Magic Stars (Grey Wolf #1)(12)

“Okay,” she said.

He unrolled the long sticky strip of adhesive bandage and carefully placed it over her skin. The ointment would keep it from sticking to the wound itself.

Her ribs were no longer sticking out. He remembered when she was so skinny, he was worried she would walk into a lamppost by accident and break something.

She pulled her shirt back down and rummaged in her backpack. A plastic bag came out, with the second bag inside it filled with jerky, a bag of nuts and granola, and cheese. His mouth watered. He’d burned too many calories, and now he was ravenous.

She passed him the bags. Julie always had food. And she always wrapped it so it was hard to smell. It came from living on the street.

He snagged a long piece of jerky and chewed, reveling in the taste.

“You skipped the hunt again,” she said, snagging a piece of cheese and a cracker.

The monthly hunts in the Wood, a big forest sprawling north of Atlanta, were a pleasant diversion for most shapeshifters. A way to blow off some steam. For him it was a necessity. He needed the wilderness. Without it the rage grew too fast. It would always be with him. Curran had told him there was no cure, and he was right. It was the price Derek paid for not turning loup like his father.

“Maybe,” he said.

“What was so important?”

He shrugged. “Work.”

She chewed her little sandwich, taking small bites out of it. She ate like a human too—a shapeshifter would’ve stuffed the whole thing in her mouth and would’ve been on her third sandwich by now. It was a test, he knew. She ate slowly to prove to herself that she could, that there was enough food and no need to rush because she wasn’t starving.

“Lobasti,” she said.

“Mhm?”

“The women. I think they were lobasti. Mermaids.”

“Mermaids?” Somehow they didn’t seem hot enough.

“Evil mermaids,” she said. “I was so glad when that head rolled out. I thought I was fighting a pregnant woman. If I’m right, they only attack at night.”

“Makes sense. The plan was to have those idiots recover the rock and bring it here. The mermaids would kill them, and then Caleb Adams would come in the morning, pick up the rock, and go home, his hands clean.”

“That wereleopard doesn’t know how lucky he is.”

He won’t feel lucky when he wakes up. He laughed quietly under his breath.

He was on his fourth piece of jerky. The burning fire in his stomach was subsiding. He would eat a big breakfast when they were done. Pancakes and sausage and bacon, and then he would sleep. . . .

“If we find out why the Iveses died over that rock, I’ll make you all the bacon you want.”

He startled.

Julie shrugged and bit her jerky. “I can always tell when you’re thinking about food. You forget to be the Serious Wolf, and you get this dreamy look in your eyes. You know, most people would think you were thinking about a girl. They have no idea that her name is bacon.”

“Dreamy look?”

“Mhm. Lighten up.”

“I’m light enough.”

He lay down on his back and looked at the moon, a strip of jerky between his teeth like a cigar. He slowly chewed on it.

“Thanks for the food.”

“You’re welcome. You used to joke more.”

“You want jokes, talk to Ascanio.” He yawned. “He’s the funny one.”

“Maybe you need a girlfriend.”

“I left my pack. You know what that makes me?”

She sighed and recited, “A lone wolf?”

“Lone wolves don’t have girlfriends.” He put a little snarl into his voice. The injuries to his vocal cords didn’t need much to make his voice into a low lupine growl. He’d used it more than once to make opponents rethink their battle plans and start looking for an exit. “We move around the city unseen, congealing out of the shadows when there’s trouble and melting back into them so someone else can do the cleanup.”

Julie laughed.

He grinned at her.

“Why is everything so grim all the time?” she asked.

For some people, the stars aligned and everything went right. For him everything went wrong, every time. When he wanted something, when he reached for it, life broke him, yet somehow he always survived.

All he’d wanted was to be a kid in the Smoky Mountains. His father had turned loup. He’d watched him torture and rape his mother and his sisters until he finally murdered the thing his father had become. The house had caught on fire. He’d been meant to die in that fire, but he’d survived.

When the Pack had found him, he smelled like a loup. The Code said he had to be killed on the spot, yet Curran had saved him. Again, he’d survived.

Then he’d wanted to be a shapeshifter, just a rank-and-file wolf, but by the time Curran finally coaxed him out of the deep dark mental well where he’d curled up and hid, it was too late. He was Curran’s wolf, held to a higher standard. He was mocked. Normal avenues within the Pack were closed to him. The Renders wouldn’t take him, so he went to work for Jim. His face was an asset. He could walk into a room and start a conversation with the prettiest girl and she would talk to him and smile, and her eyes would sparkle when he said something funny. He was good at gathering information, and he won respect, at first grudging, then well-deserved. He was good at being Jim’s spy. They called him “the Face.” He’d decided then that this was it. This was what he would do. This was his place.