“Ali has her own concerns at the moment,” Callum said, and I saw the faint ghost of worry on his otherwise unreadable face. Ali was eight months pregnant with her first child. Werewolf births were notoriously difficult, and many human women didn’t survive.
Ali’s sister hadn’t.
I was not willing to consider the possibility that the same thing might happen to Ali. Ali was strong. She’d make it, and the baby would, too, and then he’d outlive her by, oh, say a thousand years.
Darn werewolves and their ridiculously long life spans.
“Was that it?” I asked Callum, hoping he’d get the message loud and clear that I wasn’t going to spend a second worrying about Ali, who would be just fine-fine-fine.
“You on a schedule here, Bryn?”
I gave an exasperated huff. “No.” I hoped he’d smell the half-lie for what it was. Just before he’d interrupted me, I’d been working on a new piece, and I was anxious to get back to it. Found art was all about the process, and His Royal Highness, the Werewolf King (and Grand Poobah of Pains in the Butt) was seriously disrupting mine.
“You broke curfew last night,” Callum said sharply. The first two complaints had been mere warm-ups for this one. His features tightened, his brows drawing together in a V.
“If my curfew wasn’t at dusk, I wouldn’t have to break it.” I felt as strongly about this issue as Callum did. Nighttime came depressingly early in winter, and I had no intention of being home each day by five.
“There is unease in the pack, Bronwyn. I would have you safe from it.”
I was Bronwyn again, a surefire sign that he was dangerously close to issuing either an edict or a threat. Possibly both.
“If I cannot trust you to be home before nightfall, I will be forced to take further measures to ensure your safety.” Callum’s words were unquestionably set in stone, and the hardness of his tone told me that he meant business. In my experience, Callum’s definition of “further measures” was disturbingly broad and ranged from taking me over his knee (when I was eight) to posting a guard outside my bedroom window. Right now, I wasn’t at all worried about the former, which I’d long outgrown. The latter, however …
“Until I can be assured of your cooperation in this matter, I’ve assigned a team to keep an eye on you.”
I scowled at Callum. “You have got to be kidding me.” There was nothing in the world worse than werewolf bodyguards.
“Bryn, m’dear, you know I never kid.” Callum’s brown eyes sparkled with just a hint of lupine mischief, which told me that (a) he was, in fact, serious about the guards, and (b) my moral outrage amused him, because in his mind, I’d knowingly brought this on myself.
“You suck,” I grumbled.
He put two fingers under my chin and held my face so that my eyes met his. “And you are the most disobedient child I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.” His words were laced with unspoken warmth, an affection that—in his human form, at least—he showed only to me. Still holding my chin, he rubbed his cheek once against mine and then tousled my hair, actions I both hated and loved since they simultaneously marked me as a child and as his.
“Be home by dusk, Bryn,” he told me, before taking his leave. “Trouble’s afoot.”
I harrumphed. I was a human who had been quite literally raised by wolves. In my world, trouble was always afoot.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER CALLUM LEFT ME ALONE IN THE STUDIO, I SET about pretending he’d never been there at all. This was my space, and if growing up in the pack had taught me anything, it was the importance of marking your territory. Since I had no compulsion whatsoever toward scent-marking, the best I could manage was refusing to acknowledge the fact that my sanctuary had been violated at all. Turning my discerning gaze to my work in progress, I evaluated the day’s efforts thus far. At present, the sculpture resembled nothing so much as a papier-mâché fire hydrant. I’d meant for it to be an oak tree, but c’est la vie. I was more concerned with my materials than the outcome per se. Chess-club flyers, notes passed in class, failed tests, and midterm papers—this was my medium. I was always happiest elbow-deep in things that other people had thrown away.
“Dusk in ten minutes, Bryn.”
The words were issued from directly behind my left shoulder, and the only thing that kept me from making a sound somewhere in the “eep!” family was years of experience with frustratingly stealthy werewolves. Despite my own training and the bond I shared with the rest of the pack, if Weres wanted to sneak up on me, they could. Even in human form, werewolves were stronger, faster, and more capable of masking their presence than us non-supernatural types. The most I could do was attempt to hide my surprise when they caught me off guard. Today, I was certainly getting plenty of practice at that. First Callum, and now this.
I whirled on the intruder. “I don’t care when dusk is,” I said. As my best friend, Devon was morally obligated to listen to me whine, and if he was going to keep me from working on “The Tree (or possibly Fire Hydrant) of Knowledge,” I was going to take full advantage of that obligation. “Nobody else has a five p.m. curfew.”
Devon didn’t bother to expend energy by disputing my words or acknowledging my whine in any way. He just leaned back against the door of my garage-turned-studio and waited for my ranting to subside.
“Besides,” I continued, hoping to engender some level of sympathy, “Callum’s put me on surveillance. I’m sure my babysitter will be showing up any minute to escort me home, whether I like it or not.”
Fact of life: pretty much everyone I knew was stronger, faster, and less disturbed by the idea of throwing a girl over his shoulder and hauling her to a given destination than anyone had a right to be.
A slightly more satisfying fact of life: I didn’t have to make it easy for them. I’d doubtlessly lose any fight I started, but it was the principle of the matter. That, and annoying werewolves was a good way to dispel pent-up frustration—if and only if they were bound to keep you safe and couldn’t raise claw or canine against you.
Teeth ripping into flesh. Skin tearing like Velcro.
Glancing out the window in a show of calm, I wondered why my “escort” wasn’t here already. Like Devon had said, it was almost dark, and Callum’s wolves were nothing if not punctual. It was at that exact moment that I noticed the faint grin on Devon’s face.