wouldn’t look at Tyler and decide that he was too much of a threat to help. Instead of making Tyler navigate the situation on his own, I decided to act as an intermediary.
I called my contact, Ahmed, the werewolf in Washington, D.C., who ran the local lycanthrope scene there. He passed along the contact information for Christopher, the alpha of the Seattle werewolves, and I called him to explain the situation. As I’d feared, he was wary about taking on Tyler, a Special Forces veteran. I couldn’t really blame him; this was uncharted territory for all of us. “Just meet him,” I’d said, trying to sound confident and reassuring rather than pleading. He agreed to a meeting, and I liked to think it was my incredible powers of persuasion that convinced him. The fact that Christopher turned out to be one of the good guys and willing to take the chance probably had more to do with it.
Ben, Tyler, and I drove straight through to Seattle a week after his discharge. Ben and I took turns driving; Tyler spent most of the drive napping or looking out the window, face right up to the glass, taking in the world. He’d spent most of the last month or so locked up in a hospital room, with occasional excursions. Driving the interstate with the scenery sliding past had to feel as much like freedom as anything.
We reached Christopher’s meeting place, a regional park northeast of Seattle, at dusk. I’d called a couple hours out to let him know our ETA. He’d directed us to a parking lot and picnic area, against a backdrop of a thick pine forest. Even in the middle of winter the place was green, and I could smell the rich scent of evergreens touched with icy snow. He and a number of his pack were already there, waiting for us. I’d have done the same thing if our positions had been reversed. Stake out your territory, show your strength, take the high ground, and so on.
I didn’t know all that much about werewolf packs. I’d heard a lot of stories through the radio show, and through rumor and hearsay. My own experience was mixed—my pack was part of the best of times and the worst of times, as they say. Some cities didn’t have packs at all, just loose confederations of likeminded lycanthropes. I’d been warned away from some areas entirely because a chaotic, warlike environment dominated. There were almost as many different kinds of werewolf packs as there were individual werewolves.
I’d never really met another werewolf pack with a solid alpha male and his followers lined up behind him. This was going to be educational. I was nervous but tried not to show it. Confident, suave, hip—that was me.
The three of us got out of the car. “Wait here a minute,” I said to Ben and Tyler. “Let me talk to them first.”
“I should be with you,” Ben said. He was looking at the leader, standing out in the grass, and at the men and women arrayed in a semicircle behind him like an entourage. “You can’t face that all by yourself.”
Tyler tipped his chin up a little and took a deep breath. “I can smell them. This whole place smells weird. Different.”
Alien. Another pack’s territory. I could sense it, too.
“They can see you,” I told Ben. “Let ’em think I don’t need backup, right?” I grinned. Ben looked like he was biting his tongue.
Christopher was a handsome man, older, close to fifty, maybe, with thick graying hair swept back from his face. Really fit. He had his arms crossed, showing off sculpted muscles. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved, button-up shirt. Among his entourage, a woman stood at the end, red hair twisted up in a braid, laugh lines creasing her eyes. She looked at Christopher rather than at me, watching for his reaction, his cues. His alpha female, then. Everyone else was young, tough, glaring, their shoulders tense, on the verge of bristling like hackles. He’d brought his fighters with him, rather than any older, wiser wolves that might be part of his pack. They smelled like pine trees and salt air, as well as musk and wild.
I stopped about a dozen feet in front of Christopher and stayed relaxed, loose. Tried not to feel small and vulnerable. They were trying to intimidate me, because that was just what werewolves
“Hi!” I said, way too cheerful, as if I was about to offer them Girl Scout cookies.
Christopher gave a huff, like a silent chuckle. “So you’re the notorious Kitty Norville.”
“Hey,” I said. “I thought it was more like infamous.”
Then he did chuckle, amused. “Kitty. It’s very nice to finally meet you.”
“Yeah, likewise.” I glanced at the rest of the pack, watching to see if they relaxed. They seemed to, nominally. But if I breathed on Christopher wrong they’d be on me in a second. I wondered: would my pack look like that, if our places were reversed? Hm.
The alpha female stepped forward to join her mate. “This is Sarah,” he said.
“Hi,” I said simply. She smiled a wry greeting, as if she was saying,
None of us shook hands, which wouldn’t have been normal werewolf behavior. When you approached a werewolf with your hand outstretched, you looked like someone getting ready to take a swipe with claws. This was more natural for us: we looked each other up and down, took in each other’s scents, and didn’t stare into each other’s gazes, which would have been a sign of challenge.
This wasn’t so bad after all.
“And your friends?” Christopher said, nodding toward my two companions.
“This is Ben, my mate.” I looked back, and Ben came forward at the cue, until his shoulder touched mine. He kept his head up and looked over Christopher and all his wolves, meeting each gaze before moving to the next. All he had to do was get across the message that he wasn’t worried and he wasn’t weak. He might have been channeling his inner lawyer as much as his inner wolf. Christopher nodded at him in acknowledgment.
“And this is Joseph Tyler,” I said, looking to the soldier. Christopher waved Tyler over.
In contrast to Ben, Tyler slouched as he walked to join us, and he kept his gaze down. Showing as much deference as a six-three guy who’d just gotten out of the army could show. He came to stand at my other shoulder, and I brushed my hand against his arm, a brief touch of comfort. The anxiety was transmitting. The wolves around us watched him, waiting to see what he’d do.
I glanced at Christopher for his reaction. Did Tyler make him nervous? Would he have to struggle to hide it?
No to both. If he was nervous, he hid it really well. He seemed relaxed—not a hint of hackles rising. But then that was how he got to be alpha of one of the country’s more stable packs. He gazed at Tyler calmly, appraisingly, without a hint of challenge. His stance made me relax—Tyler would be okay here.
“Joseph?” Christopher said. “What is it you want here?” The question had a tone of formality, of ritual to it. He wanted to put Tyler on the spot, to see how he would react.
“My family lives here. My mom, sister. They don’t—they don’t know what I am, what I turned into. They don’t have to know. But I want to be close. I want them to know I’m okay.”
It was a true answer. Christopher nodded.
“If you’re going to live in my territory, you need to live by my rules. We can give you a safe place to spend your full moons. We can help you cope. But you have to do your part to keep the peace. You must help when I call on you. Don’t cause trouble.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” Tyler said. “I . . . I just want to come home.”
“I know. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out that way.”
“I need help,” he said. “Can you help?” His voice was bleak, tight with sadness, like he expected Christopher to say no and send him away. I would take him back to Denver, I would let him into my pack, he had to know that. But this was home to him, before he’d gone away and traveled through hell.
Sarah looked up at Christopher, her lips pressed into a line, as if she wanted to say something but was waiting for him. We were all looking at him, waiting for a response. His expression was thoughtful.
“I think we can,” Christopher said. Tyler bowed his head and sighed. I let out my breath, too.
Ben took my hand and squeezed. “I think it’s time we go.”
He was right. We’d done what we came here to do, delivered our charge to his new home, and done it peacefully. And now we were invading someone else’s territory. Christopher and Sarah probably would have let us stay for a visit, maybe even given us the tour of Seattle if we’d asked. But making a clean break seemed like the thing to do. Let Tyler join his new pack without us around to divide his loyalties.
When Tyler looked at me, he had an expression I’d never seen on him—the tension was gone and he smiled. He was relieved. “Kitty. Thank you.”
