Secret of the Wolf

by Cynthia Garner

  “That’s okay,” she responded absently. She’d heard worse every day on the job. Hell, she’d used worse. “Are you any closer to figuring out why he’s doing this?”

  “Uh-uh. It could be that he’s just a crazy son of a bitch.”

  “Could be, but most people, including the crazy ones, have a reason for what they’re doing…even if that reason doesn’t make sense to the rest of us.” Tori plumped the pillow behind her back. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  “That’s what I like about you, kid. Always willing to jump in and lend a hand.” He sighed. “There’s nothing, really, other than keeping your ear to the ground. Let me know if you hear anything that seems pertinent.”

  “Will do.” She ended the call and pondered for a second whether she should call Dante, but decided against it. There wasn’t anything he could do and, besides, the man himself had said he needed his beauty sleep. She’d call him later and let him know there’d been another attack. He might want to consult with his counterpart in District Four.

  Dante. She shook her head and put the phone back on the nightstand. Sliding down into bed with a yawn, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off him. He’d been so ready to come to her defense with Rand. It had made something inside of her melt. She’d never really had someone, a man, stand up for her like that before. It made him all the more attractive to Tori.

  Her mind bounced back to the kisses they’d shared. God, that man was a good kisser. A great kisser. She got stirred up just thinking about it.

  He was smart and funny. A lethal combination. She could kind of understand his reluctance for a relationship, to a point. She got that he put in a lot of hours on the job—so did she. She got that he had obligations to his family—so did she. Or, at least, she was trying to. And she got that he had a hobby, his horses, that also demanded time from him.

  There they differed. She could never focus her attention on something long enough for it to become a hobby, unless you considered working off the clock to be one. And she didn’t do pets, because she was all the animal she cared to look after.

  For the next hour she tossed and turned, trying to get her mind to shut down long enough to fall asleep. It didn’t happen.

  Finally, she got up and put together a big breakfast of pancakes, hash browns, and lots of sausage. She got Rand out of bed, smiling when his grousing stopped as soon as he found out what she’d fixed. As they sat down at the dining room table she tried to get him to talk to her about the night before, but he remained reticent and noncommittal about his impressions of Dante, except for a snarly “The cop’s human.”

  When had he become such a bigot? He hadn’t acted this way in the other dimension. It seemed as if this planet had changed him, and not for the better. “Since when do you care if someone’s human or pret?”

  Rand sent her a look over his coffee mug. “You don’t know me, Tori. Not really. I’m not the same person I was back on our home planet. Neither are you.”

  He was right about that. The personality and life experiences of her human host had changed her. For the better, she’d like to think. She wasn’t so sure about Rand. “So tell me about yourself. Let me get to know you.”

  He forked pancake and a bit of sausage into his mouth. “Nothing to tell,” he said as he chewed.

  Apparently he wasn’t ready. Tori could give him time. She hoped so, anyway. She never knew when she might wake up to find he’d left without saying good-bye. Thinking she could get a topic going that he would want to talk about, she said, “So, I ran into Stefan last night at the club.”

  Rand’s face brightened. “You did? Why didn’t he come over?” He squirmed like an eager puppy that had just heard its master’s voice.

  “I asked him to,” she replied. “I guess he had other things to do. But he said he’d see us soon,” she added at Rand’s look of distress. “I’m sure he’ll make sure he sees you while he’s in town.”

  Using his knife and fork, her brother pushed bits of sausage around on his plate, grouping them together in neat little rows. “Well, I’d like to see him.” Rand chuckled before saying, “He’s so clever.”

  “He is.” Tori drew in a breath and held it a moment. “Don’t you feel even the slightest resentment toward him?”

  Rand lifted startled eyes to hers. “Why should I?”

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “He killed someone. He’s the reason we got sent through the rift, Rand. We lost everything.” She pressed her lips together. “I should have called the council right away and let them know he was here.”

  “No! You can’t!” Rand shoved to his feet, his chair skittering across the tile floor, banging against the wall. “Everyone agrees that being here on Earth is our second chance. Stefan deserves the same.”

  Tori fiddled with her fork. “I know, Rand. That’s why I haven’t turned him in yet.” She sighed and searched his eyes. “But what if he hasn’t changed? What if he’s still a criminal?”

  “He’s not. I won’t believe…” Her brother grabbed his chair and sat back down. “He’s just passionate about what he believes, that’s all.”

  Passionate. That was one way to look at it. Insane would be another. Only time would tell which way he went with his second chance.

  Rand speared several small pieces of sausage and forked them into his mouth. “What do you know about the werewolf attacks up north?” He stared down at his plate as he cut into his pile of pancakes. “I think the investigators are clueless. I mean, they aren’t any closer to catching the guy now than they were after the first attack, right?” He lifted his gaze to hers.

  At the admiration she saw shining in his eyes, Tori’s appetite fled. She put her fork down. “He’s attacking innocent people.” She took a sip of orange juice. “Anyway, it could be a woman, you know.”

  “Well, whoever it is, he or she is making more of us. That’s not a bad thing, in my opinion.” Rand finished his meal and pushed his plate forward. “Don’t you ever feel outnumbered? Outgunned? Or are you so fond of humans that you don’t care that they might enact laws to put us in communes or, worse, behind bars?”

  She frowned. “No one’s even talking about doing that, Rand.” Where was he coming up with all this crap?

  “Really? What about the senator who’s trying to microchip us? He says it’s so they can have an accurate count, but the chips could have a GPS function and track us.”

  She shook her head. “People wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “Are you sure? How would we know if it did?”

  “We’d know. They couldn’t keep something like that a secret.”

  “Right.” He shot her a glower. “You are so naïve sometimes.”

  Tori clasped her hands. “Rand, think about it. The government’s too disconnected and there’d be way too many people involved for something like that to be kept under wraps. We’d know. The council would know,” she stressed.

  “And if they knew, would they tell?” His expression turned sly.

  Now there was the million-dollar question. Some of them knew about the rift device and hadn’t shared that knowledge, so it was possible, even probable, that they had other secrets they were keeping. Hell, prets were all about secrets. Up until about four years ago their very existence was a secret.

  “Well, I don’t think there’s any kind of conspiracy going on, and you shouldn’t either,” she finally said. What else could she say?

  “Don’t tell me what to think.” Rand leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, then repeated the action several times. “I’m allowed to have my own thoughts. Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean you can tell me what to think.”

  “I never said that.” She reached out a hand as if to touch him even knowing she was too far away. “I just don’t want you worried about something that probably isn’t happening.”

  He shrugged. “But it’s my worry, right?”

  She lifted her hands in surrender and sat back. He w
as right. It was his worry. He’d also been right when he’d said he wasn’t the same man. He had changed, and she was afraid it wasn’t for the better.

  Rand got up and carried his plate to the sink. “So, tell me about your new lover. The human cop.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Maybe not physically, yet, but I saw how you looked at him. How he looked at you.”

  She couldn’t see his face, and the tone of his voice was neutral, like they were discussing the weather.

  However, that last piece of information sparked her curiosity. “How did he look at me?”

  “Like he wanted to lay you out and feast on you.” He rinsed off his plate and put it in the dishwasher, then dropped his fork and knife in the utensil container.

  Tori took her plate into the kitchen and scraped the leftovers into the wastebasket. When Rand held out his hand, she gave him the plate and watched while he rinsed it off. “It feels so strange talking to my brother about this,” she muttered. She was heartened that he seemed interested, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she had that he seemed also to be aligning himself with radicals in the preternatural community.

  “But you like him.”

  “I like him. We’re just friends, though.” If she didn’t think about those kisses maybe she could make herself believe they were co-workers and nothing more. It had really been that almost-kiss there right before he’d left that had her most bothered. To have him so close, to feel the rasp of his stubbled cheek against hers, his warm breath on her skin, the heat of his body radiating to hers…She fought back a shiver. “He’s my co-worker.”

  “You’ve never had any of your other co-workers over for pie at one o’clock in the morning.” A teasing note entered Rand’s voice.

  “We ran into each other at Devil’s Domain.” She leaned one hip on the counter. “You could have met him there if you’d gone with me. Where’d you end up going, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Just…out. Went for a run. Stopped off at a gym to shower, then came on home.”

  She’d thought last night that his hair looked a little wet. It was hard to tell; he kept it cut so short. “That doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you wait and shower here?”

  “I just didn’t. Jeez, I’m not one of your suspects for you to interrogate.” He leaned down and rearranged the silverware in the dishwasher basket and then pushed the rack into the machine and closed the door.

  Tori noticed he started tapping his foot. One-two-three-four-five-six. Pause. One-two-three-four-five-six. Pause. Repeat.

  “Honey, are you okay?” She walked forward and took his hands in hers. She stared into his eyes. “You seem…” While she searched for the right word he jerked away from her.

  “I seem what? Sick and tired of you always being a council liaison? Never my sister?”

  She frowned. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught this attitude from him. How could he be tired of her doing her job when he hadn’t even been here a week yet? “I’m worried about you. I noticed you’ve been acting a little…” She sighed. “I think your OCD is getting worse. Maybe you should see someone.”

  “See someone? Like a shrink, you mean?” He shrugged off the placating hand she tried to put on his shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “I didn’t say there was, but sometimes talking about a problem can help. Maybe there’s a medication that could alleviate some of the symptoms.” She hated to see him like this.

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, his eyes amber with anger.

  “Okay.” She’d let it go for now. “You know I’m here for you.”

  “Right. Yay me.” He scowled and turned on his heel to head toward the front of the house. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” The door slammed behind him.

  Tori sighed and leaned over the counter, letting her head hang. The muscles in her neck and shoulders ached in protest as they lengthened, loosening from the stress that had tightened them. When had things gotten so strained between her and her brother? Had they always been, in the other dimension, and she hadn’t recognized it? Or had she chosen not to see it?

  Dante gave Lily a boost onto her horse and then rechecked the cinch, making sure it was properly fastened.

  “Stop motherin’ me,” his sister said. “You’ve already checked it three times.”

  “And now I’ve checked it a fourth. You can never be too safe when it comes to riding horses.”

  She pressed her lips together, but not before a dimple flashed, telling him she was fighting a smile. “Okay there, Ranger Rob.” She gave him a two-fingered salute.

  “Lily.”

  “What?” She shot an innocent look his way. “Oh, just stop it, Dante. Muffin’s such a sweet boy. He would never do anything to make me fall off, would you?” She leaned forward and patted his neck.

  The quarter horse turned his head and shook it a couple of times, nickering low in his throat.

  “See?” Lily sat straight with a grin. “He’s a good boy.”

  “All right, all right.” Dante hoisted himself into the saddle and clicked his tongue. Big Ben set off at a slow walk, Muffin catching up to walk by the Appaloosa’s side.

  “So,” his sister said in that sly, teasing way of hers, “tell me about her.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t be coy with me, mister. You’ve met someone, I can tell. Spill.”

  Dante concentrated on guiding Ben around a flat-paddled prickly pear cactus. “I don’t know what you mean.” He barely had a handle on his feelings about Tori. There was no way he was ready to talk about it, least of all with his sister.

  “Ha!” Lily moved Muffin closer so she could reach over and smack Dante on the shoulder. “You do so know what I mean. Who is it? Is it someone you hooked up with at the club last night?”

  “I don’t ‘hook up’ with women.” He shot her a frown. “And if I did, I wouldn’t be talking to my little sister about it.”

  “Okay.” She held up one hand in surrender. “You don’t want to talk about her, I get it.”

  He knew his sister. She wouldn’t let go of it for very long. She should’ve been a cop. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he insisted. “I…was working.”

  “Uh-huh.” She eyed him. “You went out to that nightclub and didn’t come home until almost two. You don’t usually stay out that late when you know we’re getting up early for a ride.”

  “Talk about mothering,” he muttered.

  “Fine.” She gave a scowl but couldn’t hold it and broke into a grin, shaking her head. “Let’s talk about something else, then.”

  “Yes, let’s.” He tipped his cowboy hat farther forward, giving more shade to his eyes.

  “Any interesting cases you’re working on?” Lily clicked to her horse, urging him up a slight incline and then back down. She was a natural horsewoman, riding Muffin with ease. She looked…happy for the first time in a long while.

  Dante was glad he could give her some peace of mind. He knew for himself there wasn’t anything quite as relaxing as riding a horse, out in the desert where there was only the sound of nature—a few caws from the ravens circling overhead, the rustle of leaves as a slight breeze blew through the nearby mesquite trees.

  “Had a werewolf and vampire get into it a couple nights ago,” he said. “Well, the werewolf tried to get into it with the vamp, but I don’t think he quite managed it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dante glanced at her. “He bit a human on his way to the vamp.”

  “Really?” Lily’s eyes went round. “Wow. Is the human okay? Will he…will he turn?”

  “No. The werewolf didn’t let loose any of his preternatural stuff.”

  “Stuff? Is that the technical term for it?” Her lips tilted in a smile.

  “As a matter of fact, it is.” Dante shared a grin with her.

  “So how does that work?” she asked. “I’ve never been sure.”
/>
  Dante pulled Ben to a stop in the shade of a mesquite and waited until Lily maneuvered her horse next to him. He grabbed the canteen off his saddle and handed it to his sister, then took a swig of water after she passed the canteen back to him. “It’s just like in the legends. Werewolves can make another werewolf with just their bites. Vampires have to seal the deal with blood because they’re the weakest of all the prets.”

  “The weakest?” She frowned. “Just a few days ago there was a news report about a vampire who picked up a minivan full of tourists and set it down on top of another car just for shits and giggles.”

  “Yeah, that’s the weird thing…one of the weird things about vamps,” he clarified. “They’re the weakest of all prets when they first come through the rift. They can only take over bodies that are close to death or have just died. Once they’ve acclimated to their host, though, physically they’re the strongest.” Big Ben shifted his weight and Dante leaned over and stroked the horse’s neck.

  “Can you imagine? Living forever.” Lily turned Muffin and started back toward the trailhead where they’d left the truck and horse trailer.

  Dante pressed his heel to Ben’s side and followed his sister.

  “Seeing history as it unfolds and being a part of it…You’d have all the time in the world to do what you want to do, not having to worry about getting sick or dying.” She turned her face away from him, and he knew she was fighting back tears.

  “Well, they can die,” he informed her. “It just takes some doing.”

  She met his gaze, her eyes sad and full of the worry that he knew was her constant companion these days. “But they’re not going to get some kind of illness that eats ’em from the inside out.”

  “No, probably not.” Dante urged Ben closer to her. “Honey, you’ve got this thing beat.”

  She looked down and then back at him. “I know.” She pressed her lips together. “What if it comes back, Dante?”

  “Then you’ll fight it again.” He tugged off one of his gloves and reached over to brush a tear from her cheek. “And I’ll be right there with you.”

  Lily gave a tremulous smile. “I know you will be. I’m a lucky woman, to have a brother like you. I love you, you know.”