9

All Case wanted was to talk to Lydia, but he was officially getting a head-first, hands-on tutorial in the fact that running a werewolf pack meant that what you wanted didn’t always come first.

Or even second.

The pack wanted to know more about him, so he was herded back into Lydia and Ruth’s living room, which quickly became cramped and hot when over a dozen people swarmed inside to surround him. The peppering of questions they gave him was way more relentless than Lydia’s quiet, purposeful assessment.

It was a lot, but he couldn’t blame them for it. They were scared, curious, and excited. Of course they’d have a ton of questions.

Case did his best to answer them honestly.

Yes, Lydia had turned him. Yes, he was going to marry her.

No, he technically didn’t know how he’d hold up in a wolf-on-wolf fight with Reeve, but even his short transformation earlier had told him that his wolf had its own powerful instincts, and Case was happy to listen to it. He suspected it knew how to do battle in that form even if he didn’t.

That answer got a lot of approving nods, which was encouraging.

What did he do for a living? Case explained how he usually roamed around, so he didn’t have a fixed career, but he had fixed and long-practiced skills that had served him well over the years. It turned out that Mountainview was always in need of people who were good with their hands and had some practical expertise. They did their best to be self-sufficient out here, but they were better at farming than construction. Case would be a big help.

It was funny. Case had run across people who had reflexively expected him to stay where they’d met him, who took for granted that he would be looking for a house and a job that was permanent instead of seasonal. That wasn’t that unusual.

But it also wasn’t personal . They assumed he would settle down, but they didn’t really care one way or the other. If they did, it was because they were the kind of people who got miffed when someone wasn’t living their life the way they were “supposed” to.

Here, though ... this was the only time anyone had ever seemed like they were excited by the prospect of him sticking around. It was like the Mountainview pack could instantly visualize what it would be like to have him be part of their world—him specifically—and they liked it.

Did Lydia?

It’s what she wanted , his wolf said uncertainly, its ears twitching.

Case was still getting used to the strange sensation of having a presence in his head that felt so real and alive. He liked it, though. His wolf had rescued Lydia, so he was definitely pro-wolf.

“Okay, okay,” Lydia said after this had gone on for a while. “Give the guy a break. He still has a lot to process.”

She was clearly trying to sound like a responsible authority figure drawing a reasonable line in the sand, but there was too much laughter and relief bubbling up in her voice.

It sounded good on her. It was the first time Case had seen her get to relax.

If he’d played any part in that, he liked it.

He shook hands with several Mountainview residents on their way out the door—most of them wrung his hand until he felt like they were going to crush his fingers—and then finally, finally , he was alone with Lydia again.

... And then, of course, they had to make a formal report to her grandmother.

Our alpha , Case corrected himself.

The title meant more than he’d realized. It had always been obvious that Lydia felt a real sense of allegiance to Ruth, something more than ordinary affection and respect, but Case hadn’t been able to really understand it, not deep down. There weren’t many human equivalents, at least not in civilian life.

But now he felt a tug toward Ruth Willmore. He was sure it was nothing compared to what Lydia and the others felt, since they had a lifetime’s worth of history to work with, but it was still there.

It was a kind of biological deference. But he wasn’t going to bow and scrape to her—he doubted she would even want him to—and he didn’t feel like he was being lulled into any mindless obedience. It wasn’t brainwashing. If she gave him an order he didn’t like, he could tell that he’d be able to refuse it. It was more that his instincts were telling him that whatever she said, it would be worth considering. His wolf seemed to see her as a kind of glue holding the pack together.

How well, though? Everyone here was clearly scared. So was Lydia, to the point that she’d been prepared marry herself off to a complete asshole just to try to keep the pack afloat. But it was like she was the only person even trying to find options. As far as Case could tell, she didn’t expect anyone here to help her out.

Had Ruth created a pack that was willing to let her granddaughter do all the work and reap none of the rewards, or had the pack idolized Ruth so long, and thought her so invincible and above-it-all, that they were already treating Lydia the same way?

More to the point, would Lydia even let them treat her differently? It wasn’t like he had seen her go to anyone in the pack for help.

This probably wasn’t the right time to ask that kind of question, though. For right now, he would settle for being grateful that the alertness in Ruth’s snappish black eyes meant that he and Lydia might have a little bit of time to figure things out together before Reeve came back to make more trouble.

“From all the hubbub outside, I’m guessing that your plan worked after all,” Ruth said. She lifted her hand an inch or so off the bed, twitching her fingers in Case’s direction. “Show me. You could use the practice.”

Case’s first transformation had been pure instinct, with his wolf leaping to the fore so they could come to Lydia’s aid as fast and effectively as possible. This was the first time he’d actually had to think about how to do it.

Do you know how this works? he thought, mentally prodding at his wolf.

It gave him a kind of wolfish shrug. So it had done it without thinking, too.

Lydia apparently guessed what his problem was, and she gave him a small, beautiful smile.

“I know right now it feels like trying to make yourself sneeze when you don’t have to, but it’ll get easier the more you do it. For right now, just try to relax as much as you can and reach out to your wolf. Give it permission to come forward, and visualize it.”

“Okay,” Case said under his breath, “but for the record, I was always terrible at meditating, and this feels a little too close to that.”

He closed his eyes. His muscles were still stiff and cramped from the brief, awful sickness that had taken over him when it’d seemed like he was going to reject Lydia’s bite, so it took some time to get his body to feel loose and easy. The sneezing comparison had felt painfully apt overall, but this part was more like trying to doze off when he wasn’t actually sleepy.

He did the best he could, and then he followed the rest of Lydia’s advice and pictured his wolf. Its image came through even more clearly with his eyes shut.

Come on, Case said, stretching out his hand to it in his mind. We can do this.

I don’t know how to make your body change.

I don’t think you need to. Just come forward, like Lydia said. Take control.

It nosed at him and then crept closer, wary but intrigued. It felt like the wolf was getting bigger, swelling to take up more and more space inside his head, and as scary a sensation as that was, Case rolled with it. He trusted his wolf not to squash him in the process, and he trusted Lydia not to give him bad advice. Besides, a lifetime of working with his hands had taught him the value of going with the flow and not stopping to think too much about things. Care was important, but so was instinct and muscle memory. Sometimes your body was smarter than your mind.

This time he felt the change happening in real time. It didn’t exactly hurt, but on the other hand, saying that it felt weird would’ve been a huge, huge understatement.

Thick fur pushed its way up through his skin. His skin pulled in a dozen different directions as his bones changed shape inside him. His balance tilted, and he toppled forward only to feel paws stopping him from slamming face-first into the floor.

Oh, I’m not on my knees, even , he realized, as his stomach gave a sickening lurch, like he’d taken it on the worst carnival ride of his life. I’m on my feet, it’s just that my legs are shorter. And I don’t have hands anymore.

For some reason he fixated on the lack of opposable thumbs, like the biggest difference between humans and wolves was that wolves would have a problem with doorknobs.

When the cascading weirdness finally stopped, Case opened his eyes.

Okay, he could deal with the colorblindness. He remembered that much from before. This was the first time he’d gotten to look at the human Lydia with these eyes, though, and the first time he’d gotten to smell her with this nose.

... That sounded creepier than it probably was. He couldn’t help smelling her! It wasn’t like he was burying his nose in her hair! His wolf’s sense of smell was just very sharp!

There was no way around breathing in the scent of laundry soap and coconut shampoo and outdoors. And beneath all that, there was a kind of warm feminine musk. It was so enticing that it almost left him dizzy, and he had to do his best to tune it out so he could focus on what was actually happening.

“Well, you look tough enough,” Ruth said approvingly. “And you’re a big one, like Reeve. He’s bulkier, maybe, but that gives you an advantage when it comes to agility. Show us your teeth.”

“He’s not a horse up for auction,” Lydia muttered.

“No, he’s a potential fighter, and we need to know how he’ll bite.”

Case let his lips wrinkle back, exposing his teeth. He didn’t know what they looked like, but they felt strong and healthy. Hopefully his human flossing habits had carried over.

“Good. Reeve won’t want those sinking into him.”

“Case will be fine,” Lydia said, folding her arms. “He’s a great guy, and he’s a great wolf. You can change back now, Case.”

Changing back, as he’d already discovered out on the porch, was easier. He tried to concentrate on how it felt to ease back into his human body, in the hope that that would help him figure out how to get better at shifting the other way too.

“I’m glad I don’t lose my clothes,” he said, when he was back to being himself. “Before I really saw all of this is in action, I was kind of worried about that. I mean, all I had to go off was An American Werewolf in London .”

Lydia grinned. “You might still wind up getting your clothes torn or frayed sometimes. The shifting process can be hard on anything you try to bring along, even if it doesn’t rip it to shreds. That’s why it’s best to stick with durable stuff.” She gestured to her flannel shirt. “But it’s not too bad. And if you have anything in your pockets, it should be safe.”

Ruth leaned back in bed. “Nurse Andrea can be here in five minutes, and she can sit at my bedside just as well as you can. Why don’t the two of you have this conversation on your way to the courthouse?”

Courthouse? Case almost said, but then he realized what she was talking about. They would have to get a marriage license. Montana didn’t have a waiting period, so they could get hitched as soon as they had the paperwork, if they wanted.

They could be married before they even came back to the house.

As willing as Case was, now that their vows were right on the horizon, it all felt horribly rushed. It wasn’t like he was afraid to go through with it, but there was so much they didn’t know about each other yet. In Declan’s office, their marriage of convenience had felt more like an unusual kind of job offer, but now that he’d spent more time with Lydia, it all felt different and a lot more real.

Be honest with yourself. You mean that now that you’re getting feelings for her, it feels a lot more real.

He still wanted to marry her. But what that marriage would mean ... it was like that had already shifted, at least from his point of view. And she had asked him out on a date, so he was pretty sure that it wasn’t all practicality and self-sacrifice from her side, either.

In that case, this hasty, businesslike wedding wasn’t the one he wanted to give her. He wished he could make it more special.

But there was no way to look at Ruth and guess at how much time they had. He could feel optimistic about her hanging on a little longer, and he did, but he couldn’t blame Lydia for not wanting to take a chance on it. If they weren’t married and mated by the time Reeve challenged her, Case wouldn’t count as co-alpha, and all of this would be for nothing.

He looked at her, and she looked back at him. Her dark brown eyes showed some of the same furor of mixed emotions he was feeling, but there was a little twitch of a smile around the beautiful bow of her mouth.

Yeah, it’s ridiculous, and it’s not exactly ideal , that smile seemed to say. But at least we’re in it together .

It made Case smile back.

“Okay,” he said. “Courthouse it is.”