Free Silver Kiss by Naomi Clark

shorter than Shannon, who wasn’t
exactly towering, and humans who didn’t know better thought that
made me a weak wolf. Shannon liked to say it gave me the element of
surprise. It just annoyed me. The first year after I left home, I’d
spent all my time getting into bar fights as I worked my way north.
Every drunken idiot who wanted to prove he was tougher than a
werewolf had picked me to prove it.
    Shannon patted my cheek as she unlocked the
car door. “I think you can be pretty damn scary when you put your
mind to it.”
    I thought of the feral wolf. “Not scary
enough.”
    ***
    Marc Wright was a beautiful boy of about seventeen, with smooth
chocolate skin, huge liquid brown eyes and a knife as long as my
forearm. He brandished it at us through the living room window as
we approached the house, his eyes wide and wild, clearly warning us
off. Shannon, once again showing a level of calm I was sure she
must be faking, ignored the knife and knocked on the front
door.
    His mother opened the door, a thin,
harried-looking woman with sharp eyes and a mean mouth. “You social
workers? Selling something? Church types?”
    “ My name’s Shannon Ryan and
this is my partner, Ayla Hammond.” Shannon flashed her business
card at the woman. “We’d like to talk to Marc Wright about his
girlfriend, Molly Brady, if we could.”
    The woman examined the card, brimming with
suspicion. After a few seconds, she nodded. “Marcus!” she bellowed.
“Come out here!”
    Marc slunk to the door,
knife still clutched in his hands. “Coppers?” he asked in the
same I ain’t done nothing tone as his mum.
    “ It’s about that girl of
yours. So make sure you tell the truth, now.” His mum shoved him
outside and slammed the door on him. Shannon and I exchanged
glances. This was going to be hard work.
    Marc slouched against the front door and
fixed us with a mean, assessing glare. “Molly? I ain’t seen her in
weeks.”
    “ But you were her
boyfriend?” Shannon asked.
    “ Yeah, I suppose. We hung
out. She was a bit young for me, like.” He looked me up and down
and winked. “I like older women. Experienced women.”
    I ignored his leer. “Have you heard from her
since she ran away?”
    “ Nah. We weren’t serious or
nothing, we just saw each other for a laugh sometimes. She was
always going on about running off, you know? Starting a better life
for herself, that shit.” He sniffed, disdainful, and pointed at me
with the blade of the knife. “You a werewolf? I like wolf women.
They’re always up for a laugh.”
    “ I’m not,” I said, the
faintest hint of a growl in my voice.
    Shannon angled herself between us. “Did you
notice any change in Molly’s behavior in the days before she left?
Did she mention any new friends, anything like that?”
    He scratched his nose as if genuinely
thinking about it. “She was smoking this new shit. Went right off
the weed, which was a pain, because she was buying her weed from my
mate and he always gave me a cut, didn’t he?”
    Silver
Kiss . I wasn’t sure why I was sure, I just
was. It was clearly the new big thing with humans and wolves.
Lawrence was addicted to the stuff and Vince had said most of the
kids at the Fox were into it. So it wasn’t too much of a leap in
the dark to assume Molly was too. Whether that was relevant, I
wasn’t sure. As Lawrence had assured Calvin, Silver Kiss was a
herbal cigarette, nothing illegal or dangerous.
    “ What about new friends?”
Shannon persisted. “Where was she getting this new stuff from if
not your mate?”
    “ I dunno, like, she did
mention this guy. I thought she might be banging him on the
side—she is a bit of a slut, you know? I can’t remember his name.
It was like Stuart, or Simon, or something. Something a bit
gay.”
    I couldn’t help myself; a full growl escaped
me and Marc glanced at me in alarm. “You not gonna wolf out on me,
are you?” He held the knife up again in a more defensive
position.
    Shannon laid her hand on