home, they ran patrol on a schedule. With Trick and possible invading selkies, they’d be doubly watchful until the others awoke. Then one of them would take over. Judd checked the schedule. Tank was on morning detail, since Saucebox was closed Tuesday nights and he’d have had a chance to sleep.
As if summoned, Tank came downstairs right then. Trouble sleeping, probably, as he too kept night hours. Or perhaps he just wanted a snack. In his usual quiet fashion, he noticed Judd and wandered over. Sat opposite. Didn’t say anything.
“Am I an idiot, Tank, to even try with Colin? Am I too big, or too crass, or too much like his father? Do I risk him running from us? Am I pushing him out of the pack?”
Tank arched a brow. “Colin, huh?”
“Sometimes, I feel like he just needs to know he belongs.”
“He knows.”
Judd frowned at the huge man. Tank was so big he wondered, sometimes, if he carried bear shifter genes.
“He does?”
“He’s not like me, Judd. I needed that. He’s different.” Tank was, when you got him talking, sometimes quite wise.
Judd encouraged him gently, “So why is he so scared all the time?”
Tank sighed. “Colin knows he belongs with us. He just doesn’t think he deserves it.”
Judd nodded.
Tank picked up one of Judd’s printouts. “What am I looking for?”
Judd explained about Lexi Blanc.
Tank nodded.
They read about the celebrity, and country music, in companionable silence. Much better than actually experiencing celebrity or country music, Judd supposed.
5
Kiss a Werewolf Good Mornin’
Colin made a concerted effort not to see Judd until the following night.
Wednesday was his biggest class day anyway. Alec gave him a ride to school on his way into the lab, since their schedules matched up. The Kentfield campus was out of Alec’s way, but the Alpha insisted.
Alec needed to check up on Colin and Colin needed him to want to. He tried to become comfortable with that need while focusing on the familiar roadways, houses, and businesses they drove past. He didn’t look directly at his Alpha, but he let himself enjoy knowing he was there. Next to him.
“You doing all right, Col?” Alec asked, steering carefully through the morning traffic.
For a horrible moment Colin thought Alec had heard about the seduction game. Then he realized that the Alpha was actually asking about Lexi Blanc.
“You mean my mother coming to town?”
“Yeah. You scared us a bit last night.” Nothing but warmth and mild interest in his Alpha’s voice. Alec was trying not to pry. He was failing, but it was nice to know he cared.
“I’ll be okay. It’s just a bit freaky to have her go from absent void to body-checking my reality.”
“I can see how that might be awkward.” Alec didn’t push, just waited patiently to see if Colin had anything else he needed to say.
Silence.
The Alpha cleared his throat. “So. Aside from her coming, are things okay with you?”
“Yes, Alpha.” Aside from trying to lose my virginity to a much more experienced older man, who I’m totally into, and is way too good for me.
“School is going all right this semester?”
“Yes, Alpha.” Aside from the one teacher who picks on me, either because I’m a shifter or gay, and the stupid epistemology class that ignores all us supernatural creatures as if we were second-class citizens.
“How’s that epistemology class?”
Sometimes Colin swore the Alpha could hear his thoughts. “Not great. I mean, I get needing to study how knowledge works, but it doesn’t even begin to address the shifter experience.”
“Oh, and why should it? Do shifters fundamentally think differently from humans?” Alec was great at playing devil’s advocate. Colin should have known he’d immediately latch on to a philosophical argument.
“Well, we have different senses, better in some cases, worse in others. Wouldn’t that affect our processing of the world around us, and by extension our knowledge base both collectively and as individuals? Isn’t shifter knowledge, by definition, different from human knowledge?”
“I suppose the counter-argument would be, except that the reality we all perceive and interpret around is essentially the same reality, either way.”
Colin nodded, glanced at his Alpha furtively. “They call that the essential Truth of Reality. And yet we are flawed beings and we must, by definition, filter that reality through our own senses. Therefore, shifters have a reality that is fundamentally different from human reality, because we experience the same world differently.”
“Agreed, but by extension, every individual person would also perceive reality differently from every other person, shifter or not.” Alec had a small smile on his face,