“You can step away from her now,” Caleb said.
The Italian wolf bared his teeth and his voice burred like a growl. “Stay out of this!”
“You’re not the one giving orders here, friend.” Caleb didn’t have to growl, or show his teeth, and he still managed to radiate anger. In response, the Italian wolf hunched his back, bracing his shoulders like hackles stiffening.
“Guys, stop it,” I said, putting myself between them, breaking the line of sight. “Everything’s just fine. You don’t really want to start something here, do you?”
People in the restaurant were staring. The maître d’ had been away from her stand, and hovered nearby, gripping her own hands, waiting for a chance to return.
“You want to take this outside?” I said, indicating the doorway.
Of course, no one wanted to be the first one to move, so I did, pushing past Cormac and Ben, then Caleb and his lieutenant, to finally reach the sidewalk outside. I didn’t know how we’d managed to all squeeze into that space. The city air smelled fresh and wild after the closeness inside.
The standoff re-created itself on the sidewalk: the Italian wolves attempting to stare me down, Caleb and his wolf staring them down, Ben and Cormac tensed for some kind of action, and Luis and Esperanza lingering on the edges, cautiously watching. We were all anxious, but no one was resorting to overtly aggressive movement. It should have been comforting—it didn’t matter where we came from, we all spoke the same body language.
I turned to the alpha of the Italian wolves. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated before answering, “I serve the Master of Venice.”
“Oh, come on, what’s that supposed to mean?”
He shut his mouth, pressing lips into a line.
“Okay. Fine. So this warning … is it a generic ‘here be dragons’ kind of warning or is there something specific I need to be looking for?”
He said, firmly, “Don’t meddle. Stay at your conference where you belong. Protect yourself—your pack.”
“My pack?”
“Them,” he said, nodding at Ben and Cormac. “Your friends. Your army wolf.”
Tyler. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“You won’t get to decide that.”
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I stepped up to him. “Is something going to happen? What is it? What do you know?”
He backed away, slouching—he hadn’t meant to push me, I gathered. He didn’t want to fight. He probably hadn’t expected me to stand up to him at all. “I—I don’t know anything. Just … we don’t know what’s going to happen, none of us do. But the situation—it’s dangerous.”
“I already knew that.”
“Please believe me—my Master sympathizes. He only wants to help.”
“I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy I’d want help from,” I said.
Recovering his confidence—his dignity—the alpha wolf bowed his head in a human gesture of respect. “Then I apologize for interrupting your evening.”
He nodded at his two companions, and the trio stalked away, moving gracefully along the street and into the night. We stared after them.
“They must think you’re pretty important to be sending you warnings,” Ben said.
“I think I need to call Tyler,” I said. Not for any particular reason. Just to make sure he was okay. I turned to Caleb and pointed. “And where did you come from? I don’t need you babysitting me, you know.”
“I wasn’t babysitting you,” Caleb said. “I was trailing them.” He nodded down the street where the Italian wolves had turned the corner.
“Then what were they up to, really?”