How to Date a Werewolf...or 3

by Graceley Knox

  How to Date a Werewolf... or 3

  How to Date a Supernatural: Book One

  Graceley Knox

  D.D. Miers

  How to Date a Werewolf…or 3 Copyright © 2019 by Graceley Knox & D.D. Miers

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Cover Design by: Covers by Juan

  Praise for Graceley Knox & D.D. Miers

  “The dawn of a new age of vampire.” - Crafting Geeky Bibliophile

  "Thirst is the first in a new series from the writing team of Graceley Knox and D. D. Miers. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it right because Thirst had me riveted." - Tome Tender Book Blog

  "The premise for Thirst is so unique... And these aren't just vampires, they are Kresova." - IB Book Blogging

  "A CRAZY, WILD, INSANE RIDE THAT KEPT ME ON THE LEDGE" - Marie's Tempting Reads

  “If you haven’t read any books by Graceley Knox or D. D. Miers well get busy because you are missing out on two very gifted story weavers!" - Goodreads Reviewer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Legend

  Chapter 1

  Also By Graceley Knox & D.D. Miers

  About the Authors

  Chapter 1

  I stared at my luggage, still lying on the floor at the end of the bed unpacked from the weekend before. The wedding had been beautiful, a fairytale in the Hamptons. It had made me happy for Kiersten and her new husband but made my heart ache for myself.

  The groom toasted me at the wedding dinner, gave me credit for bringing them together. “Thanks to the matchmaker,” Paul said, and my face had got hot and red as everyone laughed about my so-called psychic talent. Monday and the mundane, if hectic, work of real life had been welcome. Then I got the call.

  My phone buzzed in my hand for the tenth time in as many minutes. That’s the business of death, upends your life and gives you a thousand things to do. Just like a wedding. And for me, at least, with just as much heart ache.

  Mammie Blue had been a part of my world for as far back as I could remember. When New York wasn’t even on my map, let alone in my dreams, Mammie had bandaged scraped knees when she sat for my mother. She’d also swatted my ass for stolen cookies from the kitchen with equal love.

  Now as I stared at the open luggage sitting on my floor, spilling over with clothes fit for parties and pictures, I couldn’t make myself move to empty it. I didn’t want to take out the happiness and fill my suitcase with grief, it was already brimming over my eyelids and down my cheeks.

  The phone buzzed again, and my door echoed it harshly less than a second later. “Hellfire and damnation, who is it now?” I flipped the switch on the intercom and said in a much nicer voice, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Amy. I’ve tried your phone a dozen times. You’d have known it was me if you looked at it.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Ames. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” I buzzed her up and unlocked my door, then went back to my room to stare at my suitcase some more. Amy would know what to take. Black, of course, but I doubted any of the little black dresses in my closet were funeral appropriate. No one in my life had ever died before. Not since Fletcher, my black lab, had passed when I was seventeen.

  “I know you have a lot on your mind, girl, that’s why I brought you take out and wine,” she called a minute later as she let herself in. I could hear Amy rustling bags and clinking silverware in the kitchen but didn’t feel like eating. “Hey.” I turned, and she was standing in the bedroom doorway. “You need some help packing? I got Thai, it’ll keep for a few more minutes.”

  I nodded dumbly, fresh tears stinging my eyes as her compassion made my chest feel tight again.

  “I brought a couple of things too, one of them is a…” she laughed and shook her head. “Honestly, the only word I can think of is ‘matronly’ for this dress. My mother thought it looked professional.” She grinned at me and I had to smile back. Mrs. Luang had taught kindergarten for longer than Amy had been alive. She was queen in the kitchen or the craft room, but her wardrobe ran to shapeless dresses and cardigans.

  “If it’s black and doesn’t scream ‘fuck me now’, it’ll be perfect.”

  “You’re just lucky to have one friend as small as you are.” The banter was our usual, and even in the midst of grief, I honored the friend code and continued it.”

  “At least you have boobs and an ass, Ames.”

  “And at least you’ll never be as wide as you are tall, Frankie. You know the women in my family run to fat.”

  I snorted, I couldn’t help it. Amy would die before she let herself gain an extra ounce. We’d been running partners for years, and it took me half that just to feel like I wasn’t going to collapse and die on the floor every time we said goodbye.

  “Okay, that’s a little better. Good to see you’re still in there. Real talk now, how are you holding up?”

  “Well, Mom just called to tell me…” I checked my watch, “five hours ago that her best friend and self-proclaimed adopted mom died suddenly of a stroke.” I sniffled and kicked my luggage. “I was fine right up until I got home and realized I had to pack for a funeral, where I’d watch my nana get put in the ground.”

  She put her arms around me and let me cry into her shoulder for a few minutes without saying a word. “Well, you don’t have to go alone, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you have no car, and you just paid your way to an expensive wedding in the Hamptons. Unless you’ve been making extra money somewhere, that hit you as hard as it did me.”

  “Yeah, I might have gone overboard on the gift.”

  “Only by a couple hundred dollars. Obviously, you were overcompensating for your own canceled wedding. No big deal.”

  I sat on in the middle of the bed cross-legged. “God. Get to the point, Ames, you’re killing me here.”

  “I have a car. It’s a long-ass drive, but a helluva lot cheaper than flying. And Kate’s already offered to come too. She wants to meet your parents, and with three of us driving, we’ll make good time and not be exhausted when we get there.”

  She was wearing the face that said I had no chance of winning an argument. I still tried, but I knew I’d lost already. Five minutes later, I finally conceded my loss. Kate was called and agreed to pack her things and sleep over, so we could get an early start.

  “I shouldn’t even be going
. I don’t know why you guys are fighting to go with me.”

  “Why shouldn’t you go?”

  “Jonas threw a fit that I was asking for time off. Even after going up later than everyone else for the wedding, and having maxed out my vacation hours, he threatened to replace me for taking time off to go home.”

  “What a prick. Did you tell him you hated working for him anyways and to have your last check waiting when you got back?”

  I scoffed at the mental image of his head exploding upon hearing such news. “No. though it was tempting. I just kept crying until he yelled at me to get out of his office and not return until I’d learned to control my emotions.”

  “Fucker. We should slash his tires before we go.”

  “That’s why you’re the only one of us with a criminal record, Ames. You’re so quick to violence.” She threw herself across the bed, laughing. Her ‘criminal record’ was a shoplifting charge she’d taken for a friend who had actually committed the crime. But she wore it with pride, the only hardened criminal in our friend group.

  Then again, she’d freed lab bunnies and rats at Columbia, where we’d met as freshman roommates. If she thought someone, or something, was being hurt, she was a tigress. I was just glad she was on my side forever.

  Chapter 2

  “All I know, is that I am never going on a road trip with you two again,” Kate bellowed from the end stall at the restroom. “God, you’re so fucking annoying when you’re sad.”

  “Okay, so never go on a road trip with us again when I’m grieving my surrogate grandmother, then. Were you even invited?”

  She sauntered over to the rusty sink and washed her hands, eyeing me in the mirror. “I don’t mind that you’re sad, asshole. I mind that you’re trying so goddamned hard to be cheerful for us. Don’t bother, you’re a shitty liar.”

  I groaned and walked out without a reply. We were only a few miles from my childhood home, and yeah, I’d been a little keyed up for the last couple hundred miles. What did she expect? The things that hadn’t changed were almost as traumatic to see as the things that had with Mammie Blue gone.

  “Hey, I’m not finished with you.” She jogged to catch up to me. “I love you, Frankie. I get that this sucks for you. Stop trying to make it easier on us. That’s our fucking job, for chrissakes.”

  “Okay, fine. Then you’ve got to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “Stop fucking swearing so much. You’re going to make my mother faint if she hears it.”

  She pursed her lips and gave me a long look, then exhaled slowly. “No can do, Frankie. But I will say as little as possible to your parents…We can call it a wash.”

  I choked on my laughter. “God. What’m I gonna do with you?”

  “Oh, honey,” she murmured as she pressed herself against my side. “You know I get horny when you slip into your ‘southern belle’ accent.”

  “Stop humping Frankie and get in the car,” Amy sighed. “I can’t take you two anywhere.”

  I caught sight of my grin in the mirror as I buckled up. They’d done it again, made me forget how much pain I was in for a few minutes. Nothing more was said as Amy followed the nav system to the address I’d punched in. We’d decided I should drive the last leg, but as we got close, the shaking in my hands only worsened with each mile. Finally, Amy suggested she finish the trip, so I’d have time to think.

  Mom and Dad were waiting on the front porch by the time I climbed out of the car. Mom was a wreck, but no one but those who knew her best would’ve been able to tell. Even after what must have been two days of crying, not a hair was out of place.

  But Mom never fidgeted unless things were really bad, and when we hugged, her eyes were tight and red-rimmed. And yet, she was still the consummate hostess.

  “How was y’alls trip, ladies?” Her sweet accent just about made Amy and Kate fall over themselves to get her to keep talking. They walked into the house together, Mom chatting up my friends like she’d known them both all their lives.

  Dad hung back with me, stopping to pinch deadheads off the honeysuckle that grew by the door. “Your friends seem nice, Pigeon. Sure was sweet of them to come with you.”

  “They are nice. They’ve also been ragging on me to introduce them to my parents for years, so this was as much an excuse as a mental health intervention.”

  “They comin’ to the funeral? Your mom did it up. So, you know it’s gonna be real nice.”

  I nodded and let him take my hand. “What time do we need to be at the church? I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but work…”

  “It wasn’t like you could plan for Blue to take on like she did. Stubborn old woman never did take to doctors.”

  There I was, smiling again. “You going soft now for her? Not three weeks ago you called her a cantankerous alley cat.”

  “Well, tomorrow, when we’re remembering her each our own way, I’ll tell you a few stories. But today is for your mom, and for Blue’s sisters. Got to watch my mouth for a tick.” He pulled me against his side and kissed my temple, his arm around my shoulders. “Funeral’s at two, I gotta get your mom there at one. Supper’s here, so you make sure your friends get settled in and ready to eat some real southern food.”

  And eat we would. I’d never been touched this closely by death, but it had passed near enough for me to know that the procession of food wouldn’t stop until there was no fridge, counter, or icebox space left for casserole dishes and pie plates.

  Kate called my name from upstairs and I took the steps two at a time. “I’m here, I’m here. You caught me as I was about to sneak into the kitchen for a snack.” I took the wad of black fabric she held out to me and headed into my childhood bedroom, still painted yellow and pink, my track ribbons and soccer trophies still on the shelf above my dresser.

  I changed quickly and joined the others in the front hall as Mom gave them directions to the church. “Hey guys, do you mind if I go early with my parents?”

  “We’ll follow behind you, see if there’s anything we can do to pitch in.” My mother threw an arm around each of them and hugged them.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed behind my mom’s back. Amy winked, and Kate pretended my mother’s affection hadn’t touched her.

  A male voice called out from the kitchen and Mom scurried off to meet them, leaving us alone at the bottom of the ‘grand stair’, as Mammie Blue had called the sweeping staircase that led upstairs.

  “Frankie, how the heck did you make that dress look so good?” I glanced down at the narrow rows of ruffles that ran from the high neck to the waist of the dress.

  “I look twelve.”

  “You look like how we think all southern belles are supposed to look.”

  “Ultra-feminine,” Amy agreed, “and untouched.”

  “Virginal black, who’d have thunk.” I rolled my eyes at them as they snickered. Kate, a headhunter with our firm who was known for her stark wardrobe of black suits and white button downs, was wearing her usual pantsuit with a silky onyx shell underneath. Amy wore a bodycon LBD with a duster length black cashmere cardigan over it. “You both look stunning. Thanks again for going to a stranger’s funeral with me.”

  “No, seriously. How the hell can you look so good in that dress?” Kate pushed her lips into a pout.

  “Uh, ladies, when y’all are finished with your funeral fashion show, I’d like to know where y’all want this.”

  I spun around and stared straight into the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. “Who the hell are you, and who crapped in your crawdads?”

  His eyes widened. “I’m the guy who was asked to make something to honor Ms. Jackson. Who the hell are you?”

  “This is my home.”

  He cleared his throat and handed me a large oval object wrapped in burlap. “Then, Miss Bonhomme, I guess you can take this.” He turned away before I could say anything more, but I saw his body tense as Deputy Dolan, the man who had tormented my mother and I throughout my youth, exit the kitchen a
nd head straight for us.”

  “Damn, LeBlanc, I didn’t think you were stupid enough to come into town these days.”

  “Sheriff.” His voice was a growl. “I thought your campaign promise was to be the face of the new, compassionate sheriff’s department. People are in mourning here.”

  Kate scoffed softly at his sudden concern for our feelings, but I touched her arm and she went quiet.

  “So, it’s sheriff now, is it?” I asked, stepping between the men and holding my wrapped parcel like a shield in front of me. “Last I saw you, you were telling me what a shame it was that I didn’t get more of my daddy’s ‘white’, instead of my momma’s ‘chink’. How the straight fuck did they let you become the boss?”

  The man behind me gasped and I would’ve sworn on a stack of bibles he legitimately growled, like a predator would. “Of course he did.” He pushed past me and stood toe to toe with sheriff Dolan. “Maybe you ought to go on to the church, Sheriff. You know how the public like to see a man in uniform honoring the common folk.”

  Dolan curled up his lip in disgust but strode out without another word. LeBlanc, since that seemed to be his name, sighed and followed close behind, leaving the three of us staring at each other in confusion.

  “Well, open it,” Kate finally hissed. “Let’s see what this LeBlanc guy brought to honor Mammie Blue.”

  It was large enough to be cumbersome, maybe two feet across and two and a half tall. We moved into the parlor and I unwrapped it on the table, Kate bracing it upright as I unwound the cloth.