Love Bites (Crescent City Werewolves: The Short Stories)

Tides of Silver and Blood (Part 3 of 6)

Thomas Etheridge, Royal Inspector for the Upper Mulgrew Pack and veteran member of the inner circle of advisors to its alpha-king and queen, found himself in the strange predicament of not knowing what to do.

From the moment he'd seen the she-wolf there on the shore—Joan, he at last knew her name—his crisp manner had thinned to a brittle mask. She hadn't been a hallucination, that bewitching figure who had shined through the dark fever of his mind like a beacon. She was real, flesh and bone and beating heart... and she was the one who had discovered the alpha-queen's latest victim.

Despite the weight of his badge, there was no guilt to his thoughts as he drove like a madman, pushing the car's engine as far as he dared to get them further into human territory. Every inch of his experience, authority, and intelligence was already thrown into helping her out of danger. Determination filled him, not doubt.

But what left him feeling like a gangly pup all over again, full of fire and confusion over what he hungered for, was the realization that their near miraculous encounter was nothing more than a brush of fingertips and lingering questions. To save her would mean losing her again... for good.

One more regret to add to the rest, and he pushed them all to the back of his mind while glancing at Joan. "We're going deep into the city to meet with a wolf with resources among humans. He can help us."

Joan had been watching through the rear window as if to see whether they were being followed, and she now turned to him. "Did you plan all this?"

"Not exactly," he admitted. "In fact, I was completely caught off-guard. But in the past year, I've saved other wolves from the queen's attention, enough times so that I now carry charms to escape at a moment's notice."

Not that anyone would have expected him to betray the alpha-queen. Not Etheridge, unwavering as steel and twice as dependable. Not Etheridge, who had taken a silver knife to the liver before going down while the rest of her advisors had fled at the first crack of a bullet. It was a solid shield, his reputation, but he well knew that the most paranoid members of the royal court were also the ones who survived the longest.

"So that was all the smoke in the car. But now everyone will know what you did to save my skin. There's no way you can go back."

"It's worth it," he said, and meant it. "I just need to get in touch with my contact. He won't be happy to move openly against an entire pack, but he'll still help."

"Why trust him over our own teeth?"

She sounded amazingly calm if skeptical. He could only admire her stoicism. Most wolves in her position would have been whining in fear. He'd seen a few who had even died while waiting in their cells, blood seeping from their noses because their hearts had burst in sheer panic. Living gods, he'd heard humans mutter about alpha-kings and alpha-queens, the inflection to the words scornful, mocking. They didn't realize the utter truth of it. Every pup was raised to worship royalty, was taught that even the moon bowed to those crowned heads.

And yet this she-wolf acted as if the wrath of demi-gods meant nothing to her, as if she would face them and only demand the same answers she now asked of him. A sea-wolf. He should have guessed from the beginning, even with his mind disoriented by silver sickness.

As the road turned into city streets crowded by other cars, he said, "It's not easy to escape the queen's wishes. He helped me rescue three other wolves from the pack before they were killed. While we're among humans, he's our best chance at hiding in safety."

Her mouth tightened. She clearly didn't like being hunted as prey. "Who is he?"

"Hayes. His name is Sam Hayes." He said the name carefully, unsure of her reaction.