I rolled my eyes back to see that unwavering Pan smile turn more conceited. I almost lost my breakfast into the plastic bag, but decided it would be a waste of good fries and kept searching through the bags with vague curiosity.

“Oh, help me.” Rafferty dropped his head into his hands.

“And I haven’t made up my mind yet about monogamy.” Although from hearing him talk to Ishiah on the phone, I was beginning to doubt that. “If I had decided against it, I’d do you. I don’t like you, despite your helping me with the concussion, you being the exceptional ass and all, but I’d do you. You’re doable in a shaggy, natural man-wolf of the wild way.” He folded his arms. “And if I had decided on monogamy, it wouldn’t mean that I couldn’t still look or fantasize or talk the talk. I simply couldn’t walk the walk. Unfortunately for my decision-making process, I do truly love walking the walk. Besides, considering our current situation, I don’t believe making choices about monogamy should be my primary concern. Staying alive long enough to ponder it at a later date while surrounded by naked flesh in a succession of strip clubs is slightly more important.” The last words were so faint, even my wolf ears barely heard them. “Or naked flesh and feathers.”

For someone who feared monogamy, he sure did like to talk about it, I snorted to myself. When a creature is forever like a puck, could monogamy be forever, though? I came to an instant conclusion. When one is forever, nothing can be forever. But something doesn’t have to be forever to be good, and I knew that Goodfellow did have it good now, whether he’d completely come to realize it or not. I could smell it on him. I could see it around him like a halo… like an aura of I’m-getting-laid-and-you’re-not. But not just laid; more than that-something extraordinary.

Right now I’d have settled for the just-laid part.

Lucky puck.

As I considered biting him just for the getting- laid part alone, his foot nudged one of the bags he’d dropped toward me in particular. When I found what he’d bought for me, I forgave him… just a little. I felt my tail wave back and forth in pleasant surprise and I dragged out the two calendars. One was swimsuit models, and one was Wolves in the Wild. “For you, for having some vague part in perhaps saving my life. Or so the others have told me. Despite soiling one of my best shirts with… never mind.” Goodfellow cleared his throat. Pucks were so very good at fake emotions that real ones were something of an effort for them. It made the gesture all the more meaningful. “I tried to find one with the most female wolves on it,” he added, “but a few shots were uncooperative in determining that, so you may have to lust after a male wolf too. The diversity will be good for you.”

I held up my paw again as I had to the irate mother almost a half hour ago. This time there was no humiliation to it. I was reaching across a communication void to say, “You’re welcome” and Goodfellow accepted it in exactly that spirit. He gripped my paw and said sympathetically, “I can’t say I know personally what it’s like to be in a consummately… ah… awkward situation. But even if I don’t know, I’ve seen Cal ’s preoccupation with not passing on the Auphe genes. I also have an excellent imagination. I hope these help somewhat.”

Pucks. They were rapacious in all they did-sex, money, trickery-but Goodfellow wasn’t such a bad guy. I’d go as far as saying he was the king of good guys, for a puck. I was glad I saved his life; I just wished I’d left more saliva on his shirt. I picked up the calendars with my teeth and slapped them against Rafferty’s chest. Open. Open. I didn’t need my laptop to get that point across. He grumbled and ripped the clear plastic off them and I stuck a wet nose to each page to flip it for a look. Wow. I looked back and forth between firm asses and plumed tails and couldn’t have been happier.

I stayed that way until we were all back in the car, Cal smelling more Auphe than usual, but I had booty and a great sense of denial, so I ignored it. Happy, happy. But unfortunately what I couldn’t ignore was when Niko, now in the passenger seat while Robin drove, asked my cousin, “You are sure we’re still on Suyolak’s trail? Obviously he left another trap for us here that Robin fell into, but he’s clever. I don’t want to be doubtful, but…” He let the silence finish the sentence for him. He did doubt. A careful, meticulous man, if he had doubt, he was going to want it resolved. “You can still sense Suyolak?”

Rafferty wasn’t offended. He wasn’t anything except a mass of fury and determination at the mention of the antihealer’s name-so overwhelmingly so that I couldn’t believe even nose-blind humans couldn’t smell it. “I have him,” he said flatly. “He’s ahead of us. Far ahead, but I’m not losing him and I’m not falling for any more mirrors of the bastard. As for the traps, they’re small, harder to detect. Especially when all it does is make you sleep-walk. That does trip the healer radar. It’s quiet, like a grenade, until it goes off, but I’ll do what I can to sniff them out.” He’d been looking out the window at nothing… again… but now he shifted his attention back to everyone in the car. “You don’t get it. Do you think I took this job to save the world? I don’t give a crap about the world right now. Catcher does.” He locked a hand in the ruff at my neck. “He pushed me to take it, and I did… but for him. If I can take the life from Suyolak the way he’s slowly sucking it from his driver, I can make Catcher as he was. His healing power and mine combined, I’ll have enough to do it then. I’ll be able to fix my cousin. So don’t worry about my losing his trail. It won’t fucking happen. Period.”

Suddenly all the enjoyment of my calendar lust disappeared. He was right. They didn’t get it. I hadn’t gotten it either. I’d thought he’d done it for the right reason. He was a healer. Saving the world was what he did, one person at a time. I thought taking out Suyolak would put him closer to a balance again and help him see that curing me couldn’t be the end all and be all of his existence. He was a healer and that meant he belonged to everyone who needed him; not only to me. True, I’d come to regret the decision once I saw what Suyolak was capable of and wished we’d never come to be part of this. Family protecting family and the hell with the world; that’s what I thought.

That was also Rafferty’s point of view exactly. Hypocrite, me.

But it still wasn’t right-stealing life force, no matter if it was tainted-not for a healer. I was turning my cousin into something that years ago he would’ve killed in a heartbeat. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Nothing. I took the current calendar, swimsuit issue, grabbed it in my jaws, and tossed it aside in frustration. Cal caught it. “Whoa! Not enough tits for you? Need six more per model?”

He was in a better mood now, somewhat better; it was a subtle sniff of a difference, but I was Wolf enough to catch it. He and Delilah had come to a wary sort of trust, or so it seemed. I wasn’t poking my nose into it. After all, I had calendars to occupy me, not the real thing like some half-Auphe bastards.

Not fair. No, that wasn’t fair. Putting that on him, when I was really upset with myself. I pulled in a breath and released it, letting some of the anger go. It wasn’t Cal ’s fault.

Although, I noticed, despite the mood change, he seemed twitchy too, which distracted me from my own problems. Tapping fingers on his knee. Unloading and reloading his gun. Playing with his knives. Changing positions often. Fingering the bracelet around his wrist. Except it wasn’t a bracelet. They were mala beads for Buddhist meditation. I’d dated a Buddhist girl in college, not Wolf, but I hadn’t planned on marrying her, and I wasn’t prejudiced like most of my kind. I’d dated a lot of human girls. They were sweet and if they were jealous, they didn’t threaten to castrate you with their teeth. You couldn’t say the same about the she-Wolves you brought home to meet Mom and Dad.