time I'd felt like myself since walking into the bowling alley was when I'd grabbed it in Adam's truck. And maybe it wasn't.
I've had a lot of fights with Adam over the years. Probably inevitable given who we were - the literal as well as figurative Alpha male and . . . me, who was raised among lots of dominant-type males and had chosen not to let them control me (no matter how benign that control might have been). I'd never felt like this after a fight, though. Usually, I feel energized and cheerful, not sick and scared out of my skin.
Of course, usually the fight is my idea and not someone using the pack bonds to play with my head.
I could be wrong, I thought. Maybe it had been some new kind of nifty reaction to my run-in with the not-so-dearly-departed Tim - as if panic attacks and flashbacks weren't enough.
But, now that it was over, the voices tasted like the pack to me. I'd never heard of pack being able to influence someone through the bonds, but there was a lot I didn't understand about pack magic.
I needed to shed my skin, free myself for a little while of the pack and mate bonds that left too many people with access to my head. I could do that: maybe I couldn't get rid of everything, but I could shed my human skin and run alone, clear my head for just a little bit.
I needed to figure out for certain what had happened tonight. Distance didn't always provide me with solitude, but it usually worked to weaken the bonds between Adam and me - and also between the pack and me. I needed to leave before whoever he decided to send over to guard me arrived, because they certainly wouldn't let me run off on my own.
Without bothering to go to my bedroom, I stripped. Setting down the walking stick took more effort, which told me that I'd already convinced myself that it had served to block whoever had been influencing me.
I waited, ready to pick up the walking stick again, but there were no more voices in my head. Either they had lost interest because Adam was gone and they'd succeeded in their efforts. Or else distance was as much of a factor as I believed. Either way, I would leave the stick behind because a coyote carrying such a thing would draw too much attention.
So I slid into my coyote-self with a sigh of relief. I felt instantly safer, more centered, in my four-pawed form. Stupid, because I'd never noticed that changing shape interfered with either my mate bond or pack bond in the least. But I was willing to grab onto anything that made me feel better at this point.
I hopped through the dog door Samuel had installed in my back door and out into the night.
Outside smelled different, better, clearer to me. In my coyote skin, I took in more information than the human me. I could scent the marmot in her nearby den and the bats who nested in the rafters of my garage. The month was half-gone, and the moon was a wide slice that was orange - even to my coyote color-impaired eyes. The dust of the last of harvest was in the air.
And a werewolf in lupine form was approaching.
It was Ben, I thought, which was good. Darryl would have sensed my coyote, but Ben had been raised in London and had lived there until a year and a half ago. He would be easier to fool.
I froze where I stood, resisting the temptation to drop flat or hide. Motion attracts attention, and my fur is colored to blend in with the desert.
Ben didn't even glance my way, and as soon as he rounded the corner - obviously heading toward my front porch - I took off through the sagebrush and dry grass, off into the desert night.
I was on my way to the river, to a rock beach where I could be alone, when a rabbit broke out of the brush in front of me. And it was only then I realized how hungry I was.
I'd eaten a lot at dinner - there was no reason for me to be hungry. Not just a little hungry. Starving. Something was wrong.
I set that thought aside as I gave chase. I missed that rabbit, but not the next, and I ate him down to the bones. It wasn't nearly enough. I hunted