It had been nearly two months since Sheppard went home with his newest pack member and all their newly-minted bureaucratic protections. Well… technically she was my pack member, at least on paper, but I wasn’t about to try to make a wereleopard choose between a werewolf pack she barely knew and one she didn’t know at all. Hell, I’d be shocked if she was even capable of pack-bonding.
Still, I had plans in motion, and Blair had been pestering me for over a month to find a face to this PR campaign already. We knew I wasn’t the best choice—I was much more reactive than cool and collected.
But Sheppard was practically the opposite. And he owed me three favors now.
So, I called him up, and told him he should come out to San Antonio while his pack figured out their next steps. I had a guest house they could stay in on my stretch of land, and they’d get out of a town they were done with.
At least, I was pretty sure they were done with Colorado Springs. Once they took down the major vamp nest in an area, his pack usually moved on. Sometimes they’d stick around to clean up the stragglers, but I was under the impression there weren’t many of those left. I didn’t know exactly how many brood destructions that made for them, but I knew it had to be more than four times what my pack had under their belt. Besides, with the military wolves right in his backyard, Sheppard and his pack could move on and let the Army pack clean up the scraps.
He seemed hesitant to leave, though.
“Come on, Sheppard. It’s easier to sell a house if no one’s living in it, and we have an international airport in our backyard with plenty more connections than Colorado Springs has.”
He chuckled. “We don’t exactly have a shortage of housing here, but you make a fair point about the airport. That said, Denver’s only about an hour or so north of us.”
“Sure,” I said, pacing around my room for the fifth time this conversation. “But San Antonio International is only twenty minutes from my place, so it’d be more convenient than a bunch of road trips.”
“And this has nothing to do with the favors I owe you, huh?”
I snorted as I stepped onto the cool tile of my bathroom and leaned a hip on the counter. “I’d be lying if I tried to tell you that wasn’t at least part of my motive for the offer. I think I know something you can help me with.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing you can’t handle, of course.” I grabbed the bottle of red nail polish on my vanity and shook it. The little metal ball bearing clinked rhythmically against the interior of the bottle. “We’ll talk once you’re all settled. Get out of the military’s backyard and come be around people who actually understand your pack.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“Lemme know when your flight arrives.”
He laughed. “Talk to you soon, Jessica.”
I ended the call and put the phone down next to the sink as I opened the bottle of nail polish. Crinkling my nose at its sharp scent, I got to work on my toenails.
He hadn’t said no—at least, not right away.
That was something.
Getting him to agree to be the face that made the world aware of werewolves would be another thing altogether.
Chapter One
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