“Oh. Umm …” I shook my head. “Sorry, no, that’s not it.”
“What do you smell then?”
I sniffed again, nostrils opened wide. The air flowed in and …
“Nothing,” I said, smiling. “Nothing at all.”
“Are all wolf shifters this weird?” she asked, leaning back into her chair while projecting an air of casual comfort.
“No,” I said, wondering if she knew I could see through her fa?ade. While I didn’t smell magic, Idid smell something else. Fear sweat had a distinct, acrid odor that was unmistakable. Sylvie was terrified.
There’s no way this is a powerful witch. The acting is too top notch. No witch is that good at it, especially not one who is rumored to be as powerful as Sylvie could be. She has no idea who she is. She’s just scared of what she’s uncovered.
I had to hide a wince at that. The elders were going to have a meltdown when they learned of everything that just happened here. They would have many questions on why I hadn’t just let the tree-thing get her andthen destroyed it. Let the Chained minions do the dirty work for us, they would say, all the while totally missing the point.
If she was evil and in league with the Chained, why was it manifesting its very limited powers to try tokill her?
That wasn’t even all my problems. I could argue that one away in the end, most likely. Yet to do so would force me to admit that I had committed, in some ways, an even larger sin.
I had revealed our existence to a human. Telling a mortal is strictly forbidden, and for good reason. Part of me smiled on that, though. They couldn’t enforce that code, without makingthe argument that she’s mortal, which would prevent her from being the woman that would bring doom to us all.
That was a problem for another day, though. As was the trouble Noel would kick up over my actions. Mortal or not, he would say I was acting rashly. Then he would call for my removal.
“A wolf shifter!”
I jerked at the sudden outburst. “What? Yes. What’s wrong? We’ve been over that.”
“You’re awerewolf!”
Sylvie cried out, scooting to another chair on the far side from the couch, erecting an impenetrable barrier of six feet of space between us instead of three. “Not only that, I let you into my home. I invited you in!”
Sighing, Ivery gingerly eased myself back into more of a reclining position on the couch. “Both of those comments are so incredibly inaccurate.”
“You justtold me you’re a werewolf.” She was wringing her hands, looking around wildly until her eyes landed on something. Ignoring the pain, I cranked my neck around to see what it was.
On the kitchen counter was a wicked-looking woodsman’s knife, lying open on top of its sheath.
“Sylvie … Vee,” I said, grabbing her attention and pushing down the anger that she would feel fear from me. From the one person who would do anything to protect her. “I need you to listen to me and repeat the exact words I said to you. Theexact words.”
Licking her lips, still not able to fully meet my gaze, she nodded fast. “You, um, you said, ‘I am a wolf shifter.’”
“Exactly.” I blew out a breath. “Did I ever use the termwerewolf in there?”
“That’s the same thing,” she groaned. “That’s like saying a dragon and a wyvern are different. They really aren’t.”
“One’s a majestic, intelligent, incredibly powerful being with four paws and the ability to change shape and use magic that could flatten this entire town. The other is a pint-sized Microsoft paint rip-off version without the intellect or magic and lacking half the paws. They are, in fact, different.”
She glared at me. “That’s semantics.”
“Sorry,” I said, crossing my arms. “I didn’t realize you knew so much about us.”
The glare grew hotter.
“They arenot the same thing, Sylvie. In my world, differences like that matter. You can insult the wrong people by calling them the wrong term. We are dire wolf shifters. We can shift into our forms at will.
We are in control. Werewolves are not. They are more wild beast than man. And under the full moon … they are dangerous.”
Sylvie listened while I spoke, the only sign of her nervousness the constant gnawing on her lower lip. I hoped she didn’t bite it off. Eventually her brain would clue in to the fact that I’d talked with very specific knowledge of dragon versus wyvern. Probably.
“And the full moon, it doesn’t make you dangerous?”
“To ourselves, perhaps,” I muttered. “And the letting me into your house bit, by the way? You’re gettingthat one confused with vampires. Don’t ever let one of them in, though. That would be bad.”
Her next question died on her lips as she went bug-eyed. “Vampires arereal?” she hissed.
“Very. There’s a coven that lives a couple of towns over.”
Her face went white.
“Don’t worry. You’re not in any danger,” I said, hoping it sounded reassuring. The last thing I needed was Sylvie succumbing to shock. In my current state, I doubted I could catch her.
“Not in any danger?” she said with a strange hiccup. “Not in danger? That’s kind of hard to believe, Lincoln Wolf Shifter. I nearly died to a tree-monster earlier today. At least, I’m assuming that’s what it wanted to do. Now I find out you’re, like, a half-wolf shapeshifter. Vampires exist as well. This is fuckedup.”
Sighing, she pulled out her phone and started punching at the screen.
Alarmed, I got up into a sitting position. “What are you doing?”
Sylvie didn’t pull her nose out of the phone screen. “Checking when the next full moon is, so I don’t get hurt by you.”
I growled. “One. I wouldnever hurt you, Sylvie. I told you that, and I meant it. Second, I told you that it doesn’t affect us that way.”
“How does it work on a wolf shifter then?” she asked, finally looking up at me.
I tried to fight it back, to stay calm, but I failed.
“Are you … blushing?”
I snarled wordlessly. “No. I don’t blush. To answer your question, the full moon acts as a, um, as heat. Okay? There. But that’s not the point. The-“
“Remind me not to be around a bunch of you during the next full moon,” she said, shaking her head.
My growl shook the room, freezing Sylvie. “I. Will. Not. Let. Them. Hurt. You. Understood?”
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