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The van was ship-shape and ordinary by the time I showed back up in human form the next morning. My papers were right were I’d left them. Patricia seemed confused by my questions when I sidetracked her away from her ever-present clipboard.
“Your boyfriend? Yeah, he came by with some friends yesterday a bit after you did.”
“And you locked up the van afterwards?”
She appeared wounded by my question. “Of course I did.”
So...maybe those fuzzy memories had been the werewolf equivalent of a wet dream? I dropped by my office to pick up a couple of items I’d forgotten, then came back out to find Patricia standing halfway up the steps heading off a mob.
“...I’ll die if I don’t get chosen!”
“Statistically, our chances....”
“I packed everything just in case.”
Okay, not a mob. The young people, dressed and fed and hyped up on caffeine, were laughing and chattering. The trouble was, there were far too many of them for their presence to make any sense.
After all, Dr. Sanora had mandated inviting only non-major students in an effort to shore up our dwindling enrollment. The attendees would have to skip two days of classes and give up their spring break, all on less than twenty-four hours of notice. I honestly hadn’t expected anyone to show up.
Now I blinked to see if the crowd would disappear like last night’s dreamscape. Instead, Patricia began reading names off her clipboard. “Madison B. Madison M. Emily. Jacob.”
The drummer boy from my lecture whacked his ever-present pencils against the side of the van in triumph. Was this...a lottery? And why did the weirdest kids always seem drawn to my events?
I strove to focus on the selected students’ names and faces, only to lose track as Claw’s big, black SUV turned off the street to join us. Pack mates, my wolf caroled in my belly. She’d forgiven him for the decade-old kiss, apparently.
But I was less willing to be swept up in romantic excitement. Instead, the tumult of students reminded me of all the things that could go wrong when mixing young humans with werewolves.
We need to be careful. These kids are our pack mates.
My wolf ignored me, reliving memories both lush and seductive. Claw’s aroma enfolding us. Invisible fingers traced a remembered pattern across our cheekbone....
The pack bond between us tightened just as my wolf slid in a verbal suggestion. Maybe Claw can ride with us?
Well, that wasn’t happening. I raised my voice to catch the gathered students’ attention. “Time’s a wasting. On the bus!”
***
MY PHONE CHIMED AN hour later, a relief from the skin-prickling sensation of traveling in the center of Claw’s scent marking. The number was unfamiliar, but I needed the distraction. Sliding the pulsing dot sideways to answer, I offered a tentative: “Hello?”
“Olivia.” The voice was female, sultry. I had no idea who was speaking. “Are you on the road yet?”
“Um...yes?”
“Good. You’ll be there on time then. I’ll text you the address.”
Sure enough, my phone chimed with an incoming-text notification even as the woman changed gears. “That’s assuming you aren’t really on the run from domestic abuse. You can talk to me, you know. If that man hits you, we’ll get you out safely.”
“Justine?” This had to be my father’s girlfriend. “Look, I know Claw made a bad first impression...”
Around me, student ears pricked up. Road chatter ceased as everyone focused on my personal life.
I turned toward the window, cupping the phone with my free hand to shield the conversation. “...But he’s really not like that.”
“You don’t want to talk about it.” Justine cut off my explanation, her tone far more businesslike than I would have expected. “I get it. If you want help, ask for it. In the meantime, Shamanic Journeys is only half an hour out of your way. I went ahead and booked their best operator for the entire week.”
“Wait—what? Why?”
“Because of the rock art outside the park, of course.” Justine sounded slightly annoyed with me now. I was being too slow on the uptake. “If you want access, you’ll need a Native American shaman. You’re lucky one was available on such short notice.”
And...that actually made sense. Apparently I’d made an incorrect assumption when I decided Justine was a dumb blonde. Still—
“I appreciate your help. But I can pay for the shaman.” I wasn’t ready to accept money from a twenty-three-year-old maybe-stepmother-to-be who I barely knew.
“Oh, sweetie.” She laughed. “Your father gave me a credit card for incidentals. You know—toiletries, shoes, handbags. This will easily fall within my budget.”
Then, without waiting for an answer, she hung up and left me to the dubious mercy of my students’ questioning stares.
***
RATHER THAN EXPLAINING, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window...and I guess I fell asleep. Because the vision washed over me with the gentleness of warm bathwater. The distant past slid in and out of my pores.
I was both the cave girl and her daughter in the same moment. I heard the chip of stone on stone while my fingers manipulated a half-formed statue. And, at the same time, I curled into a ball at my mother’s feet.
Dreamy, we drifted through minutes or hours. The mother hummed and carved. The daughter nosed at her tether, widening and strengthening it with each interested tug.
Then, somehow, my knowledge slid sideways and became their knowledge. Two heads tilted upwards in synchrony. Furry ears piqued while the cave girl’s eyes widened in dismay.
The young mother had seen the tether through me. Had understood what her daughter was doing. And she reacted with horror much greater than my own.
“No! Bad!” She swatted at her child, acting nothing like the nurturing mother I’d seen previously. The pup tumbled end over end, scratching her nose on a rock chip and wailing in protest. Her mother still did not relent.
Instead, human fingers fumbled as they searched for the tether. Grabbing the elusive snake, she twisted. Yanked it into a knot at the base of her daughter’s tail.
It pulsed, itched, pained us. The pup contorted herself but couldn’t reach the blockage. After a moment of trying, she shrieked out a protest instead.
It hurt to lose access to her father. She wanted the toy she’d been denied.
“This is for your own good, heart of my heart. It won’t hurt forever.”
We watched, all three of us, as the tendril pulsed wide and thick where it flowed out of the puppy. But the knot strangled forward motion. The connection on the other side thinned although it didn’t disappear.
The throbbing settled into the pain of a toothache. Sharp in moments, weak in others. It was no way for an infant to live.
And yet...I understood the mother’s impulse. The tether was dangerous. Not only because it attracted the father’s attention in the moment. It also made the task of Changing the pup into full humanity impossible to achieve.
“I’m sorry, my baby, my love.” We picked up the pup, smothered it with kisses. “Some day you’ll understand.”
No, my wolf growled as we fell out of the past together. She’d made the mental leap before I did—whatever worked for the pup would work for us also. No knot. Never.
I understood her demand, but the danger of pack connection followed me back to the present like the sour taste of bile.
No knot, but we’ll keep our distance from Claw, I compromised. The visions had never steered me wrong previously. I had to do something to lessen the hazard. Wolf?
She pouted for long moments. And only when real sleep began to claim me did I hear her answer.
Low, quiet, and disappointed. More whine than syllable.
Still, she said it: Yes.