Page 47 of Kin of the Wolf

“You fought well, my daughter,” she called softly after me. “Were he not a deceitful coyote instead of a true wolf, you would have won.”

“Damn straight.” I tried to unknot my shoulders and set aside my dour mood.

“I worry for Lorenzo when Augustus decides to make his move and turns that deceit on him.” Her words were soft, more for herself and the night than for me. “I worry for the future of the pack unless something changes.”

Unless I did something? The weight of the family’s future settled on my shoulders, more burdensome than the bite wound.

15

It wasdawn by the time I pulled into the parking lot at Sylvan Serenity. Gigantic yawns kept making my eyes water, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stumble into bed or pull multiple shots of liquid caffeine from my espresso maker. Since it was Monday and a regular workday, the tenants would need me. Too bad I’d gotten home so late—so early.

After the fight, I’d waited two hours in my truck, expecting Duncan to return, but he never did. That had left me worried for him—and glad I’d been the one to drive up to Mom’s house. I hoped he could find his own way home.

Home? I snorted as I got out of the truck. This was my home, not his. What he considered the parking lot where he’d parked his van, I didn’t know. The equivalent of a hotel, I supposed.

His words about having been lonely growing up came to mind. Maybemorethan growing up. With all his traveling, he probably had acquaintances all over the world, but had he ever had a home?

As I headed along the walkway toward my apartment, I smiled in some bemusement at the complex. Strange that it was more of ahome to me than anyplace else, but after twenty years and raising my boys here, it probably wasn’t surprising.

I stutter-stepped when I remembered the Sylvans’ visit. And the possibility that they might sell the property.

I needed to find a way to resolve things with my cousins and ensure no more crime or trouble of any kind touched the complex. I didn’t want the Sylvans to have any more reasons to sell. Hopefully, it wasn’t already too late.

A wolf lying on her belly at my front door and daintily eating a rabbit made me stutter-step again. She also drove the thoughts of losing my home out of my mind for the moment.

The wolf looked at me, her aura and bright green eyes familiar. She was black with two white paws and a white-tipped tail, which she wagged at me as she rose to all fours.

“I’m definitely not installing doorbell cams,” I muttered.

The wolf tilted her head curiously. This clearly wasn’t one of Augustus’s surly allies. As I walked closer, I recognized her.

“Oh, hi, Jasmine.” I had only seen her as a wolf once before, when I’d recently hunted with the pack, and there had been alotof wolves around that night.

She swished her tail again and gulped down the rest of the rabbit, leaving a few blood spatters and tufts of fur on the cement.

“That’s okay. I need to pressure wash the walkways this winter anyway.” I looked around, hoping nobody was outside, watching me chat up a wolf.

Her meal complete, Jasmine padded into a rhododendron, one of the few shrubs on the property that didn’t lose its leaves in the winter. This one was large enough to completely hide a wolf, though when the leaves started rustling, I raised my eyebrows.

“I hope you’re not doing something I’ll feel compelled to bag up later.” I waved toward the dog-waste station I’d had Duncan refill the day before, though I suspected Jasmine was changing.

A moment later, her human head stuck up from the center ofthe rhododendron, her black hair mussed around her face. She stuck her tongue out at me as she hunched to keep her bare shoulders low. She looked like she was fastening a bra, one with a few twigs sticking out of it.

“I’ve been waiting for youforever. I got bored and went to hunt, but there’s nothing good around here.” Jasmine wrinkled her nose in the direction of the tufts of fur.

“Surprisingly few herds of deer nosh on our lawn. I don’t think they’re fans of freeway noise and densely packed suburban areas.”

With all the new apartments going up, Shoreline might well qualify asurbanby now.

“Deer are all over the place by our house in Redmond.” Jasmine shifted and grunted as she remained in the rhododendron, tugging up a pair of jeans.

“There’s still some acreage out there and places where the homes are farther apart. And you’re not that far from larger wooded areas and farmlands.”

“The deer like the grass and bushes that people plant around their houses. They’re half tame, so we don’t usually hunt them. Dad says it isn’t fair, that they’re dumbed down, just like humans who never had to build their own computers or install operating systems with floppy disks.” She rolled her eyes at the analogy.

“How is your software-developer father?” I wondered if he’d done any more research into the relics or Radomir’s corporation that had factories and farms all around Puget Sound, apparently raking in the dough since perfumes and potions were a high-margin business. I didn’t yet know how profitable stealing wolf artifacts was.

“He’s fine. But that’s not what I came to talk to you about. I—” Jasmine looked toward the walkway a second before Bolin stepped around the corner of the building, his short hair tousled, two coffee drinks in his hands, and bags under his eyes.

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