A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (free romance novels TXT) 📗

already met a few of them, and they’d guessed her secret pretty much instantly. Give the woman credit, she’d handled it better than he would have. Just thinking about random Stables figuring out his true nature made him sweat…

(implications! change! danger? probably!)

…but it was still less aggravating than talking about Kama-Rupa.

“So when did you know David was the one? Probably took a while, right? Since you guys worked together for a couple of—”

“Five days” was the flat response.

“—years—what?”

“I thought you worked together for two years,” Mama said.

“Yes, but—not really. He’s an investigator, not an IPA employee. An independent contractor. IPA’s one of a few clients. So he was in and out all the time. We’d never worked a case together until Caro. We barely knew each other to say hi to.”

“Oh.”

“So to answer your question, five days. Well. Two years and five days,” Annette admitted.

“So it wasn’t until he was in your face all the time that you fell for him?” Sweet relief! Maybe lots of Shifters fell for strangers based on nothing but their compatible scent. Maybe he wasn’t tumbling into clinical insanity. Or living in the thirteenth century, when Kama-Rupa was taken as seriously as ferreting out witches to burn and wondering where the sun went at night. “Oh, man, thank God.”

“What?”

“Oz, what are you on about?” Mama asked, puzzled.

“I’m. I’m making a scrapbook.” Argh, why was the first thing to pop into his head so terrible? “A bound pile of mementos to commemorate your relationship.”

“Good God, please don’t.”

“You haven’t seen how cool-yet-touching it’s gonna be!” Argh, now he had to make a good scrapbook. Were those even a thing anymore? Didn’t everyone just use Pinterest?

Just then, the kitchen door was yanked open and in came two bundles of adolescent insanity: Caro Daniels and Dev Devoss. Or as they were more commonly known… “Oh, jeez, here comes trouble squared. Maybe even cubed.”

“Back off, Oz!” The tip of Dev’s sharp nose was red, like his cheeks. Green eyes gleamed while he shrugged out of his jacket, then grabbed Caro’s and hung them up in the mudroom. Well. Flung them in the general direction of the hooks in the mudroom. “Do we come to your house and insult you?”

“You were at my place two weeks ago for game night and you told me my hair was stupid.”

This got a snort out of Caro, which was gratifying. Since the sixteen-year-old werewolf rarely vocalized, a snort was as good as a speech. “I have devastating hair and everyone knows it.”

“Oh, I agree,” Annette said. “We’re going by the dictionary definition of devastating, yes? Oof!”

That last because Dev had bounded up to her and nearly strangled her with his enthusiastic hug. She normally towered over him, but when she was seated, the twelve-year-old werefox was half a head taller. “Hi, Net!”

“Ugh, stop, your touch sickens me.” This with a smile while returning the hug. “You’d better have passed that geometry test, you multilingual menace. Never think I won’t beat you to death.”

“Consider it passed, pasado, chaidh, seachad. I made that test my bi—um, I got a C.”

“Minus,” Caro muttered so softly it would have gone unheard anywhere else. She cleared her throat and waited patiently. Which made sense, because Caro Daniels could wait like a champ. She waited two years for rescue, two weeks for bloody, violent vengeance, one week for the truth to come out, and four months to be permanently assigned as Mama Mac’s foster cub. And now she was waiting for access to the fridge.

Oh, shit. I’m in the death zone! He moved. Fast. Standing between an adolescent meat-eater and protein… What the hell had he been thinking?

“Maybe we should adjourn,” he suggested, trying not to gasp at his near escape.

“Naw, keep talking about Sally.” Dev smirked. “We won’t hear a thing, promise.”

Annette frowned. “Were you eavesdropping again?”

Fair question. Oz wasn’t keen on generalizations, but Dev really did seem like a werefox prototype: small and slender, short and spiky reddish-blond hair, wide green eyes, an endless capacity for charming/fooling/frustrating/enraging people, and always always always putting his snout in at the worst possible times. He knew that as many times as Annette wanted to give the kit a hug, there were just as many where she’d had to restrain herself from throttling him until his eyes bulged like ping-pong balls.

“Didn’t have to eavesdrop. Knew as soon as we saw your cars. What else would the three of you be talking about? Politics? Net’s love life? Oz’s shitty haircut?”

Oz let out a yelp. “Hey!”

Annette sighed. “Good God, Dev.”

“Nope, none of those, obvi, so it’s gotta be work. And we’re your work.” Dev nodded to indicate Caro, too, now bringing the red box o’pie back to the table. “So’s Sally.”

“You’re the living embodiment of ‘too smart for your own good,’” Annette said, which she probably hoped sounded stern.

Just as quickly, the kit sobered. “I’m glad you guys got our gal Sal to come back, but you better find her folks pretty quick, or she’s gonna be in the wind again.”

And if anyone could predict that particular behavior, it’d be Dev. Back in the day (so, six months ago), prior to living with Mama Mac, the kit ran away as often as most people changed their underwear. Dev’s father had done a runner before he was born, his mother was in prison for, among other things, trying to sell her son. As Dev put it after her mother’s plea bargain, “It’s hard not to take that personally.”

“Are you guys listening? Sally’ll be gone, disparu, andato. She’s already super pissed that you don’t believe her.”

“She is? Still? I thought we settled that last night.” Since he’d dropped her off at IPA, he hadn’t seen her. His job, as he saw it, was done. On to the next cub in trouble! But first, more pie.

“Weren’t you wondering why she’s not talking?” It was always a bit startling when Caro spoke up. “About anything, including the Stable down the block?”

“Which brings us back to the question: What