Relinquished Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  “You could say that.” Deep breaths and calming thoughts helped me get under control. When I opened my eyes again, I was glad to see that Amy had moved into the kitchen, totally ignoring my temporary rage. She moseyed from sink to fridge, getting out the elements of a turkey sandwich.

  “Where did you get your contacts?”

  Her question threw me for a loop. “What?”

  “Contacts,” she repeated, her gaze drilling into mine so deeply, I felt like she was trying to give me a visual lobotomy. “They, like, glow when you get really emotional. They must be triggered by your pulse or something. I had a friend in New York who was really into cosplay. Don’t ask – I have no idea exactly what she was supposed to be dressed as. Schoolgirl slut with the ability to conjure lightening, I’m guessing. But she had this little stick-on lightning bolt thing she’d put on her forehead that could actually sense when her pulse spiked, and then it would flash. Are your contacts like that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t wear...”

  It was then I caught sight of my glowing eyes reflected in the silver tea tray kept on an eye-level shelf. The blue was faint, but they must have been like flashlights when Amy had first walked in. Arguing with a wolf, even over the phone, could apparently spike my nascent instincts.

  I quickly bought in to her assumptions. “Oh, my god. I must have forgotten to take them out. They’re so thin I forget they’re in. Yeah, they, um, they react to my pulse.”

  I turned, making a show of taking imaginary plastic slips out, all while trying to quell my fighting instincts that had fired up my eyes in the first place. But then, of course, what would I do with these imaginary contacts? It wasn’t like I could just slip them in my pockets. Ew, contacts with pocket lint? I made my way to the bathroom while Amy, a sandwich pressed between her two dainty hands, followed.

  She spoke, even though I closed the door. “That’s how I knew you liked him, you know.”

  “Liked who?”

  “That one guy, Tobias. That time he was here, you looked like you had a power plant going on in your head.”

  I almost choked on my laugh. “Did not.”

  “Did too. You were all flush and angry and about to jump him. I have a sense for these things. A nearly inhuman, supernatural sense.”

  If only...

  “I was angry, but not because I wanted to – what’s the term you used, jump him?” I asked, all while wondering just how long I had to stay in this bathroom to pull off the ruse. “Besides, as I’ll remind you, he was married.”

  “Could have been unhappily. Might have been looking for a little side action.”

  “Not the case on either count.” I opened the bathroom door, hoping the time I’d spent inside was sufficient. My eyes, in any case, had returned back to their dull hazel default. “Even if that’s what he was after, what about me would make you think I’d ever do something like that?”

  “You can’t possibly be that frigid. You’re an attractive, intelligent, dare I say, sexy woman. You’re in the big city, away from all that backwoods, ultraconservative ‘no one shall touch me lest we be bound in holy matrimony’ culture. Even if you’re not into hookups, you can’t tell me that you don’t at least want to play the field a little. Come on, don’t you ever get lonely?”

  I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “Why should I? I have you here.”

  “We both know I’m a poor excuse for a first date.” Crestfallen at her own comment, Amy wrapped an arm over her stomach to palm the opposite elbow. “And trust me, experience says I’m not really that good of a second or third date.”

  The sadness in her eyes hung heavy on my heart. Amy, a serial hookup artist, specialized in relationships that fizzled quickly and left her sobbing. For a brief time, anyway. At first, I thought it silly. Maybe, though, what made her so upset was that it caused her to devalue herself.

  I reached out and stroked her arm. “You’re so much better than all of them, Amy. You know that, right? I keep wondering why you waste yourself on such scumbags.”

  Her puppy dog eyes caught me. “And I keep wondering why you don’t share yourself with someone worthy. Have you ever thought how unfair that is, that you have so much to offer, and you never even think about offering it?”

  I’d never thought of Amy as particularly strong. The blow she’d just delivered on my psyche, however, left a bruise.

  Sober words followed sobering thoughts. “That never occurred to me.”

  “Yeah, well...” Her words trailed off, the thoughts capped by a shrug. Then, as though someone had flipped a switch inside her, Amy was her usual bright and bushy self again. A smile pulled wide across her face. “Maybe that can be your summer project while I’m gone.”

  “While you’re gone? Where are you going?”

  “Back home, of course. You don’t seriously think I’d hang around in Chicago when I could spend summer in New York, do you?” Her next words came across in song. “Darling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue!”

  “You’re leaving, for the whole summer?” I raked my gaze over the apartment. Why, I couldn’t say. Did I expect an explanation to be sitting on the couch?

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not expecting you to carry the rent or something. I’ll still be throwing in my part, even if just to keep the lease. If you can’t do that, you can get someone to sublet your room over the summer. Someone not totally scuzzy, if possible.”

  “I... um. I’m actually going to be staying here. You remember that internship I thought I lost? Well, turns out I didn’t. I start Monday.”

  Before I could come to grips with reality, Amy wrapped me up in a hug. Maybe she was supernatural, some sort of preternatural hugging monster heretofore unclassified in the hood annals.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said, totally ignoring my stoic non-response. “I was so worried about you going back home. I know you and your folks don’t get along, and I couldn’t imagine you having to stay with them the whole time. You’ll be much better here, even by yourself.”

  Awkwardness pulled the corners of my mouth into a grimace. “I suspect Kim will be coming back.”

  My roomie pulled herself off me and held me at arm’s length. “You two... You aren’t a... couple, are you?”

  “Well, I have seen her naked at least a dozen times, so...” I had to swallow the laughter or else risk cackling. “No, we’re not a couple. She’s not my type.”

  “Oh, good, because... You know. I mean, nothing wrong with it if you were. Just...” Amy let me go and walked back to the kitchen. “Never mind. I don’t know why I said anything at all. I think Kim is... swell.”

  “Swell?” I repeated. “First, the 1950s called and they want their vocabulary back. Second, I thought you hated her. You two are always bickering.”

  “I don’t hate her,” Amy protested. “I’m just not very compatible with her is all. Plus, I don’t know if this makes sense, but she’s a little... intimidating. When we went out all together, every time she caught some guy checking you out, I could have sworn she growled at them. You may not think she’s your type, but I’m not sure that street goes both ways. She treats you like a bone she has to bury just to protect from others.”

  “Kim’s nothing like that. In fact, she told me she wants to get mated... married pretty soon. Anyway, the last thing I want right now is to get involved with anyone.”

  And the last thing I wanted ever was to be involved with any kind of supe.

  Chapter Four

  Old Bessie, my darling truck, groaned and jiggled whenever we hit a speedbump, but she got out to O’Hare and back. After Amy left, however, our loft felt like a bag of bones, a structure with a purpose but lacking in anything that made it move and hum. It surprised me how accustomed I’d grown to the Huey’s presence, even cared for it – despite the fact that Amy Popowitz had appointed herself the leader of her own personal “Gerwalta Kline must be deflowered” campaign.

  I liked, and hated, the realizati
on that I missed my roomie. But, life went on, and the next day, I had to be at WWL by eight-thirty. Thus, I found myself bright and early staring in the mirror at my pathetic attempt to look semi-professional.

  My closet was a fine assortment of denim bottoms and cotton t-shirts, mixed in with a few sweaters and hoodies. Back in Paradise, I had a few pieces that could be defined as formal, but of the Old Germanic style and meant as ceremonial garb for hood holidays or feuernacht. At 7:31, I grabbed my worn-down backpack, slid my ever-present silver dagger into my braid, and made to leave, wanting to scratch every square inch of my legs trapped inside the second-hand business casual slacks I’d picked up the day before. Three steps from the door, my muscles cried rebellion and halted me in place.

  No, it can’t be. Not now!

  The feeling I got when an unknown wolf approached me was like the one you got as a rollercoaster ticked and clicked its way up the first big hill. A wolf I did know, however? It was the ride down, the pulse-spiking, wind-whipping rush of adrenaline that prompted your fight or flight instincts.

  I’d just gone down Space Mountain, a plunge in my gut so rapid and pulverizing it could only be one particular wolf who stood on the other side of my door.

  “Huff, puff, Geri.”

  My backpack thudded to the floor. The last time I saw Tobias had been when I’d left him behind with the pack in Paradise, just a few days after I’d barely gotten him there in time to save his life. An echo of the guilt I felt then formed in my gut, like a mother leaving her disabled child in the care of a nurse. I knew it was the right place for him, but I still felt the burden of his care. In the intervening time, the worst of his pain had ebbed, but even now, standing before him, his conflicted feelings mixed with my own. Part of him wanted to cry at the sight of me; I was the only one beside Igor who had been present when his mate died. We would forever be bound by that tragedy. Yet, reality didn’t bow to grief. I was still a hood; he was still a wolf. Our instincts drove us to hate each other.

  I didn’t want to hate Tobias, but I couldn’t be seen as week and sympathetic either. For a hood to appear weak to a wolf was to open herself to danger. She lived thereafter at his leisure.

  Tobias’s face crumpled when I threw open the door, seething. “It wasn’t an order, you know.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

  “The huffing and the puffing,” he answered.

  I took a moment to draw back my rage at his sudden appearance. How dare he just show up out of nowhere, when he had no right to be so soon a widower and away from the comfort and support of his pack. How dare he bring this baggage back to my door so soon.

  “Why in the hell are you here?”

  He pushed past me, and for once in my life, I wished the rule about not being able to enter a home without an invitation applied to werewolves instead of vampires.

  “Well, right this second, I’m here because I have to piss. Where’s your loo?”

  My hand lashed out, indicating the door. Without so much as a thank you or a word of explanation, Tobias dove for the “loo,” closed the door, and proceeded to moan as he relieved himself.

  “Did Cody send you?” I yelled through the wooden slab covered in layers and layers of paint.

  “God, this feels so good. I drove here straight from Paradise, didn’t stop.” With another grunt, the grotesque virtuoso urination stopped, the toiled flushed, and the faucet came on. “By the way, whose idea was it to name that bloody little puissant tourist trap Paradise? I’m thinking it was the same dullards who came up with Greenland. The waterfalls are nice, though.”

  “I repeat, why are you here?”

  The door opened to reveal the werewolf using Amy’s frilly pink hand towels to dot the moisture from his hands.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, a bit of gruff in his timbre. “Remember about a month ago when a certain vampire held you prisoner and killed my mate? And then, how you asked me to help you figure out what was going on, so it doesn’t happen to others?”

  “Of course, I remember. But you’re in mourning. I can feel the sadness on you. It’s ... sticky, heavy. Vampires are immortal, they’re not going anywhere. The problem will still be there once you’ve taken the proper time to...”

  “To what? Get over Kara?” he demanded. “That’s never going to happen. I might as well be here, trying to keep it from happening to others.”

  All at once, every muscle in my body went tense. “Has it happened to anyone else?”

  “Not in Paradise,” Tobias said. “Once Cody relayed what had happened to me and you down here, your mum suddenly snapped to attention. She’s been running perimeter checks around the packlands twenty-four, seven. And speaking of your mum...”

  I’d never stopped to think about it, but as soon as Brünhild Kline was aware a foreign wolf had suddenly joined the pack, she’d probably dragged him in for questioning. I’d never told Tobias, or Cody for that matter, that what had happened was any kind of secret. It also explained why she was snooping around Chicago, like Igor had said. Me mixed up in vampire business and coming across a lone wolf? She probably cursed my name every hour, on the hour.

  “Did she hurt you?”

  “No. But I had to bite my own paw to keep from hurting her. I’ve never heard a mother talk about her own daughter the way she talks about you. What exactly did you do to piss her off so much?”

  “It seems to have started with my birth, and went downhill from there,” I answered. “Don’t forget, she named me after the most heinous traitor in our bloodline, in any bloodline. Just in case you were wondering if Gerwalta is a common name among hoods... yeah, no. Look, Tobias, I get that you think you’re ready for this. I understand what you’re going through.”

  “You understand?” The werewolf’s nostril flared. “Did you feel your soul collapse? Did you have to come to terms with the fact that the only person you will ever love is gone, and that you now have to live another fifty or hundred years without them?”

  I wondered.

  My silence fueled Tobias’s righteousness. “That’s what I thought. Cody and I agreed I’d return to Chicago with you at the end of the summer, but someone just had to go and get herself an internship at Vampire Inc., didn’t she? So your choices were me, or spending June, July, and August with Kim.”

  “Oh, god, no.” The wall clock triggered my adrenaline. “Look, I now have forty-one minutes until I have to check in for orientation. WWL is in one of those really big buildings downtown. If you think you’re going to be tagging along with me to work, think again.”

  “It’s daytime, I’m sure you’re okay.” Tobias plopped down on the couch, his brow fretting. “But your shift under Karmarov in their labs will be at night, right? We’ll have to figure out some way for you to stay in touch with me when you’re at work.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and held it up. “Like texting, maybe?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t use those things. They track everywhere you go.”

  “I’m sorry, who tracks you?”

  “Who do you think? The bloody ho—” Clearing his throat and folding one leg over the other, the wolf turned sheepish. “Well, the ones back in England do.”

  “I can assure you that my clan does not track wolves through their cell phones. My mom grumbles whenever she just has to use a computer to check the database. I’ve even heard that the Yellow Matron down south doesn’t have electricity.”

  “Say what you will, but I know what I know.” Tobias rested his chin on the crook of his fisted hand. “Smoke signals probably won’t work in the city. Morse code? You could get a flash light and spell out words from a window.”

  “We can talk about it later,” I said while shoving my boot-loving feet into feet-hating heels. “If I don’t make orientation, I won’t have anything to tell you. And I only have – shit, I’m going to be late. Where are you staying?”

  The wolf scratched himself behind his ears. “I suppose I
could stay in the car. Rick gave me his old truck.”

  The Paradise Pack’s beta and Cody’s uncle, Rick Ryland, would give you the shirt of his back if you needed it, just as long as it wasn’t one of his favorites. He’d also give you a punch in the gut if that’s what you had coming. Charitable, yes. All sugar and spice and to-every-wolf nice? Hell no.

  “Where did you stay when you were in Chicago before?” How had that never occurred to me? Surely Tobias hadn’t been roaming the streets for three months.

  “There was an old guy not far from the university. Lived in an old run-down house. He thought I was some kind of stray.”

  I slapped my hands over my eyes to keep them from bugging out. “You were walking around the city as a wolf?”

  “He never suspected anything. I think his eyesight wasn’t so good. Best part was he fed me too. Meals on Wheels? Turns out, not too bad.”

  “Well, you got lucky. And you’re not doing that anymore.” I blew an exasperated breath out. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but I think you should stay here.”

  “And have your smell constantly in my nose? No thanks.”

  “I mean temporarily, until we figure out something else.”

  He chewed the air before his shoulders slumped. “Fine. I take it Sally Two Tits—.”

  “AMY.”

  “Amy won’t care if I take her bed, will she?”

  “Her only complaint will be that she wasn’t here to share it with you.” I heaved my backpack off the floor and threw it over my shoulder. “I need to go. Seriously, like ten minutes ago. I’ll be back after work. If you want to take a shower, there’s some towels under the bathroom sink. Should be enough soap and shampoo in there for you to use.”

  “I hope it’s not that fru-fru smelling stuff.”

  “You’re in a house where two college-aged women live. Of course, it’s fru-fru stuff.” At the door, I turned back, making a show of pulling in a deep inhale through my noise, then letting my face sour. “Think of it as a charitable act.”