Her eyes raced back and forth over the desk a few feet ahead of her, watching it replay in her mind.
She'd gone out for a smoke.
It was a terrible habit that she'd been trying to give up for a couple years since her mother asked. As far as her mother knew, Sierra had quit, but that wasn't the truth. She still needed a cigarette when her shifts were rough, or when she was especially tired or anxious. Hell, she needed one then, as she slouched down and sat on the damp floor, her miniskirt not protecting her thighs from the cold tile.
Her habit didn’t matter at that moment.
She saw a wolf turn into a man.
Or was it a man turning back into a man from a wolf?
Either way, her heart was still loudly banging away inside her chest. He was the handsome man from the night before, the stranger that had almost tried to flirt with her. He had her name. Her body was wrecked with chills, and she took another gulp of the vodka, which just made her body convulse harder.
She could have – might have – slept with him if he'd followed through and flirted again.
This thought churned her stomach. This monster, a wolfman, a werewolf, and she almost slept with him…with it! Sierra's stomach rolled again, and this time, she had to grasp onto a nearby trashcan for help as she heaved up her dinner, laced with a strong aftertaste of the vodka she just shot down.
Sierra wanted to take off work. She told herself she needed to get out of there and get home. She grasped onto the trashcan for a moment longer, waiting to see if she'd heave again. It was like she'd had the curtain of the world that was protecting her pulled back, like every monster from her childhood she'd ever heard about had come out to nip at her heels.
She was raised being told to stay away from wolves. Her father had been killed by one when she was young. The whole town was decorated with wolves as a warning to the people. Wolves were beasts, creatures of the night that stole people away to eat them, and now she knew that some of those beasts were people in disguise.
Her mother seemed to have a respectful fear for them, but that hadn't passed on to Sierra.
She needed to get home to her mother. As ridiculous as it was, it was the only way she'd feel safe. She'd have to tell her manager that she didn't feel well, that she'd gotten sick, and she needed to go home. Popping open a can of orange juice, she swished it in her mouth and spit it out twice. She didn't want anyone smelling the alcohol and thinking she'd gotten drunk on shift.
Telling the truth was not an option.
If she told a single person what she'd seen, they'd think she was insane. She'd be sent off to a mental institute, and her mother would be left to fend for herself. The idea broke her heart, and Sierra steadied herself. Straightening her clothes, she checked her reflection.
She looked fine.
Normal.
What if she was losing it?
What if this was the beginning of her descent into madness like her mother’s? What if she was falling apart and this was her warning sign? Her mother’s fall had been pushed up by what happened to her, but she was forty when it happened. Sierra was only twenty-four.
It had to have been real, though.
There’s no way her mind could have fabricated anything so detailed and real looking.
It was startling that she didn't look completely changed from the knowledge, that she, herself, wasn't that changed. The world around her had pulled a 180, and she was still the same, boring casino waitress she'd been half an hour ago.
Pushing these thoughts aside, she headed out to the bar, trying to act like nothing happened.
That was impossible.
The man, the wolfman, was now standing in the entrance of the bar, looking around.
He was trying to find her.
A cold sweat burst out onto Sierra's skin, and she rushed back into the storage area. She couldn't get past him. Couldn't escape as long as he might see her.
She couldn't leave.
Couldn't do her job as a waitress.
She was, instead, stuck in a strange limbo of standing and waiting for something to happen. What she was waiting for was a mystery. Images came to her mind of him opening up a rampage on the floor, but immediately, her mind pushed those aside. Even though she knew he was strange, wasn't human, her mind was still trying to defend him.
Her manager came back five minutes later, just as Sierra was cleaning up what vomit missed the trash can.
“Are you okay?” Lynn asked, looking her over as she came back.
“I'm having some awful motion sickness. I may have caught something,” Sierra lied, still feeling woozy.
“Oh no,” Lynn said, an honest reaction. She glanced at the vomit in the trash can for a moment, looking like she was confirming that Sierra wasn't lying, before she said anything. “Do you want to go home? You don't need to get any of the customers sick,” Lynn offered, looking over a clipboard of papers she was carrying. “We're having a slow night. We'd be fine without you,” she added.
“I'd rather stay,” Sierra said, guiltily. “It's about that time of the month for inventory. Can I stay at least until I can finish that and then go so I don't have to lose half a shift?” she asked, motioning at the messy room.
Lynn looked her over, thoughtfully, and then nodded.
“All right, sure. I want your numbers in my office before you clock out,” Lynn said, sighing as she turned to leave. “Oh, I forgot why I came back here,” she turned back to Sierra. “There's a handsome man out there asking about you. What do you want me to tell him?” she asked, a smile halfway clung to her lips.
He knew her name, and he could find her.
What if he got her last name and looked her up in the local phonebook?
She wasn’t sure if her address was still in there. She’d only kept the landline phone so that her mother could call emergency services if she needed to. Sierra couldn’t bring herself to regret doing that.
“Tell him I went home. I don't want anyone seeing me like this,” Sierra lied, smiling back.
It was fake.
She felt fake.
It was self-preservation, though. She needed to protect herself, and right then the best way to do that was to ensure that he didn't think she was still there. She didn't know what she'd do if the wolfman came back to her in the small, crowded room. There wouldn’t be any escape. She’d have to face him in person.
“All right. Feel better, Sierra,” Lynn said, patting her arm as she headed out.
Sierra sighed and relaxed the moment Lynn was out of sight.
This was how it would have to be.
She couldn't have him knowing she was still there. He might wait until she's off work and approach her. She also couldn't leave just because Lynn offered it. There were guards at the Casino – big, burly men who looked like they could rip a tree in half with their hands – but she wasn't sure how they could square off against a wolf.
She didn't want anyone to risk their lives for her.
If anyone got hurt because of her she'd never forgive herself.
Grabbing the inventory sheets from the desk, she pulled out a pen from the tiny pocket on her skirt and started on the most tedious night of her job working there. Usually, she would have never agreed to do inventory, but at that moment, it felt like a blessing. Something to put off her inevitable leave.
She couldn't guarantee he wouldn't find her after her shift, but for those few hours, as she counted bottles and glasses, she was safe.
That was enough for the moment.
Chapter Seven
She saw, and there was no undoing it.
At least, he was mostly sure she saw. She'd taken off running like she'd seen him kill someone, like she'd been in danger herself, and he could smell the fear on her. The only explanations were either that she saw him shift or she was really worried about nudity. He tried to ignore how funny that would have been.
He needed to take this seriously.
All he could do now – all that he needed to do – was damage control.
Most people wouldn’t tell anyone if they saw a shifter. They'd be too terrified that they'd be judged for it. If they ever told anyone it would either be when they were beyond drunk or on their deathbed. They’d go to psychiatrists, feeling insane, and would describe it as a dream, even though in their heart they knew it was real. A secret they could tell nobody.
There were, of course, the exceptions to this.
Some people would call in to the local police or papers, which were usually run by shifters and then their stories would be quieted down by the pack. Technology had made it easier, allowing for message boards to erupt on the topic, or people to blog long descriptions of their encounters. It didn’t matter how hard they tried, the reaction would be the same. The people would be made out to be lunatics, even if they had been teachers, doctors, or other intelligent people.
Nobody ever believe them.
People didn’t want to believe that their world was wrong, that everything they thought they knew was a lie. It was like when you find out as a kid that Santa Claus is fake, a lie. But as an adult, it’s even more startling to find out wolfmen are real.
Still, he didn't want his first introduction to the pack to be that he was lazy and was spotted shifting by a human his second night in town. That was one of those things that would make a pack turn their backs on him quickly.
Anthony had grown up in a pretty modern pack, though.
His parents grew up in the pack, and their parents before them, and with every new generation, the pack grew in ideas. They no longer cared if the pack dated humans (marriage was an entirely different subject, though), and the pack was generally open to outsiders. They'd been trusting even when rumors broke out that Alphas of the proper bloodline in other packs had been getting slain. Murdered.
It had been a small pack, though.
Everyone knew everyone; the trust and ease and the feeling of family were so comfortable and natural that he was convinced until he was almost seven that all of the older pack members were actually his aunts and uncles, even though most weren't.
They wouldn't have cared if he'd been spotted.
Sure, they might have teased him for a bit – the slip up would be an embarrassing blunder, and teasing was a way to show affection – but they would have let it slide like water on wax.
Anthony had no read on this new pack, though.
No way to know how they'd react.
Anthony had gone into the Casino after her, trying to find her and talk to her. The only downside to her skimpy work uniform was that all of the other waitresses wore them, too, so spotting her proved difficult.
Sierra.
She said her name was Sierra.
He asked someone who looked like a supervisor or manager if he could speak to Sierra, said that it was important.
She gave him a weird look, and then vanished into a back room, only to come out a couple minutes later and say Sierra had already left, that she was sick. He knew that wasn't right; he could smell that the supervisor had been around her. He didn't say that, though. Instead, he nodded and headed out to his hotel room.
The guilt filled him like a pile of rocks, weighing him down into the room's sagging mattress until he wasn't sure if he was falling asleep or not. He needed to set this right.
Needed to fix the situation before anyone else found out.
Midnight started rolling closer, and something told him to go and look out his window.
He wasn't sure what the feeling was, this pulling at his heart and mind that said if he didn't do it he might regret it. He listened to this feeling, and when he looked out his window, there she was.
Her strawberry-blonde hair was down around her shoulders, crinkled in a line just below her ear from having been in a ponytail all day. She looked tired, stressed, and he could see her looking around the parking lot anxiously.
He could approach her then.
It would be easy.
Go up to her, talk to her while she's alone, and set things straight.
He didn't want to, though.
The idea of chasing after her while she was alone in a dark parking lot made him uncomfortable. He didn't want to scare her, didn't want to creep her out. He wanted to make her understand, yes, but he also found himself wanting her to like him.
The idea didn't make any sense.
He'd never had any interest in dating, especially not since he'd been found on his own. Definitely not a human in an area where he didn’t know the pack. Some packs would see it as being an absolute traitor to the blood of shifters, a complete act of sacrilege. Not a great first impression.
Still, as he watched her climb into her car and rush out of the parking lot, he felt his chest ache.
It wasn't just that she knew what he was.
It wasn't that she could get him turned down by the pack.
It was how horrible he felt when he saw pure terror in her eyes when she fled from him. The way she ran as though he was the worst beast she'd ever seen. He'd never felt this aching pain before. It was just a misunderstanding of a stranger, and yet he found himself feeling like it was more, like something worse had happened.
Laying down in his bed, feeling further from growing roots than he had that morning, Anthony started to wonder if he should just leave town and not even try.
What was the point, anyway?
He tried to fall asleep to this thought, but the idea of driving away from Sierra wracked him with a feeling he didn't want to inspect.
His dreams were of his pack again, though.
They were always of his pack.
Like a sore that you keep scratching the scab off, they were in his mind, and he couldn’t undo that. The dreams left him sweating in his sleep again, dying for a time when he wasn’t so alone.
Dying for guidance.
Chapter Eight
Even now, with her mother's mind deteriorating so much that some mornings she didn't know who she was anymore and didn't know who Sierra was, her mother was a shield from the world. Something is built into most people when they're children that their parents are there to keep them safe.
Sierra needed to feel safe.
The drive home had wrecked the last of her nerves.
A deer ran across the road ahead of her, and for a moment, Sierra thought it was the wolf and that he was following her. She wasn't sure what she'd do if it was the wolf, and she was glad she didn't need to find out. She was shaking, the vodka long, long, gone from her system. Clinging to anything familiar was all she needed.
She parted just a quick thought of happiness that the deer didn’t wreck her car a month before the lease ended. At least her night hadn’t been completely ruined. Parking inside the garage, Sierra immediately rushed to the couch where her mother was.
Every night Sierra left for work, her mother was seated right there when she got back.
She was there that night, too.
“Momma, something crazy happened,” Sierra said, her voice catching in a sob as she collapsed onto the couch against her mother, resting her head on her. The room was cold, and Sierra reminded herself quickly to close all the windows before they went to bed. Her mother had a habit of leaving windows open while Sierra was out and getting herself sick.
“What is it, Sierra?” her mother asked, wrapping her arms around her gently.
“You'll think I've lost my mind,” Sierra said, shaking her head. She was exhausted and felt insane. Here in the safety of her apartment, in the arms of her mother that anchored her to the ground, wolfmen seemed impossible.
“Tell me anyway, honey. Did something happen at school?”
Sometimes her mother lost track of time.
She could remember the who, but not the when. Sometimes the who would be lost as well, and she’d tell Sierra to get out of her own bed and leave the apartment.
Sierra realized how ridiculous it was t
hat she was worried about her mother thinking she was crazy.
“Momma, I saw a wolf turn into a man. He seemed like a normal man when I met him before…he was normal,” she said, feeling calmer just for saying it out loud. The words were crazy, but she knew her mother wouldn't judge her.
Her mother was quiet for a moment, running her hand up and down Sierra’s shoulder comfortingly. For a moment, she wondered if her mother even grasped what she’d said.
“So, you've learned our little town's secret then?” her mother asked, looking knowingly at her. Her eyes looked sharp and clear, like the fog had been wiped away.
“What?”
“Baby,” her mother said, muting the television and shifting her weight, “your dad didn't know about them, and because he was foolish in how he handled finding out, it killed him,” she said gently. Sierra's world was quiet except for her mother's voice. “This town, about ten percent of it, is full of shifters,” she explained. “They're cursed people,” she added.
“Cursed?” Sierra tried to make sense of this. Her mother could talk a lot of nonsense when her mind was worse for wear, but at this moment, she seemed to know exactly what she was talking about. It really seemed like a clear moment even though what she was saying was absolutely insane.
“Mhm, the oldest strain of them came from the Greeks,” her mother said. The television's light was the only one in the room, and it flickered across their faces like firelight, as they spoke. “A proud king, Lycaon, was happy to do anything to make his people respect and follow him. He told them all the time that Zeus would come around to test him and that he'd always turn out in favor,” she said.
“Greek gods aren't real. They're a myth,” Sierra corrected her.
“This is the story. Do you want me to tell it?”
“Yes.”
“All right then,” her mother sounded like she did when Sierra was a child. It was heartbreakingly warm and familiar. “So, one day, Zeus actually did show up in the form of a beggar. King Lycaon, sure that he was being conned by a beggar, decided he would test the god,” her mother explained. “Lycaon had a young boy, a child, a relative of his – some say his youngest of fifty sons, other say his grandson – killed,” Sierra’s stomach turned even though she knew it was probably just a myth. “He had the cooks serve this boy to Zeus as an offering to see if he'd notice,” her mother went on. The story was dark, but Sierra didn't want her mother to stop talking. She let her keep telling it.
Searching for Home (Wolves of West Valley Book 2) Page 3