“I’m not pissed,” he said softly. “We’ll get through this. I might go kill him. That’d work.”
I actually thought about it for a second. Maybe it was because I’d been literally raised by wolves, but my only issues with the idea were purely practical, rather than moral.
“No,” I said at last, with regret. “If you didn’t get caught by the police or something, someone else at Initech would still figure it out. It wouldn’t solve the problem. Just complicate it.”
“We’ll get through this,” he repeated.
And he wasright there, all solid and familiar and sturdy, my best friend. Someone I could always depend on. So I couldn’t resist going in for the hug, but I kept it to a manly one-armed double pat, stepping back after a second and moving as far away as the little study room would allow.
I cleared my throat. “Why don’t I check out these books, and we’ll head home and pick up lunch on the way.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Colin gave me his mega-watt grin that only came out when food was on offer. “Lunch, then figure out how to get the bastards.”
Chapter 8
Who Else?
Now that Colin knew I was working for Greenwald, I didn’t have to hide any of my books or keep my thoughts to myself. He still grumbled, but he’d accepted—for the moment—that trying to come up with something to give the asshole to get him off our backs was the best option.
So when we’d gotten home and scarfed our giant sub sandwiches, I spread all the books out on the table and got back to work. I made notes while Colin stepped outside and called his pack council; I hunted down references while he flopped on the couch and read the news.
The wind had picked up outside, and my apartment windows were all a little drafty. Every now and then a gust slipped through the cracks, making all the pages of my many open books lift and rustle in counterpoint to the knocking of branches against the kitchen window and the lowwhooof the wind whistling around the corner of the apartment building. Late-afternoon sunlight highlighted the gold lettering on the spines of some of the older volumes. The living room already smelled like a comforting mix of a library and my very own den.
Despite the stress of the underlying situation, a sense of peace crept over me. This was why I’d gone into academia in the first place. Quiet study, steady progress, the surety of a worthwhile goal.
Of course, the goal in this case was a little bit of a mixed bag.
Still. I had books, and I was starting to develop something of a working theory, and I had Colin. What more did I need, in the moment?
Particularly since the working theory seemed to be growing some legs. I just wasn’t sure if I loved where it was running off to.
“Hey, Col?”
He opened his eyes and turned his head on the throw pillow he’d stuffed under his neck. Anytime was a good time for a post-sandwich nap, in Colin’s world. “Yeah?”
“Does your pack ever follow any of the old-school mating rituals?”
“Say what now?” He propped himself up on his elbows and blinked at me, the position showing off how freaking ripped his chest and shoulders had gotten. I really, really needed to go to the gym. I wanted bulging shoulders like that. “Old-school? I mean, how old-school are we talking, dude? Like fucking and biting? Everyone does that.”
“Yeah, I know everyone does that. Everyone in my pack does that, too.” Except for me, of course. “But like, really traditional. The rituals, not just the basics.”
“Okay, but which rituals are we talking about, here? Like, the shamans selling off the prettiest humans in the pack as concubines? Or the one where everyone gets naked and smears themselves with fermented deer blood and the dominant were has to sniff his mate out in the chaos?”
I couldn’t help my facial expression, and Colin cracked up. I stuck out my tongue at him. “You made that last one up.”
“Cross my heart, I didn’t. There’s this pack in Colorado that does that for every mating.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to know how you know that.”
I got up and stretched a little, strolling the two feet into the kitchen for a…what? I didn’t want a beer, it’d make my thought processes too fuzzy. Coffee? Yeah, maybe coffee. I filled the pot and turned on the machine, as much for something to stall with as because I wanted some.
No, those weren’t the kinds of rituals I’d been thinking of, but I was having trouble articulating what I needed to say. I felt…shy. Which was all kinds of weird, since this was Colin, but somehow asking him how his pack did matings equated to askinghimhowheintended to mate someone someday, and that seemed invasive. Like asking a friend what sexual positions he liked most when he fucked his girlfriend.
Which would be weird, right?
“What are you getting at here, dude? Because there are as many old-school rituals as there are old packs, and there’s a million of those.”
I turned around finally, since I didn’t have a reason to stand there with my back to him anymore.