by Lisa Daniels
He lost track of time. She ruffled up his hair, he nipped gently at her bottom lip, and when they parted, she looked slightly dazed. His heart thrummed at a rapid pace, delighted with what had happened. He should ask her out. He should finally take her up on the original deal he—
Someone walked through the main entrance. Someone who he hadn’t seen in years, and hoped he never would. Dark hair, yellow eyes, as stunning as the day they first met.
Suzie Longtail. A shadow of his past. Killing the exultation and desire in his heart in an instant. Claire, still glowing with joy, turned to see Suzie as well, her smile fading.
“It’s been a while, Kallen,” Suzie said. “I’ve missed you.”
Chapter Seven – Claire
Claire read over the new manuscript she’d been given, already finding a slew of unacceptable errors. She marked them, adjusted formatting, and felt a burst of annoyance, because the boss wanted this one published anyway. Some family friend of his wife or something, meant as a favor. On top of her ill mood was the rattling sense of denial she felt from that horrible werewolf bar.
Just when she thought all her dreams had come into alignment, when he’d kissed her, and she kissed back—that woman turned up.
The ex he had wanted to marry. The woman who had apparently hurt him so much that he ended up exiled and closed to anyone else who came along. Here, in this town.
Though Claire tried to sink herself into work, her determination to do so had dropped. Two weeks of monotony from her publishing job, when before she knew just how to sink her teeth into it. The bruise on her side had faded, and although Kallen insisted on maintaining training and opportunities for her, the time spent between them had lessened. She worked, he needed to deal with a woman he probably still loved.
Since Claire, after all, would have always been second best. No matter how much she wanted something else.
If only that woman had stayed away. If only she had experienced that moment with Kallen. If only she’d been bolder in the past, and taken her money’s worth of interactions.
She checked a new message from Rita.
Rita: scored with another werewolf. Still got it! Hows it going wiv u? Is the bitch still around?
Claire sighed, waiting until her break to type back, Can you stop sleeping with them all? And how can you, after what happened in that bar, seriously? Anyway, bitch is still here. Don’t think she’s going away.
She hadn’t forgotten Kallen’s expression upon seeing his ex. That was not the face of someone who had gotten over what happened. Claire almost canceled their contract on the spot, but she refrained against it after an overnight sleep and some thinking. After all, he was never going to be anything serious. All this meant to him was a job. A thing to complete and get money from. She foolishly attempted to cross the lines, and karma came to slap her in the face. Humiliation and frustration wove through her from remembering the moment, her pathetic emotions getting ahead of themselves, without any regard to their contract or the fact that he’d even told her about this girlfriend.
Rita: burn that witch on the steak.
Claire: Steak?
Rita: yeah. Pile of steaks on fire.
Claire smiled, cheered up a little. She could be cheerful. So long as she didn’t think about the inevitable.
Going back home after work was a chore. Sweeping phone calls with her parents, trying to study more about men as Kallen had asked, when all the while, the thought kept whispering through her head of Kallen being with that woman. Kallen sharing his deepest secrets with her. Giving her everything and taking everything from her. Claire couldn’t shake those thoughts, along with all the things she’d done with Kallen beforehand, and the places visited. Or the things she hoped to do.
Having a taste of a different life had addicted her to it. Plain and simple.
Claire: Pls be careful. Remember Kallen didn’t kill off those werewolves. They could be back.
Rita: I’m not stupid. I was there. Sides, I can handle myself.
Not against a werewolf, you can’t, Claire thought with a shudder, recalling Kallen’s powerful aura, his enormous werewolf form. Then, of course, her thoughts wandered further, picturing him holding his dark-haired, beautiful ex, kissing her, holding her as tightly as he did Claire…
Plus, he was clearly avoiding Claire. Another blow to the ego. If she kept thinking about this for too long, she’d punch her own heart into the dust.
Work continued to drag on for another tortuous few hours, and wrapping up for the day sent her back home to her empty house. A house she was so proud of, having bought it herself, but now perhaps a little too big for just one person.
She sat morosely in her leather, brown armchair, stuck snugly next to a small shelf of books, most of them things from childhood she had enjoyed reading. The feeling of inadequacy and underachievement wormed inside at an irritating rate.
She almost jumped out of her skin from a hard knocking on her front door. Her phone slipped from her hands and she stalked to the door. Usually her mother would be the kind of person to come without alerting her beforehand. Shannon and Rita generally texted, and Kallen seemed to message in general as well. She peeked through the eye-hole of the door and another jolt went through her system.
Kallen.
She was tempted to not answer, but ultimately figured he deserved some kind of response, and unlocked the door. Kallen stared at her, and there was such a look of misery on his face that she took a step backwards, confused. “Why are you here?”
He attempted a smile, but it didn’t look particularly convincing. “I’m here to teach you some more. Figured maybe we could go out. I’ve a good place in mind.”
“Um…” Claire hesitated. Where was this coming from? “You usually message…?”
“I left my phone,” Kallen said, now rubbing the back of his neck. “I do that sometimes. Well?”
It’s almost as if he is nervous about something, Claire thought. Since this was too hasty. She could have already made plans—not like someone in her shoes ever made plans beyond work and responding to people’s requests. “Tell me what this is about.” She surprised herself with her words. “You look like you’re ready to bolt on the spot.”
Annoyance flashed over his face. “What? Of course I’m not.”
His protest sounded weak to her ears. “Okay. What… what happened with the woman? Suzie?” Claire hated using that woman’s name. But she figured he would only be here right now if something had happened with Suzie earlier.
He looked as if he wanted to deny the point further, and then deflated. “I wish she’d go away,” he said, and her eyes went wide with astonishment. “But she keeps insisting that she’s sorry, that she wants me to come back…”
“Is she?” Claire asked, genuinely curious. “You told me that she accepted a bribe from your father. That was what kept her from you.”
“Yes, and she didn’t contact me for all this time. I’d kept the same number, god knows why—but she had all these chances to call me in the past, and she didn’t.”
Well, Claire hadn’t exactly asked for the floodgates to open, but Kallen was now confiding in her, and she felt no obligation to stop him. She debated one furious second, before getting her blue coat on and joining him outside. He did seem to have a destination in mind, even with the emergency appearance. “We’ll get the train,” he said. “It’s the weekend for you, right?”
“Yeah…” Claire frowned, but didn’t protest his whisking her away. She messaged Rita and Shannon all the same to inform them. “Anyway, you said, before I came out, that she wasn’t calling you.”
“See, I find that strange. She took my father’s money well enough, and sent no messages, even though she could have. And then suddenly she turns up. I mean, I don’t even know how she knew I was here.”
“I… might know,” Claire said with a sinking sensation. “Rita has some pictures of you on her social media feed, and she’s been tagging your name with mine. And Clydesdale is a
pretty small town. If she has an online account, she probably could have found out.”
“She doesn’t have an account. Or, well, maybe she added one. What do I know?” Kallen wrung his hands, eyes fixed on the train station ahead. Less of a station, more of a miserable little stop right by the edge. A lot of trains just passed through. Only a few actually stopped at Clydesdale every day. His expression darkened, sending a spike of fear into Claire, as she sensed his animal aura flaring up as well. “I want you to tell Rita to stop posting pictures of me on her social media platform. I don’t appreciate having my privacy invaded that way.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell her not to. She might be a little… well, Rita, but she will respect something if it’s explained to her. Just has difficulty sometimes getting it into her head.”
Kallen let out a soft growl, and his expression slackened. “Fine. I’m just… irritated that Suzie found me after so long. I’ve gotten over her. I’m dealing with my exile just fine. Then she turns up again out of the blue.”
Arriving at the train stop, they bought two tickets from the single receptionist, who looked bored with her life. Train in six minutes.
“I think she’s here because of my father,” he said then. “Probably taken another bribe to lure me back so that my father can lock his teeth into me.” Kallen’s mood grew sourer and sourer.
“Is that actually possible? Would she do that?”
“She already gave us up for money and status. Before, I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but now… yes. Absolutely.”
“And what happens if you return home?”
“It’s not home,” he snapped, before wincing. “Sorry. It’s not my home. Never was, really. Anyway, I suspect my beloved father would kill me for shaming the pack. Even though I’m exiled, I still carry Grayfur in my name. And I could cause a succession problem if I ever did decide to return and challenge the current leader to a duel to the death.”
“You do duels to the death?” Claire gaped at him, horrified. The slow rumbling of an approaching train vibrated the tracks.
“In wolf territory, yes. Death is a part of our lives, and no human laws can hope to interfere with them.”
The train squealed to a halt and the doors hissed open. They made their way inside, with only one other person. Not many people wanted to get this stop, then. They were lucky enough to find a table seat not reserved or attended by anyone, and sat down opposite each other.
“Your life does sound more exciting than mine,” Claire said with a rueful air.
“Trust me, you don’t want the same. Sometimes excitement is overrated.”
“More stories to tell, though,” she said. “About the most exciting stories I have are from describing what my friends did, and all the stupid shit they used to get up to.”
Living vicariously through friends wasn’t really how Claire wanted to spend the rest of her life. Her own achievements felt small in comparison. Plus, there was always that overreaching, gnawing sensation that time was running out. She’d spent, in total, half of her finances on Kallen to help her become something else. Trouble was, although she’d learned all these new tricks and seen things no eye could ever unsee, she still felt like Claire. Just with a few extra things piled on top.
The train journey itself stretched over four hours, which made Claire suspect they wouldn’t be returning to Clydesdale that night. Not unless they wanted to spend only an hour in Kallen’s chosen destination. The journey consisted of needling each other for more information and gradually opening up more about Claire’s own life, of her peaceful if mostly ignored childhood, and of that constant push toward being good, because it was then, only then, that her parents really paid attention to her. Being good, being polite. Going for the career, postponing all the things the other, wilder kids did. The more she dug into it, the more secretly horrified she felt to know her personality had been affected so far back by something like this.
“You’re still in contact with your parents, aren’t you?” Kallen asked out of curiosity. “It’s not as if you suddenly stopped one day, right?”
“No, of course I’m in contact with them. I see them for all the traditional holidays. There’s just not a whole lot for us to talk about, because I’m always doing the same thing, and they’re just… sitting in their country home, talking about cows.”
Kallen shook his head upon hearing all this. “Shitty parents. You’ve been robbed, and it’s damn tragic.” Then he grinned. “But you know, you still turned out okay.”
“Thanks.”
They arrived within a bustling city, some emerging metropolis called Naturim, which was a supernatural colony founded some four hundred years or so back, that never quite went away. It sported an eclectic mix of humans and shifters, as well as some of the more obscure supernaturals that were best reserved for the more gothic horror stories.
“D’you know many of you there are?” Claire asked, already gaping at the dizzying mix of creatures passing by, some of them outright using their animal forms. Dragons the size of horses, werewolves, panthers, tigers, and a towering half-bull, half-man that looked as if he could smash through walls with ease. His head was bovine, along with four curved horns. Claire couldn’t take her eyes off that thing.
“A lot,” Kallen said with a shrug. “Thousands of species, so I hear, but I don’t know all of them. There’s shifters that transform into other animals that I think aren’t so attractive to you humans. At least, there isn’t much of a demand for them on Date Monsters. I was scoping out the competition. I’m one of the Big Four species.” He pointed to a dragon, a panther, and a bear. “Those are the other three. Well, panther is just the big cat family. People like ‘em. Strong, primal beasts capable of loyalty and destruction within the same breath.”
Claire studied what he’d picked out and found herself nodding. “I can see why.”
“Isn’t quite the same if your man transforms into a squirrel, is it?” Kallen grinned. “And I suppose a giraffe, though exotic, isn’t what people have in their minds when they think of the primal forces of nature.”
“Maybe a hippo,” Claire said. “Wouldn’t want to upset a hippo.”
Kallen chuckled. “Could say the same for elephants. But yeah.”
“Wait,” Claire said, hurrying to keep up with Kallen as he made hearty strides through a busy, congested street. “Won’t I be in danger here? Aren’t there werewolf territories that like killing people?”
“Some do,” Kallen conceded. “But here, humans and werewolves are safe. Namely because any crimes that do happen get harsh punishments, since no one wants to start a war. We like to keep things friendly.”
“I can imagine,” Claire replied, letting Kallen lead her. He looped his arm in hers, and she felt a thrill. He was here with her. With her instead of Suzie. Did that mean he wanted her over Suzie? Or just, well, he didn’t want to be near his ex. Hard to tell, since she couldn’t trust her own emotions at the moment. What she wanted didn’t necessarily mean that was what she got. “Do you really not want to be anywhere near Suzie?”
“She’s not sincere. But I’m not about to murder her or chase her out,” Kallen said. “I’m sorry for cutting down on the visits to you. I know you’re back to working, but it’s not an excuse. I just needed to sort out what was happening. Try and figure if she was genuine, or answering to my father. The more I spoke to her, the more convinced I became that she’s answering to my father.”
“Are you that sure?”
“Mm.” He scowled at an orange-eyed man who was checking them out in the street, and the man hastily looked away. “99 percent. There’s always going to be that tiny part that wonders if what I see is for real.”
Claire supposed she understood that, though she’d never been in a situation where she had to doubt the authenticity of someone she loved. She just hadn’t been in a relationship long enough to establish that kind of bond. In fact, she felt closer to Kallen than any other man save her father, but it was a wretched t
hing to feel that way. To someone she was paying to be in her presence. No better than a man hiring a prostitute, surely. It was a false relationship from the start. Wrong.
Yet she kept feeling this anyway.
“You going to tell me where we’re going now?”
“You’ll see in a few minutes. Patience.”
Claire groaned but stopped pestering him, holding her tongue until she was ushered through the doors of a fancy, ornate building, wrought with 18th century architecture, a mixture of stones and wooden beams painted black running over the structure with stained glass windows, statues dotted along the balustrades which lined the balconies, and surrounded by a well-manicured garden.
She continued to gape as an attendant walked to them, checking if they were on the guest list, and it turned out that they were. A guest list to a place like this? She’d expect A-lister celebrities to make their way here. Not some run-of-the-mill town hick like her. Or even a werewolf like Kallen, who, clearly doing well for himself, wasn’t exactly spitting out dollars from his mouth.
“How?” she whispered to Kallen as the woman pointed them toward the changing rooms, where they would have a selection of outfits to try on. “How are we here? What is this place?”
“I know a few people,” Kallen whispered back, clearly pleased with her reaction. “They owed me some favors. You won’t believe the kind of people I’ve escorted in my time in Date Monsters.”
Oh. That made this a little less… appealing, somehow. Claire still wore the smile on her face, though it had faded slightly. “You going to answer about what kind of place this is?”
“Wealthy humans and supernaturals of the city like to congregate here,” Kallen informed her. “Along with wildcard guests. No children. They provide clothes and masks for when they do a masquerade ball. Today is a masquerade. You’ll get to intermingle with powerful, wealthy people. You might even have a chance to snare someone most women can only dream of.”
