Free A Wolf of Her Own by Susanna Shore

age, with long benches on either side. Two placemats sat opposite to one another—the same two that Gemma had purchased before she moved away. The deep enamel sink was from the sixties, the plumbing redone in the seventies. Two freestanding cupboards from the time before her birth were filled with china she had chosen and purchased from a mail-order company in the eighties. She had got so fed up with the old set she had carried everything to the backyard and broken every piece one by one in a satisfying fit of anger.
    Tom didn’t speak to her for a week.
    The once cheerfully yellow curtains were those she had selected too, though she couldn’t remember when that had been. They had always been there.
    "This is a nice kitchen."
    "Hmph."
    He lifted an amused brow. "I take it you disagree?"
    "I just don’t understand the need Tom has to preserve everything. I know vampires have a tendency to be conservative and live in the past, but he’s worse than most." He took after Father, who had needed everything to be the way it had been before Mother died.
    "I was under the impression that vampires are experts in adjusting to changing times."
    Gemma had to think about it. "I guess we must be, at least outwardly, so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves. I know I’ve tried my best." An uphill struggle all the way.
    The kettle whistled and she got up to prepare the tea. She set the table for two with biscuits on a plate too, having found them in a jar on the side table. Like that was a surprise. That jar had always contained biscuits. The only surprise was that Tom had switched the brand.
    "I’ve been thinking about what the vampires told us," Kieran said, when she had poured them both a cup. She gave him a questioning look. "About their enemy being behind this. They must mean humans."
    "Why would humans want to start a war between vampires and shifters?"
    "Isn’t it self-evident? Humans have always hated us and there’s been a hardening of attitudes lately. Remember the demonstrations last autumn?"
    "But why would they come here? Humans don’t know about the Crimson Circle."
    He shrugged. "It’s an old organisation. Many people know about it."
    The idea that humans would deliberately cause ill-will between the two-natured made her uncomfortable. "Haven’t they learned anything from the last time?"
    Kieran sneered. "There is no last time from their point of view. They’re so short-lived that they don’t remember the Sentient War or how much damage it caused. It’s not like they teach that in human schools."
    "I guess it would serve extremists to get us fighting amongst ourselves. We’d do the dirty work for them."
    "Exactly. And I don’t think they’ll stop until they succeed."
    "Well, fudge."
    Kieran burst out laughing, easing the atmosphere. "No matter how many times I hear you say that, it still delights me."
    "What, fudge?"
    "It’s such a wonderful euphemism."
    Gemma shrugged. "Mother really abhorred foul language, and not only in women. I don’t think Tom swears much to this day. You’re the first one to mention it though."
    He smiled. "I’m not terribly foulmouthed, but I need to release steam every once in a while. A good swear word helps."
    "Yeah, well, with vampires it’s imperative not to let the steam build in the first place."
    "What, not at all? Didn’t feel like that earlier with the warriors."
    "They weren’t angry. You were." The warriors had been brutally effective, but barely affected by the fight.
    He paused. "That’s true. I guess it’s that same difference with our energies. Yours is cool and ours is hot." If only it were that simple. But she couldn’t tell him that without disclosing the best kept secret vampires had: the Rider. Few knew that their second nature wasn’t magic but a sentient being like with other two-natureds’, and vampires liked to keep things that way. "I wonder what excuse humans use."
    "Well, my two housemates have no compunctions about swearing. But at work