Seal Wolf Hunting (9781402293832) by Terry Spear

with Lori as a wolf. He hadn’t done that in many years.
    They paused to watch the sun begin to rise, turning the sky pink and orange before the darkness faded to light, and then they continued the short distance to the cabin.
    As soon as they entered through the wolf door, Lori raced for the bedroom, and Paul shifted and began getting dressed in the living room. She was faster than him; he hadn’t pulled on his shirt yet when she joined him.
    â€œ That was fun. I ran with Rose about a month ago, but…” She shrugged. “I think I felt, well, safer with you. But don’t read anything into that. You’re a male wolf, and you’re bigger and scarier looking—to wild beasts of prey, that is. Hunters with guns? None of us stand a chance against them.”
    â€œI had fun, Lori. Somehow running with Allan isn’t the same.” Wolves were social animals, so they did brush up against each other, touch noses in greeting, and lick each other, male to male, female to female, male to female. It was just a way of showing the pack bonds. But with Lori? Hell, rubbing his fur-covered body against hers while they ran or licking her cheek or nuzzling her meant a whole different thing to him.
    â€œYou’re so used to running with him that you probably know just how he’s going to react. Me, I’m an unknown quantity,” Lori said.
    â€œSomewhat, but you still have some of the same wolf moves from when we were younger.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYou used to sit by a stream or river and watch to see if you could catch sight of a fish, and your tail would start wagging vigorously, sweeping the ground.”
    She laughed. “I’m surprised you remembered.”
    He couldn’t forget how she had behaved as a wolf in their youth. Each of the wolves in the pack had different behaviors, just like humans. But he’d always been fascinated with Lori’s antics.
    Lori hadn’t expected him to kiss her again so soon. Or to…continually get into her space on the run. Not in a protective way, but more like…courting.
    She’d like that. If he intended to stay. She made eggs, toast, and bacon for them while he began to tape next to the brick fireplace. After eating, Paul pulled the plastic over the top of the mantel and taped it in place. Lori moved more plastic sheeting over to the base of the wall they were going to paint.
    â€œOn the flight home from Ecuador, Allan and I were talking about how you, Emma, Catherine, and Rose need to join a pack. You need to be around more of our kind,” Paul said. “I really hadn’t thought about it until this Cooper business, and now with a grizzly claiming this as its territory, it’s not all that safe to run as wolves by yourselves, or for just you and Rose to run together.”
    Lori dropped to her knees and began taping around the rest of the fireplace at the base next to the wooden floor. “The two of you were talking about us ? Deciding what we should do?” She snorted. “Figure out what you want to do about yourselves .” She shouldn’t have, but she tacked on, “When you grow up.” That earned her a little smile.
    Her grandma only shifted on her acreage at night now because of her more advanced age, and Catherine, Rose, and Lori sometimes ran together as wolves because of the safety in numbers. But she didn’t need Paul telling her that she and the rest of them needed to join another lupus garou pack just so they could run as wolves.
    Paul cleared his throat. “We worry—”
    She cut him off. “First off, you know it won’t happen. Our pack settled this land. We have history here. When that rabid wolf pack killed so many of our kind, we vowed to stay here and to continue on. We promised to be here for each other.”
    Her face felt tight with annoyance. She hadn’t expected him or Allan to stay in the area forever because they’d always been