Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  Fear bubbles up in my stomach, and this time I can’t breathe it away. My eyes start to flick around the room. Astrid, now realizing she has thrown me under the bus, jumps in. “It’s already better, I think,” she says, her voice still a little hoarse. “I can probably walk, with help.”

  I expect my mum to insist she needs to get back to work, but it is Kelly who speaks next. “Should we take her back to the others, Luke?” he asks, eyeing his alpha. “Or do you want her back at your place?”

  Reluctantly, Luke rips his eyes away from me. “We’ll figure it out in the car,” he says. He pats my mum on the shoulder, a rough, too-familiar gesture that I know she hates. “Thanks, Doc. We’ll talk soon.”

  There is menace behind the words, which seems to linger in the air like smoke as Kelly helps Astrid to her feet. He puts an arm around her waist, and she puts her arm over his shoulders, and the two of them begin hobbling toward the exterior door. Luke strolls along behind them. Before the werewolves disappear from sight, Luke pauses and sends a sardonic grin our way. “Oh, and Sashi? Next time you fuck a boy on the full moon, maybe shower after, okay? Just in case we stop by.”

  The door slams shut behind them.

  6. Sashi

  I expect Mum to wheel on me immediately, but she is absolutely, deathly still until we hear Luke’s car drive away. Then she grabs my elbow and half-leads, half-drags me into the house behind her. “Owww,” I complain, and immediately wish I’d said something more mature.

  Mum goes over to the cupboard above the stove where we keep the tea, noisily shuffling through tins and packets. Her hands are shaking.

  “Mum—” I begin.

  “Sashi, don’t.” Not finding what she wants, she slams the cupboard door so hard I think it’ll splinter, and then leans against counter, bracing herself with her hands spread wide. “You had a boy here?” she hisses without turning.

  I straighten up, well aware that we are only having this fight so we don’t have to talk about the other thing right now. I’m game if she is. “First of all,” I say, “we did not have sex; it was a little bit of kissing. But I’m twenty-one, Mum! You don’t get to tell me who I can…date.”

  She spins around to face me, her hands on her hips. We are both back on familiar ground now.

  “This is my house!” she cries. “As long as you’re living here, you are my responsibility. Who was it? That Aidan, from high school?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter.” I sag against the counter behind me. The adrenaline rush from all the werewolf excitement has worn off, and the extreme ups and downs of this day have pressed exhaustion into my limbs. It’s not even six o’clock, but I’m ready to crawl into bed.

  But my mother isn’t letting this go. “Who was it?” she repeats. “Who did you invite into my—”

  I don’t know if she sees it on my face, or if she just puts two and two together, but suddenly her eyes go wide. “Sashi Durga Noring!” she exclaims, and I wince. I hate Durga. “Tell me you didn’t invite Will Carling, my patient, into this house!”

  “It’s none of your business,” I say flatly, sticking to my (admittedly rather unloaded) guns. Seeing the truth on my face, Mum purses her lips for a moment, then lets out an explosive stream of Hindi that would probably burn my ears if I understood any of it. Mum never thought teaching me the language of her country was worth the time it would take away from my thaumaturge training.

  She storms past me, back through the garage door, and slams it behind her. I sag against the counter. A moment later, I hear the garage door going up. She’s going back to the cancer patients who worship her. They’re always so much easier to deal with.

  Emotions are stacked up inside me, each fighting for my attention and validation. The ancient, slumbering defiance of my mother’s plans for me has resurfaced, along with a sense of righteous indignation. Who is she to tell me who I can sleep with? As for Will…he makes me feel a girlish, hopeful elation I haven’t felt in years. The guys I see at college are simple, a bit immature, and easily manipulated. Will is different. He’s the first guy I’ve ever been interested in who seems like he could actually surprise me. Could…get to me. Which is actually bad, right? I mean, do I really want to start something with a guy I like this much?

  The idea surprises me, jerking my thoughts to a halt. Wait, am I actually considering not seeing him again because…what, I like him too much? With horror, I realize that my mother’s ridiculous bigotry has managed to root itself in my mind. A part of me actually thinks I should stay away from Will because he has no magic.

  But then…on top of all of that is a thick layer of fresh guilt and unease. The incident with the werewolves has shaken me, too, but not because of the creepy leering or the woman’s pain or even the abrupt discovery that I could help her a little. No, what worries me is the strange new dynamic between Luke and my mum. Dr. Stephanie Noring does not take orders from anyone. Sure, she’s always set breaks and tied stitches for the wolves and coven witches that Luke sent her way, but back when I was helping her regularly, she complained and fought with Luke the whole time. So much, in fact, that I used to think she was putting up such a fight because she hoped Luke would eventually think she was too much trouble and stop bothering her. But today she was so complacent. And Luke…well, he’s never been a great guy, or not even the kind of person you’d want picking up your mail while you were out of town, but he’d he always struck me as someone who put his pack first. Today he seemed different—hopped up on his own power.

  There was really only one conclusion: something was going on with Luke, and my mother was trying to protect me from it. I suddenly need to re-examine the last few years in that context. Could this be why Mum wants to have Christmas in New York City this year, or why she insisted I take an internship in Chicago last summer?

  Slowly, like I’m wearing ankle weights, I drag my body up the stairs, use the bathroom, and flop down on my still-mussed bed. It is obvious that I need to have a serious conversation with my mother about the werewolf pack, but in order for that to happen we’d have to speak to each other for ten minutes without screaming. It has been a long time since we’ve had a real conversation for that long.

  Sighing, I roll onto my stomach and let sleep take me.

  I don’t know if it’s a result of stress or if I just used too much magic the previous morning, but I sleep hard, for nearly twelve hours. When I open my eyes at 5:30 a.m., I feel marginally better. And I have to pee like a mother.

  I slip down the hall toward the bathroom. I can hear Mum walking on the treadmill in her bedroom, with the early morning news blaring above the sound of the machine. Of course she’s up. The day I wake up before Dr. Stephanie Noring is the day I stop fighting her. For just a second, I imagine going in there. I could sit cross-legged on her bed, try to have a sincere and calm conversation with her about the werewolf pack and the events of the previous day. Maybe bring her toast and eggs, have a normal mother-daughter moment like I’ve seen on television.

  Yeah, right.

  Instead I shower, taking the time to blow-dry my long hair before I pull it into a neat ponytail. I dress in clean, mostly unwrinkled khaki pants and a short-sleeved polo shirt Mum gave me last year for my birthday. I’m not a fan of polo collars, but it’s a deep indigo blue, her favorite color. It’s not much of an apology, but probably the best I am capable of this morning.

  I go downstairs and pour myself a cup of the coffee Mum has already brewed, mulling over my plans for the day. I decide to give volunteering another try. Not for my mum or even for the kids, but for myself. I want more than anything to prove that Will is right, that I am stronger than I feel.

  Will. I want to see Will again, too, but I was in such a hurry to throw him out yesterday that I didn’t get his number. I’ll have to try looking it up later. Maybe the library has phone books for Winona? The library isn’t far from the house; I’ll stop there after my shift at the Mayo.

  Just before seven-thirty, Mum comes downstairs to pack up
her chic leather briefcase for work. She looks surprised when she sees me already in the kitchen, dressed and reading a magazine in the breakfast nook. But she just nods, fills her to-go coffee cup, and picks up a couple of medical journals and files that she left on the counter the night before. “Ready?” she asks me, and I take a deep breath and stand up.

  The car trip begins with our customary silence. Mum glances over at me a couple of times, her face unreadable, and I can practically feel the weight of unsaid things between us. Finally, I venture, “Mum? How long has Luke been like that?”

  I watch her reaction carefully, and it scares me to see my mum’s firm, forty-something face sag into weary concern. For a second I think she is going to blow me off, change the subject to one of her favorite why-Sashi-is-a-fuckup topics, but instead she says quietly, “A little over a year.”

  “Did something happen? Something specific, I mean?”

  She lifts a hand off the steering wheel in a dismissive gesture. “Not in the way you mean. There was no smoking gun; just a gradual…mental descent.”

  I struggle for another question. “Has he hurt you?”

  She scoffs. “Not physically. Not me.” Her face softens suddenly. “But he’s grown more violent with his pack, which he’s not supposed to do, and more territorial. There has been some conflict with neighboring packs. Things are…tense.”

  I am surprised that she even knows about this. Mum doesn’t exactly keep her ear to the ground when it comes to the Old World. Usually she stays as peripheral as possible…which means she’s probably been called upon to mend a lot of injuries within the pack. “Do you know why?”

  “I have a theory, but no proof.” Glancing over at me, she continues, “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that his pack has grown—they’re up to twelve now—yet there are very few unattached females.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  She blows out a sharp breath, annoyed. “I thought you studied biology, Sashi. Wolf packs are like families, run by a male and female breeding pair. For the most part, the male alpha controls the male wolves, and the female alpha controls the bitches.”

  I consider this. “So you’re saying Luke is unbalanced because the bitches are out of control?”

  Mum scowls at my light tone. “This isn’t a joke, Sashi. A pack without a breeding pair is uneven, unstable. But most of the females in Luke’s pack are married, and he’s still a good enough man not to try to take the mated females away from their spouses.”

  The casual way that she says “take the females” chills me, but I try to stay focused. “You said ‘very few’ unattached females,” I point out.

  “Yes, well, this Astrid arrived a couple of months ago, traded in from a pack in Northeastern Wisconsin. I had hoped—everyone had hoped—that she and Luke would—” another flick of her hand, which I decide to take as fall deeply in love with each other “—but she’s resisting him,” Mum finishes.

  Her obvious disapproval is too much for me. “Let me see if I’m getting this,” I reply, my voice rising in anger. “Luke is more or less in heat, so he tried to buy a single female werewolf from another pack. But it turns out she’s not actually willing to be his whore, and you’re annoyed with Astrid?”

  Mum shoots me a look I know well, one that clearly states you can’t possibly be this stupid. “Werewolf pack dynamics are complex, Sashi. All I know for certain is that the pack was hoping that bringing her in would solve the growing problem with Luke’s temperament, but it’s made everything worse.”

  “That’s why you wanted me home this summer,” I say, putting the pieces together. “You thought it would finally be safe.”

  “You’ve excelled at all your training, despite your best efforts,” my mother says loftily, as if she hasn’t heard me. “It was time for you to begin putting it into practice with patients.”

  Anger bubbles up inside me, and I turn my head to stare out the window. She’s so goddamned controlling. I am certain we will never understand each other.

  But Mum feels it necessary to add a coda to her thoughts. “Let the wolves get their own house in order, Sashi,” she commands. “And stay away from Luke, if at all possible.”

  There is something she is not saying; I can feel it in her voice. “Why?” I ask, turning back to look at her. “He has no reason to hurt me.”

  Mum’s lips tighten. “Just…don’t be alone with him,” she cautions. “His…other appetites have escalated.”

  It takes me a moment to translate that out of Mumspeak. “Do you think he’s raping women?”

  “It is none of our business what he does with his pack,” Mum says through clenched teeth. “Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  God, it’s like we’re speaking two different languages.

  I say nothing for the rest of the drive, using the time to consider this new information. My mother has always tried to teach me that isolationism is the best approach to life. If she ever stumbles upon a mugging, she’s the kind of person who will tuck her chin down and hurry on her way, muttering, “None of my business.” To Mum, using magic to heal people with horrific illnesses is the only thing worth doing in life. She cares so much about her patient’s lives, yet she wouldn’t piss on a random pedestrian if he were on fire. And she has no idea why that’s hypocritical.

  But I’m not like her. I’ve never been like her. And if Luke really is hurting women, werewolves or otherwise, someone needs to stop him.

  7. Sashi

  I need to mull all of this over some more, but before I know it we’ve reached the clinic.

  My volunteer shift that morning goes much like my shift the previous day. I notice that Owen and a couple of the other kids I visited yesterday are looking a little better, and this realization helps propel me through two more anguished hours of communicating with sick bodies on the magical plane. A couple of them, I can tell, are too far gone for my help: I can urge their bodies not to feel pain, but there’s nothing I can do about how far the cancer has already spread.

  The worst part is that for each of these patients, the body already knows. It’s aware of how inevitable its destruction has become. As I communicate with these kids I am pulled toward this desolate fatalism.

  These hurt me the most.

  On the bright side, although I still cry in the supply room after nearly every visit, I’m doing better than I did the day before. When I am done I don’t feel quite as wrung-out. The difference is slight, but I cling to it. I have to, if I’m going to make it back here tomorrow.

  At five after eleven I trudge through the lobby, hoping my steps will lighten when I get farther away from this place. If I’m being honest, part of me was hoping to feel some sense of deep fulfillment today, the way Mum always does when she helps patients. In spite of my stubbornness, I can’t help but think I might start to connect to this work, to suddenly feel like it’s something I want to do, completely outside of my push-pull battle with Mum. It feels wrong to be this skilled at something that hurts so much.

  But if that fulfillment does come, it doesn’t look like it’ll be today.

  Then I hear someone call out my name in a low, intimate voice. A male voice. For the briefest second I panic and think Luke, but when I look up, Will is there, sitting on the same bench where we spoke the previous day. A smile breaks over his face. He is wearing jeans today, with leather sandals and a blue T-shirt with a beer company logo embroidered over the left breast. He stands up, and I surprise myself by bounding toward him. In an instant, I have closed the distance between us and thrown myself into his arms. He wraps them tight around me.

  “Sashi,” he murmurs into my hair. His body is deliciously warm against the air-conditioned chill of the lobby. I cling to him for a long moment, inhaling the scent of grass clippings and aftershave. A few people eye us as we stand still in the center of the lobby, but this place is used to sudden displays of emotion.

  “You came back,” I whisper. Over the last few hours our stolen afternoon has star
ted to feel like a dream—no, like the memory of a dream: foggy and unlikely and distant. And so different from the all-encompassing, muddy despair that clings to this place like the smell of old nicotine in wallpaper.

  “I didn’t know how else to find you,” he tells me, his breath stirring my hair. He holds me close, apparently unbothered by my sudden clinginess. “And I figured I owe you lunch.”

  I can’t believe he drove an hour from Winona just to see me. An immature, girlish voice in my head starts to chant he likes me, he likes me in a singsong. I gather myself and take a step back, reluctantly putting distance between us. Will studies me, his face suddenly troubled. He takes my chin in his hands, and I thrill at the touch. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.”

  In Will’s truck, I decline his offer for a nice sit-down meal at a restaurant and direct him to the nearest Culver’s drive-thru. We eat our burgers and fries in the car, chatting about the Twins on the way to my house. One of my high school boyfriends was obsessed with the Minnesota baseball team, and although I don’t even remember the boyfriend’s last name, interest in baseball was his lasting legacy to me. Will and I dissect the team’s chance for a pennant this year (thin) and what we think of the new rookies (not much). He parks the car in front of my house (still on the street, in case Mom’s relationship with the neighbors has improved while I was at school), and our fingers intertwine as we cross the sidewalk to the front door.

  “But when’s the last time you actually went to a game?” Will asks, following me into the house without pausing. “I know the stadium sucks, but even so, the whole experience changes when you’re there in person.”

  “It’s been a couple of years,” I admit, and he shoots me a triumphant grin. I was about to say something else, I’m sure I was, but suddenly I’m lost in that smile, the easy charisma. We regard each other for a moment, and then I playfully step onto one of the carpeted steps behind me so we are at eye level. I rest my arms on Will’s shoulders, grinning like an idiot.