Wolf's Bane

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I lost myself in the crowd before Gunner could shift and find me. Nodded at a bouncer then slipped through a heavy fire door to enter the private hallway that led toward the quiet of my personal changing room. I was ready for thirty minutes of down time before returning home to my sleeping sister. Thirty minutes to relax while Ma Scrubbs counted dollars and divvied up my share of the take.

Unfortunately, there was a werewolf on the couch when I thrust the door open. And not just any werewolf, but the one who thought he ran the city I lived within.

“My dear,” Jackal greeted me, remaining recumbent for one long moment before unfolding long limbs and springing gracefully to his feet. He wore a half-unbuttoned silk shirt that showed off hardened muscles and his hair curled dashingly over both ears. Despite the eye candy, though, my attention remained firmly focused upon the promised respite of the couch behind his back.

There should have been overtures to live through before I could achieve my destination, but lack of nearby underlings put a kibosh on our customary embrace. Instead, Jackal merely raised his eyebrows and waited until I’d sunk into the leathery cushions before taking the opposite end of the sofa and getting straight to the point.

“Two Atwoods in my city.” In front of the drifters who made up his not-quite-pack, Jackal would have donned a mask of alpha invulnerability. But the understanding between the two of us was sufficient to prevent him from mincing words. As a result, his observation came out as less of an observation and more of a pout.

I shrugged, wishing for one split second that Jackal really was my significant other. The pretense propped up Jackal’s alpha tendencies in public and protected me and my sister when we walked through the city alone. A mutually beneficial arrangement...but one that, unfortunately, left me without anyone to rub my weary feet.

Perhaps that’s why my subsequent words came out harsher than I’d intended. “In their city,” I countered. “The pack leaders might not have been around much lately, but technically it’s Atwood land for another hundred miles south.”

Which was entirely true. But apparently I’d gone a step too far in reminding Jackal that he was poaching on a more established clan’s territory while lacking sufficient manpower to back up his claim.

“I’m the one who keeps this city stable. I’m the one who keeps you safe,” my companion bit out, a droplet of spittle striking my jacket while his fist came down to pound the leather cushion an inch from my thigh.

Yep, I should have stopped while I was ahead. Accepting my own misstep, I attempted to fix the faux pas with a little male ego-stroking. “You’re right,” I agreed. “But the brothers are just passing through. They’re probably scouting the edges of clan territory, getting their bearings. After all, their father just recently died.”

I expected Jackal to relax back onto the cushions, to accept what he couldn’t change. But instead, something dark and menacing rose within his eyes, and his muscles tensed with lupine alertness when next he spoke.

“Well, they’d better keep moving,” he told me. “Because this city and everything in it is mine.”

***

“BE CAREFUL OUT THERE,” Ma Scrubbs warned as she led me to the back door half an hour later. The old woman had been alerting me about the city’s hidden dangers ever since I’d started trailing along behind my father two decades earlier. But something in my employer’s tone promised a rapier might not be enough to keep my skin intact tonight.

Still, I had a hard time taking the threat seriously when my pockets were full of cash and all three werewolves I’d run into this evening were long gone through the opposite entrance. So I offered a jaunty salute and strode away into the darkness, already counting the moments until I could fall into my warm bed. Just one last stop at the corner store for bread and milk to ensure Kira’s cheery disposition, then I could rest easy in the knowledge that I’d raked in sufficient supplemental income to ensure our survival for another week at least....

Or so I thought for the few minutes it took to exit the Arena’s alley and turn onto the wide but quiet avenue that formed the main artery of this part of town. Only after enough time had passed that Ma Scrubbs would have removed her hearing aids and descended into her basement apartment did a thread of sound cut through my thoughts of hearth and home.

And at first, I thought the auditory intrusion was merely a run-of-the-mill wolf whistle. But I couldn’t make out a single human shape lingering in the shadowed doorsteps I was passing. And this sound was less a whistle and more a thread of barely discernible melody that sent a trickle of prey-like awareness skittering up my spine.

As much as I strained, though, I couldn’t make sense of the disjointed notes. The night musician was quite a distance behind me, I estimated. Perhaps a block or two east as well....

But then the tones coalesced into a strangely familiar lullaby, the tune popping to life as if emerging from a dully remembered childhood. And even though my curiosity was piqued by the vague memory, my gut told me the sound represented danger rather than intrigue. So I sped up my footsteps, wishing I hadn’t already shrunken my magical star ball away from its sword shape and down into its easy-to-carry energetic form. Now would be a good time to be holding onto a blade....

Even another human on the streets would have been appreciated at the present moment. Anything to jolt away the adrenaline-rush of terror that was flooding my body for no discernible reason. Was I really about to break into a sprint to escape from a song?

Unfortunately, the streets on every side of me were dark and empty. And the whistle continued at exactly the same volume even as I sped up my pace, as if my follower had increased his own footsteps in synchrony rather than falling behind as I would have hoped.

Yes, the tune’s volume remained steady...but its tempo gradually lessened until both my star ball and my feet were pulsing in sympathy. Like Kira, I enjoyed moving quickly and silently. But now my instinctive press for speed felt akin to slogging through a sea of molasses. Meanwhile, my boots thudded against the pavement with every descending step.

What’s wrong with me? Stifling a shiver, I glanced backwards, half expecting a fairy-tale monster to be following in my wake....

But my gaze met with nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual potholed pavement, one streetlight vainly attempting to illuminate an entire block. Doors were locked, windows were grimed over, and a single rat was the only living being in sight.

There was light ahead of me though. The 7-Eleven came into view like an oasis in a desert, the brightest patch of safety around.

And sure, the establishment possessed grease-stained windows along with an air of declining profitability. But I knew from experience that the store also boasted a rifle-toting clerk and a back door that would spit me out into an untraveled alley. If necessary, the clerk would cover my back sufficiently so I could use my hidden abilities in safety, then I could slink home with my tail quite literally between my legs.

Or maybe I’d get lucky and my stalker would turn out to be a cheerful passerby who whistled his way past the plate-glass windows without so much as a glance in my direction. Kira could enjoy milk on her morning cereal with toast as a chaser, and all would be right in our little world.

Still, I flung open the 7-Eleven door with my head turned in search of my pursuer...and had no warning as I ran smack dab into a far too familiar chest.