Page 71 of Dozer

“You’re… you’re… you’re…” I couldn’t get the words out, and she said, “Yes. I’m a werewolf, too.”

“Unlike Harmony, who was bitten,” Angelica said, “I was born into it, like Brain and Dozer.” She showed me her hand, and suddenly it was a paw, and then a hand again. My heart beat in my chest like it was trying to escape, but I was frozen in place. I wanted to run, but where would I go?

“I can’t do that,” Harmony said. “It takessomuch control. I know I’m the wolf the second I change now, and I didn’t for the longest after I was bitten. I mean, I usually knew within a minute or two, but I was dangerous to others until I remembered. I couldn’t return home to my horses until I gained control, though, so I had a lot of incentive to fight for it.”

“Give her a second,” Marco said. “It was a shock to her system. Stop talking and let her work it through.”

Harmony went to the floor and crawled halfway across the room. When she stopped, the wolf walked to her, nudged her arm with its head, and then settled himself on the floor with hishead in Harmony’s lap. She scratched around his ears the exact same way I’d done to Champ a few hours earlier, and I turned and looked up, to Master.

“You’re telling me you’re a wolf? That all of your friends are wolves?”

“I’m a wolf, and some of my friends are, but not all.”

“There’s a rule,” said Angelica. “I can tell you my secrets, but I can’t tell you anyone else’s secrets. Within the club, it’s up to the brothers to tell their human ol’ladies, and they get to decide on the timing of it, but once you know, and you’ve gone through the legal shit necessary so you can keep knowing, the rest of us can tell you what we are, if we want. Dozer wanted me and Harmony here to help tell you because he thought it would help.”

“Matty and Razor are upstairs, and I’ve asked Razor to bring his boy down,” Marco said. “I believe having another human in the room with her might help.”

“We can hear the same frequencies wolves hear, even when we’re in human form,” Angelica told me. “And even in the human frequencies, we can hear so much better.”

“We can smell better-than-human, too,” Harmony said. “I mean, it’s best when I’m the wolf, but even as a human, I can scent fear, joy, arousal. The born wolves are better at catching people in a lie than I am, but most of the time, I pick it up.”

I looked at Master, suddenly pissed. It was like he’d had this huge cheat sheet, and I hadn’t known.

“Yes, that’s how I know when you’re lying,” he told me.

The door opened, and Razor and Matty walked in.

“Oh man,” Matty said, “Brain has the most beautiful wolf, doesn’t he?” He looked at Master and said, “It just occurred to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dozer’s wolf.” He looked back to me. “I mean, it isn’t like they have the habit of justchangingin the clubhouse, but sometimes, Brain goes to the woods in theback of the compound and hangs out as his wolf for a while. Daddy always has to work the three nights of the full moon, because—”

Matty stopped talking as if he’d been shocked, and he looked at Razor as if he needed help.

“An example of what happens when a human tries to tell a secret another human doesn’t know,” Razor said. “What my boy was trying to say, is that I shift into a raven, which means I’m not ruled by the moon. Since the wolves all go run on or near the full moon, it means those of us not ruled by the moon have to step up and keep our businesses running.”

“A bird? You’d have to be huge!”

“You’d think so, right?” Matty said. “And heisa pretty big bird, but no larger than the biggest of the natural ravens. I have no idea how that works. It’s magic, I guess.”

I stood and paced away from Master without getting too close to the wolf, and then turned and looked at Dozer. He’d told me as we walked in the door I had free time with my speech once we were around the others, and I could say exactly what I wanted without fear of punishment so long as I didn’t disrespect his friends and acquaintances.

I wanted to demand he explain why he waited so long to tell me, but he’d already done so, in the truck. I just hadn’t understood what he was saying.

“I’m mad at you,” I told him, because it was the only thing I could think to verbalize, and it felt as if I needed to saysomething.

“I think that’s a valid feeling, and I’m sorry I waited so long. I don’t think we’d passed all the litmus tests for me to justify telling you until after we were married, but I fully admit, I should’ve told you soon after we became husband and wife.”

I shook my head. “No, this is something I should’ve known before I oathed my life to you. I gave my oaths to a human, not a monster!”

Once the words were out of my mouth, I realized I’d just called everyone in the room except Matty a monster — because I was assuming Marco wasn’t human, either.

“While we’re on the subject of monsters,” Marco said, “it’s probably time to tell you what I am, and then we’ll need to figure out whether you can handle knowing what your husband is, or not. Please turn and look at me, little Daisy.”

I turned as if my legs were controlled by puppet strings, and he told me, “I’m not a werewolf, nor am I a shapeshifter. I mean you no harm, and I promise I won’t physically touch you on this night. Let that sink in a second, okay? I won’t physically touch you on this night. You’re always safe from me causing you lasting harm so long as you don’t break certain rules in my territory, but you’re absolutely safe on this night.”

The room was silent until I nodded, and then Marco said, “I’m a vampire, and that means I have access to not just your thoughts, but your memories. If we decide you aren’t mentally strong enough to handle knowledge of werewolves, I can make you forget you were told.”

Terror gripped my heart, and I thought I was going to be sick.

No, there was no thinking about it. I saw a trash can, raced to it, and puked the meal Master had fed me before we left into it, and the peach tea.

---