Deep in the mountains, a single fire burned in the middle of a conservation zone. It was a faint flicker in the darkness, but it had drawn the attention of a single pair of glowing eyes. They prowled the hillside now, surrounded by shadow, fixed on the tiny campsite below.

That fire was illegal. It was also mostly out. The person tending it had crawled into his tent several minutes before, and the silence of the site lured the eyes ever closer. Solitary humans had no business out here in the heart of pack territory.

The night was clear and cold, and the warmth of the dying embers didn't penetrate the creature's thick fur as it crept up on the tent. A rustle from inside, the movement of fleece and nylon on a velour-lined air mattress, and the glowing eyes hesitated. Still awake.

"Coming in?" The voice drifted through the rain fly, spread across the tent to help hold in body heat. The words were quiet and low in deference to the hour, but the speaker sounded sure of himself. He knew exactly what was crouched outside.

Teeth meant for tearing flesh latched onto the tarp and moved it, with gentle precision, several inches to the left. It was enough to reveal the unzipped tent flap on the other side. A dark muzzle pushed its way through, followed by the rest of the large lupine shape that had been stalking shadows through the hills.

The shape vanished in the tiny space left for it between the tent flap and the air mattress: the former protected it from unseen eyes, and the latter wasn't made for wolf toenails. A human form in lined jeans and a heavy denim jacket appeared in its place. Yellow eyes needed no flashlight to maneuver in the cramped space.

Shucking his jacket, Cam Watanabe paused only long enough to pull off his hiking boots before climbing onto the two-foot high queen-sized air mattress. Just because he sometimes looked like an animal was no reason to sleep like one. A lesson that the man sharing the sleeping bags with him had learned at significant personal cost the first time they went camping.

"You couldn't change?" his partner complained, edging away from him as he slid into down sleeping bags they had zipped together earlier that evening. Searching fingers revealed that Hunter Bradley was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt that felt soft with age. "Your clothes are cold."

"Whereas clothes that I left in the tent would be warm and comfortable." Cam curled into him, deliberately wrapping himself around his protesting lover. He had Hunter tonight. There would be time for everything else tomorrow. "If you'd rather have fur..."

Hunter had slept next to the wolf before. The higher they went, the colder it got, and guard duty for the pack sometimes took them into the remote elevations. Fur really did help, and it was more comfortable for Cam. The wolf form had the added advantage of responding more quickly to danger when they traveled on the outskirts of pack territory.

"I'd rather have skin." Hunter's whisper was accompanied by a warm hand on his jaw, moving up and across his face with an ease that was more about familiarity than visual acuity in the darkness. "How do I get that?"

Cam tilted his head into the touch but his hands were clenching on the long-sleeved shirt, keeping the fabric between his fingers and the body beneath as he dragged one hand up Hunter's back and pressed the other into his chest. "You get what you give," he murmured, hearing Hunter's breath hitch.

Still, Hunter's answer was steady and completely predictable. "Not until your hands warm up."

Cam smiled to himself, because he'd known Hunter would say that and why else was he being so careful about where he put them? Knee wedged up against Hunter's legs, he felt Hunter push closer and that was all the invitation he needed. He freed his leg and swung it over Hunter's as he rolled on top of him, both hands on Hunter's chest now as he sat up.

The sleeping bags slid away, down off his shoulders and over his back, but Hunter didn't protest the invasion of chilly air. Instead he surprised Cam by taking one of his hands and drawing it up to his face, mouthing his fingers, tongue playing around them as he moved from one to the next. His breath warmed Cam's palm, and Cam's other hand drifted toward Hunter's face without conscious intention.

Hunter caught his wrist and pulled both hands back, behind his head. Cam's hands fisted automatically as he braced them, jammed between the fleece pillow and slippery smooth sleeping bag, his face suddenly much closer to that mouth even as Hunter lifted his head insistently. Cam could take a hint.

As he leaned down to kiss, though, Hunter let go of his hands and moved. Everything shifted, the inside of the tent, the sleeping bags, the mattress underneath them, and for a few thrilling seconds he was in freefall. Then the air mattress caught him, buoying him up as Hunter laughed, low and happy and close, and Hunter was lying on top of him while his lips played across Cam's neck.

"Warm enough?" Cam murmured, hands clutching at his shoulders. The best part of guard duty was the air mattress and the gentleness that came with it even when they tried to be rough. And the solitude of the mountains. No neighbors on the other side of the wall, no lights outside the window--

"Not yet," Hunter said, warm fingers hooked tantalizingly on the waistband of his jeans. Not going anywhere, not competing with the feeling of his mouth on Cam's skin, just a distracting promise of things to come.

The brief flare of light could have been anything: a sparkle seen out of the corner of his eye, a consequence of closing his eyes too hard, a literal flash of pleasure. But it was coming from outside the tent and it was moving, zipping around the nylon panels. Unwilling recognition made him stiffen.

Hunter couldn't have seen the light but he felt the reaction and he froze, lifting his head silently to breathe in Cam's ear. "What?"

A voice from outside answered the question for him. "Cam?" It was quiet and uncertain, but it did explain the flash of light that had come out of nowhere and was now gone. "Are you here?"

"Yes," Cam said, in as normal a tone as he could manage. Because the person outside couldn't see them, had no idea what they were doing, probably didn't even know Hunter was here.

"Sorry to bother you." He actually did sound apologetic, which was enough to make Cam sigh because yeah, he did know Hunter was here. And he had come anyway, which meant it was important. Important enough they had to either go out there or invite him in.

"What do you need?" Cam asked, pushing at Hunter until he rolled off, giving Cam room to sit up. He straightened uncomfortably, wishing Shane had shown up a lot later--or failing that, at least a little earlier.

There was a pause from outside the tent. "I think I'm in trouble."

"I think he is too," Hunter muttered under his breath, sliding up behind him and bringing a fresh wave of very friendly scents that made Cam close his eyes. Hands landed on his shoulders, a nibble on his ear, and a kiss was pressed against his cheek.

"Give me a second," Cam said, trying not to breathe. It was a futile effort, but Hunter grabbed a sweatshirt, passed Cam his jacket, and climbed out of the tent to give him some space.

The request hadn't actually been directed at him, but it did help.

Cam followed him a moment later and found Shane apologizing again--to Hunter, this time--while wearing a hunted look that made his words sound more than a little distracted. Shane had never been easy to startle, and he had only gotten less so in the last couple of years. Anything that could make him look like this probably warranted the late-night visit.

"What is it?" Cam interrupted, coming over to stand beside Hunter as he pulled his jacket closed around him. The three of them stood in the darkness around the remnants of a fire that was now only embers and a stringent smoke smell that cleared his head. "You look like you're being chased."

Shane's gaze went from Hunter to him. His eyes weren't glowing, but he didn't need a flashlight anymore than Cam did. Hunter was the only human among them, and it was his campsite. He would probably be offended by the suggestion that he needed light to find his way around it.

Shane didn't seem to think of those limitations anymore: he spent his days surrounded by ninja spirits and his nights in the company time-traveling butterflies, so being able to see in the dark probably didn't even register as supernatural these days. It was just a minor skill that had been integrated into his life without fuss or even apparent acknowledgment. Like the flying.

"I think I'm being followed by security officers from an insane asylum," Shane said. He sounded very serious about it.

"Yeah," Hunter grumbled. "Because you escaped." He had folded his arms and was giving Shane a look that seemed to say, You interrupted my foreplay for this?

Hunter probably didn't realize how well Shane could see that look in the darkness.

"Insane asylum security presumably having some distinctive characteristic that you also attribute to the people following you?" Cam prompted impatiently. He took Shane seriously. He also took sex seriously.

"White coats and guns," Shane said. And suddenly Cam was listening more closely.

"They all wear weird sunglasses and some kind of badge," he continued. "I didn't get close enough to see what it was."

"People in white coats and sunglasses are following you?" Hunter managed to make it sound so ridiculous that he didn't have to be skeptical. His audience would do it for him.

Or they would if his audience didn't consist of people a whole lot stranger than insane asylum security officers. Hunter occasionally tried to pretend that his life was more normal than it was. Unfortunately for him, and mostly by virtue of association, it wasn't. At all.

"Either that," Shane told him, "or they're following someone who just happens to have been everywhere I was today."

"Since they're not here now," Cam said with a sigh, "I assume we're not going to get any firsthand experience with them until tomorrow morning at the earliest?" Short any useful suggestions, he didn't bother waiting for an answer before he continued, "Why don't you just go back to the academy, and we'll--"

"Cam." Shane interrupted before he could even say see you tomorrow. "It's the middle of the night. Where do you think I was?"

His mind should have filled in the blank--Shane clearly expected him to--but the idea was so foreign that all he could do was frown until Shane continued, "They're at the academy."

"Wait." Hunter must have been having the same trouble, because he sounded uncertain enough that he had to ask, "Your white coats are at the Wind Ninja Academy?"

"The secret, invisible academy with ninja guards stationed around the perimeter?" Cam added, just to make sure. The academies were closed to strangers and they admitted visitors only on receipt of appropriate password, references, or accompanying ninjas.

Shane's tone was grim and not at all exasperated, like he knew where they were coming from because he'd had just as much trouble believing it. "That's the one. I don't know how they got in, but there were ninjas with them when I saw them and I didn't wait around to find out why."

Cam and Hunter exchanged glances. "Where else have you seen them?" Cam wanted to know. "Have you seen them before today?"

"Have you done anything that might make asylum security come after you?" Hunter muttered, but the effort at humor was half-hearted and his expression was no longer mocking.

Shane shot him a wry look anyway. "You mean, like telling anyone about my life? No. Some of us don't have culturally sensitive therapists with a downtown office," he added, shifting his gaze to Cam.

Cam shrugged a little, distracted but not immune to the implication. "She says she's happy to talk to you. It's not like you'd be her first half-alien client."

"Yeah, well." Shane didn't look convinced. "Maybe it'll sound better when I don't have people in white coats chasing me around the city."

"Where?" Cam repeated. "And since when?"

"Since this morning. Saw them at the store, thought they were weird, ignored them. When they showed up at the park later, I started asking around: you know, see if anyone knew anything about them."

"Did they try to talk to you?" Cam interrupted.

"They didn't try to talk to anyone," Shane admitted. "There's four of them, right? They stick together, and they don't interact with anyone around them. I haven't seen anyone else with them until tonight at the academy."

"If they got into the academy, someone's gotta know something about them," Hunter said. "You said they're wearing white? Maybe they're some sort of secret anti-ninja organization."

Shane didn't laugh. "For all I know, they are. No one I've talked to knows anything about them, but Sensei's got half the senior teachers off on some kind of retreat so it's not like I asked everyone."

"Are they actually following you?" Cam asked. "Or are you just seeing them around? Can you tell if it's the same group of four every time?"

"It's definitely the same group," Shane told him. "Believe me, they're pretty distinctive. No one I've mentioned them to has any idea what I'm talking about unless they're with me when I see them, which makes me think they're only showing up in places that I go.

"They never look directly at me," he added, "but they look like they're looking for someone, and when I walked out of the shop this afternoon and saw them across the street I was kind of creeped out. I went straight back to the academy and stayed there until I saw them walking across the training fields about half an hour ago."

"You've seen them four times today," Cam repeated slowly, "and no one else has seen them at all unless they're with you when you see them."

"At least you know other people can see them," Hunter offered. He shrugged when they both looked at him. "Well, I'm just saying. You're probably not hallucinating or anything."

"More importantly," Cam said, glancing at Shane. "It doesn't sound like they're lost ninja spirits."

Shane gave him the same look he'd just given Hunter. "With guns? They're not ninja anything. And they're definitely not spirits. They act more like cops."

"And we're back to security officers from the insane asylum," Cam said with a sigh.

"Welcome to my life," Shane grumbled. "Sorry to bust in on you like this. I just kind of freaked when I saw them on campus."

Understandably, as far as Cam was concerned. The schools had their problems--and isolation was definitely one of them--but whatever else one could say about them, ninja academies were extremely safe. Barring evil villains, there wasn't a person in the world who could walk in uninvited.

"So far," he said aloud, "these people don't have any reason to associate you with us."

He glanced at Hunter, who nodded. He got it. So Cam pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket and pried the ring apart, working his apartment key out from among the others while he talked.

"If we go back to the academy tonight and start asking questions," Cam continued, "we'll just lead them right back to you."

Offering Shane the key, he added, "You can crash at our place tonight. There's clean sheets on the foldout couch; help yourself to anything in the refrigerator. We'll be in by eight. We can figure out what to do then."

It wasn't an ideal solution. It wasn't really a solution at all. But since none of them were sure what the problem was, it was probably the best they could do.

Or it seemed that way until Hunter was unlocking their apartment door the next morning and the scent that drifted out was just a little too clean--a little too sterile. Cam's hackles rose. His hand on Hunter's wrist brought them both to an immediate halt, and Hunter raised his eyebrows at him.

"Hello?" Cam called, from the relative safety of the hallway. "Anyone here?"

Hunter looked from him to the apartment, but he didn't say anything. Neither did the apartment. Either Shane was still sleeping, and sleeping soundly, or he wasn't there.

Cam went first, and Hunter let him. Ninja senses told him the apartment was empty. Wolf senses told him that it hadn't been that way for very long. He could smell an odd sort of neutrality, an unusual absence of smell that made him think of people in white coats who didn't talk to anyone. He couldn't detect Shane's scent at all.

Even more strangely, he could hardly sense Hunter's lingering presence in an apartment they'd occupied for almost a year now. It was as though a cleaning crew had come through, overpowering everything with their chemical cleansers and fruity "fresh" scent, and then taken the new smells with them when they went. It was almost more invasive for what wasn't there than it would have been if they'd left something behind.

"Someone's been here," he said grimly. "They're gone now."

"Shane?" Hunter asked, dragging his backpack into the apartment and closing the door behind them. Cam couldn't tell if he was asking whether it had been Shane or someone else, or if he was asking if whoever it was had come for Shane, and if so, where he was now.

"Not here," Cam said. "I can't tell if he ever was."

Even the couch looked exactly as it always did. He went over to it anyway, going down on his knees and sniffing the cushions gingerly. Here he did find Shane's scent, but he wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or not.

"He was here," he reported, when Hunter gave him a questioning look. "And I don't think anyone else has touched the couch since, which means he had time to make the bed and fold it up again before he left. He might have been gone before they got here."

"Except that you told him to wait for us," Hunter pointed out.

Cam grimaced. He didn't think Shane would have taken off either, but he didn't like the idea that four people they'd never met had just walked into their locked apartment. It wasn't like Shane would have let them in... which meant they had to have forced entry, yet there was absolutely no trace of them. If they hadn't erased more than they'd left, he wouldn't have known they'd been there at all.

"Phone," Hunter said, grabbing his cell off the counter and tossing it over. He'd had his with him, but Cam had left his behind when they went out on patrol. The message light on the top corner was blinking.

"Be careful," Cam said, watching him even as he dialed his voice mail and held the phone up to his ear. "It smells like... it smells clean. Like they tried to get rid of every clue that they were here. Anyone who goes to that much trouble--"

"He who acts like a spy leaves surprises like a spy," Hunter finished. "I got it."

Cam's mouth quirked up, a half-smile that Hunter provoked without even trying. He watched while Hunter set up the coffee maker, more concerned with his activity than the female voice telling him that he had one new message. Unless it was from Shane--

"Hi, Cam," a woman's voice said cheerily. At least, it would sound cheery to someone who didn't know her. For Sage, that easy relaxed tone of voice was wary and surprised.

"You've got a bunch of people at your door," she continued. "It's about, I don't know, seven-thirty in the morning, and they look like they're on their way out. Normally I wouldn't complain about your choice of company, but I don't see Hunter's truck outside and I thought you said you weren't going to be home overnight this week.

"So, yeah." He could hear the smile in her tone as she added, "Basically I'm calling to say it looks like you've got people breaking into your apartment and I just wanted to know if I should call the police. I figure either you'll tell me to stop paying so much attention to your life, or you'll learn to answer your phone more often. Let me know."

She'd hung up then, and his voice mail switched over to saved messages. Cam closed his phone, catching Hunter's eye when he looked up from the can opener. "Sage," he said, by way of explanation. "She saw a group of people outside the apartment around seven-thirty."

Hunter rolled his eyes, using a spoon to scoop a cat-size amount of canned food into a green ceramic bowl. "She's a student," he complained. "What's she doing up at seven-thirty in the morning?"

"I think the more important question here is what a group of people was doing outside our apartment at seven-thirty in the morning," Cam pointed out, frowning down at his phone. The message light was blinking again.

He flipped it open, and sure enough, he had more voice mail. He could never get call waiting to kick in when he was checking his messages, and he hadn't been able to figure out why. He called back.

Hunter must have assumed he was calling Sage, because he didn't ask. It wasn't their neighbor's voice he heard this time, though. It was his therapist, calling to ask him to confirm their morning appointment.

Cam glanced at the microwave clock automatically, but he wasn't supposed to meet Kathy for more than an hour. And she'd never asked him to confirm an appointment before. He called back anyway, waving away Hunter's silent offer of a bagel before cutting his own and smearing it with peanut butter.

"This is Dr. Blanchard's office." The pleasant voice on the other end of the call was friendly and familiar. "How may I help you?"

"Hi Gina, it's Cam," he said, and he saw Hunter look up in surprise. "Kathy asked me to call and confirm?"

Instead of reading his appointment time back to him, the desk girl replied, "Oh, good, she was hoping to catch you before you came in. Just a minute, let me put you through to her."

Hunter raised his eyebrows at him, and Cam just pointed to the phone with a shrug. He didn't know what was going on either. He also wasn't the one who had to be at work by nine, and he didn't want to slow Hunter down by trying to explain that he had no explanation.

Kathy came on almost immediately. "Hi, Cam. I need to cancel our appointment this morning."

He blinked. "Okay."

"I'd like you to come in anyway," she continued. "Can you come for a consult?"

"Isn't that what I was scheduled for?" he asked, bemused.

"I want to consult you," she clarified. "I need your... specialized experience. Do you mind?"

"Technical help?" He didn't think that was it, since if it was she would have just asked, but he wanted to be sure.

She actually laughed. "No. But you can charge me if you want to."

"You're not going to tell me until I get there," Cam guessed.

"I'd rather not," she agreed. "But if it's important..."

He shook his head, even though he knew she couldn't see him. "No, that's fine. I'll be there at nine-thirty."

"Thanks," she answered. "See you then."

"Bye," he said absently. Hunter was pointing at the cat dish on the floor, still unattended by feline curiosity, and their eyes met as Cam lowered the phone. "That's not good."

"No kidding." Hunter looked more grim now than he had on learning that their apartment had been invaded, and Cam was inclined to agree. Breaking into their home was one thing. Messing with their cat was something else entirely.

"Heather," Cam called, glancing around the room with a practiced eye. Up inside the couch or in the cupboard under the sink, if she wasn't hiding in the bedroom. "Come on out. You're safe now."

"Call Sage," Hunter instructed. "I'll look for the cat."

"Eat your breakfast," Cam countered. "The cat will come out in her own time, and the kids won't wait."

Hunter flashed a brief smile at him, and Cam called Sage back while he poured the first cup of coffee. Hunter handed it to him on his way into the bedroom, taking the second half of his bagel with him. Cam mouthed Thank you before he turned away.

"Hi." Sage's voice greeted him after a single ring, and her tone indicated that she knew exactly who it was. "Visitors in white coats?"

"Not invited," he replied, grimacing. "Thanks for letting us know."

"You don't sound surprised," she noted. She sounded like she had some kind of meditation tape on the in the background. "Were you expecting them, then?"

"Not exactly. You said they had white coats," Cam added. "Did you happen to notice if they were wearing sunglasses?"

"Yeah," she reported. "Sunglasses and earpieces. They had a big black sunburst on the back of their jackets and a triangular badge on the front that might have said something in another language."

Cam turned to stare at the door, like he could see into her apartment from where he was. "What did you do, go out and introduce yourself?"

He could hear the smile in her voice. "I might have taken my parrot for a walk while they were standing outside your door. Two women: one white, one black, and two men: both asian, one with green hair."

"You have a parrot now?" Cam inquired.

She laughed. "Two! You'll have to come meet them sometime!"

"And you walk them?"

"Just the one," she said blithely. And this time it was real cheer, the same carefree spontaneity that led her to do crazy things like adopting parrots when no one was looking. "And only when we have somewhere to go."

Which he took to mean no, she didn't walk her parrots. That was vaguely reassuring. Sage Kianosavit was odd and entertaining, but she wasn't totally incomprehensible. Cam rather liked having her as a neighbor.

"One of our friends told us he was being followed yesterday," he confided over the phone. "By people in white coats and sunglasses. We told him he could stay here overnight. I guess he didn't manage to shake them before he showed up at the apartment."

"They didn't come out with anyone," Sage told him. "If your friend was there, he didn't leave with them."

He wouldn't have, Cam knew. Their apartment had six openable windows, and Shane could turn into a little ball of light that defied gravity. There was no reason for him to leave through the front door.

That was a thought, actually. Why hadn't they checked the windows?

"They didn't leave with a cat, did they?" Cam asked, just as Hunter came out of the bedroom with a very contented looking creature in his arms. "Never mind."

"Look who I found," Hunter said, cradling Heather as he walked over to Cam. He had changed into kid friendly jeans, but he was still wearing his sweatshirt and he was barefoot.

"Hey, Heather," Cam said softly, scratching her ears and stroking her back while Hunter held her. "Not that we want you to be anti-social, but hiding was a good idea this time."

Hunter snorted. "Of course we want her to be anti-social. We want her to be just like us, remember?"

"Aw, is your baby growing up?" Sage cooed over the phone. "I bet she's more like her dads every day."

"Hi Sage," Hunter said. "Do you have parrots now?"

"Yup," Sage answered gleefully. "I'll train them to like cats and mine and yours can have a playdate!"

"Can you hear her?" Cam asked Hunter. When Hunter shook his head, he said, "She wants our pets to have a playdate."

Hunter just shrugged. "Heather likes dogs. No reason she can't get along with birds."

It wasn't "dogs" Heather liked, but Sage didn't have any reason to know that. She could clearly hear Hunter better than Hunter could hear her, because she answered, "Planet Peace. That can be the name of our new animal daycare."

"Speaking of," Cam said, giving Hunter's clothes a meaningful look. The "Take a Hike" sweatshirt would have been fine for work if it hadn't been the slogan of Long Trail Ales, whose brand name appeared underneath the image of a hiker and his walking stick out on the trail.

"Yeah, yeah. You're on your own, cat." Hunter set Heather down and she headed straight for the bowl of food he'd left on the floor in the kitchen. "See ya, Sage. Gotta go get dressed," he added, smirking in Cam's direction.

"A nude animal daycare," Sage's voice said thoughtfully, misinterpreting Hunter's comment exactly the way he had meant her to. "That's a new one. I wonder how we'd market that."

"She's planning marketing campaigns for your nude animal daycare," Cam called after Hunter.

"Nature is better naked!" Hunter yelled back, and Cam couldn't tell if that was a suggestion or an opinion.

"Nature is better naked," he told the phone.

"Not bad," Sage remarked. "We'll have to put up some posters."

"You probably already have pictures, with the way you watch our apartment," Cam teased. There were people in the building he had never even met, let alone cared about. Sage seemed to care about everyone. "Thanks for that, by the way.

"The watching," he added quickly. "Not the pictures."

"Spoilsport." He could hear the grin in her voice. "If I see them again, you want me to let you know?"

"That'd be great," he agreed. "Thanks."

"Sure thing. Have a good day."

He had already hung up before he realized she had never asked why mysterious people in white coats might be following one of their friends. Not that they knew, but she had to be at least as curious as they were, right? Maybe?

Or maybe she felt the same way about his lack of curiosity regarding her sudden acquisition of parrots. Which, by the way, what? But they had learned not to question what they didn't need to know, partly because she would invariably tell them and the stories took forever, and partly because it didn't really seem to matter that much. Maybe she had come to the same conclusion about their activities.

"Better?" Hunter asked, popping out of the bedroom again in a clean shirt from the Air & Space museum. "Coffee?" he added hopefully, not waiting for an answer.

Cam handed over his own mug on his way into the kitchen. Hunter made a face--he didn't like black coffee--but he drank from it anyway. "What did Sage say?" he asked, leaning back against the counter while Cam dumped sugar into a second mug and poured coffee over it.

"She did intel by walking her parrot past the suspicious looking white coats," Cam said over his shoulder. "Two women, two men, black sunburst design on the back of their jackets and a badge on the front."

"Huh." Hunter took another sip of Cam's coffee. "One of us should go to the academy, see what happened last night."

"We need to find Shane first," Cam reminded him, taking the cream out of the refrigerator.

"Screen's knocked out of the bathroom window," Hunter answered. "He must have heard them coming and taken off."

"Which doesn't tell us where he is now," Cam pointed out. It did make him feel better, though. Shane wasn't stupid. He could defend himself, even when he didn't know exactly what he was defending himself from.

"Shane can take care of himself," Hunter said, echoing Cam's thoughts without realizing it. "The best thing we can do for him is figure out who's after him and why."

Cam held out a mug of toffee-colored coffee, and they traded. "I'll check in at the academy this afternoon," he said with a sigh. "I have an appointment with Kathy this morning, and then I'm going to down to the community center to update the guard report. I'll go see Dad after lunch."

"I can go after work if you're busy," Hunter offered.

"No, it's fine." He didn't really feel like going from the community center to the academy today, but then, he never did. The two populations managed to tolerate each other, most of the time, but they didn't do it happily. "I'll call you afterwards, let you know what I find out."

Hunter nodded, glancing at the clock and gulping a good half of his coffee before he spoke again. "Kathy still wants you to come in?"

Cam was debating breakfast and didn't give the question as much thought as Hunter's tone deserved. "Yeah, something about wanting to talk about my background."

"Sounds like your regular sessions," Hunter cracked.

Cam gave him a half-smile. "That's what I said. I don't know what's going on, but she doesn't cancel for just anything."

"Not during the rest of the year," Hunter agreed, watching him over the rim of his coffee mug. "I thought maybe she was telling you not to come in at all."

Cam blinked. "Oh," he said, surprised by the thought. It should have occurred to him that a female wolf, three days away from the beginning of her reproductive cycle, might have personal reasons for rescheduling a meeting with another wolf.

"No," he added, shaking his head. "I mean, yes, that makes sense, but she would have mentioned it if she was closing the office early this year. She specifically said that she wanted me to come in, just not for a regular session."

"Yeah, well," Hunter said dryly, and Cam realized how that sounded even before he'd finished. "It's not whether she wants you to come in or not that I'm worried about."

Cam just smiled at him. "Don't trust me with the ladies?" he teased, unconcerned. He'd seen wolves in heat before. It was distracting, but they weren't sirens. Whether she'd miscalculated or not, he wasn't worried about Kathy.

"I don't trust them with you," Hunter countered. "The pack isn't exactly careful about..." He gestured vaguely with his mug. "Relationships. Boundaries. All that stuff."

"But I am," Cam reminded him. He held out his own mug, adding, "As long as you don't let Akeelah seduce you, I won't let Kathy seduce me."

This got a chuckle from Hunter, and he leaned over to clink his mug against Cam's. "Deal," he agreed with a grin. Then his gaze went to the clock again, and he lifted the coffee to his lips.

"I gotta go," Hunter said a moment later, setting the mug down on the counter. "See you tonight?"

"I'll meet you here," Cam agreed. They had three more nights of guard duty before the new volunteers took over next week. "Say hi to the wolf kids for me."

"Yeah, I'll tell the other ones my boyfriend doesn't care about them," Hunter said. He shot Cam a look as he dug his wallet out of the backpack he'd left by the door, and Cam rolled his eyes.

"You can kiss them all for me if it makes them feel more loved," he said. "Just tell them not to expect the same thing from me if we ever meet."

Hunter pulled another long-sleeve shirt off the coat hook and came back into the kitchen. "Kiss me and we'll call it even," he said, and that was one request Cam was happy to grant.

Despite what he'd told Hunter, he did end up calling a couple of friends on the way to Kathy's office. Shane could take care of himself, fine, but Cam would still feel better if he knew where he was. The first call only worried Dustin, who hadn't seen or heard from Shane since Wednesday, but the second call produced results.

"He's here right now," Tori's voice confirmed. "He told us the whole story. Or as much of it as any of us knows, I guess."

"Any sign of asylum security?" Cam asked.

"Not so far." She didn't laugh, and he figured that was fair, since he hadn't meant it to be funny. "He's going to go to class with Blake, maybe hang out with us at lunch. He doesn't have to be back at the academy until tomorrow, so. We'll keep any eye out."

"Tell him I'll stop by the academy this afternoon and see what I can find out," Cam said. "Let me know if the white coats show up again."

He heard more voices, muffled and then clearer, and that was definitely Shane in the background. "--if the apartment's okay," he was saying. "I left the door locked, but obviously that didn't stop them. I hope they didn't trash the place or anything."

"Did you hear that?" Tori asked.

"Most of it," Cam said. "Tell him the apartment's fine. It smells a little funny, but there's nothing out of place. The door was locked again by the time we got back. It looks like they tried to pretend they were never there."

This time he couldn't hear the conversation, but he knew it was happening. "I didn't get that," he said when Tori laughed.

"Shane wants to know if it would smell funny to anyone but you," she reported. "I can't tell if he's kidding or if he really wants to know."

"Hunter didn't notice anything strange," Cam told her. "If that helps."

There was a brief pause while she relayed the message, and he heard Shane say, "Yeah, that's what I wanted to know." Then there was something else, and he wasn't sure what it was until Tori's voice came back.

"He says that helps," she said. "And he wants to know if he should leave your apartment key for you somewhere."

She paused, and he could hear Shane explaining, "It was in my pocket when I went out the window, you know?"

"Tell him to keep it for now," Cam said. "I have a spare. We closed the window he went out, but if he needs to get back in he's welcome to use the front door."

"Got it," Tori confirmed. "Oh, and Shane wants to know if you could pick up his phone when you stop by the academy this afternoon."

"Where is it?" Cam asked.

"He thinks it's on the desk in his room," Tori reported a moment later. "Or it might be on the floor next to the bed." There was another pause, and then she added, "If you call it before you go, the voice mail will beep until you hit the volume button. Shane thinks that will help you find it."

The only cell phones that got service at the Wind Academy were ones that Cam had hooked up to the campus mainframe. That included Shane's, but, being a ninja, he'd probably turned off the ringer. Cam didn't relish the idea of searching an undoubtedly chaotic room for something as small and quiet as Shane's cell.

On the other, he didn't like the idea of his friends being chased by unidentified white coats, either. Shane sounded perfectly justified in both his hasty retreat from the academy and his reluctance to return. And if he wanted his cell phone, then he would get his cell phone.

"I'll look for it," Cam promised. "In the meantime, he doesn't have any way of calling for help, so tell him to stay out of trouble."

Not that he had needed to call for help before now, Cam admitted. But when it came to their friends, a reminder--or a dozen--couldn't go amiss. Tori agreed to pass on the message.

Kathy's office was quieter than usual when he got there. Maybe because he was the first appointment of the morning, or maybe because Akeelah was lurking by the door. He wouldn't have known what she was doing there if Hunter hadn't reminded him before he left.

He just nodded, but she glared at him as he entered anyway. "Shut up," she told him when he smiled. "You're just as bad."

For a woman who made a living on sensuality, Akeelah could be moody and oddly abrasive sometimes. Cam didn't bother to answer, partly because she was making less sense than usual and partly because he doubted there was anything he could say to appease her. So he just caught Gina's eye, nodded again, and took a seat in the little waiting room.

He was careful not to give the desk girl any sympathetic looks, since he could feel Akeelah watching him. Kathy's longterm girlfriend doubled as her bodyguard in dangerous situations, and Akeelah absolutely considered wolves in heat dangerous. Especially when the wolf in question was Kathy, it seemed.

Cam had never been particularly bothered by mating season. Wolves in heat were banned from the community center, and many of them voluntarily isolated themselves from the pack for the duration of the cycle. He personally found the sirens more disruptive than female wolves, mating or not, but he knew his opinion was probably influenced by Hunter's history with the pack.

A door on the other side of the waiting room opened. "Good morning," Kathy called to him. "Come on in."

She didn't acknowledge Akeelah at all. He wondered about that, even if it wasn't any of his business. It made sense that a psychiatrist wouldn't want people who weren't clients hanging around her office, girlfriend or not. But it also made sense that a wolf who was about to go into heat would have her partner nearby. Another conflict between the human world and pack life, he supposed.

"Thanks for coming in," Kathy said, smiling as she took a seat in one of her armchairs. "I think I cut it a little too close this year with the winter vacation. Let me know if it bothers you."

Cam shook his head, settling into the other chair. "It's no problem. To be honest," he admitted, giving the air a token sniff, "I barely notice it." It was true that she smelled a little off, maybe a little more... available than usual, but it wouldn't have jumped out at him if he hadn't been looking for it.

"Hah!" Kathy exclaimed, surprising him. "I win." She grinned at his expression and explained, "I told Akeelah that mating season shouldn't affect gay wolves the way it affects everyone else: the females, yes, but not the males. She was convinced that some things run deeper than sexual orientation.

"Personally," Kathy added, "I think she just forgets sometimes that not everyone is like her."

His orientation did resemble Akeelah's more than Hunter's, but since he hadn't been with anyone but Hunter since he'd met her, Kathy didn't have any reason to know that. Cam had his own opinions about the effect of mating season on people who could actually control themselves, but he didn't share them. He suspected that the pack secretly--or not so secretly, sometimes--liked the excuse that the winter months gave them.

"Maybe your theory will reassure Hunter," he said aloud. "He wasn't too thrilled about me being here today either."

"My theory explains Hunter," Kathy countered, and the smirk she gave him was so outrageous that he couldn't help smiling back. Hunter's introduction to the pack was still something of a sore point, but the joke was fair enough.

Akeelah's job was to welcome new alphas to the pack. With sex. The idea being that information was easier to come by while the alpha was distracted, and that hostile intent could be quickly discerned--and presumably disarmed--when one's defenses were down. Neither Hunter nor Cam had been aware of this ritual, and Cam had walked in on Hunter's firsthand experience with it.

"It explains Hunter and Akeelah still doesn't buy it?" Cam said, feigning surprise. "I would have thought she'd jump on it."

Akeelah hadn't gotten very far with Hunter. The incident had become public knowledge within the pack very quickly, as it turned out that she had a reputation for unconditional success. There was some debate among her fellow sirens: was it Cam's interference or Hunter's utter lack of interest in women that had stymied her?

"Oh, she likes it as it applies to Hunter," Kathy assured him. "Insofar as it explains why she has no effect on him, she thinks it's perfectly acceptable. But as a reason for her to leave me alone in a small room with other wolves during mating season, she thinks it lacks reliability."

Cam thought that "no effect" was seriously overstating the matter, but he didn't really feel like discussing it right now. "I assume that explains why she's lurking in the lobby," he remarked, as a way of changing the subject.

Kathy's smile faded. "Unfortunately, yes," she said. "Sirens have a better sense of smell than we do; I don't know if you knew that?"

He shook his head: no, but it made sense.

"Yes, well, it may not affect her," Kathy said with a sigh. "But she can sense it coming on before even I know, let alone the rest of the pack. I'm afraid she gets a little protective."

"Gets?" Cam repeated, amused.

That made her relax. "Fair enough," she agreed ruefully. "You know all about that, I'm sure."

He and Hunter defended each other from other interested parties just as fiercely as Akeelah protected Kathy, if for different reasons. "Yeah, except that with us, it's a question of loyalty rather than physical safety."

Kathy gave him a reproachful look, and he knew why the moment the words were out. "The pack won't thank you for saying 'loyalty' when you mean 'monogamy'," she reminded him.

He lowered his head, accepting the correction. "It's a question of monogamy," he repeated. "Neither of us was raised to... share."

Kathy the psychiatrist would have nodded, accepting his background as a human who had come to the pack against his will as an adult. But this wasn't a session, and Kathy took the division between work and not-work very seriously. If she wasn't his psychiatrist, then she was his friend, and she could say whatever she wanted.

The daughter of human wolves, raised by the pack from the day she was born, gave him a slightly superior smile. "Your loss," she told him.

"I'll tell Hunter you said so," he returned dryly. "Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about, or are we making our partners crazy for no reason?"

She sobered again, and for a moment he might as well have been talking to the psychiatrist she had trained to be. "Yes," she said. "But I'm going to have to break patient confidentiality to do it."

Or not.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Why?"

"Because I think she's a threat," Kathy said bluntly. "Akeelah agrees."

Ah. So she had already broken patient confidentiality, and she was just letting him know that he was going to be a part of it. She had set aside professional ethics, for whatever reason, and now she was waiting to see if his personal code was as flexible.

"I trust your judgement," he said at last. "And I won't share anything that you tell me not to, if that makes a difference."

She nodded. "I know. But the reason I'm telling you this is because I think you already know something about it. And I don't expect you to share anything with me that I don't need to know.

"I trust you too, you see," Kathy added, studying him as though she was asking a question. "And I respect the fact that there are things you know that you can't share with me."

He considered that. He thought she was probably talking about his ninja history, but he didn't see how that could be dangerous. What other secrets did he have that she knew about?

"If you're in trouble," he said at last, "you know I'll try to help you."

It sounded a little too serious, to him, but she didn't wave it off. "Thank you," she said with a nod. "That's good enough for me."

She hesitated then, but before he could say anything else she remarked, "I've met some of your friends, you know. Hunter's brother, and his girlfriend. A couple of the boys they hang out with."

Cam frowned. His Ranger team. Officially, they were all just friends. Off the record, they were classmates at a secret ninja academy in the mountains. More than that, though, they shared a bond that no one but Cam's family knew about.

He was pretty sure that whatever Kathy was talking about didn't involve the Rangers. They hadn't been active for years, and there were several higher-profile teams in existence now. Besides, Ranger identities could deceive even wolf senses... as he had reason to know.

"One of them in particular," Kathy was saying. "The dark-skinned man who acts like an alpha?"

"Shane," Cam supplied warily. "What about him?"

"He's different." She held up her hand even before he could open his mouth. "I'm not asking you to tell me anything I don't need to know. You don't have to confirm or deny anything I say.

"He's different," she repeated, without waiting for an answer. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but if I had to guess I'd say he isn't human. I've never met anyone who seems so much like two different people.

"And in this profession," she added, with a small smile, "I've met plenty of people who act like different people."

Cam smiled briefly in acknowledgment, but he didn't reply. Shane's secrets weren't his. He did wonder a little at her easy classification of him as "not human," though. And she'd never said anything until now. Was she keeping her silence about him as well, or was the fact that he and Shane were different kinds of aliens enough to throw her off?

"I should say," she amended, "I'd never met anyone else like him until now. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Cam gave her a sharp look. If Kathy knew what she was talking about... someone else like Shane? Here? It seemed unlikely, but not impossible.

"She came in yesterday," Kathy continued. "Last minute appointment scheduled earlier in the week, no referral. Gina remembers talking to her, but nothing about our usual contact information."

"Don't you have human clients who come in without pack networking?" Cam asked.

"Humans, yes," Kathy agreed. "But everyone is referred through someone connected to the pack. Not necessarily a wolf," she allowed, "but I don't take referrals from anyone who doesn't know who I am."

Cam nodded carefully. He hadn't known that, but it did make her mystery client more... well, mysterious. "She made the appointment herself, then?"

"According to Gina, yes. But Gina knows my policy, and she wouldn't have scheduled someone without checking their referral first. She's said it herself: the woman must have had a referral, but she can't find a record of it."

Cam frowned again. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"I don't know," Kathy said. "Maybe Gina lost it. It's never happened before, but everyone has bad days.

"I was ready to accept that, too," she said thoughtfully. "Right up until the moment I met her."

"And she reminded you of Shane," Cam said. If she was trying to ease him into whatever this was, he really didn't need it. His life was a lot stranger than even the pack knew.

"She's more than Shane," Kathy said. It made no sense, but she said it with utter certainty. "If he's two people, she's five or six. I'm sure of it."

Cam blinked. Shane was two people, but he wasn't convinced Kathy could actually know that. So he wasn't sure how much he should read into her insistence that someone just like him had shown up with an even longer history and no apparent desire to seek him out. Couldn't Karmanians sense each other when they got close enough?

"And you think she's a threat?" he asked finally.

"She makes me uncomfortable," Kathy said with a shrug.

He tried not to roll his eyes. Because in the pack, that would be a perfectly good reason for calling someone out: they made you uncomfortable. But in the human world, it wasn't exactly grounds for an investigation.

Kathy caught his reaction, which he should have expected. "You said you trust my judgement," she reminded him. "This woman isn't a wolf, she doesn't have pack connections, and she did more talking in the waiting room than she did in my office. I don't think she was here for therapy."

"What did she say in the waiting room?" he asked, because there wasn't anything else he could say. Did she want him to tell her that people like Shane weren't out to get her? For all he knew, they could be. But he hadn't heard anything that made him worry for her safety.

"I don't know," Kathy said, shaking her head. "She wasn't talking to me. She showed up an hour early for her appointment, and Gina says she spent the whole time chatting with a client who was on his way out."

Cam raised his eyebrows. "Someone she knew?" If it was one of the pack, that would explain her missing wolf connection. Maybe it was just a human who had heard about Kathy from a friend she didn't know everything about.

"No." Kathy gave him a significant look. "Gina says they introduced themselves when she saw the Forest Ranger patch on his coat."

That wasn't particularly unusual, if it came right down to it. A higher than average percentage of the pack worked outdoors, and he wasn't surprised to hear that two of Kathy's clients had bonded over forest work. The odd part was that the human wolves who worked outdoors tended to be those who didn't assimilate into the human world as well as others, and the idea that one of them would spend an hour talking to someone they'd just met was strange enough without it being someone outside the pack.

"Is that... typical of the person she was talking to?" Cam asked carefully.

"No," Kathy repeated. "No more than it's typical of Gina to forget someone's referral."

So... people acted strangely around her. She made Kathy uncomfortable. And she reminded the psychiatrist of Shane. Not exactly something to base a stakeout on, even if they could find her.

"How does Akeelah know her?" Cam asked after a moment. "Has she been at the office all week?"

"Just today," Kathy said. "And yesterday, when I called her and asked her to follow my client after she left."

Cam stared at her in surprise. Of course Kathy wouldn't think that was important to mention until now. "Where did she go?"

"She disappeared," Kathy answered. "Vanished into the forest. And you know how well Akeelah can track."

"You mean literally disappeared," Cam guessed. Which wouldn't be that hard if she was Karmanian. Shane disappeared all the time. As his white coated followers had discovered this morning.

"Poof," Kathy agreed. "Gone. I don't suppose that's something your friend can do, too?"

Cam hesitated, which probably answered the question for her, but he tried to make up for it by saying, "He doesn't usually vanish into thin air." Which was true, as far as it went. Shane usually vanished into a little ball of glowing light.

Kathy shrugged. "Just checking." She might have continued, except that the intercom emitted a pleasant sounding musical tone and Gina's voice interrupted them.

"Kathy? I'm sorry to disturb you..."

Cam blinked. Never once had he heard Gina's voice while he was in one of these armchairs. He suspected Gina was paid very well to keep the real world from intruding on Kathy's sessions. He couldn't imagine what would warrant such a change now.

Kathy didn't look any less startled, but she got up and went over to the intercom. "Go ahead, Gina."

"I have two Silver Guardians in the lobby," Gina said over the intercom. "They're telling me they need to evacuate the building immediately."

Kathy and Cam exchanged glances. Guardians who waited for the desk girl to page the building's occupants before evacuating it? What was urgent enough to require an evacuation but not urgent enough for the evacuation to be enforced?

"Send Akeelah in, please," Kathy said smoothly.

Gina didn't even have a chance to reply before the door swung open and Akeelah strode inside. She slammed the door behind her and pointedly slid the lock. She must have been standing right outside.

"They're not a threat," Akeelah told them. "Just a couple of toy soldiers. But they've got some kind of authority, and they're legally allowed to remove us by force if we don't cooperate."

Her expression said that wouldn't be happening, no matter what authority they had.

"We're not leaving without an explanation," Kathy said.

Akeelah nodded, as though Kathy had just delivered an ultimatum. And for all Cam knew, she had. But Akeelah opened the door and they all filed out, Cam's eyes going first to Gina--and he wasn't the only one.

She looked unfazed, though, and one of Akeelah's toy soldiers was leaning on her desk, chatting her up while they waited. Hardly the look of people ordering the evacuation of an entire building, Cam thought. Apparently it was a very slow-acting threat.

"Hello," Kathy said, eyeing the Guardians. "I'm Dr. Kathy Blanchard. May I help you?"

The one with the red beret in his hand straightened up from the desk and came over, nodding pleasantly to her. "Dr. Blanchard," he greeted her. "I apologize for the disruption to your business, but there's a gas leak down the street. We're clearing the entire area as a precaution."

"I see," Kathy said slowly.

That was when Cam recognized the man she was talking to. He was surprised it had taken him this long. "Wes Collins?" he said. Then, "Sorry. Commander Collins?"

Collins gave him a friendly glance. "That's right," he said, nodding to Cam with the same efficient sort of pleasantry he'd used on Kathy. "Have we met?"

"No," he said, with some reluctance. "Cam Watanabe." He might be able to claim some sort of special treatment if he could tell the man how he'd heard of him, but he couldn't say anything in front of Kathy and Gina. A quick assessment confirmed that the man with Collins wouldn't be a problem.

Then something another Ranger had said once came back to him, and he smiled suddenly. "I recognized your watch," he told the Guardian.

Predictably, Collins looked down at his left arm. His bracers would have pushed his morpher up off his wrist, and if he was wearing it then it was completely obscured by his sleeve. On his arm or not, though, Cam assumed he would get the message.

"Did you," Collins said, exchanging glances with his partner. "I guess you probably have one like it, then."

"Same idea," Cam agreed. He lifted his hand to the amulet that still hung around his neck. "Different design."

Collins hesitated just long enough for Kathy to get involved. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to leave," she said firmly. "If I have to close this building, I'll need to get in touch with my clients. I can't have anyone else in the office while I collect their contact information."

"Of course," Collins agreed. "We'll wait outside."

Cam caught Kathy's eye as the two Silver Guardians moved toward the door. Her gaze flicked to them and back, and he wondered if she had done that on purpose. She had every right to claim professional confidentiality--but he couldn't help noticing that Akeelah wasn't going anywhere.

He decided to use whatever advantage he could get. So when he stepped out of the building, he was glad to see Collins wave him over. Apparently they were on the same page about this.

"Necklace morpher, huh?" Collins said, when he joined them. "You must be green."

"It's an amulet," Cam informed him. "And I was the Green Samurai Ranger. I recognized you from the database."

"Database?" Collins repeated.

At the same time, his partner echoed, "Samurai Ranger?"

Cam looked from one of them to the other. "It's a long story."

"Aren't they all," Collins said with a grin. "Call me Wes," he added, holding out his hand. "I'm the Red Time Ranger."

"Eric Myers," his partner said, waiting out their brief handshake to offer his own. "Quantum Ranger."

Cam knew that, and personally, he didn't think the "Quantum Ranger" had any business questioning someone else's Ranger title. But he wasn't here to antagonize them. He didn't know how long Kathy would take to gather up her contact information, and he'd like to get a little information of his own. Because he should have remembered "Time Force" before.

"Half of your team is from the future, right?" Cam asked, just to make sure. It had been a while since he saw regular Ranger reports.

"More than half," Wes said. "Me and Eric are the only ones from the twenty-first century."

"Just out of curiosity," Cam said, which it wasn't at all. A standard six-person team would mean four people from the future. "What do your teammates' uniforms look like?"

Wes had a better poker face than Cam had given him credit for, because he only shrugged at the non sequitur. "Color-coded arrows?" he offered. "The arrow's really the only distinguishing feature, I guess."

"Not their Ranger uniforms," Cam said, trying not to smile. They were all pretty much the same. "I meant their work uniforms."

"Oh, the Time Force gear?" Wes shrugged again. "All white. Says 'Time Force' on it."

Yeah, that was what he'd thought. "Triangular badge on the front?" Cam asked. "Black sunburst on the back?"

"Yeah," Wes said, and now he was definitely giving Cam an odd look. "Why?"

Cam glanced at Wes' partner, who looked totally bored with the whole conversation. "I have a friend who's been seeing them around town," Cam said. "He think they're following him."

Wes chuckled. "They must be slipping if he's seen them more than once," he remarked, clearly relaxing. "I'll tell Jen she should be more careful."

"Are they following him?" Cam pressed.

"Not unless your friend's been time traveling," Wes said, shaking his head. "They're tracking some sort of temporal distortion. Something weird, I don't really understand it, but Jen says it's caused by a certain kind of mutant. A chameleon, or a carnation, or something."

"Karmanian," his partner corrected. He sounded as bored as he looked. "And they're not mutants. They're aliens."

"They can't be aliens," Wes argued. "Jen's sister is a... a Karmanian, or whatever. That's why they sent her."

"Karmanians possess people," Eric said idly. "If you'd been paying any attention during her briefing, you'd know that."

Instead of being offended by his partner's attitude, Wes barely seemed to notice. "Aliens?" he repeated. "Really?"

They didn't possess people. They passed on their energy to willing hosts, who were in turn transformed by a symbiotic relationship with the butterfly people, inheriting the knowledge and abilities of those who had come before them. Karmanians were mutualists, not spirits.

Cam guessed that now was not the time to pass on that particular piece of cultural information.

"They picked her for the same reason they always pick her," Eric was saying. "She has contacts in this time. And her boyfriend is in charge of a private security firm that contracts with local law enforcement."

"I see," Cam interrupted, nodding to the building they'd just left. "I guess that explains why you're doing public service work, then."

Eric just snorted, but Wes shook his head. "Jen's traced the temporal distortion here," he said. "She asked if I could clear the site as a personal favor to her."

"Kathy," Cam said loudly, as the door swung open and Akeelah waved the other two out in front of her. "Did you get my keys from your office?"

Wes was already turning away to talk into his headset--official sounding babble about evacuation progress--while his partner stared straight ahead, giving the impression that this chore was beneath him. Cam got a surprised look from Kathy and a narrowing of the eyes from Akeelah. Only Gina paid no attention, putting her own keys away while Kathy hesitated over the task of locking the door behind her.

"No," she said. "I did check my office again before we left, but I didn't see them."

"They're on the table by the window," Cam said apologetically. "I'll have to go back in and get them. Did you lock the office?"

"I'll let you in," Kathy said, holding the door open again. "Be right back," she told Akeelah.

Cam waited until they were actually in her office to pull his keys out of his pocket and hold them up. Kathy just waited, so he gestured her away from the window and said quietly, "There's no gas leak. They're working for someone else, and that someone else is going to come in here while you're gone and probably go through all your files."

"Over my dead body," Kathy declared, but Cam held up a hand for her to lower her voice.

"There's nothing you can do to stop them," he said softly. "I'm sorry, but you have to trust me on this. They can do it, and they will, and you won't even know they've been here.

"I think they're looking for that woman you were telling me about," he added, cutting off her protest. "They'll probably leave everything else alone. They just want any information you have on her. And they'll do whatever they have to do to get it."

She stared at him for a long moment. Finally, though, she nodded reluctantly. "Will they find it if I hide her file somewhere in the office? In the closet, or under the rug or something?"

He almost smiled. The pack won over clients, but clients won over strangers. He probably should have expected that.

"I don't know," he admitted.

She nodded again, more decisively this time. "Gina keeps the schedule on a PDA in the top right drawer of her desk. Patient info--"

"I know," Cam interrupted. "I overhauled your system, remember?"

She flashed a saucy grin at him. "Yeah, right around the time you became a client. You just didn't want anyone cracking your session data."

She was already moving, taking the back door out of the office to reach the filing cabinets in the storage room. Otherwise he would have come up with some sort of retort. After all, was there any better motivator than personal interest?

He went out the door they'd come in and she met him in the waiting area a moment later. Gina was organized, and all of the office's sensitive data was stored on non-networked electronics. He had her PDA in his pocket and the external hard drive in his coat.

If Time Force had any idea what they were doing, of course, they would recognize that someone had removed exactly what they were looking for. They wouldn't be able to complain, since legally they had no right to be there in the first place, but they were going to know someone had tipped Kathy off. The lack of a paper trail wouldn't offset the glaring absence of an entire computer database.

It offended Cam's professional sensibilities to leave such obvious holes, but they were under a time constraint and it had to be better to leave too little than too much.

Wes and Eric were still waiting when they emerged from the building. So was Akeelah, which was only to be expected. The fact that Gina hadn't left yet did surprise Cam, until he realized that she and Kathy planned to continue their workday somewhere else.

Cam left them to it. The Silver Guardians left them alone once they were convinced that everyone actually was going to vacate the area, and Cam handed over the hard drive and the PDA. A final conference with Kathy assured him that she would let him know if the Shane-like woman showed up again. Akeelah wasn't happy with his refusal to share information, but then, she rarely was.

So he headed for the community center, where he could leave his report and get lunch at the same time. He called Hunter and left a terse voice mail outlining the situation: second Karmanian, chased by Time Force, Shane was probably an unfortunate and so far unresolved case of mistaken identity. He would have let Shane know as well, except that Shane currently had no phone.

Cam's trip to the academy was the first step in remedying that problem. That was, however, the only problem it addressed. Sensei readily admitted that he had no idea who the people in white were--it turned out that Cam had more information on them than he did--but they had the appropriate passwords, so they had been admitted. And they were coming back.

"Shane has accumulated a significant number of personal days since he began working as a teacher at the academy," his father told him. "Now might be an ideal time to take advantage of them."

"I'll mention that to him," Cam said, resigned to the fact that he could be Shane's go-to guy for the duration of Time Force's interest in the Wind Academy campus.

Still, Shane was grateful when Cam caught up with him later and passed on the information from Wes and Kathy, the message from Sensei, and his cell phone, which by now had a list of several missed calls. He was willing to take Sensei's not so subtle suggestion about vacation time, and he agreed that laying low for a while might be the easiest way of solving the Time Force problem. He was also noticeably less jumpy after the day had passed without any more white coat sightings.

Personally Cam felt that a day spent on a university campus with Blake and Tori would make him jumpy all on its own, but he didn't find a way to work that into the conversation with his friends.

Hunter smirked when he brought it up at dinner time. "It's not a day you need to spend," he drawled. "A night on a college campus would probably do you good."

That made Cam snort. "I can't imagine anything that would be more contrary to everything I am," he said, offering his carton of Chinese food to Hunter. "Partying, drinking, beer yells--what about that makes you think of me?"

Hunter stuck his fork in the carton and said blithely, "The unabashed public sex, of course."

Torn between watching Hunter's utter destruction of the rice with his fork and giving him the eye for his sex comment, Cam's return glare lacked force. "Public sex is an oxymoron that I'll thank you not to bring up again."

Hunter had the nerve to laugh at him. But then, Hunter always had. "The word 'public' is a qualifier, not a contradictory term," he teased. "I think it would help you relax."

"You must be on something," Cam decided, regarding the contents of the carton in Hunter's wake. Chopsticks were not going to cut it anymore. "Pass me one of those forks."

Hunter leaned forward and snagged an extra fork off the coffee table, handing it over with a leer that said this conversation wasn't finished yet. "What, it's mating season and you haven't even thought about it?"

Cam gave him a sideways look. "What were you talking about at work that this conversation logically follows?" he wanted to know. He was happy to change the subject any time now. Really.

To his surprise, Hunter had an answer at the ready. "Caleb's parents were late," he said. "A dollar for every minute past pickup time, and they still didn't show for almost an hour."

Cam blinked at the non sequitur, but he went with it willingly. "Things happen," he said. "It must have been important."

He realized, too late, that the remark had been significantly more relevant than he'd thought. Hunter's smug expression told him all he needed to know, but that didn't stop his lover from telling him, "Yeah, and from the way his dad looked when they came in, it was important enough that it was happening in the car."

Cam looked away, hoping the heat in his face wasn't completely obvious and knowing that it probably was. Hunter took an unholy amount of glee in being around the pack during the winter. It didn't affect him, after all, and for some reason he thought it was funny to watch the wolf community come apart at the seams.

"We haven't done it in the truck for a while," Hunter added thoughtfully. "Do you think we're getting old?"

"I think we're getting practical," Cam muttered, staring down at the carton he was holding. "There's nothing comfortable about your truck."

Hunter poked him in the side. "Are you sure mating season doesn't affect you?" he wanted to know. "Cause if there's a way to make you a little more crazy, I want to know about it."

"I'm not a bitch," Cam snapped. "I don't go into heat, I don't like being around people who are in heat, and I think winter is just the pack's excuse to be even more carnal and hedonistic than usual."

"You make that sound like a bad thing," Hunter said, and Cam didn't even have to see his face to hear the grin in his voice. Hunter was harder and harder to startle these days, and sometimes Cam worried that his growing implacability was just encouraging Cam to watch what he said less carefully.

"What's wrong with a little hedonism every once in a while?" Hunter was saying. "I don't see what's so bad about enjoying ourselves."

"And I don't see why enjoying ourselves has to mean acting like horny teenagers," Cam grumbled, trying to moderate his tone. He really didn't want to be talking about this right now.

Hunter raised his eyebrows. Cam could hear it in his tone, and he didn't like the way this conversation was going. "I don't know why you think teenagers are the only ones who get to have any fun," Hunter said, sounding a little too curious for Cam's liking.

"I don't have anything against sex," Cam said loudly. "I like sex. Okay?"

"Okay." Now Hunter sounded amused, and that couldn't be a good sign. "Chicken finger?"

"This is exactly what I don't like about winter," Cam continued, ignoring the carton Hunter had tipped in his direction. "All anyone can talk about is sex. Why does the human world stop mattering just because wolves have an excuse to lust after each other nonstop? Aren't there more important things going on?"

"Sure," Hunter said easily, although it was so obvious that he was only humoring Cam that Cam barely listened. "What do you want to talk about?"

"It's not that it doesn't affect me," Cam insisted. "It's not like I don't know what's going on! It's just that I have more self-control than your average rabbit and so am capable of being around people without constantly thinking about having sex with them!"

"Huh." Hunter still seemed totally unfazed by Cam's complaints. "I think your life must not be as interesting as mine, then.

"But," he added, before Cam could retort, "no matter how irresistibly cute I am, I wouldn't call myself a bunny rabbit. More like a normal human guy."

"Your normal and my normal are totally different," Cam snapped, ignoring the bunny comment.

"Yeah, which is why I don't get why you're so upset about this," Hunter agreed. "So you don't think about sex all the time. So what? Is that any reason to spoil everyone else's fun?"

"I'm not upset," Cam informed him. "I just wish people would stop asking me what we do during mating season!"

Hunter sounded suddenly interested. "People have been asking you what we do during mating season? How come I don't get that question?"

"Because you're not a wolf," Cam grumbled. "Because you're gay. Because you're not around women in heat. How should I know?"

"What do you tell them?" Hunter wanted to know.

"That it's none of their business!" Cam exclaimed.

He could feel Hunter's knowing look without even turning his head, and he poked the carton of rice with a sigh. They both knew the pack didn't work that way. "I tell them we do what we always do," he muttered. "Mating season doesn't matter when you're both..." He trailed off with a half-hearted shrug.

"When you're both guys?" Hunter prompted. He paused, maybe waiting to see if Cam would answer. When he didn't, Hunter offered, "It matters to Kathy and Akeelah."

Cam just rolled his eyes. "If you hadn't noticed, one of them is in heat. Of course it matters to them."

"She's in heat now?" Hunter's tone sharpened. "I thought she said she'd be all right for another few days."

"She miscalculated," Cam said shortly. Not that it mattered. The sexual fog that heat produced was nothing he couldn't ignore. "Akeelah didn't even want her alone in the same room with me."

"Yeah, well, Akeelah knows what she's talking about," Hunter told him. "Maybe you should listen to her."

"Maybe she should listen to me when I say I can handle myself," Cam retorted. "I don't drool all over people just because they're there!"

Hunter was studying him. He could tell without having to look, because out of the corner of his eye he could see that Hunter hadn't moved for several seconds, and he hadn't touched his food for even longer. There was nothing else Hunter would be staring at that way--nothing except him.

"What?" Cam demanded at last, turning to look at him. The gesture had the convenient side effect of putting more distance between them as he pulled one knee up on the couch and resettled himself.

Hunter was frowning slightly, but he didn't avert his gaze just because Cam was now looking straight at him. He stared right back, not blinking. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind those blue eyes.

Finally, just before Cam would have asked again, he said, "This is kind of weird." Then he paused, making Cam fill in the next sentence with every thought imaginable.

What he actually followed up with was, "Could you turn into a wolf for a minute?"

Cam drew back in surprise, just a tiny flinch that Hunter nonetheless caught. "Yeah," he said ruefully. "Sorry about that. I know I don't... you know, ask you, unless there's a reason."

When he hesitated again, Cam managed to find his voice. "Is there a reason now?" He was aware that he sounded more defensive than was probably necessary. Hunter accepted the wolf, was comfortable with it, even liked to joke that it was easier to talk to than Cam himself.

But his wolf form wasn't like Kathy's. Hers was an extension of her own personality, while his was still something that he thought of as separate from himself. It was something that influenced him, sometimes in a good way, sometimes less so, and he appreciated what it did for him.

That didn't mean he wasn't self-conscious about the fact that he had to eat raw meat twice a week to keep from starving. Or that he wore a collar with Hunter's phone number on it when he went out during the daytime. He still growled sometimes when he forgot himself, and his eyes glowed behind his brown contact lenses when he got upset.

Not to mention the fact that for six weeks out of every year, the pack descended into an exasperating cycle of yearning, leering, and bragging about conquests. It was the antithesis of everything Cam had been taught to value. This would be his third winter as a wolf--the third year that he had to try to ignore everything that was going on around him for the sake of his own peace of mind. And it was getting old.

"There's a reason," Hunter was saying, but he sounded so cautious that Cam almost refused just on principle. "Can I... tell you what it is after you do it?"

Cam sighed. Of course he could. It wasn't like the wolf wouldn't do whatever Hunter wanted. Cam could tell it to shut up: he could ignore, contradict, or disobey Hunter when he wanted to, but he would feel irritatingly guilty afterwards. And he'd feel even worse while he was doing it.

"Fine," he said, setting the cardboard carton back on the coffee table as he stood up. "I'll tell my alter ego you want to talk to him."

"Hey," Hunter said quickly. "Don't get mad. You don't have to. I know it's weird... it probably won't even matter, I was just curious--" He broke off when the wolf appeared in front of him.

The grey-brown shape took up significantly more floor space than Cam's human form did, and being lower to the ground made the apartment look vaguely maze-like. The Chinese food was right at nose level, though, and Cam wasn't surprised that it smelled good even now. The wolf wasn't picky as long as he got fresh meat every few days.

"Thanks," Hunter said, grabbing his attention again. He was standing too, edging around the table to approach Cam. He'd changed out of his day care clothes and he was making that red t-shirt look a lot better than the clothes catalogues did. "I promise I didn't ask you to do that just to get you to shut up."

Cam's snort lost some of its force as Hunter's scent hit him full in the nose. He tried instinctively to get as much of it as he could, abandoning his effort at communication as he trotted over to meet the source of that scent halfway. He remembered moving away from Hunter while they were sitting on the couch, and he decided there must have been something wrong with him then.

"Hey," Hunter said affectionately, crouching down to greet him at eye level. "I also didn't do it 'cause you're friendlier this way," he added, smiling as Cam's muzzle rubbed against his hand. "But I should have."

Cam thought that was probably fair. Hunter made so much more sense as a wolf. He couldn't help responding to him. He put a paw on Hunter's knee and pushed closer, burying his head in Hunter's chest while Hunter's hand rubbed his shoulder gently.

Hunter's other arm went around his other side, careful, just brushing his hand against Cam's fur, and he barely noticed. He felt it when Hunter hugged him, though, and that was absolutely the best thing he'd felt all day. He pressed in harder, trying to hug him back without actually having any arms to do it with.

Hunter lost his balance and fell back on his butt, but he was laughing and he kept his arms around Cam so it didn't really matter. Cam licked his face impulsively. The laughter faded, and he knew Hunter wasn't really into the licking thing but he put up with it and he always tasted sort of like frosting so it was hard to resist.

"Hey," Hunter whispered, and Cam knew what he was about to say, he was about to say "stop," and Cam didn't want to. So he lowered his head to lick Hunter's neck, which he didn't seem to mind quite as much, and he was careful not to flick his ear when it brushed against Hunter's face. The fur was soft, Hunter said, but still annoying when it got in his eyes.

Hunter turned his head like he was about to pull away and Cam plastered himself more desperately against his body because he couldn't lose this, not now. He licked harder, teeth grazing skin, and his ear twitched reflexively when Hunter breathed into it, "I love you too."

The words tickled his fur, and pulling his head back meant that his front paws got heavier and Hunter let himself be pushed backward. Cam scrambled to keep his full body contact and they went down, awkward and half out-of-control, the way everything seemed to be with wolves sometimes. But Cam was lying on top of him and Hunter was grinning up at him and everything about it felt alarmingly good.

He shifted back into his human form and stared down at the ridiculous, reckless man underneath him. Hunter only chuckled, stretching shamelessly as he drawled, "Oh, good. I was wondering what I'd do if you didn't change back."

"Did you do that on purpose?" Cam blurted out, oddly breathless as his human body informed him that it wanted everything the wolf had just had and more. He couldn't think about anything but sucking on Hunter's skin right now.

"Kind of," Hunter admitted, staring up at him with lazy eyes. "I didn't know what would happen. But I figured, whenever you get weird as a human, the wolf usually knows what's going on."

"I wasn't weird," Cam muttered. His gaze was fixed on Hunter's mouth, and as soon as he realized that he tried to look back at his eyes, but Hunter just shrugged and his focus shivered into nothing again.

Cam had never figured out if Hunter really had trouble shrugging when he was lying on his back with a human weight on top of him or if he just moved his entire body because it was effective--and it was. It was highly effective. It was just one of a thousand little things that Hunter did that was so arousing Cam had to look away when there were other people around or risk looking like a fool with his glassy-eyed stare.

"Fine," Hunter murmured, lifting a hand to his head. He ran his fingers over Cam's hair and around behind his ear, just like he was patting the wolf. "You weren't weird."

Cam pressed his hands against Hunter's chest, shifting his weight slightly and wondering why that already felt better than kissing. He wanted Hunter, wanted him so badly that just sitting here on top of him was almost unbearable, and for what? A hug? A few licks on the neck? Hunter was barely touching him and he didn't think he could move for wanting.

"But," Hunter added, fingers trailing down his neck and under the unbuttoned long sleeve shirt he was wearing over his t-shirt. The illusion of inappropriateness, of Hunter's hands under his clothes, was somehow strong enough to make him shiver.

"You did have sex on the brain," Hunter was saying. "You were denying it a little too loudly to be convincing."

He had it on the brain now. He had it everywhere. It was written on Hunter's fingertips, and he was rubbing it all over Cam's body. It was in those cool blue eyes until everywhere he looked was hot and longing to be touched. It was all around him, a wafting cloud of scent that permeated everything, like Hunter was the one in heat and Cam was drawn helplessly into desire.

He hated mating season. He hated it with a passion that he reserved only for things that threatened his control. He hated that Hunter was human, that he couldn't understand what it was like, that he couldn't be a wolf when the wolf needed him to be.

He hated being alone in a feeling that he couldn't stand.

"We shouldn't..." he began, trying to remember what it meant to be practical. Not the floor. Like he could even stand up right now, as though anything in him cared, but he knew he ought to. He ought to care, because it did matter.

"Yeah." Hunter pushed up against him, and he was strong enough that he could make the movement count. "We totally should."

Cam squeezed his eyes shut and that was worse because there was nothing to distract him from the feeling of straddling his lover on the floor of their completely private apartment. He moved because he couldn't help it, because it hurt to stay where he was, and the reward was maddening and embarrassing and he was so close to losing it completely that his fists clenched at his sides while the rest of him froze. He couldn't even lean down and kiss Hunter without the friction making him crazy.

The worst part was that Hunter didn't seem to realize what was stopping him. "Come on," he cajoled, rolling his hips in a way that made Cam swallow a groan. "You know you want it. Dinner'll still be there when we're done."

"I can't--" he whispered. He couldn't explain that dinner didn't matter, that there wouldn't be any waiting, that this wasn't about sex, that it was only about relief. Hunter wasn't going to get anything out of it. "I want..."

The only alternative was to get up and walk away, and he'd be lucky to make it to the bathroom to jerk off over the toilet without falling apart. Hunter would kill him if he tried, and that explanation would take longer than this one because Hunter would be hurt and he couldn't do that to him. But he couldn't do this either; he had to hold it together so that he didn't look like--

Hunter's fingers on his jeans made him choke off a moan. He thrust himself into that tentative pressure hard enough that it fumbled into nothing, and he groaned. He shifted on his knees, ground down, rocking, unable to stop, and Hunter was laughing at him.

"Okay, come on," Hunter said, tugging at his jeans again, the button, the zipper, pushing at him ineffectually. Maybe trying to get him to move back and give him some room, but that hand, there, achieved exactly the opposite results, and Cam shoved into him again.

"I can do better than that," Hunter insisted, pushing harder against his stomach while Cam squirmed mindlessly, trying to get both hands down where they would do some good. "Back off for a sec."

An animal. That was what he felt like, exactly what he didn't want to look like, and a distant part of his brain was horrified by the way he batted Hunter's hands away and rocked harder against the body beneath him, against the only thing that could bring the relief he needed. Finally, though, finally Hunter seemed to get it.

At least, he didn't protest, and his voice was more serious when he murmured, "Okay, okay, let me--" And Hunter's hand pressed against him, a little clumsy, uncertain with the angle, muffled by the clothes, and Cam made a strangled sound that could have been a sob.

"Come on, it's okay," Hunter murmured, and if he felt uncertain then he sounded perfectly sure of himself. "I'll do the wolf if I have to. I don't care, Cam. It's fine, okay? It's fine. Just let it be fine, just let it go. Just let go."

He was already shuddering, consumed by the image of Hunter's hands on the wolf, caught up in the full body rush that started low and spread outward into every part of him. He needed that--he needed this more than he ever let himself realize. It was winter, and he hated winter, and this hurt.

This wasn't relief. He tried not to moan, thrusting into wet cotton and patient hands and the prickly sensation that followed the rush made him want to crawl out of his skin. If only he could do it again, if he could do it right, erase this utterly unsatisfying feeling and start over then maybe it would go away.

But his muscles were already relaxing, his body confusing his mind, signals of satiation warring with the longing that was left behind, begging for something else, begging for more. He felt like crying. He couldn't--what good was sex when it felt like this?

"C'mere," Hunter said quietly. He canted his hips, encouraging Cam to slide off, tugging gently on his arms as he reached up to support the nearest shoulder. Cam let himself be pulled, crawling closer, hungry for something to fill the void.

Hunter's mouth was happy to try, kissing him slowly, thoroughly, warm in the wake of the hopelessness that washed over him. And it was nice, it was comforting, nibbling at the edges of the emptiness he'd thought sex would fill. It was less lonely than humping Hunter's hand.

And Hunter wasn't even making an effort. His hands were careful and soft on Cam's face and arms and they weren't going anywhere else. He wasn't uncomfortable, he wasn't waiting, he wasn't angling for anything more than kissing. He wasn't expecting anything but this.

He didn't need anything but this, and that made Cam feel worse. Hunter had come on to the wolf without even realizing it, and this was what he got in return. No warning, no explanation, no apology.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, pushing himself up on his elbow. That, at least, he could do. "I didn't..." He trailed off, staring at Hunter's face. "I'm sorry," he repeated miserably.

"Hey," Hunter said softly, levering himself up beside Cam and then abandoning the half-measure to pull his legs in and sit cross-legged on the floor. He didn't take his eyes off of Cam.

"Hey," he repeated, reaching out to touch Cam's face. "You know how I read this?" He didn't seem to expect a response. "I see you," he went on, "heading off to Kathy's place, running straight into a wolf who's walking around with a giant 'fuck me' sign on her back."

Cam flinched. He didn't like the word, he didn't like the implication, and he didn't think he wanted to hear the rest of this. But he was going to listen, because he wanted to talk even less.

"And I see you ignoring it," Hunter continued. "Like always. You tell yourself it doesn't matter. You don't want what you want, you don't need it, it's not important. Whatever. You don't do her.

"But you do me," Hunter said fiercely. His fingers paused on Cam's jaw while his thumb brushed across his lips. "Being around her isn't enough," he added, "but you see me, and telling yourself you don't want it isn't enough. 'Cause you do. You want this. Us. What we have."

His mouth had opened under Hunter's caress, and his shoulder ached but he didn't dare move in case he lost that touch. "Yes," he breathed, because that much was true. He couldn't lose Hunter. He wouldn't.

"That's what I see," Hunter said again, turning his hand over to rub his knuckles across Cam's cheek. "If that's not how it is, you can just tell me, but from where I'm sitting, it sure doesn't look like anything to be embarrassed about."

Cam lowered his gaze, pulling away before dragging himself awkwardly into a sitting position. "I didn't..." He swallowed hard, still not able to meet Hunter's eyes. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

To his surprise, Hunter laughed. "Yeah," he agreed, sounding amused and warm and not particularly upset. "I got that. Don't worry about it."

Then he asked the question Cam would have dreaded, had his brain been functioning well enough to anticipate it. He was sitting on the floor of their apartment, Chinese food cooling on the table behind them, jeans undone and disgustingly soggy briefs underneath. And his lover was looking at him like he was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"Feel better?" Hunter wanted to know.

No.

"Yes," he lied. He looked away, unable to bear the scrutiny. "Thanks."

Hunter seemed to accept that. "Okay," he said quietly. He didn't say, "You're welcome," or "So, me?" or even "Next time don't make me ask for the wolf before you tell me what's going on." He just got to his feet and held out his hand like he expected Cam to take it.

"If you want to go change," he said, still waiting. "I'll make some tea or something. You want any of the Chinese heated up while I'm at it?"

"No, it's okay," Cam mumbled. He should ask if Hunter wanted--

But he couldn't. He could take his hand, though, let Hunter pull him to his feet, and maybe that was something. Hunter smiled at him, and it wasn't on purpose but Cam almost smiled back. He could tell Hunter saw it on his face, because his expression didn't waver and he squeezed Cam's hand before sending him off to the bedroom with a jerk of his head.

When Hunter joined him a few minutes later, making a rueful comment about his own pants, the evening didn't seem so bad. The tea was nice, too, and Hunter didn't say a word about the pack until they left for guard duty at eight. Then it was only to ask if Cam wanted him to do the report at the community center the next morning. It was the first time he'd offered, and Cam almost refused, just on principle.

He bit his tongue and agreed instead. Some time away from other wolves could only help. He was human first and wolf second, hard as that was to remember sometimes. So they would do the token guard rotation in the safest part of the mountains tonight, Hunter would fill out the paperwork tomorrow, and Cam would spend the next 24 hours with no pack contact whatsoever.

That was the plan. He should have known that developing a plan was just asking for complications. They split up for their required patrol, and Hunter was five minutes gone in the opposite direction when a wolf melted out of the darkness beside Cam. He almost howled when he realized who it was.

Hi, Kathy's pretty silver wolf form greeted him. Bored. She was playful and energized for someone who didn't have anything better to do than follow the guard on their nightly rounds. Wanna hunt?

He ignored the flirty look she was giving him. The vague allure she'd exhibited as a human was full-out sexiness as a wolf, and he couldn't tell if it was the change in form or just the passage of time. Either way, there was no way Akeelah would have let her out in pack territory like this.

Where's your mate? he asked sternly. He didn't want any part of a lover's spat. And he definitely didn't want to be the kind of revenge she might be seeking.

Sleeping, came the reply. She gave him what was probably supposed to be an innocent look, but the glow in her eyes gave her away. Something was going on.

As you should be. He turned away deliberately, flicking his standoffishness over his shoulder at her. She couldn't talk to him if he couldn't see her.

A soft huff from behind him conveyed her feelings on the matter perfectly clearly. He could sense her padding along behind him, closing the gap in a way that made his hackles stand up. Hunter was going to kill him.

She actually bumped into him to get his attention, and he growled at her. Unfortunately, to convey the extent of his displeasure, he was forced to look at her, and she prompted brightly, Hunting?

Working, he replied shortly. Guard duty. Go away.

Which wasn't necessary, and she knew it as well as he did. She was welcome to join him on his hike. It was fine if he wanted to hunt. "Guard" was a pack term that was basically synonymous with "on call," and when nothing happened--as it usually didn't--it was almost enjoyable. Except for the lack of electricity, running water, and real work to be found here in the mountains, which bothered the human Cam more than the wolf.

You look off tonight, Kathy observed, still prancing along beside him like she really thought being gay would make him immune to whatever weird pheromones she was exuding. Fight?

Don't want to talk about it. Especially not now, not with her. Where was Akeelah, really? It was early, and the woman liked the night. She couldn't possibly be asleep.

Her head turned away without answering, and at first he thought she'd seen something. The way she tilted her nose, though... then he caught it too. There was someone else out here. Not surprising, considering where they were, but he could detect the same faint scent that Kathy must have picked up on.

Another female. In heat. Longer than Kathy, but that was all he could tell from here. What had he done to draw guard duty at the beginning of mating season, Cam wondered frantically? Last winter he had avoided most of the pack by accident, but this year it looked like it was going to take a lot more work.

Bored, Kathy repeated, her glowing eyes flicking over his before she dropped her head in an abrupt farewell and bounded off into the darkness. In the direction of the scent they had both noticed.

Cam wondered if being a lesbian meant that she got a double dose of the insanity that characterized mating season. Not only was she caught up in her own hormones, but she was at the mercy of every other female wolf in her situation. Right now, he couldn't think of anything worse. But Kathy had grown up with the pack, and maybe being in heat herself made her crazy enough that she didn't mind the constant assault on her attention.

He really wanted to know where Akeelah was right now.

He tried to continue his patrol. It was a nice night. Hunter would be meeting him back at the tent later. Kathy was gone. He was on his own, free of pack influence, forgiven by his lover, and there was no reason to be wondering who Kathy had found when she followed that scent to its source.

As long as it stayed quiet, he knew he was safe. How likely was it that Kathy's fellow wolf was wandering the mountains alone in search of queer sex on a Friday night? At worst, she'd get snapped at, and if her enthusiasm was anything to go by it wouldn't even hurt her feelings.

He heard the howl before he even managed to talk himself into it. He knew his human side was taking over because he actually flinched. It was a mating howl, a sign of acceptance, of invitation, and it should have made him feel good. He liked it, he was overthinking it, the pack was bonding, the wolves were all crazy.

Cam shook his head hard, a human gesture in wolf form, and he doubled back without bothering to wonder what he was doing. He couldn't be out here tonight. He couldn't do to Hunter what Kathy and her friend were doing to each other. And if he didn't want a repeat of what had happened at the apartment, he really only had one option.

He didn't go looking for his partner. He tended to stay out longer than Hunter did, mostly because it was easier for him to see and move through the night, but it hadn't been that long. He would still be alone at the tent.

They had left most of their stuff outside. There wasn't really that much room inside once they inflated the air mattress, so anything they didn't need during the night didn't come in with them. The only open area was the narrow crawlspace in front of the door, deliberately left for their boots and for Cam's transformation when he came back.

It would be enough space for him to climb on top of something and pretend that it was warm and yielding and Hunter-like if he closed his eyes.

He grabbed hold of his backpack with his teeth, sinking them into the mesh on the front so that he could carry it without it dragging on the ground. He put his head down to push into the tent, shoving the flap out of the way and paying no attention to where it fell behind him because he didn't need to think about this, he needed to just do it. And he wasn't doing it outside.

He was already hanging out, which was not in any way as comfortable as humans thought it should be. Because clothing might be restrictive, but it was also concealing, and he really didn't like walking around with everything on display. He'd gotten used to the view from the back--slowly, and with a degree of comparison that the human world knew nothing about, but he'd done it.

What he wasn't used to was the view from the side when something turned him on. He tried to avoid sexual stimulation in any form as a wolf, because it was embarrassing as all get out and he still hadn't quite figured out what to do about it. He didn't have hands, and even if he'd heard that having a tongue and a really flexible spine was more than enough to make up for it, he couldn't bring himself to go there.

There were, however, some things that were universal. He dropped the backpack, nudging it as far into the corner as he could. Then he gave up and pushed it back, because maybe less contact with the tent walls was better.

Go away, the wolf told him. For once his human brain was happy to oblige. The human didn't want to be here. The human didn't want to need this. The human was boring and repressed.

The wolf was practical. This was a compromise that both sides of him could agree to, and there was no use whining over things one had no intention of changing. Solo sex was better than no sex at all.

The pressure of the pack against his belly was good, and he sank into it with a sigh that the human might have appreciated. But since the human was trying to pretend this wasn't happening, he ignored it. He rolled over top of this thing that was at least soft enough and felt the delicious rub of stitching against his most vulnerable parts. He rolled again, wishing it smelled like his mate, regretting the choice of his own backpack instead of Hunter's, and then something teased his nose and he stiffened.

Hunter. Hunter had left his sweats out, and he hadn't washed them since last night, and he could smell them from here. No, he thought, but yes, that was the best idea he'd had since they got here. He wriggled forward, roughness against his skin, satisfying push as he levered his front end up and inched carefully onto the mattress.

The clothes were further than he'd thought, and he scrambled instinctively for contact as his hind end slid off the backpack. The air mattress was bouncy and forgiving and so maddeningly soft as he found himself draped over it that his paws clenched and he barely remembered why he wasn't supposed to be on it. The cool slickness of the sleeping bags as he crawled eagerly forward was exciting and frustrating and there had to be pillows here somewhere-

Get off, he told himself as his paws flexed and tightened again and there was the sound of something tearing. Get off, go, you'll never be able to explain this, just take the sweatshirt and go. And he did, sulkily, silently angry, because there wasn't anything wrong with it and he wanted so much. What good was the human, anyway?

The human was good for compromise. He was good for knowing how the sweatshirt would feel, how it could be spread clumsily across the backpack for maximum contact, and he wasn't in any way opposed to burying his muzzle in the pants where it belonged. That was the smell he wanted. That was the way it should be, with Hunter underneath him and no laughter, no teasing, nothing but pressure and friction and humping so hard it would have burned a human but he wasn't, he wasn't human...

His stomach hurt. His hind legs ached. He felt so good that he tried to slow down, knowing that once this ended there were no certainties about when it would happen again. But slowing down just meant pushing harder, more desperately, hearing the tent door flapping back and forth as it rocked and not caring unless Hunter was coming to put his hands where they belonged, and the thought made him whimper.

Hunter would be so good for the wolf. Hunter was more like the wolf than Cam was and he knew it and he kept Cam grounded when everything about pack life got to be too much. Hunter let Cam do whatever he wanted in bed. He wouldn't do that for the wolf. He would mount him, pin him in place, force the trust that Cam made the wolf give.

He would win. The human alpha would best the wolf, because that was the way he wanted it. He was a wolf spirit in a human's body.

He had the presence of mind not to howl as heat raged through him and desire tore him apart from the inside. He felt his legs spasm with weakness before locking to hold him in place. He was swollen and shocky and so, so grateful that the human side of him let him collapse where he was, eyes closing even as he tried to wrap himself around his imaginary partner and thrust half-heartedly as the pleasant warmth continued to ripple through his body.

He was panting, tired, content for the first time in what seemed like too long, and he would get up in a few minutes. He needed to enjoy this so that he could keep it separate, so he wouldn't long for it later when he had something just as good, something better, with his human partner. This was just a biological quirk, a perfectly acceptable idiosyncrasy that he could take care of by himself.

He heard the howl later, too far to recognize the voice, but he could guess and it made him feel warm as he burrowed deeper against the edge of the air mattress. The pack took care of its own. The pack was perfectly normal. He didn't even bother to open his eyes.

Until a cool breeze finally penetrated his fur, and edging backward didn't provide any more warmth than he already had. He whuffed in annoyance, slitting his eyes to assess the situation, and he saw a familiar shadow crouched in front of him. He turned his head, trying to hide his muzzle behind the pillow as he pulled his paws in closer, silently telling Hunter to close the door. It was cold out there.

"Hey," Hunter's voice murmured. "What are you doing sleeping on the ground? C'mon, up," he coaxed, and Cam felt a hand on his side. Fingers slid into his coat, bringing warmth with them, and he let his eyes open another fraction.

"C'mon, buddy," Hunter insisted, giving him a gentle push that was probably equivalent to a shake of the shoulder. "Wake up and change. I don't want to hear you complaining later about how you had to spend the night next to the mattress instead of on top of it."

Hunter. Guard. In the tent. He'd gotten back before Hunter, for once. When he tried to move, he realized that the pillow pressed up against his stomach wasn't a pillow at all, but his backpack. Those were Hunter's sweats by his head, Hunter's sweatshirt under his paws, and this was not going to go well.

He scrambled up, turning human again quickly. It didn't mute the scent enough, but Hunter didn't smell as well as he did. Hunter couldn't see in the dark. And Hunter was smiling in his general direction, no light, just a gentle touch on his arm, no confusion on his face.

Hunter didn't know. Cam could keep him from finding out. All he needed was a reason for Hunter not to look for his pajamas, and no questions about his backpack or his early return.

He could do that. He missed Hunter; he wanted to do that. And Hunter didn't seem at all surprised when he leaned into him, kiss light and warm and slow. Another kiss, gentle but not fleeting. He lingered, and he felt Hunter's hands coming up to hold him, to touch, to linger in return.

He held his breath, wondering if Hunter would ask. Is this because of what happened? Would he even let Cam make it up to him? Would he pretend it hadn't happened at all?

Would he mention the howling?

Cam drew back, realizing that was up to him. "I saw Kathy," he blurted out, when Hunter went to follow. Hunter froze, and Cam swallowed hard. "Alone," he forced himself to say. "Looking... you know, for--"

"Did she find it?" Hunter demanded.

"Not with me," Cam said quietly.

There was a pause. "That's what the howling was," Hunter said slowly. "Mating howls."

"Akeelah must be working." Cam understood, too late, that Akeelah was at the community center tonight. Kathy would be banned from the center of pack life for the next week and a half, until her presence was less disruptive.

Akeelah should have taken the time off. But maybe she had--Kathy had said that she was early. Today was Kathy's last day of work... and probably Akeelah's too. Their vacation must start tomorrow.

"She's gonna be pissed," Hunter murmured, leaning in to kiss again. He didn't sound too worried.

Cam turned his head away, letting Hunter's mouth explore the side of his face instead. There was no objection, as though Hunter had meant to do that all along. "She couldn't help it," Cam whispered.

That made Hunter hesitate. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly, and Cam knew he understood.

He understood the implication, anyway. He didn't understand the situation. But that was okay. Cam was fine with that. In fact, Cam was determined to keep it that way.

"I will be," he promised. And he came back, trading kisses for fun, touching, teasing, just being together in the heavy darkness of the night. He didn't go for clothes until Hunter seemed more than ready, bent on making this as different from the apartment as it could be.

And Hunter let him, not complaining, not protesting. He laughed when Cam meant him to and he gasped when it stopped being cute, but he didn't ask for anything else. He didn't go for control, either.

He let Cam push him onto the mattress. He let Cam undress him. He let Cam do what he wanted, and Cam understood that he owed his partner more than just what he hadn't been able to give at the apartment. He owed him human love.

He gave everything he had, and Hunter accepted it. But afterwards, he realized he'd lied to Hunter again. He wasn't okay. His skin was sticky and his muscles were soft and tired, and lying here next to his lover on a chilly night that they'd made hot and close, he should have felt a measure of peace.

Instead he felt achy and angry. His nerves were itching somehow, like he was still waiting for something that half his body said he'd already had and the other half felt like it was going without. He curled up against Hunter and desperation warred with gratitude for the arm that immediately crept around him.

It was something. Something that really should be enough. It helped, anyway, because if it came down to it, he wanted Hunter more than he wanted sex. He just wished it didn't have to come to that.

He hated winter time.

Sleep helped more than he'd expected. Maybe because he hadn't expected to sleep well, or maybe because he just hadn't thought that far ahead, but whatever the reason, he felt all right when he woke up. He also woke up before Hunter, which gave him time to stuff Hunter's old sweats in his backpack and toss it outside. He put the clothes he'd brought for sleeping into Hunter's pack, like he'd just mixed them up in the dark, and then spent the rest of the morning waiting for Hunter to notice.

He didn't. When they went to dismantle their campsite, Hunter wore the same clothes he'd had on the day before and he swung his backpack over his shoulder without opening it. He joked with Cam on the way back to the truck, argued over a place to stop for breakfast, and generally failed to notice that anything was wrong.

He dropped his backpack in the living room when they got home, then turned right around and left for the community center. Cam just stared after him, surprised and relieved and maybe a little bit annoyed. It was a stupid reaction, maybe, so he shook his head and emptied out their packs himself, silently declaring an early laundry day.

His cell phone was blinking when he came back from claiming two of the building's washing machines. Hunter went through a lot of clothes, even without Cam's help. The kids at the day care loved him.

Especially the wolf kids, Cam thought, frowning absently at the "Unknown" message on his missed calls list. There had only been one there when he started, but word got around. The risks of sending a shapeshifting child to a public facility declined sharply with appropriate supervision. And according to the four different families that now had cubs at the daycare, Hunter constituted "appropriate supervision."

"Hi, Heather," Cam murmured, listening to his voice mail ring as he stooped down to pat the cat. Done with her breakfast, she seemed ready for some idle petting.

As she rubbed up against his hand, he couldn't help smiling at her rumbling purr. "I know how you feel," he told her, letting her twist around his fingers however she wanted. She kept purring, so he assumed she was happy. He had picked up wolf body language a lot faster than he was managing with cat signals.

His voice mail connected, and the message on it probably shouldn't have surprised him. "Hi, Cam." It was the voice from yesterday. "It's Wes, from the Silver Guardians."

Cam grimaced as he straightened up, torn between a smile and a sigh. A smile, because he couldn't help enjoying the Great Data Heist: even if it hadn't been that skilled a heist, and it had been Kathy's data to begin with. And a sigh, because he knew he would eventually have to answer for that. Time Force would have traced the leak to Wes pretty much instantaneously.

"I have a teammate who'd like to meet you," Wes was saying. He sounded perfectly casual, but Cam's smile widened. Probably all of them, if they were looking for the person he'd helped protect.

"You busy today?" Wes asked, like he was talking to a live person instead of an automated system. "Say, around ten? We'll be down at HQ. We can send a car for you if you want. Just let us know."

He rattled off a phone number and an extension, and Cam raised his eyebrows. Wes sounded very sure that he would come. It made him wary, because Wes wasn't stupid, no matter how offhanded he might act. Wes was like Dustin, and Dustin was dangerous. Therefore, Wes was dangerous.

"Oh," Wes added, like he'd just thought of it and it didn't really matter. "We'll be interviewing your friend from the psychiatrist's office."

There was an almost inaudible click, and the voice mail system told him, "You have no more messages. To--"

Cam closed the phone with a snap. Definitely dangerous. He set the phone down on the counter and stared at it for a long moment, shuffling possibilities. His first thought was for Kathy, but he wasn't convinced she'd even gone home last night, so she was probably safe. Besides, what were they going to charge her with? Evacuating her office?

His next thought was Shane, but luckily that was much less likely. Shane had a close-knit network that included Cam at the very top tier, and if something had happened to him he would have heard about it by now. No, Shane was fine, wherever he was.

That left Akeelah, whom Cam didn't even bother to worry about, and Gina, who was probably the most vulnerable and the easiest to intimidate. She was also in charge of exactly what Wes' team had been looking for yesterday, so she was the logical choice. He probably would have started with her too.

He lifted his phone again and hit the first number on speed dial. It rang once, twice, and Cam glanced at the clock. Nine forty-two. Of course Hunter wouldn't be answering his phone... if he wasn't still driving, he'd probably left it in the truck when he got to the community center. Cam waited impatiently for voice mail to intervene.

"Hunter," he said at last. "Time Force picked up Gina for questioning. They're meeting at Guardian Headquarters at ten o'clock. Apparently I'm invited. Come if you can."

He waited to call Tori until after he'd grabbed his coat and his keys, and he was locking the door behind him when he saw Sage. He smiled distractedly, then did a double take. Yeah. She had a parrot on her wrist.

"Hi Cam," she said quietly, when she got close enough. It was Saturday morning in an apartment complex, after all. "How's it going?"

"Not so great," he admitted. "I'm in a hurry. Nice parrot."

She beamed. "Thanks." Then she added, "Creepy white coats at your door again this morning. This time they knocked."

He blinked. "Really?"

She nodded. "Twice. They stood around for a few minutes, then they left. You don't warrant breaking and entering today?"

"Apparently not," he said grimly. "One of them actually called me and invited me to meet with him this time."

"Neutral ground, I hope." Sage made it sound like holy ground might be safer, and his mouth quirked.

"They're not going to chop my head off," he told her.

No, they were just following his friends and harassing his packmates. How much did people from the future know, anyway? Why did they have to question the natives? Couldn't they just look things up in their history books?

"Well, if it starts looking like they might," Sage was saying. "I'm happy to call the police if I don't hear from you by a certain time."

He almost grinned, dismissing the suggestion out of hand. Then, suddenly, he realized who he was talking to. This was a woman who had killer intuition and wasn't afraid to act on it. Sage really would call the cops if he told her to.

"Two o'clock," he said. "I'll call you by then."

She just nodded, confirming his suspicion. "Good luck."

He had strange neighbors, Cam thought for the thousandth time. And as he pulled up outside of Silver Guardian HQ, got waved through a security checkpoint and then had to present ID at the second one, he decided that it was probably a good thing. It was starting to look like the world might be stranger than they were.

He realized he was right when the room he was directed into turned out to be more of a situation room than a conference room. There were maps and monitors everywhere, realtime tracking, and more uniforms than he'd really wanted to see. Silver Guardians, obvious plainclothes agents... and Time Force. Four white coats in the room, and his mind quickly started matching them up to Sage's report while he looked for Gina.

It took him a few seconds to understand that the fact Kathy was there meant that Gina wasn't. She looked grumpy and hungover and maddeningly sexy in rumpled clothes that probably hadn't been slept in, and her eyes fixed on his from clear across the room. Wolf communication was seriously hampered by human form, but she managed to convey Not funny without any trouble.

You okay? he wanted to know, scanning her for obvious signs of harm or harassment. Apart from looking like she'd been out all night carousing, she looked fine. More than fine. She looked like someone he could stare at all day, and he couldn't tear his gaze away because he didn't want to miss her answer.

Perfect, she said with as much attitude as a human expression could muster. Just perfect.

Satisfied, he looked around for Wes. Of course Wes was studying him from a door right next to the one he'd entered through, and the chatter in the room was dying off. He silently agreed with Kathy's assessment of the situation.

"Cam." Wes smiled at him as soon as he had Cam's attention, a friendly look that might fool people who weren't already convinced he was evil. "Glad you could make it. Why don't we all sit down?"

This seemed to be the cue for all the other Silver Guardians to head for the doors, and at first Cam wasn't sure whether they were going to secure them or use them. But the soldiers disappeared, and only then did it become clear that Wes's partner was absent. Maybe he was too good for base work, too.

"Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Cam countered, not moving.

Wes held out his hand and Cam thought he was being directed to sit down again. He folded his arms, waiting, and Sage's white woman in a white coat stepped away from the table. Jen, he thought. The team leader. He couldn't come up with a last name for her.

"We were hoping you could tell us that," the woman said, stopping in front of him and conveniently blocking his view of Kathy. She probably did it on purpose, to throw him off, not knowing that getting between him and a wolf in heat was the best thing she could do for his state of mind right now.

"I'm Jen," she added, holding out her hand. "Pink Time Ranger."

He raised his eyebrows. She might be in his way, but she wasn't as tall as he was, and he could glance at Kathy if he tried. Kathy still looked pissed, but she didn't look surprised.

Still, he didn't see why he had to out himself just because she'd decided to throw a civilian-inclusive party. "That's nice," he told her, shaking her hand perfunctorily. "I'm Cam. Want to tell me what my friend is doing here?"

"We invited her," Jen said firmly. "And she agreed to come. Just like you did."

"Just like I did," Cam echoed. "Who'd you threaten when you were talking to her, then?"

"We didn't threaten anyone," Wes interrupted. He was holding up his hands, clearly alarmed by Cam's tone, and Cam wondered what he thought they were doing here. "We're just trying to figure out what's going on, the same as you."

"They told me they'd gone through my records," Kathy said sullenly. "They said there were some discrepancies, and could I please come in to answer some questions."

Cam felt phantom hackles rise. Kathy's practice was carefully guarded, files written in a heavy code that made them cryptic in their clarity. She still worried that the sheer normalcy of them might someday catch someone's attention, and implicating her professionalism was the one sure way to put her on the defensive.

"Medical records are confidential," he growled, glaring at Jen. "Whatever time you come from, you must have laws."

"I'm following them," Jen snapped. "There's a rogue entity disrupting the timeline and it's my job to keep that from happening. If I have to bend a few native customs to do it, I will."

"Customs?" Cam exclaimed. He was almost grateful for her attitude. Indignation gave him some cover for his restlessness. He and Hunter were going on vacation next winter. Somewhere wolf-less.

"Okay, stop, look, this isn't going anywhere," Wes was saying, trying to calm them down and neither one of them appreciated it. Jen listened, though, and Cam was too distracted to object.

"You're protecting someone," Wes declared. "Fine. I respect that. We just think you should have some idea who you're protecting before you make a decision that could write us all out of existence."

"Write you out of existence," Cam corrected automatically. He was distracted, not stupid. "Interference in our timeline changes the future, not the present. For all anyone now knows, this is exactly what's supposed to happen."

There was a moment of silence in the situation room, and Cam almost rolled his eyes. Who did they think he was, anyway? Not part of their time police, that was for sure. "Forgive my callousness toward people who are blatantly abusing the privilege of authority to achieve an unspecified and apparently uninformed goal," he snapped.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket just as Jen picked up the gauntlet. "We know a lot more about this situation than you do," she said tightly.

"And yet we're the ones standing here in an interrogation room," Cam shot back, flipping his phone open. "What," he snarled.

"You okay?" Hunter's voice came back. He sounded grim, not surprised. "Where are you?"

"No, I'm not okay," Cam fumed. "I'm at Guardian Headquarters with the sorriest excuse for law enforcement I've ever seen. They're incapable of answering the simplest question and for reasons I have yet to discern they're patronizing me!"

"Keep them at bay with your gentle sarcasm and easy-going attitude," Hunter advised. "You want me to streak there?"

He bit off his sharp response to the personality evaluation and focused on the more important and previously omitted detail. "Kathy's here," he said savagely.

Dead silence. Only when Hunter's reply was preceded by the whining buzz of a cell signal reconnecting did Cam understand what had just happened. "I'm outside the building," Hunter said, not even out of breath after a high-speed run that had to have covered at least ten miles. "Tell me how to find you."

Some sort of beeping alert started going off in the room, and he didn't connect it with Hunter until Wes lifted a hand to his headset. "Let him in," he said, addressing a voice they couldn't hear. "Have someone escort him here."

"They're sending someone to show you," Cam grumbled. "Try not to hurt them."

"Politely," Wes added hastily. "He's a visitor, not an intruder."

Over the phone, Cam heard Hunter's voice telling someone to back off before he leveled assault charges, and his lips twitched. The pack had made Hunter very good at distinguishing between vigilanteism and the real world. Every member attended community law classes, either free at the community center or at the pack's expense if someone could produce a good reason for doing it elsewhere.

Vigilanteism had its place, and the pack encouraged self-policing. They didn't encourage ignorance. It was a human world now, and they had to live in it.

"Friend of yours, I assume," Wes was saying. He looked pointedly at Cam's amulet, and Cam scowled back at him.

He didn't have time to make it clear how much he wasn't going to answer that question before the door opened. Hunter was still on the phone, and he was talking to whoever was with him, his voice grounding Cam. But he wasn't the one in the hallway.

Cam groaned, and Hunter's voice paused immediately. "What?" he demanded, louder now as he talked directly into the phone. "Cam?"

Akeelah stepped through the doorway, ushered in by a man who looked like he couldn't look anywhere else. Which, to be honest, was the standard reaction around Akeelah when she was on. And she was on now, innocent sexuality radiating off of her in waves. She made it look easy and unconscious.

"Cavalry," Cam told his phone.

He saw Wes' eyes flick in his direction before addressing Akeelah. And he did address her, not the soldier with her, like there was some obvious reason that she would have the information he wanted. "Excuse me," he said, suddenly sincere in his politeness. "Can I help you?"

"What's she doing here?" Jen demanded. She, at least, was staring at the soldier who had held the door for Akeelah, and Cam couldn't help smirking. At least with a siren in the room, he wouldn't be the only one struggling to think with his brain.

"Uh, I don't--I mean," the soldier stuttered. "Well, she said... I thought she had clearance?"

"Wes Collins." The commander of the Silver Guardians strode forward, introducing himself with a disarming smile. "And you are?"

"A little confused," Akeelah admitted, giving him a shy smile. She took his hand awkwardly, like she wasn't used to such courtesy, and Cam rolled his eyes.

Fortunately, no one was looking at him anymore.

"I've heard so much about the Silver Guardians," Akeelah said. She glanced around the room with wide eyes, apparently in awe of the equipment but probably doing a threat assessment even as she spoke. Her eyes landed on Kathy casually, as if by accident, and her whole face lit up.

"Hi Kathy!" She actually waved, and Cam tried not to snort. Even he wanted to watch her, and he knew exactly how much of her flaky blonde routine was an act. And that would be all of it.

"When my friend told me she was coming here this morning," she was saying, batting her eyes at Wes now, "I guess I got a little excited." She sounded embarrassed and seconds away from giggling. "I just got tired of waiting in the car. I'm sorry?"

Cam was ashamed of men the world over if Wes was really buying this. But he was, that was the sad part. Cam wanted to buy it. He wanted to assure her that it was all right, that she was no trouble, and would she like a tour? Never mind how the hell she had walked onto a high security base with nothing but charm and a smile.

Never mind that she was the siren who'd tried to seduce his boyfriend years ago and he hadn't trusted her since. To support the pack, yes; to watch his back, sure. But he wanted her and Hunter alone together about as much as he wanted to be stuck in a small room with Kathy right now.

"We're going to need to see some ID," Jen was telling her. She didn't seem taken in by Akeelah's song, but if she wasn't then she was the only one. Both her male teammates and her fellow female officer looked more entranced by the situation than suspicious of it.

"Oh, um--" Akeelah looked around a little helplessly, then seemed to feel that there might be something in her pockets. She patted her hip-hugging khakis carefully, which accomplished nothing except to draw attention to her figure. There was no way she was carrying anything on her.

"I think I left my license in the car," she said, her expression awkward and apologetic. She twisted a little, hitching one hip up as she shifted her weight in a move that was pure calculated cuteness. "That's what you mean, right?

"Can I just tell you my name and you can, I don't know... look it up or something?" Akeelah glanced around again, still with the shining disbelief that made her audience want to show her more. "You look pretty high tech here."

It was amazing to watch her, Cam thought. Even objectively speaking. She walked the line between seductress and sweetheart so skillfully that it was hard to believe she was acting at all. Or maybe it was just easy to wish she wasn't acting, and siren seduction took over the fantasy from there.

"Why don't you start with what you're doing here." Jen didn't look enchanted. She looked pissy and mad and Cam was starting to wonder if maybe that was just her normal expression. "I think I can pretty much guess how you got in," she added, and now she looked disgusted, too, "but I'd really like to know why."

"Oh, I came with Kathy," Akeelah said quickly. She snuck a smile at her "friend," and Cam stifled a snicker at Kathy's starry-eyed look. Served her right. How did she like the feeling of total helplessness?

He was aware that she probably liked it just fine. But he was working hard to maintain something that vaguely resembled equilibrium here, and if silently mocking Kathy helped then he was all for it.

"To see Silver Guardian Headquarters," Jen was saying. "Yes, you mentioned that. What you failed to mention is that you're not human and you're at least twice as old as you look."

Cam managed to tear his eyes away from Akeelah long enough to give Jen an assessing look. If she was guessing, she was very good. And Hunter had stopped talking, which wasn't so good. Between Kathy and Akeelah, the wolf was rapidly approaching sensory overload. If he could stop breathing, he might be able to think again, but he was pretty sure that wasn't a long term solution.

Akeelah was staring at Jen too, wide eyes and a confused look on her face. "What do you mean?" she asked, sounding earnest and maybe a little scared. Just like the youthful co-ed she was pretending to be.

Jen smiled thinly. "Genetic mutation. I can sense time and space."

Cam put a hand over his face, taking a step backward as he tried to distance himself from the two women currently competing for his utter inability to function. He was fairly sure that he was starting to hallucinate. Jen was just another human, futuristic or not--he'd be able to tell, otherwise. The pack could always recognize humans.

"Hunter," he muttered, wondering what was taking him so long. "Where are you?"

Hunter's voice came back right away. "On my way," he said. "Look, Cam, wherever you are, can you get out of the room? Come and meet me or something?"

He headed for the door without even thinking about it. He had drawn everyone's attention by talking, and he didn't know how that was possible in a room that contained both Akeelah and Kathy. The guy who'd brought Akeelah in looked at Wes like maybe he wasn't supposed to let Cam leave, but he did get out of the way. Even more telling, Akeelah's gaze as he passed her stood out sharp and suspicious against her innocent act.

If Akeelah had ever believed that he was gay--or that it made a difference one way or the other--she definitely didn't now.

"Did you hear that?" Hunter's voice asked, and he sounded funny, like he was suddenly farther away and it was someone totally different talking in Cam's ear now. "I guess we're right outside...

"Hey," he added, louder. "There's the party."

Cam stared dumbly down the hall, phone still pressed to his ear as Hunter came around the corner and caught sight of him. He was accompanied by a wary looking woman in a Silver Guardian uniform to whom he was paying zero attention. He still had on the same clothes he'd been wearing last night, and right now all Cam could think about was how it had felt to pull them off of him one by one.

"Nice of you to start without us," Hunter was saying, and the words echoed weirdly in Cam's head. "I hope you're giving them tips on their security system, because seriously. You know you can just walk right up to the front door?"

"You can--" His voice was thick, and Cam took a deep breath and tried again. Breathing didn't help. Even out here in the hallway. He'd reached saturation, it seemed. Akeelah's pheromone-based attraction was cummulative, and nothing in his experience with Kathy so far indicated that hers wasn't.

"You can walk right in," he said, struggling to rally in the respite he'd been granted. He still sounded funny, but maybe that was just because he was talking to someone five feet away on a cell phone. "If you're Akeelah."

"Ah." Hunter was studying him carefully, and Cam was afraid to know what he saw. "It was the bird cavalry, then." There was a pause, and then Hunter said something that only he could get away with. "No wonder you're such a mess."

Cam got it together enough to glare at him, which in retrospect might have been Hunter's goal. "I'm fine," he insisted. Even to him, it didn't sound convincing.

"You're about to keel over," Hunter said firmly. "Hey," he added, lifting his chin at the uniformed woman next to him. "Nearest bathroom. Where is it?"

"I'll show you," she offered. Cam wondered how bad he looked that she didn't even bother to check in with her superiors before leading them back the way she and Hunter had come.

He jerked away when Hunter tried to touch him, but Hunter paid no attention to his flinch. He pried the phone out of Cam's hand, closing it and handing it back to Cam with raised eyebrows. "Okay?"

"Still fine," Cam muttered, taking the phone without meeting Hunter's eyes. He didn't need a vast amount of brain function to follow somebody else down a hallway.

What happened when they reached their destination didn't require much brain power either, as it turned out. Hunter pushed him into what turned out to be a single bathroom, told the woman outside not to wait, and locked the door behind them. Cam would have been mortified if he wasn't halfway convinced it was the smartest thing Hunter had ever done.

"So," Hunter said, eyeing him. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

He leaned back against the sink, arms folded, like he'd noticed Cam's flinch after all and didn't want to push it. Or like he remembered the last time he'd tried to put the moves on Cam in a public bathroom. Whatever it was, he was very hands-off now. Very respectful.

Very desirable.

Cam could only stare at him.

Finally, though, he got that Hunter wasn't going to do anything but stare back unless he came up with an answer. "You mean--" He swallowed hard, wondering which part of the situation Hunter thought he could explain. "With them, or with..."

Me, he almost said, except that it had to be obvious what was going on with him.

Hunter rolled his eyes. "Do I care what's going on with them?" he demanded. "You, Cam. What's going on with you. You look like you're gonna crawl out of your skin."

He wished that was possible. He really did. Alternatively, he wished his skin could avoid all contact with mating wolves and working sirens for... well, actually, forever. If he couldn't have it, he didn't want to be reminded of it.

Hunter gave up on distance. He moved in and put his hands on Cam's shoulders, and Cam caught his breath and closed his eyes. He didn't know when that had become the sexiest thing Hunter could do in public. He didn't know why he'd rather have hands on his shoulders than a chaste kiss, but somehow Hunter had managed to figure it out without ever being told.

"I'm not trying to get in your pants," Hunter told him bluntly. His grip was gentle through Cam's jacket, and right now the long sleeves were so hot he could barely stand having them on.

"I said I'd like it if mating season made you a little crazy," Hunter was saying. "I didn't mean like this. Tell me what you want me to do, Cam, 'cause if this is a wolf thing then it wasn't in the orientation packet and I don't--"

Cam could hear the hitch, the point where his throat closed up and he had to start again. He could hear everything: the way Hunter was breathing, the way his words were worried, the way his clothes shifted against his body. He could smell Hunter's scent, familiar and kind and overlaid by wisps of the truck and other wolves, in stark contrast to the harsh lemon scent of the room they were in. He was breathing too hard, just trying to catch more of the smell of home.

Closing his eyes didn't help when his other senses went into overdrive to compensate.

"I mean," Hunter was saying, his voice rueful and awkward and still anxious underneath it all. "It's not like I'd mind spending a few days in bed with you, right? Everyone else gets to do it. It's like an annual sexfest or something.

"But you keep saying you don't want that," he continued. Only Hunter could make a word like "sexfest" sound like it was in the dictionary, Cam thought, trying not to think about the fact that Hunter was keeping his distance now because Cam had told him to?

After a long pause where Cam was clearly supposed to say something but couldn't muster the coherency for actual words, Hunter squeezed his shoulders briefly. "All I know is what I can guess," he said with apparent reluctance. "So I'm guessing the wolf wants sex, and you want the wolf to shut up and stop embarrassing you.

"What I can't guess," he added, and Cam could feel his intent stare from behind closed eyelids, "is which one of you is winning right now."

With that single sentence, Hunter made everything about him okay, and Cam couldn't keep his eyes shut any longer. He lowered a gaze that was probably glowing bright and felt Hunter lean in, forehead resting gently against his and feeling more like an invitation than a comfort. Because Hunter knew exactly what he needed. He always did.

"I love you," Cam told the floor quietly. His hands clenched at his sides, but he knew that holding his ground was a losing battle. He might as well give in, because his body wasn't going to give up.

Hunter didn't answer right away. When he did, though, his voice was rough in a way that meant he still didn't know what to say. "Was that a yes to sex, or a no?"

Cam let go, pressing up against solid warmth and lifting his head to bring his mouth within breathing distance of Hunter's. "Please," he whispered, and that was all he got out before Hunter wiped the last remaining semblance of rational thought out of his head.

They were at Silver Guardian Headquarters. Gone, subsumed, rendered immaterial by Hunter's mouth on his and the hard grip of his hands on Cam's shoulders. Fingers clutching at his waist, snaking through belt loops, holding Hunter against him as he shimmied and gasped and tried to kiss the way he was moving.

In a bathroom with a soldier outside, because she couldn't possibly have left just because Hunter told her to. It was utterly inconsequential as Hunter shoved his coat back, off his shoulders, not trying to free him, just trying to get his hands underneath as he wrapped his arms around Cam and held on. And they were moving together, Hunter's hands warm on his back and effectively trapped there when Cam rubbed up against his hip.

The pheromones were making him crazy and he didn't even care, not with Hunter shaking almost imperceptibly as his grip tightened and flexed and tried to relax so that Cam could get what he wanted without interference. He wasn't supposed to give in, and Cam couldn't suppress a growl at his quiet act of submission. He pushed harder, yanking Hunter's shirt up and running his hands over bare skin, reveling in the barely stifled moan.

"Cam--" Hunter's voice was thick, and the way he struggled to free himself did all sorts of interesting things to Cam's body. His hands were hot and fumbling for Cam's shoulders again, hips thrusting involuntarily as he tried to shove him away, and Cam choked off another growl as he fought to reciprocate.

"Stop it," Hunter hissed. The command implicit in that tone was the only thing that let him pry himself away. That, and the way he had somehow gotten a grip on Cam's waist and held him forcefully in place while he leaned in: just his head, seriously testing their remaining reserve, but apparently determined that whatever he had to say would stay between them.

"This isn't about me," Hunter whispered, breath ragged in Cam's ear. His hands tightened mercilessly on Cam's waist when he tried to twist closer. "And if you want to be able to walk out of here afterwards, you're gonna let me go down on you instead of humping me into next week. Got it?"

He was finally taking charge. The wolf whimpered, eager, acquiescent, and Cam heard his own voice whisper, "Please." It was his safeword, established in the first days of his transformation, to ensure that Hunter didn't accidentally ask the human to do anything the wolf couldn't handle--but now it backfired.

Hunter froze. "Please yes?" he murmured, his voice troubled. "Or please no?"

Cam groaned, hands clenching on Hunter's arms as he tried desperately to hold himself still. "Please yes," he ground out, closing his eyes.

"Okay, okay." Hunter didn't seem all that ready to release him. "Hold still, okay?"

Cam wasn't making any promises if Hunter didn't hurry up, but he managed to nod. The grip on his waist loosened a little, like Hunter was just testing his word, but when it was found to be good he felt fingers pushing his shirt up, teasing his skin as they fumbled with the button. The zipper got him no contact whatsoever, even if the release of pressure made him gasp, and then Hunter proved that he wasn't as inexperienced as he'd once been.

Warm hands slid under the waistband, thumbs hooking over the sides and pulling multiple layers down at once as his head moved in, wet heat replacing damp cotton in a transition that was so smooth Hunter might as well have been sitting on the couch at home instead of kneeling on the tiled floor of someone else's bathroom. It was enough to render irrelevant the fact that Cam was in the same place, if not the same position, with his pants down and a low moan starting in the back of his throat. Once again, Hunter's mouth was enough to make him forget all other details.

He tried to keep his hands to himself. He wasn't supposed to move. If he held still he could at least pretend that he didn't have any control, that he was completely at the mercy of external forces. His hands on Hunter's head would only tempt him to take over, taunting his self-control until the last vestiges were utterly lost.

He always had to push the limits. Even his own. Even Hunter's. Even anything that made previously shattered limits harder to reinstate, like the moratorium on fooling around in public bathrooms. Or his insistence that mating season didn't affect him.

Cam buried his fingers in blond hair and silently thanked Hunter's hands for continuing their exploration of everywhere his mouth wasn't instead of batting his away. He also told the wolf to back off, fiercely, adamantly, to stop asking his lover to be something he wasn't. Hunter had made the rules. He didn't have to enforce them if he didn't want to.

He didn't have to do anything at all as long as he kept doing this. Cam shifted, flexing his fingers to keep from pulling, panting with the effort of holding still and desperate for this to be the time when everything Hunger gave him was enough. It would be. It had to be.

He felt it coming, felt his whole body tensing, toes pressing painfully against the soles of his sneakers as every muscle in his body strained toward something he didn't care the slightest bit about. He cried out, broken by the realization that this wasn't it, that he had been cheated again as the flood of sensation roared over him like he wasn't even there. It left him hot and tired and disgusted with himself even as his body shook with release.

Hunter stayed with him for what should have been long enough. Nothing could alleviate the shock of bitterness he felt, though, and when Hunter finally pushed his hands away and staggered to his feet, all Cam felt was disappointment and shame. He turned his head away when Hunter's hands landed on his shoulders and slid down his arms, a rough comfort for him and maybe a final bit of support for Hunter before he let Cam go and stumbled away.

He wanted to let himself fall, to feel his legs give out and just sink to the floor, wrap his arms around his knees and hide in here from the rest of the world--from himself, if he could somehow do it. But he couldn't hide from Hunter, and he wouldn't worry him if he could help it. He braced himself against the sink instead, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to catch his breath, listening to Hunter's soft gasps as he did what Cam couldn't and wishing he had never heard of the pack.

He managed to pull his pants up again, still tender, aching in a way that blow jobs obviously weren't going to fix. Nothing had, so far. If only there was some way to stop having sex until this was over... but he still wanted it. He wanted it badly. He just didn't want it like this.

He heard Hunter grunt and he turned around, wanting to watch him no matter how it made him feel. And strangely it was the most comforting thing he'd seen: dark red shirt stretched across the taut muscles of his back, one hand pressed against the wall, fingers white with pressure, the other out of sight while he stiffened and shuddered in the grip of something unstoppable. At least Hunter wasn't stuck with him in this horrible cycle of desire and denial.

Cam silently joined him, waiting until some of the tension had drained out of him before he put his hands on Hunter's shoulders. He was rewarded with a shaky sigh as Hunter pushed away from the wall and tried to straighten up. But Cam didn't let him turn around, hands rubbing up and down his arms instead, fairly sure that Hunter had done to him exactly what he wanted to feel himself.

A quiet moan was all the answer he needed, and he watched Hunter hang his head as his shoulders drooped. Cam's hands moved back up to his neck, fingers digging into the tight muscles there and then pressing carefully all the way down his spine. Hunter trembled, and he couldn't tell whether it was fatigue or pleasure but he was willing to keep going until Hunter told him to stop.

It was probably the best thing Cam had been able to do for him all day. He went from warm pressure points to gentle massage and back again, rubbing and kneading until Hunter could draw in a deep breath that was steady and much calmer than it had been a few minutes before. "Okay," he said, and his voice was lower than usual but otherwise it sounded normal.

Muscles shifted under Cam's hands as he pulled himself and his clothes together, taking another deep breath before he turned around. Cam let his hands slide off, and Hunter lifted his to catch his arms before he paused. "Okay," he repeated, lips quirking a little at the corners. "I'm gonna wash my hands. Then we're gonna try to make ourselves look like we didn't just do this. Okay?"

"I'm not going back in there," Cam blurted out. It was the most relevant thing he could think of to say. He tried to wonder how the situation room had fared in his absence, but he found he didn't really care.

"Yeah," Hunter agreed, catching his eye in the mirror as he held his hands under the water. "I think that's a good idea. I'll tell 'em you're not feeling well, you've gone home or something."

"Akeelah knew," Cam muttered. He was sure that was what he'd seen on her face as he was leaving. "She knows I'm not sick."

"Good," Hunter said, unexpectedly firm. "I'll tell Kathy too if I can catch them alone. They need to know what's going on."

"Is that really necessary?" The protest was out before he'd even thought about it, and he winced when Hunter raised his eyebrows at him in the mirror. "It's just..."

"Embarrassing," Hunter finished for him. "I know. Sorry." He turned off the water and grabbed a paper towel as he turned around. "But look, it's not like they're not used to it. The sooner they realize you're not the exception to every rule, the easier it's gonna be for you to be around them."

Cam tugged on his shirt, then rolled his shoulders under the jacket he'd managed to shrug awkwardly back into. Rearranging his clothes was probably more comfortable than answering. Hunter was right, after all. He was just like everyone else. He didn't like it, but that didn't change anything.

"You gonna be all right?" Hunter asked, more quietly.

Cam looked up to find Hunter looking at him from under his eyelashes. He couldn't keep his lips from twitching at that expression. "Yeah," he said with a sigh, coming over to pull Hunter's shirt straight. He reached up to run his fingers through the seriously mussed blonde hair, combing it out as best he could.

"Thank you," he added softly.

Hunter held perfectly still, allowing the gentle manipulation of his hair. "Sure," he said. He smiled at Cam's continuing caress, leaning into it just a little now as he sensed that it was almost over. "Anytime."

That made Cam roll his eyes, but it was a gesture of affection and Hunter knew it. He let his fingers trail across Hunter's cheek before letting him go. "You look--" He hesitated, then shook his head. "At least marginally less like you've been locked in a bathroom with your boyfriend?"

Hunter grinned at that. "You too," he said easily. "Good enough."

"Somehow I doubt that," Cam muttered.

"Hey," Hunter reminded him. "You get to go home. I have to go make sure Akeelah gets Kathy out of here without permanently injuring anyone."

Cam drew in a steadying breath, trying to call to mind everything Hunter needed to know if he was going to go back to that room. "All of Time Force is in there. Except Wes' partner--I didn't see him.

"They must have told Kathy they're Rangers," he added, frowning. "They know I'm a Ranger, and they've probably guessed you are. I don't know if they told Kathy about us or not."

"Does it really matter?" Hunter said with a shrug. He didn't take his eyes off of Cam. "We're not active anymore, and it's not like the pack can't keep a secret."

Cam shook his head, closing his eyes as he tried to remember. "Whatever you think," he muttered. "They said something about... something distorting the timeline. They're definitely chasing someone, and they think we're protecting--" He opened his eyes, remembering where he was just in time. "Whoever it is," he finished.

"Yeah, well." Hunter was still watching him. "No one said Rangers can't screw up too."

"Jen." Cam frowned, irritated that he still couldn't remember her last name. "The pink one. She was onto Akeelah when I left. She said... I think she knows Akeelah isn't human. I don't know how."

"Cam." Hunter's concerned expression was starting to look a little amused. "We're gonna be fine, okay? The world can survive for one day without you, so go home and watch TV or build a spare computer or something."

He opened his mouth to protest, but Hunter just folded his arms. Not listening, his expression said, clear as day. Go away now.

Cam sighed. "You've gotten very good at that," he muttered. It hadn't taken Hunter long to figure out that if he wanted to keep his rank in the pack, he had to understand wolves when they weren't in human form. He was picking up the language by immersion.

Hunter smirked at him. "Learn by imitation," he teased. "The only thing you say more often is..." He trailed off, and his face changed. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

"I think I should go now," Cam realized. "Before you evaluate my entire personality based on my vocabulary."

"Already done," Hunter promised. "If you go, though, at least I won't tell you all about it.

"Sure, not right now," Cam grumbled.

He might have even gotten the last word, if Hunter hadn't started to say, "I could do it now," when he pulled the door open. The sight of the soldier they'd left outside, still standing there, brought them both up short. There was absolutely nothing Cam could think of to keep himself from blushing.

Predictably, Hunter recovered first. "Cam's gonna leave," he said shortly. "If he needs an escort or whatever to take him to the front gate, I can find my own way back."

She didn't bat an eye. "Rangers aren't required to have an escort inside the building."

They exchanged glances. The Silver Guardians were run by Rangers, but given that Wes hadn't even known who he was yesterday, Cam didn't think it was likely that memorizing past Ranger teams was standard procedure. It was possible that Wes had updated her since Hunter arrived--but it didn't seem as likely as the alternative.

"You heard everything we said," Cam said at last.

"To be fair, sir," she began, eyeing him. It was unexpected, but there was nothing in her expression to indicate the moniker was mocking. "You didn't say very much."

"Hey," Hunter demanded. "If we don't need an escort, what are you still doing here?"

This time, the hint of a smile graced her expression. "Making sure no one knocked."

Hunter seemed to take this as the in it probably was and grinned at her. "Nice of you. I guess I'd better apologize for threatening you with legal action outside, then."

It was definitely a smile. "That would be appreciated," she agreed, and Cam considered her light tone with no small amount of suspicion. She sounded just a bit like she was... flirting.

"I'm Hunter Bradley," Hunter said, holding out his hand. "Thanks for, you know."

She looked at his hand, then back at him, an openly skeptical expression on her face now. She didn't say anything, but she wasn't exactly calling him "sir," either. Hunter seemed to find the whole situation more amusing than embarrassing.

"Oh, come on," he complained. He rolled his eyes, but the grin hadn't gone. "I washed my hands!"

She sighed, but she took his hand and shook it--an action Cam wouldn't have minded her skipping, at this point. She wasn't particularly breathtaking to look at, but since when did Hunter notice faces? It was what people did that caught his attention, and what they said that held it.

"I'm Captain Toni Moracini," she told him. "I don't get paid to guard bathrooms, but I'm not above a little community service every now and then."

There. Right there, she'd just lost Hunter's attention, and Cam felt himself relaxing a little. Hunter kept smiling, sure, and he told her it was nice to meet her--their good luck--but he was ready to go. Because it was what they said that held his attention, and Captain Toni had just implied that community service ought to be beneath her.

"I left my truck at the community center," Hunter was telling him. "It's not locked. You think it'll be all right there?"

Cam got the message. "I'll go get it," he said with a token sigh. It was his fault Hunter had left it behind, after all. He could still drive his car home and streak from there just as easily as he could from here.

"Thanks," Hunter said, beaming at him. And that was a little strange, because he didn't have any reason for a smile like that... but Cam wasn't immune to its effects. He smiled back, and was rewarded by Hunter's hand on his shoulder.

"Feel better," Hunter advised, no irony in his tone. He gave Cam's shoulder a gentle squeeze before releasing him. "I'll see you in a little while."

Cam gave Captain Toni a sideways glance before answering. "Thanks for coming," he said quietly. "Try to stay out of trouble."

That made Hunter snort. "Back at you," he retorted.

It was probably good advice. Cam crossed "trouble with the police" off his mental list when he called Sage to tell her he was home and not much the worse for wear. He finally remembered to call Tori, an intention that had slipped his mind when he ran into Sage in the middle of the morning, and thus avoided "trouble with friends."

Or maybe that one didn't count, since she said Hunter had told Blake about the second Karmanian and had him pass the message on to Shane the day before. Yeah. Definitely networked. Even after all this time, he was still a little unclear on how many of his and Hunter's private conversations made their way back to Blake, but in general, when it came to their friends, saying something to one of them was the same as saying it to everyone.

When he arrived at the community center, though, he found a third and completely unexpected form of "trouble" in the passenger seat of Hunter's truck: cub clothes. More than enough for the four kids at the day care, and what was Hunter doing with them anyway? Was this why he hadn't wanted to leave the truck here?

Wolf children were, to a large extent, pack children. But there were parents and then there were babysitters. And after that there were people who would help the kids if they found them stranded alone on the highway somewhere. Cam mostly fell into the last category, and he wasn't sure how he felt about Hunter apparently becoming part of the second.

He brought the clothes inside when he arrived back at the apartment, but he didn't have any idea what to do with them. They couldn't stay out in plain sight, though, since he wasn't the only one who would have questions. He put them in the bedroom closet, grabbed his collar while he was there, and left a note for Hunter on the kitchen counter: The stuff from the truck is in the bedroom. Open doors. Cam.

He did remember to move the laundry from washers to dryers before he left again, but it wasn't until he was back in the car and headed for the foothills that he realized he'd forgotten to bring water with him. Oh well. There was a river, and he was too impatient to turn around now anyway.

It was Kathy who had taught him to hunt. He had learned, through painful trial and error, to identify the empty craving in his stomach that only raw meat would satisfy. It wasn't like being hungry. It was like dying. And back when he first pushed the issue, it had made him crazy enough to take anything that was put in front of him as long as it was bloody.

He hadn't been a vegetarian since. He couldn't be, and it used to bother him more than it did now. Once the first line had been crossed, the second had seemed more a matter of degree than of principle, and so he had learned to hunt. It was easier than he'd expected, which he attributed to the fact that he did it for fun instead of for survival.

It wasn't a necessity. At least, not as far as he could tell. But it did relieve a certain amount of stress, and there were days when that alone felt more like survival than he wanted to admit.

This was one of those days.

He turned off onto the logging roads and left the car in a spot that had been packed down by vehicles in the past. He took his collar, locked the doors behind him, and put the keys in his pocket. Anything he was wearing would reappear on him when he turned human again.

He propped the worn green collar up against one of the tires before he changed. It was a loose nylon choke that Hunter had gotten for him years ago, with Hunter's cell number stitched in big black numbers on the outside. He had a dog license and a rabies tag too, courtesy of a pack-related vet tech and a little creative interpretation of the "wolf" concept.

Cam's town paperwork listed him as a "malamute cross." He knew other members of the pack who went by "husky," siberian or otherwise, "coydog," "arctic" anything, and even one that called himself a "belgian tervuren." Cam hadn't been convinced there was any such thing, but he had looked it up and sure enough, it was a recognized dog breed with vaguely wolf-like features.

Not everyone was registered, of course. For one thing, paperwork required an "owner," and although a fair number of people just listed themselves, an equal number found it impractical or demeaning. For another, not everyone wanted to be known. A secret "dog" identity did provide a certain amount of freedom and a modicum of protection, but it wasn't for everyone.

Sticking his muzzle into the collar and shoving his head up against the tire to force it over his ears, Cam admitted that he never would have gone for it if Hunter hadn't insisted. Hunter worried about him being spotted or shot at on an almost daily basis, and he knew firsthand how helpless the wolf form was around humans who didn't know what they were dealing with. At least a phone number could put someone in touch with the wolf's "voice." The rabies tag kept him from being picked up and destroyed by the dogcatcher, according to Hunter, and the license kept him from being collared by researchers.

Supposedly. Cam personally felt that he wasn't quite as careless as Hunter seemed to think, but it was an argument he didn't bother to have anymore. It didn't make Hunter worry any less. The collar did. So he wore the collar.

During the daytime. In public areas. When only the other pseudo-domestic members of the pack might see him. There were limits, and he wasn't going to invite mockery by getting so in the habit that he wore it to pack gatherings.

He'd gotten enough of that at home when Tori had bought him hot glue and embroidery floss to apply to his tags. Shut up, he'd told Hunter. He didn't have to listen to the sound of metal on metal all day. Tori had glued the tags together and shown him how to muffle the squeak by wrapping thread around the jump ring. There was a reason she was his best friend, and it wasn't just because she was a shapeshifter too.

Being in the woods, prowling loose and unhindered in the mountains, he found himself relaxing as much as he'd dared to hope. It was quiet and free out here in a forest full of life instead of the dead things humans had made for themselves in the city. He was home, here, even without his partner, and he wondered if Tori felt the same way about the ocean.

He knew Tori hunted. He knew Blake went swimming with her. He wondered if dolphins had a mating season, and if so, what the two of them did about it. Avoid it? Ignore it? Or was it different with them?

Go away, the wolf told him. Some things didn't need to be analyzed right down to their component parts. Some things just were. And if Cam wasn't going to tell Hunter that the wolf needed sex more than the human did, then there wasn't any reason to think about it.

The human stopped thinking. The wolf ran. The movement through the trees, over the welcoming ground, under the sun and in the shade and full of freshness and freedom, almost felt like what he was missing. It was exhilarating and a purpose in and of itself, even before he flushed something completely by accident and tore after it on a whim.

It eased an ache he had barely noticed yet, and he wondered idly if mating wolves needed to eat more. The thought made him go after a second catch, trying not to think about the big-game hunt that would be going on that night in the hills behind the community center. He and Hunter weren't going. They were on guard duty, and Hunter wasn't big on the hunting scene anyway. It didn't do much for his popularity with the pack leaders, but he preferred to stay behind and watch the kids.

Someone had to, he figured. And so far, Hunter's purely human nature went over startlingly well with parents. He was a good role model, or at least a safe one, or maybe he was just convenient during all-pack gatherings, Cam didn't know. Whatever it was, it cut down on the challenges that plagued the rare human alphas substantially. For that alone he was grateful. The man was too reluctant to back down otherwise, and he didn't like to see Hunter bleed.

Real food did make a difference. Unexpectedly, the meal alleviated some of the restlessness he had attributed solely to the urge to mate. It helped even more than the running. The thought of Hunter with cubs didn't, oddly, and Cam hoped he wasn't developing some psycho-sympathetic bitch syndrome. There was such a thing as false pregnancy, and that would just be the last straw.

He made his way down to the river afterward. His face was clean for a wolf, easily washed with tongue and paws, but he knew it wouldn't meet human standards. He waded in far enough that he could plunge his head into the water without soaking the rest of his fur. Nostrils sealed, ears back, he only did it once before he shook is head violently and the motion transmitted it to the rest of his body.

Dunking one's head in the water was definitely not a natural wolf activity. He was a little grumpy when he climbed out onto one of the rocks to rest, snorting in annoyance, but he accepted the human's insistence that he would be glad later. Cam wasn't about to sacrifice cleanliness any more than he would go without proper bedding or, apparently, a measure of self-control so high that he doomed the wolf to suffer through the winter alone.

Shut up, he told himself. Were you always so melodramatic?

But he knew the answer to that. He was the wolf, no matter how he tried to separate them, and the wolf was him. He had just let it come to represent a part of his personality that didn't thrive on discipline. And maybe that was a bigger part of him than he'd realized before the wolf, but he wasn't going to let it take over. He was still the sensei's son, the programming genius, the person who would never stop proving himself because everyone else assumed he didn't have to.

He wasn't stupid. He knew who he was, and he knew why he did what he did. That didn't mean he could snap his fingers and become someone else. Someone better.

He laid on the rock for a long time, dozing, letting his muzzle and paws dry and enjoying the warmth of fur on a cool afternoon. He felt significantly better when he finally abandoned the river to make his way back toward the place where he'd left his car. He didn't even bother dreading the evening until he turned human again, and then the answer was obvious.

They had guard duty. He would guard. It was as simple as that, and it wasn't like Hunter would have any reason to suspect that he was avoiding human sex. Sometimes he lost track of time. Sometimes he got so caught up in something that he didn't make it back before Hunter fell asleep. This time the only difference would be that he was doing it on purpose--and Hunter wouldn't know that.

The irony of avoiding sex because he wasn't getting enough didn't escape him, but it really did seem like the best option. He couldn't go through that again: the buildup, the letdown, the awful prickly feeling that followed. It had only been... two days? Really? It only took two days to develop what amounted to a sex allergy?

By the time he got back to the apartment, he was feeling much better. After all, mating season didn't affect him directly. It was only by association that it caused problems. He'd been fine before Kathy had gone into heat, and he would be fine again now that Hunter had warned Akeelah to keep them apart. He just had to give his body a couple of days to get back to normal.

He saw Dustin's gas-guzzling monster parked outside their apartment building before he even pulled in, and he only rolled his eyes out of habit. Hunter wasn't hanging around waiting for him, anyway. It had occurred to him in the mountains that it would have been nice if the note he'd left Hunter had included anything about where he was going or when he expected to be back. Especially while time cops from the future who had a demonstrable lack of common sense were following them around. But at least with him gone Hunter would have been able to have a conversation with his friend that didn't involve stopping to explain things Cam didn't care about every other sentence.

He headed upstairs and let himself in, collar stuffed in his jacket pocket so that hopefully it would escape comment. Dustin, of course, found the whole concept of the collar hilarious, and Cam put up with his cracks only because Dustin put up with his. Dustin was not only eminently mockable, he was also the most good-natured person Cam knew, and he had never been able to resist taking advantage of the combination.

"Hey," Hunter greeted him, not moving from his place on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. "Everything okay?"

Cam nodded, but any other reply he might have made was cut off by Dustin's shout. "Oh, man, no! Don't even go there!" He was sitting straight up on the couch, clutching a bowl of popcorn that he looked about two seconds from tossing at the TV. "Dude, that is so not cool!"

"He who throws the popcorn cleans it up," Cam reminded him, hanging his coat by the door. He noted that Hunter had wisely retained possession of the remote control. Dustin got as excited about televised events as he did about everything else.

"Oh, hey Cam," Dustin said offhandedly. "I can't believe this! Did you see him totally bag it in the middle of his jump?" he demanded, presumably talking to Hunter now. "He was gonna go for it and then he just packed it in! You can't wig out like that in the middle of the thing! It's like, why even bother showing up?"

"Supercross," Hunter remarked, probably for Cam's benefit. "The shit these guys try in practice could get 'em killed. But sometimes when they gotta show it to the judges they back off."

His drawl deepened when he was around Dustin, and it would be a cold day in hell before Cam admitted that he found it sexy. It was only because Hunter could sound just as smart and educated when he wanted to, he told himself. It was the way he could go back and forth that was the turn-on, not the street talk itself.

Yeah, he thought with a silent sigh. Just keep telling yourself that.

"There's laundry in downstairs," he said aloud. "I'm going to go get it."

"I got it," Hunter told him. "It's in the bedroom." He shrugged at Cam's surprised look. "I was looking for my sweatshirt."

Cam struggled not to react to that perfectly normal remark. Of course he had been. Because Hunter had developed an inexplicable fondness for the Long Trail Ales sweatshirt, and that was why Cam had washed it for him.

Sort of.

"Thanks," he managed. "Sorry I didn't leave a note about that."

Hunter snorted. "If you're gonna do the laundry, you can do it as secretly as you want."

"Hey, do you get to do laundry less when you have two people?" Dustin wanted to know. "I always wondered about that. 'Cause, like, you can switch off, but you have twice as many clothes, so does it even out?"

Hunter grinned at that. "Well, I do laundry less," he commented lazily.

"I do it more," Cam finished.

"Cam's clean threshold is lower than mine," Hunter teased. His street drawl was suddenly gone. "For a computer geek, he has a weirdly low tolerance for double-wearing clothes."

"Yes, for some reason I assume that clothes in the laundry basket already are there for a reason," Cam agreed. He came around the coffee table when Hunter moved over, making room for him on the couch. "I don't actually consider it a secondary storage location."

"Oh, I've totally got that one down," Dustin told them. "You just need two laundry baskets. One for the dirty clothes and one for clothes that you've worn a few times but aren't dirty yet. That way you don't have to fold anything when you take it off, but you don't have to do laundry until there's nothing left in the second basket."

That did explain a lot about Dustin's wardrobe, but Cam was distracted by Hunter offering him the remote. Tacit inquiry about the background noise. Cam shook his head. He wouldn't have sat down if it bothered him.

"We've got an emergency laundry pile," Hunter remarked, setting the remote down again. "Wet stuff. Stuff with paint on it. Moto gear. It doesn't last very long."

"Because it lives in the computer room," Cam said dryly.

Hunter smiled. "The smell's too strong," he told Dustin. "We have to be able to close it somewhere, but Cam can't stand to be in there with it."

"Yeah, wolf senses, right?" Dustin's gaze was glued to the TV screen again, but he seemed to be listening. "Hey, does that make it harder to sleep? Like, can you hear things from really far away at night?"

Cam shrugged, shoulder bumping against Hunter's. "You get used to it," he said simply. He was a heavier sleeper than he used to be--not that anyone could tell, since what registered as loud with him now still sounded quiet to Hunter.

"Hey, gimme the popcorn," Hunter said suddenly.

Dustin cheered, and Cam recognized Hunter's strategy even as their friend started to loudly recount the current rider's last two jumps. He drowned out the commentators with his excitement, but since the plastic bowl was now under Hunter's control, they were probably safe. In terms of projectiles, if not in terms of volume.

"Popcorn?" Hunter offered, nudging him. "This might be your only chance."

Cam smiled at the conspiratorial tone and reached over to help himself. Hunter didn't fool around when it came to popcorn. He made sure they always had "old-fashioned movie style" popcorn by the simple expedient of making it himself if Cam bought the wrong kind. "Movie style" apparently meant drenching it in enough butter that there would be some left at the bottom of the bowl afterwards, and "old-fashioned" presumably referred to the fact that no movie theaters actually made their popcorn that way anymore for fear of lawsuits over cardiac events.

Cam had succumbed to the lure of buttery popcorn the first night Hunter had promised to lick it off his fingers after every handful, and he hadn't looked back since. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to get that treatment today, but that was no reason not to imagine. Especially if Hunter was going to watch him out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah!" Dustin's rider must have pulled off whatever stunt he was attempting, because Dustin was now proving that Hunter had known what he was doing when he took the popcorn. "That's what it looks like! Dude, that was sick!"

Cam licked his fingers casually, glancing at Hunter as he did so. Hunter smirked back at him. Without a word, he tipped the bowl toward Cam again.

"What happened with Time Force?" Cam wanted to know, taking another handful of popcorn. "I assume they let Kathy go?"

Hunter shrugged, and if he was watching Cam's mouth instead of his eyes, well, it wasn't like Dustin could tell. "They couldn't hold her," he pointed out. "They were just trying to scare information out of us."

"They could have just asked," Dustin remarked, bored with the TV again as he reached over Hunter for more popcorn. Hunter blinked, but he didn't relinquish the bowl. "I mean, they're Rangers. We would have told them."

"'Would have' being the operative phrase," Hunter said, looking from Dustin to Cam. Cam was licking his fingers off again. "We're not talking to anyone who won't even tell us what they're doing here."

Cam frowned at that. "They didn't explain anything?"

"They explained a lot about how dangerous Karmanians are," Hunter said, offering him the bowl again. "And most of the stuff they said was true, even if they made it sound kind of creepy. But they didn't say what this chick they're chasing actually did, and none of us were about to turn anyone in, so."

"Stalemate," Dustin said, like he'd already heard this story. Which he probably had. "At least they're getting that it's not Shane, right? I mean, if they've started bugging your friend... it's not like Shane ever sees her."

"What if it's not her either?" Hunter wanted to know. "They already got it wrong once."

The same thing had occurred to Cam, and he didn't like it. But he didn't have any way of knowing, either. All he knew for sure was that he would protect Kathy no matter what. And if that meant keeping anything she knew about the other Karmanian from Time Force, then that's what he would do.

"I dunno," Dustin was saying. "They sound like they're pretty with it. You really think they could screw up twice?"

"I think that Jen girl has some kind of grudge," Hunter said. "She's got something against Karmanians."

"She may have something against everyone," Cam pointed out, hand in the popcorn bowl. "She isn't the most diplomatic team leader I've ever met."

Hunter was watching him again, but he couldn't tell if it was because of the comment or the popcorn. "I thought the guy with the red hat was the leader."

"Wes Collins," Cam said automatically. Hunter's smirk said he knew perfectly well what Wes' name was. "No. He leads the Silver Guardians, but Jen leads Time Force."

"They have a thing?" Hunter wanted to know. "They seemed kind of..." He trailed off, shrugging, and Cam raised his eyebrows.

"How would I know? You probably spent more time with them than I did."

"He looks like her ex-fiance," Dustin offered. "She gave the ring back to her ex after she got stuck here with Wes, but when they fixed time she had to go home and he stayed behind."

Hunter lifted his gaze from Cam's hands to his face, and they both turned to look at Dustin. He was watching the TV screen, but not intently enough to completely ignore them. "What?" he asked, catching their expressions. "I know things."

Hunter just shook his head, like it wasn't worth asking because he shouldn't even be surprised. "So they have a thing," he repeated. "Maybe that explains why she's got it in for Akeelah. He really liked her."

"Everyone likes Akeelah," Cam said, rolling his eyes. "That doesn't make Wes different."

Hunter was grinning. "She laid it on pretty thick," he said. "You were right about Jen figuring her out, by the way. But it didn't do her any good. The woman could charm her way out of prison."

"Let's hope she doesn't have to," Cam said, frowning. He didn't like the idea of someone like Jen knowing about sirens.

"Not gonna be a problem," Hunter assured him. "She gave Wes this whole sob story about how she's always been 'a little different' and he ate it up. She even cried," he added. "It was disgusting."

Cam wasn't sure whether to be amused or incredulous. "A little different?" he echoed. "She turns into a giant bird, and she's 'a little different'?"

"The bird thing didn't actually come up," Hunter remarked, crossing his ankles on the table as he leaned back. He looked like he found the whole thing thoroughly entertaining. "I guess Jen just figured she's older than she looks, and she played it off like a pro."

"She is a pro," Cam muttered. "How did she explain not being human?"

"Oh, is that what the changeling thing was?" Hunter seemed decidedly unconcerned. "She was doing a 'parents never understood me, told me I'd been dropped on their doorstep' routine when I got there. Then she did this thing about Kathy being the first friend she'd ever had who wasn't scared of her, and Kathy got all sad and sympathetic, and they managed to look seriously pathetic together.

"That was when the crying started," he added offhand. "I thought Wes was gonna fire someone for taking Kathy in by the time she was done."

Cam stared at him. No matter how long he'd known Akeelah, it was still hard to remember that her "charm" wasn't just a party trick. It was a survival skill as much as her raptor's hooked beak and talons. "So... he just let them go?"

"Nah." Hunter finally went for the popcorn himself, like he was replaying the memory in his mind and it was snack-worthy. "They sat us all down and explained to us that, hey, they could see why we might be a little upset about being asked to turn in someone just because they were 'different.'" His eye roll made it clear that this was so ridiculous it didn't even deserve mocking. "But they wanted us to think about it, because the future of the world might be at stake.

"They actually said that, too," he added, putting another piece of popcorn in his mouth and crunching happily. "The future of the world might be at stake. I gotta tell you, I had less sympathy than you might expect."

"Yeah!" Dustin cried. "He totally nailed that! That was all, like..." He trailed off, waving at the TV when Hunter raised his eyebrows at him. "Uh, I mean. Well, it was pretty cool."

For once, Cam could be sure it was Hunter's look that had done it. Because Hunter had just started to lick popcorn butter off of his fingers when Dustin cheered, so honestly, Cam hadn't been too concerned with his participation. Yelling, not yelling, it was just Dustin.

"Did you tell them you saved the world every Saturday morning for a year?" Cam asked, reaching for the popcorn bowl again. This was war.

"No," Hunter said, pulling the bowl just out of Cam's reach. He smirked, holding out a single piece of popcorn. "Didn't want to spoil Akeelah's fun. She was enjoying the spotlight."

He let Hunter feed him the piece of popcorn, and if his tongue brushed the fingers that were holding it, well, he was just trying to help.

"Oh, man," Dustin was saying. "Me and Shane were gonna catch the end of this at the shop. He's gonna be all, dude, you're so late..."

Since Dustin was standing up and running his hands through his hair as he said it, Cam guessed that the gist of this was that he was supposed to meet Shane and he thought he was going to be late. Either that or he had seen the popcorn feeding and decided to make a quick and plausibly vague exit. With Dustin it could be either one, and no matter how much he and Hunter hung out, Cam had never come up with a way to figure it out for sure.

"Hey, are you going to the race tomorrow?" Hunter hadn't gotten up, but he was watching Dustin curiously from the couch. "You're not in it, are you?"

"Not in it," Dustin confirmed. "Me and Shane are going, though. You gonna be there?"

"Just to watch," Hunter agreed. "We should hook up."

"Yeah, what about Blake?" Dustin wanted to know. "We could meet you guys at the van or something."

"Blake's busy, but I'll be there." He glanced at Cam as he leaned forward to set the popcorn bowl on the table. "You want to come? Heats at ten, good races start at two. We could get lunch before."

"Maybe," Cam allowed, smiling at the offer. Hunter always asked, even when he knew Cam was busy. It didn't get old.

"Van," Hunter told Dustin. "One-thirty?"

"See you there," Dustin answered, already at the door. "Watch out for white coats."

"Back at you," Hunter called just before the door closed. For someone who was perpetually late, Dustin could move disconcertingly fast when he wanted to.

"Do you want to see this?" Cam asked. He studied the screen, wondering if he was watching a commercial or the actual event. The two seemed to blur together during extreme telecasts.

"I'll tell you what I want to see," Hunter drawled, and Cam looked over in time to see his expression match his tone perfectly. "You were doing a pretty good job on that popcorn there for a while."

Cam's lips twitched, but he didn't bite. "Popcorn is a whole grain," he informed Hunter.

"Uh huh." Hunter pointed the remote at the TV and turned it off, then turned his full attention on Cam. "Let me see your hands."

Cam hesitated, just for a second. It was a second too long. Hunter didn't move, but something about him changed. The playfulness had frozen, suddenly, and it was fading away to nothing in the stillness.

"Yeah," he said, like Cam had said something aloud. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

Cam wasn't sure that was a good idea. "About what?" he asked warily.

Hunter leaned back against the couch cushions, stretching his legs out in front of him again. He was reacting to the tone, Cam though with a sigh. Deliberately lazy. Non-threatening. Hunter had learned a lot about wolves in a very short period of time.

"Kathy and Akeelah gave me a ride home," he remarked.

It wasn't an idle comment, and Cam knew it. He just hadn't quite figured out what it meant yet. "Sorry I didn't leave the car," he said carefully. "I forgot to give you the keys before I left."

"Nah, it was good." Hunter waved it off without even looking at him. "Gave me a chance to talk to them without the rest of that circus listening."

It had also put him in a small space with Akeelah right after she'd been working, but Cam was trying to overlook that. He thought it might be better for both of them right now if he kept his mouth shut. Hunter obviously had something to say, and it didn't look like he was going to get any points for guessing.

"According to Akeelah," Hunter continued, "I'm going at this all wrong."

There was a moment of silence, and Cam realized too late that he actually was supposed to be saying something. Hunter seemed to think he knew exactly what they were talking about and just didn't want to participate. Non-verbal wolf talk had its disadvantages, too... it was one more language for him to get confused in.

"I get that it's embarrassing," Hunter said with a sigh. "It's not like I really want to talk about it either, okay? But I'm not a wolf, so there's stuff I don't automatically know. If you don't tell me, I just go along thinking everything's fine until it blows up in our faces.

"Like this is going to," he added. "I thought you were a little quiet the last couple of times. I didn't realize you weren't getting off at all."

Sex. They were talking about sex, and this was a conversation Cam really didn't want to have. "There's nothing wrong," he said stiffly. "Akeelah's not even a wolf. I don't know what you think she knows about it."

"So tell me what you know about it." Hunter was staring at the coffee table. So careful not to invade his space, even by looking. "I want to know what wolves know."

Cam stood up, conscious of Hunter's sideways glance as he folded his arms. He took a deep breath, but it wasn't like he had anywhere to go. Their relationship was what it was. They'd had the chance to be together when he was human and they hadn't taken it.

"It's not--it doesn't affect me," he muttered, leaning against the arm of the couch. "The human. Alien. Whatever." His dad wasn't from Earth, something he hadn't found out until after his transformation had been enabled solely by his mom's human DNA, but it didn't seem like an important distinction right now.

"It feels like the human part of me is just along for the ride," he said uncomfortably. He frowned down at the floor, wondering who had dropped that piece of popcorn by the leg of the coffee table. "It's the wolf that wants to--"

Cam stopped, realizing how close he was to admitting something he had been trying not to think about. Hunter put up with a lot from him. But there were some things he didn't ask for, and so far he'd gotten along just fine without them.

"I said I'd do the wolf." Hunter was still lounging on the couch, studying the dark TV screen, and now he sounded almost offhand. "I wasn't kidding."

Cam swallowed. He shifted against the arm of the couch, hitching one hip up to put more of his weight on the furniture. He didn't have any idea what to say.

"Does it matter?" Hunter asked the TV. "I mean... that I'm human?" He paused, then offered, "Kathy says as long as she's, you know. A wolf. She says it doesn't matter that Akeelah isn't."

He shouldn't say it but he couldn't help it. "That must have been a really interesting conversation," Cam muttered.

Hunter actually chuckled, and Cam felt himself relax a little. "You have no idea," Hunter told him. Cam glanced over at him and found Hunter grinning in his direction. "Sex advice from lesbian shapeshifters. It was pretty disturbing."

Cam couldn't suppress a reluctant smile. "I guess I left at the right time."

"Only if you don't want to know what's coming," Hunter countered with a leer. "I'm inspired, and you're in trouble."

Disturbing it might be, but Cam should have known better than to think anything could embarrass Hunter. "They're not exactly the model wolf relationship," he pointed out, hoping to inject a measure of sanity into the discussion.

Hunter snorted, and he must have decided that Cam had had enough space because he got up and pushed the coffee table back with his foot. "There aren't any models," he said, coming over to stand by the end of the couch. "We're all freaks, Cam. We gotta find our own way."

"That's very..." He started to retort before he knew what he was going to say, and for once his vocabulary failed him. It was very what?

Real?

"Very what?" Hunter wanted to know, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. "Interesting? Experimental?" Reaching out to touch Cam's hair, he added, "Fun?"

Cam looked away, acutely aware that Hunter was petting his hair the same way he touched the wolf's fur. "I'm not asking you," he began, and then found he couldn't finish.

Hunter didn't seem to need him to. "Yeah, well," he said, and his fingers trailed down Cam's face as he leaned in. "I'm offering."

It wasn't the most comfortable way to kiss. It didn't take Cam long to give up trying to balance and push Hunter back to get some space as he straightened up. Hunter didn't go anywhere, though, and he found himself pressed against a lover who was more willing to hold him up than he was to yield. It was closer, faster than he'd expected, and he put a hand on Hunter's chest and tried to pull away.

The hands on his arms tightened, holding him in place. "Tell me," Hunter breathed, mouth on his jaw when he turned his head, "if I'm supposed to let you go." He ran his tongue across Cam's skin, and then one of his hands came up to turn Cam's face back toward his.

Cam jerked away. The hand on his face dropped to his shoulder just as the back of his knee banged up against the couch. He could have recovered if he hadn't been trying to avoid Hunter at the same time. He sat down hard and Hunter didn't give him any space. Both hands were on his face now, one sneaking around to cup his neck, holding him still for a kiss Hunter was determined to give.

Choice or not, he was forced to admit that it was a good kiss. So good that he allowed another, and another, and he barely noticed when Hunter swung one knee over his lap and moved into position. Or at least he managed to ignore it until Hunter sat down and shoved him onto his back, crawling over him so they were face to face on the couch. And at that point, kissing with full-body contact made up for a lot.

Cam had almost forgotten his objections by the time Hunter rolled off of him. He was definitely coming up with some new ones when the instigator of the makeout session abandoned it for no apparent reason. There were times when Hunter's moodiness was charming. Right now wasn't one of them.

"Up," Hunter was telling him. "Come on," he added, holding out his hand. "We're not doing this on the couch."

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why not when he realized that Hunter was talking about more than just kissing. More than just groping and generally enjoying each other's company. He was really fixated on the idea of sex. Sex with the wolf. And unfortunately, Cam wasn't any more convinced of that plan than he had been before.

"I don't--" He had to stop and clear his throat, caught in the embarrassing position of having to catch his breath to make his point. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Hunter just stood there, waiting, hand outstretched. "All you have to do is say no, Cam."

He didn't move.

"Say no and it stops," Hunter told him. "Now, later, two weeks from now, I don't care. You only do what I tell you to if you want to." When Cam still didn't answer, he added, "Get up."

Cam reached for his hand and wasn't entirely surprised when Hunter hauled him to his feet. "Come on," Hunter repeated. "This isn't a floor activity."

Which was presumably why Cam found himself in the bedroom a few minutes later, with only vague memories of shuffling and groping and a fading twinge in his shoulder from being shoved up against the door frame unexpectedly. What made it strange wasn't that Hunter had never been rough before--he was perfectly willing to give as good as he got. It was strange that right now Cam couldn't reciprocate, couldn't get into it with the memory of trying, trying again and still failing too fresh in his mind to let him get carried away.

The red Long Trail Ales sweatshirt, flung over the back of the chair, was the last straw. Cam caught sight of it and flinched, and Hunter wasn't as careless as he was pretending because that tiny gesture made him freeze. He didn't ask, just pulled away and studied Cam's face before following his gaze to the chair.

The sweatshirt had a visible tear down the left side. It was ripped open from the hiker to the waist, and a little frayed from going through the wash. Cam had no idea how he'd missed it.

"Yeah," Hunter said quietly, looking back at him. "I figured that was you. Last night?" When Cam didn't answer, he added, "Before sex, or after?"

Cam closed his eyes. "After I ran into Kathy," he muttered, hoping Hunter didn't really know what he was asking.

"Cam." Hunter was gripping his shoulders, keeping him close without trying to make it about anything else. "You gotta tell me shit like this."

He started shaking his head, eyes still closed only because he knew Hunter wouldn't let him go. If he had to, he had to, but that didn't change anything. "I don't know how," he whispered.

"Yeah," Hunter said with a sigh. "Okay. I get that."

There was a long moment where neither of them moved, and finally Cam had to know. He lifted his head and found Hunter staring back at him. The look on his face was intent but inscrutable, like he was working through a puzzle in his head.

"Okay," Hunter repeated at last. He took a step back, letting his hands fall, but he didn't take his eyes off of Cam. "Change."

No. This was a bad idea. He opened his mouth to protest, but Hunter interrupted before he could say anything.

"This time I am doing it to shut you up," Hunter informed him. Then his lips quirked, and he admitted, "At least partly. I want you to stop thinking. Getting you to stop talking seems like the first step."

He could argue. He should argue. Hunter had no idea what he was doing, and frankly, neither did he. It would be--it already was--embarrassing at the very least. It was dangerous at worst.

"Tell me you don't want to do this," Hunter demanded. "Just say no. I'm gonna push you as far as you'll let me, but you're the one who lets me. Tell me to back the fuck off and you gotta know I will."

Cam swallowed hard. He took another step back, as much space as they had in the small room, and he couldn't read that expression at all. But he didn't take his eyes off of Hunter's face as he went down on his knees. He waited there, drawing in a deep breath before he closed his eyes and summoned the wolf.

The wolf wasn't that fond of sitting down, and he shifted restlessly even as he heard Hunter move. Opening his eyes, he realized Hunter had just folded his arms. He stood and waited where he was, uncomfortably aware that the wolf wasn't at all reluctant to be here.

"Better," Hunter said at last. "I think you should stay that way. Don't change back until I tell you, okay?"

Although Hunter's request was probably practical and at least nominally interrogative, he was just as happy to hear it as a command. He came forward, head down, hips swinging, a friendly approach that should in no way be perceived as a challenge. Just a curious readiness to see what Hunter had in mind.

And maybe a desire to get a little closer to someone who smelled like... like warmth. Like warmth and sleep and running, all at once. He nosed Hunter's leg as he passed, circling, sniffing. Hunter didn't move, so he lifted his muzzle and pressed his throat against a jean-clad hip as he stared straight up at him.

Hunter's hand twitched, and the wolf rolled his eyes to the side to monitor its progress. The hand didn't seem sure whether it wanted to land on his head or clench at Hunter's side. He wondered what the problem was. Cam didn't lounge around the apartment in wolf form very often, but he spent plenty of time that way elsewhere and Hunter had always been very free with his hands.

"It's--" Hunter cleared his throat. His hand finally cupped one furry ear, his thumb running gently along the edge, and he murmured, "It's not weird if I pat you, right?"

Cam shifted enough that he could swallow, then laid his head right back where it had been. Throat stretched, almost like howling, vulnerable against Hunter's side, inhaling familiar scents straight into the core of his body. I don't know why you'd even ask, he mused, gaze still fixed on Hunter's face.

Hunter smiled a little at that. "Sometimes I forget what you're like when you're not being sarcastic," he teased, fingers sinking into the fur behind Cam's ear and rubbing idly.

Cam blinked up at him. I wasn't.

Hunter pulled his ear gently, then again, warm fingers tracing the veins so close to the skin. It felt like breathing. "I know," he agreed.

His nose was very close to a part of Hunter's anatomy that he wasn't usually at eye level with. If Hunter wasn't going to do anything, he didn't see any reason to keep waiting. He turned his head, seeing a perfectly good reason not to wait, and buried his nose between Hunter's legs.

Hunter let out a gasp of surprise, fingers tightening reflexively on his ear, and then he laughed. "I don't know why I ever let you be human," he declared. "Me and the wolf... we totally understand each other."

Cam huffed, breathing damp warmth into the denim and making Hunter squirm uncomfortably. This smelled even better. He could just stay here for a while, taking it all in--forcing Hunter back a step or two at a time. The bed was right behind him.

Not a floor activity, Hunter had said. Well, humans had their limitations. He could work with that. Especially if getting Hunter on the bed involved him bending over. In either direction: forwards or backwards, it didn't really matter.

Hunter didn't protest his obvious ploy, shuffling backward until he bumped into the bed. There was no bending over, though. There wasn't even any sitting as Hunter just braced his hands on the mattress behind him, apparently unwilling to block Cam's access. He bared his teeth, nipping the inside of Hunter's leg through the jeans, and the muscles underneath tensed.

"Hey, hey." The action was enough to send Hunter scrambling back, but he didn't sound happy about it. "I dunno how I feel about teeth. I'll keep my clothes on if that's gonna be a thing."

He put one paw on the leg and the other on the bed, pushing himself up to nuzzle Hunter's face in silent apology. He felt Hunter relax incrementally--not all the way, but enough--as he muttered, "It's okay. Just, you know. Still human."

He lifted a heavy paw to Hunter's chest, shifting his weight significantly, and Hunter trusted him enough to let himself be pushed down onto his back. Finally. Hunter's body spread out underneath him, stomach pressed to hips, and he had all the contact he wanted. He did nose under the black shirt as he shoved forward, though, because if Hunter had thought about taking off his clothes then he was sorry he had discouraged him.

Hands slid over the shirt, fumbling against fur and cloth, and he closed his eyes to protect them. Those fingers were gentle and uncertain, but Hunter couldn't see his face and didn't seem to have decided whether he was trying to push him away or pull him closer. The shirt made his breath hot and hard with nowhere to go and the skin jumped as his whiskers tickled Hunter's stomach.

Then the cloth was being yanked away, the muscles under his muzzle tightening, thighs pressing hard against the wolf's solid weight as Hunter peeled his shirt up and over his head. Light on his skin, the first trace of sweat in the air, and the way his body heaved against Cam's as he tossed the shirt away was too much. The wolf pushed back, grinding into him as the mattress failed to yield beneath them.

Hunter grunted, and he was bracing himself with his elbows behind him, forcing the wolf back. "Uh-uh, no, I'm not that flexible," he said firmly. "Either on the bed or off. Not both."

Cam froze, just staring at him, wondering if that meant he had to stop.

"Get off," Hunter ordered, pushing himself up. He put a hand on the wolf's chest and shoved, trying to make him slide, and Cam found himself struggling to hold on as he lost his balance. Front legs wrapped around Hunter, head pressed against his side, he was unshakeable.

Until Hunter kneed him in the stomach and knocked him to the floor on all fours. "When I say get off," he said, breathless and glaring down at him without apology, "I mean it. You're a fucking wolf, okay, and we are not doing this if you can't listen to me."

The wolf stared at him, panting, held in place as much by desire as obedience. He should back off. He wanted to lunge forward. He was well aware that fighting was a turn-on for Hunter, who often trained longer than anyone else so he didn't have to face people afterward, and he was so tempted to fight this and then maybe Hunter would feel some of what he felt.

But it was a fine line between passion and fear, and if anyone who knew Hunter got that, it should be him. So he lowered himself to the ground, slowly, not willing to back away but maybe showing enough submission to reassure his partner. He could listen.

"Fine," Hunter told him, words saying Cam was forgiven even with the warning obvious in his tone. "Get on the bed."

He could definitely listen. He sprang to his feet, the bed an easy jump even from a standstill, and he spun around to regard Hunter intently. He was as tall as the human, here, and there was only one question that mattered. More?

Hunter looked strangely vulnerable all of a sudden. He was just standing there, shirtless, in the middle of the bedroom, staring at a giant wolf now at eye level with him. And then, so typically Hunter, he started to grin.

"Just so you know," he said, easy and conversational, no trace of the anger that had been in his voice before. "I think this is the weirdest thing I've ever done."

Cam scoffed, managing to refrain from pointing out that he hadn't actually done anything yet. I think you've done much weirder things.

"Yeah?" Hunter was studying him, but he was also moving toward the bed, so Cam didn't answer. "Well, I guess you'd know."

He paused by the side of the bed, and Cam huffed in frustration. Sidling over the to the edge of the mattress, he nosed Hunter's shoulder experimentally. Mmm. Frosting. He gave the skin a lick, and Hunter must have been really distracted because he just lifted one hand to the wolf's shoulder and petted absently.

"Look," he said at last. Still paying no attention to the licking, so Cam took that as tacit permission to continue. Collarbone: smooth. Winter pale. Not that Hunter ever tanned very deeply. Neck: salty. Fine hair in the back, barely tastable but enough to dry his tongue out a little.

"I'm willing to get naked with you," Hunter began, and his ears perked up a little. Hunter let out a soft laugh, obviously noticing when he stopped licking and cocked his head. "Yeah. I'm not sure it's my best idea ever, but..."

He trailed off, shrugging, and Cam rested his muzzle on Hunter's shoulder for a moment. The wolf had never been with a naked Hunter before. Not in any way that counted. Hunter had changed in front of his wolf form before, and that was pretty much as far as it went. No significant physical contact.

He lifted his head to give Hunter's jaw a lick, then settled back to leave him some space. He could do this. Something in his expression must have communicated itself to Hunter, because he closed his mouth on whatever stipulations he was about to make and started to undress. It wasn't an easy thing... maybe not for either of them.

Because Hunter was more powerful with his clothes off. Cam watched every inch of skin revealed through slitted eyes. Bare skin could be hurt, scratched by a single misplaced paw, and sure, Hunter had to trust him to be careful. But every extra bit of vulnerability was a proportionate decrease in Cam's free will, a little more respect he had to show for Hunter's instructions, the penalties for even the most minor disobedience rising steadily.

"No teeth," Hunter reminded him. Without waiting for an answer, he climbed onto the mattress one knee at a time and knelt there, looking the wolf in the eye. "And no questions. I tell you to stop, you stop."

Chastened, Cam lowered his gaze. His view of Hunter was suddenly much more interesting, and he sat back on his haunches hastily. Apologize, he reminded himself. Don't leer.

It wasn't easy. Hunter wasn't used to thinking of the wolf as a lover, but a little bit of his skin was all it took to make Cam interested. A whole lot of skin was basically an invitation to lust, and it wasn't like he needed any extra incentive these days. He had to force himself to sit still while Hunter reached for him curiously, like they'd never been in bed together before, and ran his hands over Cam's face.

"Sorry," he murmured, when the wolf's mouth opened and he started to pant. "Can you just... you know. Give me a minute?"

It's fine, Cam managed. And it was. Hunter could touch him without--

No. No, he couldn't, because it was wintertime, and Cam had been with Kathy that morning, and the wolf had been wound up for days but it was the human who'd been getting Hunter's attention. The wolf hadn't gotten any... ever.

The human got sex. The wolf didn't.

Hunter was smiling a little, maybe aware of the conflict, maybe not. "When you start saying it's fine," he remarked, hands continuing their gentle exploration, "that's when I start to worry."

Probably a good idea, Cam thought, shifting uncomfortably. Hunter didn't seem to notice, moving closer, fingers digging deeper into fur as they rubbed over his shoulders and around his back. Cam was panting in his ear now as their chests pressed together, and he wondered, a little wildly, what his fur felt like against Hunter's skin.

The hands moved lower, long slow strokes over his sides, insistent pressure on his ribs and he felt his hips jerk helplessly even as Hunter leaned into him. He wanted something underneath him, something to push against, and he didn't care what it was. The hard, effortless torture finally stopped, and he heard himself whimpering. The stillness was worse than the need. He nosed the blonde hair desperately, trying to urge him on, barely remembering not to bite as his teeth pressed up against bare skin.

Hunter was immovable, but his head turned to whisper in one sensitive ear. "You can be on top," he breathed. "It makes more sense. I'll tap out if I need you to stop. Okay?"

Cam understood enough to realize that letting Hunter go was going to get better results than trying to make him start moving again. He tried to back off, hunching low to rub himself against the bed and that was better than nothing but then Hunter turned around and bent over and the invitation was unmistakable.

He whined, the sound harsh in his throat, trying to howl, trying not to, in the face of lust so overpowering it terrified him. He couldn't. It made more sense. What kind of a reason was that?

He wanted to mount his lover, his mate, and show him in excruciating detail why shapeshifters were worth it. He didn't want to use him because it was convenient. He could hold himself back from this thing that he had to have, that he would come apart without, because if he didn't then Hunter was alone and he was alone and neither of them deserved that. He wouldn't take it if Hunter didn't want it too.

He pressed his nose against the small of Hunter's back. Too high, much too high, and it was all right there and he couldn't. Because some things were more important. Like the way Hunter shivered, a flash of something: nerves, fear, maybe surprise. Tension. He hadn't expected Cam to do that. Or maybe he'd just expected more.

His tongue licked that spot, between the hip bones at the base of the spine, and his own hips ground into the mattress, uncontrollable. Hunter didn't move. Everything about him was beautiful and inviting and desirable, and he was in bed with an animal who would just as soon hump the mattress as get it on with him. The wolf whined, licking up his spine anxiously, apologetically.

Hunter's breath caught, and this time the shiver was more pronounced. He arched his back just a little, his words startling Cam with their sincerity. "That feels good."

He stopped, surprised, then hastily returned to the task at hand. He reached the middle of Hunter's back before he realized what he was doing: on a wolf, backwards licking ruffled the fur, warming the skin underneath... calming. Comforting. Reassuring a wolf in distress, or stimulating one that didn't respond.

It wasn't until he reached the shoulder blades that he realized what it was doing to him. Smoothly, stealthily, his body had slid over top of Hunter's, fur encountering little resistance on hairless skin. And now every part of him was coming into contact with Hunter's body and he was stuck and trembling and desperate for so much more than the comfort he had thought they both deserved.

"Still good," Hunter murmured, turning his head a little. He was braced against his elbows, and he felt strong and soft in all the right places. "I didn't know wolf sex included foreplay."

Cam whimpered, pushing hard against him, feeling everything good in the world racing through his body. He couldn't do this. He couldn't listen to Hunter, feel Hunter, and keep himself from having Hunter all at the same time. He rocked into him again and it wasn't enough, he had to scramble closer and one of his paws brushed against Hunter's arm. His toenails left a faint white scrape in their wake.

He saw Hunter's other arm shift awkwardly free, hand laying flat and easily visible on the mattress. He didn't think about it, sensation concentrated elsewhere, brain succumbing to the haze even as it insisted he be more careful. Stop moving so much, get closer, softer, hold on, don't struggle--

He laid his head against Hunter's back, trying to obey. He could stay close and still rock, still rub, still feel the body underneath him without acting like he had two layers of heavy fur coat between them. He tightened his jaw, forcing himself to slow down, panting through his teeth and realizing too late what that meant when his muzzle was pressed up against Hunter's skin.

The feel of that silent snarl was too much, and Hunter's open hand slapped the mattress twice. The mercy tap. The signal of surrender when a training situation pushed the limits, got too serious. A person in danger of being hurt tapped out when someone went too far.

He whined, dragging himself up, eager to lift his head if it gave the rest of his body better leverage--but he found himself stopping there, waiting to see if it was enough. And that wasn't right, that wasn't fair. Tapping out was tapping out; you didn't wait for the person in trouble to explain what was wrong before you let them go.

"It's fine," Hunter was saying. "Just, no teeth, remember?"

He had said that three times now. When was it enough? The first time should have been it. Everything after that was a mistake, and just because he hadn't gotten hurt yet didn't mean Cam was in control of himself. He was rapidly approaching the point where nothing mattered, where nothing could stop him, and if he couldn't be trusted now then he certainly couldn't be trusted with Hunter then.

He wrenched himself away, twisting in on himself, rolling off of Hunter in a way that probably felt smoother than it looked--mostly because there was only one thing he cared about feeling right now. He put the rumor of tongue and flexible spine together and curled around to do something about it. It was more like starting over than finishing, and he whimpered in frustration.

"Hey..." That had to be Hunter's hand on his shoulder and he buried his nose deeper, trying to ignore it. "Hey, Cam. Come on. Look at me."

Why did he have to do everything Hunter said? He hesitated, just long enough for Hunter to push him back, and the physical touch made him yield where maybe the words wouldn't have. Thwarted, aching, he stared up at Hunter and read the question on his face without having to hear it.

He was out of breath and probably out of his mind and if Hunter asked him to explain this now he didn't know what he was going to do. There was no way it would be coherent, whatever it was. So he just stared, panting, some version of those two words echoing through every part of his body: I can't.

Hunter's gaze roamed over his body, raw and exposed and so hungry for touch, and came to rest in the same place his tongue had been. "Can I?" he asked quietly.

Muscles tight, chest heaving, the wolf shifted, trying to stretch out everything that was stretchable, leaving himself as open as physically possible. It wasn't so much the word please as it was utter, unfiltered begging. He needed this so badly he would do anything for it.

Anything except hurt Hunter.

He felt one hand slide down his stomach while Hunter licked the other, hasty and sloppy and he wanted to protest that it didn't matter, he was made for fur and dry skin wasn't going to hurt. But he couldn't, the pressure on his stomach too intense, too much like the instinctive feel of someone underneath him even when he was on his back. He tried to breathe but it wasn't important, didn't distract him, couldn't take him away from the need.

Then wet warmth wrapped around him and he must have been more distracted than he realized because he hadn't seen that coming and it tore the air right out of his lungs. His muscles tightened and he shoved forward, he wasn't supposed to be on his back but Hunter was holding him down--he couldn't even turn, but he couldn't keep himself from thrusting into that tiny, isolated ring of sensation. The rest of his body was crying out for touch, for pressure, for more than just hands.

Hunter shifted, the hand on his stomach slipping, and he twisted onto his side, paws spasming against the bed as instinct overrode reason and he tried to scrabble upright. He had to have some control. He had to at least--

He struggled mindlessly against a grip that didn't falter as he rolled over, shoving into him as he pushed back, straining, trying to get his feet under him. It suddenly became impossible as a heavy weight swung over him, setting onto his back. There was nothing tentative about the body that pressed him into the mattress, imprisoning him, one hand still underneath him as it forced friction everywhere.

The wolf howled, body convulsing as heat raged into every part of him. He couldn't fall, couldn't let go, stiff and locked into place with arms holding him together even as his body tried to shake apart. Because a human alpha could do what the wolf couldn't, wrapping around him, above and below at the same time without sacrificing safety or leverage or anything at all except that nagging feeling of incompletion.

It was a feeling whose absence left ecstasy in its wake.

He let it shudder through him, incapable of anything else, grateful for the warm solidity of another body grounding him. He felt Hunter squeeze gently when his movements started to slow, and it was enough to make the breath collapse out of him. He didn't have anything left, and maybe Hunter was okay and maybe he wasn't but he wasn't complaining and that was all Cam had room left over to think about.

He felt arms around him as he sank deeper into the mattress, still trembling, needing the embrace. Hunter kept stroking him, constrained by space and pressure as he lay on top of him, but it was enough. He was caught up in the flood of pleasure and peace and he wasn't planning to protest for a very long time.

He just lay there in the middle of it all, muscles still twitching as his eyes slowly drifted shut, and maybe that was the human part of him but he didn't care. He did manage to rouse himself long enough to look around, finding the blonde head still braced against his shoulder, and he gave it a reverent lick. That was all he could do without shaking off a lethargic warmth that he'd really rather enjoy.

Hunter eventually pulled his hands free. He was slow and careful as he eased back, maybe thinking Cam was asleep, maybe just trying to soften the separation. The mattress shifted beneath them as he pushed himself upright, but he sat there beside the wolf for a long time, one knee warm against his back while fingers combed idly through his fur.

When he finally got up, Cam gave some thought to following. It had to be well into evening by now, and Hunter would want to eat. They still had guard duty, too. It wasn't like he could just lie here all night.

But the bed was oddly luxurious in his wolf form... the lure of the forbidden, maybe, because what reason had he ever had for sleeping on it like this? When he was at the apartment with Hunter, he was rarely a wolf. When he was in the bedroom, he was always human.

At least until today.

He stretched, content and careless and as grateful as he'd ever been that he'd fallen for someone who was, if it had to be said, a little bit crazy. He could hear Hunter's voice from the kitchen now, ordering pizza from the place down the street like it was any other day. Because Hunter did what he did, and then at the end of the day, he had dinner. Crazy, maybe, but also practical.

Pizza actually sounded pretty good, he decided, rolling over to hang his head off the side of the bed. He eyed the floor speculatively. It didn't look any farther away than usual. He got his feet under him and leapt down, surprised at how good he felt when he hit the ground. Less like waking up and more like walking away from a good workout.

Like walking away from sex. He put his ears back, pleased and more than a little smug about the revelation as he padded toward the door. He felt good. And it had been a while. Days. Not long to go without, but an agonizing amount of time to be wanting it, getting it, and still to know it didn't make any difference.

He found Hunter in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter with a glass of water in his hand. He'd pulled on jeans, and a red flannel hung unbuttoned over his shoulders. "Hey," he said, a smile starting as he took in Cam's expression. "You look okay."

The wolf huffed, sitting down where he was and cocking his head at his lover. He was better than okay, but he had questions. He could ask them as a wolf, but he wanted to make sure Hunter understood.

Hunter raised his eyebrows, apparently waiting. When Cam didn't say anything, he asked, "What?"

Cam just sat there, looking at him.

Hunter stared back at him, and after a moment he shook his head. "Sorry," he said oddly. "I don't get it."

Cam blinked, amused. Hunter clearly thought the wolf had said something that he didn't understand. I didn't say anything, he replied. He was waiting, not whispering.

That made Hunter frown. "So..." He trailed off expectantly, then repeated, "What?"

He settled himself a little more comfortably. If he was human, he'd be smirking. There was some entertainment to be had here after all. You're forgetting something.

"Okay," Hunter drawled, drawing out the word with an impatient gesture of his glass. "And? Care to enlighten me?"

Cam tipped his head to the side again. You told me to change, he reminded Hunter.

"Into the wolf, yeah," Hunter agreed, apparently puzzled. "So? Seemed to work out okay."

That, he thought, was probably something of an understatement. But right now, the result of the request wasn't the point. It was the request itself, which Hunter--

Suddenly remembered. At least, if the way he cleared his throat and looked away was any indication. "Seriously?" he said, glancing back at Cam. A faint flush was coloring his skin, and if that didn't make the teasing worthwhile then Cam didn't know what would.

"You can change back now," Hunter muttered, managing to make it sound more like a question than permission. He understood the role of the alpha at a more instinctive level than most humans. But he still wasn't a wolf, and sometimes it showed.

Cam's human form took the wolf's place and he stood up quickly, shifting a little awkwardly as he found himself fully dressed. His skin was sensitive in a way it usually wasn't unless he'd spent an extended period of time as the wolf. And the long sleeves were too warm.

Hunter was staring at him. "Huh," he said. "That's a little weird."

"Not very comfortable, either," Cam admitted. He pulled his shirt up over his head and tugged his arms out of the sleeves, shaking it out and looking for someplace to put it. He was fairly sure he'd want it again soon, but he couldn't stand to wear it right now.

"Better," Hunter commented, and it was his turn to sound amused. "Are you gonna keep going? 'Cause I like this strategy."

"It seems wrong to be taking clothes off now," Cam remarked, tossing the shirt over the arm of the couch. "Instead of putting them back on."

"Don't let that stop you," Hunter advised, leaning comfortably against the counter again. He had gotten over his embarrassment about the forgotten order very quickly.

Cam figured now was as good a time as any to find out. "Did that... do anything for you?" he asked bluntly. "Because I'll--I mean, as a human... I can--"

"I'm just teasing," Hunter interrupted. "You know that." He wasn't trying to rescue him, Cam thought. He was trying to avoid answering the question.

"But I want to know." Cam hooked his thumbs in his pockets and held Hunter's gaze, motivated mostly by the certainty that this wasn't going to get any easier. "I need to know what it was like for you."

Hunter looked down, relinquishing dominance in his discomfort. "It wasn't about me," he said quietly. "Don't get me wrong," he added, eyes flicking to Cam's and then away again. "I liked it. It was fun."

He stopped there, and Cam finished, "But it wasn't..."

"It wasn't--" Hunter seemed to take it as a prompt, if an unanswerable one. "I dunno. It's not like I didn't have a good time."

Cam didn't know what to say to that. What was the right thing to do in a situation like this? Did he apologize, or offer to make it up to him? Did he apologize and offer to make it up to him? Or was Hunter creeped out enough that he just wanted some space?

"Hey," Hunter said suddenly, and now he was looking Cam in the eye again. Smiling. "I think I'm starting to get how women feel. You know..." He addressed an imaginary woman. "'How was it for you?' 'It was fun.' 'Did you get off?' 'Let's talk about something else.'"

Cam eyed him, torn between relief at the joke and regret at the implication. He took the easy way out, though, responding to the lightness in kind. "I wouldn't know," he informed Hunter.

Hunter could scoff, because Cam knew perfectly well he hadn't been with anyone else before they started sleeping together. "Sure, because you never get that reaction," he said mockingly. "No one you sleep with is ever dissatisfied."

Cam smiled, acknowledging the retort, but this time he was serious. "Until now."

Hunter didn't let up. "No one's perfect."

"Hunter." He waited until Hunter's smile faded. Then, more gently, he said, "Tell me what to do."

Hunter looked down at the glass in his hand, tapping his fingers nervously against the side. "Give me a little time," he said at last. "I just need to get used to it. It's kind of..."

He looked at Cam without raising his head, blue eyes regarding him from under his eyelashes. "It's a little kinkier than I expected."

Sex with a wolf, kinky. Imagine that. Cam bit his tongue. "We don't have to do it again," he said softly.

"Are you listening?" Hunter demanded. "I said it was fun. I want to do it again. I'm just saying that it's a little harder to get it up when you're worried your partner might accidentally give you a love bite that sends you to the ER."

Cam swallowed. He really didn't have any defense for that, so he didn't say anything. He could have bitten Hunter. He still wasn't sure he hadn't scratched him--although if he had, it wasn't anywhere Hunter had left uncovered by clothes.

"We'll get it," Hunter was saying. "You can't expect it to be great the first time, okay? I just need some practice, you know... figuring out what turns a wolf on. And you need practice, uh--"

He paused, and Cam could pretty well fill in the blank. "Not biting you?" he suggested.

Hunter actually grinned, maybe more comfortable with the idea than Cam was right now. "Yeah. I think that's a plan."

"Well." Cam came over to stand beside him, taking the glass out of his hand. "I don't want to derail your brilliant plan--" He really, really didn't. "But there's something I should probably tell you."

"Yeah?" Hunter seemed to be enjoying his cockiness, so he leaned back against the counter and took a drink from Hunter's glass before he answered. He didn't have to look to feel Hunter's eyes on his throat.

"Yeah," Cam echoed, setting the water down. He turned his head so that their faces were a breath apart, and he smiled. "You don't need any practice."

Hunter's gaze went right to his mouth, and he took the invitation without bothering to answer. He kissed Cam easily, like it was the same as always, like he hadn't had to pin the wolf to the bed to keep him from injuring Hunter with lust. And he didn't let it end there. One hand on Cam's shoulder, he turned, sliding into it slowly as the angles eased and kissing got easier, friendlier.

Cam steadied himself against the counter, hands coming to rest on Hunter's bare chest. The edges of the flannel tickled his skin, soft and teasing, and he smiled into Hunter's mouth. There was more than one good reason for going shirtless. And there were advantages to human skin, so much more sensitive than the wolf's thick fur.

"So, the licking thing," Hunter murmured, bracing his arms on the counter behind Cam. "It's cuter than it used to be."

He let his hands slide down Hunter's chest to rest on his hips, fingers dipping under the waistband of his jeans as he pulled him up against his body. "And when you say cute," he began.

"Hot," Hunter admitted, nuzzling the corner of his mouth. "But don't let it go to your head. You still kiss better as a human."

He couldn't help smiling at the long-standing complaint, but he hadn't forgotten the visible tremor when the wolf had started to lick his way up Hunter's spine. "I'll work on it," Cam promised. Sliding his arms around Hunter, under his shirt, their bodies were finally flush against each other when their mouths met.

His fingers were splayed against the bare skin of Hunter's back, and it took him a moment to realize what he was feeling. He didn't try to stop the kissing, but Hunter must have felt his gentle exploration for what it was. He let up, forehead resting against Cam's, breathing into his open mouth while he waited.

"Did it--" Cam swallowed, feeling his face warm. "Does it hurt?"

"No." Hunter's voice indicated that he thought the question was stupid, and it probably was. Not because it didn't matter, but because Hunter wouldn't admit it even if the answer was yes.

"I want to see," Cam whispered. He let his hands fall to Hunter's hips, and he felt his lover sigh. But he was going to see it eventually, unless Hunter was planning to keep his clothes on until it healed, and no matter what had happened that seemed unlikely.

Hunter took a step back. Whatever he saw on Cam's face must have been enough to convince him, because he shrugged the flannel off over his shoulders and turned around without a word. The movement was easy, unflinching, and that was a tiny reassurance in and of itself.

The raised red streaks across his back weren't. They obviously hadn't bled, but they must have come close. Heavy toenails had dragged across unprotected skin and left an unmistakable imprint behind.

Cam reached out and laid his hand gently on Hunter's left shoulder blade, just above the scratches. "When did I do this?" he asked quietly, letting his fingers skim over the marks. Hunter straightened a little, and he added, "Does it sting?"

"No." Hunter sounded amused this time. "Just tickles."

His hand hesitated, coming to rest on the back of Hunter's jeans. His lover took this as tacit permission to turn around, and Cam lifted his gaze to Hunter's face. "When?" he repeated.

Hunter studied him in return. "Right after I tapped out," he said at last. "You pulled off, even though I said it was okay. Why?"

Hunter had used his safety net and had still been injured. Cam didn't even know where to start, but getting upset seemed like a justified reaction. "Because you shouldn't have to qualify something like that," he snapped. "I either stop or I don't. I don't get to decide whether you mean it or not."

"I meant slow down," Hunter informed him. "Not stop."

"Well, maybe we should have talked about that before," Cam muttered. He was angry with himself, not with Hunter, and he tried to moderate his tone a little. "Not that it would have done you any good. I knew I couldn't--"

He didn't know how to sound calm when he was struggling with the words, but when Hunter's hands landed on his shoulders he knew enough to stop talking. "We'll talk about it next time," Hunter told him. "You didn't hurt me. We can totally do this, Cam."

He tried to relax, aware that Hunter thought he was being irrational. Which, coming from Hunter, was really kind of an insult. His lips twitched at the thought, and he felt Hunter's hands squeeze his shoulders reassuringly.

"You know," Cam said with a half-hearted sigh, "I'm probably not doing your ego any favors here. The idea that I want you so much I can't control myself is vaguely..."

"True?" Hunter suggested before he could finish. He smirked at Cam's expression, but he must have known it was a touchy subject because he backed off. "I'll tell you what's really suffering: my tough guy image, when you make it sound like a couple scratches are the end of the world."

"This hypothetical tough guy image is probably more threatened by your deeply gay wardrobe than by anything I could do," Cam replied, glad of the chance to be casual. Bantering with Hunter: normal. Discussing sex safety with anyone at all: not normal.

"Yours is benefitting from the influence," Hunter remarked, and his fingers hooked the top of Cam's pockets to hold him in place as he leaned in. His kiss was comfort and heat and he didn't seem to care that his flannel shirt lay pooled on the floor behind him.

Until the phone rang, and Hunter pulled away with an apologetic grimace. "I ordered pizza," he said, retrieving his shirt and swinging it over his shoulders.

"I heard," Cam agreed, letting his hand trail over bare skin even as Hunter started to button the flannel from the top down. "Thanks."

Hunter got the phone, flashing a smile at Cam as he did so. "Hey," he told the receiver. They didn't use the hard line for anything except the doorbell. "Yeah, I'll be right there."

He hung up, getting the last buttons on his shirt while he went for his wallet. Then he backtracked long enough to kiss Cam once more. "Next time," he said, "the guy who gets better sex gets the pizza."

Cam rolled his eyes because he was sure he was supposed to. "I'm capable of making the long trek downstairs," he called, but Hunter was already at the door.

"Next time," he said over his shoulder. "We'll compare notes."

And he was gone, taking the threat of more drawn-out discussions of what worked and what didn't with him. It wasn't that they'd never talked about it before. It was just that the conversations tended to be more about fun, variety, and noise level than they did about safety and species compatibility.

At least it wasn't boring, Cam thought with a sigh.

Heather came out when Hunter returned with the pizza, apparently noticing that her dinner was late, and entertaining her distracted them from the wolf conversation for a while. In fact, Hunter didn't bring it up at all until they were getting ready to leave for the night. Most of the camping gear stayed in the truck, but they packed up water and extra clothes.

"What do you want to do about sleeping?" Hunter asked, dropping his backpack by the door while he turned around to wait for Cam.

"What about it?" Cam dumped Heather's water bowl in the sink and refilled it before putting his own water bottle under the tap.

"The air mattress isn't gonna stand up to what we did this afternoon," Hunter said bluntly. "And I know how you feel about sleeping on the ground."

Cam stared at the sink, wishing they could have not talked about this some more. "I don't..." He was even less ready to talk about this than he'd realized. "Let's just--"

"Take the night off?" Hunter suggested.

"No." Don't finish my sentences, he wanted to say, except that most of the time he didn't mind. It was only when Hunter got it wrong that it bothered him. "Let's just... be normal tonight."

"No good," Hunter declared. He didn't even have to think about it, which annoyed Cam on some level. Maybe it was the immediate way knew what Cam meant by "normal." "Not if it's gonna make you crazy," he added firmly.

"It won't." He was capping his water bottle and turning away from the sink, not bothering to catch Hunter's eye. How did he know if it would or not? "As long as we don't run into anyone who's... banned from the community center, I'll be fine."

Which really shouldn't be that hard. He'd made it through the entire winter last year without encountering anyone who could make him feel like this. The pack had rules, and even if he could wish they were a little less open to interpretation, most people tried to abide by them. There were plenty of willing participants. No reason to chase the ones who weren't.

"Yeah?" Hunter didn't sound convinced. "How long does that stuff last, anyway? It's not like you've been around Kathy constantly."

"I don't know," Cam muttered, picking up his backpack and stuffing the water bottle inside. "I thought it would wear off... faster than it did."

"You think it's worn off now?"

Cam rolled his eyes. "It's hard to miss. If you hadn't noticed, the effects aren't particularly subtle."

"Yeah," Hunter agreed unexpectedly. "When you're a wolf. You hide it a lot better when you're human."

"I'm not hiding it," Cam snapped.

Hunter shrugged, either unperturbed or just willing to back off. "Okay," he agreed. "That's all I wanted to know."

It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't until they were actually on the road that he could bring himself to admit it. "I don't know either," Cam said, staring out the window on the passenger side while Hunter drove.

Hunter gave him a sideways glance. He could feel it without even looking, imagining the reaction in his mind. "Don't know what?"

Had he always done that, Cam wondered suddenly? Hunter rarely responded with complete incomprehension when Cam came out with an apparent non sequitur. In the middle of a conversation, sure, but out of the blue? When was the last time Cam had started to say something and Hunter had only replied, "Huh?"

He couldn't remember, and maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough, but right now it seemed as though Hunter had been telling the truth earlier. Like he really did get how hard it was for Cam to admit confusion, or ignorance, or even basic desire. Those things weren't part of a ninja master's expectations for his son, and Cam had grown up learning how to deny them.

Hunter, who wasn't exactly the gayest man Cam had ever known, still managed to seem shockingly open and expressive next to his partner. Yet he put up with Cam's reticence, and he seemed to have some sort of bizarre intuition when it came to encouraging him. Treating his random statements as though they logically followed in a conversation they weren't having, for example.

"I don't know... how it will be," Cam told the window. "Human sex. For me. I don't know if it will 'make me crazy' or not."

"Okay," Hunter agreed, like he wasn't totally contradicting himself. "So you want to try it and see?"

Cam nodded, not looking at him. "The thought doesn't make me cringe anymore, so yes. I think that's a good sign."

"Cringe?" Hunter repeated sharply. "It made you cringe?"

"Not the sex." Sometimes he could take Hunter's receptiveness a little too much for granted. Maybe he could say anything, but that didn't mean he should. "The feeling afterward. Like... no matter how good it was, it didn't matter."

"Like you still wanted it." Hunter sounded strangely grim. "Like you didn't get off."

"Like I couldn't," Cam said quietly. Then, reluctantly, he added, "It... hurt."

Hunter snorted. "Well, yeah," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "No kidding it hurt. Damn it, you could've--" He broke off, and Cam glanced at him long enough to see his fingers were white on the steering wheel.

"Thanks for telling me," Hunter said at last, but his voice sounded oddly strangled.

"Could've what?" Cam asked with a sigh. He might as well know.

To his surprise, though, Hunter shot him a rueful smile. "I was gonna say, you should've told me. But--" And he shrugged a little. "You did. Kind of late, but. You did, so. Thanks."

Cam didn't have any idea what to say to that.

Several minutes passed before Hunter spoke again. "Are you sure you want to try it?" he asked abruptly. "If it was that bad? Maybe you should... I dunno. Give it some more time."

Cam didn't answer right away. He didn't know. He wanted to repay Hunter for everything he'd done. Hunter had been getting a decidedly poor return for his sexual efforts lately, and Cam wanted to do something about that. Something it seemed pretty clear he couldn't do as a wolf. But thoughts of the prickly feeling that had followed last night's lovemaking were only less sharp now, not gone entirely.

"I don't know," he said after a moment.

"Okay," Hunter repeated. And this time he left it at that.

The rutted logging roads had already forced the truck to a crawl by the time they came creeping up on yesterday's parking spot. Their headlights glinted over chrome and lit up an official federal seal with a flash of green and gold in the darkness. There was someone parked there already--and whoever it was, they weren't there recreationally.

"Do we keep going?" Hunter asked under his breath.

Cam shook his head. "We're just getting away from the neighbors," he murmured in kind. "It's a Saturday night; the apartment was a little too noisy. And the weather's good enough."

Hunter pulled off the road next to the government issue truck, killing the ignition and flicking off the lights. In that brief moment, between the headlights going out and the interior light coming on when Hunter opened the door, Cam saw the driver of the other truck waiting for them in his cab. Dark eyes flashed gold in the intervening space, and he knew who it was: not a human wolf, not exactly, but easily the oldest member of the pack.

"Zen-Aku," he said, climbing out of the truck as the door next to his opened. "It's been a while."

"You're late." Despite its strength, the other man's gravelly voice sounded almost as old as he was. The light had gone from his eyes, and he stood there looking at them in his Forest Service jacket like they were the anachronism.

"So we stopped to get a kitten out of a tree." Hunter had joined Cam on his side of the truck without stumbling and without a flashlight. "What's it to you?"

"A matter of curiosity." The man answered as though it had been a literal question, and Cam knew he no longer did so out of habit. He and Hunter just seemed to like winding each other up. "And perhaps, some small amount of personal interest."

"We'll help if we can," Cam said cautiously. He would, anyway. Hunter might not.

"Then answer me this." His rough voice, combined with the silver-streaked ponytail Cam could see over the collar of his coat, made his precise speech sound all the more foreign. "What reason would a time traveling woman of questionable origin have for seeking out a person who turns into a little levitating ball of light?"

Cam sighed, wondering how Time Force had gotten so far so fast. Then he decided that was probably a ridiculous question when dealing with a group of people who were based a thousand years in his future. For all he knew, they had spent weeks combing the past three days for any clue to the whereabouts of their renegade Karmanian.

"Would you believe it's a case of mistaken identity?" he asked at last.

The man who now went by "Mr. Zen," or Zen Aku from Japan according to his mostly forged government paperwork, regarded Cam curiously. "I might," he said.

"Time Force is looking for a Karmanian," Cam told him. "Aliens that can turn into... levitating balls of light. Their leader is convinced that one of them is wreaking havoc on our timeline, and that we know who it is."

"Ah." He could hear the man's smile in his voice. "Lady Jennifer. She is not the time traveler to whom I refer."

"Yeah, well, maybe you could just tell us instead of being all cryptic," Hunter muttered.

A little ball of light zipped out from under the trees and sparkled into a full grown human being in a matter of seconds. Or, not precisely human, Cam realized as the sparkles fell away, but human shaped. Mostly. It was clearly a woman, though details were difficult to discern in the darkness, even for him.

"Woman of questionable origin," she said, and her voice was oddly sibilant in a way that made him think of cats instead of snakes. "At your service."

"She introduced herself as Miranda at Dr. Blanchard's office," Zen-Aku remarked mildly, not as though it mattered to him.

"And so you may refer to me," she agreed. Cam could see her scanning both him and Hunter despite the shadows. She didn't blink, and she seemed to focus on their forms just fine even though neither of them had spoken since she appeared.

Like Shane, then. Flying. Night sight. Mutagenic butterflies.

"You're not with Time Force," Hunter said. He must have reached the same conclusion as Cam: this was the person Jen and her team were chasing.

This time, an unintelligible hiss preceded her words. "That depends on your definition of 'with,'" she informed him. "One of them? No. Working for them? Yes."

"They're chasing you," Hunter said suspiciously. "How can you be working for them?"

"Time Force isn't chasing me." Her voice was odd, but Cam was pretty sure he was right when he read that as disgust. "Commander Jennifer is chasing a supposedly lawless Karmanian."

Cam didn't understand the distinction, but he didn't like the way it sounded. "You?"

"She's being set up," the woman of questionable origin hissed.

Cam blinked. "She is? Or you are?"

She might not be human, but she folded her arms like she'd picked up human mannerisms somewhere along the way. She didn't say anything, either, which made him guess that she'd already said what she thought he needed to know. She was working for Time Force. They weren't chasing her. And Jen's target was "supposedly" lawless.

No, Cam realized. She wasn't the one being set up at all.

"Why?" he wanted to know.

At the same time Hunter asked, "So why are you looking for other Karmanians?"

He and Hunter looked at each other. Or he looked, and Hunter turned his head toward him in the darkness. Leave it to him to worry about friends first and mysterious alien plots second. No matter how intriguing they might seem.

Zen-Aku was giving the woman a similarly assessing glance when Cam looked back at them. "Was I correct, then?" he inquired, oddly polite.

She sniffed at him. "You knew you were. Or you wouldn't have come to warn them that I was looking."

"Untrue," he said, and the smile was back in his voice. Cam thought he was smiling more than usual, but as he'd said, it had been a while. This wasn't a man who attended pack gatherings regularly. Or ever.

"I had no more certainty that you were looking for their friend than Merrick had that you were looking for his princess," Zen-Aku was saying. "Yet we both did what we felt we had to."

"Your friend Merrick seems somewhat paranoid," she said. "And this is coming from a double agent, so I assure you, I understand the advantages."

Her "s" sounds had taken on what Cam could only think of as an amused quality. More importantly, though, he was starting to suspect that she and Zen-Aku were not acting together in this. It was beginning to look as though she had followed him here without his knowledge or consent. Maybe to determine the identity of whoever he thought she might be looking for by spying on his warning.

The familiarity of their banter notwithstanding, they seemed to be working against each other.

"It's his nature," Zen-Aku was saying, dismissing the words with a lightness that made Cam wonder.

"So now you think we know something about whoever you're looking for," Hunter said. "And we still don't know who it is or what you want with this person in the first place."

"I want this person to refrain from dealing with Time Force in any way." Her eyes were suddenly fixed on him and her tone was... well, her eyes were fixed on him. Cam guessed that meant her tone was serious, now. "I want this person to watch for them, to run when they're seen, and to avoid them as often and as long as possible."

Cam shot Hunter a startled look, and he could see Hunter's expression mirroring his own even if Hunter couldn't. "Well," he said at last, "that shouldn't be much of a problem if it's really you they're after."

"It wouldn't be," she agreed. "If I wasn't trying to lead them straight to him."

Cam felt Hunter stiffen beside him, an subtle readjustment of his body that looked like nothing and felt like everything. "Excuse me?" Cam asked evenly.

"Jen isn't going to want to arrest me," the woman told the night. "I'm supposed to give her another option."

"Like arresting an innocent person?" Hunter's tone made it abundantly clear what he thought of that plan. Cam noticed that, despite the fact that the woman had assigned their "friend" a gender, Hunter still wasn't using it. Smart.

"Exactly." The woman's tone, unfortunately, was much harder to read. Something about the way she said it made Cam frown anyway, and a moment later he got it.

Bitterness.

The pieces of her story started to click, and he repeated aloud, "She's being set up."

The woman's voice was quieter this time, but her odd features didn't change. "Yes."

Cam still wanted to know why. Personal curiosity, if nothing else. "And the reason for that would be...?" he prompted.

"Someone upstairs doesn't like her," the woman said sharply. "How should I know? I just go where they send me, stay when they tell me to, do whatever they say to do while I'm there."

Yes, that was definitely bitterness. And, typically, it was Hunter who waded right into it. "Why?" he demanded.

"Because it keeps me out of prison," she shot back. "Tell your friend to avoid Time Force if he wants to stay free."

And she was gone. Literally, vanished from the scene in a matter of seconds. The woman of questionable origin disappeared into a ball of light that streaked away through the darkness, a shadow-casting flare that didn't linger long enough to illuminate more than a brief flash of their surroundings.

"That was... unplanned." The old voice growled thoughtfully in the darkness. "Nonetheless, the warning is apt."

"You didn't expect her to be here?" Cam wanted to make sure before he started drawing conclusions about "Miranda" and her relationship to recent events.

"No." Zen-Aku hesitated briefly before adding, "She has appeared unexpectedly several times over the last few days."

"She's following you," Hunter muttered.

There was a moment of silence, and then, "Perhaps."

"Why?" Cam asked, more of himself than of either of them. "If she's trying to warn someone, why wouldn't she warn them directly?"

"You might as well ask why she would associate me with anyone she might want to warn," Zen-Aku pointed out.

It was a valid point, too, one Cam hadn't really thought about. It was true that the old wolf had connections to many of the less human inhabitants of the area--but who would know that to look at him? He was, to all appearances, a loner who avoided connections of any kind. And both of the connections he had drawn to "a little levitating ball of light" were, at the very least, indirect.

"Maybe she just likes you." Hunter's voice was wry, as though he found the suggestion unlikely, but Cam thought that made as much sense as anything.

"It's true that she didn't ask me to warn anyone," Zen-Aku offered. "You assume that she knew I would tell you what she had said, but I had no expectation of being followed."

"What did she say?" Cam asked, frowning. "You were going to warn us about her, weren't you. Not about Time Force."

Zen-Aku inclined his head, a motion that would be invisible to Hunter. Cam couldn't tell whether he knew that and added, "Yes," out of courtesy, or whether he had just had a rare moment of saying more than was strictly necessary.

"So?" Hunter demanded impatiently. He clearly didn't read anything into it. Which, Cam supposed, he wouldn't. Since he hadn't seen it.

"She said that she was looking for floating spheres of light." Zen-Aku sounded a little less neutral and a little more like an echo of Hunter when he told them that. Like it should have been obvious. And in retrospect, of course, it was.

"You didn't think that was weird?" Hunter asked skeptically.

"I was leaving a psychiatrist's office at the time. It sounded relatively normal."

Cam smiled in the darkness. "What made you think it wasn't?"

He could see Zen-Aku shift slightly: his equivalent of a shrug. "The second time I saw her, she looked as she did tonight. The fact that she isn't human gave more weight to her words."

Cam felt Hunter's head turn toward him. "Uh, just out of curiosity... how did she look tonight?"

"Cat-like," Cam said briefly. "Pretty much the way she sounded."

"Okay." Hunter's tone made it clear that this wasn't much help. "So she's an alien cat working for Time Force to take down someone inside Time Force, and she's having pangs of conscience. She doesn't do anything about it directly, but she talks to someone who might. That about sum it up?"

Cam blinked, but he saw Zen-Aku incline his head as though the thought had occurred to him as well. "It's one possible explanation," he agreed.

"And the others are?" Hunter asked pointedly.

There was no answer.

"She likes Zen-Aku and slipped up when she got into conversation with him," Cam filled in. "Or she doesn't care about him one way or the other, and she's using him to get to someone else."

"Who?" Hunter wanted to know. "Time Force is already onto the person she says she's trying to warn to stay out of all this. So either she's not doing her job and they're way ahead of her, or she knows perfectly well who it is and she could warn that person herself at any time."

Cam paused just long enough to be fairly sure Zen-Aku's participation in this conversation was over. Even if Hunter was still waiting for an answer to a question that should have been rhetorical. "When it comes to time traveling secret agents," he said with a sigh, "it's probably better not to know too much."

He felt Zen-Aku straighten as much as he saw it. "I've already told you more than I'm certain of," he said. "I will take my leave of you now."

And do what, Cam wondered? Go home and watch television? What did a three thousand year old wolf spirit given corporeal form do with his time? Other than earning what was probably a respectable income as an employee of the federal government?

"Thanks for passing the word," Hunter muttered, and it was all Cam could do not to look at him in surprise. He didn't think he'd ever heard Hunter thank Zen-Aku for anything before.

"Be careful of your conversation," the wolf spirit replied. "It seems someone could be listening at any time."

"Yes," Cam said, eyeing him. He'd taken it well, but he couldn't be happy about someone being able to sneak up on him like that. "I'm guessing Merrick isn't the only one feeling paranoid lately."

"I find I'm unable to sense this particular being until her light becomes flesh and blood." Zen-Aku sounded more than a little irritated with the fact. "I am unused to being surprised by another's presence."

"Join the club," Hunter told him. He'd never gotten over Shane being able to defeat ninja senses with his light trick.

"We'll keep an eye out," Cam said. "For time travelers of all kinds."

Zen-Aku just nodded again. This time, though, the light that accompanied the opening of his truck door signaled the end of the conversation to Hunter. They waited where they were until the Forest Service vehicle had backed out and began the long slow creep along the logging roads.

Hunter cocked his head at the truck, and Cam was thinking the same thing. Karmanians might be able to sneak up on them, but presumably they would have a harder time getting inside an enclosed space. Cam climbed back into the cab and closed the door behind him while Hunter circled around and did the same on the other side.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and they just sat there in the dark. Finally, though, Hunter asked, "Do we tell Shane?"

Hunter would have his cell phone with him, but it wasn't going to get any kind of signal out here. He brought it mostly out of habit, for getting messages on the road, and to make sure they didn't oversleep in the mornings. So calling from here was out, and the only other logical option was to streak somewhere with service, call Shane to find out where he was, and then streak there so he could tell them if anyone was eavesdropping before they said something compromising.

"The only way to make sure we're not overheard is to go to him," Cam said at last. He was pretty sure Karmanians could sense each other in close proximity, at least, invisible or not. "And if we're followed, we give away his identity just by doing that much."

"We could call someone else," Hunter offered. "Ask them to relay a message. No names."

Cam smiled. "I like how easy it is for you to be devious," he remarked idly. "But how important is it to warn Shane, really? He's already avoiding Time Force. And he'd probably recognize another Karmanian before any of us would."

His amulet flashed before Hunter could reply, a quick gleam in the otherwise lightless air. He reached up and wrapped his fingers around it without thinking, and a tingling sense of localized danger was the only response. That, and the identity of the sender.

"Shane," he said aloud.

"Emergency signal?" Hunter guessed. Cam had given them all interlinked distress beacons when they stopped wearing their morphers. Just in case, because they were living proof that there were a lot of weird things out there. But until today, they'd only used them once.

"He's downtown." Cam didn't bother to confirm Hunter's words, because there wasn't any other technology in current use that would trigger his amulet like that. "Near the Talk Back. Maybe inside."

"Yeah, yeah, Dustin has that thing tonight." It was vague and typically Hunter, who probably thought Cam remembered exactly what he was talking about. "Everyone else was going to hear him play."

He was already getting out of the truck again, regardless, and Hunter was right behind him. If Shane had a problem in the middle of town, at a coffee house where there were bound to be plenty of witnesses, then it was a problem that warranted the emergency signal. And if the rest of the team was already there, then the signal was obviously aimed at the two of them.

"So let's review," Hunter said, impatiently waiting for Cam to slam his door before he locked them both from the driver's side. "How important is it to warn Shane?"

"Very," Cam finished for him. "Let's go."

It was a matter of seconds to get to the coffee house by way of ninja streaking, and someone would have had to be looking very carefully to see them reappear at normal speed on the busy, shadowy street. Unfortunately, someone was. On the other hand, it was someone who clearly knew something about ninjas, so maybe they couldn't judge their covertness by her.

"Before you go in," Jen said, her voice finding them through the passersby. "I need to tell you something, and I only have a few minutes."

Cam was on guard immediately, and he didn't have to look to know that Hunter had beaten him to it. "What do you want?" he demanded, assessing her with a quick glance.

She wasn't wearing her Time Force uniform. Her plaid skirt and pink shirt weren't totally out of place here in the middle of the Saturday night college crowd, and she looked oddly relaxed. Determined as ever, but lacking the irritated expression that Cam had thought characterized her face.

"I just said," she told him, and there was a hint of the old irritation. "My team and yours are about to have a very public showdown, and there are two things you should know before that happens."

"Starting with exactly what you think you're gonna accomplish here," Hunter growled. "You're after the wrong guy."

"I know that," Jen agreed, surprising them both. "But the me of two weeks ago didn't, and I have three minutes and fourteen seconds until she shows up here with four Rangers and a whole lot of contracted peacekeepers."

"You're from the future," Cam realized. "Your own future," he added, when he realized how obvious that sounded. "Not just ours."

"Yeah, and I'm breaking the law and a dozen different regs to be here," Jen told him. "So just listen. Your friend is going to start a fire. Your fur will catch. Change back. It doesn't make any sense, but you did it and it probably saved your life."

He gaped at her, unable to process the implication that she knew what he was, and she frowned at him. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"How do you--" he began, but she cut him off.

"I really don't have time for this. I'll try to come back later, but if I can't, just remember: change back. My team can keep a secret," Jen added. "Don't worry about them."

"Fire, change, got it," Hunter said impatiently. He had always been oddly practical about time travel--mostly, Cam suspected, because he refused to try to understand it. "What's the second thing?"

"Miranda is my sister," Jen told them.

This seemed to startle even Hunter. "She says she's out to get you," he blurted out.

"She had reason to be," Jen replied. She sounded more sad than surprised. "I have to go, but if everything works out, I'll probably see you again."

She didn't disappear, or turn into a black blur or a little ball of light. She just walked away. Cam stared after her, wondering if it would do any good to try to call her back. Wondering if he even wanted to. He knew from personal experience that knowing things about the future rarely helped anyone.

"Screw Shane," Hunter said abruptly. "We're not going into that building."

Cam looked at him in surprise, then understanding as the fear in Hunter's eyes registered. "Yes, we are," he said, hoping to sound confident and sympathetic at the same time. Because there would be no reasoning with Hunter if he got it into his head that Jen might have been wrong.

"Yeah." Hunter sounded grudging, and he didn't take his eyes off of Cam. "We are. But it had to be said, you know?"

Cam smiled, because he was better off if he didn't think about it and he suspected Hunter would be too. "I know," he agreed. Changing back would save his life. He'd come out of it fine.

He wasn't surprised when Hunter caught him by the shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss, hard and deep and no apology right there in the middle of the sidewalk. Cam gave it back, because everyone knew their lives could change in a second. But not everyone had reason to think about it.

"Stay the fuck away from him," Hunter whispered before he pulled away. Cam understood him to mean Shane specifically, fire in general, and a hundred other things he couldn't possibly avoid. Because that wasn't how life worked.

He nodded anyway. "You too." He didn't worry about the irony of telling his lover to stay away from the person they were already on their way into the coffee house to find. Hunter would know what he meant.

The inside was normal in a way that made Cam's nerves itch. It was dimly lit, with the brightest lights on the low stage and a candle on each of the little tables scattered around the room. They must have arrived between performers, but otherwise there was nothing to make him scan the room: no disturbance, no confrontation, not even a raised voice that sounded familiar.

It was enough to convince him that he was missing something, and his imagination made that something worse and worse as the seconds went by.

"Over there," Hunter muttered at last, nudging his shoulder in lieu of pointing. Cam followed his gaze to a table near one of the stage's corners, and sure enough, that was Tori's blonde hair flashing in the stage lights.

He was following Hunter in that direction before he'd identified everyone sitting around the table with her. Hunter's brother was next to her, and that was Dustin and Shane on her other side. There were two other women with them, both of whom had their backs to the door. And here, in the middle of a mostly human crowd, Cam finally understood what Kathy had meant about her mystery client.

One of those women was Skyla. He saw her often enough to recognize her from behind, even if the way Shane made her almost-corporeal was supposedly unusual. According to Skyla, a Karmanian's earlier lives didn't typically reemerge--at least not separate from the current host--but she and Shane were young, and Shane had power to spare. So his friends had gotten used to the fact that having Shane around often meant seeing Skyla too. Literally.

The other woman was different, and her perfectly human appearance warred with the memory of shadowy feline features. She was unusual here in a way she hadn't seemed to be in the forest, standing out to wolf senses attuned to the concept of "pack." She seemed, as Kathy had said, very much like Shane. Only more.

"Hunter," Cam said, brushing his elbow to slow his winding path toward the front of the room. Hunter glanced over his shoulder, and Cam nodded in the direction they were going. "That's Miranda with them."

"Great." Hunter didn't pause. "Change of heart?"

"Or just part of the plan," Cam pointed out. Jen had said that Time Force was on its way, after all. There was no reason to think that Miranda had suddenly decided to throw in with them when a confrontation here could have been the goal all along.

"Ever the optimist," Hunter muttered, just as some brotherly intuition made Blake look up and catch sight of them. He nodded once in calm, if alert, acknowledgment. Safe, then. So far.

Tori looked up and smiled, and then they were in the middle of the group and people were saying hello and chairs were being shifted for them like it was any other night. "We thought we might have missed the fun," Cam said, still cautious, making sure Miranda saw it in the look he threw her.

"Nah, you made good time," Shane said with a grin that seemed totally out of place. Cam didn't miss the fact that Hunter had positioned himself between the two of them, but no one else seemed to notice. "The 'fun' even waited until after Dustin's turn at the mike. Not like the old days."

"It's not going to wait much longer," Skyla put in, for once the serious foil to his playfulness. They were usually partners in crime, but tonight something was clearly making her nervous. Cam wondered, from the glances she was giving Miranda, if it might be proximity to another Karmanian.

Miranda caught his look and met it with her own. "They're coming."

"We know," Hunter said darkly. "What we don't know is whether you're the informant or the advance guard."

"Uh, okay." Dustin was looking back and forth between them. "So I guess you guys know each other?"

That was when time stopped. It was something they almost ought to have expected from time police, except that Cam felt the ninja elements ripple when they did it. From the looks he was seeing around the table, he wasn't the only one.

Tori voiced the obvious question. "What was that?"

It was obvious and it wasn't, because they were the only ones moving. The chatter in the room was completely gone, and everyone they could see was frozen where they were. Everyone except their table--and the white-coated figures filing in through the doors at the back of the coffee house.

"That was a ninja trick," Blake said under his breath.

"Not one I've ever seen," Hunter muttered back. He nudged Cam, silently questioning, and Cam shook his head. He didn't recognize it either--since when did ninjas manipulate time?--but he agreed with their assessment. And he didn't like the implications.

"Can anyone else sense their element?" he asked quietly.

There was a startled silence while the four Time Force officers advanced on their table. Tori reached out and tipped her water glass over, staring at it in surprise when the water spilled all over the table. "I can feel it," she murmured. "But I can't do anything with it."

Shane was pointing at the candle flame in the middle of the table, but he shook his head too. "I can't even blow that candle out."

The candle flared suddenly, an overstated burst of flame that twisted into a little raptor shape before dissipating. "We're not defenseless," Skyla said softly. Shane put a hand over hers on the table, and their fingers twined together tightly enough that her knuckles went white. No matter what she could do, she was worried. And that worried Cam.

"Shane Clarke?" Jen was standing at their table now, right behind Miranda as she addressed Shane. "I'm with Time Force. We need to ask you some questions about a localized and repetitive temporal distortion."

"No," Miranda told the table before Shane could answer. She straightened up, turning in her chair to face Jen and the three officers behind her. "You don't need to question him."

What poker face Jen could muster seemed to be based on the fact that everything made her angry, and this was no exception. "Miri?" she demanded. She did look genuinely surprised underneath the anger. "What are you doing here?"

"Choosing sides," Miranda said flatly. "Just like they're trying to make you do."

"What are you talking about?" Now Jen took a moment to glance around the table, even though she'd probably sized them up from across the room. "You shouldn't be here."

Miranda pushed her chair back, right into Jen, as she stood up. The man on Jen's left stepped up to her side immediately, hand at his waist as he glared at Miranda. Bodyguard, Cam wondered? He didn't look it, but that had to be a sidearm that he was two seconds away from drawing.

"No, I shouldn't be here," Miranda hissed. Her human guise was fading, retreating from her cat-like features as she stared Jen down. "But they didn't ask me before they sent me off to set you up, did they. And maybe you could do it when they asked, but I couldn't. So here I am."

"Look, you need to get out of here." Jen was starting to look worried in addition to being angry. "If Time Force finds out you were here, they'll want me to take you in along with him. It won't matter whether you had anything to do with it or not."

"Time Force knows!" Miranda flung a finger in Shane's direction, and he and Skyla were on their feet before she continued. The rest of the table wasn't far behind, and Cam felt Hunter edge him a little farther away from Shane and Skyla. He stepped on Hunter's foot, annoyed enough to protest: enough was enough.

"He's the innocent bystander here, not me!" Miranda cried. "He works for a ninja academy, Jen! If you really questioned him, you'd see he can't possibly be responsible for everything that's happened!"

"Fine." Jen was tight-lipped. "So we'll take him in for questioning and then we'll let him go. No one has to know you were here."

"You aren't listening to me," Miranda said furiously. "They know because they sent me. To corner you into apprehending an innocent Karmanian. One you know perfectly well won't be released just because he didn't do anything."

"There are some time agencies that aren't kind to Karmanians," Skyla offered, her voice low. "I've never encountered Time Force before."

"Don't." Miranda bit the word off without looking away from Jen. "I made the mistake of coming home to visit my family, and Time Force hasn't let me go since."

"But I got you out!" Jen protested. "I told you I could do it, and I did!"

"By putting me in perpetual service to your police force," Miranda snapped.

"No!" Jen protested. "They didn't know anything about it!"

"They knew everything about it," Miranda retorted. "And now they're out to make you prove your loyalty by doing the same thing to him."

"He's a criminal," Jen snapped.

"He's less a criminal than I ever was! Everything you think he's done, I did! All he did was become Karmanian in a time that Time Force thinks you're too close to!"

Something about that struck home in a way nothing else had, and Cam could only watch, bemused, as Jen went as white as her uniform. The woman behind her and the shorter man to her right exchanged obvious glances. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said stiffly.

"That would be easier to believe if your twenty-first century lover wasn't standing outside with native law enforcement ready to back you up!" Miranda shot back.

Dustin turned to one side in a completely unsubtle gesture and muttered, "Told you so."

Cam gave him a look, but the damage had been done. Everyone had heard his words in the still and otherwise entirely silent coffee house. And he might be right, but Jen apparently reacted to truth by reasserting her own reality. Implacably.

"You're going to have to come with us," the Time Force commander told Shane. She looked right past Miranda like she wasn't even there. "We just need to ask you a few questions."

Shane's expression was exactly what one might expect under the circumstances. "Yeah," he said. His tone conveyed the opposite sentiment perfectly clearly. "I don't think that's gonna happen."

"Uh, Jen?" The shorter man gave her an uncertain look from under his shock of bright green hair. "Maybe we should..."

They never got a chance to find out what he thought they maybe should do, because Jen interrupted firmly, "This man is a suspect in an ongoing investigation. We're going to take him to our temporary base of operations for questioning, after which he'll be free to go."

Skyla scoffed outright at that, and the smirk that followed on Shane's face said she'd only beaten him to it. "You'll forgive us," she said, in a way that meant she didn't care one way or the other, "if one of our own gives us more cause to doubt than you do to believe."

Jen frowned at her, and Cam realized abruptly that she didn't have any idea who Skyla was. She was figuring it out too fast for the understanding to do him any good, though. He lunged forward as soon as he saw her hand go for the chronomorpher on her wrist, but he was too late.

Whatever she did made Skyla scream, twisting violently as she slammed into Shane and dissolved straight into his solid frame. He threw his head back and howled, fire limning his body, a transient halo that disappeared by the time his eyes opened and fixed on Jen. Cam blinked at the remnants of flame that flickered in his gaze.

"You could have just asked." The voice that ground out those words didn't sound like Shane's, and it was impossible to tell which of them was speaking right now.

It wasn't hard to tell who was raising Shane's hand, though. The fireball he was threatening was pure Shane, even if it was Skyla's power he had called upon to do it. He was completely practical in self-defense, while she tended more toward the elegant even in situations of necessity.

Jen mirrored his action, the symbol of her authority in place of a fireball in her hand. They faced off across the table, audience ignored but not forgotten. In a crunch, Jen drew her badge. Her three teammates drew their weapons.

"He's not going anywhere with you," Tori said. One of Jen's people tracked her with his weapon as she came to stand behind Shane, but she didn't so much as blink.

"Yeah, not unless you take all of us too," Dustin agreed. He flanked Shane on the other side, another Time Force weapon moving to follow him as the original team slid into position.

Cam didn't have to look to know that Blake was on Hunter's other side, forming a second triangle behind their own leader. But this wasn't a ninja fight, and even if Time Force was outnumbered they held the advantage of armament and environment. He didn't like the way it looked.

"Neutralize the accomplices," Jen said, too calm.

Miranda snatched Jen's own weapon out of its holster and turned it on her. "Call off your team." And in that moment, sibilant hiss or no, her voice sounded exactly like Jen's.

None of the ninjas waited to see if she would do it. Hunter said, "Weapons," just as Shane snapped, "Morphers," and the six of them swarmed the Time Force team. Cam lost track of anyone other than Hunter and Blake in the ensuing struggle.

He knew someone opened fire. It might have been Miranda. It might have been Jen's bodyguard, because Shane yelled like he'd been hit and a roar of something that sounded like fire shot out of the table behind them. He knew Hunter took a glancing blow to the head and the wolf snarled into existence without conscious thought.

He tore the bodyguard's gun out of his hand, vaguely aware of Dustin taking advantage of the man's surprise to tag team him. Two on one, then, except that Hunter was alone and he had no idea where Jen was. He came leaping over a chair to slam into Hunter's opponent, and the two of them were easily the smoothest fighting combination in the room because they practiced almost every day.

They were also the fighting combination knocked the farthest when the woman whose weapon Hunter had tried to grab retaliated. If she was human, she had something seriously enhancing her swing, because they both went flying and Cam felt something splinter beneath him as he landed. It knocked the wind out of him, and for a long moment all he could do was hope that whatever had broken wasn't him.

Then he heard Hunter's voice yelling, that was his name in the chaos, and something was burning. The wolf's flight instinct was overwhelming. There was fire all around him, he'd hit Shane's table, he couldn't breathe and his legs were weak with shock while the thick heavy scent of smoke smelled like panic-

He bolted right into Hunter's unwavering bulk. The fire followed, mocking him, and he was falling in a tangle of heat and fear, Hunter's voice still shouting in his ear. Change, he was yelling. Hold still, change back! Change back, Cam!

It was the worst idea he could think of and he couldn't think of much at all. The smell of singed fur was bitter and horrifying and if he changed that would be skin and he had to get it off. He thrashed against Hunter's restraint, trying to escape the hold, the fire, anything until Hunter's hand grabbed his muzzle and yanked his head back.

"Cam." The voice in his ears had lost its panicked edge, subsumed by a deadly seriousness that said his alpha would put him in his place if he didn't obey. "Human. Now."

With a terrified whimper, the human reappeared in place of the wolf. Hunter shoved him to the floor and pinned him there, covering Cam's body with his own, and for a brief instant the fire terror made him cringe. But rationality started to reassert itself almost immediately, human reason taking over from wolf instinct as he realized what Hunter was doing. Suffocate the flames.

What flames, his mind prompted a second later? Wouldn't he be able to tell if he was on fire? He sniffed experimentally, but the singed smell and the closeness of the smoke still made him wince away. If the air couldn't tell him, then surely his skin- ?

"Nobody move!" He could hear the yelling, but it almost didn't matter, coming as it did from some distance away. "Weapons down! Weapons down! Lucas, you too! Everyone drop your weapons!"

Okay? Hunter asked without speaking. His body was still pressed against Cam's, keeping him there on the floor. Protecting him.

Cam twitched, an experimental movement, just to make sure he could. Fine, he agreed. Banged up. Calm now.

"Don't move!" A new voice overrode the old, much closer, and it was Shane who answered.

"Unless you want this building to burn to the ground, you're gonna have to let me do what I'm doing!" Because Skyla controlled fire, and Shane channeled Skyla.

Cam didn't worry. Shane would put the fire out whether Eric let him or not, and the Silver Guardians weren't stupid enough to shoot a person who wasn't actively threatening anyone. Miranda had been right, then, that Wes had a contingent of soldiers outside just waiting to back Jen up.

How the Time Force team had managed to keep so many people inside their bubble of unfrozen time, though... that was an interesting question. As was the thought of what the coffee house patrons would see when time returned to normal. And what exactly Time Force was going to tell them--about the fire and the destroyed furniture if nothing else.

"Hey." And that was Eric's voice again, gruff instead of authoritative, even closer. "You all right here?"

Hunter pushed off of him reluctantly, and it was only then that Cam understood the question had been directed at them. "Got a little more respect for the girl with the backhand," Hunter muttered, reaching for Cam as he sat up. "You all right? Burns? Breaks?"

"Yeah, Katie can pack a punch." Eric wasn't going out of his way to help them, but he didn't have his weapon trained on them either and Cam could only think that was a good thing.

"Not--" Cam's hands tried to inspect his own back, and Hunter saw. "Not that I can tell," he said, even as Hunter pulled his arms away and turned him around.

The low whistle didn't come from Hunter. "We've got a medic outside," Eric offered. "I can get an ambulance here in--"

"It's okay," Hunter interrupted, but his voice wasn't completely steady. "Cam, can you lift your arms up for me?"

Cam didn't like the way that sounded. He did as he was told, though, and he didn't protest when he felt Hunter tugging his shirt up over his head. Mostly because the second it moved, he could tell how little of it was left. A fresh wave of smoke and char hit his nose and he flinched.

"Nice trick." Hunter's fingers were ghosting over his back now, then pressing more firmly against the skin when he didn't react. The pressure made him flinch, though, and the hands paused. "Okay?"

He shifted uncomfortably, well aware that he was getting more attention than he really needed. Tori had taken advantage of whatever was going on to come over and check on him, and Eric wasn't going away. "Fine," he muttered. "Just bruised, I think."

"I saw you hit the fire," Tori said worriedly, kneeling down next to Hunter. "You're not even burned. Is your fur like... your clothes?" She sounded skeptical, and with good reason. Tori had her own experiences with the the transmutation of physical effects from one form to another, and she knew how rarely clothes factored into it.

"No." Cam extricated himself from Hunter's concern as best he could, turning at least enough that he could regain some control of the situation. "The fire must have still been there when I changed, or my clothes wouldn't have burned."

Jen was down. That was the first thing he noticed as he got a good look at their little corner of the room. She had Miranda on one side and Wes on the other, and maybe it was Wes' inattention to the rest of his troops that was making this something less than the efficient police raid it had started out as. The rest of the Silver Guardians weren't overtly looking for instruction, but they weren't doing anything but checking the participants for injuries and shoving debris into a pile, either.

Not exactly a tactical backup force. On the other hand, Jen didn't look like she was in any shape to be taking advantage of backup, and no one else on her team was making any moves to reassert her leadership. Or to enforce her decisions.

"But it didn't burn you," Hunter was saying. Checking, Cam thought, for at least the third time. "You're okay?"

"Okay enough to be annoyed by you constantly asking me if I'm okay, yes," Cam informed him. Hunter would probably take that as a reassurance. Probably.

"What happened?" he continued, before he could find out for sure. It wasn't like he minded Hunter being a little concerned. "Are we all friends now, or is this just a temporary lull until the Silver Guardians try to take over Time Force's job?"

"We're not here to do anyone's job for them." Eric sounded the way he always seemed to look: like this was beneath him. "This" being anything work-related, or maybe just anything related to Time Force, since Cam had yet to see him in any other situation.

"Well, your timing is pretty convenient for a bunch of guys who just happened to be walking by on the street," Hunter sneered. Eric's attitude obviously didn't do anything for him, either.

"We're just making sure no one gets hurt," Eric snapped.

Hunter snorted. "Yeah, you've done a great job of that."

Eric eyed him. "Not you," he said. His vague gesture around the room could have meant anything, except that he followed up with, "We're here to protect the civilians."

"What happens to them when this goes back to normal?" Tori wanted to know.

"Ask Jen." Eric looked disgruntled, which wasn't exactly a new expression for him. "The time warp wasn't my idea."

"Jen's gonna be out of it for a few minutes," Shane's voice interrupted. "I guess those stunner things they carry are supposed to do more than just sting. I wouldn't have shot her twice if I'd realized what Miranda was throwing at me."

"It didn't knock you out," Tori said, taking the hand he offered to pull her up. "That guy--Lucas, right? He hit you pretty hard."

"I thought I knocked his gun away," Cam said, frowning as he glanced around the nearby floor space.

"Yeah, I got it." Hunter dangled it in front of his face with a small smirk. "I'm getting good at picking up after you."

"Make it a few seconds faster next time," Shane advised, holding out his hand to Cam. "He got me, but Skyla was pretty pissed and the energy didn't really go anywhere."

Cam reluctantly let Shane drag him to his feet. He wasn't happy about the prospect of walking around shirtless, but it didn't seem like he had a lot of choice in the matter. "I'll try harder to keep you from getting shot," he told Shane, "if you'll try harder to keep me from catching on fire."

Shane had the nerve to grin at him. "No offense, dude, but if you'd stop leaping into the middle of it I think that'd be a good start."

"He's right," Hunter agreed, standing up beside him and tugging off the flannel he'd been wearing over black long sleeves. "It's not like I expect you to know what danger is, but I thought at least the wolf had better sense."

He offered the flannel to Cam, who took it with a sigh. "How quickly the tables turn," he noted. "Since I didn't start the fire or provoke the woman with super strength, I'm at something of a loss to explain how this became my fault."

"You scared us," Hunter told him. "That's pretty much how."

Cam looked up from buttoning the shirt. He caught Hunter's serious gaze just as Dustin joined their group and asked, "Hey, is everyone all right?"

Blake was right behind him, which Cam assumed meant that Time Force was no longer trying to restrict their movements. Blake handed another one of the white coat weapons to Hunter while the rest of them reassured each other that they were fine. "The girl with the backhand gave hers to the guy Cam went after," Hunter's brother said under his breath. "He's still got it. But he's the only one."

"Yeah." Shane had obviously heard, because he held up the one he'd used on Jen. "Present from Miranda. We got two of their morphers, too."

"Which I'm sure they'd like back," Eric drawled, apparently not having wandered as far away as Cam had thought. "You've made your point. I don't think Jen's going to be taking anyone in tonight."

"Sorry, dude," Dustin said. At first Cam thought he was apologizing for Jen, or maybe for the trouble in general. But then he added, "I think we're gonna need assurance from someone else before we hand these over. I mean, you said it yourself... you're not here to do their job."

He was holding a blue chronomorpher, Cam realized. Glancing around their little group, he saw Shane with a weapon, Hunter with two, Dustin with a chronomorpher... and Tori with the other one. Shane had mentioned two morphers, and she'd gotten the second one. A green one. He couldn't help feel a twinge of annoyance at the Ranger who had made his color look bad.

"Suit yourself." Eric shrugged them off like it didn't matter to him, and Cam thought, not for the first time, that he and Wes were a particularly odd partnership.

The other half of that partnership was exhibiting all the solicitude that Eric didn't while he helped Jen up. She was leaning heavily on Wes, but he didn't seem to mind and she just wouldn't stay down. Her teammates were paying more attention to her than to the ninjas gathering around them, but she lifted her chin and looked Shane in the eye.

"This doesn't change anything," she told him, jaw clenching even as her voice wavered. Cam thought she was standing through sheer force of will. "You're a suspect, and it's my job to bring you in."

This earned her an immediate protest from her own teammate, the shorter morpher-less man with green hair--of course, Cam realized with a sigh--who was a little too earnest for his own good. "Jen, they could have knocked us all out," he told her. "And you heard this woman... she told you what Time Force is doing!"

The woman he was referring to stood next to Jen, but her arms were folded while Wes supported almost all of Jen's weight. "He's not a suspect if I confess," Miranda informed the Time Force leader. "And I did. I'm the one you're looking for, Jen. You have no legal authority to interfere with anyone else here."

"You didn't do anything," Jen insisted stubbornly.

"Saying it doesn't make it true," Miranda countered, glaring at her. "If you try to arrest him again, I'll go to your century and turn myself in before you can get there."

Jen pulled herself up a little straighter, holding onto Wes' elbow but mostly standing on her own. "Lucas," she said, not looking at Miranda. The waver was gone from her voice, and she was obviously recovering from whatever their weapons did.

The taller man, also morpher-less, held her gaze without a stated reply. Cam thought he could see something pass between them, though, the same kind of non-verbal communication that the wolves used. Their expressions were talking to each other.

"We're going to clean this up," Jen said aloud. "Then we're going to report: the records must have been wrong. There weren't any Karmanians here tonight."

No one moved except for Lucas, who shook his head slowly. He didn't contradict her, though, just made a cryptic remark that sounded like a warning. "Logan's too high up to cover for us anymore, Jen."

She pulled her arm away from Wes before she answered. "We can clean up our own messes."

It was the dark-skinned woman who replied this time. "We'll follow you anywhere, Jen. But there's no reason to go to prison for something that isn't wrong."

"No one is going to be arrested," Jen said fiercely. "There weren't any Karmanians here. The distortion we've been tracking was probably caused by one of the leftover trizerium shards. I'll write it up and that'll be the end of it."

"Haven't you been listening to me?" Miranda demanded. "What a coincidence that the first Karmanian sighting in years just happened to be at the beginning of the twenty-first century--and not just now, but here! They're onto you, Jen! They know all about the life you've been living in this time!"

Jen closed her eyes, and Cam glanced at Hunter. Hunter's wordless look conveyed more than a shrug would have. He might not be able to get across complicated concepts in the silent language of the pack, but given the context, his intent was clear enough. Who can figure time travelers?

Cam tried not to smile, because whatever was going down, it was clearly serious. At least, to them. To Hunter, it was just another opportunity to mock Cam for having done some time traveling himself, and to have come back without any more ability to articulate how it worked than he'd had when he left. For someone who knew everything--according to Hunter--this was quite an accomplishment.

"Look, tell whoever's monitoring you that the op went bad," Wes was saying. "You got injured, shot, whatever. You're staying here until you can travel, or until you find the real source of whatever it is you're tracking... it doesn't matter what you tell them. Just don't go back there until you've had a chance to regroup. Figure out what you're doing."

For a long moment Jen didn't open her eyes, let alone answer. Then, to Cam's surprise, she nodded once. "Okay." She opened her eyes, scanning the room with the same efficient gaze that she'd used since Cam had met her. "We've got to get this cleaned up first."

"Right." The woman with her clapped her hands together. "Fire, right? Stuff burned. Plus, that's what brought us here in the first place: the official ambulance report after the fire. It had your name on it," she told Shane apologetically. "That's how we knew you were here tonight."

"I'll rig the lights," the shorter man offered eagerly. "I can make it look like one of them fell right where you guys were sitting and caught someone's clothes or something."

"Hey, hey," Dustin protested. "Don't make the Talk Back look bad or anything. This wasn't their fault."

"No problem," the short guy promised. "It'll be a freak thing. I bet I can even get some kind of explosion in, something totally weird that no one could have prevented--"

"Just--" Jen interrupted with a quelling wave. "Try not to do any major damage, Trip."

"You got it!" The man's enthusiasm seemed unchecked.

"Katie," Jen said with a sigh.

The other woman was nodding as she turned away. "I'll stay with him," she called over her shoulder. "Don't worry."

Lucas scoffed, quietly enough that she might not hear. "Like they're any better together," he muttered.

"I heard that!" Katie exclaimed.

"If you're going to make it look like someone caught fire, make sure it's the wolf guy!" Lucas called, ignoring her indignation.

Cam raised his eyebrows, and Lucas didn't miss the look. "Cool moves, by the way." He smiled a suave smile in Cam's direction and moved in to hold out his hand. "I'm Lucas."

"Charming though the appellation 'wolf guy' may be," Cam said, glancing at his hand without reciprocating, "I prefer Cam."

The other man managed to look abashed, and Cam was aware of Hunter crossing his arms in irritation. "Sorry about that," Lucas told him. "You took me by surprise. I didn't mean to be rude."

Cam wasn't convinced of his sincerity, but he supposed it would look bad to refuse to shake his hand. He offered his own in return, and Hunter glared the whole time. It was hard to tell whether he was holding his own grudge for the "wolf guy" remark, or if he was just annoyed by the implications of Lucas' vaguely gay attitude.

Either way, his overt hostility didn't dampen the round of introductions that followed, or the flurry of activity that preceded the Silver Guardians' departure. It was widely agreed that their presence before the fire alarm went off would be suspicious, if not afterwards. Time Force, too, eventually withdrew, although not before ransoming their morphers and weapons with multiple assurances that Shane would no longer be a part of their investigation.

It wasn't until the track lighting came crashing down on the remnants of their table that Cam was sure they were really gone, and in that single instant of unnatural calm to chaos he didn't have much time to enjoy it. A fire did ensue as the room leapt back into motion around them, and Trip's "explosion" came in the form of sparks raining from the ceiling. It was enough to provoke screams, running, and the utter inability of anyone around them to notice that things in their vicinity had been destroyed before the lighting ever came near them.

Someone else pulled the fire alarm. Dustin managed to grab his saxophone as the coffee house emptied out, but they were all out on the street before even Cam could hear the sirens. He was grateful for Hunter's shirt in the cool air, and he was ever more appreciative as the minutes passed and he realized that they were probably going to end up giving statements before the night was over.

It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. They let Dustin do most of the talking, since a lot of the Talk Back patrons and staff seemed to know him, and he had a way of saying things that sounded exciting without being particularly specific. Usually Cam found it annoying. Tonight he was just as glad to stand back and listen.

They ended up giving their names several times, and Cam didn't know what kind of records they had in the future but he could see how Jen's team might have noticed Shane's name in their "historical" files. He saw Jen herself before the requisite ambulance left, her white uniform looking more out of place than ever without her team around her, and he wandered in her direction as casually as he could. He assumed this was the same Jen they'd just been conspiring with inside the coffee house. He didn't really have any way of knowing.

"I'm sorry about all of this," she said quietly, when he got close enough to talk.

Cam didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't answer.

She didn't seem to expect him to. "I'd say that we don't usually bring our problems with us in such dramatic fashion," she mused, a tired smile tugging at her expression, "but that would be a lie. This--" She waved at the flashing lights and first responders and the crowd of people just milling in front of the Talk Back. "Is actually pretty typical of us."

Cam considered the scene for a long moment, then cast a sideways glance at her. "I know what you mean," he admitted, and her smile brightened a little.

"It's true, then, that all Ranger teams tend to destroy as much as they save?" she murmured. It sounded like a rhetorical question, but Cam couldn't let it pass.

"I think the ratio must be skewed slightly in our favor," he said. "Or we wouldn't get to keep the morphers as long as we do."

That made her smile fade. "Well," she said, squaring her shoulders. "Maybe it's time to give mine up."

He blinked. "Because of this?" He took another look, but in the grand scheme of Ranger destruction, it wasn't really that bad. The building was still standing, after all.

"No," she said, then she hesitated. "Sort of. Not because of what happened. But why it happened? It's probably going to be a race, me and them, to see whether they can fire me before I quit or if it's going to be the other way around."

Cam shook his head. "I don't understand what you're doing," he told her. "But for whatever it's worth, I think you made the right decision tonight."

"Yeah." Jen just kept staring at the building, or at the people milling in front of it, he couldn't tell. "Thanks." From her tone, it wasn't worth much. But according to Hunter, there were some things that had to be said.

He was about to head back into the crowd--find Hunter, maybe get some kind of update on their estimated time of departure--when Jen's voice stopped him. She sounded suddenly thoughtful, and it made him look at her in surprise when she used his name. "Can I ask you a question, Cam?"

He didn't have to think about it, but he did. Just for a second. "Sure."

"Trip says you have a tattoo." She was looking at him, an odd expression on her face. Maybe familiar, maybe just rueful, he couldn't tell. "He said I should ask you what it means."

Cam frowned, wondering how Trip could possibly know that. Then the sleeves of Hunter's flannel brushed soft and worn against his wrists as he moved, and he remembered. Of course. He'd taken off his shirt... or had it taken off for him. Anyone could have seen the Japanese characters inked on his left shoulder blade.

"Just so you know," he said, as mildly as he could, "I'm tempted to tell you it's none of your business."

Strangely, that made her smile. "Yeah. I get that a lot when I try to follow up on Trip's weird intuition. But he hasn't been wrong yet."

When he still didn't answer, she added, "If it's too personal, that's fine. I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

"No," he said slowly, studying her. "I'm just trying to figure out what possible intuitive value my tattoo could have for you."

She laughed, and it was so odd to hear that sound coming from her that he thought maybe he should tell her just for that. So Jen did know how to laugh, all appearances to the contrary. Maybe there was hope for her and Miranda after all.

Then he remembered what her future self had told him: Miranda is my sister. He wondered if maybe she had had a reason for wanting him to know that, and he just hadn't figured out what it was yet. Maybe he never would. But her first piece of information had made Hunter ready to stop him when running was the worst thing he could have done, so he wasn't ready to disregard the second.

"Family," he told her. "The tattoo on my shoulder means 'family' in Japanese."

It was Jen's turn to look surprised, for once, and he smiled to himself. He'd bet he could strengthen that expression. "You told me you and Miranda are sisters," he said idly. "Maybe Trip thinks you should know that there are people in the world who believe the family we choose is the strongest bond there is."

Jen just stared at him, skepticism and chagrin and yes, there was that flash of anger, all in her expression at once. But all she managed to say was, "I told you we were sisters?"

His involvement with time travel seemed destined to come in loops that had no clear beginning or end, no logical cause or effect. It was enough to drive the scientist in him crazy. Fortunately--or not, sometimes--the wolf was the practical foil to his abstract human self. And the wolf told him to get over it.

"You said it was a couple of weeks from now, for you," he said. "You caught me and Hunter right before we went into the coffee shop. You told us who Miranda is. And," he added, "you told me about the fire, that I should change out of my wolf form the moment it started to burn.

"You said," he continued, eyeing her, "that your team could keep a secret."

She frowned, but she didn't outright reject his explanation. She had probably heard--and seen--stranger things. "We can," she said at last. "If anyone in my time knew what you were, it would have shown up in our research already. We won't alter thousand-year-old records."

That was probably the best he would get from her, and it was better than he'd expected. "Thank you," he said simply.

Hunter found him not long afterward and made him submit to an EMT appraisal to insure he hadn't suffered injuries the coffee house could be held liable for. Like he would blame them in any case, but Hunter told him the police wanted to know. It was just one more thing he didn't really care about right now.

"Can we go now?" he muttered, when they finally got a moment alone. He looked around for Jen again, but she had disappeared. Smart woman.

"Maybe when I get tired of seeing you in something that's so not your color," Hunter replied lightly. He smiled at the look Cam gave him and rested a hand on the small of his back. "Right, yeah. Let's get out of here."

It was just Blake and Tori waiting for them. Dustin and Shane had already left: back to Dustin's place, Tori said. Just in case. Miranda had disappeared in the initial chaos, which, since she didn't officially exist in this time, had probably been a good idea.

Tori gave them a lift back to their apartment building. There was nothing in the truck they couldn't live without until morning, and the mountains weren't exactly on the way. After she and Blake said their goodbyes, Hunter used Cam's phone to try to get through to someone on the guard rotation. No one out there had any service either, of course, and there wasn't anyone helpful at the community center with the hunt going on, but their inability to contact replacements didn't keep them from ditching the duty.

"I don't mind hiking in the dark," Hunter declared, handing Cam's phone back to him, "but I draw the line at pitching a tent at twelve-thirty in the morning."

"You won't get any argument from me." Cam would have drawn the line at pitching a tent ever if it hadn't gotten them so much goodwill with the pack.

Hunter was yawning as he leaned back against the counter, making his followup seem more innocent than it might have otherwise. "What if I asked you to let me see the wolf?"

Cam still didn't know how to answer. He dropped down onto the couch in the living room with a sigh, not even sure what the question was. "Why?" he asked. He rested his head against the back cushions so he could stare up at the ceiling.

Hunter's answer, when it came, wasn't at all what he'd expected. But then, when had it ever been? The man couldn't be predictable if his life depended on it.

"I want to see what your coat looks like," he said. "You must have at least singed it."

Cam didn't lift his head, content in his silent commiseration with the ceiling. "What's the point?" he wondered. "I couldn't feel it. It didn't hurt. Whatever it looks like, it'll grow back."

"The point is there doesn't have to be a point." Hunter sounded vaguely irritated, but that might have been the exhaustion talking. "You can just be a wolf for no reason. You don't have to have a reason to be human."

"That's because I am human," Cam told the ceiling.

"And you're a wolf," Hunter pointed out. "Deal with it."

In retrospect, he probably should have seen that coming. "I'm dealing," he replied. "This is me dealing." He put his hands behind his head, then moved them further back so his head wasn't lifted up too far. He didn't really feel like looking at anything right now.

He could hear Hunter coming, but he wasn't prepared to see him kneel down beside the couch and wait for Cam to turn his head to meet his steady blue gaze. "Deal better," he said quietly.

There weren't a lot of people he would have taken that from. In fact, it was possible that there was only one. From this particular person, though, he knew it was a request as much as a command, an invitation to meet him somewhere that Hunter couldn't go without him.

Inasmuch as the words were an admission of need, they were something he couldn't find it in himself to ignore.

The coffee table hadn't been moved back yet, and there was plenty of room for him to slide off the couch and join Hunter on the floor. Hunter didn't say anything when he shifted into wolf form, but Cam could tell from his expression that something was different. When Hunter ran his fingers through the wolf's fur, he could feel it.

Too thin, too stiff, almost crisp over his right shoulder and extending halfway down his back. He could only feel the change in the heavy thickness of his coat when Hunter's hand pressed against it, closer to the skin than usual and making the fur that was left itch and crackle faintly. The sound made him flinch, barely audible though it was.

"Want me to clean this up for you?" Hunter murmured.

He lowered his head in careful, wordless agreement. The floor was suddenly looking a lot more comfortable. He settled himself on the carpet while Hunter got up, probably going to get scissors, and he laid his head across his paws with some measure of satisfaction. This idea was looking better and better.

He was a little surprised to open his eyes and realize he'd been dozing when Hunter knelt down beside him again. Not that he hadn't been ready to sleep, but the time that had passed couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Even if Hunter did have scissors, a comb, a brush, and a damp towel, the practical application of which he really couldn't fathom.

Hunter didn't explain, and he didn't protest. The sound of the scissors was a little unnerving, but this was Hunter, after all, and he found his eyes closing again after just a few minutes. The brush was as soothing as ever, even over the thinner patches of fur. He woke at the feeling of the comb a couple of times, but mostly he just drifted in a haze of trusting warmth.

Then Hunter started to run the towel over his back, and he blinked his eyes open at the unfamiliar sensation. Not that Hunter had never helped him dry off before, but this wasn't a typical rubdown. Soft, deliberate strokes that lifted his fur in the wrong direction, encouraging warmth--and removing some of the loose clipped hair, he realized after a moment. The towel removed some of the itchiness, and for that he was grateful.

"Okay," Hunter said at last, his tone quiet. His hand rested on Cam's shoulder, and he squeezed gently. "You awake?"

He tilted his head enough that he could see Hunter out of one eye, and he got a smile for his effort. "You're all set," Hunter told him. "Still looks a little funny, but at least the black's gone."

The black. The burned, he meant. Feels better, Cam said silently.

"Good." Hunter gave his shoulder a little push, like he was shaking him awake. "Get up and come to bed?"

Cam sighed. He was perfectly comfortable here. Must I?

"Yeah," Hunter said, smiling again. "You'll bitch and moan about sleeping on the floor in the morning if you don't."

He gave Hunter the hairy eyeball.

"And," Hunter continued as though he hadn't paused, "I don't feel like sleeping alone, and I'm not going to spend the night out here."

Mmm. Bed with Hunter. It was a moderately convincing argument. Moreso was the fact that Hunter probably wouldn't leave him alone until he moved. So he rolled to his feet, giving a single all-over shake and then a couple of smaller shrugs to get his fur to settle back in place. It was sufficient.

The wolf padded slowly across the apartment, not bothering to watch while Hunter picked up his things and put them away. The towel went in with the laundry, and finally the human was coming into the bedroom. Cam stopped waiting and leapt up onto the bed. He would take his usual side, and Hunter could do whatever he wanted.

What Hunter wanted, as it turned out, was for him to not sleep on top of the covers. He didn't have anything to say about the wolf itself, but he wasn't thrilled with the idea of half the covers being pinned under an immovable object. So, grumbling, Cam jumped down again and waited for him to open up the bed.

He retook his side while Hunter was turning off the light he'd used to assess the bed situation. The rustle of clothes made his ears twitch, and he waited quietly. When Hunter yanked the covers away from him a moment later, Cam smiled to himself. He hadn't put his sweatpants on.

"'Night, wolf," Hunter muttered, breaking his silence on the subject for the first time as he settled in next to him. "Don't bite in your sleep."

Cam twisted his head all the way around and pressed his muzzle against Hunter's bare shoulder. Curling his lip deliberately, he let his teeth graze the skin. He heard the soft huff of amusement, and he could feel the muscles shift as Hunter reached out to rub his knuckles against Cam's back.

"Love you too," Hunter murmured, a smile in his voice.

Cam licked his shoulder before he turned away again, tucking his head up against the pillow. He had Hunter tonight. There would be time for everything else tomorrow.