Charmed Wolf

twisted it around so it faced the room, an invitation to collapse into its softness without leaving either the door or Rune at my back.
The chair was my solitary consolation on hard days, but I didn’t sit there when others were present. Instead my norm was to settle myself behind the desk, a barrier and a reminder that I was Alpha.
Still, the office chair—imposing and uncomfortable—was ten feet further away and my legs were strangely shaky.
So I entered the space Rune vacated. Sucked in another dose of persimmon while letting myself fall into the softness of my comfy chair.
The cushions warmed me, but not quite as much as contact with Rune had. I watched as he paced back and forth across my office. Every motion was that of a dancer. Perfection. Beauty. My inner wolf hummed approval. Quieting her, I still caved to her wishes. “If you want the job of Consort, it’s yours.”
For a moment, Rune froze, then he shook his head. “That’s not why I’m here. As I suspected, the fae have chosen your pack as a source of power.”
My jaw clenched. Of course he was here on his wild-fae hunt. Rune’s presence had nothing to do with the Consort application. Nothing to do with the way my body came alive whenever he was near me.
Oblivious to my disappointment, Rune strode across my office yet again while providing further information. “I’m not even certain this is one of the fae we’ve been hunting, actually. The magic embedded in your glitter is weak, more like a Betweener trying to break through into the human world than like someone who crossed at Samhain. Either way, if they latch onto your pack bonds, they can suck up far more than you’ll care to part with.”
The Guardian would keep other fae out, so I wasn’t particularly interested in Rune’s doomsaying. Still, my curiosity was piqued. “Betweener? What’s that?”
Rune paused, facing away from me. The back of his neck, I noted was approximately as tense as mine felt. “There are three ways to cross over from Faery,” he informed me. “You can flee without the Queen’s consent, in which case you end up in limbo. Between. You use up most of your power making even that half crossing, so it takes a long time to gather back enough to work your way to earth.”
Which should have been all the answer I needed. But persimmon drew more questions out of me. “And the other two ways?”
“The Queen can release you from her service, which is the rare best-case scenario from a fae perspective since you don’t lose your magic and end up fully on earth. Or, option three, fae can take matters into their own hands and cross at Samhain. They end up on earth also, more able to make trouble than Betweeners but weaker than if they’d been given the Queen’s blessing.”
As Alpha, I should have cared only about the danger to my pack. But the question I asked didn’t come from the Alpha. “And you? Were you born here or did you cross over?”
Rune turned to face me. “That information is need-to-know.”
HIS VERBAL SLAP MADE me want to slap back harder. Instead, I reminded myself of pack priorities and demanded: “Your proof that this is happening in Whelan territory?”
Even as I asked, my analytical Alpha side was proposing scenarios. Was that why Ash had turned so uncharacteristically sneaky? The hope that my friend’s dishonor was due to fae manipulation was tantalizing, so I squashed it. Raising one eyebrow, I stared Rune down until his hand slipped into his suit jacket.
I expected him to withdraw a knife. A gun. Some sort of weapon. So I had my own dagger raised by the time Rune’s hand emerged cupping something small and shiny.
Not shiny like metal, though. Shiny like glitter. There were three of our sample vials nestled in his palm.
Now it was Rune’s turn to raise his eyebrows. But I didn’t sheathe my dagger. Just jerked my chin, a silent demand that he explain himself.
“Glitter samples,” he informed me. “Willa provided them.” He removed the stopper from one, dislodging a cascade of tiny particles. “Smell.”
He was in front of me so fast, I barely had time to bring the knife up. His knees struck the floor, which should have lowered my defenses. After all, he was ceding the high ground.
But my wolf was so much weaker than his wolf, even here where I should have been burgeoning with alpha dominance. Instinct sent my dagger point digging into the soft underside of his chin.
And...Rune simply ignored the threat. Hefted the vial and repeated his suggestion. “Smell.”
As if I could smell anything other than his persimmon. The signature aroma had faded to more normal levels when he was distant. Now, so close, the sweetness became heady. I found it hard to catch my breath.
Anger at my own reaction made my left hand jerky as it snatched the vial away from him. “Back up,” I growled.
He didn’t rise, but he did settle onto his heels. Six inches now separated us. Enough so I could push past the persimmon and sniff at the vial.
There was nothing unusual about the glitter. It smelled very faintly of the cornstarch Natalie used to create the biodegradable base layer. Of mica and binder and glue crafted together during her endless hours in the lab.
I shook my head and Rune cocked his. “You can’t sense the wrongness?” he prodded. “Slimy. Like fish left out in the sun.”
“No.”
“Part of my fae heritage then.” For the first time in our short acquaintance, I noted displeasure on his features.
No, that wasn’t quite true. When Megan doused me in milkshake, Rune’s face had pinched the same way. I just hadn’t learned to read the signs so soon after our first acquaintance.
Despite myself, I softened. I was quite familiar with regretting traits that formed the base of one’s own character....
But before I could say anything to that effect, my phone erupted into a geeky song about