“Ahrrrr.” My husband Adam’s voice traveled up the stairs. “Gold and women and grog!” He didn’t play often, but when he did, he played full throttle and immersed.

“Gold and women and grog!” echoed a chorus of men’s voices.

“Would you listen to them?” said Mary Jo scornfully. “Give me a man who knows what to do with what the good Lord gave him instead of these clueless scallywags who run at the first sight of a real woman.”

“Ahrrrr,” agreed Auriele, while Jesse giggled.

“Swab the decks, ye lubbers, lest you slide in the blood and crack your four-pounders,” I called. “And whate’er ye do, don’t trust Barbary Belle at your back.”

There was a roar of general agreement, and Jesse giggled again.

“And, Captain Larson,” I said, addressing Adam—my mate had taken the name from Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf—“you can have gold, and you can have grog. You go after another woman, and you’ll be pulling back a stub.”

There was a little silence.

“Argh,” said Adam with renewed enthusiasm. “I got me a woman. What do I need with more? The women are for my men!”

“Argh!” roared his men. “Bring us gold, grog, and women!”

“Men!” said Auriele, sweet-voiced. “Bring us a few good men.”

“Stupidheads,” growled Honey. “Die!”

There was a general outcry because, apparently, several someones did.

I laughed my way out the door.

After a moment’s thought, I took Adam’s SUV. I was going to have to figure out what to do for a daily driver. My beloved Vanagon Syncro was getting far too many miles put on her, and her transmission was rare and more precious than gold on the secondary market. I’d been driving her ever since my poor Rabbit had been totaled, and the van was starting to need more and more repairs. I’d looked at an ’87 Jetta with a blown engine a few days ago. They wanted too much for it, but maybe I’d just have to pony up.

The SUV growled the couple of miles to the convenience store that was ten miles closer to home than any other store open at this hour of the night. The clerk was restocking cigarettes and didn’t look up as I passed him.

I picked up two dozen overpriced eggs and three equally overpriced bags of chocolate chips and set them on the counter. The clerk turned away from the cigarettes, looked at me, and froze. He swallowed hard and looked away—scanning the bar codes on the eggs with a hand that shook so much that he might save me the effort of cracking the shells myself.

“You must be new?” I suggested, running my ATM card in the reader.

He knew who I was without knowing the important things, I thought.

I found the limelight disconcerting, but I was slowly getting used to it. My husband was Alpha of the local pack; he’d been a household name in the Tri-Cities since the werewolves first revealed their existence a few years ago. When we’d married, I’d gotten a little of his reflected glory, but after helping to fight a troll on the Cable Bridge a couple of months ago, I had become at least as well-known as Adam. People reacted differently to the reality of werewolves in the world. Sensible people stayed a certain length back. Others were stupidly friendly or not-so-stupidly afraid. The new guy obviously belonged to the latter group.