Chapter 15

15

After the office hours ended, the plumbers were gone, three locked-out tenants had been let in, and Bolin had gone home for the day, I turned to the computer to look up Duncan online. Since he’d given me his full name, I could have researched him before, but it hadn’t crossed my mind until he’d mentioned having social-media sites.

The Duncan Caldwells that came up didn’t match my lone wolf, leading me to wonder if that was truly his name. Then I typed in the text on his van, which I assumed was his business name, if he had a legitimate business. Full Moon Fortune Hunter .

“There we go,” I murmured as social-media sites popped up, with YouTube at the top.

I opened videos for a channel that showed Duncan, with his beard stubble and wavy, jaw-length gray-shot hair, fishing items out of lakes, canals, ponds, and rivers. A highlighted video showed him in front of a castle, holding a sword aloft.

“Well, better than a fork.”

After watching a couple of videos and surfing back far enough to verify that he’d been doing this for years, I poked through links, searching for a useful about me section. But what I could find didn’t offer much, merely saying he’d been raised in the United Kingdom and traveled the world, seeking adventure—and people’s lost belongings. There was nothing about his rates, about how to hire him, or about what kinds of things he found for his clients.

Most of the videos showed him locating mundane objects, some with historical significance, but I did find a couple of older ones where he was roaming dark forests—and more than a few cemeteries—with his magic detector . A few blurry apparitions, or something of that ilk, appeared and disappeared in the background. Not surprisingly, those videos had the most views. People did love the paranormal.

“But don’t believe in werewolves.” I remembered Bolin’s statement with bemusement.

Of all the people I would expect to be a believer…

A knock on the door startled me. Feeling guilty for my research, I closed the browser window before answering.

“There you are,” Duncan said.

“Here I am.”

“You look…” He eyed the attire I’d chosen for the night. “Comfortable.”

Did that mean I looked homely?

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “Sweatpants and hoodies are easy to remove in a pinch. I’m not so wealthy that I can afford to buy new clothes every time I change too abruptly to remove them in time.”

“That’s what I do. Takes the stress out of jeans fasteners that are hard to unbutton quickly.”

“You must be raking in the YouTube ad revenue.”

His eyes gleamed. “You checked out my channel? I’m touched by your interest.”

“I like to research weirdos before I get in a van with them.” I looked toward the parking lot, assuming he meant to drive us out somewhere to hunt, not hope to get lucky with opossums and raccoons in the wetlands between houses in Shoreline.

“That does seem wise.” Duncan extended a hand toward his vehicle. “In preparation for our evening, I cleaned off the passenger seat and ensured no large and powerful magnets are close enough to scramble your DNA.”

I pointed at him. “I knew that was a possibility.”

“Only if you eat a lot of iron.” He smirked and turned toward the parking lot.

I grabbed a bag with my purse, keys, phone, and a change of clothes—just in case. I was not riding home naked in a van with him. I’d also packed my reciprocating saw and a huge pipe wrench. Mostly to amuse him, but one never knew. If I couldn’t change, and we ran into my family, I didn’t want to be defenseless.

The inside of the van smelled like cleaning solution and machine oil. I peeked back at a tiny bed and kitchen area amid racks of equipment, including the SCUBA gear I’d glimpsed before. Coils of rope, insulated boxes, and a sturdy safe occupied all the space under the bed. If there was a closet or anyplace for all the clothes he supposedly purchased for unplanned changes, I couldn’t see it from the front.

I eased onto the passenger seat, hoping I wasn’t being a fool for going off with a strange man. Though we’d had a lot of conversations in the last few days, it wasn’t as if I’d known him long.

“Please enjoy the refreshing beverage I brought for you.” Before sliding into the driver’s seat, he fished into a cooler and withdrew two chilled cans of soda. “It’s an American staple, I understand.”

“Diet Coke?” I accepted a can and tucked it into the holder. “Beer might be better for taking the edge off.”

“I’ve found it isn’t a good idea to change while inebriated.”

“The authorities frown on that while driving too. ”

“Indeed.”

He’d cleared the seat but not the seat well, so I had to prop my feet on toolboxes, heavy bags, and who knew what else that was piled under the glovebox.

“Can you recommend a good place to hunt?” Duncan closed his door and started the van. It was old enough to take a key in the ignition.

“You don’t want to settle for opossums and raccoons in the neighborhood parks?”

He gave me an aggrieved look. “If I wanted to do that, I could change in the bushes behind your apartment complex.”

“The tenants appreciate that you’re not making that choice. The fight with my cousins was bad enough. You’re lucky Animal Control didn’t show up with tranquilizer guns.”

They had come the morning after, sans guns, as far as I’d seen. The tenant who’d called them hadn’t been home to tell stories of wolves, so I’d pointed the officers to the greenbelt and mentioned coyotes. They did wander into the city and scavenge in the parks and wetlands from time to time.

“Quite.”

“Head east toward the mountains.” I gave him directions to the nearest freeway access point. Since my family lived to the north and might well be out hunting tonight too, east would be safer.

“Are we likely to run into your pack out there?” Duncan might have been thinking about the same thing. Though he’d beaten my cousin when they’d fought one-on-one, the encounter had grown dicier when more of the family had shown up.

I didn’t blame him for not wanting to get ganged up on again. “Hopefully not.”

He gave me a long look but nodded. “Right. Good.”

As he drove off, I realized he also had to trust me. Might he be nervous about that? Presumably, I was as much a stranger to him as he was to me. If he’d known about my past, he might not have invited me out into the forest alone.

That thought made a tendril of concern curl through me. I’d been worrying about going off alone with him, but if I was still the same person—the same werewolf —I had been all those years ago, I could be as much a danger to him as he was to me. I’d loved Raoul, but when he’d roused my temper, I’d lost it, the wolf turning into a savage and uncontrollable animal.

What if that happened again? I didn’t have strong feelings for Duncan. It might be easier to lose my temper with him, to give in to my lupine instincts and forget he was an ally. I wasn’t even positive he was an ally.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hunt together,” I blurted, that concern settling like a cannonball in my gut.

Though he was focused on navigating traffic that hadn’t diminished with the coming of night, he managed a thoughtful look over at me. “Are you worried about being alone with me?”

“Yeah, but probably not for the reason you think.”

“That a lack of restraint in your lupine form will cause you to fling yourself on me in an amorous fashion?”

“ That’s what you thought would happen tonight?”

“I don’t know about you, but the chase, followed by a feast, has been known to make me amorous.”

“You’re a guy. Doesn’t everything make you amorous?”

“Not as much as when I was younger, but things do trend that way. As to the hunt, I’d thought you might enjoy going together. I get the impression, well, if your children and your ex-husband are fully human, and you’re estranged from your werewolf family, and you’ve been taking that potion for a long time… It must have been a while since you hunted with someone, no? I thought you might enjoy some company.”

“I guess.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek and debated if I should warn him that I’d killed before—and not only prey. It would be hard to do that without speaking of Raoul’s death.

“Such enthusiasm.” Duncan laughed without rancor. “I always hated enforced solitude, but maybe you prefer it.”

“Not necessarily. You’re right that I haven’t hunted with anyone in a long time, but I have some concerns.” I rubbed my thighs through my sweatpants, reluctant to speak about my past but feeling less vulnerable than usual in the darkened van, the shadows hiding the emotions on my face.

“How long has it been since you changed?” he asked.

“I was nineteen when I left the pack. I’m forty-five now.”

Duncan gaped at me, the lights of the dash revealing his open mouth. “You haven’t changed in twenty-six years?”

“I’ve taken the potion faithfully since I found out it existed and that I could buy it.”

“But why ? Did your husband require it? I can get wanting to fit in, maybe—” his expression said he did not get it, “—but to give up all that you are...”

“Being a wild animal is not all that I am . It never was, and it wasn’t about fitting in.”

Duncan lifted a hand from the steering wheel. “No, and I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that… Well, I enjoy the hunts, the time spent in nature with the magic enhancing my senses. I love the pure joy of running, the feel of the earth under my paws, and the smells of damp foliage and the musk of one’s prey. It’s all… It’s what’s real . At least to me. Everything is more genuine when I’m a wolf. I’ve learned to appreciate my time as a man, but when the call comes, I have no hesitation to accept it.”

“I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out,” I said stiffly and looked out the window. I clamped my mouth shut, sublimating the urge to explain further, to defend myself. I hadn’t wanted to share any of my past with him, and I didn’t know how that had happened .

“It’s more that I’ve learned to accept that which is unchangeable in my wise old age.” Duncan snorted softly, his focus on the freeway. We’d left the city, and the lights of the suburbs were growing sparser, with the forested mountains looming ahead of us. “If I had it all figured out, maybe I would have a family instead of being a lone wolf.”

“Did you have a pack back in the Old World?”

“No.”

“Did you challenge an alpha and get driven out?”

That was how it usually happened, at least that I’d observed. And most lone wolves didn’t end up living long. They often tried to integrate fully into human civilization, much as I had, but ended up feeling the call, changing, and going on hunts alone. Sometimes, that worked out. Sometimes, it didn’t… And when they woke, gored by antlers, there was no one to care for them, to bring them to a wise wolf for healing, and they passed alone in the forest.

“I never got that opportunity.” His tone turned dry. “Had I challenged an alpha, I might have won. You’ve seen my exquisite physique.” He flexed a biceps, though it would have been his physique as a wolf that would have mattered in a pack fight.

“It was all right.”

Duncan had been a big wolf—and magnificent. Alone, he would have kicked Augustus’s ass. I had little doubt.

“All right?” He sniffed. “Really, my lady.”

“I was too distracted by the lushness of your silvering pelt to notice your overall fitness.”

Duncan squinted suspiciously over at me. “At least something of mine captured your attention.”

“I’m a fan of lushness.” I smiled. This was safer to talk about than the past.

“Should we ever succumb to our immense physical attraction to each other and end up rutting with abandon in the forest, I won’t be offended if I wake in your arms with you stroking my pelt.”

“Assuming there was physical attraction, I usually rut in my bedroom as a human.”

“ Usually . There must have been a time when you were a horny wolf. The teenage years are particularly libido-fueled, as I remember.”

Not answering the question, I said, “If I lived in a van, I’d probably prefer the woods too.”

“My van does have a bed.”

“If it’s as cramped as this passenger seat—” I lifted one of my legs, my knee getting stiff from my foot being propped on boxes, “—I can’t imagine you’ve lured many women into it.”

“You might be surprised. If I sought to lure you, I suspect I could accomplish that mission by tossing a couple of squares of chocolate onto the bed back there.”

“You’d better make it a whole bar.” I looked into the dark back of the van, though the shadows hid the bed. “Maybe a box of bars.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. The kind with bacon bits, right?”

“Honey-bourbon bacon bits.” I pointed at a sign alongside the freeway. “Take the next exit. We can hunt back there.”

“Together? Or separately?” He hadn’t forgotten the comment that started the conversation.

I sighed. “Let’s… see how it goes, I guess. How many miles to the gallon does your van get?”

Duncan blinked at the change in topic.

I delved into my purse while calculating the length of the journey. “About twenty? Fifteen?”

“Yeah, it’s not a lot. Especially when the van is driven off road, into parks, and used as a battering ram to send enemies flying.” Duncan sounded more pleased than upset about that.

“I had no idea it had such a finicky engine and that such activities would affect its average MPG.” I opened my GAS envelope, pulled out six dollars, and laid the bills on the dashboard for him.

“Is that a tip for services you expect me to render later?”

“It’s my contribution to tonight’s gas money.”

“That’s not necessary.” Duncan peered toward my purse. “How many envelopes are there?”

I closed it. “Enough.”

“Huh.”

He didn’t say I was weird, but I’d heard it before, so I had no trouble interpreting that grunt. I ignored it, as I’d learned to do. The hell with what anyone thought. My budgeting had gotten me out of debt, and I intended to have an investment property of my own within the next few years.

As we took the exit, the clouds parted, and the nearly full moon shone down upon us. Of its own accord, my body shifted toward that light, almost straining at the seat belt. My blood sang, and my nerves fired with the longing to change.

I’d worried that I might not be able to after all this time, that the lingering effects of the potion would keep me human, but my entire body ached with the need to answer the moon’s call. I yearned to yank off my clothes, spring into the woods, and let the wolf overtake me.

Duncan looked over at me, the moonlight gleaming in his eyes, and I knew he felt the same thing. He nodded at me. Tonight, we would hunt.