Taming the Beast
“What’s your logic?”
“You say he’s been running wild for a while, so I don’t think the moon has a damn thing to do with what he’s doing. I think once he accidentally shifted those first couple of times, he willed himself into doing the same the next times without realizing what he was triggering. Once he’s cognizant of what changes his thoughts are putting into action, he should be better able to control the shifts.”
“You really think I can shake him out of the wolf now?”
“Ah. I figured you’d cycle back around to that eventually.” He blew a raspberry. “You’re not a wolf, so I’m really just theorizing that what I’m suggesting will work. I do think if you annoy him enough, he’ll do everything he can to shake you off, even if that means slipping free of his fur.”
“And he really doesn’t think with a human brain when he’s in that wolf’s body?”
“Not yet, probably, but he will eventually. Takes time for the memories to merge and for the split in his consciousness to mend. When our wolves shift for the first time, they usually need a couple of months to get completely oriented. That’s part of the reason we still have a pack structure. We have to look out for each other.”
“Andreas has no pack.”
“No,” Adam said quietly. “But he has you. Right now, that has to be enough. You want to keep me on speaker while you poke him? From the way you’ve described him, I don’t think he’s so feral that he’ll attack you, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hurt you. Sometimes, a wolf doesn’t know his strength.”
She drew in a breath, tucked her hair behind her ears, and swallowed.
Andreas nosed against the bottom of the crates, sniffing and shifting them a bit, more forceful with each nudge. He was getting more aggressive—or more curious.
“I think that would be a good idea,” Mary said. “If he really does lose control, there’s no way you’d get to me in time, but—”
“We’ll call the police if we have to.”
“I really don’t want to have to do that.”
“Me neither. Folks like us, we handle our own.”
“Right.” She pulled the phone away from her ear, pressed the speaker button, and then turned up the volume. “Can you hear me, Adam?”
“Yep. Am I on speaker now?”
“You are. I’m about to move some of the crates in front of me. He’s nosing them and trying to get at me.”
“Hostile?”
“No. Just curious, I think.”
“If he’s been looking at you all afternoon, you’re probably as familiar to him as his own fur. Put your hand out to him, slowly, and see what he does. If you see any hint of teeth, pull your arm back.”
“Naturally.”
Mary crawled slowly toward the poking wolf, palm tingling with anticipation and breath coming out in jagged pants. The last wild animal she’d been so close to had been the raccoon that kept returning to her outdoor trashcans. She’d scared it off with a water hose, and the little bastard had hissed at her. But that was a small raccoon—not a being that was more man than he was beast.
She crept her hand into the gap between two crates.
He snapped his head up.
Somehow, she suppressed the compulsion to yank her hand away. Heart pounding hard and sweat beading on her forehead, she kept her hand still as he sniffed her palm and then rubbed the side of his snout against it.
“He’s…rubbing me,” she said to Adam. “Nuzzling my hand.”
“No teeth?”
“No.” No tongue, either, fortunately. She couldn’t imagine the perfectly put-together Andreas Toft lashing his tongue against her hand like a common dog. He was far too civilized.
“So, he’s calm. Give him a little more. Get in his space.”
Mary drew in a breath and pushed one of the crates far enough from the other that she could crawl through, if she wanted, but she didn’t yet. She still wanted to put some semblance of separation between her and Andreas, even if the segregation was merely mental. She sat halfway inside her little jail and halfway out.