Charmed Wolf

now?”
“Now he’s in the mess hall. He was cooking your breakfast the way he always does. I figured that would take long enough so I could report.”
Which meant Ash would be waiting for me in the breakfast nook. The morning sun was warm there and on weekends I usually granted myself a quarter of an hour to relax and chat with my friend over a pile of pancakes.
A friend who’d challenged with dishonor two nights ago. A friend who might be working for the fae now.
“Good work,” I told Caitlyn already thinking through the time it would take for me to shower. Ash would wait, but would a fae glamoured to look like Ash possess equal patience? The puzzle was impossible to decipher without knowing whether Ash was a willing ally, a charmed puppet, or the puppeteer himself hiding within another’s skin.
Harder when Rune started stripping in front of me. His long, lithe form was revealed one limb at a time until he reached for his pants, considered Caitlyn, then turned away.
Over his shoulder, he suggested, “Caitlyn could use a nap.”
Now that I peered at the girl more closely, I noted dark circles under her eyes. She’d stayed up all night for the good of the pack despite the fact she was barely older than Kale. Rune was right.
Before I could agree, though, Caitlyn disagreed. “I can do the laundry first, Alpha.”
Rune was right, but Caitlyn was more right. “Good,” I told her. “The pack must come first.”
THE TOWER WAS EMPTY when I emerged from my bathroom with my skin still raw from scrubbing off Rune’s aroma. I flared my nostrils and sniffed, but there was no persimmon left anywhere. Someone had opened the windows and let the last vestiges out.
My bed was similarly stripped, making something inside me feel even more barren. Ignoring the hole in my gut, I stalked down the stairs and headed for the mess hall. The space was busier than usual, but I was also later than usual. At the far end, within the semi-seclusion of the breakfast nook, Ash glanced up from our two-person table and smiled.
Before I could do more than nod at him, Willa appeared at my elbow. “You wanted me, Alpha?”
I’d pinged her on the way down, providing no information. But she didn’t complain when I told her to: “Walk with me.”
Together, we passed between tables of shifters who turned toward me with smiles and greetings. I nodded but didn’t stop to chat.
My step hitched, though, as Rune peeled himself away from the wall to warm my other side. He must have gone through the free box we kept by the exterior doors since he wore elastic-waist sweats that didn’t quite fit him. And he’d found a shower—or at least a garden hose—judging by the spots of water scattered across a chest that was enticingly bare.
Ripping my eyes away from the view, I strode toward the breakfast nook. Three abreast now, we stopped in the doorway. Surveyed the sight of Ash waiting, pancakes at the ready.
He looked so normal, like the friend whose loyalty I’d never doubted. But when his gaze came up to meet mine, something flickered behind his pupils.
Caitlyn hadn’t been wrong.
“Tar....” Ash stopped himself before he could spit out my name, replacing it with: “Alpha.” His glance slid across Rune and Willa before returning to me in their center. His brows drew together. “Is there a problem?”
“There is a problem,” I agreed. “Stand up.”
He didn’t. I hadn’t put the force of an alpha command behind the order, and maybe Ash was too befuddled to realize disobeying his Alpha was insolence.
Or maybe he had no intention of toeing the line. I reached out to grab his collar...and he was lupine, snarling and dodging.
“Alpha, shall I...?” Willa started. But I shook my head even as I shifted down to join him.
Because, yes, the three of us could have corralled Ash in human form. If this being wanted a fight, though, I was ready to fight.
Distantly, I noted the clatter of silverware and thunder of feet as pack mates pushed their way into the narrow doorway. Distantly, I felt their gazes latch onto us. But my attention was trained upon Ash.
His ruff was rigid, his eyes narrowed. “This is your last chance,” I warned via our pack bond.
Rather than standing down, Ash shook his head. As if my warning was no more than a flea to be dislodged from inside his ear. As if he wasn’t at all concerned about his ability in a contest we’d played out dozens of times.
In the past, he’d always lost. So why did he think he could trounce me now?
I snorted then turned my head aside, as if I intended to call in reinforcements. My old friend wouldn’t have attacked at such a moment, but I was starting to understand this non-Ash being.
Sure enough, nails clicked on tiles. I spun back to face him, diving beneath open jaws.
I barely made it past. My opponent was faster than he should have been. More skillful. As if this wasn’t Ash, or wasn’t just Ash. Either way, I intended to disable him quickly and thoroughly without doing any permanent harm.
Plans flickered through my mind as I slid beneath his belly. My enemy hadn’t expected me to retaliate so quickly. Hadn’t expected me to go low. His teeth clicked together too late, not even catching my tail tip.
And...I could have reached up to disembowel him. Could have ended the danger to my pack forever.
But what if this was Ash forced to do the bidding of the fae rather than a fae pretending to be my friend?
I couldn’t risk that. Instead, I slid all the way beneath him and out the other side while he was still trying to get his bearings. There, I slammed intentionally into a table leg before scrambling out of disaster’s path.
My blow had the intended effect. Ash’s carefully set scene went down in one tremendous clatter. The table. The pitcher of orange juice.