Blood Trail

gave her a second's panic until she recognized Shadow. Sliding carefully out from under the sheet so as not to wake him, she was just about to stand when she noticed that the bedroom door was wide open and, given the angle of the bed, she'd be fully visible to anyone who walked by.

    Fully visible.

    Vicki hated wearing pajamas and although she'd brought a T-shirt to sleep in, it had been so hot she hadn't bothered. She supposed she could handle Shadow - mostly because so far she'd avoided thinking of Daniel - but Shadow's cousins or uncle or father - especially Shadow's father - were another kettle of fish entirely and what's more, she could smell coffee so she knew someone was up.

    Well, I can't stay in bed all day. ... Girding her loins, metaphorically speaking, she dashed across the small section of open linoleum and eased the door closed. Shadow scrubbed at his muzzle with one oversized paw but didn't wake. Feeling considerably more secure, Vicki got into a pair of clean underwear and began to hook on her bra. She'd have to have a word with Sha ... Daniel when he woke up as she knew she'd closed the door last night.

    The door opened.

    Jennifer, or maybe Marie, came into the room.

    It didn't really help that of the two, Vicki was wearing more clothing.

    "Hi. Mom sent me up to see if you were awake. Like it's really early still but Aunt Sylvia always said the sun in this room was like an alarm clock. You coming right down?"

    "Uh, yes."

    "Good." She shook her head at the bra. "Boy am I glad I'll never need one of those things."
    Glancing around, she sighed volubly. "So that's where the runt got to. If he bugs you just throw him out."

    "I'll, uh, do that."

    Vicki pushed the door closed again as soon as the bushy tail of the long legged, half-grown wer had cleared the threshold.

    Something Henry had said last night as they walked up the stairs together now made sense.
    "Inside the pack, the wer have no sense of personal privacy."

    She got dressed in record time and decided to skip having a shower. After her father left when she was ten, it had been just her and her mother. With the exception of a year in university residence when she didn't have a choice, she'd lived alone all her adult life. Something told her that all this family togetherness she found herself in the midst of was going to wear thin pretty quickly. ...

    Elbows on the kitchen table, sipping at cup of very good coffee, Vicki tried to look as though a half-naked woman joined her for breakfast every morning.

    "The vinyl seats stick," Nadine had explained as she sat, smoothing her cotton skirt. It had been wrapped so that a single tug would release it.

    Apparently Stuart's decision the night before to leave off the despised sweatpants had given the rest of the family the opportunity to dress as they chose. Or not. Given that the heat had already left a damp vee down the back of Vicki's T-shirt, she supposed the "or not" wasn't such a bad idea. She couldn't help but notice the various items of clothing scattered all over the house, ready to be pulled on if an outsider arrived. "Although if it's someone we don't want to see," Na-dine had confirmed, "we just stay in fur-form and ignore them. " Considering the size of the fur-forms, Vicki was willing to bet the wer had no trouble with trespassers.

    From where she sat, Vicki could see out the largest of the three kitchen windows. The view included a scruffy expanse of lawn, a weathered building with a slight list to the west that appeared to be a garage, and beyond that, the barnyard. Cloud and Storm were stretched out under the huge willow tree in the center of the lawn. As Vicki watched, Storm lifted his head and yawned. He got slowly to his feet, stretched, and had a vigorous shake, dark russet fur rippling with highlights in the early morning sun. He sniffed at Cloud who ignored him.
    Dropping into a half crouch, he pushed his muzzle under her jaw and lifted. Her head rose about six inches off the ground and then dropped. She continued to ignore him. He did it again. The third time, Cloud twisted, changed, and Rose grabbed his muzzle with both hands.
    "We're at the end of a very long lane." Nadine anticipated Vicki's question. "You can't actually see the house from the road and, with the exception of mail delivery, almost no one uses the road but us."

    Out on the lawn, Cloud chased her brother twice around the tree and out of sight.

    The sound of claws on linoleum shifted Vicki's