Page 41 of Way of the Wolf

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Rain fell the next morning,puddles forming in the parking lot of the apartment complex. I stood under the overhang of the balcony above the leasing office and sipped my coffee, attempting to get myself in the mindset for work. Earlier, after helping a tenant who’d locked herself out, I’d taken a walk around the grounds. Duncan’s van wasn’t in the lot.

For days, I’d been trying to get rid of him, and I especially hadn’t wanted him lurking around, finding a way to snoop in my apartment while I’d been gone. But now… Now, a strange loneliness filled me. No, it was more than that. Since the boys had left, I’d grown used to loneliness. I read and turned on the television for company at night, and that was usually enough. Uncertainty and unease were what I felt now. I was being stalked by mortality. My mother’s, for certain, and it was also possible that Augustus would show up again and finish what he’d started. If Duncan wasn’t here to help fend him off, could I survive my cousin’s assault?

Maybe if I allowed the wolf to return. In my youth, I’d been a match for anyone in the pack, even the strong males. But whatwould it be like now that I’d grown older? If I turned, would my knee ache, as it often did in my human form? Would I be feeble and weak? Would I have forgotten everything my instincts had once known? How to hunt and kill my prey? How to fight off dangerous rivals?

It occurred to me that I’d now spent more years of my life sublimating the wolf and being a full human than I had in my normal state. What if those tingles of magic were only teasing me and it turned out that Icouldn’tturn anymore?

I wished I had someone to talk to about all this. If Duncan returned, maybe I would share some of these feelings with him. He wasn’t anyone I could trust, but Iwishedhe were. Until this week, I hadn’t realized that I missed having a partner and a confidant. It had been so long since my husband had been that. And my sons… They knew nothing of my heritage, my magic. I’d always sheltered them, trying so hard to be a normal human being for them and their teachers and friends. Anyone who might judge them for having a weird mom.

Bolin’s gleaming G-wagon entered the parking lot, sending up spray as the tires rolled through puddles.

I was in enough of a funk that talking to my unwanted intern actually sounded appealing. But I couldn’t help but look wistfully toward the street, hoping Duncan would show up, whether I should want that or not.

“I did offer to let him metal detect the grounds,” I murmured.

Would that draw him? Maybe not. It was possible something interesting was buried in the greenbelt over there, but I had a feeling his metal detecting had been a pretext for something. A way to spy on me?

It was hard to imagine being someone interesting enough for anyone to want to spy on, but all I had to do was think of the hidden cameras to be reminded thatsomeonehad been keeping aneye on me. And Duncan was definitely interested in the magical case.

“Hey, Luna.” Bolin half-grunted the greeting.

With bags under his eyes, he approached, carrying two large coffee cups. Judging by the caramel drizzled over the whipped cream of one, he meant to drink his daily quota of calories. Possibly before nine.

“Hi. Is one of those for me?” I had my own coffee, thanks to my home espresso maker, so I didn’t need a drink, but I rarely saw someone carrying two for himself. Maybe he’d talked one of those girls who’d been touring an apartment into a morning coffee date.

“Uhm. No.” Bolin stopped a few steps away and curled the cups protectively—or maybe that waspossessively—to his chest. “Since the workday here starts at an ungodly hour, I knew I’d need extra fortification to make it through the morning.”

“It’s 7:57.”

He looked blankly at me.

“Didn’t you have to take any morning classes in college? Get up early for spelling-bee practice?”

“Not my senior year. I picked late-start stuff. And you always want to study for bees when your brain is sharpest.”

“Which is not at eight a.m. for you?”

“I get in my groove around one.”

“P.M.?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

Bolin squinted assessingly at me but must have decided I was unlikely to jump him for his coffee. Either of them. He stepped under the overhang with me, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have news.”

“If it’s that Jonas in A-4 splices cable from his neighbor and doesn’t pay, I’ve already given him a warning. I told him he’s notgetting a new garbage disposal until he starts giving Linda next-door money for what he’s been sneakily sharing with her.”

“Er, I haven’t examined the cable lines of the tenants.” Bolin yawned and wiped his tired eyes with the back of one hand, not spilling a drop of the coffee. “Do Ineedto do that?”

“It’s good to know what’s going on.”

“I think I’d have to live here to learn as much about the goings-on as you.” His nose wrinkled with distaste as he looked around the grounds. The well-manicured and assiduously tended grounds. Only someone who lived a luxury lifestyle could have sneered at them.

“There are some vacant units if you want to move in. On a clear day, E-33 has a view of the dumpsters.”

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