“Fine. If you two will, ah, excuse me.”
“Transformation is very private,” I explained to Iain as I led him down the hallway.
“I see.” His facial expression told me he wondered if I was going to drag him into my web of insanity. This would be the ultimate test for him: would he believe, or would he try to have us all committed or arrested for an elaborate hoax?
A noise between a bark and a yip alerted us that Gabriel had changed and was ready to go. A large brown wolf, his tongue lolling to one side, sat by the door. I held my breath and looked at Iain.
“That. Is. Amazing,” he whispered, the hint of a smile on his patrician lips.
I could finally exhale. “Yeah, it is.”
We opened the door, and wolf-Gabriel dashed down the stairs and made a beeline for the barbecue pit. We had to run to keep up with him, the flashlight beams bouncing ahead of us. He took a cursory sniff at the bone Lonna had dropped earlier and, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure we followed, trotted toward the woods. We had to go single file as he wandered back and forth, finally coming out on the other side near Chenal Parkway, a busy thoroughfare that ran from the retail area near I-430 to the new neighborhoods off Highway 10. My heart clenched—had she been hit? But no large lump lay moribund in the road or median. Instead, Gabriel took us along the side of the road, and back into another wooded area. He stopped, and Iain opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, we heard a low growl.
Wolf-Gabriel gave a whine and tucked his tail as he approached wolf-Lonna, whose snout was bloodied by the rabbit she’d killed and had just disemboweled.
“Oh God,” Iain muttered and fainted in a heap behind me. I knelt beside him and gently nudged him.
“C’mon, Iain, this is no time for you to be passing out.” I shook a little harder and looked at wolf-Gabriel. If a lycanthropic face could register amusement, I swear he had a grin, and his eyes danced with laughter. Wolf-Lonna nudged him with her cold nose, and he joined her in polishing off the rabbit.
“Would the two of you mind burying that when you’re done?” I asked. “I don’t think Iain could take waking up to the mess you’ve made.”
Iain’s breathing came regularly, and his heart rate was strong so I knew he would wake soon. That was the good thing about theoretical and literature-based research—not much in the way of blood and guts. I wasn’t really that squeamish, not since Andrew had died and my father had explained everything in cold, clinical terms that put it safely in the realm of science, but I’ll admit the sight did disturb me.
Dawn streaked the sky with fingers of red on the horizon, and Gabriel and Lonna raised their heads as though something had called to them. He touched her nose and started the transformation process. I turned away to give them privacy, and when I looked back, they both sat there, naked, with blood on their faces.
“What?” Lonna asked just before her eyes rolled back. She would have hit her head on a rock had Gabriel not caught her and helped her to the ground.
“Common reaction to the first transformation as the human brain, the cortex, reasserts itself over the animal brain,” he told me. “It’s kind of like a teen learning to drive a standard transmission for the first time. It takes practice to find the clutch and not stall.” He smirked at the reclining Iain. “So much for the brave Doctor McPherson.”
He stood and stretched, and I couldn’t help but notice his erection. I glanced away and blushed.
He looked down and tried to cover himself with his hands. “It’s not uncommon upon transformation back to being human. And there is a naked woman right here. And part of the animal brain is still very active.” He scratched the back of his head.
“I see.” Sexual tension crackled between us.
Iain stirred and rolled up on one elbow, the heel of his hand to his temple. He looked at me, at Gabriel, and at Lonna, who also stirred.
“I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?”
“Nope.” I tried to sound cheerful. “Nothing at all.” But my body thrummed with the energy of the dawn and the desire to run my fingers down Gabriel’s soft chest hair, to feel the hard muscle underneath, and to show him exactly what I wanted him to do with his impressive equipment below.
Iain, ever the practical one, observed, “There seems to be a shortage of clothing here.”
“No shit.” I hoped he didn’t see me sneak glances over at Gabriel, who stood there as though greeting the dawn naked was the most natural thing for him. I guess, in a sense, it was.
“Perhaps we should fetch their clothes from the apartment so they can dress? I doubt it would go over well with motorists for them to stroll along the side of the road in their birthday suits.”
“You have a good point,” I said and stood up. “Why don’t you go, and I’ll stay here to make sure Lonna is okay?”
“I would prefer not to go alone, particularly after yesterday. If something untoward happens to me, I want a witness.”
A pang of guilt stung me, and I didn’t blame him for being uneasy. After all, if I’d been almost blown up, I’d not want to go walking around alone, either. Actually, I
“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said.
Gabriel’s smile was wry and regretful, but he sat down to wait.
“Is there something going on between the two of you?” asked Iain as we made our way back along the road.
“Nope, just a lot of gloriously unrequited sexual tension.”
“Really? I would never have guessed.”
“Ha ha.”
“This is incredible, really. I don’t think I believed you until I witnessed what I just did.”
“How much did you see? The transformation is their most vulnerable time, so they may not be happy that you watched.”
“I saw enough.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “And that is all I’m saying. I’m still processing this.”
“I know it’s a lot.” Something nagged at the back of my brain, but I ignored it, the desire for denial stronger than the idea’s will to push through. My left wrist throbbed—I hadn’t put on the brace before coming out—and it appeared to be slightly more swollen than my right one. I’d have to put ice on it before driving home.
The idea came through. Leo, just post-transformation, the look on his face as his territorial feelings about Wolfsbane Manor and its grounds overcame his better judgment as a doctor and caused him to hurt me in a manner that would not heal quickly. Ron’s story about the professor’s daughter and how it had cost him his fellowship popped into my head right behind it. My interlude with Gabriel the morning after Louise died and how we had almost made love right there on the island, the desire so thick I could taste it. Passion, lust and greed: the animal part of the brain on overdrive. And I had just left Gabriel alone and naked in a clearing with my best friend, whose state of mind was as yet unknown, but who had been known to dally with the occasional unsuitable male, even to hunt him.
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“We need to go back.” I turned around and was surprised to feel Iain’s iron grip on my right wrist.
“It’s probably already too late.”
I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes. “But it would ruin everything.” The image of the wolf from Cabal’s letterhead came back to me
“If you’re going to live with them, you need to be able to accept the limitations of the disorder. You need to realize that they can’t be held completely accountable for their actions.”
I knew he was right, but I didn’t have to like it.
“It’s already too late,” he said again and gently tugged me after him up the hill, past the barbecue pit, and around the lake. We gathered their clothing and trudged back, only to find the clearing empty, the only sign of what had happened a flattened area in the pine straw on the ground and traces of the dead rabbit.
