“I haven’t seen Jossie in ages.” I spoke my thoughts aloud to include him, but Murphy had never met anyone in Maplefair and had only the slightest idea who I was talking about.
“Yeah, it’s a terrible long way between here and Boston,” he remarked and distracted me from the spring wind. His smirk was sarcastic. He was angry at Jossie for not coming to see me during the past two years I’d been living in Boston.
“Murphy, I took myself away from the Pack,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I know that, but that doesn’t preclude people taking some time out of their lives to say hello once in a goddamn while.”
Vaughn, the coward, was acutely aware of every word we spoke. I could tell he was listening because he didn’t turn the pages though he hadn’t looked up from his book.
“I barely spoke to her when I was in Riverglow.” I was defensive even if a small part of me wanted to agree with him. “I told you we had that falling out. After that first Christmas card, we still didn’t really see each other much. Maybe the occasional phone call. We’d see each other at Regionals if we went. We didn’t always go.”
There were a few reasons, but the primary one was because of my wolf. It had been unspoken but true. My wolf had never been one to follow the leader and before I’d started to bow out of them, Great Hunts at Gatherings had probably been logistical nightmares for Grey, Elena and Vaughn.
Beside me Murphy made a disparaging noise in his throat and, for a moment, I thought he might lower his window all the way and spit, but he didn’t. He kept driving.
“You’re going to be nice to Jossie, right? She is Alpha,” I lectured him and he gave me an indignant look.
“I’m always nice,” he protested then he laughed. “I’m always civil. At least at first.”
I sucked in a deep, heady lungful of air and saw the dented red mailbox we’d been looking for at the end of a long dirt driveway.
Murphy turned in and the Prelude bounced along the rutted length of it for at least a quarter mile until the trees cleared. We saw a large, rather ramshackle farmhouse—two stories with an additional wing built on, as well as a lovely wraparound screened porch. Through the screens I saw lots of bright white wooden rocking chairs and a small glider.
The barn had been converted into a garage but only one bay was open, and that one was filled with sawhorses and tools rather than a car.
A dusty black Ford Explorer was parked in front of the closed bay, a baby stroller positioned by the porch steps.
Murphy parked behind the Explorer and we got out. As he and Vaughn went to the trunk to get our luggage, I moved closer to the porch, drawn by the stroller. Kathy hadn’t mentioned that Jossie and Nate had a baby. It was possible—they were Alphas.
Bright yellow daffodils waved in the breeze from a small flower garden in front of the porch. Clothes flapped on a line erected near the additional wing. Baby things hung next to adult-sized garments.
I was about six feet from the porch steps when I heard the growl.
Murphy and Vaughn heard it too and, from the corner of my eye, I saw them turn.
“Stanzie, get inside the porch.” Murphy’s voice was urgent but soft. The fact he didn’t yell sent alarm bells jangling down my spine. He had a better view of the woods behind the house and barn than I did. My view was blocked by the addition.
Before I could get to the porch steps, a dark gray wolf materialized from around the corner of the farmhouse, hackles raised, lips wrinkled back from sharp teeth.
It was the biggest wolf I’d ever seen.
I looked at him and ignored Murphy’s frantic pleas for me to get inside the porch.
“I think it’s Nate,” I told him. “It’s somebody Pack definitely.”
“I figured that out myself. Please get inside the porch, Constance.”
When Murphy called me Constance, he was either scared or mad. I knew I shouldn’t ignore him, but felt compelled to point out the facts.
“He’s Pack and so are we. He won’t hurt us. It’s against Pack law.”
Everyone knew we weren’t allowed wolf-on-human violence. Even my poor wolf before she’d started to evolve had known it was wrong to bite—even wolf to wolf. Not that she hadn’t bitten Murphy’s wolf anyway.
Wolf-on-wolf violence was only punishable if severe injury or death resulted. There was a certain leeway allowed if the odds were balanced.
There was no leeway involved in wolf-on-human violence. If Nate bit me, there’d be an investigation at least by the Regional Council and more than likely the Great Council would send an Advisor too.
Because of our laws and the strong indoctrination we all underwent as both wolves and humans, I thought I was safe even though he shouldn’t have growled, not after he picked up my scent and realized I was Pack.
The big wolf continued to growl. In fact, each time we spoke, his volume got a little louder. He kept his tawny-gold eyes fixed menacingly on me.
“I’m Pack,” I told him, uncertain of how much he understood. My wolf would probably have heard just so much gibberish because she was used to thinking in words, not hearing them. Murphy’s wolf might have understood spoken words. I’d never thought to ask him.
“Stanzie, please, I’m begging you.” Murphy was only a few yards away but it might as well have been a continent because there was nothing he could do if the wolf attacked me except watch. Vaughn’s face was white with dread.
For the first time I felt fear, and didn’t like it. We didn’t fear our own kind. At least I never had until the conspiracy had been unmasked. Just because we were near strangers didn’t mean Nate should go all territorial.
I took a small step for the porch stairs and calculated how close I would need to get before I could make a break for it and which way the door worked. If I guessed wrong whether the goddamn door opened inward or outward, I was fucked. Who the hell was I kidding? I was probably fucked no matter what I did. Wolves were way faster than people. By the time I made the stairs, he could leap across the space between us and knock me down with ease.
“I don’t think I can make it, Murphy. I’m afraid if I run he’ll attack me.”
“Shit,” was Murphy’s less-than-helpful response. “I’m gonna slam the trunk down. When he reacts to the noise, get the hell inside.”
“What about you?” I started to say but the trunk slammed and Murphy yelled something in Irish. The wolf didn’t take his eyes off me.
Unfortunately by the time I processed that, I’d already sprinted three of the six feet between where I’d stood and the porch steps.
About a half second before he brought me down, I sensed his leap and tried to cover my head with my arms, but it was no use.
Murphy screamed my name. So did Vaughn. I tensed and waited for the agony as the wolf’s teeth tore into the soft parts of my arms, but all I felt was hot breath on the back of my neck. And then a slobbery tongue in my ear.
“Oh, fuck me,” I muttered into the dirt beneath my mouth as I tried not to choke on it.
The wolf continued to lick me until I rolled over, then he swiped my face. I gave him my throat because he was an Alpha male and he took it in