Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology Read online

  “I didn’t train you to move so that you could steal motorcycles,” Callum said sternly.

  No, I wanted to say, you trained me so that I could run away from fights I couldn’t win—the kind where my opponents had fur and claws and very few weaknesses.

  Out loud, I opted for, “I gave the bike back. And Jeff barely even minded.” I did, however, doubt that Jeff would be inviting me to homecoming anytime soon.

  “Are you interested in this boy?” Callum asked, his brow furrowing. Despite the fact that he did a good impression of an overprotective big brother, I’d lived under his rule long enough to realize that his concern wasn’t just for me or my heart.

  “I have no interest in provoking interspecies aggression,” I said, using the politically correct phrase for incidents involving young, stupid werewolves and young, stupid human males. “And, believe me, if I did, it wouldn’t be for a guy who wouldn’t let me drive.”

  I spent enough time resisting testosterone-driven dominance maneuvers in my day-to-day life. The last thing I needed was a human boyfriend who wanted me to play the simpering miss.

  Callum stiffened slightly at the idea of my dating anyone, even in the abstract. Werewolves tend to be very protective of their females, and even though I wasn’t anyone’s actual daughter or sister or—God forbid—mate, Callum had ceremonially dug his claws into me when I was four years old. While that had no effect whatsoever on my humanity, by Pack Law, it made me his. As a result, Callum’s wolves owed me their protection, and as far as they were concerned, that made me theirs, too. If werewolves had been into using “property of” stickers, I would have been mummified in them.

  I just loved the idea of being owned.

  “I don’t like the idea of you on a motorcycle, Bryn. You could get hurt.”

  I didn’t dignify that particular concern with a response.

  “I’m asking you not to do such a thing again, Bryn,” Callum said, choosing his words carefully, making it clear that this was not an order but a request. Lot of good that did me—Callum’s “requests” didn’t leave much room for noncompliance. If I refused to give him my word, there was a good chance that he would turn the request into an order, and as the leader of our pack and one of the highest-ranked dominant wolves on the continent, Callum’s orders were very close to law. Disobeying an official edict from the alpha meant incurring the wrath of the entire pack—some of whom refrained from sending me to my just rewards only because Callum had likewise forbidden them from killing me.

  Framing my orders as requests let Callum keep the pack out of it, and that left him free to deal with me on his own terms, which was sometimes a good thing and sometimes not.

  “Bryn?”

  “Your request has been noted,” I said, my lips twisting inadvertently into an easy grin. “I don’t anticipate there being any motorcycles in my future.”

  I was pushing him again, but I couldn’t help it. You didn’t get to be alpha of the largest pack in North America by winning popularity contests, and Callum was so dominant that the day I stopped pushing back would be the day that I was a member of his pack first and myself second.

  To Callum’s credit and my relief, he didn’t push for a firmer promise—probably because there were still two major items left on his Bryn Agenda.

  “Your algebra grade is lower than it could be. Education is important, and I’d not have you slacking off, sadistic teacher or no.” His voice took on that odd, old-fashioned lilt he sometimes adopted, a mere remnant of the accent he’d had before coming to this country.

  “Right. Algebra.” With the spring semester a month under way, I was getting a solid B-plus, but it could have easily been an A, and Callum had all kinds of lofty ideas about the importance of my living up to my potential. It was impressively modern of him, considering that he predated Women’s Lib by a couple of centuries—at least.

  “Did you tell Ali on me?” I asked. When the pack had adopted me, Callum had Marked a second human as well. Alison Clare had come to Ark Valley in search of her sister, who’d left their human family behind when she’d married into the pack. No one had counted on twenty-one-year-old Ali tracking her sister to Ark Valley and unraveling secrets best kept in the woods. Any other alpha would have killed Ali the moment she saw her brother-in-law Shift. Callum had given her a choice.

  And then once she’d chosen, he’d given her me.

  At present, Ali was thirty-two, 100 percent human, recently married to one of the pack’s males, and my foster mother. Adopted mother. Whatever. Putting a label on Ali’s role in my life was somewhat difficult. I used her last name and had lived in her house for almost as long as I could remember. Despite the fact that she’d been practically a kid herself when Callum had initiated her into our world, Ali was the one who’d hugged and scolded and raised me from a pup (figuratively speaking, of course). Callum was my guardian on paper, but it was Ali who fed and clothed me, Ali who’d set up this studio so that I could have a place that was purely mine, away from the constant pull of the pack, and Ali who would ground me quicker than Callum could say my full name if she thought for a single second that I deserved it.

  “Ali has her own concerns at the moment,” Callum said, and I saw the faint ghost of worry on his otherwise unreadable face. Ali was eight months pregnant with her first child. Werewolf births were notoriously difficult, and many human women didn’t survive.

  Ali’s sister hadn’t.

  I was not willing to consider the possibility that the same thing might happen to Ali. Ali was strong. She’d make it, and the baby would, too, and then he’d outlive her by, oh, say a thousand years.

  Darn werewolves and their ridiculously long life spans.

  “Was that it?” I asked Callum, hoping he’d get the message loud and clear that I wasn’t going to spend a second worrying about Ali, who would be just fine-fine-fine.

  “You on a schedule here, Bryn?”

  I gave an exasperated huff. “No.” I hoped he’d smell the half-lie for what it was. Just before he’d interrupted me, I’d been working on a new piece, and I was anxious to get back to it. Found art was all about the process, and His Royal Highness, the Werewolf King (and Grand Poobah of Pains in the Butt) was seriously disrupting mine.

  “You broke curfew last night,” Callum said sharply. The first two complaints had been mere warm-ups for this one. His features tightened, his brows drawing together in a V.

  “If my curfew wasn’t at dusk, I wouldn’t have to break it.” I felt as strongly about this issue as Callum did. Nighttime came depressingly early in winter, and I had no intention of being home each day by five.

  “There is unease in the pack, Bronwyn. I would have you safe from it.”

  I was Bronwyn again, a surefire sign that he was dangerously close to issuing either an edict or a threat. Possibly both.

  “If I cannot trust you to be home before nightfall, I will be forced to take further measures to ensure your safety.” Callum’s words were unquestionably set in stone, and the hardness of his tone told me that he meant business. In my experience, Callum’s definition of “further measures” was disturbingly broad and ranged from taking me over his knee (when I was eight) to posting a guard outside my bedroom window. Right now, I wasn’t at all worried about the former, which I’d long outgrown. The latter, however …

  “Until I can be assured of your cooperation in this matter, I’ve assigned a team to keep an eye on you.”

  I scowled at Callum. “You have got to be kidding me.” There was nothing in the world worse than werewolf bodyguards.

  “Bryn, m’dear, you know I never kid.” Callum’s brown eyes sparkled with just a hint of lupine mischief, which told me that (a) he was, in fact, serious about the guards, and (b) my moral outrage amused him, because in his mind, I’d knowingly brought this on myself.

  “You suck,” I grumbled.

  He put two fingers under my chin and held my face so that my eyes met his. “And you are the most disobedient child I’v
e ever had the displeasure of meeting.” His words were laced with unspoken warmth, an affection that—in his human form, at least—he showed only to me. Still holding my chin, he rubbed his cheek once against mine and then tousled my hair, actions I both hated and loved since they simultaneously marked me as a child and as his.

  “Be home by dusk, Bryn,” he told me, before taking his leave. “Trouble’s afoot.”

  I harrumphed. I was a human who had been quite literally raised by wolves. In my world, trouble was always afoot.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AFTER CALLUM LEFT ME ALONE IN THE STUDIO, I SET about pretending he’d never been there at all. This was my space, and if growing up in the pack had taught me anything, it was the importance of marking your territory. Since I had no compulsion whatsoever toward scent-marking, the best I could manage was refusing to acknowledge the fact that my sanctuary had been violated at all. Turning my discerning gaze to my work in progress, I evaluated the day’s efforts thus far. At present, the sculpture resembled nothing so much as a papier-mâché fire hydrant. I’d meant for it to be an oak tree, but c’est la vie. I was more concerned with my materials than the outcome per se. Chess-club flyers, notes passed in class, failed tests, and midterm papers—this was my medium. I was always happiest elbow-deep in things that other people had thrown away.

  “Dusk in ten minutes, Bryn.”

  The words were issued from directly behind my left shoulder, and the only thing that kept me from making a sound somewhere in the “eep!” family was years of experience with frustratingly stealthy werewolves. Despite my own training and the bond I shared with the rest of the pack, if Weres wanted to sneak up on me, they could. Even in human form, werewolves were stronger, faster, and more capable of masking their presence than us non-supernatural types. The most I could do was attempt to hide my surprise when they caught me off guard. Today, I was certainly getting plenty of practice at that. First Callum, and now this.

  I whirled on the intruder. “I don’t care when dusk is,” I said. As my best friend, Devon was morally obligated to listen to me whine, and if he was going to keep me from working on “The Tree (or possibly Fire Hydrant) of Knowledge,” I was going to take full advantage of that obligation. “Nobody else has a five p.m. curfew.”

  Devon didn’t bother to expend energy by disputing my words or acknowledging my whine in any way. He just leaned back against the door of my garage-turned-studio and waited for my ranting to subside.

  “Besides,” I continued, hoping to engender some level of sympathy, “Callum’s put me on surveillance. I’m sure my babysitter will be showing up any minute to escort me home, whether I like it or not.”

  Fact of life: pretty much everyone I knew was stronger, faster, and less disturbed by the idea of throwing a girl over his shoulder and hauling her to a given destination than anyone had a right to be.

  A slightly more satisfying fact of life: I didn’t have to make it easy for them. I’d doubtlessly lose any fight I started, but it was the principle of the matter. That, and annoying werewolves was a good way to dispel pent-up frustration—if and only if they were bound to keep you safe and couldn’t raise claw or canine against you.

  Teeth ripping into flesh. Skin tearing like Velcro.

  Glancing out the window in a show of calm, I wondered why my “escort” wasn’t here already. Like Devon had said, it was almost dark, and Callum’s wolves were nothing if not punctual. It was at that exact moment that I noticed the faint grin on Devon’s face.

  “You’re my escort?”

  Devon shrugged. “The Big Guy tells you to do something, you do it, even if it means babysitting a bratty little human girl who calls playing with glue art.”

  I reached over and smacked him.

  Devon just smiled back at me. He was my best friend. My partner in crime. He was most certainly not my keeper. I was going to kill Callum for this. He knew that in my current frame of mind, I would have fought anyone else, but I couldn’t fight with Devon, and Devon couldn’t disobey Callum.

  Insert four-letter word here.

  “Have I mentioned that I really hate werewolves?”

  “A time or two, I believe,” Devon said. For no reason other than the fact that he could, he adopted a ridiculously affected British accent. “Come along now, luv. Be a dear and walk with your old pal Devon, yeah?”

  My best friend, the drama geek. If I didn’t go with him now, there was a high probability that he’d keep switching accents until I caved. A werewolf channeling the Swedish Chef was not a pretty thing—and I had absolutely no desire to see it again.

  “Fine.” I sighed melodramatically. Two could play Dev’s game, and if he was going to put his drama chops to use, I had every right to channel my inner diva. “If we must, we must, yeah?”

  My own British accent was, in a word, horrid.

  To his credit, Devon didn’t wince. Instead, he adopted an austere look. “Indeed.” He managed to maintain his serious expression for about two seconds before the two of us started cracking up. He linked his arm through mine and gently steered me out the door. We locked up and then headed down the trail toward town.

  “Do you have any idea what’s got Callum’s panties in a twist?” I asked as we walked.

  “It’s a miracle he let you live past childhood, darling. I can’t imagine anyone else talking about our esteemed leader’s underpants.”

  Although his words were entirely true, I couldn’t help but notice that they weren’t an answer. “Don’t evade the question, Dev. Callum said he’d put an entire team on me. I’m guessing that means more than just you and that you got the short straw tonight because—”

  “Because Callum knew you’d be defenseless against my ample charms?” Devon suggested winningly. Of our generation in the pack, Dev was the largest, the strongest, and the most likely to turn alpha himself one day, but being Devon, he preferred to think his true power lay in other domains.

  I rolled my eyes. “Because Callum knows we’re friends,” I corrected. Werewolves had heightened senses, and a person would have had to be deaf, dumb, blind, and just plain stupid to miss out on the connection that Devon and I shared. There were only a few other juvenile wolves in our pack, and with Devon’s sense of flare (he was, I was certain, the world’s only metrosexual werewolf), he’d never really fit in among the other pups. Then Callum had brought me home, Marked me, and given me to Ali. Most of the pack had ignored the tiny, shell-shocked human, but Devon claimed he’d loved me from the moment he’d seen me, shivering in Callum’s arms, blood-spattered and wild-eyed. The two of us quickly became inseparable. It was to Devon that I’d said my first words once I started talking again, and with Devon that I’d mastered the fine art of mischief. He was Devon.

  And now, Callum had placed me in his charge.

  “I hate this,” I said.

  “I’m sure you do, Bronwyn Alessia St. Vincent Clare, but I’d not have you endangering yourself on my watch.”

  It took me a second to realize that Devon was channeling Callum. The impression was a hilariously good one, and it reminded me that even when he obeyed orders, Devon was not just another member of the pack.

  “Your stubbornness is also your folly,” Devon continued. He even had Callum’s facial expressions—or lack thereof—down pat.

  “Fine. You win. I’m laughing. Happy now?”

  Devon grinned, Callum’s quirks instantaneously melting off his heart-shaped face. “I’m ecstatic.”

  “The point is—” I tried to bite back my giggles, but that stubbornness/folly line was so spot-on that I was having trouble recovering. “The point, Devon I-wish-you-had-a-middle-name Macalister, is that if Callum’s got an entire team watching me—including your fine wolfy self—then there’s something going on. I want to know what it is.”

  “Leave it alone, Bryn.” Devon’s voice was soft and uncharacteristically serious. He knew something, he knew that I knew that he knew something, and he still wasn’t telling. Ten-to-one odds, that meant th
at (a) Callum had forbidden him from telling me, and (b) Devon agreed that it was in my best interest not to know.

  “Devon!”

  “Bronwyn.”

  I really needed to come up with a better retort than “you suck.”

  The two of us walked in silence for a bit, until the trail veered off to the right. Ark Valley was about 90 percent woods, and the forest was protected by the town by-laws—not surprising given that the town was one of a dozen or so in a five-state area founded by Callum’s pack, way back when. Every couple of decades, the pack moved, rotating through our territory just when the older wolves’ agelessness began pushing the line from “incredible genetics” to “unnatural.” We’d been in Ark Valley for as long as I could remember, and the townspeople hadn’t gotten suspicious yet—at least about the aging thing.

  “Your castle awaits,” Devon said, gesturing to Ali’s house.

  “Not going to walk me to the door?” I asked, pretending to be shocked at his lack of gallantry.

  “Of course I am. Many would think that a bonny lass such as yerself wouldst be able to stay out of trouble for a distance of fifteen feet, but I know better.”

  “Did you just use the words yerself and wouldst in the same sentence? You can’t be a pirate and a courtier at the same time, Dev. It just isn’t done.”

  In a gesture below the dignity of the average werewolf, he stuck his tongue out at me. Still, he walked me all the way to the front door, depositing me on the porch and waiting for me to open the door and walk across the threshold. I dug out my keys, unlocked the steel door, and stepped inside, just as dusk fell.

  “Good boy, Devon,” I taunted. “You got me home before dark. If you can sit, shake, and roll over, too, I’m sure Callum will give you a doggie treat.”

  “Forget Callum and his so-called panties,” Devon said, finally taking his tongue back into his mouth so that he could speak. “It’s a miracle that I let you live past childhood.”