Page 89 of Conner's Luna

Both men snarl in rage. I find myself shrinking back as Conner seems to swell, incandescent. He spins around, twisting his torso. His arm shoots out and he grabs the girl by the collar of her shirt. "You abandoned your son and brought suspicions down on my pack. Your alphason is a motherfucking prick. Don't talk to my female."

Hey.I'mthat female.

"Don't tell her she can't talk to me," I snap. It's a silly, weird reaction, but chipping away at Conner's misogyny is so much easier than dealing with the existence of wolf-people. "And," I stress when Conner looks at me, surprise written on his face, his hand still gripping the girl's shirt, "you're lying. I can tell."

Instead of getting angry or defensive, Conner starts to smile. It stretches big and wide until the words of Red Riding Hood’s wolfie-grandma echo in my brain; ‘the better to eat you with, my dear.’

"You can sense my lies?" he asks me. His green eyes start to sparkle. He's thrilled, happy that I can detect his lies. Why? "Does it smell strange to you? How do you know?" he asks me eagerly.

What on earth? I show him my arms, "it feels... off."

Conner looks at Braxton. The younger man shrugs, "could be for everyone." Braxton, despite his words, looks almost as thrilled as Conner does.

"It's not," Conner sounds like he's boasting, "it's us." He releases the girl abruptly and turns around. Twining my hand in his, he restarts the pickup for the third time in this journey and pulls back onto the road.

I stare at his fingers in mine, turning them over, tracing the lines on his knuckles, his nail bed, the pad of his thumb. His claws are gone, for now.

Wolf-people can smell lies (hypothesis, unobserved at this time).

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23 - Worst Parent-Intro Ever

Conner

The lightest touch of Bailey's fingers on mine is both soothing and a huge turn-on. Soothing, because it's Bailey, and a turn-on because my mind keeps straying to how the feather-light touch will feel on my dick.

I'm keeping that one to myself. No point in upsetting my girl when she's already so distraught.

Naw, distraught isn't the word. She's pensive, thoughtful, her brilliant mind whirling with possibilities and new revelations. Her touches may be going straight to my dick, but I think she's just innocently examining me.

There are subtle differences between wolves and men when we're on our feet. Our knuckles protrude a little more and are slightly hairier than humans. Our fingernails are square and blunt before they shift into claws. Thicker, too, with nail beds that are milky white because of their thickness. Along the backs of our hands are parallel creases in our skin to the typical wrinkles. The lifelines on our palms are deeper.

Bailey is tracking every minute detail. She runs her fingers over every swell, every crease, every ripple of unevenness in my skin. Every so often she murmurs a question, some of them interesting as hell.

"Do you suppose your larger knuckles are because of the additional cellular structure of your claws?"

"Maybe, beautiful," I offer. That's quickly become one of my most popular rote answers; ‘maybe beautiful,’ along with; ‘sometimes, Honeygirl,’or; ‘I'm not sure, babe.’

Bailey hums and runs the pads of her fingers over my knuckles again. She pinches the skin lightly, not enough to hurt, just tickle a bit. "I would hypothesize that your skin is thick enough to have two layers." The excitement in her voice climbs, "canines have skin that separates from their muscle, the better to protect them if they're bitten. You have wolf skin and human skin together." She bounces a little excitedly before she pouts.

"I'm sorry, Honeygirl," I apologize again. Braxton chuckles in the backseat. Bailey wants to take notes, but I told her she couldn't write anything down about us. In an effort to remember all of her own inquiries, she keeps repeating them with only slightly different variations. I don't mind. My wolf has been mooning over her in adoration since she pet him over an hour ago. Every time she speaks he quivers in delight.

"Hey, his ass is hairier than a human's. Did you notice?" Braxton says solemnly. He's enjoying this too much. I can't hit him right now, I've taken enough risks driving tonight, but when we park... oh shit, that's gonna be fun.

Bailey's giggles fade as we drive past the highway sign welcoming people to our small town.

"I want to go home," she suddenly announced in a clear, firm voice. "I've decided."

"Too late, sweetheart," Braxton says sympathetically. "They know we're here."

"I know," Bailey mumbles. She stares, wide-eyed, out of the window as we drive up to a police checkpoint, where four LoboGris bikers are arguing with two of the local cops. The locals are ClearHowl and they clearly aren't happy.

I drive up to them and park the truck. All of the wolves turn their attention to me as one of the LoboGris wolves erupts in a torrent of Spanish littered with English insults.

"He just wants to see her, ey?" another LoboGris wolf insists to the cops.

"She doesn't want to see him," the cop, Carter, growls back.

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