Page 32 of Way of the Wolf

“You can rest now,” I said softly and stroked his thick fur.

Though he’d closed his eyes, he was still conscious, and he leaned into my touch. When his weight settled against me, it almost knocked me over. As I’d noticed before, he was large, even for a werewolf. My family had been foolish to start a fight with him around. Maybe they hadn’t realized he would jump to my defense.Ihadn’t realized that.

“Thank you for your help, Duncan. I’m not sure why you helped, but…” I looked off into the dark woods. The pack had disappeared, but I imagined I could still see Augustus’s hard eyes, the determination in them, the desire to kill me.Whyhe wanted me dead after all these years, I didn’t know, but I didn’t doubt thathe did. “I’m not sure why you helped,” I repeated, still stroking Duncan’s back, “but it’s clear that you did.”

He sighed with contentment at the strokes, now seeming more like a hound dog than a wild animal. He even rolled over, legs crooking in the air, inviting a belly rub.

“That’s a little intimate, don’t you think?” I might have likened him to a hound, but I knew wolf behavior well—these were the kinds of actions one displayed toward one’s mate.

His jaws parted, tongue lolling out, and his eyes opened, glinting with humor or something like it. With the headlights still on and providing illumination, I noticed bands of white fur near his paws. They were about an inch wide and encircled all four limbs.

“What happened there?” I asked quietly, touching one. Then I remembered the scars on his wrists that I’d seen when he’d been human. “Did you… spend time in jail?”

I imagined handcuffs, but those wouldn’t have been this wide. And even if hehadbeen in jail, it wasn’t as if inmates spent their days in handcuffs, right?

Duncan didn’t give any indication that he’d heard the question. The magic that had changed him into a wolf was starting to fade. This close, I could sense it leaving his body. I leaned back, but I continued to kneel beside him, feeling protective. It was possible the pack hadn’t gone that far, and werewolves were always vulnerable when they changed.

His body morphed, fur disappearing as his wolf limbs and torso transformed into those of a man. He still lay on his back, but now I knelt beside human Duncan.Nakedhuman Duncan. I got an eyeful of his anatomy before looking away.

“This is alotintimate,” I corrected my earlier statement.

His eyes had closed again, and he didn’t respond.

I looked into the woods and vowed to watch over him until he woke.

11

“That was your cousin, you say?”Duncan refused to lean on me as we walked from the parking lot to the apartment complex, but he had grabbed a towel that he was pressing to his ribs. In his van, he’d found that and jeans to put on, but he apparently didn’t keep a first-aid kit in there.

“Yes.”

“Affable chap. Is your whole family like that? Your wholepack?”

After he’d woken, we’d driven the van back to the parking lot, and he’d let me talk him into going to my apartment. Like a responsible human being, or maybe just a mom,Ihad a first-aid kit.

“They weren’t when I was one of them. Me leaving changed things, at least in how they interact with me.” I guided him up the walkway toward my open door. The lady who’d been calling Animal Control from her balcony had disappeared. The blood spattered on the concrete reminded me of the vigor of the fight. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the ER?”

I felt compelled to offer, though I expected him to say no. As Iwell knew, there were enough oddities in werewolf blood that it raised eyebrows at hospitals. I’d given birth to my boys in the house of a doula experienced with the paranormal. I’d been afraid of being discovered as not as fully human as I looked. Fortunately, nothing had gone awry with the deliveries, and I hadn’t needed more serious medical attention.

“No, thanks.” Duncan eyed me sidelong, a bruise rising on his jaw, and went back to speaking about my family. “I’m fuzzy on why you left and why you choose to dull your werewolf side.”

“Good. I wasn’t looking to unfuzz a stranger.” I tilted my head to give him an equally sidelong look. “Astrangestranger.”

“That adjectivedoesapply decently to me, but we’ve gone into three battles together now. We can’t possibly still be strangers.”

“It’s only been two days, and you haven’t told me what you want from me. I know it’s not my kindness and generous heart that has you lurking.”

“You did make me espresso. That was generous. Especially since American coffee shops are outrageously expensive.”

He didn’t explain what he wanted from me. I didn’t explain my relationship with the pack.

Instead, I helped him into my apartment and onto my couch. His sigh as he sank back into it was the only sign he gave that his wounds hurt.

“Try not to bleed on my furniture while I find my first-aid kit.” I took his bloody towel from him—it had grease stains on it and couldn’t possibly be hygienic—then dampened one of my own and handed it to him.

On the way through the bedroom, I eyed the dresser drawer that held the camera and the mysterious case and glanced at the two new holes in the ceiling. After my encounter with Augustus, I had more questions than answers.

Would I have learned more if I’d let him speak privately with me? Maybe, but I believed he truly would have killed me. Ijust didn’t know why. What had changed after twenty-odd years with so little contact? And did the whole family want me dead? Or only Augustus and the two cousins he’d wrangled into helping?

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