Wade stepped forward, ready to do something. He was not sure what. He was not thinking. Too many of his mental resources were going towards hating what he was seeing for him to do anything else.

  Before he got there and did… something, Shilloh acted.

  She leaned in real close to the man, motioned Wade to stop, and whispered something in his ear. He stood bolt upright. She shushed him when he tried to ask a question and smacked him on the ass as he trotted past her.

  "What?"

  Shilloh gave me a big smile, "We won't have to worry about him. Let's just get out of here."

  "What did you say?"

  Birch barreled into the fray with a demented smile on her face, "Yeah, what did you say. Did you threaten him? Did you say you were about to grab his balls and squeeze till they popped?"

  "Ew, no."

  "Well, what did you say? It wasn't as long as the tongue lashing you gave Kora, but he was nearly running."

  Shilloh hustled everyone forward like a mother shooing her children, looking over her shoulder. "I told him that I'd do it for three fifty and a cup of the top shelf whisky. He just needed to wait in the alley while I gave you guys a story to send you on your way."

  That was actually very smart. "Huh, well done. Though he may be upset if he sees us."

  She shrugged, "I'll take the certainty of getting a drunk man out of my face compared to the percentile risk of him possibly being annoyed at me from across a room later."

  "Plus," Birch said, "Shilloh scraps like a mother fucker. Look! I even brought bail money for when we get into a fight tonight."

  Wade reeled back, "I did not agree to get into a public fight."

  "Well, duh. But it keeps happening when I go out with Shilloh."

  "It does not!" the dryad said.

  "I mean, we either get into a bar fight, or you end up epically telling someone off."

  "That's a you thing, not a me thing! It never happens when I'm on my own."

  The two fell into an argument with Agnes opining that she agreed with Shilloh's aversion to violence.

  Somehow it ended up with the older woman and her impish protege teasing Shilloh. She had said that she only got into conflicts around Birch because it bothered her to see people being aggressive toward her friends.

  Which just led to lots of one-sided talk about getting best friend forever tattoos, or tissues for Shilloh's weeping declaration of friendship. Around the time that Birch stopped trying to get princess carried to the restaurant by her knight in shining armor, Shilloh—also known as Sir Sluts-Alot—Agnes turned to Wade and winked.

  Before he could do more than smile hesitantly, Agnes had spun back to the two young women.

  "Candy, do think about the optics. You don't want to drive off Wade."

  The short woman turned to him. "We don't?"

  "No, Honey. I'm sure that the book club had lots of questions to ask him," the older woman turned to him with a warm, loving smile, and pulled out a small paperback from her large purse. "Wade, have you ever read this?"

  The book she pressed into his hands had a cover style that made him swear he could hear the supermarket registers from just down the aisles. It was medium-sized, and the cover had a very shirtless man wearing jeans with the top button undone. The man's torso was not anatomically correct. He had muscles that did not exist, and no body hair. He was staring obsessively at a conventionally attractive woman in front of him. She wore a tank top, low-riding jeans, and had an arm raised so she could reach behind her to put a hand on the back of his head. He supposed it was to, what, make him sniff her hair?

  He didn't get it.

  Behind the two people on the cover was a generic city block, a fake magic circle, and the translucent head of a wolverine.

  A groan tried to bubble up from the depths of his soul. Luckily, years of being a middle-school boy with Weres for parents had made him well-armored against this particular type of teasing.

  "I can't say that Captivity of his Scorching Touch has crossed my radar."

  "Of course," Agnes nodded sagely as she took her book back. "I hate to say, but it's not the highest caliber of novel. Still, we were lucky to find so many were-wolverine books on such short notice."

  If not for the good-natured glimmer in her eye, he would have gone on the defensive. Having a wolverine as his alternate form was rare enough that it usually insulated him from this type of joke—not like the poor wolf or lion shifters. In his experience, if it came up, it was usually a piece of intentional bullying. But he just couldn't look at Agnes and think of her as anything but a kind soul. Not the kind of person to mock him for his magic.

  "You had trouble finding them on short notice? Does that mean you looked them up after you knew I would be on the trip?"

  Shilloh let out a pained breath.

  The playful light in the older woman's eyes grew sharper at the sound, and Wade found himself grinning. "Absolutely! It's always great to hear what parts of these books are whooy."

  Shilloh tried to yell something about this being Agnes's idea, but he spoke right over her.

  "Happy to help, ma'am. Hit me with whatever question you have. Especially the ones that Shilloh wanted to know about."

  Birch nodded her head in approval, Scotty snorted, and Agnes, the demented witch, pulled out a pad of paper full of notes.

  ~~~

  Wade tried to be a good ambassador for his people. As such, he had some version of this talk not infrequently.

  To everyone's great benefit, Forsyth had a thriving PAAW community. So he wasn't usually called on to handle this sort of topic. But in some of the more rural areas he had gone to, schools had asked him, as a local male authority figure who was a Were, to talk with the boys approaching puberty. He had viewed that as part of his job and usually said yes. After all, safety was safety, be it condoms or bear spray for cryptos.

  Even with that experience, this was, without doubt, the most perverse, invasive, and utterly hilarious set of questions he had ever fielded.

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  Everyone got into it. When he said not all weres loved biting and rough sex, they tutted and pretended to console Shilloh. When Scotty chimed in with his fake questions about using enhancing magic "for her pleasure", they all wailed to hear him call out the lies of their favorite fictional fuckers.

  In any other company, he would have been uncomfortable and put on the spot. Somehow, what they did was just fun.

  Somehow, they ended up in the restaurant talking about baculum, also known as penis bones. Agnes, to no one's surprise, knew more facts about the penises of the animal kingdom than anyone else. She and Birch were debating whether a shifter who was using a baculum would be too hard and hurt.

  Scotty had questioned Wade about the difficulty of attaining another form. By comparing it to the difficulty of other skills, his friend wanted to create a mathematical equation that quantified the best animal forms to pursue, as defined by the ideal ratio of effort to penis privilege that would come from having a massive dong. The average per-week effort of attaining a new form was well measured. Still, no one agreed on the average number of times per week that having a huge weiner would save you effort in finding a romantic partner.

  In the end, Birch drew a graph with an upside-down U-shaped distribution based on penis size. Some sizes were too big and would make it harder to find partners who weren't intimidated, though size queens might begin hunting you down. Hard to say if that would save effort, considering the reduced population size that would be interested. The equation became increasingly complex to account for all these factors, until only Birch and Scotty could decipher the math.

  "All I'm saying," Shilloh said to him from her stool at the bar, "is that I don't think extending the baculum bone can be voluntary. Otherwise, walruses wouldn't have profiles for swimming."

  "You don't think they'd put it away to swim?"

  "I've never met a man who wanted to have his schlong look small when he had no pants on, and they literally never have pants on."

  "Fair, but I have something you forgot to think about. Something philosophical."

  "Oh?"

  "Imagine what would happen if you botoxed the muscles that extended it."

  "Oh," she blinked, leaning so far back that she almost tipped over her bar stool," wow."

  He nodded and sipped his soda triumphantly as she rattled off all the recreational and prank-related possibilities.

  Sitting there across from Shilloh, with her eyes flickering as she thought and laughed, he found himself feeling happy. Happier than he had been for a long time.

  Then, his mood immediately crashed as he recalled what Jasque had said. He had to get Shilloh into the banes without letting her ruin him.

  Though 'ruin' felt like too strong a word. Even Sam had said some weekends like this were fine. Sure, he was drinking his sugars, which was a cardinal sin. But it was fun, and he felt comfortable with this group of weirdos.

  Wade could get used to nights like this.

  Too used to it.

  He tried not to wince, imagining how many of the fifteen-minute blocks in his calendar had been taken up by this night. You could do a lot of good work in just the thirty minutes he had spent talking about penis bones.

  With a bit of effort, he reset his posture and scanned the room for threats, trying to ground himself. Tonight was not all fun and games. It served multiple functions, some of which even Shilloh was unaware of. That was the reason it was worth an entire evening.

  The pale-skinned cartographer caught the way his smile flickered, and smirked at him, "What, you realize that we haven't even started on the quick-release charms yet?"

  "What do— No. You wouldn't," he said, trying to smile in the carefree way he had been, but not quite succeeding.

  "But I would. Especially after the good old time you all had messing with me on the way here."

  "But you're such a kind, sweet, generous, saintly woman. You wouldn't want to perpetuate such a cycle of retribution, would you?"

  She looked him dead in the eyes. Her lips quirked, her eyelashes dropped, and she languorously took a drink from her beer. With savage slowness, she licked her lips, leaned over her crossed legs, and said, "But I would, wouldn't I?"

  Wade fell back, pretending to clutch at his heart, "My poor heart. I'm surrounded by perverts. All you talk about are smut and penis bones."

  "I'm not the one with a stripper charm I carry around all the time."

  "Well, I'm not the one who likes to read books about being ravaged by oddly hairless men who don't know their baculum from their belt buckle."

  Shilloh smiled a terribly confident smile, "It's a popular genre. Most women like a bite and some spanking here and there. Nothing wrong with that."

  Despite having a retort ready, Wade found his mouth going dry for no discernible reason.

  Luckily, Scotty, who had been standing by them in conversation with Agnes, cleared his throat and gave her a piercing look.

  "Excuse me, many people like a bite and some spanking."

  Shilloh laughed and raised her hands in the air, "Sorry."

  Wade took the opportunity to look away from her and bring his focus back to where it should have been. He confirmed all the exits, noted all the pocket knives patrons had on them, and clocked fewer handguns than he would have seen in Forsythe.

  "Hey, Scotty, you know a lot about this, but" Shilloh asked, "aren't you asexual? Or am I misremembering?"

  "I'm just demi."

  "That's the one where there's no attraction until you know someone, right?"

  Agnes wiggled her hand in a so-so gesture, but didn't try to interrupt.

  "Sorta," said the bane," I can't be interested in sex unless I also know and like the person as a person first."

  Shilloh nodded, "Seems like it would save you from lots of trouble."

  "Her name is Birch. I know we're all terribly embarrassed by her, but she still deserves the respect of being called by her name and not her mission."

  The troublesome woman in question, who had been talking to the bartender, paused to flip him off and mutter something about Scotty missing the opportunity of a lifetime before going back to their conversation about when the dancing would start.

  He waved her off and then lifted his empty martini glass while glancing at everyone. "I'm getting another drink. Anyone want something while I'm up?"

  Agnes asked for a Long Island Iced Tea, Wade asked for water, and Shilloh waved him off. Birch, who was already topped off, let them all know that the dance floor would be opening up soon, and she would get another drink only after working up a sweat.

  Wade made room for his best friend to step by so he could try to catch the bartender's eye.

  "Hey Wade,"" Shilloh said, "how much do you want to bet that I can guess what your quick release is?"

  He followed her eyes and grinned, "Depends: do you think you can figure it out without having Scotty tell you?"

  She laughed a beautiful, somewhat raucous laugh. "Sure. But I'd better get something good if you're adding conditions."

  It was hard to remember if he had told her what it was before, or if it had come up in conversation. Odds were good he had. But he was competitive. Neither the idea of losing nor backing down sat right.

  Then the perfect idea came to him. One that would absolutely make her back off before she could win the bet. Just to be sure, he looked over and saw Birch taking Agnes's hand. The two made their way to the cleared-out center of the restaurant. The lights started dimming even as the two stole the central spot.

  Free from the consequences of being overheard, he leaned forward, holding his opponent's eyes and edging just barely into her personal space. "Fine, I'll make you a good bet then. If you can guess what my quick release is, then you'll be allowed to test some of those claims you've made about wolverine shifters. You'll get a little nibble from me. I can even spank you if you ask nicely."

  He smirked, waiting for her to wince or start laughing and throw her hands up in surrender.

  But Shilloh didn't. Her eyes widened, but she didn't move back.

  His smile slipped, but his eyes stayed locked on her.

  Her breathing picked up, and his own breath started to match hers.

  Though his perceptions did not always slow when he fought, they absolutely did in that moment. What could only have been two seconds seemed to stretch and stretch. Each of his thoughts crawled like frost-bitten molasses.

  In those gasps stolen between endless seconds, he felt her look at him. When her gaze traced down the shirt stretched over his chest, he saw her realize she was looking too long.

  And then he saw her choose to keep looking anyway.

  It was all there in the tiny parting of her lips, the way her neck moved just a little to bar the long, sensitive stretch of skin closest to him. Goosebumps stippled both of their skin as he spent a subjective forever with his stomach full of the small glass traceries of adrenaline doodling against his insides.

  Birch's voice snapped them out of it.

  Out on the dance floor, they could see a small, slimy-looking man waddle up to Birch in a comic parody of confidence. Despite her telling him she wasn't interested, he boldly positioned himself to try and cut Agnes out of his conversation with her.

  Before Wade's well-honed threat evaluation skills had done more than note the clip of a pocket knife in his pants, Shilloh already had her fingernails digging into his forearm.

  "Go, act like you're her boyfriend."

  "What?"

  "Just go," she hissed, all but tossing him in the direction of their unpredictable friend.

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