John’s son, Edmond, a sturdy four-year-old, trundled past her at great speed from the direction of the bedroom used as the nursery. He was shrieking with laughter and clutching his stuffed puppy.
“Edmond!” His mother, Susan, followed with his shirt in her hands. Felicia started to step out of the way, but Edmond paused and then darted for Tom’s room, so she scooped him up. Tom—and Pierce—wouldn’t thank her if she let the kid rampage around in their stuff.
That left her face-to-face with Susan and her human scent. Even though Susan had been there all the time Felicia lived in the Roanoke pack house, it still sometimes came as a little jolt to find a human acting as if she was a Were. Felicia understood it was because she’d earned it, defending the pack, besides the fact that her son and husband were Were, but she never knew quite how to treat the woman. In Madrid, they killed any human who found out about them.
“Thanks,” Susan said and took Edmond from Felicia. Susan always looked so put together, like an executive of some corporation on TV, brown hair kept professionally short. Edmond squirmed around to mock-growl at Felicia playfully, and she mock-growled back. “Tom’s at work, if you’re looking for him.”
“Seriously?” Felicia frowned at Susan as if that would convey the expression to Tom. Werewolf healing was all very well, but today was the full. She wouldn’t want to be out dealing with annoying humans with a shift so close, so easy to lose control, even when she was completely healthy, never mind exhausted from healing. Back in Madrid, it was perfectly acceptable to stay home and not interact with any humans if you thought you weren’t up to it.
“It’s hardly manual labor,” Susan said with a shrug.
“Down!” Edmond was apparently bored with their conversation, so he pushed his arms out straight against Susan’s chest. She sighed and set him down but didn’t release him until she’d pulled on his shirt.
“But he has to deal with so many—” Felicia caught herself at the last second. “People.”
“Humans,” Susan corrected, expression unbothered, though Felicia caught a whiff of exasperation. “Movie theaters are generally full of them, you’ll find.” Edmond glanced one last time at Tom’s room, but when Felicia moved to stand more firmly in the way, he and his puppy headed for the stairs and whatever entertainment might wait below.
Susan watched him go and then turned her attention back to Felicia. “By the way, do you want any help on your résumé? I’ve probably had the most experience with them, though I think John’s helped with interviewing where he works so he might have some insight from the other side.”
Felicia dropped her head to hide a flush of frustration. That was another thing she’d let slide until summer. And now it was summer, and she didn’t have an excuse anymore. “I don’t … have one yet. To help with. I was waiting until classes ended to work on it.”
Susan’s exasperation grew more marked in her scent. She started downstairs after her son, slow enough to encourage Felicia to follow along and continue the conversation. “What did you think you were going to do about a job? You know everyone in the pack besides the alphas has one, unless they’re watching the kids. They have Were money trees in Spain that we North Americans aren’t aware of?”
The “we” sounded weird too, but Felicia didn’t comment. Being the beta’s mate didn’t automatically give Susan a similar status, but she read as plenty dominant on her own. Felicia didn’t know how she did it, as a human. “Well, I’d work for the pack company. That’s different.”
They reached the ground floor and Susan raised her eyebrows in silence, so Felicia expanded after a moment. “Every pack has one. Madrid’s makes—” The names came first to her in Spanish, so she had to sort through to find one with the English equivalent handy. “Tractors. Farm equipment and stuff. I probably would have worked in the office, but there’s something for everyone. Actually making them, or selling them, or running the computers with the budget software, or … whatever.”
Susan stooped to pick up a wooden toy car that had been abandoned in the middle of the hall by one of the other kids and made a thoughtful noise. “Andrew talks about starting something like that here. I can see how it would allow you guys to bring more Were culture into the workplace as well.” She stepped into the living room to drop the car in the nearest toy box. “But since that’s not up and running, my bank does have an opening for a teller right now. I’ll be happy to give your résumé to HR once you have one. You would have to be polite, though.”
Felicia bristled. “Are you saying I can’t be polite?”
Susan just raised her eyebrows. Felicia tried to stay strong, but she dropped her head after a moment. She’d just proved she’d probably be complete shit at talking to humans all day, and they both knew it.
Susan took pity on her after a moment. “There are plenty of jobs that don’t need a lot of interaction. Brush up your computer and filing skills. I find data entry soul sucking personally, but—” She shrugged. “Think about it, anyway. Like your father said, everyone has to go through it sometime.”
Somehow, the sympathy made Felicia feel even worse. She recognized how stupid that was, given that she’d been moping so recently that she didn’t know what to do. But now someone else was implying she didn’t, she wanted to show Susan how wrong she was. “I’ll think about it,” she mumbled. “I’m going to go see Tom.”
Susan nodded without comment and let her go. Felicia rummaged through the bowl on top of the gigantic shoe cubby by the front door. Most of the vehicles that nominally belonged to various members of the pack were in the driveway or along the street since it was the weekend, but she knew better than to borrow some of those without asking. Her father’s, for example. She dug around until she found the keys for the old Honda beater and headed out.
Felicia hesitated when she reached the lobby of the multiplex, multicolored neon lines from the lights above mixing with the sunlight at her feet. Two red-vested employees manned the gaps in the velvet ropes on either side of the concession stand, so she couldn’t get back to talk to Tom without buying a ticket, and he wasn’t answering her texts. Lady, why was she so stupid? He probably wasn’t allowed to be on his phone at work. She should have thought of that.
Well, she could at least ask someone, and then hang around in case Tom walked by within hailing distance on the other side of the rope. Felicia selected the employee on the right, a bleached blond woman only a few years older than her. She looked like she might be sympathetic to Felicia searching for a friend.
The woman proved indifferent rather than sympathetic, but she did get on her walkie-talkie and ask for Tom. Felicia edged off to the side when the woman gestured, so a loud family with tickets could get past.
Tom appeared from an employees-only door down the hallway and stopped abruptly when he saw her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Felicia wondered if he had been actively ignoring her texts. Was he still angry? She clenched her hands into tight fists in her jeans pockets. If he was, what could she do to make it up to him?
After that hesitation, he did come over, though. He stepped over the velvet rope and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Felicia, I’m at work.”
“I know, I—” Felicia bit her lip. The feeling of doing something that smacked of groveling made her grit her teeth, but she did deserve his anger. “I’m sorry—”
Tom waved away the apology with a half smile that made him look much more like his usual self, too mellow to maintain anger for very long. He sobered quickly, however. “It’s not that. Your father wants me to stay away from you for a few years.”
A flash of anger tightened Felicia’s chest all at once. She knew her father would interfere. “He can’t—”
“No, he’s right, we’re young. A year isn’t forever. And we can still be friends, okay?” Tom looked away, body language drooping. “Just not right now. It’s too easy to fall into other stuff again. So we should keep some space for a while.”
Felicia stepped back and crossed her
arms. Fine. If he didn’t care enough about her to defy her father, she didn’t want him anyway. Coward. “I didn’t come about that. I wanted to get your advice on what kind of job to look for.” Her accent was getting worse and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She hated the way it underlined the scent of her mood, so she pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything more.
Tom hesitated, then waved to the blonde taking tickets. “I’ll take my break.” She nodded absently. Tom put his hand just behind Felicia’s shoulder, refusing to quite touch it as he directed her toward the large glass panels of the front wall and doors. Once she figured out what he was doing, Felicia lengthened her stride to get ahead so he couldn’t have touched her if he’d wanted to. She shoved the door open with more force than necessary.
“So you’ve decided not to go roaming?” Tom stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black work slacks as they followed the sidewalk along the building to an empty wing of the parking lot.
“If Dad wants me gone, he’ll have to kick me out. I’m not going to go roaming when everyone will be suspicious because I’m a European.” Felicia crossed her arms again until she realized it probably made her look sulky. That wasn’t sulking; that was the truth. Better to admit it and deal with it.
“It’s not like that.” Tom looked at his feet and his bangs flopped forward into his eyes. “You’ve been here three years, and anyway, roamers are roamers. Everyone expects you to be a little bit of a dumbass. People are used to it. Just don’t go around killing people’s pets or getting photographed. And there’s plenty of land all over the West to run around in, without encountering a pack’s patrols for days.”
“I’m not a lone, though.” Felicia kicked a piece of ornamental gravel that had escaped from the base of a tree along the sidewalk. “That’s what I don’t get about all this. You talk like nearly everyone goes roaming, but most Were aren’t lones. Am I supposed to have some lone/pack switch that’s tripped when I get older?”
“So find a nice boy—or girl—to have a roamer’s chase with.” Tom grinned. “That’s when half the Were here figure out the kind of person they’d like as a mate eventually, anyway.” His tone turned more factual, but the grin lingered. “Packs expect you to stop by. You kind of should anyway, to get official permission to cross territory from each alpha. So it’s kind of more like a tour than anything. Run across country for a few days, stay a couple nights with a pack, go sightseeing with some of them, then head off to the next territory. Don’t your paternal grandparents live back East somewhere? You could visit them.”
Felicia searched his face and scent to find any reaction to the idea that she might go out and play chase with other Were not him, but he seemed thoroughly interested in the hypothetical possibilities of touring around the country. She grimaced. “They live in North Carolina. I did visit them once with Dad, but it was unbearably awkward. I don’t think they ever liked my mother much.” Time to nudge the subject in another direction, because she definitely didn’t need him trying to talk her into that. “You went roaming, I take it?”
“For about a year. I left when I was nineteen, after I’d tried some semesters of community college. Came out West, fell in love, she fell out of love first. That’s when I joined your father, just before he and Silver challenged to be Roanoke.” Tom bounced up on his toes and Felicia had to smile despite herself. He always did that when he was talking about something he was really into.
“I saw the Grand Canyon, and I visited Yellowstone, but the true wolves there were getting pissed, so I had to leave early. I stopped by Vegas—that one’s really not worth it, it’s just bright and noisy—and Fort Mandan.” Tom waited, like Felicia was supposed to have some reaction to that. “You know. Where Lewis and Clark picked up the Were living as a trapper who joined their expedition.”
“I’ll admit I’m historically ignorant when you can name me one famous Spanish Were,” Felicia countered and snorted at his hopeful expression. They’d had this discussion before. She held up one finger, forestalling. “Who’s not famous for being killed in the Inquisition.”
Tom laughed. “Tell me you at least know Virginia Dare, even if you don’t know any other North Americans.”
Felicia pulled a face at him. Of course she knew about her own ancestor, and that ancestor’s part in the colony that had given her own pack its name. Honestly.
Tom grinned at her annoyance, but then his humor trailed off. “Anyway. I think you especially should try roaming. Get to know more of North America. Reassure yourself that people don’t actually much care where you came from.”
“Mm.” Felicia resettled a lock of hair behind her ear. However much you dressed it up nice with all the places you got to visit, roaming still sounded to her like a big excuse to get annoying teens out of the pack. “Well, I’m going to get a job right now, but I’ll keep that in mind for later.”
“You have all your documents and stuff in order? They’re paranoid about checking those when you get hired lately.” Though he was still offering advice, Tom glanced none too subtly toward the glass doors back into the multiplex.
“Father got our ID guy to make me what I need as a citizen when I first moved here. They’re worn in by now.” Felicia blew out a breath. “Lady. Go ahead and go. I’m sure your break’s nearly over or whatever.”
Tom hesitated a moment, then impulsively grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “It’ll all work out. Being eighteen, nineteen, totally sucks, until you settle into yourself and into a pack. A couple years, and things’ll be clearer.”
“Because you’re so ancient at twenty-three,” Felicia countered with a snort. Tom’s only response was to lift his fingertips in a wave as he headed back inside. Now he was no longer watching, Felicia let herself cross her arms tightly again. She didn’t have to roam, because she was perfectly capable of getting a job.
Just watch her.
5
Silver pretended not to notice everyone getting ready for the evening hunt and focused on Edmond playing beside her on the floor. Though the residual poison in her blood trapped her forever in human form, she was their alpha, and they would hold themselves to the pace she set on two legs. But tonight she didn’t feel like much running. Yesterday had brought what she used to be too close to the surface. She didn’t want to chase the faint shadow of it. She’d go with the pack, but she’d wait, let them circle back to her when they’d made a kill.
She could use the time waiting to plan what she was going to say to Felicia. The young woman would be too busy with the hunt tonight, but perhaps tomorrow Silver could pull her aside.
Silver reached for one of Edmond’s toys, a black-and-white spotted cow, but he growled at her and grabbed it first. He put it in his mouth so he could push himself up with both hands and run away. Silver caught the back of his shirt before he got more than a few steps. “Manners, Edmond!” She turned him around and spread one of his hands open. “When we’re in human, we use our hands, not our mouths.”
Edmond whined, apologetic, and spat the cow into his hand. He offered it out. He was far too young to have a wild self yet, but she could see hints of it behind his eyes, a flicker like a silhouette crossing the dawn horizon between trees. As he grew, year by year, that flicker became more pronounced.
Silver didn’t accept the cow yet. “Use your human words.”
“Sorry, Alpha.” Edmond hung his head.
Silver picked up the cow by the least damp part, set it on its feet beside her, and walked it over to him. For this lesson, it would have been better if she could have divided the cow into parts and given Edmond one, but she’d make do. “Thank you, Edmond. Even though an alpha always gets the first share of the kill, it’s her job to make sure every member of the pack gets at least a little bit of the rest. That’s part of being an alpha. You can have all of this one.”
Edmond left the cow and trundled over to watch the adults talking and laughing together near the entrance to the den, shedding extra clothing before leaving for the h
unt. “I wanna go. It’s not fair. I’m always in human.”
“So am I,” Silver pointed out. Unfair, as the child said. But seen from a child’s perspective, it was also simple fact, easier to bear somehow. “Forever. At least the Lady will call your wild self when you’re older.”
Edmond considered her for a moment and then threw his arms around her neck in a hug. Silver laughed in surprise, cupped her good arm around his back, and breathed in his scent. She knew what she was doing with this cub, at least.
Then it was time to go. Silver handed Edmond over to Susan, who would be staying with all of the children too young to have their wild selves yet, and slipped outside with the rest of the pack. Everyone’s scent was wound tight with anticipation, shift so very close in the full, and Silver avoided Dare. Touching him, feeling that anticipation in his muscles rather than just smelling it, would call to her own impossible-to-fulfill impulse to shift. She could hurt herself if she gave in to that, so she avoided Dare, and he let her. He understood why, and she’d make it up to him after the hunt when he’d run off the energy.
Out at their hunting lands, Dare lingered with his tame self dominant as the others piled up their clothes and dashed off into the trees on four feet. He gestured for Tom to remain when the young man would have done the same. “Hey! You know better than that. Shifting’s good for you, but you don’t need to be running.”
Tom lifted his head high with annoyance, but Dare tipped his head to Silver, and Tom relaxed. Silver suppressed a smile. She didn’t mind looking lonely as an excuse to keep a young pack member sensible. She held out her hand, palm down, and Tom padded over and ruffled his own ears with it.
“See you soon,” Dare said. He switched to his wild self with joyous relief and pounded after the others. Silver knelt and scratched all around in Tom’s ruff until he looked ready to fall over from enjoyment. A breeze ruffled up her hair as well as his, carrying the crispness of the growing green that surrounded them. Evergreens young and old, generous underbrush, and a stretch of grass at their feet where they flattened the plants traveling in and out. Rather than chasing individual scents, squirrel or crow or many other animals, Silver let the whole fill her up with a scent quietness. They’d be back among the humans soon enough, with layer upon layer of smells, pleasant and unpleasant.
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