by Sy Walker
Danny sputtered an attempted explanation, but Walker cut him off, “You spent the last fifteen years busting me down and running me out because I was a threat to your title. Oh, you motherfucker. You are good.” Walker smiled and wagged a finger at Danny.
“Tell you what. All will be forgiven if you just hit the floor and pledge your unwavering loyalty to me.” Something in the room had changed just then. I looked at the faces of the other men in the bar. Most were focused on Walker, some were on Danny waiting for him to do something, and a few were scrutinizing me for signs that Walker’s claim was true.
Danny made a move that caught my eye. He shed his jacket and dropped to all fours on the floor in front of Walker. His skin rippled and popped. In a blink a grizzled wolf was lying where Danny used to be. Walker followed suit and turned into the most gorgeous sable wolf I had ever seen. Danny had rolled over onto his back, exposing his belly in a posture of submission. While staring into the face of the older wolf he put one paw on his rivals belly and growled.
I rubbed my eyes thinking they had suddenly gone bad. There was no way the two arguing men had just turned into animals. I looked around the room for the reactions of the others and while being glued to the story unfolding, none of them looked shocked.
Oh wow. Walker was telling the truth. As hard as my brain tried to rationalize what just happened, it couldn’t. There was no rational explanation for what just happened other than it was something supernatural, which is batshit crazy.
Now my life had gotten tangled up in it and I didn’t know what to do. I splayed a hand over my belly, what would become of my babies? If the realization that Walker was telling the truth and shifted in front of me was the warm up punch, then the realization that my little babies could be just like him was the knockout punch. I felt woozy and had to sit down.
I stuck my head between my knees and closed my eyes. My breathing was ragged and labored despite my best effort to calm it. The insanity was too much.
“Lyla are you okay? Do you need anything?” I could hear Walker’s voice, but he sounded fuzzy and far away. I shook my head in response. I didn’t want to answer him, not just yet.
He bundled me into his arms where I finally broke down and wept. I just let him hold me there until his t-shirt was soaked and I was dried out.
“Lyla, is there anything I can do to help?” Walker murmured.
“Yes. Take me home.”
Walker laid me down on my old threadbare couch. His concern for me was touching and warmed some of the icy feelings I felt for him in that moment. I had rolled over to keep my back to him. I just couldn’t look at him. He had told me the truth and yet I still felt betrayed somehow.
“Lyla. Talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Honestly, you’re freaking me the fuck out.” I could hear the anxiety in Walker’s voice, but I still wrestled with how to handle this. I could let him know how I was feeling, but there was that other side that hoped if I ignored him he would just go away.
I decided to talk to him. I rolled over and looked Walker square in the eye, he has to understand what I just went through. “You turned into a dog! I watched you drop on all fours and sprout fur. What I believed to be reality has been dashed to pieces so you’ll have to excuse me for being less than chatty.”
Walker grabbed my hand and stroked my fingers. “You have every right to feel that way. If the roles had been reversed I would probably feel the same. If you want me to go, I will.”
I sighed and sat up. “No. Don’t go. I’ll come to terms with it. I want you to stay with me.” I placed his hand over my still flat belly. “Our babies need you. I’m shaken, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you, Walker.”
He freed his hand and slid his arm around my waist, pulling me to the edge of the cushions. “Oh? And how do you feel about me?”
I leaned in almost close enough for our lips to brush. “I need you, Walker. I can’t imagine my life without you.” I was dangerously close to uttering the L-word, but had to proceed with caution. The goal was to keep him around, not to run him off.
Walker stroked my face and grasped my neck. “I love you, Lyla. I’ll give you all the time you need to get used to my life, but I have to have you as a part of it.”
I was elated to hear those words. “Say it again.” I whispered.
“I love you, Lyla.”
I lost myself and kissed him with all of the passion and love I had coursing through my body. This tough, strange, and special man loved me. He came out of nowhere and the one-night stand he was supposed to be was stretching into forever. It would take time to get used to the wolfy thing, but I loved him and in time would not only come to accept it, but embrace it as well.
THE END RETURN TO TOC
IMPRINTED TO THE BEAR
The front door of the Zydeco Bar and Grille opened squeakily, and four biker guys came inside. Vicky Roberts looked up from her place behind the bar. She had short brown hair, large blue eyes, and freckles that ran across the bridge of her nose. She liked to keep her hair up in a half ponytail when she was working, so it would stay out of her face. The neon yellow t-shirt that featured the venue’s jazz-inspired logo clung to her body, revealing her curves more than she would have liked, but hey, it was a living.
Like most waitresses, she had taken up this living so she could pursue bigger and better things.
She finished topping off a costumer’s pint of beer and then went over to the newcomers’ table. “Welcome to Zydeco. I’m Vicky. What can I get for you?” She made sure to look at each of the guys so that they all felt cared for. That was one of the tricks of the trade.
She managed to notice that one of them was particularly handsome. She’d have to watch out for that one, she thought.
After taking their orders, she went back to get their requested drinks. The handsome biker was paying a lot of attention to her as well, frequently looking over as she worked at other tables.
Once Vicky finally got a break during a lull, the attractive biker went up to her at the bar. “Hey,” he said, flashing a perfect smile at her and giving a nod. “How’s it going?”
She did not know what she’d done to deserve his attention. “Fine,” she replied, looking at him and trying not to seem too eager to talk to him, or too standoffish. There was a fine line. “How are you? Are you in a motorcycle club or something?”
He seemed taken aback by the fact that she had drawn that conclusion. It was not exactly a difficult conclusion to reach. “We are, as a matter of fact. NOLA Ours, at your service.”
“And you’re their…publicist?” Vicky asked, raising an eyebrow.
Chuckling, he shrugged and then nodded a little. “Sure, if you want. I’m technically the VP, though you’d never know that by the way these assholes talk to me.”
She smiled at him. She could tell that he was joking. Mostly. “What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Amos Steele,” he readily replied. “And you’re Vicky.”
Still smiling, she nodded. “Yup. Right you are.”
He sat on a stool at the bar, and she knew that he had no plans to go back with his friends any time soon. Maybe he was not totally kidding about them being assholes. Or maybe she was that alluring; in her ridiculous shirt and with her face glistening from sweat. New Orleans was no place to have an AC on the fritz. And the Zydeco AC had been on the fritz for more than a week.
It might have been grounds for Vicky to quit, if she didn’t need the money so badly.
“What’s your last name?” he asked with curious eyes, resting his chin against his fists.
Maybe it was the heat in there, or maybe it was the flattery of the situation, but Vicky’s face turned hot as he looked at her that way and asked such a thing. She couldn’t tell now if he was just being friendly, or if he was planning to stalk her later. “Roberts,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him slightly.
“Roberts,” Amos repeated as though it was a new name he’d never heard befo
re, and not a name that was fairly common everywhere. “And where were you born?” he asked. “I can tell you’re not from around here. Your accent is different.”
Smiling, impressed, Vicky nodded. “You have a good ear.”
Amos laughed. “The N’awlans accent is just thick,” he said, making sure to add a bit of the twang to his speech for effect. “So where are you from? If I had to guess, I’d say… Boston?”
She grinned at him. “Just outside,” she replied. “Very good. It’s kind of scary how perceptive you are.”
Although Vicky was dazzled by this guy, she was starting to worry that he might try and become a distraction for her. The last thing she really needed was a distraction from her schoolwork…
“Are your parents still in Boston?” he asked curiously. “Do you go back there regularly?”
At that she had to shake her head. “No, actually. My parents died when I was a baby. I was in foster care, all of my childhood. But I don’t exactly consider that family.”
Now she definitely wanted to pull away.
“Are you off tomorrow?” Amos Steele asked her then. “Could I see you again?”
Vicky shook her head. “No, I can’t. I have class.”
“What class?”
This guy did not know when to stop. She found him attractive and interesting, although his interrogation was scaring her a little now. “I’m sorry; I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you around, Amos.”
She gave him another small smile as a parting gift, and then went to go check on one of her tables. They did not really need anything, but she needed them as an excuse to get away. The handsome biker intrigued her, and she would not have minded seeing him again, but his questions had started to feel intense. Vicky felt like she was going crazy from the heat and the stress of the day. She could have sworn Amos Steele’s eyes had briefly glowed gold while he talked to her…
As soon as she was off work that night, Vicky carefully walked the short walk from the bar to her apartment building. She had lucked out in getting a place that was so conveniently close to her work, but that convenience came with a rent that could not continue to be paid by tips alone.
It’s temporary, she reminded herself. It’s all just temporary.
Once she was safely inside her place, she took off her shorts and the neon shirt, and replaced them with a long, loose t-shirt that served as a pajama top. Vicky let her hair down and gave it a good brushing before brushing her teeth. It was twenty minutes til midnight, and she had class the following morning. At least it was not until eleven a.m., but waking up was hard to do when work made her a night owl.
Settling into bed, Vicky wondered if she was going to have those weird dreams about bears. She’d been having recurring bear dreams for as long as she could remember. Sometimes, they were just dreams. Other times, they were nightmares. She did not know why these dreams happened to her. She’d never seen an actual bear in her life. Then again, she did not have memories of when she was very small. Perhaps she had been taken to see bears at the zoo once when she was tiny.
That was the only explanation she could think of.
Sure enough, as she finally drifted off to sleep, she had visions of walking through a forest of spindly trees, and stepping into a circle of bears that seemed to bow to her. Their eyes had a golden glow, and when she looked into them her body was illuminated with warmth.
When her alarm went off at nine thirty the next morning, Vicky did not feel like getting up. To be fair, she never did. She once had an ex-boyfriend who always teased her about how excessive she was with sleep. That could not happen anymore though. She threw off her sheets and stumbled, shivering, into the bathroom to wash her face.
With a shower and some cereal in her, she was ready to go to her art class at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. That class was the reason for her move there from Boston. She’d received a scholarship and couldn’t pass up the chance. Art continued to make her life better, and help erase the emptiness of her past.
She took a taxi to the building, and arrived in class ten minutes early. Vicky was not really a stickler for being on time or early, except when it came to this class. She placed her bag on her desk, carefully pulling out her sketchbook and pencils in order to give her project one last check before it had to be turned in.
Right as the professor came in and was setting up to begin, a newcomer arrived in the classroom. He was tall and attractive, with an angular face, light blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He wore a dark blue hoodie and jeans. Noticing that the chair beside Vicky was empty, he came over and sat down beside her.
“Hey,” he said under his breath. “What’s up?”
Vicky smiled. She was still getting over the hot guy from last night and now this dreamboat was giving her attention. Were the planets aligned? Was this a sign that something bad was going to happen to her soon?
She was not what one would call an optimistic person. Life had been shitting on her so long that she thought any bit of something good was going to immediately be followed by something insurmountably terrible.
Please don’t let this mean I’m going to flunk this class.
One of the main reasons she’d declined biker boy’s offer last night was because she did not want a distraction from her art work. But how was she going to avoid that now, with hot hoodie boy sitting right there beside her all throughout class??
The professor announced that it was time to pass in their first sketch projects. Vicky carefully tore hers out of her sketchbook and passed it up. Hoodie boy lowered his head guiltily, running his long fingers along the edge of their shared grey desk.
“It’s okay,” Vicky found herself saying to him. “You’re new. I doubt it will matter in the final grade.”
She did not know what had possessed her to speak up like that. But he raised his head and looked at her, smiling slightly roguishly. “The thing about it is, I was told about it but I still didn’t do it.”
Vicky shrugged. “Like I said. It won’t matter, so long as you do the other projects.”
He continued to look at her, appraising her, memorizing every detail of her face, apparently. “I’m Stuart,” he said, offering his hand. “Stuart Barkley.”
She blinked at him and took his hand, shaking it a little before releasing. “Vicky Roberts,” she replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Once their introductions were over, the class settled in to the day’s lesson on shading. They were given an assignment to draw a still life and be sure to focus on shadows so that they would utilize the shading practices she taught them.
“Honestly, she teaches like we’re all novices at this,” Stuart said under his breath again.
Vicky giggled softly.
As she drew a detailed rendering of her art supplies as they lay on her desk, careful to shade one side of her pencil case and not the other, she glanced over and saw that Stuart was drawing her in profile.
She blushed, flattered and not knowing what to say. Should she even say anything? It would more than likely ruin the moment.
Instead of letting the subject matter of his drawing overpower her feelings, Vicky admired his technique. When Stuart first came into the classroom, without his project and acting like the typical lazy guy she’d known while she was an undergrad, she assumed that he would not be so skilled. Then she remembered that this was a prestigious program and she was not the only one there who’d earned their place in the classroom.
This drawing of his proved that to her. Stuart was not only painfully attractive, he was also very talented. Maybe it would not be so bad if he distracted Vicky after all. He could distract her and inspire her at the same time.
When class was over for the day and Vicky packed up her things, Stuart placed his small sketch pad back into the front pocket of his hoodie. “What do you do for fun around here?” he asked. “You seem to have your shit together more than I do.”
She smiled at him. She could tell that he was a transplant from some other
state, like she was. Amos had helped her be more attuned to that, not that it mattered to her where a person was from. “I wouldn’t call it fun, but I work at a bar nearby called Zydeco,” she told him. “I work there most nights to pay for this school.”
Stuart nodded, appearing thoughtful when she mentioned the bar’s name. “That’s a dangerous place. I’ve heard it’s mostly visited by bikers and thugs.”
Vicky shrugged a little. “Aren’t most bars like that?”
“Do you like to go hiking?” he asked, changing the subject. “We should go hiking outside the city one of these days. There’s more to Louisiana than bars and art and jazz.”
“Oh, really?” she joked. “That’s not what my travel book said.”
That made Stuart smile. He seemed like a cool guy. A little over-cautious, but cool. She couldn’t blame him for being wary of the bar. After all, he had a point. The place was crawling with unsavory types, try as her boss might to keep them out.
“I’m free all day two days from now,” Vicky said. “You can pick me up here.” She pulled her sketchbook out of her bag and sacrificed a corner of one page to writing down the address of Zydeco. She did not want to give out her home address to anyone just yet. Stranger danger, all that stuff. She tore the corner off and handed it to Stuart. The rest of that ripped page could be used as a draft page, she thought.
Stuart took the paper and neatly folded it before placing it into the front pouch of his hoodie as well. “Thanks,” he said. “What time will be good for you?”
“Afternoon?” she replied. “We can solidify the plan closer to the day?”
“So… tomorrow?” he asked, smiling at her.
She smiled back. “Tomorrow.”
CHAPTER TWO
Everybody’s Staring
Vicky had a few hours between her class and her shift. She took advantage of the free time by sleeping as soon as she got home. She would need to be well-rested if she had any hope of working from four to midnight. Sometimes she wondered why she had ever agreed to eight hours of the late night shift ‘whenever available.’ But then she remembered her rent plus utilities plus left over tuition that the scholarship didn’t cover, and she felt like crying.