by Knox, Abby
The flash of white fur in that room looked like an enormous, flying ghost barreling at Manny, and both wolf and man tumbled to the ground with a thud drowned out by the firing of a gun.
Chastity screamed. Gavin howled as he watched the wolf get hit.
But it wasn’t the wolf who got shot.
The puddle of silver glinting in the shadowy space on the floor was neither wolf nor Manny. It was Pen’s dress.
The gun had skidded across the room.
The white wolf loomed over top of Manny.
And then another shape became visible in the dark, a huge black wolf, and its canine jaw was locked on to Manny’s neck.
Chastity and Gavin both struggled and snarled against their magical restraints.
Manny screamed. Doubtless, he was trying to shift into his full wolf as well, to make it a fair fight. But neither the white nor the black wolf were going to let him go anywhere, even if he did shift.
That’s when Chastity realized that the black wolf was bleeding badly. Liquid spread across the floor beneath it. But as soon as her mind registered that the black wolf was injured, the snarling creature began to shift back to its human form. Fur melted into the shape of a naked human female, blood dripping from the side of her face. Chastity fought with all her might to get free, her instincts getting close to overwhelming her magical restraints. She had to help Pen right away.
Despite her injury, Pen shouted at the white wolf. “I’m okay, Bobby! Let go!”
It became clear that Pen was trying to get Bobby to let go of Manny before he killed the man, but Pen could not overpower him in her weakened state.
The white wolf seemed to instinctively jerk Manny’s neck in the grip of his jaw, as a wolf does with its prey, and at that moment everyone in the room heard the snap. Manny’s body went limp. He was dead.
The gag in Chastity’s mouth muffled her scream of terror, revulsion, shock, and relief. There were so many heightened emotions flooding her she couldn’t choose one and began to feel such a surge of adrenaline she thought she might pass out. If only she could be rid of this godforsaken voodoo curse keeping her pinned to the chair. She strained, but it was a little too much force. Her body was sent flying out of the chair and collapsing onto the floor. She was free.
Holy shit, how did I get free? Quickly, she removed the gag from her mouth and moved toward Gavin, but in the next moment, all the hairs on her body stood on end. All of Chastity’s feline instincts inside told her not to move another muscle. Don’t go near them.
She looked carefully, and in the dark, she could see that the white wolf’s fangs were bared, and he was emitting a steady growl of warning. He wasn’t staring at her, however. He was staring down at Pen and the blond wolf that was Gavin, who was standing between her and the white wolf.
Gavin must have sprung free from his restraints at the same time that Chastity had, and was bounding toward the dead body on the floor. The two wolves were in a standoff.
Pen tried to talk some sense into her pack mates. “You don’t have to do this, boys. Gavin, I know you wanted to kill him yourself for tying up your girl and threatening her, but what’s done is done. Bobby, get a hold of yourself. I know you smell a cat in here, but we’re just going to all have to get used to it. We’re all one clan now, like it or not. And now we have a dead body to deal with.”
The white wolf backed away from its prey and shifted. The pale fur seemed to dissipate like a mist, revealing the man Chastity recognized as Ash’s best man, Bobby.
Bobby, now in human form, stood over Manny’s lifeless body. Manny’s blood was all over his face and down his chest.
The blond wolf circled and sat at Chastity’s feet. She reached down and buried her hands in the soft fur at its neck.
“Baby?”
It was Pen who had spoken. All of Chastity’s instincts now compelled her to go and help Pen cover herself. But the majestic red-haired woman before her didn’t seem all that self-conscious. Nor should she, Chastity thought, she had the countenance and stature of the goddess Athena, despite a serious wound that continued to drip blood onto the floor.
Pen was staring at Bobby in concern. “Bobby, are you okay?”
But instead of answering her, Bobby turned and ran away.
Chastity was flabbergasted. Why would a pack mate turn and run away like that, knowing one of his best friends was injured? Panthers had their issues, but they would never, ever abandon a pack mate.
Chastity looked down as she felt something change in the temperature of the wolf at her feet. She lifted her hand, and the fur began to darken toward brown. The blond wolf’s limbs lengthened and bulged until the strange half-canine/half-human form stood erect before finally assuming his human form in a surge of glittering mist before her eyes.
Gavin grabbed her up in his arms and drove a forceful, searing kiss against her mouth. They were safe, and she felt all of Gavin’s pain and regret at putting her in danger. He didn’t need to say it; she felt it in the way he possessed her mouth, in the grasping of his large hands that squeezed her against him so tight she gasped for breath.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, barely holding back a sob.
“Gavin, we have to get Pen to the hospital,” Chastity said, cupping his face as if that would help him focus on the matter at hand.
“I’ll be fine,” Pen said. “We heal quickly.”
She watched the towering female pull one of the larger men’s T-shirts from the rack and pull it on over her head just as casually as if she were in her own home and had not just witnessed a killing of a fellow wolf shifter.
If it had been a panther killed in battle, even in self-defense, the entire clan would have to gather and plan. There would be a massive funeral, a traditional procession with a brass band and a second line that would stop traffic for miles, and a public burial followed by a ritual hunting in which everyone would sacrifice their kill in honor of the dead. The wolves, it seemed, merely had to “deal with a dead body.”
“What happens now?” Chastity asked weakly, her knees giving out. She would have fallen flat on the floor had Gavin not been there.
Gavin replied, “We call Lucy and she helps us burn the body, and she casts a spell to disappear him.”
Chastity stiffened. “Seems over the top to use magic even after burning the man’s body.”
Pen spoke as she dabbed at the wound in her head with a towel. “The bleeding’s stopped. Anyway, we have to completely disappear him from memory. It’ll be like he never existed. No police, no missing person’s reports, no fuss, no muss.”
A fresh wave of horror washed over Chastity. “That’s awful. You should return him to his pack.”
Pen simply shook her head and muttered, “Panthers. Of course, we had to get mixed up with such a high-minded species.”
“Excuse me, but where I’m from we honor our dead, even if they are despicable.” Chastity sniffed.
Pen laughed. “Okay. Gav, you got your hands full with this one. I’ll let you handle this. I gotta go find Bobby.”
Once Pen had left, Gavin checked her over while calling whoever this Lucy was.
This side of the phone conversation sounded like he was simply ordering a pizza.
“Lucy, it’s Gavin…we got a dead one…yeah, another blood purist…no, it was Bobby this time…no, we’ll talk to Bobby, and let’s leave Ash and Vann out of it…only Pen and I know about it…yep…full disappearing ritual…I know what it costs…I’ll pay double if you can leave the wedding and come now.”
At this moment, Chastity didn’t know how she could truly fit in with this pack. Sure, she had heard they’d changed the way they hunted for food to keep regular humans safer, but she didn’t think she could ever be on board with disappearing a body.
Gavin seemed to sense what Chastity was thinking and sat her down on his lap in one of the padded client chairs to explain things. “Bobby was defending us. Manny had been ready to kill o
ne or both or all four of us in the name of shifter purity. We were keeping him close to keep an eye on him. There was exactly one way this day was going to end for him. Killing someone or someone killing him. He’s not the only one. There are others like him. If we don’t do a full disappearing spell, his pack mates are going to come looking for him and it’ll be a full-scale war.”
She nodded her head in understanding. “I guess it makes sense. It’s just a lot to absorb.”
When Lucy arrived, Chastity realized that the woman in the strange robes had been one of the officiants of the wedding.
“Boy, you guys really do keep your practitioners at your beck and call,” Chastity said.
Lucy drew herself up to her full height, which was still several inches shorter than Chastity. “Little girl, a high priestess is at nobody’s beck and call.”
The fierceness in the woman’s eyes was evident, even in this dark room. “I’m…I’m sorry. I’m getting a lot of new information tonight.”
“In addition to being held captive and witnessing a dude having his throat ripped out, she’s had a rough night.”
Lucy waved Gavin off. “It’s already forgiven. What choice do I have? This one is already head over heels in love with you. Pretty soon I’m going to be baptizing a tiny wolf/panther baby if my spidey sense is correct.”
Chastity gasped. “I’m not…no…how did you know…”
Lucy did not answer her question, only waved the both of them away so she could get on with the ritual disappearance that would clean the room of the aftermath, and scrub everyone’s memories of everything that happened that day.
Chapter Fifteen
Gavin
Who knows what Lionel said to his brother? Whatever it was, it worked.
Irene and Uncle Lionel had talked enough sense into Theodore that fences were mended in time for the wedding.
Theodore even offered to pay all expenses for the wedding and even a brand new gown for Chastity, but she insisted on wearing the purple dress from Ash and Rosemary’s wedding, preferring a small ceremony at the county courthouse.
With Bobby still in hiding, the two of them felt it was the right thing to do. Everyone had tried almost everything to get him out of hiding, but it seemed no one could talk any sense into him.
“I’m sorry the pack isn’t all here. I feel like some of this, what happened with Bobby, is partially my fault,” said Chastity. Waiting in line at the county clerk’s office, she seemed almost melancholy, although Gavin couldn’t imagine why.
“What are you talking about?” Gavin asked.
Chastity fiddled with the ruffles on her dress, eyes cast downward. Her mother clucking over the fact that her daughter had chosen to wear the bright, over-the-top bridesmaid dress from Rosemary’s wedding for a simple courthouse wedding with a handful of witnesses wasn’t helping Chastity’s confidence any.
“I just mean, maybe if I hadn’t chased you down, ran into Manny and gotten him all riled up, maybe things would have turned out differently,” she said.
“Look at me,” Gavin said, wanting so badly to cup her face but also not wanting to ruin her wedding-day makeup. Instead, he threaded their fingers together and kissed the tops of each of her knuckles, then said, “Manny was a danger either way. It was just a matter of time. The only tragedy in this is we’re cursed to live with the memory, even if he’s virtually forgotten by everyone else that wasn’t involved in the…incident. And it would have ended the same for him no matter what. Do you believe me?”
Chastity nodded. “I’m just sorry about Bobby.”
Gavin knew it would take way too long to explain everything that was wrong with Bobby and why he felt the need to isolate himself after the attack. But they had their whole lives ahead of them to acquaint each other with all the ways in which the curse affected their lives, even in childhood.
But there was always hope. “Remember, I chased you down, too. Bobby will get better. I have a feeling all of us will get better with time. Who knows, maybe our kids won’t even have the curse. Maybe all of these relationships between breeds that everyone is freaking out about is actually for the best. Maybe this is how we break the curse. Everything is going to work out exactly the way that it should, for the better of everyone.”
Chastity was so overcome, she no longer cared about her wedding makeup. She rose on her toes to deliver the sweetest of kisses to her groom, dropping her small bouquet of daisies to the floor to grip him with both hands.
She asked, “How do you maintain such optimism, Gavin?”
He answered her, “Because I knew you were mine before I even knew who you were. Uncertainty was never an option since the moment we met.”
Epilogue
Ten years later
Chastity
Chastity was overwhelmed.
The new house was taking too long to be built. The tattoo shop—which now also housed a comic book store to showcase Chastity’s art—was too much to handle on her own, but Gavin was taking his time as usual with an indecisive client. Just as she was getting settled into drawing a new comic, she had to leave the shop and go pick up their daughter from school.
Their oldest was approaching middle school age, and they had begun to talk about whether to home-school her until they figured out what kind of shifter she would become once she hit puberty.
On top of all that, Chastity was seven months pregnant with their second baby and obviously could not drink. Gavin had given up drinking and any other recreational drugs completely, going total straight edge for the sake of their family and the family business.
After all the trouble that drugs and alcohol had caused in the formation of their relationship, it seemed like a no-brainer.
Right now, though, Chastity wanted a drink.
Her solace was Gavin himself. He was a fantastic husband and father. Her other was her art. She was just settling in to sketch a new character when she heard an alarm sound. It was Gavin’s phone.
“Oh, it’s time to pick up Cory from school, babe.”
“I know it is.” She smirked.
Gavin smiled over at her. “Well, are you gonna go, or do I have to piss off a paying customer right now?”
She cocked her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gavin’s smile fell and he shook his head. “Nothing.”
Chastity arched an eyebrow at her husband. “No, do go on with your super-important self. I’m curious why money is a major concern here and not my art.”
Gavin put down the binder of tribal tattoos he was showing his client and rubbed his hand over his face. “Fine.” Then he turned to the client. “I’m sorry. We’re going to need a minute to get some stuff done here. Come back tonight and I’ll give you 50 percent off.”
The client shrugged and obligingly dashed out, obviously not wanting to get in the middle of a marital crisis.
Gavin locked up the shop and grabbed his keys. Before he headed out the back door to dash down the street to Cory’s school, he marched over to Chastity’s art easel and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“I’m gonna make this work. I promise.” He planted a kiss on Chastity that surprised her and set fire to her cotton panties.
She was kind of hoping this meant he would call a grandparent or a car to pick up Cory from school so they could have some alone time, because she was suddenly very turned on.
Alas, Gavin had only meant that Chastity could keep working on her art for the rest of the afternoon while he took care of Cory.
They would have plenty of time tonight for her to say thank you. And when the new house was built and they could all move out of Gavin’s small walk-up apartment above the pho restaurant, there would be even more space to make their own. As it was currently, they often waited until Cory was visiting her second cousins at the lake house to have sex.
Chas could not wait to get out of this apartment, get this baby out, and get her body back.
* * *
Gavin
“You heard
me right.”
The general contractor stared aghast at Gavin. “Do you know what you’re asking? I would need to triple my crew and work through the night.”
Gavin was deadly serious. “Make it happen.”
The contractor nodded, then got on the horn.
Gavin and Cory hoofed it back home to do her homework. She slipped her adorable preteen hand in his. “Daddy, can they really get the house done in five days?”
Gavin smiled. He loved it that Cory didn’t feel too old or cool to hold hands with him or to call him Daddy.
“They better, because your Uncle Ash has already put up the money to make it happen.”
“I hope you haven’t promised Mom this, because you know she’s going to be super pissed.”
Gavin hugged her from the side as they walked. “That she will. But no need to freak out about the unknown. You just have to have faith that everything will work out.”
“That makes you an optimist.”
Gavin piped in, “And don’t forget, maker of the world’s meanest Belgian waffles.”
Cory cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, as long as Auntie GiGi’s strawberry sauce is on top, then yes, the meanest.”
Gavin feigned hurt feelings. “My daughter, the vicious killer of souls!”
Cory laughed. “You love me.”
“Yes, even when you prefer your aunty’s food over mine.”
“Just don’t tell Uncle Vann I like GiGi’s cooking better. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
If the Gavin ten years ago had seen into the future and gotten a look at his life now, he might have run away screaming. Strawberry sauce? Waffles? School pickup? Placating a pregnant shifter feline? Hell, no.
But all he had to do was take one look at his beautiful daughter, the spitting image of her mother, and his party-animal proclivities went right out the window. He was happily squared away in blissful domesticity.