by Jeff Hale
There was a thud from the kitchen, followed by Matt’s voice. “Just a sec, let me get you a different can…”
Sometimes Kris made me feel so stupid. “How did you? I mean, I had to have it all explained to me…”
“Pshh.” She rolled her eyes at me. “First off, it was pretty much told to us last night through what was seen, said, and not said, that Darien at the very least was a werewolf. And secondly, have you seen Matt’s bedroom?” She gestured at the closed door down the hallway.
“What about my bedroom?” Matt asked as he came back with a can of soda for Kris.
She took the soda from him, popped the lid and held one finger up towards him as she took a long drink. “Have you really taken a good look at your bedroom, Matt? It just screams ‘creature of the night’.” She licked soda from her lips, giving him a pointed look. “I mean, c’mon dude, you have this huge ass bed taking up most of the room, a very comfy bed I might add. The curtains are so damned thick you could use them for blankets, and those are over top of the blinds that don’t let any light through either. The walls are dark, there is a heavy duty lock for the door, and, well, if it all just don’t say ‘hey, a vampire sleeps here’ then I don’t know what does.”
“That doesn’t bother you?” Matt’s tone was confused. “You sit there and act as though vampires and werewolves popping out of the woodwork is an everyday occurrence.”
Kris shrugged. “I’ve always had an overactive imagination. But, you haven’t snacked on us yet, and I don’t get the feeling that you intend to, so I’m not too worried. And hey, why are you awake? Don’t you vampires, like, go comatose during daylight hours?”
Matt laughed. “No, actually we don’t. We don’t need to sleep at all even. But we do, to pass the time sometimes. And it helps to sleep for some of us, to dream. Those who don’t dream, those are the ones who eventually go mad.” His face sobered at the comment and I didn’t feel the need to ask why.
“Sooo,” Kris directed her gaze back to me. “You’re gonna be a werewolf, hmm?”
“Dunno.” I explained the whole thing as best I could, with Darien and Alex correcting me where I still had problems. “So I guess I could turn into anything.” I turned toward Darien. “So when does this change happen? Next full moon? I mean, how do I deal with this?”
Alex answered me. “Full moons don’t mean any more to a shifter than they do a regular human, or the animal you become, despite all the movies and legends. They don’t force us to change or go crazy. They’re just pretty.” He laughed a little. “For the first time you shift, it will be when your system has decided it’s ready. I know, sounds like a cop out, but that’s how it works. Should be sometime within the next couple months, though, I’ve never heard of it taking longer than a month, two months tops for anyone to shift the first time. Thing is, you don’t shift involuntarily, not usually anyways. You’ll feel different, like you know this is something you need to do, and then you just do it. You can change whenever you want after that.”
“What do you mean buy ‘usually’?”
Darien’s face darkened. “There are ways to force a shift on us. Violence is one way, violence done to us that is, although anytime you are around violence it will make you want to, but you can control it. Anger will make you want to shift, lust will, fear will. Most strong, base emotions. It all depends upon your self-control.”
“Does it hurt? Shifting?”
Darien cocked his head and thought a moment. “Actually, no, it doesn’t. It feels…” he searched for the right word, “more like a release than anything else, relief from being in this skin.”
He took my hand, placing it against his bare chest. I felt the heat of his skin under my fingers, the thump of his heart. It sped up at my touch, and I had the sudden urge to feel his skin, all of it, moving under my fingertips. Kris made a noise in her throat and I snatched my hand away quickly, my face turning red. I saw the faint flush to Darien’s face as well.
Alex sighed and I glanced toward him, seeing him watching Darien and me with a look of envy upon his face. He caught my eye and gave me an apologetic look.
“Sorry, Kat. Sometimes I think it’s just not fair, the luck Darien has.”
I looked at Darien to see his reaction, but his face had become unreadable, his eyes darkening. He caught my stare and gave me a half smile, but I could tell that there was something he was remembering that bothered him. The unknown Sasha maybe?
Feeling that I needed to do something to hide my discomfort, I stood and headed back toward the room that Matt used as a guest room. I spied what I was after, which was the baggie containing my clothes. I needed to see exactly what the damage had been to my clothes. They might still be salvageable.
The jacket was ruined. It had been a pretty silvery grey, but it was covered in thick blotches of dried blood and one side of it was now a reddish brown. The shirt was a loss as well. The bottom of the shirt was fine, but the top was streaked with bloodstains. My jeans I found under the bed, and they were still fixable. There were several small patches of blood here and there, but considering they were dark blue, the stains would hardly show. My socks were nowhere to be seen, but after a bit of searching I found them tucked away in my sneakers under the other side of the hide-a-bed.
“Matt?”
They hadn’t followed me into the other room, but I had heard muted whispering after I left. I could have listened in if I had wanted, my hearing had somehow become rather acute, but I had tuned it out. I wanted to let my brain rest a bit.
“What do you need, Kat?”
“Do you have a washing machine by chance? My jeans are still okay if I could wash them?”
“Sure thing. There is a small one, and a dryer in the little room off the dining room.”
I glanced to my left and sure enough, I saw a little room leading towards a back door. A sudden thought occurred to me and I detoured through the bathroom to snag my undies and bra. They would dry quicker in the dryer.
Sure enough, once I entered the small porch like area by the back door, there was a small washer and dryer sitting next to each other. I set the jeans washing, then tossed my underthings in the dryer.
“I like pink.”
I gasped, whirling around to put my back to the appliances. I hadn’t heard Darien sneak up on me. The towel caught in between the machines, undoing itself from my hips and my face flamed from more than just Darien’s knowledge of the color of my panties.
Luckily the shirt was still just long enough to cover the essentials, but just barely. Not that it seemed to matter to Darien. His eyes roamed my entire body before they fastened on my face and I saw the heat in them. I had never seen a male look at me that way before, not even Aerick, and it sent a not unpleasant feeling into the pit of my stomach. I shivered.
The next thing I knew he was pinning me to the washer, his hands gripping my arms, almost painfully, his cheek next to mine as he bent his face to my neck. I felt him inhale strongly again before he nuzzled my neck with his lips, pushing my head to the side and biting the side of my throat, gently, but firmly.
A hiss escaped my mouth at the shock of sensation that bite sent someplace much lower than my stomach. I wasn’t that naïve, despite my lack of boyfriends, and I recognized exactly what I was feeling, as well as exactly what Darien was feeling as evidenced by what I felt pressed against my stomach through his jeans. One of his hands shifted from my arm to wrap in my hair, pulling slightly, and I moaned against the side of his face, the pain from the lump forgotten. His teeth were suddenly gone from my neck and I heard his ragged breathing before his lips found mine.
Fire. His lips were searing mine and I could do nothing but respond. The voice in my head that might have protested this kind of behavior with any of the boys I knew back home was almost silently promoting my reaction to Darien and I let it as the rest of the world seemed to slip away.
One of my hands reached up to cradle the back of his head, pulling his face toward me. The other went to his
bare chest, letting my fingers do the exploring I had wanted to earlier. He gasped into my mouth, pushing me harder into the washer for a moment, until he made a small sound of frustration, disentangling his hand from my hair. I felt both his hands slip between my butt and the washer, then I was lifted until I was sitting on the washer and he was leaning between my legs. He slid his hands down my thighs, adjusting my legs so that they were wrapped around his waist.
That voice in my head began to sound an alarm now as there was nothing but denim between me and Darien. His mouth shifted from my mouth to my neck again, one hand finding my breast through my shirt and a small sound came from my lips.
I mentally told that protesting voice of reason to shut the hell up. Darien’s free hand began to tug at his jeans and I dropped one hand to help him, my fingernails clawing down his chest and stomach on the way. We were both so caught up in the moment that the protesting whine from the dining room startled us.
Darien’s head whipped in that direction and a threatening growl emanated from his throat. The whine and growl were enough to distract me from what we had been doing and I peered sheepishly past Darien’s head to see Alex in the doorway, his eyes fixed on me with a kind of longing that should have bothered me, but instead sent a thrill of power through me. That bothered me though, and cleared my head to the situation.
“Go away, Alex, she’s mine,” Darien said, his voice low, menacing. He growled again, staring at Alex.
Alex looked toward him, back at me, then back to Darien. The desire was still in his eyes, but he looked defeated and he nodded to Darien, backing away from us slowly.
The intruder leaving, Darien turned his attention back to me. He resumed trying to get his jeans out of the way, but I pulled back from him, grabbing his face. He made a noise that sounded like a snarl of protest, but when his eyes fixed with mine and he saw me shaking my head it changed to something more akin to a questioning whine.
“No, Darien, we can’t. Not here… not yet. I’m not ready.” I dropped my legs down, keeping his gaze, watching as the heat slowly faded.
He shook his head, sighed heavily, leaned forward so his forehead was resting against my chest. “I’m sorry, Kat, that shouldn’t have happened, I should have had better control of myself.” His voice was muffled. “I just… I haven’t felt this way about someone else for a long, long time.” His arms wound around my waist, holding me to him, a shudder wracking through him as he dropped to his knees. His head slid down my chest and he buried his face in my stomach. I thought he might be crying but I didn’t ask. I got the impression that Darien didn’t like to feel vulnerable and he obviously was at the moment so I just let him be.
How long we stayed there like that I didn’t know. I closed my eyes and let my hands rest on his shoulders, feeling him shake and shiver, then finally calm to where he was almost still as a statue, only the movement of his chest between my knees betraying him. The buzz of the dryer startled me and I jumped, my knees squeezing together.
“Shit!” I pressed a hand to my chest as my heart rate sped up again. “Oh, sorry, I hope I didn’t hurt you?” My left knee hadn’t liked it either. “Fuck, that hurts.” I rubbed my knee.
He lifted his head to look at me, a small smile playing on his lips. “No, you didn’t hurt me… well, maybe the squeak in my ear. Do you always swear this much?” His face looked relaxed and he seemed almost content.
“Me? Swear?” I thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I do. Bad habit, I know. I think I picked it up from my step-dad.” He must have seen my face change when I mentioned my step-dad because his eyebrows drew together in curiosity
“What’s it like? With your family, your mom and your step-dad?”
I tilted my head to the side, puffed up my cheeks and blew out a long breath. “Mom… well, Mom’s got some problems, but she’s working on them, or at least, gonna be. Otherwise she’s pretty decent as moms go.”
He noticed my purposeful failure to mention my step-dad and brought the issue up again. “What about your dad?”
My eyes narrowed. “He’s not my dad.” I gave Darien a shrewd glance. “Do you really wanna know?”
He nodded.
“My step-dad, Gary, is a complete and utter ass, treats me like crap, I’m beginning to wonder how he treats my mom when I’m not around, and I wish he would just go away and leave us alone.”
He gave me a sympathetic look mixed with some confusion. “So why is your mom still with him?”
I laughed. “That’s the somewhat funny part about what I just told you. We’re down here visiting my grandparents this week so my mom can get advice from them about divorcing him.”
“Smart woman.”
“Yeah, it took her long enough, but I think she’s finally leaving him. I think I’m gonna throw a party next week to celebrate.” I raised an eyebrow and grinned impishly. “Oh!” I remembered the dryer. “Move a sec, I need to get my… my…” I stammered to a halt.
He stood up, giving me a lingering look before he moved to the side. Before I could hop down, he opened the dryer door, bent, then straightened with my small pair of pink panties and my not-so-small matching bra dangling from a couple fingers.
“These?”
My eyes widened and I gasped in embarrassment. Fury swept over me for a second and I snatched the underwear from him, giving him a good kick in the shin at the same time. I have strong legs and I think the impact of my foot on his shin surprised him. He made a noise of pain and hopped for a second, grimacing.
“Serves you right,” I muttered.
“Kat?” It was Matt’s voice, tinged with amusement, from the living room. “Please don’t hurt Darien too much, he’s still healing from the gunshot.”
“I promise nothing!” I slipped the undies on, noticing that Darien was watching me again, his eyes going warm. I waved a finger at him. “Nuh uh. Not here, not now, you behave.” I turned my back to him as I carefully slid my bra on under the shirt, then picked the towel up from the floor, wrapped it around my hips again, feeling somewhat more covered this time, and stomped my way back out to the living room.
Three sets of eyes were on me as I made my way back to the couch. Kris tried not to giggle and she nodded at me in a conspiratorial way. Matt just looked inquiring, and Alex, well Alex looked at me in a sad way, his face apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Kat,” he said as I sat down. “I shouldn’t have, but…. I went back to ask you something and well, well…”
I shook my head. “It’s okay, Alex, I understand… well, I don’t really, but I think I’m starting to. As for you,” I pointed a finger at Kris, “you just don’t say anything. Yeah, I can see it on your face, I know exactly what you were thinking. We’ll talk later.” She didn’t seem any less amused, but I saw her nod solemnly at me.
Darien wandered back into the living room finally, still shirtless. I could see the marks down his chest from my fingernails. They were fading quickly, and I had to concentrate extremely hard to not have my face turn magenta again. He made a point of limping over to me.
I snorted, my embarrassment forgotten. “Oh, geez, I didn’t kick you that hard!”
He laughed, the sound of his voice warm and rough. “So much for sympathy. I put your pants in the dryer, Kat, you forgot.”
“Uh, yeah, uhm, thanks.” I had forgotten and I had to fight the blush again. Was I always going to be blushing around him?
He crouched next to my feet again, turning possessive eyes toward Alex. Alex just nodded and sighed, but I felt that they were okay, that the incident was not going to hurt their relationship, whatever that was.
“Hey, you two aren’t really related, are you?” I asked, trying to change tacks.
“No,” Darien replied, “we aren’t. I turned Alex.”
“Turned him? You mean made him a… a shifter?”
He nodded.
“What happened?”
Darien glanced toward Alex, leaving it up to him to continue.
“I was hunting with
some mates. I got separated from them and lost. I know, it sounds so cliché when you think about it.” Alex laughed. “I came upon Darien while he was feeding. It was a fresh kill but I thought that I was perfectly safe. Was just a big old wolf after all and I had my rifle. Of course, if I had thought about it a bit longer, I would have realized that a wolf in the Outback wasn’t normal, but I was being Mister Macho. So I took a shot at him and I hit him. He was already injured and a bit out of control, so took a bit of offense at me. He was much bigger up close.” He laughed again, although there was a wryness to it this time. “Anyway, he mauled me pretty good. Once he realized what he had done, he carried me back as close to my mates as possible and made sure they found me, then, once I had healed a bit, he made sure he found me, to help me endure the change, to face what I was going to become. We’ve been best mates ever since.”
“How long ago?” Kris’s voice was soft.
Alex shrugged, looking at Darien. “Damn, I… it was about ten, twelve years before Sa—so, hmm, thirty four years I reckon?”
Darien’s face had become guarded again, but he nodded. “About that, yeah.”
“Thirty four years?” There was a bit of incredulity to my voice as I stared at Alex, who looked to be no more than about twenty one or twenty two, then at Darien who looked a little bit older than that. “Thirty four?” I repeated.
Alex nodded. “We don’t… age… the same way as normal humans, we live for a much longer time period. We’re not immortal like the bloodsucker here,” he indicated Matt with a thumb, who looked offended, “but we have a pretty long lifespan.”
“Er, how long is ‘pretty long’?” Kris asked.
Darien thought a second. “A few hundred years, give or take, if we’re lucky. Like Alex said, we are by no means immortal—I can’t believe you called him a bloodsucker, Alex, do not come whining to me when he hurts you—but, barring a life threatening injury, we can last awhile.”
“So how old are you, really, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked.
“I don’t mind at all, you have a right to know. Well, Alex is, what, how old were you that day? Twenty three? So that makes him, fifty seven. Me, I was born a werewolf, I was twenty seven I think when Alex accosted me,” he gave Alex a playful grin, “so, that makes—”