Twelve
Tate parked his pickup on the street outside the office, and headed for the tray in back to grab the box of samples. He'd barely gotten one boot onto the footpath before her paws fell into step beside him.
She'd managed to take off her seatbelt, and open the car door with paws alone?
Tate glanced back at the pickup. Somehow, she'd closed the door behind her, too.
Even he would have struggled to do that as a wolf, and he'd been one for half his life.
Which was why it made no sense that she struggled with shifting back to human.
He couldn't take her into the office, or people would ask questions, so he lingered only long enough to drop off the box and make sure the receptionist knew the samples had to be delivered to the lab by the end of the day, before heading back outside.
"I need to pick up something before we can go to Wuffingas Estate," he told her, but she didn't stop.
Instead, she kept going all the way to the pickup, curled her paw under the edge of the door that hadn't quite shut, and leaped into the passenger seat.
Then she closed the door behind her and sank out of sight.
That was weird, but it didn't change things. If he wanted a favour from Ylva, she'd be more helpful if he buttered her up with fresh biscuits, and the Buzzy Barista made her favourite.
"What can I get you?" the barista asked.
"I need a box of bikkies. What have you got?"
"Not much left. It's been a busy one, and today you get a free coffee with every three biscuits you buy, so we're almost out. I can check if there are any out the back..."
"Please do."
The barista came back grinning. "I forgot a tray of macadamia and white chocolate shortbread on the cooling rack. How many do you want?"
One out of three would have been enough to sweeten Ylva. All three? Fate was smiling on him today. "I'll take the whole box."
"How do you want your free coffee?" the barista asked.
"Just the bikkies, thanks."
"But there's a dozen here. That's four free coffees."
"I really don't need any."
"Tea? Hot chocolate? What about a puppacino for your gorgeous dog? She's so well trained. You didn't even have a leash and she just sat there patiently."
Because the very thought of collaring his mate made Tate want to punch something. As for offering her dog food...that would only come back to bite him on the arse, if she didn't do it the moment he insulted her like that.
"She's not mine. I'm just taking care of her for a few days," Tate said. Forever, if he had any say, but that would be up to her.
"You sure you don't want a coffee?"
"Just the bikkies, please."
After what felt like forever but was probably less than five minutes, Tate left the shop with a paper carry bag full of shortbread. He reached for the handle on the passenger side.
"Hey, Tate, do you have a minute?"
His mate slunk deeper into the foot well, out of sight.
Tate spun around. "Sure, Hartwin." He leaned against the side of his pickup, like he had all the time in the world for the other pack enforcer.
"You've been staying up at Tarn Cottage, yeah?"
Tate nodded. "Taking routine water samples." Because if anyone knew the water might be contaminated, the Sanctuary development might be delayed even longer.
"Have you seen anything weird out there?"
Mushrooms that looked like apples and spewed gold dust into the air. Gangs of marauding otters that attacked werewolves. The fated mate he never thought he'd meet.
"Weird like what?"
Hartwin jabbed a thumb at a printed piece of paper stuck to the nearest lamppost. No, to every lamppost along the street, and a fair few shop walls and windows, too.
"There's a girl who went missing about a week ago.
Her mum's come into the station crying, saying her daughter was depressed, tried to off herself, so they took her to hospital in Glasgow, except she escaped, and someone found her scooter on the road to town, except it looked like a lorry had run over it, but there was no sign of the girl.
We let her put up a bunch of posters of the missing girl, but you know how cold it's been this week, and the woods around here are no place for a city girl in good weather, so even if we do find her, it'll be bad news, if you know what I mean...
" He snagged one of the pieces of paper.
"Here. In case she's recognisable, and it says what clothes she was wearing. "
It took a moment, but Tate had put the pieces together. "You want me to go up to Tarn Cottage and sniff out some girl's corpse?" Tate spread the piece of paper against the pickup's window. A girl's face stared back at him.
The human face of his mate.
Arwen Snow, the poster said her name was.
"I'll owe you one. A whole carton of that sixteen-year-old whisky you like.
You know you'll find her faster than most. I'd do it myself, but Head Office sent us a new constable this week and I can hardly go nosing through the woods with him shadowing me.
No one knows those woods better than you do.
If you find her, no one will question how quickly.
Please, mate. I'm begging you. If you can find her before the press gets hold of this, I'll owe you big.
The last thing we want is paparazzi digging things up around here. "
Tate nodded slowly. "I can't promise anything, but I'll keep an eye out. You let Shaw and Sienna know I'll be away a bit longer, yeah?" He forced himself to walk around the pickup to the driver's seat, stashing the bag in the space behind it, before climbing in. He waved at Hartwin as he drove off.
In the footwell, Arwen Snow lifted her head to take the missing poster between her teeth and shredded it, growling until it was reduced to confetti. By that time, they were out of town.
He would have given anything to be able to talk with her properly, like they had last night before she'd shifted, but fate was fucking with them both now, so he'd have to work with what he had.
"We're outside town now. Climb back up onto the seat. No one will see you. Not that they'd recognise you anyway. So your name is Arwen Snow?"
A nod. She seized the seatbelt in her teeth and dragged it across to the buckle. Tate heard a click as it went in. Fuck, he couldn't do that. His mate was definitely something else.
"Is that why you aren't shifting back? You know people won't recognise you as a wolf?"
She shook her head.
"No bullshit, now. Was there ever anything wrong with your heart?"
A growl.
"I'm supposed to be searching for your corpse, because they think you died a week ago. Hit by a truck or killed yourself or exposure or something. When you've been hiding in my cottage all that time."
Another growl, only this one sounded different. She ducked her head down and sort of curled up in the seat, then made a noise that sounded a little like someone snoring. Either that or a chainsaw.
"You were sleeping?"
She sat up again and nodded.
"You slept for a whole week. That's not a good sign."
Another nod. Then she touched her muzzle to her chest, before tossing her head to the side, her tongue dangling.
"Because of the poison and your heart?" he hazarded.
A nod.
"And how do you feel now?"
She shrugged.
Yeah, they'd have to swing by a veterinary hospital to get the answer to that, and Tate didn't think she'd go for that. Two words: rectal thermometer. Nobody deserved that.
"So what do you propose we do?"
She stretched out a paw, pointing forward.
"You think we should just go back to the cottage and keep hiding? Sure, we could do that, but then she wins. Your mother wins."
A warning growl.
"Right, stepmother. You said she was your stepmother, didn't you? And you're sure you didn't try to kill yourself?"
The next growl told him she'd castrate him with her teeth if he continued along this vein.
"Okay. But if they don't find your body, she still wins. Even if you go into hiding, take a new identity, whatever, eventually, the case will go cold and you'll be declared dead. And with no other family...your stepmother will inherit everything. She'll win. I don't think you want that."
A headshake.
"Ideally, you'd walk into a police station, tell them who you are, and show them evidence of everything you've told me, so they arrest her and you'd be safe. You do have evidence that she tried to kill you, right? It's not just your word against hers?"
Dejected headshaking.
Tate blew out a breath. "Fuck."
Emphatic nodding.
Well, at least they were on the same page.