Off the Beaten Path

by Cari Z

  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.