Chapter 4: Thursday

Lupe

I woke up in human form curled on my side in a chill, dark shelter, on top of a worn blanket—a smelly, worn blanket, stinking of unwashed bodies. The ground beneath was hard and flat—concrete. But I wasn’t cold—Dana was nestled against my back, arm wrapped over me, legs and body pressed against mine, her gauzy wrap draped over us. Her breath curled against my neck. It was nice to be still, after running so much last night.

Her breasts pressed on my shoulder blades, and as she breathed, her soft pubic hair moved against my ass. I knew I should remember what happened last night, before it faded, but I lay in Dana’s embrace. Just feeling her.

She shifted, and the hand across my chest rubbed my nipple. Very odd feeling—erotic, but odd—and I held her hand still.

“Mmm,” she breathed, a good morning hum.

“Mmm?”

“Mm hmm!” she confirmed.

“Hmm.”

“You’re just saying that,” she murmured sleepily, “because you can’t remember the words.”

If she was making sense, I was too bleary to figure it out. “I thought you didn’t need words.”

She reached down and wrapped around my morning erection, and stroked it in a parody of her gesture last night. Or in the gesture she had parodied.

“I guess not,” she said with a smile in her voice. She shifted up, to nuzzle my neck.

I turned my head, and her mouth was there. We kissed. Good morning.

Her lips trailed back along my cheek, to the corner of my jaw. Had I known how erotic it was, to be kissed there? Or to have my earlobe nibbled? Her hand continued to stroke me slowly, as her body moved against mine with a slow beat. When she licked the base of my neck, where it met my shoulder, I gasped.

I started to roll over, to face her, but she caught my shoulder. “No,” she said, “hold still. I want to.” And she kissed the base of my neck again.

I strangled a “But—!” before it became a word but not before the sound escaped.

Dana sealed my lips with a finger. “Trust me.” Her voice wrapped the words around an unspoken promise.

And thing was, I did. I did trust her. I submitted, and in reward, she nibbled my neck, lips and light nips of her teeth. I gasped again. Yes, it was touching—but for this, I could keep still. I could keep control.

Dana nibbled her way back, to my spine, and down it, moving over me as she went. She explored my body, with kiss and caress, teaching herself my human form. Teaching me it—that the base of spine is another hot spot, as is my hip. That licking behind my knee is Too Much, but kissing my ankle is not, nor is a trail of kisses up my leg. By the time she was done with my backside, my skin tingled like it was on fire—I thought I couldn’t take it any more.

Ha. Dana held me still, and I stilled. For her to explore my front—to teach me I could take more.

She fondled and licked my aching cock and balls—girls had been doing to me all week, in quick gropes, but Dana took the time to do it slow. I wanted inside her.

When she tried to blow in my bellybutton, I squirmed away—again Too Much—and sat up. No more. I had to have her. Almost as much as her eyes said she wanted me.

Before I could speak, again she pressed a finger to my lips. She moved and straddled my lap, facing me. She wrapped her other arm around my neck, and I put my hands on her hips. She wriggled, and the head of my cock slipped into her slippery warmth.

“Slowly,” she breathed, still pressing my lips closed.

I lipped her finger, bit it lightly, and kissed inside her wrist. She smiled, and slowly settled down, till I was halfway inside her, as far as we could go in this position. And then held it while we kissed.

Dana moved, up and down, very slightly. An incredibly erotic feeling, for how small the motion. Control, I realized—controlling the sex. It made it more intense, holding a tight rein like this. I reached behind Dana’s back, arms flat upright beneath her wings, holding her close. And she moved, with the rhythm of slow breaths instead of heartbeats.

After several exquisite minutes, I came without warning, orgasm washing through me like the flood from a broken dam.

In its wake, my cock was even more sensitive than before. It was all I could do to not squirm as Dana rose and fell. She smiled at me, a lock of hair plastered to her face.

Enough. With one hand, I reached between where we joined, and found her clit, wet and swollen. She came quickly, hard and sharp and short, without time for more than a muffled cry. Her wings beat hard, swallowtails batting my thighs.

Dana relaxed against me, smiling. We kissed, languidly.

“Where... ?” Where had she learned that?

She shook her head with an impish grin. “I was thinking, last night, about what you said about keeping a hold on yourself, and thought I’d try it.”

Oh. Shows what I know.

When we stood up, I finally recognized where we were—a baseball dugout. I remembered squirming into the locked field through a gap under the chain link fence—Dana, of course, had flown over it. We’d come here a couple hours before dawn, to curl up in a hideaway. We’d done a lot of running.

Getting out wasn’t as easy for me—naked and barefoot, climbing over wasn’t a good idea. I shrugged and shifted back to wolf—out was as easy as in, in this form. I trotted after Dana to the tree with my clothes, and shifted back as she retrieved them. Which, of course, deserved another kiss. Several.

Finally we broke. “See you in school?” Dana asked me.

“Out front,” I agreed.

She smiled, and took off again. I thought for a moment, then started jogging for home. After lying on that smelly blanket, getting the stink of homeless men on me, I needed clean clothes. Besides, Caesaria would notice if I wore them again. Maybe I could get in and out before anyone noticed me.

Dana

Mom and Jim waited in the living room when I got home, wearing You’re In Trouble looks.

“Dânaradriel,” Mom said.

Full name—that meant Big Trouble. I hadn’t known my good mood could get zapped so quickly. They sat on the couch together, a united parental front. They’d been there long enough the air tasted annoyed. “Yes, Mother?”

“Where have you been?” my stepfather said.

“Flying,” I said. “I do that at night, you know.” Trying to play it light.

“You haven’t been with Kaidlêarnien for two nights,” Mom said.

Oh. That’s what this was about. “We got separated,” I said.

“Yesterday night,” my stepfather said. “You skipped entirely, last night.”

My teacher must have talked to them. He never does that.

Mom went on, “Not only are your studies important, he’s worried sick about you. Did you think of that?”

Um. Well, no. I flushed.

“Where have you been?” Jim repeated.

“I don’t have to—” I started to say, before stopping myself. Oh, drat was I in trouble.

“Yes,” Mom said, “you do.”

I swallowed and sat down.

“We’re worried about you,” Jim said, in that oh so concerned parent voice. “You could have been in danger.”

“Oh, no, I was completely safe with—” I hesitated a bee’s wingbeat, but it’s not like I could lie, and went on, “—my boyfriend.”

“You spent the night with your boyfriend?” Jim said, hard voice incredulous.

And because I was in for it anyway, I started talking, as fast as I could to get over their objections. “It’s not what you think—we were out all night, not in, so it’s not like I had sex with him all night—not that I could have, ‘cause he like wasn’t human most of the time anyway—except at the end, but that’s beside the point—he just needed someone with him as he ran—so I was perfectly safe.”

They looked at me.

“Dânaral,” Mom finally said, “what is he when he isn’t human?”

I had to tell the truth. “A wolf.”

Jim blinked, then shook his head. “This must be some new definition of ‘safe’ I was previously unaware of.”

Mom crinkled her nose. “That’s a kind of dog isn’t it?”

“A wild dog,” Jim said absently.

“Lupe isn’t wild, though—he’s my boyfriend,” I explained. “That’s why I was safe.”

“Are you telling me,” Jim said, voice rising, “that you’re going out with a werewolf?“

“Uh huh.” He got it—though why the shouting?

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nina,” he said to Mom, “when you told me about Elfland, why didn’t you mention werewolves?”

“Because I’ve never heard of them before!” she protested. “What are they?”

“Oh for—!” Jim got up and stomped across the room, stopping in front of the window. Mom and I both rose to watch him. My stepfather stood for a moment, hands flexing, before turning back to us.

“You,” he said to me, “are so grounded.”

“What?!” Mom said, as I cried, “Why?!”

The next seconds were such the chaos, as we three talked over each other—complaint, defense, protest. I realized, though, we’d get nowhere like this, and stamped my foot.

“Stop it!“ I pointed at Jim, “Just calm down a sec!” To my surprise as much as his, he shut up.

I spun to face Mom and pointed at her in turn. “Which means you too.” Because it was easier, I continued my turn 360 and pointed back at Jim. He looked confused. Behind me, a protesting noise from Mom, and I spun to her again—she looked at me wide-eyed. She held her peace, though, so I twirled back to Jim. “Got that?”

Jim took a deep breath. “I will try to be reasonable.” Then he threw up his hands. “Though how to be reasonable about something irrational, I don’t know.”

“Dear!” Mom said, and he shut up.

She turned to me. “Flitter, both of us were worried—” she glanced at her husband, promising more questions to him in private, “—as was Kaidlêarnien.”

I drew breath. “I’m sorry—that I ditched lessons without telling him. But I’m not sorry I have a boyfriend.”

“Well, no,” Mom said, with a small smile I didn’t understand. “You shouldn’t be.”

Jim made a strangled noise.

“I think, though,” Mom went on, “we should sort this out later—we all need to get ready.”

I glanced at the clock—eep!

Jim grumbled deep in his chest, then said, “Go on—get dressed.”

I nodded and hurried out the room—though why bother dressing in human clothes, if I was just going to take them off again, I didn’t know. Well, except that meant leaving my girdle in the box all day, and I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t get stolen.

In the hallway, Brian was hanging onto the end of the banister, half-hidden behind it. He looked at me, troubled. “What’s going on?”

I knelt in front of him. “Nothing, Bug—your father’s just mad at me for frightening him.”

“Oh.” He seemed to understand that—he shifted a bit from behind the pillar. “You in trouble?”

“A little, but don’t worry about that. Now got get your shoes on—we’re leaving.”

“‘K.” He scampered into the den. I took a deep breath, then stood and went upstairs.

I don’t like the feeling of having messed up, yanno?

Lupe

I met Dana in front of school, as she walked from the corner. She again had a large coffee, but today munched on a danish in her other hand. She wore a pale-yellow, thin-strapped top just large enough in back to cover her wings and a matching short skirt—kinda hot, actually. She looked pensive, a lot more worried than we’d parted. Then she saw me and smiled, and her antennae perked up. Something must have happened at home.

Family. I knew how that could go.

“Hey, partner,” she said.

“Hey.”

We stepped close together—not touching, but closer than I let most people get. In wolf form, I remembered, I thought of her as my pack—and wolfpacks are physically close.

Her antennae brushed my forehead, featherlight. “You showered.”

In the gym again. I nodded but said nothing: Babs came up to us. She wasn’t smirking, quite, but her smile was definitely smug.

“Interesting date last night?” she asked.

As in, assuming we’d had sex. Well, we had, but little did she know. No one was close enough to hear, yet, so I said softly, “Full moon.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Exactly,” Dana said.

Babs recovered quickly. “That must have been interesting.”

“It was fun!” Dana said sternly.

Which tripped Babs up again—I could almost see the bestial thought pass through her. Well, I suppose a girl like her usually has her mind in the gutter.

Dana went on, “If tiring.” She smiled at me as she rotated her shoulders, stretching stiff muscles.

Tired from flying, that is, though I was sure Babs put another meaning on it. I’d led Dana on a game of chase for several hours, because of—

“There you guys are,” Tatja called out. She hurried up to us, slightly breathless—which for a jock like her meant a lot of running.

The girls greeted each other. I nodded absently to Tatja—I was trying to track down that memory she’d interrupted.

To Dana, Tatja said, “I wanted to ask—were you in Carson Park last night?”

One antenna went up, alert, while the other quirked down in perplexity. “Y-y-yah.”

And if my human ears moved, they would have perked forward. Had Tatja seen us? When... ?

“Be careful there, eh? Enough wild animals come down from the mountains—could be dangerous.”

“Hello—wings,” Dana said.

Tatja turned up her hand—point. “Still, we—there’s been reports of a wolf in the park.”

Babs’s eyes widened, and she glanced at me. Dana carefully didn’t look at me.

And all the hair on my neck and back and arms stood up—I remembered now. We’d spent most of the night running, because I’d spotted the Hunt in the park. They hadn’t been close, just a faint scent on the wind and a distant call through the trees, but I’d still led Dana away—quickly, with a game of chase.

Just thinking of the Hunt mades me shudder, man. I didn’t know what they were, but they’d almost caught me a couple times. Not only were they good—they had magic. Magic is the only thing more dangerous than a rifle, as far as I’m concerned.

And that “we” slip? Tatja had been part of the Hunt—and seen us. I was certain of it.

“What are you?” I said softly. Not growled, but it was a close thing.

“What?” Tatja glanced at me, then looked again. “You’re as twitchy as a—” A wild animal, she didn’t say.

Tatja didn’t move, but her stance shifted—onto alert, poised to fight. Or to hunt. I did the same.

Dana stepped between us, pointing her danish at me and her coffee at Tatja. “Hey, whoa.”

“I’m chill,” I told her, though I wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to attack through her.

“Tats?”

Tatja nodded, not looking away from me.

“What are you?” I asked Tatja again.

“What are you?” she countered.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Dana said, “and I’m tired of people ragging on him just because he’s—”

Babs suddenly grabbed Dana’s arm, splashing coffee, and started walking. “I think this should be done in privacy,” she said, just loud enough for us to hear. She headed for the meeting tree—the one with a bench around the base—pulling Dana in her wake.

I bit myself mentally—confronting this whatevershewas in public, when she’d figured out who I am. I smoothly slunk after them, keeping Dana between me and Tatja. She followed.

Under the tree, Dana turned to Tatja and said, “Now what’s this about?”

Tatja pointed her sharp chin at me. “You’re the wolf we glimpsed last night.”

“You’re the Hunt that’s tried to kill me,” I counted.

Her eyes widened. “You’re the wolf that keeps getting away.”

“Not a wolf,” Dana said.

Tatja corrected herself. “Werewolf.”

“I know I am,” I said, “but what are you?” Third time’s the charm—isn’t that what they say?

Tatja chewed her lip, then glanced at Babs. Babs raised her eyebrows—she’d known about me. Tatja blinked, then after a moment, nodded to herself.

“I’m a nymph,” she said. “A follower of Diana.”

Of who? Then I remembered, from that Greek myth unit back in eighth grade—goddess of, among other things, the hunt. A Hunt that was still alive and well, it seemed.

Dana screwed up her face. “Huh?”

“Diana is the goddess of—” Tatja began, but Dana waved her hand—the remains of her danish went flying behind the tree. “Yes yes yes—but what’s a nymph?“

“A nature spirit,” Babs said. “A minor divinity of the wilderness.”

That made it sound almost innocent. I wanted to know more about this Hunt, or whatever she called it—this “we.”

Dana seemed to read my mind. “And what about last night?”

“We go hunting, in service to the Goddess,” Tatja said.

“For?”

Tatja looked at me. “Wild beasts.”

I hissed through my teeth. “By the Silver Mistress, I am no wild beast.”

She reacted strongly to that. “I—heh.” She made a disbelieving sort of smile. “I guess we do both follow Her.”

Oh, right—Diana was also the moon goddess. Though the idea of this Huntress and me being aligned, that was ... uncomfortable. For both of us.

“Well that stops now,” Dana said firmly. Off Tatja’s surprised look, she added, “Hands off Lupe.”

Tatja snorted, and gave me an amused look—so glad to entertain her. “No offense, but he’s not my type.”

I was trying to come up with a comeback for that when Babs suddenly clapped her hands to her mouth—and the color drained from her face. She stared at Tatja with something like horror.

“What?” Dana asked.

Babs swallowed. “You’re supposed to be chaste, aren’t you?”

“Well, supposed to, yeah,” Tatja told her.

“But I—but I—!”

I frowned at that. Then I got it—Babs must have used her houri mojo on Tatja. Just as on everyone else.

Tatja nodded. “Yes. It was fun.” She smiled, as if at the memory.

Babs shook her head, disbelieving. She was still pale. “You didn’t get in trouble?”

Tatja chuckled. “It’s one thing to sleep with someone—it’s another to be seduced. Why do you think so many nymphs have had succubi and incubi as friends?” As if she’d known what Babs was.

Babs swallowed. “Peri, actually,” she said faintly.

“You’re a—?” Tatja raised her eyebrows. “But you—”

The bell rang, starting school. And Dana and I hadn’t undressed yet.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Drat,” Dana agreed. She caught my hand—making me sticky from her danish—and we hurried to the door, followed by the two girls. Spirits. Whatever.

Which meant, on top of everything else, the principal was Not Amused at our tardiness. At least he just shook his head as we stripped, then gestured us in. And the day had started so well.

Dana

I was late to homeroom and was marked tardy. I wished I could have claimed it was because of Program business, but well, it wasn’t. Not that I really noticed, what with my head whirling around, thinking about Tatja. I didn’t notice announcements, either.

One thing was clear—if Tatja was supposed to be chaste, no wonder she’d a hard time in the Program.

Lupe met me on the way to English, looking even more worried than I felt—which was sweet of him. “Lupe,” I said, squeezing his hand, “it’ll be alright.”

He snorted.

Ooo-kay, what was this about? I pulled him aside, against a wall of lockers. “Lupe.”

After a moment, he whispered, “I don’t trust her.”

Not trust Tatja? Then I realized: he’d said her Hunt tried to kill him—to him, she was still a predator on his tail, one who’d be sitting with us in class. Predators are bad juju—I understood that—but how to convince him Tatja was safe? That she was no owl or bat? It was as hard as convincing my stepfather that Lupe was safe. “I’m sure it was a misunderstanding.”

He raised his eyebrows. “They kill wild beasts—and I was one.”

“Yes, but they didn’t know it was you.”

“And now they do.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I know she’s your friend, but how do I know she won’t go after me now?”

What, here in school? “You don’t know that—you don’t know anything about the H—them.”

“Exactly,” Lupe said. “That’s why I don’t trust her.”

The bell rang, starting first period. We looked at each other. And I didn’t know what to say. It was the worst sort of conflict, the kind I don’t know what to do about. I mean, I couldn’t make them trust each other. It made me uncomfortable.

When the bell finished, Lupe tugged my hand and we started for class.

In English, Tatja was back in our old place, instead of up front with Lupe and me. Talk about a boyfriend getting between you and your friends. I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign. Nor was the steady looks she and Lupe shared. Which only made me feel worse. I’d already had one scare about losing my friends this week.

“Dana, Lupe,” Ms Emerson said, “relief?”

We both shook our heads. Not when I was feeling this bad.

Which meant Emerson started us straight out on the dratted Dream. Today, act three, scene two, and act four—the four lovers get further mixed up before Oberon demixes them all like a sort of fairy reverse blender. Again, I read Hermia aloud, that acorn and bean and minimus, and Selina, the painted maypole Helena. Emerson had to explain the maypole thing to everyone. Lupe again read Lysander as such the stuffed shirt—made me really wonder what Hermia saw in him.

As we read and talked, I couldn’t help comparing the four Athenians to my friends, though yeah, I know, there’s five of us. Even aside from this morning’s latest complication, Lupe and I had straightened ourselves out—not that we’d been tangled—but what about Fritz? If he felt anything like what I did for Lupe, then he must be like feeling really bad. And then there was whatever Babs had done with Tatja.

I glanced at Tats. Was she really supposed to stay a virgin for her goddess? I thought a nymph was, like, a sort of nymphet—but now I wondered if that was the other way around. And what did nymphomania have to do with anything? I’d have to ask her later.

And then the four Athenians woke up, re-sorted into their proper pigeon-hole pairs, and the whole thing seemed to be a dream. I wondered whether Demitrius meant that as in unreal or as in Lupe’s memories of being in wolf form. I couldn’t ask that directly, of course—not without giving Lupe away. But it bugged me. I mean, the point’s obviously important, given Shakespeare named the play after it. Maybe I’d write my essay on that, instead of Puck’s gender issues.

Near the end of class, Emerson showed us a clip from a movie version, of Theseus discovering the Athenians waking up. What she said she wanted us to focus on was how Theseus and Hyppolyta interacted, which was not in the play because, yanno, she has no lines in that scene—but what everyone looked at was the butts of four naked actors. Lupe and I glanced at each other, and shook our heads. Some teachers.

When class ended, Tatja finally approached, for going to our next class together. She raised her right hand, palm out to Lupe: peace.

Lupe looked at her a moment, then pursed his lips. Then he looked me in the eyes, with a flick at Tats—watch myself. I raised three fingers of my right hand, pinkie folded under my thumb, like I’d seen people do when they make promises—I will.

He blinked twice, then with a nod to me, hurried out.

Tatja shook her head, though at what I didn’t know. As we left the classroom, she said, “Thing is, Danes? You’re not a Boy Scout.” She did the three-fingered pledge.

“Only boys do that?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” After a moment, I asked, “Then what do girls do?”

“Kiss and make up,” Tatja said, distracted. Which puzzled me for a moment, till I realized she was looking past me. I turned, and saw Babs—looking for once not at me, but at Tatja. She bit her lip.

“It’s okay,” Tatja said to her. “Really.”

“It’s just—” Babs stopped. Tatja caught her hand.

“Now you know to be careful in how you seduce people,” I said, “and you’ll watch out.”

Babs looked at me, startled.

I took her other hand and started hurrying to bio. “I mean,” I said between breaths, “that’s the thing about powers—you have to use them only for good.”

“Or else?”

We skidded to a stop in front of the door. Both my friends looked at me expectantly. “Or bad things happen. ‘Cause after all you made bad things happen, so they do.”

After a moment, Tatja said, “I’m not sure I follow that.”

One day, I was going to have to talk to them about the Great Circle. But first, we had biology. Except, no—Babs didn’t. What was she doing here? She still had to run across the school to drama class. I should have remembered. She twiddled her fingers and ran off.

Fritz again was already inside ahead of us, sitting at his lab bench. I turned down Ms Leyden’s offer for relief, aware of his owlish glasses watching me. “Tomorrow then,” she told me, “which works out better, anyway.”

I made a face. She and her fairy sex fetish. What-ever. But it wasn’t like, without Lupe here, I was much in the mood for it. Even with her naked body near mine.

Once again, I sat on the stool up front, and talked. This time about fairies and other non-humans in this world, and what we do here. Thank the Spirit Leyden never once asked about a non-human I hadn’t mentioned already—if she’d asked about peris and nymphs, I’d’ve had to tell her. As it was, I had to carefully not look at my friends, the whole period. Well, except when Tatja asked about what sort of flowers I opened, if I flew at night—I listed all the night-bloomers here and outside the city, even the yuccas (which I know all too much about, ‘cause they are such the tedious), but said I didn’t do much of that yet ‘cause I was still working under my teacher. But otherwise I ignored them.

Just as well.

Lupe

I spent calc not listening to the review of what would be on our AP test. Not because of boring—because of Tatja. I’d managed to Not Watch her all through English only because Dana’d been with me. But next period was P.E., and we’d be alone together.

That’s a joke, man. I meant aside from everyone else. Ah, forget it.

Dana was right about one thing—I didn’t know what the Hunt was, or Tatja’s part in it. Dana assumes the unknown is safe until proven otherwise. But I’m not a cheerful, optimistic fairy.

Like Tatja, I’m a hunter.

When I got to the locker room, I was wound up in more ways than one: two Program girls (I think the freshman and sophomore) had stopped me for a reasonable request. For meanings of “reasonable” that include fingering them together, to orgasm. And if you think getting off naked and willing girls doesn’t turn a guy on, well, you need to get laid, man. Seriously.

I spotted Tatja easily—she’s tall enough to see over the lockers—and avoided her. Which meant I walked right into the hands of Luisa’s posse. For meanings of “hands” that included the rest of their bodies.

Ah, hell—they jumped me. And me too horny to resist, even with my skin crawling from being womanhandled. Before I knew it, I was on my back on a bench with Luisa riding me. She came quickly and was replaced by another.

At the end of ten minutes, when a coach chased us out of the locker room, I’d had sex with three girls—and the only reason the fourth hadn’t screwed me was she’d been on my face.

The thing of it was, at the start of this week, I would have felt smug at getting a triple zipless fuck. Like I said, shows what I knew. Now, I just felt ... used. Now that I knew what sex could be like, with Dana. Used and a little guilty.

And wobbly. I asked Coach Suarez if I could work out again, rather than run outside. I think I wobbled too much—he asked if I wanted to go to the nurse, but when I said no, he told me to take it easy.

I had the weight room nearly to myself—the football players had some mandatory drills, I think. Sweet. I wasn’t feeling up to company. After three reps of ten leg crunches, I got up—and came face to face with Tatja. I didn’t back away, but I did crouch a little, ready to dodge any magic.

She held her empty hands up. “Spot me?” She nodded towards the free weights.

I clamped my jaws shut before I snarled. That just may have been the only way to get me to trust her long enough to talk—a spotter’s got all sorts of ways to hurt the lifter. I licked my lips and nodded.

We said nothing through her first ten bench presses. Which suited me. As she rested her arms, she looked up at me. Finally, I couldn’t resist asking her just one thing about being a nymph.

“One question,” I said. “Sports?”

Tatja grinned. “Hunters were the jocks of ancient times.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. All those myths of hunters in the woods? Most of them had been princes, the alpha males of mythology. It made sense.

Tatja went on, so quietly I could barely hear her, “Lupe, do any other werewolves roam Carson Park?”

I shook my head. “None I know of.”

“Any wild wolves?”

Heh. “Nah—even if they wanted to be near humans, they’re scared of me.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell the others not to hunt wolves, when we’re in the city.”