Secret Worlds (150 page)

“Whoa,” the teenager said immediately, throwing a hand up over his eyes. “I don’t think I’m ready to see you naked quite yet, Aunt Terra.” For the first time since smelling blood, I was able to take a deep breath—if my nephew could joke around, he was going to be okay.

“Oh, yeah, because familial nudity is much worse than tearing out a chicken’s throat with your teeth,” I muttered, but sank to the ground and pulled up my knees to shield my bare breasts from view. “Okay, I’m moderately decent,” I continued, my voice calm as I tried to soothe the shakes out of Keith’s body. I could tell that my nephew’s wolf was pushing against the boy’s human form, begging to be let back out, but that Keith was afraid to set the canine loose after its round of chicken killing. And while I didn’t blame his human brain for worrying, I needed the teenager to be able to shift back to wolf form as quickly as possible so we could return to Wolfie’s pack. Plus, the sooner my nephew got back on the horse, the less likely he was to end up shiftless like me. “You know you’re going to have to pay for that chicken out of your allowance,” I added in mock rebuke, and was gratified to hear a faint chuckle coming from the teenager in front of me.

“I couldn’t change back,” Keith said just barely loud enough for me to hear after we’d sat for a few minutes in companionable silence. I hummed a gentle assent, but let the kid talk since he clearly needed to get the trauma out of his system. “The wolf wanted out, and then we ran and it was
brilliant
, Aunt Terra,” my nephew said, excitement coloring his words, then dropping away just as quickly. “But after the chicken, we shifted back to human form and I realized I didn’t know how to find the highway without my wolf’s nose. And the wolf wouldn’t come back.”

“That’s really normal, Keith,” I told him, taking my nephew’s hand in mine, an action that would have felt thoroughly inappropriate for a human aunt and nephew pair if they were naked in the woods, but which gave us both comfort since we were touchy-feely werewolves at heart. “The first few times you change, it’s hard to control, but you’ll get better at it.”

“They say that if you’re lost in the woods, you should just sit down and wait,” Keith continued. “So that’s what I did. I knew that you and Wolfie would come for me eventually, hopefully before I froze to death.” He feigned shivers, which made my heart lift yet further. Keith’s teen cockiness was apparently uncrushable, and I was glad. “So how’s Wolfie doing against Grandpa?” he finished, and I sighed—even my teenage nephew had known more about Wolfie’s plans than I had.

***

It turned out that Wolfie had started practicing pool with my sneaky nephew nearly immediately after the two of us began hanging out with his pack. I did recall several times when Wolfie had taken Keith aside, presumably to give the teenager one-on-one lessons on shifting, and now I realized that the lessons had actually gone in the other direction, with Keith sharing the Wilder knack for pool with a worthy student. Unlike every other man I’d ever known, Wolfie had apparently listened to every word I’d said and had filed the data way for future reference. So when he learned the Chief was a pool aficionado, Wolfie figured the game was a skill he’d better perfect.

The news made my heart a little less heavy at the notion of having left Wolfie alone in Haven … but not much. Even if Wolfie managed to pull off a win against the king of pool, I couldn’t quite imagine my father and cousins submitting to the outsider. “We need to get back there as quickly as possible,” I said, once it had become clear that Keith was feeling more himself in spite of the chicken blood drying on his face and hands.

“Obviously,” my nephew answered impertinently, and I rolled my eyes and paid him back by shifting without warning. The young werewolf was pulled into fur alongside me, but he clearly hadn’t been shaken up by the abrupt transformation. Instead, the youngster pranced around me, making my own wolf seem old and slow in comparison, but cheering us both up with his antics. And once I began racing back along our trail, Keith fell in behind me obediently, almost like a dog trained to heel.

It was pitch black by the time we reached Wolfie’s pack along the side of the highway, but the werewolves were still on full alert. While I was gone, they’d traded off wolf duty, with three of the yahoos sprawling out asleep in human form in the bed of the pickup truck so that Quetzalli and Oscar were the ones to greet us four-footed this time. Despite the collapse of the rest of the yahoos, Blaze came bounding along close behind the older adults, still in wolf form, and he immediately wrestled Keith to the ground in a show of male affection that transcended species boundaries.

“No sign of Wolfie?” I asked, having shifted back to human form the instant my toes hit pavement. Now that I was so close to Haven, every hair on my body seemed to be standing on end, itching to hotfoot it back to the village and check on my mate. Keith and I had been gone long enough that the pool-game challenge should have been long over, and I knew that no news wasn’t good news. If Wolfie had won and the change of leadership had gone smoothly, Haven’s new alpha should have come out by now to collect his original pack. The fact that they were all still present and waiting made me shiver.

“Nothing,” Chase said quietly without getting up from the driver’s seat of one of the cars. A plume of smoke rose into the night air, and I was shocked to realize that the beta was smoking. I’d never known a member of Wolfie’s pack to partake of the habit previously, and to see the beta smoking now was a clear sign that I wasn’t the only one with nerves. The realization only made me more worried.

“Okay,” I said, taking command of the situation. I hadn’t meant to, but I realized I was using the pack leader voice, which immediately pulled every eye to me. “I’ll see what’s going on,” I told Wolfie’s pack. “The rest of you wait here for half an hour, then go home if you don’t hear from us.”

“Go home?!” Glen asked from the bed of the pickup truck, our voices having pulled him out of his light slumber. “No way are we going home without you and Wolfie.” A murmur of assent proved that the other yahoos had woken and were in accord.

Chase and I exchanged glances, and in that moment I knew the two of us were on the same page, just as we had been about my betrayal the last time Wolfie’s pack had come to Haven. Whatever was holding Wolfie up couldn’t be good, and we both knew there was no reason to risk the rest of the pack by sending them in after their leader. If my father had won the challenge, it was better for Wolfie’s pack to go home and regroup without me, and I knew the pack’s beta would make that happen. I nodded my thanks to my mate’s milk brother, and he bowed his head in acquiescence.

“At least put on some clothes,” said Galena quietly, handing over a t-shirt and jogging pants. As much as I hated to waste time by walking back to the village in human form, I had to admit that she was right—running around naked was a bit of a juvenile thing to do even in a werewolf village, and I needed all the gravitas I could muster if I wanted to get Wolfie out of whatever hot water he was in. I just hoped my mate was alive and waiting for me.

“Thanks,” I said quietly, pulling on the clothes Galena had given me.

Keith got to his feet and began to follow as I turned away from the pack, so I figured I might as well start using my new-found alpha status now rather than later. “Stay,” I told the young wolf, putting the full force of command beneath my voice, and my nephew plopped down onto his tail so fast I was a bit concerned he might never move again. Well, that worked better than I’d thought it would. Deciding to take my nephew’s unusual obedience as a good sign, I broke into a run up the dark gravel road leading to my family home.

As soon as I reached the village green, I could hear the raised voices pouring out the windows of my father’s house. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was angry, and my wolf extended our senses out to their limits, seeking clues about the situation we were walking into. Leaf mold and pine needles entered our nose, with no hint of the blood I’d been secretly expecting—Wolfie was alive. Although my new alpha leanings tried to make me care about the health of the Haven pack as well, if I was honest, Wolfie was all I’d really thought about for the last half hour, so the knowledge that he was unharmed gave me strength to enter what seemed poised to turn into a riot.

“Haven’s been led by a Wilder for three generations,” one of my uncles roared as I pushed open the back door and slipped into the heart of the pack. It seemed as if every man and half the women who lived in Haven had crammed themselves into my family home, and although the house wasn’t small, it definitely wasn’t big enough to host a town meeting. I began to push my way through the crowd, but the werewolves parted to let me through before I could shove anyone aside, creating a clear path leading toward the heart of the conflict. Sooner than I really wanted, I was standing in the open doorway of the pool room.

The scene inside wasn’t at all what I had expected. Yes, my bulkier male cousins were clad in fur, menacing Wolfie, who remained in human form. My mate stood with his back against the wall, his cue stick held lightly, the tip slowly moving to face each verbal attacker. None of that was a big surprise. What was unusual was the fact that my father stood in front of Wolfie in canine form, the Chief’s teeth bared as he growled at his own pack.

Or, rather, at Wolfie’s pack, as the young alpha’s next words made abundantly clear. “Is that a challenge?” Wolfie ground out, and my overbearing uncle ducked his head despite himself, one step away from prostrating his whole body on the ground. A wave of submissive gestures wound around the room, spurred on by the tone of Wolfie’s voice, and I could see now why Wolfie hadn’t been torn apart by Haven’s angry wolves—no member of my family was able to disobey their new pack leader’s commands.

Only when every Haven werewolf’s eyes were safely on the ground did Wolfie look across the room at me and allow his face to melt into the sweetest smile imaginable. I grinned back despite myself, feeling more lucky than ever that Wolfie was mine.
Ours
, my wolf corrected indulgently, before drifting back to sleep. I would have thought she would be pushing against my skin, itching to protect me from the dangers of the current situation, but with Wolfie present, my own wolf clearly thought everything was under control.

I wished I could be that complacent. But I figured if Wolfie had been holding off my uncles and cousins for what must have been hours, he probably had another ace up his sleeve and was waiting for me to put in an appearance to set his plan in motion. Instinctively, I walked toward my mate, letting my hands trail across the heads of my wolf cousins as I passed. “Down,” I said to them quietly, volume not necessary to push through commands that had to be obeyed. I didn’t look behind me, but could hear cousins who I’d been afraid of all my life dropping like flies at my feet.

“Keith all right?” Wolfie asked me when I reached his side, the younger alpha’s poker face back in place but a sparkle behind his eyes letting me know that all was well.

I nodded silently, then added, “Chase expects a status report within twenty minutes.” I’d taken the private drive off the highway at a run despite my human form, so we had a bit of time to spare before Wolfie’s pack would leave us in the lurch. Still, I wanted Wolfie to be aware of the deadline, even though no real harm would come from his pack going home … except for a lack of an exit strategy for the two of us. And it was clear that Wolfie
did
still need an exit strategy.

“I see you defeated the Chief,” I said, making conversation in order to give myself time to figure out Wolfie’s plan, but also wanting my words to carry throughout the house, making the conclusion of the challenge clear to every Haven werewolf. I looked down, expecting my father to bristle at my words, since I’d always assumed he’d be the last one to willingly give up his power over our little community. But my father’s wolf instead seemed as content as my own wolf was to let me and Wolfie hash out the situation. With a huffing sigh, the older canine dropped to the ground and closed his eyes, either falling instantly asleep or doing a pretty good imitation of slumber. “I guess we should let sleeping dogs lie,” I added, and was relieved to feel the mood of the gathering shift from edgy and dangerous over into something that approached contented and amused.

Wolfie smiled down at me, wolf and man united in their appreciation of my mild witticism, and I couldn’t resist reaching up to kiss Haven’s new pack leader, despite the family members pressing in on us from all sides.

“Go home,” Wolfie said to the gathering once I gave him back possession of his lips, and my extended family instantly moved to obey. “My pack will spend the night here, and we’ll all talk like human beings in the morning.” Then, content that everyone would do exactly as he said, Wolfie pulled off his shirt, slipped out of his pants, and was running for the highway in wolf form before we even had time to parse the shift.

***

“Haven isn’t going to be ready for big changes right away,” I told Wolfie a couple of hours later, once Cricket had pulled out sofas and unrolled mats to give each member of Wolfie’s pack a place to sleep inside our family home. My stepmother had offered the two of us her room since my father had taken to the woods in canine form and seemed bound to stay gone for a good long time. But I’d felt weird about sleeping in my parents’ bed and had instead pushed the two twin beds in my attic room together to give me and Wolfie a spot to sleep. It wasn’t entirely comfortable to span the crack, but lying in Wolfie’s arms felt good no matter what surface we were supported by.

“I think I should go home for a while,” Wolfie rumbled softly, and my body tensed up. Yes, I knew that Haven’s pack was going to have a hard time accepting Wolfie, but surely they’d have just as hard of a time taking orders from a woman. Plus, it felt like eons since Wolfie and I had been able to just laugh together, and I didn’t relish the idea of spending more time apart.

As usual, Wolfie read between the lines and understood everything I didn’t say, as well as what I did. “Crazy Wilder’s daughter will be easier to stomach as the new pack leader than an out-of-pack bloodling would be,” he murmured. “The separation won’t last forever, but I think you’ll be a better alpha for Haven than I would during the transitional period. Don’t worry, though. I’ll take the troublemakers home with me and leave you some of our pack in exchange.”