let the kids sniff me—Josie was so keen on it, I didn’t have the heart to tell her no—and then they split up for some personal classwork time on the computers.

“A lot of their lessons are online,” Sam reiterated as we sat side-by-side on the couch, watching the kids work. “Basic math and science and reading. I do individualized help for subjects of special interest and aptitude, and history and story time are for everyone.”

“Even Roman and Terrence?”

Sam smiled. “Even them. You’re never too old for the classics. We’re reading The Jungle Book right now.”

“So I’ll help with the special interests, then.”

“And if you want to bring more science into the classroom, by all means feel free. The last time I tried to make a vinegar and baking soda volcano, I left the whole room stinking for days.”

Josie peeked over at me and pinched her nose tight between two fingers. So stinky, she mouthed.

“I see that, kiddo,” Sam said. “Back to your addition!”

“I don’t like adding up apples,” she insisted. “They’re boring! I want to add bunnies.”

“Well, maybe you can pretend they’re bunnies.”

“Or imagine that the apples are actually bunny hearts,” Louis said.

“Oh.” Josie looked disturbingly more interested in the program now. “Okay!”

“Science I can do,” I said. I’d come up with some kid-friendly practicals that had interesting problem sets for the older ones. “What comes next?”

“Well, lunch is in about an hour, and then we have recess, and then another few hours of lessons in the afternoon. And kids, listen up.” Five sets of human eyes and one set of wolf eyes focused on her. “I have it on good authority that if you’re good today, Alpha Henry will come and play with you at recess!”

Josie and Pippa both shrieked with glee, and even Roman looked pleased.

“Can he show some partial shift again? I need to get better at that.”

“Maybe. We’ll see. First, lessons!” Newly motivated children dedicated themselves to their computers, and I got up to glance over their shoulders and see how they were doing. Apart from some trouble with fractions, everything seemed under control.

Five minutes later, Olivia burst out from behind the screen, human again, still tugging her sweater on. “I did it, I’m done! How fast was I?”

“Twenty-seven minutes, nice job!” Sam congratulated her. “That’s a minute and a half faster than last time.”

“I’m going to get to twenty minutes by the end of the year.”

“That would be fantastic. Your parents will be so proud.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I chuckled at her easy confidence.

Lunch was hot chocolate and a copious amount of beef stew served over noodles, compliments of Terrence’s mother. Apparently the families took turns cooking for the kids. As soon as the bowls were cleared, the kids began to ask about recess. More specifically, about Henry.

“Gosh, he’s a little late, isn’t he?” Sam said. “Maybe Mr. Ward should go and remind him that it’s time.”

I smiled sardonically. “Right, because I’m just who he wants to see right now.”

“Yes, exactly.”

She sounded serious. I swallowed. “Let me grab my coat.”

“Don’t forget your boots either,” Josie reminded me.

“Good call.”

Trudging across the snow-covered expanse between the schoolhouse and Henry’s home was a lot less daunting in the sunlight, but I was still shivering by the time I got there. I opened the front door and knocked my boots against the doorjamb before entering.

“Henry! It’s recess, and everyone is expecting you!” No reply. Maybe he was still at the clinic? “Henry?”

It was faint, but I managed to catch the “Out back!” I headed around to the back of the house, expecting to find him with his arms crossed, staring out at the glistening mountaintops while getting his manly brood on or something. Instead, I found him chopping firewood.

He’d chopped lots of firewood, judging from the enormous pile next to him. With a big fucking axe. And no shirt. And he looked hot doing it. I mean, no, he didn’t look hot hot, although now that the thought had entered my brain that was all I could focus on, dammit, but he looked hot as in sweaty and overheated too. His body was almost steaming while I was holding on to myself so tight I was practically cracking my own back.

He set the axe down and straightened up. “Hey.”

“Hmuh.” I coughed. “I mean, hey. It’s, um, time for recess. The kids are waiting on you.”

“Sorry, the time got away from me.”

“But the forest didn’t,” I noted. “Nice work, Paul Bunyan.”

“Ha-ha.” He wiped his face with his palm, then came over to stand next to me. I valiantly tried not to swallow my tongue. It had been a while since I’d dated, much less dated a guy, but I wasn’t blind. “I’ll be right with you,” he said before heading inside.

“Mu-huh.”

Brilliant, Ward. Brilliant.

Chapter Ten

Henry

THERE WAS nothing worse than absolute silence from your superior officer. Approval was easy to accept, expressed disapproval could be dealt with, but stony silence upon giving your report was brutal. If I’d learned nothing growing up as a werewolf, though, I’d learned that patience solved a lot of problems. At the very least, it didn’t make many of them worse. I matched silence with silence, and finally Colonel Hill spoke.

“Are you tired of your position in La Garita pack, Major Dormer?”

“No, sir.” Straight to threats. Unimaginative, but effective. I was just happy I wasn’t being threatened in person. I’d only met Colonel Hill twice before, and there was something about the way he smelled that made me want to snarl. A lot of people in the agency weren’t big fans of werewolves, for all that they recognized our utility, but Colonel Hill was the only one I’d encountered who’d smelled actively hostile.

He kept going. “Because it seems to me like you are. First a failed mission, a mission in which you had demonstrable opportunities to fulfill your objective and chose not to do so, and now making contact with a civilian and bringing him into pack territory without prior permission?”

“I deemed it to be a matter of life and death, sir.”

“That’s not your call to make.”

“It was a child’s life.”

“Still not your call, Major.” His face was cold and composed over the screen. “I think it’s possible that the US government has been too permissive with your pack lately. We’re giving too much and not getting enough back. Do you understand me, Major?”

I nodded. It was all I could do. “Sir.”

“Why didn’t you complete your mission, soldier?”

“Sir, my report has already—”

“You allowed your target to compromise you.” Colonel Hill’s voice was as hard as steel.

“There was no proscription against bringing his family with us.”

“It was impractical, and you knew it.”

“If we had left them behind, they would have been murdered,” I protested.

“They ended up dead anyway, Major, despite your good intentions. Along with a valuable asset that we’d been developing for years.” He looked at me with eyes full of scorn. “You may be alpha to your pack, but don’t forget who’s holding your leash.”

My hands shook with rage. I clenched them tight and forced the tremors down. “Sir.”

“You can keep the little wolf’s daddy, contingent upon him actually getting kid to change in the next month. If she doesn’t, he’s got to be disposed of like any other pack problem. The pup too. Do you understand me, Major?”

One month wasn’t a lot of time to initiate a change in a pup as young as Ava, but then, she’d already been here for three. No argument I could offer up was going to make a difference right now.

I inhaled slowly, then said, “Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to think on what your behavior merits, but you better believe you’re going to make this disobedience up to me. And whatever I want out of you next time, I’d better get.”

I held it together just long enough for the screen to go dark. The second Colonel Hill’s face vanished, I sprang to my feet and sank my claws into the wood of the desk so deep they left gouges behind. I felt my feet turn to paws, my posture hunch as my spine cracked into shape. I wanted to change all the way, wanted to change and rend and tear, wanted to howl my anger up to heaven where someone I loved might actually listen to it.

No. Couldn’t. Needed to focus, focus on anything other than fury. Liam close, smell of Sam, smell of… of Ward. His smell tantalized my semishifted nose enough to persuade me to leave my room and head into the hall. I opened his door with a bloody hand, my palm carefully sealing over where my claws had punctured it. It smelled….

He wasn’t quite like any person I’d ever scented before. I had spent plenty of time with humans, both in college and in the army, and I knew the wide range of scents they could offer. I could pick out the smells of emotions, of recently eaten meals, of sickness―sometimes of dark, hateful secrets. No human’s hands should smell like death anywhere outside of a mortuary or butcher shop, but sometimes they did. It had been hard not to react to it as a student. I’d made plenty of anonymous calls to the cops, and sometimes they had helped. Sometimes they hadn’t. The point was, I knew scents. I knew their flavors and hues, and I could categorize them accordingly. This, though. Ward. He was different.

Sweat, more sweet than acrid. The aroma of my and Sam’s cooking, in his clothes. A hint of sickness in the medicinal tang that followed him around. A dryness that almost seemed to indicate frailty, and a strange ironlike smell that made me think of determination. He was a delight for a werewolf’s senses—all of us had synesthesia to an extent, a side effect of our abilities. I felt calmer just being in his room, surrounded by his personal blend of aromas mixed with the familiarity of my own home.

By the time I’d fallen out of shift, I was almost in a trance. I had also ripped my socks and the laces on my boots and popped three buttons on my shirt, not to mention the damage done to my hands. The wounds were almost healed now, but that wasn’t the first time lately that my emotions had ruled my shift. It was a disturbing trend. I didn’t feel overly energetic, but clearly I needed to burn off some energy anyway. Time to cut some wood.

I relaced the boots but didn’t bother fussing with my shirt. I wouldn’t be wearing it for long. I split logs fast enough that they always threw splinters, and it was bad enough picking those out of my beard and hair, never mind coaxing them out of flannel before I could throw it in the wash.

Stepping out into the cold, fresh air was like being slapped in the face by reality. This is where you are now, my body reminded the rest of me. Home. No matter what happens tomorrow, for now you’re home. Home, and cold. The faster I got to work, the better. There was a pile of logs by the shed in the back, leftovers from what I’d culled out of the beetle-killed pines earlier in the year. I picked one up, set it on end, and then grabbed the axe out of the shed.

Thwack. There was something about handling a tool that was also a weapon that tended to make me leery these days, but the axe was different. It was immense and as sharp now as my father had ever kept it, but I only ever used it for wood. It wasn’t a gun or a knife or anything else that I’d put to multiple purposes. This axe had only ever chopped wood, for going on fifty years now. It was perfect for the task and meant for nothing else.

Thwack. Getting into the strokes was almost meditative and warmed me up faster than I could say “brr.” I lost track of time, falling into a rhythm that complemented my heartbeat. I didn’t hear the front door open, but I did hear Ward calling my name.

“Out back!”

I had expected surprise. I’d even expected the joke about Paul Bunyan, because it wouldn’t be the first lumberjack crack he’d made and it probably wouldn’t be the last. But the way his heartbeat started to race and his tongue seemed to trip over itself as I got close… that was new. Even stranger was the way it made me want to stand up straighter, to get closer to him, and see if his scent held any hint of arousal. And if it did… well.

I didn’t know what I’d do, but I might feel a little better about soaking up the smells of his room like some creepy lupine sponge.

One new shirt later, I rejoined Ward at the front of the house. “Sorry again about the delay.”

“Oh, you know, it’s—fine—and look, aren’t you going to get cold now that you’re not swinging an axe around?”

Was he worried?

“I would if I was going to stay in this shape for long,” I said. “But I probably won’t, not for recess.”

“You’re going to shift into a wolf for recess?”

I shrugged. “The kids like playing when I’m a wolf. It’s less intimidating than when I’m in my human form.”

“Oh right, because the fangs are totally the sign of a snuggle bunny at heart.”

I grinned. “Are you jealous of recess?”

Ward scoffed. “Jealous of a bunch of kids who’re going to be running after a werewolf in the snow? No, thank you. I’d probably have an asthma attack a minute after I began.”

He had a point. “Sometimes I give them lessons in shifting instead,” I said, skirting an icy patch of ground. “Generally it’s the parents’ responsibility to make sure their kids are shifting consistently well, but as the alpha, I get to be involved too.”

“Yeah, Sam had to sentence one of the girls to furry time this morning.” Ward ducked his head. “I didn’t realize it was something that took so much effort.”

“The first one is instinctual, usually a reaction to stress. The next hundred shifts are all acts of extreme will and concentration. It’ll help Ava that you’re here. As soon as she’s got her strength back, we can start encouraging her shift more actively.” I wasn’t going to mention the timetable, not yet. It hadn’t really changed. We had a month. Either Colonel Hill would approve the paperwork for Ward and it would be forwarded to John, or Ava wouldn’t shift and approval would never come.

That didn’t merit thinking about yet.

“Roman said something about partial shifts. Is that like what Tennyson did in the clinic?”

“Ah.” Tennyson had only shifted part of his face and his hands. He couldn’t do more, as far as I knew. I could, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was a skillset I wanted to put on display for Ward yet. He was brand-new to everything. It wouldn’t do to scare him with the nightmarish reality of a partial shift. Later, when he felt more comfortable, when he was better prepared. “Something like that, but I’ll demo it some other time. I haven’t seen the kids for a while, so I imagine they’ll probably be pretty wild. It’s better to let them run.”

The way he smiled made me think he knew something I didn’t. “You’re probably right.”

Wild was an understatement. I got mobbed by the kids as soon as I showed my face, and for the first time since I could remember, I laughed.

“Help, I’m being overrun!” I looked at Sam. “Head for safety. They’ve gone mad!”

“If they have, it’s because you’ve wasted so much of their recess,” she informed me loftily. “Furry time for you, Alpha, hurry up!”

“Furry time!” Josie shouted.

“We’ll time you,” Olivia said. “Last time was twenty-two seconds, I remember. Not as good as your record, but it’s close.”

“What’s your record?” Ward asked.

“Fifteen seconds.”

“It’s a pack record,” Roman said, with the determined air of a kid who was going to do his best to beat it. Good. Someone should.

“Okay, hang on.” I left my boots by the door, then headed to the enclave in the back. I stripped out of my clothes, then said, “Ready?”

“Ready! One, two, three—go!”

I’d been shifting from a young age, almost as early as Ava. It hadn’t always been easy, but with my mother as the alpha and my sister unable to share in the shift, I’d felt compelled to do it until it was as easy as breathing, so I could better protect her. Sam had never needed my physical protection, but especially when we were younger, it had made me feel better to know what I was capable of, just in case. Shifting was usually as basic as breathing, the equivalent of a full-body stretch.

Today it didn’t come so easily. Maybe it was because I was a little tired, still run-down from my mission, and not quite enough to eat. I trotted back out into the schoolroom just as Olivia said, “Twenty-nine.”

“No new record,” Terrence remarked.

“Not everything is a competition,” Sam said. “All right, out back, everyone. I think tag would be a fun game today, huh?”

The kids made their way outside, leaving the door open. The world was like a new place for me, every scent sharper, the colors I saw muted and blurry by comparison. My hearing was about the same, though, and I heard the sharp intake of breath from Ward and heard his feet shuffle back slightly as I approached him and Sam.

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “Henry is totally cognizant in this form. He can understand everything we say, and he’s not going to do anything to hurt anyone.”

“No, of course not,” Ward agreed, but he sounded a little breathless, with a faint rattle deep in his chest. He was frightened.

Of course he is. He’s not used to seeing a shift. He didn’t see Ava’s first shift. Why shouldn’t he be afraid? Because I didn’t want him to be, was the unsatisfactory answer to that. I padded over to him, sat on my haunches in front of him, and looked up.

“Red fur,” he murmured. “Like your beard.”

“And he loves that it shifts true like that. He’s so vain,” Sam teased, but I barely heard her. Ward extended a hand toward me, very tentatively.

“Is it okay if I… touch you?” At least he was speaking to me directly instead of going through Sam. I gave him my best nod, and he exhaled heavily. “Okay, cool. Great.” His hand was shaking, but it made steady progress until finally, it came to rest on top of my head.

I wasn’t a dog. I didn’t like being treated like a dog, like some kind of tame pet that would do tricks for a pat on the head or a scratch on the belly. I got enough of that sort of treatment in my day job. But for some reason, with Ward, I was perfectly content to sit and let him investigate the thickness of my fur, fingers ghosting over the backs of my ears and the top of my muzzle but never dipping down toward the teeth. He touched, and I let him, and it felt peaceful.

“Ahem.” Sam’s little faux cough made Ward’s head jerk up, and he pulled his hand back before I was ready for it to go. “Recess is almost half over.”

“Sorry! Sorry.” He tucked his hands under his armpits and didn’t look at me again, just headed outside.

I glared at Sam.

“Oh, come on, he lives with us now. You can satisfy his curiosity later. The kids missed you, Henry.”

It was a fair point. I loped out into the snow, scented the air, and darted after the closest child a moment later.

“Aaaahh!” Pippa shrieked and ran for her brother Terrence, who was armed with snowballs. I dodged and closed on him, forcing him to run, then changed targets once I got within a few feet of him. It didn’t do to let the kids get complacent, after all.

We ran around for almost twenty minutes, me dodging their ammunition until I could get close enough to menace a touch, then going after someone else. By the time Josie was panting, I decided we’d had enough fun and ended the game by tagging Roman.

“Ha!” Olivia said. “That means you have to be it next game!”

“I like being it,” Roman said, perfectly content. I knew he liked anything that let him work on his shift. He was a strong kid, becoming a strong man. He had a promising future in front of him, as long as I could hold it together. Roman was the obvious choice for the next alpha, if anything happened to me. Not because none of the adults were interested, but because he was still young enough to be molded. Still young enough to be of use to the army.

I couldn’t let that happen. The work would break him. His father didn’t realize that, but I did.

“Okay, kids.” Sam clapped her hands. “Thank Alpha Henry for coming for recess, and then it’s back to work.” To me, she said, “You want to change inside or stay this way for a while?” She knew me so well.

I ran up to her and pressed my nose against her wrist. “Staying wolf it is. Do you want to be inside with us, or out here?”

Part of me wanted to be with her and the kids in the schoolhouse. A bigger part wanted to sit down next to Ward and not get up, but I hadn’t visited the rest of my pack yet, and it would be easier to do it in wolf form. I didn’t want to talk, but I did want to show my face. As it was.

My pause spoke for me. “Okay,” Sam said. “I’ll bring your clothes home when school is over.” She went back inside, leaving me alone with Ward.

“So, I have to—” He pointed at the door. “Yeah.” At least he didn’t seem afraid any longer. “But that was… it was….” His sudden grin was bright. “It was really fucking cool. See you later.”

Ward walked back into the schoolhouse, where Josie informed him, “You said a bad word! You have to have furry time now!”

I waited to leave until the wind had carried away his scent.

Chapter Eleven

Ward

IT WAS amazing how quickly you could fall into a routine. If I’d taken the time to think about it before, I would have said that there were definitely things I’d miss once I found Ava. I wasn’t sure what shape those frustrated desires would take, but I was certain they’d be there. Netflix. Mochas. The occasional awkward date thanks to my coworkers.

None of those were things I had in the middle of the La Garita wilderness, but I’d gained things I hadn’t even known I might want in return. I had a small but very focused group of students who were easy to engage with, a fantastic new coworker who I was pretty sure was never going to try to set me up with anyone, and all the coffee I could want, even if it didn’t come in espresso form. Netflix—okay, that I did sort of miss, but apparently the government really did restrict the media that the pack came into contact with. None of them, as far as I could tell, had ever seen an episode of Breaking Bad, and it only got more pathetic from there.

“Oh, well, of course we get nothing with fighting in it,” Sam said over dinner one night when I brought it up. “No bad influences for ‘the children.’” She rolled her eyes as she did the air quotes.

“Nothing with any notable drug use, not even alcohol,” Liam added. “Most intoxicants don’t work on werewolves, but they don’t want to encourage any experimentation either.”

“No sex,” Henry said, and the three of them cracked up.

“What? What’s funny about that?”

Sam grinned in my direction. “There’s not a single werewolf here who hasn’t heard people having sex at one point, or more likely dozens of times. Gerald does his best to soundproof things, but werewolf hearing is sharp.”

“It doesn’t do to get embarrassed about it,” Liam said. “Otherwise some couples would be embarrassed all the time.”

“Ilona and Manuel,” Sam agreed pointedly. “It’s amazing Louis doesn’t have a sibling yet.” She focused on me again. “When I was growing up, I was so jealous that I was the only one who didn’t have all these special abilities, but there are times when I know I’m lucky, and that’s one of them.”

“Human solidarity,” I said and held out my fist. She bumped it, and we shared a smile.

“We have a shipment coming in tomorrow,” Henry said, redirecting the conversation the way he was prone to. I didn’t mind—Sam and I got plenty of time to joke with each other—but I wondered if Henry had many conversations that didn’t go like military debriefs. “I’m going down with John to pick it up at noon. Roman’s tagging along. Anyone else want to come?”

“Me,” Sam chimed in immediately. “John is so ham-handed when he inspects thing―we ended up with two broken syringes last time. Tennyson gave me hell about that, and I’m going to pass the grief along this time.”

I frowned. “Inspections?”

“To check for contraband,” Henry said simply.

“Ridiculous,” Liam muttered into his mug of tea.

“It’s how things are done in our pack.”

“Your pack is very used to a single way of doing things. It might help them more to consider new ways, instead of giving in to the old over and over again.”

“You got something you want to say to me?” Henry’s voice was deceptively light. “Go for it.”

“Oh my God,” Sam muttered. “You two—”

“Not at all,” Liam said. “As you say, you have your way. It must therefore be right.”

“It must when you don’t offer up any alternatives, yeah.”

Liam pushed away from the table. “I’m going to update the inventory checklist,” he told Sam and walked away without another word.

Sam sighed. She looked weary. “Can you try a little harder to get along with him? Just try?”

“I didn’t start that argument.”

“You certainly didn’t help things.”

“Kowtowing to your husband when he’s wrong isn’t going to help things either, Sam. I’m his alpha first, his brother-in-law second.”

“You could try being his friend first instead.”

“Right. Because I’m such a friendly guy.” It was his turn to push back from the table. “Thanks for dinner. I’ll cook tomorrow.” He left, and a moment later the back door opened and shut.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged a little. “Getting them to see things eye to eye has been a challenge. Liam and I weren’t a typical arranged marriage—I met him in grad school completely by accident―and he’s used to a much more permissive system of self-governance than we get here.”

I nodded. “That’s a tough transition.”

“It is. He tries, for me. He really does. But he’s still getting used to being in a new place, under a new alpha, and with a lot fewer responsibilities than he’s used to. He’s a computer scientist. He’s used to having a lot more access to technology than we’ve got. Plus, he and I got married while Henry was away, and that didn’t do their relationship any favors.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s all right. They’ll adapt. Hell, look at how well you’ve done! If you can handle a change like this in the space of a week, they’ve got no excuses.”

“I’m happy I’m winning at something,” I said. “I’ll take care of the dishes. You go soothe the savage beast.”

“Which one are we talking about?” she joked as she stood up.

“Take your pick.”

“I think I’ll do that. Thanks, Ward.” She left, and I got up and carried the heavy terra-cotta dishes to the sink and started up the soapy water. One thing I didn’t have to worry about here: leftovers. Even Sam cleared her plate like her life depended on it, and I was slowly getting used to Henry nudging food my way, pressing me to eat just a little bit more. It was kind of sweet but also unnecessary. I knew how much fuel I needed, and it was nowhere near what a werewolf metabolism seemed to require. Shifting probably took a lot out of you, fuel-wise. I wondered if it would be possible to represent werewolf metabolism compared to human metabolism for the class, actually… something with fire, kids always loved watching flames. Maybe I could—

A hand reached around me to pluck a newly rinsed plate out of my hand before I could set it in the dish rack. “I’ll dry,” Henry offered, stepping over to stand next to me at the sink.

“Thanks.” I was getting used to this werewolf ability to ambush me with absolutely no noise to let me know they were coming. That or I was just tired. I’d spent most of the evening before dinner with Ava, talking to her, reading her a story, encouraging her as best I could to change. No one said anything, but you didn’t have to be a genius to know that the time limit on her shift was reaching a critical stage. Either she started showing signs of progress or Tennyson and Henry would have to take more drastic steps. I didn’t want to know what those consisted of.

Henry took the dishes from me like they weighed nothing, dried them off with the “Ma Maison” dishcloth that had probably come with Liam, and set them back in the cupboard to the right of the sink with no conversation seeming to be necessary. Too bad for him I had something I wanted to talk about then.

“You know you’re driving your sister nuts, right?”

“She can handle a few bad moods between me and her husband.”

“Of course she can. She’s the toughest person I know. But that doesn’t mean she should have to.”

“It’s not as though I’m unwilling to listen to Liam.” Henry took a mug and dried it, starting from the inside and working to the outside, rotating it clockwise. “He just hasn’t contributed anything useful to the conversation yet.”

“You’re not exactly an easy person to contribute to, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” He stopped and stared at me, eyes just starting to edge into gold. “What do you mean?”

“Oh please,” I scoffed. “This. This! With the eyes and the hands—yeah, I’ve noticed the hands, you and your claws, don’t think I haven’t. And the teeth and the way your face gets a little scruffier. It’s obvious you’re used to using your shift to intimidate people, and I get it. It’s very impressive. The kids are fucking amazed that you can do one body part at a time.” Roman was more than amazed—he was downright determined. “But it’s not going to work on me. I want you to know that. I think you’re very impressive without going furry, but I’m not going to do everything you want just because you can turn into a werewolf that could probably bite me in half in one try.”

As I spoke, Henry seemed to go through a series of attitudes: discomfort, irritation, finally settling into amusement as I got to the end of my impromptu tirade. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said at last. “And I’m pretty sure I couldn’t bite you in half in one go, Ward.”

“Oh really?” I wasn’t at all sure. “Why do you think that?”

Henry put the dish he was holding down, reached out with one hand, and curled it around my waist. Just the one hand, not both of them. He wasn’t clutching at me, and I could have shifted an inch to the left and been at complete liberty. But it was a deliberate, assessing hold, no matter how gentle, and I never backed down from anything deliberate. I stayed still, aware of how hot I was flushing but not letting myself care as he held me with strong, tender fingers. There was no hint of a claw to be seen.

“Not quite halfway.” He looked from his hand to my face. “My jaws are wide, but they don’t stretch any wider than both my hands can. It would take me at least two bites to get all the way through you.”

I whacked him on the chest, and he let go of me. “That’s so fucking reassuring, thank you.”

“Have you always had such a dirty mouth, or do I just bring out the worst in you?”

“This isn’t dirty,” I protested. “Are you kidding? You should hear me at a staff meeting. Although”—my new circumstances pressed in on my brain, reminding me of things I had resolutely not been thinking about—“I guess staff meetings will be just me and Sam from here on out.”

“I’m glad you’re working with her.”

“She’s the best,” I said easily, because it was the truth.

“Yeah, I know.” He looked down at the counter for a moment. “Come with us tomorrow.”

I tilted my head. “To pick up the supplies?”

“Yeah. Come and see how it’s done. And it’ll give you some more face time with John. I want him to get used to seeing you work with us.”

That, I could understand. “You want to make it harder for him to get rid of me.”

“I won’t let him get rid of you.”

“That’s a new tune,” I said, but the slight breathlessness in my voice gave my forced sarcasm away. Or, I don’t know, my heartbeat did, or the way I smelled or some other werewolfy giveaway.

“Not so new.” He stepped away from the counter. “We leave at seven. Make sure you’re up in time.”

“Yuhuh.” Dammit, voice! It always deserted me at the worst times. I held it together long enough for Henry to leave the room, then squeezed my eyes shut and tilted my head back toward the ceiling. For cryin’ out loud, why did my dormant libido have to reassert itself for Henry Dormer, of all people? Alpha werewolf, extra growly, with a side of intimidating and occasionally smug?

Having a four-year-old wasn’t conducive to dating. Ava was the result of a one-night-stand-turned-reluctant-relationship, at least until the baby was born. Gabriela didn’t want the commitment of taking care of a child, but she was willing to give her to me and turn over all parental rights. Once that was done, she was in the wind, gone from our lives entirely. I hadn’t minded. I’d wanted Ava as soon as she was a concept, and I’d fallen head over heels in love with her from the moment I first held her in my arms. She and my work, those had been enough. More than enough, they’d been fulfilling in almost every way I needed. My more private needs, I could easily take care of with my hand or a few toys.

Except all of a sudden, I was more tuned in to Henry’s touch than I was to my own. He hadn’t touched me much over the past week, but he hadn’t shied away from the occasional personal contact here and there. Most of them had been brisk: a hand on my arm to help me stay upright while I was trying to get from one building to another or something equally innocent. There had been the one hug, which I hadn’t really been in a good position to appreciate at the time for more than being an excellent hug. And then there had been the rare, but incredibly memorable, points of contacts like the one tonight—one hand spanning half of my waist, so hot even through my shirt—that simmered underneath my skin even once he’d let me go. I’d never felt something like that with another person, and I didn’t know whether it was just because I was finally coming out of the longest dry spell of my life or whether it was just Henry. I was inclined to say Henry, given that sex had never been a huge motivator for me, and that was… disturbing.

I couldn’t afford to get involved with Henry, not when the situation was already so confused. I wasn’t here for him. I didn’t need to grovel or beg or make any sort of deal with him to stay with my baby. And the thing was, I wasn’t getting any pressure to do any of those things. After his initial, fierce refusal to let me stay, he’d come around quickly to having me around. I credited Sam and Ava with that, but no matter why Henry was putting up with me, he was being good about it. He never pushed me, and I appreciated that.

Apparently I also appreciated his hand on my waist too.

Shit. He wouldn’t hear it if I jerked off in my room, would he? Would a werewolf pick up on that? Would he smell it? Shit, he’d probably smell it. Not that he would hold it against me, if tonight’s dinner conversation had been accurate. But I didn’t know if I was comfortable with that.

Shower it was, then.

I didn’t run into anyone on the stairs, thank God. I stepped into my room and gathered my shower stuff, then headed down the hall to the bathroom I shared with Henry. Shared with him, God dammit, he would probably smell it in there whether the water was running or not. But I was a damn adult, and so was he, and if I could deal with it, then he would too. It probably wouldn’t mean anything to him. I was probably blowing things out of proportion.

The hot water heater for the Dormer’s house was huge, which I really appreciated. I’d been keeping my showers brief over the past few days, but I was used to taking a leisurely bath in the evenings after putting Ava to sleep. I wanted to take more time, and tonight I was going to.

Apparently not a lot more time, though, because holy shit, it felt so good to touch myself I almost came the moment my hand wrapped around my dick. I knew the feel of my own hand, the way it felt when I stroked myself off, and it was different tonight. I still had Henry’s hand on my mind, his warmth, the breadth of his palm. God, how amazing would it feel if he was the one holding my cock in his hand? If I had the heat of his body pressed against mine, his long arm wrapping around my body—it would be so easy for him to reach around me. He was so much bigger than I was—to grip me and touch me, still so gently, so sweet? Would he like the way I felt? Would he jerk me off and grind against me, spread me out against the back of the tub and go down on his hands and knees and use his mouth on me—

“Fuuhh-huuuck!” I tried to keep my voice down, but it was hard when I was busy having the best orgasm I could remember. And it wasn’t even my doing, not really.

I let the evidence wash away down the drain, then stayed there and let the water beat against me until I was so boneless I felt like I might collapse. I managed to get out and dry myself off, went through the motions of brushing my teeth, and made it back to my bedroom without running into anyone. Nice.

I barely remembered to set my alarm before I fell asleep.

Chapter Twelve

Henry

IN THE end, it was a group of five of us that met the guardian at the gates: me, Ward, Roman, Sam, and Tennyson, who’d claimed he was getting stir-crazy sitting around in his clinic all day. He did smell a little agitated, but not for the reason he was claiming. I knew it was starting to wear on him that Ava hadn’t begun her shift yet. He’d been optimistic when Ward had first arrived, but the longer she went without any sign of a change, the harder he took it. Tennyson was the only member of La Garita who had come from a disbanded pack, and he was incredibly sensitive to any perceived threat, whether it came from without or within.

I didn’t know all the details of what had happened to his last pack, but I knew he’d suffered for his role in it. He was still in pain, and if it relieved that pain in any way for him to join us on what at this point seemed like an overrated outing, then I was all for it.

John met us at the gate with his daughter Genevieve behind the wheel of their Jeep Wrangler. I raised my eyebrows, and John had the decency to look a little abashed. For all the tirades I’d listened to him go on about safe driving practices and how our kids were all going to be menaces on the road….

“She’s got to get her practice hours in somehow, now she’s got her license,” he grumbled as we shook hands. “The drop’s going to be a little ways out from the trailhead for San Luis Peak. It’s coming in by plane, so we’ll probably have to use the snowcat to fetch it out of the damn swamp.”

“Not a problem.” I jerked a thumb back at the trailer I was towing. “I’ve got the mini loaded up. If we need more than that, then they just should have trucked the damn stuff in to begin with.”

John snorted, but he seemed amused. “Eh, the feds aren’t having fun unless they’re wasting time and money playing cloak-and-dagger games with you special snowflakes.”

“Dad.” Genna frowned at her father. “Don’t be rude.”

John smiled at her in turn, his sour expression finally softening. “How’s Henry going to remember who he’s dealing with if I’m not at least occasionally a jackass, sweetheart?”

His daughter sighed the sigh of the heavily put-upon. “You’re so weird.”

“I know.” He glanced into my 4Runner. “Full crew.”

“People get antsy in the winter. It’s good to provide a change of scenery every now and then.”

“Yeah, right. Instead of these snowy trees, we’ll go look at those snowy trees.” He shook his head. “Whatever. As long as they can keep up. See you at the trailhead.”

“See you there.” I pulled ahead, rolling the window up to preserve the heating in the car for Sam and Ward.

“So.” Ward broke the silence after a moment. “Has he always been an asshole, or is that just because I’m around?”

Roman laughed, then cut it off and pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself. Was he cold? He couldn’t be. I could barely smell him beneath the heavy fabric and the excessive amount of deodorant he was wearing.

“He used to be kind of nice,” he said to Ward. “Like, he’d let the kids come over if one of us was having a birthday party or something. But now he’s divorced, and he doesn’t let them into our territory anymore, and he’s tired of being the guardian, but he won’t give it up because he doesn’t know what else he’d do.”

That sounded like a surprisingly accurate assessment of John’s thinking. I was a little surprised Roman had come up with it. He was a great kid, but not always the best at interpersonal cues. He’d mastered a lot of being a werewolf, but subtle arts like reading and interpreting scents were still tough for him.

“He sounds like a bummer.”

“He can be,” Sam agreed. “But he’s been the guardian here since our mother was alpha, and he always got along well with her. I think he stays in part because he’s not sure he trusts anyone else to look after our pack. He’s a sweet guy, deep down inside.”

“Deep, deep down.” I slowed going over an icy cattle guard. “Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep—”

“You’ve made your point, Henry.”

“I don’t know,” I mused. “I think I’m still a little shy of just how buried John’s regard for us is these days.”

“He’s unhappy, and that always brings a person’s worst traits to the surface. He’ll get better.”

“Clara left over a year ago, Sam. That’s a long time to get used to someone’s absence.”

“And she was with him for twenty years before that, so stop being mean to John.”

“Why didn’t she take the kids?” Ward asked out of the blue. “I mean, when the alternative is leaving them in the middle of nowhere with their dad. Why did she leave them behind?”

“Taking them was never an option,” Tennyson said unexpectedly. “Guardians are the keepers of the packs, given positions of extreme responsibility for our actions and our safety. A guardian is sworn to secrecy and generally experiences quite a bit of privation along with their service. If they get too close to the pack, they’re deemed unfit to remain objective. If they’re too distant, then they won’t care enough for the members to keep them safe. A good guardian knows how to negotiate for what he or she wants, in exchange for this voluntary isolation. They probably let John keep his children with him because he would be lost without them, and his functionality is more important than his ex-wife’s desires.”

Ward sighed. “That’s not very fair to his kids.”

“Probably not, but once they turn eighteen, they can leave. Of course, they’ll be sworn to secrecy too. If they give up the location of the pack, it’s considered treason.”

“Oh.”

I hoped, a little meanly, that Ward was thinking about whoever had told him how to find us. I hoped he got exactly what a risk that person was taking for him and just how dire it would be if that person was revealed at this point. Ward needed to get used to the fact that he wouldn’t be talking to him or her again.

Sacrifice. Caution. Danger. That was the reality of being a werewolf in America, and in the quiet of my own mind, I could acknowledge that Liam had a point when he said not all the old ways were necessarily good ones.

We got to the trailhead in a little under an hour. There were actually a few SUVs there, probably climbers trying to do winter ascents of San Luis. It was one of Colorado’s famous fourteen-thousand-foot peaks, and a subset of avid outdoor lovers made it a goal to climb them all. Once they’d climbed all fifty-three in the summer, some of those people decided to do them again in the snow, struggling up the invisible trail on snowshoes or cross-country skis. More power to them.

I got out and joined John at the edge of the parking lot, just beyond the brick latrines. He lifted a pair of binoculars and looked north across the valley. A creek ran down the middle of the basin here, fast running in the summer but hopefully frozen solid enough to get the snowcat across today.

“Should be any time now,” he said.

“Good. I’d rather not run into any hikers.”

“Eh, I don’t worry about folks like that,” John said. “They’re not going to walk onto pack territory and probably wouldn’t even think to wonder if you’re werewolves. It’s the hunters on their damn four-wheelers that have been giving me shit lately. I’ve been everything from a park ranger to animal control to an angry rancher in the last month.”

“Did you let Sam know about the incidents?”

He grunted an affirmative. “She put in a request last month to expand the camera system to some of the easiest entry points for outsiders that don’t take the road and add some motion detectors. I’ll monitor those.”

“It would be nice. Although we still haven’t gotten decent replacements for what’s looking after the fence, so I’m a little skeptical of getting more. Liam’s repairing the latest breakdown this morning.”

“You might not be on the best of terms with your minder, but that doesn’t mean I’m not.”

I angled my face toward him. “My minder?”

“What else would you call Hill?”

“My boss. My commanding officer. I don’t need a minder.”

John snorted. “What the hell do you think I am, then?”

“A public servant,” I replied. “And one who can be replaced, if his job is so onerous for him and his family.”

John put down the binoculars and looked at me. “It’d be a lot less onerous if you did your job out there, Alpha. Aren’t you supposed to be good at fetching things for the government? Why does it seem so hard for you lately?”

I tamped down on my anger. This wasn’t the John I knew. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t buy that. You’re blunt, but you’ve never been openly disrespectful before, and I’d like to know why.”

John pursed his lips together and then blew out a breath. “Genna hasn’t decided where she wants to go to school yet.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“Because she’s got options,” he snapped. “Good ones. She’s smart, and she’s gotten scholarships to half a dozen schools. But she hasn’t picked yet, and she won’t tell me why not. She’s even talked about taking a year off. Something’s wrong with her, and she won’t tell me what.” He lifted the binoculars again, trying to end the conversation. I didn’t let him, though.

“It might be because she’s worried about you and the boys,” I suggested. “Maybe she wants to stay an extra year for her own peace of mind, to make sure you’ll all be okay without her.”

“She’s my kid, not my mother. She shouldn’t worry about that.”

I shrugged. “Then maybe you need to ask yourself what’s going on that would make her act like that.”

John drew in his breath to respond, but just then a small green-and-white plane appeared over the edge of the mountains. The rumble of its engine bounced off the snow, and as it dipped down, the side door of the plane opened and crates fell out, parachutes catching just in time for the cargo to hit the ground gently. There were five in total, spread over a span of a hundred yards.

“Let’s go.”

I had Sam drive the snowcat, and Ward and Genna rode with her. The terrain would be tough for humans in the summer—in the winter, it was too rough for them to even think about crossing without specialized equipment. John stayed on the high ground and kept in touch with me via walkie, guiding us to the places the crates had sunk into the ground. We got the first three easily enough, but one had ended up half sunk in the creek, and it took Tennyson, Roman, and me working together to heave it out and up the embankment, through dead, clinging willows and half-frozen muck that stuck to our legs like muddy tentacles. It had to weigh over five hundred pounds.

We took a break before heading after the last one, which was nestled in a snowbank at the very head of the valley. Ward handed me a thermos of hot sweet tea while Sam helped Tennyson get the last crate tied down, and I took it gratefully.

“Hard work,” he commented as I sipped. My metabolism kept me warm enough to ignore the cold for the most part, but even it had a tough time combating the chill of near-freezing water made worse by the wind sweeping down off the cap of San Luis. “How often do you do this?”

“Every few months. We try to be as self-sustaining as possible. We have an orchard, some of the pack keeps cows and chickens, we grow our own vegetables, and we can and preserve things for the winter. But some things we just can’t get anywhere else. Flour. Sugar. Batteries. Blu-rays that are on the approved content list.” I shrugged. “So we relay what we want, we get a list of what they’ve got, and then John schedules a drop.”

“And that works? I mean, it’s enough to keep you guys going?”

“We’re not that big a pack,” I explained gently. “And we share everything we’ve got. It’s kind of utopian, in a way.”

“In a way,” he agreed. I could smell the doubt in him and knew he was probably thinking about what Liam had said last night.

“It’s not perfect.” I knew that. God, did I ever know that. No one knew it firsthand like me, not even Sam, for all she’d been through and for all I’d confided in her. “But it’s what we’ve got for now.”

“I know.”

I handed back the thermos, and he started to cap it. “Drink some of that yourself,” I told him. “The last thing you need is to catch a chill and end up getting pneumonia or something because we didn’t take good enough care of you.”

“It’s not your place to take care of me.”

“It is now, though,” I said earnestly. “You’re my pack.” You feel like pack. You might feel like more. I couldn’t tell him the last part, but it was real for me. It was good, a distraction, something that seemed special and just for me. It didn’t matter if I never shared it, as long as I could have it.

Ward smiled a half smile, the kind that curled his chapped pink lips up on the right-hand side. “I guess you’ve got a point.”

“Damn straight I’ve got a point.” I watched him drink with a curl of satisfaction, and after a moment, the warm, sweet smell of arousal carried across the air. But—it wasn’t Ward’s arousal. Wait.

I looked around and saw Genna and Roman a little ways away, sharing a thermos of cider and smiling as they talked quietly, even too quietly for me to hear. The scent, while almost overpowered by his clothes and deodorant, was Roman’s.

Oh shit. Just what we needed, Roman falling for the guardian’s daughter. And from the look of things—from the smell of things, dammit—she felt the same way. It plucked at my sense of danger even while it filled me with sympathy. They couldn’t help who they liked—hell, in circumstances like this, where they’d hardly known anyone else close to their ages for their whole lives, it was almost inevitable that they’d fall for each other. I wondered if they knew it was mutual.

I wondered if John knew. Or if he at least suspected. That might go a ways toward explaining his recent animosity.

“Are you going to get that last crate any time soon, or can we all look forward to freezing our asses off for the next hour?”

I picked up the walkie. “We’ll be on it in a minute.” I turned to Sam and Tennyson. “Is that crate secure?”

“It is now,” Sam said, ratcheting the final tie-down.

“Let’s go get the last one, then.”

It took almost another hour to retrieve it—the snowcat was heavy with the rest of the supplies at this point, and the terrain was too steep to get it any closer than a hundred yards of the crate. This one was pretty light, though, and once we’d pulled it free of the snow, we slung it up in a net, and I gripped the free ends tight and slung them over my shoulders. “I’ll pull. You two push,” I instructed my wolves, and they moved to obey. It felt good, working together, and I was able to forget doomed romances and my own sad, stupid heart as we hauled the crate down to the snowcat.

By the time we got there, I was breathing hard and had to get rid of my jacket to keep from overheating. It took another ten minutes to figure out how to make room for the thing. Once we were done, I turned into the wind and stood still for a long moment, letting the sweat cool on my forehead and neck and loving how intense it felt, how alive I was in that moment.

Want… there was the scent of arousal again, this time more spicy than sweet, somehow familiar even though I had never smelled anything quite like it before. I opened my eyes and looked over, even though I didn’t need to know who it was. Ward stood a few feet back, his arms wrapped tight around his chest and not inviting touch, his expression a mystery, but his scent…. Oh. I smelled want in him, directed right at me, and it filled me with the most amazing sense of satisfaction I could remember. I wasn’t alone in this. Even if we never spoke of it, I wasn’t alone.

The walkie crackled to life, breaking the moment. I picked it up to answer. “Yeah, John?”

“You need to get back here,” he said. He sounded grim. “We’ve got trouble.”

I frowned. “What kind of trouble?”

“I just got a call from the sheriff’s office in Monte Vista. There’s been a string of pet killings over the past twenty-four hours, and they’ve got a description of the animal responsible. Apparently it looks like a white wolf.”

My heart sank. Oh, no. Wilson. “Do they have it in custody?”

“Not yet. But the deputies are on the lookout for it. You know what this means.”

I took a shuddery breath. Suddenly it felt an awful lot colder out here. “I do.”

“You’re going to have to intervene, Henry.”

“I know.” Fuck, I knew. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Chapter Thirteen

Ward

I STILL wasn’t sure what had happened. A moment ago I’d been staring at Henry, who looked exactly like the otherworldly creature he was, standing there in the blowing wind with his head back, ice crystals frosting his beard and pure pleasure on his face. He’d been irresistible in that instant, unbelievable, and so handsome I couldn’t help but remember how I’d thought of him the other night, the opposite of cold: wet heat and hot skin pressed against mine. When he’d glanced at me, his pale eyes reflecting the ice all around us but so much warmer, I’d been transfixed, my chest tightening in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. I’d wanted to reach out and touch him. Thank God the walkie-talkie had kept me from making an idiot of myself.

From the forbidding look that crept over Henry’s face as he spoke, though, he’d have preferred almost anything to what was happening now.

He clipped the walkie back to his belt and set off at a brisk pace for the snowcat. “We have to go now. Is the cargo secure?”

“Yes,” Sam confirmed, but she looked just as confused as I felt. “We’re not in any real hurry, though, are we? We’ve still got hours of daylight, and I brought lunch in the car.”

“I’ve got to get to Monte Vista.”

“Oh.” One of Sam’s hands drifted up to her mouth. “Oh no. Not Wilson.”

“Yeah. He’s gone too far.”

“Oh Henry, you can’t. He’s—”

“He’s lost, Sam.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “He’s gone. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this. I’ve got to put a stop to it.”

“Who is Wilson?” Tennyson demanded.

“He’s… he was a pack member when we were in college,” Sam choked out. “He was the last one of our generation to get his shift, and he… he never managed to shift back. Mom kept him with us for over a year, but he just went deeper and deeper into the wolf. He didn’t come back from it. Mom was supposed to kill him, but… she couldn’t.” Sam’s voice dropped to a whisper. I could barely hear it over the wind. “She let him go.”

“That’s illegal,” Tennyson noted, not dispassionately but not approvingly either. “If she’d been caught doing that, she could have been replaced as alpha.”

“She died less than a year later, so it’s a little late to report her,” Henry snapped.

Tennyson flinched.

“We have to get this all this loaded up again, and then John and I need to go get him.”

“You can’t go do this with no support but the guardian!” Sam protested. “I’ll go with you, and T can drive the supplies back home.”

“I’m no good at driving in the snow,” Tennyson said. He clearly didn’t like that fact, either. “I’ll go along instead.”

“You and Roman have to stay with Sam and Genna, in case something goes wrong on the road,” Henry argued. “It’ll take werewolf strength to get the truck out of a snowdrift if there’s an accident. I’ll be fine with John.”

“No, you won’t!”

“I’ll go with you,” I offered, barely knowing what I was volunteering for but determined that whatever was going on, Henry deserved to have more support at his side than John Parnell.

I was expecting an argument. I was half expecting Henry to tell me I wasn’t pack, or that my being there wouldn’t help anything, but instead he looked at me gratefully. “Thank you.”

“I—yeah, of course.”

The next half hour was a frenzy of movement, getting the snowcat out of the valley with all its increased weight and back onto the trailer behind the 4Runner. Everyone was tense, distressed, and John was also in a hurry, pushing people to move faster.

“We’ve got to get this done while it’s still light out, people!” He turned to Henry. “We’ll take the Jeep. If we leave now, we can get there in under an hour.”

“Fine. Ward is coming.”

John snorted. “If you want him around to see this, I suppose that’s your business.”

“Exactly.” They stared at each other for a long moment before John finally averted his eyes.

I took the back seat in the Jeep and breathed a little sigh of relief when John kicked the heat up to high as soon as he started the engine. I was shivering, mostly with cold, I thought, but some of it was adrenaline with nowhere to go and nothing to react to. Henry got into the front seat next to John, and we were away down the narrow road before the 4Runner had even finished getting its cargo secured.

There was nothing but silence for almost the entire ride, and I wasn’t going to be the one to break it, not when I had the least idea of what was going on here. Usually I’d be curious, but the mood was so somber that I already knew what we were heading for. Henry was going to have to do something that he clearly loathed the very thought of, and John was going to make sure he did it right.

Every now and then, John darted little glances over at Henry, like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of what he was seeing. It didn’t seem so damn complicated to me. Henry was stiff with anger, with discomfort, and with what I’d bet was fear, even though he was an alpha werewolf and a soldier and any of a dozen other things that were supposed to mean he was invulnerable.

“I could do it.” It was the only thing John offered on the entire ride, just as we saw the sign for Monte Vista off the shoulder of the right lane.

“It’s not your responsibility.” Henry’s voice was wooden.

“It shouldn’t have been yours either.”

“But it is.” And that was that.

John didn’t continue into town, instead pulling off onto the side of the road near a barren aspen grove that climbed halfway up the side of the nearest hill. “The last dog was taken half a mile from here,” he said as he killed the engine. “It’s far enough out that we can get you some cover if you need to change.”

Henry shook his head. “I won’t need a full change for this.”

John looked mildly impressed. “Even your mother couldn’t pick and choose what she wanted to change, especially not under pressure.”

“My mother had other strengths.” Henry got out of the Jeep, and I scrambled to follow, wrapping my scarf tighter around my neck as soon as I was outside. It actually wasn’t as bad down here as it had been up by San Luis Peak, but I was used to being comfortable now. A shudder rocked my whole body, and suddenly Henry turned to me, his purposeful stride jerking to a halt.

“You don’t have to be here for this,” he said gently. “Stay in the car. Stay warm. John can witness it.”

That sounded absolutely hideous. “I’m here for you. I’m not going to stay in the car when you might need me.” For what, I didn’t know, but it was obviously the right thing to say if the way Henry’s eyes softened for a moment was anything to go by.

“Still, you should stay back for now. I don’t know what mood he’ll be in when he gets here.” Henry reached out and squeezed my shoulder, just once, then turned and started heading toward the trees. John stopped by my side, and we watched him go.

“Are you armed?” John asked after a moment.

“No.”

“You should consider it from here on out. Get a Taser if nothing else.”

“Should I really be afraid of Henry?” I snapped.

John sighed heavily. “Let me tell you something about the people you’ve gotten yourself involved with,” he said. “And I’m calling them people, yes. Good people, most of them, and a few of them are even great. Henry’s the type to be great, or he would be if he wasn’t the alpha. His mother….” John shook his head. “She was so proud when he and his sister went off to school. Sam was going to be a lawyer, and Henry was going to study sculpture and painting. He was always good with his hands, and he had a sharp eye. He could have made it as an artist. But he was raised to be responsible, and the responsible thing to do after his folks died abroad was to come back and be the alpha.

“Military service is required for all alpha werewolves. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“His folks weren’t easy on him growing up, but when Henry came back for the first time after six months of intensive training, I swear to God, I didn’t even recognize him at the gate. His face was empty. His spark was gone. I think he’d have died a long time ago if Sam didn’t keep pulling him back. That and the fact that he hates what he does, hates it so much that he doesn’t want anyone else in his pack to have to do it.”

“What does he have to do?” I whispered. It might not have been right of me to ask, but I had to know. No one in La Garita pack would tell me.

“He kills whoever his boss tells him to kill. Goes places and retrieves things, people, that no one else would be able to. He shifts and stalks and murders enemies of the state, and sometimes other folks too, the collateral damage. And he’s got to.” John’s mouth tightened. “We’ve all got things we have to do.”

I felt sickened. “And this? What’s this all about?”

“Righting his mother’s wrong. The white wolf might not be a formal pack member anymore, but it’ll respond to the call of its alpha. Listen.” We stood in silence for a long moment until it was broken by a high, ululating howl. I could barely make out Henry’s silhouette up ahead, obscured by the shape of the trees. He howled again, throwing his head back with abandon, and all the tiny hairs on my body stood on end.

“I barely remember Wilson,” John murmured. “He was a transfer from another pack, the last one I know of to be disbanded before the pack that Tennyson came from. He had problems adapting, fitting in. La Garita was good to him, but they weren’t enough. When he finally went wolf, he didn’t even want to come back. He should never have been let go.” John’s fists clenched. “It should never have gone on for this long.”

I felt my throat begin to tighten. “This happens to all werewolves who don’t change back?”

“All of them. He’s still contagious, even if he doesn’t remember being human. What if he graduates from attacking people’s pet dogs to their kids? What if the kids turn? What if they just die?”

Oh, Jesus.

“That’s the real danger of werewolves. It’s not that they can’t be good people. It’s that if they aren’t, if they slip, then they’re worse than they should be. Get yourself a weapon,” he advised me, then held up a hand. “There. Look.” I could barely hear his voice over the wind.

“At what?” I whispered.

“Up on the hillside, behind the big rock. There he is.”

I stared at the side of the mountain until my eyes burned with needing to blink, but it wasn’t until the wolf moved that I finally saw him. He was big, bigger than your average dog, almost as big as Henry was during a shift, and he was pure white. Beautiful, but he moved with none of the playfulness or consciousness I’d seen in Henry or the kids when they had furry time. He loped through the snow like an animal, a beautiful, dangerous animal, heading straight for Henry’s side. I held my breath when they finally encountered each other, Henry stretching out a hand to the wolf. I couldn’t see if it was clawed or not, but the wolf sniffed once, twice, and then—

Suddenly he was like a puppy. He leaped back a little ways, then rolled over and up again, darting here and there in an attempt to entice Henry to play with him. He yipped, and it was a joyous sound.

I couldn’t hear what Henry did or said, but the wolf calmed a little bit, crept closer and closer until he was close enough for Henry to enfold in his arms. It looked like an embrace, and I could imagine how it felt, even as a wolf, to be drawn into Henry’s arms. I’d had one hug from the guy, and the memory of it still made me blush sometimes. This hug wasn’t to comfort, or to welcome, or simply to scent, though. This hug was a goodbye, and we all knew it.

The wolf whined, but slowly, slowly, went down on its side. Henry crouched over it, petting its thick white fur with one hand, gentling it. I couldn’t hear his voice, but I could see his lips moving as he stroked it. He crouched there for a long time, until John started to get antsy and shift his weight. He moved as if to step forward, and I reached for his arm and held him back.

“No,” I said. “Let him do it.”

And then he did.

It was over faster than I could see, one smooth, fast swipe with a hand, a final whine, and then… nothing. Nothing but the gradual spread of blood against snow and John slowly relaxing under my grip.

“I’ll get a tarp,” John muttered. “We can’t bury him here.” He pulled away from me and headed back to the Jeep, and I… I just stood there, dumb and numb, like an idiot. I didn’t want to walk up that hill. I didn’t want to see what I knew I was going to, I didn’t want to look at a dead werewolf and the alpha who’d killed him, I didn’t want to see what I knew I’d see in Henry’s eyes.

But I’d come here for him. What good was I if I wasn’t going to follow through? Tightening my arms around myself, I followed Henry’s footprints, a little too long for my stride to really fit, until I got to the tree line. Henry was just five feet away, his hands still resting on Wilson’s fur. They were barely hands, the claws as long as talons. The red beneath both of them was so vivid against the snow I almost couldn’t believe it was real. How could any of this be real?

“Henry.”

He looked over at me, and his expression was flat, his eyes gold, his jaw jutting and misshapen, filled with fangs that I didn’t want to get close to. He was as near to a monster as I’d ever seen. The sight of him propelled me forward, first within reach and then practically on top of him. I didn’t touch him, but I stood close enough for him to hear my heartbeat and the way I was breathing, raspy and loud. Anything to distract him.

Henry closed his eyes, his head tilted slightly toward me, but did nothing else. I just stood there, stupidly, and tried not to look at the beautiful, pitiful creature at my feet. Jesus Christ. This… the thought of consequences rolled through my head, not just for Wilson but for Ava, my baby. I had to… I had to….

Henry was never going to have to make this sort of choice about my daughter. I wouldn’t let it happen, not to either of them.

John joined us a moment later, a blue plastic tarp in his hands. He spread it out briskly. “Come on, Henry,” he said. “Get him settled so we can get back. Sam’s waiting for you.” He was staring narrowly at Henry’s semishifted face, but he didn’t let whatever he was feeling reflect in his voice.

Henry didn’t speak. He picked Wilson’s body up like a baby, cradled it against his chest for a moment before laying it on the tarp. He tucked the edges in around the fur but left the head free, got to his feet, and lifted over a hundred pounds of wolf into his arms like it was nothing, like he hadn’t been lifting huge weights all morning, like he wasn’t hungry and heartbroken. I looked at him and felt absolutely helpless, and I fucking hated that feeling.

I reached out and set my hand on Henry’s elbow. He blinked and stared at me with eyes that were suddenly blue, and both John and I breathed a little easier.

“Let’s go home.”

Chapter Fourteen

Henry

EVERYTHING SMELLED like blood.

It smeared the air, tainting it with its filth even through the plastic surrounding Wilson. Werewolf blood smelled different from human blood, which I was far more familiar with, but the iron was the same. That and the tang that stuck in the back of your throat, making you feel like you were on the verge of vomiting. I hated the smell, but I was used to it by now. I could barely escape it even when I was off duty—it made sense I would be surrounded by it now. Only it was accompanied with the ozone scent of snow, car exhaust, and very faintly, wrongly, the smell of Ward. I didn’t like smelling him and blood at the same time, and yet I knew he was one of the only things helping me hold on to the tenuous thread of control I was maintaining right then.

John had noticed my partial shift, I was sure of it, documenting how long I stayed like this. I should have changed back all the way just to lessen the impact his observations would have on me, but I couldn’t. It felt too much like taking off my armor, and right then I needed that barrier more than ever.

Wilson was cooling in my arms. I sat with him in the back seat of the Jeep, and Ward kept craning around to look at us, check on me. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the pressure of his gaze like a stroke on the shoulder, or a brief tangle of our fingers.

“Do you want me to call Sam?” he asked at last.

Oh, right. It was a good idea. Someone should. My phone… was in my pocket. I’d have to let go of Wilson to get it. I couldn’t quite make myself do that yet.

“Use mine.” John handed Ward an iPhone, and I listened absently to my sister’s concerned voice over the speaker, her brief silence when Ward told her what I’d done, her questions about when we’d be back. An hour. Maybe less.

Then Wilson would go in the ground. The grave was probably already being dug. It was a holdover from our earliest experiences as werewolves, the necessity of burying a body fast. You didn’t want to leave the dead ones around for other creatures to feed on, nothing that could potentially allow the mutation to spread. Wolves were buried deep, or burned. I shut my eyes and pulled Wilson a little closer.

I hated feeling this way about him, like it had gutted me. I didn’t want to be gutted by the death of someone I’d known for less than a year when I was still a teenager. My mother had felt sorry for him, one of the only survivors of a disbanded pack, so awkward and so angry to be with us. I hadn’t liked him back then, and the feeling had been mutual. When he’d failed to come back from his shift and my mother had let him go, I’d actually been pleased. Now he wasn’t our problem. I wouldn’t have to deal with him and neither would she, no more anxiety, no more arguments. He was just… gone. It was good.

Only, of course, it wasn’t good. It took me too long to realize how far my influence as alpha extended and that even though the person who’d let Wilson go was dead, I was expected to step into her shoes. Wilson was my responsibility. I had to check up on him, I had to make sure he didn’t make a nuisance of himself, make sure he didn’t cause problems for the people out on the plains.

I actually liked Wilson way better as a wolf. We only met half a dozen times over the years, but it was enough to reinforce our respective positions, enough to give me confidence in him. I hadn’t expected him to lose it and start hunting people’s pets. It wasn’t that bad a winter. He could have come to us. He could have….

It didn’t matter. He hadn’t. And now he was dead, and I felt locked halfway between wolf and man, indomitable alpha and entirely fallible leader. Not elected, just set in place on the back of a tragedy. It wouldn’t be that hard to get rid of me. I couldn’t give them the chance. I must not give them the chance, but I couldn’t make myself change back either. It felt like I’d forgotten how.

Wilson was cooling, almost equal to the ambient temperature in the car now. It felt wrong, and I held him closer even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. One of my claws punctured the tarp, but no blood spilled out. We’d left most of his blood in the snow. A quick slice to the jugular, the same spot that killed a wolf just as fast as a man, and he’d gone in under two minutes. He hadn’t understood what was going on, or why. I had asked for his obedience, he’d given it, and then….

I’d killed him.

Murdered a member of my own pack, no matter how removed.

I didn’t realize when the car stopped. I was so absorbed in my own hell. It took Ward steeling himself—I could actually hear his teeth grind together—and touching my knee that pulled me out of my fugue.

“C’mon, Henry,” he said. “Time to get out.”

Out. Where Sam was, where pack was. Pack. This wouldn’t be fun. I knew it, but there was nothing I could do. I unbent my legs and made my way out of the Jeep, instead of tearing the soft top to pieces with my claws the way I was half inclined to. I emerged, and the sounds that greeted me were myriad: a dozen or so heartbeats, all the adults but almost none of the children. Sam had known what was coming and taken care of that, I assumed. Roman was here, and Genna—I smelled the new sourness of John’s dislike, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. Sam and Liam were at the front of the group, Gerald and Peggy not far back. Everyone but the humans could smell the death.

No one said anything, but Tennyson carefully, slowly came forward. He had his head slanted to the side, but his eyes were on me. “I’ve got a place all ready for him,” he said, and I believed him. I could smell the frozen earth on his clothes and the deeper, softer stuff underneath his nails. “Let me take him, Alpha.”

Yes. Now was the time for me to give him up, only I wasn’t sure I could. Tennyson took another step, and I growled, unwillingly, hoarse in my chest and painful across my lips. I was the alpha, my work was done, it was time to delegate, but I couldn’t… I just couldn’t make myself let go of him.

“Henry,” Sam said. She started to step forward, but Liam grabbed her arm and held her back. What, because he thought I was too wild to be safe around my own sister? He thought I would hurt her? I felt my eyes change, and I knew it was too much, I knew it wasn’t necessary, but I let them go anyway. I felt the muscles in my back and shoulders bunch, broadening, making me look wider, giving me a bit of a stoop. I heard John swear, saw him head for his daughter even as he pulled his gun and held it on me.

“Henry, please,” Sam said again, pulling against Liam’s grip, but it was no use. He was afraid of me, and he was afraid for his wife. He wouldn’t let her near me, and she wouldn’t fight him hard enough to get away. Was she afraid of me too? Or just trying to keep the peace again, keep up the balance between me and her husband?

She should have left. He should have taken her away from me, from this pack. Being here was only prolonging her misery.

The touch was so soft I barely felt it, but I knew the tenor of the rabbiting heartbeat beside me, the scent of his fear and determination. Ward was here, human and vulnerable, and he was touching me. I forced my head to turn on my too-thick neck, my face probably as hideous as it always should be, and looked down at Ward. He swallowed thickly, but looked right back up at me.

“It’s okay,” he said, and it sounded like a promise. “You did what you had to. You can let Tennyson have him now.”

I… no. Yes? I didn’t want to let go, but I knew I needed to, and having Ward there to reinforce that seemed to make it okay. I sighed, then held my burden out to Tennyson, who hadn’t moved since my growl. He eased in close enough to relieve me of Wilson’s body, and as soon as that was gone, I felt like I might blow away in the frigid wind. Ward kept his hand on me, though, grounding me with slender fingers and gentle pressure and the telltale sound of his tight, wheezing breaths. It shouldn’t have soothed me so.

Tennyson turned and left. I could hear John berating his daughter, asking her why she’d come into the compound—the scent of desire had faded in both her and Roman, leaving wariness and fear. I ignored the guardian as I looked out on my pack, assessing them. They assessed me right back, and I could see that some of them found me wanting.

“Change back,” Gerald said abruptly.

“Stop it,” Peggy muttered, grabbing him by the sleeve, but her husband shook off her grip and stepped forward.

“Change the rest of the way. Change back now, Alpha!”

I tried. I actually did try. I couldn’t. My body didn’t want to, it’s defenses too high and hard. I glared at Gerald, who smelled satisfied even though he looked unnerved.

“You’re losing your shift.”

Sam whirled on him. “Shut up! After everything that’s happened to him, everything he’s gone through not just today but for months before, a little trouble is only to be expected! You have difficulty with your shift when you’re bothered by something as mundane as a hot day. I’ve seen it, so back off and show your alpha some respect before I make you show it!” She had one hand on the Taser at her belt.

“He shouldn’t need you to protect him, Sam!”

“He shouldn’t need to be protected from his own pack at all, Gerald,” she shot back. “And I’m his sister first, and the coleader of this pack second. I will always protect my brother.” She turned to me—no, to Ward. “Escort Henry to the house. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Sure thing.” He took my hand—God, he took my clawed hand, my hideous hand—and tugged me in the direction of our house. After a moment, I went with him.

By the time we got back to the house, I was stumbling in the snow, my semishifted feet clumsy in the boots. I was tired, and upset, and everything felt like too much. Ward pulled me toward the staircase, but I resisted.

“Down,” I ground out between my fangs. “Panic room.” It hadn’t been used for decades, probably smelled like dust and decay now and nothing more. It was where I should be, until I came out of it.

Ward seemed to disagree.

“No. You need a shower.”

I shook my head. “Not now.”

“Yes, now. You look like you’ve been rolling around in a butcher shop, so God only knows how bad you smell to yourself. You need a hot shower, with soap. Lots of soap,” he continued, still tugging me upstairs. It would have been nothing to resist him, but I didn’t. “We’ll go through a whole bottle of shampoo if you don’t get rid of some of the extra hair. Not that I care.”

Extra hair… ah. More than my muscles had shifted out there. We made it to the end of the hall, right in front of the bathroom, and Ward looked back at me and swore. Actually, he was looking at the ground.

“We’re making a mess. Remind me to mop it up later. First—” He tugged his scarf off with one hand, dropped his hat to the floor with it, and started in on his jacket. “I’ve got to get this coat off before I overheat. If it’s bad out here, it’ll be hell once we get the shower going.” He waved one hand at me as he got started on his shoelaces. I just watched him, oddly comforted by his chatter as it washed over me, no expectation of conversation in it.

“Hang on.” He switched his grip on me so he could get both arms of the coat off without actually having to let me go. He was being careful, but not in a way that got my hackles up, and I felt myself relax into his presence almost without permission.

“Hey, nice job.”

What? Oh—I was shifting back. Partially, at least. My hands and face hadn’t changed, but at least now I could step out of my own semidestroyed boots without having to get Ward to untie the laces, and my shirt wasn’t strained to the breaking point.

“You look better,” he said approvingly. “Come on.” He led me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us, then turned on the hot water. “You need to undress. Can you manage it, or should I….” There was no desire in his voice or scent now, but no fear either, and that too was comforting. “You know what, I’ll just… okay.” He took a deep breath, then got started on my shirt.

I couldn’t remember the last person to undress me who wasn’t doing it to bandage a wound. Maybe college. I’d had a boyfriend in college, another artist, a metalworker who braved flame and heat like it was nothing. He’d been skinny like Ward, and just as fearless, but he also held a grudge. When I told him I had to leave and couldn’t explain well enough to suit him, he told me not to bother coming back to him. I didn’t, but I did remember the way his hands felt on my body, callused fingers moving appreciatively against my skin.

Ward’s hands were nothing like that. He had no calluses, and his fingers were thin and knobby. They were dexterous with my buttons, though, careful even though this shirt would have to be burned. Burned… shit. I lifted a hand and set it on Ward’s, carefully.

“The blood….” Transmission via blood was actually a fairly difficult way to contract the virus. It lived primarily in our salivary glands, which made biting so effective. But still….

“I know,” he said. “Sam explained it all. I don’t have any open wounds, and you don’t have blood on the front of your shirt, Henry, just the sleeves. I’ll let you take care of those, just let me handle the rest of it. Okay?”

Good enough for me. Between the two of us, we got my clothes off, until I was bare and shaking in the yellow light of the bathroom, which was filling with steam.

“Inside,” Ward said, and he pushed at me gently until I took the hint and stepped into the claw-foot tub where the shower was spraying. The water was hot enough that it made me wince, but Ward adjusted it, and a moment later, all I wanted to do was lie down and give myself over to its heat. So I did.

“Henry!” The thump must have alarmed him, because he threw the shower curtain open and stared at me for a long moment before exhaling heavily. “Shit. Are you okay?”

“Tired.” Just tired, of everything. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I thought my eyes might be tearing up, but it didn’t matter in there, with the water beating me beautifully. No one would be able to tell.

“That’s okay, that’s fine. Just… sit down carefully the next time you get tired, okay?” He smiled a little weakly. “How would I explain to Sam if you cracked your head open in the tub?”

“Sam.” Poor Sam. Fuck, I’d really done a number on her life.

“Yeah, Sam. She’s fierce, man.” Ward sounded appreciative. “You’re lucky to have a sister like that.” He stopped speaking for a moment, hunting for something under the sink, and I missed the sound of his voice immediately.

“Talk.”

Ward came back around the curtain and raised an eyebrow. “You sure? I could probably talk your ears off, Henry.”

Sounded good to me. “Please.”

“Okay, well… I never had a sister, but I did have a brother. Rick. Sam reminds me a little of him, actually. He was a Marine, and then he did officer training school and ended up going into military intelligence. Him and his friend Davis. Davis is the only reason I can even say I had a friend growing up, because Rick shared him with me.”

He kept up a patter as he washed my hair, telling me about his hero-worship for the older brother who looked out for him when his parents were too busy to, how he had wondered how someone like that could die when Ward, who felt like so much less, survived pneumonia and asthma and countless infections to make it to adulthood. He told me about Gabriela, who had never wanted to be a mother, and how as soon as he’d lain eyes on Ava he knew he wanted her more than anything. He told me about his daughter and how precious she was to him. The last part I already knew, but it was calming to hear again. Ward was steadfast. When he gave a part of his heart to someone, he gave it forever.

Eventually the hot water ran out, and Ward managed to wrangle me out of the shower and into a pair of sweats before I could start shivering. He led me toward my bedroom, but I balked at the thought of entering a cold room that smelled of nothing but me right now. Surrounding myself with my own scent would be like wrapping myself in misery, and I was already miserable enough.

“Okay.” Ward didn’t even hesitate, just took me down the hall to his room instead. The air was still just a little musty around the edges, old space slowly filling with new life, but mostly it just smelled like Ward. Even the medicinal tinge was soothing in its own way, a source of care. Ward pulled back the blankets and led me into the bed, and I went because there was nothing else I would rather do in that moment.

God, I was tired. I was so tired.

“Sleep.” Ward brushed his fingers across the curve of my shoulder, a grounding touch before covering me up with the comforter. “It’ll be okay.”

“Stay.” It was all I wanted.

He smiled for me. He looked so different when he smiled, the thinness of his face eclipsed by the width of his grin. “I can do that.”

Thank you. I wasn’t sure whether I said it or not before I fell asleep.

It didn’t matter. I knew Ward would feel it.

Chapter Fifteen

Ward

SOMETIMES, ESPECIALLY when she was stressed out, Ava had nightmares. She’d had one the night before her first day at school, in fact, and had come running into my bedroom at two in the morning, crying that something was chasing her and she couldn’t get away. I had soothed her as best I could, not realizing how weirdly prophetic her dream had been at the time, and let her spend the rest of the night next to me, even though I’d gotten next to no sleep thanks to my squirmy kid.

It had been a while since I’d been called on to do nightmare duty, but I knew what was expected of me. The most important thing? To be there. And I was determined to do that for Henry now, even if the dynamic was a little different. The bed should have been a little small for two full-grown men, but I wasn’t the biggest guy, and Henry was curled in on himself like a pill bug right now, so we made it work. I got to be the big spoon, which was really novel, and made it easier to stroke a hand down his side whenever he shuddered or whined in his sleep.

At least he looked human again. He’d been mostly human by the time I pulled him out of the shower, just his hazy eyes still showing a faint yellow tint. His face had been completely human and totally devastated. I’d seen that look before in soldiers, in Davis, when he came to my door to tell me in person that Rick wasn’t coming home. It was the look of a person on the edge, who didn’t know how to step back and take a breath. Davis had had me, at least, and I’d had him to share the grief with. Who did Henry have? His squad? His commanding officer? Sam? There were advantages to each, but problems too.

By the time I smelled coffee wafting up the stairwell, Henry had gone from restless, shallow sleep into something so deep he didn’t even move when I slid out of bed. I didn’t want to leave him, but I hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday, and I was hungry. I decided I could take a moment to run downstairs and eat before heading back to see if he was ready to get up.

“I’ll be back,” I murmured, patting his blanket-covered side before heading downstairs. Coffee, some toast, maybe an egg if I could be quick about it—

I was greeted by the sight of a veritable breakfast feast. Plates full of sausage, bacon, pancakes, waffles, cut fruit, and scrambled eggs sat along the counter, wrapped to keep them warm. The scent of coffee was strong, and the kitchen was a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Sam sat at the table, sipping from a mug, while Liam worked at the stove flipping more pancakes.

“Ward!” Her face lit up when she saw me. “There you are! I was wondering if I’d have to pry you two out of your room.”

Oh boy, she knew Henry and I had slept together. Well, for a given value of sleeping together. I’m sure if she knew that much, she was also aware that nothing had happened other than some comfort.

“Yeah, I just came down to grab something to eat before I head back up to wake him.”

“Why don’t we let him sleep a little longer? Sit, let me get you a plate.”

“I have it,” Liam said quietly. He passed a full plate over that was stacked with my favorite things. Even the syrup had been spiked with raspberries, or more likely raspberry jam, considering the time of year.

“Thanks.”

Liam looked a little hunted as he nodded. “Of course.”

Sam redirected my attention with a light touch to my wrist. “How is he?”

I shrugged before tucking in. “He was pretty rough last night, but I think he’s coming out of it okay.”

“You stayed with him the whole time?”

“Except for right now, yes.” A tendril of unease slithered into my thoughts. “Why, is that not good? Should I have left him alone?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Sam said. “I’m just surprised he didn’t insist on going down to the panic room.”

“Oh, he tried that. I told him no.”

Liam looked at me with wide eyes. “You told him….”

“No. Yeah.”

“And he let you?”

“He was upset, but that doesn’t mean he was unreasonable,” I said. Sam and Liam shared a look, and then Liam bowed his head over the griddle again.

“I’m so glad he had you.” Sam sounded completely sincere, not at all upset that I might have been stepping on her toes when it came to taking care of her brother. They were so solid, the two of them. It had to be hard, letting other people into their close-knit world. Liam was still working the kinks out, that much was clear.

“Well.” I blushed as she kept looking at me. “I’m not planning on going anywhere, so….”

“Good.” She took a bite of her own pancakes, swallowed, and changed the subject. “There won’t be any school today, not with the distribution of supplies to work through. Liam and I will take care of that. How do you think you’ll spend the day?”

“With Ava.” I didn’t even have to think about that part. The next part, though…. “And Henry, if he’ll come with me. I think it’s time we focus on getting Ava to shift, and he said his presence would probably help with that.”

“It might,” Liam said.

“It will.”

“Sam….” He put down the spatula and turned to her, his eyes pained. “I’m not trying to be difficult, you know I’m not. I want the best for Henry, and for Ava. But after everything that happened yesterday, it might be better if he spent more time with the rest of the pack, or perhaps—”

“I know.” Her voice was kind but implacable. “I know what you think. I know what most of the pack is talking about today and what you all think is going to happen, and you’re wrong. Henry needs something to pour his heart into, and it’s not going to be the pack at large, not right now. And it can’t be me. I knew that would be the case when we got married.” Liam blanched, and she reached a hand out toward him. “And I don’t regret that. I don’t. But he needs something to focus on, and Ava needs the support.” She looked at me and smiled. “And they both need you! So it works out beautifully.”

I thought it did too, but I was aware that I was probably in the minority here. “What’s the pack saying about him?” I asked cautiously before picking up a piece of bacon.

“Oh, what they always say when things are difficult. That it’s time for new blood. That our family is too complacent in our leadership, and someone else would be better at bargaining or at protecting us or at earning us favors.” Her smile was positively vicious. “The reality is that they simply don’t understand the magnitude of what their alpha does for them. I intend to see that they learn. And maybe….”

“Sam.” Liam’s voice was cautious. Sam sighed.

“And maybe more someday,” she finished, in the way I knew she wasn’t originally going to. “We’ll see.” She held out a carafe. “More coffee?”

“No thanks.” I needed to eat and go.

In the end, I took a plate up to Henry. Liam offered, but he looked as uncomfortable at the prospect of facing Henry in his nighties as a teenager facing their parents after crashing a car. Whatever—he and Henry would have to sort out their weirdness at some point, but right now wasn’t the time. I was itching to see Ava, and if I was hungry this morning, Henry had to be starving.

The bed was empty when I got back upstairs, but the room wasn’t. Henry stood by the window, fingers trailing aimlessly against the bottom of the gingham curtain as he looked out at the mountains. He was still wearing sweatpants, but his top half was completely bare. The muscles in his back were intimidatingly cut and covered with faded scars, some looking like starbursts, others long and thin. Weren’t werewolves supposed to heal faster than humans? A side effect of their shifting was an increased ability to regenerate, or so I thought.

The scars didn’t detract from the fact that he was completely, wrenchingly gorgeous. My life would have been way easier if they had.

I cleared my throat. “I brought breakfast.”

Henry turned around and looked at me. “Thanks.” His eyes were back to their normal blue.

I breathed a little easier as I shut the door behind me. “You’re welcome.” I handed him the plate, and he started in on it standing up, slicing a pancake in half, folding it onto his fork, and stuffing it into his mouth. If he’d been Ava, I would have said something. As it was… well, no, I still had to say something. “I’m not going to try to take the food away. You don’t have to eat so fast.”

“You want to go see Ava.”

Oh. Of course he’d heard the conversation downstairs. Werewolf hearing. I could have smacked myself. “Yeah, but there’s no real rush.”

“It doesn’t make sense to delay either. The sooner we get started on encouraging her shift, the sooner she can put it behind her.”

“You weren’t this worried about her shift the last time you visited her.”

He paused for a second, fork poised over a sausage link. “Call it a change of heart. I don’t want what happened to Wilson to happen to Ava.”

Fuck. Fuck. “You wouldn’t….” I needed to sit down. Fuck that, I was going to fall down. “You wouldn’t hurt her. Tell me you wouldn’t hurt her, Henry, you have to promise me—”

“Ward, hey.” The plate was on the ground and his hands were on my arms a second later, holding me up. I was shaking so hard my teeth were practically chattering. “No, no, I won’t. I won’t, I promise. All right? I promise. Jesus, come here.” He pulled me into an embrace, and I held on as hard as I could. It wasn’t as hard as I would have liked, but his grip more than made up for it.

“I would never do that to her,” he assured me, tucking my face into the crook of his neck. I let him, even though it was stupid—I wasn’t a child. I didn’t need that sort of comfort, but apparently I did, since I couldn’t stop shaking. “Not even if the whole pack was against me on it, and they wouldn’t be. Children are precious. Wilson was almost an adult when he had his first shift. He was too set in his ways to get through it, and my mother didn’t know how to help him. Ava is different. We’ll make it work. We will.”

I exhaled heavily against his chest and nodded. “Right.” My voice was so faint I could barely hear myself. “Yeah. Before my time is up. I assume there’s a deadline, isn’t there?” There had to be—the ASA was a military organization first and foremost, and they valued efficiency.

“Fuck your deadline.”

It wasn’t a logical sentiment, given that neither of us were in a position to tell either the pack or Henry’s superiors to fuck off, but I appreciated it. God, he was warm. It was even more apparent when I had my cheek pressed against his bare skin. I wanted to dig in deeper, move in closer. I couldn’t, though. Now wasn’t the time.

“Okay.” One more deep breath, and then I pushed back and away, just enough to make an inch or so of space between us. Henry moved reluctantly and kept his hands on my arms, like he was worried I might still collapse onto the floor in a heap. I couldn’t have him thinking I was weak. “Better finish your breakfast,” I advised. “Liam’s been slaving all morning on it.”

Henry smiled a little half smile. “I doubt he was slaving for me.”

“I think he was.”

Henry shook his head as he picked up his plate, but I persisted.

“No, really, I do. Sam is his wife, I know, and he obviously thinks she’s the best thing since, I don’t know, maple syrup, but he knows who is alpha is, and he knows how important you are to Sam and everyone else here. I don’t think he really gets it yet, but he will.”

“And you do get it?”

“Not all of it,” I confessed. “There are tons of things I don’t know about werewolf society or about the challenges you face as a pack, but I do know some things.” Mostly from Davis, who for all his bitching was a true ally to the packs he associated with. It was only the fact that I was the next best thing to family to him that he’d broken the rules for me, and I loved him even more for it. “I know I’m a problem you really didn’t need, and I appreciate the hell out of being able to stay here. I think you’re a good alpha, and I’ll shout that in the face of anyone who needs to hear it.”

Henry’s smile was a little wider this time. “I believe you.” He scraped up the last of the maple syrup with a piece of bacon, then licked his fingers clean afterward. One at a time.

“Oh, stop it.”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t need to try to be sexy, all right? It just happens. Licking your fingers is mean.” There, I’d said it. My attraction was out in the open, and he could take it or leave it, I didn’t care.

I maybe kind of cared.

“Maybe I’m not doing it to be mean,” he said.

“Oh no? Then what?”

“Keep looking at me like that and you’ll find out.” His voice was low, almost a growl, and not the sort of thing that should have had me swaying toward him like an iron filing to a magnet. But honest to God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wanted someone like this. Too bad we had a shit-ton of other stuff going on right now, or I’d suggest going back to bed.

“Me, though?” I had to get this out, even if it didn’t really reflect well on me. “I mean, I know I’m here, and it’s not like you’re tripping over other options, but I’m not exactly….” I waved a vague hand at him. I was short, thin, sick more often than not, and I came with some very definite baggage. It wasn’t like we were negotiating a serious relationship here or anything, but still, I wanted to be up front. I wasn’t going to sleep with anyone just because I was convenient.

Henry looked me up and down, so slowly and thoroughly that I could almost feel his hands trailing over every place his gaze touched. “You don’t need to be anything you aren’t for me to want to find out everything about you. What you look like when I strip off your clothes.” His voice was hypnotic. “What you feel like beneath my hands. What you sound like when I take you into my mouth and feel you press against the back of my throat.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Okay, that… huh. Um.” Fuck, now I was hard. “That sounds… you know what, we have to get to the clinic, so get some clothes on and we’ll… talk about the rest of it later.”

Now he was smirking, the bastard. “Talk about it.”

“Yeah. Talk. Like adults.”

He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.” He closed the distance between us again, reached around slowly with his free hand, and cupped the back of my head. “I’m happy to talk, but it’s not going to change what I want.” He leaned down, and I thought for one brief, bright moment that he was going to kiss me. And he did, but he pressed his lips to my temple instead of my mouth. My breath still caught in my throat. “Give me a few minutes to get ready, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“Mu-huh.” Goddammit, why was I still speaking in tongues around this guy? “Yeah, fine,” I got off on my second try. Leaving was the only way to save face, and I had the feeling that he was laughing at me as I headed downstairs even though I didn’t hear a thing.

I didn’t mind too much.

I half expected the rest of the morning to pass in a lust-hazed blur, but Henry could be very professional when he wanted to be. When he joined us downstairs, he didn’t indicate that anything was different, just kissed Sam good morning, thanked Liam for the food, and asked me if I was ready to go.

“So ready.”

“Good.” He glanced at Sam. “Anything I should know about in the pack?”

“Gerald is still agitating, but sentiment is split. I know Peggy’s not for any sort of challenge, but he tends not to listen to her when he thinks he’s right.”

“And Roman?”

“Too interested in Genna to even pay attention to the rest of the world right now.” Sam’s little smile faded. “That’s going to cause problems if we’re not careful.”

“I know.”

“It’s mutual? I mean, she acted interested, but….”

“Yeah.”

Ugh, it felt intrusive both ways for werewolves to be able to smell underage arousal. Gah. I needed brain bleach. “He’s a smart kid,” I offered. “He won’t do anything crazy, right?”

“You underestimate just how crazy we can get when we’re interested in someone.”

“Apparently our dad spent weeks transforming back and forth from a man to a wolf under Mom’s bedroom window, singing love songs and then howling the chorus.” Sam shook her head. “God, he could be so embarrassing.”

“Gerald and Peggy were arranged, but when she fell, she fell hard. Do you remember her baking spree? We were swimming in pies and cakes for months. Mom had to make a special order for flour just for Peggy.”

“Aw, I do remember that.” Sam grinned. “She made Napoleon cake one night. I swear it was the best thing ever. It’s been a long time since she’s baked anything.”

“Not since Roman’s birthday.”

That seemed telling. I changed the subject before we could start processing uncomfortable things like feelings. “What about you two?” I asked Liam. “Did you have a crazy mating ritual?”

“Not crazy—”

“Not crazy?” Sam actually cackled with laughter. “You programmed every computer in the student union to play ‘La Vie en Rose’ when I walked by! Which means you either hacked into the security cameras to figure out when I was going to be there, or you accessed the camera on every one of those awful, rinky-dink computers and hijacked them one at a time.”

“It was romantic!” Liam protested. Sam went to stand beside him, taking one of his hands in hers and leaning in until they touched from shoulder to knee.

“It was very romantic,” she said. They kissed, and I felt the need to be elsewhere. I was a lot of things, but voyeuristic wasn’t one of them.

“And on that note….” I turned to Henry. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Sixteen

Henry

I HAD been born into a werewolf pack. Not only that, but born to the alpha. There were pictures of my sister and I as babies being cuddled by one or both of our parents in wolf form. Before I could even remember, I’d seen the adults in my life shift so often that it wasn’t a mystery to me. Shifting had come easy, and early, because I had been exposed to it. I’d also been exposed to seeing my folks come out of it, so while my first shift was far from simple, I’d been motivated to get through it and emerge on the other side.

Ava’s situation was different from mine. She had no background with werewolves before coming here, and her shift had been precipitated by stress, not conscious decision-making. The difficulty with provoking a shift in the very young was that, once they were comfortable in a form, they actively resisted the impulse to be anything but what they already were. Older children you could reason with, unless they were determined to ignore you, like Wilson had been. Ava was a little young for logic to have much effect on her, and so I hoped we could get somewhere with me modeling the behavior and Ward encouraging her. She wanted to please him―that much was obvious from the way she looked at him as soon as we entered the room, like his very presence was a gift. I hoped him not being there would prove as motivational as when he was.

If her father’s presence was the reward, then his absence would be the punishment. If she could focus, he would stay. If she got distracted, he would leave. This was easier to do in theory than in person.

“Listen to her!” Ward exclaimed after I asked him to leave for the third time that afternoon, his face a rictus of misery. “She’s going to be inconsolable if we keep this up.” Ava was howling to wake the dead, that was true, but it wasn’t going to get any better if he gave in.

“She’ll learn to control herself to keep you around,” I explained—also for the third time. “She has to learn to pay attention to more than just whether or not she’s hungry or happy or wants to play. She has to want to change, Ward, and that means a little bit of discomfort for a short period of time.”

“He’s right.” Thank God Tennyson was on my side. “Every child has a tough time when they first learn. Most of them have parents who can shift with them, to show them how it’s done. Ava can’t learn that from you, though, so the alpha is the logical choice as a surrogate.”

“But she doesn’t feel like she’s got to pay attention to me, because every time I come here, I come with you.”

Ward looked conflicted.

“I’m not going to keep you from seeing your kid,” I assured him. “But now that she’s well, we’ll spend more time working on her shift alone, while you’re at school. I want your presence to act as an enticement to making the change, not a detriment.”

“Okay.” Ward took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Five minutes.”

“Five minutes.”

He turned around and left the room, and Ava’s howling went up another octave.

I shifted from human to wolf in front of her, abrupt enough to distract her from her cries for a moment. I nudged her, and she growled and tried to bite me. I’d never met such a willful pup in my life. She was definitely her father’s daughter.

“She could be alpha material someday, she keeps this sort of independence up,” Tennyson commented from the corner, where he was watching us and taking notes. “Most pups fall in line fast when they’re confronted with authority, but she never has.”

The thought of Ava having to work to maintain a pack someday made me cold inside, too close to the way I’d been last night. I shifted back and tapped her on the nose when she tried to bite me.

“No,” I said firmly, and Ava sat back on her haunches in surprise and, possibly, a little curiosity. “A few temper tantrums don’t make her an alpha.”

“Not yet, no. But she shows promise.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“Henry….” The chiding in his voice wasn’t at all gentle. “You can’t protect her from everything. You can’t do that for any of us, no matter how hard you try. The pack should share the burdens of the alpha, if only to keep an eye on him or her.”

“Is that what your pack did?” I knew it was unkind to push him, but he surprised me by answering almost immediately.

“We tried, but not hard enough. You know I had a human mate, right?”

I nodded carefully.

Tennyson sighed. “Jonathan was a human born to weres, and he’d grown up with the pack. Moreover, he was a soldier. He served with our alpha on some of his missions, worked as backup on others. He was closer to our alpha than I’d ever been.” Tennyson’s eyes flashed amber for a moment. “But he was no match for him when the alpha finally lost his mind. He didn’t even mean to lash out… it was the Fourth of July, some of the kids decided to set off fireworks, and that triggered him. Jonathan was just standing there, drinking a beer. He didn’t even have time to get his hands up.”

I could imagine what had happened next. A werewolf on a rampage was always a frightening thing, but an alpha who’d lost control was something uniquely terrifying. Just as we carried the weight of the pack, their expectations and demands, so too were we bolstered by them. I didn’t know if it was biological, emotional, or metaphysical, but I became a noticeably better shifter after I took over as alpha, and my reflexes got sharper as well. It would take either a seriously well-armed individual or multiple people working together to take me down.

“How did you stop him?”

“The guardian stopped him, with five .45 magnum rounds into the middle of the chest, but not before Karl managed to bite him.” Tennyson looked away. “I stayed with him when the shift took him. He died screaming, caught somewhere in between.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. And I know how serious you are about the welfare of your pack, which is why I want you to know that I carry a Glock loaded with hollow-point bullets at all times.” He lifted his eyes to mine, and they were unhappy but completely serious.

I already knew he carried―I’d smelled the gun oil on the weapon―but it was friendly of him to come out and tell me openly. “Good. You can teach Ward how to use one.”

“If he wants to learn.”

I’d see to it that he did. It was a skill he should have—maybe he already had it, actually, if the stories he’d told me about his brother and friend last night were true. In fact… a name niggled at my brain, finally surfacing.

“T, have you ever met or heard of a guy with the name Davis? Human, but with military experience?” Ward hadn’t said anything about the man associating with werewolves, but given that he was a professor, it made sense for his connections to come through military means.

“First name or last name?”

“I don’t know.”

Tennyson pursed his lips as he thought. “Jonathan worked with a guy named Carlisle a few times, some hardass Marine out of California who spoke good enough Arabic that they used him as a translator several times. His first name was either David or Davis, but now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it was Davis. I remember Jonathan correcting me.”

“California? You’re sure?” That was Ward’s home state.

“Yeah. It’s been a few years, though. He did away missions for a while, but you know most of the people on the teams end up running support or working for the agencies that keep track of us.”

So he might still be working inside the Agency of Shifter Affairs. That would explain how Ward knew where to find us.

Speak of the devil, he opened the door and came back inside a moment later, and Ava promptly started howling again. “Has it been five minutes?”

“No,” Tennyson and I said together.

Eventually, I was able to hold Ava’s focus long enough that she made at least a token effort at imitating me, even if that meant just rising up on her hind paws when I stood up in my human form. Every time she did, I called Ward back into the room to reward her. It was a start, at least.

“I’ve got to help at school tomorrow, but I want to keep working with her on improving,” Ward fretted as Tennyson fed Ava dinner.

“You can come before class and on your breaks, like you did last week. She won’t backslide,” I reassured him. “I’ll work with her when you’re not here too. She’ll get it.”

“Soon she’ll manage a hand, or just her back legs, and then she’ll be walking around like an adorable little mutant nightmare,” Tennyson added.

“That’s… hideous.”

“That’s shifting. Tricky business when you’re first learning, and for some of us, it never gets really easy.” He shrugged. “It still takes me upwards of a minute to do a full shift, and I can’t isolate body parts very well unless I’m heavily adrenalized. Henry is the best at shifting I’ve ever seen. Even my former alpha took a good thirty seconds to go completely furry.”

“Right, you’ve got the record to beat.” Ward smiled at me. “Roman’s determined to do it.”

“I know.” And his father at least was determined for him to succeed, but as good as Roman was, he was still developing. My hold on my position was safe, for now. It needed to be. Of course, that might all change whenever Colonel Hill finally got back to me, but the last thing I needed now was to think about that. I needed… I needed….

With a start, I realized that right then, I didn’t feel like I needed anything other than what I had. I was with pack, I was doing something to help one of my people, and most importantly, I was with Ward. There was just something about being with him, something beyond the attraction of his appearance and the sound of his voice that left me feeling content. Happy, even. Happy with the potential for more.

I’d seen enough movies to know that a feeling of contentedness wasn’t exactly what was popular when it came to romance. Where was the burning passion, where was the desperate desire? It was different for me, though, at least right now. My work left me empty, burning so fast I burned right out, so desperate with the demands of necessity that nothing less than life or death could rouse my emotions. It felt like years since I’d had a consistent, positive emotional response to someone. Even Sam, for all I loved her, had been gone for much of that time. I’d wanted it that way, wanted her to finish her degree and meet someone and have as normal a life as she ever would. If it meant I dwelled in a darker place, then that was a price I’d happily pay. But now….

“Hey.” Ward’s hand was a brief touch on my elbow, there and gone, but my body held on to the sensation of it like it was all that kept my heart beating. I looked at him, the quirky smile on his face as he met my gaze, and felt like a window had been opened inside of me. “Ready to head home?”

Ready to head home and see you in my bed. Or better yet, his bed, where everything smelled so good. Needing to be near him was one thing, but the stab of want that hit me when I didn’t expect it was getting stronger and stronger.

“Yeah,” I said, and my voice came out a little rougher than I’d intended it to, but Ward didn’t seem to notice. Or—I breathed in deeply—maybe he did. “Let’s go home.”

Of course Ava chose just that moment to howl, breaking the tension as only a tiny pup with lungs the size of a blimp could.

Ward jumped a little, then redirected his attention at Ava. “Do you think she understands us?”

“Not the details, not at her age, but she probably gets that we’re not going to be here much longer.” She howled again, and I winced. “And clearly she doesn’t like it.”

“I’ll stay a little longer,” Tennyson promised me—or Ward, more like. “I’ll read to her until she falls asleep. She’ll be fine.”

“I know she will be.” Ward said it like it was nothing, but I knew that to Tennyson, it was actually a lot. His acceptance into the pack was going slowly, people grateful to have a medic but wary of a new member, especially one from a disbanded pack. And he had no mate now, either.

I moved in and pulled him into an embrace. He hadn’t been expecting it—contrary to what some people thought, werewolves didn’t have to scent before every interaction they had. Tennyson didn’t tense up, though. Instead he leaned into it like he was starved for touch, which might be close to true. I’d have to keep a close eye on him, make sure he got what he needed.

It was about time for me to do something for the whole pack―host them at the house after a hunt, perhaps. John had a hunting license and was usually willing to go along with us when we headed into the territory outside the fence to get a deer or an elk. On the off chance we ran into people, we could scatter while he explained what he was doing in the middle of the woods with an animal carcass.

Scenting was natural for me, but it meant nothing to Ward. It didn’t seem to matter, though—he accepted the reality of the pack’s touchy hellos and goodbyes and was the next one up to hug Tennyson, who looked a little overwhelmed from all the attention.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For all you’re doing for her.”

Tennyson didn’t speak, just nodded. He turned away before we left the room, but apart from a little discomfort, I got nothing but shy pleasure from him.

“Was that okay?” Ward asked as we headed back to the house, snow crunching under our boots.

“I think it was just what he needed,” I said. “Even if he didn’t know it.”

“Good. I want to….” He paused, then shrugged. “I want to get things right. I want to make a difference here, a positive one, not just for Ava and the kids.”

“You will. You are. For me, at least.”

“Well, that’s good. It certainly pays to stay on the alpha’s good side.” He winked at me, but the thought that that was all he was doing, even though I knew better, made me look away.

“Henry.”

“Ward.” We were almost to the house. I could smell the side of beef cooking in the roasting pan from here.

“It was a joke.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” he asked doubtfully. “Because—”

“Henry.” Sam opened the door abruptly, and from the look on her face, she wasn’t pleased. “Colonel Hill is on the phone for you.”

I felt my throat tighten involuntarily. Already? I hadn’t even been back for two full weeks, how could he send me out again? We’d just spoken, and he’d told me to be ready, but….

“He’s impatient.”

Threatening, in other words. “I’ll be right there.” My feet felt as heavy as ice, but I made them carry me up the stairs and into the living room, where I’d left my phone. I barely noticed Ward peel off into the kitchen with Sam as I stared at the call sign for a moment. I steeled myself and picked up. “This is Henry.”

“Major Dormer. Why weren’t you carrying your phone with you?”

“I was in the clinic running the pup through shifting exercises. I didn’t want it to fall out of my clothes as I changed forms.”

“Keep it with you at all times unless you’re fully shifted, Major.” His voice was implacable. “And those incidents better be few and far between.”

“Sir.” It was as close to assent as I was getting.

“I have a new assignment for you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Fuck. “Where and when?”

“Ukraine this time. I thought you’d appreciate the change of scenery.”

No sand, but more people to dodge. Undercover work against the Russians, undoubtedly. This wasn’t something I was well equipped for—I had decent Arabic and Pashto, but my Russian was nonexistent.

“Alonso isn’t available for this assignment?” He was a wolf I’d met in the field a few times, a fellow alpha, but with the sharpest sense of humor I’d ever encountered. His team had been devoted to him. “His mother was Russian, he speaks it fluently—”

“Are you questioning my authority to place my troops where they’re needed, Major?”

“No, sir. I’m simply questioning my ability to do my best work in an environment where I have little experience.”

“As this is a matter of national security, you’ll have to do your best work regardless. You’ll get a month of intensive language training before deployment, and local contacts will help you in case that isn’t enough.” His voice was calm, but all of my red flags were going up. Something was wrong, very wrong. There was stupid, and then there was suicidal. Relying on local contacts, in a place where I knew no one, where the bounty on werewolves was in the millions of dollars, and where we already had an alpha who was an expert in the field?

“Is Alonso injured?”

“Major Dormer, I’m not here to satisfy your curiosity. I’m here to give you orders. Your job is to obey them and nothing more. Do you understand me?”

I was tempted—sorely tempted—to invoke the pack sovereignty clause. It was a failsafe an alpha could use out of dire necessity, if their presence was required to keep their pack from falling apart. It would inevitably bring a very invasive investigation with it, though.

“Yes sir, but—”

“You leave for training in one week. Prepare your pack for an extended absence.” He ended the call, and I just stared at my phone. One more week. Not even close to the amount of time I was supposed to be given to be with my pack, to be with Ava, to get her to shift so that she and Ward could stay here. I didn’t know if I could get her to shift in a week. If I couldn’t, if it didn’t work… I needed a backup plan for them. I needed a way to deal with John, a way to get them out of the reserve without bringing the hammer down on the rest of my pack.

I’d need to talk to Roman, and his parents, before I left. I didn’t want him to become alpha. It wasn’t the future he had envisioned for himself, not the ideal that Gerald had built it into. If I died on my mission, though, I was certain that Sam wouldn’t be legally accepted as pack alpha. Not unless she was explicitly acting as a placeholder until Roman had a chance to go to school—

“Henry?”

I forced myself to look at Sam, who stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. She smelled like fear. Liam was a little behind her, disturbed by the disruption in his wife’s scent, and Ward was between them. Our eyes locked, and I swallowed hard.

“I’m being redeployed.”

“No,” Sam said immediately. “No, you can’t! You can’t be redeployed. It hasn’t been long enough! This goes against all the guidelines—”

“He’s invoking the national security clause. The normal guidelines don’t apply.” Not that Colonel Hill had ever paid much attention to them anyway.

“It hasn’t been a month, though. It’s too early,” Ward said, picking up on the part I knew would stand out to him. “What about Ava?”

“I’ll work something out for her. For both of you.” I forced a smile. No one smiled back. “I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“In case you’re killed.” Sam’s voice was full of barely restrained fury. “Hill’s going to get you killed.”

“Especially if you’re sent to Ukraine,” Liam added.

“Ukraine, that’s ridiculous!” She looked between me and Liam like one of us was lying. “You’ve never even been there before—how will you operate there with any sort of secrecy?”

“I assume I’ll be in my wolf form most of the time.”

“For how long? For weeks, or months? Henry, that’s so dangerous.”

“I know.” I did―I knew it better than most. The greatest risk for being stuck in wolf form came as children, but it could happen to adults if they were confined to one form for a long enough period of time. I’d seen the aftereffects during a rescue mission, one of my very first as alpha. Another werewolf had been caught and bound in her form with a shock collar that knocked her unconscious every time she tried to shift. She’d been steadily abused on top of that, her captors taking her blood and saliva and pushing her powers of renewal hard. By the time we actually got the collar off, she was so psychologically damaged that she’d been unable to shift back.

Maybe if we’d given her more time, maybe if she’d gotten treatment, the ability would have returned to her. But we’d been on enemy soil, and our orders had been clear: retrieve if possible, eliminate if necessary. My commanding officer had opted to eliminate her. The worst part was, she’d smelled grateful.

“Henry.” Sam’s eyes were full of tears. There was no gratitude in this scent, just anger and frustration and deep, profound fear, the kind of fear that left you desiccated instead of sweaty, like your body just couldn’t handle it and shut down. I extended my arms to her, and she ran forward and grabbed me so hard around the middle that I actually felt my ribs bend.

“I know,” I said again. “I’m sorry.” I kissed the top of her head and kept her close, let her tears soak into my shirt as she cried out her fury. I hated that I had to do this. I hated that I had to go, but I’d never pass that responsibility off to someone else. If it was bad for me, how much worse would it be for someone like Roman, still just a kid? Or Gerald, if he was bold enough, who I didn’t think would survive even the training required of an operative, never mind the actual missions. Liam was right out, too sensitive to do what had to be done sometimes. Maybe Tennyson—

It didn’t matter. I was still alive, for now. I’d do everything I could to stay that way. I kissed Sam’s head again. “Come on. Dinner smells ready—we should eat.”

“Mmhmm,” Sam murmured but didn’t move away. Liam and Ward had vanished into the kitchen, though, and I could hear Liam dishing out the roast while Ward set the table.

“I hate this,” Sam said after a moment, finally pulling back. The rage she felt hadn’t receded at all, but it thankfully wasn’t directed at me either. “I hate that they can do this.”

“Me too.”

“They won’t be able to forever.” It sounded like a vow. I appreciated the thought, at least.

“Let’s eat.”

Dinner was a fast and silent affair. I barely tasted the food, and when I went to get started on the dishes, Sam waved me off. “Let me,” she said, trying to smile a bit. “I need to burn off some energy.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“I’ll set up a hunt for us before I leave,” I told her, wanting to make it clear that I wasn’t going to shirk my responsibilities just because I was about to be deployed again. “I’ll go talk to John in the next few days. We can have it the day of the full moon.”

“I’m sure the pack will appreciate it.” Her tone made it clear that she was done talking for tonight, at least to me, and I was tired enough to let it lie. I headed for the stairs. After a moment, Ward joined me.

I could have headed down the hall to my own waiting, silent room, but instead I paused outside Ward’s door.

He looked straight at me. “Stay,” he said, and I was grateful that he made the offer instead of waiting for me to ask. I was having trouble asking for what I wanted these days.

“I can’t promise anything.” Earlier I’d been filled with desire, wanting nothing more than to see Ward splayed out beneath me in bed, his pale chest heaving as I sucked my mark into the skin over his heart. Now, though….

“I don’t need any promises.” Ward sounded firm. “I don’t care if all you want to do is steal my covers and curl up into a ball. I’d like your company regardless.”

“I don’t steal covers,” I muttered.

“Oh, you so do.” He pushed past me into the room and went straight for the radiator, turning it up higher. “You’re a cover thief, which I don’t get because you run, like, ten degrees hotter than me, but it’s true. It’s a good thing you’re so warm, or I’d have spent last night freezing my ass off—literally.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“Oh no? Wait until we wake up tomorrow morning and you’re so wrapped up in blankets that you can barely move. You’ll see.” He pulled down the comforter, then looked at me. “Bathroom first or cuddling in bed?”

“I don’t get you,” I told him honestly. “I don’t understand how you manage to stay so calm when everything around you is so fucked up. I know I haven’t helped with that very much, and I’m sorry, but Ward… honestly, how do you do it?”

He shrugged. “What’s my alternative? Freaking out? I’ve used up my share of freaking out for the next, oh, probably ten years. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I can’t muster the energy to get all excited about it. Give me some time,” he added. “I’m sure when Ava starts dating, I’ll find some hidden reserves.”

I loved that he thought about that, about the future, about his daughter. His optimism was catching. “Cuddling,” I said. He didn’t even miss a beat.

“Okay.” He went over to the bed and got onto it, still fully dressed. “C’mere.”

I obeyed, like he was the alpha instead of me, and lay down next to him. When he drew my head onto his chest, I didn’t fight it. I pressed my ear to his rib cage and listened to the sound of his heart, steady and reliable despite the underlying labor of his lungs.

It was all the lullaby I needed.

Chapter Seventeen

Ward

SAM WAS hiding something.

I was honestly surprised I noticed the change in the middle of everything else going on with the pack right now. I hadn’t been here long, and so much of my time was spent with Ava and in school with the other kids that I didn’t have much of a breadth of understanding when it came to the other werewolves of La Garita. I couldn’t tell if it was normal or not for the parents to start showing up at school, having hushed conversations with Sam as they dropped their children off. Maybe we were coming up on tests. Maybe they wanted to arrange for tutoring or something like that. Not that any of the pups needed it, even Roman. Like Tennyson said, his calculus skills were excellent. He didn’t need my help, but he still sought it out, carefully taking notes on every explanation or shortcut I offered up.

I also couldn’t tell if it was normal or not to start having various members of the pack over for dinner every night. Henry was careful to spend some one-on-one time with each of them. Twenty-six members total, minus Henry, Sam, Liam, me, and Ava—twenty-one were left, and six of those were kids. It didn’t take many dinners to have some quality time with all of them, even Gerald and Peggy. Gerald had seemed antsy, but Peggy had been perfectly composed for the meal, and Roman had helped with the dishes.

I could tell that something was off with Sam, though. I’d worked with her long enough to learn a few of her tells, and after three days of watching her skulk and dodge and generally only keep up appearances for the kids, I was ready to start asking questions. I didn’t start easy, either.

“If this were my old campus, I’d be reporting you to the cops for suspicious activity,” I informed her after the kids had left for the day. I was supposed to go meet Henry to work with Ava, but that would keep long enough for me to have a heart-to-heart with Sam. Besides, as Henry and Tennyson kept telling me, I was something for Ava to look forward to. It didn’t hurt for me to be a little late.

“What?” She looked up from her phone. “What are you talking about?”

“The messages you keep checking even in the middle of class, the way your mind is wandering, how you haven’t managed to spend more than five minutes alone with your brother since he got his orders. Which isn’t his fault, by the way,” I added, “so it’s pretty fucking lame of you to avoid him for it.” He hadn’t said as much, but I knew it bothered him. He wasn’t going to push his sister right then, though, so it was time I did it for him.

“Oh Ward, I’m not ignoring him—”

“You’ve totally got both of us fooled, then.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with him. It’s that I don’t want him to leave at all,” Sam insisted. “I’m working on something that might make it possible for him to stay!”

That was… I moved closer. “What?”

She shook her head. “It’s still in the works, and it’s not a sure thing. And you know Henry—if he thought I was doing something dangerous, he’d tell me to stop whether or not it would help him.”

“Because he’s a selfless idiot.”

“That, and because he’s the alpha. And my brother. So I have to take this chance, but if I spend more than a few minutes together with him, he’ll know something is up. I’m shit at lying to him.” She ran a hand through her hair, looking frazzled. “So I hurt him by avoiding him instead, but I promise, if this works, I’ll make it up to him. I’ll explain everything.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then there’ll be hell to pay if my brother dies over there,” she said, every bit as fierce as any werewolf I’d ever met. I looked at her, did what I could to gauge her sincerity, and made up my mind.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sam collapsed a little with relief. “Not right now. Just distract Henry as best you can. I’m—well.” She took a deep breath. “I’m working with some contacts on something big. If it comes off, then we might be able to do a lot of good, and not just for Henry. For every alpha and every pack.”

“We?” Wait, no, that wasn’t the part that stood out most to me in that little reveal. “Contacts? How are you contacting anyone, when our communications are all being monitored?”

“There’s a bit of a trick to that.” She grinned at me. “We’ve actually got you to thank for it.”

I gaped at her. “Why? What did I do?”

“It’s not what you did, it’s what you brought.” She leaned in close. “Your car had its own mobile hotspot. One that the guardian and the government don’t know we have access to. It’s not foolproof, especially since Colonel Hill knows you’re here, but Liam hasn’t caught any red flags yet.”

“Liam is helping you on this?”

“Of course.” She sounded surprised. “He’s a hacker. This is child’s play for him.”

“You married a hacker? Are you serious?”

Sam shrugged. “Well, professionally he worked for an IT company developing ways to keep people from hacking into systems, but he’s always been a bit of a white hatter. It’s been a little maddening for him, living here with such limited access to computers.”

“I can imagine.”

“But we’ll make that better too.” She said it more to herself than to me, I thought, like a mantra. “We’ll make it better. And you should get to your appointment with Ava,” she reminded me. “Don’t tell Henry anything, okay?”

“I hope you’re not overestimating my abilities,” I warned her.

“I know I’m not.”

Nice that one of us knew that. I’d obviously underestimated her abilities, though. I wondered what exactly she was doing and whether it was better for me to have plausible deniability even though they were using my car to do their hacking or whatever it was. On the other hand, if Henry was gone and Sam was booted from the pack, that would leave—what, Gerald as alpha, acting as a stand-in until Roman grew up? Or would they go straight to the young, impressionable kid and try to turn him into a coldhearted killer? They’d have to start a lot earlier if that sort of thing was going to work on someone like Roman.

Maybe with a very young child. Even one as young as Ava. I already knew that gender was no barrier to being an alpha, nor would it prevent her from being sent into the field. I shivered. Time to go hang out with my kid.

I was happy to see Ava when I finally walked through the last door leading to the safe room in the clinic, but apparently my pleasure had nothing on how excited she was to see me. Henry was in the room with her, but she left him immediately, bolted over to the window, and put her hands up on the glass—

Put her. Hands. Her hands, oh my God—

“Ava!” I fell to my knees and pressed my hands up right across from hers, covering them. Holy shit, her tiny little pink hands, they were right there, they were… attached to her furry forelegs, not arms, but I didn’t give a fuck. It was her first sign of change yet.

“Oh, thank God,” Henry murmured from where he was crouched, his shoulders slumping with relief. “She’s started.” Even as I watched, though, Ava’s pale, stubby fingers slowly began to retract, becoming dark and hairy. Ten seconds later her paws were back, and she threw back her head and howled her displeasure to everyone within earshot.

“It’s okay, baby,” I reassured her. “You did it! You did it once, so you can do it again. Soon you’ll be able to shift all the way.” I’d be able to hold her again, kiss her cheek, cradle her against my chest….

“Ward, breathe.”

“I—am—breathing.” Except my inhalations were getting shallow and tight, like I was having an asthma attack. Or a panic attack.

“Ward!” I heard Henry open and shut the door to the cage, felt him settle in next to me, but I couldn’t see him at this point. My vision was going dark with stars, and I fumbled for my inhaler even as I knew that I was probably going to black out with this one. I hadn’t had a panic attack in months. I wasn’t… I wasn’t….

“Ward.” I felt a heavy hand rest against my chest, solid and grounding. “Not the inhaler—it’ll just make your heart race faster. Breathe in with me. One… two… three.” I stuttered, little fluttering breaths at least triple the rate he was trying for, but it helped. “One… two… three. And exhale. One… two… three… exhale.” Ten more cycles and I was able to approximate his breaths. Another ten after that and I was actually starting to feel calm.

“For fuck’s sake,” I said with a cough as soon as I could speak again. “I can’t believe I had a panic attack out of happiness.” I chuckled hoarsely. “Worst timing ever. Now she probably won’t want to change at all, in case it sends my lungs into a stupid convulsion again.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” Henry promised me. His voice was a low rumble, almost a purr, right in front of me. I knew if I opened my eyes he’d be there, so close to me it would take nothing to touch him with more than my chest. He was so warm; I felt his heat like a blanket.

He was looking right at me—I knew it. I could feel his eyes on me, even though I wasn’t looking back. I could keep my own eyes closed and let this moment pass us by, let it fade and go back to the odd, only slightly uncomfortable détente we’d been maintaining since Wilson. I could ignore this and make my life easier.

I opened my eyes. Henry was right there, gaze as blue and clear as a Colorado sky, his lips curved in a slight, secret smile. “Look behind you,” he whispered. I craned my head around until I could catch sight of Ava—

—who was right there, with her beautiful hands pressed to the glass again and her eyes—oh my God, her velvet brown eyes, not the pale amber of her wolf but her human eyes—staring up at me. The changes faded again, but this time when I laughed, I was able to keep my breath. I turned back and didn’t let myself think about it, just leaned forward and sank into Henry’s arms, pushing my face against his neck.

“She’s going to be okay.”

“She is.” He put his knees down on the outsides of mine, almost like I was holding him on my lap instead of the support going the other way around, but he didn’t put any weight on me. He just held me close and ran his broad, strong hands up and down my back. “And so are you.”

“Yeah.” I wanted to say the same, but I knew Henry’s future was damnably uncertain. There was no telling where he’d be in a week; the language training would probably take place stateside, but once he got over to the Ukraine, I bet we wouldn’t get the chance to communicate much. It made sense, then, to tell him what I was thinking now. Only my tongue was tied, my face still flushed from my panic attack and buried against the warm, soft skin at the base of his throat. So, fine, I couldn’t quite bring myself to be articulate. I could still get my point across. I pressed an openmouthed kiss to the top of Henry’s chest and then waited for him to tell me to stop.

“Ward.” That wasn’t an angry or offended kind of growl, more… guttural. It wasn’t that Henry hadn’t already expressed an interest, but things could change, especially with people wanting me. I chanced glancing up at him. His eyes were still blue, but they were unerringly fixed on me. “Be sure.”

“Sure of what? That I want to kiss you?” I kissed him again, right against the Adam’s apple and enjoyed the way it hummed beneath my lips. “I am. Sure that I want to do more with you?” I kissed the corner of his jaw. “I am. Sure that you’ll listen to me if that changes?” I pulled back and met his gaze. “I totally am.”

That was it for talking, Henry taking my yes and running with it—hell, sprinting with it, from cautious kisses to a heavy make-out session in the blink of an eye. His mouth slanted over mine, hungry, even though there was no tongue, no teeth. Kissing was probably safer that way, and I wasn’t missing anything about frenching as he left my mouth for my neck, nuzzling into the space just beneath my jaw before sucking a bruise into my skin.

“Oh fuck,” I moaned, then remembered where we were. “Fuck, wait, we have to stop.”

Henry pulled back immediately, his eyes gone dark and his expression a little grim. “What is it?”

“We’re just—Ava’s right here.”

“Oh.” He looked surprised. “Right, sorry. Let’s head back to the house.” He stood up and pulled me with him like I weighed nothing. Well, comparatively speaking, that wasn’t too far from the mark. Still….

“I don’t want to leave her alone,” I fretted, even though my body was very loudly yelling go go go!

“Tennyson is due back any minute. In fact, he’s probably waiting somewhere we can’t see him to save us from embarrassment.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. “Okay. Just—hang on.” I turned to look at Ava, who now had her paws up against the glass again and was giving me the most pitiful puppy eyes ever.

“Baby, I’m so proud of you,” I said. “You’re amazing. Soon you’ll change back all the way, and then I’ll hold you so tight your feet might never hit the ground again.”

She sniffled. I sniffled. Shit, I was such a softie. “I have to go now, Ava, but I’ll be back tomorrow, okay? Early. We can have breakfast together.” Predictably, this got a howl, and I had to force myself to my feet and away from the glass. “Okay, we have to go now.”

Henry put an arm around my shoulders and looked at my daughter. “I’ll take care of him,” he said, and that at least got Ava’s howl down to a few disconsolate whimpers. We left, and we made it all the way back to Henry’s house in complete silence. It was empty inside—of course, since Sam and Liam were probably off doing their totally illegal hacking project, and from the smell of things, dinner was in the slow cooker.

“Are you hungry? We could—”

“Take me upstairs.”

Henry looked a little taken aback. What, like me being cockblocked by my kid was enough to dampen my libido at this point? After literally sleeping together for days, but just sleeping? I was hungry, all right.

“I’m serious,” I said, bending over to yank out the knots in my bootlaces. I left the shoes at the door, along with my heavy jacket. “I want to be upstairs in bed with you in a minute or less. Can you smell how honest I’m being? Can you hear it in my damn heartbe—whoa!” Apparently he did hear it, because he moved in and picked me up before I could take another breath. He carried me up the stairs, opened the door to our room, and only set me down on the bed so he could go and turn the radiator all the way up like I preferred. Then he was at the foot of the bed, staring at me like I was a tasty deer and he was just the wolf to bring me down.

“Why are you giggling?”

“I’ve been watching too much Animal Planet,” I said around a snicker as I lay back and opened my arms. “Oh my God, come shut me up.”

He did, following me down onto the bed and covering my body with his. I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him again and again, quivered when I felt his hand slip beneath my sweater and groaned when his thigh pressed between my legs. I got hard so fast, my body remembering that it hadn’t done this much lately and, wow, it really liked it. Apparently his did too, if the enormous bulge pressing against my hip was any indication.

“Jesus Christ,” I swore as Henry went back to my neck, rubbing his face up and down and leaving my sensitive skin red from the rub of his stubble. “Fuck, how am I going to go out in public tomorrow?”

“Marked up like you’re mine,” Henry said, so full of smug satisfaction that I had to whap the back of his head with my palm. He just laughed. “That’s a good thing.”

“It could be better.”

“I agree.” He slid a hand down to my pants, opened them just enough to get at my boxers, and tore the front of them in half.

“Holy shit.” I would have complained—it’s not like I had a lot of spare boxers—except for it being ridiculously hot. I forgot about Henry’s strength, sometimes. He was so careful about using it around me, but right then I felt like I’d be just as happy if he wanted to rip all the rest of my clothes off too. Then he had his hand around me, his palm even hotter than my dick, and I bit my lips and arched my neck in an effort to keep my groans down.

“Don’t be quiet.” He stroked me once, carefully, then with a firmer grip when I pressed up into his hand. “I want to hear.”

“Well, I don’t… want everyone else… to hear,” I said around little gasps.

“No one else is in the house. There’s no one to hear you but me. Give it to me,” Henry said—demanded, commanded, I couldn’t even make sense of it, but I did what he wanted, let loose on his next stroke, and he grinned. “Just like that.” His fingers slid down to press against my balls, and the next noise I made wasn’t a groan. “Even better.”

“Fuck you, you’re too….” Dressed? Coherent? “Too much.” I remembered I had hands and ran them through his hair, down the back of his neck, and over his shoulders. Henry growled with pleasure, and the next time he looked up, his eyes were gold.

He must have heard my heart rate increase from fast to ohmyfuckinggod, because he immediately put some distance between us, moving out of my grip. “Is this too much?”

For fuck’s sake. “I would tell you if it was! Don’t try to interpret what I’m feeling without asking me what I’m feeling! I was stupidly turned on, as a matter of fact, before you moved out of reach and stopped touching me.” I made grabby-hands at him, and he came back, faster than he left, like he couldn’t bear to be out of range any more than I could.

He touched me, and I touched back, and somehow we managed to get rid of my clothes and most of his—his boots were a problem, before he just shifted his feet and kicked off the ruined leather—until there was nothing in my entire life except the bed beneath me and this man above me. Man, werewolf, idiot alpha—it didn’t matter, because he was there, and he was with me, and if he kept grinding his fucking dick against mine like that, I would be coming in under a minute. I whined and pushed at his shoulders.

“Slow down, or this’ll be over too fast.”

Henry ran one of his hands down my flank to my hip and pulled me tighter against him. I squeezed my eyes shut as I shuddered. “You can’t come twice in one night?”

“I haven’t since I was nineteen.” Youthful stamina could only combat chronic illness for so long, and for a long time, I hadn’t been as well as I was now. I wanted to say yes, wanted to go for it, but I just wasn’t sure, even with a partner who got to me as much as Henry did.

“Hmm.” Henry didn’t seem put out. He pulled back and grinned at me. “Then I’ll have to see what I can do to prolong this. Hang on, I need a condom.”

“Whoa, that’s….” He’d already pulled away and left the room, leaving me hard and a little apprehensive. A condom? Well, that was fast. Not that I didn’t like penetration but it had been years, literally, since I’d fucked or been fucked by a man, and the prospect was a little intimidating.

Henry came back, took one look at my face, and chuckled. “It’s not what you’re thinking. Don’t you remember any of Tennyson’s health lecture?” He settled on his knees at the end of the bed and opened the condom. He ran a hand up the inside of my thigh, fingers tracing a hot path right to my cock. He gripped me tight around the base, then slid the condom onto me before I could do more than groan.

“What—oh, fuck, you son of a….” My voice drifted off as he leaned in to hover over my hips. He pulled my balls into one hand, down and away from my body, holding off any chance of orgasm, just the kind of denial I loved. I hadn’t had someone cotton on to one of my major kinks so quickly in—ever, actually. And then it got better, and worse, because he licked a stripe up my cock until he got to the tip, swirled his tongue around the head, then slipped his lips over me and swallowed me down.

I didn’t know what kind of sound I was making. Loud. Loud was the only thing I could come up with, but even my noises couldn’t distract me from Henry’s slick, overheated mouth. His tongue was ridiculous, amazing, longer than it seemed like it should be but perfect against my cock. He took me in and sucked so hard I thought I might black out before I could come, but I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t. Not when I loved this so much, and not when he loved doing this for me. It was clear in every movement, every little sigh and moan he made, the way his hand held me fast but not so hard that it ever hurt.

I was writhing now, caught on the edge of pleasure and ready to jump right over into pain if I didn’t come soon. “Henry, please… I need to… I need….”

He pulled off and nuzzled my hip. “I know.” He let go of my balls and stroked me hard, once, twice—and I came. I came harder than I could ever remember before, the kind of orgasm that made it feel like your organs were bruising, you were clenching them so hard. I came, and I barely had a chance to settle down from that when Henry was on me again, pulling off the condom and rubbing his dick against mine. I gasped, too sensitive for this but too desperate to care. He thrust against me, and I wrapped my arms under his and pulled him in as tight as I could.

“Yes,” I said. I barely knew what I was saying yes to, but I wanted it. “Yes, do it, come on, Henry….”

“Ward.” It was a murmur, not a shout, but I felt it like a shock to the heart. He came, grinding against me brutally, and I took it and took him and held on until my arms were numb and he was spent.

I didn’t want him to move, but letting him stay on top of me was going to end with shortness of breath and a coughing fit if I wasn’t careful. That was the last thing I needed after my ridiculous panic attack. Henry moved right before I was going to suggest it, though, sliding off to the side and pulling me in close again. We were sticky messes, and I didn’t see the discarded condom but it had to be around here somewhere. Getting up and taking a shower would be smart. You couldn’t have moved me with a crowbar, though. The silence was easy, but I was never much for keeping my mouth shut.

“Well,” I said at last. “That fucking rocked.”

“Mmm.” I felt his lips curve into a smile against my temple. “I like to think so.”

“It was kind of one-sided, though.”

“Yeah, I agree.” He went on before I could get annoyed, or worse, shamed. “You didn’t make me work for it nearly enough. Next time needs to take twice as long. If my jaw isn’t aching, I feel like I haven’t done enough.”

I pulled back a little to look at him. “Are you a closet masochist?”

He shrugged. “Not really. I don’t care for pain in bed. I get plenty of that at work. But I want to feel like I’ve taken good care of you.”

“You have,” I assured him. “A-plus, would ride again.”

A smile spread across Henry’s face. “Do you like that?”

“Like what?”

“Riding,” he hissed in my ear, and oh, shit. If I could have gotten hard again, I would have just from the sound of his voice.

“I, ah—I guess so? I barely remember. It’s been….” It was a little embarrassing that I had to calculate the last time I had sex with someone. “A year since I’ve been on a date, and I haven’t gone to bed with anyone since before Ava was born. My last guy before that was… God, in my midtwenties? And he didn’t like penetrative sex, so I didn’t get any riding in.”

“When’s the last time you did?”

This was the sort of conversational topic that could have easily segued into a hypermasculine, competitive bullshit fest, as far from pillow talk as possible. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But with Henry it felt more like an honest question, not a bid to outdo me or outshine the last person I’d taken to bed. Not that he hadn’t wildly succeeded.

“Probably back in grad school. I had a boyfriend then that was pretty adventurous. In, out, up, down, on a swing in the park… if we could possibly fit on it or wedge ourselves into the right position or hold on for long enough, he wanted to fuck there.”

“Sounds a little hazardous.”

“Yeah, it was. We were almost caught a few times. I had to run naked through a park in the middle of January to get away from some cops, which—yes, it’s California, but it still gets cold there at night, you know?”

“Mmhmm.” He settled in a little deeper. “What else did you get up to?”

“Oh, well… I took yoga with him for five months so we could get around to the second half of the Kama Sutra, but after grad school he headed for New York and I stayed where I was.” At the time I’d felt massively hurt that he hadn’t wanted to stay with me, but now I knew it had been for the best. “What about you? When was your last….” What do I want to call this? A liaison? A tryst? “Encounter?” Ugh, that sounded sterile.

“Also in college, but undergraduate. He was an artist, a metalworker. We shared studio space.” Henry smiled again. “He had the strongest hands I’ve ever felt on a human. I bruised when he held me tight enough, and the marks stayed with me for a while. I liked it.”

“Definitely a hint of masochism in you,” I murmured.

“Maybe back then.”

Not now, was the overwhelming subtext. Don’t ask me, don’t ask for it, because I would. Somehow I knew he would, even if he didn’t want to, for me. Just for me. It was in the way he held me, the way he turned to me. Henry was the alpha of La Garita pack, but he would bend for the people he cared about. For Sam. For me.

It was a hell of a responsibility. At least this part of my response could be easy.

“Don’t worry,” I told him, aiming for cheeky. “I doubt I’ve got enough strength to bruise you even if I wanted to.”

“Right.” Henry relaxed, and I felt a tiny swell of victory. “With you I’ve got to be on the lookout for chairs to the head, I know.”

“Tennyson deserved it.”

“Not saying he didn’t.”

“He scared the ever-living shit out of me.”

“I’m sure he’d agree.”

“Are you placating me?” I gave Henry my fiercest glare. “Because I don’t need to be placated, not when I’m right. And I’m so right, I’m righteous.”

“Mm, yeah. Of course.” He kissed me again, then reluctantly pulled away from me. I shivered, and not just because I’d lost my living space heater. “Let’s shower so Sam and Liam can stop hiding in their bedroom.”

I stopped in the middle of reaching for my sock, horrified. “You’re kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“They were listening to us?”

“Not for more than a few seconds,” Henry said. Like that was supposed to soothe. “I thought you had an exhibitionist streak.”

“Not with your sister, I don’t. Or my kid, holy shit, what are we going to do when Ava comes to live here?”

Henry smiled wider than I thought the question merited. “Soundproof her room and hope for the best, I guess. Now come on.” He took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Shower, clothes, dinner.”

Shower, clothes, dinner. I could do that.

Chapter Eighteen

Henry

I CALLED John up for a meeting exactly three days before I was going to leave. The timing was tight for setting up a hunt, but I hadn’t wanted to leave without being sure that Ava was mastering her shift. Even without me around, if she had Tennyson to work with and her father to strive for, she’d make it, and the two of them would be safe. It put me in a pretty Zen place, to be honest. I wasn’t going anywhere good, but at least I was leaving behind a better, more whole pack than I’d come back to.

At least I thought that until I met with John.

“Come in, Alpha,” he said when I got up onto his porch. I couldn’t hear any other heartbeats in the house, which meant he’d sent the kids out together. That was rare enough to raise my eyebrows while I took off my snow-covered boots.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Out.” John sounded grim. “I thought this was a conversation better kept between the two of us.”

“I thought we were talking about setting up a hunt.”

“We’ll do that too, but this needs to be said.” He sat down at his dining room table, a big, heavy oak oval that I knew for a fact had been a gift from the pack when he first took on the role of guardian. It was scarred and scuffed in places by now, a lot like its owner. I sat down across from him and looked him in the eyes.

“What’s going on, John?”

“I found an application for the University of Colorado in Genna’s room.”

The observation seemed completely random to me. “What about it?”

“Well, it was out of place, especially considering that she’s been accepted to half a dozen schools already. All of them are out of state, though.”

“So she wants to be closer to home.” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t think that would bother you.”

“It wouldn’t,” John replied, “if she hadn’t already told me, plenty of times, that she couldn’t wait to get out of here. She blames me for her mother leaving, for putting so many of the family responsibilities on her. Which I understand. I encouraged her to shoot for the stars, to use every advantage my work gives us to get into some of the best universities in the country. Stanford. Yale. Berkeley. She was accepted to them all. Harvard only turned her down because she got a B in Calculus. It’s the only class that wasn’t an easy A for her.”

I was starting to get a bad feeling. John kept going. “I decided to do a little digging into the pack’s internet log. I thought maybe Sam had met with Genna, talked her into applying somewhere different.”

“Pretty invasive of you.”

“It’s my right and my responsibility, as your guardian, to be aware of the actions of your pack and to use any means at my disposal to do so,” John retorted. “You want me to cite chapter and verse here? Because I can. As it is, I’m on the hook for deliberate destruction of government property. The only reason I’m not assigning any blame for this to you is because you’ve been gone for so long.”

I was getting lost. “What was destroyed? What does that have to do with Genna?”

“Well, it turns out that someone in the pack has been looking into CU, but it isn’t Sam.” The thin, unhappy blade of his mouth answered my unspoken question.

“Roman.”

“Yep. I put a camera with a motion detector outside my house two days ago—a small one, it broadcasts directly to my computer. I caught a couple of deer with it, one big ol’ moose. And one wolf, carrying a backpack in its mouth.”

Oh shit. “Roman came here?”

John nodded. “Last night, around eleven. He shifted back under her window, got clothes out of the pack and got dressed. He vanishes at that point. I assume he climbed the house and she let him into her room.”

“How does he get out of our—” The camera issue John had mentioned when I first got back popped up in my mind, taunting me with its obviousness now. “He disables a camera and uses the blind spot to get out.”

“So I assume.”

Well, that wasn’t good. On the other hand, there were far worse things that could be happening to the pack than Roman sneaking out every now and then to visit his secret girlfriend. Jesus, I hoped they were using protection.

“Have you talked to her about this?”

“Not yet, but I will be when she and the boys get back. I’ll do my best to keep them apart, but you—”

Wait wait wait. “Why do you want to keep them apart? Getting them to come clean, I understand that. But keeping them separate? That seems excessive.”

John shook his head. “Genna’s future won’t include having to deal with werewolves. She’s smart. She could do anything with her life. The last thing I want is for her to be shackled to a tiny stretch of isolated land in the middle of the goddamn mountains.”

“It’s not like they’re getting married,” I reminded him. “They’re teenagers, they’re… dating would be too strong a word for it. Feeling things out, maybe.”

“Maybe literally,” John snapped. “Five months ago Genna couldn’t wait to leave, and now she’s thinking of staying close, just for a boy? And a werewolf boy? No. She’s got a crush—it’s as simple as that—and I’m not going to let her waste her life on someone who might not even live to see twenty.”

What. The. Fuck? “You want to explain what you mean by that?” I growled.

“I monitor your communications, remember? I know you’re leaving, Henry, and I know the odds aren’t good that you’re coming back.” John’s eyes were pained, but his voice was firm. “I know that boy is next in line to be alpha at this point, and I also know that he’s not ready for it. This pack is heading for a rough time, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my daughter get tangled up in something that’s just going to break her heart.”

I was dumbfounded. Literally so taken aback I couldn’t respond to John for a moment. As soon as he dropped his eyes, I found my voice. “You’re… counting on my death? You’ve got Roman set up as the next alpha already?”

“I’m just reading between the lines. And I know I’m not the only one doing it, so don’t look so betrayed, son. I’m sorry for it—I am, but—”

“You’re sorry? Are you really?” I leaned forward and placed my palms flat on the table. “Think about this, guardian. The oversight of our pack is your responsibility, and it has been for almost two decades. You used to care. You used to go to bat for us, to fight to get us more supplies, better equipment, more liberty. But you stopped giving a damn about what happened to any of us when Clara left, and I think maybe now you’re just counting down the days until we’re disbanded and you can move on with your life. That’s not going to happen, though.” He looked up at me, and I let my eyes shift gold. There was the faintest hint in the air, barely detectible, of fear. Whether it was fear of me or fear of his fate, though, I didn’t know.

“I’m not going to die out there, and I’m not going to hand over leadership of my pack. I’ll be back, and here, again and again. You’re never getting rid of us, John. Whether Genna does or doesn’t go is going to be up to her in the end, but no matter what you wish would happen, you’re stuck with me. So wrap your mind around that.” I sat back and let the wolf settle down again. “I want a hunt tomorrow, before I leave.”

John’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. “Not much notice.”

“You have an elk permit. We’re using it.”

“It’s not in season.”

“It doesn’t matter. No one will see us, and if there’s trouble, then you’ll talk us out of it. Do your job, guardian.” I pushed back from the table and headed for the door. Before I could leave, though, John spoke up again.

“That boy comes back here without my permission, I’ll shoot him. No questions asked, no stopping to reason with him. You understand? Do your job, Alpha, and keep your wolves under control.”

I left without another word.

The hell of it was, though, John wasn’t wrong. Roman was breaking federal law by sneaking out of the reserve, and John would be within his rights to handle things his way if he caught Roman in his house, just like anyone in Colorado could shoot a home invader. Roman would heal from being shot far faster than a human, but it wasn’t a painless process, and the complications that could arise were sometimes horrific, especially if he lost control and shifted. Or John might get lucky—or vindictive—and kill him with the first shot, right between the eyes.

I had to speak to Roman.

I got my chance after school let out, before he was due to meet with Ward and Ava at the clinic. I saw the boy leave the classroom and start heading home, and called out, “Roman.”

Roman almost jumped out of his skin. “Alpha!” He was surprised but didn’t smell nervous. And why should he? He was being so clever. I felt unreasonably angry at the kid and fought the emotion back. It wouldn’t do to lose my temper.

“We need to talk,” I said. There, there was the tendril of nervousness. The last of the kids filed out of the school, and I marched inside, Roman trailing behind me uncertainly. Sam was there, straightening the carpet in front of the couch, and Ward was boxing up what looked like the remains of an experiment.

“Henry!” Sam called out. “How did things go with John?” The smell of nervousness became an absolute cloud in the air. I shook my head.

“I need this space for a minute. We won’t be long.”

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine.” I tried to reassure both Sam and Ward, but I knew I wasn’t very convincing. It didn’t matter. The only person I needed to convince of anything right now was Roman. “Just give us a minute.”

“Sure.” They both left, Ward with more than one backward glance, and I turned to Roman. He squared his shoulders and tried to look defiant. “You already know what this is about, don’t you.” It wasn’t even a question. I wouldn’t tolerate him trying to play dumb with me.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t. “I haven’t done anything to hurt Genna. I would never do that.”

“But you would compromise your pack’s security system, sneak into her house without her father knowing, and lie to your own parents about what you’re doing?”

“I don’t lie to them!”

“Do they know that you’re seeing Genna?”

“No.”

“Do you think they’d approve?” I knew his father wouldn’t. Roman hesitated, and that was enough to let me know that he thought the same. “And you know John doesn’t.”

Roman paled. “He knows? You told him?”

“He told me,” I emphasized. “And to say he’s not happy about it is an understatement.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks.” Roman was starting to breathe harder, and he struggled to keep his voice level. “Genna is eighteen, she’s legally an adult. She doesn’t have to listen to him. She can… she can leave if she wants to.”

“You know it’s not that easy. Not for the child of a guardian.”

“It is easy for her!” Roman insisted. “Her mother is already gone. She could go and stay with her until college starts! She—she doesn’t have to go here, she could go to a school on the coast, and I could meet her there next year! I—”

“She’ll be watched the entire time she’s there,” I said, unflinching in the face of Roman’s growing desperation. He needed to accept what was happening here. “Her mother is being watched, even if she doesn’t know it, which—Clara is a smart person, I’m sure she knows. Genna is as much a liability to the government as she is an asset, Roman. She’ll be watched and monitored to ensure the safety of our pack for the rest of her life, or as long as the pack lasts, whichever comes first.

“I’m not saying I’m against the two of you being together.” I wanted that much to be clear. “I don’t think you should be separated from the person you love, even if she’s different from you.”

“I do love her,” Roman said miserably. “I love her so much, and I know my parents will think it’s stupid because they were arranged and they want me to marry another werewolf, but I can’t think about anyone but Genna. I just want to be with her all the time. Like you and Ward.” He said it easily, like the comparison was the first thing that popped into his head. It surprised me, but I tried not to let on. I… I liked Ward. I appreciated him. I wanted to be with him, but… did I love him?

I needed to focus. “You can’t sneak out again to meet her. Not with her father ready to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Genna wouldn’t let him shoot me!”

“She might not even know he’s considering it, Roman. That’s not the point. The point is, you’re going to have to play the long game right now. If you and Genna want to be together, then I won’t stop you, but I can’t let you endanger yourself or the pack. No more disabling cameras and sneaking out. No more putting the rest of your pack at risk. Once you’re both away at college, you’ll have more freedom.”

Roman looked devastated. “That’s—I’ve still got another year of high school! That’s more than a year we have to be apart! And why? Just because her dad and my dad refuse to get along? Just because you’re not willing to help us?”

“I am helping you, Roman.”

“By telling me to do nothing, which is all you ever do for us too!” He looked away as soon as he said it, and I could smell his sudden shame, but the truth was… he wasn’t entirely wrong. I’d been gone so much lately, time spent away from my pack that left them unclear, uncertain, pulling apart instead of coming together.

“If I could choose to be here more, I would be. I’ll do my best to help you even if I’m not here, and you know Sam and Liam will too, but you have to listen to me on this, Roman. No more sneaking around. Are we clear?”

He bit his lip and nodded, still unable to meet my eyes.

I sighed. “Come here.” He came, and I cupped the back of his neck and pulled him in close, scenting him. He was awash with confusion and anger and sadness, and he whined a little in the back of this throat when I squeezed comfortingly. “Spend some time shifted tonight,” I said. “You’ll feel more clearheaded.” The wolf form took the more complicated emotions away. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the hunt. Noon sharp.” He nodded again, and I finally let him go.

By the time I got to the clinic, it wasn’t just Ward, Ava, and Tennyson waiting for me: Sam and Liam were there too, and everyone smelled curious, even little Ava. She had human hands and one human foot that shifted back and forth between claws and toes even as I watched. I’d never seen a child shift as fast as she did.

“What was that about?” Sam asked as soon as I walked in the door.

“Could we save the gossiping for later?” I asked as I took off my jacket and started in on my boots. I’d already ripped two pairs in the past month. I wasn’t going to do in another pair just because I didn’t want to talk to them about this.

“Hmm, let me think—no.” She smiled, but when I didn’t smile back, it faded. “Really, what happened?”

“What happened is that Roman and Genna are in love. He’s been sneaking out to meet up in her bedroom—and help her study up on calculus, apparently—and John just found out and threatened to shoot Roman if he trespasses again.”

That announcement was met with a resounding silence, which made me feel a little better about my own initial reaction to it. Then the exclamations started, with everyone having something different to say.

“The cameras, of course, the snow has been so regular I couldn’t see any prints but—”

“—guardian can’t shoot the wolves under his purview, it’s not allowed! He’s supposed to help us, not—”

“—does John think he is, threatening a child like that? That fucker, I’ll—”

Ward just nodded and said, “The tutoring makes so much more sense now.”

“Right. He was learning how to teach, not how to do.”

“He’s a smart kid.”

“Not smart enough to not get caught sneaking into our guardian’s home,” I grumbled as I stripped off my shirt.

“Henry!” Sam snapped. “What are we going to do about John? He can’t just make threats like this against a member of the pack.”

“He lives outside of our territory for a reason,” I reminded her as I got started on my pants. “If we break the law on his private property, he’s within his rights to respond under the law, which in Colorado means he can shoot someone who breaks into his house. Genna might argue differently, but the truth of the matter is that Roman’s sneaking into the house with her help, and without any semblance of her father’s approval.”

“Jesus Christ.” Sam crossed her arms. “Do Gerald and Peggy know?”

“No. And I told Roman I would keep it that way as long as he cut it out.”

Liam raised a questioning eyebrow. “And you think he will do this? Stop seeing the girl, just because you asked it of him?”

I shrugged. “I think it’s the safest way for him to get what he wants.”

“That isn’t what I asked. Do you think he can abide by such restrictions on his freedom, and on his heart?”

I felt exhausted all of a sudden. Liam had a way of asking questions that made me feel like he was just waiting for a chance to make me second-guess myself, and I was sick of it.

“Well, two days from now, you’d better hope so,” I said flatly. “Because I won’t be around to take the heat for it if he doesn’t.”

“Henry, come on—”

But I was done discussing this, going around and around and getting nowhere. I changed into my wolf and padded into the room with Ava thirty seconds later.

“This isn’t over!” Sam warned me. “You can’t get out of this talk by shifting, Henry. We will have it out before you leave.”

I huffed and looked away from her.

“God, don’t act like such a baby. You set a bad example for Ava.”

I turned my back on Sam, and eventually she and Liam left. Tennyson didn’t say anything, just got back to tracking Ava’s changes, and Ward left the room so we could start our system of shift and reward. It was what I’d wanted, to get on with things without more questions and badgering. So why did it make me feel uneasy?

It didn’t matter. I had other things to focus on for now. I’d try to wrap Roman’s situation up better after the hunt tomorrow, before I left. I really didn’t want to leave it for Sam to have to deal with if something went wrong, but there was only so far I could push, and I’d hit that line.

Or so I thought.

THE NEXT day dawned clear and bitterly cold, perfect for a hunt in wolf form. Everything was set for noon. Sam had put away her annoyance with me—there was plenty of it that I hadn’t answered for yet, but knew I would eventually—and helped me handle all the last-minute preparations. We had a route planned, somewhere John would be able to accompany us or at least swing around to on his ATV, and it was right around where Liam had sighted a herd of elk when he was last scouting. I’d talked to my pack, and they were looking forward to it. A rabbit hunt inside the compound would occupy the kids too young to go on the hint—the Robinsons raised them for food, and they were perfect for the little ones to practice on. It should have been a perfect hunt.

Famous last words.

Someone banged on our front door at eight in the morning with enough force that it shook on its hinges. That door was solid oak, so someone was going at it hard. Ward and Sam looked startled, while I took a careful sniff and then groaned.

“Gerald’s here.”

“And he’s very angry,” Liam added.

“Why?”

I pushed to my feet. “Let’s find out.” I got to the door before it could rattle a third time and jerked it open so fast Gerald almost fell into the house. He glared at me, his eyes wolf-yellow. He’d never managed that partial shift before. His heart beat at a furious pace, and twenty feet out in the snow behind him I could see the other adults of the pack standing, bundled into their winter gear, some of them scared, others just apprehensive. Peggy looked fiercer than I’d ever seen her before.

“Alpha! I call you out!” Gerald shouted at me. His back was hunching, coiled, ready to fall into shift. It wouldn’t be fast, but once his head and throat were transformed I wouldn’t be able to talk it out with him, and right then I really wanted to know what he was yelling for.

I stayed as calm as I could and crossed my hands over my chest. “Good morning to you too, Gerald.”

“I call you out!” he snarled, ignoring my pleasantries. “You’ll answer to me, Henry Dormer, and you’ll answer now for what you did to my son!”

What the hell was he talking about? “I didn’t do anything to Roman.”

“Lies! He came home last night stinking of you and of fear, but he wouldn’t tell me or his mother anything about why. I know you spoke with him alone last night, and today he’s gone. Run away! You drove him away!” He was actually spitting with every word, he was so angry. “You wanted to destroy your competition before he was strong enough to take the pack from you, and so you threatened him and forced him to leave!”

“You’re wrong.”

“You’re the one in the wrong.” His hands flexed like they wanted to reach out and grab me around the throat. I heard Sam murmur something to Liam and Ward in the background, heard her take Ward by the hand and pull him away—good. As much as I wanted him, I didn’t want him here for this, or where this could be going. “Come out of your den and fight like a—” He swung at me then, and I grabbed his fist as soon as it was close enough and thrust it away hard enough to half spin Gerald in place.

“We’re not doing this on my porch.” If I had things my way, we wouldn’t be doing it at all, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to talk Gerald down at this point. If Roman had run away—if he really was gone—then I needed to tell his parents the truth. “You want to take me down? At least try to do it like an alpha, not some weak lowlife who needs to endanger others to get me on my guard.”

Gerald’s face contorted angrily, but he backed away, far enough for me to get out of the house and pull the door shut behind me. I wasn’t fully dressed yet, not even wearing boots, which was fortunate. I stepped down onto the ground in front of my house, and the cold sank into my bare feet. I let the pain center me, used it to keep my head. The last thing I needed to do right then was give in to the impulse to rip Gerald’s idiot throat out.

“Now we—”

“I didn’t tell your son to leave.” The pack looked back and forth between us, and I was very conscious of needing to make a good argument for their sakes, even if Gerald was beyond listening now. “He’s been sneaking out of the compound for months.”

“Roman would never willingly leave our territory!”

“And yet he has been. We’ve been losing cameras along the fence, in a different place every time, for almost half a year. He’s been disabling them so he could get out without being seen.”

“Why would he leave?” This was from Peggy, and Gerald shot her a venomous look, but I was happy to respond.

“He’s been meeting someone.”

“Who?”

Here we go. “Genna Parnell.”

Peggy looked stunned. “The guardian’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

Gerald shook his head. “More lies. My son would never even consider being with someone that would weaken the bloodline.”

“For fuck’s sake, Gerald.” I let some of my disgust leak into my voice. “You talk about being a werewolf like we aren’t the result of a goddamn accident. The bloodline that you’re so proud of is what keeps us confined here, keeps your son from being with the girl he loves, keeps us watched and monitored and used over and over again. I don’t want your son to be the alpha, that’s true, and do you know why?” Gerald opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“Because alphas are made into murderers. We’re the army’s black ops beasts of burden. We’re the ones they send in first and take out last, if they can even be bothered to pick us up again. My last mission?” I let some of my own rage show now. “I was sent to retrieve a scientist who our people were interested in. He wouldn’t leave without his child, so we brought her along. We were ambushed, and she was killed. I tried to keep him moving, but he committed suicide a few days later. I got back and was told I’d failed, and now I’m being sent out into the field again the day after tomorrow as a punishment, not a fucking recognition of my status.”

I let my golden glare encompass all of my wolves. Gerald looked increasingly frantic, but everyone else was becoming less anticipatory and more somber. “If I die out there, who here will be the next alpha? Do you really want it to be Roman?” I stared at Peggy. “Do you want your son tortured by his own people over and over again until he learns how not to break? Do you want him sent places he’s got no business being, with little to no support, trying to do the almost impossible? Do you want him to have to evade the bounty hunters who would tranq us and sell us to the nearest government that wants to recreate our military’s mistake? Is that what you want for your son? Because if it is, then by all means, I’ll trade places with him and he can be the fucking alpha.” I turned my contempt on Gerald. “Or maybe you’d like to experience it all first.”

He didn’t speak, just roared and lunged at me, semishifted. Rage had sharpened his abilities, but I restrained my impulse to change and put him down fast. Once I shifted, once I was in my wolf form, it would be harder to ignore my impulse to hurt my opponent, possibly even kill him. I didn’t want to deal with that fallout.

I dodged to the left, caught Gerald by the back of his neck, and tugged him forward and down as he overextended himself, tossing him face-first into the snow. He was on all fours a moment later, kicking out with a back foot as he twisted to face me again. One of his hind claws scraped across my arm, leaving a thin, bleeding welt. He grinned, almost impossible to see as his face went more and more lupine, and attacked again, snapping viciously at me. I clamped one hand around an ear and twisted it, hard, bending him low enough to put into a headlock. I wrestled him down to the ground, shifting my feet just enough to give me the purchase to dig into the ice beneath us. I put Gerald on his side and leaned all my weight into him, squeezing hard enough around his neck that his harsh growls became a choked gurgle.

“Forget using my fangs,” I hissed into his good ear. “I could break your neck right now. You’d never last as alpha, and then who would protect your precious, lying son?”

“Forgive him.”

I lifted my gaze to Peggy, and whatever she saw there was enough to make her blanch. She held her ground, though. “Please, forgive him. He won’t challenge you again.”

“He hasn’t respected your opinion in the past. Why will he honor your promise on his behalf now?”

“Because otherwise, he’ll lose me,” she said simply. “And our son. I’ll take us back to my original pack before I sacrifice Roman to my husband’s ambition.”

Gerald suddenly whimpered, and I knew it wasn’t for me. I looked from him to his wife, blood thundering in my ears, the urge to rend surging hard in me. I heard Liam’s heartbeat, fast and afraid, and the wariness of all my pack. I had to do right by them. I let Gerald go, and he heaved a gasping breath as he collapsed in the snow.

I slowly got to my feet, looked at my packmates, opened my mouth—then started as the sharp retort of a single gunshot echoed over the mountainside. The shot had come from the direction of John’s house.

I didn’t wait, just shifted and took off running.

Chapter Nineteen

Ward

AS SOON as Henry closed the door, Sam was in motion. “We have to go. Now.”

I barely had time to shove my feet into my boots before she grabbed my arm and tugged me toward the back of the house, where we’d started parking the 4Runner lately. Neither Liam nor Henry made a fuss as we went, so I figured it was okay with them, but I didn’t want to leave, not when things looked so bad. I got the uncomfortable feeling that Henry was surrounded, and even though not everyone was on Gerald’s side—how could they be—you didn’t have to be a wolf to know that folks were feeling nervous.

“Go where?” I asked.

“The guardian’s house.” Sam opened up the car and started it immediately. “If we get there fast, we may be able to keep Roman and Genna from doing something really fucking stupid.” She pulled away with a roar, sending us bouncing across the snow toward the front gate. She pressed the remote on the dash, and the gate trundled open, barely wide enough for us to get through it at our breakneck speed. I would have complained, if I wasn’t so dumbfounded by what she’d just said.

“You think he went to her house? To John’s house?” There was stupid, and then there was suicidal. “After Henry told him what John would do if he caught him there?”

“I think he’s desperate enough to try anything right now.” Sam’s jaw was tense, her hands tight on the wheel. “His parents aren’t going to help him. They’re so deep in denial about his potential. He was already caught lying to his alpha, and he didn’t like Henry’s advice. So he’s going with the rash option and hoping for the best.” She shook her head. “Jesus Christ. Teenagers should just be locked up until they’re over the worst of the hormones. It would make life so much easier.”

“Sounds kind of illegal.” I could see the guardian’s house coming up fast on the left side of the road.

“Wait until you get to deal with a hormonal teenage werewolf,” Sam warned me. “Hopefully Ava’ll have better sense than Roman.” She pulled to a stop in front of the house, which was completely dark. We got out, and I glanced at her.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

“John’s taken his snowmobile out for a test run, to tinker with it. He always does it before a hunt,” Sam said distractedly. “He probably has the boys with him. I’ll bet anything that Genna found a reason to stay behind, though.”

“The Jeep is still here.”

“Good. Then we don’t have to track them down.” Sam marched up to the front door and pounded on it. “Roman! I know you’re here. You have to come back with us. Your dad’s about to get into a fight he can’t win. Henry will do his best not to hurt him, but nothing’s certain if your dad provokes a shift.” We waited. Nothing but silence. “Roman! Genna! You can’t run away from this! It won’t solve anything.”

“Stop.” I touched her arm. “Listen.” There it was, the faint creak of… a tree moving in the wind, maybe? Only it was perfectly still today. More likely it was a window opening. “Around the back.”

Sam scowled. “You go right. I’ll go left.” We darted off the porch, and I ran to the right side, feeling the effects of the cold morning air in my lungs. I had on my gear, scarf wrapped haphazardly around my neck, and my hat on crooked, but it was still bitterly cold. I wondered if I’d ever get used to it.

The far side of the house was in shadow and noticeably frostier than the porch. I shivered as I rounded the second corner, and then—

A hand clamped across my mouth as strong arms tugged me in close to an unfamiliar body. No, not entirely unfamiliar, just… not one that should be holding on to me. I stared into Roman’s wide, scared eyes as he held me still.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered. “Just give me the keys, and Genna and I will go.”

I shook my head.

“Just—just give them to me, Ward!”

I don’t have them, I tried to say, but his hand was too tight. I could barely draw a breath. Roman understood anyway.

“Sam has them?”

I nodded.

“Shit.”

Genna appeared beside him, her expression frantic. “Sam’s coming—we have to move.”

“She’s got the keys! We have to get them from her.”

Genna paled.

Why couldn’t they take the Jeep? What had happened between Genna and her dad?

Roman growled, then shoved me at Genna. “I’ll handle it. Try to keep him quiet.”

I would have laughed if she hadn’t nodded and pulled a knife—a big fucking knife, holy shit—out of her pocket. She looked at me guiltily but with determination.

“Please don’t make me use this.”

“This isn’t smart,” I murmured. “You have to know that. How far do you think the two of you will get before your father picks you up? Or worse, a government agent does? You could go to prison, Genna.”

“No.” She shook her head jerkily. “We have a plan. We’ll be fine as long as we can get a car.”

“Why can’t you use the Jeep?”

“My dad took the keys with him, and I don’t know how to hotwire it.” She glanced anxiously past me toward where Roman had disappeared. There was no sound from the other side of the house. Not Roman and not Sam. Had he found her? God, had he hurt her? I didn’t think he would, not Sam, not the woman who’d been teaching him since he was a little kid, but then I also wouldn’t have thought Genna Parnell would hold me captive at knifepoint either.

I needed to keep her talking. Sam was tough and so much better prepared than me—I needed to give her time to work. “Where can you go that the government can’t follow you? Roman is monitored. The whole pack is monitored. Hell, even your family is—”

“Not my mother.” She bit her lip. “She got away. I can too. We’ve got a plan.”

“Your mother didn’t leave with a werewolf.”

“She’s in Canada. They won’t extract her. She’s safe there. She said we could live with her, we could—” A low groan broke the silence from the other side of the house, and Genna grabbed my arm. “Go!” She and I were about the same height, but she held the knife like she knew what she was doing. I wasn’t about to fight her for it, not when my best bet was still stalling. I moved, slowly, making sure to stumble in the crusty ice. Not that I needed to try, really—it was genuinely hard to take a step without checking my balance. We rounded the far corner of the house, the prick of the knife’s tip uncomfortably sharp even through my clothing, and then Genna jerked me to an abrupt halt. “Roman!”

Roman lay on his front in the snow just to the side of the front porch, the prongs from Sam’s Taser still stuck in the side of his neck. Even as I watched, she ejected the cartridge and inserted a new one.

“This is calibrated to take down a werewolf,” she said, and I shivered. I’d never seen Sam so cold before. She was more like her brother than ever right now, and I understood why they led the pack together. “It might stop your heart if I use it on you, Genna. That’s a risk I’m willing to take if you don’t let Ward go right now.”

Roman managed to press up onto his forearms and shake his head. “No…,” he forced out. “Don’t… do it. She’s….”

“You think I’m lying? You thought I wouldn’t use it against you either, Roman, and look where that got you.” The look Sam gave him wasn’t without compassion, but there was steel in it too. “I have to protect my pack, and right now Ward’s more like real pack than you are. Let him go, Genna.”

“Let Roman come to me, and I will!”

“You’re not in a good position to negotiate, hon.” Sam cocked her head. “I hear snowmobiles. Your dad is coming back.”

Genna’s breath came in pants, her grip on my arm tighter than ever. “Let him come to me and we’ll run, then, but you have to give us a chance!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to give you anything.”

Play for time, play for time… I couldn’t imagine the guardian would be happy to find us all here, but he’d be even less happy if it looked like the aftermath of the O.K. Corral. “Sam, it’s okay. Let’s do it.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Her father will be furious.”

“He’s going to be furious either way at this point.” Now I could hear the distant engine of the snowmobile. Roman staggered to his feet, his expression unsure. “Let’s trade places. We can talk to John, try to settle him down.” I was so full of bullshit my eyes were probably brown, but I really didn’t want to be stabbed, and Genna was starting to shake.

“Fine.” Sam lifted the Taser slightly. “You come to me and Roman goes to Genna. Now.”

Genna’s hand tightened briefly, and then she released my arm. I took a deep breath as the press of the knife suddenly vanished from my side. I walked forward, slowly, and Roman matched my pace.

We met in the middle, briefly, and when he looked at me, his face was so full of misery I couldn’t help trying to reach out. “Look, you can—”

The world suddenly shattered into a thousand painful shards, echoing off the trees and through my body. I stumbled and fell forward onto my knees, and I heard Genna scream, Roman and Sam shouting and the sound of the engine growing louder, but it was all muted beneath the overwhelming rush of agony that radiated from my shoulder. I clutched at the wound—a bullet wound—as I curled over into a crouch. Holy shit. I’d been shot. Roman went down next to me, his hand pressed hard over the top of mine, his eyes wide.

Sam and John were in the middle of a heated argument from the bits and pieces I could hear.

“—put it down, John!”

“I said I’d shoot him if he came back here!”

“You didn’t shoot Roman, you shot Ward! A human! I had everything under control before you came in here, guns blazing—”

“I’m within my rights to defend myself and my family on my own property!”

“We weren’t in your house! You weren’t defending anyone, much less Genna, who was holding a knife on Ward right before you started firing!”

Things went quiet for a moment. “Is that true, girl?” John finally said.

Genna whimpered. It was the sound I wanted to make, but I bit my tongue instead and squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on keeping my blood in my body.

“Daddy….”

“Is that true?”

“Daddy, I was—we were—”

John made a noise somewhere between a groan and a curse. I heard a scuffle, and Sam yelled, but instead of the shooting starting up again, the growling suddenly became a lot closer, and a lot more guttural.

I opened my eyes and saw an enormous red wolf standing between me and John, its posture more upright than a real wolf’s would be. With its hackles up, it looked bigger than ever, and its growl was straight out of a horror movie. It was Henry, and I felt relieved in that instant that I almost lost my careful equilibrium and fell onto my face.

“I didn’t mean to hit him,” John said, sounding nothing like the gruff, capable guardian he was. He sounded… broken. “I swear, Henry.”

“I’m calling Tennyson,” Sam said.

“We need to get him to a hospital—”

“Look at how much blood he’s lost already. We don’t have time!”

How much blood had I lost? I glanced down at where our hands were still resolutely pressed against me. My fingers were bright with blood, and the shoulder of my pale blue jacket was so soaked it had turned purple.

“Oh wow,” I whispered. “That’s not good.”

The werewolf above me turned golden eyes my direction. I blinked owlishly as he shifted partially so that his front legs returned to being arms and his head retracted into something more human than wolf. He pushed Roman away from me and took his place, pulling me into his arms and pressing so hard on the hole in my shoulder that I yelled.

“I’m sorry.”

It was barely recognizable as speech, but I could feel the rumble of his apology reverberate through his chest.

“S’okay.” I tried to take a deep, calming breath, but my lungs weren’t cooperating anymore. A breath became a gasp became a cough, and if I hadn’t already been bent double with the pain, the coughing would definitely have done it for me. I couldn’t get a full breath, couldn’t relax enough to work through the pain. Stars floated across my darkening vision, and I realized that I was going to pass out. I hoped I was just going to pass out.

“Henry….” I gripped him as hard as I could with the hand on my injured arm, which was barely enough pressure for him to notice. “Ava.” How else could I express to him how important she was? How desperately I needed him to take care of her, to promise me that he would?

“She’ll be fine. I’ll stay with her.”

Good enough for me. The darkness caught up with me, and a second later it was all I knew.

Chapter Twenty

Henry

IF I thought handing Wilson over to Tennyson had been hard, it was nothing compared to the almost-overwhelming urge to keep my hands on Ward. I couldn’t fix him. I knew that—I knew it in my head. My heart had no grasp on logic, though, and insisted that the only way I could save him was to keep him safe with me. That I got over it faster this time was entirely testament to the way I could hear Ward’s blood flow more sluggishly through his veins, too much of it gone to waste. I let Tennyson take him, watched him leave in Liam’s car just as fast as he’d come, and finally my mind came back online. Almost all of the pack had joined us here: everyone who had come to watch my dominance match with Gerald, and John, his sons, and pale-faced daughter. And Roman, who knelt at my feet and couldn’t meet my eyes.

Be Alpha. I needed to be the alpha, needed to resolve this situation as fast as possible so that I could get back to Ward. I turned to face the people splayed across the landscape like a bad Renaissance painting. I didn’t bother shifting completely back to my human form. I could talk like this, and there was no denying the dark satisfaction I felt as their heartbeats quickened with fear. Everyone but Sam’s.

“Talk.”

Sam took the lead. “Roman and Genna were going to leave together, but they couldn’t get her Jeep started. They wanted our car. I refused. We ended up at an impasse. We were trying to resolve it when John saw us and started shooting.”

“It’s my right—” He stopped talking as I turned my stare on him.

“Ward was hit by accident,” Sam continued. “Roman did first aid until you arrived.” That was a generous description of it, but I couldn’t blame her for wanting to cast something in a good light for him. Nothing else he’d done here was likely to.

I looked around at everyone else. “Anything to add?”

“We didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.” Genna’s voice was full of tears. “We just want to be together!” She started crying, and John sighed and holstered his gun.

“C’mere.” He opened his arms, and she went to him, and he wrapped her up and stroked the back of her head. He didn’t say anything else. Neither did Roman, so still against the snow he almost seemed lifeless.

I turned to Peggy, the only one of Roman’s parents who’d made it here. “Get him home. Don’t let him out of your sight. This isn’t over.” Peggy exhaled heavily and nodded. I turned my attention back to John.

“Don’t go anywhere.” I had to force myself to say the next part; it was so unthinkable. “If Ward dies, you’ll have to answer for it.” The only alternative was laying the blame at his daughter’s feet, since she was just as guilty of bringing this about as Roman was. I knew John wouldn’t do that.

“I’ll be here.” His boys looked stunned, unsure in a way they’d never been before at seeing their father on the defensive. I didn’t have the time or energy to reassure them. I looked at Sam.

“Get me to the clinic.”

“The door’s unlocked.” We got into the car and left most of my pack, wounded as it was, and our tattered guardian behind as she raced back into our territory.

“Tennyson is good,” she said as she drove. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as me. “He’s an actual doctor, he knows what he’s doing.”

“He’s not a surgeon.”

“He was married to a black ops soldier. He knows how to deal with wounds. Ward will be fine.” She glanced at me. “You should change before you go see him.”

“Sam—”

“Tennyson is probably still operating, and alpha or not, he’s not going to let you in to see Ward if he is. You’re covered in blood, and you’re completely naked.”

I’d shifted back to my human form at this point, and most of my right arm and leg were crusted over with freezing blood.

“Shower, change, and then go to the clinic. You can spend some time with Ava if Tennyson isn’t finished yet.”

Ava. Right. She was the last thing Ward had mentioned, the last thing he’d been able to talk about. I needed to take care of Ava. I was her alpha, after all. And if things went badly….

They wouldn’t. I’d take care of her regardless.

“You’ll have to call Hill, report what happened here. He’ll want an investigation.”

God, just the thought of engaging with my commanding officer right then made me want to go furry again. “I know.”

“Maybe you can use this incident to convince him to delay your departure.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere.”

Sam must have heard something in the tenor of my reply that gave her pause, because she glanced over at me in surprise. “You’re supposed to leave for the Springs tomorrow.”

“I know.” I shook my head. “That isn’t happening. I’m not leaving Ward.”

“Hill isn’t going to like it.”

“Then he’s going to have to chew me out for insubordination to my face, because I’m not going away. My pack needs me. Ward and Ava need me. I’ve been gone for too long.”

Sam nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, we can—I can make something happen, we can work with this.” She pulled to a stop in front of our house, and as much of a hurry as I was in, I still didn’t want her to worry.

I touched the back of her hand. “I can handle it.” Somehow.

She smiled. “I think it’s time to share the load on this one, Henry. We have a day. Let me see what I can do.” She turned the car off. “Go clean up.”

I stepped around the mess of churned snow and dirt left from my fight with Gerald, walked into the house and upstairs to the bathroom in almost a fugue. Everything seemed cloudy and numb. I stepped into the bath, turned the shower on, and winced as the hot spray hit me in the face. The heat hurt after so much cold, but I stood there and took it until my body adapted. I soaped up quickly, getting the worst of the filth off and making a cursory effort at washing my hair before deciding it was good enough.

I grabbed sweats out of Ward’s room—our room, it smelled like both of us, and the scent made me want to curl up on the bed and howl—and stole a pair of his socks, then went back downstairs for my boots. Sam was nowhere to be seen. She had to be working. Trying to save me from my own decisions.

I knew I wasn’t going to make Hill happy, but I genuinely didn’t care. He had invoked national security—well, I would invoke the health of the pack and the potential for a total meltdown if I were pulled away now, and then we’d see where things stood.

Sure enough, the door to the clinic’s back room was closed and locked when I got there. Not even my code would open it. I could smell Ward’s blood within, but also iodine and saline, and Tennyson’s own scent. I leaned my head against the door for a moment, then went to see Ava.

She brightened when I walked into the room, trotting over to the window, her tongue lolling happily. Of course it was, because she knew what was supposed to happen next—her daddy was going to appear in a few minutes. Only he wouldn’t, this time. I entered the enclosure and sat down, and Ava came over to me and started sniffing. The longer it went on, the less playful she became, her ease giving over to uncertainty.

“Sorry, baby girl.” My voice was rough. “He’s not ready to come see you yet.”

She looked up at me and whined. I felt like doing the same thing.

“I know. But there’s nothing we can do.”

Ava growled, a little tiny growl that usually signaled the prelude to an attempt to shift. It was good for her to practice, whatever her motivation was, so I sat back and watched as her feet and hands began to change. She’d gotten that far several times now.

My eyes went wide as her forelegs became arms, and her hind legs twisted and thickened into the limbs of a small child instead of a puppy. Her torso went more gradually, dark fur slowly giving way to pale skin, and by the time the shift spread up to her head, I was holding my breath.

It wasn’t easy, that was clear. Her muzzle gave her particular trouble, the teeth resisting the change and her jaw following suit. Ava grunted, stamped her foot hard on the floor, and squeezed her eyes shut with concentration. Five seconds later, I was looking at a little human child with tangled brown hair, big blue eyes, and a fierce expression.

“Where’s my daddy?” she demanded, and I burst out laughing. She kicked my shin.

“I’m not—I’m not laughing at you, Ava,” I promised her. “You’ve just made me very happy, that’s all. You’re going to make your daddy very happy too.”

She looked slightly mollified but persisted. “Where’s my daddy, Alpha?”

“He’s with the doctor. Tennyson, you remember Tennyson?”

She frowned. “Yes. Why?”

“Your daddy was in an accident.” Ava’s eyes went wide and started to change color. I had to head that off. “He’s going to be fine, though. Just fine.” Please God, don’t make a liar out of me. “Tennyson will come and get us soon, and we can go see him together.”

“Oh.” Her big, bold voice was suddenly soft and small.

“You should try to stay human for now. It’ll cheer your daddy up when he sees you and he can hold you again.”

“Okay,” Ava said, easily accepting that much. “But I’m cold. Fur is warm.”

She had a point. I opened my arms. “Let’s go find you some clothes, then.”

By the time we got back from Josie’s house with a pile of her old clothes—her parents had been surprised but thrilled by the first good news for the pack in too long—Tennyson had opened the door to the operating room. He stood just inside, tense but smiling, smelling like he’d just washed his hands.

“Ward’s still unconscious, but I think he’ll be all right. The bullet didn’t hit anything major, and it was a small caliber, thank God.”

Considering some of the hand cannons John had in his personal armory, it really was something to be thankful for. I could almost grant that he hadn’t actually wanted to damage Roman—a small caliber bullet wound in most spots would heal in a matter of hours—but that still didn’t buy him a lot in my book.

“You fixed him?”

“As well as I could. He should still go to a hospital, though, and get a second opinion.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen quite yet.” It would if I could manage it, but right then it was going to be hard enough to keep myself here, much less take Ward somewhere else.

Tennyson looked down at Ava, who was holding my hand, and grinned. “Look at you, clever girl. You finished your shift!”

Ava blushed and turned her face into my leg as she nodded. Shy? Her? That was a first.

Tennyson continued. “Do you want to see your daddy?”

That got rid of her little case of nerves. She nodded so hard I thought she’d fall over. “Yes!”

“All right. You have to be careful, though, and don’t touch the bandages or the tubes. He might look a little rough right now, but he’s getting better.” He stepped aside, and we walked over to the room’s operating table-turned-bed.

Ward almost looked like a child himself, small in the confines of the bed, his face obscured by an oxygen mask, his arm pricked with several IV lines. His left shoulder was heavily bandaged, and he was paler than usual.

I picked Ava up to see, and she immediately whimpered and clutched at my shoulders. “Daddy….”

“He’ll be okay.” I patted her on the back and did my best to believe it. Ward would be all right. Seeing him then, I knew he had to be. He was the main reason I was holding it together right then. Even as injured as he was, just looking at him soothed an ache inside of me that I barely knew I’d been feeling. It was like a hole in my heart was suddenly plugged, and I sighed with relief.

Was it love? Or was it just my desire not to be alone surging through my veins? It might be either, but whatever it was, it was real. I looked at Ward and knew I’d found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t trust easily, but I trusted him. I wanted him.

He was my partner. My mate.

He might object to that term when he came to, but we’d talk about it then. In the meantime, I needed to go be insubordinate. Or… well. If there was ever a time to use the pack sovereignty clause, it was now. Hill might not respect it, but it gave me the grounds for a legal battle.

“I have to report in that I’m not going to report in,” I said to Tennyson.

His lips quirked.

“Can Ava stay here?”

“Yes!” Ava said before Tennyson could. “Right there.” She pointed at the uninjured side of her father’s body. I hesitated. She turned her big blue gaze on me and batted her eyelashes. “I’ll be good.”

“You’re gonna be dangerous someday, is what you’ll be.” I looked at Tennyson, and he nodded.

“She can stay. I’ll be here as well.”

“Thanks.” I set Ava down, and she crawled up next to Ward and curled against his arm. Now that she was human, I could see hints of her father in her: in the jut of her chin and the delicate curve of her mouth. She favored whoever her mother was, but her father’s genetic influence was still visible. It almost hurt to leave the two of them, but the sooner I was gone, the sooner I’d return. “I’ll be back.”

GETTING THROUGH to Hill wasn’t a problem. He answered on the second ring, his craggy face taking up the entirely of the screen. “Talk, Major.”

He’d asked for it. “I’m calling to inform you that I won’t be arriving as planned in Colorado Springs tomorrow, sir.”

He blinked, then scowled. “We’ve had this conversation. You’ll do as you’re ordered, or you’ll suffer some serious consequences.”

“My pack’s health and well-being is at risk if I leave. There’s been an incident with the guardian and a leadership challenge in the past twenty-four hours.” Make that four hours, but he didn’t need to know that. “I managed each of them, but I need to remain here for the time being. I’m invoking pack sovereignty.”

“It sounds to me like you’re failing as an alpha. Invoking sovereignty isn’t going to heal a wound caused by your existence, Major.” Colonel Hill shook his head. “No, it seems like the best thing for your pack right now is distance from the problem, which is you. You’ll report tomorrow.”

“I won’t.”

The colonel pointed a finger at the screen. “You will, or I’ll order a retrieval unit into your territory—which is only yours at the sufferance of the US government—and have you bodily removed pending your formal court martial. Any pack members who try to interfere will be considered violent offenders and dealt with accordingly. Are you sure you want to bring this down on your people?”

“The problem is that I haven’t been here enough lately,” I insisted. “The sovereignty clause is for use in emergencies, and this counts as one. I’ll have a report and proper documentation sent to your office within the next two hours”—and I’d be cc-ing a lot of other people on those reports including the guardian, just to be safe—“but I’m not leaving.”

“Then you’ll be removed by me personally.”

“You can try.” I cut the connection before he could say anything else, took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then pulled up the appropriate form. Amazing that there was paperwork for a potential pack-wide apocalypse.

Whatever happened, we’d manage it, though. Because I meant it when I said I wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ward

I WOKE up to the sound of my daughter singing while simultaneously trying to stay quiet, which was nearly an impossibility for her. She’d start each verse off softly, but by the end of it, the doctor was scolding those little monkeys jumping on the bed like they were right there with me. It was one of her favorite bedtime songs, because I had actually let her jump on the bed in an effort to get the last of her energy out before we settled down for a story. Right then, there was no jumping, though. She was as still as a girl barely past her toddler phase could be, and—

Wait. Fucking wait. I forced myself up out of my lazy, drowsing state of mind and opened my eyes. Turning my head took a little more effort, but once I did I found Ava sitting up and staring at me with barely restrained glee.

“Daddy!” And completely unrestrained volume. “You’re up! Doctor T, Daddy is up!”

“Awake, at least,” I said, my throat so dry it was hard to get the words out. I felt a lingering burn in my left arm that very clearly stated Do Not Move, but I managed to get my right up and waved her in with my hand. Ava crawled forward and settled happily under my arm. I kissed the top of her head and sighed with relief. “Baby, when did you complete your shift?”

“When the alpha came and got me.” She frowned. “He smelled like you, but bad.”

“Bad?”

She nodded.

I wasn’t quite awake enough to tease out her meaning, so I let it lie. “That’s a shame. But he smells better now?”

“Yes.” She nodded decisively.

Tennyson came into view over her shoulder and smiled when he saw me. “That was faster than I thought.”

“How fast?”

“Your surgery ended less than twelve hours ago. It’s late,” he told me. “Almost two in the morning. You should go back to sleep.”

“How long has Ava been here?”

“Ever since she shifted. Henry brought her.”

Oh, right. Shit. “How’s Henry? And Roman? What about Genna? What happened—”

Tennyson held up a hand. “Everyone else is uninjured. Henry was here for most of the day until Sam dragged him out by his ear, but he’ll be back as soon as he’s caught a few hours of sleep, I’m sure. He was very concerned about you.”

I shouldn’t have enough blood left in my body to produce a blush. It was there, though, and both of them smiled when they saw it. Ava was the only one who giggled. “Daddy, he likes you!”

“Yeah.” I got that, after the whole raging-werebeast thing. “Guess I’m pretty lucky. Do you like him?”

“He shared his liver with me for dinner.” She patted her tummy. “It was sooo good.”

I looked at Tennyson.

“Cow’s liver,” he assured me. “With onions. Henry hasn’t been excising pieces of himself to eat. That would be crazy even for him.”

“Not sure what’s too crazy for him at this point,” I muttered, even as my eyes started to close. I didn’t know if it was the painkillers or just the fact that I’d been shot not so long ago, but I was exhausted. I kept my arm around Ava and smiled when she just settled in. She’d get tired of it soon, but I wanted to keep my hands on her for as long as I could. It had been too long since cuddling had been an option.

“We’ll see about crazy tomorrow,” I heard Tennyson say just before I drifted off.

THE NEXT time I woke up, my roving hand didn’t find my daughter snuggled against my side. It was already being held by someone bigger than me, and warm, so warm. A straw found my lips before I even tried to speak, and I sipped some deliciously cold water before forcing my eyes open. Henry sat beside me, looking at me so intently that I knew he had to be listening to me as well. Probably smelling me too, the weirdo.

“Hey.” What a brilliant opening salvo. “Where’s Ava?”

“Having lunch with Sam and Liam. She’s fine. How are you feeling?”

“What, you can’t tell from the way my heartbeat sounds?” I asked.

He smiled slightly. “I can get an idea, but I’d rather hear it from you.”

“Kind of shitty,” I admitted. “But not as shitty as I could feel, all things considered. How bad was it?”

His expression darkened. “Bad enough. The bullet went clean through, but you lost a lot of blood. Tennyson took good care of you, though.”

I nodded and was pleased when it didn’t make my head hurt. “He’s a good doctor. You should hold on to him.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

Hmm, that sounded mildly ominous. “What’s wrong?”

Henry shook his head. “You’ve got to be more specific, I’m afraid.”

“What’s… okay, what’s happening with the pack? With Roman and Gerald and the whole… leadership kerfuffle?”

Henry raised one bushy brow. “Kerfuffle? You mean the brutal fight for dominance that took place practically on my front porch?”

If I’d had the energy to scoff, I would have. “Please. Even if he were twenty years younger, Gerald would still be no match for you. If he’d won, it would be because you let him win. Which—you didn’t, right?”

“Ah, no. No, that part at least went well. The stuff with Roman?” Henry shrugged. “It’s up in the air. A lot of what happens next depends on the steps John takes, which will depend on whether or not you want to press charges against him.”

I blinked. “Because….”

“Because he shot you.” Henry gestured toward my shoulder. “You can’t have forgotten.”

“No, of course not, just….” I tried to clear my head and focus. “What happens if I press charges?”

“You’d have a pretty good case for assault, at least on the surface. If he had to get a defense attorney, they might go digging, and that could reveal some uncomfortable truths about how you really got here if we’re not careful.” Right, because I’d kind of forced-slash-guilt-tripped my way into the compound. “If John were convicted, he would lose custody of his kids and be thrown in a federal penitentiary. I doubt he’d ever get out. We’d get a new guardian.”

Well, fuck that. “I’m not going to press charges.”

“Ward… you have a case. He shouldn’t have been shooting at all, much less in a way that endangered you like this.”

“I’m not saying I don’t think he’s reckless and probably needs a good shrink to talk to about his mountain of trust issues”—and all the other issues that came from being intensely isolated for so much of his life—“but I’m not going to hold one bad decision against him. Much.”

“You’re far kinder than I am.”

I pointed a finger from my good hand at him. “Lie. You’d do the same thing if he’d shot you.”

“I’d already be healed if he’d shot me.”

“I’m not going to take him away from his kids, Henry,” I said quietly. “Not like this. It would traumatize all of them for the rest of their lives. What’s going to happen to Genna?”

Henry shrugged. “If you don’t press charges, nothing. Formally, at least. I imagine she’ll go to college.”

“What about her and Roman?”

“If they’re really determined to be together, then she’ll wait for him. His parents have changed their tune on his going away, which is the least they could do at this point.” He pursed his lips. “All this drama and violence and we end up back at the point I suggested in the first place.”

I smiled. “Yeah, but now everyone agrees with you.”

“If you being shot is the price of agreement, then screw it, I’m becoming a tyrant.”

“Sam would never let you.”

It was his turn to smile. “Yeah, I know.” He glanced at his watch, and his smile turned into a grimace. “I have to go soon.”

Oh shit, I’d forgotten all about his deployment. “Go… away? Already?”

“No, I’m not leaving the compound.”

I frowned. “But your orders—”

“I invoked the sovereignty clause. They’ll have to try to drag me out of here to get me to leave. Which they should, in about half an hour.” He took in my gobsmacked expression and continued. “What, you thought I’d leave you here like this?”

“You… could.” I didn’t want him to, but I’d survive without his comforting presence. I’d survive without watching him teach Ava or seeing him interact with the other kids, without sharing meals and a room and a bed with him, without touching him or feeling him touch me back, and seeing him look just as exhilarated by the experience as me.

“But I won’t.” The warmth in his eyes was unmistakable, and I leaned toward him without realizing I was doing it, finally wincing when my damaged shoulder lifted off the mattress. The pain focused me.

“Shit, wait, they’re coming to make you go?”

“According to the last five messages from Colonel Hill, yes. Don’t worry, though, I won’t let them come after you too.”

“Fuck that.” I immediately put my good hand down on the bed and began to push myself up to sitting. Henry practically jumped to his feet, his hands hovering over me like they didn’t quite know where to touch.

“You can’t get up. You were shot!”

“Old news. It’s been twenty-four hours. I can handle it.” I wasn’t woozy and didn’t quite feel like I was about to fall flat again, but the pain in my shoulder wasn’t negligible either. I gritted my teeth and tried to swing my feet out from under the blanket, then stopped short when I realized I had a catheter in. “Get Tennyson. I need him to unhook me.”

“Ward.” Henry finally settled on my hips as a target, pressing both warm palms firmly against the ridges of my pelvis. I tried not to let on how nice it felt. “You need to stay in bed, for the sake of your health.”

“I need to be with you, for the sake of our pack. Colonel Hill needs to see that you have support,” I insisted.

“And what kind of support would you be if you fell over in the snow as soon as he arrived?”

I knew he didn’t mean to be cruel, but it didn’t feel like that at the moment. I kept silent, and he stared at me before sighing heavily. “Shit, I’m sorry. That wasn’t… I’m just worried about you, Ward.”

“Pot, kettle.”

He gestured to my bandaged shoulder. “But I’m not recovering from a huge physical trauma.”

“No, just an emotional one,” I shot back, and he looked away first. “You’re trying to protect me, I know it. But I’m the reason Hill is coming after you now. I can’t leave you to fight that battle on your own.” I waved away the objections I knew were coming. “I know you have Sam and Liam, and things are better with the pack now, but they aren’t the ones who’ve been taking care of you lately. I am. And I’m going to keep doing it, and that means not letting you face down someone who’s very happy to abuse you however he can get away with it, without being there to back you up.” I grabbed one of his hands in my own. “I want to do this. I need to.”

Henry stared at me like he was trying to catch my words out of the air and dissect their meaning. “Why?” he asked quietly.

“Because we’re partners. Aren’t we? We—look, we like each other, right?” God, why did my vocabulary have to descend to a middle-school level when I was trying to be serious? “Maybe—maybe more than that, for me. I want to be with you when you face down Hill because if he takes—if he tries to take—” Oh shit, was I on the edge of a panic attack again? I took a deep breath and did my best to force the anxiety back. “You’re mine,” I snarled. “And he can’t fucking take you away from me without a fight.”

As threats went, it wasn’t best being delivered by a wounded, sickly guy with a plastic tube up his dick, but Henry smiled like I’d just handed him the moon. “You getting territorial on me, Ward?”

“Yeah.” I pushed my lower jaw out a bit. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nope!” For someone who had been deadly serious less than a minute ago, his cheerful turnaround was a little dizzying. “How about a compromise? Instead of me going out to meet Hill alone or you coming with me, we’ll stay here. Together.”

“You can cling to my bed when they try to drag you out.”

“It’s got wheels, Ward,” Henry pointed out with a smile. “It wouldn’t be hard to drag you with me.”

“Good,” I murmured. “That’s what I want.”

Henry shook his head. “You’re crazy, but I guess opposites attract.”

“Whatever. You’re ten times crazier than me.”

“Crazy about you, maybe.”

From what I remembered of my sort-of-rescue, he really was kind of insanely protective of me. At least if his shift was anything to go by. “What do you—”

There was a knock on the door, and a moment later Sam walked in. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but the cameras are showing a vehicle coming up the road, Henry.”

He tensed but didn’t let go of my hand. “Just one?”

“One that we can see. It’s definitely from the Springs, though.”

“He might have operatives moving in from other directions. Ask Liam to keep an eye on the rest of the fence, but direct whoever’s in the vehicle to me here.”

Sam’s brow furrowed. “Into the clinic? Henry, what—”

“Hey, it’s not my idea. Ward is making me.”

I rolled my eyes. “You big baby. Seriously, Ava has more maturity than you.”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to let Hill see you so….” Sam groped for the right word until Henry intervened.

“Infatuated? Obsessed? In love?”

“Vulnerable,” Sam said, but her joy overcame her worry for a moment. “Oh, in love? Really?”

Henry blushed. It was the cutest fucking thing ever, a grown werewolf blushing, and I was going to tease him for it later. For now, though, I had mercy. “We’re still working out the details, but we want to present a united front.”

“It makes perfect sense.” Sam nodded approvingly. “A pack is always healthier with a second alpha to help take the weight, and I don’t really fit the bill these days. Good call. I’ll go let everyone else know. They’ll be thrilled! Ward, pinch your cheeks,” she added as she turned to leave. “Get some color into them, so Hill doesn’t think you’re dying.”

I turned a blank stare on Henry, who looked… kind of stunned. “An alpha? Me?” I shook my head. “Look at me!”

“No, she’s right about that part.”

“But I’m human!”

“Sam has been my second ever since I took over,” he pointed out. “She’s human too.”

“But I don’t feel like an alpha.”

He cocked his head a little. “How should an alpha feel?”

“I don’t know… powerful? In control? Bossy?”

Henry smirked. “You boss me around all the time with no problem.”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t see—” Henry stiffened and turned his head toward the door. “Sam’s coming back. Someone’s with her.”

I fought the panic back again. “Colonel Hill, I guess.”

“No. I don’t recognize this man’s heartbeat. And Hill would never come this far into the compound alone—he’d have his men with him to help him intimidate me. He said he’d be here himself, though. This is… strange.” Henry’s hand twitched in mine, like he wanted to sprout claws and wasn’t by force of sheer will. “I don’t know who’s coming. I don’t know what this is.”

I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could. “Then we’ll find out together.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Henry

I DIDN’T know what to expect when Sam and her companion walked into the room, but it wasn’t a dark-skinned man wearing dress blues with a silver oak leaf on each shoulder. My sister’s heartbeat was completely calm, which was another shocker. The biggest surprise, though? The way Ward gasped when he saw the man, then straightened up and reached for him.

“Davis!”

“Ward! Dammit, what did I tell you about avoiding guardians?” The man immediately came over to the bed and took Ward’s hand, cupping it soothingly and taking the sting out of his rebuke. Not that Ward looked very rebuked. He grinned widely.

“You told me not to look the alpha in the eye either. I’d rate your advice about fifty-fifty for usefulness. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass, you pain in the neck,” he said, then looked at me for the first time. “Or rather, saving your ass, Major Dormer.”

“I’d appreciate an explanation,” I replied, trying to keep the growl out of my voice, but it wasn’t easy. I’d been expecting a fight, verbal at the very least, possibly physical. My adrenaline was still up, even if the threat was neutralized. Plus, he was still holding on to Ward’s hand. It wasn’t really my place to let that irritate me, but it did anyway. “Where’s Colonel Hill?”

“He’s currently under investigation for alleged associations with antiwerewolf hate groups. He’s been removed from command of the Agency of Shifter Affairs pending his trial.”

I was speechless, struck dumb. Sam came around the bed and set a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently.

“How?” I managed after a moment.

“His email server appears to have been hacked. Copies of his correspondence were sent to every general in the Pentagon, as well as all the rest of the officers working with the ASA.” Davis shrugged. “The intelligence leak is regrettable and being investigated for its own merits, but it’s unconscionable to allow someone with Colonel Hill’s views to order werewolves into the field. The entire department is undergoing a massive reorganization.”

Ward was still grinning. “I guess that’s how you got promoted, huh?”

Davis snorted. “The brass was begging for someone to take this spot that wouldn’t run scared the first time a werewolf bared a fang at them, and I was looking for a way to check in and make sure you were still alive. Win-win. Still, the position is only as acting director. I’m not in charge of the place yet, brat.”

“You will be.”

I had to interrupt. “Does this mean that my deployment to Ukraine is cancelled?”

Davis nodded. “It does. We’re very carefully pulling all our active operatives as well, so we can do a reassessment of how each alpha is coping with his or her duties and what the next step should be. You’re on leave for the indefinite future, Major.”

It sounded too good to be true. “We have to justify our protected status.” Sam and Ward both frowned, but I persisted. “That’s been the party line for decades. Don’t tell me it’s changed now just because Hill was an ass.”

“Look, I can’t see the future any better than you,” Davis said. “But I’m not lying about the reorganization that’s happening. Rocks are being overturned. Souls—and email accounts—are being searched. There are a lot of people who were kept in the dark about certain practices Colonel Hill allowed and encouraged that are spitting mad about it now. Things are changing, and for my part I’m going to do my best to make sure every member of ASA, whether they’re a werewolf or a human, is given everything they need to do the best job possible, instead of fighting for the bare essentials.” He sounded—every part of him, voice and heart—completely sincere. “I’ve been out there. I’ve seen what you do, how you work.” He stood at attention and saluted me. “Thank you for your service, Major Dormer.”

I couldn’t speak. It was too much, too far from everything I’d been expecting. After a moment I saluted back, and he relaxed.

Sam, bless her sense of timing, stepped in for me. “Why don’t you and Ward talk for a while?” she suggested to Davis, urging me to my feet. “I’ll feed this one and bring back some lunch for both of you, and Ava’s probably ready to see her daddy again.”

“Ava’s shifted? That’s great!” Davis’s face split with a grin, and I felt better about leaving Ward alone with him. Just a little better. I felt even better when Ward motioned me close, put his hand around the back of my neck and kissed me. He still stank of antiseptic and stress, but his lips were the softest things I’d ever touched, and I closed my eyes and leaned into the embrace, still careful of his shoulder. When we parted, he looked dazed. I kissed him again for it, fast but gentle, then backed away.

“We’ll be back soon.” As we left I could hear the bed creak as Davis sat on it, the low murmur of their voices starting up, but I didn’t strain to listen in. Sam wrapped her hand around my arm as we walked out into the winter sunshine, and even though it was cold, I felt suffused with warmth and light.

“How did you do it?” I asked quietly as we started toward our house.

“Liam used Ward’s car as an uplink and hacked Hill’s account. He also hacked the confidential after-action reports for the last dozen active missions and highlighted the medical findings, with Tennyson’s help.” She shrugged casually. “All in a few months’ work.”

Wait a second. “Months?”

She nudged me with her hip. “You didn’t think my honeymoon was nothing but booze and fucking, did you? Why do you think I picked Virginia and not the Virgin Islands? We were working the whole time.”

“I didn’t want to think about it,” I said with perfect honesty. “But Sam… this is amazing. Thank you.”

“I wasn’t about to lose you. I’m never going to lose you, Henry.” There it was, all the ferocity and love it seemed like I’d been seeing ever since I got back, but not really feeling. I felt it now, though, and pressed a grateful kiss to the top of her head as we walked.

The cabin was warm, and I could hear Liam, Tennyson, and Ava talking in the kitchen. Sam went ahead of me, calling to her husband to take my plate out of the oven as she went. I bent over to untie my boots, grateful for a moment to myself.

In a minute, I’d go join my family for lunch. I’d reach out to my brother-in-law and thank Tennyson, play with Ava and serve some food up for Ward and Davis. I’d have to figure things out between Ward and myself. I’d have to check on my pack, all of them, and talk to Davis and John about what happened next with our guardian and his family. I’d have to see how Roman and Gerald were holding up and thank Peggy for her help. A long list of duties, responsibilities, and privileges stretched out in front of me, and for the first time in a long time, they didn’t fill me with fear or anxiety.

I had a future again, and it was full of hope.

Epilogue

Ward

IT WAS just early enough in the spring that the nights were still uncomfortably cool, but Henry liked to sleep with the window open, so I got used to our bedroom being a little chilly. It didn’t really matter, honestly. I was still deliciously warm, tucked up against Henry’s side and under his arm. He didn’t even mind when I pushed my icy feet between his calves, just tugged me closer with a quiet sigh.

The sky was starting to get light. Gray jays were calling in the tree just beyond our window, and it was a weekend, so neither of us had any reason to get up yet. It was perfect. I turned my face against Henry’s chest and kissed him there and got a rumbling growl of contentment as my prize. I loved making him rumble, it was like getting a cat to purr. I did it again and again, until he opened his eyes and blinked at me.

“You better stop that before you start something,” he whispered.

“Maybe I’m trying to start something.” My chest felt clear, my shoulder didn’t ache anymore, I’d slept well, and I was horny. Plus, Henry loved morning sex, so… “Yeah?”

“Nope.”

I frowned—it wasn’t a pout, no matter what Henry said. “Why not?”

“Because we’re about to have company.”

“Oh my God.” This would be the third time this week Ava had barged into our room. Right after her first shift, when I was still hurt, she’d insisted on sleeping in here—in a separate bed, at least—but we’d worked with her enough that she was okay with staying in her own room at night now. Mornings were a whole other story. The psychiatrist we’d consulted with had said she had abandonment fears, and that time and patience were the best cures.

That was undoubtedly true, but I still wished my kid was old enough to handle a locked door, because dammit.

“Here she comes.” I heard the doorknob turn and the sound of little feet padding almost soundlessly into the room. Henry tucked the blanket a little closer around me, then sat up and literally snatched Ava out of the air as she leaped for the bed. He snarled mock-ferociously, and she giggled until I thought her lungs were going to give out.

“You weren’t supposed to catch me!”

“And you’re not supposed to jump on your daddy, so it’s a good thing I did catch you.”

“It’s more fun when you don’t, though.”

“Bruising my kidneys isn’t fun, baby.” I sat up and brushed my hair out of my face—I’d need a trim soon, it was getting too long.

“Daddy!” Ava’s face brightened when she saw me, and Henry passed her over. She snuggled in for a hug, and it felt like my heart was lighting up from the inside. I kissed the top of her head and sighed with contentment.

“I want pancakes.”

Aaand there it was. “It’s not time for breakfast yet, Ava.”

“But I’m hungry!”

“Then you can go downstairs and get yourself an apple or pear.” Those were the easiest fresh fruits to ship in this early in the season. Eventually we’d get Western Slope peaches and apricots, which according to Henry were amazing, but we weren’t there yet.

She put her hands on either side of my face. “But Daddy, I’m only hungry for pancakes. With chips.” Chocolate chips, naturally—Ava had some curious favorites, but we weren’t at the point yet where she wanted actual potato chips mixed into her pancake batter.

“I think we’re out of chips, baby.”

She frowned. “No.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“But Daddy!” She managed to pack an incredible amount of indignation into her protest.

“We’ll get another shipment in a week.”

Ava moaned and flopped back on the bed. “I can’t wait a week for pancakes. My tummy will starve!”

“Well, we can’t have that.” Henry leaned over next to her. “What about regular pancakes—” He paused for a brief moan of discontent from my little drama llama. “—wrapped around sausages?”

Ava opened her eyes. “Aunt Sam’s sausages?”

“Yep.”

“Will she make them for us?”

“She’s still sleeping, but if you go down and have a piece of fruit as a snack, soon your daddy and I will be ready to join you and make breakfast. Sound good?”

“Yes please!” She leaned in and kissed first his cheek, then mine, then rolled right off the back of the bed. I reached for her even though I knew she was going to land on her feet—the kid always did. If I didn’t know she was a werewolf, I would swear she was part-cat. “Be fast, Daddy!” She ran out the door, not remembering to close it, and now it was my turn to fall back on the bed with a sigh.

“So much for a lazy Saturday.”

Henry stroked a line down the middle of my chest, fingers lingering against my rib cage. “You wouldn’t have had a lazy day anyway. You’ve got to tell Gerald how you want things constructed for your pulley presentation on Monday.”

I grinned smugly. “Making him my science-demo bitch was the best move ever.” It put me on more solid footing in the pack hierarchy and gave Gerald one more small way to make up for the fact that he’d lost a challenge, lost status, and almost lost his family all at once.

Things weren’t perfect. The pack was still figuring out how to handle their more-involved alpha, and our relationship had gotten a few headshakes from some of the “traditional” pack members, but no one had asked to leave. It had been six months, and Henry had only been sent out on a single two-week mission in familiar terrain. Davis, now stationed permanently in Colorado Springs, stopped in frequently, sometimes to chat with me but more often to spend time with Tennyson, which—I didn’t know what was going on there, but I liked it.

It was challenging, but it was my life. I had my daughter, I had a partner, and I had a pack to look after. I taught, I learned to cook huge amounts of food, and I had more friends now than ever before. I was content. I was happy.

I was also still horny, and now that Ava was downstairs having a snack… I placed my hand on Henry’s and pushed it a little farther down my stomach. “You want to share a shower? It’ll save time.”

“Yeah, sure it will.” He leaned over and kissed me, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him close. “And of course I do.”

More from Cari Z.

Jonathan Hatcher has led an interesting life. Once the psychic protégé of Dr. Nelson Cagney of the Bureau of Psychological Corrections, he escaped and went on the run through post-World War Three Europe, scraping a living out of the ruins of civilization and avoiding the mindless vics: humans turned berserker by exposure to biological and chemical weapons.

Once again at Cagney’s mercy, Jonathan is stuck in PsyCo’s high-security wing with no idea whether Sam, the man he thinks he may love, is alive or dead by his hand. Though at first he only plays along for news of Sam, soon Jonathan sees the conditions in the warring European Coalition are desperate. Sam and Jonathan must make a choice: make for France and a life together… or team up with their captors against a devastating new threat.

Their love will either inspire change in the world or tear it apart.

Former starship captain Jason Kim and his lover, Ferran, are starting a life together on Ferran’s native planet. The Perel matriarchs reluctantly allowed their marriage in the hopes of securing better diplomatic relations with humanity, even though the decision ignites anger from traditionalists. Ferran’s family accepts Jason and the love the two men have found, but other influential families are less accommodating and much less willing to welcome an outsider to their isolated, subterranean world. Some of their enemies are willing to go as far as eliminating Jason permanently. Tensions are quickly building toward a breaking point that might push Perelan into a bloody civil war.

If Jason and Ferran have any hope of surviving the coming conflict, they’ll have to rely on their devotion to each other more than ever before. But that won’t be easy when a figure from Jason’s past reappears to make them question everything.

Lee Summers is past expecting to find love. He has a fulfilling career and a few human connections, and he’s determined to be happy with those. When he meets Felix Clymenos during a vacation in Colorado, he doesn’t expect to feel so passionate about him. Felix is intriguing, but when he starts to feature in Lee’s dreams—and his slowly strengthening nightmares—Lee wonders if it wouldn’t be a better idea to walk away. There’s a mystery behind Felix’s affections and somehow Lee feels like he’s known Felix his whole life. Before they can be happy together, Lee has to know why that is… and what that means for their future.

Readers love Changing Worlds by Cari Z.

“Changing Worlds has every chance of appealing to both science fiction fans AND romance fans.”

—Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

“…Cari Z. has written a lovely sci-fi romance that is fresh and enjoyable, while avoiding the tropes prevalent in this sub-genre.”

—The Novel Approach

“Changing Worlds left me seeing stars with a happy heart…”

—Book UNfunk

“This was a brilliant read and I will definitely recommend it to others.”

—Gay Book Reviews

CARI Z was a bookworm as a child and remains one to this day. In an effort to combat her antisocial reading behavior, she did all sorts of crazy things, from competitive gymnastics to alligator wresting (who even knew that was legal!) to finally joining the Peace Corps, which promptly sent her and her husband to the wilds of West Africa, stuck them in a hut, and said, “See ya!” She also started writing then because what else are you going to do for entertainment with no electricity? She writes award-winning LGBTQ fiction featuring aliens, supervillains, soothsayers, and even normal people sometimes.

You can contact Cari at carizabeth@hotmail.com. In fact, please do. She’d love to hear from you.

Website: cari-z.net

Blog: carizerotica.blogspot.com

Twitter: @author_cariz

By Cari Z.

A Blinded Mind

Changing Worlds

Different Spheres

In Memoriam

Off the Beaten Path

Worth the Wait

Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Published by

DREAMSPINNER PRESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Off the Beaten Path

© 2017 Cari Z.

Cover Art

© 2017 Brooke Albrecht.

http://brookealbrechtstudio.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

ISBN: 978-1-63533-897-3

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-898-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941786

Published September 2017
v. 1.0

Printed in the United States of America