<A game of chase?> Jane, the Wolfgard bodywalker, asked hopefully.
<Kowalski could be play-prey,> Nathan said.
<Does he know how to play chase?> Blair asked.
<He’s a police officer,> Nathan replied. <He chases other humans all the time.>
<Doesn’t mean he understands our game.> Simon thought Nathan’s opinion of police work was skewed more toward hopeful than accurate. Still, they could offer to play. If Kowalski didn’t accept, they would just enjoy a run. But . . . bicycle. Simon really wanted to chase one. <Let’s find out.>
The Wolves charged up the road, Simon and Blair in the lead as they swiftly closed the distance between the pack and their play-prey. But would they have a game?
Kowalski looked back. His eyes widened—and he pedaled faster.
Yes!
<We don’t catch, only chase,> Simon said.
<He’s fast!> Jane surged ahead of the males, pulling up alongside the bicycle’s back wheel in seconds.
<Don’t grab the wheels,> Nathan said. <If you catch a tooth in the spokes you could break your jaw or worse.>
<I was listening when Officer Karl told the puppies about the dangers of biting wheels,> Jane snapped, clearly offended by Nathan’s unwanted warning. She moved up a little more, now in position to play-bite Kowalski’s calf.
Kowalski glanced at Jane and pedaled faster. Instead of going over the bridge that would take them into the Hawkgard section—and commit the human to the big loop within the Courtyard’s three hundred acres—Kowalski turned onto the road that ran alongside the Elementals’ lake, heading back toward the Green Complex.
The Wolves ran, maintaining their distance even when Kowalski slowed down while going up a rise. They took turns pacing the bicycle and pushing their prey to run and run. Or pedal and pedal. As they reached the intersection with the Courtyard’s main road, Kowalski swung left toward the Green Complex instead of turning right toward the Market Square.
Most of the pack, having slowed to a trot as their prey tired, circled back toward the Wolfgard Complex. Nathan headed for the Market Square and the Liaison’s Office, where he would keep track of the deliverymen and guard Meg Corbyn, the Courtyard’s Human Liaison. Simon and Blair followed Kowalski until they reached the Green Complex. Then Blair continued on to the Utilities Complex while Simon dashed for the water trough in the common area that formed the open center of the Courtyard’s only multispecies complex. He lapped water, then shifted to his human form and dunked his head, flinging water as he stood up and tossed his dark hair away from his face. He splashed his arms and chest, then grinned when Kowalski parked the bicycle and approached the trough warily.
“That was a great game of chase!” Simon said happily. “You understand how to be play-prey.”
“I do?”
“Yes.” Simon cocked his head, puzzled by the human’s wariness. Hadn’t they just played, had fun? “Want some water?”
“Thanks.” Kowalski splashed water on his face and neck, then on his arms. But he didn’t drink.
Simon pondered the not drinking for a moment. Humans were clever, invasive predators who had recently shown the terra indigene once again why they could never be fully trusted—not even by one another. But physically they were so much weaker than other kinds of predators. This not drinking, for example. Nothing wrong with the water in the trough. Someone had already drained yesterday’s water, using it on the potted tree and other plants in the open area, and refilled the trough with fresh water for drinking and splashing. Humans would drink water pumped from the well if it was in a glass or a bucket or some other small container but couldn’t drink the same water from a shared outdoor container?
It made him wonder how they had survived as a species long enough to become such a problem.
“So, who doesn’t understand about play-prey?” Kowalski asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
“The female pack. Every time we invited them to play, they stopped riding their bicycles and asked if they could help.” Simon spread his arms in a “what’s that all about?” gesture. Then he pointed at Kowalski. “But you invited us to play, and we all had a good run.”
Kowalski snorted a soft laugh. “Well, I sure had a good run.”
“Since the females can’t pedal as far or as fast as you, maybe they could play chase with the puppies.” The pups would learn how to run as a pack without the risk of being kicked by real prey.
Simon studied Kowalski, who studied him in turn.
“I’ll talk to Ruthie,” Kowalski finally said.
They both heard the clink of glassware and looked toward the screened summer room below Meg Corbyn’s apartment.
“Must be later than I realized,” Kowalski said. “I’d better go home and get cleaned up for work.”
Simon watched the man walk toward the bicycle—and the summer room. For a moment, it looked like Kowalski was going to go in and talk to Meg, and Simon felt his teeth lengthen to Wolf size as his lips pulled back in a silent snarl. But Kowalski just raised a hand in greeting, said, “Morning, Meg,” and rode away.
Simon walked around the trough, then stopped suddenly when he realized he was naked in his human form. It had never mattered until Meg came to live in the Courtyard. But humans reacted in various ways to seeing one another without clothing, even when clothing wasn’t needed for protection or warmth. Meg had adjusted pretty well to friends shifting to human form to give her a message or answer a question before shifting back to their preferred furred or feathered form, but it was different with him—maybe because their friendship was different from any other she had with humans or terra indigene.
Most nights, he slept with her in his Wolf form. They had their own apartments, but those places were connected by the summer room and a back upstairs hallway, and more and more it was becoming one den instead of two. But they weren’t mates in the same way Kowalski and Ruthie were mates. Then again, terra indigene Wolves mated only once a year, when females came into season. Meg did the bleeding typical of human females, but she hadn’t shown any physical interest in having a mate. Except . . .
She’d asked him to go skinny-dipping with her a couple of weeks ago. Both of them naked, in human form. She’d been nervous about being in the water with him, and she seemed scared after he’d kissed the scar along the right side of her jaw—a scar made by the cut that had saved the Wolfgard in Lakeside as well as many other Wolves throughout the Northeast Region and even beyond.