The Thing About Weres

moon list. Plenty of time to make plans, to pack a bag, to purchase a road map … to leave if that’s what I really wanted to do.

How could everything have changed so fast? Yesterday I knew without question what I wanted: My One True Thing returned to me … And now?

My fury was a spoon stirring the stew of me—mortal-me, wolf-me, Fae-me. I needed to lift the lid and allow the steam to curl. Too many months had been squandered on keeping my dark urges—don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t rage—from escaping in a black, bubbling boil.

For what? my Fae whispered. For whom? Can I please come out now, too?

Damn right she could. I gave her a hard nudge, and she swelled upward, brushing past my inner-Were with a sly grin. Magic, fat with temper, fed itself into the tips of my fingers. No more compartments, no more rationing of base desires, no more stomach-squeezing, stomping down on natural instinct. I am Fae. I flicked my wrist and felt my mouth shape into a snarl as my otherworld talent spun from my fingers in a long, supple line of green. Fast as a whip, it traveled to the end of its reach, strained for another greedy inch, then—blind as a cave-dwelling snake—turned back toward me. It curled itself over my head, bobbing faintly on a current of air, shimmering with impatience under this world’s sun.

“Where? What?” it hissed.

“Window.”

It flew across the room to the bay and attached itself to a sash. “Open,” I said. Bang! Up went the double- hung—glass panes shuddering—an ample demonstration of my Fae’s willingness to work with me. Forget words. It read my mind, and magic flew to the next sash. Bang! Onto the next—bang! Up all four of them went, one after another, jerked hard right to the top of their frames, in pretty much the same order as they’d been sealed by the Alpha of Creemore, except a hell of lot less pretty and a whole lot faster.

“Isn’t this better?” my Fae purred.

Clean air drifted through the gaping windows, trying to cool my heated throat.

I need to destroy something. I surveyed the place where everything had turned to crap. That’s where it happened—over there in the living room, in that dark corner. That’s where they’d tortured Trowbridge. Everything went to hell after that.

My inner-Were was restless inside me, distressed and fretting to be let out, too. Yes, there, she whined—in rare, but perfect, agreement with my Fae. Hurt that place.

Remember that slash on his belly, those wounds on his thighs.

I stepped into the room and considered my targets. The chair they’d bound him to? The table to which they’d pinned his hand? The floorboards with their dried gore? Or how about the ladder-back chair on which they’d propped me up so that I had a front-row seat to his mutilation? Remnants of my duct-tape manacles still clung to its battered front legs.

Something needed to be turned into kindling in the next minute or I was going to explode. Just as I lifted my hand, target chosen—the table, of course—the front door opened with a protest of its hinges, and the scent of Chanel entered the house, followed by a click of claws on oak floor.

“Leave me alone, Cordelia.” My cable of fluorescent-green magic slithered over the furniture, nose forward, testing the density of the easy chair, slipping over its rounded back to shoot across the open space toward the bookcase.

“I’d love to,” she replied blandly. “But your niece looks ready to shed her wolf, and Bridge sent me in to babysit.”

I slowly pivoted to face my old roommate and my magic curled around me, a sinuous shimmering snake.

Heels, a nice skirt, a twin set. When had she found time to change? All that was missing was the heavy makeup—and she needed a shave. My roommate’s eyes narrowed into slits when my hot gaze rested too long on her jaw.

“Did he ask you to watch his baby or babysit?”

“Let me think,” she drawled. “I believe his exact words were: ‘Take the wolf into the house and find Hedi something sweet to eat. We’ll get this shit-fest straightened out as soon as I’m finished accepting their oaths.’”

Behind her, my niece paced in the small hall, anxious as a dog in need of a pee.

“Trowbridge’s full of orders now, isn’t he?”

“It’s part of the job title, as you’d have known if you ever bothered to listen to me.” Turning to face the hall mirror, Cordelia frowned and rubbed a spot by the corner of her mouth. Long fingers, big knuckles. A square, solid thumb. “So, darling, what sweet thing do you wish? Choose something that takes a long time to assemble—I don’t particularly enjoy the pageantry of the ‘bear my mark’ ritual. As far as I can see, it’s a needless pain for something that amounts to little more than a temporary blood tattoo. Besides, it’s not ‘my’ duty to stand beside him while he does so.”

She added a long sniff to that last statement—just so I would understand that she considered it my responsibility to stand smiling inanely at the people who’d tried to skewer me to a tree not fourteen hours earlier.

Another small ladle of acid added to my roiling stomach. Instinctively, my free hand went to my amulet friend, hoping for a measure of calm. But Merry was not in a comforting frame of mind. She flashed a light—deep red—from within her stone and then, faster than an old station wagon caught in rush-hour traffic, her temperature rose.

“What?” I hissed, hunching my shoulders against her stone’s sudden scorching heat.

In answer, a strand of ivy pointed an accusatory finger at Cordelia.

And then, I realized, belatedly, what I’d missed.

“You’re wearing Ralph?”

Cordelia examined my serpent of magic coiling in the space between us for the count of three—she was the only Were with eyes clever enough to actually see my magic—then calmly shut the door behind her. Indifferent to the danger. Dismissive of our rage. “Yes. I am the temporary guardian of this amulet. Mine to serve and protect, at least until Trowbridge finishes outside.”

“Temporary guardian?” I repeated.

At that, my amulet friend gave herself a vigorous shake, and presto! She’d morphed from pretty pendant to Merry-the-stick-figure—four strands of ivy called into duty as appendages. My incensed Asrai pal stalked up the Valley of the Boobs, her golden chain looping behind her, and found a place about two inches below my right collarbone. From there, she glowered at me; the pulsing red light deep in the heart of her amber now distinctly tinged amethyst.

“I did protect him, Merry—”

One ivy arm took a tighter grip of my T-shirt, the other undulated in the air; a cat’s tail, twitching with irritation. She canted her body back, ready to deliver a slap-down.

“Really?” I asked through my teeth. “I did two A.M. feedings. For five weeks. I found him the best shrubs, the sweetest trees. And, I did not give him up to the pack. He made the choice himself last night when he opted for a wolf’s protection over mine. If you don’t like seeing him hung around a Were’s neck, then you should talk to him, not me.”

Cordelia said, “Now there’s a conversation I’d like to listen in on.”

“And you!” I growled. “Have you forgotten how Ralph likes to strangle people? With no warning? Usually when you’re not expecting it?”

She peered down her nose to study the amulet in question with about as much enthusiasm as one would a third nipple. “If it snags even one thread on this silk shell, I’ll turn it into a coat hanger.”

The Royal Amulet, clearly offended by her lack of deference, flushed red from deep within his blue jewel, suffusing his stone with a hint of purple far pissier than Merry’s most outraged hue.

There’s a match made in heaven—Merry and Ralph’s fights would be more awesome than Canada Day fireworks.

My amulet fought for balance as I ran a distracted hand through my hair. “I need everything just to stop for