“Why?”
“I asked around. Found out where my blushing groom-to-be works. I wanted to have a word with him, get to know him a bit.”
“You’re going to kick his ass, aren’t you?”
I gave the receiver a shocked look, as if Riva could see me. “No. I’m going to talk to him. Explain that we’re doing this to prevent all-out war. That it’s going to be nothing more than another marriage of convenience, like Mom and Dad are supposed to have.”
“Your mom and dad go at it all the time.”
“Trust me, I’m well aware. I could hear them last night. Good thing I wasn’t getting any sleep anyway. Guess werewolves get a bit randy around the full moon.”
“So what makes you think that your new husband won’t want to show you the meat in a Jerry and Tamara sandwich?”
Ugh. “Thanks for making me almost throw up in my mouth.”
“Fine. Bad joke. But seriously.”
“I’m going to tell him that’s the way it’s going to be, and that if he wants to see other people, it’ll be fine by me. I have to go through with this because otherwise Craig is going to freak the fuck out.” I left out the part where he’d descend upon the town and tear everyone in it limb from limb. That was one tidbit I hadn’t shared with anyone outside of my family. “But that’s it. There’s no love here, and there’s definitely no physical attraction. That means we hold hands and look like a nice werewolf couple on paper, nothing more.”
“Think it’ll work?”
“It has to work, because that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“What if he tries to go all...”
I knew where she was going, so I cut her off at the pass. “Let me guess, decides to go all doggie style on me?”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
“Bite me. Fortunately, I’m not exactly a damsel in distress. If Jerry decides to get grabby, then he and my fists are going to have a long discussion about it.”
Riva was silent for several seconds before speaking again. “Gotta say, this isn’t much of a plan.”
“I know, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
That was the big question right there, wasn’t it? Sadly, I didn’t have any answer other than false confidence. “It will. I have an ace up my sleeve.” Now if I could only figure out what that ace was...
“All right, but If you need me, I’m there for you.”
Despite knowing she couldn’t see me, I smiled. God, she was a good friend. If there was one person I needed in this world right now, it was her. But tonight was something I had to do on my own. I couldn’t risk it otherwise. “Thanks, I mean it. But I need to do this and you need to stay inside tonight. It’s not only a full moon, it’s a blood moon. According to my parents those are rare and ... weird.”
“Define weird.”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t say much, just that it’s sacred for both sides and ... again, weird. Not sure what that means, but I have a feeling the wolves are going to be a bit more wild tonight than usual.”
That was only a guess on my part, but it seemed logical, more so because I could kind of feel it myself. I couldn’t explain it, but somehow I was certain I felt the pull of the moon. It was like a low hum reverberating in my bones. Maybe it was just nerves, but I didn’t think so. And it made sense in a way. I was half-werewolf, after all, so it should stand to reason that at least some of their rules applied to me.
But that was probably the least of my worries.
For now, I was on my own. Dad would be at the “ceremony” later, but he’d almost certainly be wolfed out. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since early this morning. For all I knew, he was already here in Morganberg, out in the woods somewhere.
As for Mom, she’d mentioned something about heading west to Crescentwood, pretty much the witch equivalent to Morganberg – its sister town, if those sisters hated each other. Chances were she had her own stuff to do with her people tonight. But witches and warlocks were a concern for another time. For now, I had a small army of werewolves to keep from descending upon High Moon and tearing it to shreds.
“The wolves are going to be even crazier than last month?” Riva asked with an audible shudder to her voice, no doubt remembering our harrowing encounter in the hollows. “And yet you’re driving there to marry one of them?”
“Not my first choice.”
“Let me guess, your only choice?”
“Something like that. Anyway, I’m almost there, Riva. Let me get going.”
“Be careful, Bent.”
“I will.”
“Oh, and try to look beautiful.”
“Why?”
“It is your wedding, after all.”
I let out a laugh. “I’ll take pictures. I’m sure you and the Weekly World News will both get a kick out of them.”
Riva and I said our goodbyes and then I reluctantly hung up. I didn’t want to, but I needed to get my head in the game, steel myself for whatever was to come. Besides, I had also just pulled into the parking lot of my husband-to-be’s place of employment: Shop Haven. There, Jerry Sandwich – werewolf, Compound W aficionado, and aspiring bridegroom – held the awe-inspiring title of stock boy.
And yet Mom dared to berate me for dating a grease monkey.
♦ ♦ ♦
It felt like all eyes were on me as I stepped into the supermarket. It’s quite possible they were. For all I knew, the entire town was populated by fucking werewolves. It was probably something I should have asked Dad when I had the chance but, at the time, demographics didn’t seem like an important detail.
I walked down the produce aisle, glancing at people as I went and feeling like an unwanted outsider, as if shopping for celery was punishable by death. One sour-faced old lady in particular made eye contact and gave me a look that was full of daggers.
Rather than back down, a sign of weakness in any dog pack – or so I had heard – I approached her and stepped up to the challenge.
“Chill, grandma. It’s okay for me to be here. Craig gave me permission.”
She stared back at me, her scowl growing. “Who the hell is Craig?”
Huh? “You know – Craig. Alpha werewolf. Leader of the pack?”
She blinked several times, then patted me on the arm. “Dear, take the advice of someone who’s been there. Don’t do drugs. They’ll just screw up your life.”
With that, she stepped past me and proceeded to scowl at the price of Brussels sprouts.
Okay, so much for the entire town howling at the moon tonight. I made a mental note to not make a complete ass of myself and continued on.
I passed aisle after aisle, most of them full of shoppers or bored-looking employees, but so far, no wart-riddled fiancés to be seen. I was just starting to wonder if he’d maybe taken the afternoon off when I turned a corner and saw Jerry down on one knee, as if he were proposing ... to the rack of potato chips in front of him. And they say romance is dead.
Oh well, nothing was going to get accomplished watching him debate whether Lays or Wise got prominent placement on the shelf. I strolled up to him as casually as I could and stood there for several seconds before finally saying, “Hey.”
“I’ll be with you in a moment, miss. I’m...” Jerry turned toward me and the color drained from his face.
Jeez, the lipstick I was wearing wasn’t my favorite shade, but it wasn’t that bad.
“You?” he said, backing up a step on his knees. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to...”
Hmm, quite the nervous Nelly when he didn’t have his friends around. Something to remember. “Relax, Jer. I’m not here for a rumble in the snack lane. I just came to talk. I figured maybe with, you know, us getting married tonight, it might not be a bad idea.”
“You shouldn’t...” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re not supposed to be in Morganberg. You know this.”
“Craig gave me permission.”
“T
hat was for tonight.”
“He should have been more specific then. But who cares? I’m here now and so are you.”
“I’m working.”
“Duh.”
“I’m not supposed to fraternize with the customers.”
Fraternize with the...
I decided to ignore that and concentrate on what I’d come here to say. If anything, it seemed like the ideal time. For starters, Jerry came across much different than last time I’d met him, which had been the only time I’d met him. Second, for a guy who could turn into a murderous wolf beast at will, he sure seemed to be overly nervous about being docked a few minutes on his paystub. “Not even with your bride-to-be?” Ugh, I could have gagged on those words. “Like I said, I’m just here to talk.”
Seeing that I wasn’t leaving and his chips weren’t getting sorted so long as I was there, he finally nodded. “Fine, but not now. I get off in an hour.”
I debated continuing to talk to him regardless of how much work he had, but then realized that would make me an asshole for asshole’s sake. I wanted this conversation to go smoothly, and that wasn’t going to happen if I was purposely needling him. Besides, there was still time. It was already afternoon, and we’d be pushing toward late afternoon by then, but there was plenty of daylight left for us to hash out the details of what wouldn’t be happening during our wedding night.
“I’ll be waiting out front,” I said at last. “Don’t make me come looking for you again.”
I really hadn’t meant that as a threat, but it came out sounding like one and I didn’t bother to correct myself. I simply patted him on the shoulder and walked past. It wasn’t my plan to lead off with violence, but so long as Jerry remembered that was an option, then maybe it wasn’t a bad thing.
Fortunately, it was a nice day - cool for late summer, but with a clear sky. I’d brought a jacket for later but, for now, it sat on my lap. Had it been warmer, it wouldn’t have been a bad day to get some sunbathing in, but I was kind of glad it wasn’t. Working on my tan wasn’t really at the top of my priority list anyway.
I spent the time checking Facebook and people watching, catching enough angry stares to tell me that either Morganberg was home to some pretty cranky people or that not all of the clientele of Shop Haven were fully human.
Finally, I looked up and spotted Jerry stepping out of the store. He looked in the opposite direction first, didn’t see me, and his body visibly relaxed. Nuh uh, Mr. Sandwich. It’s not going to be that easy.
He turned in my direction and I made it a point to wave at him, enjoying the way his face fell. Mind you, if this was how he was going to act during our years of marital bliss, then maybe I didn’t have much to worry about. Safe to say, Jerry wasn’t anywhere close to being an alpha dog.
I walked up to him with a friendly grin on my face. No point in starting this off on the wrong foot. “How was your shift?”
“So ... what do you want?” he asked, his head scanning the parking lot as if he was afraid of us being seen together.
Fine, right to the point it is then. “What do I want? We’re getting married in a few hours. Your boss’s idea, not mine.” No, it was wrong to start off by pointing fingers. “Anyway, I was hoping maybe we could find a quiet spot to talk.”
“About what?”
Dear God, this guy couldn’t be this dense, could he? Hell, so far he made Gary look like a PhD candidate by comparison. “About us, genius. Call me crazy, but I kind of want to ... know what I’m getting into. I mean, you do realize that once we’re married we’re going to have to talk, right?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess. But afterwards ... it’ll be different.”
That was an understatement. I’d be Mrs. Tamara Sandwich. No way was I living that down once I got back to school. I had already resigned myself to the fact that there would be lots of sandwich jokes thrown about, followed by lots of fat lips. “Is there somewhere we could talk? A park, your place?” Ugh! “I mean, I drove over so...”
“You have a car? Neat!”
Really? That’s what excited him? I glanced toward Shop Haven, noting the attached liquor store next to it. Just a few more years and I’d be legally able to walk in, buy whatever the hell I wanted, and drink until conversations like this were nothing more than a blurry memory. But for now... “Yeah, I do. So how about...”
“We can’t go back to my place.”
“Okay, that’s...”
“My mom doesn’t like the idea of me getting married. She heard what you did and she’s kinda mad at Craig. Thinks you’re possessed by demons.”
Wonderful. A mother-in-law who didn’t think I was good enough for her little shelf stocker. The holidays were bound to be a blast. “Fine. Then where?”
He thought for a moment, his face going blank as if he didn’t have enough horsepower upstairs to think and chew gum. After several seconds, he lifted a finger and pointed.
“Okay, north. Good. What’s there?”
“The hollows. Craig wants us all in the woods early tonight. Big ceremony and all that.”
“Our wedding?”
“The blood moon.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Maybe we can talk on the way. There’s this clearing along the path. That would be a good place to chat. Also, it’s like halfway there, in case we go long.”
I couldn’t help but notice that when he started talking about the woods, he suddenly became a lot more loquacious. Maybe that was somewhere he felt safe, in control. Or maybe it was the wolf inside of him talking, being that in a few short hours there’d be a lunar event that was the supernatural equivalent of Christmas, if a bit rarer. That might have been it. Heck, the later it got, the more I felt that strange buzzing in my bones, an anxiousness as if I’d just guzzled a quart of Mountain Dew.
Regardless, for the first time since I’d found him, he seemed somewhat at ease. At the very least, it would make for a better conversation if he was able to give me more than one word answers.
It wasn’t lost upon me that the hollows were wolf territory, his pack’s backyard so to speak. He was essentially granting me an audience, but only if I gave him home field advantage.
And he’d have it, too. Just the thought of the hollows sent a small shiver down my spine. Despite everything, the events from last month had still scared the crap out of me. More than once I’d woken up in a cold sweat, unable to get it out of my head.
Fuck! It wasn’t like I could avoid the woods later anyway. At least this way I wouldn’t get lost trying to find where I was supposed to be going. It’s not like Craig or even my own dad had given me precise directions.
“All right. Let’s do this.”
Perhaps a poor choice of words, but it was time to put this puppy to bed – before the puppy I was walking with tried to get me into his.
CHAPTER 23
To my surprise, a few of the leaves were already changing colors. Looked like it was going to be an early fall. Mind you, not that it mattered to me since school would be in by then.
Still, the walk wasn’t a bad one. The scenery itself was gorgeous. Had I been on an actual date, with someone I actually wanted to be with, this would have had some serious romantic potential ... if we’d been anywhere but the hollows.
Ah, but romance, or the lack thereof, was precisely what I’d come here to discuss with Jerry.
Pity that sentiment appeared to be one-sided.
He abruptly steered me off the trail, one of his warty mitts grabbing my bare arm. Eww! My pulse raced, but it had less to do with him and more to do with the growing shadows of the forest.
We walked for a bit through overgrown scrub grass, climbed over roots, and ducked below branches. Finally, just about when I was sure we were hopelessly lost, we stepped past some bushes into a clearing and my breath immediately caught in my throat.
I didn’t know what it was, but that humming in my bones seemed to increase tenfold. It was ... it’s hard to describe, but it was like this pl
ace had a voice all its own. Strange, because while it looked pleasant enough, there wasn’t anything that seemed to make it otherwise stand out. I mean, it was just a clearing in the woods, maybe thirty feet across. It was circular, almost close to being a perfect circle from my vantage point, but that wasn’t anything to write home about. As for the view ... you guessed it, trees.
Regardless, for a moment it made me completely forget that we were in the hollows.
“You like this place?” Jerry walked to the middle of the glade. There, he closed his eyes and began to turn in a slow circle as if in ecstasy. Weird, but whatever. I couldn’t lie and say I didn’t feel something, some energy or force from this place. But I was there to talk, not bask in the glow of nature or some other hippy shit. If he was hoping to win me over by sheer virtue of a nice picnic spot, he had another thing coming.
I walked toward him, then stopped and spun back around, certain that I’d heard someone whispering. The hairs on my arm stood up, but then I realized it was nothing more than the breeze blowing through this place. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. I’d only been in this clearing for about two minutes and already my opinion of it was rapidly changing from enchanted to creepy as fuck all.
“Magical, isn’t it?” Jerry said. “My mom used to call spots like this Groves of the Valkyries. She said they were sacred places where the walls between us and the old gods were thinnest.”
“Sacred, eh?” I couldn’t help but notice Jerry’s tone had changed. He wasn’t quite back to being the prick he’d appeared to be at my home, but he was a long way from answering in monosyllable. It was hard to tell if it was really this grove or the added confidence of being in the woods and knowing his pack mates were near. Still, this was what I had hoped for, a back and forth conversation, not a one-sided debate with someone who was semi-comatose. “So ... is this where it’s going to happen?”
“Where what’s going to happen?”
Get Bent! (The Hybrid of High Moon Book 1) Page 16