He had fought a devastating war on Nexus, bringing both the Hope Crushing Horde’s and the Holy Anocracy’s offensives to a halt. He was a superb strategist, an excellent tactician, and he had no equal in close-quarters combat. He could lead an army or stand alone against overwhelming odds.
It was simply too much for the werewolves. Here was the son of their heroes who came out of nowhere and became the best werewolf ever. They were a people without a planet, refugees scattered across dozens of worlds. They needed a folk hero in the worst way, and Sean proved to be irresistible. Everything about him was legendary and mythical. The fact that he shunned fame and glory only made it worse.
Werewolves favored a direct kind of courtship. In the past few months, we’d had several female and male visitors who’d arrived at Gertrude Hunt to declare their admiration and interest. Luckily for me, the man was very different from the legend he had inspired.
The image on the screen changed into a big timer counting down. 30… 29… 28…
My cake!
“I have to go,” I told her.
“I want to talk to him!” the werewolf woman snarled.
“He should be back soon.”
“When?”
“Hopefully not for another twenty minutes. It will give you a chance to rehearse your speech.”
She blinked but recovered. “I don’t have a speech!”
“You say it like it’s my first time. There is always a speech.”
The timer reached zero and went off.
“Got to go.”
I took off down the hallway, escorted by Beast, while the woman’s curses slowly grew fainter behind me.
2
Are we about to witness werewolf courtship? Will Orro discover the illicit baking happening in his very own kitchen, right under his quills? Or is something even more dangerous afoot?
The story continues…
The cake rested in the springform. The meringue topping was blush and slightly crispy. It cracked a little, which would get a side eye from Orro, but I didn’t care.
I reached out and poked the springform. Barely warm. Okay.
A familiar presence crossed the inn’s boundary. The magic of the inn shifted in response. If Gertrude Hunt was a dog, it would’ve raised its head and wagged its tail.
Sean was home.
Another presence followed, creeping up our driveway. I motioned to the inn, and it produced a screen for me and tossed the feed from the side cameras onto it. Sean’s truck had driven up and parked in front of the garage. Behind it, a massive white tri-axle with a black dump bed filled with firewood slowly backed its way up the gentle slope of the driveway and around the house.
I took a long knife and carefully worked it around the perimeter of the springform, slicing through the meringue. If you tried to open the pan without it, half of the meringue would come off.
Sean got out of his truck. He was tall and corded with hard, lean muscle. You could tell just by looking at him that he was both strong and fast, but there was more to it. Sean looked ready. He projected a kind of calm but alert assurance, and you knew with a deep, instinctual understanding that if a threat appeared, he would respond instantly and with overwhelming force.
People sensed it and felt the need to label it. Since we lived in Texas, most of the time they ended up asking him if he played football, because somehow saying “that guy played football” provided a reasonable explanation for Sean’s combat readiness.
Beast took off, out through the doggie door, and straight to Sean, dancing around his feet and wagging her tail. He bent down to pet her.
I unlocked the latch on the pan and gently eased it up and over the cake. Perfect.
I dropped the springform into the sink, set the coffee pot to brew some decaf, and went outside, just in time to watch the dump truck unload a huge pile of firewood onto our grass. I went to stand next to Sean. He smiled at me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him and felt him relax.
You made it home, honey. It’s all good.
The driver, a middle-aged heavyset man with a ruddy face and short salt-and-pepper hair, got out and eyeballed it.
“Seven cords,” he told me proudly.
“Looks great,” I told him.
“Your husband didn’t pay for stacking,” the driver reported. “He said he needs the exercise.”
I smiled at Sean. He wasn’t my husband, but there was no reason to point that out. “We’ll take care of it.”
The driver winked at us. “You two are a cute couple. Say, were you a linebacker in high school?”
“Yeah,” Sean lied with a straight face.
He had done all sorts of sports in his childhood, but none through his schools. He was too good and too physically gifted, and his parents wanted to avoid attention. Most of his high school extracurricular activities had been split between several martial arts schools with carefully vetted teachers. He’d had an easier time blending in while in the Army. High school sports prioritized individual achievement and stardom, while the Army emphasized teamwork.
“Thought so,” the driver said. “Well, you folks have a good one.”
“Take care.” Sean raised his hand.
The driver got back into his truck and started down the driveway. The grass around the wood pile shivered.
“Not yet,” Sean said.
The lawn became still.
The dump truck rolled to the end of the driveway, sat there, letting the traffic pass, turned left, and sped down the road.
“Okay,” Sean said. “Take it.”
The lawn split, opening a black pit under the firewood. Gertrude Hunt gulped the whole seven cords in a single swallow, and I felt the impact roll through it. The lawn knitted together, as if zippered. No sign of the wood pile remained.
Sean raised his head, and his lips stretched into a slow, lazy smile. “Mmmm, apple cake.”
Surprising a werewolf with food was a lost cause. “We have a visitor.”
“I know. I smelled her by the garage. What does she want?”
“To talk to you.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”
We walked over to the garage. The door slid open. The werewolf woman blinked against the sudden sunlight and saw Sean. Her shoulders straightened. She tossed her hair back with a strategically impatient jerk of her head.
Here comes the speech.
“So that’s what you look like.” She’d pitched her voice lower, going for husky sexiness. “Not bad.”
No reaction.
“A man like you stuck in a place like this. What a waste.”
Sean said nothing.
“Wilmos is missing,” she said.
Wilmos was a first-strain werewolf, a veteran, one of the oldest survivors of Auul. The werewolfism kept him spry, but he was an adult when Sean’s parents were born, and he was instrumental in creating their alpha strain. After Auul was destroyed, Wilmos made his name as a mercenary. Now he ran a weapons shop at Baha-char and served as a go-between for mercenaries and the people who needed them.
Wilmos thought Sean walked on water. We’d met by chance, and when Sean decided he wanted to see the universe for himself, Wilmos showed him the ropes. He was the one who’d gotten Sean into that Nexus mess, and I would never forgive him for that. Ever.
Wilmos was also responsible for our current enthusiastic suitor problem. During the war on Nexus, Sean had assumed the identity of Turan Adin, an unkillable general who led the Merchant forces of Clan Nuan. In reality, Turan Adins dropped like flies, but their armor covered them completely, hiding their faces, so when one of them died, the Merchants simply hired a new one, put the armor on them, and sent them back into the slaughter. Some only lasted a few days, others a few weeks. Sean was the last Turan Adin. He had survived for 18 months.