The village was called Hobton, a simple name for a simple place, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

I was very much a city girl, born and bred, and I liked the city comforts and the city lights. I liked the crampedness of the city, being forced up against people on a crowded street, the smoky bars and littered streets – the little imperfections that just added character to the whole seething mess of it. Naturally, being a powerful werewolf family, we had a nice country retreat – a mansion some miles outside the city – but Dad was seldom there because he had a pack to run and I was seldom there because the city was my home.

This was true of many wolves. In only a few generations, we had taken that very human habitat of the city and made it our own. Perhaps that was why the Wolf Takers – those humans least comfortable living in close proximity with wolves – had reclaimed the countryside as their own. Time was when humans in small rural communities lived in constant fear of wolf attack, and many moved into cities to get away from that threat. Now, those small isolated villages had become havens where you might not see a wolf from one decade to the next. On the drive out to Hobton, with Clarke behind the wheel, I had wondered if this might feel like coming home to me – drawing on hereditary memory of my rural ancestors. It didn’t, it felt like a new world.

As we reached the outskirts of Hobton, the dirt road ran through fields in which people were working, some with old-fashioned tools, others with more modern machinery. The Wolf Takers did not reject the modern comforts of technology like the Amish, but they could take it or leave it. If there was a job to be done then they would do it by whatever means were at their disposal – the important thing was that the job was done.

“You grew up here?” I asked Clarke, as we pulled up outside a timber house.

“Uh-huh. Spent pretty much my whole life here.”

“You see,” I admitted, “on the one hand; that sounds sort of crazy to me. I mean, it’s a big world, look at what you’re missing. On the other,” I looked about the peaceful town square, “I get it.”

Clarke flashed a smile. “Good. You could be here awhile.”

“You’ll enjoy that.”

“Can’t wait.”

“You’re warming to me.”

“Whatever you say.”

Clarke had been the most suspicious of me, and of what I was, since this had all started, and I didn’t think he was completely cool with me yet. But I was seeing a change in him. I found him very difficult to read, but my best guess was that I irritated the crap out of him, and yet he was still quietly impressed. That seemed to be my sweet spot these days; people didn’t necessarily like how I behaved, but they grudgingly admired me for doing my own thing. Clarke, of course, was a Wolf Taker and so had been raised to mistrust and dislike me and my kind. Unlike Jackson and Colt, I wasn’t sure that Clarke had gotten past that, and that sort of narrow-minded thinking did not predispose me to like a person. And yet… I really wanted Clarke to like me. Which wasn’t like me at all. If someone didn’t like me then my attitude had always been ‘Fuck ‘em’, and I thought that was a pretty good attitude to have. A person shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to make someone like them, certainly not when that person has done nothing to warrant their dislike.

Well... almost nothing.

The point was; I was actually trying to make Clarke like me. I wasn’t baking him cookies or anything, but I was being nice, I was biting my tongue rather than making sarcastic comments. I was being thoroughly unlike myself to make him like me. Why was I doing that for someone like him?

Was it because of his friends, both of whom I now felt quite close to? And both of whom I had slept with? Or was it because I found Clarke powerfully attractive and I was just that shallow?

Yeah, it was probably the second one.

It was not just how handsome Clarke was. It was not just the way that athletic body looked in the noon sunshine. Even with all his snide comments about me, and the way he seemed to automatically put himself on the opposite side of every argument to the one I picked, there was something likeable about him. He was funny – even when he was using that humor as a weapon against me, he was funny. He was so personable that his basic good nature trumped his dislike of me, as if he had been so well brought-up that he would have offered his worst enemy a cup of coffee before killing them. One other thing, and now I thought about it I realized that it applied to all of the guys; he was absolutely dedicated in his defense of me. He had hated me from day one, and yet I had had no doubts from day one that he would have risked his life, even given his life to keep me safe. That was his duty and he would do it. The guys were not soldiers – though their training was not dissimilar – but they had that soldiers’ sense of duty. I admired that. And I found it very attractive. Most of the men I had been with, human and werewolf, were selfish to the core. They wouldn’t have crossed the street to save me, let alone risked their lives. How did you not like someone who would risk his for you even if he didn’t like you?

“Clarke.” A woman hailed Clarke from across the street and he waved back with a smile.

“Hi there, Bridget.”

“You’re back already?”

“Easy job.”

Bridget looked through the car window. “No Colt? No Jackson?”

Clarke shrugged. “There were a few loose ends.”

That was true. While we had confirmed some connection between The Brotherhood and the Hokkai Pack, that did not mean that another pack was not involved, and while we had been happy to rule out the Kenai, the Arctic Pack was still suspect. Under their new Pack Leader, Arctic Solana, the pack had taken a somewhat backseat role amongst the city’s packs, following the unconscionable behavior of their previous Pack Leader, Arctic Venus. But there were those amongst the Arctic Pack Court who, while acknowledging that Venus had gone about matters in the wrong way, still lusted after power and did not like the direction in which Solana was taking their pack. Bottom line; there were people in power in the Arctic Pack who might be funding The Brotherhood and it needed looking into. Jackson and Colt had stayed to help out in the raids that were to be conducted on Brotherhood properties. I wasn’t sure if this was being done with or without Solana’s knowledge, which did make me a little anxious for the guys’ safety, though Clarke seemed unconcerned.

“And who is this?” I could hear the unsubtle hinting in Bridget’s voice – that tone that older women always use towards younger men who show up with a pretty girl.

“This is Bailey. She’s a friend I met in the city. She’s staying a few weeks.”

“A few weeks, eh?” Bridget’s voice almost leered.

“Yes, Bridget, a few weeks.”

“At your place?”

“On the couch,” said Clarke, with an air of finality.

Bridget shrugged, unwilling to let the point go. “Well, when you’re in a hurry you don’t always make it to the bedroom.”

“Bridget, for the love of…”

“I’m just teasing you,” Bridget laughed. “Nice to meet you, Bailey.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I smiled.

“You two have fun,” said Bridget, as she went on her way. “Lots of it.”

“Thank you, Bridget,” said Clarke, darkly. He turned to me. “Welcome to Hobton.”

“I like it already. People are friendly.”

“People are nosey,” corrected Clarke. “Which may not be good for you. You need to keep a low profile.”

The area in which werewolves certainly scored above Wolf Takers, no matter how well-trained they were or how unfit the wolf might be, was that a wolf always knows when they are talking to a human. We have a highly developed sense of smell, and even in human form the world of smells is almost as vital to us as that of sight. Humans and wolves smell very different. By contrast, Wolf Takers could be talking to a werewolf and not know it until the wolf ripped their arms off – as Bridget had just proved.

“What would she have done if she’d known what I was?” I asked.

“Well,” Clarke considered as he hoisted my bags out of the back of his car, “she certainly wouldn’t have been making sex jokes.”

He led the way into the house and I took a look about me.

“Lot of wood.”

“Are you making fun?”

I actually wasn’t, though I could see why he might think that. The rural, homespun, rough-hewn, hand-carved by my grandpappy and handed down aesthetic of the interior was the sort of thing that I would normally have made fun of like a shot. But truthfully, this was exactly how I had imagined the guys would live and also how I would have wanted them to. In a way, they seemed to me to be as handmade as the surroundings, like someone had carved them from a local tree.

“I like it,” I said.

“No you don’t,” Clarke scoffed, dropping my bags by the couch.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Maybe it wouldn’t suit me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. And I think it suits you really well.”

“Simple, you mean.”

“Much as I appreciate you telling me what I mean all the time, I’d be happier if you could stop now. The three of you live here together?”

Clarke nodded. “Wolf Taker men, when they leave home, usually team up with a couple of the guys they trained with and build a place together. Somewhere they can live and train as a team.”

“And Wolf Taker women?” I wondered.

“Actually, they do pretty much the same thing,” acknowledged Clarke. “There may be more scatter cushions involved.”

“Naturally. They build their own houses?”

Clarke nodded. “Why shouldn’t they? The men do.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start in building my own house.”

Clarke headed towards the kitchen. “If we’re going to make a list of things Wolf Taker women can do that you can’t then we’re in for a long day.”

“Well,” I followed him, not letting him shoot me down that easily, “I can drink my own body weight in hard liquor, I can dance like a diva, and if there’s a sexual position I haven’t mastered then I can’t even imagine what it would be. Any of your Wolf Taker girls got that going for them?”

Clarke nodded as he pulled a beer out of the fridge. “Yeah, most of them.”

“Well, I can turn into a wolf, can any of them do that?”

At least I made him grin. “I would say not. Beer?”

“Yeah. You have electricity?”

“The village has a generator.” He tossed me a beer and I opened it with my teeth – because I could.

“You do your own electrical when you built the house?”

“Colt wired it up,” nodded Clarke. “Then there was a small fire and Jackson took over.”

I laughed. He really was very easy company, even when he maybe didn’t want to be.

“You gonna show me around?”

Clarke nodded. “This is the kitchen. Our bedrooms are upstairs; you’re on the couch. Wash room is out back and through the door is the outhouse.”

“Outhouse?”

“Plumbing can be more complex than electrical work. Everything’s got to go somewhere and we have crops to fertilize.”

I nodded. “Okay. I won’t be eating while I’m here.”

Clarke looked at me grimly. “That would be just as well.”

I frowned. “I’m not going to tear anyone apart, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He shrugged. “Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, werewolves…”

“Have no self-control?” I suggested.

“Just saying.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m very grateful to you guys for letting me stay here and for looking after me. And right now that gratitude is the only thing that’s allowing your head to remain attached to your shoulders. Anyway, I didn’t mean show me around the house. Are you gonna show me around the village?”

Clarke shook his head. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Why not?”

“I think we’re better off keeping you on the down low.”

I was quite touched. “You think The Brotherhood might have connections here?”

“Hell no,” Clarke scoffed. “But the more people you meet the more questions get asked, and I don’t want any of the people I grew up with thinking I associate with wolves.”

I got a grip on my temper – which for a daughter of Hokkai Jack, was not easy. Irritatingly, alongside the anger I was feeling, was a measure of hurt. I didn’t want him to see me like that, I wanted him to like me. Even now, as he openly insulted me, I wanted him to like me. How fucking pathetic was that?

“Look,” I said, “if you think showing me around is liable to get tongues wagging then just what do you imagine people will think if you keep me locked up inside all day? Bridget already saw me and – granted, I only just met her – she doesn’t seem the type to keep her mouth shut. How long before ‘Clarke brought a girl home from the city’ becomes ‘Clarke brought a girl home from the city and he won’t let anyone see her’? How much more curious are people going to be about me if they’ve never even laid eyes on me? Why are you keeping her a secret, Clarke? Why can’t we meet her, Clarke? Is she a werewolf, Clarke?”

“They’d never guess that.”

“But still…”

“Yeah,” Clarke sighed. “Point taken. You’re right. Better to get it over with. If I show you round now then hopefully people will think that you’re nothing special.”

I tossed my hair and rolled my eyes. “They’ll never think that.”

If anyone had told me a week ago that I would be strolling through a Wolf Taker village, saying hi to the locals, being introduced and generally made a fuss over, then I would have said they were either crazy or on something. Perhaps even more surprising than that was how much I enjoyed the experience. This was a really nice place, I liked the goats that wandered idly between buildings and the horses tethered up in the street like a town in the wild West. I liked the mix and match nature of the houses – each one different, reflecting the Wolf Takers who built them. I liked the band who had set up on a corner to practice and about whom locals congregated to clap along and dance. I liked the slow pace of life, something for which I had never craved and would always have thought was a bit dull. Maybe it would have been dull with someone else as my guide.

Maybe he was just putting on a show for his friends and neighbors, but Clarke gave me a great tour of his home, introducing me to everyone we met, responding to their probing questions with such a quick mind that I struggled to remember all the lies he made up about me and left most of the talking to him. They were such friendly people – which was the biggest surprise of all. I knew that if they had known what I was, then that friendliness would have evaporated in a blank second, but I guess I had always imagined that Wolf Takers were just nasty people. Why else would they hate wolves the way they did? In my mind, they had been an insular community of po-faced, humorless, hate-filled inbreds, sharpening their axes and glaring at people who ‘weren’t from round here’. Instead, they couldn’t have been more open, more smiling or less threatening. I found myself genuinely regretting that I happened to be from the one genetic group they really did hate.

The one slight problem with my jaunt around Hobton was the dogs. Wolf Takers habitually kept dogs to compensate for their own inability to tell a wolf by sight alone. Back in the day, Wolf Taker dogs would have been trained to howl at the merest whiff of a wolf, and no doubt many of my ancestors owed their deaths to such animals. These days, fortunately, the dogs remained but were less highly trained. Most Wolf Takers barely saw a wolf in their lives – how could you train a dog to howl at the smell of something it never got to smell? But, although the dogs we saw – and Clarke did try to steer me away from them – did not howl when they scented me, they were clearly uncomfortable, whining and growling. They knew that I was not ‘right’. A few Wolf Takers remarked on the dogs’ behavior – ‘he’s not usually like this’ – but none made the connection, largely because I was there with Clarke, and that was as good as having a big, red ‘I’m human’ badge on my chest.

“Today was fun,” I remarked as I relaxed in a chair by the fire, back at the guys’ house, and Clarke brought me my dinner.

He shot me a look that suggested he disagreed.

“You didn’t have fun?”

“I don’t like lying to people. And certainly not to my friends.”

“Pity. You’re very good at it.”

“I’m sure you are, too.”

It was a knee-jerk insult – lying was bad so werewolves must be good at it – and despite my desire to make him like me, I wasn’t inclined to let this one pass. “No. Werewolves seldom lie. We’re straight down the line. For great liars you gotta go to humans.”

“We are terrible,” muttered Clarke.

“I didn’t say that,” and there was a sharpness to my tone now, “I just told you the truth. Which is what werewolves habitually do.”

“Among other things.”

I put down my fork with a loud rap. “Did you ever lose someone to a wolf attack?”

“What?”

“I’m being direct, it’s what werewolves do. Among other things.”

“Why would you…”

“Well, something’s up your ass about me. And that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. You are quite free to dislike me – lots of people do, that’s why I’m here. I’m just wondering why you do. I don’t think it’s because I’m a man-bitch – a term I wear as a badge of honor, by the way – I think it’s because I’m a wolf…”

“Do you want to say that louder? I don’t think they heard it in Thurlow.”

“Thurlow?”

“Next village over, it’s… It doesn’t matter.”

“You dislike me because of what I am,” I returned to my point. “I’m wondering if it’s because you lost someone to one of my kind. It does happen.”

Clarke nodded. “Yes, it does. Not to me. I suppose it would make more sense if it had. I sort of wish it had – I mean, obviously I don’t wish it had but… I wish I had something to explain…”

“Why you hate me,” I finished.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Seems like you do.”

“I…” Clarke searched for the right word. “Oh, fuck it, maybe I do hate you. But not you specifically.”

“All wolves.”

“I guess. I mean, you are incredibly irritating in lots of ways and, as the first wolf I’ve spent any real time with, you’re just a terrible ambassador for your species, but I wouldn’t say you’ve made me hate wolves more.”

“Dear diary…”

He laughed. I always felt a warm glow when I made him laugh, partly because it was a point of pride that I could do it, but also because it was a lovely sound.

“It’s tough growing up a Wolf Taker,” he said, finally.

“I guess it must be.”

“A lot of beliefs – especially about werewolves – you don’t get to develop for yourself. You are told what you believe. Colt used to question it all the time, till they thrashed it out of him.” Clarke shook his head. “For a long while there it was like he didn’t see the connection between saying that he’d like to meet a wolf to judge for himself and his getting the strap. Kinda dumb, I thought. But maybe it was brave to just keep plugging away.” He paused awhile. “I think there are some things – religion, politics, that sort of contentious stuff – that children should be taught about without any pressure to tell them what’s right and wrong. Then, when they’re old enough – say, twelve – they get to make the decision for themselves based on their own life experience. You want to be Buddhist? Fine. You want to be Catholic? Whatever floats your boat. Don’t believe in any of it? That’s okay, too, it’s not for everyone.”

“Sounds like a good system,” I nodded. “Like with food – you find out what you like.”

Clarke shrugged. “Actually, here, you eat what you’re told.” He flexed an arm. “Don’t get guns like this without a controlled diet.”

I tried not to stare. “Well… seems to have worked.”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Clarke gave a rueful smile. “It works. We tell kids what to eat, what to believe, how to act. And we beat them till they learn. And the excuse is; look at the results.” He indicated himself. “I may not be perfect, but I am what I’m meant to be.”

“Not that far off perfect.” I couldn’t stop myself and felt color flushing my cheeks.

“If you’d asked me last week,” Clarke went on, sensibly breezing past my words, “I’d have said I thought I’d turned out pretty damn well. And that, while I certainly hadn’t enjoyed all that indoctrination and getting the strap, it had made me the man I am and kids would appreciate that in time. I still can’t regret all of it – it gave me friends to last a lifetime. But since meeting you…” He shook his head. “You certainly haven’t turned me all around on wolves, but… You’re nothing like what I expected.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

Clarke threw up his hands. “Even I don’t know for sure. But it’s the way it is.”

We sat in silence awhile as we finished eating.

“I guess growing up in your family was no picnic either.”

“I really can’t complain,” I said. “I was pampered, spoiled, given whatever I wanted. After my mom died I was left to do whatever I felt like – which, I guess, is what every teen wants.”

“But not necessarily what they need?” suggested Clarke.

“I guess some boundaries might have been good,” I admitted. I’d had a fun adolescence, but I had been in such a hurry to be an adult that some of the key moments of growing up had been rushed. I guess I had imagined that when I was grown up, the loss of my mom would stop hurting. That had been wrong, though I did my best to bury it in excesses of booze, sex and whatever else I could throw at it. Which had been fun. I had enjoyed it. But had any of it made me more than fleetingly happy?

“Was One-Eyed Jack a good dad?” asked Clarke.

“He’s my Dad,” I said. “I have nothing to compare him to. He loves me. Some people don’t even get that. He may have given me a bit of a warped view of how relationships work. Are Wolf Taker women expected to do as they’re told?”

Clarke frowned. “As much as Wolf Taker men – we are all expected to do our duty.”

“I meant by their husbands or partners – in a relationship.”

Clarke laughed. “Not likely! We’re equal partners in relationships. That’s our way. We fight together and we work together. You can’t fight alongside someone as an equal if you expect them to do the laundry when you get home.”

Sounded right to me. “I guess, somewhere between your world and mine, there is a pretty good one.”

Clarke shrugged. “Nobody’s life is perfect. Maybe it’s the imperfections, the stuff you have to deal with, that make us who we are.”

“For better and worse.”

“Sure. But mostly for better, I think. The trick is not to let those moments just make their mark when you’re young, but to keep on learning through life.”

I nodded. That was good advice. It’s never too late to change, to learn a new point of view, to make an enemy a friend.

We talked a little while longer, the conversation turning to more easy topics before he headed upstairs to bed, and I lay down on the comfortable couch. I still wasn’t sure what Clarke thought of me, but as I lay down to sleep, it was my feelings for him that were upmost in my mind.

The sun was streaming in through the windows when I woke. I guess a city girl always sleeps late in the country, and I wasn’t a natural early riser anyway. There was a gravity driven shower in the washroom out back, fed from a tank on the roof. I guess my ancestors would have found it refreshingly cold, but to a girl used to hot water and power showers, it was like a form of torture until I got used to it. Honestly, when I got out, I did feel cleaner – like it had opened up all my pores.

“Clarke?” Back inside, I ventured up the stairs to the landing where I had not been yet. It seemed inconceivable to me that Clarke was not up and about yet and probably had been for hours.

Three doors led off the landing, leading to the bedrooms of the three guys. All three doors were closed. I stood staring at them for a moment. Obviously, going in would be a violation of their privacy, on the other hand, I couldn’t see any other way to look inside and I really wanted to look inside.

I opened the first door, feeling a little like Goldilocks. The room was tidy and Spartan but with a few pictures of family enlivening it. I had hoped to find something a bit more scandalous but wasn’t wholly surprised not to find it. My best guess was that this was Jackson’s room.

The next one was more of a mess; clothes scattered on the floor, several empty glasses littering the bedside table, blankets strewn across the bed. The only area of real neatness, where some pride had been taken, was the weight lifting set-up in the corner, with every weight in its proper place. Colt’s for sure.

That meant…

I knocked gently on the third door – something I probably should have done with the first two. “Clarke?”

No answer, so I went in. There was no sign of Clarke in the room. The bed was neatly made and there were bookshelves by the wall with a small but diverse looking selection from poetry to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. By the window was a small table with a chair pulled up underneath it. On the table was a dirty plate and I wondered why that would be there when everything else in the room was so pristine.

Because he had wanted to have breakfast but not wanted to wake me.

Suddenly, that dirty plate seemed like the sweetest thing I had ever seen. Usually, when men did not want to wake me in the morning it was because they were sneaking out and did not want to answer questions like ‘What was your name again?’.

I walked over to the table and, out through the window, saw a part of the village that Clarke had not bothered with in his hasty tour yesterday. It was an obstacle course, the largest I had ever seen – not that I had seen many – and clearly built here by the people themselves. Here was a wall of logs for the trainee to climb over, on the far side of which a deep ditch had been dug, half-filled with muddy water; there was a rope to climb, leading to a slim log bridge, at the far side of which a rope swing led onto the next obstacle. It looked pretty well impossible to me, but as I watched, I saw there was a figure going around it, running at an impressive speed. It was Clarke. He reached an upright log planted in the ground, probably cut from the same woodland that had provided the timbers for this house. Up he went, his arms and legs clasping the smooth wood. At one point, I saw him slip and saw the strain on his face as his muscles tightened beneath his dark skin, sheened in sweat. He flung himself upwards, one foot at a time, finally reaching the summit, his chest heaving with effort. He was shirtless and I could see every ripped muscle sharply delineated. He didn’t pause, but jumped to a rope ladder which he slid down, ignoring the rungs. Hitting the ground, he took off again at a sprint for the finish line, crossing it seconds later and checking his watch. He pulled a face that suggested he had done okay, but could do better. He bent double, trying to get his breath back.

I found myself unwillingly mesmerized. The slope of his back, glossy with sweat; the tight peach of his backside, outlined in the shorts he wore; the hard, corded muscles in the backs of his legs, stretched taut as he bent over. My mouth was dry as I stared. I knew I shouldn’t be watching, I knew that I shouldn’t be allowing these feelings of desire back into me, should not be contemplating the scenarios my brain was now starting to weave.

Clarke straightened up, picked up a towel which hung from a nearby tree, and headed off in the direction of the river. I was hurrying downstairs to follow him before my brain had registered where my feet were going. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to think. I was drawn to him by something more powerful than thought. Werewolves are animals, we answer to instinct, and every instinct in my body was driving me in one direction. I would have howled for him if I hadn’t thought it might draw attention to me.