“You felt my beast, because you have your own.”

   “I saw your eyes change, Brian,” Edward said.

   Nolan looked at him. “You did not.”

   “You were so busy trying not to flash the color change down the hall toward your people that you didn’t think I was standing beside you. I saw your eyes change, but I felt the energy roll off you, too.”

   “You never felt it when we worked together in the past.”

   “I didn’t know what I was feeling back then. I’d barely started working with preternatural stuff. I have years more practice under my belt, and I know what I felt.”

   “How could you differentiate between me, Blake, Sanderson, Murdock, or Jones?”

   “I’ve worked with Anita too long not to know what her energy feels like; same for Murdock. The others not as much, but I still knew how many shapeshifters were in that hallway from the feel of their energy. I’ll be honest: if I hadn’t seen your eyes I wouldn’t have been sure it was you, but I would have known it had to be either you or Mortimer, because that’s the direction I was sensing it from.”

   “All right, so you sensed me.”

   “Is it just being around so many other people with similar gifts that roused your wolf?” Flannery asked.

   “No.” This from Jake.

   “What was it, then?” Nolan asked, and he was a little defensive like Brennan had been inside.

   “When is the last time you were around a woman of your kind?” Jake asked.

   “I see my mother at least once a month.”

   Jake smiled, gently, as if he were trying to lead him through something hard. “No, I mean a woman who is someone you could have a romantic relationship with, Captain Nolan.”

   “Years.”

   “Have you been around any female werewolves that are like me?”

   “Only to fight them in other countries.”

   “So, again, no chance for romance.”

   “I suppose not.”

   “Then Anita is the first she-wolf you have met in years who isn’t trying to kill you, or isn’t closely related to you.”

   “Are you saying that my wolf reacted that strongly just because she’s a female wolf?”

   “Something like that.”

   He shook his head. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Pennyfeather, but I haven’t reacted that way to a she-wolf since I was a teenager. Why now?”

   It took me a second to remember that Jake was Pennyfeather. Jake asked, “When is the last time you let yourself become a wolf?”

   Nolan took in a lot of the damp, fresh-smelling air, and then let it out in a rush. “I don’t remember.”

   “Your people may be able to go for years without changing form, but your other half is still in there with all the same needs and wants of any creature.”

   “How long since you had a date?” Edward asked.

   Nolan frowned, and again I had the urge to smooth his forehead and see if the lines would soften. I didn’t act on the impulse, but it was an unusual thought for me with a stranger. I wondered if my inner wolf was behind it.

   “I don’t really date anymore.”

   “How long since you had sex with someone else?” Edward asked.

   Nolan scowled, hands going into fists. I thought for a second we might get to see another fight, but he controlled everything but his voice, which was dark and low with suppressed anger. “That is not your business.”

   “That’s answer enough, so that long,” Edward said.

   I think Nolan started counting to twenty, very slowly, in his head so he didn’t take a swing at Edward. Since I had on occasion done the same thing with him, I really couldn’t throw stones.

   “That will make it harder to be around Anita,” Jake said.

   “Why?” Nolan asked.

   “Because she’s a she-wolf and your wolf recognizes that.”

   He stared at Jake for a second. “You’re joking.”

   “We are all attracted to those who carry similar energy, Captain.”

   “So is it hard for you to be around Anita?”

   “No, but I’ve had far more practice interacting with other female werewolves than you have. Also, I become my other form at least once a month. I feed my body’s needs and wants, Captain. You, it seems, do not.”

   “I told you, we’re dying out, and those of us who are left don’t want their children to be wolves. I can’t tell you about a single child of people who kept their tail into adulthood. In the seventeen and eighteen hundreds the British used the tails on our soldiers as propaganda to prove that the Irish weren’t human, that all of us were just animals, so it didn’t matter if they slaughtered us or starved us. We went from being a people proud of their heritage to one that began to believe the lies. What if we were just animals, not the Irish, but us, the wolves of Ireland?”

   “That was not true then, and it is not true now,” Jake said.

   “I reacted to Blake’s wolf like I was in heat; that’s not human.”

   “You’ve never been a pretty girl at a bar on a Saturday night. Trust me, Nolan, men behave a lot more animalistic than you did in the hallway,” I said.

   “That has been true of men and pretty girls for forever and a day,” Magda said.

   “On behalf of all my sex, my deepest apologies,” Jake said. The rest of the men wisely said nothing.

   “You just need a woman in your life,” Edward said.

   “You sound like my ma.”

   Edward grinned at him. “I hope we can visit before we leave. She hears that I’m married with two kids, she’ll give you even more grief about it.”

   “If I understand it, you’re not married yet, and if Ma finds out you’re living in sin with kids in the house, you’re the one that will get the grief.”

   Edward gave a smile that gave me a sudden glimpse of what he might have been at twenty when he met Nolan. I’d never met anyone who had known him this long. I so needed to ask questions of him when Edward wasn’t around.

   As if he read my mind, Edward said, “I think Anita is hoping to see some of the countryside with her lovers before we all go home.”

   “My ma wouldn’t know what to do with you, Blake. Too much sin for any one woman, is likely what she’d say.”

   “I think I’m offended,” I said.