Off the Beaten Path

by Cari Z

  “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, b
ecause 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.