Wolfblood

Chapter 5

As I lean my bike against the porch rail, I give a hesitant sniff. A strange scent wraps around this house, smelling like wet fur and the wild. It makes my hair stand on end, more so than its usual style.

"Do you smell that?" I ask Noah as we make our way up to the front door.

"That's Quil," he tells me. "He smells a bit funny, but he's cool."

I wearily knock on the front door. The scent is not familiar to me, but something about it sets my instincts on edge. Some humans are like that. He could be a hunter, but he doesn't smell like gunpowder.

A man I am unfamiliar with opens the door, a smile lighting his face.

"You must me Ryan and Noah," he greets, swinging the door wide for us to enter. "I'm Sam. Everyone is in the kitchen; you made it just in time."

I take his offered hand, giving it a small shake before following the older man through the small, homey house.

A woman comes to meet us as soon as we turn the corner, and I'm momentarily surprised by the gruesome scars twisting one side of her face.

"I'm so glad you found the place alright. I'm Emily, Claire's aunt. Her mother couldn't make it tonight so I'm afraid it's just us. This is my son, Harry, and this is Quil."

My eyes pass absently over the young boy, probably just a few years younger Noah, and then stall on Quil. I still don't know his relation to the family. Emily only mentioned being the aunt of Claire. This house is covered in his scent, so he obviously comes here a lot.

"Thank you for having us," I say politely, turning my attention back to the Lady of the house.

"It's no problem at all," one half of her face smiles. "Why don't you have a seat and we can eat?"

It's a very large table that I find myself sitting at, large enough for several more people to join us, and the spread laid out would be enough to feed them as well.

"Eat some greens too," I tell my brother absently as he fills the majority of his plate with thick slices of ham. He sits across from me, beside Claire, so it's easy for me to see his eyes roll.

"Eat some greens too," he mocks me, but he does scoop some green beans onto his plate, so I don't throw anything at him. The others at the table laugh.

Dinner goes surprisingly well, and by the time I watch the last of the ham get loaded onto Quil's, yet again, full plate, I am actually enjoying the company. My stomach feels good and full, and with it, a sense of security.

It's probably the reason I jump so high when the back door (which is located in the kitchen) bursts open and a half-naked girl comes storming into the house.

"Sam, I can't take it anymore. I don't care how long you've been retired; you have to come back. Jacob is driving me crazy!" The girl proves so by fisting her hands in her short hair and tugging, as if trying to pull thoughts out of her head.

"Leah," Sam says, a warning and a scolding in his tone all at once. "We have guests."

The girl immediately straightens up, and I can't help raking my eyes over her quickly, taking in her lean, muscular physique that doesn't take away from her womanly curves at all. For some strange reason, she only wears a pair of short cut-offs and a sports bra. Not even shoes.

"Who are the pale-faces?" She asks, and my eyes flicker up to hers at the unfamiliar term. It didn't seem to be meant as an insult; it came too reflexively and confused to be intended that way. Her eyes widen, suddenly, as I meet her gaze, probably just realizing that her reflexive term could be taken as a slur.

"Leah?" Sam calls from the head of the table, surprise coloring his voice.

"Er," she says, before jerking her head in his direction and pulling her eyes away from me. "What?"

Quil starts to laugh for some reason.

"We were just finishing dinner, but would you like to join us?" Sam asks curiously.

Leah immediately moves towards the table, and to my surprise, takes the chair right beside me. Her entire body shifts in my direction, a clear indication that I have all of her attention as she holds out her hand.

"Leah," she introduces, offering her hand to me with a giant smiling lighting on her face.

I raise an eyebrow at her strange behavior, before a slow, coy, smirk twists my lips. I take her offered hand, which is surprisingly warm, and let my touch linger purposefully to show my own interest in the girl.

"Ryan," I say simply.

"Gross," Noah coughs into his elbow obviously. Claire giggles. I unhurriedly drop Leah's hand, and somehow her smile gets wider.

"That little Christer is my brother Noah," I nod to the boy across from me.

"Christer?" she asks, looking over at him.

"Little devil," I offer. "A mischievous child."

"Ah," she nods. "So how do you guys know Sam?" she asks.

"Made friends with his niece," I nod at the younger girl who, for some reason, is grinning largely at me.

"So, you'll be around fairly often," Leah hedges, not very subtly.

A smirk crawls back over my face. "It seems that way." I try to hide my giddiness as I watch a light blush creep over the darker girl's cheeks.

"Oh, well," she stands up suddenly, her movements kind of jerky in her flustered state. "I guess I'll see you around then." She quickly makes for the door she entered from, mumbling a half-hearted goodbye to the other people in the room, not that she seemed to notice them much.

"Wait," I call as she reaches the door. She turns to me stiffly. "Aren't you going to give me your number? How are you going to know when I'll be around?"

I grin widely at she scrambles towards a drawer and yanks out a pen and paper. "Right, of course, here," she thrusts the piece of paper at me and as soon as I take it, she's racing out the door with a flushed face.

I give a short laugh as the door slams shut behind her.

"She was cute," I say, glancing down at the sticky note that has a messy number scrawled across it. "Who was that?" I ask the silent room.

"That was my cousin," Emily says, sounding very amused. "Are you going to actually call her?"

"Most definitely," I chuckle, shoving the piece of paper into my back pocket.

My brother makes a show of sticking his fingers in his mouth and gagging, so I throw a half-eaten roll at him. He just stuffs it in his mouth after it bounces off of his forehead and lands on his plate.

After Quil finishes his final plate, it's gotten fairly late, so we give our goodbyes and make our way out into the night.

"Will you be alright getting home in the dark?" Emily frets, and I have to reassure her several times that it's not a far bike-ride and that we will be careful. In the end, she does let us go, though, and we set off along the road.

"That was fun," I tell my brother once we are out of sight of the house.

"Did you really have to pick up a girl in front of Claire's family?"

"Hey, she totally came onto me first!" I defend lightly. "Your saw that, right? Besides, you're the one who told me to get a girlfriend."

He laughs, swerving his bike toward mine, and then sighs.

"We could get home faster if we just ran."

"We gotta act human Noah," I shrug. "Humans don't run or walk home ten klicks."

"Whatever," he sighs, tired of the same old argument.

"Race you," I offer, and watch as a smile immediately spreads across his face.

"You're on. Last one there is a house cat," He takes off, pedaling as hard as he can, and I laugh as I charge after him, so very thankful that I'm not alone in the world. That I still have a pack, even if it is a third of the size it used to be.


A/N: So what do you think of the meeting? More Leah in the next chapter, too.

~Silver~