Wolf Watch (The Madison Wolves Book 8) Page 5

  "I can't believe I just had a date with a werewolf."

  Part Two: Elisabeth

  Full Moon

  I eyed her door with disgust. I wasn't impressed with the building. It stank of mildew, stale beer, and from one or two apartments, marijuana. But some of the wolves in the pack lived in worse conditions. Hell, some of the wolves in the pack were responsible for worse conditions.

  But I didn't date those wolves.

  It was the security that really bugged the hell out of me. While I wouldn't have been impressed with anything the landlord might do to upgrade security, the units could at least have been provided with secure doors and a proper deadbolt. Even Michaela could pop these doors open without a second thought.

  And I could get through the cheap lock with barely a whisper.

  Instead, I knocked and made sure I had a pleasant expression in place before the door opened.

  It took her a minute before I heard the deadbolt release and the door opened. Zoe stood there in far more casual clothing than our first date, but this was to be a picnic. I thought she looked nice.

  "Hi," she said softly. She moved aside with a gesture, and I stepped past her, then turned to her and, as soon as the door was closed, pulled her into my arms. I didn't wait, but I bent her back slightly and captured her mouth.

  She was a good kisser.

  It was just a hello kiss, and as tempting as I found her mouth, I didn't linger. I released her lips, but instead of stepping away from me, she moved into me more fully, wrapping her arms around my waist and turning her head sideways to lay her head against me. She didn't quite fit underneath my chin, so I found myself with her forehead pressed against my neck, her cheek against my shoulder.

  "I like how you feel," she said.

  I wrapped my arms around her and held her, laying my head against hers a little more. We stood like that for a minute or two before finally she pulled away with a sigh. She looked up at me. "Promise me I'm safe, Elisabeth."

  "You're safe, Zoe," I replied. "If anything, you'll suffer from over protection. You've already seen how I can be."

  "I suppose I have." She smiled, and I couldn't help but reach out and caress her cheek. Her smile broadened.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Just up to Token Creek," I replied. "I promised a picnic."

  She looked disappointed.

  "We could go to a restaurant instead."

  "It's not that," she said. "I had the impression you lived on a fairly sizeable piece of land. I thought you were taking me there."

  "Oh. I thought about it, but if we went there, everyone would be bugging the crap out of us. We wouldn't get any time alone. I'm not ready to subject you to the entire horde."

  "A horde, is it?"

  "Clan, group, family..."

  "Scarlett is family?"

  "Well, there's family and then there's family," I replied. "But if you would rather go somewhere else..."

  "Oh no, the park is fine. I'm looking forward to it." She leaned closer and kissed my cheek. "Whatever you want is fine. Do we need to raid my refrigerator so I'll have something I dare eat?"

  In answer, I only grinned at her.

  She turned for her purse, but I frowned. "You won't need that."

  "But... keys. ID."

  "ID in your pocket, and you can leave your keys in my car."

  She cocked her head at me. "All right," she said slowly. I waited for her to fish out her driver's license. It went into a front pocket of her jeans. She grabbed her keys, and a moment later, she was locking the door to her apartment.

  I took the keys from her then took her hand, leading her to my car.

  * * * *

  She reminded me a great deal of Michaela. She was fierce and independent, bright, and concerned with the environment. I wondered what the two of them would be like together. I had never settled on a type. Heck, up until a few years ago, I'd never even considered dating women. I still wasn't sure they were for me. Women could be so complicated. Men could be complicated, too, but usually not so much.

  I wasn't very good with subtle. I wasn't really sure how Lara kept Michaela as tame as she did. The little fox was quite a handful. But the two of them certainly had their fights, and I'd been involved a time or three myself.

  I saw a lot of the same in Zoe, without the whole werefox thing of course. I still hadn't figured her out.

  But I would.

  When we got to the car, I handed her in. She seemed surprised every time I did it, but I think she liked it, too. To be honest, I didn't really know how to treat her, so I borrowed a lot from how Lara treated her wife, or how Michaela had trained me to treat her.

  Climbing in on my side, I dropped Zoe's keys into the console between the seats, and then we were on the way.

  We held hands during the drive. We talked about how she spent her day -- working on a new mailing she wanted to send out. Mine? Security, security, security, and I was sorry, but I couldn't talk about it.

  "Watching over your sister-in-law?"

  "No. I'm sorry, Zoe, I really can't talk about it."

  "Did you do anything... illegal?"

  "What? No. Of course not. I'm saving that for later."

  She laughed. "Oh?"

  I leered at her briefly, and she laughed again.

  "I'm pretty sure there's nothing illegal with that," she observed. "We're not in Texas. As long as I can still walk in the morning, anyway."

  "You might be walking a little funny," I said.

  "Maybe it's you who will be walking funny," she replied.

  We bantered back and forth during the twenty-minute drive to the park. As we parked, she again asked, "Are you sure you brought things I can eat? I won't be impressed with a roast beef sandwich."

  "Even if it's from a free range cow?"

  "Even then."

  "What if it's from a deer that was killed by a car?"

  "Elisabeth..."

  "I don't get to tease you?"

  She cocked her head. "Sometimes teasing a vegan isn't really teasing. Sometimes it's an effort to discover how serious we are or to see if we're really vegan."

  "Maybe I am expressing perplexity."

  "You don't understand why I find it immoral to consume animal products?"

  "I understand why you have a problem with factory farms. I can't say I make the same choices you do about it, but I understand it. I don't know what's wrong with eggs from free-range chickens. You didn't answer me on Saturday regarding deer herd overpopulation, either."

  "If we hadn't killed off the wolf packs and stripped so much of the forest for farmland, nature would be in balance."

  "All right," I said. I paused. "Let's continue this conversation in a minute. For now, you'll have to trust me."

  I didn't wait for an answer but I got out of the car and a moment later, she met me at the back. I popped the hatch and grabbed the waiting cooler.

  "You have a choice. Lawn chairs, blanket, or we can eat at one of the picnic tables."

  "Blanket," she said with a grin. She grabbed the waiting blanket. I set the cooler down, closed the hatch, locked everything, and then led the way into the park. Zoe scrambled to catch up.

  I already had a place picked out. It was a several minute walk from the car.

  "Where are we going?"

  "There's a quiet little place," I told her. I glanced at her. She looked at me nervously. "Don't you trust me?"

  "Sure I do," she said. There wasn't a lot of conviction behind it.

  "We could go to a restaurant," I offered again.

  "Oh, no, you went through all this work."

  I sniffed cautiously. She was giving off fear scent. I stopped and turned to her.

  "Zoe, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing," she said, and I didn't need Michaela to tell me she was lying.

  "We can go somewhere else. I was just trying to give us some privacy. I was hoping to impress you with my thoughtfulness. But if you're afraid to be out here with me, we can go somewhere e
lse. It's another twenty minutes to the compound. We could go there. Or we can find a city park somewhere."

  She eyed me carefully, and it was incredibly clear she was, indeed, afraid to be out here with me.

  "No," she said. "Just promise me you're not a serial killer."

  "You're safe," I assured her. "You would need a secret service detail to be safer."

  She turned away and began leading the way deeper into the park. I took a few steps and caught up.

  "You're not going to tell me what you brought?"

  "Nope. Well, I brought a Frisbee. I thought we could throw it around a little."

  "I'd like that," she said. She laughed.

  "What?"

  "You're rich, right?"

  "By some standards," I said.

  "And you took me on a picnic."

  "Feeling cheated?"

  "No. Courted."

  "Good."

  "I knew there was something different about you the moment I first saw you."

  I smiled at her.

  It took another couple of minutes until we reached our destination, a little space at the edge of a small field. Zoe spread the blanket, and I set the cooler down to catch the upwind edge. Then I crawled onto the blanket, pulling her after me. I wrapped my arms around her, and she laughed as I pulled her down on top of me. I immediately caught her lips, silencing her laugh.

  It didn't take long for us to both get worked up. I wished I'd made her wear the skirt; I had to satisfy my hands by cupping her ass.

  Finally we separated, both of us panting.

  "You don't waste time," Zoe said, rolling onto her back, her head pillowed by my arm.

  "Life is short," I replied. I rolled onto my side so I was facing her, then began caressing her. She was wearing a casual knit shirt, tucked into her jeans, but I tugged it out then sent my fingers in search of almost-bare skin to play with.

  Zoe didn't stop me. Instead, she closed her eyes and appeared to be holding her breath.

  "Is this all right?" I asked quietly. She nodded.

  But then she rolled her head and opened her eyes. "I'm a little overwhelmed," she said, "but I don't want you to stop."

  "I'm not planning on us getting naked out here," I replied. But I moved my fingers further up the inside of her shirt. "Just a little worked up."

  She smiled.

  She wasn't a classic beauty, and while she was in shape, it wasn't the same sort of shape I was accustomed to. But she was human; I couldn't expect her to have the same physique as a werewolf or even a little werefox. Her breasts were on the small side and her hips a little lean, but I was fine with that.

  My hand found one of those breasts, supported by a sports bra. Zoe closed her eyes as I fondled her breast through the stretchy material. My fingers found a nipple, and I teased it a little. It wasn't very satisfying, not to either of us, but I was just having fun for now.

  "I should have worn something lacy," she said.

  "You dressed for comfort," I replied. "So did I." I moved closer and captured her mouth again.

  She tasted really good. There was still a lingering scent of fear, but it was overwhelmed by her arousal -- and quite a bit of my own. I leaned closer and sniffed at her neck.

  She giggled. "What are you doing?"

  "Deciding if you taste good." I gave her a quick lick, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

  "No!" she screamed, pulling away from me. A moment later she was on her feet, facing me with her hands out defensively.

  I blinked at her, startled by her reaction.

  "Did I miss something?" I asked.

  She was panting in her panic, and I was sure she was about to bolt. She looked around wildly for a minute, and the fear scent was nearly overwhelming.

  "Zoe?"

  I stayed where I was and tried to look non-threatening. It wasn't a look I practiced, and I didn't imagine I was very good at it. But I didn't chase after her or give her additional cause to panic.

  "Oh god," she said. "I'm sorry."

  "You're acting like you expected me to turn into a savage animal and eat you. I promise you, everything I intend to eat tonight is in the cooler. Well, everything I intend to eat that way."

  She didn't laugh at my lame joke.

  "Elisabeth. I'm sorry."

  "Look, you're clearly not comfortable out here with me. Maybe we should go. I'm sorry. I thought it would be romantic. I'm not very good at empathy, and it didn't occur to me you would find this intimidating."

  "No," she said. She held one hand out and another to her chest. "Just... give me a minute to calm down."

  I edged away from her a little, slowly, moving to the cooler. She watched me carefully. She continued to exude fear scent, and I wasn't quite sure what to do about that -- either to get her to stop, or to control my own reaction if I couldn't find a way to replace it with something less disturbing. Her clothes, her skin, her hair -- they were all going to carry it.

  I opened the cooler and pulled out two bottles of water. Zoe eyed me critically.

  "They're refilled," I said. "We reuse them until they die." Michaela had long banned disposable water bottles for pack events, and now we always reused them. I didn't try to explain that.

  Zoe nodded at my explanation. I held the bottle out for her, and she approached cautiously before taking it from me. But she sat down on the far corner of the blanket and opened her bottle.

  There were limited explanations for her behavior, and I could only think of two. Either she'd been badly hurt in the past, or she knew what I was. I didn't know how she could have discovered that, but my research into her past hadn't uncovered any signs of abuse. Still, only so much was readily obtained, and she could easily have been assaulted without having reported it.

  I considered asking her about it, but she was acting like a frightened animal, and I didn't want to corner her, not even verbally.

  Instead, I pulled my phone out, unlocked it, and said, "Call someone."

  "What?"

  "Call someone. Tell them you're with me. Elisabeth Burns of Burns Protection Services." I fished out my driver's license and tossed it after the phone. "Tell them where we are. Tell them you'll be with me until at least midnight."

  "Elisabeth, that's not necessary." But she picked up my driver's license and examined it. "This isn't the same address as your business card."

  "The house in Madison. We're not there much anymore, but it's still in Lara's name."

  She eyed my driver's license for another moment, then the phone lying on the blanket between us.

  "You're safe, Zoe, but if you want me to take you somewhere you'll feel safer, I understand."

  "No," she said. She looked flustered. "I'm sorry." She moved closer, collecting my phone then holding the phone and driver's license out to me. I took them and put them away, and when I held my arms open, she moved into me.

  We held each other tightly.

  "I'm sorry," she said again.

  "I won't push tonight, but someday, will you tell me what set that off?"

  "Someday," she agreed. "Have I ruined our date?"

  "Just made it a little more dramatic," I replied. "Maybe we should eat a little, then we can throw the Freebee around."

  "I'm not very athletic. Not like you."

  "That's okay." I released her and we settled onto the blanket. I pulled out the rest of the food, and she began laughing.

  "You went to Carly's!"

  "For yours. Sushi for me, but I brought enough to share."

  I set everything out. There was more than enough food for both of us. I had silverware, but Zoe eschewed it, picking up one of the pairs of chopsticks. She was quite expert with them as she dived into her soy-something-or-other.

  I would have preferred a big steak, but I could show some sensitivity. Not enough to eat whatever she was eating, but I didn't need to be an overt carnivore in front of her.

  I wondered what life would be like for a werewolf and a vegan dating each other.

  We
ate quietly for a while before I asked, "So, we were deep into a conversation when we arrived. What's your answer about overpopulating deer?"

  "Let the wolves repopulate. Problem solved."

  "So, let me get this right. It's wrong for a hunter to kill a deer, but it's okay for a pack of wolves."

  "The wolves are part of nature, the circle of life."

  "We're all animals," I replied. "We, like wolves, are apex hunters. Aren't we also part of that circle."

  "We're an unnatural interruption to the cycle. We are the only creatures on the planet that kills for sport."

  "No, no," I said. "You don't get to switch arguments. You don't get to claim I shouldn't eat venison because the deer died for sport. That argument makes no sense, if I'm at the dinner table with a slice of medium rare venison in front of me."

  "You're under a false assumption, Elisabeth," she said. "I never said you shouldn't eat venison. Not once have I tried to tell you what you may eat. I asked you not to eat some of the foods in front of me. But I haven't complained about your sushi, and I wonder if you have a California roll over there."

  "I do, actually. I picked it for you." I opened one of the packages that was still sealed, exposing a couple of rolls. "But that one's spicy tuna."

  She took a piece of California roll and popped it in her mouth. Then, just like Michaela frequently does, she closed her eyes and moaned in appreciation. I almost laughed at the similarity, but I didn't want to confuse the conversation.

  She finished the piece then opened her eyes and smiled. "You're laughing at me."

  "I'm not. You were saying?"

  "I am not telling you what is acceptable to eat. I am making my own decisions. I do not want other creatures killed for my food, clothing, or furniture. Yes, I swat mosquitoes, as I do not choose to be their meal, either. I believe there are ample food choices available to me that do not involve killing other creatures, and the vast majority of the choices I make are also more environmentally sustainable than, for instance, eating beef."

  She shook her head. "Beef is amongst the least environmentally sustainable choices."

  "I believe that's an argument against overpopulation rather than dietary choices," I countered. "Wisconsin is a major food exporter."