Pru smelled fresh pee and glanced at his crotch. His exposed diaper swelled some more. It had to be close to leaking. It was swelled up like a balloon ready to pop. He didn’t even realize he peed himself. She knew what his bladder was doing, but he didn’t. She found that adorable, along with his toddler lisp.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes-huh!” Luc scrunched his pretty doll face up in tipsy agitation. “I not wying!” He wasn’t lying. Why didn’t she believe him? He took his paci out of his mouth. A string of drool fell from the nipple to land on his chin and orange spattered bib. He stared at her hard, willing her to believe him.
“Okay, okay.” She held her hands up in placating surrender.
“You’re nice. Even Rosie can be nice. Sometimes. So, you have to be nice, too. What other nice things have you done?”
His glassy eyes burned at her. She regretted giving him some liquid courage. She shifted in her chair. It was like her long ignored conscience crawled out of her and manifested as Lucas. Her gaze dropped as she wracked her brain. She hated thinking about the past. Living in the present was much easier and more pleasant.
A string of petty crimes spanning nearly a century were her foremost memories. None were particularly well thought out; she was more of an opportunistic predator. Not clever, but damn had they been fun.
As a human, she didn’t get emotionally attached. She saw what that did to her mother. It made her weak and vulnerable. Life taught her early to use or get used. The rest of her memories were hazy; a string of arrests, different handcuffs through the decades. A few mugshots, but she usually escaped before she was booked or even taken to the precinct. She took advantage of her shape shifting nature. Her routine was simple; the policeman arrested human female, released the stray, wolf-looking dog, then the policeman scratched his head wondering where the human escaped to.
After that, she laid low in lycan form. In the early days, she hightailed it deep into the woods. Sometimes she’d double-crossed other lycans. In the woods, older, bigger, badder wolves sniffed her out. They weren’t happy with her shenanigans. She found herself on the receiving end of their teeth and claws. The woods were not safe. She was safer in the company of humans; it was harder for the other lycans to get to her. That became her modus operandi; to play the part of the happy family dog, a sweet stray adopted from the streets.