The light changed and he moved forward. “Okay. So I missed it. The obvious. So she taught you to hunt?”
“No. I learned to hunt from my grandmother. Her father was a tracker and moonshiner. My mother taught me how to shoot. Every Marine’s a rifleman, ya know.” She shrugged. “By the time I was twelve, I’d skin my own kills.”
“That’s lovely.”
Miki nodded, ignoring his sarcasm. “I’d cut off the pelts. Strip the flesh. Freeze it. We’d have deer meat for weeks.” She looked at him. “And sometimes I’d make little hats from their heads.”
Conall pulled over on a quiet suburban street. “Okay. This conversation’s ending now.” He shuddered. “Freaky woman.” He glanced around. “We’re getting near. I can smell them.”
“We’re not going to get any closer?”
“No way.” He shut off the car and handed her the keys. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, leave and don’t go back to the hotel. Understand me?”
“Yes, my liege.”
He glared at her. “Smart ass.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Stay downwind.”
Then he was out of the car and disappearing down the street. Miki put her feet up on the dashboard and waited.
Conall dumped his clothes behind an empty house with a For Sale sign in the front, shifted, and trotted the rest of the way to Leucrotta’s house. He knew as soon as he hit their street. The smell almost overpowered him. It took him a bit to discover the disgusting scent came from the pasty white secretions on almost every tree and home he passed. When these guys mark their territory, they really mark their territory. He soon realized almost every house on the street belonged to this Clan.
The street was pretty deserted and Conall assumed the majority of members were at their day jobs. He slipped into a backyard and tracked his way to one of the houses where he actually heard activity. There was a high fence, but he found a tear in the wood he could look through. A good-sized property with a pool, it seemed like any other normal high-priced suburban home. Yet he was witness to one of the most disturbing things he’d ever seen.
Four females—they were females right?—were in a full-on fistfight. Blood was drawn and he could hear bones breaking. The other females, about fourteen of them, watched impassively. Even more freakish was the vicious brawl going on between the children. Not just a shoving match or putting little Johnny’s head in the toilet, but teeth and claws used to cause permanent harm.
He thought about growing up as wolf pup. He remembered wrestling with Zach. One time, when they were no more than six, Zach accidentally knocked him down a flight of stairs and the poor kid cried for hours until Conall could walk again and remember his first name.
But what Conall watched now was a brutal display of pure, unadulterated aggression. These were definitely not people to fuck with lightly.
Then the wind shifted. The fighting stopped. The aggression stopped. And all attention focused on him at the fence.
He took several steps back, spun around, and took off.
It was time to call on his Pack.
Miki got tired of waiting in the SUV, so she sat on the stoop instead. She couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night. So that’s what Sara and Angie meant about getting your world rocked. No wonder people were obsessed with sex. Now she was obsessed with sex. Sex with Conall.
She felt Conall as wolf come up next to her. She didn’t even bother glancing at him as he settled down next to her. He nuzzled her arm.
“What are you doing?” He licked her chin.
“Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”
Conall lay down next to her and rolled on his back. She sighed. This was so demeaning.
Still refusing to look at him, she rubbed his belly. Conall clearly loved it. She could feel his whole body wiggling under her fingers as they played across his stomach and chest.
“This is ridiculous. Just shift and tell me what you saw.” She finally turned to look at him. His tongue was hanging out, the happiest grin on his face. And it suddenly occurred to her that this dog was not a wolf. And it definitely wasn’t Conall. “Oh for shit’s sake—”
“What are you doing?”
Miki cringed. She looked up and kept looking up until she could see Conall’s face. As human, he stood on the other side of her. Wet, like he’d been swimming. Fully dressed. And fully disgusted.
“Uh…playing with this cute doggie?”
“You thought he was me, didn’t you!”
“Don’t get testy. It could have been you.”
“It’s a golden retriever,” he growled. “I can’t talk to you right now.” He stormed back to the SUV.
Miki looked at the golden laying comfortably next to her. “Thanks a lot.”
“Are we going?”
Miki stood up as the dog bolted at Conall's yelled question, his tail between his legs. She couldn’t even spare him a glance. She walked back to the SUV and over to Conall. Normally she wouldn’t care if she hurt someone’s feelings, except maybe Sara and Angelina’s but they had hides made of stone. But for some reason, having Conall mad at her gave her a lousy feeling.
She stood in front of him. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“I know that. I just wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even look at him.”
“You know, we don’t all look alike.” She didn’t bother to point out that they were all part of the canis lupus family. That would probably just piss him off more.
“I know.” On a whim, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. She felt his body grudgingly begin to relax as his arms wrapped around her. She had never been an affectionate person, but for some reason she found it easy and kind of nice with Conall. “I’m really, really sorry. Really.”
He chuckled. “Not sure you said enough reallys.”
She felt the dampness of his T-shirt. “Why are you wet?”
“Wind shifted. I had to use someone’s pool to get them off my scent.”
“Smart. So what did you find out? Was Conridge right?”
“They’re more than barbaric. They’re scary. Scarier than I remember. Maybe you could do some research on that computer of yours. See what else you can find out.”
But she already had some knowledge, so why wait? Miki closed her eyes. She could visualize one of her favorite books. Encyclopedia of Mammals. She saw the pages turn as if she had the book in her lap. She flipped to the section on hyenas and read what was there.
“They’re matriarchal. Extremely aggressive, which we already know. They don’t get along like wolves or Pride, though. There is a lot of in-fighting. Well, this explains a lot. The male-female sex organs look very similar. At one time it was believed they were hermaphrodites, but they’re not. Oooh.”
“What?”
“The cubs are born with a full set of teeth and they start fighting from the time they are pushed out of the womb. Sometimes two will fight while the mother is cleaning off a third. How freaking interesting is that?”
Conall frowned. He should be mad. She’d mistaken a golden retriever for him. Not even a German shepherd or a husky, but a golden. But he was too busy loving the feel of her arms wrapped around his waist and the sudden realization she just pulled hyena knowledge out of her pretty tight ass.
“How exactly did you know all that?”
“I have a good memory.”
“It sounded like you were reading from a book. You were, weren’t you?” He could feel her get uneasy. “You just read a book in your head, didn’t you?”