Badass Scout. I could do that, right?
I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, looking at the cluster of guys about my age who sat on the front steps making zero effort to hide the fact they were trying to ease-drop in on our conversation. One of the younger ones, whose name I couldn’t remember for the life of me, made a big show of dragging his eyes down my body, pausing dramatically at the place where the orange gauzy material stopped mid-thigh, before giving me a grin and thumbs-up. I offered up a hand signal of my own in response.
I marched up to the steps and waited for someone to move so we could go inside. No one did.
“Makya,” I said to the largest of the group, “I’m going to need you to move out of my way.”
Makya is, as best as I can remember, Jase’s third-cousin. Apparently whatever genes that make Jase attractive in that adorable teddy-bear kind of way and Charlie sexier than should be allowed didn’t run through his part of the family tree. Makya sports a pug nose, a protruding forehead, and zero evidence a chin ever had an inclination to exist. The only thing he has going for him is the mossy green eyes which mark him as a Hagan.
“And what if I don’t feel like moving out of your way, baby?”
I shrugged with affected nonchalance. “I’ll let you decide. Either I can break your nose like I did at the state Mixed Martial Arts Tournament five years ago, or I can see if I can make you run crying to your mommy like the one and only time you showed up at Uncle Charles’s dojo. What will it be?”
“You think you can take me?”
A smirk played on my lips. “I know I can, moron.”
In all honesty, I wasn’t so sure. I spent the last month bed-ridden and just went through an extremely physically taxing evening without any sleep. Not exactly the best fighting conditions one could hope for, but Talley and Jase were right. For Christmas I received a surprise gift from Alex - one of the few factual books on werewolves in existence. Alex understood my need for scientific facts and reasoning when faced with the impossible magic of Shifters. In my multiple readings I picked up on a few of the basics of Shifter culture. Pack structure is based on physical strength. It’s the one place where being a bully is not only encouraged, but exalted and necessary. I needed to fight Makya and win, but at the very least I had to fight. Getting my butt kicked would be bad, but being a coward simply wasn’t acceptable.
Makya slowly rose and began to move towards me. Almost instantly, Charlie and Jase were in front of me, snarls in their throats.
“Boys, enough.” At the sound of Toby’s voice, Charlie and Jase went silent and dropped their heads, which allowed me to see the fear in Makya’s eyes. “Get off the steps, you idiots. Let her by.”
It was like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea, bodies moved out of the way giving me a path to the front door where Toby stood waiting.
“How are you doing, Scout?” he asked when I was standing in front of him.
How am I doing? Every single bone in my body has been broken multiple times in the past twelve hours. I’ve had muscles rip themselves into shreds and then reform. My skin feels like I laid in the tropical sun for hours upon hours without sunscreen and then poured acid over it. My brother almost killed me a month ago. My boyfriend was murdered by your brother, the only boy I’ve ever loved besides Alex. And now I’m a Shifter. How the Hell do you think I am?!?!
“Fine.”
To Toby’s credit, he obviously didn’t believe me.
“Hungry?”
My stomach answered for me.
“Come on, then. We’ve got plenty to eat.”
Toby moved back and held the screen door for me. Everyone inside the house, who tended to be in the Toby-to-parent age spectrum, stood perfectly still, except for one tiny old woman.
“There you are.” Gramma Hagan wrapped her pudgy arms around me and squeezed with more strength than I would have believed a woman of her size and age possessed. “Oh sweetie, you’re so thin. I should have brought you more food. I meant to, of course, time just got away from me with Phyllis’s hip-replacement surgery.”
Gramma Hagan is one of those grandmothers everyone wishes they had. She bakes, knits, and holds to the firm belief her grandchildren are the most perfect creatures to have ever lived. I was included in that bundle of perfection, even though she was the mother of Jase’s father and, therefore, no relation to me whatsoever. After I was finally released from the hospital, Gramma Hagan came to our house with what can only be described as a sampler of casseroles. There were seven different pans of food, each enough to feed our family of five for multiple days, and they all operated under the instructions of, “Take out of freezer and place in a 350-degree oven. Bake until bubbly.”
“You brought more than enough food, Gramma.” Gramma Hagan was always on me about being too thin, which was certainly not the case. I’m a very average sized girl, in no way the skin-and-bones look of models or actresses. Even with the weight I lost over the past month, I am still within the normal range. I just didn’t look it at the moment. “I just haven’t felt like eating much.”
She patted my cheek, the highest point she could reach on me. “That’s going to change now. I imagine you’ll be starved after this whole ordeal, aren’t you, sugar?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The smell of food from inside overpowered all my other super-senses. I was half dizzy from it. I had a brief moment of insanity where I thought about pushing Gramma aside so I could get to the kitchen.
She chuckled in that cute way old women do. “Well then, Tobian, I think it’s time you let your Pack eat.”
Toby nodded and the Shifters all stood up and began arranging themselves into some sort of line. The younger guys from the porch were mostly towards the back, although Makya seemed to be somewhere squarely in the middle. Jase stood behind Toby and Charlie behind him.
I stood more than a little awkwardly off to the side.
“If this is some sort of canine instinct thing, I haven’t developed it yet,” I said. “Where am I supposed to be?”
Toby looked down the line at his Pack members, meeting each of their eyes before turning back to me. “Why don’t you go ahead and get your food, Scout?”
There was a smattering of grunts and gasps. I don’t know what their problem was. Yes, I understood there was some sort of Pack social hierarchy at play, but Toby was still mostly human and a product of Gramma Hagan’s raising. I was technically a guest and most assuredly a female, as Toby liked to point out in the most demeaning fashion possible. Toby might be a giant pain most of the time, but he does know how to use his manners. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly like I could eat everything all by myself, although I was half tempted to try. I settled on loading up two plates with heaping helpings of eggs, pancakes, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and donuts. And, God bless Mrs. Matthews, I even had a salad bowl full of Cap’n Crunch.