by JK Cooper
He felt her annoyance through the bond, but she stayed in the truck.
The car ahead of them turned onto the road, speeding away. A head leaned out the window, blonde hair whipping wildly in the wind.
“Whooohoooo! Suck it, Kale!”
“Chelsea,” Kale growled. “Figures.”
“Can I kill her?” Sadie asked. “Please! I can catch her.”
“I have no doubt, but no. Let her go.”
“You’re not the Alpha yet. Hades, I don’t have to—”
Kale fixed a sharp glare on her that made her shrink slightly.
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t get all fecal-faced mad. But if she ends up missing one day . . .”
“We’re not that kind of pack, Sadie.”
“Maybe we should be.”
Kale shook his head and opened the driver door. “Shelby, better call your dad. In the meantime, I’m going to try and figure out a way to talk him out of killing me.”
The next day, Shelby woke to the sound of banging. Through a mess of bedhead-hair, she squinted at the clock on her nightstand. The green digits read 7:34. In the A.M.! Disbelieving her clock, she checked her phone. I hate you, she thought to her phone when it confirmed the clock’s report. More banging. Hammers. Might as well have been a firework show right in her front yard. Her dad was up tinkering—building or destroying something, she couldn’t tell. But she only had so many days of her summer left! And it’s Saturday. Couldn’t he wait until at least nine? Or noon!
She rolled onto her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head. The fireworks kept right on exploding, rudely piercing her fluffy sound barrier.
“Kill me,” she moaned.
Then she heard voices. Was that laughing? Coming from outside the house? This was too much. How dare anyone have any joy before 9:00 A.M.! She stumbled from her bed with her eyes no more than angry slits, fumbled for the lock on her French doors, and stomped, with righteous indignation, onto the balcony that overlooked the front yard.
“Dad! It’s Saturday! What the—” Her heart palpitated. Was that Kale? With her dad? Swinging a hammer in a sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his body? She blinked the sleep away. It was Kale! His Raptor sat in the dirt driveway with new tires—already?—shaded by the beards of moss hanging from the sprawling trees. Suddenly, she was wide awake, and the rabble of butterflies in her chest warmed her, lighting their own fireworks inside her. She felt lighter.
“Morning, Shel,” Grant said, looking up at her.
Kale raised his head, killed her with that smile and single dimple, then turned away quickly.
“So, you decided to repair the porch steps at 7:30? In the morning?” Shelby asked. She tried to sound mad, but her words came out sickeningly gleeful. She couldn’t help it.
“Kale is repenting for having you home late,” her dad said.
“Yep,” Kale said, squinting up at her then again quickly averting his eyes. Why was he acting like that? She felt his—was it embarrassment? Yes, but he also felt a thrill of some kind. She’d eventually have to get used to this connection thing between them, whatever it was. Werewolf stuff was so weird.
“Hey, Shel,” her dad said, holding a crow bar while Kale busied himself, obviously keeping his eyes from her. “Think you could put some clothes on? Kale here is having a hard time.”
What? Oh. Right. She’d slept in a tank top and panties. Black panties. Trim black panties. Some might have said sexy black panties. Shelby squealed and ran back inside, hands cupping her face, hoping to make the world vanish. Then, she heard Grant laugh. And then Kale!
“I hate you both!” she yelled from her room through the open French doors. But seeing Kale swing a hammer, all hot and sweaty . . . why did all the clichés have to be true? Seriously, why? His shoulders seemed broader and waist narrower with his sweaty shirt snuggled all up against his chest and—stop it! She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and her hoodie, despite the morning Texas heat, and her feet beat a path downstairs and out the front screen door.
“Kind of overcompensating, Shel?” Grant said.
Shelby folded her arms. “No.”
“I kinda liked you the other way,” Kale said.
Grant slowly turned his head to Kale, eyebrows nearly high enough to make his forehead disappear. “Watch it.”
“Okay, I like you better this way, frumpy and hobo-ish.”
“Watch it,” Shelby said. Then she couldn’t hold back that stupid grin.
“I see there’s no winning here,” Kale said. He swung the hammer and sunk a nail with one strike. Shelby blinked.
“We’re almost done,” Grant said.
“Hey, wanna go to the quarry after this?” Kale asked.
“Nah,” Grant said. “I’ve got too much work to do.”
“Um . . .” Kale muttered.
“Relax kid,” Grant said. “It was a joke.”
“The quarry?” Shelby asked.
“Yeah, it’s about an hour from here,” Kale said. “Water’s freezing, but it’s fun. You can just wear what you were wearing earlier.”
Shelby flushed, but her tankini covered about the same amount as her sleepwear.
When Grant glared at him, Kale held his hands up in surrender. “It was a joke.”
Shelby looked at her dad.
“Honestly, guys, I’m not sure,” Grant said. “The tire spikes last night have me a little on edge.”
“It was that stupid Chelsea girl, Dad. Just a joke.”
“A joke that cost me $1,600,” Kale said. “I’m definitely not taking her to homecoming. I really am sorry about getting Shelby back late. Our tow truck took forever.”
“I didn’t mind,” Shelby said.
“Yeah, about that,” Grant said, pointedly ignoring Shelby’s comment, “how’d you get your tires fixed already?”
“Dad has a mechanic on staff,” Kale said.
Grant wore an expression of disbelief. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“You haven’t met Edgar yet?”
“Guess not. So, you two planning revenge on Chelsea? Just remember she is mayor’s daughter.”
Shelby said, “Yep,” at the same time as Kale said, “No.”
“We’re not?” Shelby asked.
“Nah, better to let her think she’s winning.”
We. She had said “we’re” presumptively and Kale had just went along with it. No hesitation. Like they were already a thing.
But we’re more than just a high school “thing,” Shelby thought. She did not understand why or how.
“Dad?” Shelby asked. “Can I go? Please?”
Grant shrugged. “Fine with me, I guess. Just have her back by dinner time.”
Shelby’s felt herself light up. “Really?”
“I’m not all work and no fun. Just ninety-percent.”
“Yeah, but 100% awesome.”
Grant grinned. “I already said yes. Quit sucking up. Kale,” Grant said, looking him in the eye. “By dinner.”
“Won’t be a problem, sir,” Kale said.
“No need for that ‘sir’ garbage. Just have fun. But not too much.”
“Grant!” Shelby hissed.
“Go get ready, kiddo,” Grant said. “We’ve about ten more minutes here.”
Shelby’s eyes flicked to Kale. She hesitated. “I don’t mind waiting.” And watching, she wanted to say, but didn’t. Kale swung the hammer again, and she bit her bottom lip. She didn’t mind the racket anymore either.
Shelby peered over the edge of the gray cliff. The water was only twenty feet down. Really shouldn’t be a problem, right?
“Come on!” Kale called from the water below. The ripples from his cannonball still made their way outward across the otherwise glass-like surface of the reservoir.
“How cold is it?” she asked.
Kale splashed water up at her, but it fell short. “Come find out!”
What she wanted to find out was what would happen if she bit into those pecs of his. Just a bit. How did a sev
enteen-year-old boy resemble a white version of Isaiah Mustafa, that guy from the Old Spice commercials? She wasn’t ashamed to say she had looked him up. She thought Kale would give Mustafa a run for his money if he tried out for an Old Spice commercial.
“What kind of deodorant do you use?”
Kale’s face scrunched to confusion. “What?”
“Never mind.”
“If I have to come up there, I’m going to push you in.”
“Promise?”
“Okay, I’m coming up.” He started swimming to the edge.
“I got this, Kale.” Her toes curled over the lip. She sighed, squeezed her eyes shut, and leaped. The water stung her as she hit and submerged. Shockingly cold! Wasn’t this Texas? Shelby broke the surface with a high-pitched scream followed by a shiver-giggle.
“Not bad, right?” Kale said.
“Y-yeah, if you think A-Alaska is n-nice in the w-winter!” Shelby said through chattering teeth.
“Maybe you’re cold-blooded.”
“What did you call me, Kale Copeland?”
“Um . . . bold-footed?”
She splashed him. “Nice try.” The water did feel good now, though she still had goosebumps.
“Let’s go again,” Kale said, swimming for the rocky, pine-needled beach. “Race ya to the top.”
Shelby swam after him. “You’re cheating!”
“Am not!”
“You started swimming before you said it was a race.” She sounded so childish and giddy, but she didn’t care. Even with teeth chattering, she felt so at home in Kale’s presence. That didn’t mean she would let him win, though. A fierce competitive drive came over her, similar to when she broke the springboard on the first day of gymnastics, and she propelled herself through the water with deep strokes. She hit the beach at almost the same time as Kale and sprinted up the steep incline, pine needles sticking to her feet and bumping against Kale the whole way. She touched the jump-off spot with her foot just ahead of Kale.
“Hah!”
But Kale kept going. “Not the twenty-foot ledge. We just did that!”
Shelby let her eyes follow the ridge line up to the next ledge. It had to be twice as high as the first one. “You didn’t say which ledge!”
“Can’t you read my mind?”
“No!” Wait, could she? “Well, maybe.”
Kale stopped at the next ledge. “Okay, what am I thinking?”
She scampered up the incline to him. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“How’s it work, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not mind reading. Or I don’t think so.”
“It’s our wolves,” he whispered.
“It is?”
Kale nodded. “You felt it, right? Last night?”
Shelby felt the heat in her cheeks despite her shiver. “When we kissed.”
“So, maybe, it only works when we kiss,” Kale said with a shy smile. “I’m willing to test that hypothesis.”
Her heart stopped. No, it didn’t. It was beating a hundred miles a minute, actually. She blinked rapidly. “Okay.”
Okay? How lame was that? Just, okay? She hated how Kale could break her down like this, make her sound so illiterate and play fourth grade race-you-to-the-top games. Seriously? Then, he put an arm around her, his hand touching the small of her back and pulling her closer. A streak of apprehension shot through her. She noticed Kale hesitate as well. His playful demeanor turned quickly to a serious one. She felt that, inside.
“I don’t understand what I feel,” he said. “This is deeper.”
“Than what?” she asked, shaking in his embrace but not from the cold.
His mouth opened, but no words came. Then, “I don’t know how to explain this.”
“Me either. I’m nervous.” She gently pulled free from his hold and sat on the ledge, feet dangling. Kale lowered himself next to her, and she let her head slump to his shoulder.
“When we kissed last night,” he said, “I saw things.”
“Don’t tell me you saw our future together or I might be sick.”
“Yeah, you’re not that fairy-tale kinda girl. I got that. But I feel like I did see something.”
“The past,” Shelby whispered.
“Our past,” Kale whispered back. “At first I thought it was the future . . . but . . . no. I could tell. There’s fire. People are scared. I see you but only from a distance. You always disappear into some kind of fog or haze. Maybe it’s the smoke. I mean, I can smell the smoke and almost taste the ashes.”
Shelby turned toward him, forehead scrunched. “You see fire, smell smoke, and taste ashes when we kiss? What, am I an ashtray?”
“Um, no, that’s not what I mean.”
“So far, that’s what you’ve said, though. That’s not what it was like for me.”
“That really didn’t come out right,” Kale said. “I don’t know. The first time I felt you near, I started seeing things. You. I didn’t know it was you at first. It feels just like a memory. The forest, the village. I felt . . . this just incredible need to find you in the memory. Or whatever it is. To protect you. And I can feel that it’s my wolf that is the one remembering.” He chuckled. “Yeah, I feel like an idiot saying all this out loud. But you see it, too, right?”
Shelby blinked. “Wow. You’re hopeless. Truly, you are the sappiest romantic I’ve ever met.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about,” Kale said with obvious sheepishness. He pursed his lips. “I just know that you and I were meant to find each other.”
Guys don’t talk like this. Stupid prissy girls did. But she definitely had felt that she and Kale had been before. Yes, she knew that, but hadn’t seen what Kale described.
It was the hormones, Shelby decided. Had to be. People with raging hormones often reported feelings of finding “the one” when someone—anyone—reciprocated or validated their need for intimacy. She had read it in some psychology book. Or maybe it had been on a talk show? Normal relationships were built-up in the minds of those involved to be something more than attraction and compatibility, to be something that was more special. Like destiny or some other romanticized foolish notion.
But, did that apply to Lycans? She seriously doubted a study existed on the hormonal and mental effect of intimacy with werewolves. She giggled as a breeze brushed over her, leaving chills on her arms in its wake.
“What?” Kale asked.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t keep secrets from me, or I’m bound to think you’re laughing at me.”
“Oh, there’s plenty to laugh at about you, Kale Copeland.”
He nudged her head up from his shoulder and looked at her with those fathomless hazel eyes. “Do tell.”
“Well, for one, you drive a freaking monster truck but listen to hip hop.”
“Yeah?”
“Not even you are dense enough to not see that contradiction.”
“It’s not a monster truck.”
“Close enough.”
“Wait, did you just call me dense?”
She glanced at his arms. Dense. Her stomach fluttered again. “Um.”
“Sadie says you’re a strange chick. The music you listen to makes me think you’re from a different era.”
“Aren’t we?” she asked, more to herself. That kiss had somehow opened her mind to things that felt eternal. Beyond this world at least. And Kale said he’d seen glimpses of memories. I feel them but don’t see what he does. Totally unfair.
“I’m not sure you’re strange, Shelby Brooks, but you are deep,” Kale said.
Huh. Deep. Was that a good thing? Her brain had certainly become more poetic around Kale. Did that happen with all people when they were drowning in hormones? Or just werewolves? “Well, let me know how deep that water is, will you?” She shoved him from the ledge, and all the way down, he flailed his arms as if rolling up old car windows. She smiled when he hit the water, and then came up. “So? Deep?”
“Yo
u know you better jump before I get back up there!” he yelled from below.
She stood and jumped, also rolling up the windows on her way down.
Kale skipped down the curved staircase the next morning, running his hand along the dark smooth wooden rail. He caught the scent of breakfast—toast with melting butter and freshly squeezed orange juice—the scent of juice from concentrate had a much more pungent tang—coming from the kitchen. And sausage. That made both sides of him salivate.
He hit the bottom floor, feeling like a giddy fifth grader, and his shoes squeaked. If he was in his wolf, he was sure his tail would be wagging. Rays of the early morning sun raked across the marble-inlays in the wood flooring that formed the Copeland crest. It was a tremendously good day! He just felt awesome, like any clouds in his life had been permanently swept away by a warm breeze. That breeze, he knew, was named Shelby Brooks.
He was going to be late to football practice if he didn’t hurry. Afterwards, he planned to take Shelby out mini golfing. So cliché, but he didn’t care. She had made fun of him for suggesting it, but she still said yes. As long as he was next to her, they could be basket weaving and he’d be content. But, he’d really rather not have to resort to crafts to be around Shelby. She definitely didn’t strike him as that kind of girl anyway.
As he passed his father’s study just before entering the kitchen, Kale stopped. He leaned back and poked his head over the study’s threshold and saw his father and Bubba standing around the large oak desk, the one with gnarled knots he had hidden under when playing hide and seek as a kid with his dad. Of course, having a dad that was a werewolf and could smell you no matter where you hid was just not fair. He hadn’t known that about his dad at the time, of course. He supposed he’d torture his children some day by the same methods.
Wait, when did I start thinking about having kids?
Elias and Bubba looked up from the papers they were staring down at with apparent scrutiny. His dad, wearing jeans and a golf shirt, had his brow furrowed.
“Bubba?” Kale said. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to pick you up for practice, but your dad asked me to come early so we could look over my business plan,” Bubba answered. “You forget it’s my turn to drive?”
