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Which is how I came to be both saltless and late when I rolled into the parking lot of Harper’s prestigious boarding school. Despite the buzz of voices elsewhere, the picnic table where my sister and I always sat was empty. But the scent of middle-aged alcoholic led away from the table along with an aroma that matched my sister’s shampoo.
Unlike most werewolves, I couldn’t latch onto signature aromas. A symptom of my face blindness, likely. But the combination of coconuts and stale beer could be none other than Harper and Nick.
So I followed. Hurried down a tree-lined path, out onto a grassy field...and stopped in my tracks.
There in front of me was the slender and ever-moving body I’d recognize from a mile away as Harper. But she didn’t have her feet on the ground. Instead, she was perched atop a horse that could likely trace its ancestors back to the Mayflower. Its neck curved proudly, hair shining in the sun.
In contrast, my sister appeared a little shaky—after all, this was only her third term at Highlands and most of her time had been spent catching up on the academic and the social. Still, she was riding. My kid sister, an equestrian. My cheeks stretched into a doting grin.
Harper was too engrossed in her task to notice me, but Nick did from atop his own horse. His greeting was fake-jovial. “Athena. Pull up a horse.”
So...my stepfather wanted something. Still, I strode forward. “You look good, Harper,” I called to my sister.
She swiveled in her saddle to wave, loosening the reins as she did so. Which is the moment disaster struck.
I can’t say whether all horses dislike all werewolves. But I can say that equines have never been my biggest fans. Still, I was too far away for the horse to have been bothered by me. Or at least so I thought.
Still, a haze of floral scent curved around me in a mini-tornado. Fallen leaves whipped up, flashing across the field in a burst of color. One second later, Harper’s purebred steed flinched as the wind and debris slapped it in the face.
Maybe it was the leaves or my own wolf scent flowing in the same direction. Whatever the reason, Harper’s horse rolled its eyes to show white as it flared its nostrils. Then, whipping its head sideways, it yanked the reins out of Harper’s hands and broke into a run.
***
THIS WAS MARINA’S FAULT. I somehow knew it. A warning? A test?
Didn’t matter. My sister was atop a runaway horse.
Her feet had already slid out of the stirrups. She grabbed for reins that whipped wildly. Came up with only a few tendrils of mane.
And Nick, who was a mere six feet away, watched impassively. Or maybe he was frozen with terror. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
I wasn’t frozen. Even though my inner wolf might have been what set the horse off in the first place, I sprinted toward disaster rather than away from it. Hooves slammed down inches from my sneakers, but I dove beneath the massive beast’s neck anyway. Slid my fingers between polished leather and hot flesh...
...And hung on as the horse reared up, up, up. I didn’t weigh enough to keep the beast from rearing. Didn’t know enough about horses to prompt it to stop.
Harper shrieked. I could just imagine her sliding straight off the animal’s back. If she hit the ground wrong, she’d break her spine....
And there was nothing I could do about it. Not until the ride reversed.
Down, down, down. My feet struck just before the horse’s did. Then Harper was beside me, alive, whole, grabbing the reins and jerking them sideways to force the horse to walk rather than rear again.
“I think maybe your wolf spooked her,” she told me, voice solid even though her chin quivered. “I’ll walk her away from you....”
Suiting actions to words, she turned the massive beast and started it moving. Pride and fear made my eyes stay on her even as I strode in the opposite direction. Harper was nothing like her father. She felt fear and pushed through it. He felt fear and...
“I need a drink,” Nick muttered, right on cue.
Then hooves were pounding toward us from the direction of the barn. A student slid down off her mount. “Whoa. That looked gnarly. Are you okay?”
“Hey, Clara,” Harper greeted her roommate, her voice staying carefully level. Right, I should have realized that was Clara, with her long, tangled hair and unfashionable glasses. I likely would have if my sister hadn’t been pressed up against a horse whose eyes were still rolling back in its head.
But the thousand-pound animal only twitched an ear and kept walking as Harper relayed what had happened in an animal-friendly sing-song. “I’m fine. Athena is fine. Cloudburst is fine. We’re all just fine.”
The skin on the horse’s neck stopped twitching midway through Harper’s litany. Or maybe the animal was responding to the fact that I’d finally found a downwind spot where it could neither see nor smell me.
I took advantage of the momentary respite to spin in a circle, hunting Marina. But there was no one else present. And the floral scent, now that my sister was no longer at risk, materialized into late-blooming honeysuckle on the fencepost beside me. No rose petals. No magic. Just a plant out of sync with the season.
Plus, Lupe had told me there would be no fae present until Samhain. I shook away the conspiracy theory, focusing on my sister instead.
Harper’s cheeks were still red, but her breathing had slowed. Meanwhile, now that his daughter had everything under control, Nick finally decided it was safe enough to approach. Sliding off his horse, he held his mount’s reins so laxly I half expected it to bolt also. “Here, take the horses back to their stalls, why don’t you?”
Clara snatched his reins one moment before they dropped. And even though Nick had been the one to screw up, Harper was the one whose shoulders slumped.
“Sorry, Dad. I know you were looking forward to riding.”
“No problem, kiddo.” He shrugged, but his tone of voice didn’t entirely let her off the hook. He never did. An anxious child was far more eager to please him. “Run along and meet us back at your picnic table.”
I wanted to punch the guy, but Nick was Harper’s father and legal guardian. The line I walked here was a precarious one.
A fact that Nick knew as well as I did. His gaze turned to me and his eyes went predatory. “I have something to discuss with Athena.”