How to Date a Werewolf...or 3

by Graceley Knox

I pointed to his brand, still shiny and raw under the clear wrap and antibacterial gel. “Does that mean you’re responsible for his wellbeing?” He nodded. “Then let’s go. He’s your brother. He wouldn’t leave without at least a note.” I paused and added, “especially if he thought he might get to join us.”

  Cash choked out a startled laugh. “You’ve certainly got him figured out. Adam is all about fun and pleasure. Not a jealous bone in his body.”

  “But he does rush into a fight, and that’s where we have to worry.”

  Chapter 15

  I made it up into the woods on his tail before the images flooded my mind, driving me to the ground with a groan.

  “Hey, Shortstack, what are you doing out here all alone?” Adam helped me to sit upright, concern on his face.

  “We were looking for you, you great asshole. And I just saw… I just saw you in chains. God, I’m losing my mind. I was so scared, you thoughtless,” I punched him weakly, “careless,” punch, “selfish goon.”

  “I smelled trouble and went to make sure you and Cash weren’t disturbed.”

  “Well, guess what. The second you disappeared, he knew. What kind of guy can stop mid…never mind. The point is, he’s out there looking for you. Get him back.”

  “Not until you’re safe inside.”

  This time, I didn’t argue. I’d demanded Cash treat me like his physical equal and I’d lost it less than five minutes in. I wanted to call out for him, but didn’t, afraid that it would attract the same trouble Adam had been worried about.”

  “You know we all have cell phones, right?”

  “You know we change into wolves and that means no pockets, right?” he quipped. The house was in sight, every light turned on the way we’d left it. It blazed like a lighthouse, guiding us back.

  “Cash!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, emboldened by the light. “I found him. Come back. Run, damn it!”

  But it wasn’t Cash who stepped out of the shadows to join us. The men from the alley, armed with clubs and knives, hemmed us in, so we stood between them and the house. Which put them between us and Cash.

  “Go inside, lock the door, call the number written on the fridge. It’s my father’s new cell phone. Tell him to get here fast.”

  But when I backed up, two of the men lunged toward me. “We don’t need to call in Daddy just yet, Cormier…He’s not the real alpha anyway. What do you expect him to do?” The taller one eyed me with a leer.

  “Your father? Then why does Cash have that tattoo?” I blurted.

  “You’re a fucking liar,” the first man spat. “Aldean, we need to gut these two and teach that godamned upstart a lesson.”

  “Remember your premonition?” Adam asked.

  Of course I remembered. The sight of him, beaten within an inch of his life, bleeding out onto a dirt floor while men stood around and just watched him die…I’d be having nightmares about that for the rest of my life…if we survived.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He kissed my temple and whispered, “good.” Before I could reply, he swung around and slashed at the man closest to him, blood arcing high over us as the knife he’d been hiding bit through the man’s coat and into his abdomen.

  Adam raced between two of the remaining three, while the first lie clutching his stomach and moaning in pain. The others raced after Adam, and I ran inside and locked the door, sitting with my back to a corner, out of view from the windows, but across the room from the fridge and the number to the cavalry.

  I made it halfway across the room in an awkward combat crawl, when the front door flew open and tumbled away from it with a scream caught in my throat.

  Chapter 16

  “What happened. You were behind me, then you weren’t. I knew I shouldn’t have taken you out there.”

  “Adam,” I panted. “I found Adam. But I had a premonition and I told him, and then those goons from the alley showed up and he stabbed one and then lured the others away and I’m supposed to call his father,” I babbled, fear stabbing into my heart with each syllable of every word.

  “I called him. What do you mean you had a premonition?”

  I sniffed. “I saw Adam in chains. I told him, and he asked me to remember what I saw, then he stabbed that guy and ran off.”

  “Could you recognize it if you saw it again? The place from your…you vision? Like you did before?” I nodded. “Good. Come one. God, I wish I had something for you to wear.”

  My oversized purse was sitting on the coffee table where I’d left it. “Well, I have a change of clothes.” His eyes widened. “Not for that. After the other night, I wasn’t sure where we’d be going.”

  I scrambled into the black stretchy jeans and tee-shirt I’d stuffed into my bag. The sandals would be ruined by the woods, bit at least I’d be protected from nettles and thorns as we ran.

  “Is there any way you can tell me where to go without coming with me?”

  “Nope. Sorry. Now let’s go. It was a cabin with a dirt floor. Does that narrow it down?”

  “Not in this part of the woods. I’ll have to follow his scent and hope it stays strong enough to get me close.”

  “Is it easier if you change?”

  “Yeah, but then I’ll only run faster. I can’t afford to leave you alone again. It was a stupid mistake.”

  “Just lead the way. I’ll stay with you. Even if I have a vision. I glanced at him. And if we get stuck, all you have to do is kiss me. You’re quite the trigger, it seems.”

  He pressed his lips to mine, and I opened to him, needing his touch as much as I needed whatever boost it gave me to help me find Adam. “From now on, all premonitions more serious that kittens in trees needs to come straight to me. I’m smart enough not to run straight into my own murder.”

  There was no defense for Adam’s rash decision, so I simply nodded my head and let him lead me out the door. Time was against us, and I was afraid if I did see Adam in my visions again, it would be to tell me we were too late.

  Chapter 17

  “He told me to stay so you’d be who you were supposed to be,” I panted as we jogged between the trees, pausing every few hundred feet for Cash to recalibrate his nose and head us in the best direction.

  “He told you to stay, because he knew I wouldn’t let you be used or hurt for your gift, and I couldn’t keep you from the pack.” Cash paused again and turned toward the river in the distance.

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  “Because you’re a true witch. You’d have been pulled to us no matter what. If Aldean Croft and Hib’s boys had been the ones you ran into first, you might be the one in chains right now.”

  Hearing the despair in his voice as he turned this way and that, trying to pick up his best friend’s scent again, I almost wished it had gone that way.

  “I’m sorry, Cash.”

  “Don’t be. Just tell me how it works. Is it always sex with one of us that triggers it?”

  I blushed so hot I was grateful for the cover of darkness. “Uh, no. I have impressions and feelings about things all the time. But after…uh…”

  “After you had sex with Adam instead of me.”

  “Well, fuck. Yeah, after that, I had a much more vivid picture in my head. And after you, well, you know, I could practically smell the coppery blood and sawdust mixed into the dirt on the floor.”

  Cash grabbed me and kissed me soundly on the lips. I flinched back, but his eyes held an almost manic light, not lust. “You never said anything about sawdust, Cher. I know where to go, sort of. Give me any other details you can think of.”

  Just like that, he’d accepted my visions as nothing out of the ordinary, like I’d told him I could make crème brulee from scratch, instead of talking psychic talents. “I made this happen when I told him about it, didn’t I?

  “Better that then dead from all the other things we imagined had already happened to him. We will find him. He knew that when he led them away. Your vision was meant to save him.”

  “
This doesn’t even surprise you, does it?”

  He spread his hands. “We change into animals and hunt in the woods around town. I’ve seen voodoo priestesses call ghosts to our bonfires to tell us stories of our ancestors, and seen black magic turn a man inside out. I’ve seen flames burst into life in the middle of a cold room and burn down a house.” His voice trailed off for a moment and I wondered if he was speaking of his childhood home. “Why would a few visions scare me?”

  “In New York, I’d be wearing a straitjacket after telling you all.”

  He nodded and laughed softly. “In some neighborhoods, the rich ones, yeah, you probably would.” He shrugged. “But even there, shifters, witches, believers…Magic doesn’t just exist in the old south, you know.”

  Ahead of us, the moon broke through the trees and I saw of a field dotted with cabins, an old camp site gone to ruin. Just like the cabin in my vision. Cash opened his mouth to speak, but movement down the hill behind him caught my eye.

  “Shhh. The one on the end. I saw something move.”

  “Stay here. I’ll be back with him.” He dropped into a crouch and started down the hill.

  Or I could follow you and make sure you both make it out alive. I crept after him, my more logical inner voice reminding me that I had no way of protecting anyone. I fingered the knife in my belt, grateful my dad was the kind to hand a girl a knife, rather than tell her not to go outside.

  Ahead of me. Cash was just a dark splotch on the landscape as he rose up behind a man and choked him to the ground. That left two more either inside or roaming out here. I held back, looking for another guard of some kind, when I heard a crash from inside the building and bolted for the door.

  “Oh my God, this is so stupid,” I panted. “I’m just taking Cash the knife, if I can. I’ll unlock those chains I saw.

  I squatted by the door and peered around the corner, keeping myself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Adam was already in bad shape, his head bowed, hair falling around his face. Blood stained his shirt and dripped between his knees, possibly from a broken nose.

  Shit.

  Cash was fighting two men in the corner. One of them managed to grab him from behind and the other pummeled him. I slipped in the door and crawled around the back of the chair, listening for Adam’s breathing and looking for any severe wounds. His deep, ragged sigh brought tears to my eyes. He was bruising, and blood still gushed from his nose, but Adam seemed okay, otherwise.

  The chains holding him were locked in place with several zip ties. I almost laughed aloud. This, I could do something about. I cut the ties with my knife, and whispered to Adam to get out, and I would help Cash.

  “I’ve got my knife. I’ll get it to him, Adam, I promise.”

  A slight nod was the only answer I got. He stayed in the chair, body slack and unresponsive…except for one tightly fisted hand. I didn’t know if he’d obey me, but he was definitely conscious.

  I stood and rushed the man hitting Cash at the same time as he drive the back of his head into the last one’s face.

  “Goddamn it, were you waiting for me?” I yelled, making Aldean, the one who’d been punching him, spin around in shock. He dove for me and I jumped back, forcing him right next to the still form of Adam, hands behind his back like they were bound in chains. “Take my knife, Cash,” I called out, and Aldean glanced behind him. But Cash and the other man were still grappling, and Aldean was wise to my distraction technique.

  “Keep the knife, girl. Yo’ gonna need it,” he grinned evilly and licked his yellow teeth. “I’m the new alpha, and I hear you’re my new witch. He grabbed his crotch and advanced a step, now inches from Adam in the chair.

  “She may need it, but I don’t.” Adam was behind him in the blink of an eye, clawed, grotesquely elongated fingers wrapped around his throat.

  “You aren’t smart enough to be alpha,” I muttered, and glanced toward Cash, just in time to see him slam the last man against the wall and shout at him to stop fighting and be still. But I wasn’t the only one with a knife. I shouted a warning just as silver flashed in the dim lantern light and Cash roared in pain.

  Aldean crumpled to the floor as Adam released him, strangled unconscious. “Don’t kill him,” Cash panted. “We do not kill our family.” The man had dropped the knife and stood with his hands raised. “Goddamn it, Hib. You’re better than this. You know our ways and this is not how we settle disputes.”

  “You gave yourself the mark, Cash. You didn’t wait for the challenges.”

  “You’ve had years to challenge me. I didn’t give myself anything. I went to Fatima, the same as anyone else. This is the mark she gave me. She demanded the vows. Would you have had him,” he pointed at the crumpled body on the floor, “as your alpha? Someone who threatens to rape the pack witch?”

  “You…You’re really a witch?”

  “I led Cash to you with a vision. I warned Adam of your attack with the same.” I didn’t say I was a witch. I couldn’t and frankly, the word gave me the willies.

  Movement near the door made me drop into a crouch, ready to fight or run, whatever Cash commanded. Devon came into the light, panting and covered in a sheen of sweat.

  “Goddamn it, took me too long to find you. I missed the good stuff.”

  Unexpected tears burned my eyes. Of course he’d come. Devon was pack, and I belonged to him, just as much as I did Adam or Cash, and they belonged to each other. He skirted the room and put an arm around me.

  “Hi,” I whispered as we watched Cash face off against the other man.

  “Hey, Boo, miss me?”

  Cash glanced our way and Devon snickered, ducking his face into my hair.

  “You stopped the sheriff’s man from shooting Adam,” Cash reminded me. Wolves don’t use guns. We don’t need them. Knives, teeth, claws are all that’s permitted.” He turned to Hib. “There will always be trouble in Breaux Bridge for us, we don’t need to make…” He hissed and grabbed the wound in his side and shook his head. “We don’t make trouble for each other. But when I get this healed, you and I will have words”

  He backed away and Hib ran for it, out the door and into the night. I’d seen this place, bloodier and more terrifying in my vision. Because we’d stopped horror from becoming reality. I’d stopped it. And suddenly, there was nothing more to fear from myself.

  Chapter 18

  “Cash and I must heal ourselves, Frankie. Will you help us?”

  I scoffed. “Of course. You didn’t even have to ask.”

  The shared a look that told me I’d just agreed to more than I realized, but neither said a word as Adam hogtied the unconscious Aldean on the floor with his own chains, and Cash leaned on Devon, holding his side.

  “We heal faster than humans, but that bowie hit deep, and I need bigger magic to heal it, he whispered.

  “Is there any word other than magic we can use, I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

  Adam chuckled and went to Cash’s other side, the two friends flanking him, limping together as they led me into the woods.

  At a patch of soft grass Devon helped Cash lie down, then turned to me. “Sure, Honey, there’s another word we can use.” He grabbed me by the waist of my jeans and pulled me to him with a low growl. “Sex.”

  I glanced down at Cash, who was already struggling out of his shirt. He pressed the bloody wad of fabric to his side and cocked an eyebrow at me, then looked up to the sky and back again.

  “Moon’s full. Bigger magic on a full moon. Bigger sex, too.” He grinned, but it fell away from his face. “Devon. Stop.” Devon halted mid button and looked to his friend. “It also binds you to us if you do this. You will become our pack witch, our seer and healer.”

  “Do I have to fuck everyone if I do this?”

  “Hell no,” Adam hissed under his breath.

  “Like Adam said, hell no. But you will have to give yourself to me.”

  “And Adam and Dev?”

  Cash laughed and groaned in pain. “Gods.
I shared a room with these assholes half my life. I share my house with them now. Do I get anything to myself?”

  “You will,” I replied, and Adam and Dev each took a step back from me. “But not tonight,” I continued, “and not every other night, either.” My heart pounded in my ears at my words. I’d never been the adventurous type, never considered dating more than one guy at once, let alone more than one in my bed simultaneously.

  I took Adam’s hand and slid it up under my shirt, reveling in Cash’s sharp intake of breath as he watched. “Cash didn’t finish. He knew you had gone and went after you.”

  “I get it,” he breathed. “Alpha’s first.”

  But he slid the top over my head and bent over my breast, pulling my nipple into his mouth and sucking it to a hard point. He repeated it with the other, his hands working at the button and fly of my jeans as he teased me, sliding my pants over my hips and down my thighs. All the while, I felt Devon’s eyes on us, molten chocolate that made me tremble as much as Adam’s hands did.

  When my pants were around my ankles, he steadied me as I stepped out, and slid one hand up between my legs to press against the mound between my thighs. “Go, heal Cash. I’ll be waiting.”

  I took his hand and led him to his best friend, holding out my other hand to Devon. “I never said you had to wait.”

  They helped me undress Cash and I kissed him, my hand wrapped around his growing erection as Adam and Dev took turns fingering and playing with me from behind. I bent over and took Cash in my mouth, feeling light and power grow between us until I was certain if I looked up, we would be pulling the moon to us like the tide.

  Adam lifted me, slid me down onto Cash, and straddled him behind me, pressed hard against my ass as I rocked my hips, stroking Cash and myself to orgasm as the shirt fell away from his side and I watched the wound vanish before my eyes, before Devon rejoined us, his teeth and tongue on my nipples forcing me to close my eyes and savor the ecstasy.