“I know we’re going back to Florida on Christmas Eve, so I imagine on Christmas day we’ll just relax, unless Darren decides to spend Christmas up here. Then going home will be a little more delayed.”
“Do you think there would be any way to convince him to stay longer? I bet Christmas would be beautiful up here.”
Logan looked down to see Katey gazing around at the pine garland and string lights that seemed to be lined along everywhere and everything. In the center of town was a giant Christmas tree decked in gold and crimson ornaments and tinsel with a golden star shimmering at the very top. Loosely packed snow weighed down the branches, making the ornaments droop.
“I’m sure you could bat your pretty eyelashes and Darren would be tempted,” Logan teased. “Now, for the task of getting food in us... Let’s just follow our noses.”
Logan began sniffing the frigid air. His head swiveled and spotted a pizzeria on the corner down the street. The restaurant, like every other store in the town, was adorned with holiday décor like wreaths and blinking Christmas lights.
“Hungry for meatballs?” he asked.
Logan held the door open for Katey and delicious aromas of garlic and cheese wafted out to greet them. The hostess seated them promptly at a booth in the far back of the dining hall upon Logan’s request.
She handed them both menus and informed them that their waitress would be with them momentarily. Katey grimaced that it’d be a woman serving them. Jealousy spiked within her when the blonde waitress walked up and looked Logan over with a bold inspection, as if she already had a plan to steal the man away. She certainly was pretty by Katey’s standards, but her wolf was not amused by this invasion upon their territory.
“Hello, what can I get you two to drink?” she asked in a high-pitched ditzy sort of voice that might as well have been like nails on a chalkboard.
Logan took one glance up at her and surprised Katey. “Actually, this is no offense to you, but could we be served by that waiter over there?” he said softly.
Katey followed to whom Logan was pointing and smirked, knowing fully well that the waiter he spoke of was loup-garou, like they were. The waitress looked disappointed but gave her consent and went to tell the other waiter.
He came over and took their drink orders then gave them a special alteration on the menu that he knew they would be interested in. His stare lingered on Katey a little longer than she would have been comfortable with and the attention did not go unnoticed by Logan. Yet, he didn’t assert any dominance over the loup-garou. This wasn’t the place to start a fight and he was the one to request the waiter to begin with.
They ordered two calzones that were stuffed to the brim with raw sausage and beef and little sauce. And until those were out of the oven, he promised to bring back a dish of meatballs for appetizers to curb the hunger.
A few moments later, the waiter came back with their glasses of water and Katey took a long sip of hers under Logan’s dreamy gaze. She looked to him as he broke out into a toothy grin and couldn’t help but smile herself.
“What?” she asked, knowing that he must have had something on his mind to make him grin so.
“You really are beautiful when you smile,” he said softly.
Katey giggled, realizing that she might have been growing used to compliments. She remembered how angry she would become when Logan mentioned her beauty, how she suspected him of lying to make her feel better. But all of that was gone now and Katey didn’t need to be convinced.
She shrugged her jacket off again, stroking the fur around the collar. She let her eyes drift over the silky fabric, loving everything about it – the color, the texture, the thoughtfulness of the guys for buying it in the first place.
“I hope I’m white...” she said softly to herself, not intending to provoke a response out of Logan.
“What do you mean?”
“I hope I’ll be white tonight,” she repeated, looking up to him.
He laughed as if he heard an amusing joke and shook his head. “You won’t be.”
“Why not?” Katey asked, the corners of her mouth turning down into a disappointed frown.
“The younger you are, the darker the color you’ll have in your pelt. The older you are and more experienced, you’ll start to have a lighter coloration starting with browns and tans and working their way to silver and grey.”
Katey let her eyes fall back down to the fur jacket. “Oh,” she mumbled dejectedly. She didn’t like the idea of being all black. So much of her life had been spent in the dark and gloomy places that Katey didn’t want to have anything resembling it in this new life as a loup-garou. She would have much rather a pretty white or shimmering silver color, but she wouldn’t even remember what color she was when the night was over.
The waiter came back within moments, carrying a bowl of meatballs for both of them. Katey felt the urge to just pop the meat into her mouth by hand, but she used better table manners and cut the meatballs into smaller pieces first. Logan put the whole meatball in his mouth one at a time until his plate was empty.
Katey let her ears probe around the room, listening to conversations of the customers and kitchen staff while soft, lilting Italian folk music played over the speakers.
Logan surprised her when he started humming one of the tunes.
“You know the song?” she asked him.
He nodded and kept humming for a bit until words came, then he began to softly serenade her from across the table. It was all in Italian so Katey had no clue what he was saying, but it sounded beautiful.
Katey giggled while he just smiled, sang, and stared like a love-struck fool. Several other customers in the restaurant heard him singing and fell silent to listen to his lovely baritone voice.
When a lull in the lyrics came up, she asked, “What does all that mean?”
He didn’t answer her until the words began again, which repeated the first part of the song. The song was still in Italian, but he sang in English. It spoke of love, moonlight, stars, boats on the water, roses, and all the pretty romantic things that used to make her sick and now thrilled her. Katey blushed as he sang such endearments. He had such a lovely singing voice, she imagined that most loups-garous must have.
When the song was over, Katey spoke again. “That was a nice song.”
“I thought you didn’t like romance?” he said before taking a sip of water.
“I think I’m warming up to it.”
They smiled to each other and exchanged furtive glances. She loved him more now than ever, in that moment, as their eyes locked and spirits seemed to connect for just a brief second.
She wondered if it would always be this way or if being mated would change it all. The memory of that day behind the library came to the forefront of her mind. She had spoken so ill of marriage, saying that no man in their right mind would want her, while Logan could only say that any man would have been lucky to be stuck with her for life. How opinions had changed in a matter of a week or so. Now, marriage was all Katey could think of, romance tormenting her mind night and day with thoughts of Logan and the life they could have with each other.
He’d shown her love, acceptance, and protection in the darkest hour of her life. There was no other way to repay him than to give him everything he ever asked, whether it be her hand in marriage, or the chance to live with him as a loup-garou for centuries on end until death take them. Katey was ready to make that leap.
Logan paid for the bill and left a generous tip for their loup-garou waiter. Outside, the sun was beginning its decline to the horizon and night would fall in less than a couple of hours.
“We probably need to get headed back to the lodge so we can leave in time for the gathering,” Katey said as Logan assisted her back into her coat.
“I agree... You want to take the long way around?”
“What’s the long way?” Katey asked with a flirty lilt as they began walking back down the road that led to the lodge.
“It’s a little of
f the beaten path through the woods. It goes around a lake and leads right back to the lodge. It’s probably twice as long as the way we came, but it’s more scenic.”
Katey took his arm once more and gave him a warm smile. “Why not?”
He smiled back down to her and led her through a particular cluster of trees whose branches were frosted in thick patches of snow. The way was less than convenient. The snow was knee deep in some places, but since they were well out of the public eye, Katey and Logan leapt over fallen logs in their path as if they were nothing.
Logan seemed at home in the forest, moving gracefully through the thick foliage. Katey was trying to be as agile, but felt awkward trying to step through the packed snow and not slip on hidden rocks or slabs of ice along the ground. Seeing her struggle, Logan assisted her through the rough parts and swept aside low-lying branches so she could pass through.
In the majesty of the wilderness, Katey’s wolf reawakened and it was a struggle to keep her eyes their usual brilliant green instead of reverting to gold.
“It’s so perfect out here,” she observed as they ducked under a fallen tree that had lodged itself against another.
“You haven’t even seen the best part,” Logan said, taking her hand and helping her to stand erect after they passed through. “It’s hard to find places like this that haven’t been touched by man.”
With the growing threat of expansion into these wildernesses, Katey could easily believe it. There was a reason Todd Rice and other wildlife activists lobbied for the protection of nature so adamantly. If humans continued their progress, building new towns and deforesting these beautiful landscapes, there wouldn’t be a place for loups-garous to run free.
All at once, Katey began to wonder about the future of loups-garous. They had survived for centuries all over the globe, but how long could they keep their secret? There have been threats of hunters and vampires, but what about the threat of those who have no idea they exist? Where would they go then? It was completely possible that they couldn’t hide forever in a world with no allies.
“There’s something I’ve been thinking about. The other night when we had to come straight home because there was a vampire in Crestucky, why was that such a big deal? Why are they a threat to us?”
Logan looked to her, a puzzled look in his eye as if he couldn’t understand such a question. “Well, because they are. They’ve always wanted to kill us.”
“But why? Forgive my train of thought, but I was just thinking about how vampires are just as supernatural as us, so why don’t we get along? It would make sense to join forces, wouldn’t it?”
Logan sighed and they continued to trek down the path that weaved through the dark trees. “For as long as anyone can remember, loups-garous and vampires have never gotten along. They’ve been trying to kill off our kind for years. They even have scientists researching about our biology, coming up with new and creative ways to kill us. Fights between packs and covens break out all the time and it’s hard to keep from the humans sometimes. We have teams that go in and clean up the messes and so far, we’ve been able to keep the feud a secret.”
Something in Katey wasn’t settled with such an abstruse answer. “There has to be a reason for all that hatred.”
“I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. “Maybe something happened centuries ago.”
“Do we hate them?”
“We only hate them because they hate us.”
They came to a towering boulder, but instead of going around, Logan leapt through the air and propelled himself over the obstacle. Katey, slightly unsettled by the height, tried at a running start but with the snow impeding her movements, she barely crested over the tip.
With a shriek, she came tumbling down and landed in a bed of fresh snow. Logan helped her up as she giggled off her blunder. His hands brushed off loose snow from her shoulder and arms while she cleaned off the other parts of her body that he might have been too hesitant to touch yet.
Logan smiled and gave her a quick kiss before they continued on the path. “Looks like you didn’t get enough air that time.”
“I blame these short legs,” she replied.
As they continued on, Katey’s thoughts wandered back to the blood-drinking creatures they had been discussing earlier. She couldn’t fathom how two people could despise each other for no apparent reason.
Prejudice was a thing that existed in the world, but Katey never understood it. Just as she had told Logan once before, they all bled the same color and breathed the same air. Those common factor alone should have helped them to be civil with one another. Yet, there were still wars and terrorists roaming the world, looking for more chances to spread their disease of hatred and violence.
“Hasn’t anyone ever tried to stop the fighting?” Katey asked.
Logan, once more, seemed confused by her question, but humored her with an answer. “I’m sure they have, but if they did, it didn’t seem to work too well.”
Katey paused in thought. “So, all those myths about werewolves and vampires being archenemies are completely true? Not just Hollywood?”
“They are,” he answered.
“Do you think the fighting will ever stop?”
“Probably when one of the species is completely wiped out. There’s no telling how long that will take.”
Katey thought for a moment again, letting it all sink in. “How do you even kill a loup-garou? I know the thing about the silver bullets and all, but what else?”
“The way I’ve heard it explained is that silver has a certain mineral in it that when we touch it in its purest form, it can burn our skin and flesh like acid. We heal once the silver is not touching us. So, a silver bullet would kill if it’s lodged in the right spots and we can’t get it out in time. Vamps have invented a bullet that carries liquid silver. I’ve seen its effects. The silver gets into the blood stream and burns the loup-garou alive... It’s not pretty.” Logan’s voice trailed off as he must have been envisioning the brutal aftermath of a liquid silver wound.
Katey wrinkled her nose at the thought of dying in such an agonizing, inhumane way.
“Other ways would be beheading. That’s the only way a human weapon can kill us. And we can’t regenerate severed limbs. I know a few of loups-garous who are missing arms and legs. Fire would kill us if we let it consume our bodies for long enough, but it’s a slow process. Starvation can kill us, of course, or oxygen deprivation. But if someone runs through me with a sword or shoots me in the head with a lead bullet, I’ll heal. It may take a while, depending on the severity of the injury, but I’d live.”
Katey marveled at the resilience of the loup-garou body and also the simple ways that prove they aren’t completely invincible. They could age, they could be killed, and therefore they were not the immortal beings she had once believed.
Soon enough, they arrived to the lake, but it was completely frozen over from the winter cold. A wooden dock stretched out several yards toward the middle of the lake with layer upon layer of glittering snow.
The ground all the way to the shore was covered in fresh powder, smooth and untouched by any other visitors to the lake, human or animal. On the other side of the lake, its shore was lined with dense trees, but beyond that was a gorgeous scene of snowcapped mountains in the distance.
Katey smiled at the beauty of it all, feeling her heart beat strong in the presence of such splendor. Her wolf glowed, strengthening as it became immersed in its natural habitat. This was the kind of land it had yearned for and Katey sensed its need to run and be free, just as she had felt it in Florida the other morning on the back porch.
She hardly noticed Logan walk toward the edge of the lake and tap the surface with his heavy boot.
“What are you doing?” Katey asked as she approached him, wading through the thick snow.
“I’m testing it.”
“For what?”
“To skate on, of course.”
“Skate?” she exclaimed. “We don’t hav
e any skates!” Her wolf bucked at the strangeness of it. Why skate when they could run along the shore?
“We don’t need any skates,” Logan said as he put some weight on the ice. Katey heard no cracking or splitting. The ice must have been meters thick and so frozen that it might as well have been as solid and stable as concrete.
Logan carefully stepped out with his other foot on the ice and glanced back at her, holding out his hands to show that it could be done. Then, he pushed himself off and was instantly sliding across the ice.
Katey shook her head in disbelief as he performed figure eights and little spins here and there, all in his slick-bottomed boots. It defied physics, but Logan was just as graceful on ice as he was in the forest. How many years, decades even, had he spent practicing such technique?
“Come on, it’s easy!” he shouted back to her from the middle of the lake.
“I’ve never skated before!” she replied, looking anxiously down at the ice. He glided stylishly back over to her and offered out his hands.
“Let me help.”
Katey had to use every ounce of trust she had for the man to place her hands willingly in his and step out onto the ice. Her feet wobbled and slipped a little at first, wanting to slide out from underneath her at every little twitch of her muscles.
All the while, she could almost hear her wolf rebuke her and say that loups-garous were not made for ice skating. But, if Logan could, then she would certainly try. Her inner wolf thought she had gone mad.
She managed to get about a foot from the snowy shore when her right foot decided to skew to the left, crossing over her other foot and causing her to do half a turn and fall on her bum. Logan came crashing down on the ice with her.
They laughed at first and were soon on their feet again and making more progress. She could launch herself off, but could only travel a couple of feet before falling again. She didn’t worry about broken bones or bruises at all since she could heal quickly, but she did worry about ruining Logan’s fun on the ice. However, his encouraging smile and semi-helpful instruction settled her fears.
Becoming the Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 2) Page 29