Written in Red (39 page)

Not that it’s going to happen,
she thought as she left the office. She looked toward the consulate, spotted Darrell in one of the upstairs windows, and blew him a kiss.
I am going to be all kinds of distracted with my new boyfriend.

She sauntered to HGR and stayed long enough to make sure she’d been spotted. Then she picked a book at random, relieved that it wasn’t Simon manning the register when she went up to pay for it.

As soon as she returned to her car, she called Darrell. He was thrilled to have the opportunity to invite her out on another date.

Meg didn’t know where Nathan had gone when she went to A Little Bite for lunch and then walked over to the Market Square to browse in the library for a while, but he was waiting for her at the back door when she returned for the office’s afternoon hours. She wondered if he was making an effort not to startle her again, since his appearance that morning made it obvious that he could get into the building by himself.

She opened the doors and spread the
Lakeside News
on the sorting table to skim the paper for whatever might be of interest to the Others. Nathan was in the front room, sniffing everything.

When the Crows started fussing, she went to the counter, tensing when she saw an unscheduled delivery truck. Then it turned enough for her to read the Everywhere Delivery name.

“It’s Harry,” she said to Nathan as she hurried to open the door for the deliveryman.

“Was asked to make a special afternoon delivery,” Harry said when he put the box on the handcart. “Got the other piece to bring in, but you might want to make sure the floor is dry wherever you want to put it.”

“Good idea.” Meg hurried into the back room and fetched a towel. While Nathan paced, clearly not sure of where he should be, she wiped down the floor where he’d been lying that morning. “Right over here, Harry.” Since his boots were snowy, she took the bulky stuffed fabric from him and positioned it herself.

“Need your signature, Miz Meg,” Harry said.

She signed his slip, made her own notation on her clipboard, and waited until Harry drove off before she smiled at Nathan. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

He moved forward cautiously. He circled it, sniffed it, whapped it with a paw. Then he found the product tag and stared at it for a moment. Turning toward her, he lifted a lip in something that might have been a sneer.

“I know it says it’s a dog bed, but I’m sure a Wolf can use it,” Meg said.

Nothing but grumbly sounds from the Wolf.

“Fine. If you want to lie on a cold, hard floor instead of something comfy and warm just because
Wolf
is spelled d-o-g
,
you go right ahead.” She went into the sorting room and shut the door. Then she remembered the other box and opened the receiving door long enough to pull the handcart into the sorting room. If he was going to be so churlish about her trying to do something nice for him, she sure wasn’t going to leave six defenseless boxes of dog cookies alone with him.

She tucked the boxes—three boxes for puppies and three for large dogs—in the cupboards under her sorting table. Then she went back to reading the paper until the Crows announced the next delivery truck.

Simon walked into the front room of the Liaison’s Office and stared at the Wolf curled up on . . .

“What is that?” he asked, stomping snow off his boots as he stepped toward Nathan.

Nathan replied.

“How did it get to be yours?”

Giving Simon a smug look, Nathan added,

Ignoring the warning growl, Simon ran a hand over the fabric, squeezed the stuffing, and looked at the tag.

“Where did you find this?” Not only did it look comfortable; it would look neater than the pile of old blankets he now had in his office for the times when he wanted to shift to Wolf and nap for a while.

Nathan put his head on his paws and watched Simon.

The leader always had first choice of food, of females, of anything that came to his attention. A leader who always took what another had was a leader who ended up constantly fighting to retain the leadership.

“This one stays here for whoever is on guard. I’ll ask Meg to order another one for me.” He glanced at the closed door and wondered why Meg hadn’t come out, since even human ears should have heard him talking to Nathan.

He had a good idea which female Darrell had found.

The first time Asia came in to Howling Good Reads and indicated she’d like to have sex with him, he’d tried to imagine being with her. Something about her interest hadn’t felt right, and all he could picture was a trap with steel teeth hidden under leaves and twigs. But that was his reaction to her, and, to be honest, he was relieved she’d turned her attention to a human male and would leave him alone now.

He didn’t like her, so he didn’t trust her. He didn’t care if that was fair or not. Just like he didn’t care if it was fair to wonder if the Others should continue to trust Darrell once he began having sex with Asia. After all, males did plenty of foolish things when they wanted sex.

He didn’t say anything to Nathan. His new reservations about Darrell were a discussion to have with Henry and Vlad. But right now, he had to face another discussion.

Using the go-through, he went behind the counter, studied the closed door, debated a moment, then knocked before opening it just enough to say, “Meg?”

No answer. Walking into the room, he didn’t find a woman. Before he had a chance to howl about her being gone, he heard the toilet flush. Her whereabouts discovered, he opened cupboards until he found the cookies. He had his hand in the box when Meg walked into the room.

He stuffed a couple of cookies into his coat pocket, then closed the box and put it back where he’d found it.

“Where did you get the bed for Nathan?” he asked.

She sighed. “Does it really matter that the tag says
dog
instead of
Wolf
?”

It would if they decided to send some into the settlements, but he could ignore the words here in the Courtyard. “I wondered because I would like to get one for my office. And maybe a couple of extras to put in our general store.”

“I ordered it from the Pet Palace.”

He winced, thinking of what Elliot would say about purchasing anything from such a place. Well, he just wouldn’t tell Elliot where the beds came from.

“Order more.”

“All right.” She gave him a puzzled look. “How did you know about the bed?”

“I didn’t. I came over to see if Sam can stay with you for the rest of the afternoon. I’ll fetch him from school. He can go with you on your deliveries, or you can leave him with Henry.”

“All right.” Now she looked uneasy. “Simon? Asia asked about Sam. She saw him while you were out of town, when he was here with me.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her he wasn’t here today. Then she saw Nathan. She and I talked for a couple of minutes, and she left. Sam is cute, and humans do like cuddling puppies and kittens.” She shrugged. “I don’t think she meant any harm by asking, but I thought you should know.”

“Good.” He nodded. “It’s good you told me. I’ll take your BOW and go get Sam now.”

He went out the back door. As he crossed the space to the garage, he looked back at the stairs that led to the two small apartments over the Liaison’s Office. A meeting place. An overnight place. A sex place for those among the
terra indigene
whose status in the human world required more privacy than was available in the rooms above the social center.

A trap with steel teeth. He needed to figure out what he didn’t understand about Asia being with Darrell before that trap snapped shut.

CHAPTER 18

W
ith Sam beside him in the front seat, Simon drove away from the Courtyard’s school and headed for the Liaison’s Office. The school was tucked near the center of the Courtyard, well hidden from prying human eyes.

It wasn’t safe for
terra indigene
youngsters to go to school with human children, so Courtyards provided their residents with an education similar to what humans received. A human couldn’t cheat a Wolf who could add and subtract like anyone else. Two plus two equaled four, no matter what species you belonged to.

Thaisia’s history, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. Humans and Others held very different opinions about
that
subject.

But that day’s report of arithmetic, reading, and writing had been covered in the first two minutes of the drive. Now Sam was back to a more important topic.

“But Nathan isn’t
doing
anything,” Sam said. “
Why
can’t he play with me?”

“He is doing something,” Simon replied. “He’s on guard, so he can play only during the midday break when Meg isn’t in the office.”

“How come Meg needs a guard now? Nathan wasn’t guarding when I was with Meg before.”

He didn’t want to tell the boy about the intruder, but if he didn’t say something, the pup would keep on pestering him and Nathan about why the Wolf on guard couldn’t play.

“A man came into the office. He was mean to Meg. We didn’t like that, so Nathan is there to make sure nobody else is mean to her.”

Sam looked out the window. Then he asked in a small voice, “Is he the man who hurt Mom?”

“No. Those men ran away. We’ll find them one day, Sam. We will. But the man who came into the office wasn’t one of them.”

“I want to be Wolf when I’m at the office.”

Simon glanced at the boy. “Meg can’t communicate the way the
terra indigene
do. You won’t be able to tell her what you learned in school today if you’re Wolf.”

“I can tell her when we get home. I can’t wear the harness in this form, so I have to hold the safety line in my hand, and sometimes I forget and drop it.”

“You don’t have to wear the harness anymore.” He wished the boy wasn’t so focused on that harness and leash. It made the other Wolves uneasy. Well, it wouldn’t bother any of them much longer. The pup had grown sufficiently in just a few days’ time that the harness wouldn’t fit him in another week.

Sam gave him an incredulous look. “If I don’t wear the harness, how am I supposed to pull Meg out of a snowbank when she falls in?”

Simon kept his eyes on the road. The boy had said
when
, not
if.
Just how often did Meg fall into a snowbank? Was she clumsy, or was it play? Or did she end up in the snow after getting tripped by a puppy?

“And Meg isn’t a good digger,” Sam continued. “As Wolf, I’m lots better at digging.”

“Is that why you were the one digging out the BOW when it got stuck in the snow yesterday?” Simon asked mildly.

Sam scooted down in his seat and mumbled, “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

“Uh-huh.” He had fielded a dozen calls from Hawks, Owls, Crows,
and a couple of Wolves who had watched that piece of idiocy and couldn’t wait to tell him about it. He found it interesting that none of them had offered to help. In fact, the Wolves told him they had deliberately stayed out of sight, letting Meg and Sam work it out for themselves. And they had. Between them, they had gotten the BOW unstuck and continued with the deliveries.

It also explained why, when he’d returned from an hour’s run with Blair and a few other Wolves, he’d found the television on and pup and prophet sound asleep on the living room floor.

Since she was spooned around Sam to keep him warm, Simon had figured it was only sensible to stay as Wolf and tuck himself against her back to keep
her
warm.

The fact that tucking up against her made him feel content had nothing to do with that decision. Nothing at all.

When they arrived at Meg’s office, Simon helped Sam fold his clothes and place them in one of the back room’s storage bins, then opened the door to the sorting room after the boy shifted to Wolf. The pup gave Meg an exuberant greeting,
arrooo
ed
at Nathan, then began sniffing around the room for the cookies Meg had hidden.

“You have anything you want me to walk over to the consulate?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” Meg replied. “Darrell came by and picked up the mail.” She paused, looking puzzled.

He caught a whiff of uneasiness in her scent and took a step toward her. “Something wrong with him coming by?”

She shook her head. “Just that no one from the consul has come for the mail before this week.”

He debated about whether to tell her about Darrell’s scheduled monkey fuck, but he didn’t say anything because she suddenly yelped.

“Your nose is cold!” she said, looking down at Sam. “And don’t think I’m buying that ‘I was just checking for cookies’ look as an excuse to stick a cold nose against my ankle!”

Sam talked back at her, sounding quite pleased with himself, then trotted around the sorting table to resume his quest for cookies.

Grinning, Simon left the office and walked over to the consulate.

Darrell was at a desk, looking like he’d already caught the scent of a female in heat and was about to lose his brains over it. Giving the human a nod, Simon went up the stairs to Elliot’s office.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked when his sire looked up.

“Yes.”

Elliot gestured to the visitor’s chair, and Simon wondered which politician he was mimicking. He also wondered why the other Wolf looked uncomfortable.

“Everything still going well with Ms. Corbyn?” Elliot finally asked.

“Some reason it shouldn’t be?”

“I saw Nathan and Sam chasing her yesterday afternoon behind the office. They seemed . . . serious . . . in their pursuit.”

Ah. “Henry talked Meg into playing deer hunt, claiming that Sam needed to work on his skills in chasing game. I think he was mostly making sure that she got some exercise. Meg is convincing in her role as designated prey, which is why Henry wanted to keep them in sight—in case Nathan became too enthusiastic or another Wolf mistook the game for a real hunt. In the end, it will build up Meg’s muscles and stamina, and build up Sam’s muscles and stamina, and Nathan will have a good time romping with them as a reward for guard duty.”

Of course, listening to John whine yesterday about not being allowed to go out and play hadn’t done anything for his own eroding self-discipline—especially because he could tell just by watching that Meg really did make a good squeaky toy.

Elliot smiled. Then he chuckled. “It’s good to see the pup playing again. Now, if we can just get him out of that harness.”

“He says he needs it to pull Meg out of snowbanks,” Simon replied, his voice bland.

Elliot laughed. As the laughter faded, he sobered. “I’m sorry I struck her. Her instincts are odd but from the heart, I think.”

Simon nodded. It was a little annoying to have Sam quoting Meg about human things when she actually knew less about the regular human world than every member of the Business Association, but her lack of knowledge about the Others was working to their advantage. What other human would accept the label of
prey
in order for a little Wolf to chase her?

“Darrell is having his assignation this evening,” Elliot said.

“We agreed to let him use one of the rooms above the Liaison’s Office,” Simon said.

“He also wants permission to bring his companion to the Meat-n-Greens for dinner.”

“Why? It’s not a fancy place, if you want to impress a woman. You go to a human-run restaurant for that.”

“But it is in the Market Square, a place very few are allowed to see. Some women become quite stimulated by the thrill of the forbidden.”

“Do you know who he wants to bring in?”

“It’s the female who was sniffing around you. At least, Ferus said he smelled Darrell on her.”

Simon nodded. “Asia Crane.” Forbidden thrill. That explained why youngsters from the university or the business and technical college were always sniffing around HGR and A Little Bite, or spending an evening in the social center in the hopes of rubbing up against the
terra indigene
. But he’d had the impression Asia had been sniffing around for something more. Did humans gain some status among their own kind if they were allowed in the Courtyard’s Market Square? Maybe he would ask the Ruthie the next time she came into HGR. She was proving to be quite reliable for a human.

“Give him a guest pass for the Market Square,” Simon said. “Tell Darrell he can take his female into any stores that are open. But make sure he knows it’s a one-time pass.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Simon pushed out of the chair. “I have to go. Vlad is handling the store today, but I promised to deal with some of the paperwork.”

He walked back to HGR, detouring at A Little Bite for coffee and a fruit tart that he’d sniffed earlier in the day. Taking his treat up to the bookstore’s office, he growled his way through some paperwork—and tried to shake the uneasiness he felt about giving Asia Crane any kind of access to the Courtyard.

Meg kept her eyes on the road as she followed the familiar route to the Chambers. “Today you are
not
going to jump on me and scare me into driving into a snowbank because you saw a deer and wanted to get out and chase it. Right? Because we do not need to get stuck two days in a row.”

She had really, really, really hoped that Simon—and Blair—hadn’t heard about the snowbank. Finding a short-handled shovel in the back of the BOW next to the snow brush and ice scraper had been proof enough that one—or both—knew about yesterday’s adventure.

Sam grinned at her and wagged his tail.

No help there.

Of course, she had never seen real deer before, and seeing a handful in what looked like a snow corral had been the other reason she hadn’t focused on the road those few seconds too long.

Not that she was going to admit that.

As she drove past Erebus Sanguinati’s marble home, she glanced to the left. Then she stopped and stared at one of the interior roads. Most weren’t plowed with any consistency, and the few that were led to buildings that had no designation. Since she didn’t need to drive along those roads to make her deliveries and didn’t think the BOW could muscle its way down them anyway, she stuck to the outer ring and the interior roads that provided access to all the complexes, as well as the Pony Barn and the girls at the lake.

Maybe in the spring, when those unmarked roads were accessible again, she would drive around the interior of the Courtyard and find her own little spot where she could go when she wanted some solitude.

But as she looked at that narrow, snow-covered road again, the skin just below the newest scars—the ones that had shown her where her life would end—began prickling so fiercely she wanted to scream. If Simon was right and this was some kind of instinctive defense the
cassandra sangue
possessed, then that road represented some kind of danger.

When she drove past the road, the prickling didn’t fade. In fact, it got worse, becoming more concentrated under the skin below those new scars.

She turned on the BOW’s headlights, wondering how she could have forgotten that she needed lights to drive at night.

Except it wasn’t night. She and Sam were making the afternoon deliveries, and she didn’t need the lights to see the road.

Shaking, Meg stopped the BOW and put it in park, ignoring Sam’s whining as he tried to climb into her lap and lick her face.

The prickling turned into a harsh buzzing under her skin.

It had been more than a week since her last cut, and that one had been a paper cut, an accident. Maybe that’s why she felt so edgy, so desperate to relieve the prickling.

Maybe that’s why she had just slipped into something that wasn’t quite a vision. Or wasn’t a vision in the same way she had been trained to see them.

This was new, unknown, frightening. This was worse than being distracted by a deer for a few seconds. If she hadn’t remembered
when
she was driving, would that weird vision have continued until she crashed the BOW?

She’d been driving alone. At night. So whatever this was, it was personal. It was about her. And there was only one way she was going to find out more.

This wasn’t about a physical craving. There wasn’t going to be any euphoria. But she
had
to find out why she’d reacted so strongly to a
road that she’d experienced inside a vision for a few seconds.

Have to wait,
she thought, gritting her teeth as she put the BOW in gear.
Have to wait until I finish the deliveries and get Sam home.

“Not many packages today,” she told Sam as she drove to the last section of the Chambers. She left him in the BOW while she tucked a couple of items in the delivery boxes outside the fence, but she clipped his leash to the harness when she reached the Hawkgard Complex and let him come with her to the mail room.

Two packages to the Wolfgard Complex, then four boxes of another building-block toy for the Corvine social room. She had no idea what the Crows were building, but based on the comments made by Jenni and Crystal when she saw them in the Market Square, the Crows gathered each evening to work on these constructions and were having a great time.

By the time she reached the Green Complex and parked her BOW in the garage, her emotional need to make the cut was as fierce as her need to relieve the prickling in her skin. She tried to sound and act normal, but Sam’s anxious whines told her plainly enough that the pup knew something was wrong.

And if Sam sensed it before she did anything, she was going to have to avoid Simon until the cut scabbed over. She just didn’t know how to do that when he would be here soon to fetch the puppy.

When they were inside her apartment, she hung up her coat, took off her boots, and smiled at Sam. “I have to use the bathroom. Do you want to change while I’m doing that?”

It didn’t surprise her that he followed her to the bathroom and tried to go in with her instead of going into her bedroom to shift and put on the clothes she had ready for him.