form, and placed one in the book and set the other one on the floor by my paw.
Then she asked if she could brush my hair.
I wurfed a despondent yes.
I don’t know how her mom will feel about the fact that her daughter’s boar-bristle brush is full of werewolf hair, but this little girl brushes me until my coat gleams.
She also uses every one of her barrette hairbows on me. She had a pack of fifty. She declared the pink polka dot ones go best with my coloring.
There’s a knock at the front door.
Maggie goes very still.
I stand up, upending the activity table she’d been crouched under with me. I storm for the entryway, hair raising.
“We’re not supposed to open the door for strangers,” Maggie whispers to me, following quickly after me and trying to catch at my withers, only dislodging some of the bigger bows she fitted me with.
The knock comes again, louder. Then again, more insistent.
By the way Maggie’s hands clench in my neck ruff, I’d know she was getting scared. But because I’m a wolf, I can also smell it.
A ferocious snarl rips from my chest.
The knocking stops immediately. A surprised, “Is that feckin’ you, Lucan?” voiced by none other than Finn is barked through the door, followed by his loud laugh.
I wurf in agreement. Although, he has to know it’s me. It’s not like Susan ran out and bought a full-grown Alsatian.
“You don’t sound like the Lucan I know. Sounds like a bleedin’ Harley Davidson is about to come through this door!”
I snort.
“Is everything all right?” he asks, sounding more serious. “I know you’re awful dryshite, but when you didn’t answer your feckin’ phone, I didn’t know what to think.”
I jump up on the door, my only way of communicating. I can Change, but I need to grab my pants and go to another room, and hope Maggie doesn’t follow me. But now that she’s scared, she’ll probably grow more scared if she’s left alone. If I grow agitated because she’s scared, I might not be able to Change.
“Is… that good or bad?” Finn asks warily. “Jaysus, man, how about one woof for yes, two for no, all right? And it’d better only be one woof, ya pox bottle.”
I woof once.
“Little Miss Maggie is all right?”
I woof once more.
Finn heaves out a breath. “Good. Jays, this is harder than I thought it’d be, leaving you here. But all right. When you can, get to your phone and let me know why the hell you can’t Change—”
Maggie reaches up and throws back the door’s bolt. She turns the handle and peeks out. “Mr. Finn?”
“Howsagoin, little Maggie!” Finn executes a move that must put a terrible crick in his neck, peering around the jamb like he is. “Everything okay in there?”
“Yes,” Maggie confirms. “I’m not supposed to open the door for strangers though.”
“That’s a good rule you should always, always follow, and I’m going to leave now. I just needed to be sure everything was okay.”
“It is. Deek turned into a wolf at the park, but I got the key and he picked up his pants. I carried his shirt.”
“Oh. Good,” Finn replies, sounding a little strained. A little louder he asks, “Did you by chance pick up your kex, or are some poor blights going to find them and wonder why a man was stripping them off at a child’s playground, you gobshite?”
Kex is Irish for underwear. And now I’m really glad I retrieved mine.
I press up against Maggie, pressing open the door a little farther, making another barrette fall off, and I wurf once to confirm that no children will be finding men’s underwear near the playground equipment.
Finn takes one look at me and guffaws.
Startled, Maggie almost slams the door shut on my nose—but once his initial burst of sound registers as laughter, she recovers. She bends to pick up one of the fallen barrettes. She replaces it on my cheek fur, the bow so large I can see it out of the corner of my eye. One of the glittery pink ones.
“What the feck!” Finn cries, slapping at his pockets until he finds and retrieves his phone. He holds it up, trying to suppress his loud chuckles so that his camera isn’t bouncing. “Hold still, hold still. Oh, this is class!”
I sneeze.
Maggie makes a dismayed noise as several barrettes fall.
Finn is crying.
He wipes his face and stomps his fat thumbs on his phone, chortling to himself. “I’m sending this to your da, my da, my