"Better take a shower first, if you don't mind my saying so," Oak chuckled.

  Sean heard Daelyn squeak in surprise as Jolene found her next victim.

  "Yeah, we probably should," Sean said and stretched. "Let him know we'll be ready in about fifteen minutes. See if you can find him a beer or something, I think we still have a keg of the good stuff around here somewhere."

  "Sure thing, Sean!" Oak said and left.

  "Did you ever ask Maitland about making those faerie swords?" Roxy asked.

  "Yeah, he said he can show the dwarven smiths how to do it, said they shouldn't have any problems with it, that it's more a matter of the materials involved."

  "Too bad he's on his way to Phoenix."

  "Maybe we can work something out when he and Chad meet up in Denver," Sean said with a shrug as the three of them headed out for the shower in the main house.

  "I can't wait to see my new toys!" Cali said with a giggle, and Roxy just sighed as Sean shook his head.

  "Well, we do need to do something. You said the First wants those swords made. I'll talk to Daelyn once she escapes Jolene's clutches, and we'll figure something out."

  Sean just nodded and they made their way to the bathroom without running into their guest. Fifteen minutes later, a cleaner and human-looking Sean, along with Roxy and Cali, met up with the dwarf who had delivered the weapons.

  "Dulnik!" Sean greeted him; he was one of Messy's brothers whom Sean had met when they were visiting Daelyn's brother.

  "Greetings, Sean, Roxy, and Cali," the heavyset dwarf said, giving a nod to each of them. "Let me show you what I've brought."

  With that, Dulnik picked up what looked like a heavy rifle case and, setting it on the table, he popped the latches and opened it.

  There were four longswords, two short swords, and what looked like a dozen throwing knives. All the swords were in scabbards, and picking one of them up, Dulnik passed it to Sean.

  "Now, the thing to remember is that these aren't terribly strong; they can be bent rather easily and can be broken."

  Sean took the sword and was surprised at just how heavy it was. Drawing it out of the scabbard, it was a lot thicker than any sword he'd seen before; the surface of it was a rough-textured, motley mix of blacks and brownish-red coloration. The edge was the only part that looked at all smooth.

  "These also don't keep an edge very well, so you'll have to sharpen them regularly."

  "Well, I guess I can see why these aren't commonly made," Sean said and took a few practice swings Keairra had taught him last night.

  "Ah! I had no idea you knew how to use a sword, Sean!"

  "Neither did I," Roxy said, looking at him. Cali was already picking up the throwing knives and checking the balance. They looked more like oversized darts than knives to Sean, as they were all point and no edge, but they were still mostly flat.

  "The First's original mate is teaching me," Sean said in a low voice.

  "He's married?" Roxy said, looking surprised.

  "Not that I can tell," Sean shrugged, "though perhaps they once were." Sean looked back at Dulnik. "You say they can break or bend easily?"

  Dulnik nodded. "Compared to a regular sword, that is. I don't know if a regular human could bend one, they definitely couldn't break one with their bare hands, but you could easily. If you're going to take one of these into any kind of fight, understand that it could very well break off in the demon you're fighting. While that's pretty bad news for the demon, if you're fighting more than one, it may not be good for you."

  "So what you're saying is, take two," Roxy said, picking up one of the short swords and giving it a few test swings.

  "Definitely."

  "We really need to get Maitland to teach the dwarves how to make those faerie swords," Sean sighed. "Those things look like you could chop a tree down with one without breaking it."

  "Why don't you ask Philo if he can buy you some?" Cali asked. "At least until someone here can learn how to make them?"

  Sean shrugged. "It's worth a shot. But it would probably be best for me to learn the enchanting involved, and for us to find a dwarven smith skilled enough to make them."

  "You found someone who knows how to make the faerie swords?" Dulnik asked.

  Sean and the others all nodded. "Yes, but unfortunately he's leading one of my armies right now, so I don't know when I'll be able to get him back here to teach somebody."

  Dulnik nodded. "And getting any kind of master swordsmith to leave his forge for more than a few hours is no easy task! Trust me on that."

  Sean agreed. "Well, thank you for bringing these to us. Is there anything we can do for you while you're here?"

  "Nah, I'm going to go visit me cousins over at the Carson City Dwarven Hall, part of why I agreed to bring them here, gives me an excuse to go visit."

  Sean smiled and shook hands with him. "Well, thanks again."

  "So, now what?" Roxy asked, coming back into the room after she'd shown Dulnik to the front door.

  "Well, I have another machine to make today. I guess I need to check in with Chad and Maitland at some point to find out just what their status is. I don't know what else beyond that."

  "I seem to recall we have a visitor from the government?" Roxy asked, looking at him with an expectant look.

  "Oh, shit. I forgot all about Carl!" Sean chuckled and shook his head. "Could you deal with that for me, Hon?" Sean asked. "Please?" he added and tried to give his best 'puppy dog eyes', as Daelyn called it.

  Roxy snorted, but she was grinning all the same. "I'll do what I can, but he's still going to need to talk to you again at some point."

  "He's with Travis, the one who bit, err, infected him," Cali said.

  "Oh, that makes sense," Roxy said. "I'll go round them up, find out how much he's learned, and where he's at on things."

  "Thanks, Hon!" Sean said and kissed Roxy, then he turned and kissed Cali too.

  "Have fun with your toys there, Cali. I've got to get back to work."

  "I better rouse the others out of your shop, or I don't think you'll be getting any work done on that machine anything soon," Roxy snickered.

  Sean 'Aww'ed and then yipe'd as Roxy swatted him on the ass and led him back towards the shop.

  Roxy then caught up with Carl, who was still under Travis' care that morning. They were eating breakfast in the main kitchen hall with the rest of Travis' original team, which now provided Sean with some measure of protection when he had to go places.

  "Roxy," Travis said with a nod as she came over and joined them.

  "Oh, hi!" Carl smiled and started to get up until Roxy waved him back down.

  "So, how're you doing this morning?" Roxy asked him.

  "Umm, tired mostly. Travis here had me running all over the place for several hours last night. Said it was part of the 'initial breaking in period'."

  Roxy nodded. "It's harder on people the older they are when they get infected. You're going to need to spend several hours every day as a wolf, more if possible, in order to achieve balance."

  "It's just a bit strange having this second voice, this other person inside of me now," Carl said, scowling slightly. "No one told me about that."

  "It not a second voice, it's just a part of you that you didn't know about before," Roxy said with a smile.

  "Then why is it telling me what to do?"

  "Oh? What's it saying right now?"

  Carl shifted a little in his seat. "Nothing right now, but when Travis tells me stuff, it tells me to listen to him. Then when I was a wolf last night, it was doing everything and I was just watching. How do you people live like this?"

  "You mean how do we live like this," Roxy chuckled. "You're one of us now, Carl."

  "Yeah, and I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake," he sighed.

  "Sean, your alpha, decided that it was going to be done, and your alpha doesn't make mistakes," Travis said.

  "And there it goes again," Carl sighed, "telling me to listen to him!"

  "That's because Travis is sort of like your father now," Roxy said.

  "What?"

  "He bit you, infected you that is, so it makes him your lycan father. You'll notice that your wolf and his look very similar. The same will be true when you get your hybrid form.

  "But to get back to your first concern, right now you and your wolf are two different people. Or at least that's how it seems. As you get to know your wolf better, you'll start to realize that your wolf is really just you, with a whole new bunch of behaviors, instincts, and basic understandings of what it is to be a wolf."

  "So you're saying I have a split personality now?"

  Roxy bit her lip and thought about it a second. "I guess you could think of it that way, but eventually you become one. You integrate into a single person, and you pick up on all the things the 'wolf you' knows. Well, mostly anyway."

  "What do you mean, 'mostly'?" Carl said, giving her a direct look.

  "There will always be things that 'wolf' you will do better, or at least can do for you, if you don't want to. As time goes on, those things will be fewer and fewer, but sometimes you're just going to find that there are some things you'll push off on your wolf and let him do."

  "Conversely," Travis said with a grin, "there are going to be things your wolf isn't going to want to do when you're in wolf form and he's just going to push off onto you. Then there are the human things he's not going to want to have any part of, just like you'll find there are wolf things you're not interested in at all."

  "Yeah, like say, meetings," Roxy agreed. "For long, boring meetings, my cheetah has a tendency to check out and go to sleep."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I'm pretty much all human, there aren't any animal instincts lurking in the background ready to help me engage a problem. Though the kinds of problems my cheetah could help me with tend not to be the kinds of things you'll run across in a meeting," Roxy said with a grin.

  "Sounds confusing," Carl admitted.

  "Yeah, it is at first," Travis nodded.

  "Wait, you were bitten, err…infected too?"

  "No," Travis said with a shake of his head, "we all go through this to some degree or other growing up. We just deal with it when we're younger."

  "And it tends to take us longer to get through it," Roxy added. "Because we're young and stupid."

  "So what happens once I 'm 'integrated'?"

  "You can achieve your hybrid form."

  "Oh! Yeah, that'll be cool. Where's Sean, anyway?"

  "Busy, he's got a lot of enchanting work to do today, so he asked me to keep an eye on you."

  "You?" Carl asked looking over Roxy. He was definitely taller than her and, given that he was now a lycan as well, she definitely wasn't a match for him.

  "A word of warning," Travis said in a low voice, "your lycan muscles haven't fully developed yet, so you're not as strong as you're going to be; that'll take a couple of weeks. But even once they do, she'll kick your ass up around your ears if you mess with her."

  "But I'm bigger than she is," Carl said, confused.

  "Yeah, and cheetahs are stronger than wolves," Travis informed him. "She can even kick my ass. Then of course there's Sean. You don't even want to think about what he'd do to someone who dissed one of his wives, much less laid a finger on her."

  "Yeah," Eileen, one of the women on Travis' team, said with a nod. "He ripped the arm off of Peg's father and then beat him to death with it for messin' with her."

  Carl's eyes got wide. "Sean did what?"

  "Beat Peg's father to death with his own arm," Eileen said, grinning.

  "Peg's father was a complete and utter bastard," Roxy sighed. "He's the one who was behind the attack on that pub in Portland, and about a dozen other things I'm sure none of you ever heard of.

  "Anyway, if you're done eating, put your tray away and come with me. I want to take you around and introduce you to a few people. It just might come in handy if you know some of the more important people in the lycan community around here."

  Carl nodded and, getting up from the table, he put his tray and forks away and went over to Roxy.

  "Here, put this on," she said and handed him a chain necklace.

  "Is that a lycan necklace?"

  "No, it's your lycan necklace!" Roxy laughed, correcting him.

  "Does this mean I don't have to get naked anymore before I shift?"

  "Yup."

  "Well, that'll help. Would be kind of embarrassing to have to shift back to human and be nude in front of everyone in DC"

  "Yeah, well, keep this a secret for now. No one needs to know about your being a werewolf yet. Not your boss, not the president. Last thing any of us wants is for you to lose your job. Now take this and attach it to your necklace."

  "Won't people notice the necklace? Especially with this tag?"

  Roxy shook her head. "Nope. They're almost invisible. They blend in with your skin and your clothing, and there's some kind of spell on them that makes people ignore them if your regular clothing doesn't hide them. Also, no one but you can take the tag off, and as long as the tag is on, it locks the necklace."

  "Huh," Carl said and was surprised when the tag suddenly clicked to his necklace like it was magnetic, then just stayed there.

  "What's the tag do?"

  "It makes you immune to silver."

  "Wait, it does what? It's one of those? I thought they cost like ten grand apiece!"

  Roxy shrugged. "Technically, you're one of ours because Travis bit you, and our people get them for free. So I wouldn't worry about it."

  "Oh, I bet the accounting office is gonna have a field day over this!" Carl sighed. "We're not allowed to take gifts."

  Roxy shook her head. "Well, we'll deal with that when we come to it. Consider it a loan or something for now. We can always bill you for it later. But trust me, the last thing you ever want to experience is getting shot or stabbed with silver."

  "Oh? You've done it?"

  Roxy shuddered. "Yeah, and if Sean hadn't slapped a tag on me, I would have died. Even with one, I almost did."

  "Oh, sorry," Carl apologized and decided to steer clear of the subject for now.

  "Well, let's grab one of the girls and a car and go make the rounds."

  "Just how did you and Sean meet?" Carl asked as they headed over to the parking area. "If you don't mind me asking, that is?"

  "I lived next door to him in the apartments he was staying at. Actually, I've known him for years."

  "So he knew you were a lycan, then?"

  Roxy shook her head. "No, of course not. We don't share that kind of information with most mundanes. Hell, we don't even mention it to magic users if we can get away with it."

  "So how did the two of you…?"

  "Hook up?" Roxy chuckled as Carl nodded.

  "I always liked him, and well, when I realized he'd become a lion, somebody had to teach him. I was just lucky that someone was me," Roxy purred.

  "What was he like before he became a lion?"

  "Quiet, hard working, mostly he kept to himself and concentrated on his schoolwork."

  "Really?"

  Roxy pointed to one of the cars and went around to the driver's side as Carl got in the passenger seat.

  "You have to understand," Roxy said as she started the car, "Sean's life was a hard one. He grew up in complete poverty, his father was murdered, and the magic users messed with his mind to remove a lot of his childhood memories, as well as blocking his abilities with magic. Then just as he gets infected, he ends up on the hit list of every magic council and mage in the world.

  "He had a pretty steep learning curve, and if he hadn't learned fast, he'd have died."

  Carl nodded and thought for a couple of minutes before saying anything. He knew his boss, Kensington, was debating putting a profiler on Sean's case, and information like that would definitely help.

  'We don't betray our alpha,' came the unbidden thought, making him jump in his seat.

  "Private conversation?" Roxy teased.

  "Umm…"

  "You get used to it. Don't try to argue with your animal, just listen to him."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "Only crazy people argue with themselves," Roxy said with a grin.

  "So, where are we going first?"

  "Claudia. She runs the biggest wolf pack around. I'd take you to Chad's next, but he's out of town."

  "Leading one of Sean's armies, right?"

  Roxy nodded. "Exactly. Then I'll take you around to meet the alphas, or leaders rather, of the other lycan groups in town."

  "And you know all of them because of Sean?"

  "No, I know all of them because my Dad sits at the head of the Lycan Fellowship."

  Carl nodded slowly. "How do you think they'll react to me?"

  Roxy shrugged. "That's up to you, mostly."

  Carl thought about that for a moment.

  "Do you think it'll be safe?"

  "Oh, sure. They know Sean'll be pissed if they kill you, and trust me, they respect Sean."

  "But he's barely twenty-one and has been a lycan for less than half a year," Carl pointed out.

  "Yeah, but he's a lion," Roxy said with a smile and sighed happily.

  "And that makes him a god, right?"

  "Even if he wasn't, Sean's incredibly powerful. He's not just a lion, he's a mage as well, and everyone knows it's bad luck to anger a lion."

  "It is?"

  "Of course it is! They'll tear you to pieces and eat you!"

  Carl froze and stared at Roxy, who started laughing at him.

  "I'm not sure if that was a joke."

  "I always enjoy that 'deer in the headlights' look," Roxy said, still chuckling. "Now, let's meet Claudia."

  'Rule one," Carl thought to himself, 'don't piss off the lion.'

  'I second that,' his wolf told him, 'because I don't think she was joking.'

  Sean stretched and leaned back, listening to his back crack and pop as he yawned. The clock on the wall said it was after three; he'd been working here non-stop since eight. But the second necklace machine was done, and he was definitely feeling just a little tense after being bent over the machine casting spells into it all day.

  He needed to touch bases with Chad at some point, probably Maitland as well, to see how they were doing. He also needed to talk to Deidre to find out just how they were doing money-wise. Since he'd turned the finances over to her, he hadn't the slightest idea what was going on there.