“I’ll have help with that. The sheriff’s made sure his people have rifles. My weapon has good stopping power for a handgun, but with a bear, a rifle is better. That reminds me. If you do end up shooting, empty the clip.”
With that romantic utterance, he dipped his head and kissed her.
His taste flowed into her in a sweet rush—musk and man and wild, that pheromic hint of otherness her tongue surely wasn’t clever enough to detect. Yet it did, or she did, or something. He kissed her with the controlled intensity he brought to every task, with a calm focus that announced there was nothing in the world more important than her mouth. Nothing more important than her.
When he lifted his head, she smiled, feeling twice as settled as she had a moment ago. He really was calm. That wasn’t an act to reassure her. Meeting her family might have scared him, but a grizzly bear—that, he knew what to do about.
She rested one hand on his chest. The other still gripped the holstered .357, she was glad to notice. It wasn’t a good idea to drop a loaded gun. “I sometimes wonder if, years ago, you determined the exact amount of fear that would keep you on your toes without being a distraction, and that’s how much you allow yourself to feel.”
“Fear can be useful,” he agreed. “You want me to fasten the holster for you?”
“No, I’ll get it.” She’d worn a belt today, which was lucky, because she usually didn’t, so she undid it and pulled it out of the belt loops. While she did that, he Changed.
In the darkness she couldn’t see the Change, but even if she’d been staring straight at Benedict in bright daylight she wouldn’t have seen much. She’d talked to several of the women at Nokolai Clanhome, asking what they saw when lupi Changed. Their answers were notable for how little they agreed and included things like “a swirling darkness,” and “They sort of fold up and unfold at the same time,” and “They flicker in and out.” A few said they didn’t see anything—one moment there was a man, the next a wolf. Or vice versa. Whatever happened in between, they either didn’t see it or didn’t remember what they’d seen.
The sheer variety of answers supported Arjenie’s theory that the human brain wasn’t set up to process what happened during the Change, so it made things up. Sadly, cameras weren’t set up to process it, either. Digital or film, static or video, all they recorded was a spot of visual static.
Whatever the process, Arjenie knew it involved a great deal of pain, but the pain never lingered beyond the transformation. The faster a lupus could Change, the better, and some places made the Change easier than others. She wished she could ask the enormous wolf now gulping down three pounds of raw hamburger how this spot measured up—compared, maybe, to Changing on Delacroix land—but she had to stick to yes-or-no questions when Benedict was wolf.
He’d finished eating by the time she gathered his clothes and shoes—and not two, but three knives, and where had he hidden that wickedly slim blade?—and got them stashed in the backpack. Then they went back to the others.
“Took a while,” Porter said. He was staring at the wolf beside her.
“Did it?” Arjenie looked around. “Where’s—oh, there he is.” Sammy was on the ground, folding himself into slow, careful knots. Yoga was great for focus, and Arjenie always thought she should do it more often but never followed through. But Sammy had taken to yoga like a seal to water—as if he’d found his second element.
Benedict had trotted over to the crime scene tape that marked the entrance to the path. He sniffed around at the grass there, then looked over his shoulder at her. “Do you smell bear?” she asked.
He shook his head but kept looking at her expectantly.
“You want to go first?”
He nodded.
“He really does understand,” Porter said.
The sheriff had a funny expression on his face—not exactly scared but not exactly not-scared, either. Amazement was part of it. “He told you he would.”
“It’s different, seeing it.” He seemed to shrug off his reaction, turning brisk. “Okay. I’ve got two deputies waiting by the creek, and while you were busy I checked with them. Nothing happening down there. Let’s go. Arjenie, you will let us know if you need help.”
She agreed that she would and they set off.
Chapter Eight
Benedict ducked under the crime scene tape and started down.
As he had told the sheriff, some kinds of thinking didn’t come easily for him when he was wolf. But this puzzle would need both sides of him, so he made the effort to hold on to words and concepts he knew mattered. It helped that this Change, unlike the one earlier, had been intentional.
He did not like relying on humans for backup. They were scent-blind all the time and literally blind on a dark night. Which this was. The moon might be nearly full, but most of her light was trapped by the low-hanging clouds. But you worked with what you had, and so far the only scents he was picking up on the path were human, with faint traces of other animals—raccoon, rabbit, mice, fox. The wind was from the southeast and steady, blocked somewhat by the brush and trees, but what reached him brought no warnings.
It was an easy descent on four feet. The two-legged ones following him were slow, but he was in no hurry. Their slowness was good for Arjenie, who was in the middle of the pack. The sheriff had arranged it that way, which earned the man some points with Benedict. Clay Delacroix brought up the rear.
Being human, the ones behind him needed flashlights, mage light, and words to make their way down the side of the draw. Most of their speech was to the point—Watch out for that branch or There’s a big step down here. Twice Porter asked Arjenie how she was doing, which must have annoyed her. She’d said she’d let them know if she needed help. Was the man unable to take her at her word because she was female, or did he treat everyone with a physical impairment like a child?
The path leveled as abruptly as it had begun. Ahead was flat, gravelly ground tufted with grass—a cul-de-sac, he saw as he stepped forward. Rocky outcroppings that had refused to erode at the same rate as their brethren flanked either side of the flat, sandy area where the body had been found, spinning the creek in a wide curve around them. The water of that creek was smooth, dark, and almost silent.
The two men standing near that water were silent, too. And armed. And wearing uniforms. One of them aimed a flashlight at him, blinding him—but not totally. He saw it when the other man raised his rifle.
“Dammit, Rick,” the first man said, “don’t shoot him. That’s the lupus the sheriff told us was coming.”
If he knew that, why was he still shining that damn light in Benedict’s eyes?
“Yeah, but—”
Benedict decided they weren’t going to shoot and moved out of that annoying flashlight beam. And stopped, his lip lifting in a snarl and his hackles lifting—not at the men. At the stink—faint but unmistakable. He lifted his nose to be sure of the direction, then approached the bad-smelling place.
Blood, yes. But that was the least important of what he smelled.
“What’s he doing?”
“How the hell do I know?”
“Turner.” Porter, who’d been behind him on the path, was still misnaming him. “What have you—hell, I can’t ask him that, can I? Lower your damn rifle, Rick. I told you what to expect.”
“Is that where the body was found?” Robin asked. “I imagine he smells the blood.”