The Devil's a Werewolf

by Thalia Eames

  “Do you remember me from the party, Blue?”

  She shook her head. “No, I drank tequila that night and that’s my kryptonite.”

  “That first touch is probably how you guys got into this mess,” Nox said, shrugging.

  Daz scratched his chin. “It doesn’t make sense. If I’d felt the same connection as when I first met Jules downstairs, I wouldn’t have been able to leave her alone.”

  “Who says you met, or even saw each other?” Gran said, giving Daz the side-eye. “You were a bunch of drunk idiots at a party. I don’t think anyone truly connects when they’re FUBAR wasted and seeing through a tequila haze.”

  “But— ” Daz tried to assert himself.

  If her umbrella had been anywhere nearby, Gran would’ve whacked him with it. “You’re not even acknowledging each other here. You’re looking over there.” Gran pointed southwest. “And she’s looking at her rock star.”

  “Ahh,” Lennox said. “I bet it was incidental contact. But I guess that’s all it took to light a spark.”

  “That’s a hell of a slow burner.” Garrett rubbed his wife’s lower back.

  Lennox winked up at him. “Some relationships need a catalyst to ignite.”

  A pensive look overtook Jules’s features as she tugged on her ear. “Why didn’t you show us this sooner, Nox?” She hooked the boy by the neck.

  “I was saving it for the Storytellers game we play with all our old pics,” the boy said, in one of his moments of backward logic. “You guys were so drunk I knew you wouldn’t remember what happened. I’d win a point in the bet for being the first to request the story behind the photo.” When he received open-mouthed glowers in return, Nox shrugged again. “I like to win.”

  “Good strategy, grandson!” Gran and the boy exchanged fist bumps.

  Likely because he commiserated with Daz’s sudden need to kick Nox in the ass, Garrett answered his question about why mating with Jules hadn’t cured him. “The book isn’t talking about the act of mating. It means the state of being mated.”

  Nox moved closer to his father. “Like you and Mom, Dad?”

  A deep sadness overtook Garrett’s features. He shook his head. “No, Lennox and I aren’t mated.”

  “What?” Lennox rested her hand on Garrett’s arm. “What do you mean we’re not mated? We’re one.”

  Garrett took her by the shoulders. “You’re married to the man, Elle. But you’ve rejected the wolf. He remains alone, unmated.”

  Lennox laid a hand over his heart. “Garrett, I had no idea,” she said. “Does it hurt you?”

  “What do you think?” he snarled, but brought himself quickly under control. He raised his hands. “We’re not talking about this here. Let’s take care of Jules first.”

  “Okay,” Lennox whispered quietly.

  Daz worried for the two people who’d become his friends. Lennox had no idea what she’d done and how wrong it could go if she didn’t fix it. But Daz had his own woman to worry about. Turning to her, he laid the palm of his hand on the crown of her head. His goddess was his. Things had finally worked out in his favor.

  “You hear that, Blue? Problem solved. We’ll be one for life.”

  The woman he loved gripped his wrist and wrenched his hand away from her head. “Our problems are not over, Dashiell. I’m cursed to touch only you. You’re cursed to touch only me. I don’t want that. I won’t accept a life forced on me by circumstance.”

  He didn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. Daz reached for her and she moved away. “Blue, please. I can’t live without you.”

  Jules paused, the rise and fall of her chest fast but steady. “You survived for seven months, Dashiell. You’ll survive again.” She paused as though measuring her words. “I can’t mate with you now. I can’t even stand the sight of you right now.”

  Daz steeled himself against the rush of pain more intense than any reaction to his touch aversion. If he hadn’t been trained to stay on his feet he wouldn’t have been able to remain standing.

  She hadn’t finished yet. “Garrett, I invoke a request for the protection of the LuPines wolfen pack.”

  “No, Blue. Don’t,” Daz pleaded with her.

  “Are you sure, Juliana?” Garrett asked. She nodded. Garrett echoed her. “Then you are protected.”

  “Good,” Jules said, her voice breaking with unshed tears. “Keep Dashiell Warren away from me.”

  She left them all in the attic. This time Daz couldn’t prevent it. He fell to his knees.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Why is my brother being kicked out of the house and separated from his mate?” Cash followed Garrett from the backyard into the house and through the kitchen. Daz moved silently behind them, hoping they could figure out a way to keep him in the house so he could woo his woman back.

  Garrett gritted his teeth. “Because she’s not his mate. And Jules invoked a request for protection from him. She’s family. I’m going to protect her.”

  With an uncharacteristic show of temper, Cash punched a hole through the subway tile. Garrett didn’t even flinch. “I’m family,” Cash said. “That makes my brother family.”

  “Then help him work this shit out,” Garrett roared.

  Watching the two best friends fight over him made Daz sick. These two never argued. They tag teamed people in business meetings, made fun of each other relentlessly, even played pranks on each other, but they didn’t argue. The two men had become closer than brothers. Once again Daz’s presence broke things apart.

  “Stop,” Daz said, holding up two fingers and a thumb, in his habit of taking command of a situation. “You and Garrett aren’t the problem here. I am. And I’ll find a way to fix it on my own.” That said, Daz went up to his room, packed his duffle, and headed for the front door. When he got there Cash’s bags were packed and waiting. His brother came down the stairs behind him.

  “I was just saying goodbye,” Cash said. Daz opened his mouth but Cash silenced him. “I’m with you. This time you don’t get to say no.” Daz relented and smiled. Cash echoed him. “Plus, I hooked us up with a great place to stay.”

  “Where’s that?” The brothers walked out the door together.

  “Garrett’s place. It’s about twenty minutes away.”

  Eight Months Later

  Daz and Garrett fell into a daily ritual. Daz would go over to Averdeen Manor and do everything in his power to get into the house—short of beating the shit out of somebody. He wasn’t sure he could beat Garrett, but when Garrett went away on business, Dillon and several members of the LuPines wolf pack watched the house. When the wolves couldn’t do it, the sheriff’s wild boars or deputy bear took over. What had brought a polar bear to a small North Carolina town didn’t concern Daz. The fact that he couldn’t get around the polar bear’s gigantic ass did.

  Other than Garrett, Daz knew he could take the rest of them. What he couldn’t take would be Jules’s response to him hurting her friends. He couldn’t hurt her by hurting them. So he played nice and waited Jules, Garrett, and all the other shifters out.

  On this particularly lovely August afternoon, Garrett waited for Daz on the front porch with two beers fresh out of the cooler. Daz ambled up and sat down beside his buddy, stretching his legs out in front of him.

  Daz picked up Garrett’s beer and popped the cap with his fangs. He did the same to his own beer. “How’s she doing?” he asked.

  Garrett clinked his beer to Daz’s. “She’s all right. I seem to be the only one getting tired of this standoff.”

  “You and me both.” They raised eyebrows at each other and took swigs off their beers. “How the fuck is she getting around when she goes out? I haven’t seen her once in these last few months.”

  A long exhale before Garrett said, “Those women keep me in the dark about a lot of things. I’m about at my limit with that too.” A pa
use. “I know Jules told you whatever it is that Lennox is keeping from me.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Unlike my Elle, Jules tells you everything.” Garrett’s eyes widened and he amended, “Told you everything.” He shook his head. “Shit, Daz. I’m sorry.”

  “No worries,” Daz said. “The messed-up part is she won’t let me explain why I left. I thought she understood, but it’s clear she doesn’t.”

  “That’s the thing, when your mate isn’t a shifter or has so little shifter blood it doesn’t factor in, like Jules and her honey badger heritage, she doesn’t quite get how the animal works. That it has its own needs.”

  Garrett understood Daz better than his brother did. Cash didn’t have a woman so deeply ingrained in his system that he literally breathed her. Cash kept telling him he’d live. Daz didn’t think so.

  He studied the wolf. Daz wanted to help the guy out, especially since neither of them were able to fix things for themselves at the moment. Garrett deserved to know the size and shape of the rift that had grown between him and his wife. But Daz couldn’t betray Jules’s trust and he wouldn’t risk widening the divide between him and his woman by getting involved in Garrett and Lennox’s troubles.

  On a second sidelong glance, Daz decided he might be able to help another way. “You some kind of dire wolf, Garrett?”

  The wolf laughed. “You and Jules watch way too much fantasy. I’m older and bigger than that.”

  Daz couldn’t help but chuckle. He missed his geek girl. He hadn’t watched a single anime without her. Back to the conversation at hand, he said, “I ask because you know I don’t fight anymore, right?” Garrett nodded and Daz said, “I’ve caused a lot of damage to a lot of people over the years. I can’t go back to the fight game. I miss it but I don’t want to hurt anyone. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  “I can relate,” Garrett said, his gaze on the street as Dillon’s car rode by with a honk of the horn.

  “I know you can, but do you get what I’m saying?” Daz stressed the imperative word. Garrett looked at him hard. “It’s extremely difficult to hurt someone like you,” Daz said. “Killing you isn’t within my capability.”

  A smile lit Garrett’s hard-lined face. “That’s very true.” He took another swig of beer.

  “So to borrow a phrase from my favorite animated series…” Daz paused for effect, “You can take it. Can’t you, big man?”

  Garrett leapt to his feet, excitement made his eyes flicker amber. “How do you want to do this?”

  Daz scratched his beard. “I don’t know. Let me see your wolf first.”

  Amber blazed across Garrett’s eyes. He glanced around, making sure no one watched them. Noting they were in the clear, Garrett stripped. Then his body shimmered, stretched, and kept stretching. After a full shift, a prehistoric wolf stood in front of Daz. Daz blinked a few times. “Hey buddy,” he said. “How do you feel about fangs, fists, claws. No full shifts?”

  The wolf laughed as it transformed back into a man. Daz barely let Garrett get his clothes on before he punched him in the head. And it was on.

  The werewolf and the wolverine brawled through the woods, across Staunton Bridge, and all the way through town. Dillon put a call out to all his fellow fight lovers and bets were placed. Some people bet on the stronger bloodline and therefore Garrett would win out, others bet on skills and picked Daz to take the win.

  If they’d only known neither man had any intentions of taking victory. They fought because they’d finally found someone they could cut loose with and not have to worry about the consequences. With Daz, Garrett could release his wolf from his cage and let him flex his muscles. With Garrett, Daz allowed himself to lose control with no guilt about the damage he might do.

  They fought for hours, with a huge crowd of townsfolk cheering them on. Around 9:00 p.m. they stopped, mostly because neither of them could lift their arms. Also, because they’d reached a local bar with a half-price beer sign in the window. Garrett threw his arm around Daz’s neck, and looked slightly perplexed when the wolverine didn’t flinch away.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to help you.” Garrett swayed and threw a fist in the air. “And since we’re both punch drunk we might as well get shit faced. Beers on me!”

  The crowd cheered. A wave of them swept Garrett and Daz into the bar, where they got drunk together for the first time and firmly sealed their friendship.

  At approximately thirteen minutes after 3:00 a.m., Dashiell Warren and Garrett Westlake rolled themselves out of a big black food truck, with the words Cinema Bites painted across one side, and staggered onto the front lawn of Averdeen Manor. The food truck’s owner, a beautifully curvy woman of Arabic descent named Mala, gave them two thumbs up and reached through the window to pat the movie screen mounted to the opposite side of her vehicle. “I’m ready when you guys are,” she said, repositioning her glasses and smiling. She glanced at Daz, “Garrett’s movie locations keep me in business and it’s fun showing movies to filmmakers while keeping them fed. Any time he needs a favor I’m here for him.”

  Garrett gave her a drunken thumbs-sideways and turned to face the manor. “Woman of the house,” he bellowed. “Woman of the house, get out here.”

  A window blew open. “Garrett, hush,” Lennox said.

  “Listen up, Lennox Anjali Averdeen. This man wants to see his woman and we’re going to help him.” Daz noted Garrett’s skills—most drunk men didn’t articulate this well.

  “Shh, Garrett. Jules is sleeping and so is Gran.”

  “I’m not asleep anymore, Lennox.” Jules’s outline appeared in another window, her face draped in shadow.

  “Start it up, Mala,” Garrett said.

  Mala flipped a switch inside her food truck and a light flickered across the screen on the outside of it. A girl with long copper braids appeared on video. “I’m Octavia,” she said, “and I’m a Dazzler who totally digs Daz and Jules.” She paused. “Hey, Jules, if you ever have another problem with anti-fans and I’m around, I’ve got your back.”

  A guy with hot pink hair and lots of tattoos appeared next. “I’m Ben, I’m a Dazzler and I want to buy Daz a beer for getting a woman like Jules. If Daz ever messes up, message me, girl.”

  The videos kept coming, more and more images of fans who wanted Jules to know they supported her relationship with Daz. Then the screen divided into four Dazzlers with kind words for Daz and Jules. Then eight. Then sixteen, thirty-two and on and on until there were too many to count.

  Daz glanced upward at the window where Jules quietly watched. He knew the video was beautiful. He didn’t need to be told that. His subscribers had done good work and he’d worked hard not to cry while editing it. Of course, he hadn’t been sure if he’d get the chance to show Jules the video. But Garrett was very persuasive when he was drunk. Or maybe Daz was easily persuaded when drunk. Either way, Daz hoped he and his subscribers’ efforts would be enough to convince Jules to come back to him.

  As he waited, even in the dim light, he saw a glistening trail of tears on his woman’s face. Daz took that as his cue. “I want to be your mate, Blue. I’m sure I’m the man you need now. I’ll put my everything on that.”

  Tears made her voice crack when Jules said, “Not yet, Dashiell. I need more time. Give me a little more time.” Without another word she disappeared into the darkness of the house. Daz reached for her but he stood too far away.

  Garrett, who still had his arm wrapped around Daz’s neck, swayed and since Daz wasn’t too steady on his own feet, he swayed with him. He and the big wolf found their shared balance and Daz said, “It doesn’t have to be tonight, Blue. I’ll wait for you.”

  A huge clawed hand slashed through the air. “But tonight would be nice, though,” Garrett yelled out.

  “It’d be real nice,” Daz repeated.

  Lennox’s left eye got all twitchy an
d Daz feared for both his and the wolf’s life. “She said ‘not yet’. She needs more time, so let’s all go to bed and leave it for another night.”

  “You can tell him to wait all you want, Leni, but he considers her his and he’s not going to stop until he sees her.” Garrett sat down and took Daz with him. “I wouldn’t let anyone stop me from getting to you.”

  “Hold on.” Lennox closed the window and opened the door a few seconds later. She wore a pinstriped men’s dress shirt with an ink stain on it, and she had perfect legs. Perfect like, could be insured for millions of dollars legs. Daz gave Garrett two thumbs up. Garrett elbowed him in the face.

  Lennox came to stand in front of them. “Daz, are you sure you’re just not obsessed with Jules because she’s the only woman you can touch?”

  Daz glanced down at the huge wolf arm, now crushing his windpipe. Fighting for breath, Daz nodded once, hard and fast.

  “So if I tell you she’s fine will you take my word for it?”

  Daz growled and ran his claws across Garrett’s arm. The wolf howled but let him go. “Hell no,” he answered the question.

  Garrett moved between them and snarled. “Easy.”

  Daz leashed a bit of his annoyance. “No, Lennox. I won’t take your word for it. I need to see her.”

  Lennox stepped around Garrett. “What if Cash told you she’s all right?”

  “I’d believe him. But I’d still need to see for myself.”

  “You won’t take anyone’s word for it, will you?”

  “No,” Daz nearly growled but checked himself. He liked Lennox, damn it. She was an amazing mom and an equally wonderful friend. If he ever had to trust someone to watch Jules’s back it’d be Lennox or his brother. Of course Garrett came with that package. He didn’t mean to growl at her. It was just how much she reminded him of his foster mother and the fact he wasn’t good enough to keep.