For a man who’s not remarkably large in his man form, Deek’s paws are huge. Actually, all of him is huge. The same shade of tree bark brown as his hair was, that’s the color he is all over. His coat is thick and plush, and he’s very majestic for an animal that looks like he’s about to pee himself in fright. For all his fearful posture though, he’s otherwise endlessly impressive—he’s almost the size of a miniature pony. As a man, I’d guess he weighs somewhere around a muscular two hundred pounds. As a wolf, he has to be nearly the same. He’s just enormous.
“I didn’t expect you guys to be so big,” I whisper.
“Some of us are bigger,” Cauley says with an easier grin in my direction, and he even adds a roguish wink.
The effect is lost on me today though. “Wow,” I puff, shocked. My gaze leaves Cauley’s flirtatious eyes after only the briefest contact—and then they become glued to the wolf.
I can’t help but stare at him.
Deek risks a glance up, catches me looking at him—and he whimpers and bows his head even lower, so that his jaw is touching the floor, and he crawls to press himself into Cauley’s leg. It’s clear the animal—
Or the werewolf-man, rather.
—desperately wants to be anywhere but here.
“Are you sure—” I start.
“Sue,” Cauley cuts in, and just a hint of an Irish accent touching my name has my insides purring even as my brain is locked on the mythological creature prostrated on the floor, “I can’t be arsed to take him back to the dens—he’s yours.” He flashes me a smile that’s supposed to be calming. “Let’s do introductions and then let him settle in.” Cauley scruffs the wolf’s dark ruff and murmurs his next words more to him than anyone else, I think. “Real quick, he’s going to suck it up and quit being a geebag.”
The wolf shivers and his jaws part in the saddest, silent whine.
“Mommm,” Maggie cajoles.
I growl—because she knows better. She was supposed to wait, no matter how excited she is. At my warning sound, she goes obediently silent. But my growl also makes the wolf thump itself over Cauley’s feet.
Cauley sighs a heartfelt, “Holy mother of Jaysus,” and he draws something from his pocket, bends down, and slips a nylon loop around Deek’s neck. To me, he jerks his chin in the direction of the other room. “Call your brood. And don’t look embarrassed about the little piper. I was raised with litters and litters of werewolves. One thing I know is that no children have rearing on them when exciting things are involved.” He grins at me, and I hear a click.
He just snapped a collar on his lycanthrope-affected friend.
Usually, I’m stunned by the sheer beauty of Cauley’s smiles. Right now though, with a collared werewolf in my kitchen, I’m too stunned to be stunned more. I clear my throat. “Charlotte, Maggie—come in here. Slowly,” I warn.
Maggie flies to my side, beside herself to see a werewolf in person for the first time ever. Charlotte moseys in, arms crossed, with the practiced apathy only a teenager can affect.
When she gets a look at Deek though, she’s the perfect image of Maggie: her eyes are as round as saucers.
“Hallo,” Cauley greets them, and my daughters are young but not immune to Cauley’s charm—evident when both immediately smile back at him, wearing silly, affected grins. “I’m your mom’s friend Finn, and this here,” he drags the wolf up by his collar until the creature is sitting, “is Deek.”
“He’s so cute!” Maggie coos. “Can I please pet him?”
“He looks scared,” Charlotte notes, a worried frown wrinkling her brow. She shoots Maggie a superior look. “He’s not a dog, Maggs.”
This takes some of the spike out of Maggie’s punch. She frowns, but considers Deek for only a heartbeat before declaring, “He looks like one.” She beams a wheedling sort of smile up at Cauley. “May I please pet him, Mr. Finn?”
“Sure you can!” Cauley says magnanimously of his friend.
Perhaps in disagreement or in some sort of bracing preparation, the wolf bolts forward hard, slamming flat over Cauley’s feet again—which causes the collar to snap like it offered no more resistance than a single thread.
“Oh, feckin’ handy that was,” Cauley mutters, gripping the broken collar in his fist. Shaking his head, he gives us all a patient look. “Like I told you, Deek here is a submissive, which as far as the lot of you are concerned,