Switching Hour

by Robyn Peterman

  I was silent as I shoved more cookie dough in my mouth and wondered why I felt like crying. Naked Dude sat silently and watched.

  In my weirdly magnanimous mood, I offered him some dough off my saliva fork and he gratefully accepted. I watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed the sugar and spit. Dropping my head into my hands, I groaned.

  "You're not playing fair. All that stuff about poop and pee and puke is kind of beautifully horrifying," I mumbled through my fingers.

  "I know. I'm good that way," Dude said with a gentle smile. "I missed a lot, Zelda. I can't make up for not being there for you, and I can't say I want to slurp spit on a regular basis, but I would die for you. I fell in love with you the very first day you found me in the dumpster."

  "You were kind of hard to avoid," I said as I remembered trying like hell to keep walking past the pitiful mewing on that fated day.

  For some unknown reason I had stopped and peeked. He was the most mangy and stinky little fur ball of a cat I'd ever seen. I was repulsed by him, but shockingly it didn't stop me from saving his feline ass.

  Of course, I have regretted it daily during the two years he followed me around like a deranged shadow and drove me nuts. But now it at least made more sense. I suppose I'd seen myself in the odiferous dumpster diver… starved for affection and totally alone.

  Introspective though was not my forte, so I shoved that profound little nugget to the recesses of my brain. This getting to know you crap was becoming messy. I didn't do messy. However, there were some things I wanted to know.

  "Did you love my mom?" I asked.

  It was a question I'd always pondered. My mom was not very lovable. I loved her—kind of. It was more of a perfunctory thing. All creatures were supposed to love their mothers. However, if the mother didn't love the creature back it became an exercise in futility and a need for therapy as an adult.

  Naked Dude put his elbows on the table and put his chin on his palms as he clearly fought for a way to tell me he didn't love her. The thought depressed me, but I expected no less.

  "I thought I did," he said quietly. "I didn't know her very well when we started seeing each other."

  "You mean screwing each other," I supplied.

  No time or need to mince words here.

  "Well...um, yes. That would be one way to put it."

  "So you did her and left?"

  "Not exactly," he hedged. "I honestly didn't know her name the first several times."

  I gaped in horror. "You're a total man whore."

  "Was," he corrected. "I was a total man whore. Now I'm simply a warlock who misses licking his balls."

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. The visual he'd just conjured up threatened the contents of my stomach. When he'd been my cat he had an unhealthy obsession with cleaning his nut sack. Clearly it was still an issue.

  "Alright, let's get back on track here," I muttered. "You nailed her a few times. She got pregnant and you left?"

  "Nope."

  "Enlighten me," I snapped.

  As much as I wanted to keep the past in the past… I also needed to know.

  "Apparently I wasn't the only one nailing her. I left when I found out I was just one of many," he supplied with a shrug.

  "How many?"

  "You really want to know?" he asked with a grimace.

  "Do I?"

  "I'd say no."

  "Oh fuck, now I have to know. Let me guess. Tell me if I'm hot or cold," I said. "Four."

  "Frigid."

  "Eight?"

  "Very cold."

  "Holy shit… um, twelve?"

  "Shivering."

  "Mother fucker… pun intended… twenty five?"

  "Cool-ish."

  He was correct. I really didn't want to know, but I'd come this far. I wasn't a quitter. And apparently neither was my mother.

  "Is it an odd or even number?" I asked needing to narrow the field a little. I was truly on the verge of getting sick.

  "It's an odd number ending in five and is ten higher than your last guess," Dude said ending the game before I projectile hurled on him.

  "Wait," I said as the circus in my stomach went ballistic. "How do I know you're actually my sperm donor? It could be one of thirty-five," I choked out.

  This was not fair. This guy had found me and told me he was my dad. Told me he loved me… and as much as I had no intention of admitting it, he was growing on me. My head spun and my vision narrowed.

  "Look at me," Dude demanded as I gulped for air. "Now."

  I glanced up from my panic attack and saw a mirror image of myself. It was certainly hard to deny I was his by looks.

  My heart slowly stopped hammering in my chest and my breathing returned to normal. I was his. I didn't want to deal with the fact of how happy thinking that made me so I settled for a small smile and a nod.

  "You are from a very powerful line of witches. Only our line has red hair and can heal," he said as he took my shaking hand firmly in his. "Our responsibility to our race and others is rather large—and somewhat overwhelming. You should have been trained since the time you were a child, but I didn't know you were out there."

  "Wait. You're a healer too?" I asked.

  "Yes, but the witches in our line are far more powerful than the warlocks."

  "So in healing I could kick your ass?" I asked as a smirk pulled at my lips.

  "Yes. Yes you could."

  Naked Dude chuckled and pulled me close. It felt nice so I let him. Getting used to this sappy shit was dangerous. However, living on the edge was another one of my mottos.

  "Are you going to train me?"

  "My sister Hildy would have been so much better, but I will have to suffice."

  "I'm not a very good student."

  I disengaged myself and dove back into the cookie dough before I asked him if I could cuddle up on his lap.

  "You'll be fine. You've already proven your heart by selflessly healing and defending the Shifters. Controlling the magic is what you need to work on. You have the potential to blow up the continental USA."

  My stomach lurched. No one needed that much power and a loose cannon like me had no business possessing that kind of magic. Whatever. It was what it was.

  "I should probably change my name to Walking Time Bomb," I mused as I picked the chocolate chips out of the batter. I knew I should stop stuffing my face. I was going to lunch with Mac, but eating kept me from revealing too much of myself to Naked Dude.

  "You are no such thing," he chided. "That title belongs to your mother."

  "Here's something I don't understand. At your age and with your level of magic, I'm not clear about how my mother was able to put a spell on you. You are one powerful mother humper."

  "Literally or figuratively?" he inquired with a raised eyebrow.

  It took me a moment, but when I got it I grinned like an idiot.

  "Both, I suppose."

  Naked Dude considered his answer. His knee bounced and I could literally feel him wracking his brain to come up with an answer that would satisfy me.

  "No lies," I insisted.

  His head dropped to his chest and he shook it from side to side. He heaved a sigh and then stared at the ceiling.

  "She said she would harm you unless I dropped my magic and let her do what she wanted."

  "She harmed me my whole life," I countered. "Mostly emotionally."

  "She never killed you," he replied woodenly.

  That certainly shut me the hell up. I mentally calculated how much fucking therapy it was going to take to get rid of the lovely knowledge that my own mother had threatened to kill me.

  "Well, that's fanfuckingtastic," I said with a hollow laugh. "Would she have done it?"

  "Honestly, I don't know," Dude admitted. "I was not going to take that chance. You're my daughter."

  "So you let her turn you into a cat?"

  "I wouldn't say let...I had no clue what she was going to do," he said as he stood and removed the now empty bowl
in front of me.

  "Oh my Goddess. She could have killed you."

  The small bit of feeling I had for my mother had now evaporated. She was a monster.

  Wrapping my brain around the fact Fabio would have willingly died for me was more than I could handle. It made me happy, sad and furious all at once.

  The burning in my gut raced throughout my trembling body. The tablecloth was on fire before I even knew what had happened.

  "Shitballs," I shrieked.

  Thankfully Naked Dude was one step ahead and doused the flames with a flick of his hand.

  Wow. I really didn't have control of my magic. Fury was going to either get us all killed or burn my house down.

  "Sorry," I mumbled as I quickly sat on my hands. "We should probably start my lessons soon. Like yesterday."

  "We will start tomorrow. I'll tell you all about your Aunt Hildy and we will figure out how to keep you from being a magical menace," Dude said.

  "Do you think the world will be safe from me till then?"

  "I certainly hope so. I have a yoga lesson at five."

  "Um… that's just weird."

  "You think me doing yoga is weird after everything we've just talked about?" he asked as he washed the bowl and placed it in the dishwasher.

  "Yep, I do."

  "My kid says the darndest things," he replied with a delighted smile.

  "Oh my Goddess." I groaned and giggled. "You loved saying that, didn't you?"

  "Yes. Yes I did."

  ## Visit www.robynpeterman.com/witch-glitch for more info. ##

  Excerpt from ARIEL: NANO WOLVES 1

  By

  Donna McDonald

  Copyright 2015 by Donna McDonald

  Reprinted here with permission of the author.

  Book Description

  Being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself.

  Despite her sharp scientific mind and her degree in bio-molecular genetics, Dr. Ariel Jones hasn’t figured out how her life changed so much in a single day. Before she can blink and ask about what is going on, she is injected with a billion nanos and some very potent wolf blood.

  Now she can suddenly turn into a giant white wolf with the bloodlust of a starving animal. And she’s an alpha… or so she is told by the even larger, very male, black wolf who was used to create her. Hallucination? She wishes. Whether human or wolf, Reed talks in her head and tells her how to handle things… or rather how to kill them… starting with the men who hold them all captive. Too bad he can’t tell her how to put her life back like it was.

  Admittedly, there are perks to being a werewolf, such as meeting sexy werewolf guys like Matthew Gray Wolf. Science labs aren't overrun with sexy men in white coats. She also doesn’t mind learning about a side of herself she never knew existed. It's great changing into a real wolf whenever she wants, but being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself. Neither was falling for the local werewolf alpha, but what else is a newbie werewolf caught in her burning time going to do?

  Chapter 1

  Dr. Ariel Jones blinked at the bright lights overhead as she woke. Finding herself naked and strapped to some sort of gurney, she turned her head and saw two women similarly strapped to gurneys beside her. One was weeping steadily. The other was glaring at a fixed spot on the ceiling.

  Her scientist brain got busy immediately, trying to figure out what had happened since she’d come to work that morning. Her typical day at Feldspar Research always started at five in the morning to accommodate the light limitations of living and working just outside Anchorage, Alaska.

  She had processed the new set of blood samples waiting for her in the lab and instantly reported the unusually rapid cell mutation she had seen happening under the lens of her microscope. Then at about ten o’clock, she’d gone for a direct meeting with Dr. Crane, who had asked to speak with her in person about what she’d found.

  One minute she had been drinking coffee and talking with a colleague. The next she was waking up naked in… where was she anyway? Looking around more, she finally recognized the place. It was where they had brought the giant wolf.

  Sniffing the air, she could indeed smell the pungency of the trapped animal. It was what had bothered her most. From what she knew, he’d been here longer than she had worked for Crane. The one and only time she’d seen the wolf in person had been more than enough. He was the biggest animal she’d ever seen and bigger than any she could have ever imagined.

  Now she was here—in the same room where they had kept him. The discovery brought her back to her own pressing problem of waking up naked and restrained without knowing why. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, none of them pleasant.

  “So good of you to join us at last, Dr. Jones. I’ve been delaying things and waiting for you to wake up. I didn’t want to start the injections while you were still under the effects of the mild sedative we gave you earlier.”

  “You put drugs in my coffee this morning,” Ariel stated, somehow sure of it even before her bastard employer nodded and smiled.

  “The sedative was the fastest way to obtain your physical cooperation. Time is critical. We don’t know how long the window of opportunity from your findings will remain open. You told me several weeks ago you had come to Alaska because you craved more out of life than sitting in a lab doing research. Well, I’m about to make your dreams come true in a way you have never imagined.”

  Ignoring her accelerating heartbeat, Ariel decided she wasn’t going to get emotionally alarmed until there was a greater reason to do so than simply being naked and unable to free herself. She was used to thinking her way out of bad situations. She just needed to remain calm, ask questions, and figure out what was really going on.

  “I would like to know the purpose of your actions. Are you planning to take physical advantage of my helpless condition? Who are the two women next to me? What role do they play?”

  Dr. Crane smiled. “So many questions. Of course, I expected someone like you would have them. You’re going on a scientific adventure or at least your body is. The three of you are about to become the next step in the evolution of our species. But I guess it’s rather bold of me to theorize such a result without any proof yet. Part of the excitement is considering all the possibilities. Now I know your circumstances are a bit alarming at the moment, but if this experiment works, you’ll become an extremely valuable asset to our military. Even the most highly trained K-9 units won’t be able to compete with your animal skills. Alaskan wolves are quite superior to canines in nearly all areas. Everyone studies their predatory actions for just this reason.”

  “I still don’t understand, Dr. Crane. I thought Feldspar was testing wolf fortitude to glean survival information for living in extremely harsh environments,” Ariel said, discreetly testing the restraints around her wrists again.

  “Oh come now, Dr. Jones. That sort of work is barely fit for a second year university student. You are here because you personally possess several strands of DNA in common with our latest Feldspar wolf acquisition. He’s been rather solemn since we informed him of your findings. He’s glaring at us steadily which I take as the highest compliment about your discovery. It’s as if he senses what we are about to do to the three of you.”

  “Dr. Crane, are you saying you’re communicating with a wolf? Don’t you think that assumption is a bit odd?” Ariel asked.

  “Not at all. I sincerely wish we could be communicating with his human side, but we’ve purposely kept him from shifting back to his human form by the silver collar around his neck. I think it helped greatly to leave the six silver bullets someone put into him too. He was initially impossible to capture in his wolf form. If his pack had been nearby, I doubt we would have. In fact, I don’t know who exactly did capture him. I found him both shot and tranquilized with a note pinned to his collar when someone activated the alarm on the back door of the lab.”

  “I’m sorry Dr.
Crane, but you sound like some crazy mad scientist out of a movie. What are you going to do to us? Seriously? You don’t have to make up such wild stories. I assure you I won’t be reduced to hysterics by hearing the truth,” Ariel demanded.

  “Still the skeptical scientist, I see. In just a moment, I’ll happily explain the rest to you. Since what’s going to happen to you is beyond your control, I don’t see any benefit from not telling you the whole story.” Dr. Crane waved at the man assisting him. “Proceed with injecting the weeping one on the end. I cannot tolerate a weeping female. She is highly distracting. I can’t talk to Dr. Jones over her constant whining.”