Fortunately for Laura, being were meant she was fast, so tiny though she was she jumped back. And yelped.
No way was Owen giving the guy another chance to grab her. He grabbed first. Fisting the guy’s collar, Owen spun him around, bent him backward across the dispensary counter and shoved a knee into the guy’s thigh until he cried out in pain. He was probably in his twenties, although his eyes looked older.
“Fuck you, man,” the guy squealed. “Wait your turn.”
Hauling back his fist, Owen popped him a good one.
“Police brutality.” The man cradled his nose and started hollering. “I’m gonna make a million bucks off this pissant town.” Blood began seeping down across his lips.
“I’m not a cop,” Owen growled, apparently with sufficient ferocity because the man started to shake.
“Who are you?”
Owen’s wolf wanted a taste of the action and Owen saw no reason to refuse. He felt the muscles in his jaw shift, his teeth grind against bone as they got longer. For an instant his skin felt tight then it loosened, got thicker. Just like his voice. “I’m the nightmare that makes you piss yourself in the dark.”
The man started screaming and didn’t stop until Tom, Suzanne and at least three more deputy sheriffs raced into the pharmacy, yanked the guy away from Owen, slapped cuffs on him and dragged him outside.
Looking up, Owen met Laura’s wide, terrified eyes. Without asking, he walked behind the counter, put his hands on her shoulders and scanned her for injuries. “You all right?” he asked although his nose told him she was unhurt. She nodded and those tiny shoulders of hers started shaking. He pulled her close, turned her head so her cheek rested on his chest and held her carefully. She felt so damn fragile but she surprised him when after only a few seconds she pulled away, straightened her white coat, wiped a drop of moisture away from the corner of her eye and looked up at him.
“Thank you for getting here so quick.”
He smelled courage, even strength seeping out of her.
“I panicked. I’d programmed your number into speed dial and hit that instead of calling 9-1-1.” Lifting her chin, she smiled thinly. “Next time I’ll keep my cool.”
“Next time you’ll kick butt. That punk was lucky you didn’t jump the counter and go all Cujo on his ass.”
She laughed like he’d hoped she would.
“You need any help cleaning this place up?”
“No. We’re good.” With a movement of her hand she motioned the pharmacy assistant forward. The middle-aged were crept out from behind a back counter. “You got here so quick he didn’t have time to mess the place up. Thanks, Owen.” She exhaled. “Thanks.”
After nuzzling her forehead, Owen turned to leave. As he headed for the exit he heard the buzz of conversation rise around him. Other than the lingering stink that punk had left in his wake he couldn’t smell any other humans in the pharmacy. They’d caught a break with that. And any crazy story about werewolves the guy in cuffs might spin for his public defender would be dismissed as a hyped-up junkie rant. Still it seemed a good idea to leave the premises, and soon.
The few weres in the store headed for him, touched his jacket or hand as he walked past. He offered his best reassuring smile, made a quick joke about getting away before the paranormal creature conspiracy nuts started nosing around. Smiling with him, scenting like weres coming down from an adrenaline-fueled fear rush, they let him be before heading back to the dispensary. Probably to rehash the juicy details.
A female voice, sharp and mean, caught his ear.
“See? You need to step down. You’re too old to stand up for your pack. Owen’s an outsider and he had to run over here and take care of business. What did you do? Stood there shaking in your Pradas while an innocent female got beaten up by a human.”
He turned a corner and saw a young female poke Katherine Clark in the chest hard.
“You haven’t got the guts to be top bitch anymore. If I were you—”
“If you were her,” Owen interrupted coldly, “you’d be a helluva lot brighter.” When he kept moving forward the young female backed away. “From what I saw she handled the situation correctly by gathering up the females in the shop and keeping them away from a volatile human until help arrived. What I also see is a young, impulsive were who can’t rationalize that this pack needs to hold on to whatever stability it can in the wake of the murders of its Alpha and Beta. Katherine here is the only surviving member of your hierarchy. The day will come when she’ll be replaced but that day is not today. And this is definitely not the time or place. Am I making myself understood?”
The young female shrunk visibly, nodded then scurried away.
Katherine huffed, drawing his attention back to her.
“Why don’t you just stick a fork in me, Wells, and tell everybody I’m done? First Suzanne now you fighting battles that should be mine.”
“Yeah. It blows to have people value you. Flash me that look all you want but these people need you functioning, in place and on your feet. Once they get back on
their
feet you’re on your own, lady.”
“Well, thank heavens for that.”
She huffed again, shot him another look then headed to the back of the pharmacy. Owen took a moment to admire her shoes and those legs of hers before heading for the exit, double quick.
“I want to thank you all for coming. There’s been some talk around town and a couple of us thought it was time to get together as a pack and discuss these issues in a public forum.”
Owen leaned against the back wall of the community center gymnasium, arms crossed over his chest, ears open, nose working, eyes scanning the crowd. He had to hand it to the guy at the podium. Keenan O’Donohue had the gift of the gab. The twenty-something were was charismatic, charming and a born orator.
No wonder his gang of three other weres elected him speaker.
Tom and Suzanne, still in uniform, stepped away from the elderly weres they’d been talking to and took up spots on either side of him.
Keenan looked out at the rows of seated weres. His smile was friendly with equal parts aw-shucks-good-ol’-boy and the kind of intelligence that fostered trust. “The idea of group leadership or leadership by committee is new. Maybe even radical. But this is the new millennium. Listening to some of you, I get a sense we might
want
to consider something new. Might work, might not. I for one want to hear what people have to say.” He flashed that smile again and pointed to a pretty young female. She wasn’t the only one with a raised hand but the quick way Keenan’s eyes went to her and the speed with which she shot to her feet made Owen suspect she’d known she’d be the first picked to speak.
“Thanks, Keenan.” She had a nice, feminine voice and it carried well. Almost too well, like she’d had practice with the public-speaking bit. “I like the idea of having a committee of leaders. When Ed and Cory were murdered I cried for days.”
Owen spotted a tissue in her hands. With the way she was wringing it and turning in place so she could make eye contact with the crowd it was hard to miss.
“Now we’ve got no leadership and we’re looking at weeks, maybe months of fighting before males strong enough to take on the job of Alpha and Beta sort themselves out.” Again with the wringing. Again with the little tremble in her voice. “I’m just sick thinking about what might happen in the meantime. Why just the other day some human tried to rob the pharmacy. Thank goodness the police eventually showed up but he tore the place up before they did. Tossed poor little Laura Samuels around like she was a sack of potatoes. Sure that sort of thing never happened when Cory was alive but he was getting older. Just the thought of one of our elders having to step in to… Well, if we had a group of leaders the younger ones could step in to any situation and fix it. The risk and the responsibility would be spread around.”
She sat down gracefully.
“Why am I not surprised,” Tom muttered as Keenan called on the next speaker, a male, this one even younger. “He and Keenan were best buddies at school.”
“I think Keenan’s right,” the male said. “If we had younger leaders to help the older ones we wouldn’t be putting our best weres in harm’s way.”
At least this one wasn’t yanking on a hankie but he did have that address-your-audience pirouette down pat.
The meeting went on for just over an hour. The organizers had orchestrated the timing perfectly. Nobody had to sit too long, attention didn’t flag and the big group didn’t break off into smaller groups and start talking amongst themselves. All but a few of the weres who got to speak seemed handpicked—judging from the sometimes rehearsed cadence of their words. The same message was repeated again and again though. Select a committee to lead them, half of it experienced and half young weres.
“Well. What did you think of that?” Owen tossed the question out to no one in particular as he settled himself into one of Katherine’s living room sofas.
Tom was the first to answer. “Group leadership among weres will never work. The pack needs to consider then dismiss the idea as unworkable though and that meeting got that process started.”
“Yes but what if some of them do go for it?” Suzanne was filling a Thermos from Katherine’s coffeemaker. They’d give it to Wally and the two other deputies who were keeping an eye on Katherine’s home that evening.
“Some will,” Tom answered. He shrugged. “They might even give it a try, for a while. It won’t take folks long to remember that weres don’t follow democratic rule. We follow the guy who believes he’s got the biggest balls in the room. It doesn’t mean he’ll be a good leader but we all have an instinctive imperative to submit to the leadership of one Alpha.”
“I’ll buy that,” Owen said, “but you have to hand it to those four guys tonight. They did a good job organizing the meeting, took charge right away and didn’t let go of control for an instant.”
“Well choreographed,” Suzanne added.
“Hmm,” Owen acknowledged with a grunt and a nod. “I think they persuaded more than a few weres to embrace this new peaceful command structure. Young ones especially.”
“That’s because young, stupid and weak weres,” Katherine said with a confident finality that focused everybody’s attention on her, “like the notion of being in charge. They just don’t have a clue what that entails or have what it takes to lead a group this large. They want to gobble the goodies without earning them.
“Bottom line?” she continued. “It’s bullshit. You can paint it and call it what you like. It’ll still be bullshit. I don’t have to step in it or sniff it up close and personal to recognize bullshit when I see it.”
Owen grinned but managed to hold back his laughter. The more time he spent with this female the more he liked her. Too bad her prime fighting years had come and gone.
“And on that note,” he said as he stood, “what do you say we leave this outstanding female and her mate to enjoy the peace and privacy of their home?”
“Peace and privacy…hmmph.” Katherine snorted then led the way to the front door. “Sheriffs tailing me everywhere I go, driving around here all night. You just find the bastards who killed my cousin and Ed. Then we’ll
all
get back to peace and privacy.”
Three days later Owen was walking around the community center with Katherine. He’d come up with an idea to name the center in honor of Sheriff Ed Timberman and wanted her input. If nothing else the exercise would provide a focal activity for the community, kind of like a pack run without the fur. Ed had been hugely popular and Owen was pretty sure the pack would embrace the idea. They needed something to get them out of their homes because they were still spending most of their time behind locked doors.
Weres were social creatures. They didn’t do well when they isolated themselves.
“Owen Wells, right?” A young male, one of the group leadership meeting organizers, came in through the front door and stepped up to Owen, hand extended. Keenan O’Donohue was a step behind him. “I’m Terrence Smith but everybody calls me Terry.”
“Good to meet you, Terry. What can I do for you?”
“We wanted to ask to see the pack’s financial statements. Howard Rupert says you’ve been running the pack’s affairs out of your office here. I must admit, we were surprised to hear that.” The were was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five and a couple inches short of six feet and although his tone was civil enough his eyes kept shifting around like he was checking the area for challengers.
Or more likely checking to see if Owen had backup around.
Keenan flashed that trademark ingratiating smile of his. “Howard’s our business manager so we were wondering why he wasn’t handling the day-to-day affairs of the pack now that Cory’s gone. We went by his house to check on the books there but the place is locked up tighter than a drum.”
“With good reason,” Katherine interjected. “It’s a private home. The home of your dead Alpha’s widow. I don’t like the idea of you boys trying to break in.”
“Oh no. Nothing like that.” There was that smile again. “We explained the whole thing to the deputy sheriff who showed up. He sent us here. To you.”
“What we were wondering,” Terry said and he didn’t sound quite so appeasing now. In fact his voice was rife with the undertones of an indirect challenge. “Is why a newcomer who’s got no position or standing in the pack is bothering himself with our business.”
“You mean business that’s not his to take care of?” Owen crossed his arms over his chest, widened his stance and lifted his upper lip just enough to let the edge of his teeth show. “Cory was murdered and nobody else stepped into the void. That’s what leadership is about, boy. Stepping up. Stepping in. Taking on the hard jobs nobody else has the fortitude to tackle. Now I appreciate what you boys are trying to do. Really I do. You recognize there’s a void in the pack leadership and you’re trying some creative problem solving. Kudos to you. And of course you can take a look at the books. By pack law they’re open to any member who wants to look. But let’s be clear about one thing. While you boys have been out there glad-handing and campaigning, Katherine and I have been keeping the pack running, taking care of the day-to-day business and long-term strategic planning. Now whenever you’re ready to step up and play with the big boys I’ll see you’re given an opportunity. But if all you’re interested in is posturing and fear mongering then—”
“Fear mongering?” Terry barked. He flashed his incisors. Keenan put a hand on his buddy’s shoulder, obviously trying to rein him in. Terry shook him off. “That’s a bold-faced lie.”
“I’ll tell you what’s a lie. That fabricated half-truth your little girlfriend at the meeting came out with about the junkie at the drugstore a few days back.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Terry. Shut
up
.”
“Ah. So part of the truth comes out.” Katherine shifted her weight from one foot to the other, planted her fists on her hips and seemed to swell in size. “You should listen to your friend there, Terrence. He obviously knows Owen was the first male on the scene. Laura Samuels called him for help before she called anybody else. I found that telling. Under stress a were looks to the strongest, most capable leader. She knew Owen would climb mountains to come to her aid.” She jerked her head in Owen’s direction. “That tiny female called him. Not you or any of your juvenile friends. Now get out of my way. I’ve got business to tend to. And don’t take up too much of Owen’s time going over the books. His time is valuable too.”
With that she spun on her heel and headed for the interior of the community center to finish her walk-through inspection.
Owen knew he was wearing a self-satisfied grin as he watched the top bitch stroll away on those long pins of hers. “Office is this way, boys. And wipe your feet. Gerry’s already mopped the floors this afternoon and if you mess them up, you mop them up.”
Sitting back in one of his comfortable guest chairs, Owen sipped his coffee and watched the two young weres go over the spreadsheets he’d opened for them. The ledgers Howard Rupert kept as backup were laid out on his desk.
“You want something done with that poster?” Owen nodded in the direction of the bright yellow sheet of paper in Keenan’s hand.
“Um. Yeah.” Keenan held out the printed sheet. “Just some information on the group leadership forum. A wrap-up of the issues discussed at the meeting.”
“Hmm.” Owen scanned the poster then set it on the corner of his desk. “Doing some campaigning, I see. I’ll have Gerry put it on the bulletin board.” He neglected to mention that any were could post anything on the board so long as it was okay for kids to look at, yet these boys had felt the need to ask him first.
“How come there’s a surplus in the community center’s operating budget?”
Huh. Bonus points for their face man. Turned out Keenan could sell shoes
and
read a journal entry.
“As volunteer director I made it my business to initiate programs that would bring in user fees, as well as promote the place for private functions. Which have been lucrative enough, by the way, to cover the cost of resurfacing the parking lot this summer and keep the seniors’ fitness program and the art program going.”
Keenan blinked. His buddy Terry just looked pissed.
“Well, it looks okay on the surface but we’ll want to examine the numbers in detail.” Keenan started to close the laptop up. “We’ll take this with us. We’ve discussed it and the pack’s business should be run out of a central location.”
“No can do, boy.” Standing, Owen walked over to the door and held it open in a dismissive gesture that couldn’t be misinterpreted. “That laptop’s my personal property. Copy the files if you want.”
“Oh. Well, do you have a data stick?”
“No.” He heard the growing irritation in his voice, felt that furrow between his eyes deepen. His schedule was tight today and he didn’t have time for posers. “And when you do come back to copy the files you might want to have a look at the social calendar.”
“Why?” Terry’s tone was dismissive but carried none of the depth and resonance Owen was pumping out. “It’s just the stuff Cory set up.”
Exhaling audibly, Owen started rubbing his forehead. “Check again, junior g-man. A pack’s needs evolve. Social events are modified continuously so a pack’s changing needs are met month after month.”
“Well, how come nobody told us?”
“If you’ve got it in you to lead, nobody
has
to tell you.” Standing up straight now, Owen barked down at the younger weres. He was tired of justifying his presence to kids with an agenda. And having to explain the basic precepts of keeping a pack healthy and growing sapped what was left of his patience. Keenan then Terry slouched and stopped making eye contact but Owen kept barking in that fine, military-trained tone of his. “You take it upon yourself to step back, ascertain the pack’s needs and meet them. I applaud your efforts, boys, but you’re a day late and a dollar short.” Putting a hand on each of them, he shoved them out the door. “Come back when you’re ready to grow up and take on the job.”