Kitty Rocks the House

Chapter 9

OFTEN, MORNINGS after a full moon were muddy, full of strange dreams and half-remembered images. A taste of blood lingering in the film over my teeth, with no real memory of how it got there. Only assumptions, and a hope that I hadn’t done something terrible.

This morning, the night came back to me with the clarity of a photograph. Darren’s solo hunting expedition. His sheer … stupidity. What did he think he was doing? He’d put us all in danger.

I propped myself on my elbows and let my nose widen, taking in scents. The pack was here, curled up together after the previous night’s anxiety and chaos. A dozen and a half naked human bodies tucked up against the shelter of the rocks that formed the night’s den. Gaze alert, body tensed, Shaun was awake and looking back at me. I gave my head a small shake. No need to panic. We could handle this, calmly, sensibly, like human beings.

“Where is he?” I growled.

“Hmm?” Ben murmured. He wasn’t awake yet.

I shook his arm. “Come on.”

“What … oh.” He scrubbed his face, waking himself up, but I was already on my feet and stalking around the edges of the den, looking for Darren.

He’d curled up to sleep a few paces off from the others. And Becky was with him. They were naked, together, his arms around her body, her legs tangled up with his, and I didn’t want to know what they’d been doing all night and into the morning. Was this how it felt to walk in on your teenage kid?

I stood in front of them and crossed my arms. I might have tapped my feet.

Darren woke first, moving arms and legs, nuzzling the back of Becky’s neck. Becky started to roll over, to place herself more firmly in his arms, then stopped. Her nostrils widened, taking in my scent, and her eyes shot open, looking at me.

“Morning, sunshine,” I said. She froze, ducked her gaze, and suddenly seemed trapped in the other werewolf’s arms.

“Isn’t it a little early?” Darren mumbled. Still hadn’t opened his eyes.

“Kitty, don’t you want to put some clothes on?” Becky said.

Yeah, I was naked, standing in the middle of the woods, chewing out a guy I barely knew. Didn’t much matter when we were all naked.

“You should talk,” I said.

She shrank, slouching and curling up. Darren leaned over her protectively. Ben, who’d come up to lean on the rocks behind me, straightened and took a step forward. This was not how I wanted my morning to go.

“You look kind of angry,” Darren finally said. “I know I was supposed to meet you last night—”

“That’s actually not what I’m pissed off about,” I said. “Do you remember what you killed last night?”

He thought a minute, and donned a slow smile. “That was pretty sweet. You have a great territory up here. Easy pickings.”

He didn’t get it. Not even a little bit. I yelled, “We do not kill cattle! How are we supposed to stay under the radar if we eat someone’s livelihood?”

“You’re getting this worked up over a cow? What’s the big deal? One dead cow isn’t going to hurt anything.”

“Have you ever seen a UFO investigator go after a cattle mutilation investigation? This is exactly the kind of thing they live for, and if they go looking for aliens and find us instead … sure, people know about werewolves, but if they knew exactly where to find us, and came hunting for us—”

“I think you’re overreacting.”

“I think you flunked your audition,” I said.

“Whoa, wait a minute.” He extricated himself from Becky’s sleepy embrace, and she shuffled out of his way as he stood. If I really thought about it, I couldn’t blame Becky in the least—he was a good-looking guy, with well-defined muscles and a confident stance to his body. A little too confident—chin up, shoulders back. Looming over me, and not bothering to show a bit of submission. He was taller than I was, which meant I had to figure out how to stare down at him. Fortunately, I had help. Ben stalked forward, arms crossed. Shaun joined me on the other side. Darren took a step back. Good for him.

“Okay, okay, fine,” he said, glancing away, letting his shoulders slump. As if he had to consciously think about showing signs of submission the way I had to think about showing dominance. “You’re right, if I want to be here I need to follow your rules. I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

“If you’d shown up when and where you were supposed to and hunted with the rest of the pack, you’d have known what the rules are.”

“I thought you had a reputation for being different. For being more free-spirited than other wolf packs. ‘Don’t be stupid’ left it pretty wide open, I thought.”

“Disappointed?”

“Maybe surprised. I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”

“Well, now you do. We have rules, just like grade school.”

He tensed for a moment, maybe getting ready with another snappy comeback. I’d have had some words for him then. Ben and Shaun probably would have had a little more.

But he lowered his gaze and said, “Okay. I understand.” He slunk away, to where Becky was getting dressed near a stand of trees.

He knew what he needed to say to get me off his back, even if he wasn’t entirely submissive about it. Same thing in the end, and did it matter when I got the result I wanted? This was going to take some negotiating if Darren really wanted to stick around.

And we were all still naked, like some weird low-intensity Lord of the Flies re-creation. I could tell my human self was slipping back into place, because my skin prickled in the breeze, and I suddenly wanted to put clothes on.

“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered.

The rest of the pack seemed happy to abandon the standoff. The tension in the space faded as people retrieved their clothes, spoke in low voices, and moved back toward the road. Wearing a wry smile, Ben held my shirt and jeans out to me.

“You look like you need coffee.”

“I need coffee,” I muttered, pulling the shirt on, not caring if it was inside out or straight or what, and hopping awkwardly to get the jeans on. Then came the epic debate that I had with myself every morning after a full moon: coffee first, or shower? Which one would make me feel more human? Which did I need more: to clear the morning fuzz, or to feel clean? Some months the coffee won, some months the shower did. I still hadn’t decided what I wanted this morning.

Side by side, Ben and I turned to make our way to the road. We stopped, though, because Trey was standing there, in rumpled T-shirt and dirt-streaked jeans, his frown taut, wary.

Our talk. I’d said we could talk. I closed my eyes and turned my gaze to the sky. I was juggling. Been juggling for a while. This was what it felt like to watch balls drop to the floor in front of me with a thud. Nothing for it but to pick them up and try again.

“You up for coffee?” I asked him.

He blinked, surprised. “Sure.”

“You?” I said to Ben.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“The coffee, or me trying to dig myself out of this hole?”

“Yes?” he said, smiling.

The predictability of his answer was somehow comforting.

WE HAD a favorite diner that we ended up at mornings like these, the kind of place that had coffee cups already on the table and poured without asking if you wanted some. I breathed in the scent—hot, bitter, rich—and felt my skin settle over my body a little more comfortably. Wolf curled her nose at the scent and retreated even further into the background, calm after her night out. Sleeping. Staying human would be easier for the next week or so.

Trey held his cup but didn’t drink. His gaze darted, his leg bounced under the table. He was nervous. I did what I could to set him at his ease, trying not to seem too earnest and demanding. Ben was doing a better job of not looking worried, slouching back against the booth, expression bland. He’d ordered a plate of bacon. Along with coffee, bacon made everything better, right?

“So,” I prompted. “Your girlfriend. Sam.”

His smile was strained. “We talked. I told her.” He sighed.

“And? How did she take it?”

“That’s just it, I don’t know. She said she had to think about it. That she wanted some time alone and she’d call me when she was ready. That’s a bad sign, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know that I’d jump to that conclusion,” I said. But he was right, this certainly didn’t sound good. “Telling her what you are, that’s a pretty big deal. She probably really does need to think about it.” I hoped I sounded confident.

“I’m worried I’m going to mess this up,” he said, putting his head in his hands, despairing. “I think I’ve already messed this up. She’ll never talk to me again.”

“If she’s really the one, she will. You won’t mess it up.”

“But if she’s really okay with it … with me…” He clamped his mouth shut, looking away, struggling for words, then said, “Wouldn’t she just say so? But I scared her off, I know I did.”

“Not really,” I said. “Not until she really doesn’t call you back.”

“I can’t wait that long. I have to call her.”

“When did you talk to her?”

“Yesterday.”

I grimaced. “You probably shouldn’t have waited until the day of the full moon to talk to her.” We were at our worst on days of the full moon, stressed and irritable. He must have looked slightly mad to her eyes.

“I know,” he moaned. “I just kept putting it off.”

“Give her time, Trey. For real. More than a couple of days. If she hasn’t called back in a week…” Then what? Give up on her? Call her back? Stalk her? “Try giving her a call. Don’t crowd her.”

“That’s your advice. That sounds like something you’d say to anyone.”

“Yeah, it kind of is,” I said. “Why should my advice to you be different? You’re both still people.”

He huffed. “I’m not exactly normal.”

“You are for us.”

He seemed startled, sitting for a moment with his gaze turned inward, eyes looking blankly at the surface of his undrunk coffee. The bacon arrived, its fatty scent cutting across the coffee. Another wake-up call, a summons to humanity. Ben nibbled on a piece. Trey looked at him, maybe for confirmation, maybe for a different opinion.

“She’s the expert,” Ben said. Trey raised a disbelieving brow, and Ben added, “Unless of course Sam wants you to chase after her, to prove you really love her, and if you don’t call she’ll feel neglected—”

“Don’t try to game the system,” I said. “Give her a couple of days at the very least. Then call.”

“Can you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Call her. Put in a good word for me.”

“No! I mean, I’d love to meet her, but only when she’s ready. If she’s nervous now imagine what’ll happen when she faces a whole room of werewolves.”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

“Besides, imagine what she’d think if this strange woman she’s never met butts into business that ought to be between you two.”

He sagged again. “I guess that would look strange.”

More than a little. “I know it’s tough, but you can get through this. If she’s as great as you say she is, she’ll come around. She’ll be fine.” Please, let Sam be a sensible woman, let this all work out …

Trey was about to respond when my phone rang. Still shoved into my jeans pocket after last night. One of these days, I was going to take a hammer to the device. Justifiable technocide. I checked the caller ID.

“It’s Detective Hardin,” I said, as justification for taking the call. I wouldn’t have, for just about anyone else, but I clicked the talk button.

“Kitty?”

“Detective Hardin?” I said, worried, but at least I didn’t start declaiming about how I’d done nothing wrong and it wasn’t my fault.

“I’m here at the emergency room at St. Joseph’s with your buddy Cormac.”

She kept talking, but I didn’t hear anything. Something had gone wrong, and it didn’t matter that he’d been keeping his nose clean, trying to stay out of trouble—at least as best he could. Someone from his past had found him, he’d gotten into a fight he couldn’t get out of—

“Kitty?” she said. “Are you there?”

“What’s wrong, what happened?” Ben had gone tense, sitting up and leaning forward, straining to hear, bacon and coffee forgotten. Even Trey responded to the anxiety, straightening, as if we faced danger right here.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. But he asked me to call you and Ben. You should probably get down here.” It couldn’t have been too bad. She sounded almost amused, not at all like someone delivering bad news. In fact she may have been enjoying this. That still could have meant bad news, knowing how she felt about Cormac …

“What happened?” I squeaked.

“He said he’ll explain it when you get here.”

“Right. Okay. We’re on the way.” I clicked the phone off. I stared at it for a moment.

“Go,” Ben said, pushing at me to let him out of the booth. “I’ll drive.”

“What is it?” Trey said. He hadn’t been close enough to hear Hardin over the phone. “You’ve gone completely white.”

“Ben’s cousin’s in the emergency room,” I said starkly. I looked at him despairing. “Can we pick this up later? I’m sorry—” Wolf, curled up deep in my gut, growled a little. We were alpha, we shouldn’t be apologizing. But I was human, and Trey had asked for help.

I couldn’t do everything.

“Yeah, sure, of course,” Trey said. Ben had the presence of mind to slap a twenty on the table as we were leaving. At least we didn’t stick him with the check.

Ben took my arm and pulled me toward the door. Shaken out of my shock by his urging, I hurried to keep up.

Once outside, we ran to the car and drove to the downtown hospital in silence.