by Holly Hook
"Is anyone angry?" I ask.
"Well, they won't attack me," Tyler says. "Everyone's just as confused about Alan as I am. And none of them are as strong as Alan. I've, well, done quite a bit for them. I think Valerie is a bit sour, though."
"She's in two of my classes," I say. "And I think she's been staring at me the whole time."
"I'm not surprised," Tyler says. Then he slams his book shut. "I'm done."
I drop another box of Cheez-Its into the bag I'm using to gather our dinner. "So, we're ready to go?"
"More than ready," Tyler says. "The spot is about five miles from here, so we'd better get going."
"Five miles?" I ask, thinking of the hike. That'll take forever to reach unless the land is perfectly flat and cooperative, and the chances of that are nil.
Tyler waves me out of the vacation house and I follow, bag in hand. "So, we're going to walk there?"
He offers an evil grin that sends a shock wave of tingles down my spine. "In a sense."
"In a sense?"
Tyler charges me and before I can dodge, he wraps his arms around my torso and lifts me as a surprised scream escapes from my throat. In a second I'm over his shoulder, still holding my bag and catching my breath.
"Tyler?"
"Hang on," he says, the hint of a growl emerging from his throat. "It's easier this way."
And then Tyler breaks into a run, legs pumping faster and faster as he crashes through underbrush, navigates around boulders, and leaps over them.
"Tyler!"
But he laughs, and we're zipping through the woods at an unnatural pace. His grip remains strong around my torso as he runs and the world turns into a brown and green blur of motion. My hair whips into my face. My stomach rises and falls as Tyler runs up steep hills and then down them again. We're deep in the wilderness. Alone. Traveling fast and far away from everything else.
And at last, after minutes of the mad dash, Tyler begins to slow as he runs uphill. The ground here is very steep, and Tyler climbs more slowly than before, still maintaining his grasp on me. But he hasn't even broken a sweat. A look at his temple confirms that.
"Almost there," he says.
"Don't tell me that was easy," I say.
"Okay. Deal. I won't tell you," he says, flashing another grin.
"How did you do that? If you tried out for the track team you'd be in the Olympics before you graduate."
Tyler lifts an eyebrow as if saying, why are you even asking that question?
I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous of his prowess. Tyler slows as we reach the top of the wooded, rocky hill. I sense the world opening on the other side.
"Ever seen a waterfall?" Tyler asks.
"Well, Mom and I went to Niagara a couple of years ago. Canada side." The memory lodges into my heart and burns as Tyler finally comes to a stop on level ground.
And slowly, he lets me down.
I'm dizzy as I get my footing, but I adjust quickly. Yes. We're in a clear area on the top of a cliff. The evening sun is setting on the opposite side of us, but that only makes the waterfall on the other side of the valley we're facing sparkle with fierce orange and yellow. It's not a huge waterfall, and it's about a hundred feet away across a steep drop-off. A gurgling river flows below us, through a canyon lined with scraggly pines. A single hawk circles overhead, searching the river for fish or small animals.
My jaw drops. "This place is beautiful. Do people come up here all the time?"
"It's a difficult hike for the uncursed," Tyler says, putting his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels. "I've never seen any normal humans up here. I'm sure a few have seen this place from the air, but that's all."
"Are you sure your curse is that and not a blessing?" I ask. He just ran through the woods like he owns them, navigating boulder fields and steep inclines like they're no problem. And that was in his human form. "Or do you also shift into a billy goat?"
"Now that would be a true curse." But the smile drops off Tyler's face. "Should we start dinner?"
"Yes." Despite the world having stilled, my heart's still pounding. Tyler wouldn't have brought me here if he wasn't interested.
I sit down and finish spreading out the blanket. The ground here is mostly gravel so I'm glad we chose a thick old quilt from the vacation house. Then I get out some paper plates and spread them out in formation, weighing them down with non-perishable snacks.
"Organized," Tyler says.
"You expected otherwise?" I ask. "Back home, any lack of table manners got you banned from the table. I once got banned for a week for cutting my pancakes into huge pieces and stuffing them in my mouth."
Tyler's jaw drops. "You got banned?"
"Well, I did cut them into huge pieces."
And now I'm having a picnic with a werewolf. If there's anyone who won't ban me if I screw up, it's Tyler. And eating with him is relaxing.
"Shall I do an AMA while we're out here?" he asks. "I do still keep track of social media and the terminology used today."
My heart leaps.
An AMA.
Ask Me Anything.
"Is that okay?" I face Tyler and meet his direct gaze, trying to read the intent in his eyes.
He pauses for a bit and then taps an orange cracker on the closest paper plate. "Yes. It's okay."
Things are moving along. A bubble of nerves and happiness wells into my chest. I decide to start with the easy questions and work up because it's clear that Tyler is nervous about this, about opening up to me. But a deep need lives in the depths of his eyes.
He wants to open up.
And I understand.
"So before your curse, how hard were your parents on you?" I take a bite of my food, hoping that I look nonthreatening.
Tyler drops his shoulders. "Well, before the night it happened, Mom and Dad had me occupied every spare moment I had. Piano. Hockey. Spelling bees. Hockey is expensive and my father wanted everyone to know I was in it. I did like the hockey, though. I got to beat people up and take out my frustration."
I think of the vacation home, of the pictures of a young Tyler in his helmet and jersey still hanging all over the walls. Tyler, with his real smile.
"Do you miss hockey?"
He smiles. "Sometimes. It was a lot of work, though. I'd spend my weekends practicing and traveling to games all around Montana." His tone darkens when he gets to that part. "That was before Mom and Dad fully moved us to Tower and decided to invest in the town. They built the vacation house when I was a baby because they liked the hiking trails. Dad was all up for the challenge."
"That's why my parents came out here to hike. Mom wanted something different. We've already been to all the national parks and her niece wanted to see her, too."
"Gia," Tyler says. "Yeah. Not many hikers come out here. You have to be hardcore. My parents moved here from Billings because they liked the rugged atmosphere."
So the Roses, like me, are outsiders.
"I saw that," I say, wondering if Mom ever made it out to this waterfall. "You moved here when you were about ten, then?"
"Well, we started the process around my eleventh birthday, about a year after Dad bought a lot of property here. He'd been planning to open Rose Ranch out here for a long time and board and breed racehorses. But he needed the money to finish building so he invested in the real estate around here."
I think of Gia and how she pays to live on the property her mother's side of the family once owned. She's funding the ranch. I ball my fists.
"I see," I say.
Tyler goes silent for a long time. And I sense it's time to change the subject.
"The curse. How did it happen to you? It's okay if you don't want to answer. I know you said that your family was still living in the vacation house at the time."
He turns to study the waterfall with one hand still splayed out on the quilt. "It was two days after my eleventh birthday. I'd just had a big party where all my relatives came out. No friends, though. I was the new kid. Mom and Da
d were out that night running some kind of errand. I was upstairs. And then she knocked on the door."
"She?" I asked.
"A woman. Wearing a plastic yellow poncho that was pulled down over her face," Tyler says, paling as he keeps his gaze on the waterfall. "It was raining that night. She was yelling at someone to please let her in. I couldn't see who she was."
I swallow as a chill rushes down my spine. "What did you do? I'd be freaked out if it were me."
"She was holding a potted rose plant. I thought maybe it was a gift, but she kept yelling at someone to let her in due to the rain. She just sounded so...angry. I was scared. My gut kept giving me a bad feeling. But she wouldn't leave. It was like she knew I was there."
I don't have the heart to tell Tyler that this woman might have been upset with his parents, just like the rest of Tower. At the same time, I want to strangle her for doing this to a kid and not having the guts to face the adults responsible. "Then what happened?"
"I grabbed my hockey stick and went downstairs because she wasn't going away." He shifts on the quilt and looks right at me, shaking. "And then I opened the door and screamed at her to go away. Then she shoved the potted rose bush at me. Told me in a heavy voice that it was a gift to the Rose family, that I should give it to my parents. I dropped my weapon. I couldn't see her face under the hood, but I felt it when one of the rose's thorns pricked me on the hand."
"Is that the rose bush now outside of the vacation house?" I ask.
He nods. "It is. When I got pricked I felt, I don't know, weird. I passed out and woke some time later, and the woman had run off." Then he lowers his shoulders.
"And you were just cursed? Just from the prick of a plant?" I ask, leaning forward.
"I don't think she meant to get me. I really don't," Tyler says, eyeing the quilt. "But my parents...they were uneasy around me when they got home. My mother planted the rose bush since we were still landscaping around the vacation house, but neither one of them believed me about what happened. They thought I had bought the bush for them as a present. Then they got distant. I didn't know why. And then the full moon came."
He looks at me with meaning, and he doesn't have to tell me what happened next.
"That's when you knew you were cursed," I finish for him. I can barely speak. Who would do this to a kid? Sure, it sounded like an accident, but why not come back to undo it?
"I took the punishment meant for my parents," Tyler says, "and that sorceress ran off instead of owning up to her deeds. My parents...they moved into the mansion and wouldn't let me go with them. They told me to stay in the vacation home once they knew what I was. I tried to destroy the rose bush, but even attempting just made me feel worse. It just made me want to shift and kill something."
"You can't destroy the plant?"
"No. I've tried that. And leaving the area. I just...I just start getting angry and savage when I try. There's something about the rose bush that keeps me somewhat human. If it's ever destroyed or dies...I don't want to know what's going to happen."
Before I know what I'm doing, I lean across the quilt and I'm hugging Tyler Rose.
"I'm so sorry, Tyler. It's the curse. That's why they did this and they probably can't help what they're doing." I squeeze him tighter as he goes limp in my embrace and accepts my comfort.
He says nothing but I feel his muscles relaxing. Finally, he squeezes out, "I know it is."
"Is there a way to find out who did this? And a way to fix it? If we confront the woman, we might be able to convince her to take it off."
"I don't know who she is." Despite my hug, Tyler faces me, and our faces are just a few inches apart. "Or if she'd be open to stopping it. But Beckah, thanks for listening. Thanks for everything."
I almost go cross-eyed.
Tyler's lips are very close to mine, and I wonder how they taste.
Has he kissed anyone else before? No. I must be the first.
"We can find a way to fix this," I say. "Tower isn't that big. There can't be too many candidates."
Tyler frowns. "It'll be harder than you think."
The weight of his words settle on us, and he slowly pulls away from me. I'm powerless to stop him. Now isn't the time to take things to the next level, is it?
"Tyler?"
"It's okay," he says in a tone that tells me that it clearly isn't. "I'm making it work for now. After the first few full moons I learned I could transform on my own, and being the adolescent kid I was and still am, I thought maybe I was cool, you know?"
"You thought you were cool? You are cool." Maybe I can salvage this. Tyler pulled away because no one wants to kiss when they're talking about a serious curse that ripped their parents away. "You're the coolest person I ever met."
"Thanks." He turns his mouth up in a sheepish manner. "You're pretty badass yourself, going up against Alan with that bear spray."
"Um, also thanks? I wasn't going to let him rip out your throat after what you did." After you saved my life, I want to add.
Then Tyler slides closer to me on the quilt with a faint whisper. A low growl emerges from his throat, but this time it's gentle, alluring. He turns the corner of his mouth upward in an inviting manner, and then takes a strand of my hair and smells it. "Whatever shampoo you use, I like it."
Tingles race up my spine and explode in all the sensitive places of my body. Tyler waits, the wolf within restrained as his human side silently asks for my permission.
A wave of giddy dizziness sweeps over me as I eye Tyler's perfect form, the way his shoulders slope upward at the most graceful possible angle to his neck, the way his midsection has a gentle valley just visible under his tight black shirt.
What am I getting myself into?
"You can," I mouth, barely audible, heart thumping in my ears.
Slowly, he brings his hand to the side of my head, cupping my cheek and pulling me close. It's enough to let me see the gate opening in his eyes, to something needy, to something desperate. His incoming lips brush one another as Tyler's eyelids lower, revealing just a hint of the hazel within.
I close my own eyes.
And our lips meet just as electricity explodes.
Another low growl comes from Tyler's throat, but this one is of joy, maybe even contentment and relief. I wrap my arm around him, pulling his chest to mine, as he moans his pleasure.
"Beckah," he breathes when we come up for air.
"It's okay," I say. "I've never done this before either." I gather his shirt in the hand I've got on his back, bunching it and releasing it again, feeling the outlines of his muscled shoulder blades. "This is more than okay. Tyler, I'm glad I met you. And I'm almost glad that Alan brought me here."
He stiffens and pulls away.
And in my shock, so do I.
"Don't tell me that kissing causes you to shift," I say as the pressure of his lips linger on mine.
Tyler doesn't smile. We stare at each other and just as I'm starting to wonder if I did something wrong, he snaps his gaze to the woods downhill.
"They're coming," he says.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Who?" I ask, rising.
I've got no escape route off this cliff. The sheer drop just feet away reminds me of its presence with a gust of wind and the scent of the gurgling river.
"The rest of the Rose Pack," Tyler says, rising and turning his back to me. "This must be serious if they're coming up this way."
"Is it me?"
"I don't know. Stay behind me."
As we stand there and wait, I crane my neck, unsure about this development. I haven't talked to the rest of the Rose Pack face to face before and even though Tyler's told me they're okay, he said the same thing about Alan.
And I'm sans bear spray.
A minute later, three wolves climb the hill and stop before Tyler.
My breath hitches, even though I knew to expect this. But this is my first time seeing the rest of the Rose Pack in their wolf forms. Despite that, it's unmistakable who each wolf is
.
One of the wolves is pure black with brown eyes, and I'm guessing from his size that this wolf is Chaz, the only other guy left in the Rose Pack. The two blond wolves must be Valerie and her sister, Cammie.
There's no Alan.
But one of the blond wolves sniffs loudly, glaring in my direction. She does not like me.
My mind scrambles for how to react. "Hey?" I ask, waving. "Nice to finally meet you."
"It's okay," Tyler reassures me. "I've told them about you. We're all in the clear."
The blond snorts. I can hear the sarcasm even from thirty feet away. But at least she doesn't charge. The other blond and the black wolf look back to the woods, and the black wolf—Chaz—emits a low growl that sends a shudder down my spine. The only good thing about it is that it doesn't sound directed at me.
The bad thing? There's fear in that growl.
Tyler whirls, his eyes wide. He's heard it better than I have. "Beckah. I have to take you back home right now."
My heart thumps. "Why?"
He offers his arms as the rest of the Rose Pack backs into the trees, shifting on their paws. The air fills with nerves. "Please. I don't know what this is about yet but just in case, you'll be safer back at the cabin. Your cousin should be getting home soon, right?"
I eye the setting sun and the picnic. "Let me pack—"
"The pack and I will come back and get the food. I can always buy more if this spoils." Tyler's voice leaves no room for argument.
How can I hold him up? I let Tyler sling me over his shoulder again. Once I'm in place, feeling ridiculous, the rest of the Rose Pack bounds into the trees. The blond wolf glares back at me as she runs after the other two, and the gesture makes me swallow. It's so human, yet so beastly.
Tyler runs.
The world darkens with the coming night as it blurs past. Tyler moves more quickly downward, every motion full of purpose. The atmosphere is thick. Bleak. Tense. And worst of all, we're moving so fast that I can't study the woods around us. I'm so confused after fifteen minutes of Tyler travel that I'm shocked when Gia's cabin comes into view, tilting back and forth as Tyler slows through the trees.
"Get in and stay inside," he says.
