I woke all at once. Silence surrounded me. Turning my head, left then right, I looked for the boys. Their spots were empty, and I frowned and sat up. The taste in my mouth distracted me; I needed a toothbrush.
I swung my legs out of bed and stepped on a piece of paper on the floor. A childishly penciled arrow pointed to the hallway. I picked up the paper and walked out of the room, curious. I saw another paper in the living room but detoured to quickly brush my teeth and use the bathroom.
The arrow in the living room pointed to the door. In the hall, another paper pointed to the apartment across from ours. The fragrant aroma of browning bacon tickled my nose. I moved to the door but stopped when I heard a childish giggle below.
Before I could peek over the railing, the door swung inward revealing Emmitt. He held a spatula in one hand while he looked me over with a slow smile. Behind him, bacon sizzled on the stove. My stomach growled. Unlike the morning after tequila, I felt fine.
“Nice shirt,” he commented.
I looked down at the blue cotton t-shirt that almost covered the bottoms of my hello kitty cotton sleep shorts and fought to hide my smile. “Thanks. It’s really comfy.”
“I know,” he said shaking his head. “Want some breakfast before we face the music for last night?”
I nodded, and he stepped aside.
“How’s your back?” I asked sitting on a new stool at the island.
Without furnishings, excluding the stools and cooking utensils, the sound of my voice rebounded off the walls.
“Fine.” He grinned as he moved to turn the bacon. “Is the floor behaving this morning?”
I laughed. Last night, after he had carried me to the truck, the spinning had continued. So much that I begged a piggyback ride upstairs when we returned home. Not waiting for an answer, I’d leapt on him, bringing us both to the floor. The ruckus brought Nana to her door. She had looked at Emmitt with disapproval but only said that she would speak with us both in the morning. Before she closed her door, she assured me that both boys were sleeping upstairs and hadn’t been any trouble. Guilt had pierced me, then, and still did. Sharp little jabs.
He set two plates next to the pan and split the bacon. There had to be a whole pound between the two plates. Leaving the grease in the pan, he fried up five eggs, sliding two on one plate and three on the other. He added two pieces of buttered toast to each and set the smaller portioned plate in front of me. I stared at the food, and my stomach gave a queasy twist.
“Too heavy after last night?” he asked, watching me.
I nodded.
He reached over, picked up a single piece of toast, handed it to me, then set the plate next to his. “Better?”
“Much.” I nibbled at the toast and watched him put away the grease-soaked food. “I was thinking maybe we could spend today together.”
“We could all go to the lake again,” he offered.
I made a face. “Maybe somewhere less public. I’d like to learn more about you, like why a strong fast…person such as yourself could get knocked over by a nineteen-year-old light weight. I’d prefer my brothers not see anything.”
“Nineteen?” His fork clattered to his plate as he whipped his head around to stare at me. He looked horrified when I hesitantly nodded. “She’s going to kill me,” he mumbled pushing away his plate.
“What’s wrong?” I set the half-eaten toast aside as I watched various emotions flit across his face. Shock, concern, calculation, back to concern.
“We all assumed you were a bit older than that.” He quickly gathered the dishes and stacked them near the sink. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.” He offered his hand.
With a frown, I accepted it and followed behind him.
“Are you telling me I look old?”
“Ancient,” he threw over his shoulder with a wink.
As usual, both apartment doors stood open. So did the main entrance door. Outside, the boys were playing on the swing set. Emmitt led us straight into Nana’s kitchen where Jim already sat contritely at the table. Nana leaned against the counter, her eyes boring holes into Jim’s soul. Well, that’s what it looked like anyway.
“Sit,” Nana said.
Emmitt held out a chair for me before seating himself. I felt small and very guilty. Taking a steadying breath, I opened my mouth to apologize for leaving her like I did, but she spoke first.
Nana’s gaze again drilled into Jim. “Your irresponsibility knows no bounds. What were you thinking taking her to a bar! Our job is to keep her safe, not keep her stocked with booze.”
Keep me safe? I blinked at the two repentant looking men, feeling as if I’d walked into a conversation near the end. So this was about me being at the bar with Jim, not me leaving?
“And you,” she said to Emmitt, “are supposed to have her best interests at heart.”
Why was she putting so much of this on them? It was my stupid decision. I took a breath to say just that, but Emmitt beat me.
“That’s why I tracked her down and brought her back,” Emmitt quickly defended. Jim grimaced. That explained Emmitt’s earlier look of calculation. He’d just thrown Jim under the bus.
She turned her steel gaze on me, and I felt myself shrink a little. “At nineteen, you have no right to be going out drinking.”
Whoa. My mouth popped open, and my tempter ignited at the absurdity of her misdirected concern. Had she called me irresponsible for leaving my brothers, I would have meekly nodded. But telling me I was too young to drink of all things!
“That is so—” I stopped myself from saying something stupid, knowing it would make me sound younger in their eyes. “My age doesn’t matter. It never has,” I said instead, thinking of Blake’s use of me.
“You have a responsibility to your brothers,” she said too late.
I flattened my hands on the table, trying to keep my temper under control. “No one knows that better than I do. Their wellbeing, their existence, depended on my obedience. Complete and absolute. Don’t speak. Look up when addressed. Return to your room when your presence isn’t required.
“I messed up last night. I get it.” In essence, I’d left my brothers with strangers. I still didn’t know enough about who they were to trust them with my secret, but I’d left my brothers with them? What if Blake had shown up? What would Nana Wini, a fellow werewolf, have done? Just hand them over? My fingers twitched on the surface of the table. Now I was getting angry with myself. I’d been so stupid.
“They could have been found, and I wasn’t here,” I said.
Nana made a slight noise as if she would continue.
“I don’t need your lecture. I will not be ruled by another…” I clamped my mouth shut and closed my eyes with a flinch.
When I opened them again, three faces studied me with too much intensity. I had such a big mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
I stood and left my stunned audience sitting around the table in Nana’s cheery yellow kitchen. I took the stairs two at a time. As soon as I reached my door, I heaved a sigh of regret. I shouldn’t have yelled at her. She had everything right. I shouldn’t have left my brothers. Especially not to sit at a bar. Granted, that hadn’t been the plan, but I could have insisted Jim drive us back. I could have walked.
With Blake, I hadn’t spent much time with my brothers because I wasn’t allowed. Now, I had all the time I wanted and didn’t value it enough. Instead of being a self-absorbed brat who dwelled on her feelings concerning Emmitt, I needed to stay focused, learn about werewolves, and use the knowledge to protect us from Blake. And, I needed to find a way to test Emmitt’s werewolf abilities without Liam or Aden seeing or hearing anything.
I quickly dressed in a tank top and cutoffs and grabbed the white shirt I’d originally borrowed from Emmitt then trotted downstairs. Both doors still stood open. I spotted Emmitt with the boys in the yard.
When I tapped on Nana’s door, she called me in. Jim still sat at the table. Though I hadn’t heard any yelling, from the look on Jim’s face, Nana had continued after I left.
“Jim, I’m sorry I used you yesterday. I should have faced the issue instead of running from it.” I glanced at Nana’s set face. “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
Nana neither agreed nor disagreed. Regardless, Jim flew out of his chair as if it had spontaneously started on fire. There weren’t even retreating steps to mark his passing. He simply vanished. Outside, the boys cheered.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re right. I’m not being responsible. My past, whether good or bad, doesn’t earn me any hall passes. I’m sorry I left like I did yesterday.”
Nana sighed and deflated a little. The angry light left her eyes. “You are an adult. You’re correct that you don’t need me to lecture you. We are here to help you, Michelle, if you would just let us. We don’t know who you’re hiding from or why. Is leaving here dangerous? Is there a chance the people you’re hiding from could track you here?”
Hearing her echo my recent thoughts increased my worry. “I don’t know.” I ran my fingers through my still wet hair. “I’m so afraid, Nana,” I admitted. “I’m afraid they’ll find us and afraid if I trust…” I looked away for a moment, took a breath, and said as much truth as I could. “I’m afraid you’ll be just like them.”
She tilted her head and gave me a compassionate look. “Never, Michelle,” she promised. “We are an entirely different species. Loyalty runs deep with us.”
My stomach dropped and bile rose. She couldn’t have said anything worse. They didn’t know about Blake, yet. When they found out he was one of their own, would they just hand me over? Her words further cemented my decision to learn more about them and to learn it fast.
“You’re right. You’re different, and I haven’t taken the time to learn about you like Emmitt asked. I’m sorry to ask again, but can you and Jim keep an eye on the boys? I won’t ever again disappear like I did yesterday. I just want to take Emmitt to the front yard where the boys won’t see or hear anything. Then, I’ll ask Emmitt the questions I should have asked from the start.”
“Of course we will. You don’t have to ask Emmitt, you know. You can ask me anything as well.”
I nodded hesitantly, and she smiled at the preference she saw in my eyes. I didn’t want to face her in any other form than the grandmotherly one she wore. I thanked her and left.
Instead of going outside, I took a quick detour then headed back upstairs.
In the apartment, with the door closed, I tested his hearing. “Emmitt, can you come up here, please?”
I waited several minutes, but he didn’t appear. Opening the apartment door, I tried again. Immediately, I heard his tread on the steps.
He wore an unsure smile. “Jim told me to pass on his pledge of servitude.”
I smiled slightly in return. “He’ll pay it back today. He and Nana are going to watch the boys so I can spend some time with you and learn what makes a werewolf tick.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“According to your boast, you’re faster, stronger, have better sight, hearing, and sense of smell. I’d like to know just how good you are at each.”
He agreed, and we walked downstairs. I stopped just outside Jim’s door.
“I went inside and hid something. Can you find it?”
He quirked a smile at me and walked purposefully into the apartment. I trailed behind him to watch.
When hiding the shirt I’d borrowed, I’d touched everything, leaving false trails. I even went so far as to change the hiding place twice.
He walked unerringly through the apartment to the spare room, lifted his pillow, and pulled out the shirt. Lifting it to his nose, he closed his eyes and inhaled.
“It will never smell like me again.”
“Sorry.”
“I like it better this way.”
I blushed and looked away. “How did you know where it was?”
“Your scent is impossible to mask.”
“But I touched everything along the way. I even hid it in two different places before picking here.” Had he heard me moving around the apartment from outside?
He nodded. “I know. Under the couch cushions and in the silverware drawer.”
“But, how…” He’d walked straight to the bedroom, not even hesitating.
“The fragrance of you led me. The lighter trails, I ignored. I went to the place where it was most saturated.”
“How long will they last? My trails.”
“The places you touched? Less than a week because of the contaminations here.”
“Contaminations?”
“Your brothers, me, Jim. We are the contaminations. We touch the same things in here and eventually wipe away the traces of your scent. On the road, other vehicles do the same to the scent of your truck. Think of scent trails as delicate strings. If too many other strings cross them, they break and fall apart. We might be able to find fragments of the trail after a week, but the longer it sits, the harder it would be to try to follow.”
So the longer we stayed the safer we were? I felt a small measure of relief. Maybe last night hadn’t been such a glaring lack of responsibility on my part, after all. Yet, leaving my brothers alone with two werewolves when I suspected Blake of being the same thing…well, I didn’t want to think about it too much.
I considered Emmitt’s explanation for a moment. “Is it just my scent that’s hard to mask or any person’s?” The question appeared to make him uncomfortable. “Am I asking something I shouldn’t?”
“No, you can ask anything. I just don’t want to upset you with the answer.”
“If I’m asking, please just answer honestly. I need the truth, not the dance around it.”
“Everyone’s scent is as difficult to mask, but their scent wouldn’t be as compelling to follow.”
“What do you mean?”
He stepped close to me, crowding into my space. I didn’t move. Leaning forward, he inhaled deeply. “Your scent calls to our kind. Remember Nana mentioning a certain scent calls to a Mate. Yours teases all of us. Calls us closer to test it, to see if you really might be a match for us.”
His cheek brushed against mine. This close, my stomach reacted. It clenched, and a flush crept into my cheeks. I fought to keep my breathing even and myself from leaning toward him.
“And when you do that, it just about brings me to my knees,” he said softly against my ear.
His words brought a wave of embarrassment; I had an idea what I might have just done. Pulling away to make some space between us, I didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, I retreated to the kitchen and thought over what he’d shared. His news that all werewolves would find my scent appealing disturbed me.
“If my scent is hard to mask, and you can smell my trails crisscrossing the apartment, why would one of your kind need to lean in close to scent me?” Blake’s dictate to allow his men to scent me confused me. What game had he been playing at? The feel of Frank’s tongue stroking my neck resurfaced. Revulsion skittered down my throat, and my stomach churned.
“I’m sorry for upsetting you,” he said softly behind me. “I didn’t think you—”
“Oh, no, not you,” I said. “I just meant—” What did I mean? I meant the other werewolves you don’t know about yet. I wanted to smack my forehead.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said quickly. He nodded reluctantly. “I’m sorry, Emmitt. I’m just not ready to divulge all my secrets, yet.”
“I understand.”
“Will you show me again how you shift?”
When he agreed, I led him outside. The warm air felt heavy with moisture already. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. I waved to the boys where they played baseball with Nana and Jim on the lawn. They barely noticed us as we followed the porch around to the front, staying in the shade.
The branches of the trees surrounding the smaller front yard extended over the lawn by several feet, shrinking the view of the sky above. Stepping off the porch, I walked to the center of the lawn and looked up, focusing on the white wispy clouds streaking the light blue sky while the leaves on the branches danced in the fringe of my view. The branches meant plenty of shade.
Emmitt interrupted my idle inspection. “Nana said no full shifting. She doesn’t want me upsetting you.”
“Um, okay.” That put a damper on learning things. “Nana mentioned that the benefits of both forms differ. What are the attacking benefits of each form?” He canted his head slightly and studied me. “I want to know the strengths and weaknesses of each form. Like speed, for example. How fast can you move?”
One moment he stood near me, the next he watched me from near the tree line. Only a slight breeze had marked his movement. As much as it impressed me, I didn’t like it. Blake could hide around a corner, grab me, and be gone in less than two seconds. Worse, he could grab Liam or Aden.
“Can you move as fast carrying someone?”
A strong heavy breeze lifted my hair from my neck as he abruptly scooped me up into his arms without warning and ran the perimeter of the front yard. Green flashed by in my peripheral vision. The wind stole my breath, and I buried my face in his neck.
The heat of his skin and the moisture in the air would have created an uncomfortable stickiness if not for the breeze he created. Even with me in his arms, he showed no decrease in speed or shortness of breath.
I felt his pulse against my cheek. Steady and slow. After a few seconds, I noticed how he smelled and leaned in a little closer, unintentionally touching my lips to his skin. He smelled like the woods after a storm.
Unexpectedly, the heat of Emmitt left me, along with the breeze, and I found myself sitting alone on the grass. The singing birds, who’d moments ago chirped out their happiness, quieted in the nearby branches.
Unhurt and confused, I set my hands on the cool grass and twisted around to look for Emmitt. I found him just a few feet away. He sat back on his heels, knees spread apart and fingertips touching the ground. His eyes were closed, and his jaw clenched. Fur rippled along the bare skin of his arms.
I had a clear view of his change. The bone structure in his face started to shift. As disturbing as I found the view of his body changing, another concern took precedence. Hadn’t Emmitt mentioned werewolves changed as a defense mechanism? My head swiveled around looking for a threat.
“What is it Emmitt?” I scrambled close to him, clinging to a furry arm as I scanned the trees and hoped Nana Wini and Jim had the boys close. “Did you hear something?”
He tried to speak but, with his mouth already too far out of human shape, the sounds weren’t intelligible. He took a slow breath. His face stopped contorting and began to move back into place. The fur slowly faded from his skin. Unclenching his jaw, he opened his eyes and looked at me with a hint of discomfort, but no alarm.
“What? What just happened?” If we weren’t in danger, then why had he started to shift?
“I had to set you down.”
“Yeah, the fur gave that away.” I waited patiently for a better answer.
“I was taken by surprise, that’s all.” He stood and offered a hand to help me up. I took it but didn’t let go once I stood.
“By what?”
“You were just a little close, and I wasn’t expecting it.”
I stared at him dumbly for a moment. “You picked me up, remember?”
He took another deep breath and looked down at our joined hands. “Michelle, Claiming is pretty serious stuff, equivalent to getting engaged in your world. If a guy would give you a small, velvet box, your first thought would probably be ‘it’s a ring’. Turns out, it’s tickets to a ball game. Guys know girls associate those little boxes with rings, so it’s cruel to use them for anything else, right? Claiming is a quick hard bite to the neck. We grow up knowing a werewolf’s neck is a special area that you don’t go near lightly. It’s the small, velvet jewelry box. Do you understand?”
Claiming…bite…neck. Several pieces of Blake’s speech fell into place. But why would Blake want me to become engaged to one of his men? I couldn’t picture biting any of them.
The vision I had where I bit Emmitt resurfaced, and I blinked at him. Engaged? My stomach did a wild flip, and my heart stuttered in panic. My nearness to his neck had caused the change to burst upon him. He’d had to put me down or drop me.
“But you said you thought of me as a friend.”
“If that’s all you can give me, then I’ll respect that.”
Our gazes held for several long moments as what he said settled inside me. I knew he waited for me to say something.
“Stay away from werewolf necks. Got it. Sorry.”
“No,” he said a bit forcefully then grinned ruefully. “You can get as close as you want to mine. Just avoid anyone else’s.”
His intense gaze pulled another blush from me before I looked away. Clearing my throat, I suggested the next test.
“How strong are you?”
“Strong enough that any display would catch the attention of Liam and Aden.”
Bummer. No proof of that one. Although, proof wasn’t really necessary. I trusted what he said. So far, he hadn’t given me any hope. Nothing I could use to put to rest my fears of Blake.
“So, how do you fight a werewolf?” I wondered absently.
Emmitt chuckled. “With another werewolf.”
I turned away before he could see my despair.
