Chapter Nine, In Which There Is Sarcasm, Fighting and Lusty Thoughts

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I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Reid jerked his chin up, eyes focusing on Caleb.

"Before we explain, I'd just like to point out that I was right." I rolled my eyes, and had to stop myself from smiling. Even under all the stress that was piled on my shoulders, and despite the still-fresh memory of Reid's mouth on mine, he still managed to amuse me. Not that he could know that, of course.

Caleb frowned.

"What do you mean? Kat, what's going on?" His eyes darkened. "Reid, did you-"

"I know," I blurted out. "About you four. The whole magic thing, I mean."

A moment of silence. I held my breath. Would Caleb blow up? Would he be furious with Reid, with me? Would he try to deny it? Slowly, the older boy let out a sigh.

"This whole 'covenant of silence' thing is coming along really well, boys," he said. "Good work."

"Yeah, well," Reid said with a shrug, "do the names 'Sarah' and 'Kate' mean anything to you?"

"Hey," Pogue interjected. "We had to tell them. And Sarah pretty much found out on her own."

"Excuse me," I said, raising my hand. "But, um, that's not all." Three sets of eyes came to rest warily on me, and Reid just lounged back and looked at the ceiling. "I'm… kind of…"

"She's got a case of the chronic fuzzies," Reid said lazily, his seriousness from before the others arrived either completely gone, or very well masked. I suspected the latter.

"What?" Tyler, along with the rest of them, looked confused.

"She's a werewolf," he clarified.

"You have got to be kidding me," Caleb said, staring at me with a quirked brow. I huffed out a breath and sneered at him as elegantly as I could manage dressed in a plaid blanket, shaking my head.

"Every full moon she turns into a ravening beast with… interesting… hungers," Reid said dramatically, eyes still on the ceiling. I glared at him, not appreciating the suggestive twist to his words and the hint of a smirk playing on his lips.

"I'm loup-garou," I told them.

"French," Pogue said under his breath. I nodded.

"Reid suspected me from the beginning, apparently. Just as I sensed something strange about you four. You smelled different; your power had a certain scent to it. It was driving me nuts, wondering what the hell was up with you guys."

"It was driving Reid there nuts, too," Tyler muttered. "Not that that's saying much, all things considered."

"Hey," Reid protested.

"So," Caleb said, flopping down on an armchair. "You know about us, we know about you… How did this happen?" I glanced at the blond, who gestured at me.

"Your court," he stated. I swallowed, feeling exposed.

"Um. When I lived in California, I got hunted down by this woman. She didn't catch me, and I never saw her again. That was about a month before I moved. Then, a few hours ago, she appeared outside Nicky's. Reid and I were there, and it's the full moon, so I had to Change. She tried to shoot me, Reid… did something with a glowing ball thingy, and we ran." There. The night from Hell in two breaths.

"So you used against this woman?" Reid nodded.

"She had a gun, man," he defended himself. "What was I supposed to do?"

"You know it's dangerous. You only have a few days left, Reid." The lazy air bled away from the lanky blond as he tensed in his sprawl, eyes now locked on Caleb.

"So I should have just let that bitch kill Kat?" His voice, contrasting with his language, was light and casual. His gaze was anything but.

"Hey, you don't know that she would have killed me," I interrupted, stupidly offended by his assumption. "I turn into a wolf, not a fluffy puppy dog!"

"She already grazed you," Reid said dismissively. "A gun against any animal isn't the best odds."

"Fuck that," I spat, dismayed at the words as soon as they left my mouth but unable to keep myself calm: the moon, despite my previous Change, was still full. I had been sitting still too long already, and tensions were high. "I could have handled myself." Ignoring, of course, my earlier thought that Reid's little energy ball had saved my life.

"What would you have done, gone and ripped her throat out," the blond asked sarcastically, his anger at Caleb now turned on me. I stiffened, fully prepared to take on that anger and match it with my own. A werewolf is made of passion, be it sex, fight or fury. I couldn't have the first, and I'd already had the second. Time for the third.

"Yes," I snarled in response to his offhanded question. "That's exactly what I would have done!" The other three Sons were watching Reid and I, and I could practically feel the power roiling off them in waves: they were waiting, waiting to see how far the two of us would go.

"I saved your life, you-" In a flash, I was off the couch, ignoring the sharp pain from my wounded shoulder and back, the blanket falling from my quicksilver form as I shifted in the air, hitting Reid in the chest with my forepaws and knocking his chair over backwards, sending him sprawling to the ground with me pinning him down in my wolf form.

When Caleb and the others shouted and started moving, eyes rimming with fire and turning black, I turned my head and put as much humanity into my yellow eyes as possible: back off. I've got this. Caleb's eyes narrowed, and I felt a twist in my gut: this boy was smarter than I'd thought. They stopped moving at a sharp gesture from him, and I turned back to Reid.

Growling low in my throat, I stared at him. The initial surprise had faded from his face, to be replaced with anger.

"Get off me," he snapped. I bared my teeth. Helpless, am I? Damsel in distress, am I?

Suddenly, a burst of breathless agony exploded in my stomach and I was thrown off of him, landing on my side. Instantly, I scrambled up to all fours and drew my lips back in a snarl, ears flat against the sides of my head. Reid, panting, raised himself onto his knees and stared me down, hands in a ready position at his sides, eyes completely black. His blond hair fell across his face, and his mouth was twisted in a feral, deadly challenge. Instead of making him ugly, this animal-snarl on his human face only added to this damnable attraction. The full moon coursed through me, giving my breath an extra, forbidden sweetness that fed the fire in my chest and told me to move.

Just as I lunged, ready to pin him again and force him to admit defeat, Reid leaped for me, ignoring his friends' cries of dismay. We connected in midair, wolf and human, and suddenly my mind was filled with a Technicolor vision of me kissing Reid, complete with feel and taste and smell. Utter surprise took me, and before I could stop it, I Changed back out of instinct. There was a slam, and I yelped.

I was flat on my back, human, my shoulder screaming with pain, eyes wide and shocked. Reid was lying on top of me, breathing hard, eyes still black as he caught his breath. I stared at him, caught between fury, shock and mortification as his eyes turned blue again and he realized, apparently for the first time, that I was naked.

"What did you do to me," I hissed, hesitant to push him off me while I wasn't wearing anything and he was the only thing keeping me from flashing everybody in the room.

"Mindblowing, wasn't it?" His voice dripped sarcasm and smugness, and I hated him for it. I remembered him saying, in response to my question about what he could do, 'anything'. So mind-control was part of the deal, too?

"Caleb," I called, "would you go find me some clothes?"

"Sure," he said, and I really wished I could see his face to read what that tone in his voice was.

"Reid," I said, snaking my hands up his chest. Well. If I couldn't Change in this position, I damn well could use my other weapons. I made my voice as husky and seductive as possible. "That was… impressive. Very vivid." I could smell the discomfort coming off Pogue and Tyler, and I held up my middle finger in their general direction before resuming my slow perusal of Reid's back.

"It's a gift," he breathed.

"I've got some other nifty gifts as well," I purred, my hands now playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. My body was reacting, of course, to being naked under Mr. Garwin, but I forced it back and used, instead, the anger that still filled me. He had made a fool of me, and that just would not do.

"Oh, really?"

"Too bad," I murmured, my voice a throaty hum, before I darted my fingers up and grabbed both of his ears, nails digging in as I gripped them, "you won't ever get to see them!"

"Ah," Reid bit out as I twisted his ears. "That-really-hurts!"

"I know, baby," I hummed, smiling at him. "I'm a werewolf. I like it kinky." Caleb cleared his throat from behind me, and I could hear the grin in his voice when he spoke.

"I found some of Reid's stuff. I would have gotten something of your mom's," he continued, now speaking to the blond, "but her door's locked." Reid didn't answer, choosing instead to glare daggers at me. "Much as I like seeing Reid getting what he deserves, if you let go of him, I'll give you the clothes. We'll all turn around, right?" This was directed to all the males in the room, who made noises in the affirmative. Well, except for Reid, who just curled his lip at me.

I let go of his ears and he rolled off me, but not before very deliberately stroking a hand from just below my left breast to my hip. I disguised my gasp with a cough, catching the clothing that Caleb dropped in my lap.

The four Sons of Ipswich turned their backs as I pulled on a pair of gray sweats that were a little too long for me, but would work, and a fading Sex Pistols T-shirt that came down almost to my knees.

Great. Now, not only had I made an enemy of Reid, I was also going to smell like him for days, too.

And no, there was no way in Hell I was happy about that. Not at all. Never. As if.

Right.