Written in Red

gone, he heard the toilet flush. Her whereabouts discovered, he opened cupboards until he found the cookies. He had his hand in the box when Meg walked into the room.

He stuffed a couple of cookies into his coat pocket, then closed the box and put it back where he’d found it.

“Where did you get the bed for Nathan?” he asked.

She sighed. “Does it really matter that the tag says dog instead of Wolf?”

It would if they decided to send some into the settlements, but he could ignore the words here in the Courtyard. “I wondered because I would like to get one for my office. And maybe a couple of extras to put in our general store.”

“I ordered it from the Pet Palace.”

He winced, thinking of what Elliot would say about purchasing anything from such a place. Well, he just wouldn’t tell Elliot where the beds came from.

“Order more.”

“All right.” She gave him a puzzled look. “How did you know about the bed?”

“I didn’t. I came over to see if Sam can stay with you for the rest of the afternoon. I’ll fetch him from school. He can go with you on your deliveries, or you can leave him with Henry.”

“All right.” Now she looked uneasy. “Simon? Asia asked about Sam. She saw him while you were out of town, when he was here with me.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her he wasn’t here today. Then she saw Nathan. She and I talked for a couple of minutes, and she left. Sam is cute, and humans do like cuddling puppies and kittens.” She shrugged. “I don’t think she meant any harm by asking, but I thought you should know.”

“Good.” He nodded. “It’s good you told me. I’ll take your BOW and go get Sam now.”

He went out the back door. As he crossed the space to the garage, he looked back at the stairs that led to the two small apartments over the Liaison’s Office. A meeting place. An overnight place. A sex place for those among the terra indigene whose status in the human world required more privacy than was available in the rooms above the social center.

A trap with steel teeth. He needed to figure out what he didn’t understand about Asia being with Darrell before that trap snapped shut.

CHAPTER 18

With Sam beside him in the front seat, Simon drove away from the Courtyard’s school and headed for the Liaison’s Office. The school was tucked near the center of the Courtyard, well hidden from prying human eyes.

It wasn’t safe for terra indigene youngsters to go to school with human children, so Courtyards provided their residents with an education similar to what humans received. A human couldn’t cheat a Wolf who could add and subtract like anyone else. Two plus two equaled four, no matter what species you belonged to.

Thaisia’s history, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. Humans and Others held very different opinions about that subject.

But that day’s report of arithmetic, reading, and writing had been covered in the first two minutes of the drive. Now Sam was back to a more important topic.

“But Nathan isn’t doing anything,” Sam said. “Why can’t he play with me?”

“He is doing something,” Simon replied. “He’s on guard, so he can play only during the midday break when Meg isn’t in the office.”

“How come Meg needs a guard now? Nathan wasn’t guarding when I was with Meg before.”

He didn’t want to tell the boy about the intruder, but if he didn’t say something, the pup would keep on pestering him and Nathan about why the Wolf on guard couldn’t play.

“A man came into the office. He was mean to Meg. We didn’t like that, so Nathan is there to make sure nobody else is mean to her.”

Sam looked out the window. Then he asked in a small voice, “Is he the man who hurt Mom?”

“No. Those men ran away. We’ll find them one day, Sam. We will. But the man who came into the office wasn’t one of them.”

“I want to be Wolf when I’m at the office.”

Simon glanced at the boy. “Meg can’t communicate the way the terra indigene do. You won’t be able to tell her what you learned in school today if you’re Wolf.”

“I can tell her when we get home. I can’t wear the harness in this form, so I have to hold the safety line in my hand, and sometimes I forget and drop it.”

“You don’t have to wear the harness anymore.” He wished the boy wasn’t so focused on that harness and leash. It made the other Wolves uneasy. Well, it wouldn’t bother any of them much longer. The pup had grown sufficiently in just a few days’ time that the harness wouldn’t fit him in another week.

Sam gave him an incredulous look. “If I don’t wear the harness, how am I supposed to pull Meg out of a snowbank when she falls in?”

Simon kept his eyes on the road. The boy had said when, not if. Just how often did Meg fall into a snowbank? Was she clumsy, or was it play? Or did she end up in the snow after getting tripped by a puppy?

“And Meg isn’t a good digger,” Sam continued. “As Wolf, I’m lots better at digging.”

“Is that why you were the one digging out the BOW when it got stuck in the snow yesterday?” Simon asked mildly.

Sam scooted down in his seat and mumbled, “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

“Uh-huh.” He had fielded a dozen calls from Hawks, Owls, Crows, and a couple of Wolves who had watched that piece of idiocy and couldn’t wait to tell him about it. He found it interesting that none of them had offered to help. In fact, the Wolves told him they had deliberately stayed out of sight, letting Meg and Sam work it out for themselves. And they had. Between them, they had gotten the BOW unstuck and continued with the deliveries.

It also explained why, when he’d returned from an hour’s run with Blair and a few other Wolves, he’d found the television on and pup and prophet sound asleep on the living room floor.

Since she was spooned around Sam to keep him warm, Simon had figured it was only sensible to stay as Wolf and tuck himself against her back to keep her warm.

The fact that tucking up against her made him feel content had nothing to do with that decision. Nothing at all.

When they arrived at Meg’s office, Simon helped Sam fold his clothes and place them in one of the back room’s storage bins, then opened the door to the sorting room after the boy shifted to Wolf. The pup gave Meg an exuberant greeting, arroooed at Nathan, then began sniffing around the room for the cookies Meg had hidden.

“You have anything you want me to walk over to the consulate?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” Meg replied. “Darrell came by and picked up the mail.” She paused, looking puzzled.

He caught a whiff of uneasiness in her scent and took a step toward her. “Something wrong with him coming by?”

She shook her head. “Just that no one from the consul has come for the mail before this week.”

He debated about whether to tell her about Darrell’s scheduled monkey fuck, but he didn’t say anything because she suddenly yelped.

“Your nose is cold!” she said, looking down at Sam. “And don’t think I’m buying that ‘I was just checking for cookies’ look as an excuse to stick a cold nose against my ankle!”