I lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers from memory. It rang four times, then the machine picked up. A recorded voice started, not Jeremy's deep tones, but a Southern drawl that made me fumble to hang up before I heard the entire message. Sweat broke out along my forehead. The air in the apartment seemed to have shot up ten degrees and lost half its oxygen. I wiped my hands over my face, gave my head a sharp shake and went to find my shoes for my walk with Philip.

***

Before breakfast the next morning, Philip asked what Jeremy had wanted. I admitted that I hadn't been able to get in touch with him, but promised to keep trying. After we ate, Philip went downstairs to get the newspaper. I called Jeremy and once more got the answering machine.

As much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to worry. It wasn't my fault, really. Being concerned about my former Pack brothers was instinctive, something I couldn't control. Or, at least, that's what I told myself when my heart pounded on the third unanswered call.

Jeremy should have been there. He rarely went far from Stonehaven, preferring to rule from his throne of power and send his minions to do his dirty work. Okay, that wasn't a fair assessment of Jeremy's leadership style, but I was in no mood to be complimentary. He'd told me to call and, goddamn it, he should have been there when I did.

When Philip came back, I was hovering over the phone, glaring down at it as if I could mentally force Jeremy to pick up.

"Still no answer?" Philip said.

I shook my head. He studied my face more closely than I liked. As I turned away, he crossed the room and put his hand on my shoulder.

"You're worried."

"Not really. I just-"

"It's okay, hon. If it were my family, I'd be worried. Maybe you should go there. See what's wrong. It sounded urgent."

I pulled away. "No, that's ridiculous. I'll keep calling-"

"It's family, hon," he said, as if that answered any argument I could come up with. For him, it did. That was one thing I couldn't argue with. When Philip and I first became serious, the lease on his apartment came up and he'd made it clear he wanted to move in with me, but I'd resisted. Then he'd taken me to his family reunion. I'd met his mother and his father and his sister and seen how he interacted with them, how integral they were to his life. The next day I'd told him not to extend his lease.

Now Philip expected me to go to the aid of someone he thought was my family. If I refused, would he think I wasn't the kind of person he wanted? I wouldn't take that chance. I promised to keep trying. I promised if I didn't get hold of Jeremy by noon, I'd fly to New York State to see what was wrong.

Each time I called over the next few hours, I prayed for an answer. The only reply I got was the click of the answering machine.

Philip drove me to the airport after lunch.

Prodigal

The plane landed at Syracuse-Hancock at seven p.m. I tried Jeremy's number, but only got the answering machine. Again. By now I was more annoyed than worried. As the distance between us lessened, my memory improved and I remembered what it was like to live at Stonehaven, Jeremy's country estate. In particular, I recalled the resident phone-answering habits, or lack thereof. Two people lived at Stonehaven, Jeremy and his foster-son-turned-bodyguard, Clayton. There were two phones in the five-bedroom house. The one in Clay's room was connected to the answering machine, but the phone itself had lost the ability to ring four years ago, when Clay whipped it across the room after it dared disturb his sleep two nights in a row. There was also a phone in the study, but if Clay needed to use the line for his laptop, he often neglected to plug the phone back in, sometimes for days. Even if, by chance, there was an operating telephone in the house, both men had been known to sit five feet away and not bother picking it up. And Philip thought my phone habits were bad.

The more I thought about it, the more I fumed. The more I fumed, the more determined I was not to leave the airport until someone answered the damned phone. If they summoned me, they should pick me up. At least, this was my excuse. The truth was that I was loath to leave the bustle of the airport. Yes, that sounds crazy. Most people judge the success of a plane flight by how little time they have to spend in the airport. Normally, I would have felt the same way, but as I sat there, taking in the sights and smells of the nearly empty terminal, I reveled in the humanness of it. Here in the airport I was an anonymous face in a sea of equally anonymous faces. There was comfort in that, the feeling of being part of something larger, but not at the center of it. Things would change the minute I walked out of here and into Stonehaven.

Two hours later, I decided I couldn't put it off any longer. I made my last call to Stonehaven and left a message. Two words. "I'm coming." It would do.

Getting to Stonehaven wasn't easy. It was in remote upstate New York near a small town called Bear Valley. As my cab pulled away from the airport, it was already night. Syracuse glowed somewhere to the south, but the cab turned north once it reached highway 81. The lights of North Syracuse appeared to my left, faded fast, then vanished into the night. A dozen miles later the driver turned off the highway and the darkness was complete. In the quiet of the country night, I relaxed. Werewolves weren't meant for urban life. There was no place to run, and the sheer crush of people often provided more temptation than anonymity. Sometimes I think I chose to live in downtown Toronto simply because it was against my nature, one more instinct for me to defeat.

As I looked out the window, I ticked off the time with the landmarks. With each passing mark, my stomach danced faster. Trepidation, I told myself. Not anticipation. Even if I'd spent the better part of ten years at Stonehaven, I didn't consider it my home. The concept of home was difficult for me, an ethereal construct emerging from dreams and stories rather than actual experience. Of course, I did have a home once, a good home and a good family, but it didn't last long enough to leave more than the most fleeting impression.

My parents died when I was five. We'd been coming home from the fair, taking a back road because my mother wanted to show me a miniature pony foal she'd seen at a farm along there. I could hear my father laughing, asking my mother how she expected me to see anything in a field at midnight. I remember him turning to look over the seat, grinning at me while he teased my mother beside me. I don't remember what happened next, no squealing tires, no screams, no careering out of control. Just blackness.