Hunter's Trail

Jesse went for the driver’s door without a word, and I loped silently toward the passenger side, gesturing to Will to climb up in the back. There’s no seat belt back there, but if we got pulled over, a ticket would be the least of our problems.

Jesse started the van, driving carefully down the one-way road that led away from Will’s. I don’t usually like other people driving the Whale, but Jesse was a good driver, and he’d done it enough that the irritation at someone else behind the wheel had worn off for me. Will had climbed in the back of the van and was sitting on the floor in the middle, leaning his back against the rectangular freezer compartment and his feet on the long metal toolbox I have installed on the other side for less mobile cleaning stuff. “Hang on, guys,” he said distractedly, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes on his phone, making arrangements for the bar that night. While he did that, I quietly filled Jesse in on what Eli had told me about werewolf packs.

Finally Will hung up, and Jesse glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Explain the theory,” Jesse said shortly. I bit my lip, but didn’t speak. Not how I’d choose to talk to the alpha werewolf of Los Angeles, but I was willing to cut Jesse some slack right now. Hopefully, Will would be too.

“I think it’s a nova wolf,” Will said promptly. He was squinting at me in the dim light. “Have you heard about novas, Scarlett?” he asked.

I shook my head. “The term sounds a little familiar, but no.”

“What the hell is a nova wolf?” Jesse asked impatiently.

Will grimaced. “It comes from the term ‘Casanova wolf,’ which was a wild wolf in Yellowstone . . . long story.” He paused, choosing his words. “The important thing to remember is that werewolves aren’t magical creatures. We’re magical wolves. The magic makes us stronger, faster, and better able to heal—not to mention infectious—but otherwise we’re just wolves like any other. And in the wild, wolves need to be a part of a pack. You’ve probably heard the term ‘lone wolf,’ but that’s not really a thing. It’s just a wolf leaving one pack to find another.”

“And werewolves need packs too, we get it,” Jesse said impatiently. “What are you saying?”

“You have to understand that the pack dynamic calms our inner wolf,” he said, sounding like he was working at patience. “It’s kind of ironic, but the reassurance of the pack lets us act more human when we’re not with each other. The packs are essential to retaining what’s left of our humanity.”

“So a nova wolf is a wolf that’s just been away from a pack for too long?” I ventured.

“No. Wolves never willingly leave a pack, like I said, unless it’s to find and join another. A nova werewolf is one who’s made and then abandoned.” Will’s voice darkened. “It happens very rarely, especially now that the success rate for changing a new wolf has dropped so low.” Jesse and I didn’t interrupt. Nobody knew why transformative magic, which creates werewolves and vampires, seemed to be dying, but it had been happening for a long time now. “Most alphas, like me, can feel the magic shift if one of our pack members creates a new cub,” Will went on. “We confront them, get them to find the cub and bring it into the pack.”

“Did you feel magic shift?”

“No, but . . . ,” Will trailed off, and I turned in my seat so I could squint back at him. His face was troubled. “My connection to pack magic is off,” he said finally.

I nodded. If the LA pack was losing faith in Will, one by one, his connection to magic would be fluctuating too. “You think someone in your pack made the nova,” I stated.

“Yes. I believe that someone in my pack took advantage of the pack’s instability in the last month to change in between moons. But he or she attacked a human and abandoned him.” Will shook his head a little. “It’s happening faster than I would have thought—usually a wolf has to be alone for a while before he becomes nova—but everything else makes sense.”

Jesse sighed, like the wolves were trying to frustrate him on purpose. “If the problem is that the new wolf is alone for too long, can’t he or she just join a pack again?” Jesse asked.

I could see Will shaking his head in my peripheral vision. “Nova wolves are almost always male, and no, it doesn’t work like that. That’s where the name comes in. In the wild, every wolf pack has a male and female alpha who breed. They’re usually called the breeding pair, and for whatever reason they’re the only ones in the pack who have offspring. That’s the norm. But a Casanova wolf is this weird anomaly in nature where a random male wolf sneaks from pack to pack, having sex with the other females.”

“Why?” I asked, and then felt myself blush. “I mean, apart from having a bunch of sex.”

“Nova wolves are slaves to biology,” he said matter-of-factly. “Which includes the natural, evolutionary drive to procreate, and to lead. A nova wolf wants to become a breeding male.”

“That’s all?” Jesse asked. His eyes were on the road, but a furrow had appeared between his eyebrows. “This is a werewolf that wants to have babies?”

“Werewolves can’t procreate the old-fashioned way.” Will grimaced again, this time with his teeth showing. “Nova wolves want to create more werewolves. Emphasis on create. A nova wolf doesn’t want to join a pack or take over a pack. All it can think about, all it can do, is try to make its own pack.”