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I left the baby with my old nurse, whose eyes lit up as if Hazel was a treasure rather than a ticking poop bomb. “Oh, the little toes!” she cooed. “How long can we keep her?”
“Days,” I promised. “But you won’t be on call 24/7. Bring her to the nursery in the morning and they’ll take over. If you get tired of the baby before then....”
“I won’t.” She turned away as if I intended to snatch the baby back. “My little darling. Look at your nose!”
The wily old wolf who’d slapped down three teenagers last week for eating the last sliver of pie she’d laid verbal claim to lowered her head to sniff the infant’s cowlick. Her face broke out in an angelic grin.
So that was settled. I’d never understood the obsession with baby scent. But if it was going to help me outsource my sticky problem, I wouldn’t look a gift instinct in the mouth.
I only realized Kale was still trailing my footsteps when I stepped outside, toed off my shoes, and reached for my shirt. “You realize you shouldn’t really strip in front of me,” he observed.
Right. I’d forgotten I had an older human child to deal with. “Your room is where it always is,” I reminded him.
“Come on. My grandmother’s in the hospital.” He pouted out his bottom lip the way he used to when I refused to give him a second piece of candy.
He’d always gotten that second candy. And, most days, a third candy. Still....
“You want to see wolves tearing into each other?”
He nodded.
“Blood won’t bother you? You won’t run in and try to ‘save’ me?”
Kale shook his head, then grinned. “Your air quotes are awful.”
He was right. Human gestures weren’t really my strong suit.
Challenges, on the other hand were. If Kale was intent on coming along...I supposed I could handle one human kid plus tonight’s challenges.
“Okay,” I decided. “I’ll walk you there then shift.”
“Great!” Kale’s enthusiasm returned immediately. “I wanted to get a closer look at your Veronica officinalis anyway.”
When I looked at him blankly, he elaborated. “Your speedwell. Little blue flowers? These.”
He tapped the ground with one foot.
“Oh, sure. Those.” I skirted around flowers I didn’t know the name of but did understand the Guardian had a particular fondness for.
“They’re usually such drab little blooms,” Kale continued. “But they’re brighter and bigger here than I’ve ever seen before. Do you think they might be a new subspecies?”
I hummed and his face fell. His voice, when he continued, was a whisper I likely wasn’t meant to hear. “Boys aren’t into phytobiology.”
And even though the moon was already two fingers above the horizon, meaning I was late again, I stopped dead and turned to face him. Because I didn’t understand scientist-speak, but the flatness of Kale’s tone had been thoroughly understandable.
“Translate,” I demanded.
His ears reddened, but he obeyed me. “Flowers. Boys don’t like flowers.”
Okay, that was predictable and wrong. “Do you like flowers?”
Kale’s eyes were on his feet when he answered. “Yes.”
“And are you a boy?”
His voice rose at the end into a question. “Ye-es?”
“Then boys like flowers,” I growled, or perhaps my wolf growled. Didn’t matter. Kale wasn’t going to second guess himself on my watch.
And his face turned up, cheeks rounding and catching the moonlight. “Okay, Tara.” His scent was as sweet as the candy I used to ply him with.
Nodding decisively, I dropped the issue. “Now hurry up. We’re late.”
***
A CIRCLE OF WOLVES awaited us in the east clearing. The first to see me howled a greeting. A dark shape—Willa—padded away from the others and placed herself by Kale’s side.
So that was taken care of. No one in my pack would forget themselves and attack a human, let alone an underage human. Still, Willa’s presence was a good reminder. I left her to her job, stalked far enough away from Kale so he wouldn’t be offended by my nakedness, then I fell into mine.
Fell into fur that swallowed me and warmed me. April in Appalachia was as fickle as a tween’s willingness to have his hair tousled. Tonight, chill hung above the soil. By morning, there would be frost.
Now, though, there was only heat as the first wolf rushed me. He was barely strong enough to hold his head up in my presence. But it was good to give weaker pack mates a chance to stretch their muscles. I sidled around him while he snapped and feinted. Then, remembering the long line of contenders still awaiting their turn, I lunged in and rolled him over onto his back.
He panted out regret that I wouldn’t choose him as Beta. At least not tonight, not based on this showing. That, after all, was the point of these challenges. Because Willa had been my father’s Beta, but since we were both women she couldn’t be mine.
And the Guardian was getting antsy. I could feel it when I walked barefoot through the forest. Could feel it every time another month passed without me conceiving an Heir and choosing a Beta.
Still, it was hard to make a selection while fighting males who had no chance of beating me. Eventually, I hoped, one might improve enough so I could choose him as my second-in-command. It needed to happen soon. I could only hope the Guardian’s patience stretched that long.
So we fought. One on one, five more battles. By the time the moon crested the top of the oak tree at the edge of the clearing, my right forepaw throbbed from where I’d clawed too deeply into an opponent’s flank. There was blood on my tongue. And I’d finally worked my way up to the wolves who I couldn’t fight with my eyes shut.
Ash was one I’d been considering for the role of Beta. He wasn’t as strong as Willa yet, which was a problem. But he was my friend, someone I trusted to have the good of the pack as his guiding light always. As a result, I’d been training him in private, taking him through his paces time after time until he leveled up from novice to amateur.
Ash had clearly been practicing on his own also. Because a double feint surprised me. His jaws clenched down around the tip of my ear.
A less experienced wolf would have yelped and flinched, perhaps even submitted. But ears were just shreds of tissue. I ripped away, ignoring the sharp pain and the warm blood, using Ash’s overreach to toss him earthward. Unlike the others, I did him the honor of lunging for his jugular, proof that I considered him an actual threat.
And he submitted...or seemed to. But as I turned away, something dark flitted through my peripheral vision.
“Look out!” Kale’s voice rose to the pitch of a girlish shriek.
And even though I knew the kid was safe beside Willa, I turned toward him. After all, Natalie had put her children in my care. Kale’s safety was my top priority.
Sure enough, the kid was fine. Just pointing wildly toward my blind spot.
Before I could swivel back to face the danger, something hard barreled into my shoulder. Together, Ash and I went down.
***
THE MOVE HAD BEEN SNEAKY, not what I’d expected during an official challenge. Not what I’d expected from an unofficial friend either.
Still, it was nothing I couldn’t deal with. I let Ash’s momentum push me into a roll. For a split second, my belly lay exposed between us. But before he could pounce, I was back upright. Feet clawed grass. Then my teeth bit into his skin.
Up until this point, I’d drawn little blood. Just enough to give wolves the feeling they’d been taking part in more than a training session. Now, though, I didn’t hold back. My fangs grated against Ash’s cheekbone. Deeper. Harder.
He still didn’t stand down.
I had just enough spare energy to send a quick order to Willa down the pack bond. “Get Kale out of here.” Because while earlier tussles hadn’t risked sparking a twelve-year-old human’s nightmares, what was about to happen might.
“Leave me alone!” Kale cried, but this time I didn’t allow myself to be distracted. Instead, I bit down harder on Ash’s face. Already, the wound I’d made would leave a scar. More risked breaking bones to the point of disfigurement.
“This isn’t appropriate bedtime entertainment,” Willa growled behind me. “How about a cookie?”
She was worse than I was with children. I would have laughed if Kale had been anything other than my favorite mini-human. I would have laughed if causing so much pain to a friend wasn’t making me sick.
Beneath me, Ash didn’t whimper but he did relax. Not quite a submission, but the next best thing to one.
Did he really think I was about to fall for the same trick twice?
Still, I didn’t want to break his jaw if I didn’t have to. Releasing him, I took one stiff-legged step backwards. Meanwhile, behind me, the debate between Kale and Willa twisted and turned sour.
“I’m not a child,” Kale countered. “If I was a wolf, I’d be nearly old enough to shift. Then you wouldn’t send me away from here.”
“But you’re not a wolf, are you?” Willa’s words dripped with condescension. Kale sucked in a breath that almost sounded like a sob.
“The Alpha,” Willa continued, “said it’s time for you to go.”
“Tara didn’t say anything!”
“You will call her Alpha.”
Willa’s growl was twice as threatening as Ash’s posture. Beneath me, my opponent lay still as a stone.
But he wasn’t done. His muscles were coiled. And, as we’d learned during sparring matches, his bulk considerably outmatched mine.
If he managed to find his way onto my back, I’d be the one at a disadvantage....
I shook my head, focusing on the present. I was willing to take that risk to shut down the conversation between my buddy and my Beta before it spiraled all the way out of control. Before the fight between me and Ash descended into cascades of blood no twelve-year-old should see.
So I risked taking my eyes off my opponent. Lunging toward Kale, I communicated in the only way I could with an errant human. I bared my teeth and I snapped.
The kid jumped backward as fast as a rabbit. “Tara...Alpha.”
His voice was a whimper. I’d always acted more like a pet dog than a scary wolf in his presence. I’d wanted him to trust me, not to react with fear.
I growled anyway. And he must have thought that growl was an agreement with Willa, a dismissal of his young adulthood. Because his face folded. The same way it did when his dad got busy and forgot to pick him up for the weekend. The same way it did when kids from his old school used his dead name.
I froze for a split second, hating that I’d broken the bond I’d worked so hard to build with Natalie’s son. Froze and watched him follow Willa away into the darkness.
A rush of air warned me one split second before Ash landed on my back.