Tovin wasn’t dumb, only horny. He’d heard countless stories about people having sex in the woods that all turned out okay. Kids in high school talked about little else, each locker room story was the start of a cautionary tale that ended in sexual conquest, not anything terrible. Even adults did it. His coworkers met women out here. All of them were fine. Just fine.
“…and that’s why I’m here.” Tovin was done explaining himself to Garvey.
Garvey turned. “So you’re here because you finally decided to take a risk and treat yourself?”
“Yes.”
Garvey chuckled. “Oh dear.”
Nervous, Tovin fiddled with the edge of the blanket and sipped at overly sweet wine as his companion fussed to secure the backpack he brought with him. Garvey insisted on lugging the junk with them to, as he said, do it right. A blanket, some cheap wine, a few candles. Tovin wasn’t exactly dazzled. His date was as cheap as he was weird.
Once settled, Garvey was right down to business—taking off his shirt, his shoes, and undoing the top button of his pants. “Too much too soon?” He didn’t wait for a response, only browsed through Tovin’s facial features. “Pants it is. To be clear, we did come to the forest to screw, yeah?”
Tovin nodded.
“Fantastic, then. Let’s get on with it.”
Given the precipitous nature of the man’s undressing, Tovin expected a rough, demanding mouth upon his, taking what it wanted. Screwing, basically. Instead, Garvey traced the lines of Tovin’s face with soft kisses. He used the back of his hand to tenderly follow the same path. Noses bumped. Brown eyes continually met his as if asking, Is this okay? Do you like this?
Tentative, Tovin reached out to touch the nest of hair at the nape of Garvey’s neck, drawing away when the man arched his eyebrow at the gesture. “Sorry.” Tovin mumbled to his lap.
“I’m sorry, too, sweet treat. I want you to touch it, just not like that. It’s not going to kill you.” Garvey presented his head, shook it slightly so that the hair tussled and realigned itself around his crown.
Tovin stammered out a quick reply, “No, it’s made of keratin. Keratin would not kill you. Unless it’s in horns. Or nails. Then, I guess it could.” Inwardly, Tovin sighed at himself when Garvey tilted his head and once again raised his eyebrow. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous.”
“Noted,” Garvey quipped. “Touch my glorious mane of nonlethal keratin, then. It’s the best type of keratin, I say.”
Tovin was in the process of reaching for the second time—faster, slightly more confident—when two howls interrupted. He jumped at the noise, once again pulling back his fingers. He withdrew to the edge of the blanket. “What was that?”
Garvey smiled his same swagger smile, the right side of his mouth curving so that one lone incisor poked out of his lips. “Feral dogs.” He bent again to kiss at the corners of Tovin’s mouth. “And just when I thought you were going to make your move at last. You are so much work.”
“Feral dogs? What are they doing?”
“Being feral dogs. Hunting. Don’t worry. They’re not hunting you, sweet treat.” A reassuring hand traced the length of Tovin’s jaw. “They probably got scent of a rabbit, a squirrel…a something.”
“How do you know? They sound close.”
Garvey’s eyes darkened. “I know,” he paused slightly to bring Tovin’s mouth level with his, “because you’ve already been caught.”
This time the lips against his were compelling. Garvey’s tongue traced the edge of Tovin’s mouth. “Now, I’m pawing at your door here. Are you going to let me in or not?” The tone was amiable enough, teasing. His eyes conveyed a contradictory message. The remaining brown edges around the dark center of the pupil seemed to pulse.
Tovin opened his mouth and, for a few minutes, felt the bliss that beforehand had simply been theoretical to him, an imagery construct of how sex in the woods with a handsome stranger was supposed to go. Cold, windy, uncomfortable, and buggy, the forest could still be a place of magic.
Magic and feral dogs. They howled again. They sounded closer. Tovin was distressed. Garvey was simply annoyed. “The children of the night. What persistent mood killers they are. Hold up here a tick, sweet treat. I’m going to go check it out.”
Tovin grabbed at his hand. “We can go somewhere else.”
“What? You don’t want me to go off into the forest?” The dogs howled again. “Don’t talk to my sweet treat that way,” Garvey shouted back.
Tovin started to consider the possibility that his date might be insane. “Please. Let’s move to a different location.”
“I like that you’re worried for me. Adorable. But I’ll be back. You stay here and enjoy the stars.” He swatted at his arm. “And the bugs.”
Funny how a quick change in circumstance altered the world. Before, the darkness felt like a friend, a coconspirator who’d taken Tovin and his lover to a secret location. The darkness ended up taking Garvey, making him vanish like some slight-of-hand magician. Outside the small circle of light the candles provided, there were only hints of movement. And the howling. “They’re only dogs,” he said to himself. “Only dogs.”
Leaving was an option. Tovin considered it. Stars were in full view, the air colder for it. Off in the distance guttural whines, yelps, snarls cut through the night, making the cold seem somehow colder. The option became even more tempting as the minutes added up, yet somehow leaving seemed unjustifiably ungallant. What if he is being eaten? Tovin didn’t know what he’d do if that were the case. He wasn’t about to go searching for his would-be lover and his fine collection of structural fibrous proteins. Cheap wine plus some heavy petting did not add up to that much debt.
Waiting was the least he could do.
It wasn’t too much longer as it turned out. Garvey stumbled out of the woods and gave Tovin a sheepish expression. A small grimace spread across his face as he sat on the blanket. “Sweet treat, I have something I must confess. I’m afraid it will upset you some.” He pouted slightly. “So…chatted with our noisy friends. They say the fun is over. More splitting, less lickety.”
Tovin smiled at him. “We’ve been overruled by dogs?”
“Sort-of wolves.
Tovin laughed slightly. “Sort-of wolves? On what grounds do they object?”
“Well, long story short. You’re supposed to be drugged by now and on your way to a distribution center where you will be catalogued and then sent on your way to your werewolf overlord to be his bloodservant.” Always smiling in one form or another, Garvey looked at Tovin’s face expectantly. “At any rate, they’re terribly vexed by me not following the script.”
Tovin laughed again, feeling his first easy smile trip its way to his face. The man’s mannerisms and humor were so strange, yet Tovin was starting to become comfortable with Garvey. “First feral dogs, then wolves, now werewolf overlords. Whatever. Explain to them that you have promises to keep.” He lifted his mouth to Garvey, who cupped his chin before placing one small kiss on the corner. Tovin’s blood responded, redirecting itself to the appropriate areas of the body.
Garvey did not continue the kiss. He remained distant. “I tried, sweet treat. I did. But they’re very insistent. And none of us are werewolf overlords I’m afraid. Just bloodhounds.”
“None of us?” Tovin started to pull away, ignoring the rest. With Garvey, there always seemed to be a great deal to ignore.
“Yes. Us.” Tovin said nothing but could feel his facial muscles swerving head-on into a grin he was pretty was a gross overcorrection.
“You’re a werewolf now?”
“I was a werewolf before. I assume I’ll be one later. At least I’m not a vampire, huh? That would be awkward.”
“Right. That’s fantastic. Good. Good for you.” Tovin said and started to rise from the blanket. Garvey forced him down, somewhat gently, with one hand. “This is not funny. I want to leave.” Tovin started to get up again and again was forced back to the blanket, a process repeated five times unt
il Garvey simply kept one hand pressed against Tovin’s chest, pinning him. Tovin continued to twist around on the blanket, trying to rise. Garvey clucked his tongue and shook his head at the efforts.
“This is not funny. Let me go.”
Garvey laughed. “It is a little. To me. Probably not to you.” His face grew semi-serious. “I’m not joking, though. I am a werewolf. You’re going to be a bloodservant to a werewolf overlord. Overall, pretty bad day.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m an asshole werewolf.”
“You’re a crazy asshole.”
“I’m a crazy asshole werewolf. Really, you can add as much as you want in front of it. The end of the sentence is the same. Werewolf, sweet treat.”
Tovin did his best to keep his voice level to sound menacing with some edge of command. He forced himself to look directly into the brown eyes. “Let. Me Go.”
“Nope.” Brown eyes looked back, unwavering and good-humored.
“Fine.” Then, Tovin said words he would come to regret. “If you’re a werewolf, show me. Be a werewolf.”
Garvey showed him.
CHAPTER SEVEN: UNFRIENDLY STATISTICS
Mazgan’s orders called for injury. Not death necessarily. At least that’s what Garvey told himself. Whatever harm befell Tovin out in the woods tonight, Garvey didn’t want to dish it out himself, so he took Tovin’s shoes, glasses, and shirt and let him run wild and directionless into the forest. It was dickish to grab so much from someone already fighting unfriendly odds. His pack brothers and sisters would sneer, say, Be a better wolf. Make it fair. Hunt. A better wolf he was not. “I should have grabbed his pants,” he told himself with regret.
Garvey watched Tovin for a bit to make sure his ice-cream-sundae-winning trivia guru didn’t suddenly develop a practical skillset. Nope. He’d already tripped five or six times. Eventually, to make sure Tovin was injured enough to be rejected at distribution, Garvey would need to follow him, maybe even do some werewolf growl, howl, and prowl bullshit. For now, Garvey twirled the glasses frames in one paw and did something he rarely did. He thought about consequences.
He didn’t want Tovin to die. He liked this dopey kid. It was an odd, unexpected realization. Clueless as Tovin was, there was something sweet about him that Garvey wanted to keep in the world. It tugged at a part of his heart he didn’t know existed. “Cut it out,” he reprimanded himself, “gonna kill a lot cuter men when you’ve got the vampires.” He heard Tovin fall again. “More coordinated men, too.”
He kept fretting, a feeling he attributed to his nerves. This was further than he’d ever gone during an extraction hunt. Even he feared what Eresna might to do him if he damaged one of her precious bloodservants. Fond of mischief but never over the line, he’d always reined in his shenanigans after a few harsh words and some snarling. Yuri would expect the same tonight. She’d said as much when she snarled her order to bring the kid back to the van. But she’d be wrong.
Off in the distance, not too distant, Garvey heard a yelp and a thump.
He’ll be fine, Garvey told himself. Or not. He prepared himself for that, too.
* * *
Tovin had heard all the horror stories about online dating. People who were far less attractive than their profile picture, people who lied about their jobs, people obsessed with their exes to the point of being stalkers. His date turned out to be a werewolf.
And a jerk. Race you to the road. That was the last thing Tovin heard from Garvey before things went sour. Now Tovin was running. Only he was doing a terrible job of it.
First, he went deeper into the woods. That was understandable, since where he lived was about 80 percent forest. Statistical odds were not in his favor there. But then he fell. Kept falling. As it turned out, the forest was a mess of things to trip over: branches, roots, rocks, and holes. In his idealized version of events, these things were blurry and shapeless as he sprinted past them. Reality wasn’t as kind. Everything was blurry and shapeless because his date took his glasses along with most of his clothes. Without being able to see, he couldn’t get his bearings.
What he could see, he didn’t want to. His muddy, blood-spattered hands. His cold sweat-slick skin covered with twigs, pebbles, grass, and mud. He shivered. His jaw clanked shut. Time to cross the last item off the list. Tovin looked back. Why not? The beast chasing him had to be caught up by now. Plus, looking back had to be the free space for whatever vengeful deity was playing chase-scene bingo.
Nothing moved. For a moment, Tovin thought Garvey gave up. Maybe werewolves were fundamentally lazy, maybe something scared it off, maybe Garvey wasn’t a werewolf at all, just some random weirdo the boys from the bar found on the internet to fuck with him. That last thought sounded plausible. Yes. The last bit. That had to be the case. Werewolves. Tovin snorted at himself and then took a step toward the direction he came.
Some pixilated brown blob came forward from the green of the bushes. With a yelp, Tovin fell backward, twisting his ankle in the process. Air rushed from his body as he struck the ground. Whatever it was tsked at him and tossed something. Dirt shot up into his face. “Asshole,” Tovin shouted back at it, wanting to believe that the whatever above him was some type of prank.
The thing held his hands up to his chest as though wounded. Then pointed to the ground. “Glasses,” it said back.
Tovin struggled to pick them up—his tingling fingers felt bloated and numb and struggled with the nuanced movement required to place the thin frames behind his ears. It took several humiliating attempts before ground and shrubs came into sharp focus, making the threat to nonthreat contrast evident. Shrub. Rock. Tree. Small tree. Werewolf. It made a sweeping gesture with its paw, Go ahead and run. Cool by me.
Expectations insisted the monster be taller than six two, be bulky, and have no genitalia or genitalia that would be acceptably covered by a pair of tatty pants that had torn themselves graciously into a pair of boxers. Today was a day of disappointments. Garvey as a werewolf, looked pretty much like an especially menacing gray wolf with his dick showing.
The teeth were larger, the claws like curled fingers, the feet and hands an obvious human-dog hybrid with elongated phalanges, but the face was pure wolf—tufts of hair building around the neck and face, coarse vibrissa around a somewhat elongated snout, pink tongue lolling out of its mouth, fuzzy cheese-wedge ears that were perked up and rotating slightly, and dingy yellow eyes that reflected sharply like sunlight hitting mica. Each time the wolf turned its head and the light reflected, Tovin’s nervous system overloaded.
None of the monster’s movements were especially threatening. The hybrid dropped to all fours, shrinking almost to the size of a normal dog as it strode toward him in a smooth, easy manner—head and ears erect, tail wagging slightly. From what little Tovin knew of dogs, none of these were bad signs, but each step taken toward him ratcheted up a queasy feeling in his bowels. “Stay,” he said to it. “Stay.”
Tovin could have sworn he heard a chuckle in response. Wolves don’t chuckle, he told himself.
The wolf was close enough that the fingerprint-like notches and grooves of its nose became visible. Tovin tried to scuttle away, pulling himself across the ground. Other than cutting up his hands, he didn’t achieve much, but the wolf sat and stopped advancing when more howling in the distance caught the wolf’s attention.
It turned its head slightly in the general direction of the noise. Its chest heaved upward then down. Air whooshing made the soft, wet lips flap. Wolves don’t sigh, Tovin told himself, and this is a wolf. It turned back on Tovin quickly and grabbed his bad ankle, squeezing it tightly before tilting its head back to howl in return. Immense pain popped in the back of Tovin’s head as he tried to scramble backward to escape, but the wolf only tightened its grip and let its tongue slip out, mouth falling open in a delighted grin that said without saying, I knew you were going to do that. A whimper came despite Tovin’s best efforts to suppress it and then another as the monster pulled Tovin toward
it.
“Why did you bring the glasses?” Tovin didn’t care about the answer and dimly realized it was himself who had asked the question. He wanted the wolf to stop pulling. Which it did. Briefly. And then simply clucked its tongue and made another small gesture with its head and paws that could have meant any number of things. Choose your own adventure.
When the monster pulled at the ankle again, Tovin blurted out another question, “What are you?” This time it released Tovin’s ankle and stood back up on two legs and in a sort of shrugging gesture collapsed back into his human form.
Transformation from ominously naked wolf to awkwardly naked man took only a few seconds. Wolf eyes turned to large, round brown human eyes that seemed in constant waggish movement. His blockish, straight-jawed face was once again framed by his much-loved brown hair.
“I’m sorry, sweet treat,” the man version of the monster said. “This isn’t normally the part of the process where I take questions.” He grinned again, the two elongated front incisors pinched at the lower lip, the only remaining evidence that there once stood a wolf. “But to answer your question, I thought you might need them. I was being helpful. I can’t help but think if you had them earlier, you wouldn’t have run deeper into the woods, though I did appreciate it. Well done. And you know what I am.”
“This town is like 80 percent woods.” Tovin blurted out his thought from earlier.
Garvey chuckled. “Good point. Hold up a tick.” Garvey walked back into the bushes and returned with the backpack.
Tovin looked at it in confusion.
He grinned again before dumping the contents on the ground, a sort of good-humored recognition of Tovin’s confusion. Sweatpants. A sweatshirt. Tennis shoes. Garvey explained, “I bring them with me anywhere. As it turns out murdering someone and eating them is not something most people call the police for. They assume it’s not happening. Walk around with no pants on, though, and suddenly you’re in the back of a cruiser and then in therapy because they think you have a pathological need to expose yourself.
The Worst Werewolf Page 4