That Shifter Love

Nathan nodded his agreement. “So what do we do with this information? Lucy didn’t attack the man, he attacked her. I saw it. And even when she could have attacked him, she didn’t. She let him run away.”

“We sit on it. It’s in the past, it’s unimportant at this time,” the Head answered. Then he smiled knowingly at Nathan. “So, Nathan, why did it take you so long to get back after escorting Lucy home?”

Nathan chuckled. “Come on, boss, you know I don’t kiss and tell. But Marissa has good reason to be jealous.”

The Head threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Damn, boy, you better be careful. Marissa’s got a mad brain in her head sometimes.”

Nathan nodded his agreement. “We’re done and have been for so long. I don’t know what her problem is.”

The Head sobered and remarked, “I do, son. She picked her career over a life and is regretting it. I know how she feels.”

Nathan stared at his boss. This revelation on his part was a rarity; few people knew anything about him but what he did at work. He lived here, in the apartment that had been created for the Head, and he lived alone and always had. Nathan looked away as the silence stretched.

The Head shook himself out of his reverie and stated, “Get on out of here, Nathan, and enjoy life.”

Nathan nodded and left quickly, his mind on what his boss had revealed. He wouldn’t live his life like that, he swore to himself. Lucy’s image popped into his mind; involuntarily his eyes widened at the realization of what that meant.

*****

“Hi, Dad,” Lucy said into the phone. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, sweetheart! Not much happening here. Same old, you know,” her father answered in his deep, gruff voice. “Is everything all right? You don’t normally call the satellite phone.”

For safety reasons, the camp leader and elders had decided they needed a satellite phone just in case. Used rarely for anything other than chatting with members of the pack who had moved away, the phone stayed in the leader’s tent most of the time. Lucy had called and asked if he could take it to her mother. Instead, she’d gotten her father.

“Well, Dad, I need to talk to Mom about something. You know, girl stuff.” That was the surest way to get her dad out of the conversation: mention girl stuff.

“Girl stuff, huh? Well, let me go get her then,” he replied hastily.

Lucy could hear him calling her mother, who must have been away from the tent she and her father resided in. All werewolves lived in camps in tents. They called themselves packs and were a true family unit. Some left, sure, but they knew where they could go if they needed anything.

Finally her mother’s voice came on the line. “Lucy? Is everything ok? Your father said you were having girl troubles.”

Lucy laughed. “No. I just said that to get him off the phone quicker.”

“Now, Lucy, that’s not the nicest thing you’ve ever done,” her mother admonished, giggling as she did so.

“You do it, too,” Lucy said.

“Not the point, dear,” her mother said. “Now, why are you calling the satellite phone? It must be important.”

“Mom, I need to ask you a serious question, and I don’t think you’re going to like answering it.”

“Ok.”

Lucy heard the hesitation in her mother’s voice. She sighed; she really didn’t like confrontation. “I met some members of the Guard this morning.”

The silence stretched for so long that Lucy thought the line had been disconnected. Her mother’s voice was quiet when she answered. “I’m surprised it took them this long to speak with you. Are you all right? Why did they want to talk to you?”

Lucy retold the story about Austin and shifting and Nathan. She chose to omit the kidnapping part, explaining that they’d sent a car to pick her up and take her to the Guard’s headquarters.

“Anyway, after meeting with them, I called Chopper. You remember me telling you about Chopper, right?” At her mother’s murmur of agreement, she continued. “He told me to be careful around them, and he told me a story about a woman who had been banished because she attacked a human. A woman with a large scar on her chest.”

The question in that statement was clear. Maryann sighed heavily. “Lucy, that was a long time ago. Yes, that story is about me, but I don’t talk about that time in my life. This is my life now.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to move to the city?”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t want you in the city. It’s a horrible place filled with horrible people.”

“Tell me what happened, Mom. Why did you attack that man? Chopper said he died soon after the attack. Did you kill him?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. One of his own men killed him. He deserved it. In fact, his death was too easy for someone like him.”

Lucy was shocked by her mother’s words. Maryann had always been a kind woman with only kind words to say; the vicious speaker was a side of her mother’s personality she’d never heard or seen.

“Mom, what happened?”

Maryann sighed. “That man was despicable, Lucy.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Lucy pointed out.

“Fine, but not a word to your father. He doesn’t know this side of my life,” her mother ordered.

“Ok, sure thing. I won’t say a word to anyone,” Lucy assured her.

“I worked at the police station as a clerk when I was young and fresh out of school. I heard or read about all the terrible things humans did to one another. None of my coworkers knew I was a were, except for the handful of other weres that worked there. One afternoon, a werecat named Bob asked me to lunch and I agreed.”

Her mother paused as if remembering the exact memory. “He told me about a group they’d formed within the department for weres only, a sort of vigilante group. They would “take care” of people who the law couldn’t touch, if you know what I mean. I liked the idea. So many men and women got away with such awful crimes.”

“Mom, that’s against the law as much as what they were doing,” Lucy said quietly. She had never believed in vigilante justice; stories of lynch mobs attacking innocent weres when they’d first revealed themselves to humans entered her brain. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t judge until you hear the rest. I know it’s not right, but you haven’t seen the things I have seen,” her mother quietly admonished before continuing. “A case came across my desk a week later. A man had been arrested for running a prostitution ring. Evidence was scarce; several prostitutes were found dead a week later. I spoke to the were group and we did some investigating.