I’d have to wait until Samuel got back from work. Until then, maybe I’d just keep a good hold on the walking stick and hope for the best.

I stayed out on the little rocky beach watching the river in the moonlight as long as I dared. But if I didn’t get back before Ben realized I was gone, he’d call out the troops. And I just wasn’t in the mood for a pack of werewolves.

I stood up, stretched, and started the long run back home.

WHEN I ARRIVED AT MY BACK DOOR, BEN WAS PACING back and forth in front of it uneasily. When he saw me, he froze—he’d started realizing something was wrong, but until he saw me, he hadn’t been sure I wasn’t there. His upper lip curled, but he didn’t quite manage a snarl, caught as he was between anger and worry, dominant male protective instincts and the understanding that I was of higher rank.

Body language, when you know how to read it, can be more expressive than speech.

His frustration was his problem, so I ignored him and hopped through the dog door—much, much too small for a wolf—and straight to my bedroom.

I changed out of my coyote form, grabbed underwear and a clean T-shirt, and headed for bed. It wasn’t horribly late—our date had been very short, and my run hadn’t taken much longer. Still, morning came soon, and I had a car to work on. And I had to be in top form to figure out just how to approach Samuel so he wouldn’t tell Adam what I was asking.

Maybe I should just call his father instead. Yes, I decided. I’d call Bran.

I WOKE UP WITH THE PHONE IN MY EAR—AND THOUGHT for a moment that I’d completed the task I’d decided upon before falling asleep, because the voice in my ear was speaking Welsh. That didn’t make any sense at all. Bran wouldn’t speak freaking Welsh to me, especially not on the phone, where foreign languages are even harder to understand.

Muzzily, I realized I could still almost remember hearing the phone ring. I must have grabbed it in the process of waking up—but that didn’t explain the language.

I blinked at the clock—I’d been asleep less than two hours—and about that time I figured out whose voice was babbling to me.

“Samuel?” I asked. “Why are you speaking Welsh? I don’t understand you unless you talk a lot slower. And use small words.” It was kind of a joke. Welsh never seems to have small words.

“Mercy,” he said heavily.

For some reason my heart started beating hard and heavy, as if I were about to get some very bad news. I sat up.

“Samuel?” I addressed the silence on the other end of the phone.

“Come get—”

He fumbled the words, as if his English were very bad, which it wasn’t and never had been. Not as long as I’d known him—which was most of my thirty-odd years of life.