"The needs and desires of the pack can influence you quite a bit.
It's not too hard to block if you know how.
Samuel can show you." I looked at the white wolf sprawled out on the kitchen floor with Medea cleaning his face.
Sam looked back at me with pale eyes ringed in black.
"I'll ask him," I promised.
"See you," he said, but continued in a rush.
"Is Tuesday too soon?" It was Saturday.
If Samuel wasn't better by Tuesday, I could cancel.
"Tuesday would be really good." He hung up, and I asked Sam, "Can you teach me how to keep the pack out of my head?" He made a sad noise.
"Not without being able to talk," I agreed.
"But I promised Adam I'd ask." So I had three days to fix Samuel.
And I felt like a traitor for .
.
.
I hadn't really lied to Adam, had I? Raised among werewolves, who are living lie detectors, I'd long ago learned to lie with the truth nearly as well as a fae.
Maybe I had time to make brownies, too.
My cell phone rang, and I almost just answered it, assuming it was Adam.
Some instinct of self preservation had me hesitate and glance at the number: Bran's.
"The Marrok is calling," I told Samuel.
"Think he'll wait three days? Me either." But I could delay him a little by not answering the phone.
"Let's go work on some cars." SAM SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT AND GAVE ME A sour look.
He'd been mad at me since I put his collar on--but the collar was camouflage.
It made him look more like a dog.
Something domesticated enough for a collar, not a wild animal.
Fear brings violence out in the wolves, so the fewer people who are scared of them, the better.
"I'm not going to roll the window down," I told him.
"This car doesn't have automatic windows.
I'd have to pull over and go around and lower it manually.
Besides, it's cold outside, and unlike you, I don't have a fur coat." He lifted his lip in a mock snarl and put his nose down on the dashboard with a thump.
"You're smearing the windshield," I told him.