She ran her tongue over one fang, her cat-form version of licking her lips. Greta knew he’d caught the gesture when he smiled again.
“That’s it. You know you want to come back to me. You can have some chocolate sauce, and we can watch those werewolf movies.”
She was tempted, she really was. But she couldn’t bring herself to change back yet. She just wanted another day or two to stew. Couldn’t he just understand that? If he’d given her a couple of days of total space and solitude without trying to get her to shift it would be different.
Maybe she should have just told him at the outset, before she started all this, that was what she wanted. Instead of springing the change on him and expecting him to read her mind. As far as she knew, mind reading abilities didn’t come with the sorcerer package.
Every night after she’d been out in the forest, chasing mice, hiding in caves, she’d come back home. Every night she’d slept on her pillow. In cat form, sure. But she’d been there. Couldn’t he just be perceptive this one time and figure that out? That she didn’t want to leave him, she just wanted some space?
She shook her head and left the room.
A few minutes later she heard the shower running and cringed. All that chocolate sauce going down the drain. She really did miss the people food. Especially the kinds cats couldn’t have.
Greta wondered if she didn’t come out of this funk soon, if Dayne would just get fed up and break up with her. Pushing him away was starting to become more of a burden than anything else.
She slunk to her favorite window, but Mink was already stretched out in it. Greta normally liked to curl up in the patch of sunlight, but as a therian, the moon warmed her in much the same way.
Mink sprawled with one of her paws hanging over the edge as her tail flicked back and forth like she did when she was dreaming. Greta growled and hissed, startling the other cat. The orange tabby jolted out of sleep and fell off the window sill. Greta took the opportunity to curl up in the little pool of moonlight.
The other cat hissed and glared up at her for a few minutes before skulking off to raid the cat food dish. Gross. How could cats eat that crap? The only thing Greta would eat out of a can in cat form was tuna. The same kind humans ate. Not that weirdo cat food tuna. She wasn’t sure how humans could so successfully ruin perfectly good fish like that.
She’d almost fallen asleep when there was a loud pounding on the door. Dayne rushed out of the bedroom in jeans and a t-shirt from his favorite band, Deviant Leisure. His hair was still damp from the shower, and Greta wanted to lick the drops of water from his neck. She squeezed her eyes shut to close out the thoughts. If she thought them too much, she might lose control and shift. With someone right outside, the timing for that wasn’t great.
Dayne opened the door and stepped aside. “Blake. What brings you to my door?”
Greta nearly fell out of the window sill. Blake? The werewolf pack beta? Shit.
The wolf stepped into the cottage; he’d come alone, at least. Dayne looked nervous. Of course he was nervous. She knew the only reason he’d let the werewolf in was to avoid him leaving and returning with backup, which might include the alpha.
“Is it true that you gave Esmeralda Green werewolf blood to hurt my pack?”
Oh shit.
“I was told the blood was for a different purpose,” Dayne said.
The beta didn’t seem to be buying it.
“Greta was here with me. You can talk to her.”
Blake raised a dark brow at her. “I don’t speak meow.”
“Greta, please go shift.”
Dammit, fine.
She went to their bedroom and pushed the door shut with all her kitty strength. Greta moved to the middle of the room and went through the chain of calming thoughts she used for shifting back to human form. Not that it was easy with a pissed off werewolf in the house.
The ocean waves, rolling green meadows, sunshine. A couple of minutes later, she was a tangle of long limbs. It had been harder to shift than normal.
Everything hurt; everything felt sore. And the whole world felt smaller at her new, larger size. She’d gotten so used to living as a house cat that the cottage was suddenly foreign as a human. Greta struggled to stand, having to grip the end of the bed to support her weight.
It was like she’d never had human limbs before. Kind of like that feeling one gets, trying to walk in normal shoes after having been on roller skates for hours. But worse. Feeling a little dizzy, she sat on the edge of the bed, breathing slowly in and out. That was so stupid. Never doing that again.
A knock sounded on the door. “Greta, are you all right in there?” Dayne.
She stumbled over to turn the lock before he could just barge in. He couldn’t see her like this, all disheveled and looking like a mermaid who’d just flopped out on the shore and grown legs. Not the first impression she wanted to give after the past week of sulking and being a bitch. It hadn’t been her proudest one hundred and sixy-eight hours.
It was a struggle to form words now, trying to remember how to speak as a human, to get her tongue to press against the roof of her mouth and the back of her teeth in the right way to form people words again. “F – Fine,” she managed with some effort.
“You’re back.” The relief and hope in his voice made the guilt flare up some more. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
“Dayne, PLEASE!” she forced out.
A few seconds later his footsteps receded. She felt bad for yelling. He’d only been concerned for her, and all the while Blake was standing out there, no doubt wanting to take him back to their den for questioning. From what she’d heard, being questioned by the werewolf pack wasn’t a laugh a minute.
She’d been right about Esmeralda, but she couldn’t rub that in because Dayne could be in real danger here if they couldn’t talk Blake down. She got herself together and got ready as quickly as possible, taking the fastest shower on record to wash off the remaining grime from being trapped as a cat so long.
Blake sat at the kitchen bar with a cup of coffee, looking tense and angry when Greta walked in. “It’s about f**king time,” he said. “I could have shifted and eaten your boy toy while you were primping.”
“I highly doubt that. He’s not helpless. He’s got magic.”
The wolf swiveled around to face her, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve already spoken with Dayne. A member of the pack was taken by the vampires and held for questioning. They’re trying to discover the location of our den. When he wouldn’t budge, they sent Esmeralda out to get werewolf blood. It can be used in a type of truth serum spell against our kind. Luckily we reached the captured pack member first. Esmeralda is no longer among the living, but your little witch friend did tell me where she got the blood first.”
Between werewolves and vamps it was hard to know which of those two groups was the worst. Though right now, Greta was leaning with werewolf. Proximity and all. She looked to Dayne, searching for a reaction to the announcement of the witch’s passing, but she couldn’t read one. Whatever he felt about the issue, he was playing it close to the vest.
“T-that b-bitch came here f-for b-blood.” Greta took a deep breath, trying to get her mouth to cooperate with her. “She . . . s-said it was for p-protection . . . against an ex.”
“What the hell is wrong with her?” Blake said.
“We’ve been fighting. She was pissed off I helped the witch. She’s been in cat form for a week.” Dayne moved behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist, offering comfort. She tried to pull away. Her skin was tingling at the close contact after nothing for so many days.
“D-Dayne didn’t know. I s-swear.”
Blake glanced between Dayne and Greta, a shrewd expression in his eyes. “I just don’t understand why you would so easily give werewolf blood to someone, knowing how dangerous it is to begin with.”
Greta’s mouth finally wanted to work with her. “Esmeralda is an ex-lover of his.”
“For God’s sake, Greta, I can speak for myself.”
“Sorry.”
Blake laughed. “Now that makes sense. Cute piece of tail you used to have comes waltzing in all in distress. It’s genetic. I get it. I might be crazy, but I believe you. If I find out you’ve been lying, though, I will be back. And I won’t be so cordial.”