Chapter Sixteen

The following Thursday, Willa gently cleared her throat and sidled up next to Diana on the sidewalk between the seventh grade hall and the wide patch of lawn they were using to run marching drills. The end of the phalanx of kids was about twenty-five yards away and marching toward Maria’s cold storage facility. The kids would run out of space soon, but before they did, Willa needed questions answered.

“Haven’t seen your brother in a few days,” Willa said matter-of-factly.

“Mm-hmm.” Diana’s bright eyes narrowed in the shadow of her floppy straw hat, and she gave the cowbell she held several attention-getting thrashes with her drumstick. She shouted down the field, “One step per beat! The tempo’s slow on purpose. Did I say we were marching in double-time?”

The kids murmured, “No,” in chorus.

“Stop there for a few minutes and think quietly about rhythm and what it means to you.”

The kids gave each other confused looks, but they stopped.

“You should be at parade rest,” Diana shouted, and the kids snapped back into formation. She turned to Willa then and draped an arm over her shoulder, cocking the other fist redolently on her hip.

It took Willa a moment to figure out what she reminded her of, and the long braid Diana wore over her shoulder helped drive the comparison home. She reminded Willa of another woman who was called Diana by some people—her aunt Artemis. Willa hadn’t seen her in hundreds of years and barely remembered what she looked like anymore, but she did remember that her aunt had always managed to convey command and casualness at the same time.

They didn’t speak anymore, but that wasn’t Artemis’s fault. She’d always been kind, and she’d saved Willa’s life, but Willa avoided anyone who regularly congregated with Apollo. She didn’t want her convening with them to ever be construed as tacit permission for him to visit.

“Blue went away on business,” Diana said. “Took Kenny with him. Been gone for about a week.”

“That long, hmm?” Willa tried to sound aloof and nonchalant, but Blue was difficult to forget about. He hadn’t even been in Maria for a year yet, and he’d still somehow managed to permeate every part of the local Coyote culture. She’d noticed it at the Wednesday night gathering at the bar. Many of the pack members seemed to be thinking twice about their drinking and their carousing. There were still plenty of shenanigans, but for the first time in longer than Willa could remember, none of them had been illegal.

And everyone had made it home on two legs rather than a furry four.

“Deal that couldn’t be back-burnered any longer,” Diana said. “Blue can stand to leave a little money on the table, but supposedly, this opportunity was too good to pass up.”

“Oh.” Willa spun her key ring around her index finger and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Anything wrong?” Diana gave the back of Willa’s neck an expert massage that quickly dissolved the knot there and made her shoulders fall down from her ears.

Dominant magic. Willa didn’t see the point of balking about it when she needed the relief so badly. Having been unable to settle her brain in the right ways, she’d barely been sleeping.

“Did your brother tell you to do that?”

“Yep. I’m surprised it works.”

“I hate him.”

“Many people do, but you’re in the elite company who’ve seen him naked.”

Willa’s cheeks burned hot as coals. “I . . . actually haven’t. Not completely, anyway.” That didn’t mean she hadn’t been thinking about what might have been under his clothes. Hard not to now that she was paying attention.

“Seriously? You’re telling me you haven’t seen every Coyote in the pack over a certain age naked at least once? Taking off clothes is kind of a prerequisite of shapeshifting.”

Willa shrugged. While she’d seen a lot of shifter flesh in her life, none of the scandalous bits had belonged to that particular male person. She studied her ragged nails, affecting a casual posture, and cleared her throat nonchalantly. “I haven’t been to many full moon gatherings lately.”

In fact, the last one she’d been to had been just before the last alpha disappeared. Her presence hadn’t been doing anyone any good, so she’d figured she might as well abstain.

“And, no,” Willa said, glad to change to subject back to the previous topic. “Nothing’s wrong. Just the usual talk from some of the old-timers. They complain to me knowing the pack is mine, and they assume I’ll automatically take their side over Blue’s because of our long connection. It doesn’t always make sense for me to take sides, though.”

And she definitely didn’t want to mention to those old tough guys that if she were going to take a side, the chances were about fifty-fifty that she might take Blue’s.

Diana raised a brow. “They threatening you?”

Willa shook her head. “No, nothing like that. They just keep leaving voice mails and text messages, reminding me about how things are supposed to be and stuff like that.”

“Willa, that’s threatening. Are they telling you they’re going to cause problems?” Down the field, Diana shouted, “One minute until pivot command. Keep thinking about rhythm and how having it makes you so much cooler.”

“Just the usual,” Willa said.

“What’s the usual? Be explicit. Usual in Maria is probably different from usual in Sparks.”

“Oh, you know.” Willa shrugged. “Like saying how it’d be a pity if they left and how that jerk in Oklahoma has been inviting a bunch of them to come back there.”

“Oklahoma?” To the kids, Diana yelled, “Mark time four, about face in eight, mark eight bringing up horns, forward march for twenty-four. Dex, count it off.”

The saxophone-playing Cougar at the front of the line let his horn dangle from its strap and clapped out Diana’s established slow pace.

“They’re trying to put the squeeze on you,” Diana said with a growl. “They’re making it so nothing you do will be right, and saying that either they’ll stay and raise hell if things here change or they’ll go to Mickey Allenton in Tulsa whose raison d’état is raising hell for other packs.”

“You know about him?” Willa asked, stunned.

Diana scoffed.

Silently, they watched the kids lumber past. When the tubas in the rear were out of earshot, Diana murmured, “My father is an alpha. Of course I know about other alphas. I also know that Mickey benefited for a long time from the chaos in the Maria pack. If shit goes south here, I assure you that not only will Mickey be looking to raid the pack, but so will my father. It’s a numbers game for them.”

“I can’t compete against that.”

Diana gave her an eloquent, scolding look. “You’re not supposed to. The alpha is.”

Willa grimaced and watched the kids march in place for a couple of eight-counts. Half were on the wrong feet, but at least they were mostly in rhythm, thanks to Diana. The lady may not have known a hell of a lot about the technical side of music, but she knew how to run drills. That gave Willa time to edit concert music scores and respond to e-mails about fundraisers that were going to be a huge pain in the rear end and for little payoff.

“Halt them, Dex, and go take a break in the shade.”

With a cracking voice, Dex gave the command and the kids wasted no time collapsing into a sweaty juvenile pile near the elm trees.

“I’m sure Blue will be back before there are any real problems,” Diana said to Willa.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine if he isn’t,” Willa said in a tight, tense tone.

“Really. Lance and I will do what we can.”

“You’re not even supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be doing pack work.”

“You complaining?”

“No! Of course not. I’m simply making an observation. I don’t want you to get into any trouble.”

Diana shrugged and gave her beat-up drumstick a toss into the air and caught it. It came out of the box of mismatches from the previous year. Some boys defied manufacturer’s expectations for roughness and splintered one out of every two sticks.

“Aw, you care?” There was so much of Blue in Diana’s grin that the tilting of her lips nearly took Willa’s breath away.

Willa clipped her key carabiner to her belt loop and twined her fingers in front of her belly. “Sometimes I care too much. My father would tell you that’s a mental flaw.”

“Your father sounds like a dick.” Grin falling away, Diana took a large step away from Willa and looked to the sky. “He’s not, like, Thor or Odin, right?”

“No, and he’s not omnipresent, either. He’s not going to strike you down with a thunderbolt if you happen to murmur some disparaging thing about him.”

Apollo had plenty of other ways of making people miserable.

Sighing, Willa waved Diana on toward the kids. “Need to sight read some new music before dismissal. Got just enough time today.”

Halfway across the yard, Willa stopped, snapping her fingers. She remembered she’d had another burning question. She put her back to the kids and murmured, “At the bar last night, there was a stranger there with you.”

Diana’s cheek twitched. “Mm-hmm.”

“I usually put my blinders on and block out new faces, but since she was sitting with you, I was curious.”

Another twitch. “Mm-hmm.”

“I recognize most people from Maria. Did you know her?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Oh. Someone from Sparks?”

That would be the worst-case scenario in Willa’s opinion. She was having a hard enough time keeping up with the four outsider Coyotes who were already there.

“Yes, but if you’re asking if she’s a Coyote, no.”

Willa furrowed her brow. “I’m not doing very well at jumping to conclusions here. Help me out.”

Diana pressed a palm to her eye and somehow managed to give it a vigorous rub without smudging her eyeliner. “Long story short. Lanie’s my ex, and she has a way of finding me when she wants to.”

Speechless, Willa blinked at her.

“Don’t make this weird.”

“No, I’m . . . I’m not surprised that . . . I mean, maybe a little, but I’m . . . more shocked that . . . ” Wishing for even an ounce of eloquence, Willa shoved a hand through her hair. “You were so cordial.”

“Oh.” Diana groaned.

As long as Willa had lived, very little shocked her about who people were attracted to. After all, her father had feuded famously with Zephyr over a young prince who’d ended up dead in the crossfire of their rivalry. Willa couldn’t look at the prince’s namesake hyacinth without being reminded of the event. Willa’s opinions on matters of sexuality tended to land squarely in the range of, “Okay, then.”

Diana lifted the brim of her floppy hat to wipe some sweat from her brow. “Yes, we’re cordial.”

“Does she know you have fur?” Willa asked gently.

“Yes. Blue introduced me to her about five years ago. Alumni of the same university. They have certain converging interests.”

“Weird folklore things.”

“Yes.”

They starting moving toward the kids again. Willa said quietly without moving her lips, “She was very smiley.”

“Yep.”

“And you weren’t.”

Diana shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m always happy to see her, but I broke things off for a good reason. The fact that she shows up out of the blue terrifies me. I’m not a safe person for humans to get attached to.”

“Does she know that?”

“Yes.”

“And yet she still stalks you?”

Diana shrugged yet again. “You can take the girl out of the military, but you can’t take those predator instincts out of the girl, I guess.”

“I thought you were the predator.”

“With most things,” Diana said quietly. “I am.”

Huh.

To the kids, Willa said, “I’ve taken your feedback into consideration about the mash-up I had planned, so we’re back to the drawing board. We’re heading back to the band room to sight read a new piece of music for the concert.”

She expected a chorus of cheers to break out from the band kids, or at least some appreciative grunts, but they weren’t even looking at her. Neither was Diana.

Willa tracked their gazes over her shoulder and turned slowly on her heel.

Her brain didn’t want to make sense immediately of what she was seeing, or who rather.

But the image in her head came together in pieces. Long red hair clubbed back. One of his usual garishly bright flannel overshirts with the sleeves rolled up over the forearms. Steel-toed boots covered with sawdust and red desert clay. Faded and abused jeans that must have seen Ragnarok and survived it, and a white T-shirt beneath the flannel emblazoned with Foye Woodworks.

And there was a “volunteer” sticker plastered onto his chest.

“Ohhhhh crap,” Willa said in an undertone.

She hadn’t thought Hank would actually show up. Obviously, she owed his cousin Lily a huge favor for getting him out there.

Crap. Crap.

She had no idea what to do with him now that he was there.

A couple of Cougar kids must have tapped into formerly hidden founts of energy because they sprang to their feet and ran toward him.

“What’s he doing here?” Diana whispered.

“Um, well, he might not look like much of a musician, but that guy racked up a record number of awards for under-eighteen solo performance before graduating from high school. Natural talent. I guess he’s here to run the snare drum clinic.”

And Willa wasn’t ready.

Dealing with Foye men was something she usually needed to gird herself for. They were intense, to say the least. A little warning would have been nice.

Diana moved in close and became Willa’s shadow as Hank approached with his hands in his pockets.

His expression was its usual carefully curated blank.

“T-thanks for coming,” Willa stammered.

He grunted. Shrugged. “I don’t have a whole lot of time.”

“I’m sure she’s aware of that,” Diana snapped.

Hank turned his head slowly toward Diana, irises slitting in a catlike way that made the striations in his eyes more prominent. He didn’t look human when he did that. Fortunately, none of the kids could see his face at the moment.

“Cool your jets,” Diana said quietly.

“Stop flaring your energy like you’re looking for a fight,” he said, just as quietly and without inflection.

Diana smiled. “You gonna fight a girl?”

“I don’t think we’ll get that far. You’ll back down before you get close enough.”

“Okay, stop,” Willa whispered. She turned Diana toward the band room and got her moving, sent the kids at her heels, and then she took a deep breath and faced Hank. “We’ve got forty minutes left of class. I don’t know how you want to structure this. I’m open to suggestion.”

“Just give me the list of kids I’m supposed to be working with and I’ll figure out the rest. Have any of these kids held drumsticks before?”

“Well, we work on the practice pads in small groups every couple of weeks just for basic percussion competence, but we haven’t done anything intensive.”

“And you expect to get one of those kids on the field next year?”

“More than one. There’s a snare opening and a base drum opening, so yes. I know Paul would rather march with those spots open than to plug in freshmen, but that’s not fair. That’s . . . ” She was rambling and Hank’s eyebrows were inching closer and closer to his hairline, so she forced herself to take a breath. “I want them to have a chance, that’s all.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“And I don’t expect you to. I just want them to be taken seriously. I know those girls can do it.”

“Girls?”

“Please, don’t go there. Please don’t.”

“This isn’t an issue of skill, Willa. It’s about weight. You want to send one of those novice waifs out with up to fifty pounds of gear when she probably can’t even sustain a steady drumroll yet?”

“Please, just . . . ” She put up her hands and closed her eyes. Her heart was beating so fast she could hardly swallow. Her own personal hell consisted of one confrontation after another, and being on the losing end of every one. “If you want to put some boys in the clinic group just to see the performance ability, fine. But I’ve thought this through. I know exactly which instruments he’s going to cull, and I’ve been doing all I can to move kids onto secondary instruments this year. There’re only so many alto saxes I can move to baritone. Only so many flutes I can move into the pit for mallet percussion, especially when they’ve got no keyboard knowledge. These are band kids, not football players. There’s no reason good enough for them to get benched.” She opened her eyes and forced down a swallow. “I’d train them myself, but I can’t. I had my left wrist violently dislocated in the sixteenth century, and it never healed properly. I struggle to even hold my viola. With or without you, I will figure out some way to do this, but I’m begging you to try this my way. Please. This is the only thing I’m good at.”

If she hadn’t been looking closely for a change, she might not have noticed the way Hank wore his capitulation. Aside from the slight press of his lips and the rounding of his pupils, his expression didn’t change.

He just started walking toward the band room and called over his shoulder, “Is the gear in the same place it’s always been?”

“Yes?”

That’s all? No more discussion?

“All right then,” he said.

Apparently, the discussion had resolved in her favor, but Willa couldn’t get her heart to slow, and she most certainly couldn’t stop the cold sweat from wicking down her back.

Taking a few deep breaths, she pinched up the fabric at the back of her shirt and flapped it for a few beats before she started walking.

If she were lucky, Hank would work independently and require limited feedback from her. Just being in the same space with him made her anxious.

And she hoped the percussion pullouts wouldn’t distract the kids from learning their concert music.

And that she’d figure out some better solution to get money into the program so those kids wouldn’t be excluded from summer band camp.

And so that Cougar parents would stop e-mailing her for more information about the Coyote in the classroom who’d been nothing but helpful, but who probably terrified the cats because the Coyotes in Maria weren’t generally so businesslike.

And that the Coyotes who had the same aversion to efficiency would stop threatening her—because Diana was right, and that was what they were doing. They needed to get with the program. Blue was alpha, and he could run the pack however he needed to so the Maria locals didn’t feel threatened by them.

She didn’t care anymore. Couldn’t care.

She was just trying to do the best she could to make everyone happy, and there wasn’t enough of her to go around, and something was going to have to give soon.

Standing at the door with her fingers looped around the handle, she couldn’t catch her breath, but she refused to break down right there.

If she could just get to the end of the day, she could go home, find a nice pillow to put her head under, and fall apart all she wanted, and her only witness would be King.

She sucked in another unsatisfying breath, plastered a smile on her face, and yanked open the door.

“Okay. Music’s at the end of rows, but don’t pass it down yet. I need to pull some of you out to work with Mr. Foye.”