Camp H.O.W.L. Page 2

  Tate fought back the ripple of his own frustration shivering down his spine, threatening to leave fur in its wake. “If you want to leave, we’ll arrange to have someone from your Pack come pick you up.”

  Ryan scoffed. “I already told you, I have an Uber.”

  Tate sent up a silent prayer for patience. “And where would the Uber take you, Ryan? All the way back to New York? That’s quite the trip.”

  Ryan’s lip stopped trembling and arched into an impressive sneer. “The airport. My dad will send the jet.”

  Because of course this whelp’s family would have a private jet.

  Tate took a deep breath and tried to channel the camp’s meditation instructor. Quinn was always going on about helping the kids find their inner Zen. No wonder they were all so testy all the time—what the hell was inner Zen? He’d rather find his inner Netflix. Something Ryan’s late-night tantrum was keeping him from.

  “Let’s call your dad,” Tate offered. “That way we can make sure he sends the plane and you aren’t left waiting at the airport.”

  There was no way in hell Ryan’s father would send a plane. He was the Alpha of New York City, and he wasn’t going to bend to his nineteen-year-old son’s whim. Tate had already had the pleasure of talking to the man this morning when he and the rest of the counselors had decided Ryan wasn’t ready to be released. It hadn’t been pleasant, but Tate was sure that even though Ryan’s father wasn’t Tate’s biggest fan, he’d back him up on this count. No one wanted a teenage werewolf with poor control on the loose in a major city.

  “My dad doesn’t have time for something this trivial,” Ryan said, but his voice wavered.

  Tate took a good look at him, and where a stubborn, condescending man had stood a moment before, Tate could only see a scared little boy. Forget the fact that this “boy” was nineteen and well over six feet tall. Everything about his posture screamed he was on the defensive, and his voice had cracked when he’d mentioned his dad.

  Tate was pretty far removed from Alpha politics, by deliberate choice and by virtue of both his position at the camp and how isolated they were. Being on staff at Camp H.O.W.L. gave him an excuse to keep himself out of werewolf drama. The camp was a neutral space where kids from feuding Packs could come without fear of repercussions—it had to be a safe place. And if the by-product of that made the camp safe for a Packless werewolf like Tate, well, so much the better. Very few people knew he wasn’t part of a Pack. He’d disclosed it to the former camp director when he’d applied almost a decade ago, but he didn’t think the man had said anything to his successor when she took over a few years back. The camp doctor knew, since being unaffiliated had a few potential medical and psychological repercussions. But as far as Tate knew, no one else—aside from his former Pack, of course—knew he was on his own.

  It was a rare thing, coming upon a werewolf who had no Pack affiliation. And to be honest, it wasn’t something he’d wish for anyone who wasn’t in his very specific situation. The only reason it worked for him was his position here at the camp. His coworkers and even the kids formed an unofficial Pack of sorts, and it was enough of a bond to get him through those difficult moons.

  Tate took another look at Ryan, paying closer attention than usual to his posture and expression. Ryan had come to camp over a month ago as a sneering, privileged brat, and he’d worked hard to sustain that image over the following weeks. Everything Ryan had done in his time at Camp H.O.W.L. had screamed Alpha male, and Tate had allowed his dislike for the way Ryan acted to color his perceptions. Right now, he didn’t look like a self-assured, arrogant would-be Alpha. Tate would bet if he researched Ryan’s Pack, he’d find several older siblings who were in line for their father’s title ahead of Ryan. Maybe even cousins as well. There was nothing Alpha-like about his bowed shoulders and the scared glint in his eyes now.

  Had he been approaching Ryan wrong all along? Tate took a careful step closer, relieved when Ryan didn’t bolt.

  “I doubt your father would think a call from you would be a bother,” he said, taking care to make his tone even and nonthreatening. “I talked to him earlier today, and it’s obvious he loves you very much.”

  Ryan flinched at the mention of Tate’s morning phone call. Had his father called him afterward? He’d seemed accepting of the situation when Tate had talked to him, but that could have been Alpha posturing—like the kind he’d thought Ryan had been engaging in all month.

  “He has a huge Pack to run and a business he’s in charge of. He doesn’t have time to deal with something like this,” Ryan muttered. He kept his gaze locked on the toe of his shoe, which he was dragging through the gravel at the mouth of the trail that led to the parking lot. It’s where Tate had found him after staff realized he was missing and sent up the alarm.

  Tate didn’t think the kid had actually intended to leave. If he had, surely he’d have made it farther than this. He had a considerable head start, and even if he was hell-bent on calling an Uber, he could have done it from the road. With the benefit of werewolf speed, Ryan could have easily gotten several miles away before anyone noticed. Instead, he’d only made it the quarter of a mile to the lot.

  “Your safety and wellbeing aren’t things your father needs to ‘deal with,’” Tate said softly. “You aren’t an inconvenience to him. He’s concerned because you’re taking a bit longer than the average werewolf to gain control, but that’s a minor thing, Ryan. No one is judging you.”

  Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Tate and the rest of the staff were judging him—but it was because of his attitude and his refusal to comply with the training and take the classes seriously. They’d never harshly judge a camper who was really trying. Kids like Ryan who were more focused on disruptions and disrespecting the counselors than putting in the work were the exception, but even those kids were generally driven by something unseen—like a fear of their Alpha, body image issues that had plagued them before the Turn but worsened after, or a severe lack of self-confidence that kept them from succeeding because of crippling doubt. Only a very few were simply bad eggs, and up until tonight Tate had Ryan pegged as one of those.

  Maybe he’d made a mistake there. He might have more in common with Ryan than he’d realized. Ryan showed all the signs of having an overbearing, controlling Alpha, though Tate hoped that’s where the similarities ended. God help any wolfling who’d had a childhood as abusive as his own.

  “My brothers were fine,” Ryan said, bitterness seeping into his voice. “They were here, like, a week before everything settled. My sister could control her shift by the end of the night she Turned. I’m the family embarrassment in everything else, but I figured this would be one area where I could actually keep up. Guess not.”

  Tate wished they weren’t having this conversation in the parking lot, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He’d been trying to get Ryan to open up for weeks, and he wasn’t about to tell the kid he had to come by during office hours tomorrow to continue. The minute Ryan walked away from him, he’d lose the entire thread and no progress would be made.

  “Why would you say you’re an embarrassment? You seem like a bright guy, and you’re very popular here at camp.”

  Ryan scoffed. “No one here really knows anything about me. I don’t have any friends in the Pack at home because they all know what a screwup I am.”

  Tate made a mental note to call someone in Ryan’s Pack other than his father to find out more about his Pack life. He wasn’t terribly surprised to hear Ryan had problems—being the Alpha’s child set a wolfling apart, and growing up with as much money and privilege as Ryan had would have a similar effect. He’d been insulated from humans his entire life, and it sounded like his Pack had kept him at a distance as well. No wonder the kid was so poorly adjusted.

  Tate chose his words carefully. He hadn’t been blowing smoke when he said Ryan was a smart kid. He’d jump all over it if Tate tried to pander to him, so he took the chance with blunt honesty instead.

  “Sometime
s people who have a good deal of power or money have a hard time making friends,” he offered. “People want to be near them for the status, not for true friendship. That can be very isolating. And growing up like that can bring about self-esteem problems that interfere with conquering the change.”

  Ryan was silent, but he wasn’t protesting or disagreeing.

  “Do you think that might be what’s happening here?”

  Tate wasn’t prepared for Ryan to snarl and lunge toward the trees, his clothes shredding as fur sprouted and muscle and sinew twisted and reformed. He watched Ryan go, relieved he at least had the sense to head back toward camp instead of into the parking lot.

  They kept a large perimeter around Camp H.O.W.L. Ryan’s Uber wouldn’t have been able to pick him up in the parking lot without a staff member jogging two miles down the pebbled lane to open the high-tech gate they kept locked twenty-four seven.

  Ryan would be safe enough, but Tate would still stop by the lodge to tell the unlucky soul who’d drawn security duty for the night there was an angry wolfling prowling around. The entire forest was blanketed with night-vision cameras and motion sensors, and an alarm would sound in the security room if Ryan made it close to the electric fence that lined the perimeter of the camp. That’s what had alerted them to his presence in the parking lot in the first place.

  Tate wished they’d had more time to talk before Ryan shifted, but they’d still accomplished a lot tonight. Ryan hadn’t successfully completed a full Turn since his birthday over a month ago, so his transformation tonight was a milestone. Now they’d have to work on getting him there without needing to invoke such strong emotions. The Turn would come easier these next few days because of the full moon, which was tomorrow night, but Tate was sure that now Ryan had the confidence boost of being able to successfully Turn, he’d be able to do it again. Then they’d work on forcing the change—and holding it back—at will.

  But that was for another day. Tate was going to get himself a congratulatory beer after checking in with the security detail and settle in for some quality time with his Netflix. He hated seeing any wolfling in distress, but the ones who shivered and shrank when they mentioned their Alpha were the worst.

  That’s not me, he told himself firmly. And it wasn’t. Not anymore at least.

  Tate couldn’t change the fact he’d been terrorized by his Alpha growing up, but he had the power to change his present and his future. And he had. He’d renounced his ties to the Pack almost fifteen years ago.

  A run would probably settle Tate’s nerves better than anything, but he didn’t want to chance crossing paths with Ryan. The wolfling had shifted involuntarily and bolted to get away from him—Tate wasn’t going to cut whatever solace the exertion might be giving Ryan by popping up on the trail.

  Tate rolled his shoulders and stretched, trying to ease the tension gathered there. Maybe he’d let himself into the camp gym instead of heading to his cabin to watch Netflix. There wasn’t much that working up a good old-fashioned sweat couldn’t cure.

  Chapter Three

  ADRIAN laced his running shoes, glad he’d second-guessed himself and tossed them in his bag at the last minute. He worked long hours when he traveled, making the most of his time at the satellite offices so he could minimize the number of trips he had to take each year. He always booked hotels with fitness centers with the hope he’d be able to get a long run on the treadmill in after finishing up in the evening.

  He hardly ever did. Usually he was so exhausted from the long day and the constant socializing that he holed up in his room and mainlined Candy Crush until he fell asleep.

  But today was different. He’d been at the office all day, including the humiliating surprise birthday party and the dinner the management staff had insisted on treating him to afterward. The only saving grace there was he didn’t think the dinner invitation had been part of his mother’s party directive, which made it easier to bear. Surprisingly, he’d found himself having fun getting to know some of the staff on a personal level, finding out things about people he’d worked with from a distance for years.

  The urban planning director was an avid runner, and she’d been the one to suggest he take time out to run along the canal and the cultural trail to see some of the sights in Indianapolis after he’d shared that he ran several half marathons a year. His last had been the Rock ’n’ Roll Seattle half marathon in June, and things had gotten so busy he hadn’t had a good long run since. Given that it was the end of August now, that was a long time to go for him.

  Kristen had given him directions to the start of the cultural trail, which she’d said was about eight miles long and included a scenic portion along the city’s canal. He hadn’t even known Indianapolis had a canal, but apparently it was pretty close to the hotel he was staying in.

  Adrian double-knotted his shoes and stood to stretch. He worked at a standing desk back in Portland, but the Indianapolis office didn’t have any, so he’d spent the day hunched over a desk. His shoulders were stiff, and the light stretch felt good. Running would feel even better, he thought.

  He’d been keyed up all day, and instead of his energy waning like it usually did at the end of a long workday, he was more pumped up than ever. Adrian wasn’t sure where all this nervous energy was coming from, but he was going to take advantage of it and indulge in a longer-than-usual run tonight. It had been weeks since he’d done more than a quick three or four miles, so he intended to explore every inch of this eight-mile trail.

  He pocketed his hotel key card and tucked his phone into a pouch in his running shorts. He usually liked to listen to music when he ran, but he was actually looking forward to soaking up some silence tonight.

  Well, as much silence as being in the heart of a city could afford him. Plus he didn’t like having headphones in to distract him when he was running in an unfamiliar place, especially at night. Kristen had assured him the trail was well lit, and the sun was still up. He doubted it would be by the time he finished, but he had a good half hour of daylight left.

  He pulled the door closed behind him, wincing as it slammed. He hadn’t meant to put that much force behind it.

  He was on the thirty-second floor of his hotel, a monstrous iridescent blue building out of place among the other buildings in the Indianapolis skyline. It looked modern and sleek, which could be great somewhere else. But across the street from the brick baseball field where the Indians played and next to the stately limestone buildings and museums around it, it stuck out like a sore thumb and made the urban planner in him wince.

  Adrian hopped in place while he waited for the elevator, his muscles practically screaming to be let loose on a run. He couldn’t remember a time he’d anticipated dashing off quite this much, and that was odd. He had to start making exercise a priority if this was how his body responded to being deprived of it.

  The elevator dinged, and he indulged in one last hop and stretch before entering the empty car, glad there wasn’t anyone to make small talk with. That would likely change on his ride down, but he’d take the calm silence for now.

  ADRIAN never slept well in hotels, but last night’s restlessness took his insomnia to a new level. He’d come back from his run with the pleasant buzz he usually felt after exerting himself on a short run, not the exhaustion and satisfying soreness he usually felt after a longer one. Having gone weeks without running a long distance, he should have been achy and cramping when he finished the eight-mile trail, but he’d come back barely out of breath and, if anything, more keyed up than he’d been when he started.

  To make matters worse, the hotel had been ridiculously loud all night, with people clomping up and down the hallways at all hours and talking stridently in other rooms. The elevator was so noisy he was almost afraid to take it in the morning for fear it was about to break down.

  The hotel had been perfectly quiet and calm before last night, when things seemed to explode. Sometimes literally. He could have sworn he’d heard something shatter in the next r
oom around 3:00 a.m.

  It had been impossible for him to relax enough to sleep, and even when he’d passed out due to sheer exhaustion in the wee hours of the morning, it hadn’t been for long. He’d caught snatches of sleep through the night, which might have been worse for him than staying up the entire time. At least he felt like it had been worse. Who knew how bad he’d be feeling if he hadn’t managed even the meager amount of sleep he’d gotten?

  Hell, this was worse than the time he’d had to spend a weekend sharing a hotel with an entire league of youth hockey teams.

  Even the restaurant was louder than it had been the first few days of his stay. Adrian’s head throbbed with lack of sleep and undercaffeination since he hadn’t been able to stomach either the noise or the smells in the hotel’s restaurant this morning. He’d forgone the breakfast buffet he’d enjoyed the last two days and opted to grab a coffee on his walk to the office instead.

  “Venti Caramel Macchiato, extra shot, no whip for Aaron?”

  Adrian blinked blearily, struggling to focus past the tightening band of his tension headache. The girl at the counter looked at him expectantly.

  “Venti for Aaron?” she said again, waving the drink. “Extra shot, no whip.”

  It was the right drink but the wrong name, and when no one else stepped up he surged forward clumsily.

  “A little advice, Aaron? You drink too many of these and you’re gonna have a heart attack,” she said when he reached out for it. “That’s four shots. Nobody needs four shots.”