Written in Red

enough that Meg brought out the sugar on Moonsday.

“Check on me?” Meg said.

“I heard the police were here and there was some big commotion. And then I heard you were injured, maybe even in the hospital, so I just had to see for myself that you were all right. Here. I brought you some hot chocolate.” Darrell hadn’t actually said anything about Meg. He’d just mentioned the ambulance being on the scene—and he told her some freaky story about a wolf man standing right out where everyone could see a lot more than they wanted to see.

“Thanks.” Meg took a sip and set the cup on the counter. “I’m fine. Someone brought in a suspicious box, that’s all.”

Not by a long shot, Asia thought. That little incident had the whole Courtyard buzzing right along with the cops. “Well, I’m glad to hear you didn’t take any harm.” Now she made a show of looking past Meg. “Say. Where is that adorable puppy that was with you the other day? He was just the cutest thing.”

“He’s not here today.”

Before Asia could push to find out where the puppy was when he wasn’t at the office, a full-grown Wolf appeared in the doorway, startling her into taking a couple steps back. Despite their size, the damn things were so quiet. After that Wolf rammed his nose into her crotch, she was a lot less interested in being around any of them unless she could pick them up and carry them away.

Meg looked at the Wolf, then said to Asia, “I have a different office buddy now.”

“All the time?” Asia asked.

Meg hesitated. “The incident on Watersday . . . It was alarming at the time, and with so many police officers responding, it caused a lot of fuss. So Mr. Wolfgard decided to add some security in the office during business hours—the same kind he has at the bookstore.”

She hadn’t appreciated how badly White Van had bungled the snatch, but this just confirmed how pointless it would be to continue hanging around Meg. Anything she said from now on would be reported to Simon.

A chorus of neighs gave her an excuse to leave.

“More friends?” she asked.

“The ponies are here for the mail.”

“And the sugar.”

“That too. Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

“I’d still like to go out to lunch one of these days,” Asia said. “You let me know when we might be able to do that.”

Not that it’s going to happen, she thought as she left the office. She looked toward the consulate, spotted Darrell in one of the upstairs windows, and blew him a kiss. I am going to be all kinds of distracted with my new boyfriend.

She sauntered to HGR and stayed long enough to make sure she’d been spotted. Then she picked a book at random, relieved that it wasn’t Simon manning the register when she went up to pay for it.

As soon as she returned to her car, she called Darrell. He was thrilled to have the opportunity to invite her out on another date.

Meg didn’t know where Nathan had gone when she went to A Little Bite for lunch and then walked over to the Market Square to browse in the library for a while, but he was waiting for her at the back door when she returned for the office’s afternoon hours. She wondered if he was making an effort not to startle her again, since his appearance that morning made it obvious that he could get into the building by himself.

She opened the doors and spread the Lakeside News on the sorting table to skim the paper for whatever might be of interest to the Others. Nathan was in the front room, sniffing everything.

When the Crows started fussing, she went to the counter, tensing when she saw an unscheduled delivery truck. Then it turned enough for her to read the Everywhere Delivery name.

“It’s Harry,” she said to Nathan as she hurried to open the door for the deliveryman.

“Was asked to make a special afternoon delivery,” Harry said when he put the box on the handcart. “Got the other piece to bring in, but you might want to make sure the floor is dry wherever you want to put it.”

“Good idea.” Meg hurried into the back room and fetched a towel. While Nathan paced, clearly not sure of where he should be, she wiped down the floor where he’d been lying that morning. “Right over here, Harry.” Since his boots were snowy, she took the bulky stuffed fabric from him and positioned it herself.

“Need your signature, Miz Meg,” Harry said.

She signed his slip, made her own notation on her clipboard, and waited until Harry drove off before she smiled at Nathan. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

He moved forward cautiously. He circled it, sniffed it, whapped it with a paw. Then he found the product tag and stared at it for a moment. Turning toward her, he lifted a lip in something that might have been a sneer.

“I know it says it’s a dog bed, but I’m sure a Wolf can use it,” Meg said.

Nothing but grumbly sounds from the Wolf.

“Fine. If you want to lie on a cold, hard floor instead of something comfy and warm just because Wolf is spelled d-o-g, you go right ahead.” She went into the sorting room and shut the door. Then she remembered the other box and opened the receiving door long enough to pull the handcart into the sorting room. If he was going to be so churlish about her trying to do something nice for him, she sure wasn’t going to leave six defenseless boxes of dog cookies alone with him.

She tucked the boxes—three boxes for puppies and three for large dogs—in the cupboards under her sorting table. Then she went back to reading the paper until the Crows announced the next delivery truck.

Simon walked into the front room of the Liaison’s Office and stared at the Wolf curled up on . . .

“What is that?” he asked, stomping snow off his boots as he stepped toward Nathan.

<Mine,> Nathan replied.

“How did it get to be yours?”

<I am guarding, so it is mine.> Giving Simon a smug look, Nathan added, <I got cookies too.>

Ignoring the warning growl, Simon ran a hand over the fabric, squeezed the stuffing, and looked at the tag.

“Where did you find this?” Not only did it look comfortable; it would look neater than the pile of old blankets he now had in his office for the times when he wanted to shift to Wolf and nap for a while.

<Meg found it.> Nathan put his head on his paws and watched Simon.

The leader always had first choice of food, of females, of anything that came to his attention. A leader who always took what another had was a leader who ended up constantly fighting to retain the leadership.

“This one stays here for whoever is on guard. I’ll ask Meg to order another one for me.” He glanced at the closed door and wondered why Meg hadn’t come out, since even human ears should have heard him talking to Nathan. <Any trouble?>

<No, but a Hawk told me the Darrell asked Elliot for permission to use one of the above stairs places. I think he found a female for sex.>

He had a good idea which female Darrell had found.

The first time Asia came in to Howling Good Reads and indicated she’d like to have sex with him, he’d tried to imagine being with her. Something about her interest hadn’t felt right, and all he could picture was a trap with steel teeth hidden under leaves and twigs. But that was his reaction to her, and, to be honest, he was relieved she’d turned her attention to a human male and would leave him alone now.

He didn’t like her, so he didn’t trust her. He didn’t care if that was fair or not. Just like he didn’t care if it was fair to wonder if the Others should continue to trust Darrell once he began having sex with Asia. After all, males did plenty of foolish things when they wanted sex.

He didn’t say anything to Nathan. His new reservations about Darrell were a discussion to have with Henry and Vlad. But right now, he had to face another discussion.

Using the go-through, he went behind the counter, studied the closed door, debated a moment, then knocked before opening it just enough to say, “Meg?”

No answer. Walking into the room, he didn’t find a woman. Before he had a chance to howl about her being