“Yeah, well…” Wade stretched; Drake could hear his ten-dons creaking and lengthening. Their Change was very close. Luckily, adolescence was far behind them both; they would stay well in control. “The new alpha gal, Jeannie, she heard about—uh—she noticed that none of the pack—uh—”

“Was cursed with a devastating handicap?” he asked pleasantly. He tapped his cane for emphasis.

Wade coughed. “Anyway, she hit the fucking roof when Michael told her the score, and they pissed and moaned about it for, like, a damn month, during which time our fearless leader was so not getting laid. Finally Michael said it wasn’t an automatic; it would be up to the parents. They both had to agree.”

Drake was silent. For the pack, this was forward thinking indeed. Handicaps were so rare they were nearly unheard of, and when a pack member was born blind or deaf or whatever, it had been tradition since time out of mind that the sire killed the cub. The dam was usually too weak from whelping but was almost always in agreement.

His sire, however, had died in Challenge before his birth, and his mother had wanted him. She had hidden him away at the time so the well-meaning pack leader, Michael’s father, couldn’t find him and kill him. She had raised him defiantly and heartlessly—absolutely no quarter given or asked.

Drake had eventually left the pack on his own, made his way to Boston, and made a life among humans. Here, at least, he could hold his own. Humans didn’t care about Challenges. They didn’t even know about them.

“Well, maybe I will pay them a visit,” he lied. “It’s been a long time.” Michael hadn’t even been pack leader when he’d left…Moira had been a precocious brat, one of the few who’d tried to talk him out of leaving.

No. Done was done.

“A long time?” Wade was saying. “Yeah, like about twenty years. It’s a little different now. Michael’s a modern dude. No one will fuck with you.”

“Thanks for passing on the news. But I didn’t leave because I was afraid of being fucked with.”

“You did win all your Challenges,” Wade admitted.

“I left because I was never allowed to be myself.”

“You think you’re allowed that here? In Monkey Central?”

He shrugged. Loneliness was such a central factor of his life, he barely recognized it anymore. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, think it over. I know Jeannie’d like to meet you. If nothing else, to be proved right. She lives for that shit.” This was said in a tone of grudging admiration.

“We’ll see.”

Drake heard Wade inhale and stretch again. “Fine, be a stubborn ass, I don’t care. Better beat feet out of here. Gonna be a long one. Last night of the full moon.”

“Happy trails,” he said dryly. “Again, try not to eat anyone.”