healthy living as to being a werewolf. He was shorter and sturdier than his son, with broad shoulders and bulging biceps that made Clay look like a featherweight.
'Has Peter arrived yet?' Antonio said, pulling out the chair beside Jeremy, who was sipping his second cup of coffee, undisturbed by the uproar. Jeremy shook his head.
'So everyone's coming?' I asked.
'Finish your breakfast.' Jeremy said, giving me the critical once-over. 'You've lost weight. You can't do that. If you don't get enough energy, your control will start to slip. I've warned you before.'
Finally pushing his easel aside, Jeremy turned to talk to Antonio. Clay reached over my shoulder, snatched a hunk of ham, and downed it in one gulp. When I glared at him, he gave me a disarming 'just trying to help' shrug.
'Keep your fingers off her plate,' Jeremy said without turning around. 'Yours is in the kitchen. There's enough for everyone.'
Antonio was first out the door. When Nick went to follow, Clay grabbed his arm. He didn't say a word. He didn't need to. Nick nodded and bounded off to fill two plates while Clay took the seat beside me.
'Bully,' I muttered.
Clay lifted his eyebrows, blue eyes flashing innocently. His fingers darted out to snag another piece of ham off my plate. Grabbing my fork, I stabbed the back of his hand hard enough to make him yelp. Jeremy sipped his coffee and ignored us.
Antonio came back into the sunroom, plate piled so high I expected the pancakes to slide to the floor at any second, especially since he was holding the plate with only one hand. His other hand was busy forking a pancake toward his mouth. Nick followed his father and dropped Clay's plate in front of him, then pulled up a fifth chair, turned it backward, and straddled it. For a few minutes, there was blessed silence. Werewolves weren't much for mealtime conversation. The task of filling their stomachs demanded full concentration.
The quiet might have lasted even longer if the doorbell hadn't shattered the silence. Nick went to answer it and came back with Peter Myers. Peter was short and wiry with an easy grin and wild red hair that always looked as if he'd forgotten to comb it. Once again, we went through the rituals of bear hugging, back thumping, and mock punching. Greetings amongst the Pack were as exuberant as they were physical, often leaving as many bruises as a few rounds of roughhousing.
'When's Logan coming?' I asked as everyone settled back to the business of eating.
'He's not,' Jeremy said. 'He had to fly to Los Angeles for a court case. Last-minute legal substitution. I contacted him last night and let him know what's going on.'
'Which reminds me,' Clay said, turning to me. 'Last time I talked to Logan, he let something slip about speaking to you. 'Course, that's not possible, since you cut off all contact with the Pack, right?'
I looked at Clay, but didn't answer. I didn't need to. He could see my reply in my eyes. His face flushed with anger and he stabbed a slice of ham hard enough to rock the table. I'd spoken to Logan at least once a week since I'd left, telling myself that so long as I didn't go see him, I wasn't exactly breaking my vow. Besides, Logan was more than my Pack brother; he was my friend, maybe the only true friend I'd ever had. Although we were the same age, we shared more in common than being able to name both members of WHAM!… Logan understood the allure of the outside world. He enjoyed the protection and companionship the Pack offered, but he was equally at home in the human world, where he had an apartment in Albany, a long-term girlfriend, and a flourishing legal career. As soon as I realized that Jeremy had called a Meet, my first thought had been, Great, Logan's coming. Now I wouldn't even have that compensation for this unwanted visit.
A few minutes later, Jeremy and Antonio went out to the back porch to talk. As Jeremy's closest and oldest friend, Antonio often served as a sounding board for Jeremy's ideas and plans, a court adviser of sorts. Antonio and Jeremy had grown up together, sons of the Pack's two most distinguished families. Antonio's father had been Pack Alpha before Jeremy. When Dominic died, many in the Pack had assumed Antonio would take over the role, even though Pack leadership was not hereditary. As with real wolves, the Alpha of the Pack was traditionally the best fighter. Before Clay grew up, Antonio was the Pack's top warrior. Moreover, he had brains and more common sense than a dozen normal werewolves. Yet, on his father's death, Antonio had backed Jeremy, recognizing in him strengths that would save the Pack. With Antonio's help, Jeremy had been able to squash any objection to his succession. No one had challenged him since. The only werewolf with the power to contest Jeremy's position was Clay, and Clay would sooner cut off his right arm than challenge the man who had rescued and raised him.
When Jeremy was twenty-one, his father had returned from a trip with a strange story. He'd been passing through Louisiana when he'd scented a werewolf. He'd tracked it and discovered a preadolescent werewolf living like an animal in the swamps. To Malcolm Danvers, this had been nothing more than an intriguing dinner tale, since no one had ever heard of a child werewolf. While hereditary werewolves didn't experience their first Change until adulthood, usually between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, a human bitten by a werewolf was a werewolf immediately, regardless of his age. The youngest person known to have become a werewolf was fifteen. It was assumed that if a child was bitten, he would die, if not of the bite, then surely from the shock. Even if he miraculously survived the attack, a child couldn't have the fortitude to survive the first Change. This boy in Louisiana looked no more than seven or eight, but Malcolm had seen him in both forms, so he was clearly a full- fledged bitten werewolf. The Pack chalked up his survival to sheer luck, a fluke of nature having nothing to do with strength or willpower. The wolf-child may have lived this long, but he certainly couldn't survive much longer. The next time Malcolm visited Louisiana, he expected to find the boy long dead. He even laid a few hefty wagers on this with his Pack brothers.
The next day, Jeremy caught a flight to Baton Rouge where he'd found the boy, who had no idea what had happened to him or how long he'd been a werewolf. He'd been living in the swamps and tenements, eking out an existence killing rats and dogs and children. At such an early age his Changes were uncontrollable and he vacillated continually between forms, reason having almost given way to madness. The boy had looked like an animal even in human form, naked with matted hair and nails like talons.
Jeremy had brought the boy home and tried to civilize him. As it turned out, the task was as impossible as civilizing a wild animal. The best you can hope for is to tame it. Clay had lived on his own as a werewolf for so long that he no longer remembered being human. He had become a wolf, more of a true wolf than any normal werewolf could be, governed by the simplest of instincts, the need to hunt for food, to defend his territory, and to protect his family. If Jeremy had questioned this, Clay's first encounter with Nicholas had banished any doubts.
As a boy, Clay would have nothing to do with human children, so Jeremy decided he should meet one of the Pack sons, thinking Clay might be more willing to accept a playmate, who, while not a werewolf yet, at least had the blood in his veins. As I've said, sons of the Pack were taken from their mothers and raised by their fathers. More than that, they were raised by the Pack itself. The boys were indulged and cherished by the whole Pack, maybe to compensate for a difficult life to come, more likely to foster the bonds necessary for a strong Pack. The children would often pass their summer holidays moving from one house to another, spending as much time as possible with the 'uncles' and 'cousins' who would become their Pack brothers. Since the Pack was never large, there were usually no more than two boys of a similar age. When Clay came to live with Jeremy there were only two Pack sons under ten: Nick, who'd been eight and Daniel Santos, who'd been almost seven-the age Jeremy decided Clay would officially be. Of the two, Nick would be Clay's first playmate. Maybe Jeremy picked Nick because he was the son of his best friend. Or maybe he already saw something in Daniel that made him decide he'd make an unsuitable playmate. Whatever the reason, Jeremy's choice was one that would resonate throughout the lives of the three boys. But that's another story.
At their first meeting, Antonio brought Nick to Stonehaven and introduced him to Clay, fully expecting the two boys to run off and play a good old-fashioned game of cops and robbers. As Antonio tells the story, Clay stood there for a moment, sized up the older and taller boy, then sprang, pinning Nick to the ground with his arm on his throat, whereupon Nick promptly pissed his pants. Disgusted at his adversary's lack of worthiness, Clay decided to
