Nice Werewolves Don't Bite Vampires

by Molly Harper

  Of course, this was all probably moot because most people didn’t know the meaning of flowers beyond, “these are pretty and smell nice.”

  “Are you trying to figure out the meaning of the variegated tulips?” he asked. “I read somewhere they mean ‘you have beautiful eyes’ but that’s never made sense to me. I just had the florist throw them in because they looked nice. The rest of them I mean, whole-heartedly.”

  “Thank you,” I said, smiling as I kissed his cheek. “Come on in.”

  I opened the door wider so he could step inside. “I don’t have much more put together than the last time you were here, I’m afraid. What is that?”

  “It’s a bag. With various items that I might need…should I stay the night,” he said carefully. He lifted a soft-sided cooler out of his bag and placed several units of donor blood in my fridge. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy camping out here with no supplies last time, but I like to be more prepared.”

  “Are you trying to slowly but surely move into my apartment one overnight bag at a time?” I asked. “Because I think we can agree that I need to live on my own for a while, develop adulting skills.”

  He held up both hands in surrender. “No, I’m not even pressuring you to give me a drawer, hence the overnight bag.”

  I squinted at him. “You came up with that answer too quickly.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, murmuring against my lips. “I will wait until you’re ready. I’ll wait forever. I’ve got the time.”

  “I can’t decide if that’s a nice sentiment or a vampire dad joke.”

  He pulled a gift purple bag out of his luggage and held it out to me. “A little bit of both.”

  “But you already gave me flowers,” I objected.

  “It’s something for your desk,” he said as I opened the bag and found Funko Pop versions of the Stark direwolves from Game of Thrones. “Dick mentioned that you liked the TV show. And I thought you would like the wolf connection.”

  “Thank you!” I exclaimed, carrying my treasures to my desk and arranging them carefully.

  “That is a lovely home office,” he said. “I can tell I’m going to have to fight very hard for your attention if I’m going to tear you away from it.”

  “I have faith in you.”

  My phone rang and my mother’s phone number appeared on my screen.

  “Do you want to answer it?”

  “I haven’t talked to them since I was kidnapped. It feels like I should tell them that I’m okay.”

  “I think this is a case where you should do what you want to do, as opposed to what you think you should do,” he said.

  I sighed. “I’ll give her five minutes. Time me.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  I slid my thumb across the screen. “Hi, Mama.”

  Her voice was muffled, like she was holding her hand over the receiver and whispering into. “Tylene, don’t you think it’s time for you to come on home?”

  “I’m fine, and how are you?” I responded dryly.

  “I don’t have time for you to be smart with me, right now, Tylene. Your daddy’s only going to be over at your Uncle Creed’s for so long.”

  “Okay then, no, I don’t think it’s time for me to come home. I have a very nice apartment and I’m happy here,” I told her.

  “But Jolene said you ran into trouble with those vampires,” she objected. “You’d be much safer here with us.”

  “The trouble wasn’t Alex’s fault,” I said. “And I got out of it just fine on my own.”

  “Well, you see what happened when you’re on your own,” she sniffed. “That’s why it’s not right, you being away from your family.”

  “Nah, I’m sure I won’t be kidnapped again,” I scoffed. “That’s sort of a once in a lifetime thing.”

  “I’m gonna hang up if you keep bein’ so hateful,” she cried.

  “Well, hang up if you want to, but if you do, you need to know I might not pick up when you call next time. Our relationship is going to change, Mama,” I told her.

  Alex mouthed the word “wow.” He leaned in and kissed me again.

  “Are you still seeing that vampire?” she asked after a long pause.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m still not happy about that,” she huffed.

  “I know.”

  Mama sighed and asked, “Could you at least apologize to your daddy?”

  That was the point to the call, then. She didn’t really care if I was safe or happy. She was worried about herself, about Daddy’s foul moods making things uncomfortable for her every living minute. As usual, she was putting herself first. Which meant, I would have to fend for myself. As usual.

  “I’m not going to apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter who’s wrong! You know he doesn’t care about right or wrong. He just wants you to say you’re sorry!”

  “Which is the whole problem. And it’s his problem, not mine,” I told her. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a bunch of people coming over for a housewarming party. Call me again if you want to talk about something besides Daddy.”

  I hung up the phone. I didn’t feel like crying. I definitely didn’t feel like laughing. I just felt…okay. My parents were upset with me, and I didn’t feel like the world was closing in on me. My parents were upset with me, and I would have to live with it. Alex took me in his arms. “Is it condescending to tell you that I’m proud of you?”

  “Never.” I nuzzled into his neck. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to talk to them again. And I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change it, not without losing everything I’ve gained. And I’ve gained so much, it almost makes it worth it. I love you.”

  “As I love you,” he murmured against my cheek.

  Just then, a fist rapped at the door. I turned, scenting a dozen or so people on the other side.

  “Why, whoever could that be?” Alex asked cheekily.

  “Door-to-door salesman?” I guessed.

  “We heard that!” Jane shouted through the door. “Open up, or we take back all your presents!”

  I laughed as I ran to the door and threw it open to a shout of “Congratulations!” The crowd was so thick, I couldn’t see the parking lot. Everybody I loved was there: Jolene, Zeb, the twins, Jane, Gabriel, Dick, Andrea, Gigi, Nik, Iris, Cal—even Meadow and her boyfriend, Erik.

  “Happy housewarming!” Dick crowed, handing me a wire carrier with four bottles of champagne. I’d watched enough British TV to recognize a quality label when I saw it. My brows raised as I turned my face up to him.

  “You don’t want to know where he got it,” Andrea assured me.

  “I will ask no questions,” I promised as they filed through the door. Andrea reclaimed the champagne and set to work opening the bottles.

  Zeb lifted a wrapped box. “Hangers and closet organizing stuff.”

  “Towels,” Gigi said, holding up a large gift bag.

  “Tupperware,” Iris said. “I know how much Jolene cooks and you can never have too many containers for leftovers.”

  “What are these leftovers you speak of?” Jolene scoffed.

  “I brought you some furniture,” Jane said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to a truck I knew had to belong to the Council. “We’ll bring it up in a bit.”

  She paused to take in the lack of chairs in the room. “Or maybe we can go do that now.”

  I gasped. “I can’t let you do that, Jane, it’s too much!”

  “I can. It’s just a bunch of extras we have from redecorating River Oaks,” she told me. “It was just sitting in storage. I’d much rather you put it to good use…unless I’m over-stepping, in which case I will never speak of it again, because I realized I’m being very pushy and unintentionally repeating some unhealthy patterns. Sorry.”

  Seeing someone with all of Jane’s influence and power feeling bad for trying too hard to help me just made me love her more. The corner of my mouth lifted. “
The couch isn’t plaid, is it?”

  She grinned. “No, it is a sturdy and comfortable plain blue. We got it when Jamie was going through a ‘didn’t know his own supernatural strength’ phase. There are chairs to match and a couple of end tables. And a dinette set. And I’m, like, ninety percent sure there are no elderly ghosts attached to any of it.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Gigi, Iris, you want to give me a hand?” Jane asked brightly, ignoring the question.

  “Thank you?”

  As his wife and sister-in-law filed out, followed by Alex, Cal approached to press a brotherly kiss to my forehead.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “Making my friend happy. Keeping him here in the Hollow, where we can keep an eye on him. You don’t know how much that means to me and Nik, Tylene.”

  “Happy to help.”

  Uncle Lonnie stepped into the doorway holding a cooler. I could smell the meat inside: steaks and chicken and mmm, Hank’s applewood smoked bacon. I barely withheld my drool. Hank’s bacon was one of the few things I missed about living on the compound. Aunt Mimi was at his side, holding several bags of groceries, far more than even Dick and Andrea had brought for me. They were re-stocking my kitchen. It was the ultimate sign of werewolf acceptance—making sure I was fed. Some little crack on my heart that I didn’t even know was there sealed back together.

  “Uncle Lonnie.”

  “I’m not here as your Alpha,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Former Alpha,” Jolene murmured.

  Uncle Lonnie shot a look at her and she just grinned.

  “I’m here as your uncle, who loves the heck out of you. I want to make sure you’re fed and that your home is safe.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Lonnie. Please come in.”

  He cleared his throat, looking around the apartment. “It’s a nice place.”

  “I might not understand it, but I think you’re very brave,” Aunt Mimi said, kissing my cheek. “And I have ideas for curtains.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I acknowledged.

  They opened the fridge and saw the donor blood Alex had left inside. They paused and I froze. But instead of staying anything, they just stocked my fridge with half a cow. Jane and Gigi trooped in with some very attractive furniture. It was probably nicer than anything I’d ever had. And now my friends had a place to sit, so even better.

  Erik and Meadow placed some potted herbs by my window. When Meadow looked around, obviously searching for the plants she’d already left for me, I crossed to them. Where was Iris when I needed her? “Hey, not-quite-neighbor! Is it weird, being in an apartment that used to be yours?”

  Meadow nodded. “A little, especially with new stuff in here. But it’s going to be great for you. This was the first place I called home and meant it. Jane told me a little about your parents. And I can definitely relate. Living in a new place, I think you’ll find it’s not the place that’s home, it’s the people.”

  Alex approached, carrying all four dinette chairs on his shoulders, as only a vampire could. He paused and kissed me. I growled lightly and nipped at his earlobe.

  I looked around the living room, at all the people who were there for me. It was almost too much happiness for me to bear. I had people in my life who loved me for me, who sought out ways to make me happy, who made me feel safe. That was what I had gained, and so much more. I had a life and a place and people I cared about—and somehow, I’d managed to get those things on my terms.

  I turned to Meadow. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  Excerpt from HOW TO DATE YOUR DRAGON

  A Mystic Bayou Novel

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  JILLIAN

  Jillian Ramsay, PhD, was driving a panel van without air-conditioning through an area known as the Devil’s Armpit.

  She wished that was an exaggeration, or a misprint on the map. But there it was, in bold print on the highway sign, “You are entering the Devil’s Armpit.”

  She supposed she should be thankful that her destination wasn’t the Devil’s Armpit, an unusually sulfurous section of southern Louisiana that smelled of rotten eggs and damnation, but a small town just beyond it—Mystic Bayou. She hoped the more attractive name also indicated a more appealing odor. Dr. Montes hadn’t left anything in his field notes about bringing air fresheners with him. But then again, she’d come to learn Dr. Montes’s methods were less polished than anyone hoped.

  Jillian fanned her face and dabbed at the perspiration dotting her upper lip. The air-conditioning had crapped out within fifteen minutes of her leaving the New Orleans airport, but after a flight from Chile involving two layovers and a lengthy argument with customs over her audio-video equipment, she just didn’t have any fight left in her.

  She rolled down the window, just a crack, hoping the muggy late May air would be cooler than the interior of the van. Almost immediately, her nostrils were flooded with the smell of what could only be described as Satan’s BO.

  “Mistake! Huge error in judgment!” she gasped.

  Jillian rolled up the window, her hands so sweaty that her fingers actually slipped off of the handle a few times before she sealed herself inside the van. Eager for some form of odor-free distraction, she used her hands-free dialer to call Sonja Fong at the League office. She grumbled as the call went to voicemail, again. But when the machine went beep, Jillian tried to make her tone more suited for a friend she was actually fond of, as opposed to a telemarketer.

  “Hey, Sonja, it’s me again. I’d really appreciate a call back, so maybe you could explain to me what’s really going on back there. The League keeps assuring me that everything’s just fine, as they turn my life completely upside down. But I keep getting the feeling I’m a heroine in one of those awful seventies horror movies, where the unwitting outsider ends up a human sacrifice. Cell phone reception is getting pretty spotty, so if you can, call back soon. Love you, bye.”

  Jillian pursed her lips. This was not a very auspicious beginning to her first real field assignment. She’d flown all the way to Santiago, only to get a call that her mentor and boss had been seriously injured on his assignment in northern England, and the International League for Interspecies Cooperation was sending her in his place to southern Louisiana. Her in-depth study of the mohana and their mating habits would just have to wait.

  All that background reading on malevolent sex-obsessed dolphin shapeshifters for nothing.

  Nearly an hour later, Jillian had sweated completely through her clothes and was beginning to worry that she was lost. The gnarled trees dripping with Spanish moss were all starting to look the same. She was pretty sure she’d passed a carnation-pink shack on stilts twice, and she’d realized those “logs” resting against the banks of the swamp, dangerously close to the road, had legs and very large jaws. She was beyond jet-lagged, couldn’t remember her last application of deodorant and was starting to think maybe the League could go jump into the murky, gator-filled water looming on either side of the highway.

  Just as Jillian started to search for a place to either do a three-point turn or sleep for the night, another sign came into view. It read, Welcome to Mystic Bayou, Home of the Fighting Marsh Dogs, over a caricature of a large rat with its fists raised a la the Fighting Irish.

  Jillian nodded. “OK, then.”

  Maybe it was better for her to stay lost.

  Jillian opened the van window again, hoping that maybe the air in Mystic Bayou was more palatable. She took a tentative breath. She could almost taste the sweetness on the air, redolent with honeysuckle and dried grass and earth. She took several gulps of it, lifting her mass of honey blond hair off her sweaty neck. She balked at the reflection in the rearview mirror, wondering who let that pale, sweaty woman with the under-eye luggage into the driver’s seat.

  She was due to meet her community liaison in just a few minutes and she was a mess. Maybe she could duck into the back of the van to freshen up before she met Mayor Berend? That w
as something legitimate scientists did, right? Change their clothes in vans?

  The town quickly came into view in that “suddenly there are buildings and if you blink you will miss them all” way unique to tiny rural towns. Main Street was pretty much the only street from what Jillian could see, with the occasional short side street branching out into clusters of two to three small homes. Dr. Montes had written that few families lived in town, preferring to keep almost clannish compounds in the outlying areas of the county and only venturing into town limits for errands.

  Main Street led to a town square centered on a gazebo, and, behind that, a large white-washed building topped with a golden shape she couldn’t quite make out. The street boasted a freshly painted collection of businesses with flower baskets hanging from every surface, giving the town a cheerful, neatly kept air. Aside from the inordinate number of them that seemed to involve taxidermy, there was a bank, a boat dealership, a grocery, an “apothecary,” a beauty salon, a book shop, a newspaper called the Mystic Messenger, and finally, Bathtilda’s Pie Shop, which boasted the world's best chocolate rhubarb pie. Jillian had never heard of chocolate rhubarb pie, but frankly it sounded a bit gross. Each business had a little addition under the shop name stating, “Owned and Operated by Bonner Boone” or “Owned and Operated by Branwyn Boone,” or in the sweet shop’s case, “Bathtilda Boone.” Was every business in town owned by a Boone?

  Dr. Montes’s instructions were to go to City Hall, which appeared to be the tall, white building at the end of the street. With a gold spire rising from a bell tower-like structure on the roof, it was the tallest building in town. As she drove closer, she spotted a gold-and-green SUV marked “Sheriff” parked out front, next to a rather large Harley Davidson with custom-painted claw marks raking down the body.