“Why don’t I introduce you around?” I said, gesturing at the others to join us. “I imagine you’ll meet the rest of the pack on the next full moon.” I did the mental count in my head—eight days away. Sooner rather than later, then. We’d get to see both sides of the new kid.
Shaun approached obliquely from our side of the table, keeping a wary gaze on the newcomer. He was our lieutenant, the strongest wolf in our pack. Our backup. Becky and Tom were tough, but ranked lower than Shaun. They hung back to see how Shaun reacted.
“Everything cool?” he asked.
“Everything’s cool,” I said. “Darren, Shaun. And that’s Becky and Tom. Darren’s going to be staying with us for a while. And not causing trouble.”
Shaun’s lip curled. Yeah, he’d help keep Darren in line, if it came to that. I still couldn’t get a good read on the guy. He seemed unconcerned, smiling and friendly.
“Right,” Shaun said. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Sure, that’d be great,” Darren said.
Maybe this seemed weird because I felt like we should have been doing this out in the woods, on four legs, duking it out with growls and teeth instead of sitting at a table in a restaurant. We were acting human. But our wolves were sizing each other up. Full moon was going to be interesting.
Shaun brought beers, the others sat with us, and we embarked on a perfectly normal conversation, asking about jobs and work and places we’d lived. Tom knew about an apartment for rent, and Darren seemed to think it sounded good. They agreed to meet about it tomorrow.
Well, this seemed to be going well. Swimmingly, even. The tension around us faded a few notches. My shoulders relaxed, and I didn’t feel a need to keep watching Darren, waiting for him to strike. I was suddenly exhausted. I turned to Ben. “Time to go home?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Thanks, Kitty. I really appreciate it,” Darren said, beaming his calm smile at us.
Not only did he get in the first word, he had to get the last one, too. Whatever.
Shaun went back to work at the bar, but Becky and Tom stayed behind to talk to Darren. The glamour of the new.
Outside, a faint breeze brought the scent of distant mountains, of spring pines and stone, through the asphalt and fumes of the city. I filled my lungs, and the walk to the car was calm.
“Did I make the right call?” I asked Ben.
“We’ll find out,” he said.
“That’s not comforting.” I took his hand and squeezed.
“You’re still wondering if you’re doing this alpha thing right, aren’t you?”
“I’m pushing thirty. Isn’t life supposed to get easier?”
Ben laughed.
Chapter 7
RICK NEVER returned my call that night, and I worried. As I tossed and turned in bed, reaching to the nightstand to check my phone on the off chance I hadn’t heard the ring, Ben kept pointing out that Rick had survived a very long time and could reasonably be expected to take care of himself for the foreseeable future.
“Besides,” he added, “Columban didn’t seem interested in hurting Rick.”
“Then what about those arson cases in Europe? Rick doesn’t know about those and I doubt Columban would tell him.”
He murmured sleepily onto the back of my neck. “Kitty. Relax. Please.”
&n
bsp; I tried, honest I did. But I kept waiting for that call, as I watched dawn lighten the sky outside the bedroom window.
Somehow, I got myself to work and made a show of accomplishing something, despite all the potential interviewees who wouldn’t return my calls, press releases I was supposed to be reviewing, messages I should have been answering, my second book that wasn’t writing itself. The file for it glared on my monitor, displaying too much white space.
When my cell phone finally did ring, I dived for it. The prey had revealed itself at last, and I pounced. Even though in the middle of the day, in full sunlight, it couldn’t possibly be Rick, who was holed away in his lair, asleep. I hoped he was.