by Tara Lain
He closed the space between them, reached down, though she was a tall woman, and hugged her. “If I’ve got any of those qualities, it’s all thanks to you.”
She hugged him back hard. “I hope I’ve been a good influence.” She looked up and held his chin. “Seriously, how’re you feeling?”
“Good.” That was almost true.
“You up for your picnic?” She smiled. “I can call Dave and tell him you’re not feeling well.”
Governor Mendes’s Picnic! Damn, I forgot. “You better not. Carla might come over here with a gun.”
His mom laughed. “You’ve got an hour. Why don’t you come down for breakfast, then see how you feel after some food? If you’re okay, you can get dressed and head over to the river.”
“Yeah, okay.”
She walked by him, gave his arm a squeeze, and left him alone. With a flop, he perched on the edge of the bed for a second. What the hell happened to me? The fuzzy image of the dark male flashed in his mind, and he jumped. Did I have a vision? He’d like to forget the whole thing, but it wasn’t the first time something crazy had happened to him.
He pursed his lips and blew.
His phone dinged on the nightstand where his mom must have put it. She’d even plugged it into the charger. Most excellent mom. He glanced at his texts.
You better be almost ready. Can’t face this crap without you. C.
He laughed. If he’d had any thoughts about not facing a mass of humanity, it just got shot. He tapped the keys.
TBH, JOMO on this one, but I’m there with you, bb.
The answer came fast. We’ll suffer together. Come early. It hasn’t started and I’m already over.
Jazz stood and hurried to his bathroom. Carla was fam, his best friend. Not to be taken lightly.
A quick shower and shave—don’t even get him started on his lack of body hair for a werewolf—some deodorant and toothpaste applied in the right locations and he stood at the mirror, assessing the damage—namely, his hair. He couldn’t have Winter’s frosty short cut or Cole’s flowing silver mane, or his brother Lindsey’s platinum halo. Nope. Jazz’s brown hair with gold streaks did whatever it wanted, in more directions than a road sign. If he tried to slick it down, he came off like that kid Alfalfa in some ancient comedy series he saw on TV once—flat and geeky. So he squeezed some product on his hands, ran it through the mess, and let it express itself.
In his closet, he picked out his least dorkified jeans and a cotton sweater in a gold color that looked okay with his weird gold eyes. He tied his sneaks, grabbed a windbreaker, walked into the wide sunlit hall past the suite occupied by Lindsey and Seth, then Winter and Matt’s rooms, and finally, the suite set aside for Cole and Paris when they chose to leave their isolated home in the woods. In the opposite wing of the huge estate, Pop-Pop had his suite, including offices where he, Lindsey, and Damon worked sometimes, Jazz’s mom and Damon occupied the next set of rooms, with Jason, father of Matt, Winter’s husband, in the room beyond. The idea of so many adults living together was odd to humans, but to wolves it felt natural. Jazz loved it.
He padded down the wide staircase toward the breakfast room. As he got close, he heard his mom’s voice. “Jazz seems worried about who his birth parents are.”
Jazz paused. Not exactly to listen—well, yeah, to listen.
“Every time something happens that makes him feel different, he focuses on the reason for it and figures his birth parents must be responsible,” she continued.
Lindsey said, “I don’t blame him. Before I knew about Damon, I imagined horrible things about who my father must have been. And let’s face it. Jazz is different from—” He stopped, and the breakfast room got quiet.
What happened? Oh right. The alphas in the room could smell him coming.
Chapter Two
JAZZ CASUALLY walked into the breakfast room as if nothing were unusual. They’d known he was close but might not realize he’d heard what his mom said about his birth parents. Every alpha had different strengths, and they couldn’t know for sure how good his hearing was. Answer—really, really good.
He glanced around the room and smiled. Gathered at the big table were his family and the other members of the Vanessen Pack, the shifters who proved that werewolf cardinal rules were a big warm bowl of crap.
Jazz raised a hand. “Hey, squad.” Then he saw who was sitting at the far end of the table. “Kitty cat!” He ran to where Paris Marketo, the reclusive panther shifter and husband of Cole Harker, was sitting in front of a pile of what looked like thin slices of nearly raw beef. Cats did need their protein. Paris bounded up and grabbed Jazz in a hug, lifting him from his feet even though the gorgeous cat was inches shorter than Jazz.
“Hi, my lovely one.”
“Back atcha.” Jazz rarely got to see Paris. When he wasn’t traveling to perform his exotic pole-dancing act, he was holed up in the woods with only Cole for company. Cats weren’t social animals.
“I gather you decided to go to the picnic,” his mom said.
Jazz crossed to the sideboard and loaded several pieces of crisp bacon onto a plate. “Under penalty of death. And I’ve got to get going.” He straddled his usual chair and chomped into greasy, salty goodness.
Lindsey, Jazz’s adopted brother and first true friend, leaned forward in his seat beside his husband. “Darling, how are you?”
Jazz made a face. “Embarrassed.”
Lindsey laughed musically. Being half-human, the product of a one-night stand that grew into forever love between Jazz’s mom and the powerful werewolf alpha, Damon Thane, Lindsey stood only six-two and easily passed for human—though an extraordinary human.
Seth Jakowsky, Lindsey’s human cop husband and Jazz’s dear friend, said, “I didn’t see it happen, but I heard you passed out.”
Winter talked around a bite of muffin. “Yeah, I walked over to be sure those goons didn’t attack Jazz and got there just in time to see him crumple like a used Kleenex.”
Jazz dropped his head to the table. “Jeez, spare me the deets.”
Cole started to say something, but Pop-Pop held up a hand. “Let’s let Jazz eat. He appears fine.”
Talk turned to Paris’s next tour, Winter and Matt’s FBI cases, and how Jason, Winter’s father-in-law, was helping Seth out at the police department. Jazz chewed and soaked it up. Man, he loved them all so much. His pack. The mondo-bizarro group had been pushed together when certain Harkers and Marketos had threatened to kill Winter and Damon for revealing themselves to humans. Casper Vanessen, aka Pop-Pop, who could buy and sell all the werewolf packs and most of the country, plus Lindsey and Seth, who had more political influence than most senators, along with the most powerful alphas in Connecticut and maybe the entire east—Cole, Paris, Winter, and Damon—with the addition of one badass hybrid wolf/human FBI agent, Matt, had all risen up, banded together, and labeled themselves the Vanessen Pack. That made the Vanessen mansion off-limits to other packs, so they threw the crap wolves off their porch and never looked back. Now the Vanessen males liked their lives and wouldn’t go back to the packs that had sneered at them for being gay and threatened them for loving humans.
Jazz pushed back his plate and stood. “Excuse me, I’ve got a BFF ready to chew me a new one if I’m very late.”
“What picnic?” Paris asked.
Lindsey answered for Jazz. “It’s the governor’s annual picnic. Dave Mendes invites pretty much all of Hartford. There’re speakers, games, music, and food. It’s fun.”
Jazz snorted.
Seth grinned. “It’s fun if you don’t have to be the date of the governor’s only daughter.”
Paris raised one of his perfect black eyebrows. “And how does our gay wolfy happen to be the date of a girl human, hmm?”
Jazz wrinkled his nose. “Carla’s my best friend. She hates this stuff even more than me. I give her moral support.”
“Don’t people assume you’re her boyfriend?”
“Yeah, but that helps her t
oo, since it keeps people from asking”—he raised his voice to a falsetto—“‘Carla, dear, do you have a boyfriend yet?’” He sighed. “Of course, now they want to know when we’re getting married.”
Paris grinned. He was such an evil cat. “But doesn’t that limit your options if you meet some delicious boy at the picnic?” He leaned on his palm and batted his lashes.
Jazz shook his head. “All the guys at the picnic are human. That’s not gonna get me anywhere.”
Seth raised a hand. “Putting in a good word for the human sector.”
Jazz laughed, then walked over and gave him a one-armed hug. “Yes, you’re delicious. I gotta go.”
Lindsey said, “Tell Dave Mendes that Seth and I will be there soon.”
Jazz nodded.
His mom got up too. “I’ll walk you out.”
In the mudroom next to the huge garage, his mom stopped. “Jazz, I don’t want you worrying about your birth parents. Every one of my boys is different. You’re all unique. So you’re slim. It helps you pass for human, and that’s going to be important in your life, I expect. After all, you’re a Vanessen. We can turn you into the first werewolf supermodel.” She laughed. “Seriously, your parents had to have been powerful. Something must have happened to them that made them leave you behind. But their loss was our gain.”
Tears sprang to his eyes, and he blinked hard. “In the world of karma, the universe sure is working hard to make up for what I lost.”
She pressed her hands over his heart. “That’s as it should be. Have a great time. Keep that best friend of yours out of trouble.”
He barked a laugh. That put him back in the right frame of mind to face a picnic full of humans, likely including some from the high school class he’d just graduated in. He kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”
In the huge garage, he pulled out the keys to his green Prius from his jeans pocket and hopped in. The drive to the reservoir where the picnic was being held took about half an hour. He pushed the speed limit a little, since he didn’t want to be late, but managed to pull into the parking lot in time to see Carla getting out of her father’s limousine, her black hair flying and Keds high-tops flashing under the yellow dress her mom must have forced on her.
They’d been friends ever since they’d both gotten messed up in the kidnappings of kids from Connecticut’s richest families when they were thirteen. That was five years ago. Somehow, they’d stayed BFFs without Jazz ever slipping and showing his wolfiness to Carla.
Jazz slid out of the car and locked it with a beep. At the noise, Carla looked up, smiled, said something to her father, then came toward Jazz. Other girls walked like their feet were glued together, but not Carla. She strode. Her silky, long hair rippled over her shoulders like a heroine in some romance movie, but that was it on the romance, because Carla was a total tomboy. Brave, ballsy, with a vocabulary of four-letter words that put South Boston construction workers to shame, Carla didn’t want to chase boys any more than Jazz was into chasing girls. In her case, it was probably because she thought a lot of guys were misogynistic assholes. Not because she was gay. Underline probably. She knew Jazz was gay, and they never seemed to talk about who she liked. Was that unusual for an eighteen-year-old girl? Hell yeah. Did he mind? Nope, not at all.
When she got close to Jazz, she struck out in her high-tops and bounded toward him. He swept her up in a hug. They did shit like that since—well, why not?
He laughed. “Sup, fam?” Yeah, the best of the best in a guy’s squad qualified as fam, and Carla was that for sure.
She looked up at him. “Gucci. Thanks for saving me from this asswipe event. Have you seen how many of my so-called school ‘chums’ are here, with their equally screwed-up families? They gave me a sick stomach before I graduated. Why do I have to be nice to them again when they just want to kiss my father’s butt?” She kicked at the gravel on the parking lot.
“Oh, I don’t know. I probably can stack my public anal orifices up against your private-school assholes.”
She frowned. “You’re not going to forget me when we go to college, are you?”
“Bible no.” He looked in her face. “Do you know how hard it is for someone like me to find a friend as good as you?”
Her eyes widened just a little. Whoa. He hadn’t meant for that to come out quite so serious.
“What do you mean someone like you?” she asked.
He shrugged. Lighten up. “You know, a GOAT like me.” He grinned.
She planted a fist on her hip. “What are you the greatest of all time at?”
“What ya got?”
She laughed and started hauling him toward the picnic grounds.
Jazz said, “Come on, it’s not that far from Yale to Harvard. We’ll text all the time.”
“Promise? Bet there’ll be a lot of cheese at Yale. Could be way distracting.”
“No guy’s ever broken us up. Not gonna happen.”
“There are guys and guys. Just sayin’.”
Carla matched her steps to his longer ones as they walked toward the big table where the governor’s family would be serving food to all the guests. Governor Dave Mendes smiled at Jazz. “Good to see you, Jasper. Are your brothers here?”
“Should be soon, sir.” Lindsey and Seth were great friends of Governor Mendes.
“I’ll keep an eye out for them.” He pointed at the long table. “You going to serve food with us?”
“Nobody wants to see me. I’ll go find a game.”
Carla spoke out of the side of her mouth. “Don’t go far. I’ll need you to rescue me from death by boredom.”
Mrs. Mendes, who was busy tying on an apron, frowned at Carla. “I heard that. It won’t hurt you to practice your community service.”
“Yes, Mama.” She turned her head and rolled her eyes at Jazz, who chuckled and walked toward the edges of the crowd.
A few steps away, his nose twitched. What? Whoa. He stood beside a table and put his hand on it to steady himself. Sex. The creepo, dark kind. That’s what he smelled. He glanced to his right where four guys huddled together staring toward the table—maybe staring at Carla. A shiver vibrated up Jazz’s back as his wolf’s hackles bristled. Who are those assholes?
Mrs. Mendes looked up at one boy and flashed her teeth. “Hello, Donald, how nice to see you. Are you having a good summer?”
A blond guy who stood out as the best looking popped his dimples. “Yes, ma’am. I worked for a few weeks in the city, and now I’m home until I head back to school.”
Jazz snapped his head back to keep from staring and tried to look fascinated by the baseball game that was being organized on the lawn. But he couldn’t quit sniffing those dudes, and his skin prickled with danger. Donald might look like a good All-American guy, but he smelled like a pack of lies.
Did Mrs. Mendes know it? “Are you enjoying military school?”
The words came out of Donald’s mouth as if he’d been programmed. “Excellent discipline. I’m sure it’ll set me up well for life.”
“But you must have missed your friends. At least they’re here now.” She turned to speak to the others. “Hello, Mark, Richard, Andrew.”
The guys muttered hellos. Real charmers.
“How nice that your father was able to come today, Donald,” Mrs. Mendes added, though this time her voice was edged with dislike.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s always so busy, but you know he’d do anything to support the governor.”
“Yes, of course.”
Whoa, she didn’t believe a word he said after all, Jazz thought. Smart woman.
He let his glance slide to the side and saw Donald staring at a handsome, light-haired man in an expensive but too-much-of-a-good-thing suit—too shiny, too tight, too flashy. The man—Donald’s father?—was standing with the assistant governor and some giant dude who looked like he should be the butler in a horror movie. A bodyguard for sure. He kept his hand over a bulge in his jacket. What the freak? Why’s this character hanging out at
the governor’s picnic?
Chapter Three
“YO, JAZZ!” Harvey, his friend from school waved from the impromptu baseball diamond. “Come play right field.”
Baseball was a good sport for Jazz since he could control his speed and the force he used to throw. The last thing he wanted was to come off like a superwolf. Since it was a slower game, he didn’t get pounded and hit, so his wolf nature stayed quiet. In football, he might hurt somebody, so he either didn’t play or played badly. Man, he knew how Clark Kent felt.
Jazz looked up and saw Lindsey and Seth standing near the serving table with Dave Mendes. Jazz waved and pointed to the game. Seth nodded.
Jazz ran onto the grass and grabbed the glove from Harvey, then trotted out to right field. When he was in position, he turned to see who else was playing. Most of the guys and one girl on his team were from his high school, but the other side was mainly private-school kids—including Donald. He stood beside the dugout, swinging a bat and staring oddly at Jazz. He didn’t smell like sex anymore. Now he was all about sizing Jazz up, and… he was angry. Same to you, bucko.
After a few warm-up throws by their pitcher—a guy named Lloyd who had actually played for the high school baseball team—Donald stepped up to the plate. The only thing cooler than Donald at the plate was how cool he thought he was.
Lloyd wound up, pitched, and… strike one! Still, Donald’s swing was powerful, so Jazz backed up.
Lloyd got ready, wound up, and threw. The whack of Donald’s hit sounded through the whole clearing, and some people cheered as he took off for first.
The ball sailed high in the air, Jazz took a few steps back, saw the ball would be a little out of reach, did a wolf-assisted leap, and caught it in its final descent.
“Out!”
From the sidelines, Carla yelled, “Yahoo. Go Jazz. Show ’em how it’s done.”
Jazz made a little bow with the ball, but when he came up, all he saw was Donald staring daggers at him while the scent of fury shot across the field. Oh come on, asshole, lighten up.