The Thing About Weres

because of the threat of payback pain, or even my halfhearted promise to Cordelia to “keep it canned, darling.” It was the fear that I would hear my Fae in my head again. Feel her inside me, functioning like a separate entity.

She’d been curiously quiet, too. Not like gone-fishing quiet. More like she’d been drowsing, with one eye open; a dragon trying to figure out if it was worth rousing itself from its warm hearth. I’d felt her faint interest, but she’d been acquiescent.

Now, she was alive in me.

Was she jealous because I’d given my Were full leave?

Wait a minute—was I seeing things differently? I blinked. Yes, things were sharper; no longer being admired for their relative shiny qualities. They were being judged, rapid fire, with pitiless eyes—useful or not?

Cordelia’s wolf yawned.

Thin threads of speculation swirled in my consciousness as my cool gaze lingered over the Were finishing his transformation on his bed of leaves. I found myself looking at him with—what’s the word? Objectivity? Acuity? Like a smart person intent on untangling a knot. A conscious being tryingto—

Oh Goddess, trying to figure out how to become top dog in Hedi Incorporated.

Magic, magic, mine, crooned a voice inside me.

Aw shit, Fae-me was articulating now.

“Shut up!” I muttered as I probed inward, searching for my Were-bitch, hoping—okay, beyond hoping—that she might give her gut-living roomie a good bite on the butt. But no, she didn’t come loping to my rescue. Hear-me-howl slunk off and curled herself into a shivering ball low in my belly. “Hey!” I hissed. “You woke her up, you help me deal with this.”

“Heeddii,” moaned Biggs. “You neeeeed me?”

“No!” My dominant Fae magic sang in my blood, impatient for release. Gone—if there had ever been enough—was the shape-shifting magic I needed to release my inner-Were. I pressed my hands to my belly and felt my muscles tense under their soft layer of padding.

“Come back,” I whispered to my wolf. “We’ll fight her together. We need to push past this.” I ran my hands upward, past the dip of my belly button. Birthed by a Fae, sired by a Were. You’d think I could do both. Shift when the moon called, even as my Fae magic leaked into my bones. Yet it always seemed to go the other way. Fae trying to overwhelm the Were. And now the Merenwynian entity was trying to strong-arm a Stronghold.

Tune the Fae out. Focus on the change.

But there were so many distractions—the aftersmell of Cordelia’s change, and now all around me in a Were cloud, the new scent of her wolf. More like a he, now that she’d shed her perfume-drenched clothing and changed into her wolf form. And Biggs. The shrubbery was no screen against his sharp anxious stink.

But worse was the fear. My damn fear.

It whispered to me. What if my Fae took control of all my functions? Gained the ability to walk? To talk? To kill?

Never again.

I didn’t waste time pushing my Fae back into my bowels, I brought the shields down on her with all the fear and desperation I had, and encased her with a layer of my will.

Hold, Hedi. Don’t let go.

Then I started counting. Because that’s what I do.

By the time I hit forty-two, I was mortal-me again. Just plain, somewhat detached, Hedi Peacock- Stronghold. Looking around me, noting that the scent of flowers had faded to a thin melancholy note, listening to that not-so-helpful internal voice yapping away. I almost let her out again. What havoc would my Fae have done around all these unsuspecting animals?

It wouldn’t have been pretty.

I stared down into the honey-brown eyes of Cordelia’s wolf. Her fur looked damp. I shrugged, and tried to tack a smile on my face. Her head canted to the side. She was very steady on four feet. Her massive sleek white head was just a few inches below mine.

“Still me,” I said.

The silver-white wolf woofed in reply. I don’t speak wolfish, but still, I got it. A definite “no shit.”

“Biggs, shift,” I said, getting to my feet. I heard him whine, and then a series of rips, indicating he’d forgone stripping down before his change. It didn’t take long. When he’d finished and come to nudge my fingers with his wet snout through the cedars, I said, “I’m sorry, but it’s not going to happen. Not ever.”

Cordelia barked at me. Sharp. One bark. Just a warning salvo; a reminder that later, if we survived this night, I’d hear a longer string of human words, which would accumulate into one long-assed speech about perceived threats and my slacking off in pack responsibilities.

“Once I’m dressed, I’ll send the pack off for their moon-run. Then I’ll go straight back to the trailer.”

The white wolf stared at me.

“Come on, Cordelia. The pack’s not going to hurt me. It’s the guys outside Creemore we have to worry about and we’ve got a few days before they come and mess with us.”

For the space of another dog pant from Biggs, she considered me—and part of me wondered if she could see the shadow of my Fae. Then she turned, and streaked through the Hedi-sized hole in the hedge. A second later, a short dark wolf erupted out of the dark and gave chase. Biggs got in one nip to her tail before he shot past her and disappeared over the ridge.

They knew what I had to do next.

I was grateful that I’d been given privacy to do it.

Chapter Three

Crickets would chirp at the end of the world. They wouldn’t know better. They’d just keep rasping their back legs together, going about their business, right up to the final cataclysmic jolt.

I felt ancient just listening to their “go-us!” chorus.

Somewhere in the last minute or two, the pack had entered the field on the other side of the hedge. I could hear them. Sighing and shivering. Waiting to change. Pawing the grass with the toe of their shoes as if they were racehorses, not werewolves, as if this was a sprint to the finish tape, not a thing that happened every month.

Some of them had already changed. I could smell their wolves.

Another whine, camouflaged behind a cough and a cupped hand. Soon all of them would be furry. Then they’d expect to be led. Combined, they smelled like one entity, a pack. A family beyond family. Instinct and blood, and what? Would I ever know?

I breathed deep once, twice.

Do it now.

I went down on my haunches to unzip my Nike messenger bag and pull out the bundle wrapped in plastic. Trowbridge’s signature scent—woods, grasses, sex, and salt—that indefinable combination of aromas that spoke of him, hit me in a wave of longing. I pulled out his clothing, piece by piece. One old running shoe, a battle-scarred T-shirt with a sleeve ripped off, a white shirt with a mysterious stain on it, and his last torn-up pair of jeans. Articles that Bridge had discarded and Cordelia had saved. There was hardly any hint of him left on the items, even though we’d kept them double-wrapped in plastic. I throttled everything down—all those stupid wishes, and equally dim desires—and picked up the jeans.

Holding the waistband in one hand—the little metal snap biting into my palm—and the pant leg in the other, I rubbed his dirty Levis’ all along the back of my thighs, across my well-padded butt, and then up the knobs of my spine to my neck. I abraded the skin there, making sure that whatever scent molecule lingered in the denim’s weave was transferred to my nape, before I scrunched the pants into a ball, which I dragged hurriedly and ruthlessly over my breasts and belly.

This was always a nasty part, the moment when my Were felt Bridge’s essence on my skin. She uncurled from her miserable huddle and stretched like an abused dog on the receiving end of a long, tender scratch.