Agreement Canceled

I pointed toward the front door again. “Get out.”

For the first time since I'd walked into my own house and found him casually violating several laws at my kitchen table, he looked genuinely confused.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“Every deeply concerning word of it.”

“Your grandmother was murdered.”

“According to the armed stranger who broke into her house.”

“Your house.”

“Not helping your case.”

His mouth tightened, and I got the distinct impression that patience was not one of his more developed qualities. That made two of us.

I crossed the kitchen and snapped my laptop shut before he could read another word. Whatever bizarre mental breakdown I'd apparently wandered into tonight, there were limits. Finding out that Grandma had supposedly been some kind of supernatural border patrol was one thing. Letting a home invader get to chapter twenty-seven before my editor did was another.

“You're taking this remarkably well,” he said.

“I am not taking anything well. I'm choosing which emergency to address first.”

“And I'm the emergency?”

“You have a sword.”

His eyes flicked toward the window.

“You have a werewolf.”

I followed his gaze despite myself. The garden was empty. A moment ago the wolf had been sitting outside the window like a terrifying lawn ornament, enormous and gold-eyed and apparently waiting for the man in my kitchen to come outside so it could eat him. Now there was nothing but moonlight over the rosemary bushes and the old stone birdbath I'd been meaning to clean since I moved in.

“Where did it go?”

The man stood so quickly the chair legs scraped across the floor.

That was not the reaction I wanted.

“Lock the door.”

I stared at him. “You mean the door you somehow got through?”

“Lock it.”

“You're being weirdly judgmental about my home security for a burglar.”

His hand went over his shoulder and closed around the hilt of the sword.

Every remaining smart comment evaporated.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay behind me.”

“I don't even know your name.”

“You don't need my name to stay behind me.”

“I absolutely feel like names should come before using someone as a human shield.”

He gave me a look over his shoulder. 

A knock sounded at the front door. We both went still. There was something uniquely horrifying about a polite knock after being chased home by a wolf. If something scratched at the door, fine. Growled, expected. Threw itself bodily through a window, horrifying but thematically consistent but knocking implied manners.

The stranger drew his sword.

“Do not answer that.”

Another knock came, three measured taps against the wood.

I lowered my voice. “What happens if I don't?”

“He'll come in anyway.”

“Then why did you tell me to lock it?”

He looked briefly irritated by the question, which I thought was unfair considering it was an excellent one.

The knock came again.

“Stay here.”

He started toward the door.

“No.”

He stopped.

“This is my house.”

“And that's a werewolf.”

“You don't know that.”

“I actually do know that.”

That shut me up for approximately half a second.

He reached for the door. I grabbed his arm but he turned the handle anyway. I released him so fast I nearly stumbled backward.

The door opened and there was a man standing on my porch.

For one wild second, relief hit me hard enough that I almost laughed. He was human. Definitely human. Tall, broad through the shoulders, with dark hair that fell messily across his forehead and the kind of face that would've been reassuring under almost any other circumstances.

Then I realized he wasn't wearing a shirt or shoes and there was blood running down one side of his chest. My relief quietly packed its bags and left. His eyes moved from me to the sword pointed at him.

“Put that away.”

The stranger beside me actually laughed. There wasn't much humor in it.

“Take one step inside.”

The man on my porch looked back at me. His eyes were a familiar shade of gold.

I took a step backward.

“Where's the wolf?”

His expression changed slightly.

“Outside.”

“Where outside?”

He glanced down at himself as though the answer should have been obvious. My brain caught up.

“No.”

His mouth twitched.

“No,” I repeated. “I have already used my allotted amount of no for tonight, but I'm borrowing some from tomorrow.”

“You see the eyes now?” the swordsman asked.

“Shut up.”

“I told you.”

The man on the porch leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “Is she always like this?”

“I met her twenty minutes ago.”

“He broke into my house.” I accused.

“I didn't break anything.”

The almost-smile disappeared from the wolf man's face. His attention had moved past me, deeper into the cottage.

He inhaled.

It was subtle, just one slow breath, but something about his entire body changed afterward. His shoulders straightened. His gaze moved over the kitchen, the old wooden beams, the narrow hallway behind me, then finally settled on my face.

“What?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

The swordsman noticed it too. “What?”

“You shouldn't be here.”

His voice had changed.

The swordsman's grip tightened around his weapon. “Neither should you.”

“I wasn't talking to you.”

The wolf man's eyes stayed on me. A cold feeling began working its way down my spine.

“What exactly is wrong with me being in my own house?”

He stepped forward.

The sword came up immediately.

“Don't.”

The wolf stopped at the threshold and looked at him with an expression that suggested the sword was more irritating than frightening.

“The Keeper is dead.”

The words landed differently, coming from him.

The man beside me went rigid. “You would know.”

Gold eyes snapped toward him.

For the first time, something genuinely dangerous entered the room.

“You think we killed her?”

“I know you did.”

“You know nothing.”

“I saw what was left.”

The wolf man's jaw tightened.

I looked between them.

“Okay. Great. Apparently we're doing this.” I held up both hands. “One of you thinks my grandmother was murdered by werewolves. The other one is apparently offended by that accusation, which is not a sentence I expected to say at any point in my life. Before anyone starts stabbing anyone, can somebody explain what a Keeper actually is?”

Neither answered.

“Fantastic. He told me that my grandma kept werewolves out of the town.”

The wolf looked at me again, studying me in a way I didn't particularly enjoy.

“He’s wrong; your grandmother didn't keep us out.”

“I'm standing right here,” he said.

The wolf ignored him. “She kept us apart.”

Something moved across the swordsman's face. It was small and fast but I caught it.

“You knew that.” 

“I know what the agreement says.”

“So do I,” the wolf said.

“Clearly not.”

I rubbed both hands over my face. “Are you seriously telling me there's an agreement?”

Neither of them said anything. I lowered my hands.

“Between werewolves and sword people?”

“Huntsmen,” the man beside me said.

“Huntman? Of course you are.”

A howl rolled through the woods outside. The wolf man's head turned sharply toward the door.

Another howl answered from farther away and then another. The humor disappeared from both men's faces at exactly the same time. I hated that more than anything that had happened so far.

“What does that mean?”

The Huntsman moved in front of me and the wolf stepped through the doorway. The sword flashed up.

“Get out!” The Huntsman demanded.

“I'm not here for you.”

“You crossed the boundary.”

“So did you.”

“I said get out.”

“And I said...”

They moved at the same time. I didn't think.

“Stop!”

The word tore out of me.

Something slammed through the cottage.

Not wind. Not sound. Something heavier, invisible, and sudden enough that every cabinet door rattled. Both men froze. The Huntsman's sword hung halfway through its swing. The wolf stood less than a foot from him, one hand twisted into the front of his coat. Neither of them moved. I stared at them. They stared at me.

“What the hell?”

The Huntsman had gone pale.

The wolf slowly turned his head toward me. It looked like it took effort.

Then, incredibly, he smiled.

“Well,” he said.

I swallowed. "Well, what?”

His gold eyes held mine.

“You’re the new Keeper.”