The unicorn isn’t my business, I reminded myself. Right now, neither were the tasks waiting for me back at the factory. The Guardian wrapped itself in no-time, and the more I fought against the endless present, the longer this would take.
So I cleared my mind and relaxed while the Guardian’s threads seeped into my skin. Waited while the unicorn grazed and the Guardian—I hoped—assessed the glitter sample.
Minutes or hours later, a word rang in my head like a gong. “Yes.”
I jolted. I hadn’t been expecting words. The Guardian almost never spoke in such a simple, straightforward manner.
“Who did it?” I pressed. “Can we still sell the glitter? What’s wrong with it?”
No answer. Well, no answer in words. But a snake-like vine lunged out of the tree behind me. The leafy tip slapped the sample bottle out of my fingers faster than I’d ruined Ash’s pancakes. Soil engulfed the flying bottle the second it hit the ground, enclosing the sample with an audible pop.
That seemed like a yes. The glitter was dangerous.
And, apparently, salvageable. Because before I could scramble to my feet, a mushroom pushed up from the spot the sample bottle had disappeared into. A puffball no bigger than my thumbnail bulged then popped open to launch a cascade of glitter above the moss.
The tiny fragments sparkled violet rather than silver. Settled on my skin like a caress, warm and sweetly scented.
“The glitter isn’t safe, but you can make it safe?” I guessed. No answer from the Guardian, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t very well spread tons of glitter out across the forest floor and let the Guardian process it into safety. Not when gathering up the final product afterwards would be impossible. Our pack couldn’t afford to write off our entire product line as a loss.
I blinked as a shard of mica caught in my eye. Blinked again and the unicorn stood in front of me, grazing complete.
“Go.”
Two words from the Guardian in one day should have been heartening. But this order was accompanied by a gust of arctic wind that raised instant goosebumps up and down my body. Purple glitter whipped off my skin in a mini-tornado, as if the Guardian had read my mind and disapproved of my focus on mundanity.
An image forced its way into my mind, as alien as the Guardian’s tendrils biting into my skin earlier. My pack, lupine, running through our forest. Vines and trees growing up where our driveway used to lie.
The glitter factory lay in ruins. Stone walls broken down, the substrate for mosses. Perhaps the Guardian hadn’t been suggesting I spread the glitter across the forest. Perhaps it had been suggesting we let the entire business go.
It was an absurd request. My pack wouldn’t be content dining on deer and rabbits for eternity. Plus—“Without the glitter factory, we can’t pay our taxes. We would no longer have land to roam across.”
The wind increased, pushing my words back into my mouth. The unicorn stamped one hoof beside me.
Dismissed. Best not to wear out my welcome.
So I leapt onto the unicorn’s back. Clung to his mane as the veil between the worlds tore apart and let me back into Whelan territory.
There, the unicorn reared up and ditched me. When I struck the soil, the Guardian didn’t bother greeting me with pinpricks.
Instead, I was left with one takeaway. If I wasn’t willing to accept the Guardian’s answer to the glitter problem, then I’d need to come up with a solution of my own.
Chapter 11
“Alpha.” “Alpha.” “Where are you, Alpha?”
A cascade of pack pings struck me as the unicorn turned to gallop back into the forest. His tail sparkled, as if the Guardian had imbued it with cleansed glitter. Perhaps that’s why I wanted nothing more than to leave my duties behind and follow him into the wood.
Instead, I turned toward the factory and broke into a run.
Because the number of pings suggested I’d been gone longer than intended. So did the tone of the message from the teenager I’d put in charge of Rune.
“Butch wants to speak with you.” I got the distinct impression she’d said this at least a dozen times previously because she sounded bored. Her gaze skimmed over her watch.
One o’clock? Branches slapped and sticks stabbed as I picked up the pace, but the real pain came from the realization that I’d left my pack alone for multiple hours. The factory workers would be fine, but we didn’t usually have uninvited guests to deal with. What might Rune have gotten up to while sniffing around pack central for four times as long as I’d intended to allow?
And did my extended absence mean he’d leave as soon as I arrived? I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye.
That was irrelevant. “Coming your way,” I answered his minder, stopping only momentarily to stuff my feet into shoes. I could already smell Rune’s persimmon, which meant he was close....
They were all close, the gaggle of teenagers having settled not far from where I’d ditched my footwear. I clambered up the bank into their midst, expecting to be mobbed. Instead, Rune was the first to greet me.
“Tara.”
His gaze made me self-conscious as I pushed unruly curls behind my ears. It took a force of will to focus on my duties.
“Butch,” I started.
Before I could say more than his name, however, Rune turned to his teenage entourage. “Your Alpha needs to eat.”
“Yes, sir.” One peeled away, as if Rune’s mild suggestion had been an order.
And that slapped me fully back into the present. Youngsters shouldn’t obey a stranger. They were protecting the pack from him, not acting as his honor guard.
An issue that could be dealt with later. For now, I addressed the remaining teenagers as a unit. “You may return to your game now.”
I must have frowned, because ears pinned even in human form. “Yes, Alpha.” “Sorry, Alpha.” Their mumbled apologies flowed backwards as they scattered like leaves before a wind.
Rune, meanwhile, remained rooted like a sycamore. Still and silent.
“Well?” I demanded when he raised one eyebrow and waited. “What did you find?”
He shook his head, as if brushing aside something irrelevant. And when he spoke he was all business.
“No additional information. But your pack was very careful to keep me at a distance from anything I could work with. I need unfettered access and I need the assistance of the rest of the Samhain Shifters in order to solve this problem.”
He wanted to bring more dangerous strangers into Whelan territory? I snorted out my disbelief. “Oh? How many of these Samhain Shifters are dominant wolves like you?”
Rune’s lips pursed ever so slightly, as if he’d hoped to sidestep that part of the discussion. “All,” he admitted, “except one.”
I started shaking my head but cut off my response as a teenager raced toward us with an overloaded ham sandwich in one extended hand. “Alpha,” he said, thrusting food at me, “Willa said to check your cell phone immediately.”
Yet another reminder that there was far more to my life than a handsome stranger and his fae obsession. I juggled my lunch and my phone, my stomach growling complaint as I nearly dropped the former.
Then Rune was there, saving the sandwich without being asked. His fingers grazed my fingers in the process.
And the hunger in my belly rebounded. Only this time it wasn’t hunger for food.
This time, I was barely able to force focus. I am Alpha, I reminded myself. The spark of attraction between me and Rune was irrelevant.
What was relevant was Willa’s wording. From her, immediately meant disaster. So I skipped over the other thirty-odd messages that had piled up on my phone while I was incommunicado and went straight to hers.
The text was time-stamped only two minutes ago. So my extended stay with the Guardian wasn’t responsible for whatever had gone wrong.
Still, the message’s contents got my heart racing. “Kale wasn’t present for pickup at the school.”
“WILLA,” I SAID AS S
OON as the call connected. I was already heading toward my car, but I needed more details.
“Alpha.” Her terseness matched mine. “I have further information. A child on the playground was questioned and reported Kale chose to walk home. Presumably, given the ten miles between here and the school, that means to his mother’s house. I can send...”
“No,” I cut in even as I picked up speed. “I’m the one he’s angry with. I need to be the one who tracks him down.”
“Alpha. The human child is not your priority. The pack needs you to remain focused on the transition and....”
“The pack will be perfectly fine in your capable hands for another hour.”
Call ended, the sandwich reappeared in my free hand. My brow furrowed as I watched Rune pull on thin leather gloves, all without falling behind my speed walk.
We’d reached the parking lot by this point, and Rune stepped between me and the beeline I’d been making toward my car. He was herding me, I realized a moment later. As if I was a deer to be cut out of the group before the pack pulled the weakest prey to the ground.
I planted my feet. “What are you doing?”
Rune stepped around me to open the passenger door of a shiny silver convertible. “Driving. Get in.”
“You’re not coming with me.”
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. “Do you want to waste time tracking down another babysitter to make sure I don’t do my job properly?”
He had a point. Still.... “We’ll take my car.”
“If I drive,” he countered, “you can eat.”
I snorted.
“And catch up on whatever your Beta thinks is so important you can’t leave your desk for an hour.”
Well, Rune had a point there. I got in.
I ATE AS I DEALT WITH text messages, but it was hard to focus with Rune a scant two feet away. At least with the convertible’s top down, his persimmon scent was whipped out behind us...and still I found myself leaning closer as if trying to catch another whiff.
“Take this exit,” I told Rune the third time I straightened. The seatbelt cut into me funny, I decided. That’s why I kept listing to the left.
Lying to myself made me cranky, so before I could stop myself I added: “What part of charming teenagers is allowed by your promise not to harm my pack?”
In response, Rune took his eyes off the road for a long moment, assessing me. Only when I opened my mouth to chastise him for not watching where he was going did he start facing forward once again.
“All I did was speak with them.” His voice was quiet, even. His face was expressionless, as if I hadn’t snapped at him and he wasn’t taking me to task far too politely. “They’re not a blob of amorphous teenagers. Each one has a name.”
“I know their names.” To prove my point, I rattled off the full dozen, interspersed with driving directions.
Rune made a small sound deep in his throat when it was clear I’d finished. “I misspoke. It’s not their names you’re missing. They have hopes. Dreams. At that age, the most seductive need is knowing you are heard.”
Something about his tone of voice suggested Rune hadn’t been heard, at that age and perhaps not at several others either. Still, his insinuation that I didn’t understand our pack’s youth jabbed me like an acorn cap beneath my butt.
“I’m well aware of their wishes,” I countered. “The tallest girl, for example, has chosen to live apart from the others. Our youth move into their own wing when they shift for the first time, but it isn’t a mandatory transition. Each does so at their own pace and Caitlyn still dens in her parents’ suite.”
“Because she’s shy?” Rune suggested.
Now I was the one snorting, and much less elegantly than he had. “Not likely. Caitlyn is planning ahead. I’ll give birth this year and my son or daughter will need a Beta a few decades thereafter. It’s a gamble on her part since Betas have to be the opposite sex of the Alpha. But a clever move nonetheless.”
Rune slowed at a speed bump, and despite myself I flared my nostrils in search of another hint of persimmon. Instead, the mustier undertones of his signature scent predominated.
“You’re saying you approve of Caitlyn’s choice to separate herself from her age mates.”
“Park here,” I ordered. Then, unable to leave the issue alone, I nodded. “Leaders should remain above and apart.”
“That sounds very lonely,” Rune murmured.
But I didn’t answer. Instead, I was out of the car, marching up the cobblestone walk.
Chapter 12
Despite everything, my lips curved upward as I took in the daffodils blooming on either side of the path leading to Natalie’s porch. Three months ago, when my friend left her children’s father, the outlook hadn’t been nearly so bright.
“Move in with the pack,” I’d offered. Natalie was human, but she was an honorary clan member. My wolves would have welcomed her and her kids.
But she’d shaken her head. “I have to stand on my own two feet for the sake of the children.”
Unfortunately, that was a tall order, creating a new life for herself. Natalie’s cash flow had been stuck at zero as a stay-at-home mom and her dickhead ex seemed intent upon dragging out the divorce settlement until the baby earned her Ph.D.
My offer of a financial gift was roundly rejected, but Natalie had accepted the job I created for her and turned it into a calling. When she developed the first biodegradable glitter prototype, her bonus had been earned rather than granted. Kale and I—and presumably also the baby—were duly impressed.
Soon thereafter, Natalie turned that bonus into a downpayment on a property that looked so terrible even Willa had winced during our initial visit. But my human friend had seen the good bones beneath the overgrown grass and peeling paint.
Now, three months later, the property had become a home. Fresh paint. Curtains. Daffodils poking up out of the ground.
And...I hoped...a warmth so strong it attracted an upset twelve-year-old back to his nest.
“Kale,” I called, pounding on the door with my fist. “It’s Tara. I want to talk to you. To apologize.”
Persimmon alerted me that Rune had followed me up the walkway while I was assessing home improvements. His voice was a murmur. “Is this usual behavior for the child?”
I shrugged. “Kale’s twelve. There is no usual at that age.”
There was also no answer to my pounding. Back door it was.
But...Rune was impossible to ignore as I turned away from the door that wasn’t opening. To get by, I’d either have to make a big deal of asking him to move, trample Natalie’s daffodils, or brush past....
As the fabric of our clothes made contact, my breath caught. My skin tingled just like when the Guardian’s cleansed glitter had floated onto my bare skin. Not just on my hip and shoulder where Rune and I had almost touched either. The effervescence sparked through my body from head to foot.
Focus, I chided myself for what felt like the millionth time, refusing to meet Rune’s eyes as I turned away from him. I was almost running—to something, I told myself, not away from him—by the time I reached the backyard.
There, I reached up into the hollow of the silver maple in search of the spare key. Bark beneath my fingers grounded me. This time, I was able to ignore Rune as I unlocked the back door and started my search.
It didn’t take long to scan every room. Unless Kale was hiding under a bed or in a cabinet, he wasn’t present. Rather than taking all day to tear the house apart the human way....
“I’m going to shift and smell for him,” I informed Rune, who’d continued to shadow me.
No, not shadow me. He was facing in the opposite direction. His muscles were tense. His response—“Noted”—was curt enough to give me pause.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
And this time Rune’s voice sweetened. “I’ll guard your back.” His words slid through the air like wind chimes. Curling around me, they pressed against my skin.
Ig
noring the resurrected tingling, I slid out of my clothes, profoundly aware of my own nakedness. Rune didn’t appear to notice, however. When I glanced over my shoulder, he was still facing resolutely away.
Of course he was. Nakedness was a common occurrence among werewolves. And whatever my wolf tried to tell me about persimmon and seduction, Rune was merely doing his job.
Tamping down disappointment, I fell onto paws and raised my chin to scent the air around me. It appeared Rune had repeated his trick from the factory, pulling his persimmon aroma back inside his body before entering Natalie’s house. Which, while personally disappointing, was helpful since it allowed me to sniff for Kale without being distracted by Rune’s overwhelming scent.
Given that assistance, it should have been easy to seek out one human child. Would have been if Kale was present.
But he wasn’t. No aromas met my nose other than old trails of the family and my own recent footsteps. I trotted through the small space twice to be certain that none of the former were more recent than yesterday. Then I returned to my pile of belongings and shifted, launching myself upward into humanity so I could grab what I needed to ask for the Guardian’s help.
Behind me, I caught a rustle of fabric as Rune nudged the clothes I hadn’t bothered with. “The neighbors...”
“Can’t see into the backyard.”
There wasn’t time to argue with him, so I was glad Rune didn’t press the issue. Outside, I headed for the only patch of forest, the debris heap where previous owners had raked maple leaves onto a dormant flowerbed. There, I sunk my knees into the soil, unsurprised when no bite from the Guardian met my approach.
Its reach here was weak. Very weak. I’d need more than roots and fungi to connect with the Guardian amid paved suburbia. Meanwhile, the unicorn would be unable to carry me between worlds, not when the few trees in Natalie’s neighborhood were separated by large tracts of barren lawn.
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