I sat in the cool morning air, but I was anything but cold. Leaning up against Holden, while she wore that skimpy outfit had been a test for both my wolf and me. She had felt so wonderful. Smelled fantastic, like the best dark chocolate and rich cinnamon. It surprised me she hadn’t noticed how she had affected me.
I shifted in the chair, trying to find a little more room in my pants.
I shouldn’t be thinking of her like this. I repeated this to myself again. Think about the pups. Only about the pups.
I hadn’t slept at the house last night. In fact, I hadn’t slept at all given everything that had happened recently. Wanting to check on the pups and the woman, I had jogged over here early. The sight of her sleeping outside on the deck with the young wolves snuggled in beside her had warmed my heart.
I picked up my phone, and moved to the side of the deck, after snapping a quick picture of the pups in their blanket den. I could hear Holden in the bathroom, even from out here, the shower still running.
“Max.” My friend picked up after two rings. He sounded sleepy. I glanced at my watch and grimaced. I would be sleepy too at six am, if I had slept.
“Sorry, Max. It’s Shane. Holden had gotten the pups to sleep last night. All three of them had cuddled with her in her sleeping bag.”
Max grunted. “While that is good news, it is not something that necessitates you calling right now.”
Hearing the water turn off, I turned to look away from the house, lowering my voice a bit.
“Perhaps not, but once they got up, the pups ate about half of a large bowl of meat each.”
I moved further into the shadows to make sure I didn’t catch a glance of the woman in case she had forgotten to take clothes into the bathroom and had to make a dash for her bedroom.
But, that was all I could think about now. Damn.
“Well, that is an improvement.” Max sounded a little more awake. “And now?”
I glanced back at the blanketed den. “They are back asleep, and Holden is in the shower.”
A long sigh came through the phone. “Go. To. Bed. Shane. That is where all sane people are at this hour of the morning. In fact, take Holden with you and both of you get more sleep. Or not. I don’t care.”
With that, Max hung up on his end.
I chuckled. Now that Max had mated, he thought everyone should stay in bed as long as possible. Wait until he had his first pups. He will find that six in the morning was not that early with hungry little ones underfoot.
The door open and Holden stepped out. She had changed into jeans, with a large slouchy sweater over a T-shirt. She also had pulled fuzzy socks over her feet, and she was holding another mug of coffee in her hands. I moved out of the shadows so I wouldn’t look like I was hiding. Even if I was.
“There’s more coffee. I didn’t take it all.”
She moved to the chairs that were facing the pup’s makeshift den and sat, pulling up her legs so they were curled up under her. She reminded me of a cat, curled with her feet underneath her.
She also looked tired, but I suspected that was because she hadn’t had a restful night with the pups lying up against her. Dealing with young pups was tiring for lycanthropes who had plenty of energy to burn, but humans didn’t have that extra well to dip into. Traumatized pups pulled emotional energy from everyone around them, which could be more exhausting.
I glanced at the pups. It looked like they had wrapped the blankets even tighter around themselves. I wondered when they would be hungry again. I hoped that they would eat in a few hours. They were so far below where their weight should be at this point. I wanted to be here for their next feeding. I didn’t question what my motivation was for this, though.
“Have we turned the corner with them?” Holden’s voice was soft in the morning air.
I shrugged. “Hard to tell. I wish I knew what had happened to them.”
The pups weren’t talking. It had surprised me I had established Pack bonds with them, and not so surprised they have said nothing to me since then.
She looked at me over her shoulder. “What do you know about their situation?”
I moved to sit beside her.
“We got them out of a lab. They had slaughtered their parents in front of them. The pups were taken because they are much easier to manipulate. They did tests on them, given the shaved patches. Best situation? The lab only took blood. Worst? They injected many things that we will never know about into their fragile bodies. Max found only a few residual toxins and medicines in their blood work. Some poisons, though, disperse over time and don’t show up in a blood test.”
Holden bristled. “I hate this. There is this group that talks about the existence of werewolves. They capture wolves and experiment on them. Sometimes, they kill healthy animals and then perform autopsies on them to figure out if the wolves are normal or not. Few of the wolves I had found had died naturally. My organization has been looking for clues about them, but they just kill wolves and then disappear. Poof.” She raised a balled up hand, flinging her fingers open, as she said this.
She didn’t see me tense with her words, as she continued. “They had approached my boss and were spouting crap and wanting information on wolves, such as how to tell if a wolf was a real wolf or a werewolf.”
I choked silently. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What did he say?”
Holden shot me a wry look. “My boss told them they were crazy and to get the hell out of our building.”
I cocked my head. “Do you think werewolves exist?” I held my breath.
Holden tilted her head back to stretch her neck, her eyes closed, her face uplifted. “I don’t know. It is possible, but I don’t think so. It would be so cool if they did, though. But who are we to disturb them?” She lowered her head and frowned. “I mean, if they were a mix of human and wolf, they still are human and should have all the basic human rights — to privacy and due process. We shouldn’t treat them like test subjects. We shouldn’t tolerate discrimination in any form.”
I exhaled, happy to hear that answer. Particularly with my wolf so interested in her. “I agree.”
It was time to change the subject a bit, though. I didn’t think it was time to introduce her to lycanthropes. Not yet.
“So, tell me about your research. What were you working on before you went on sabbatical?”
Holden’s face lit up. She started telling me about the wolf Pack she had been tracking in the North woods. Mesmerized, I listened to her. If I wasn’t half in love with her before, I was now. She had taken the bits of work we had started in college and had expanded it out. She was doing good work.
She had a definite affinity for wolves. Mine snorted in my head. He looked out my eyes again at the woman he had decided was his mate.
Down boy. I smirked. The pups come first.
My wolf huffed at me and then backed away, curling up inside of me.
