Better Off Dead

by Tegan Maher

  Table of Contents

  © 2019 Tegan Maher

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Thank You!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Connect with Me

  Follow Me:

  Books by Tegan

  About the Author

  © 2019 Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for that person. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use, then you have an unauthorized copy. Please go to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work and copyright.

  Author’s Note

  Before you start reading, I thought maybe a little clarification might be in order because I’ve gotten a few emails wondering about the linguistics and grammar.

  In this series as well as in my Keyhole Lake series, I use local dialect both in dialogue and in narrative. Even characters who are smart and/or educated still drop back to default dialect sometimes, as do most of us when we’re in casual situations.

  Grammatical errors and use of slang are likely intentional (me and you vs. you and I, we was going vs. we were going etc.) You’ll even find some words that look flat-out made up, unless of course, you’re from the South. ☺

  That being said, typos are never intentional and if I’ve missed any, I apologize!

  HAPPY READING,

  Tegan

  CHAPTER ONE

  "C'MON, SAM. YOU DON't really believe that," I scoffed, leaning back and propping my feet on the corner of my desk.

  Sam, my second-in-command and human father figure, just grinned at me. "Faith, girl. You gotta have faith."

  I smiled back. "It's gonna take more than faith to get the Browns to the Super Bowl next year."

  He shrugged and scratched his salt-and-pepper whiskers. "Maybe, but I'm willing to do my part. Besides, they had some decent first-round draft picks. It's possible."

  "Anything's possible," I replied. "Probable is another story."

  My cell dinged with an incoming text, interrupting his retort. I loved needling him about football if for no other reason than it was good to rattle his otherwise unshakable cage every once in a while.

  "It's Alex," I said, swinging my legs down off my desk. "As much as I love listening to your deluded fantasies, I've got hot wings and cold beer waiting for me. You sure you don't wanna go?"

  Since we'd spent most of the week doing inventory and catching up on annual staff training activities, we'd already put in our forty hours and then some. We'd only come in that morning to check in and make sure everything was in order for the weekend.

  He shook his head. "Nope. I'm gonna knock off early, too, but there are fish out there just waiting to jump on my line."

  "In other words," I said, "you're gonna row out to your little hidey-hole, throw a line in the water, and take a nap."

  "Hey—sometimes I catch fish, too." His devilish grin belied his sixty-some years, and I was glad to see him smile. He'd had a rough go of it a few months ago, what with the all the werewolf packs on the East Coast in upheaval and several gruesome murders in a row to deal with. Thankfully, things had been quiet for a while.

  "Okay, then," I said as my phone dinged again. "He's outside waiting for me. Have a good time on the boat, and don't let one of the whoppers you're gonna dream about pull you overboard. If you need me, we're going back to my place. I have some maintenance stuff around the house that needs done, and he's gonna help me after we eat."

  I grabbed my purse from my desk drawer and headed toward the door. "Bye, Ms. Ellen. Have a good evening."

  Ms. Ellen had ruled the front desk at the Castle's Bluff Sheriff’s Office with an iron fist since God was a boy, and she didn't show any signs of going anywhere soon. She glanced up and me through her new bedazzled cat-eye glasses and gave me the smile she reserved for the handful of people she liked. "Have a good day, sweetie. See you tomorrow."

  I pushed my way through the door and huffed out a breath as the heat and humidity blasted me in the face. Georgia in the summer was brutal, but there was nowhere else I would have rather lived. It wasn't even eleven yet, and the temperatures were already soaring.

  Alex, the guy I'd been dating for over a year, was waiting at the curb. He reached across the seat and shoved the truck door open for me and I climbed in, tossing my bag in the seat beside us.

  "Hey, hot stuff," he said, leaning across the seat for a quick kiss. "How was this day in the life of Castle's Bluff's finest sheriff?"

  I laughed. "Just like every other day, pretty much. Sue Ellen Casto came in complaining about her neighbors partying and letting their kids run around like hooligans at all hours of the night." I rolled my eyes. "They had the audacity to have a birthday party for their ten-year-old that lasted 'til almost ten. In other news, Mrs. Daugherty's cat was lost again, and Old Man Sutherland's Angus bull busted through the fence and made hay with the neighbor's milk cows."

  Alex laughed as he pulled away from the curb, his green eyes twinkling. "I don't know how you stand the excitement."

  I huffed. "You say that because you didn't have to soothe an old lady with a mood on or climb two stories in an oak tree to fetch a cat who didn't want to be fetched."

  "No I did not," he replied. "But I did have to talk to your mother. She used the pretense of updating me on pack news to tell me all about three new engagements in the pack, then went on to gush about how beautiful fall weddings are."

  "Just ... wow." My mother had been trying to light a fire under us to move our relationship forward for the last couple of months, but much to her chagrin, we were happy with where we were at.

  "Yeah, I dodged her today, too," I said, sighing. "And you win—I'll take Mrs. Daugherty's cat any day of the week and twice on Sundays."

  "Then I think we both deserve a drink and some comfort food," he said, pulling into Sully's parking lot.

  "Hear, hear."

  The cool interior of the pub was welcome, not just because it was a relief from the heat, but because I felt at home. The place was a Castle's Bluff institution, and I'd been going there my entire life.

  The owner, Sully, was a bear shifter and was about the same size in his human form as he was in his bear form. He was leaning on the bar, his bar towel tossed over one shoulder, talking politics with a couple of old-timers. Shifter politics, though. Human politics, along with religion, was a tab
oo topic in the bar for obvious reasons.

  When he saw me, his eyes lit up. "And there's my girl," he said in a strange-but-pleasant mix of southern accent and Irish brogue. "How are ye today, lass?"

  I slid up on my favorite stool and hung my purse on the hook under the bar. "Thirsty," I said. "And starving."

  Sully reached across the bar and took Alex's hand in his baseball mitt-sized hand. "And how about you, lad?"

  Alex was the first guy I'd dated that Sully approved of, which spoke volumes. He was the best judge of character I'd ever met.

  "The same," Alex replied, shaking his hand before settling onto the stool next to me.

  Sully turned to pour two beers. "Burgers, then?"

  I shook my head. "Nope. I'm mixing it up. How about wings and fries?" Alex held up two fingers.

  Sully smiled as he slid our beers in front of us. "Twenty hot wings and extra crispy fries, comin' up."

  "Better make it twenty-five if we have to share," Alex said, giving me the side-eye. "I don't wanna lose a finger."

  "Smart man," Sully said, winking and turning toward the kitchen window to call back our order.

  One of the benefits of being a werewolf—well, half werewolf—was that I could eat whatever I wanted without worrying about gaining weight. As a matter of fact, my metabolism ran so high that I had to eat like a horse just to keep weight on.

  While we waited, the front doors pushed open, and a busty redhead and a tall, dark-haired man stepped inside. They made a beeline to the bar and chose seats a couple stools down from us. Sully took their drink orders and slid two beers in front of them. I opened up my witchy senses—that's the other half of my genes—to get a feel for them. My mind brushed against a brick wall, which instantly threw up a red flag. Humans typically didn't have walls; most of them didn't even believe psychics were real.

  The redhead frowned and whipped her head in my direction, her green eyes narrowed. A wave of incredible magic flashed through my brain, and from the way Alex gasped, I knew she was poking his melon, too.

  "Oh," she said to me, matter of fact, as the magic receded from my mind. "I get why you did it, Sheriff, but still, I haven't had the greatest experience with people crawling around in my head lately. You could have just introduced yourself."

  Her quick assault and withdrawal had left me a little queasy, and I struggled to regain my equilibrium.

  The man with her shot her a questioning look and she tilted her head in our direction after glancing around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard. "The good sheriff here just skipped the niceties and jumped straight to the noodle probe to find out who we are."

  She held out her hand, her green eyes snapping a little. "Next time, you might want to at least try the flies with sugar approach first. After what I've just gone through, you're lucky I didn't fry you before I realized who you were and what you were trying to do. My name's Noelle Flynn and this is my boyfriend, Hunter Woods."

  CHAPTER TWO

  "CORI SLOANE," I REPLIED, irritated by her attitude, but knowing I sort of deserved it. "And this is Alex Dixon."

  "Nice to meet you," Hunter said. "We're here on vacation from Keyhole Lake. Our friends Coralee and Buddy are around here somewhere." He glanced at his phone. "They'll be here any minute."

  I raised a brow. "Are they ... special, too?"

  Noelle laughed. "Well, they are, but not like that. Coralee owns our beauty parlor."

  Just then, a middle-aged blonde with huge 80s hair and perfect makeup strode into the bar with a tall drink of water about her age. He said something and she laughed, then bumped him with her shoulder. Even in her platform sandals, he still had a solid eight inches on her, but there was no doubt who ruled the roost in that relationship. Not that he looked like he minded.

  "Hey, y'all," she said when she reached us. "Sorry we're late. The airboat ride took longer than we thought it would."

  Hunter gave the man a disbelieving look. "You took an airboat ride? You have two of them at home."

  "I know," he replied. "But she wanted to go, and I wanted a chance to talk to the guy about his motor. That puppy was a doozie."

  The blonde turned to us, glancing back and forth between us and Noelle and Hunter. "I'm Coralee," she said, holding out a perfectly manicured hand, her long, red nails glistening. "And this here's Buddy."

  We made the introductions, then they decided to get a table. By that time, our wings were there, so we turned our attention to our food. Eating was serious business for a werewolf. Alex joked about my appetite, but it was nothing compared to his. While we ate, I kept glancing toward the witch, trying to place where I knew the name from.

  Finally, when we were in the truck halfway to my house, it clicked. "Holy crap," I exclaimed. "Do you know who that was?"

  He laughed. "I believe she said her name was Noelle something."

  "Yeah," I said, the weight of the situation falling on me. I'd thought she was just posturing when she said I was lucky she hadn't fried me, but now I knew she was dead serious. I decided on the spot to be less invasive when I checked people out. Or at least more careful until I knew who I was dealing with.

  "Noelle Flynn, of the Keyhole Lake witches. Those women are badass. She, her little sister, and her cousin just played a huge role in keeping the regional witch’s council from being overtaken. I've heard her sister was marked by an angel and has like this super-magic."

  Alex gave me a goofy grin. "Why Cordelia, are you fan-girling?"

  I scowled and swatted at him. "No. Well, maybe a little. Those women are legends in the witch community. And don't call me Cordelia."

  He went silent for a minute. "Wait a minute. Keyhole Lake. Don't they have a moratorium on werewolves?"

  I wobbled my head side to side. "Sort of, but it's a willing agreement. We're allowed in the town. We're just not allowed to shift inside county limits. And to be fair, we kinda did it to ourselves. Their economy hinges on tourism, and they're understandably concerned about the magical community being outted by a bunch of rowdy teenage wolves shifting on the beach. It's happened a few times, and they had a rough time smoothing it over."

  Alex thought about that for a minute as he turned onto the road that led to my place. "I guess I can see that, then. I'd heard we weren't allowed there at all."

  "No," I said, shaking my head. "We're just not allowed to shift there, unless it's a do-or-die situation."

  "What about her man? Hunter? Is he a witch too?"

  "Nope," I said. "Just a normal guy. He knows all about it though. He's the sheriff, and from what I've heard, he's really cleaned the place up."

  "I wonder what brought them to Castle's Bluff?" he mused.

  "I have no clue," I said, "but at least I have one group of tourists I don't have to worry about. She's not gonna start any trouble, and if somebody does oops and do something goofy, she's not gonna freak out."

  Most people in Castle's Bluff knew the deal and followed the no magic or shifting in front of humans rule, but stuff happened. Humans wandered onto posted land and kids messed up and did some sort of magic in sight. It was always a huge pain in the butt from an administrative standpoint.

  Thankfully, most human brains went out of their way to process whatever they saw into something mundane: trick of the light, imagination, a strong breeze, anything but magic. After all, it was perfectly reasonable that a strong wind could have made a candy bar "fall" into a little kid's hand at the store, and if a balloon turned from red to purple, it was obviously a trick of the light. Because magic wasn't real.

  As badly as I hated to admit it to Alex, I was a little star-struck. Her family was like magical royalty in our parts, and I sort of hoped we ran into her again.

  We were only about a mile from my house when a fire engine-red vintage Caddy convertible zoomed past us, top down. Since we were on the backside of nowhere, a car like that was hard to miss. It was the driver, however, that caught my attention. Not because she was pretty or looked glamorous in a young Thelma and Louise
way, though she and the woman with her were definitely rocking that look, too.

  No, she caught my eye because I knew her, or at least I had. She'd been my best friend.

  Until she'd died five years ago.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "TURN THE TRUCK AROUND," I barked as soon as I could form a coherent thought. "Now, please."

  Alex looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but hit the brakes to do as I asked.

  "Why?" he asked. "What's going on? You're not really gonna chase somebody down for speeding are you?"

  "Just do it," I replied, doing my best to keep the Cadillac in sight.

  It seemed like it took him forever to whip the truck around in a three-point turn in the middle of the road, though I knew it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. I anxiously followed the Caddy as it disappeared around a curve.

  "Now what?" Sean said as soon as he was heading in the other direction.

  "Now catch that caddy."

  He stepped on it without further information, apparently trusting my instincts. I didn't mean to leave him in the dark; it was just that my brain was trying to adjust to what I'd just seen. It kept veering off in that human way I just explained, but I wouldn't let it. I had werewolf vision; my eyes didn't deceive me. And despite the scarf and sunglasses, I'd be able to pick that face out of any crowd. After all, I'd spent my entire life looking at it nearly every day.

  Rhea Butler had been my best friend since kindergarten. She was a human, though, and much more fragile that I was. She'd been killed when a tipsy driver ran her off the road on her way home one night. There'd been no moon, and her night vision had always been bad. I'd been devastated.

  To this day, I came down on drunk drivers like a ton of bricks. Living in rural Georgia, there was a lot of redneck, kids-will-be-kids crap that went on. For the most part I tended to let it slide if it was something stupid and harmless, but I had a zero-tolerance policy for anybody that tipped back a few too many and got behind the wheel. The way I saw it, I couldn't save Rhea, but I could keep somebody else alive, and save dozens of others the heartbreak.