"I'm a werewolf, not a Chihuahua."

Clay had protested against my plan, but as usual, it hadn't dissuaded me. We now crept through the woods a second time, fifty yards west of our original path, and I glanced down, trying to stifle my snicker. Clay had only agreed to the friendly, decorative bandana around his neck for the same reason I'd suggested it: if he looked like my pet, I'd have an excuse for walking in the woods, and he would be right beside me for protection. But if I rubbed it in too much, he'd ditch it and go back to looking like the guard he was.

We skirted the sentry's position in near silence, thanks to a recent rain, and when the gang became visible between the trees, we crouched behind a fallen log.

As far as I could see and smell, all were human, except for the deer they'd hung between two trees and were steadily picking away at. They laughed and seemed to egg each other on like family. While many bore some resemblance to each other, the group still had a wide sample of various ethnicities.

Suddenly, a leather-clad man stood still and smelled the air. Then he turned and looked the direction we had come before. His gaze began sweeping the woods, and I ducked down to watch him through the weeds under the log. He missed us. He hardly glanced upwind, as if he knew he'd smell more if we were there. He started saying something to the others, and the camp fell silent. Then he cut himself off, and the entire camp faced the campground center. Suddenly, without a word, half of them tore into the woods away from us, disappearing with almost as much sound as Clay and I would make.

The leader smelled the air again, once again scanning the woods and missing us.

Beside me, Clay glanced up at my face. I wrapped my cool fingers into his thick, warm fur.

Three minutes later, most of the group returned, along with two more men, neither of which fit the biker motif; both wore khakis and polos and carried a professional air I was sorely tempted to trust. I knew better; mode of dress is rarely a good indication of trustworthiness. Just look at politicians.

Without preamble, one of the newcomers turned to the leader and raised his voice. "Rennie, you've got to stop this. The FBI have been on your heels for over a week. They're going to close in within a couple days."

The leader shrugged and said something soft enough I couldn't hear.

I pointed to another fallen log closer to the camp and a little left of our position. Clay reluctantly agreed to move.

As we crept closer, I heard the newcomer's angry response. "You can't just convert every federal agent who comes after you!"

Settled behind the closer log, I finally heard the leader's rough voice. "Why not?"

"Besides that it's wrong? You've got a wealth of resources tracking your every move, when you could have them tracking Ontongard."

"And what good are humans going to do against Ontongard?" He sounded bored, as if reciting an old script.

"The cult did well enough. They taught us things you never knew."

"Yes, humans tracked and killed Ontongard." He stared at the newcomer, who wilted slightly in spite of his confident exterior. Rennie was definitely the Alpha. "In your fantasy, what happens to Ru? Or to Indigo or Ukiah?" When he paused, I knew the names were dear to them both. "Or to Kittanning?"

The second newcomer stepped forward. "Indigo and I have discussed this. We can handle the backlash. And we can certainly hide Kittanning. It'd be worth it—"

Beside me, I felt Clay stiffen. His low growl rumbled against my fingertips. I spun around.

There, as still and silent as any of the surrounding trees, was the gunman, his pistol once again leveled in my direction. Clay's growl turned more vicious.

Without a word, the man lowered his gun and hauled me off the ground by my arm.

Clay went wild. He snapped at the man's arm and legs, but with the same calm, the man swung his free arm once and sent my 180-pound wolf companion careening into the forest floor several feet away. I leapt to check him, but the gunman held me tight and half-carried me into the clearing with the firelight.

The three men had stopped talking, in favor of watching the gunman and me. I tensed. These people didn't smell like werewolves, and they didn't act like my Pack did. But their conversation would make sense if they were; the FBI would be after us if they knew how many we'd killed. Converting them into more werewolves would be an interesting way to confront them, immoral but probably effective. And I knew no other groups who distinguished themselves from humans. But without the scent?

Rennie stepped toward me first, and the gunman let go. "Don't run, or we'll have to chase you."

I knew that feeling. Prey instinct was almost impossible to fight. They were werewolves.

"Don't hurt her," the first newcomer demanded.

Rennie ignored him, brushing a finger across my cheek. I felt my face crinkle in distaste. Then I realized he had had about as much emotion doing it as I did thumbing through a phone book. At first. When he finished, he rubbed his fingers together as if oily, studying some nonexistent substance from my skin. "Interesting." He turned to the newcomers but said nothing.

"I'm not touching her." The newcomer's tone implied he had more decency than that.

They stared at each other for a minute, and he finally gave in to his Alpha. Instead of brushing my cheek, though, he offered a handshake. Not seeing that I had a choice, I took it.

"I'm Agent Atticus Steele. My partner and I are going to make sure you get home safely."

His partner and he. Not we. He thought the rest of his Pack might hurt me.

Agent Steele continued, "What were you doing out here this late, anyway?"

"Walking my…" I glanced back and saw that Clay had gone. I'd been pretty sure he was going to be all right. But he wasn't the only one I was worried about. "Your man, he bit him." I looked around my other shoulder, expecting to see the man passed out. He wasn't. How long had it been before I had when Clay bit me? Several minutes.

"Something wrong?" Agent Steele wondered.

"My dog bit your man. He's going to be sick."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Steele cooed.

"No—" I cut myself off. It wasn't as though these men could do anything. A hospital wouldn't change whether he died in sickness or lived to become a werewolf. Unless he already was. But no one here smelled like it. They smelled of human and wolf and something else but not werewolf. I swallowed my fear. "You're right."

Steele turned back. "Can we round up her dog?"

"He knows how to get home." After all, when he got back to his clothes, he'd have the car keys.

Steele shook his head. "There are wolves out there. Your dog won't stand a chance."

"He's probably already started back."

"We'll find him," a gruff voice behind me said. I glanced back and saw the gunman disappear into the trees. Damn. Well, either they would or they wouldn't. At least the guy after Clay could pass out before he found him.

"Thanks." I couldn't keep the sarcasm from my voice.

"Well, what do you think?" Rennie asked.

"I'm not going to talk about her like she's not here," Steele retorted.

"Fine." The Alpha turned his gaze to me. "This is the second time we smelled you around here. What were you looking for?"

"I was just curious."

He cocked his head in disbelief. "You were the one Bear had us scare off, weren't you?"

"What?"

"The almost white wolf. That was you."

I was certain my expression gave me away. Nobody guesses werewolves exist. Even if someone sees us Change, they always attribute it to a hallucination. No one just guesses it with only the disconnected incidents he'd seen.

I found my tongue still attached to my mouth. "What're you talking about?"

I glanced to the FBI agent behind him, hoping to see shock or disbelief. Steele looked only mildly confused, but the Asian man he came with, his partner, looked befuddled. But not enough to dare to say more with the Alpha around.

Rennie smiled. "We'll keep your secret, Miss. Don't worry. As soon as your 'dog' comes back, we'll take you home. You up for that, Boy?"

Agent Steele frowned before he answered. "I said we would."

"Good." Rennie backed off, turning to the deer and busying himself preparing a chunk. My stomach growled.

Steele turned back to his Alpha. "We're not done, Rennie."

"We are in front of her unless you're willing to leave Ru out, too."

"I'm not playing mind games."

Although the two fell silent, the body language carried on with an unspoken escalation.

Steele's voice broke out loud again, "We're in the middle of the woods with one, maybe two, confused civilians, miles away from anyone else, with the FBI hours from finding your location. You don't need tactical advantages to your communication—you need a plan of action, one that gets you allies instead of three Bureaus of enemies!"

Rennie glanced to me, but for once, this was a fight I wanted no part of.

"That's bullshit!" Steele accused out of the blue. "Indigo, Ru, and Kyle all support you. The Temple of New Reason would have if you'd told them you were angels." He shrugged. "As much as I hate you, I'm still here."

"Don't forget, Boy: you can feel them. Would you have believed us if you didn't?"

"They did."

What, like they had some secret harder to believe than werewolves?

Rennie's glare turned to me. Maybe my soft snort was louder than I thought. "Something to share?"

"You think I'm a wolf, and you think you have something harder to believe?"

The silent partner smiled. "Yes, we do."

That shut me up quick.

Rennie stalked up behind me. "Why did you come looking for us?"

"I didn't. I was walking—"

"Hellena is tracking your trail. She's about a half mile out but says it's taking her toward the road, not the nearby cottages."

I'd been watching him since they noticed me, and no one had told him any such thing! "You're making that up!"

"He's not." Agent Steele's eyes looked almost sorrowful.

Damn. I'd seen a lot of weird things in my life; I might as well take this on faith. If my Pack had a low-level telepathic field, maybe this Pack had a full-fledged one. Somehow. "Fine. We were driving down the road. I smelled deer cooking—no one roasts deer like that in this area. I stopped to look."

"At which point, you came from downwind. When you encountered Bear, you doubled back and came at us crosswind. Most barbeque guests actually ask for food." He stepped back, cut a piece of roasted meat from the deer, and held it just out my reach. "One venison steak for one answer."

My stomach thought it a good deal. If the guy already guessed what I was, I could answer him now and later claim to be playing into his delusions. It's not like the information could hurt us. "Bear Valley was buzzing about the Pack being nearby."

Agent Steele shot Rennie an I-told-you-so glare.

"So what?" the Alpha asked.

"Their descriptions didn't match my Pack. You're in our territory."

He grinned. "What are you going to do about it?"

I held my hand out for the steak, but he shook his head. My stomach protested. "Nothing. You're not like us, so it's none of our business. You're not subject to our ethics. I just wish you wouldn't give us a bad name."

"We had it first."

"Want to bet?"

"1863."

"20 BC." I held out my hand again, as if I should be rewarded for belonging to the older organization. He dropped the steak into it, and I chowed down.

The woods rustled, and we all spun to face it. The gunman lumbered back out, holding Clay by the scruff of his neck and by his butt, claws pointed out and back against his chest. The man made lifting a 180-pound wolf look easy, despite the lacerations on his arms and face. Neither one looked happy. "I tried not to hurt him," he told me, and his eyes continued to communicate to his Alpha.

"No, listen," Steele demanded, obviously responding to something I missed. He looked me in the eye. "Who is that wolf to you?"

"I told you: my dog."

Rennie broke in. "Hellena found a man's clothes, ID says Clayton Danvers." He recited our address, as if from memory. "We're not picking up a fifth scent. There's a wedding ring, too. He your husband or lover?"

I hesitated; they weren't buying my story. That wasn't exactly new, but I'd never met anyone so insistent on believing the truth. "Lover."

"And what does Mrs. Danvers think?"

"Mrs. Danvers rescinded her yes when Mr. Danvers bit her."

Rennie chuckled. Somehow, he found this all amusing.

Steele broke in again. "And if he's a Get?"

"The Ontongard won't see this coming. Maybe we should Get them both."

That didn't make any sense to me, but I still didn't like the sound of it.

"Here's an idea," the silent partner added. "What if we take them both back to the hotel, treat them to dinner for all the trouble you've caused them, and if they're fine in the morning, we'll take off?"

I frowned. I'd been worried about Clay turning their gunman into a werewolf. Were they worried that their gunman had turned Clay into something else? Was that even possible?

"There might be something better. Werewolves don't go unnoticed by roaming National Parks. I bet you live on a large, private chunk of land authorities can't enter without probable cause."

My appetite disappeared suddenly. "I'm staying in a hotel. When I'm not visiting Bear Valley, I rent an apartment in Toronto." Six months ago, that was true. Except for the hotel.

Rennie wasn't buying it. "That address—everyone remember where it is? Let's pack up." He turned back to me. "Hellena's bringing your car around."

The gang disappeared, tearing down camp as quickly and effectively as if it had never been there. The gunman set Clay down beside me, and I glanced at his arms. Light swaths traced where blood had flowed, but it had stopped and dried, and I wondered if Clay had only managed to graze him. Clay, on the other hand, casually favored one of his back legs, keeping it lifted barely off the ground. His fur was matted with blood and crawled with bugs and sticks, but he seemed to only be bruised. I bent down to check him, anyway.

Agent Steel stood nearby, watching the bustle of activity. The mostly silent partner squatted on Clay's other side, eliciting a very threatening growl.

I curled my fingers into the ruff at Clay's neck. "These two aren't going to hurt us."

Clay's growl softened a little, but he kept his rump against my thigh; me holding his neck wasn't enough.

The partner smiled. "Hi, I'm Ru."

"Not Agent someone?"

He shrugged. "I save my title for official business. The DEA has no beef with the Pack—this Pack. Well, the Dog Warriors."

I frowned. "Then where do the FBI come in?"

"With the kidnappings, mostly. Some with the arson, assault, buglary, auto theft, yadda, yadda, yadda."

My eyes widened until I realized that we'd done most of those, too. Maybe not arson. Still, it was not a good feeling being on the other end of the control situation.

"How much land do you really have?"

I almost answered when the real problem hit me. "Shit! Jeremy!" Oh, this was not going to go over well!

"What's wrong?"

"It's not my house. It's our Alpha's house. I saw your guy bring Clay back like a puppy, but that's not going to stop Clay or Jeremy from fighting until you're off the property."

Agent Steele turned back to us. "Rennie's planning to address it." He knelt down, too. "Look, you need to understand there's nothing you can do to hurt us." Suddenly, he picked something out of Clay's fur, snapping his hand back to avoid being bitten. At first, I thought he'd recovered a tick; we found them sometimes and dealt with them after the Change. Instead, it was a ladybug that flew from his hand toward the bustling Pack. "We're not what you think we are."

"Then what are you?"

"Rennie's right. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. "

A/N A little extra dialogue we couldn't hear from Elena's perspective.

"I'm not playing mind games," Atticus insisted. Not that it ever made a difference.

These aren't games.

Stay out of my head!

Rennie shook his head, as if Atticus were a lost cause, as always. Give up your idea of sanctity of thought and realize the tactical advantage of—

"We're in the middle of the woods with one, maybe two, confused civilians, miles away from anyone else, with the FBI hours from finding your location. You don't need tactical advantage to your communication—you need a plan of action, one that gets you allies instead of three Bureaus of enemies!"

No human would offer us help.

"That's bullshit!"

Bear stepped out of the woods, holding the blonde wolf like a bad dog. Blood seeped from the fresh wounds on his arms and face, but it would stop soon. I don't know how much of my blood he got.

Rennie frowned. The evening couldn't get that much worse. We may have to put him down. It was far from ideal, but they didn't need another Get, especially one that could be as much of a wildcard as a werewolf. Then again, he couldn't be any worse than Coyote, the full wolf from whom the Pack was descended.

You could at least give him a chance to survive, Hellena put in, his voice of compassion, as always.

"No, listen," Atticus demanded, not even listening to Hellena. He turned to the werewolf in human form. "Who's that wolf to you?"