by Lia Violet
“Then you’ll have to do without Elise and Tori for a while,” The detective said over Elise’s protests.
“Agreed,” Hunter said. “I can have Tori in on script talks and auditions through video chat.”
“Rex. I’m a professional. I’m in the public eye. I want to show support.” Elise leaned into her husband.
Hunter and Rex looked at each other over Elise’s head. Hunter nodded.
Two days later, Hunter shook two Tylenol into his hand and waved at his admin to send another actress in. They’d been at this for hours. This was the best the casting agency could find, according to them. And no one was anything like what he had in mind for the female singer.
“Hunter. You should be resting.”
Hunter wondered if he could mute the video call with Tori without her knowing.
“You can’t mute me. I’d know,” she said, reading his mind as she had since they were young.
He smiled for the first time in hours.
Then he sat up straighter as a tall, curvy girl with long braids came in. “Hello. I’m Katrina.”
She shook his hand and the director’s, and waved at Tori.
Hunter watched everything about her, and knew this was his actress. He could feel it.
She read the lines for a scene with Gary, and then sang a short piece.
“What is that song?” he asked.
“I wrote it.” She had a slight accent that she’d hidden during the scene.
“Where are you from? I don’t recognize your accent.”
“Australia,” she said. Her wig slipped a little as she stood up to go.
“Katrina.” He scanned his iPad with her CV. “You have more singing experience, but it looks like you did some acting when you were younger.”
“I was a witch in a tween show eight years ago when I was twelve,” she said then she laughed. “I guess I really keep getting drawn to fantasy.”
Hunter felt like he was trapped in a time warp. The laugh, the way she tilted her head, it was very familiar.
When she left, Tori spoke. “That’s our actress. I even think we should call her something like Katrina. Rina, maybe?”
Tori was talking with the director while Hunter tried to search his aching head for why she was familiar.
“Sir.” Hans stepped in the room.
Hans refused to call him Hunter and overrode many things Hunter liked to do. He’d met Mason, the cousin guarding Aaron, a few times now, as he checked on his friend in the hospital. Mason was friendly and talkative.
“Hans? Come on in,” he said, waving him over.
“Someone is very insistent on seeing you outside. I had Tim call security.”
His stomach clenched. He had to admit he was afraid now, after the car bomb. But then he heard female voices. One pulled hard at his memories.
He hurried to the door, only to be stopped by Hans. “Always me first,” the guard said, before they headed out.
When they stepped out, the noise stopped. A security guard for the studio held Katrina by one arm, and Corrine by the other.
Hunter was numb as he sat in the seating area of his office suite. Corrine and Katrina sat on the couch in front of him. He really wanted a drink. His hand shook as he drank a Dr. Pepper. They each had one too.
“I remember we both like Dr. Pepper,” Corinne said. “Hunter, I—”
He held up a hand. “I don’t know how I feel right now, Corrine, but there’s plenty of mad in there. I have a child with you, Corrine? A daughter? And you didn’t tell me. In 18 years?” He was shouting now.
Hans stepped back in, and Hunter held up a hand. “I’m good. You might hear some yelling.”
“I will not leave.” Hans leaned against the door.
“Might be good for your protection,” Hunter said then felt bad as both women flinched. “No. I would never hurt… either of you. Were you ever going to tell me?”
“No. So I came here to audition. I wanted to meet you. And we need your help,” Kat answered him, though he was asking her mother.
Hunter gazed at his daughter. He could see it now: his head tilt, his eyebrows. Her mother’s beautiful eyes. His own filled with tears. He shook his head.
“I was going to tell you. Soon,” Corrine said.
“Wait — you need my help?”
Corrine clasped her hands tightly together. “Katrina has transform cancer.”
“You shift now too?” He knew she was part werewolf, but at least back when he knew her, Corrine had never shifted. He was fascinated by the signs of werewolf on her, in her changing eyes and fast growing nails. They’d lain together naked for hours, studying each other and making love. “That’s the medical treatment you needed, isn’t it. Was anything you told me true?”
Then her words came through. “Shifter cancer?” That was pretty dangerous. He remembered her wig. Chemo was not always successful. “Do you need money?”
“We need bone marrow. But it has to be someone who has been turned or is at least part shifter to work best. Are there any shifters in your family?”
Hunter knew Gary and Rex, who were werewolves, would get tested to see if they match, and anyone else he knew. “Not in my biological family. I mean, there’s just my mother and me. But my friends will all get tested.”
Katrina smiled, and Hunter saw the dimple he and his mother had. “I knew you would help.”
“I will,” he said. “You were right to come to me. Also, you are hired for the movie. You would have been before I knew who you are.”
He looked at Corrine. “I would have helped you, you know.”
“I wasn’t lying about the cancer then, just what type it was. I knew the treatment was really risky and then I learned I was pregnant after I started it. I was afraid, and then I didn’t know how to tell you. I did want you to have a career here.”
She was so beautiful. His dreams hadn’t lied about that. But she had, for eighteen years. “I’d offer to let you stay with me, but I’m not really safe right now.”
“We heard about the car bomb. Do they know who did it?”
Hunter still couldn’t believe he was here, talking to Corrine.
“I booked a hotel near the shifter hospital on the edge of town. Mom can stay with me. She followed me here when she read my text,” Katrina said.
“You just texted your mother that you were flying halfway around the world?” Hunter couldn’t believe how easily the role of father was to him. His head pulsed with pain now.
Corrine stood up. “I can tell your head hurts. We will go to the hotel. Maybe we could meet again for a meal?”
He nodded. “I’d like that. I’m angry, Corrine; I mean, I’ve missed so much. But I want to see you both.”
“I have to get set at the hospital tomorrow so they can begin the matching process. But we’ll call you.”
Hans said something into his watch. “I have another cousin, Roland, who will be keeping an eye on both of you at Mr. Gladson’s request. Several people heard you talking out there in the office. I think word will spread about who you are.”
“Thanks, Hans,” Hunter said.
After they left, Hunter lay down. “We’re going to see Aaron in a few minutes, Hans.”
“Yes, sir.”
Either his head hurt more than he thought or Hans just sounded sympathetic.
“Mr. Gladson? Go home and get some rest, sir. Don’t forget that tomorrow you have a meeting with some of the agents, including yours, about the movie contracts. But it’s not until 11. I’ll get lunch and have it all set, okay?” Tim was in the office, trying to stand away from Hans. “Mr. Parter has tried to get through several times. I told security to stop him if he tries to attend the meeting. I helped Marcus fill out paperwork to show the change in agent status.”
Hunter felt like he would burst while Hans drove him to the hospital. Corrine was here. And they had a daughter. Corrine.
Hans walked him into Aaron’s room. His friend was sitting up and watching a television sho
w with Hunter’s mother.
That figured. Today seemed to be a This is Your Life session full of surprises, he thought. “Karen? Mom?” Hunter started calling his mother by her first name when he was about sixteen, and felt more like an adult than she did.
“Hey, buddy.” Aaron switched off the TV. “Karen’s been keeping me company.”
Karen just came up to him and hugged him. “I heard about Corrine. And is it true that I have a grandchild?” She had tears in her eyes.
Hunter’s sore head would not let him think about the possibility of them all meeting.
“Mom. We have to figure out a lot of things.”
“Are you okay, Hunter?” Aaron asked him. “Pull up a chair before you fall down. I’m in the one in the hospital, and you look like you should be.”
Hunter sank wearily into the chair. “I’m fine. Just a long day.”
Karen rubbed his shoulders.
Hunter couldn’t remember a time in his life when Karen had done that for him. As a child, he’d taken care of her. Tucked her in when she was too drunk. Called in for her at work. When he was discovered by an agent after his high school teacher got him a part in a commercial, she started running through his money.
Corrine realized his agent and Aaron’s agent was shifty, and found them another. She’d been impressed with the way he saved money. He had an allowance for his mother because she’d taken Aaron in after his single mother disappeared.
The police cleared Aaron in his mother’s disappearance, as he was filming, and her car was found by a pier, but he’d been utterly lost until Hunter and his mom took him in.
Hunter remembered threatening his mother with rehab or jail after she’d hit a neighbor with her car. She’d been going slowly, though she’d had wine before getting in the car. Hunter offered the neighbor a settlement. They hadn’t spoken for six months after that. He and Aaron were filming the show. When she was going through the steps, she came to apologize to them.
Her hands felt good. “Thanks, Mom. How are you doing, Aaron?”
“I’m doing pretty well. Rehab stinks, though. I have a man who thinks I’m training for the Olympics. He’s a big fan of the movies. I offered him cast signatures if we could skip some of the stretches. He laughed and asked what he’d do with signatures.”
“I’ll go meet him if he helps you get better. Aaron, I’m so—”
“If you apologize again, I’ll stand on one leg and kick your ass.”
“You and what—”
“Boys.” His mother’s voice stopped them. She’d never done much parenting when he was younger, but she was only 16 years older than him. “You two are brothers. End of story. Hunter didn’t mean to hurt you, and Aaron was happy to save you. Now how can we help Hunter with the Corrine situation?”
“Mom, you know I—”
“Yes, I know you loved her and she broke your heart. I pieced it together between People and what you both said back in the day. I thought she was too old for you, but you had a lifetime behind you of taking care of me. You were good together. I liked her. I didn’t like that she left, but I’m the last person to judge anyone.”
“Did I get hit in the head harder than I thought?”
“I know humor is your way of dealing with everything, but this is serious. I take it you know more about why she left. Was it the pregnancy? She didn’t want to saddle you with a kid the way I acted with you?”
Hunter slowly told them about Kat’s audition and her illness.
“I’ll ask if they can test me here,” Aaron offered. “You never know with bone marrow matches.”
“I’ll go with you to get tested tomorrow,” Karen said. “If we have to, I will contact my brother.”
Karen’s parents threw her out when she was a pregnant teen, but she still had contact with one of her siblings. Hunter employed the man at the studio in accounting as a thank you for years of trying to send them money. His mother drank lots of it, but the man tried.
Dr. Byron Alton met Hunter, Karen and Hans at the shifter clinic the next day. Hans had made arrangements for them to come in a back way to get their marrow tested.
“Shouldn’t we do this in a human hospital?” Karen asked after the tall doctor shook their hands.
Rex mentioned that Dr. Alton was the Alpha of the local werewolf pack with his twin brother. Hunter appreciated that the man also had a sense of humor as he smiled at Hunter’s mom.
“We have the same facilities, just some specialized medicine for shifters. I will anesthetize you both and extract the marrow with needles. Then it will take a couple days to find out.”
“So there’s a chance we can help Katrina?”
Dr. Alton paused and nodded. “I do know of some cases where a fully human parent donated successfully. It would be best to have a shifter transfusion, but if there are enough markers in your marrow, it will help her for a while.”
Aaron could not be fully put under as he’d recently had the concussion, so the Doctor numbed his pelvic region as much as possible.
“If I became a shifter, what are the chances that we would be a match?”
The doctor paused and set his syringe down. “Very high, but of course I have to remind you that it’s illegal for someone to turn you.”
“There are cases of family members doing it by accident.”
“Yes, but you and Karen are both human.”
“My family isn’t just biological.”
“I don’t know how the transition would go. It’s risky — you would literally be changing your entire body, your DNA, on the chance that you could help her.”
“Is there a serum or something that would start to turn me?”
The doctor laughed. “This isn’t one of your movies. In fact, do you even have scientific advisors?”
“That’s a good idea, Doc. Are you volunteering?”
The doctor shook his head. “My wife would love to visit your sets, but I don’t know that I’d know enough to help you. If a weak werewolf DNA combined with yours, it might not even shift you. Now be still. Let’s see if you are a match as you are.”
Hunter had to leave to attend the agents’ meeting at the studio. He was amused watching his and Aaron’s agent, Irene, fight for his acting rights in front of him. She was an older woman who always wore Chanel. One time he and Aaron stopped by her house, and she was wearing a Chanel suit. They dared her to wear a tracksuit once, and she laughed.
At the end of the meeting, he was pleased by the opportunities Marcus would be having. Irene really went to bat for the young man. He could get Tori working on a preliminary premiere of a show about his character. In the meantime, he had a lunch date, after he cleared some things off his desk.
Aaron stood and stretched. He’d been working steadily for an hour after the meeting, and was looking forward to going out.
“Stop.” Hans stepped in the office and blocked him. “It is unsafe out there. Security is on its way.”
“Oh for—” then they heard a shot.
Hans stepped out then Hunter heard a thud. He pushed against the door, hearing another shot.
Tim was firing a gun at a young male actor, who was waving his own pistol.
“You knew!” he yelled at Hunter. Hunter wondered why the man looked familiar. “He killed my brother, and you knew.”
Security arrived, and quickly handcuffed the young man and Tim.
“Tim was defending me. Don’t arrest him.” The police were removing bullets from the gun as medics arrived to help Hans, who was shot in the side.
The next thirty minutes were a blur as police took statements, arrested the young man, and moved Hans to the hospital. Hunter asked for a lawyer for the young man and suggested his issues might be mental.
“How did he get in here?” Tim asked.
Hunter marveled at his admin. “How did you keep a gun here and I didn’t know?”
“I had a permit. After the car bomb, I kept it with me. I let security know, and I kept it locked in my desk.”
The CEO of the studio, Hunter’s business partner, arrived and talked to Tim. Hunter knew the man would be on paid leave until they felt sure he wasn’t suffering from the incident.
The young actor was a sibling of an actor who had committed suicide when Hunter was a teen. The gunman’s brother was another client of Parter.
Hunter’s head hurt thinking about all the connections. So many troubled young actors. But what if someone was behind all their issues? Who was the “he” that the angry young man meant?
Aaron was still thinking about a short while later when he went to the hospital to get the results of his marrow test. He’d heard the voice mail while waiting to give his statement, and was surprised that he had the results that early.
“I’m glad you came by. We don’t see enough of you around here. And I know you have a lot going on. If you want to stay here, you, Karen, even Corrine and Katrina, is it? You’re more than welcome.” Gary grabbed himself a beer from a mini fridge and handed Hunter a Dr. Pepper.
Once when they were younger, Hunter had to leave the set when he and Gary were filming to get his mother at a bar. The owner called him to come get her.
They never discussed it, but Gary never pushed him to drink the way people often did at Hollywood events. Hunter had opened a studio here in Ville De Cougar instead of Hollywood to film the Full Moon stories, and the tax benefits were a huge benefit.
“I want you to turn me.”
Gary’s beer bottle hit his desk with a thunk. “What did you say to me?” There was anger in his tone.
Hunter held up a hand. “I know that’s insulting to say to a shifter, man, but none of us were matches for her. She’s my daughter. I can’t believe I have a daughter, but I do, and she needs me.”
“There’s no guarantee that it would work if I bit you, or that you’d be a match. What if I turned you and you weren’t a match?”
“I know, I’ve thought about it and it’s worth it.”
“You’ve thought about this for all of a day? No. There has to be another way.”
