Page 47 of Way of the Wolf

“You don’t want to settle for opossums and raccoons in the neighborhood parks?”

He gave me an aggrieved look. “If I wanted to do that, I could change in the bushes behind your apartment complex.”

“The tenants appreciate that you’re not making that choice. The fight with my cousins was bad enough. You’re lucky Animal Control didn’t show up with tranquilizer guns.”

Theyhadcome the morning after, sans guns, as far as I’d seen. The tenant who’d called them hadn’t been home to tell stories of wolves, so I’d pointed the officers to the greenbelt and mentioned coyotes. Theydidwander into the city and scavenge in the parks and wetlands from time to time.

“Quite.”

“Head east toward the mountains.” I gave him directions to the nearest freeway access point. Since my family lived to the north and might well be out hunting tonight too, east would be safer.

“Are we likely to run into your pack out there?” Duncan might have been thinking about the same thing. Though he’d beaten my cousin when they’d fought one-on-one, the encounter had grown dicier when more of the family had shown up.

I didn’t blame him for not wanting to get ganged up on again. “Hopefully not.”

He gave me a long look but nodded. “Right. Good.”

As he drove off, I realized he also had to trust me. Might he be nervous about that? Presumably, I was as much a stranger to himas he was to me. If he’d known about my past, he might not have invited me out into the forest alone.

That thought made a tendril of concern curl through me. I’d been worrying about going off alone with him, but if I was still the same person—the samewerewolf—I had been all those years ago, I could be as much a danger to him as he was to me. I’d loved Raoul, but when he’d roused my temper, I’d lost it, the wolf turning into a savage and uncontrollable animal.

What if that happened again? I didn’t have strong feelings for Duncan. It might be easier to lose my temper with him, to give in to my lupine instincts and forget he was an ally. I wasn’t even positive hewasan ally.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hunt together,” I blurted, that concern settling like a cannonball in my gut.

Though he was focused on navigating traffic that hadn’t diminished with the coming of night, he managed a thoughtful look over at me. “Are you worried about being alone with me?”

“Yeah, but probably not for the reason you think.”

“That a lack of restraint in your lupine form will cause you to fling yourself on me in an amorous fashion?”

“That’swhat you thought would happen tonight?”

“I don’t know about you, but the chase, followed by a feast, has been known to makemeamorous.”

“You’re a guy. Doesn’t everything make you amorous?”

“Not as much as when I was younger, but things do trend that way. As to the hunt, I’d thought you might enjoy going together. I get the impression, well, if your children and your ex-husband are fully human, and you’re estranged from your werewolf family, and you’ve been taking that potion for a long time… It must have been a while since you hunted with someone, no? I thought you might enjoy some company.”

“I guess.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek and debated if Ishould warn him that I’d killed before—and not only prey. It would be hard to do that without speaking of Raoul’s death.

“Such enthusiasm.” Duncan laughed without rancor. “I always hated enforced solitude, but maybe you prefer it.”

“Not necessarily. You’re right that I haven’t hunted with anyone in a long time, but I have some concerns.” I rubbed my thighs through my sweatpants, reluctant to speak about my past but feeling less vulnerable than usual in the darkened van, the shadows hiding the emotions on my face.

“How long has it been since you changed?” he asked.

“I was nineteen when I left the pack. I’m forty-five now.”

Duncan gaped at me, the lights of the dash revealing his open mouth. “You haven’t changed in twenty-six years?”

“I’ve taken the potion faithfully since I found out it existed and that I could buy it.”

“Butwhy? Did your husband require it? I can get wanting to fit in, maybe—” his expression said he didnotget it, “—but to give up all that you are...”

“Being a wild animal is notall that I am. It never was, and it wasn’t about fitting in.”

Duncan lifted a hand from the steering wheel. “No, and I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that… Well, I enjoy the hunts, the time spent in nature with the magic enhancing my senses. I love the pure joy of running, the feel of the earth under my paws, and the smells of damp foliage and the musk of one’s prey. It’s all… It’s what’sreal. At least to me. Everything is more genuine when I’m a wolf. I’ve learned to appreciate my time as a man, but when the call comes, I have no hesitation to accept it.”

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