She stepped back. “Come in.”
Trying not to appear too eager or reveal how relieved he felt to hear those words, he stepped into her kitchen.
“Would you like some pizza?” she asked. “I’m not sure how many people Lieutenant Montgomery thought were participating in movie night, but there are plenty of leftovers.”
“No. Thank you.” Just the scent of her was making him shaky with a need he didn’t know how to fulfill without doing something unforgivable.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you? Because there was something wrong with you this morning, Simon, and …” She began to knead her left arm. Probably trying to relieve a pins-and-needles feeling. “And you’re still not right.”
“I don’t want to talk about that tonight. Please?”
“Then what did you want?”
The words tumbled out, making him sound like a scared, whiny puppy, which was humiliating. “Can I stay with you tonight? Sam’s staying with Elliot, and I … It feels too lonely being by myself tonight.”
She looked wary. “You want to sleep with me?”
“Yes.”
Her hand moved in a vague gesture. “Like that?”
“No. As Wolf. I won’t shift to human. I promise.” He wasn’t sure he could keep that promise, but he knew if he didn’t it would be the last time she let him get close enough to cuddle.
He wasn’t sure what she saw in his face, in his eyes. It wasn’t the strong, dominant Wolf in charge of the Courtyard. He didn’t feel strong or dominant.
“All right.” She shook a finger at him. “But if you’re wearing fur, don’t growl about me hogging the covers.”
He lowered his eyes. “Okay.”
“Simon. I was teasing.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he closed the kitchen door as much as it could close and followed her into the bedroom. While Meg was in the bathroom, he stripped out of the jeans, sweater, and thick socks he’d been wearing. He shifted, relieved to feel his body flow into its familiar shape. And then he stretched and rolled and did everything he could think of to confirm that all of him had shifted.
Finally satisfied—and out of time because the toilet flushed and Meg was running water in the sink and would be back soon—Simon leaped on the bed and made sure he wasn’t taking more than his half. He never meant to take more than his share. He was just bigger than her.
Meg got into bed and pulled up the covers, her arms outside the blankets.
“I’m supposed to sleep on my back because the cut is long,” she said. “How am I supposed to remember to sleep on my back once I’m sleeping? And I’m not supposed to get the cut wet for a day or two, so that means a sponge bath at best and not washing my hair. And I feel really crabby about those things, and I don’t know why.”
He didn’t know why either, but he whined in sympathy.
Sighing, Meg reached out and burrowed her fingers into his fur. “We sure didn’t do things right today, did we?”
He couldn’t disagree with that. Since there was nothing he could do about the mistakes he made this morning, he wasn’t going to think about how the missing pieces of Meg’s prophecy might have changed the fate of Talulah Falls.
He breathed in her scent—and felt the craving recede. Warmth and comfort and friendship. If he could just stop making mistakes where Meg was concerned, he would be able to keep those things.
He felt her body relax into sleep, her fingers still buried in his fur. Stretching his neck, he gave her cheek one gentle lick.
The taste of her soothed him, like it had when she had been in the hospital and he had been so angry.
He gave her cheek one more lick, then closed his eyes and fell asleep.
CHAPTER 17
Simon raced beneath a full moon, reveling in his speed and power as he closed the distance between himself and the most delicious-tasting, succulent meat he’d ever known. His soon. All his.
He chased her until she began to tire. The pumping legs, the pumping arms. They couldn’t give her enough speed to escape a Wolf.
He caught up to her, felt the rhythm of her moving limbs, closed his teeth over her elbow as it swung back—and pulled her down.
Intoxicating scent, that blood. And meat so very delicious because it was …
<Meg!>
Simon woke with a yelp and flung himself off the bed. Panicked and panting, he peered over the edge. The room held the faint gray of early morning, which was enough light for a Wolf. He couldn’t see Meg on the bed, but …
He started to shift. Remembering his promise to stay in Wolf form, he shoved his head under the covers and sniffed.
Blood.
Scrambling away from the bed, he howled, filling the sound with his unhappiness and fear.
<Simon?> A startled response from Vlad, whose apartment was two doors down. Tess and Henry had apartments on the other side of the complex, but they would be demanding answers soon.
He didn’t have answers. He had only the memory of his teeth …
Simon howled again—and Meg appeared in the doorway. She flipped on the overhead light, momentarily blinding both of them.
“Simon, what’s wrong?”
<Meg!> He leaped toward her, caught the scent of blood, and backed away, whining. The delicious smell of her was right, but the taste in his mouth was all wrong, confusing him.
“What is wrong with you?” She looked frazzled. “Are you hurt? Are you sick?”
That wasn’t fair! She’d made him promise not to shift, but now she was asking questions that he couldn’t answer because she couldn’t communicate in the terra indigene way.
He shook his head. It was the best he could do under the circumstances.
Meg sagged against the doorway for a moment. “Okay. Since you’re all right, I … have to flush the toilet and wash my hands. I thought something was wrong, and I didn’t finish things.”
She hurried back to the bathroom and shut the door more firmly than she needed to.
The front door of her apartment opened and slammed shut.
“Meg!” Vlad shouted.
Simon shifted, grabbed the jeans he’d left on the floor by the bed, and pulled them on before Vlad appeared in the bedroom doorway.
“What’s going on?” Vlad asked as he stepped into the room.
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you still sick?”
“No.” In fact, now that he was fully awake, he felt good. Confused, yes, but rested, energized.
Meg returned to the bedroom and stared at the two of them. “What is wrong with all of you this morning?”
“I smelled blood,” Simon said. “It was … upsetting.” He looked at her torso, just below the breasts. Did the cut open up? If it opened up and bled again, would Meg need to speak prophecy? Or did she have a fresh cut? Was that the reason she was in the bathroom? “Is there something I should write down?”
“No,” Meg replied tightly. “It’s not a cut, so there aren’t any visions or prophecies with this kind of blood.”
He cocked his head. “There are different kinds of blood?”
Vlad, who was standing closer to her, looked at her face and took a step back. Simon wished he hadn’t put on the jeans so he could grow a tail and tuck it over his male bits.
“I’m a girl!” she shouted. “It happens!”
Simon glanced at Vlad, who looked equally puzzled.
“You’re both so quick to think it’s ‘that time of the month’ whenever a girl isn’t all sweet and sunny, but it doesn’t occur to you when it really is that time of the month?”
Probably best not to point out that she’d been living in the Courtyard for three months now and this was the first time she’d done this particular female thing. Maybe blood prophets came into season once a season? How were the Others supposed to know? The human female employees usually took those days off work to avoid being around predators who might become excited by the blood scent. So this was his first experience being around a female who was doing this and wasn’t terra indigene—and most kinds of terra indigene females only came into season once or twice a year.