Delilah didn’t cooperate with my plan and Christmas went out the window. “Why the sulk?” She slid her fingers through my drying hair. “Things are no different now. You are Cal as you’ve always been Cal.” She inhaled my scent before admitting, “Perhaps some different, but same ingredients.” She smiled at her own joke and tilted her head to kiss my neck.

The same ingredients. Yeah. Delilah was sharp and she wasn’t wrong. But someone had taken the cookbook and rewritten a few amounts. A cup here, a cup there. I’d always said I was monster; I’d always said I was half human, half Auphe. But deep down I’d always wished I were more human than Auphe. I’d known better, but I’d wished anyway. All that dominant crap Rafferty had been talking about; I hadn’t known about that. I only knew what I felt and what I hoped. It didn’t matter, though, the past, because it was the now that was important. Now I knew. I wasn’t human with some Auphe. I wasn’t even a half-and-half hybrid. I was Auphe. If you looked hard enough, you might find a trace of human, a thin ribbon raveling through me, but when it came right down to it, I was Auphe or one step away from it. Rafferty had said it. He hoped he’d stopped the progression. I wasn’t much on hope these days. Reality: It was the only way to fly.

I was Auphe now and I’d only be more Auphe as the years passed. Stick a party hat on me and celebrate the splendor of the homicidal in its larval stage. I turned to look at Delilah as her lips left my neck. I thought of how I’d considered eating her at the deer carcass when I’d been more outside my mind than in it. I wondered how long it would be before I had the same thought, but calmly, rationally? Not driven to it by running prey, the smell of blood, or the Auphe part of me fighting hard against Rafferty’s building that internal wall. Thinking of eating her just… hell, just because.

She reached up and took off my sunglasses. “Ah, I was wrong. You are different. But different, it is not so bad.”

“If I kill and eat you, you might think again,” I said without emotion. “Or eat, then kill. Either or.”

Her smile was both seductive and wistful as this time she kissed my neck again and then licked it. “Now you think like Kin. You should not fight it.”

As she always had in the past, I guessed, and probably more so when the Kin found out about us. Another thing I’d known, but denied… or pretended to deny-before and after the Kin. I’d told myself that every night I’d spent with her was a carnivorous toss of the coin, but it was worth it. She wanted me, she liked me, and therefore it was worth it. Remarkably I still thought it was worth it, although it did make me respect myself a little less, which I would’ve thought hard to accomplish at that point. But life loved nothing better than proving my ass wrong. I took back the glasses and replaced them. Hell, she was a predator. I was a predator. Genes. Who knew how long it would be before I started tossing that bright and shiny coin soon, too, and one day…

Deer weren’t the only ones who would run. How long it would be before I could stop myself from the chase was anyone’s guess.

“Go away.” I resumed staring at nothing. She snorted at what she considered my brooding. Killers killed; predators ate; both played with their food. Why question that? Better to be who you were and not to look back. Kin, they were something all right, but I was hardly going to be a hypocrite and point fingers. I didn’t have that right. As I sat unmoving, Delilah gave an exasperated sigh, then cupped my head and kissed me on the mouth this time. I tasted deer blood. I just didn’t know if it was from her or from me.

It tasted good.

“Mopey cub, cheer up.” She gained her feet in one graceful movement, trailed her fingers along my jaw, and disappeared in the milling people bitching about the delay and the sun and the dust. I was assuming it had to be hot. The lingering fever still left me feeling slightly chilled, enough so that when the fur-covered body leaned against my right side, I didn’t mind the warmth.

I hadn’t talked to Nik, Robin, or Rafferty after the change in me that had taken place had really hit me. I’d taken the sunglasses and gone quiet-the whole not-thinking thing that I was striving for. I’d only talked to Delilah to make her leave me alone, although I knew Niko would be back without a doubt. Catcher though-Catcher wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t try to tell me everything would be fine, which would remind me that, nope, it wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t be supportive when he should be punching me in the face for becoming an addicted asshole. He wouldn’t say I was still me-not that “me” had ever been that much to brag about to begin with. He would only sit there, a silent, wordless comfort.

The laptop dropped onto the ground in front of me.

Well, shit.

When I refused to drop my head and read the screen, teeth nipped me hard over the ribs. I hissed, glared at the wolf, and then read what was typed on the screen. He’d used the caps lock again, either to get his point across or because he didn’t believe much in my reading skills.

SUCKS TO BE ONE OF A KIND.

He rested his chin on my shoulder, sneezed at the dust, and waited.

“Yeah,” I commented after a long pause. “It does. Good Wolf or bad Auphe, it sucks to be the only one.” Great. First Delilah, then him. They both had me pulling shit out of layaway early.

This time he nipped my shoulder before retrieving from the dirt the ink pen he’d dropped to bite me. He typed: ALL AUPHE WERE BORN BAD. YOU ARE NOT ALL AUPHE. YOU HAVE A CHOICE. YOU CAN BE GOOD. He considered, then backspaced, deleting the GOOD and changing it to NOT SO BAD. At least he was honest, the fur ball.

Then he punctuated the sentence. Joy. “I didn’t know there was an emoticon for a dog humping another dog. Thanks for sharing.” I took off the glasses and rubbed my eyes.

There was more typing. I glanced at the screen. At least now that he was sure that he had my attention, he’d stopped with the capitalization. Cal smart monster. Cal can read. Good for me.

Knock knock

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned.

Knock knock, he persisted, growling around the pen. “Okay, just to shut you up: Who’s there?” I gave in. Why not? At this point, it was almost ludicrous. An Auphe being counseled by a butt-sniffing pound reject.

No one. The Auphe ate everyone in the house.

“You son of a bitch,” I growled.

Knock knock. This time he didn’t wait for the “Who’s there?” Twenty cocker spaniels the Auphe is going to skin to make a pimp coat.

“Seriously, quit it or I will shoot your mangy ass.”

Knock knock

God, he was as relentless as Niko. “Last one,” I warned. “Last one or your ass is grass.” The threat didn’t hold much weight when it was followed with “Who’s there?” I went on, resigned.

You, and what happens behind the door is up to you.

He was smart and he was right, but my decision making had never been among the very best. Not as disastrous as the sinking of the Titanic was what I was usually shooting for in final outcomes, but I could try to do better. If Catcher could deal with being stuck being half of what he once was, I could deal with being more than I wanted to be. For a while. As long as my genes would let me. Next to Catcher, I’d be a complete jackass if I didn’t at least try to do that much.

“He’s a wise person.” Niko crouched on the other side of me. “You should listen to him. If you won’t listen to me.”

I closed the laptop and said to Catcher, “Scoot, Scooby.” The wolf made a sound halfway between a growl and a grunt, seized the computer in his teeth, and trotted off. I brushed dust idly off my jeans. It was just something to do. I was sitting in the stuff. I wasn’t coming clean. “I always listen to you, Cyrano,” I said, still uselessly rubbing at the dirt-my brand-new hobby, “except when I ate Bambi’s mom, and as I’d rather not mentally relive that, can we skip over it if I promise not to make any more exceptions in the future?”