“Please don’t mention that man’s name to me, Em.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She sounded genuine to Trenton’s ear. “But I had a point to make.”
Before he climbed into his truck, Ben spit on the ground, and after a few seconds, he drove off. Trenton and Emma checked on Sly. The plumber wobbled a bit to get on his feet, but eventually, he stood.
When Trenton turned around, Meg was all alone. Charly was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
Tucked in the dark bathroom next to the stairwell, Charly sucked in a deep breath. The bite on her back had healed, but a dull ache had settled there. A constant reminder of what the chained werewolf had done to her. What those men outside could do, the women, too, she had no doubt. Her eyes snapped shut. She straightened her back and stood tall again, but behind her closed eyelids her imagination fed horrific visions into her mind: Ben’s elongated fangs as he leaned in to bite, his hands clenched around Sylvester’s throat. She tried to blink a few times, but she couldn’t shake visions of Sly’s eyes bulging as he gasped for breath.
You can’t hide right now. A werewolf doesn’t act like this when faced with a pack fight.
She wiped the cold sweat from her brow and opened the bathroom door. She refused to let her bite from a werewolf mess with her head. She was on a mission, and she couldn’t be weak. Not now. Not even if she wanted to run away at the first sight of fangs. She couldn’t if she wanted her mother to survive.
Charly walked through the house, each step somehow gaining more confidence than the prior one. She opened the front door, only to bump into Trenton.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” she blurted. “I haven’t gone to the bathroom—in a nice one anyway—for a while. Most places on the road have a bunch of nudie pics on the walls.”
Open mouth and insert foot. Why did she say such stupid things at times?
Trenton took up the whole doorframe. He leaned against the door to keep it open. “Will you be okay if I leave you here?” His eyebrows lowered, and his brown eyes swept over her.
“I’m fine. The room is comfortable and the food is good. Maybe a few days here with Emma and Meg will be good for me.”
“As long as you’re comfortable. Don’t feel like you have to say yes. I know it’s hard if you were human and you suddenly find yourself as…one of us. If you have doubts about staying here, I can give you a ride to the motel in town.”
She shook her head and hoped she sounded unconcerned. “No need. I’m low on cash so I should take up their offer and work on getting a job or something. I need—I need to figure out where I’m going with my life now.”
“Sounds good.” He backed up. A faint breeze brought his scent to her nose again. Her breath hitched as her body responded to him versus the reality of the situation. He was a werewolf. He was one of them. So why did her eyes travel over his shirt and head down to his thighs? Would his abs be as hard as she imagined?
“By the way, Emma mentioned some guy named Kyle. Who is he?” Nope, she wasn’t looking for an excuse for him to stay longer. She needed to find the pack leader.
“He’s the pack alpha. He’s out of town on business. We need to recruit more experienced law-enforcement and firefighters. We can’t keep working with trainees for the foreseeable future.”
“I see.” So who was in charge then? Trenton? “If the alpha is gone, doesn’t the town need someone to cover him?”
“We have a few men who cover as second-in-command. Orland and some others. I won’t bore you with the details.”
She took a step forward, expecting him to retreat, but he didn’t. She swallowed at the decreased space between them and tried to hold his gaze. To look elsewhere would indicate her embarrassment or surprise.
“Are Emma and Meg still outside?” she asked.
He moved to the side. “They’re in the house. You didn’t hear them?”
Oh, shit. She needed to focus and remember her physical strength and hearing. They were far better than the witches’, and she was still getting used to the changes.
“No, I didn’t. I’ll just go for a walk and then find them later.” Charly walked to the back of the house. From there she spied a beautiful field. Kyle and Emma must’ve removed most of the brush. Only short dead grass remained with patches of dirt, but the land was hauntingly serene.
She sensed Trenton’s eyes on her but didn’t turn. At this particular moment, using blood magic would be convenient, but she’d been afraid of what her tainted werewolf blood might do. Would it fail or not even work at all? She closed her eyes and bit into her thumb until she tasted copper. Once she withdrew her thumb, she used the finger to draw a glyph on her palm. Only a single symbol was needed. Most spells required one glyph in blood. The whole affair was an exchange of sorts, a bit of life from her in return for power.
She’d been far too tired without a decent meal to do anything better. At first, nothing happened, so she traced the pictograph again. Finally, the darkness behind her eyelids turned to light. Using her inner sight, she peered behind her. Now that she’d proven witch blood still flowed through her veins, she could at least watch him getting into his car. The car door slammed, but she could still see him tilt his head through the window and glance her way. As he started the car, he half-smiled, and she couldn’t resist a smirk. Was he thinking about her? What made him smile? The elder blood witches in her coven, those who could draw great spells from the blood, had the faint inklings of mind reading, but at this moment, it seemed too frivolous for something as simple as gauging interest.
Charly kicked a small rock a few feet away. Right now wasn’t the time to think about men or werewolves who were men. Even if they looked delectable in jeans.
After Trenton left, Charly’s stroll around the property was brief. There wasn’t much to see. Just like her home in Las Vegas. The view didn’t have the Spring Mountains to the west, but there was still a quiet beauty here. Maybe it was the fact she didn’t have to answer to the coven or their crazy rules. No one questioned her about her translation work or pressured her about taking a male to continue her genetic line.
Eventually Charly headed back into the house through the front door. When she closed her eyes and focused, she could almost discern what they were doing. The sounds of a television came from upstairs. A soft laugh from Meg along with the oh-so-faint clicks from a remote control. From the kitchen, the clinks of dishes had to be Emma cleaning up. She closed the dishwasher door and then left the house through the back.
Not bad for her first day as a werewolf.
Fatigue gripped her shoulders. After a long day traveling she didn’t have much strength to cast her spell. “Never waste what little you have,” her mother always said. “You can’t meet your enemies when weakened.”
She chuckled. What enemies? Until the coven had forced Amelia to come to Hadley, they hardly had any enemies. But thanks to their actions, the werewolves of Hadley were wary of witchkind.
Charly put thoughts of the coven out of her mind and found the promised room above the garage. She looked around and then settled into the bed. The sheet smelled clean and welcoming. After a few seconds, she dozed off into an easy slumber.
The next morning came way too fast. One minute she remembered closing her eyes, and the next she awakened in an unfamiliar place. She stretched, and every muscle contracted. Instead of feeling sore from the long walk, her body flexed with strength, energy. So this was the body the werewolves had. Did all of them wake up like this? She checked through her bag and found nothing missing. The witches hadn’t given her much: a change of clothes, a flashlight, a few bottles of water, and a box of matches.
No one had opened her door or disturbed her overnight. At the coven, property searches were common. Across the hall from her room, Charly found a bathroom and freshened up. The house was silent. Only the sounds of the fridge and the air conditioning unit downstairs permeated the silence. No one was home. But then she remembered the date, a Tuesday. Of cou
rse, no one would be home. They trusted her with their home. Alone.
Charly headed down to the kitchen to see if she could find a snack. She found a covered plate on the counter with a note: You were sleeping so soundly we didn’t want to wake you. Eat well and see you soon.
She uncovered the plate and ate every single bite. The pancakes, with a few slices of bacon and some eggs, went down nice and easy with butter and syrup. She was a virtual stranger yet they’d left her food to eat. The witches didn’t allow visitors other than males for their trysts, and Charly spent her childhood receiving her education from within the compound. Sleepovers and close friendships only existed on TV. The only relationship she’d ever known was the sisterhood.
Her stomach had growled the moment she woke up. Every bite, even the cold, yet well-seasoned eggs, sated the growing hunger from sleeping for so long. She placed the plate into the sink and ventured outside.
“Go into town and report everything you see,” Ophelia had said. “Don’t leave out any detail which might be important. When the time comes, don’t hesitate to make your move.”
Had the point to make her move been lost? She didn’t know who led the pack since the alpha was out of town. Should she have used what strength she had to enchant Trenton right then and there? He had broken up the fight easily enough. Was he one of the second-in-command werewolves? According to her studies at the coven, the alpha had ultimate control over the pack. Maybe one of the other higher-ranking wolves would work also.
No one stopped her as she walked through the neighborhood. There wasn’t much of a sidewalk so she plodded down the road. Along the way, she picked up a stray branch from a tree and swung it. The warm September wasn’t so bad—especially when one felt free. She hadn’t been this calm in such a long time, even with the threat of exposure. Her coven never let her leave the compound alone.
At the end of the road, the row of houses ended, but beyond it laid a dusty field, a haphazard soccer field with weathered goals at each end. The benches on each side appeared worse for wear, too. But they held her weight as she sat.
A gentle breeze swept past her, and she inhaled. A myriad of scents flowed past her, and she couldn’t help but smile. If things wouldn’t have gone the way they did, her mother could’ve raised her in a place like this one. She could’ve been a soccer mom and taken Charly to a field like this. No more endless days of lessons on conjuring the wind or manipulating others.
They could’ve had an ordinary life.
But they were witches.
And now Charly was also a werewolf.
Charly opened both her palms and studied the fingertips. A long time ago, they’d been pricked with a special needle from a witch’s bloodletting kit. The index finger had been the first. Her mother held tight to the digit she pricked, but Charly hadn’t squirmed, even for a young child. The droplet quickly formed and the lesson began.
“Everything begins with blood, Charly. Life and sometimes death.” At the time, her mother’s gaze was serious, but she held her daughter in the warmth of the crook of her arm. “I love you, and I don’t want anyone—or anything to hurt you—so you need to study hard to master the craft. Someday, you might have to shed more blood than this tiny drop. You need to be ready for that day.”
Charly missed when her mom used to hold her like that. She almost leaned forward, ready to bury her face in her hands, when someone tapped her shoulder.
“Zelda, is that you?” a man asked.
She gasped in surprise. The dark-haired werewolf hadn’t made a sound when he’d approached her.
“No, I’m not from around here,” she mumbled.
He was as tall as Trenton with a similar build, yet there was something else about him that made her stomach churn uncomfortably. His stare weighed her down like a burden she couldn’t hold up. She looked away as he adjusted a bag of soccer balls on his shoulder.
“Sorry about that, I could’ve sworn you were her.”
“No problem.”
He put down the sack, and a few balls flopped around the netting. “Excuse my manners. I’m Orland.” He offered a hand and she shook it. “I’m trying to setup for the high school boys soccer practice.”
She stood, immediately remembering his name as one of the second-in-command werewolves. “I didn’t plan to stay long.”
“You’re fine.” He took bright orange cones from the field and dumped them next to the sack he’d held. “Just be careful and watch out for witches.”
Now that came out of nowhere.
“I’ll do that.” She tried to swallow with a suddenly dry throat. He’d looked directly at her when he spoke. She was probably better off finding another target.
“Good.”
Charly walked—maybe walk wasn’t the right word—a brisk stride. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Orland peered right back at her. The gaze rocked her senses in the wrong way. She had to be careful to reveal nothing of what she really was, or else her mission would end before it even began.
CHAPTER FOUR
A few days passed in quiet, a perfect amount of time for Charly to get used to life in such an unfamiliar place. A stranger shouldn’t roam around looking through windows. Rest first, and then acclimate to the pack by setting down some roots. Find a job. Hang out with the locals.
If she didn’t spot too many suspicious stares, she might make it to downtown Hadley. But as she left Kyle and Emma’s house, every step she took added to her unease. She had yet to meet anyone new—or learn anything that couldn’t be gleaned from a town map. Her ride with Trenton had revealed too little about the town and its inhabitants.
What she had managed to learn was more about her host, though she still had questions. As she’d left Emma’s house, she passed many family photos. The images portrayed a history of love and togetherness through family vacations and barbecues in the backyard. Most of the pictures—which featured four people: a mother, father, and two sisters—had a small some that changed to just the pair of girls, Emma and Meg. No one talked about the sisters’ parents, so Charly didn’t broach the subject. There would be time.
After a few blocks, the houses turned to businesses. It would be so easy to fall into the flow and enjoy the walk, but she had to focus for her mother’s sake. Make note of everything of value. All werewolves had their own scent. A bunch of individual markers she had come to identify with increasing accuracy. The closest description she could give wasn’t an animal-like one. Almost like an enticing musk you’d find in the center of a man’s back. Or the lingering sweet perfume of a woman. The woman waiting outside of the grocery store smelled like the lilac lotion she wore but there was something more, a scent that linked her to Meg, Emma, and Trenton. A chain that linked them all. This fascinated Charly, that they were connected not only as pack but also by smell.
Right next to the grocery store, Charly spotted a coffee shop in a brick building with a large bay window and green awning. A stark, white HELP WANTED sign had been taped to the front door window. Was this the place Trenton had mentioned when he’d first offered to drive her into town? So far, she’d seen at least four werewolves leave the shop with food or drinks. Based on the folks she walked past out in the open, the werewolves outnumbered the humans. That was unexpected.
In Las Vegas, there wasn’t as high of a werewolf-to-human ratio, but in the outskirts where the coven had their stronghold, a band of werewolves had settled in the area. They left the witches alone and the witches did the same. During her brief outings with an escort, she’d worked a part-time job so she’d feel less confined. The werewolves never patronized the business.
Charly ventured inside the coffee shop. Might as well see what she could learn. The cool air compared to the outside was divine. And the scents—fresh coffee beans to the faint whiff that someone had eaten a panini sandwich in the back. Her nose fed her all this information in an instant. A black-haired barista from behind the front counter waved at Charly.
“What can I get you?” the wom
an asked. Her name badge read Julia.
“I’d like a double tall, non-fat, half-caf, extra hot latte with whipped cream. Extra foam with one sugar and caramel sauce.”
Julia chuckled. “You know what you want.”
Charly shrugged. “I used to work at a place like this. If you cut me, I might bleed caffeine.”
Julia smiled in response. “You look new around here. You must be Charly.”
Charly’s right eyebrow rose. “Small town?”
“You got it.” Julia wrote her order on a paper cup and continued the conversation. “Emma came by to let everyone know as they got their morning fuel you were roaming around here.”
Charly’s hand tightening into a fist. What did Emma say about her? “What’d I do to become the hot gossip?”
I could really give them something to talk about.
“Anytime we get a female rogue, Emma and Kyle—our pack alphas—like to make sure the boys working the factory behave.” The sounds of the coffee machine whirled to life as Julia worked on Charly’s drink while she spoke. “We have a large population of werewolves in a small space. Also, we had trouble here not long ago, so there’s plenty of suspicion about any strangers. But new werewolves are a welcome sight.”
“By the way, I noticed a Help Wanted sign outside,” Charly said. “What are you looking for?”
“Morning help. You staying in town long enough to want an application?”
“Please?”
Julia fetched a piece of paper, and Charly was glad to have the application. The need to keep her fingers busy grew. She strode to a nearby table and added her name to the application. The job app was a welcome distraction to keep her cool.
“You gone long without coffee?” Julia asked.
Charly’s head darted up. “Excuse me?”
Bitten by Treachery (Hadley Werewolves) Page 3