As he did in his human body, Greyson oozed power, and was able to influence his packmates whatever his shape. As he sauntered through the forest undergrowth, Aeric and Wyatt bowed to him.
“Alpha Greyson,” they said.
Greyson’s gold eyes lingered on them for a moment, before he shifted his attention to me.
“Hey,” I said. I have such a flair for drama!
Greyson sat down and stared at his two minions.
“Yes, Alpha,” Wyatt said after a moment. “We will.”
I licked my finger and tried to buff out a smudge on the barrel of my rifle, used to hearing the awkward half-conversations.
Packmates could talk to one another in wolf, without the use of spoken words. Papa Santos had tried explaining to me that it wasn’t mind speaking to one another—words weren’t exchanged. He described it as an understanding of each other’s spirits.
Sounded spooky.
I didn’t know that I really wanted everyone “understanding” my spirit, so I was glad to chalk it up to another werewolf skill hunters didn’t have.
“We’ll meet you outside Howl-In Café, okay, Pip?” Wyatt said.
I tuned back into the conversation. “Yeah, okay, sounds great. It’ll take me about half an hour.”
“That’s fine, we’ll wait. See you then!” Wyatt waved before he and Aeric bowed to their Alpha, then trotted barefoot through the forest.
“You think we should transform back into our wolf forms?” Wyatt asked.
“Sure, but we have to stop by my house, then, to pick up clothes. Last time we stopped at the clothes drop off point, the only thing left there were those gaudy Hawaiian shirts Original Jack loves to wear, and I have a thing against flamingos.”
“Got it.”
I would have laughed at Aeric’s comment, but I was too busy wrinkling my forehead at Greyson.
He stayed near me—though he was standing now—and made no move to leave me.
I awkwardly twitched my gun. “Have a good night, Greyson.”
Greyson stared at me with his overwhelming, golden eyes, and I saw his tail twitch slightly from side to side.
It was just slightly back and forth, but for a werewolf of his status, it was the equivalent of a dog wildly wagging his tail.
Oh. Oh no. I know what that means.
“Nope!” I bolted, skittering a trail through the woods, heading for my cottage—where I could slam the door on his whiskered face.
I didn’t hear Greyson behind me—but all that meant was that he was taking precious time to transform into a human body. I had about a thirty second head start if that was the case—thirty seconds, because of course Greyson had to be the fastest at shifting from human to wolf and back that I’d ever seen!
I went for speed rather than stealth or any attempt at covering my trail. With this little of a head start speed was all I had, and there was no point in trying to climb a tree because Greyson would be human—
Greyson stepped out in front of me in his human form, shirtless and wearing black pants courtesy of the extra expensive fae bracelet clasped around his wrist.
“Running away? Careful, Pip. I’ll think you don’t like me much.” His voice was throaty with a slight rasp to it that made me twitch my shoulders back.
“You shouldn’t have to think I don’t like you, you should know,” I said.
Before I could say more, he hit me with the full brunt of his Alpha powers.
I gritted my teeth as the pressure to fall to my knees was overwhelming to the point where I could barely see anything but his gold eyes.
I swear I could feel teeth on my neck, before my hunter magic kicked in and I shrugged his powers off.
I could still sense them—and even feel them to a certain extent—but the compulsive desire to do whatever he said wasn’t there.
Most of the time Greyson kept his Alpha spirit tightly coiled up—he was powerful enough that if he let it go free all the time most of the Pack would have a hard time moving around him. But whenever it was just the two of us, he liked to let loose.
I didn’t know if he just liked to test me to see if one day he’d be able to get me, or if he just liked to use me as the wolf equivalent of a squeaky toy to relieve stress, but he’d been battering me with his powers since the month we met.
I held up my rifle. “I’m armed.”
“Maybe if you could load it faster than I could get you, I’d be more cautious.” Greyson sauntered around me, his shoulder brushing my shoulders until he was walking side by side with me. He delivered a slight hip bump that set me moving again, and he easily kept pace with his longer legs as I trundled through the forest. “But using a rifle to attack in close range is beside the point. I wanted to say that you did well against the Low Marsh wolf.”