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There were no guards. No wolf-form shifters sniffing the air. Not even any two-leggers alert enough to notice my approach.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I would have been able to tiptoe around the perimeter without anyone being the wiser if I hadn’t noticed a kid toddling away from his parents. The boy was old enough to walk...barely...and I found myself pausing to make sure he didn’t wander too far and end up hurt before his merrymaking elders clued in to his absence.
Junior Junior. My nose informed me of the child’s identity long before I would have made the connection with my naked eyes. If the similar aromas were anything to go by, this was Stormwinder’s grandson and likely also the son of the male who had pounced on my back a few days prior.
Blood will tell. Because the kid appeared to be just as intrepid as his forefathers. Rather than remaining close to the gaggle of womenfolk who kept the pack’s other youngsters restricted to a small patch of well-mown lawn, Junior Junior was heading directly for the bushes in my general direction. And despite his auspicious heritage, no one had yet noticed the youngster’s jailbreak.
I caught the flash of a white rabbit tail at the same moment the boy did, then nearly laughed as the toddler attempted to pounce with entirely human teeth and nails. The bunny eluded his grasp easily, but the child pulled himself back erect and staggered off in not-so-hot pursuit.
The slow-motion game of tag might have gone on indefinitely had the child’s third pounce not landed him in entirely the wrong position. I’d found myself padding ever closer as Junior Junior staggered on an intercept course with my own planned route. So I was only twenty feet distant when he began to scream bloody murder.
The sounds of gaiety from the nearby picnic stilled, but I couldn’t be bothered with glancing back over my shoulder to see who would come to the kid’s rescue. Instead, I frantically scanned the boy’s tear-stained face, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Had he skinned his knee? Fallen on a thorn? Or had something much worse taken down the third generation of Stormwinders?
There. The dive-bombing insect heading directly for the kid’s face was apparently the second in a long string of yellow-jackets scrambling out of a hole in the ground by his feet. Having dealt with more than my fair share of stinging insects during my wild youth, I knew yellow-jackets were second only to paper wasps in pure agony-inducing defensive capabilities.
In other words, they hurt like hell. And if the kid was allergic, his first sting might already be one too many.
So I closed the distance between us in a few quick strides. As predicted, the yellow-jackets changed tactics when faced with a taller intruder, zooming toward my face instead of bombarding Junior Junior’s. Good. Their moment of confusion gave me the opportunity to stuff the kid halfway under my shirt before dashing for the safety of Stormwinder’s residence. If yellow-jackets followed and tangled themselves in my sweaty locks, I was too hardheaded to care.
I fully expected worried parents to materialize at my side in short order and take the wailing toddler off my hands. Because Junior Junior was even louder now than he had been previously. He was terrified at my snatch-and-run, wounded by at least one yellow-jacket, and generally out of sorts with life in general. As a result, his screams were approximating the frequency of air-raid sirens...which is to say, they were entirely ear-splitting.
I wouldn’t mind giving the kid up one little bit.
But no one came to meet me as I approached. Instead, male as well as female necks bent earthward, eyes looking everywhere other than in my direction.
The conclusion was obvious. These shifters, just like the ones I’d stumbled across earlier in the weekend, had apparently been informed about my dominance display during Friday’s raid. And just as obviously, they were terrified to set off my supposedly hair-trigger temper.
As I imagined trying to field-dress the kid’s wounds while he did his level best to wriggle out of my grasp, I had to admit I did feel a trifle exasperated. But it wasn’t as if I was going to compel anyone to jump off a cliff, nor did I plan to get my hands dirty by snapping their necks directly.
Speaking of necks, my steps had slowed sufficiently for a particularly speedy yellow-jacket to discover the patch of bare skin between my collar and hairline. I shifted the boy into the crook of one arm long enough to slap at the abrupt sting with my other hand.
“Shit!” I erupted, then wondered whether I was scarring Junior Junior for life by swearing into his pint-sized ear.
Once again, Blue-eyes was the one to save me. The young woman walked across the lawn tentatively, as if she half expected me to strike her the same way I’d squashed the insect that was still pumping poisons beneath my skin.
Despite obvious trepidation, though, her chin was raised and her eyes were flashing as she closed the distance between us. “Come to Auntie Angie,” she cooed to the little boy, who slid out from beneath my shirt and flung himself into her waiting arms without waiting for a second invitation.
I was both relieved and strangely saddened to have him gone.
For her part, Angelica was finding Junior Junior nearly too much to handle. The kid was pretty heavy in the arms of someone unaccustomed to hauling hundred-pound rucksacks across rough terrain on a regular basis.
The kid slipped a notch and I reached toward him across his aunt’s shoulder. I didn’t quite touch either of them, though, not wanting to spook them further. Still, I was equally unwilling to allow Junior Junior to crack his skull open on the hard ground should he fall.
Who knew surviving your first year of life as a two-legger was so fraught with life-threatening perils?
“I’ve got this,” Angelica said when I remained within her personal space. She sidled sideways and I felt rather than heard the crowd behind her heave a tremendous sigh of relief at the teenager’s ability to survive near contact with the terrifying Enforcer.
“He was stung...” I began, not wanting Blue-eyes—or anyone else—to think I’d injured Stormwinder’s innocent grandson on purpose. I’d only been trying to help, not to make matters worse.
Although, come to think of it, Junior Junior’s wailing and tears had halted abruptly as soon as he found himself within his aunt’s familiar grasp. And the last yellow-jacket had perished after its kamikaze attack. So I guessed there really was nothing for me to save him from after all...except perhaps myself.
“I’ve got this,” the teenager repeated a little more loudly. I almost thought she was mad at me. But then Angelica’s gaze skittered to the side, suggesting the discomfort in her voice had begun as fear, not as anger.
There was nothing else I could do. So I bowed slightly by way of farewell and headed directly toward the front door of the nearby residence.
After all, there was no reason to slink around back when I’d already thoroughly stirred up the hornet’s nest.
