I dropped my gaze and meekly stood before him.

He said, "You may have a big-time radio show, but that doesn't make you anything here."

That reminded me. I groped in my jeans pocket and pulled out the envelope I'd shoved there before leaving home. It was filled with this month's payoff, in cash. I gave it to him. The blood I inadvertently smeared on it glared starkly.

He opened the flap and flipped through the stack of fifties. He glanced at me, glaring. It might not have made everything all better, but it distracted him. He handed the envelope to Meg.

If Carl was the bad cop, Meg was the good cop. The first year, I'd come to cry on her shoulder when this life got to me. She taught me the rules: Obey the alphas; keep your place in the pack.

I didn't want to make her angry. Inside, Wolf was groveling. I couldn't do anything but stand there.

Giving me her own stare, she crossed her arms. "You're getting stronger," she said. "Growing up, maybe."

"I'm just angry at Zan. He wouldn't leave me alone. That's all."

"Next time, try asking for help." She prowled off to stash the money.

T.J., beta male, Carl's lieutenant, had been standing behind her. I forgot sometimes that within pack law he had as much right to beat up on me as Carl did. I preferred having him as a friend.

I leaned into T.J., hugging him. Among the pack, touch meant comfort, and I wanted to feel safe. I—the part of me I thought of as human—was slipping away.

"What was that all about?" T.J. said, his voice wary.

"I don't know," I said, but I—she—knew, really. I felt strong. I wasn't afraid. "I'm tired of getting picked on, I guess."

"You'd better be careful—you might turn alpha on us." He smiled, but I couldn't tell if he was joking.

Because the pack hunts together this night, she feeds on deer. An injured buck, rich with flesh and blood. Because she is no longer lowest among them, she gets to taste some of the meat instead of being left with bones and offal.

Others prick their ears and bare their teeth at her in challenge, but the leaders keep them apart. No more fighting this night.

She runs wild and revels in her strength, chasing with the others, all of them singing for joy. Exhausted, she settles, warm and safe, already dreaming of the next moon, when she may once again break free and taste blood.

I woke up at dawn in a dog-pile with half a dozen of the others. This usually happened. We ran, hunted, ate, found a den and settled in to sleep, curled around one another, faces buried in fur, tails tucked in. We were bigger than regular wolves—conservation of mass, a two-hundred-pound man becomes a two-hundred-pound wolf, when a full-grown Canis lupus doesn't get much bigger than a hundred pounds or so. Nothing messed with us.

We always lost consciousness when we Changed back to human.

We woke up naked, cradled in the shelter of our pack. Becky, a thin woman with a crew cut who was a couple of years older than me, lay curled in the crook of my legs. Dav's back was pressed against mine. I was spooned against T.J.'s back, my face pressed to his shoulder. I lay still, absorbing the warmth, the smell, the contentedness. This was one of the good things.

T.J. must have felt me wake up. Heard the change in my breathing or something. He rolled over so we faced each other. He put his arms around me.

"I'm worried about you," he said softly. "Why did you challenge Zan?"

I squirmed. I didn't want to talk about this now, in front of the others. But the breathing around us was steady; they were still asleep.

"I didn't challenge him. I had to defend myself." After a moment I added, "I was angry."

"That's dangerous."

"I know. But I couldn't get away. I couldn't take it anymore."

"You've been teaching yourself how to fight."

"Yeah."

"Carl won't like that."

"I won't do it again." I cringed at the whine creeping into my voice. I hated being so pathetic.

"Yeah, right. I think it's the show. You're getting cocky."

"What?"

"The show is making you cocky. You think you have an answer for everything."

I didn't know what to say to that. The observation caught me off guard. He might have been right. The show was mine; it gave me purpose, something to care about. Something to fight for.

Then he said, "I think Carl's right. I think you should quit."

Not this, not from T.J.

"Carl put you up to this."

"No. I just don't want to see you get hurt. You've got a following. I can see Carl thinking that you're stepping on his toes. I can see this breaking up the pack."

"I would never hurt the pack—"

"Not on purpose."

I snuggled deeper into his embrace. I didn't want to be cocky. I wanted to be safe.

Chapter 5

"Next caller, hello. You're on the air."

"It—it's my girlfriend. She won't bite me."

Bobby from St. Louis sounded about twenty, boyish and nervous, a gawky postadolescent with bigger fantasies than he knew what to do with. He probably wore a black leather jacket and had at least one tattoo in a place he could cover with a shirt.

"Okay, Bobby, let's back up a little. Your girlfriend."

"Yeah?"

"Your girlfriend is a werewolf."

"Yeah," he said in a voice gone slightly dreamy.

"And you want her to bite you and infect you with lycanthropy."

"Uh, yeah. She says I don't know what I'd be getting into."

"Do you think that she may be right?"

"Well, it's my decision—"

"Would you force her to have sex with you, Bobby?"

"No! That'd be rape."

"Then don't force her to do this. Just imagine how guilty she'd feel if she did it and you changed your mind afterward. This isn't a tattoo you can have lasered off. We're talking about an entire lifestyle change here. Turning into a bloodthirsty animal once a month, hiding that fact from everyone around you, trying to lead a normal life when you're not fully human. Have you met her pack?"

"Uh, no."

"Then you really don't know what you're talking about when you say you want to be a werewolf."