Page 68 of The Wolfing Hour

Disappointingly, he wore loafers, professionally pressed jeans and a white, long-sleeved shirt. Sure, it was evening, butlong sleevesin Smokethorn County? Inmid-May?

Definitely not from around here.

“Lilibet Lennox,” the man said, in an ambiguously highbrow, mildly threatening voice. The accent was affected, giving the speaker a faux aura of intellectual superiority.

I knew that obnoxious voice, but from where?

“Who are you?” I asked.

The wolf holding my head sank his claws in a little deeper. A trickle of blood ran behind my ear, down my jaw, and splashed on the concrete pad.

“Not Lilibet. You go by Betty, right?”

That damn voice. So familiar.

It was a recent memory, for sure. My brain flipped through the last few hours, days, weeks—no, not weeks. Back up. Hours?

Message over a cell phone.

Bronwyn.

Mason Hartman.

The Esteemed Order of the Removal of the Blight on Humankind.

Hell.

“Miles, I presume?” I sighed. Wasn’t it just my luck to run into this fool tonight?

The claws sank in a little more. Wolf One was into hurting me. Conversely, Wolves Two and Three were holding my arms loosely, almost as if they were tryingnotto hurt me.

Time to test that theory.

“Hey, I’m not screaming, casting, or whatever else you said. I’m talking to this guy. Get your claws off my head or I won’t follow your rules anymore.”

Wolf One bent his head next to my ear. “You’ll follow?—”

I threw my head back. The crunch that followed was cringe-inducing. The other wolves loosened their grips at the exact time they should’ve tightened them, and I deftly pulled my arms free and did a half-somersault tumble into the dirt.

Dry soil coated my arms, immediately vaporizing and sinking under my skin—into my blood. Power charged through me. Magic crackled like pop rocks in a can of soda.

The wolves growled and shifted from hybrid to full animal.

At six o’clock in the evening in a chain-link fenced yard. Where humans could easily see.

“Get away from the street, you dumbasses,” I snapped.

To his credit, Miles seemed to recognize the problem as quickly as I did. “Get out of sight.Now.”

The wolves ducked their muzzles, looking almost comically ashamed. The one who’d had his claws in my scalp snapped at me as he went past, and I responded without thinking.

“Échate.” Magic flew out of my mouth in sparks.

Splat. All four legs went out from under the wolf, and he instantly fell to his belly, hitting the cement with a wet slap.

He whined.

“That’s what you get for being so handsy—clawsy.” I felt my scalp for the wounds he’d left there, hissing in pain as my fingertip glided across one of the deeper ones.