responded.
I was crying full-tilt by the time I pulled my truck into a little clearing off Alan’s drive. Eli was waiting there for me so we could trudge through the woods behind Alan’s house and sneak into the barn. I hadn’t thought much beyond that.
Eli’s expression was sympathetic when I climbed out of the truck. He opened his arms as if he planned to hug me. When he realized I wasn’t stepping closer, he smoothly lowered them and placed his hands on my shoulders.
“Thanks for coming,” I told him. “I didn’t think I could do this alone, and I didn’t know who else to call. And if it is Cooper, I didn’t want Samson or Gracie to see him this way.”
“If you’re not up to it, I can do this alone,” he said.
“No, I think it won’t be real for me unless I see it myself,” I said, shaking my head.
“This is one of the worst parts of my job.” He sighed, leading me into the trees. “Being the one to take on the bad news.”
“We don’t know that it’s bad news,” I said, my tone just a little petulant.
He smiled, but I could tell it was just to humor me. “Of course not. Sorry, Mo.”
I shrugged. Eli was moving quickly and quietly through the trees, leaving me in the dust. I had to half-run to keep up. About a mile from Alan’s house, I had to double over to catch my breath.
“Hold up,” I called. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep going at this pace.”
Eli made a sour face and moved back toward me. “Are you hurt?”
“No, pregnant.” I drew deep, lung-stretching breaths.
“What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he demanded, the color draining from his face.
“I asked Gracie not to say anything until Cooper and I got everything worked out.”
Eli seemed livid at having been left out of the loop. I couldn’t tell if the injury was personal or professional. Clearly, as de facto alpha, he expected to know everything going on in his pack members’ lives.
“Aw, damn it, Mo.” He pushed through the trees at a slower pace. He seemed to have recovered his usual bland demeanor. “I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have let you come. You shouldn’t see this. This shouldn’t be the way you remember Cooper.”
“It might not be Cooper,” I insisted again, getting annoyed that Eli seemed hell-bent on the worst-case scenario. He took my elbow and assisted me a bit more gallantly during the last mile. We finally reached the edge of the trees, just in time to see the hunting party walking toward their trucks, slapping one another’s back in that “manly men together” manner. I heard several voices call, “Meet you at the Glacier. You’re buying!” Alan was the last to drive away after locking the barn up tight. He pocketed the key.
Eli and I ran for the barn. Eli grabbed a rusty pipe wrench lying near the concrete pad and bashed the padlock off the door. I blinked into the dim light of the barn, assailed by dust and the faint smell of motor oil. Eli tossed the wrench onto a workbench. I squinted, my eyes adjusting enough to take in the blanket-covered form on the wooden trestle table. I stumbled toward it. Eli pulled back the blanket, and I cried out, wanting to shield my eyes but unable to look away.
I covered my face with my hands, muttering something like “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The fur was too light, the body too lean. It wasn’t Cooper.
I was flooded with simultaneous waves of relief, confusion, and embarrassment at dragging Eli all this way. I wiped at my eyes, wondering again where Cooper was and whether he was OK.
Eli stared down at the body, his pupils tight little pinpricks in eyes that were growing increasingly golden. His mouth was set in a grim, unhappy line.
“Is it anyone you know?” I asked, instantly ashamed of my insensitive reaction. “Is it a werewolf?”
“No, it’s just your normal, run-of-the-mill wolf,” Eli said, his voice flat and unaffected.
“Eli?”
“Sonofabitch!” he screamed, tossing the trestle table over. The wolf’s carcass fell to the ground with a soft thud.
“Eli, what are you—”
“If you want something done, you can’t trust anyone to do it for you!” he raged, his face flushing purple. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to set this up? And these dumb fucking roughnecks kill a real wolf?”
Eli’s eyes were now completely yellow, his cheekbones protruding sharply. He was starting to change, a shadow creeping over his skin instead of the light of transformation I was used to from Cooper. This was something primal and scary. And as I finally processed what Eli was saying, I realized I was in deep, deep shit.
Eli drew back and slapped me with an increasingly pawlike hand, sending me flying across the room and into a tool chest.
Jennifer Garner totally would have seen that coming.
I sat up carefully, my hand curving protectively around my belly. “Why, Eli? Why are you doing this?”
Eli rolled his neck, stretching his body in a long, lean line, willing the change to withdraw as he shrugged out of his clothes—which was, I will admit, disturbing. He was fully human again, his eyes a bitter chocolate color. He smirked. “Would you believe . . . I just enjoy screwing around with short-order cooks?”
He sat down in front of me. My only comfort at this point was that the concrete had to be extremely rough on his bare ass cheeks.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” he demanded. I tried to look away, because of the nudity issue, but he grabbed my jaw and forced me to keep eye contact. “I’ve worked for years to get where I am today. Cooper was weak. He was too worried about being fair and equal when what we needed was strength. I’m a leader, Mo. I was born to lead my pack. And they’re too damn stubborn, too stuck in the Dark Ages to realize it. Do you know what it’s like to know your potential and have no one else recognize it? Because of Cooper. As long as Cooper was around, I would only be the second best, the substitute.”
Just over Eli’s shoulder, on the opposite wall, I spotted a tranquilizer gun. There was no way to make a direct grab for it. My only hope was that Eli would keep talking, allowing me to shift positions and get to it.
“That rival pack was strong, though, as it turned out, not especially subtle,” he said, looking annoyed. “They bungled the whole thing, after I’d been sending them information for months! I mean, really, if you can’t trust the people you’re staging a coup with, who can you trust? That turned into a total fiasco, and I had to act just as surprised and shocked as everybody else.
“But it did get rid of Cooper, which was the point. I stepped in. I comforted my people. I was the reluctant hero. I was a brother to that little pain in the ass Maggie. I fed her everything she wanted to hear about what a horrible person Cooper was, how I’d always be there for her, never abandon her like Cooper. God, it was so freaking tedious listening to her all the damn time! Her stupid, petty little teenage problems, on and on and on.”
He sighed. “I thought, with him gone, I would finally receive the respect I deserve, but the pack just keeps waiting for him to come back. I’m strong enough to lead, Mo. I’ve shown that over and over again, but what do I get from them? Prayers for Cooper’s return. So, I had to come up with a more permanent means of getting rid of him. I tried to get Maggie riled up enough to take him out for me, but she turned out to be almost as sappy and sentimental as he is. The whole damn family is a waste of good genes. I thought I could get one of your neighbors to gun him down. So I may have created the impression that wolves were gobbling up the locals. I’ve always had more control in my wolf state, a better recall of my wolf memories, than Cooper, who has always been so damned whiny and conflicted about our nature.
“Targeting a few humans wasn’t a problem. A hiker here, an old woman there. Hell, I followed you on your little camping trip, thinking maybe I could make a grab for you, but he never leaves your side, does he? Stumbling across that old man so close to you was just plain good luck. Your friend Abner put up a good fight for an old man, but he was only human, after all. You’re all so damned fragile. I was afraid Cooper might smell me that time, but he was so quick to blame himself. It didn’t matter what his instincts told him.”
My lip trembled. I swiped at the tear that threatened to spill down my cheek. Eli had hurt Susie Q. He’d torn those poor hikers away from their campsite and scattered their bones like discarded toys. My head snapped up. He’d killed Abner.
“You sonofabitch!” I snarled. Without thinking, I flew at him, my fingers curled into talons and aimed at his eyes. He caught me by my throat, holding me off the ground, my feet scraping against the dirt floor. Coughing and gasping, I clawed at his hands, finally managing to kick him in the gut. I don’t think it hurt him much, but it annoyed him enough to make him drop me on my ass. I kicked at his feet, hoping to trip him up. He growled and backhanded
