“Guys, tone it down until we need the muscle,” I said, and my voice was breathy.
Jake and Kaazim didn’t flare any more than Nathaniel did. His regular job was stripping onstage and shapeshifting onstage. He had to have nearly perfect control of his inner leopard to be safe around the customers at Guilty Pleasures. The other two were just older than dirt and had the control of millennia of practice.
I smelled other tigers and knew it was either Domino or Ethan in the other vehicles thinking at me, asking what to do. I lowered my shields so that I could hear better. I saw the other interior from a higher height than I had, and it was only the more dominant thinking that let me know it was Domino until he moved his hand enough for me to see it, too. I’d never tried this much mind-to-mind with him, and it wasn’t a perfect match yet. Mind-to-mind takes practice, and we hadn’t. Ethan was looking at Fortune, and I knew her blue tiger had triggered his, so she wasn’t trying to be as calm as her Harlequin counterparts here. I thought soothing thoughts at both of them. Nathaniel sighed beside me and said, “God, I can’t keep fighting,” and his inner beast spiraled upward like sweet smoke to join the rest. I managed to say, out loud, “Unless you want these expensive rides torn apart, start explaining why you locked us in, Nolan.”
I smelled wolf, but it wasn’t my wolf. It didn’t smell right and it didn’t smell like Jake, because I knew his scent. I opened my eyes and hadn’t even realized I’d closed them and looked around the van until I was looking at Nolan. His brown eyes were paler, almost wolf amber, which isn’t the same shade of amber as lion.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Not while my people are locked in,” I said, and I could feel the men in the other trucks waiting for me to give the word.
“We’re moving, Blake. I can’t unlock anything until we stop.”
“Why lock us in at all?” Nathaniel asked that.
“Because the government thinks that the wereanimals contained in these three trucks are the most that have been in Ireland in decades. The plan is to take you to our base and meet the rest of my team.”
“And then what?” I asked, in a careful voice, because I was really close to just telling Nicky to make a hole. We were done.
“We’re supposed to use some of our own people to test and see if you’re what Forrester said you would be.”
“And if we don’t pass your tests, what then?” Nicky asked.
“We’d put you back on the plane and send you home as too dangerous to deal with.”
“But instead you’re going to share your secret with us, because the government doesn’t know what you are, do they?” I said.
“Yes, and no, they don’t.”
I thought at Domino and Ethan to wait. We were all right; just be calm.
Edward was leaning away from Nolan as far as the seats would allow. “When did you get attacked?”
“I didn’t,” he said in a voice that was more bass than it had been before.
“I can feel it.”
“You weren’t this sensitive to it when we first met.”
“I know what I’m feeling now,” Edward said, staring at his old friend.
More wolf filled the room, so that thick, almost sour smell started to override the other beasts. Jake’s eyes were wolf amber. “Brother,” he growled.
“We are not pack,” Nolan said.
“Are you saying you were a werewolf when we met?”
“Yes.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Accurate,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Edward asked.
“You are a born wolf,” Jake said.
Nolan looked at the other werewolf and said, “Yes.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Werewolves are the only native lycanthropes in Ireland,” Jake said.
“They pride themselves on being lycanthropy free,” I said.
“You can’t catch what I have,” Nolan said. “You have to be born to it.”
Everyone’s animal had calmed, because we were all surprised, and shapeshifters were willing to give each other more credit, or so I’d noticed. “Explain,” Edward said, and he wasn’t happy at all.
“My mother’s maiden name is MacTire, MacIntire.”
“What the hell does that have to do with this?” Edward said, staring at him.
“It means wolf,” Jake said.
Edward stared at him. “Are you saying your mother was a werewolf?”
“She was a born wolf and so was I.”
“Your da? Your gran-da?” Edward asked.
“No, just my ma.”
“You must have cut off your tail,” Jake said.
“I had to.”
“Then you are tail-less in wolf form, too.”
“Yes.”
“That throws off your balance.”
“Yes, but my ma urged me to do it as I got older and it was harder to hide.”
“I met your family. They were normal.”
Nolan looked at Edward. “They still are.”
“Wait,” I said. “What do you mean, you had to remove your tail when you got older? If you spent that much time in animal form you’d have other secondary characteristics that were permanent. You’d never pass for human again once you got far enough to have a tail in human form.”
Jake said, “As with the eyes for the clan tigers that are their beast halves at birth, so with the werewolves of Ireland.”