Page 14

Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

Present Day

Cian

“This is a lot of shit to remember,” I said, brandishing the itinerary at Mash.

“That’s why they write it down for us,” he retorted, swiping the paper from my hand and stuffing it into the back pocket of my cords. “But we don’t need it.”

Once again I’d had to tear a hole in my expensive trousers for a tail to fit through, but as we were the only two people in the attic, I’d reverted to my more comfortable human form.

Mash handed me yet another box, and I dumped it near the entrance. This one had LIGHTS scribbled on the cardboard flaps. In fact, ninety percent of the boxes so far indicated they contained LIGHTS .

“What does ‘pre-shift scran-up’ mean?” I asked, getting the paper out once again and peering at the looping calligraphy in the speckled attic light.

Mash was bent double, his head buried behind a stack of crates, ass pointing towards me, and tail gently swaying. “Have you never been on a shift before?”

“Well, one time at uni, remember? But you wouldn’t let me come to the shifting park again.” I said.

Mash straightened to his full height. “Because you threw the fucking stick! You had thirty werewolves playing fetch all fucking night.”

“In my defence, you all kept bringing it back to me. Anyway, you told me you don’t remember your shifts.”

“Well, not really,” he said. “But I remember you gloating about it the next day. And I remember Josie from the second floor telling me about it. Not all werefolk lose their memories while shifted. So fucking embarrassing.”

He handed me another box. This one read MARQUEE DECS . “The scran-up is basically a huge party with all the spoils from the hunt.”

“Do I have to join the hunt?” I asked. Not that I was opposed to eating meat—far from it—I just didn’t much fancy being the person who fired the gun and took the beast’s life.

“No, not if you don’t want to. They’re usually fun, though, it’s pretty much everyone going on a big hike and having a gossip. But if you’d prefer, you can stay with Clem in the kitchens and help with the cooking?”

I would much, much rather do that. “So, it’s not like a ‘men hunt, women cook’ kind of deal?”

“Ew, no,” Mash said. “There are no gender roles in our pack. My alpha is my nana, and she leads the hunts. Or well, she used to. Most of my pack are women. You can choose to stay or go wherever you want. There’s no obligation to do anything you don’t want to just because you have a ding dong.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little lighter.

“The first hunt is fishing, anyway, because of the sturgeon moon.”

“I’d still much rather be helping with the food.”

I didn’t mind fishing. Mash and I had been fishing a few times before. I always got him to bash the fish over the head so I didn’t have to, and then we’d gut them together, and I’d cook them. The primary draw for me had been spending several hours alone with Mash, because well, I was addicted to him.

“So, where are most people going to stay? This list has like . . . twenty different packs on it.”

“Most will stay at Clem’s. She has a B&B in town. Some will stay here, at ours. Some with Zach and Kai, some with Mika and Atlas. Some’ll stay in their RVs in the field or in tents. We have electric hook-ups.”

I nodded. Made sense. The last time I was here, the bed and breakfast had been a pipe dream. I was glad Clem had finally got everything she needed to open it.

“Clem’s mate is Sean, right?” I asked.

“Yes. Well remembered.”

“One down, one million to go.”

Mash laughed. “You don’t need to remember all of them. Just the Cassidy wolves, and maybe the Wests.”

“Where’s Dylan, uh, Dee-Dee staying?”

“Not really sure. I guess it depends on when Nana allocated the rooms.”

“What do you mean?”

Mash found a stack of sturdy enough boxes and plonked his backside down. “Well, if the spare bedrooms were divvied up before I told everyone we were mated, you can bet my left knot she’d have put Dee-Dee next door to us.”

“Oh, fuck. What, across the hall?”

There were only two rooms at the end of the west corridor—Mash’s room to the right, and the bedroom that used to belong to Clem, Alba, and Mika, Mash’s three sisters. This morning we had gone in to change the bedding, arrange fresh flowers in a vase, and stack some towels and fancy little soaps on the ends of the twin singles. I had considered the possibility of sneaking into that room at night so I wouldn’t wake up with Mash’s boner crushing my spinal column again, but obviously fate had other plans.

I couldn’t decide whether it would be a good idea to have the woman I was trying to win a job with sleeping opposite me.

“Though, knowing Nana,” Mash continued. “She probably assumed I was lying or wouldn’t bring anyone with me, and decided to stick Dee-Dee and Riley in there anyway. In the hopes that, if that were the case, I’d somehow magically fall in love with her. Or . . . whatever.”

“And Dee-Dee’s single?” I didn’t know why I asked. I already knew.

“Yeah, she’s always been more focused on her career, but her pack is like my pack. They wanna see their kids mated off. They need someone to—” Mash cut himself off.

Okay, I knew why I asked. I was worried. Genuinely worried that Mash might break his libertine lifestyle, fall in love with Dylan, and move back to Howling Pines forever.

Maybe he’d eventually be happy in a monogamous relationship. Maybe I was being selfish, but I liked that I was the person he always confided in. It was my office or my apartment he’d turn up at when he had nowhere else to go. I was the one he told his secrets to.

Kimmy’s voice rang through my thoughts. “But you can’t keep it from him forever.”

I guessed not all of his secrets.

“What happens at the shifts?” I asked, because I didn’t want to dig any further into this whole shit-soup of Mash, Dee, the future, and all the secrets swirling in my mind.

“Well, about half an hour before sunset, everyone will go to the marquee to change out of their clothes. There are little cubbies with people’s names on, but you can strip off wherever you feel most comfortable. Generally, packs undress together, but there’s a section for men and one for women on the other side. Though honestly, nobody gives a shit. Everyone’s seen each other naked so often, nothing fazes anyone anymore.

“The younger wolves will get semi-undressed and hang about in the corner, in case it’s the first night of their shift. They can get a bit giggly when all the boobs and dicks start flapping about, but you get used to it pretty quickly. Once you’re in wolf form, you’re naked anyway. And then everyone starts sniffing each other’s butts.”

I laughed, figured he was joking.

“I’m not kidding. It’s like butthole bonanza in that marquee. Like whack-a-mole, but with anuses instead of mole holes and snouts instead of squishy mallets. Hey, is it anuses or ani?”

I didn’t answer him. “Oh my gods. So I have to sniff all your relatives’ assholes?!”

“If you wanna fit in.”

“No, I don’t,” I whinged. “I don’t want to fit in. I’ll just be that strange guy who everyone side-eyes and goes, ‘Oh, Mash’s boyfriend, he’s a bit weird, isn’t he? He didn’t rim me the second he met my wolf form.’ ”

“Oh, fuck off!” Mash spat, but he was still smiling. “Nobody rims anybody. But I bet it would feel amazing in wolf form, with those long canine tongues.”

I rolled my eyes. “And then what happens? After the colon inspections?”

“You’re wondering if I’ve ever been rimmed in my wolf form, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be a dick, of course not.” I said. Lied.

“I’m wondering that myself, too. It’s a shame I can’t remember much from my shifts.”

“Have you ever fucked anyone as a wolf?” I was certain I’d had this conversation with him before, but now that I knew Mash was keeping a secret from me, I wondered if there was anything else he was withholding.

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t. At least not here. Maybe at uni, but it’s all so hazy.” He pushed his hair off his face.

“Then what happens?” I asked.

Mash shook his head, obviously ridding himself of dog-sex thoughts. “Then we run wild!” he said, getting to his feet and spreading his arms out like wings.

“All night?”

“All night,” he repeated. “Wake up somewhere on the estate, naked and muddy and ravenous. Sometimes with blood on your hands and face, sometimes with random, healing injuries, or fox or badger shit all over your back. Some people have woken up with mate bites.”

“Fuck, that’s . . . scary. How can we stop that from happening?” I asked.

“You’ll have all your wits about you. You’ll be the only shifter in a sea of werewolves. If anyone tries to mate bite me, rip their throat open. I’m yours.”

The words “I’m yours” caught me off guard. They stung, like tape caught on tiny hairs. What I wouldn’t give to hear those words from his lips and know he truly meant them.

“Ooh, that reminds me,” he said after I didn’t respond to his comment. “We need to piss on each other before the shift, just to make sure the scent is really strong.”

“Piss on each other?”

He huffed, and flipped me off. “Not actually piss on each other, you tit. You know, dab dab, splash splash?” He mimed patting something on his neck like he was using a powder puff. “Though, mind you, that is what real mates do.”

I decided to ignore everything I’d learned in the past minute. “Okay, moving on. So, then you just all crawl back to the marquee naked, and what?”

“Shower, get dressed, have another scran-up. You’ve heard of the saying hungry like the wolf? You’re gonna get back to that tent and there’ll be meats and veggies and potatoes and cakes . . . all sorts.”

“Who gets all that ready?”

“Oh, yeah. You will, I guess. If you want to, that is, with Clem and the kitchen staff. They do all the prep during the day and then, as soon as we get back from the shift, we have a feast. The old wolves—the ones who’ve lost their shifts—stay behind to look after the babies and kids, and they’ll move everything from Clem’s refrigerated trucks to the banquet tables.”

“Wow, it’s a serious operation.”

“Yeah, it really is,” Mash said. “That’s why all the other packs come to us. Because Nana and Clem have this down to a fine art.”

“Someone talking about me?” came a woman’s voice from the square of light in the attic floor.

“Quick, shift,” Mash hissed.

I did, but my tail stuck out at a weird angle in my cords. “Pull my tail through the hole!”

Mash wiggled his fingers into the seat of my pants and eased my tail through the jagged hole, just as the light was blocked off and two pointed ears—followed by a head, a torso, a tail, and a pair of legs—materialised into the loft space.

“Clemmy!” Mash cried, leaping to his feet and crashing into his sister.

She groaned with the force of the collision, but managed to stay upright and not fall through the attic hole. Then she began kissing his face like a kid who’d found a suction cup and an unguarded window. Both of their tails wagged so fiercely I was concerned for several boxes of outdoor fairy lights stacked near the entrance.

“Shit, I’ve missed you so much. You got so big! When did you get so big? What the fuck are they feeding you in Remy?” She turned to me, though she never let Mash out of her arms. “This is all your doing, no? Mash tells me about your cooking often.”

Clem was the eldest of Mash’s siblings, and I suspected, Mash’s favourite. She was the one who he talked about the most, the one who’d shown him the ropes of adult life, who he’d unfailingly called once a week while we were at uni. Mash would kill for every member of his family, that was just how he loved, but for Clem, he would wipe out an entire village.

I’d met her twice before. Once at Zach and Kai’s mating ceremony, and one time when she visited Mash at Remy during our second year. If anyone was going to foil our little game of pretence, it was Clementine Cassidy.

She was forty-six, eleven years older than Mash, and was mated with two kids—Felix, fourteen, and Juno, twelve. According to Mash, both kids were super into this guy named Lewis Bone, a ChewTuber. I had no clue who this person was, nor did I ever care to learn.

“Hi Clem, nice to see you again. What did Mash say about my cooking?” I asked, because Mash wasn’t the only whore for praise.

Clem laughed. “That, I can’t repeat. At least not in front of the kids.”

At that moment the attic space filled with another two bodies, those of Felix and his younger sister Juno.

“Uncle Mash!” Felix said, letting Mash pull him and his sister into a three-way hug, and dispelling everything I knew about sullen, withdrawn, apathetic teenagers.

At fourteen, Felix was already taller than my six one, and Juno wasn’t far behind.

Mash ruffled his hair. “How’s the ChewTube channel going?”

Felix shrugged.

“He wants to film his first ever shift,” Juno supplied on her brother’s behalf.

“Big lad like you still hasn’t shifted yet?” Mash said. But then he seemed to realise he’d made a mistake because he added, “We all shift at different ages. I’m sure you’ll shift soon.”

“We think it’s going to happen during this Harvest Fest. Sometimes these big family events are like catalysts to shifting,” Clem said.

“I reckon I’m gonna shift before him,” Juno said.

Felix flipped his sister off. “Eat shit—”

“Felix! Language!” His mother slapped his middle finger down. “Everyone’s different, hon. You’ll shift when you’re ready.”

Felix turned to Mash. “How old were you when you first shifted?”

“Um . . .” Mash scratched the back of his head. “Eleven.”

“But Uncle Mash is the next—” Juno began.

Clem cut her off. “What about you, Cian? How old were you on your first shift?”

“Six,” I said, my heart dropping like a stone the second the word was out. Everybody gawped at me. Mouths hung open.

Shifters and werefolk experienced shifts differently, obviously. For weres it only happened at the full moon and when the werewolf had come of age— anywhere between eleven and fifteen—whereas shifters started transforming during those early formative years. And it was something we couldn’t control, not at first. Control over your shifts was learned and earned.

“Teen,” I added, because everyone was still staring at me like I’d grown an extra tail. “Sixteen.”

“Really?” Felix’s eyes lit up. “That’s so old.”

“Really,” I said, taking a stab at what I assumed was a soothing tone.

Clem winked at me and mouthed, “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I simply smiled back.

“Right kids, grab a box and let’s take these downstairs to Dad. Uncle Zach and Uncle Kai are going to help him hang the lights,” Clem said.

Felix and Juno took a box each and hurried down the stairs, starting—or resuming—an argument about Felix’s ChewTube channel.

Clem leaned in close. “Mash said that your food is so beautiful he would take it to bed and show it a good time if he could.” She picked up a box and followed her kids out of the attic.

“You say these things to your sister?” I said, but I was smiling too much for it to be a real reprimand. I loved it when Mash enjoyed my cooking.

Clem threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh my gods, Bangers, your tail is wagging,” Mash said.

“It is not.” I elbowed Mash.

“Is too. You like it when I say you’re a good cook.”

I shook my head. “Nuh-uh, I don’t care.”

“It’s fucking cute,” Mash said.

My breath caught in my throat. Mash thought I was cute? But the next second he flicked his eyes over to the bottom of the staircase and back to me, and I knew this had all been a show for his sister.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and dragged me closer to him. He whispered in my ear in a voice so quiet only I could hear. “I mean it, though. It’s nice to see when you’re happy.”

I smiled at him, and tried not to lean in too closely or drink in too much of our scent. I made to grab a box from the side and follow Clem down the steps, but Mash held me firm.

“Can I try something?” he said, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He placed his nose next to my werewolf ears, and I heard—and felt—him taking a soft breath. Then he opened his mouth. “Who’s a good boy?”

Thump, thump, thump, went my traitorous tail against the boxes of decorations.