| |
It was half past four in the morning, but I couldn’t close my eyes, let alone return to slumber. Not even after examining now-clean fingers and toes to reassure myself that the strange confrontation had only been a figment of my dreaming mind’s imagination.
Instead, I lay between soft sheets, listening to the silence of Gunner’s mansion. During the day, the halls filled with chatter and laughter. But in the wee hours of night, the place became positively peaceful with everyone sleeping.
Well, everyone except for me.
It wasn’t the first time I’d risen before dawn, unable to accept a wolf pack’s confining safety. So I pushed out of bed, pulled on clothes, and headed downstairs to the empty courtyard. There I drew upon my star ball and dueled against nobody, stretching muscles well toned from previously insomniacal bouts.
Fighting, at least, tired me enough so the questions and worries circling through my mind lowered their volume. Was I doing the right thing choosing momentary safety for Kira while going against every instinct toward self-preservation that our parents had taught? Slash, lunge. Would I come to regret accepting a so-called “job” that involved doing whatever I wanted while being paid more than I’d previously made as a teacher and cage-fighter combined? Riposte, retreat.
There were no more answers this morning than there had been last Tuesday or two weeks ago Wednesday or any other time I’d come out here to fight shadows rather than snuggle up in my bed like a good little wolf. Still, I couldn’t help smiling despite the sweat burning my eyeballs when the inevitable morning bickering rose with the sun, proving that my sister was now wide awake and much perkier than she’d been the day before.
“So you think it’s funny to let me fall into the toilet first thing in the morning?” Kira snarked from the east end of the first floor—the massive kitchen where everyone except me tended to congregate as soon as they got up.
“Come on, pipsqueak. Today’s the big day. Give me a break.”
Looked like my kid sister was back on task as self-appointed toilet monitor. And one of our house mates—Tank this time—had relieved himself in the night without remembering to re-lower that all-important white seat.
Kira grows more wolf-like and less fox-like every day, I noted, not sure how I felt about the matter. Foxes were reserved and elusive. But wolves, I’d found, expressed their affections best in the physical realm.
Sure enough, the crack of a snapping towel evoked a squeak from my sister even as another house mate, Crow this time, stated the obvious: “That’s our bathroom, puppy. You and Mai have your own on the third floor. So if you fell in, it’s your own da...ahem...darn fault.”
Logic, apparently, had no impact upon my sister. “I live in this entire house, not locked in the attic like a crazy auntie. For example, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking. So if you want any of my bacon, you’ll start putting down the toilet seat everywhere.”
“Ooh, burn,” Allen murmured, far too quietly for the neighbors to hear him. My fox senses, on the other hand, caught the comment quite ably...along with a salty sweet scent that had me slowing my morning exercise into a cool down. Perhaps being part of a wolf pack wasn’t so terrible if it came with bacon at the exact moment my stomach started growling....
Except even as I started imagining breakfast, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My nostrils flared, my muscles tightened. There was something nearing, something watching....
Bacon abruptly forgotten, I whirled in reaction, raising my sword as I turned to face the stalking wolf.
***
OR, RATHER, TO FACE the two-legged wolf in human clothing. Gunner raised one eyebrow at the pointy blade just barely indenting the skin beneath his Adam’s apple. Then, ignoring my weapon, he held out a mug of chamomile tea, the sweetness of honey curling off the surface as the leader of the wolf pack I lived amidst greeted me aloud.
“Tough night?”
I shook my head, not so much in denial as in a refusal to rehash my dream landscape verbally. And in response, Gunner’s open face shuttered ever so slightly as if he was more disappointed by my evasion than at being greeted by the sharp tip of a sword.
But just as quickly, Gunner regained his customary smile, jiggling the mug between us so the ceramic clanked against my magically-created weapon. “We should do something fun before Kira’s custody hearing,” the ever-patient werewolf suggested. “Go for a run somewhere wild before we’re due in court. Or...shopping? Does Kira like shopping?”
“My sister loves nothing better than spending other people’s money,” I admitted, allowing my sword to diffuse back into a magical blob that slid along my skin to form a bracelet, a belt, a sheathed knife at my left ankle. In front of me, Gunner didn’t even twitch at this evidence of my kitsune nature. “But we shouldn’t spoil her,” I added. “And, anyway, I’ve got other plans.”
“Plans?”
This time I accepted the mug my companion brandished in my direction, pretending that I needed all of my attention to prevent a spill. Taking a sip, I noted that Gunner had steeped the tea just the way I liked it, not so long it turned bitter but not so short that it was simply sweetened water with a hint of aroma to turn hot liquid into soothing tea water.
The flavor was perfect...but my gut clenched anyway. Because it was time for our inevitable weekly ritual. No one managed to slip away from the pack without extensive explanation, but I couldn’t afford to let any of the werewolves I lived with know where I went on Tuesday afternoons. In lieu of the truth, I always ended up stuttering through an entirely unbelievable explanation, and the wolves around me always smiled grimly and allowed me to lie.
As usual, my body language broadcast my mistruth before I even opened my mouth to speak it. “Girl stuff,” I said stiffly, turning away from the piercing eyes of the far too astute werewolf who was providing food, housing, protection, and now the likelihood of ripping Kira out of the foster system permanently.
Gunner had done everything he could think of to enfold me into his pack...and yet I remained at heart a solitary kitsune.
“It might take a while,” I continued. “So I’ll meet you and Kira at the courthouse. If you don’t mind bringing her there for me....”
“Of course, I’ll take care of Kira,” Gunner agreed quietly. “She’s part of our pack.”
The unspoken addendum—that I lacked that distinction due to actions just like this one—separated us more effectively than my now-absent weapon.
But there was nothing I could do about the sad sag to my companion’s shoulders. Nothing except the impossible—turn myself into a wolf.
So, stepping backwards, I nodded once. “Thank you,” I murmured, eyes downcast in wordless apology, “for the tea.”