Dead and Loving It

by MaryJanice Alongi

  He couldn’t even pretend it was about revenge anymore. Even if she had lied, they were square after that first night. No, he was keeping her because he was a selfish monster and he couldn’t bear to let her go. To be brutally honest, he was thrilled she was sticking to her story, because it gave him the perfect excuse to keep her.

  The fact that he wasn’t pinned to the bed via a table leg through his rib cage spoke well of her feelings for him. He was as hopeful as he’d been in—what year was it? She had her chance for vengeance and hadn’t taken it. And he doubted his lovely Jane was in the habit of passing up a chance to avenge herself. Was it possible she’d forgiven him? That was too unrealistic to believe, but perhaps there was hope. Perhaps—

  “No! No, God, no…aw, jeez, Bobby!”

  She was screaming. Screaming in her sleep. He was so startled he nearly jumped off the bed. Never had he heard his Janet so terrified, and so young. She sounded like a teenager.

  “I didn’t—Bobby, don’t move, I’ll get an ambulance, oh, God, don’t die, please don’t die!”

  She was clawing at him in her sleep. He caught her hands and squeezed. “Jane, love. It’s a dream. It’s not real.” Anymore, he added silently. His chest and throat felt tight. Whatever had happened, it had been horrible. Awful enough to scare her away from lovemaking for years and years.

  Her eyes flew open. He was shocked to see them filling and then her tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed.

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “They told me it wasn’t a good idea—that monkeys are fragile—but I didn’t listen.” She made a small fist and thumped it against his chest. “Why didn’t I listen? Oh, we were having such fun—it didn’t even hurt, and I thought it was supposed to hurt the first time. And then I started to come and I wrapped my legs around his waist and squeezed and—and—”

  “Janet, it was an accident.” Monkeys? Odd slang—he had never been able to keep up with it. Had she broken the boy’s ribs? Had they been in a precarious position and fallen, and perhaps the boy had…? Well, whatever had happened, he was thoroughly certain of one thing. “You didn’t mean to hurt him, Jane. You never would have hurt him. You’ve got to let this go.” He was stroking her back while he soothed her, and she finally relaxed against him. He added jokingly, hoping to see a scowl, “Besides, you don’t need to worry about such things with me. You could set me on fire while you were having your way with me, and I’d be fine the next day. Before you ask, though, I’m really not into that.”

  She jerked up on one elbow and stared at him. Her eyes were smudged with tears, bloodshot, and enormous. He thought she’d never looked so pretty. “That’s right,” she said slowly. “I was thinking about that last night and you…I can’t hurt you. You can take whatever I dish out.”

  “And have been,” he added, “for several days now. See, look!” He showed her his arm where, in her agitation, she’d clawed off ribbons of skin. It was nearly healed.

  Oddly, she was still staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, Dick.”

  “You’ve had other things on your mind. Now, that’s enough crying over a fifteen-year-old accident you couldn’t help,” he said briskly, hoping she agreed. He couldn’t bear to see her cry. He rolled out of bed and stood up, casting about for a way to distract her. “How about sushi and maybe some vegetable tempura for breakfast?”

  She perked up immediately. “I like raw fish,” she said. “I like steak tartare, too, but I like it better with steak, not hamburger.”

  “Sounds like we have lunch figured out, too, m’love.”

  “But first we have to shower,” she said, almost shyly.

  He laughed, bent to her, picked her up, and kissed her. “Yes indeed. You are filthy. And so am I. I foresee lots of scrubbing in our future.”

  “Fucking pervert,” she snorted, and he cheered inwardly, knowing she was back to herself.

  For the second night in a row, Richard woke up warm and content. He had made up his mind as dawn broke in the wee hours of the morning, as Janet cuddled up to him and snored softly in his ear. Today they would go out. He’d take her shopping and buy her a ridiculous amount of clothes. Clothes, lingerie, priceless paintings, pounds of steak tartare—whatever she wanted. He knew in his heart she wouldn’t run away from him, and it was past time he let her out of his bedroom. She had been admirably patient, and it was time for a reward.

  He stretched. He didn’t really need to—he always woke energized and hungry and raring to go—but he enjoyed the sensation. Yes, they would go shopping, she would bully the sales clerks, and it would be delightful. Then back to his place for a light lunch and some energetic lovemaking, and possibly a nap, or more of Salem’s Lot. Yes, it was all—

  Where the hell was Janet?

  He’d been groping absently for her while he’d been thinking, but she wasn’t in his bed, and the bathroom light was off. He could hear her on the floor, gasping in—pain? Was that pain?

  In the second before he looked, it seemed like every malady mortals were prone to raced through his brain. She had appendicitis. He’d knocked her up (it was supposed to be impossible, but who really knew?) and she was having a miscarriage. She was having a heart attack. A brain embolism. A kidney shutdown. God help him, he was as afraid to look as he was afraid not to.

  He looked. Janet was on her knees beside the bed, panting harshly, and her back—it almost looked like the knobs of her spine were moving. Her hair was hanging in her face in sweaty tangles, and her nails were sunk into the carpet. His feet hit the floor with a double thud, and he reached for her. “Janet, I’m getting a doctor. I’ll be right—”

  A low, ripping growl froze his hand in mid-reach. And then—so fast, it was so quick, he blinked and it was done—she sprouted hair, her nose turned into a long snout, her eyes went wild, and she was leaping for the door.

  She bounced off it, but he was alarmed to see it actually shudder in its frame. She coiled and leapt again. And again. He remained sitting on the bed—he was afraid if he stood he would fall—and stared at her. Janet was a dun-colored wolf with silver streaks running down her back. Her eyes were the same color as when she was a biped, but now they were glittery and homicidal. He remembered how she paced when he read, how she couldn’t seem to sit still for long, and realized that in this form she was claustrophobic.

  Chunks of the door were leaping off the frame and falling to the carpet each time her body hit the door, but at this rate it would take at least ten minutes and she was likely to damage herself. He got up and walked to the door on legs stiff with shock, fumbled with the lock, dropped his key twice (all the while dodging her small wolf ’s body—she never stopped, she completely ignored him, he doubted he was even a cipher to her now), and finally swung open the door.

  He ran after her to do it again, and again. Then she spotted the bank of windows facing west and lunged toward them. He dived and managed to catch her back left leg just as she was coiling for a leap that would take her through the window. She spun, and he had a dizzying glimpse of what looked like a thousand sharp teeth as she growled.

  “We’re three stories up,” he panted, clutching her while at the same time trying not to break her leg. “You’ll never survive the fall. Well, you might but—Janet, don’t go!”

  She snapped at his fingers. Wrathful growls bubbled up out of her without pause or breath.

  “Please don’t leave! I was wrong and you were right—God, you were so right, I was a blind fool not to see it. Please don’t leave me.”

  She snapped again, her jaws closing about a centimeter from his flesh. A warning. Probably her last warning.

  “I can’t bear it without you. I swear I can’t. I thought I was content before, but it was a lie, everything was a lie, even why I was keeping you was a lie—”

  His grip was slipping. He talked faster.

  “—but you were right, and you never l
ied, not once, not even to get away, and Janet, I will spend the rest of your life making it up to you—”

  She was almost free, and he was afraid if he let go to get a better grip, he wouldn’t be fast enough.

  “—but please…don’t…go!”

  She went.

  He lay on the floor in his study a very long time. It seemed too much work to get up, find the broom, and start sweeping up the broken glass. He owned the building anyway, so who cared? Who cared about anything?

  He couldn’t believe she was gone. He couldn’t believe he—who prided himself on possessing at least a modicum of intelligence—had let this happen.

  My name is Janet Lupo.

  Had done such things, and to such a woman.

  I’m not afraid of any man, and I don’t lie.

  What had he been thinking?

  My name is Janet Lupo.

  How could he have been so blind?

  My name is Janet Lupo.

  So stupid and arrogant?

  The full moon is eight days away. And when it comes, you’re going to get a big fucking surprise.

  Oh, if there was a God this was a fine joke indeed. He had finally found the one woman he could spend eternity with…

  Your little oak doors won’t hold me then.…and he had kidnapped her and raped her and kept her and ignored her when she spoke the truth.

  You’ll realize you fucked up, bad.

  He’d demanded she admit to being afraid of him, and when she wouldn’t, he assumed it was a lie.

  You’ll know I was telling the truth the whole time, but you couldn’t see past your stupid injured male pride.

  His stupid injured male pride.

  I’ll be gone forever, and you’ll have the next hundred years to realize what an asshole you were.

  He would have cried, but he had no tears.

  Chapter 10

  Three days later

  Jane rolled over and stretched. Then shrieked in anger as she fell three feet and hit the cement with a smack. She’d curled up on the base of the statue in Park Square, promptly gone to sleep, and then forgotten about the drop when she woke up. Why don’t I ever remember this shit until it’s too late? she thought, rubbing her skinned elbow.

  She was pleasantly tired and would be for the next couple of days. It was always like that when she chased the moon. She also felt very new, almost husked out. Purified. Whatever.

  She stood and shivered. Step one: find clothes. Spring in Boston was like spring in Siberia.

  She marched up to an early morning commuter, a businessman obviously cutting through the park to get to the subway. He stared at her appreciatively as she approached, but she had eyes only for his cashmere topcoat. “How—” was all he had time for before she belted him in the jaw and mugged him.

  She had made her choice as a wolf and would carry it out as a woman. She didn’t have to wake up in the park, naked and alone. Or yesterday, in an alley. Or the night before that, beneath the docks by the harbor—ugh. She didn’t think she’d ever get the smell out of her hair.

  There were only a hundred safe houses in Boston, as well as acres and acres of woods owned by pack members. She could have romped there and woken to clean clothes and a hearty breakfast. But as a wolf, she had avoided all those places and her kind. The beast knew what she wanted. Now it was time to get it.

  Of course, she didn’t know where Dick lived exactly. It’s not like she scribbled down the address with her paw on her way out the window. Luckily, there were ways and ways. She might not have a super nose like some of her kind, but the day she couldn’t sniff up her own backtrail to a den was the day she’d jump off a fucking bridge.

  It didn’t take long, but her feet were freezing by the time she got there. Dick lived in a dignified brownstone condo that was probably built the year the Mayflower landed. She shifted her weight back and forth, stuck her hands in her stolen pockets, and looked up at his window. The glass hadn’t been replaced; there was a large piece of cardboard taped into the frame instead. Guess it took time to order that fancy old-fashioned stuff. Except for the rumble of an early morning delivery truck, the street was quiet.

  “’Scuse me. D’you live here?”

  She looked. The delivery boy was holding three brimming grocery bags, and looking glum. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Well, thank God. ’Cause I’ve been making deliveries for two weeks, but the last couple days nobody ever takes the food in, and it goes bad or gets swiped, and it’s just a waste, is all.”

  Ah, so that’s where all the sumptuous feasts came from! Dick had the food delivered and cooked the meals for her. Yum. “I was gone for a while,” she told him, “but now I’m back.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the owner’s fiancée.” She shook her head. It sounded just as weird out loud as it did in her head. “Do I have to sign something?”

  “No. He’s got an account with us.”

  “Then get lost.”

  “Nice!” He set down the bags, slouched back to his truck, and pulled into traffic without looking, in typical Boston fashion. Which was good, because it wouldn’t do for him to watch her break into the house.

  “Well, shit.” That had been considerably easier said than done! Dick’s front door wouldn’t budge, and she was reluctant to break more of that expensive glass. He might not be so thrilled she came back. She had a vague memory of him grabbing her and begging her not to go, but it was more like a dream. She didn’t trust her wolf-brain to factually interpret human emotions.

  She smacked herself on the forehead. Dummy! Why was she trying to see him in the daytime? Even if she got in, he wouldn’t exactly be a thrilling conversationalist. He’d be holed up in his bedroom, dead to the world—literally. Until then, she might as well chat with a rock. Still, it would have been nice to swipe some clothes.

  Oh, well. The coat was plenty warm enough, and she didn’t give a fuck how many people stared at her feet. At least she was in a big city instead of some rinky-dink small town. The yokels always loved something new to gawp at. She just had to kill another ten hours until the sun set. Thank God for the Barnes & Noble café.

  Chapter 11

  Richard slumped in the chair beside the fireplace. He’d been sitting in this room every evening since Jane had left. It had been the last place he’d seen her.

  He was starving, and he didn’t care. He deserved to go hungry. And the thought of leaving—of perhaps missing her if she came back—was unbearable. What if she was hurt? What if she needed something and he was out assuaging his thirst?

  Who are you kidding? She’s gone, fool. You did everything but toss her out the window yourself.

  True enough. Still, he waited. It was the only thing he could do. He’d never insult her by trying to find her and convince her to return. Return to what? An unnatural existence with a monster? And what in the world could he ever say to her? “Janet, dear, sorry about kidnapping you and raping you and keeping you and all but calling you a liar to your face, kiss-kiss, let’s go home.” As the lady herself might say, “In a fuckin’ pig’s eye.”

  “Dick! Stop with the fucking sulking and open the front door!”

  Oh, Christ, now his inner voice sounded like her. Bad enough he was starving, but it appeared he was slowly going insane as well.

  “You son of a bitch! You piece of shit! I trot my ass all the way back down here—twice!—and you keep me standing out here on this freezing sidewalk?”

  He buried his face in his hands. How he missed her!

  “I am going to rip your heart out and pin it to the bedroom wall with a swizzle stick! I’m going to yank the fixtures out of that stupid bathroom you’re so proud of and shove them up your ass!” Wham! Wham! Wham! “Now let me in before I lose my temper!”

  That’s no inner voice, Richard. I ought to know… I’m your inner voice.

  He jumped up so quickly his head actually banged into the ceiling. He barely felt it. He clawed for the doorway, raced through it and down t
he hall, down three flights of stairs, fumbled for the bolts and locks, and flung the door open.

  Janet stood on his front step, flushed and out of breath. Her little fists were red from the cold and from banging his door. She was wearing a man’s overcoat roughly six sizes too big for her, and three large grocery bags were at her feet. She was scowling. “Well, finally. Don’t sulk on my time, all right, pal?” She stomped past him.

  Like a zombie, he picked up the groceries and then slowly turned and followed her. She shrugged out of the coat and headed straight for their—for his room. He watched her naked form sway back and forth as she went up the stairs like she owned them. “Food,” she said over her shoulder on her way up. “I could eat a cow. In fact, I think I did, night before last.”

  By the time he brought her tray to the bedroom, she had showered and toweled off. She strolled out of the bathroom and sniffed appreciatively. “Oooh, yeah, that’s the stuff. I could eat two steaks.”

  “They’re both for you,” he said automatically. “Why…how…why…?”

  “You sounded a lot brighter when you thought I was a liar.” She brushed past him and jumped for the bed, landing in the middle, lolling like a queen, and favoring him with a smirk. “Ah, the mileage I’m gonna get out of this. Let’s start with your whole smug speech about how just because you’re a vampire, there’s no such thing as werewolves. That sound like a good place to you?”

  “Janet—”

  “Or we could touch on why it’s not a good idea to kidnap people when they’re on their way to an important meeting.”

  “Janet—”

  “Or we could go into all the times you asked me to tell the truth, and I did, and then you didn’t believe me, and then you—”

  He fell to his knees beside the bed. He had to grit his teeth for a few seconds to keep his jaw from trembling. “Janet, why are you here? Why aren’t you with your family?” His voice was rising, but he was helpless to stop it. “Why didn’t you head for the road and keep going? Why are you back?”