“I’m not the one who—”
“You’ve angered the Sanguinati, and that’s not going to help any of us right now.”
“You don’t know what’s been going on here,” Elliot snapped. “What that monkey-fuck female has done.”
“She’s not a monkey fuck, and she is not prey,” Simon said, his voice a low, threatening rumble. “She is Meg.”
“You don’t know what she’s done!”
“She gets mail and deliveries to the complexes on a regular basis. She has a routine with the deliverymen, so we get the merchandise we bought. And she got Sam out of that damn cage!”
“She put him on a leash, Simon. On a leash!”
“It’s not a leash,” a young, scratchy voice shouted. Or tried to shout. “It’s a safety line. Adventure buddies use a safety line so they can help each other.”
Elliot stared, frozen. Simon turned, barely breathing.
Small naked boy, wobbling on stick-thin legs. His hair was a gold mixed with Wolf gray that was rarer than a pure black or white Wolf. Gray eyes full of angry tears, and yet there was a dominance in that weak body that didn’t match Simon’s but was higher than Elliot’s standing within the Lakeside pack. Or would be when Sam was an adult.
“Sam,” Simon whispered.
Sam ignored him and glared at Elliot. “You made Meg cry, so I’m not sorry I bit you!”
Now Simon closed the distance between them and went down on one knee in front of the boy. “Sam.” Fingers hesitantly touched those skinny, weak-muscled arms. A nose twitched at the odor of an unwashed body. “Hey. Sam.”
Big eyes fixed on him now. He was the leader. He was supposed to make things better, make things right.
Just bite me, he thought. He understood pup. He wasn’t sure what to do with boy.
Simon glanced over his shoulder at his sire, who looked pale and shaken.
Elliot said.
“This safety line for adventure buddies is a new thing you learned from Meg?” Simon asked.
Sam nodded.
“It’s not something other Wolves have heard of. So Elliot thought the safety line was something else, something that might hurt you.”
“Meg wouldn’t hurt me,” Sam protested. “She’s my friend.”
“I know that, Sam. I know.” Another hesitant touch of fingers on the boy’s shoulders. Compared to the human form of the other Wolf pups his age, Sam was small and too thin. But that would change if the boy didn’t disappear again inside the Wolf.
“Is Meg going away?” Sam asked.
Simon shook his head. “No. She’s not going away.”
Elliot cleared his throat. “I will offer an apology tomorrow.”
Sam swayed. His leg muscles trembled with the effort of keeping him upright. But the look he gave Simon, while shy, clearly had a focus.
“Simon?”
“Sam?”
“Can I have a cookie?”
He wasn’t sure there was anything to eat besides Sam’s kibble. He was sure of what he wouldn’t find. “I’m sorry, Sam. We don’t have any cookies.”
“Meg does.” Sam licked his lips. “They smelled really good, but she didn’t know if Wolves could have chocolate, so we didn’t eat any. But I could have one now.”
Oh, chew a tail and spit out the fur. Sure, the boy could have one if the man was willing to knock on Meg’s door and beg for it.
Right now, he would do a lot more than beg in order to get the cookie Sam wanted.
“I’ll go ask her.” He wrinkled his nose and smiled. “Maybe you should take a bath before you have a treat.”
“I can help Sam,” Elliot said quietly.
Simon rose and stepped back. “Then I’ll get the cookie.” And while he was there, he’d find out if Meg was planning to run away.
Thinking about her dark apartment and wondering whether any of the terra indigene would be welcome tonight, he took the spare set of keys for her apartment before going upstairs to the back hall door.
A quick knock. “Meg?” Another knock, louder. “Meg? It’s Simon. Open the door.” When he didn’t get a response, he used the key, breathing a sigh of relief that she hadn’t used the slide lock as well.
She was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, her arms wrapped around herself.
“I don’t want company,” she said, not looking at him.
“Too bad.” He reached for the ceiling light’s pull string, then considered the brightness and flipped on the light over the sink. Going back to the table, he looked at her face and couldn’t stop the snarl when he saw the bruise. That explained why Vlad was threatening to go after Elliot.
He leaned down, capturing her chin between thumb and forefinger in order to turn her head and get a better look. He leaned closer, breathing in the scent of her. The smell of sickness lingered on her clothes. Not sure what to do, he gave her cheek a gentle lick.
“Snow,” he said, easing back. “Snow will help.”
“What?”
Her eyes looked bruised. Not physically, which somehow made it worse. “Stay there.” He found a kitchen towel, then went down the back stairs to the outside door. Leaning out enough to reach the snow, he packed a ball of it in the towel and brought it to her. “Put this on your face.”
When she obeyed, he picked up the other kitchen chair and set it down so he could face her.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she whispered. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her face. “I wasn’t trying to hurt Sam.”
“I know.” Taking her free hand, he petted the soft skin, that delicate, strange skin that was the gateway to prophecy. “Elliot didn’t understand, and he’s sorry he hurt you. I’m sorry he hurt you.”
“He said . . .” She shuddered.
Simon shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what he said. You’re safe here, Meg. You’re safe with us. I’ll make sure of that.”
She lifted the towel away from her face. “The snow is melting.”
He took the towel and dumped it in the sink. Then he turned to look at her. What was he supposed to do with her? What was proper to do with her? He knew how to deal with human females when they were customers in the store. He knew what to do when they wanted the heat of sex and he was in the mood to provide it. And he knew what to do with prey. But he didn’t know what to do with Meg.
“Do you want food?” he asked, studying her back.
She shook her head.
“Tea?”
Another head shake.
He’d come here to get something for Sam, but that didn’t feel right anymore. And yet how could he disappoint the boy?
Returning to the table, he sat in the chair. The bakery tin was right there in front of him, taunting him. Until she had shown up half frozen and changed some of the rules, it had been so much easier dealing with humans.
“Meg?” he asked softly. “Could I take a cookie for Sam?”
She blinked. Brushed away tears. Then she looked at the bakery tin and frowned. “Those are chocolate chip cookies. Can Wolves eat chocolate?”
It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder. “He shifted, Meg. He’s a boy.” He couldn’t meet her eyes, and he heard his own whine of confusion. “He hasn’t shifted to human since his mother was killed. He hasn’t talked to us in any way since the night Daphne died. He’s been afraid to be outside, and he hurt himself a couple of times. That’s why I had to get the cage. But you changed that. He couldn’t have a cookie as a Wolf, so he shifted to a boy. I couldn’t reach him, but you did—with a leash that isn’t a leash and a cookie.”
“You took care of him and you loved him and you kept him safe,” she said. “Even if it didn’t show, he was learning from you.” She sniffed, then got up and rummaged in the cupb
oard until she found a small container. After placing a few cookies in the container, she gave him the bakery tin. “Do you have any milk to go with the cookies?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened her fridge and gave him an unopened quart.
The quick glance in her fridge didn’t reassure him that she had enough to eat—especially if they were snowed in tomorrow.
Awkward, this sniffing around a female’s personal life. Awkward, this no longer being sure how far he could push her when he hadn’t hesitated to push before he’d left on that trip. Awkward, because somehow she was starting to matter to him the way his own people mattered.
He backed away. “Thank you.”
“Don’t let him eat all the cookies,” she said. “Even as a boy, it would make him sick.”
Nodding, he let himself out and fled back to his own apartment.
Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, explaining about safety lines to Elliot, who was listening as if every word was desperately important. The words dried up as soon as Simon put the bakery tin on the table.
“One,” Simon said firmly. He poured a glass of milk for each of them and opened the tin.
Sam took small bites, savoring the taste while he eyed the bakery tin until Simon put the lid back on, confirming that one meant one.
“The Wolf cookies are good, but these are better,” Sam said.
“Wolf cookies?” Elliot asked.
Sam nodded. “Meg got them special for me.”
Elliot asked Simon.
He shrugged. Something else he needed to find out.
Sam yawned.
“Long day for all of us,” Simon said.
Sam struggled to sit up. “I’m not tired. Meg would let me watch a movie.”
Elliot asked.
Simon replied. “All right. Go pick out a movie.”
Wobbling. Using the walls for support. But still holding on to a shape that had been a recent discovery before fear had frozen Sam into Wolf form.
Simon drained his glass, then finished off Sam’s glass of milk. “Roads to the Wolfgard Complex aren’t passable. You should stay here.”
“All right.” Elliot hesitated. “I’d rather not stay in this form.”
He wanted to shed the human skin too. “We’ll wait until Sam is asleep.”
It didn’t take long. Tucked on the couch, wrapped in a blanket to protect that small, shivering body, Sam was asleep five minutes into the movie. Simon checked the doors, turned off lights, and made sure everything was secure. By the time he returned to the living room, Elliot had already shifted.
Leaving the movie on, Simon stripped off his clothes. Then he shifted and settled beside Elliot on the living room floor. If the floor wasn’t as warm or comfortable as the beds upstairs, the boy sleeping on the couch provided a different, and deeper, contentment.
CHAPTER 14
“But I wanna go with Meg!”
As he toweled himself dry, Simon gave his nephew a hard stare and had a totally inappropriate wish that for one more day, he could chuck the puppy in the cage instead of dealing with a wobbly boy who was more stranger than family and was acting annoyingly human.
“You can’t go with Meg today,” he said firmly. He felt like he’d been saying the same words from the moment Sam woke up. “You’re going to stay here with Elliot while I go to this meeting.”
“But who’s gonna be Meg’s adventure buddy if I’m not there?”
“Someone else will have to be her adventure buddy.” Preoccupied with the personal hygiene checklist he followed when he had to deal with humans, he didn’t realize how badly he’d erred until Sam gave him a tear-filled, horrified look.
“But I’m her adventure buddy. She said I was!” Sam wailed.
Before Simon could reach for the boy, Sam stepped back from the bathroom doorway and darted out of Simon’s bedroom.
Wobbly legs. Stairs.
Springing into the bedroom, Simon grabbed the jeans he’d laid out on the bed and ran into the hall. When he didn’t see Sam on the stairs, he pulled on the jeans, then tried to zip and button while he rushed after the boy, expecting to find Sam hiding in the living room or in the kitchen, whining at Elliot about not being allowed to go with Meg.
But when Simon got down the stairs, the front door was open, Sam’s clothes were strewn all over the floor, the damn leash was gone, and there was evidence in the foot-deep fresh snow of a bounding puppy making his escape.
Simon leaped out the door and snarled when his bare feet sank into snow. A few steps gave him a clear view of Meg’s porch—and Sam standing on his hind legs, his forelegs shifted into furry arms that could reach the doorbell, and his front paws changed just enough to have fingers that could press the doorbell And press it and press it.
“Shit. Fuck. Damn damn damn.” Swearwords were one of the best things humans had invented, Simon thought as he took the stairs in leaps. He was almost within reach when the door opened and Sam bolted inside, the red leash trailing after him.
Meg stood in the doorway, trying to scrunch herself into the bathrobe that didn’t cover her lower legs. At another time, he would have given those legs a better look—just to check the visible skin for scars. Now, with Sam all furry and talking back at him and Meg looking like a bunny who had been dodging a Hawk, only to run smack into a Wolf, he did what he figured was the polite human thing to do and kept his eyes on her face.
Didn’t stop him from grabbing her hand before she regained enough of her wits to shut the door in his face.
“Meg.”
“Mr. Wolfgard, what . . . ?”
“Can you watch Sam for a while? I have a meeting this morning. I’ll pick him up at lunchtime. But this morning, you can be adventure buddies.”
“But . . . I was getting in the shower,” Meg protested weakly. She shivered. “I have to go to work.”
“Then the two of you can be adventure buddies at the office. Just don’t get buried in the snow.” A weak effort at humor, since that was a possibility.
He was so startled to have Sam communicate with him in the terra indigene way after so long a silence, he squeezed Meg’s hand hard enough to make her yip.
“Mr. Wolfgard,” Meg said, pulling her hand out of his. “You’re not dressed.”
And neither was she. “Please, Meg. Just for the morning.” He put some bite in the last words and looked past her to Sam.
Sam wagged his tail, not the least bit sorry—or worried—about how he got what he wanted.
When Meg didn’t say anything, Simon nudged her back a couple of steps. “Get in the shower. It will warm you up.”
Closing her door, he hurried down the stairs and back to his apartment. Elliot stood in the entryway, staring at the clothes on the floor and the open door.
“Blessed Thaisia, what is going on?”
Damn, his feet were cold, and the jeans were wet. “Meg’s taking Sam with her for the morning. Put his clothes in a carry sack. I’ll leave them with Meg when I go back out for the meeting. And call Nathan. See if the streets around the office and our stores have been plowed. There’s no point having Meg try to get to work if there aren’t going to be deliveries.”
He headed upstairs, intending to take another hot shower and get fully dressed before he ventured outside.
“Simon?” Elliot called, stopping him at the top of the stairs. “Since I won’t be watching Sam, I’d like to attend that meeting. If that’s acceptable to you.”
While there were specific individuals he wanted at this meeting, any leader of a gard or other group of terra indigene was allowed to sit in on the Bus
iness Association meetings. Today there were things to discuss about the past week in the Courtyard. There were also things they needed to consider about what happened in Jerzy, and Elliot should hear what was said about that.
And maybe Elliot should be told some things about Meg.
“All right. Check with Nathan first, then call Blair and tell him we’ll be meeting in the Green social room.”
He didn’t wait for Elliot’s reply. He went into his bathroom, stripped off the wet jeans, and stood in the shower long enough to warm up. While he got dressed, he considered the new challenge of weaning Sam away from his adventure buddy.
But first he would have to figure out a good reason why he would want to.
* * *
It didn’t look like they were going anywhere.
Meg stared at the snowdrifts beyond the archway that led to the parking area and garages for the Green Complex. Paths had been cleared around the interior of the complex so that the residents could reach the laundry room, mail room, social room, and the apartments, but there was no way she was going to get her BOW out of the garage, let alone reach the road.
“Come on, Sam. We’ll take a quick walk and go back inside.” She shifted her grip on the carry sack that contained a complete set of boy’s clothing and turned back toward her apartment, pondering how she would get to work. Businesses did open after snowstorms. Deliveries would be made. The mailman would bring the mail sack and pick up the mail deposited in the blue post box that was tucked against the wall of the consulate. People went about their business in the winter, even if it took them a little longer than usual.
As she and Sam walked toward the other end of the complex, she heard bells.
Sam lifted his muzzle and howled.
“Come on,” Meg said, walking as quickly as she could.
They reached the road in time to see the sleigh pulled by two brown horses. One horse had a black mane and tail; the other’s mane and tail were pale gold.
Tornado and Twister in their other equine forms.
And there, in the front seat, were Winter and Air, still looking like young women instead of girls. They wore no coats, no hats, no gloves. Their gowns were layers of fluttery material that looked like it had been woven from clouds that ranged in color from white to a dark, stormy gray.