Because it hadn’t been that long since the storm, and because he hoped Spring’s warmth would ease the tension in the city, he was giving the humans some time to use their brains—and giving the police time to shake things out in their own way. Besides, he had other things to think about.
Last week, he had gone to Great Island to talk to Steve Ferryman. Now Ferryman was coming to the Courtyard to meet with Captain Burke and Roger Czerneda. It was sensible to host the meeting since it meant he and Vlad could sit in and listen. But there were two problems with meeting here: one was Roger Czerneda and the other was Steve Ferryman. Both were unattached males, and Ferryman had already indicated an interest in sniffing around his Meg!
Not my Meg, Simon thought, wondering why he’d opened the cash drawer. Not exactly. Earth natives in human form could have sex with humans, but they didn’t mate with humans.
But an Intuit could be a mate for a cassandra sangue. So could a regular human.
Fur suddenly covered his chest and shoulders. His hands shifted enough to have fur and claws. He didn’t realize he was snarling or that his fangs had lengthened until he heard a gasping squeak.
Heather, the only human employee left at HGR, stared at him.
“Should I leave?” she asked.
He shook his head. Damn! He had shifted enough that he didn’t have human speech. As he pointed at the register, he wondered what else had shifted, but he didn’t think patting his head to find out how much was still human-looking and how much was Wolf would be a good thing to do.
Don’t think about human males, or females, or mating, or … anything. Just get up to the office before you scare the bunny. Heather. Shit, fuck, damn!
She tensed when the checkout counter was no longer between them, but he kept moving toward the stockroom and the stairs. Except he couldn’t stand the thought of being confined in the office. He needed to run!
He stripped off his clothes, leaving them on the floor near HGR’s back door. Then he stepped outside, shifted to Wolf, and let out a howl that rang with frustration.
<Simon?> Nathan called.
<Guard Meg,> he said and took off running. He ran away from the Courtyard’s business district, ignoring the queries from Elliot and Tess asking what was wrong. Running on clear roads wasn’t demanding enough, so he ran across open ground and through the trees, plowing his way through some drifts of snow. It was Spring’s official reign now, but reminders of Winter still lingered.
He ran until he was tired enough that his first thought wasn’t tearing out Steve Ferryman’s throat just for being male. He shouldn’t feel that way, didn’t understand why he felt that way.
Meg had been a source of confusion since he hired her to be the Courtyard’s Human Liaison. His response to Ferryman was just another example of how she muddled him up.
He wasn’t surprised when Blair joined him as he trotted back toward the business district.
<You all right?> Blair asked.
<Fine,> he grumbled.
<Having second thoughts about the meeting?>
<Not about the meeting.>
They trotted in silence for a couple of minutes. Then Blair said, <Be careful, Simon. You don’t want to become too human. We see a few of them differently now, but most of them are still just meat.>
<I know.> It was one thing for an earth native to be able to pass for human. It was quite another thing to start thinking like a human.
Blair headed back to the Utilities Complex while Simon continued trotting toward the business district.
Becoming too human was always a danger to terra indigene who worked in the Courtyards and kept careful watch over the clever meat. He should go to the wild country for a couple of weeks this summer. He could stay in Wolf form for days at a time and regain his sense of who he was, what he was.
But he already knew he wouldn’t go to the wild country. Too much unrest rippled throughout Thaisia, as well as right here in Lakeside. Until they figured out who was making the drugs that had reached his piece of the world, there was too much uncertainty.
And there was too much need to stay close to Meg.
Trying to figure that out confused him, and being confused made him angry.
It was unfortunate for the four-footed bunny that it chose that moment to bolt from its hiding place.
Four young men stood across the street from A Little Bite. Tess watched them crowd Merri Lee when she stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change, jostling her until she almost stumbled in front of a car. When she crossed the street and hurried to the coffee shop, the men stayed on the other side, the human side. Tess hadn’t heard what they said to the girl, but she saw the look on Merri Lee’s face—a look that was quickly hidden behind a cheerful mask.
An hour later, they were still there, watching. And Merri Lee watched them while she went about her work.
And Tess, being one of Namid’s most ferocious predators, knew the difference between a hunter watching and prey watching.
“Do you know them?” Tess asked, tipping her head to indicate the men across the street.
“Not really,” Merri Lee replied. “They go to Lakeside University. I think I’ve had a class with a couple of them.” As she wiped off the tables near the windows, the men shouted something.
<What did they say?> Tess asked the Crows who were perched on the roof. They, too, were watching.
<They say the Merri Lee is a Wolf lover and is going to get what she deserves,> Jake replied. <Is the Merri Lee having sex with a Wolf?>
<It wouldn’t be Simon,> Jenni said. <Simon likes our Meg.> A pause. <Do Simon and Meg have sex after they play?>
<No,> Tess said firmly. Simon’s relationship with Meg was too complex for anything as simple as sex. <And asking about that will upset Meg.>
No response from the Crows. She didn’t expect one. They might be willing to poke at a Wolf and say something to get a reaction, but they wouldn’t say anything to upset the blood prophet who had saved their lives.
Tess turned her attention back to Merri Lee. “Those men. Do you know their names?”
Merri Lee shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
Tess let it go. Except for Meg, Merri Lee and Heather were the only humans left who worked in the businesses open to the public. Lorne Kates ran the Three Ps, but the print shop was for Courtyard residents only; Elizabeth Bennefeld, the massage therapist, was an independent contractor who worked in her Market Square office two days a week; and despite some concerns expressed by the administrators of Lakeside Hospital, Dominic Lorenzo was going ahead with his plans to provide care for Courtyard residents and employees. The other humans who worked for some of the Market Square businesses had been calling in sick a lot over the past couple of weeks, and some of them had stopped calling. Even the consulate had lost its human employees.
All of it was a backlash from the storm in early Febros and not unexpected. But it only proved the fleeting nature of human memory. The humans who quit had forgotten that working in the Courtyard was the only thing that made them not edible.
“Why don’t you check the storeroom?” Tess told Merri Lee. “See if we’re running low on anything.”
She waited until the girl was in the back before she walked out the front door. Nothing between her and those four men except pavement. But still too much distance to reveal her true nature. Too much chance of other people looking upon her. If many people became ill while driving past the Courtyard, there would be questions she didn’t want asked because she had no intention of letting anyone with answers survive.