Tritan let out a threatening growl, and his eyes glowed yellow as if he were about to go wolf. Then he glanced over at Frankie and Paolo and Jasper, who had wandered up and were standing there staring at them, and his lip curled back in a sneer.
“You going to make a scene?” Tritan said. “Those little boys look like they want to help you. Be a shame if they got hurt. Or you could just get in the van and come quietly.”
Daisy froze where she stood. Would he really hurt cubs? “Don’t touch them!” she said loudly. “Boys, run!”
“Be quiet!” Frasier hissed. “I’ll make you sorry, I swear.”
“Jasmine!” Paolo shouted. “They’re trying to take Daisy!”
Frasier dragged Daisy towards the van as she screamed and struggled. “Run, boys, run!” she howled.
Then there was a blur of motion as Jasmine shot through the air in coyote form and sank her teeth into Frasier’s arm. Daisy shifted too, rippling from human to wolf in seconds, and she bit Frasier as he was halfway shifted.
Seconds later, an enormous gray blur flew through the air. There was a heavy thud of two bodies colliding, and then Tritan was lying on the ground in wolf form, blood pouring from his flank.
The fight was over almost instantly. Tritan rolled over on his back and waved his paws frantically in the air, exposing his belly and indicating his submission.
Frasier did the same, and Daisy and Jasmine climbed off him and shifted back into human form.
“My God, did you just pee yourself?” she demanded of Frasier, sniffing at the air. “You did. Gross!”
“You were really going to marry him?” Jasmine said to Daisy, looking appalled.
About a dozen cubs, late for school, had gathered now, and were staring at them.
“You leave my teacher alone,” Jasper growled at Frasier. “She’s mine – you can’t have her.”
“Mutt!” Frasier whimpered, cradling his bleeding arm.
Jasper shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
Ryker, still in wolf form, cuffed Frasier in the head with one mighty paw, so hard that Frasier cried out in pain and terror. Then Ryker shifted, standing over the two sniveling, bleeding men who lay at his feet.
“You tried to take my mate. The only reason you’re not dead is that I don’t want to kill you in front of these kids,” he snarled at them. “Come near her again, and I’ll tear your head from your body.”
Frasier and Tritan scrambled into the van, slammed the doors shut, and screeched out of the parking lot.
“Ryker.” Daisy gasped, her breath coming in gulps. “Thank God you came. You saved my ass…pirations,” she said, glancing at the kids crowded around them. “How did you know he was here?” she asked curiously.
“I didn’t. You forgot your lunch and I was bringing it to you,” Ryker said. He glared after the van. “I’m going to walk you to the door, and then I’m going to call your pack and tell them that if they come for you again, I’ll consider it a formal challenge.”
Thursday afternoon
Ryker had a hot, prickly feeling itching under his skin as the secretary guided him towards Mr. Trenton’s office. Walt was keeping pace with him, looking nervous. They’d been summoned by Mr. Trenton’s assistant and told that it was urgent, but the assistant refused to say why.
Ryker’s lip curled back in a snarl as soon as he walked into the office.
Daisy’s mother, Phyllis Bennett, was standing there talking to Mr. Trenton, and Mr. Trenton did not look happy.
She glanced over when Ryker walked in. “I need to speak to you in private,” she said, inclining her head at Ryker, and she turned and walked out of the room into the hallway without glancing back.
Ryker followed her, feeling anger bubble up inside him. She turned to face him and looked him up and down as if he were a particularly nasty dog dropping that she’d just scraped off her shoe.
“Careful, your face will freeze that way,” Ryker said with annoyance. “Oh, looks like it already did. Might want to step down the Botox a notch.”
Anger flared in her ice-blue eyes.
“How much do you want?” she asked coldly.
“Excuse you? How much do I want to stop choking on your perfume? Pretty bad,” he said.
“No, you ignorant buffoon, how much do you want to stop pretending that you care about my daughter?”
Ryker felt his fangs itching in his gums.
“I care very much about your daughter,” he said. His wolf howled inside him and he forced it to stay down.
“Obviously that’s a lie. Daisy isn’t beautiful, she isn’t flashy, and the two of you have nothing in common. So you’re with her because you think you’ll get our family money if you marry her.”