The Thing About Weres

planning on placing a paw on the chest of said lump and pledging your eternal undying love with a heartfelt howl.

Dog breath warmed my face. Yup. Right through the sleeping bag. “Let me out, let me out, let me out,” whined my inner-Were, doing a bum-wiggle inside my belly.

An inpatient huff in my ear. Almost immediately echoed by a feminine dog whine.

Fuck you and Toto, too.

“Who’s the bitch?” I asked through a double layer of poly-loft fill and nylon.

He didn’t answer—maybe because he was all Alpha-furry and a freakin’ wolf—and instead began a rude inventory of my aromatic history with his wet nose. Snuffle, snuffle down at my legs, pausing at my crotch. Hell, no. I curled myself into a protective ball. A double sniff over my hip, zeroing in on the exact place bruised by the chains. A huff, as he followed my curved form upward, pausing at the dip for my waist, and then over for a tour of the area where my boobs spilled above my tightly crossed arms. He spent some time there, during which sister-wolf paced inside me, leaking ho-hormones.

“He’s still feral,” said my Lexi, from the bunk above me. “Don’t make any sudden moves near him.”

Crap. As dream reunions go, this one was about as successful as the 2010 Spice Girls World Tour. I had a bitch in my house and it wasn’t me. My brother was up in the cheap seats, critiquing my every move. My mate was panting-hot and happy to see me, but—I cringed as Trowbridge’s wolf inhaled a little too sharply, and sneezed out a few billion dust mites—that happy thought was offset by the fact he was going to need a dog license.

My mate rubbed his muzzle against my mattress.

Not another word, Lexi.

Then the Alpha of Creemore did something sort of … nice, and I forgot all about my twin, and a smidgen about the bitch that waited in the hall. The big gray wolf pushed his nose through the open mouth of my sleeping bag and tunneled his snout toward me. His soft, warm nose nuzzled the nape of my neck. Rather sweetly for a savage, wild, and feral thing. And he kept doing it, until the instinct to bop him on his black nose turned to something boneless and accepting. Oh Fae Stars … worse than accepting. I hunched my shoulders as my jubilant inner-wolf sent oh-yum sparkles of happiness up my spine.

The bunk over my head creaked.

“All you have to do is ask, and I’ll clear this room,” said my brother. “Let me deal with him.”

Oh, for a magic wand. I slit my eyes open a fraction. Trowbridge’s gaze was fixed on Lexi in a way that spelled war. His rigid tail fat and quivering. With a sigh, I slid my hand free from my safe cocoon to touch his pelt and said (in what I still maintain to this day was a nice, soft, pacifying whisper), “This would work better if you weren’t a wolf.”

At the sound of my voice, Anu-the-mate-stealer poked her canine head through my door. I sat up fast and snapped, “What is that bitch doing in my room?” Possibly it was my tone, or the way I heaved myself upward—whatever. My distress jarred the exhausted ferret back to life with a start and a squeak of alarm. Look, as squeaks go, it was tiny. Nothing more than a ferret’s version of WTF?

But that, as they say, was that.

Wolf-girl leaped for the little animal, jaws stretched like a bear trap. Then it was a blur—a Marx Brothers scene of utter chaos—as my brother shot off his bunk, hands out reaching for an interception, and the ferret ran for its life.

Enough. I pulled the covers back over my head.

Well, as it happens, Trowbridge didn’t give a rat’s ass about his bitch, my brother, or the freakin’ ferret. He cut to the chase, because he’s an Alpha at heart, and always will be. Without a warning huff or a “pardon me,” he grabbed a mouthful of sleeping bag and hauled me and it right off my bed. Thud! I gasped as hip and elbow met linoleum then winced as someone—I’m thinking it was Lexi—stepped on my hair. Didn’t stop my guy. With dogged determination, he kept right on backing up out of the room, hauling Hedi-and-bag down the hall, around the bend in the wall for the kitchen—ouch—past the debris left by the shattered door—ow, ow, ow—and right out of the trailer.

And that’s how Trowbridge coaxed his mate from the safety of her silver bug.

I fought with the zipper but I could only wriggle one arm free.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Knock it off!”

Either his wolf’s linguistic skills were limited or he didn’t take well to commands when he was on four paws. The Alpha of Creemore kept going, ruthlessly dragging me and my red sleeping bag right across the dirt scrubland Cordelia had taken to calling our front yard, then around the big old dead tree that me and Lexi used to climb, and finally down the path leading to the pond.

How sweet. He was carrying me home. Kind of like a newspaper from the end of the driveway or a bone dug up from the neighbor’s garden.

Not so fast, Lassie. I saw a thick root and grabbed it.

The big, gray wolf kept going, tail high.

So did the sleeping bag.

A quick twisting moment later, I was shucked free of it.

Forehead resting on my extended arm, I took stock. My inner-bitch’s ho-hormones were flooding me with feral heat, and frankly, it was making my stomach puke-queasy. Beyond that, there was definitely going to be a bruise on my hip (the corner of the kitchen cabinet), another on my right butt cheek (top step), and one high up on my shoulder (bottom step). Also, a graze on my ribs (friction from the bag’s zipper), and a small patch of road rash on the inside of my forearm (inflicted when we hit that smudge of gravel).

On the other hand, I was no longer being dragged willy-nilly down the garden path.

Merry squirmed her way out from the crush of my cleavage to find a lookout perch on my shoulder blade. Her little ivy feet prickled my back when a series of urgent, excited barks and hoarse shouts erupted from the inside of the trailer.

“No!” yelled my brother.

I listened with half an ear to the sharp crack of crockery, soon followed by a hailstorm of small thuds, pretty much on top of each other.

That had to be the bowl of oranges.

“Leave the ferret!” shouted Lexi from our home. “Ow! You little—”

“Hey, she’s just curious!” hollered Biggs over the barking. “She’s not going to—”

Another crash.

And that was either the toaster or the kettle.

“Get that animal out of the house!” roared Cordelia.

Some mornings should come with big, fat, round, red reset buttons.

“Rolling,” I informed Merry before I did just that. She scrambled then held on to to a pinch of jersey as I did a quick pelvic tilt to adjust my wadded-up T-shirt. Then we lay there, squinting against the brightness of the rising sun, listening to things break.

What was that old saying? Come the morning, all shall be well?

Ha, ha, and ha.

I raised myself up onto an elbow.

Trowbridge-the-wolf was busy nosing my empty sleeping bag as if it were a scent catalogue of my naughty dalliances.

At my huff of total disbelief, he turned.

Last night, in the dim gloom of the moonlit field, it had been difficult to get a sense of just how relatively large an animal his wolf was. But now as he approached me, Alpha-proud, massive head lifted in inquiry, the waist-high weeds lining the path seemed to shrink in size.

My wolf, moaned my inner-Were.

Oh shut up.

His scent investigation of my person started with my foot.

I pushed myself into a sitting position because Hedi Peacock-Stronghold had some things she needed to say.