held very still as my heart tried desperately to pound its way out of my rib cage. He released me, nipped gently at my nose, then slipped soundlessly away.
I rolled to my feet and shook my fur to resettle it, shedding my bra at last. Samuel was stretched along the backseat, watching me with his beautiful white eyes. He blinked at me once, then resettled his muzzle on his front paws and closed his eyes, saying, as clearly as he could without words, that the two halves of his soul were together again.
I heard the quiet purr of a big engine coming down the park road. I shifted to human as quickly as I could and began scrambling for clothes. My underwear was pale green and I found them first. The sports bra went on easier than it had come off, and I found my T-shirt when my foot touched it.
The car slowed as it approached, its headlights glinting through the window of my van.
"Pants, pants, pants," I chanted as I brushed my hands over the floor. My fingers found them as tires crunched gravel and the car parked behind us. They also found Zee's dagger. I shoved it under the rubber mat near the side of the van farthest from the sliding door.
Feverishly, I jerked my pants up, zipped, and buttoned them as the driver's side door of the other car opened. Shoes. Luckily they were white and I snatched them up and pulled them on over my bare feet without untying them.
I gave the hulking brute stretched across the full length of the van's backseat a frantic look. Samuel wouldn't be able to change back for a while yet, probably a few hours. A forced change takes time to recover from, even for a wolf of Samuel's power, and it was too late to try to hide him.
"You're a good dog, Samuel," I told him sternly. "Don't scare the nice police officer. We don't have time to be escorted down to the station house."
A flashlight found me, and I waved, then slowly opened the sliding door.
"Jogging, Officer," I said. The flashlight kept me from picking out a face.
There was a long pause. "It's one in the morning, ma'am."
"I couldn't sleep." I gave him an apologetic smile.
"Jogging alone at night isn't safe, ma'am." He lowered the flashlight, and I blinked rapidly, hoping the residual afterimages would fade soon.
"That's why I always take him," I said, and jerked a thumb toward the back of the van.
The policeman swore. "Sorry, ma'am. That's just the biggest damn dog I've ever seen-and I grew up with Saint Bernards."
"Don't ask me what he is," I said, sliding through the door so I stood beside the policeman rather than below him. "I got him from the pound when he was a puppy. My vet says he might be an Irish Wolfhound cross of some sort, maybe with something with a little wolf like a Husky or Samoyed."
"Or Siberian Tiger," he muttered, not intending me to hear. In a louder voice, he said, "Why don't you let me see your license, registration, and insurance, ma'am." He was relaxed, now, not expecting trouble.
I opened the front passenger door and retrieved my purse from the jockey box, where I'd tucked it when we'd stopped at Uncle Mike's. Right next to the registration, insurance cards and my SIG.
Life would be much easier if the nice police officer didn't see that-or the. 444 Marlin in the far back. I had a concealed carry permit, but I'd rather keep this low-key. Especially since, according to Stefan, Zee's dagger was not legal.
I gathered the insurance card and registration, then shut the jockey box-gingerly, so the SIG didn't rattle. I needn't have worried. When I looked for him, the police officer was sitting on the floor of the van petting Samuel.
Any other werewolf of my acquaintance I'd have been worried about-they aren't pets, and some of them resent being treated like one. Samuel canted his face so that the policeman's fingers found just the right spot behind his ear and groaned with pleasure.
Samuel liked humans. I remember him coming down to play with the elementary-school kids-all human-at recess. Most werewolves avoid children, but not Samuel. They all knew who he was, of course, and when they saw him as a man they called him Dr. Cornick and treated him as they would have treated any other adult. But when he came to school as a wolf, they put him to work playing pony,