Cry Wolf

Bran frowned. “Outside of Aspen Creek, wolves can’t tell anyone except their spouses what they are-we allow that for their spouses’ safety. But you don’t need to isolate yourself from your family.” Almost to himself, he said, “I suppose Leo was afraid your family might interfere with what he was trying to do to you.”

She could call her family? She almost asked Bran about it, but decided to wait and talk to Charles instead.

Like the plane ride, Charles’s house was different than she’d expected. Somehow, since it was in the backwoods of Montana, she’d thought he’d live in one of those big log houses, or something old, like the pack’s mansion. But the house where Bran dropped them off was not huge or made of logs. Instead, it looked like a simple ranch-style house, painted a rather pleasing combination of gray and green. It was tucked up against the side of a hill and looked out over a series of fenced pastures occupied by a few horses.

She waved a thank-you at Bran as he drove off. Then she carried her box, which was looking a little bedraggled since it had gotten wet on the floor of the truck, up the steps, with Charles skulking at her heel. There was a light covering of snow over the steps, though it was obvious that usually it was kept shoveled off.

She had a bad moment when she realized that she’d forgotten to ask Bran to unlock the door-but the knob turned easily under her hand. She supposed that if everyone in Aspen Creek knew about werewolves, they’d know better than to steal something from one. Still, to her city-bred self, it seemed odd for Charles to leave his house unlocked while he traveled halfway across the country.

She opened the door-and all thoughts of locks fled. The exterior of the house might be mundane, but the interior was anything but.

Like her apartment floor, the living-room floor was hardwood, but his had a parquet pattern of dark and light wood that edged the room in a pattern that struck her as Native American. Thick, soft-looking Persian rugs covered the central part of the living room and dining room. Against the far wall was a huge granite fireplace, both beautiful and well used.

Comfortable-looking couches and chairs were intermixed with handcrafted bird’s-eye maple tables and bookcases. The oil painting of a waterfall surrounded by a pine forest could have hung in a museum and, she calculated, probably cost more than she’d earned in her entire life.

From the doorway she could see straight into the kitchen, where subtly glittering light gray granite countertops contrasted with dark Shaker-style oak cabinets that were just irregular enough to be handmade, like the furniture in the living room. Stainless-steel appliances trimmed in black should have looked too modern, but somehow it all blended together. It wasn’t a huge kitchen, but there was nothing in it that would have looked out of place in a mansion.

She stood dripping melted snow on the highly polished floor and knew without a doubt that she and her box didn’t belong here. If she’d had anyplace to go, she’d have turned around and left, but all that awaited her outside was cold and snow. Even if they had taxis out here, she had four dollars in her wallet, less than that in her bank account. The check still in her pocket might get her halfway to Chicago if she could find a bank to cash it at and a bus station.

Charles had brushed by her and padded on into the house but stopped when he realized she wasn’t following him. He took a long look at her, and she tightened her arms around the wet cardboard. Maybe he was having second thoughts, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes from his yellow gaze. Sorry she was a bother, sorry she wasn’t stronger, better, something.

Power flared over her skin and jerked her eyes back to him. He’d dropped to the ground and was starting to change back to human.

It was too soon, he was too badly injured. Hastily, she shut the outside door with her hip, dropped her box on the floor, and hurried to his side.

“What are you doing? Stop that.”

But he’d already begun, and she didn’t dare touch him. Changing either way hurt-and even a gentle touch could leave him in agony.

“Damn it, Charles.”

Even after three years of being a werewolf, she didn’t like watching the change-her own or anyone else’s. There was something horrible about seeing someone’s arms and legs twist and bend-and there was that stomach-churning part in the middle where there was neither fur nor skin to cover the muscle and bone.

Charles had been different. He told her that either his mother’s magic or being a werewolf born made his change quicker: it had also made it almost beautiful. The first time she’d seen him change, she’d been in awe.

This time wasn’t like that. It was as slow and horrible as hers. He’d forgotten the bandages, and they weren’t shaped right to change with him. She knew that the bandage would tear eventually, but she also knew it would hurt.

So she slid along the wall to avoid touching him, then ran to the kitchen. She pulled open drawers, searching frantically until she found the one where he kept his sharp and pointy things, including a pair of scissors. Deciding that she was less likely to stab him with scissors than a knife, she grabbed them and went back.

She cut as he changed, ignoring his rumbling growl as she forced the blade under too-tight cloth. The additional pressure would hurt, but it would be better than waiting until the stress on the fabric finally tore it to pieces.

The speed of his change slowed more and more as it continued, until she worried that he was going to be stuck halfway between: she’d had nightmares about being stuck in neither one form nor the other. At last he lay curled on his belly at her feet, fully human.

She thought he was through, but then clothing formed around his naked body, flowing over his skin as his skin had flowed over flesh as he changed. Nothing fancy, just jeans and a plain white T-shirt, but she’d never known a werewolf who could do that. This was real magic.

She didn’t know how much real magic he could do. She didn’t know a lot about him other than he made her heart beat faster and nudged her usual state of half panic away.

She shivered, then realized it was cool in the house. He must have turned down the heat when he’d come to Chicago. She looked around and found a small quilted throw folded over the back of a rocking chair and snatched it up. Careful not to brush too hard on his oversensitized skin, she laid the blanket lightly over him.

He lay with one cheek against the floor, shuddering and breathless.

“Charles?” Her impulse was to touch him, but after a change, the last thing she wanted was touch. His skin would feel new and raw.

The blanket slid off his shoulder and when she lifted it to cover him again, she saw a dark stain growing rapidly on the back of his shirt. If his wounds had been of the usual sort, the change would have mended them more than this. Silver-inflicted wounds healed a lot slower.

“Do you have a first-aid kit?” she asked. Her pack’s first-aid kit was equipped to cope with wounds dealt in the half-serious fights that broke out whenever the whole pack got together. Impossible to believe that Charles wasn’t as well prepared as her…as the Chicago pack.

“Bathroom.” His voice was gravel-rough with pain.

The bathroom was behind the first door she opened, a big room with a claw-foot tub, a large shower stall, and a white porcelain pedestal sink. In one corner of the room was a linen closet. On the bottom shelf she found an industrial-sized first-aid kit and took it with her back to the living room.

Charles’s usually warm brown skin was gray, his jaw was clenched against the pain, and his black eyes were fever-bright, glittering with hints of gold that matched the stud he wore in his ear. He’d sat upright, the quilt pooling on the floor around him.