Making Lupe back down without shedding blood would be quite a trick given our wolves’ relative strengths, though. If our animal halves were earthquakes, my inner beast would be that tiny shiver you thought was a mere figment of your imagination while Lupe’s would be the jolt that toppled skyscrapers and wrecked highway overpasses.
She doesn’t know any better, my wolf purred inside our shared brain. I appreciated the vote of confidence...and my inner beast’s newfound ability to resist cowering immediately in the face of a stronger shifter. Not that I expected that activity to continue if Lupe donned fur or if our opponent discovered her ability to harness her own inner animal. But for now, my trained, weak wolf trumped the rogue’s untrained, strong one.
Now to see if we can get Lupe to bend to our will so she’ll trust our commands. Because that was the goal I was aiming toward, the one sure way to keep the girl off the Tribunal’s radar. Animal instinct said that if Lupe gave in once, she’d be much more amenable to my suggestions in the future.
Unfortunately, my companion’s impatience was only slightly mitigated by her wolf’s instinct to submit. Instead, I saw her eyes flash a second before she attacked, one arm outstretched as if she planned to literally push answers right out of me.
The gesture was a clear challenge and I couldn’t afford to let the offensive move slide. Lightning fast, I grabbed the girl’s wrist and squeezed just hard enough to leave a bruise without injuring the bone underneath.
“You’re on thin ice,” I told the pup. “You have no pack. You barely have enough control over your wolf to be hanging out in one-body territory in the first place. And to make matters worse, you’re an unclaimed female. You’re lucky I found you before some outpack male did.”
Lupe wasn’t the only one to shiver as my words sunk in. Because if last month’s kidnapper had stumbled across this rogue instead of me and Lia, I knew the youngster before me would have been dead on Quill’s altar with no one to mourn her passing. The Tribunal wasn’t the only group of wolves who this teen wolf had to fear. Nor were they the worst.
The rogue’s human half wasn’t ready to listen to my explanations quite yet, but her wolf seemed to be more receptive. So I spoke its language. Straightening my spine to take advantage of my extra inches, I stared down my nose at the kid and put every ounce of command I could muster into the display of dominance.
The rogue’s nostrils flared...and then I realized I’d pushed too hard when her ammonia scent abruptly rose like a wall between us.
Shit. The kid was going to shift here, on school grounds where any one-body could drop by and catch her in the act.
A stronger shifter could have reversed the girl’s transformation with a bark of command. But wasn’t that the whole point of all this posturing? I wasn’t actually more powerful than Lupe...although my experience almost certainly sped up my changes to fur form.
Was that the solution? To shift before the rogue managed to change skins and use my learned speed to nip this altercation in the bud? And could I really manage the feat before Lupe dropped me to the ground with her superior alpha dominance?
My fingers began moving before I’d even officially decided on a course of action. Slipping off the belt that held sword at my hip and dress on my back, I let my body fall forward to land on four paws. And despite the proximity of human habitations, I raised my chin to the sky and howled long and loud in joyous triumph.
Before me, Lupe was still resolutely two legged. On the other hand, hairs were beginning to sprout from her previously smooth forearms and her teeth were subtly lengthening and sharpening, proving that she had indeed committed fully to a transformation.
If I’d been a true enemy, the girl would have been at my mercy during that stolen moment. Her reflexes were slowed by the shift, and she hadn’t thought to ditch her clothing before embarking on the change of form. As a result, her morphing body was even now becoming tangled in fabric that no longer hugged her limbs and torso in quite the right way.
I knew it and she knew it. A combination moan and whimper emerged from the rogue’s lips as she cowered away from me. Tripping over her own feet, she fell onto her butt in the process.
The wolf behind Lupe’s eyes was now frantic with fear.
A human would have backed off to ease the kid’s angst. But I was all wolf at that moment, so I instead lunged forward to provoke her submissive response. It was time and past time to solidify our relative places in the pack.
To a one-body observer, the altercation would have appeared brutal. Animals, though, would understand that I wasn’t going for blood. Instead, I was just prompting Lupe to show her belly so both her wolf and my wolf would be sated.
That temporary acceptance of my role as her alpha would relax her enough that I could bring her back to Celia’s house. There, the rogue could safely hear her options and I could speak honestly about why she couldn’t afford to keep living out here in the human world without backup.
It was a long shot though. Because if Lupe attacked...well if she finished her shift and told my wolf to submit, then the tables would be thoroughly turned.
I paused with teeth inches away from her human skin and stared into her eyes for a long moment. Then I sighed with relief as my gamble paid off. Before me, Lupe tilted a slightly furry neck to one side, tears falling down human cheeks as she submitted to my will midshift.
I thought the danger was past...until a human shout registered in my lupine ears. “Don’t you dare harm my student!” The voice rang out from the second story of the school building, and I looked up just in time to catch the flash of a smart phone.
Not good, not good, not good. The words looped through my mind as I realized the image of my wolf mauling a supposedly harmless human had just been preserved for posterity.
And then there was the matter of the actual one-body in our proximity to consider. What would Mrs. Sawyer do when she saw that Lupe had turned into a wolf? And what would the rogue do when this human who she had accepted as an authority figure turned against her now that she’d shown her true colors?
“I’ve called the cops, and they’ll be here any second,” the teacher continued shouting. Her fingers were flying across the device’s screen even as she spoke, and I could only guess she was texting my photo over as evidence.
I winced. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Then, as I heard the pregnant woman’s feet clatter across the floor and saw her run out the front door to join us, I knew I’d failed entirely. Not only had I outed werewolf-kind to humanity, I’d shown my true colors to a one-body who was so kind and nurturing that I couldn’t talk myself into even attempting to scare her back into line.
Chapter 18
I HAD NO CHOICE BUT to shift into human form right in front of the teacher. By that time, Lupe had completely donned her own fur, so we looked like nothing so much as a mirror image of the scene Mrs. Sawyer had preserved for posterity only moments earlier.
Well, we looked like a considerably more peaceful mirror image of that scene. Because while our inner beasts made us aggressive and unpredictable at times, wolves also enjoyed a simple acceptance of the established dominance order that two-leggers could only envy. Lupe had acknowledged me as her alpha, so all danger from that direction had passed.
But the sedate wolf now panting obediently at my feet wasn’t the only peril we had to contend with. I’d heard the first shrill bursts of sirens in the distance as I shifted and now the sound was close enough to be faintly audible via shifter-enhanced human ears. There was no time to waste if I wanted to bring the educator around to my point of view.
“I know that looked scary,” I began as soon as the one-body was within speaking distance. “But it’s not what it seems....”
I expected hysterics as Mrs. Sawyer took in the fact that one of her favorite students now sported huge fangs and long, pointy ears. But the pregnant human surprised me yet again.
“I think it’s precisely what it seems,” she said slowly. Reaching her hand out tentati
vely as if to a strange dog, the human waited for Lupe to sniff and then lick her palm. Then she crouched down to place her arm around the wolf’s shoulders.
“You sure surprised me,” Mrs. Sawyer whispered into her student’s ear too quietly for another human to hear. “I knew you were a little different, but I didn’t quite expect the fur. What do we do now?”
Perhaps I should have let my companion maintain her illusion of privacy. But the sirens were coming ever closer and I didn’t trust Lupe’s equanimity enough to let the rogue face down human cops when the latter expected a belligerent wolf.
Never mind that I, rather than Lupe, was the one pictured in Mrs. Sawyer’s damning snapshot. A human wouldn’t be astute enough to tell the difference.
So I answered the question that I shouldn’t have been able to hear. “What we do now is, you and Lupe get out of here. She’s too young to shift back as quickly as I did and she can’t deal with the police in her current state.”
Mrs. Sawyer narrowed her eyes as she gazed at me consideringly. Then the one-body apparently made a snap decision because she rose back to her feet, dusting off the knees of her pants in the process. “I walked over so you wouldn’t see my car in the lot, but we could hide in the school....”
So Mrs. Sawyer had overheard the conversation Lupe and I shared on Friday after all. I wouldn’t be surprised if the one-body’s deception went back even further—perhaps she’d hired me specifically because something in my faintly feral eyes reminded the teacher of her most troubled student. Impressive.
Still, Mrs. Sawyer’s current plan wouldn’t work. Lupe would go stir crazy stuck inside a classroom in lupine form, and the rogue also needed to be enfolded by the mental protection of pack as soon as possible.
So I shook my head even as I crouched down to pull the keys out of my dress’s pocket, slipping one arm after the other into the clothing as I returned to my feet. “You can take my car,” I told her as I belted myself back into a semblance of human respectability. “It’s parked on Third Street and my mother’s address is programmed into the GPS. I have...friends...there who will know what to do.”
Then, turning toward the rogue, I stared once more into Lupe’s eyes. “I promise that my pack will take care of you, Lupe. Just remember that Mrs. Sawyer is your friend.”
I hoped the compulsion would do the trick. But even as the final words left my lips, I could foresee the scared wolf tearing into the one-body teacher as the latter drove down the highway. “Maybe....” I began, second-guessing my original strategy.
“We’ll be fine,” Mrs. Sawyer broke in firmly. The sirens were now so loud that I suspected even the teacher could hear them. And we both knew that Lupe needed to get under cover fast if the wolf hoped to escape before troopers came out with guns blazing.
So I just nodded my acceptance as one-body and wolf turned away in tandem. The pair darted across the open space behind the bleachers, sticking to the grass so their footprints wouldn’t be visible on the bare ground.
Watching them go, I bent once more to pick up the dusty sword that had been waiting at my feet. I didn’t particularly relish explaining obscure weaponry to local law enforcement, but there was nowhere else to stash the item. So I cringed and dropped the katana back down onto the dirt, kicking the hilt a little out of the way so it wouldn’t give the one-bodies an excuse to use undue force in an effort to disarm me.
Then, hands on my head, I waited to see who’d answer the call this time around. As luck would have it, a grim-faced Officer Lambert came into view seconds later.
Great. Just what I needed—to be arrested by the one policeman in the county who nurtured a personal vendetta against me already.
Today just wasn’t my day.
I’D BEEN BROUGHT DOWN to the county slammer for this second round of questioning. But despite the change of scenery, our conversation felt like déjà vu all over again.
First, Lambert and his partner Bradford left me handcuffed to the table in a tiny interrogation room for an hour, just long enough for me to regret refusing a phone call in the interest of giving my pack time to come up with a shifter-friendly bail-out solution. Then, once my heels were good and cool, the questions began in earnest.
As before, Officer Bradford was playing good cop to Lambert’s bad. And after what felt like hours, I could tell all three of us were becoming royally sick of the charade.
“Care to explain what happened out there?” the good cop asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
“I told you already...” I began, only to be cut off by Officer Lambert.
“You told us a passel of lies,” the cop bit out, his southern drawl not particularly enticing when wrapped around a mouthful of annoyance. “You were found armed and dangerous on school property moments after a teacher called in an assault on a student. That same student has now gone missing and I want to know where she is.”
“I was out for a walk,” I answered, enunciating clearly in hopes the duo was simply hard of hearing. “So sue me if I feel safer with something on hand to fend off assailants when alone in a bad neighborhood.”
I hunched my shoulders together, trying to look like a scared female who needed some manly protection...or at least the use of a sharp-edged katana...when strolling around the block. Unfortunately, neither cop was buying the charade.
“Something like a sword?” Bradford’s mouth curved into a reassuring smile, but the older man’s eyes remained cool and penetrating as they waited for me to slip up.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have been my first mistake. Both cops had seen me cringe an hour earlier after I heard that Lupe had gone missing, which definitely set off their perp detectors. Too bad I couldn’t explain that my reaction had been due to worry over when and where Lupe would feel safe enough to shift back into two-legger form. If the rogue hadn’t already checked in with her group home, the lapse could only mean that she was having trouble regaining her human equanimity.
“Last I heard, swords weren’t illegal in the state of Virginia as long as they’re carried openly,” I bantered rather than going down that dark mental alley. “You need to charge me or release me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The two police officers exchanged a glance, then Bradford shrugged as Lambert smirked. The younger man leaned in across the table until I could feel his warm breath brushing up against my cheekbones. Then he dropped a verbal bomb I totally wasn’t expecting.
“So I hear you’re a werewolf.”
This time, I jerked backwards without meaning to, the chain attached to my wrist clanking as it hit the chair leg, then going taut as my inner wolf strove to escape. Shh, I calmed her even as I silently swore at myself for reacting to Lambert’s dig.
Keeping my voice as even as possible, I added a dose of amusement to my words when I finally felt able to reply. “Really, that’s the best you can come up with? I thought Mrs. Sawyer reported seeing a stray dog attack her student, not a...”—I paused to laugh—“a werewolf?”
“Well, actually, she did report a werewolf at first,” Lambert said slowly, eyes narrowing as he looked me over yet again. My reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. “But then she backpedaled and said it was...” Now it was the human’s turn to cough and look away. “...Um, she said it was pregnancy hormones.”
For a moment, Bradford and I were united in honest amusement. I’d already gathered that the older officer had kids of his own, so he’d almost certainly dealt with a pregnant woman’s wandering mind firsthand. Meanwhile, as a werewolf and a woman, talk of hormones didn’t bother me in the slightest.
But Lambert was evidently as squicked by the notion as if his girlfriend had asked him to run down to the corner store and pick up a box of tampons. His cheeks flushed at the mere notion.
“Well, there you have it. Pregnancy hormones,” I replied sagely when I was able to open my mouth without laughing. “I’m sure the kid will turn up soon. How long’s she been missing anyway—two hours? Surely that’s not unusual for a teenag
er.”
Bradford hummed assent, but now it was his turn to attempt reeling me in. “That’s what I thought at first too,” the older man drawled. “But then we received a report from an entirely different source about a wolf that had been spotted running loose in Mrs. Hallowell’s front yard. While you were spending the night on the premises. Seems fishy to me.”
Shit, shit, shit. Here I’d thought Lupe would be the one getting us all into trouble with the Tribunal, but it was my own lapse that had been reported to the police. Had one of the neighbors somehow caught sight of me during the rainstorm Thursday night? And were these one-bodies actually considering the idea that there might be paranormal activity at play?
I wanted to nail the cops with questions of my own. Who had called in the tip? And what had he or she actually seen?
But that would be a sure-fire way to get the duo digging in what would be the entirely wrong direction if they—and I—wanted to keep heads attached to living bodies. So I instead circled us back around to the beginning of this endless cycle of interrogation.
“I hate to break it to you, but I don’t howl at the moon and I don’t turn into a bat either. Look, I was just out for a walk when I saw that dog come out of nowhere and attack one of my students....”
Chapter 19
MY NEXT VISITOR SHOWED up three agonizingly endless hours later. By then, I’d started to worry that Lupe and Mrs. Sawyer might not have made it Celia’s house unscathed after all. Because surely if my pack mates knew what was going on, they would have found a way to spring me from the slammer long before this.
With that timeline in mind, I tensed up when the door opened, hoping that good cop and bad cop hadn’t returned to exacerbate my headache. Then I sighed in relief when I caught a whiff of werewolf. My second had come through for me after all.
As my visitor stepped out of the dim hallway and into the light, however, I couldn’t help but turn my smile into a wince. Lucas Stormwinder hadn’t seemed to notice me the single time we’d met previously...an oversight that I soon realized was an unadulterated blessing. The uber-alpha in question was old-fashioned and prideful and it was best to stay under his radar. He definitely wasn’t my first choice of savior today.
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