strength for the steeplechase races and the lure course.”
“Steeplechasing with wolves…” Susan murmurs thoughtfully, and Finn jerks his head to where they’re setting up for that behind her. A five hundred-yard stretch of flat grass bookended by starting boxes and a hay bale chute.
I hold up the collar I was given when we checked in. “That’s what these are for.” I’m a yellow tag with the number twenty-two. We generally run seven wolves per race, loosely (very loosely) following the tradition of the old equine version where participants raced from one church’s steeple to the next town’s church steeple. Tonight, all the adult shifters will join up for the wild night race, where we start at our church and end there too, running the whole property and taking to the woods with its downed logs for hurdles and leaping off cliffs and racing down ravines—all done in the dark by nothing more than the light of the moon.
My heart beats faster just thinking of the run.
Ginny looks at her collar. “We do races after the mouse hunt?”
“Only the best kind!” Finn confirms. “If you don’t nearly die, you aren’t doing it right. After we’re done in the barn though, if the lot of you aren’t knackered, Deek and I are going to perform routine surgery on your car.”
Susan opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks at me. “Huh?”
“An oil change,” I tell her. “I told Finn I wanted to learn how to take care of your car.”
“Why?” Susan asks, not frowning but definitely puzzled.
“Because it would be helpful,” I explain.
And because I’m scrambling to learn skills that might give me value in her eyes.
“You don’t have to change my oil—” Susan starts.
And Finn, bless him, cuts her off with an affable finality that only an alpha can manage. “Naw, but he should learn, and your car is due. It’s a done deal. And don’t worry; I won’t let him muck it up.”
“How do you know my car is due for an oil change?”
Finn shrugs. “I looked at the sticker in your window.”
“Can I learn too?” Charlotte asks.
Ginny speaks through a mouth of half-masticated apple, “Me too, please.”
Finn shrugs. “Sure.”
Maggie turns to her mother and tugs on her hand. “Mom? Mom?”
Susan looks down at her. “Let me guess. You want to crawl under the car too?”
“We don’t crawl,” Finn points out. “We’ll use creepers like any mechanics worth their fur.”
“Creepers?” Susan asks.
I handle the interpretation. “The garage roller seats. You know, that slide under a car.”
“Oh! Thanks.”
I nod to her, my gaze tapping hers as I send her a smile.
“What is that?” Ginny asks, her nose in the air, her apple’s stick clutched in her hand. “Do you guys smell…?” Her brows go up and she sucks in a breath. “Something good. Really good.”
Charlotte shrugs. “I just smell caramel.”
Ginny is looking around like she’s confused.
Finn’s head is cocked, his gaze sharp on her face, a delighted smile beginning to stretch his mouth. “You know who I smell?” he asks. “I believe that’s one of the madra rua from Brazil.”
‘Dog with red hair,’ he means, and those would be our maned wolf visitors.
I inhale to catch the scent he recognizes, but get distracted by the loud ambulance siren wailing. Its peals are meant to catch everyone’s attention. It does that effectively. It also prompts every werewolf in the vicinity to throw back their head and howl.
“Awp, I’ll have to come back for the apples,” Finn says, reaching behind his neck to grab the nape of his t-shirt, which he rips over his head. He tosses it on his baskets and says helpfully to Ginny, “Get to the line, garl, you don’t want to hit the barn late. Ye only get the chance to pounce on those mice if they’re not expecting you.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t have sent them scrambling with a siren?” Ginny calls over her shoulder, tossing her apple’s candy stick into the trash can she sprints past on her way to the edge of the field.
Finn turns to Susan and Charlotte and Maggie. “You better follow her. She’ll probably Change fully clothed and need to be stripped fast so that she can run.”
“Got it,” Charlotte calls, and jogs after her friend to help.
To me, Finn tips his head. “You’ll be needing help too, won’t you?” He looks back to Susan. “This one,” he says of me. “So shy.”
With that, he pulls down his track pants.
Susan is hauling Maggie’s face into her thigh to preserve the child’s eyes, but she needn't worry.