Page 15 of Hungry Like the Wolf

“I didn’t think first shifts hurt like this,” Nadja said.

“They don’t.”

“So what’s wrong with him, then?”

The voice sighed again. “You know if you get your tonsils out as a kid, you have ice cream for two days and feel fine? But if you get them out as an adult, it’s painful for weeks? First shifts are supposed to happen around eighteen. You said he’s thirty-four?

“That’s what he told me.”

A snort. “Yeah. This is gonna hurt like nothin’ else then.”

Robbie’s eyes were still closed. The world outside the car was too bright. He wanted to look at the owner of this voice but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.

“You know,” Nadja said, “I really like this new look.”

The new voice grumbled. “The girls got a hold of me.”

Curiosity outweighed any sense of self preservation, and Robbie opened his eye just a crack. Crouched in the dirt in front of him was a very large man, with broad shoulders and thick thighs. His mama would have said that this guy was built “solid as a brick shithouse.” He wore faded jeans and a T-shirt. But as Robbie’s gaze travelled up, he saw that the man’s long hair was in two braids, decorated all the way from bottom to top with pink flowers. He also wore hot pink shimmery eye shadow.

“Very pretty,” Robbie slurred.

“Don’t be an ass,” the giant said.

“I’m not,” Robbie panted. “I have nail polish that color. It’s—” He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut again as his legs cramped. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“He can’t stay here.”

“I can’t bring him anywhere else!” Nadja hissed. “Surely you’re not so cruel as to leave him alone for his first shift!”

“I don’t make the rules, Nadja,” he said with a sigh. “No unmated males allowed.”

“That’s a bit sexist, don’t you think? Also, isn’t a mated male just as capable of causing harm as an unmated one?”

There was a long pause. “There’s a pack council meeting this afternoon. You’re welcome to make your case to them.”

“Wonderful,” Nadja said. Robbie liked the way her voice sounded when she was pleased.

“Alright, pup. Up we go,” the giant said, hefting Robbie into the air.

Robbie was not a big man, but he wasn’t a particularly small one, either. His high school baseball coach had called him gristly. All the lifting had never really added much bulk to his frame. Once upon a time, in a previous life, he’d thought he might try his hand at MMA. He’d gotten in scraps his whole life up to that point, and it made sense, as careers went, especially since he was young and full of fight and wanted to go somewhere and see bigger things. Then at his first fight as a bantamweight competitor, he’d been knocked out in the first round and told by his coach that he didn’t have the “instincts,” whatever the hell that meant.

But this man picked him up like a princess in a movie. Had Robbie not been nearly blind from agony, he might have commented on that. Or pretended to swoon and say, “My hero! Cowboy, take me away!”

But he clenched his jaw instead because he didn’t want to scream. Before he closed his eyes again, he saw Walter bumble lazily out of the backseat of his car. He opened his mouth to warn the big guy about the murderous little creature, but Walter did something that looked very much like nodding to Robbie’s delirious brain before flying off in a meandering path down the road away from him.

Robbie wanted to ask Nadja if she knew where he was going, but his muscles spasmed again and he squeezed his eyes shut and focused on not whimpering instead.

He was aware of being carried into a building and set down on something soft. He opened his eyes and found himself sitting on a couch in a room that looked very much like a small school cafeteria. There were racks of folding chairs against the wall next to collapsed and stowed round tables. The fluorescent lights above flickered and he could hear the electricity buzzing.

Nadja was there, hovering next to the couch.

“Is there anything you can do for the pain, JJ?” she asked.

The giant, apparently named JJ, shrugged. “Unfortunately, not a damn thing. But I think the more wolves he’s around, the better it will get. He’s definitely close. He just needs to realize in his wolf brain that it can happen.”

Robbie groaned. Nadja pressed a cool hand against his forehead, and he stilled, loving the way it felt against his feverish skin.

“How long until this meeting?” she asked.