Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,99

Words, yes, but … yelp.

They listened, but there were no other sounds of possible distress. What they did hear was water. Someone in the shower.

Kane said.

Kane trotted up the street, a dark, silent shape. Virgil stayed and listened to the water.

The bad dogs had retreated from the Wolfgard territory, but now they were returning. There had been more than two dozen dogs in the pack, but Virgil doubted there were that many left. The dogs might have stayed around houses outside the new town boundaries forever, hunting prey or scavenging what food they could find in the houses that had the little animal doors without fighting the Wolfgard. But they had drawn the attention of the Elders, and now the dogs were being hunted instead of being the hunters. Now they were being driven back into Wolfgard territory, squeezed between two kinds of terra indigene. They would try to take the Wolfgard territory. It was the only place they could go, but it would make no difference. One way or another, the bad dogs had to die so that the Elders would tolerate the dogs that were useful … or not a threat to anyone. Like Rusty.

The bad dogs had to die before they killed more than cats. There were young among the humans living in Bennett—and if the adults weren’t vigilant, the young were always the easiest prey.

The water stopped. How long did it take a human female to groom herself after washing? More to the point, how long did it take the wolverine?

Figuring the answer was not long, Virgil ran back to the Wolfgard house. When he reached the front door, he almost shifted to human form to let himself in, but there were lights going on in some of the houses. Not in the houses closest to the one the Wolfgard now claimed, but some humans were awake and might open a door or look out a window and see his human form. Which shouldn’t matter since he was a Wolf regardless of form, but Barbara Ellen getting squeaky reminded him that looking human meant wearing human clothes because naked meant something to humans, who got strange about something that meant nothing except that humans couldn’t adequately communicate with terra indigene who weren’t in human form, so sometimes shifting to that form was required even if clothes weren’t available.

The wolverine hadn’t squeaked about him shifting in order to talk to her. He approved. She had enough inadequacies, being human and all, but she was showing that she had potential to be a good working member of the enforcer pack. And she had enough bristly, puffed-up attitude most of the time that he wasn’t giving up on the idea that one of her ancestors had been a Wolverine, despite the possibility being impossible.

Or … She said she’d been raised by foster parents. Maybe they had been Wolverines and she’d learned the attitude from them.

Entertained by that thought, Virgil trotted around the house before shifting to human form and opening the back door. John and Kane were in the kitchen, pulling things out of the fridge and cupboards to make before-work food.

“Kane, I’m going to pack one of those carryalls with clothes for both of us,” Virgil said. “John, when I’ve packed what we need, you run down to the wolverine’s house and put the carryall and our shoes in her vehicle. She will be going to work early.”

“I’ll ride with her,” John said. “I want to start work early today too. Joshua Painter is going to work in the bookstore with me. He likes books and needs to learn a trade if he’s going to live around humans.”

“Barbara Ellen likes books,” Kane said casually as he cut up a rare-cooked beef roast into slabs of meat for the three of them. “She spends more time helping to sort books than she needs to.”

“Is Barbara Ellen receptive to mating?” John asked as he opened two cans of peach slices. The Wolfgard ate meat, but in human form, other foods were … tasty … and eating sweet fruit with the meat was surprisingly pleasant.

“Don’t know,” Kane replied. “But Joshua isn’t. At least, not yet.”

Not interested in discussing human mating rituals, Virgil walked out of the kitchen, pulled a small carryall out from under his bed, and filled it with two sets of clothes for him and two for Kane. He found another carryall that was big enough to hold