Anne Bishop - Written in Red

Simon watched them trudge through several inches of snow. He wanted to shift, wanted to lash out at his enforcer, wanted to purge the uneasiness growing inside him. “We’re alone. Now tell me.”

“Sam is fine.” Blair looked straight ahead. The only other sound was the rhythmic swish of the wipers. “I’m not easy about how she did it, but I’m sure she meant no harm, and I do like the results.” He turned his head to look at Simon. “She got him out of the cage, and not just a few steps outside the apartment door to pee and poop. They’ve walked around the complex. He’s gone to the office with her. He was with her this afternoon when she made some deliveries before the weather started to turn. Maybe he was ready to wake up, and she did things that were just strange enough to slip past his fear.”

Simon looked away, confused by what he was feeling. Jealousy? Hurt? He’d spent two years trying to find a way to help Sam come back to them, and Meg had found the answer in a few days? He felt like a pair of jaws had closed over his throat, making it hard to breathe.

“How?” he finally asked.

“Something none of us would have considered,” Blair said. “A harness and leash.”

Shock. Fear. Fury. How dare any human try to restrain a Wolf?

“You let her do this?”

“First I knew of it, they were walking around the complex, and I wasn’t going to take on Henry and Vlad in order to discipline her. And after seeing how the pup was playing , I thought it best not to interfere.” Blair paused. “He’s playing again, Simon. He’s eating meat again. He’s acting like a young Wolf again. For the most part. He still hasn’t talked to any of us, but I think that will come if he’s not scared back into that cage.”

“Why would he be?” The pup was playing again? He wouldn’t allow anything to interfere with that.

Blair went back to staring out the window. “Like I said, I’m not easy with how Meg got Sam out of the cage, but Henry and Vlad have been keeping an eye on them and have voiced no objections. Elliot, however, is a problem.”

“Did he hurt Meg?” Simon asked, his voice stripped of emotion. Elliot didn’t know about Meg. If he bit her, cut her . . .

“She’s puking scared. I had the feeling there was something else, but Vlad wasn’t interested in telling me. He did want me to remind you that while the Sanguinati don’t usually hunt other terra indigene , we are not exempt from being prey.”

Simon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The Sanguinati are going after Elliot?”

A long pause. Then Blair said quietly, “I guess that depends on whether you can talk Meg into staying.”

“Well, she’s not going anywhere tonight.” Of course, someone who was puking scared might not consider the danger of trying to run when the roads were bad and the air too cold. Especially when that person had already run away once in exactly that kind of weather.

He unbuckled the seat belt. “Anything else that can’t wait until morning?”

Another pause. “Nothing that can’t wait. But if any monkeys dressed all in black try to enter the complex tonight, just kill them.” A longer pause. “It’s something Meg saw. Henry can tell you about it.”

Simon shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold. Meg had cut herself while he was gone? How many times? What other scraps of information were going to be tossed at him?

“We’re all going to meet tomorrow morning,” he growled. “You, me, Tess, Henry, Vlad, Jester, and anyone else you think needs to be there.”

“I’ll call you in the morning to find out if we’re meeting at the Business Association or the social room here at the complex,” Blair said.

He nodded. Except for Blair, the rest of them lived in the Green Complex. They could meet early and then see about getting the stores and roads open.

Grabbing his carryall, Simon got out of the van and broke a trail to his apartment’s front door. He reached for the door, then stepped back and looked around. Lights shining from the windows of every apartment except Meg’s.

It wasn’t that late, so it shouldn’t have been strange to see all the residences lit up. But it seemed like there were too many lights, too much brightness, making that dark space too noticeable, almost ominous.

Why was Meg sitting in the dark?

His uneasiness became an itch under his human skin, making him anxious to shift to a more natural shape. As Wolf, he had the fangs and strength to deal with itchy problems.

He heard Sam howl—and Elliot’s growl of reply. Opening his front door, he stepped into a tension that had him fighting not to shift and force both Wolves into submission.

Tossing the carryall toward the stairs, he stepped into the living room’s archway, treading snow on the wood floor. Elliot whipped around to face him, teeth bared, the canines too long to pass as human. Sam gave Simon one accusing look, then sat in a corner of his cage, his back to both adults.

Simon said.

No answer. Not even a grumble.

Looking oddly uneasy, Elliot turned his head and snapped at the pup, “Stop this foolishness, and come out of that damn cage! You don’t need to be in there!”

Simon growled. Blood and anger. He could smell both.

“At least take off those snowy boots,” Elliot said snippily. “You’re tracking the wet all over the—”

Simon grabbed Elliot and pushed him against the hallway wall. “I’m not some human you can intimidate. And I’m not a pup anymore. You don’t tell me what to do. No one tells me what to do.”

He lengthened his fangs and waited.

Elliot stared at him for a moment. Then he closed his eyes and raised his head, exposing his throat to his leader.

Simon stepped back, not feeling sufficiently human or Wolf to decide how he should respond. Releasing Elliot, he walked into the kitchen, unlaced his boots, and put them on the mat by the back door.

Elliot fetched a couple of old towels and wiped up the floors. When he returned to the kitchen, Simon studied his sire.

“You stirred things up here,” he finally said. “Why?”

“I’m not the one who—”

“You’ve angered the Sanguinati, and that’s not going to help any of us right now.”

“You don’t know what’s been going on here,” Elliot snapped. “What that monkey-fuck female has done.”

“She’s not a monkey fuck, and she is not prey,” Simon said, his voice a low, threatening rumble. “She is Meg.”

“You don’t know what she’s done!”

“She gets mail and deliveries to the complexes on a regular basis. She has a routine with the deliverymen, so we get the merchandise we bought. And she got Sam out of that damn cage!”

“She put him on a leash, Simon. On a leash! ”

“It’s not a leash,” a young, scratchy voice shouted. Or tried to shout. “It’s a safety line. Adventure buddies use a safety line so they can help each other.”

Elliot stared, frozen. Simon turned, barely breathing.

Small naked boy, wobbling on stick-thin legs. His hair was a gold mixed with Wolf gray that was rarer than a pure black or white Wolf . Gray eyes full of angry tears, and yet there was a dominance in that weak body that didn’t match Simon’s but was higher than Elliot’s standing within the Lakeside pack. Or would be when Sam was an adult.

“Sam,” Simon whispered.