“Hello! I hope everyone is excited for tomorrow!”
Hoots and hollers rose up and I shuddered. What kind of freak was excited about their body tearing itself apart and reforming as a wolf for up to twelve hours?
“I’d also like to thank Drake for his kind offer. Now, as you know, Jake Feldman vanished last month and his body was found two days later by hikers.”
There were murmurs and nods. Someone sniffled.
“What happened?” I whispered to Holly, who shushed me. Hmpf.
“We, the Wolf Council,” Sasha gestured to people sitting in the front row, “have looked into Jake’s death extensively. He was shot in wolf form with two bullets to the head, but the shooter has not been found.” Murmurs turned to loud whispers and Sasha held up a hand to silence the crowd. “In wolf form, we are big and imposing. It’s possible he was shot by accident or even in self-defense. The bullets weren’t silver, which would indicate we as werewolves were a target. However, there’s been talk among some of the shifter communities about a new group of monster hunters in the area. The Wolf Council would like to advise anyone planning to be outdoors during their transformation tomorrow to please, please go in a group. Pairs are better than going out alone, but groups of three or more are advised. We hope you’ll strongly consider following this recommendation.”
She stepped down to polite applause. After that, a series of people from the front row got up and babbled about whatever business they had to discuss. Stuff like the next meeting, a future camp-out, and plans for a weekend barbecue. I yawned so many times that a guy next to me gave me dirty looks, but I couldn’t help that I was bored to tears. I hadn’t signed up to be a werewolf, and I sure as heck hadn’t signed up for wholesome werewolf outdoor activities.
As soon as it was over, I was first out the door. Holly took her sweet time so I leaned against her car and checked my phone.
People filed out to their cars slowly, talking amongst themselves and making plans for tomorrow night. My plans were set: lock myself in my wolf room and not come out until I was back to normal.
I glanced up from my phone and saw a guy looking at me curiously. He was thin but muscular. He wore baggy jeans and an almost skin-tight t-shirt that clung to his chest. It had three wolves and a moon on it, which was eye-roll-inducing unless he was wearing it ironically. His hair was blond with bright blue streaks. He wore an Apple watch. He looked too nerdy to be a werewolf, but like cool nerdy, the smart guy you’d want to be your math tutor so you could make out when you were supposed to be studying. I swallowed and immediately looked down at my screen. When I thought he’d stopped staring, I glanced back up. He had not stopped staring.
“Got a problem?” I asked.
“You’re new.” He put a hand in his jeans pocket and attempted to look casual, though it was clear he was sizing me up.
“Wow, you hoping to win an award for your impeccable observation skills?” I didn’t know why I was being such an asshole except that it came naturally. And anyhow, if he was here, he was one of them, and I did not want to be friends with any of them, even the hot ones. I might be a werewolf, but I wasn’t going to start, like, hanging with a pack or whatever.
I expected him to realize I was an asshole and walk away. Instead, he smiled. It was a wry smile, almost a smirk. “I’m Raff.”
“I’m not interested.”
His smile didn’t falter. Idiot. He opened his mouth as if to speak but closed it again, and then after a moment said, “Yeah, okay, sure. Catch you around, maybe.”
“Not likely,” I muttered, but under my breath so he wouldn’t hear. I’d been enough of a jerk already. I watched him get into a black, sporty sedan (well, as sporty as sedans get). It was actually kind of a nice car. Better than Holly’s. Maybe I should have asked him for a ride. I bet he liked good music, not NPR.
Holly finally came out a few minutes later.
As soon as we were on the road, I asked, “What the hell was that? ‘We advise’? Shouldn’t the Wolf Council, like, give orders? Aren’t they alphas or whatever?”
“I thought you didn’t want to be told what to do,” Holly said, her lips quirked in amusement.
“I don’t! But how can they call themselves a Wolf Council when they just advise everyone to do things? Isn’t that sort of pathetic?”
“Let me get this straight,” Holly said. “You’re upset because you’ve just discovered that we werewolves as a group are not the tyrannical alpha-obsessed idiots you thought we were?”
I folded my arms over my chest and decided to spend the rest of the drive in silence.
As Holly’s car rolled to a stop in front of my house, she said, “Thank you for coming to the meeting. It’s important you know when there are threats to our kind.”
I scoffed. “Your kind, maybe. I’m not stupid enough to let anyone know I’m a werewolf.”
Holly looked like she had a lot to say on that subject so I quickly scrambled out of the car before she had the chance.
A blue van I’d seen behind on us earlier drove by so fast it nearly hit me as I got out of the car. Jerks.
Michael wasn’t home and the house was dark. I pulled a frozen stack of hamburger patties out of the freezer and started heating our George Foreman grill, since Holly had refused to stop for food. I ate three hamburgers on plain buns while watching some show about cupcakes and then went to bed. The sooner tomorrow night was over, the sooner I could get back to my non-werewolf life.
Chapter 4
Saturday night, I sat on the sofa in my living room, scarfing down some tacos from a food truck that I’d bought on my way home. I’d taken a walk to try and clear my head and then grabbed enough carnitas tacos to feed a small village. Now I was trying to shove the food in my face before I had to go lock myself in a room for the night. Going full blown werewolf apparently burns lots of calories so I needed the fuel.
Michael came in looking broody and eyed my taco feast with mild disgust. He’d been a vegetarian for a while in high school and while he’d started to eat meat again on occasion—to prove he could handle surviving on living things, probably—he often expressed distaste with my full moon eating habits.
“Hello,” I said with a mouthful of taco.
“Guess you’re prepping for tonight,” he said, heading into the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of beer. I checked the clock. It was only four in the afternoon, but I didn’t say anything. I also didn’t mention the bite mark on his throat, now turning into a purple and yellow bruise. “How was your wolf pack meet and greet?”
“So boring. Like, snoozeville. I bet vampires never have boring meetings.”
Michael shrugged and I swallowed my frustration at his non-answer. I was still fascinated by vampires and still desperate to be one, even though it was impossible for me now. No, there would be no sleeping in elegant velvet-lined coffins and spending my nights in candlelit rooms watching eternity pass by. Not for me. But maybe for Michael, which was galling. I mean, he wasn’t cut out for it like I was.
“Anyhow, I should probably get ready.” I crumbled my taco wrappers and shoved them in the small paper bag the woman in the food truck had given me to hold all of the tacos. “See you on the other side of this wretched moon.”
“Wretched Moon would be a cool band name,” Michael said.
I smiled. He smiled back. We used to joke like that all the time and it felt good to do it now. It was normal. Safe. Unlike what was about to happen to me.
The basement housed our washer and dryer. There was a laundry basket overflowing with dish rags and bath towels. It was my turn to do the house load, and I’d forgotten. Oh well, too late now.
I opened the door to my wolf room. It had had carpet when we’d moved in, but wolf-me had torn it to shreds the first month. Now the floor was bare concrete. The walls were scratched to hell from my wolf claws. Because it was a basement room, the only window was high up and narrow, too thin for me to fit through as a person, let alone as a wolf. It let a soft orange l
ight from the setting sun into the room. There were gauzy curtains draped over the sides, but they were too narrow to cover the whole window. Outside, it was just inches off the ground, so someone would have to bend down to get a good look.
To minimize the damage I could do, we’d installed chains. Michael had the key. He’d come let me out in the morning. I shut the door, locking it from the inside. There were bolts on the outside that Michael would come down and lock in a bit, not that my wolf-form could figure out how to open a door. Thank goodness.
Still, the chains meant I did less damage to the room itself and stood even less chance of getting out, and frankly, I felt a lot less sore. My guess—based somewhat on the noise Michael reported—was that if I were tied up, I simply stopped struggling and gave up within an hour or two. If I were loose, I’d spent all night trying to tear my way outside.
I stripped naked and hung my clothes in the closet so they wouldn’t get destroyed as I transformed. Then I sat down and snapped the metal cuffs around my ankles, before doing the same with my wrists. Then I waited for the pain.
It hurt like hell, turning into a wolf. It started with a strange tingling that radiated out of my midsection and spread over my body. The tingling quickly intensified into pain. And then my stomach would wretch. My back would crack. My bones would shift and snap and transform. That was when the pain would flare white hot, so intense that I blacked out.
Maybe that was a mercy.
I didn’t want to be a wolf. I sure didn’t need to be aware of what wolf-me thought or felt.
* * *
I bolted awake like I’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. Pain radiated through me as my bones and joints snapped back into the shape of a human woman. I let out a little whine and held my breath until the pain finally subsided. My head still throbbed and my arms were sore, no doubt from straining against my bonds, but I was alive and early dawn light was streaming through the window.
I glanced up and noticed there was a hole in the window, with cracks radiating out from it. Like a bullet hole.
My heart leapt into my throat.
It couldn’t be a bullet hole. That was absurd. Queen Anne was a relatively safe neighborhood, and anyhow, the window was in an alley, set close to the ground. Someone must have kicked a rock through it or something.
My breathing evened out and the adrenaline of the shift faded, leaving my muscles feeling weak. I was exhausted, like I’d been awake all night, which I had, sort of, even if I didn’t remember it. I waited impatiently for Michael to come unlock me. He wasn’t a morning person at all—neither was I—and dating a vampire meant he rarely even saw an hour before noon, but he was usually good about releasing me early, even if he immediately went back to bed afterward.
So I waited, and waited, and waited. The sun got higher in the sky and my stomach churned uneasily. I studied the concrete floor for signs of the rock that must have been kicked in but didn’t see it. Finally, I heard the bolts on the other door slide out of locked position and a key turned in the lock. The door opened.
It wasn’t Michael. I could tell immediately by the smell. Michael smelled like hair dye and lemon-verbena soap. This person smelled like strawberries and sweat.
Holly stepped into the room and I frowned, trying to understand why she was here instead of my friend and roommate. She bent down, flipping through the tiny keyring to find the key that would release me from my bonds.
“Where’s Michael?” I demanded.
“He’s safe.”
My mouth went dry. “Of course he’s safe! Why wouldn’t he be safe? I asked where he is.”
Holly gave me a pitying look, one that made me feel even more uneasy because it suggested she knew something I didn’t. Once the cuffs were unlocked, I jumped to my feet. “What’s going on? Where’s my roommate?”
“He’s at my place, sleeping, along with Damien.”
For a moment, the panic subsided and turned to sheer annoyance. How selfish could Michael be, spending the night with his stupid boyfriend when he knew I’d need to be released from my wolf prison and then sending Holly of all people to release me?
“You’re lucky Damien was here.” She nodded at the hole in the window. “Heard the shot and chased off the hunter. Didn’t catch him, though.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“A monster hunter was here. They tried to shoot you through the window.” She bent down and studied the wall behind me, before pointing at a nasty hole in the white wall only a foot from where I’d been sitting. “Damien scared him off. Guess he wasn’t prepared to face a vampire. Like I said, you’re lucky.”
I tried to process the fact that, in my small little basement room where I should have been safe, someone had tried to shoot me.
“Someone tried to shoot me?” I asked, just to see if made any more sense out loud. It did not. “Why?”
“You were at the meeting,” Holly said, her voice soft. “Apparently there’s a monster hunter or more likely, a group of them in the area, hunting werewolves.”
I thought back to Sasha’s presentation, still shaking my head. “She was talking about werewolves who were outside. I wasn’t outside. I was in here, where I was safe.” Or where I should have been safe.
“I know this is scary,” Holly said, still keeping her voice low.
“How can you know? You weren’t shot at!”
Holly took a deep breath. “Charlotte—”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie, I know you’re rattled. This is scary for all of us—” I opened my mouth to argue that it was definitely a little scarier for me, since a bullet had come within inches of my body and I’d been helpless and largely unconscious at the time, but she held up a hand and powered on, “—especially for you. Right now, I need you to put on clothes. We’re having a group Skype meeting in an hour.”
“You’re joking. Werewolves use Skype?” I was mostly trying to distract from the fact she’d reminded I was, in fact, totally naked, which I’d forgotten in my panic. It was one thing for Michael to see me naked every month, and entirely another to be seen like this by Holly. I pulled my clothes from the closet and quickly put them on.
“Werewolves are not Neanderthals,” Holly said, exasperated.
I shrugged as I tugged my black hoodie over my head. “Still.”
“Just come with me,” Holly said. “I’ll even hit a drive-thru.”
“Well, thank goodness for that.” Despite my taco feast last night, my stomach was empty. My bladder, not so much. I hit the restroom, grabbed my cheap taser out of my nightstand (a gift from my paranoid mother), and then we hit the road.
Chapter 5
I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be brought to Damien’s apartment, a place I’d pretty much avoided since I’d walked in three years ago with the goal of becoming a vampire and left with a raging case of rampant werewolfism instead. I’d been by once to meet Michael for a show after he traitorously started dating my would-be sire, but that was pretty much it.
It looked almost exactly the same as it had the first night, albeit less smashed up. There was a big screen television with a selection of video game consoles, some sad black and white photographs of various cityscapes, and modern black furniture with curves in strange places that didn’t look comfortable at all. I glanced down the hall, where Damien’s door was shut.
“He won’t come out,” Holly said, and I couldn’t tell if she thought I was scared of him or eager to see him. “He doesn’t want to risk any sun exposure, even with the blinds drawn.”
From what I knew about vampires, they could walk around indoors just fine as long as they avoided direct sunlight, but I guess it was easier to sleep all day. Michael was apparently sleeping, too, since he was no where to be seen.
I was a little miffed he couldn’t be bothered to greet me after I was shot at, but whatever.
Holly set up her laptop on the coffee table and I settled in with the remains of my fast food order, which inc
luded two more hash brown patties and a sausage biscuit. I’d eaten my other two egg and sausage sandwiches in the car. Holly booted her group call software which was not, I noted, actually Skype but some knockoff. I ate and looked around the place. There were no personal photos. Michael and I didn’t have any either, but then our walls were blank and white, while theirs were painted a rich beige with a dark trim. They had art work up, but only those photos of skylines. Nothing personal.
Holly’s computer dinged, indicating an incoming call. She answered. I set my unfinished food aside and scooted closer. Several faces appeared in miniature on screen. I found myself looking for Raff, the hot nerdy guy from the meeting, and was slightly disappointed when I didn’t see him. But then more faces appeared and everyone’s picture vanished and turned into names on a long list. When the list was about thirty people long, Sasha’s face appeared on screen as the “main” caller.
“Good evening. I hope you all had a good full moon,” Sasha said. “Unfortunately, we had two incidents last night that prove there are indeed monster hunters in the area targeting our kind.”
I felt goosebumps rise on my arms as I remembered the bullet hole in the wall less than foot from my body.
“Warren and Tyler were shot at in the park near Seattle,” Sasha continued. “Neither was hit and we believe the hunter ran when a good samaritan came by walking a dog.”
I didn’t know who Warren or Tyler were, or why werewolves were allowed to wolf out in a public park, but I couldn’t ask because I was too far from the mic on Holly’s laptop, and anyhow, Sasha kept talking: “And Charlotte, one of our newer wolves—“
“Not your wolf,” I muttered.
Moon Cursed: The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles, Book 1 Page 3