Page 2 of Way of the Wolf

Duncan lowered the metal detector, waved at me, and went back to investigating the fern.

“Yeah, you’re sus too,” I muttered, borrowing one of the words my younger son favored.

Thinking of my boys sent a twinge of loneliness through me. Cameron had been gone for two years, but Austin had left for Air Force training only that summer. I’d only been an empty nester for a few months.

Wanting to keep an eye on my visitor, I made more trips back to my beat-up pickup than necessary to collect my tools, a wax ring, and the new toilet innards. Apparently done with the fern investigation, Duncan had returned to wielding the metal detector over the damp fallen leaves and brown needles under the trees.

A stray black cat that lived on the grounds, despite mymanyattempts to evict it, avoided me as it sashayed through, on its way to mooch from people who left food out for it. The reaction was typical. Human males still hit on me now and then, admiring my curves, olive skin, blue eyes, and thick hair that I ensured stayed black. Animals were another matter. Felines, in particular, sensed the lupine in me and either avoided me, hissed at me, or, if they could manage it, bit me.

The cat spotted Duncan in the woods and halted abruptly, its back arching and its fur going up. A hiss of pure loathing escaped its feline lips.

“Now isn’t that interesting?” I murmured.

The wordferalcame to mind again. But maybe the term I wanted waslupine.

CouldDuncanbe a werewolf? One who, like most, didn’t take alchemical substances to tamp down the need to shift into wolf form every full moon?

The cat’s reaction certainly suggestedsomethingodd about him. That was a more extreme reaction than the stray gave to me.

If Duncanwasa werewolf, what could have brought him here?

As far as I knew, the Snohomish Savagers—my family’s pack—were the only werewolves in the area. And they didn’t take well to trespassers. None ofthemconsumed potions to dampen their magic, so they were even more territorial than I.

I looked at the metal detector with more consideration than before. Was Duncan looking for something specific rather than random lost prizes?

He either didn’t notice the cat or ignored it. He turned his backtoward the apartments—and the feline—and ambled deeper into the woods.

After staring at him for a few more seconds, the stray slowly backed away. Finally, fur still up and tail straight out, the cat ran into the parking lot to hide under a car.

“I’m only the property manager,” I told myself. “It’s not my job to confront lupine strangers.”

Duncan shouldn’t have been able to hear from that distance, but before I stepped into the apartment, he sent a long look over his shoulder in my direction. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

I sighed. Something told me this guy was going to be a problem.

2

Twenty minutes later,with the water turned off in A-37 and the old toilet removed, someone knocked at the door. The tenant was at work, so I answered it warily, a premonition suggesting trouble was seeking me.

I expected Duncan, coming to do more than call memy lady. Instead, a college-aged kid of mixed heritage stood on the concrete-aggregate patio. With a slight build, neatly combed red hair, almond-shaped eyes, and tan skin, he wore a business suit and carried an expensive man purse. Okay, maybe it was amessenger bag, but the gilded leather sported a Stefano Ricci logo.Man pursewas the term that came to mind.

Past his shoulder, parked in one of the staff spots next to my dinged and dented truck, rested a gleaming blue Mercedes G-Wagon. All kinds of unlikely vehicles had entered the premises today.

“Are you… lost?” I asked the kid.

Lost and looking to be mugged? This part of Shoreline wasn’t even vaguely ritzy, and I thought of the earlier motorcycle riderswho’d cruised through, not to mention the metal-detecting werewolf.

Admittedly, whatever Duncan was up to, petty crime probably wasn’t it. He had disappeared, prompting me to get my hopes up that I wouldn’t need to deal further with him, but his camper van remained in the parking lot. Also, a faint beeping drifted out of the woods.

“No.” The kid smiled at me, but it appeared forced, and he looked me up and down like I was a panhandler about to beg for change.

The jeans and flannel shirt I wore, the sleeves rolled up to my elbows, weren’t exactly business-casual, the suggested dress code for the property manager, but I was in handywoman mode today, so it seemed justifiable. Besides, it wasn’t as if the owners came by to check up on me that often.

“Are you Luna Valens?” the kid asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Bolin Sylvan. My parents sent me.”

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