Bitten

Legacy

Peter and Antonio cleared the room quickly. Nick lingered, trying to catch my eye. When I looked away, he hesitated, then followed his father. Clay thumped back into his seat.

"Clayton," Jeremy said.

"I'm staying. This has as much to do with me as it does you. Probably more. If Elena thinks she can show up, then walk right back out, after I've been waiting for over a year-"

"You'll do what?" I said, stepping toward him. "Kidnap me and lock me in a hotel room again?"

"That was six years ago. And I was only trying to convince you to talk to me before you left."

"Convince? Hah. I'd probably still be there if I hadn't convinced you to set me free by hanging you off the balcony by your ankles. If I'd had any sense, I'd have let go while I had the chance."

"Wouldn't have done any good, darling. I bounce. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"I'm getting rid of you now," Jeremy said. "Out. That's an order."

Clay paused, then sighed, hauled himself to his feet, left the room, and closed the door. That didn't mean he was gone, though. No footsteps receded down the hall. The floor thudded as he dropped down to sit outside and eavesdrop. Jeremy chose to ignore it.

"We need your help," Jeremy said, turning back to me. "You've researched the mutts. You took that on as a job. You know more about them than any of us."

"I took on the job when I was part of the Pack. I told you-"

"We need your nose to find him and your knowledge to identify him. Then we need your help to get rid of him. It's a tricky situation, Elena. Clay's not the one to handle this. We need to proceed with absolute caution. This mutt has killed on our territory and he's insinuated himself into our town. We need to lure him out without calling attention to ourselves or making him panic. You can do that. Only you."

"I'm sorry, Jer, but this isn't my problem. I don't live here anymore. I'm not supposed to be looking for mutts. It's not my job."

"It's my job, I know. This should never have happened. I wasn't paying enough attention. But that doesn't change the fact that it's happened and we're all in danger because of it-even you. If this mutt continues making trouble, he runs the risk of being caught. If he's caught, what will prevent him from telling the authorities about us?"

"But I-"

"All I want is your help dealing with this problem. Once it's cleared up, you can do as you wish."

"And if I wish to leave the Pack? Did you mean what you said last night? That the choice is mine?"

Something flitted across Jeremy's face. He brushed his bangs back and the expression was gone. "I was angry last night. There's no reason to be in such a rush to make this decision, Elena. I said I'd let you go and live your own life and I'd only call you back if it was urgent. This is urgent. I haven't phoned you for anything else. I haven't let Clay contact you. I haven't summoned you back for the other Meets. I haven't expected you to maintain the dossiers or anything else you normally do for us. No one else would get that kind of treatment. You get it because I want to give you all the freedom you need to make the right decision."

"You're hoping I'll grow out of it."

"Adjusting to this has been more difficult for you than anyone else. You didn't grow up knowing you'd become a werewolf. Being bitten would have been bad enough, but the way it happened, the circumstances under which it happened, make it ten times harder. It's in your nature to fight something you didn't choose. When you make your choice, I want it to be because you've spent enough time out there to know that it's what you want, not because you're stubborn and want to assert your right to self-determination here and now."

"In other words, you're hoping I'll grow out of it."

"I'm asking for your help, Elena. Asking, not demanding. Help me solve this problem and you can go back to Toronto. No one will stop you." He glanced toward the door, listening for Clay's protest, but only silence returned. "I'll give you some time to think about it. Come see me when you're ready."

I stayed in the study for over an hour. Part of me cursed myself for coming back, cursed Jeremy for putting this on me, cursed Clay for… well, for everything else. I wanted to stomp my feet in a two-year-old's tantrum and shout that it wasn't fair. But it was fair, Jeremy was being perfectly reasonable. That was the worst of it.

I owed the Pack a debt I hadn't finished paying. I owed Antonio and Peter and Nick and Logan for their friendship and their protection and, even if they were inclined to treat me like a kid sister, someone to pet and coddle and tease, they'd accepted me and looked after me when I couldn't look after myself. Most of all, though, I owed Jeremy. As much as I railed at his demands and tyrannical authority, I never forgot how much I owed him.

When I'd been bitten, Jeremy had taken me in, sheltered me, fed me, and taught me how to control my Changes, rein in my impulses, and fit into the outside world. The Pack often jokes that raising Clay was Jeremy's greatest challenge, the seven labors of Hercules all rolled into one. If they knew what Jeremy had gone through with me they might change their minds. I put him through hell for one solid year. When he'd brought food, I'd thrown it at him. When he'd talked to me, I'd cursed and spat at him. When he'd come near me, I'd attacked him. Later, when I'd escaped, I'd put the entire Pack at risk. Any other werewolf would have given up, hunted me down, and killed me. Jeremy hunted me down, brought me back to Stonehaven, and started all over again.

When I was well again he'd encouraged me to finish my university degree, footing the bill for tuition, an apartment, and anything else I needed. When I'd finished school and started doing freelance journalism he'd encouraged and supported me. When I'd announced I wanted to try living on my own he'd disagreed, but he'd let me go and watched over me. It didn't matter whether he did these things because he was fond of me or, as I feared, only because it was in the best interests of the Pack to keep me safe and under their control. It only mattered that he'd done it. Now I cursed him for interfering with my new life. The truth was that without Jeremy's help I wouldn't have a new life. If I'd survived at all, I'd be like the mutts, barely able to control my Changes, completely unable to control my impulses, killing humans, moving from place to place one step ahead of suspicions, no job, no apartment, no friends, no lover, no future.

Now he asked something of me. One favor, not even phrased as such. Just a request for help.

I couldn't refuse.

I told Jeremy I'd stay long enough to help them find and kill this mutt on the condition that, when it was over, I could leave without him or Clay trying to stop me. Jeremy agreed. Then he went to tell the others, taking Clay out back for an extended explanation. When Clay returned, he was in high spirits, joking with Peter, mock wrestling with Nick, chatting with Antonio, and offering me the couch when we went back to the study to resume the meeting. Since Jeremy wouldn't have sugarcoated my arrangement, Clay had obviously reinterpreted the facts through his own filter of logic, a logic as indecipherable as his code of behavior and ethics. I'd straighten him out soon enough. As expected, the plan was to hunt down and kill the mutt. Given the dicey nature of the affair, this would take place in one or two phases. Tonight, the five of us, excluding Jeremy, would go into town to track the mutt down. We'd split into two groups, Antonio and Peter in one, the rest of us in the other. If we found the mutt's lair, Antonio or I would determine whether or not the mutt could be killed safely. If it wasn't a safe kill, we'd gather information to plot the killing for another night. After the Jose Carter fiasco I was surprised Jeremy was willing to give me the responsibility of making such a decision, but no one else questioned it, so I kept quiet.

Before lunch I went to my room and called Philip. Downstairs, Peter and Antonio were loudly debating some fine point of high finance. Drawers in the kitchen banged open and shut and the smell of roasting lamb wafted up to me as Clay and Nick made lunch. Although I couldn't hear Jeremy I knew he was still where we'd left him, in the study poring over maps of Bear Valley to determine the best areas of town for our search that night.

Once in my room I walked to my bed, pushing back the canopy, crawled inside with my cell phone, and let the curtain swing closed, cutting off the outside view. When Philip didn't answer his office number, I tried his cell phone. He picked up on the third ring. As his voice crackled down the line, all noise from downstairs seemed to stop and I was transported to another world, where planning to hunt down a werewolf was only a B movie plotline.

"It's me," I said. "Are you busy?"

"Heading off for lunch with a client. Potential client. I got your message. I went downstairs for a thirty-minute workout and missed your call. Can I get your number there? Hold on while I find some paper."

"I've got my cell phone."

"Okay, I'm an idiot. Of course you do. So if I need you, I can call your cell, right?"

"I can't take it in the hospital. Against the rules. I'll check for messages though."

"Hospital? Damn it. I'm sorry. Five minutes into the conversation and I haven't even asked what happened to your cousin. An accident?"

"His wife actually. I used to come down here in the summers and a bunch of us hung out together, Jeremy, his brothers, Celia-that's his wife." Philip knew my parents were dead but I'd told him none of the gory details, such as how young I was when it happened, so I was free to improvise, "Anyway, Celia was in a car accident. Touch-and-go for a while, when Jeremy called me. She's off the critical list now."

"Thank God. Geez, that's awful. How's everyone holding up?"

"Okay. The problem is the kids. Three of them. Jeremy's really at loose ends here, trying to look after the little ones and worrying about Celia. I offered to stay for a few days, at least until Celia's parents get back from Europe. Everyone's pretty shaken up right now."

"I can imagine. Hold on." Static buzzed down the line. "Good. I'm off the expressway. Sorry about that. So you're staying to help out?"

"Until after the weekend. Is that okay?"

"Sure. Absolutely. If I wasn't so tied up with work this week I'd come down to help out myself. Do you need anything?"

"Got my credit card."

He chuckled. "That's all anyone needs these days. If you max out, give me a shout and I'll transfer some money from my account. Damn-passed my turn."

"I'll let you go."

"Sorry. Call me tonight if you get a chance, though I expect you'll be pretty busy. Three kids. How old?"

"All under five."

"Ouch. You will be busy. I'll miss you."

"It'll only be a couple days."

"Good. Talk to you soon. Love you."

"You too. Bye."

As I hung up, I closed my eyes and exhaled. See? Not so bad. Philip was still Philip. Nothing had changed. Philip and my new life were out there, waiting for me to return. Only a few more days and I could go back to them.

After lunch, I went to the study to check my dossiers, hoping to find something that might help me figure out which mutt was causing trouble in Bear Valley. One of my jobs with the Pack was to keep tabs on non-Pack werewolves. I'd built a dossier of them, complete with photos and behavioral sketches. I could recite over two dozen names and last known locations, and separate the list into the good, the bad, and the ugly-those who could suppress the urge to kill, those who couldn't, and those who didn't bother trying. Judging by this mutt's behavior, he fell into the last category. That narrowed it down from twenty-seven to about twenty.

I turned to the cupboards below the bookshelf. Opening the second one, I cleared a path through the brandy glasses and felt around the back panel for an exposed wooden nail. When I found it, I twisted the nail and the rear panel sprung open. Inside the secret compartment we kept the only two condemning articles in Stonehaven, the only things that could link us to what we were. One was my book of dossiers. When I looked, though, it wasn't there. I sighed. Only Jeremy would have taken it out and he'd left for a walk an hour ago. Though I could always go looking for him, I knew he wasn't just taking in exercise but was finalizing the plans for our mutt hunt that night. Interruptions were not appreciated.

As I was closing the compartment I saw the second book lying there and, on a whim, pulled it out and opened it, though I'd read it so many times before I could recite most of it from memory. When Jeremy first told me about the Legacy I expected some musty, stinking, half-rotted tome. But the centuries-old book was in better shape than my college texts. Naturally the pages were yellowed and fragile, but each Pack Alpha had kept it in a special compartment, free from dust, mildew, light, and any of the other elements that could kill a book.

The Legacy purported to tell the history of werewolves, particularly of the Pack, yet it wasn't a straightforward account of dates and events. Instead, every Pack Alpha had added what he considered important, making it a mishmash of history, genealogy, and lore.

One section dealt entirely with scientific experimentation on the nature and boundaries of the werewolf condition. A Pack Alpha during the Renaissance had been particularly fascinated with legends of werewolf immortality. He'd detailed every one, from the stories of werewolves becoming immortal by drinking the blood of infants to the tales of werewolves becoming vampires after death. Then he'd proceeded with well-controlled experiments, all involving mutts that he'd capture, work on, then kill and wait for their resurrection. None of his experiments worked, but he'd been remarkably successful at decreasing the European mutt population.

A century later, a Pack Alpha became obsessed with the pursuit of better sex-the only surprising part of this being that it took several hundred years for someone to do it. He'd started with the hypothesis that human-werewolf sex was inherently dissatisfying because it involved two different species. So he bit a few women. When they didn't survive, he concluded that rumors of female werewolves throughout the ages were false and such a thing was biologically impossible. Moving right along, he tried variations on sex in both forms-as a wolf and as a human with both normal wolves and humans. None approached being in good old-fashioned human form having human sex, so he went back to women and started experimenting with variations on positions, acts, locales, et cetera. Finally, he found the ultimate act of sexual satisfaction-waiting until the first notes of climax struck, then slashing his partner's throat. He described his formula in vivid detail, with all the flowery emoting of a new religious convert. Fortunately, his practice never gained popularity among the Pack, probably because the Alpha was burned at the stake a few months later, after having depleted his village's entire supply of eligible young women.

On the less factual side, the Legacy contained countless stories of werewolves through the ages. Most of these were "my father told me this when I was a child" sort of yarns, many dating back to before the first edition of the Legacy was written. There were tales of werewolves who'd lived their lives in reverse, staying wolves most of the time and changing to humans only when the physical need demanded. There were stories of knights and soldiers and bandits and marauders who'd supposedly been werewolves. Most of these names had vanished from history, but one was still known, even by those who'd never cracked open a history book in their lives. Human history tells of the legend that Genghis Khan's family tree started with a wolf and a doe. According to the Legacy, that was more truth than allegory, the wolf being a werewolf and the doe being a symbol for a human mother. According to that line of reasoning, Genghis Khan himself would have been a werewolf, which explained his lust for blood and his near-supernatural abilities in war. It likely wasn't any truer than the countless human genealogies that include Napoleon and Cleopatra in their family tree. Still, it made a good story.

An equally good tale is one that was also found in human werewolf mythology. A newlywed nobleman's village was plagued by a werewolf. One night, while staking out the beast, the nobleman hears a noise in the bushes and sees a monstrous wolf. He jumps from his saddle and gives chase through the woods on foot. The beast flees from him. At one point, he gets close enough to swing his sword and lops off one of the wolf's front paws. The creature escapes, but when the nobleman goes back to retrieve the paw, it's turned into a woman's hand. Exhausted, he returns to his home to tell his wife what happened. He finds his wife hiding in the back rooms, binding the bloody stump where her hand used to be. Realizing the truth, he kills her. Now, the human version of the story ends there, but the Legacy goes further, giving the ending a pro-werewolf twist. In the Legacy tale, the nobleman kills his new wife by slicing open her stomach. When he does so, out tumbles a litter of wolf pups, his own children. The sight drives the nobleman mad and he kills himself with his sword. Now, as a female werewolf, I'm not particularly keen on the thought of a bellyful of puppies. I prefer to interpret the pups as an allegorical symbol of the nobleman's guilt. When he realizes he's killed his wife without giving her a chance to explain, he goes mad and kills himself. A much more fitting end.

In addition to these stories and musings, each Alpha chronicled the genealogy of the Pack during his reign. This included not only family trees, but brief descriptions of each person's history and life story. Most family trees were long and convoluted. In the current Pack, though, there were three blips, one name with no others before or after it. Clay and I were two. Logan was the third. Unlike Clay and me, Logan was a hereditary werewolf. No one knew who Logan's father was. He'd been put up for adoption as an infant. The only thing that came with him was an envelope to be opened on his sixteenth birthday. Inside the envelope was a slip of paper with two surnames and two addresses, that of the Danvers at Stonehaven and the Sorrentinos at their estate outside New York City. It was unlikely that Logan's father was Pack, since no Pack member would put a son up for adoption. Yet his father had known that the Pack wouldn't turn a sixteen-year-old werewolf away, whatever his parentage, so he'd directed his son to them, ensuring Logan would find out what he was before his first Change and, in doing so, have the chance to start his new life with training and protection. Maybe this proved that not all mutts were lousy fathers, or maybe only that anomalies were possible anywhere in life.

Most other Pack family trees had plenty of branches. Like the Danvers, the Sorrentino family could trace its roots to the beginning of the Legacy. Antonio's father, Dominic, had been Alpha until his death. He'd had three sons, Gregory, who was dead, Benedict, who'd left the Pack before I arrived, and Antonio, the youngest. Antonio's only son was Nick. In the Legacy, the annotation LKB was marked in parentheses beside Nick's initials. Nick didn't know what it meant. As far as I knew, he'd never asked. If he'd even read the Legacy, which I doubted, he'd have figured that if no one had explained the notation to him it must not be important. Nick was like that, totally accepting. The letters were important, but there was no sense telling Nick what they stood for, stirring up questions that couldn't be answered and emotions that couldn't be satisfied. LKB were Nick's mother's initials. It was the only place in the Legacy where a mother was memorialized. Jeremy had added it. Neither Jeremy nor Antonio had explained this to me. It was Peter who'd told me the story years ago.

When Antonio was sixteen, attending a posh private school outside New York City, he'd fallen in love with a local girl. He'd known better than to tell his father, but had let his best friend, fourteen-year-old Jeremy, in on the secret and the two had conspired to keep the relationship hidden from the Pack. It worked for a year. Then the girl became pregnant. On Jeremy's advice, Antonio told his father. Apparently, Jeremy had thought Dominic would see that his son was in love and break Pack law to help him. I guess everyone is young once. Young, romantic, and very naive. Even Jeremy. Things didn't exactly work as Jeremy had envisioned. Big surprise there. Dominic yanked Antonio out of school and put him under house arrest while the Pack waited for the baby to be born.

With Jeremy's help, Antonio had escaped, gone back to the girl, and declared his independence from the Pack. From there, things got really ugly. Peter glossed over the details, saying only that Antonio and his girlfriend had gone into hiding while Jeremy ran interference between father and son, desperate for a reconciliation. Somewhere in the midst of this, Nick was born.

Three months later, Antonio had his first Change. Over the next six months, he'd realized that his father was right. No matter how much he loved Nick's mother, it wouldn't work. Not only would he ruin her life, but he'd ruin his son's, sentencing him to a life as a mutt. One night he took Nick, left an envelope of money on the table, and walked out. He delivered Nick to Jeremy and told him to take the child to Dominic. Then he vanished. For three months, Antonio was gone, not even Jeremy knew where. Just as abruptly, he returned. He took Nick to raise and never mentioned the girl again. Everyone thought that was the end of it. Years later, though, Peter came to visit Antonio and tracked him to a suburb, where he'd found Antonio sitting in his car outside a playground, watching a young woman playing with a toddler. I wondered how often he'd done that, wondered if he ever did it now, checking up on Nick's mother, maybe watching her playing with her grandchildren. When I look at Antonio-boisterous, loud, self-assured Antonio-I can't imagine him holding a torch for a lost love, but in all the years I've known him, I've never heard him mention any woman in his life. Oh, there are women in his life, but they come and go, never staying long enough to make it into even the most idle conversation.

At the time, I wondered why Peter told me that story, a chapter of Pack history that would never make it into the Legacy. Later I came to realize that he'd thought letting me in on a harmless Pack secret might make me feel more part of the Pack, might help me better understand my Pack brothers. Peter did a lot of that. Not to say that the others shut me out or made me feel unwelcome. Nothing of the sort. The only person whose acceptance I'd ever doubted was Jeremy's and maybe that was more my problem than his. I'd met Logan and Nick, through Clay, before I became a werewolf. After I was bitten, they'd both been there and, when I was ready to accept their help, they'd done whatever they could to cheer me up-as much as you could cheer up someone who's just learned that life as she's known it is over. When I met Antonio at my first Pack meeting, he'd flattered and teased and engaged me in conversation as easily as if he'd known me for years. But Peter had been different. Acceptance wasn't enough. He always went that extra step. He'd been the first to tell me his background, like a newfound uncle filling me in on family history.

Peter had been raised in the Pack but, at twenty-two, decided to leave. No major argument or rebellion precipitated his departure. He'd simply decided to try life from the other side, more an experiment in alternate lifestyles than a revolt against the Pack. As Peter put it, Dominic saw him neither as a dangerous non-Pack liability nor as a necessary Pack asset, so he let him leave. With a college degree in audiovisual technology Peter had gone after the most glamorous work he could imagine, as a sound technician for rock bands. He'd started with bar bands and, within five years, had worked his way up to big concert venues. That was when his thirst for new experiences got dangerous, as he'd lapped up the whole rock band lifestyle-drugs, booze, and parties past dawn. Then something happened. Something bad. Peter didn't elaborate, but said it was bad enough to warrant the death sentence if the Pack found out. He could have run, hid, and hoped. But he didn't. Instead, he'd looked at his life and what he'd done and realized it wouldn't get any better if he ran. He'd only screw up again. He decided to throw himself on the mercy of the Pack. If Dominic ordered his execution, at least his first mistake would be his last. He hoped, though, that Dominic would grant him absolution and let him return to the Pack, where he could get help regaining control over his life. To improve his chances, he appealed to the one Pack brother he trusted to plead his case with Dominic. He'd called Jeremy. Instead of going to Dominic, Jeremy flew to Los Angeles, bringing ten-year-old Clay. While Peter baby-sat Clay, Jeremy spent a week erasing all traces of Peter's mistake. Then he took Peter back to New York and orchestrated his return to the Pack with nary a word about his misstep in California. Today no one would guess Peter had ever made such a mistake or had ever left the Pack. He was as devoted to Jeremy as Clay and Antonio, though in his own way, quiet and accepting, never arguing or offering so much as a dissenting opinion. The only trace of Peter's wild years was his job. He still worked as a sound technician, one of the best in the business. He routinely took off on long tours, but Jeremy never worried about him or doubted that he was anything but absolutely circumspect in his outside life. Jeremy had even let me take off with Peter for a few weeks back when I was still getting my bearings as a werewolf. Peter had invited me along on the Canadian leg of a U2 tour. It had been the experience of a lifetime, making me forget all the problems of my new life, which was exactly what Peter had intended.

As I was thinking this, a pair of hands grabbed me under the armpits and hoisted me off my chair.

"Wake up!" Antonio said, tickling me, then dropping me back onto the chair. He leaned over my shoulder and picked up the Legacy. "Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma."

Peter walked in front of me, took the book from Antonio, and made a face. "Are we such bad company that you'd rather hide out in here reading that old thing?"

Antonio grinned. "I'd guess it's not us she's avoiding, but a certain blond-haired tornado. Jeremy sent him to the store with Nicky, so you can come out of hiding now."

"We came to ask if you felt like taking a walk," Peter said. "Stretch our legs, get caught up."

"Actually, I was-" I began.

Antonio lifted me by the armpits again, this time putting me on my feet. "Actually, she was just going to come find us and tell us how much she missed us and is dying to get caught up."

"I was-"

Peter grabbed my wrists and tugged me toward the door. I dug in my heels.

"I'll go," I said. "I was just going to say that I came in here to read the dossiers, but Jeremy must have them. I was hoping maybe they'd help me figure out who could be behind this. Do you guys have any ideas?"

"Plenty," Antonio said. "Now come for a walk and we'll tell you."

When we'd left the backyard and headed into the forest, Antonio began.

"My money's on Daniel," he said

"Daniel?" Peter frowned. "How'd you figure that?"

Antonio lifted a hand and started counting off reasons on his fingers. "One, he used to be Pack so he knows how dangerous this kind of killing on our territory is, that we can't-and won't-leave town. Two, he hates Clay. Three, he hates Jeremy. Four, he hates all of us-with the exception of our dear Elena, who, conveniently, wasn't at Stonehaven to be affected by the mess, which I'm sure Daniel knew. Five, he really hates Clay. Six-oh, wait, other hand-six, he's a murderous cannibalizing bastard. Seven, did I mention he chose to strike when Elena wasn't around? Eight, if he caused enough havoc, Elena might be in the market for a new partner. Nine, he really, really, REALLY hates Clay. Ten, he's sworn undying revenge against the entire Pack, particularly those two members who happen to be currently living at Stonehaven. I'm out of fingers here, buddy. How many more reasons do you need?"

"How about one that involves utter suicidal stupidity. Daniel doesn't meet that qualification. No offense, Tonio, but I think you're seeing Daniel in this because you want to see him in it. He makes a convenient fall guy-not that I wouldn't like to help him with that final fall. But if you're placing wagers-small wagers, please, I don't have your capital to blow-I'd go with Zachary Cain. Definitely dumb enough. Big brute probably woke up one morning, thought, Hey, why don't I kill some girl on Pack territory for a kick. Probably wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. Because it's stupid, stupid."

"It could be someone minor," I said. "One of the bit players tired of being banished to the wings. Any mutts been making a ruckus lately?"

"Petty stuff," Antonio said. "None of the minor leagues making any major plays. Of the big four, Daniel, Cain, and Jimmy Koenig have been quiet. Karl Marsten killed a mutt in Miami last winter, but I don't think this Bear Valley problem could be him. Not his m.o., unless he's taken up not only killing humans but eating them. Unlikely."

"Who'd he kill?" I asked.

"Ethan Ritter," Peter said. "Range dispute. Clean kill. Thorough disposal. Typical Marsten stuff. We only know about it because I was passing through Florida earlier this spring on a tour. Marsten caught up with me, took me to dinner, told me he'd offed Ritter so you could strike his name from your dossiers. Had a nice little chat, rang up an astronomic bill, which he paid for in cash. He asked if we'd heard from you, sent his regards to everyone."

"I'm surprised he doesn't send Christmas cards," Antonio said. "I can see them now. Tasteful, embossed vellum cards, the best he can steal. Little notes in perfect penmanship, 'Happy holidays. Hope everyone is well. I sliced up Ethan Ritter in Miami and scattered his remains in the Atlantic. Best wishes for the New Year. Karl.'"

Peter laughed. "That guy has never figured out which side of our fence he's on."

"Oh, he's figured it out," I said. "That's exactly why he takes us out to fancy dinners and updates us on his mutt kills. He's hoping we'll forget which side of the fence he's on."

"Not likely," Antonio said. "A mutt is a mutt and Karl Marsten is definitely a mutt. A dangerous mutt."

I nodded. "But, as you said, not likely to be eating humans in Bear Valley. I'm as biased as you, but I really like the idea of Daniel. Do we have his last known whereabouts?"

There was a moment of silence. More than a moment. Much more.

"No one's been keeping track," Peter said at last.

"Not a big deal," Antonio said, breaking into a grin, grabbing me and swinging me in the air. "Forget Pack business. Tell us what you've been up to. We missed you."

It was a big deal. I knew why they were making light of it. Because the big deal was my fault. Tracking mutts was my job. If I'd told Jeremy I was leaving the Pack last year, he'd have found someone else to do it. If I'd called at any point and said I wasn't coming back, he'd have found someone else to do it. But I'd left my departure open-ended. I always did. I'd left Stonehaven before, getting into a fight with Clay and storming out for a much-needed rest. Days, maybe weeks later, I'd return. This time, the weeks had turned to months, then to a year. I thought they'd figure it out, know I wasn't coming back, but maybe they hadn't, maybe they'd still been waiting, like Clay waiting all day at the front gate, confident that I'd eventually return because I always did and because I hadn't said I wouldn't. I wondered how long they would have waited.

After dinner, I was heading to my room when Nicholas pounced out of Clay's room, grabbed me around the waist, and dragged me inside. Clay's bedroom was opposite mine, both in location and decor. The color scheme was black and white. The thick carpet was snow white. Jeremy had painted the walls white with bold, geometric black shapes. Clay's bed was king-size and brass, covered with a black-and-white bedspread embroidered with symbols from some obscure religion. Along the west wall was a top-of-the-line entertainment system, complete with the only stereo, VCR, and television in the house. The far wall was covered with pictures of me-a montage of photographs and sketches that reminded me of the "altars" found in the homes of obsessed psychopaths, which, all things considered, wasn't such a bad description of Clay.

Nick threw me onto the bed and jumped on top of me, pulling my shirt from my jeans to tickle my stomach. He grinned suggestively, white teeth glinting beneath his dark mustache.

"Looking forward to tonight?" he asked, running his fingers from my belly button farther under my shirt. I slapped his hand back down to my stomach.

"We aren't supposed to have fun," I said. "This is a serious matter, requiring a serious attitude."

A whoop of laughter exploded from the bathroom. Clay came out, wiping his hands on a towel. "You can almost say that with a straight face, darling. I'm impressed."

I rolled my eyes and said nothing.

Clay thudded down beside me, making the bedsprings groan. "Come on. Admit it. You're looking forward to it."

I shrugged.

"Liar. You are. How often do we get to run in town? An officially sanctioned mutt hunt."

Clay's eyes glinted. He reached down to stroke the inside of my forearm and I shivered. Nervous anticipation twirled in my stomach. Turning his head to the side, Clay looked out the window at the gathering dusk. His fingertips tickled against the inside of my elbow. My gaze swept over his face, taking in the line of his jaw, the tendons on his neck, the dark blond shadow on his chin, and the curve of his lips. Heat started in the pit of my stomach and radiated down. He swiveled back to face me. His pupils were dilated and I could smell his excitement. He gave a hoarse chuckle, leaned toward me, and whispered those three magical little words. "Time to hunt."