I can’t look at her.

My elbow is on fire. I reach over and gingerly take it in my left hand. The sleeve of her sweater clings to it, wet and cold. It pulls at the wound as I move. The pain makes me wince.

The intensity of it makes me want to giggle, too. But I don’t.

She’s beside me. “Tiergan . . . ” she says. Her voice is soft, caring.

But her hands are shaking.

“I’ve, ruined . . . your, sweater,” I say, in two ragged breaths. I look down to avoid her eyes. There’s a smear of blood on the left sleeve, too, where my hand rests.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. She touches my arm but I jerk away. I don’t want her to touch it. I don’t want her to see what I’ve done to it.

“Your hands are shaking,” I say. But I’m not telling her anything she doesn’t know.

She is undeterred. “Come on, let me see it.” Her voice is a little more steady—a little more confident—than it had been.

I’m afraid to ask. But I need to.

“I’m sorry, Tara. I’m so sorry.

“Can you forgive me?”

“For what?” she says. She doesn’t hesitate. But she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

She reaches in and grabs the bottom of the sweater. “Come on. I need to take this off.” She doesn’t wait for my approval.

The air is frigid against my back, but I’m already shaking. She slowly peels the fabric off the wound. I clench my teeth to keep from crying out.

“You’ve taken off a lot of skin,” she announces. The tremble is gone from her voice. “But it doesn’t look too bad.

“I’m going to see if you’ve broken anything, okay?”

I flinch from the thought of it, but then stop. I nod my approval. She carefully bends and turns the arm. The pain is loud and deep. But not sharp.

“I don’t think you’ve broken it.”

I nod.

And her fingers are in the wound. The fire leaps up my arm and screams into my skull. Everything goes dark and heavy. I grind my teeth, but that only makes the pain worse. And now, the romance is gone. It’s sharp, angry, hateful pain.

But I take it. I deserve anything she does to me.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I can’t stop saying it. She has to believe me. She has to.

I force my eyes up to meet hers.

She looks at me, but says nothing. In her eyes, there’s concern. And pity. But behind it, I see fear.

She looks away. “It’ll be okay, Tiergan.”

Her cell rings. I startle at the sound of it.

She releases my arm to answer it.

“Oh Tiergan,” she breathes as she pulls away from me. Her hand jumps to her mouth. “What have you done?”

I had expected her to be angry with me. But it’s not anger in her eyes, in her voice. Anger I could handle. It’s disappointment. Deep, wounded disappointment. In me.

Keaira had looked at me the exact same way.

I turn away from it. “I did what I had to do,” I reply to a bright line between two wall boards. “And I’m not apologizing for it, either.”

My back is cold where her arm had been. I pull my legs up and wrap my arms around them. To hold in the warmth.

“You’re an idiot, Tiergan,” she says. Her voice is soft. A steel gauntlet in a velvet glove. I study my feet.

“What did you do? Tell her you didn’t want to see her again? No—no, that’s not it—you wouldn’t have needed to avoid me for weeks for that.” She pauses, then inhales sharply. The sound of a light going on. “You pretended you didn’t have feelings for her any more, didn’t you? So she’d break it off. So you wouldn’t have to. That’s it, isn’t it.”

I really am transparent to her. Most days, it’s one of the things I like about her.

She kicks my hip and I look up. Anger bubbles up, but I let it pass, unheeded.

“Is, that, it?” she demands.

I meet her eyes. I try to stay impassive, but some of the hurt gets through. Her expression softens, just a bit.

I nod, and break contact.

“Tiergan!” she cries, and moves in close. She lifts my head with her hand. “Why would you do that? You love her!”

I smile sadly, and try to avoid her eyes. “Because it’s not enough, Tara,” I say with a shrug. “Her parents are insisting on a First, and we both know I’m never going to be that. They’re old school. She won’t be welcome home again if she disobeys them. And that’s the best case scenario.”

I shouldn’t say the rest.

But it won’t stay in. “I thought maybe we could make it work, anyway, so I asked Faolan if she could Pair with me.”

My eyes start to burn.

“And that’s when he told me he wanted her for himself.”

“He what?”

The anger rises again. Much stronger this time. I dig my nails into my palms, and struggle to hold it. “He says it’s because we need an alliance with her family. And we do . . . . Things are getting really precarious with Rian.”

I can feel it getting ahead of me, slipping from my grasp. I look straight ahead and squeeze harder. “But I’ve seen the way he looks at her, Tara. And I hate him for it.”

She grabs my hand and pulls at my fingers. “Tiergan! Stop!”

I know what she’s reacting to. I can smell the blood. I can feel it starting to run down my leg.

And I like it.

“Can you believe he actually acted like he was doing me a favour?”

I jerk my hand out of hers and ram my arm back into the wall. The pain blooms in my elbow, round and shiny. I ram it back again, on the same spot. The pain races up my arm and and spreads into my head. I ram it back again. And again.

Something. Again. Anything. Again. Break!

“Tiergan!” someone yells in my ear.

I drive my fist up and towards. Hard.

I want it to connect. Want it go through.

Cormac.

Faolan.

Not Tara!

I pull it back just in time.

And I’m in the pumphouse again, and my arm hurts like it’s on fire, and I’m dripping blood over everything, and Tara is looking at me with a fear I’ve never seen from her before . . . and for all of those reasons—or none of them—I can’t stop sobbing.

Her sweater is a bit small for me, but I pull it on and settle down beside her. She puts her arm around me for warmth. Hers and mine. She rests her head against my shoulder.

The darkness is comforting—despite the cold, still air. The smell of damp earth, the hint of must—it’s not at all like the den at home, but it’s deeply, instinctively familiar, nonetheless. And there are old memories here, too. Of childhood. And simpler times.

I look down at her out of the corner of my eye. She smiles. “I’m glad you called,” she says. “I’ve missed you.” She says it without reproach, but it makes my heart sink anyway. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Though I guess I knew I would. It’s just . . . I couldn’t be around her while . . . . She knows me too well. She’d have found out what I was up to, and then she’d have talked me out of it.

But it’s safe now. The deed is done.

“I’m glad you came.” I lean into her a little. “To be honest, I didn’t think you would.”

“And why would you think that?“

“No reason,” I lie. I grin and try to cover: “Just, you know, clothes, shoes, running in heels . . . .”

She punches me in the ribs with her free hand. “You try running on gravel in heels!”

I laugh. “See, that’s exactly my point!”

She snuggles back into me and I put my arm around her and pull her close.

“I was a little worried . . . that you’d be angry with me.”

She looks up at me and smirks. “Why, because you’ve been avoiding me?”

Hah! “I’m that transparent, am I?”

She sighs. “You are to me.”

Hmmm. And I always have been, haven’t I.

“You aren’t angry?”

“Eh,” she says, and shrugs. “Not any more. Maybe at first. But I know how you get.

“I try not to take it personally.”

I don’t know how she can be so easy-going. So forgiving. But I’ve always envied that about her. And I hate it that I’ve relied on it so much.

“You know,” I say, and meet her eyes, “I’ve really missed you.”

“I know,” she says, without hesitation—like it’s the most obvious thing I could have said. “But maybe you could remember, next time, that I like having you around, too, okay?”

Skewered, I look away.

“I’m sorry.”

“Uh huh. So, can I assume whatever stupid idea you’ve been avoiding me to do is done?”

Transparent indeed.

But I guess I’ve avoided the topic long enough.

“She’s gone, Tara. And she won’t be back.”

“Tiergan! Are you nuts?” she whispers loudly as she approaches.

I yip a greeting and wag my tail. I turn to look intently over my shoulder, towards the hill, then back to her. There is a dense bush around the other side that would give us some needed cover.

She rolls her eyes. “I am not fording the river in these shoes!”

Urg.

So take them off, I want to tell her, but . . . well, the only thing riskier than being a wolf out here during the day is being a naked human out here during the day. Talking is out, for now.

“Why don’t you head back to the house, and I’ll join you there?” she asks.

I feel my tail drop before she even finishes the question. I shake my head.

She nods sadly. “More trouble, eh?”

Nothing new there.

“Tell you what,” she says as she looks south along the path. “Meet me down by the old pump house. We can have some privacy there.

“And give me five or ten minutes, okay?” she adds. “I’m not running in heels. Not even for you.” She smiles at me—a sad, “I feel for you” smile—then walks away.

And I had been feeling better. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Okay, that’s unfair.

I watch her as she rounds some bushes and disappears from view. I head east.

The wind is coming from the side, now, and will be of no use at all in a minute when I turn south. Actually, it will be worse than of no use. There’s a bit of a ravine I’ll follow, which should keep me out of sight, but there’s a grassy area directly south of it where people walk their dogs. And the wind is going to be telling stories about me, now.

Hopefully, no one has their dog off lead. I’m not in the mood for either doggy love or doggy hate, right now. The former is embarrassing. The latter invariably ends in tears.

Definitely not in the mood.

Just in case, I pull out of the ravine a little early, and take my scent westward, back toward the river. It’s a risk, but I think it’s the smaller of the two.

Unless there is somebody on the bridge, looking north.

Damn it!

I get down low and slink up behind a small copse to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally! He moves on.

Tara is already inside the pump house when I arrive.

“Took you long enough,” she says and winks at me.

“Well? Get in here!”

I step through the door and she pulls it shut behind me.

“It’ll be dark soon, we can go for a run, then.” She sits down and taps the ground beside her. “So come on. Tell me about it.”

I change. And immediately regret it.

“Can I borrow your sweater?” I ask. “It’s really fucking cold in here.”

I stash my clothing at the back gate and abandon two legs for four. I need to run free for a while, to put the whole mess of family and home behind me.

The worn path feels good beneath my feet. The air is wonderfully cool, and smells of wet leaves and soft earth.

I love October.

With the trees bare, I’m taking a risk, running in the daytime. Very few people would mistake me for a dog. Things could get complicated. But so what? They couldn’t catch me anyway, and nobody carries a rifle in an urban forest. Besides, I know these woods better than any human. They stick to foot paths. I go where I want.

I race down the slope toward the river. I smell a squirrel up ahead and grin. I dart around a tree to avoid a loud patch of leaves and dive straight for him. He notices me at last and leaps up a tree. I snap my jaws at him for fun, but veer away to avoid catching him. I don’t want a hunt, right now. Judging from Faolan’s call, there will plenty of that tonight—and game worth hunting. For now, I just want to run. To move. To be.

I turn northward just before the river and run along the footpath. I’m not worried. This end of the forest is always pretty quiet. Besides, with the wind in my face, I won’t be startling anybody.

I can see the northern edge, up ahead. I turn east again and make for the big hill across the river.

The water is cold, but shallow. I splash across without pausing.

The hill is steep, but I want to go fast. I push harder.

I notice Tara’s scent as I crest the hill, and stop dead. She’s wearing human form, of that I’m certain. She’s outside of the forest, too—maybe 300 yards. Which is about 200 yards too far, given my current form. Still, it would be impolite not to say hello. I bark twice, then briefly howl.

I wait. And her scent changes, ever so subtly. She’s recognized me.

I’d like to see her. She’s my favourite cousin, and she might like to run together, for a while. Still, without a place to stash her clothing, she probably won’t come. But, there’s no harm in checking. I head back down the hill toward the path.

Halfway down and her scent is on the air again. I slow to keep pace with it. She is definitely heading west, toward the north entrance of the park. I stop just this side of the river and wait.

“Now, get out!” he snarls. His hand has clenched into a fist. His knuckles are white.

I know I should go. Quickly. But I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can’t even look away.

A great disappointment. A great disappointment. The words ring in my ears.

The least member of this family.

Is that really what he thinks of me?

My eyes start to sting.

I struggle to stand. My legs don’t feel right, but they hold. I hear my breathing: it seems much louder than usual. Ragged, too.

The sunlight scatters through the beveled glass of the window, its light sharp and bright. And again, for just an instant, it isn’t Faolan behind the desk, it’s Father.

And I’m the least member of his family.

I turn and run to the door.

“Keaira doesn’t know anything, does she?” I hear Faolan ask as I pull it open.

Always one to twist the knife.

“No,” I mutter. But my anger swirls back to life.

I don’t want to get into it, but I need to defend myself. I turn to face him again.

“She thinks it was her idea. That’s why it took a month.”

I pretend to stare him down, but with him in sitting in a shaft of sunlight, I can’t actually see his face.

It gives me the courage I need.

“You’re wrong about me, Faolan. You’ve always been wrong about me.

“How did you think it was going to work? We’re together for a year an a half and one day, out of the blue, I tell her I’m done with her? And the next day you show up asking her parents for their daughter and an alliance? Is that what you thought?

“She loves me, Faolan!”

The lie stabs me like a knife.

“Or . . . she did.”

My eyes start to sting again. And I decide.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? How much it hurt to lie to her, day after day? Faolan, I made her believe I didn’t care any more!

“I hate myself for what I’ve done to her, but I did it. Because you told me I had to, for the sake of this family. Had you asked this of anyone else—especially Cormac—you’d have been in for a fight, and you know it.

“I have been nothing but loyal to you.

“And you’re right: I don’t have any respect for Cormac. He’s little better than a rabid dog. He alienates our allies and makes enemies of our neighbours.

“He hunts humans for sport, Faolan! For how long do you think that can go on?

“And I’m the great disappointment to you . . . .”

I reach back and grab the door handle, then step over the threshold.

It terrifies me as the words travel to my mouth, but I let them out, loud and clear: “Well fuck you, too.”

I slam the door behind me.

Cormac is at the end of the hall, grinning like a maniac. I turn and run. Thank all that is holy, he just laughs at me, and doesn’t follow.

“What are you smiling about?” he demands.

Shit. I drop the smile like it just bit me.

“Nothin’,” I reply, shrugging my head to one side.

He lowers himself into his chair behind the desk and motions me forward. I keep my eyes on his as I stand.

“Nothing?” he says, and a hint of danger slips back into his voice. I instantly break eye contact.

“You forget how well I know you, Tiergan.”

He’s right, of course. He raised me, after all . . . after Mother and Father . . . .

I’d better come clean. A bit, at least.

“Cormac really wants to kill me.” I hope for a laugh. A chuckle at least.

I get neither.

“Of course he does,” he spits in response. “He’s my Second, and you pay him no respect at all!”

“I—”

He cuts me off with a sharp stroke of his hand. “Don’t talk, Tiergan. For once in your life, listen.”

I cautiously lower myself into the closer chair and set my eyes on a carving on the front of the desk. I’m not in the mood for a lecture. But I’m not in the mood to get hurt, either.

“You aren’t a pup any more Tiergan,” he says. The word “pup” drips with contempt.

“I grow tired of your selfishness, and your”—he thumps his fingers on the desk with each syllable—“dis, re, gard for our family. Not only don’t you respect your place, you actively defy both Cormac and me. And you go out of your way to goad Cormac. Do you have a death wish? I wouldn’t go into a fight with Cormac lightly, but you seem to beg him to come after you. You should be thankful no one else in this family behaves like you do, or Cormac would have killed you years ago!”

My hand starts to tighten on the arm of the chair, but I say nothing.

“Look at me,” he commands.

“Look at me!”

Maybe I do have a death wish. Because suddenly I’m angry, and against all better judgement, I don’t want to get it under control. I meet his eyes, anger for anger. Muscles grow tense.

I want to yell at him that he’s not Father. That he’s not and he’ll never be.

He knows it, too. Saying it would hurt him. Saying it would feel really good.

Yeah!

Really good.

At least . . . 

 . . . it would for the half a second it would take him to cross the desk and sink his teeth into me.

I force the anger down, away from my eyes.

Faolan leans in. His eyes glitter darkly. “I’m warning you now, brother—I am just about ready to tell Cormac he can treat you like anyone else.”

I hear myself gasp.

“You wouldn’t.” The anger abandons me far faster than I’d have thought possible, leaving nothing but a gaping, empty feeling in my stomach.

Faolan doesn’t blink.

“I will. Your disobedience is unacceptable, Tiergan. How, dare you think you are special. You are the least member of this family, and let me assure you, that is of great disappointment to me.

“I told you a month ago to end it with Keaira. A month! And now you have the gall to come in here today and act as if you deserve some consideration for finally obeying me.

“You are lucky you have me for a brother, Tiergan. Lucky! Any other First would have ripped your throat out long ago.

“And Tiergan?” His voice drops to a low, harsh growl. Every hair on my body prickles.

“Believe me when I say this: if you push me any more, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

I study the pattern in the rug, and pray to whoever might be listening for the storm to pass. With Cormac at the door, I have no real options. I can feel his anticipation—it hangs in the air like a physical thing, egging Faolan on, all but certain that this will be that time, the time he’s finally rid of me.

Fuck! If only I hadn’t come in when he was talking to Rian. Rian always makes him so crazy.

Maybe he’ll just rough me up a bit. I hardly dare to hope. If I can just take it, if I can just hold out for a little while, he’ll remember himself, he’ll remember he doesn’t want to kill me.

He’ll be sorry about what he’s done.

Submission is my only way out. I know that so well by now. I won’t look up. I won’t run. Give him time, and the overbearing, overprotective older brother will remember himself.

I’ve done what he told me to do. Maybe it will be enough.

The tick of the mantle clock grows loud in the silence, but I hold still.

Ten.

Twenty.

Please, Faolan.

Thirty.

“Cormac?” He says at last. “Give us a minute, will you?” His voice is soft.

I glance up, ready to pull away again if I’m wrong, but I’m not—he’s my older brother again. I open my mouth slightly and exhale as quietly as I can. Best not to let him hear my relief. Nothing can push him back over the edge quite so quickly as him seeing me afraid of him. When he doesn’t want me to be.

Faolan turns away from me and I follow his gaze to see Cormac still at the door. His eyes are terrible, and I can’t meet them. I shift my gaze back to Faolan, but I feel Cormac’s focussed still on me, his hatred drilling into my head.

“Cormac!” Faolan says again, sharply.

Not today, asshole. It takes everything I have not to mouth the words as I think them. Not today. I can’t help but smile.

The mantle clock ticks again. Twice. Three times.

The door slams, and I’m alone with my brother. The one who cares about me.

There are a hundred places I’d rather be . . . but things could be a lot worse.

The scent of the den welcomes me as we enter, an intoxicating mix of oak, leather, wood smoke, and old memories. Sunshine pours in through the leaded glass, and for an instant, I see Father’s shape silhouetted against it.

But it’s only a trick of the light.

Faolan is on the phone. His back is to the us, and he doesn’t turn. He just raises a finger over his shoulder and slowly—deliberately—points to a chair in the corner. His hand clenches into a fist as it drops back down.

Cormac shoves me toward the chair.

“This is not what we agreed, Rian!” Faolan growls into the receiver. “There were to be three jobs, not four, and you have yet to pay us for the last one!”

The familiar, worn leather of the chair does its best to put me at ease, but I can’t afford to be taken in. I sit down on the hard front edge and wait. I glance over to Cormac, then around the room. In a way, everything is exactly as it has always been. The chairs, the rug, the desk and tables, the lamps, the books—they have always seemed so much more permanent than anything else in my life. But, lately, more and more, I can’t help notice how tired they all look. It’s as if they are turning to dust, right in front of me.

Maybe that’s what happens when you try to stop time. You freeze everything in its place, but you only think it’s staying the same. In reality, it’s slowly falling apart from the inside out, and one day, you brush past it lightly and the whole thing just crumbles.

Is that what we’ve been doing? Is that what is happening to us?

“Fine!” Faolan yells into the phone, then turns and slams it down onto the cradle on the desk.

“Can you believe these fuckers?” he snarls to Cormac. “They give us bad information, bicker amongst themselves for weeks, and now are blaming us that Sullivan got away! And now they want us to do another job, instead. For the same money!”

I glance over to Cormac, but he stands silent. Definitely the smart choice.

“Sons of bitches!” Faolan yells and slams his fist into the desk. I flinch away from the force of it, and slide a little closer to the door side of the chair. I don’t stand a chance of getting past Cormac, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try.

“And you.”

No doubt who that is directed to. I look back to Faolan.

“Tiergan, Tiergan . . . what am I going to do with you?” he says, his eyes narrowing sharply.

My heart rate jumps again, under his glare; but I’m caught, and there’s no changing it.

I drop my gaze to the floor and offer the only thing I’ve got.

“I did what you asked. She won’t be wanting to see me again.”

He turns his smile back to me, but all I see are teeth. It’s what I’m meant to see. With him, I don’t understand how people could see anything else.

“One of these days,” he says, leaning in, “your brother’s going to decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth. When that day comes, I want you to promise me something.”

“Yeah?” I reply, and smirk. “What’s that?”

“Just this: Run.”

There was a time I found him terrifying. Okay, who am I kidding? I still do. But even a real threat loses its edge with overuse.

And it never pays to look afraid.

“Whatever,” I reply, laughing. Then, as derisively as I can manage: “I assume you didn’t come here just to spout your impotent little threats at me, so what do you want?”

His eyes blaze at the word “impotent”, and I mark down a point for me. But I know that he’s keeping score, too.

“Get up,” he spits as he pushes up and out of his chair. His smile has vanished. “We’re leaving.”

For a second I wonder if maybe I’ve pushed him too far; but no . . . as much as he wants to rip my throat out, he fears Faolan ten times more. He’ll bide his time. He knows he won’t have to wait forever. He’s right: Faolan and I are oil and water, and it’s only a matter of time before he gives up on me.

I get up and Cormac follows me out. Predator after prey. As it should be.