“—Was shot at in her house.”
There were gasps and shouts and when everyone quieted down, Sasha finished, explaining that I wasn’t hurt and their investigators would be looking into it. “In the mean time, everyone needs to be vigilant and keep each other safe,” Sasha said, and ended the call.
Holly closed the laptop.
“That’s it?” I demanded.
“Yes. There’s no other information right now.”
“Then how do they even know these are monster hunters? Maybe they’re just assholes or a gang or….” The niggling thought in the back of my mind coalesced into something more solid. “I mean, how would a monster hunter even have found me? It’s not like I go outside as a wolf or even join in any wolf activities. Except your stupid meeting.” I stood. “Oh God, what if your meeting is how they found me?”
Holly paled slightly, but she couldn’t argue, because I was right. “You are sort of a strange target.” I glared. “I just mean you’re never out in public with the rest of us. You’d be hard to identify.”
“Us? I thought you locked yourself in your room.” That had been her modus operandi back when she’d bitten me.
She shrugged. “That was three years ago. I’ve learned to run with the pack.”
I thought back to the meeting Friday and remembered the blue van that had almost run me over near my house. I wondered if that had been my would-be murderer. Another chill rippled down my spine. “God, I’m so stupid. I knew better than to get involved with you wolves! I bet they followed me home.”
Damien’s bedroom door opened and a bleary-eyed Michael emerged. “Normally I’d yell at you for being so loud, but honestly, I’m glad you’re alive.”
He came over and awkwardly patted me on the shoulder. He looked pale and there was a new bruise on the other side of his throat. I held out my bag of fast food. “Breakfast?”
He tilted his head. I held my breath. He took it. I let the relief wash over me. During my vampire research, I’d learned that people who become close to vampires could start to deteriorate, letting themselves fall apart because being alive stopped holding any appeal. Having a vampire drink your blood lowered your iron levels and could make you dizzy and tired. Drinking vampire blood in turn, as vampires’ lovers often did, could be addicting. And eventually the human would stop eating or drinking water without prompting and slowly die unless they were turned. I didn’t want Michael to be dependent on his vampire boyfriend. Frankly, that kind of co-dependency was never healthy, even when there wasn’t a creature of the night involved.
He went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. The aroma soon filled the apartment.
“I want to call the wolf pack back,” I said.
Holly raised her eyebrows. “Why?”
“Because no one told me what to do! I can’t go home. A werewolf hunter knows where I live and it’s all your fault. Someone needs to fix it.”
Holly had opened the computer, not to the call app but to email and I hoped she was writing a strongly worded letter to Sasha and the Wolf Council.
There was a knock at the door. I jumped. Michael poked his head out of the kitchen, frowning, half a hash brown sticking out of his mouth. He and Holly exchanged a look, seeming to question if the other was expecting anyone. I jumped up and ran to the door. Michael hissed. Holly shook her head. I ignored them and peered through the peephole.
I gasped.
“Oh my God, is it the hunter?” Holly whispered.
“Worse.” I opened the door to reveal Raff, who wore a black jacket over a bright orange t-shirt with a black silhouette of a wolf on it. Seriously tacky. His jeans hung low on his hips and his angelic blond hair with blue streaks was lightly tousled and a little damp, as if he’d just showered. He smiled.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Nice to see you, too, Charlotte,” he said smugly. I guess someone in the Wolf Council told him my name.
“It’s Charlie,” I said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“I was given orders to protect you until the monster hunters are caught.”
I gaped at him and then swung my incredulous look over to Holly. “Is he serious?”
She shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t see why he’d lie about Council orders.”
“I thought you guys didn’t do orders! I thought it was hippy-dippy warm fuzzies and gentle advisements.” My headache was getting worse and the smell of coffee was overpowering. I needed six cups, at least. Raff was staring at me like I was some kind of sideshow for his amusement. “I don’t need protection, thanks.”
“You were shot at and you do,” Raff said. “I’m a warrior.”
I laughed. He folded his muscular arms over his chest and did not so much as crack a smile. Despite his slight-frame, it was clear he hit the gym regularly, but he was wearing orange chucks that matched his shirt for God’s sake. He wasn’t exactly a badass.
“A warrior is a wolf who’s trained to protect the rest of the pack,” Holly explained, taking my silence for confusion. “Like our police force and bodyguards all in one.”
“Wait, is everyone supposed to have a role? What’s my role?”
“Right now, bait,” Michael said, and winked. I glared.
“You’ve chosen not to participate in the group at large, and therefore don’t have a role,” Raff said. “But if you’re looking, I could use a mate.” He winked.
I rolled my eyes super hard and made sure he saw. “Definitely not,” I said. “Also ‘mate’ is not a role.”
“I was joking,” Raff said. His lips curved into a small, smug smirk. “But not about the warrior thing. It’s my job to stay with you until this hunter thing is resolved.” He sniffed the air. “Is that coffee?”
“Come on in,” Holly said, and Raff pushed his way past me only to stop short when he got a good look at Michael.
“Got a problem?” Michael asked, which was funny because I’d said the same thing to Raff when we’d met. Maybe the guy just had a raging case of resting bitch face.
“Your neck.” Raff’s words were strained and his shoulders tensed.
Michael’s brow furrowed. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“What, you’ve never seen a hickey, wolf boy?” I asked. “Let me explain. When two people like each other—”
“I know what a hickey is,” Raff said, a light blush forming on his cheeks. Oh, that was precious. Warrior Boy was a prude. “Those are vampire bites.”
Michael cleared this throat and his words came out a little unsteady: “My boyfriend is a vampire.”
Raff’s posture hardened even more, like he was trying to become a statue that wouldn’t have to hear about vampires and their boyfriends. In some ways, I sympathized. Until Raff spoke.
“I’m not under obligation to protect Blood Bags.”
Holly dropped a mug in the kitchen. It hit the floor but didn’t break. Michael looked like he was close to squeezing his own mug into pieces.
I stepped between Raff and Michael. “This is actually a vampire’s apartment, so if you’re going to be an asshole, you can leave,” I said, folding my arms over my chest, too.
“A vampire lives here?” Raff’s tone was edged with steel. He inhaled deeply and then his brow crinkled. “I don’t smell one.”
“His room is pretty well sealed,” Holly said. “He’s my roommate.”
Raff dropped his arms, gaze wandering over each of us as the realization of what he’d agreed to in his frenzy to be a badass warrior had gotten him into. “Oh,” was all he said.
Holly got a clean mug and handed him a cup of coffee. “Creamer’s in the fridge.” For the first time, I kind of like Holly. She disappeared into her own room to shower and change, since she hadn’t had a chance yet. For that matter, neither had I.
Michael slipped back into Damien’s room, leaving Raff and I alone.
Raff’s shoulders relaxed, but I didn’t. “You don’t have to protect me, or whateve
r. I’m fine. I’ll just stay here until this blows over.”
I had no idea if I was welcome to crash on the couch or not, but I was inviting myself to do so anyhow if necessary. It was Holly’s fault the stupid monster hunter had found me. And Damien, well, he could take his complaint to the Wolf Council.
Raff gave me an appraising look and I refused to let it rattle me. Sure, I was wearing ratty black jeans that had faded over time to more of a muddy gray, and a black sweatshirt that was fraying at the cuffs. My dyed black hair was an unwashed mess tied back into a messy ponytail and I hadn’t put on eyeliner or lip gloss. But given that I’d spent last night wolfing out, I thought I looked pretty good. At least I wasn’t wearing a discount bin Halloween tee.
“What?” I demanded.
“Look, I was ordered to stay by your side until these hunters are dealt with. I have to obey orders.” He didn’t look happy about it. Maybe I should have cut him some slack.
“So I’ll get them to un-order it,” I said.
“It doesn’t work like that.” A corner of Raff’s very soft looking lips quirked up. “You can’t just order the Council to do what you want.”
“Sure I can. I’m not part of their little… pack… or group… or whatever you all call yourselves.”
“Yes, you are,” Raff said, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re Holly’s wolfling. That makes you one of us, whether you like it or not.”
“Nope. No way. I didn’t agree to become a werewolf and I didn’t agree to follow ridiculous rules, including having some guy follow me around for my safety. How do I know you’re not the monster hunter?”
Okay, even I had to admit that was a bit of a stretch.
Raff laughed it off. “Wow, either you really don’t like me or you’re stubborn as a mule.”
“Both.” I folded my arms over my chest, too. Two could play this game.
He met my eyes. His were a grayish blue. Something passed through them, like storm clouds moving slowly across the sky. Then he blinked. “Fine, whatever. I’m staying next to you until the monster hunters are caught and no longer a threat. I guess we’ll both have to deal with it until then.”
It was like a light bulb went off over my head. “Great. Then we’ll catch these monster hunters so I can get on with my life.”
I raced to Holly’s laptop, which she’d left on the sofa.
It turns out that when you Google “monster hunters seeking werewolves” you get a lot of results and not necessarily the kind you would think. Okay, actually, maybe most people would have guessed that. Raff snorted at my total failure and then flopped down on the sofa like he was happy to laze around all day. I would have been thrilled to do so, too, but I hadn’t been able to shed my shift tonight which meant I had to shower and put on work clothes.
And my work clothes were back home.
Chapter 6
Raff drove, parking in the alley between my house and the next one, which wasn’t technically a space but there weren’t any better options.
Once we got inside, the house felt too quiet and still. A chill washed over me. Raff immediately began opening closets and going through rooms and I found I was actually super relieved to have him with me. For the first time since we’d moved into the old house, I didn’t feel safe there.
I hated these stupid monster hunters for shattering my sense of safety. Among other things.
I found an old board in the basement and managed to hunt down the hammer and nails we’d bought to assemble some of our trickier IKEA furniture—why does it come with the stupid Allen wrench thingy but not a little hammer?
I was too short to hammer the board over the bullet hole so I was looking for a step stool or something to stand on when Raff came downstairs. “It’s clear,” he said. “I’m willing to bet they’re too scared to come back, at least not right away.”
“Good.”
He eyed the hammer in my hand and then spotted the board I’d propped against the wall. And then his gaze flickered over to the shackles on the side wall and a deep frown cut into his face. “What are those?”
“My shackles,” I said. “Are you tall enough to board up that window?”
Raff was only a couple inches taller than me, but the way he was looking at my chains made me uneasy. I was doing the right and responsible thing, making sure wolf-me never got out to hurt anyone or do damage to anything outside this small room. So why was he staring at my setup like I was demented?
I remembered a wooden crate that was in the closet next to the washer and dryer and shoved the hammer into Raff’s hand as I went to retrieve it. When I came back into the room, he was still staring at the shackles like they’d personally offended him, hammer slack in his hand.
“Are those for you?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, so?” I shrugged. “They keep me out of trouble.”
His frown morphed into a grimace. “You chain yourself to a wall?”
“Sure. What do you do? Lock yourself in a closet?” I set the crate in front of the window and grabbed the board, placing it over the small window. How anyone had even gotten a shot was beyond me. The window was inches off the ground outside and to get a bullet anywhere near me, they’d have had to lie in the dirt. I held the board with one hand and dug nails out of my pocket. “Here, make yourself useful.”
Raff finally tore his gaze away from the chains—I mean, really, the way he was acting you’d think I’d had corpses hanging from the wall or something—and started hammering the board in place. Once he had the bottom done, he held it up while I hammered nails in the top from the height of the crate. Then I stepped down and examined our work. It was hardly a long-term solution, but it would do until the landlord replaced the window, however long that took.
With that, I went upstairs to get ready for work. Raff followed silently, which was a blessing. He didn’t try to follow me into the bathroom, which was another. I showered quickly and dried off before slipping into my room to change.
Once I had my khaki work pants and pink polo on, I put my hair in a ponytail and grabbed my pink apron and hat. My shift was eleven am to seven pm, one of the better shifts, since I got to sleep in (well, usually) and didn’t have to close. The seven-thirty person was the closer and closing was the worst. Inevitably some customers would come in at 6:55, five minutes before the shop closed at seven, and then they’d linger forever and we weren’t supposed to kick them out of the store.
Raff’s eyes lit up when he saw me in my uniform.
“Don’t even think about about making any snarky comments,” I said. “Yogurt Time is just my job and this uniform is not a reflection of my personal style.”
“Oh, I know,” Raff said, wearing his irritating smirk. “That’s what makes it so amazing.”
I shot him a dirty look and opened the door. “Let’s go. I can’t be late.”
“As you wish, Princess Peach.”
I did not dignify that with a response.
* * *
It wasn’t easy to explain why I’d suddenly brought a random dude into work. When I got to the time clock, Dia was in the storage room, grabbing bulk packages of nuts and sprinkles to refill the pans in front. “Oh hey, have a good weekend?” she asked.
“No,” I said flatly and clocked in. Jessica was working the front, adding toppings to an order for a customer. Raff was sitting at one of the pink formica tables, staring at me. I rolled my eyes.
When the customer left, Jessica said, “Your boyfriend is cute.”
“Whose boyfriend?” Dia asked, carrying a stack of toppings. She set them down near the service counter.
“Charlie’s. He’s over there.”
Dia examined Raff, a smile breaking across her face. “Wow. He is hot. A little nerdy, but I’d expect that of you,” she said, as she opened a big plastic container of sprinkles.
“What? He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “And why would you think my type is nerdy?”
Dia shrugged. “I don’t know, you seem to like brains
. Plus, you’re into vampires.”
“I’m not into vampires,” I said. Especially not the kind of vampires Dia and Jessica thought of, the kind in movies and romance books. They didn’t know vampires were real, of course, or that my roommate was dating one. Nor did they believe in werewolves, faeries, or any of the other creatures that were real but hidden from the world at large. “I study the paranormal. Or used to.”
“Sure, whatever,” Jessica said. “The point is, he’s cute.” Raff beamed, obviously able to hear this senseless praise with his keen werewolf hearing.
“He’s not that cute, and he’s not my boyfriend.” I shot him a pointed look as I spoke.
“Really? Why not?” Jessica was my age and going to the local community college. She’d had a girlfriend last year, but they’d broken up and now she was eying Raff like someone had offered him up on a platter.
“I barely know him,” I said. But then I clamped my big mouth shut because that made zero sense. I couldn’t tell them I’d been targeted by werewolf hunters since they didn’t believe in werewolves. “I mean, we just met. We’re taking things slow.”
“Oh,” Jessica said, sounding a little too disappointed.
“Then why is he hanging out?” Dia asked. Stupid Dia, using her critical thinking skills.
“I drove Charlie to work, and in return, she promised me a free yogurt,” Raff said, coming up to the counter. “Isn’t that right, my sweet?”
I tried not gag as I agreed that that was exactly right. “What flavor?” I asked.
“Vanilla,” he said.
“Boring. It suits you,” I said, as I pulled the lever to fill a cup with soft-serve. “What about toppings?”
Raff examined the toppings for far too long, and a real customer came in behind him. Finally he settled on strawberries and chocolate chips and I told Jessica I’d pay for it on my lunch. Fred wasn’t around to be a jerk about it. And Dia, a stickler for the rules, was in too big a hurry to leave to bother giving me crap for it.
The rest of my shift was pretty standard. Some of the customers were jerks, but they were balanced out by nice ones who shoved dollar bills into our tip jar. Raff sat in a corner and kept to himself, though I noticed he stiffened every single time the door opened.
Moon Cursed: The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles, Book 1 Page 4