by P. C. Cast
Thinking of Candice, Justin let the moon caress his fur as he raised his muzzle to the sky. Surrounded by young wolves who were breaking off into intimate groups, he howled his passion for Candice into the night.
The full moon was so white against the absolute black of the starless sky that it almost looked silver. Sitting at the edge of the clearing, Candice breathed deeply of the warm night air and waited. It wasn’t long before she heard them approaching through the trees. They weren’t being stealthy—there was no reason for it. They were being young and uninhibited and very, very horny.
Godiva had been right (again). It was easy to tell which of the wolves was Justin. That thick sand-colored pelt was as distinctive as his eyes (and his tongue).
She stood up and stepped into the clearing. Keeping the hand that clutched the collar hidden behind her back, she cocked her hip and shook out her hair. With a sexy purr in her voice, she called to him.
“Justin, come here, boy!” The big wolf sitting between two blonde bitches who were drooling over him (literally) while he howled at the sky cocked his ears at her. Candice ran her hand suggestively over her body. “I have something special for you that I just couldn’t wait till tomorrow to give you.”
With an enthusiastic woof, he bounded toward her, his all-too-familiar tongue lolling. With one quick movement, she dropped to her knees beside him and slipped the heavy-duty choke collar around his throat.
“Arruff?” he said, staring up at her in confusion.
“Tonight you’re coming with me,” she whispered. When the bitches yapped at her, she grinned over her shoulder at them. “Don’t worry. I’ll give him back to you—but not till I’ve had my way with him.”
He whined and squirmed as she dragged him to the Jeep she’d borrowed from Godiva. No damn way his hairy ass was going to fit in her lovely little Mini—even if she did allow dogs to ride with her, which she definitely didn’t.
“Don’t bother with the whining and big doggie eyes. They’re not going to work,” she told him. “And remember, my magic is nonmagic. You can’t change as long as I’m close to you. But isn’t that convenient? I hear that your favorite position is very close to a woman. Any woman. So get comfortable, fur-face.”
“Thank goodness I caught you before you closed, Doctor.” Candice smiled as she dragged the whining wolf into the veterinary clinic.
“Is there something wrong with your…” The vet hesitated, narrowing his eyes at the wolf.
“Dog,” Candice supplied innocently. “Yes, there is something wrong with my dog. I need you to perform emergency surgery.”
“Really? He looks healthy to me.” The vet reached down and ruffled the “dog’s” sandy fur.
Justin whined pitifully.
“You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” the vet said.
“He certainly thinks he is—which explains the emergency. I need you to cut off his…” Candice paused, glanced at Justin, then dropped her voice and whispered into the vet’s ear.
“Well, I don’t know. It’s pretty late. I was just closing,” he said.
“Surely you can fit him in. Pretty please, Doc?” She fluttered her lashes at him.
The vet smiled and shrugged. “I suppose I could for my favorite teacher. Go, Fairies!”
“Go, Fairies!” Candice chimed in automatically.
“If you wait here, I’ll take him in the back and be done in no time.”
“No! I mean, I’ll come with you. If I don’t stay close to him he’ll change…into something that might surprise you.”
“But you won’t want to watch!”
“Of course not,” she assured him. “I’ll stay in the room, but I have a poem I need to finish, so I’ll be concentrating on that while you take care of his little problems.”
“Suit yourself, teacher,” the vet said. “Bring him back.”
Justin began to growl.
“Doc, I think we need a muzzle.”
Candice settled on a metal folding chair not too far from the operating room table, careful to keep her back to the busy veterinarian and his unwillingly drugged patient. She ignored the tight, sick feeling in her stomach and, while Justin was being prepped, she picked up her pencil and smiled grimly as she finished her poem.
Keep your Errol Flynns, Paul Newmans, Mel Gibsons
all puppets—empty masquerades.
Tom, Dick, and Harry, too
the boy next door
I want no more.
You ask, what now?
Well, love comes with the night,
in the most inexplicable places
leaving the most unexplainable traces.
You see…a wolfman is the man for me!
True, hair in the sink is copious,
and the house at night tends to be a mess.
But if that wolfman breaks my heart,
if he thinks that we should part,
I’ll wait until the moon is waxing full
that magic time when his change is soon,
(my love is quite helpless then, as a puppy…baby…body in a mortuary)
I’d collar that fur-faced gigolo
and make a timely visit to the Vet.
Ah, well, I’m sure there’ll never be a need.
I haven’t seen a neutered werewolf…
Candice glanced up at where the vet obscured her view of the sleeping, spread-eagled Justin.
…Yet.
As the vet picked up an evil-looking scalpel, Candice closed her notebook.
“Doc?”
The vet paused, blade hovering above the spread-eagled “dog,” and glanced over his shoulder at her.
“I’m sorry. I know this is going to seem odd, but I’ve changed my mind.”
He frowned at her.
She gave a purposefully silly, girly-girl laugh. “Oopsie, sorry. I guess I just can’t go through with it, no matter how…uh, naughty he’s been. I’ll still pay you for the neutering, though. Don’t worry.” She fished her checkbook out of her purse and hastily wrote the vet a check. Then she nodded at the sleeping Justin. “How long will he be out?”
“A couple hours.”
“Perfect. Can you help me lift him into my car?”
9
Justin woke up in the ditch not far from the clearing where the party was still in full swing, as evidenced by the randy growls and breathless giggles that drifted on the night air. At first he was totally disoriented. His mouth felt like a bird had shit in it and he had a killer headache. What the hell? He’d gone to the party as a farewell to his old life, and then…
With a terrified yelp, his memory rushed back. Commanding his human form to come to him, he sat up, gasping and reaching between his legs. All there! He was all there.
What had happened? Why had Candice freaked out?
But even before Justin found the neatly folded note she’d left staked to the ground beside him with…he shuddered…something that looked disturbingly like a scalpel, he knew what had happened. Someone had told her about him. He was fully aware of his bad reputation. He’d never really given a shit. Until now. He opened the piece of notebook paper. The full moon had brightened the sky enough for him to easily read her bold writing.
Girls might think it’s cute or exciting to be with a man who collects lovers like a dog collects fleas. Well, that’s just one of the many differences between girls and women. Gigolo men piss grown women off. I’m a grown woman. The game you played with me pisses me off. I suggest you stick to girls. Next time you may lose more than a few orgy hours. Keep in mind, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” Ah, to hell with that poetic crap. Basically, I wanted to say, GO FUCK YOURSELF, JUSTIN!
When he returned to wolf form he didn’t notice the sensual stir of his morphing flesh, and he didn’t rush back to the clearing to pair up with an eager young wolf to reassure himself that everything was still in working order. Instead he padded slowly home—the garage apartment his parents pretended to rent to h
im as part of his salary and benefits at the restaurant, which felt as empty and meaningless as his life had become.
“You should be almost done with that awful poetry class, right?” Godiva asked her friend.
Candice was sitting on her balcony, arm resting against her little table, pad and pencil beside her. She stared out at the forest while she propped the phone against her shoulder and kept doodling on her notebook paper. “Yep. Almost.”
“And that means the whole MFA is almost done, right?”
“Yep. Almost.”
“And snow is almost done falling out of that giant flying rabbit’s ass, right?”
“Yep. Al—” Candice frowned, realizing what Godiva had really said. “Don’t be such a smart-ass.”
“You know, I hear he’s back in town.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So don’t talk—just listen. He’s back in town, but werewolf gossip has it that he’s only here temporarily. Seems he’s just come to collect some of his stuff to take back to his new apartment in Denver.”
“And why should I care?”
Godiva kept talking as if Candice hadn’t spoken. “Word also has it that he’s still not slutting around. No parties. No orgies. No cheerleaders. Not even the slightest hint of a girlfriend, wolf or not.”
“Godiva! I do not give a shit. I haven’t talked to him in weeks.”
“Well, maybe you should!”
“I cannot believe you’re saying that. You’re the one who told me what a slut he was. And I saw it with my own eyes. He lied to me and was fucking every bitch in sight that night.”
“Girlfriend, I told you what Romeo told me—that several werewolves told him that Justin wasn’t doing anyone that night. And, as far as my excellent gossip network—which includes forest fairies, and you know those little shits live for gossip and red meat—can tell, Justin Woods has not been with anyone since the three dates he had with you.”
“Two dates. And one of them wasn’t even official.”
“Whatever. I think you should call him.”
“What! I am not going to call that boy.”
“Oh, give it up. You know very well he’s no boy.”
“Again I say whatever. And he knows my phone number. If he wanted to talk to me, he’d call me.”
“Candice Cox, may I please remind you that the last time you interacted with him you almost had his balls cut off, you dumped him in a ditch, and you left a scary revenge note, complete with a literary quote and a go-fuck-yourself.”
“He lied to me.”
“True, and circumstantial evidence pointed to his definitely being an asswipe. But since then he has behaved respectably, by either man or wolf standards.”
Candice sighed. “I can’t call him. I feel like an idiot.”
“Do you want me to cast a little—”
“Hell, no! Godiva Tawdry, promise me right now that you will not put any kind of love spell, or anything like a love spell, on Justin.”
“Okay! I promise. But I still think you should call him.” She brightened. “Hey, I could have Romeo talk to—”
“No! God, I feel like I’m trapped in a dream where I’m back in high school trying to figure out my locker combination and realizing I’m butt-ass naked. Just leave it alone, Godiva. If Justin wanted to see me again, he’d figure out a way to do it.” And she knew it was true. Candice had only been with him for a short time, but she believed in his tenacity. He’d set his sights on seducing her, and he’d certainly accomplished his goal. If he had any desire to talk to her or see her, he’d get it done. But even though his behavior had changed drastically since the night she’d almost had him neutered, he had stayed completely away from her. Not that she cared.
“Candice?”
“Oh, sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked what your last poetry assignment was about.”
“We have to write two poems about heartbreak. One free verse. One sonnet. And neither can be clichéd.”
“Oh, a real uplifting assignment.”
“Yeah, it’s just one laugh after another over here.”
“Are they done?”
“Almost. I just have to finish tweaking the couplet to conclude the sonnet. Then I’m going to set them aside for a day or so, and do a quick rewrite before I have to turn them in next week.”
“After you do that, why don’t you and I get all dressed up and go into Denver for some excellent Italian food? I’ll even drive.”
“I’m not flying on that damn broom of yours.”
“I said drive.”
“I’ll think about it,” Candice said.
Godiva paused. She was almost afraid to ask the next question, but she knew she had to. Her talent was, after all, healing. Resolutely, she said, “Candy, what happened with Justin really did break your heart, didn’t it?” It took her friend several seconds to answer her.
“Yeah,” she finally whispered into the phone. “Isn’t that stupid?”
“No, it’s not stupid. It’s what can happen when we love someone, and you have rarely let yourself love anyone.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? And I’m the one who’s been married a zillion times.”
“You didn’t really love any of the ex-husnumbers. But there was something about Justin that got to you.”
“I wish…,” Candy began.
“What, honey?”
“I wish your magic worked on me.”
“So do I, honey. So do I.”
After she hung up, Godiva sat staring at the phone a long time. There had to be some way she could help her friend. After all, it was her fault this whole thing had happened. First, she’d cast the drawing spell that had brought them together. Then she’d spilled the beans about Justin’s promiscuous ways. Who knew the wolf was going to have some big, hairy epiphany and learn to zip his pants? And now the gossip tree said that he was really getting his shit together. Seems he was spearheading the acquisition of a new restaurant for his family, and the eavesdropping fairies, who seemed to have a real soft spot for the wolf, had even heard whispers that he’d reenrolled in college. Was it just her? Wasn’t it obvious to everyone that Justin was trying to make himself worthy of Candice?
And Candice was moping around like she’d been stuck in a classroom with the horrid Desdaine triplets (Godiva shuddered—Goddess! What a wretched thought! Those girls were the brat pack.). Something had to be done.
Maybe if Justin knew how miserable Candice was…maybe then he’d call her and they’d live happily ever after!
But she’d promised Candice she wouldn’t cast any love spells on him. Godiva tapped her long fingernail against her chin. Then she smiled. Candice was writing poems about heartbreak. What if Justin were to read them? He wouldn’t know that they were an assignment! He’d just think she was pining over him—which she was. That was it; the fairies would be only too happy to help.…
Humming to herself, Godiva began gathering four-leaf clovers…the little dried white things from the tops of dandelions…a pinch of frog snot…and various other delightful things she would need for the spell.…
Candice rubbed her neck and stretched. Well, the couplet that ended the sonnet was done. Good thing, too, it was getting dark and she should move inside from her porch. But she didn’t get up. She liked sitting out there. And it wasn’t because she remembered another evening on the porch, one that had been filled with hope and magic and love.…
No. It was just that the woods were quiet, and their somberness reflected her recent mood. It was nice to sit out on her balcony and write, even if what she wrote was damn depressing. She lifted the paper that had the final draft of both poems written on it and shook her head sadly. They were good. She knew it. But if they did evoke feelings, the feelings would be sadness, loss, longing.…
She put the paper down, remembering how not long ago she had dreamed of writing things that evoked brighter emotions.
What was wrong with her? So she’d had a little fling th
at had ended abruptly and, quite frankly, not very well. It was ridiculous that it was still making her feel this sad. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chair. What was it about Justin that stayed with her? Was it just because he’d been so damn handsome? That couldn’t be it. Ex-husband numbers one and four had been very handsome men. Well, was it the sex? No. Ex-husband numbers one and three had been fantastic in the sack. She’d gotten over all of them, more easily than she usually cared to admit. So why was Justin still haunting her dreams?