A Werewolf Valentine's

by C. M. Stunich

  “Josiah Edric Wakeham,” she snarled as she crossed her arms over her chest. Last time Josiah had skipped class, it'd been second period and his mother had shown up during his third period art class to scream. This time … darn it, but why did it have to be during lunch?

  “Mom,” Josiah said, trying and failing to sound casual. It was hard to be casual with your mom when you knew she carried a six shooter revolver laden with silver bullets in her knock off Michael Kors purse. “How did you find us down here?”

  Maybe not the best question to ask …

  “So this is where you've been sneaking off to, is it?” she asked, her brown eyes flashing black for a moment, like some kind of mom-demon risen from the depths of hell to punish us. I was maybe, sort of, a little bit freaked out. I considered for a moment using my new time slowing power, but I had no idea how to use it properly and Mom had warned me against trying to cheat the system with it. Of course, it was tempting as all get-out to pause a test and you know, look stuff up or whatever. But I hadn't. And I wouldn't.

  “Actually, no,” Josiah said, and I sensed this sort of … resistance in him that I'd never seen before. He kept holding me, even though I thought maybe that wasn't the best idea in the world. The longer we stood here, under the dripping wetness of the trees, a fog of mist collecting over the surface of the football field, the more redness I could see leak into Mrs. Wakeham's face, like watching her son hold me enraged her. I tried to give her some sort of leeway because, you know, it was my spit that had turned her only son into a werewolf. “I went running during third period. I couldn't help it. You hardly let me shift during the full—”

  “Shush!” Elsie snapped, and even I felt like I should stand at attention. “Do you want someone to overhear you?” she whispered harshly as she made her way between the benches, pausing a very disturbing six inches away from my back. I could practically feel the stares of those naked cherubs boring into my shoulder blades. “Get your things. You're coming home with me for the rest of the day.”

  Josiah's mouth gaped open and I took a step back, curving myself slightly behind and to the left of him. And it wasn't because I was trying to bail or because I was scared—okay, so Elsie was a little scary, but that wasn't why I was hiding—mainly I moved because it looked like Josiah was getting ready to have a face off with his mother.

  “I missed one class, so now you're punishing me by making me miss all of my classes? That doesn't make any sense.”

  Ermigod. You should've seen the way his mother's dark eyes bulged when he said that.

  I looked between the two of them, my boyfriend rising to his full height, dressed in a black hoodie and skinny jeans tucked into black and white skate shoes, his mother dressed in mom jeans, a baggy sweater, and pink ballet flats. They stared at each other for several, long quiet moments, werewolf versus werewolf hunter.

  “Josiah Edric, I will not ask you again. Get your things and let's go.”

  Josiah stared back at her, tilting his head slightly to the side and raking his fingers through his dark brown hair. He cast a glance in my direction, running his tongue across his lower lip. My wolf responded immediately, rising to the surface and making me gasp with the sudden need to run, to sprint through the dewy wet forest with Josiah by my side. It was almost a physical ache, that compulsion, and I felt powerless to resist it.

  “What if I said … no?” Josiah asked, almost like a question, turning his attention back to his mother and crossing his arms over his chest. “What if I just refused to go? You're being completely unreasonable. It's been over a month and you still won't even talk to me about what happened.”

  “There's nothing to talk about,” Elsie said, casting her glare in my direction. I could feel her hatred like the heat from a summer sun, making my skin boil and blister beneath that white-hot glare. “Either you come with me now, or I'll leave and you can find somewhere else to stay tonight.”

  Josiah raised his eyebrows at his mother and exchanged a long, lingering look with me.

  “And if you leave my protection, I can't guarantee the other hunters will respect the boundaries I've set with Sylvia's family.”

  My jaw dropped open and I turned to gape at Mrs. Wakeham. Did she just, like, seriously threaten my family with werewolf hunters?

  “Get. Your. Things.” Mrs. Wakeham turned on her heel and started up the slick, wet cement steps toward the main part of the campus while Josiah and I stood there in tense silence and exchanged another glance.

  “I'm so sorry,” I said because god, this really was all my fault. I'd kissed Josiah; I'd changed him into a werewolf; I'd cause this rift between him and his mother.

  “Sorry?” he asked, turning to face me and putting his hands on either side of my hips, a move that never failed to get me excited. If I'd had my tail shifted, I'd definitely be wagging it right about now. “About what?”

  “You know, the whole, passing along the lycanthropy thing?” I said, the guilt twisting and knotting in my belly as I looked up at him and he smiled down at me. When he reached up and ruffled my hair, I narrowed my eyes on him.

  “You don't need to apologize. I already told you: becoming a werewolf was the best thing that ever happened to me.” A small grin worked its way across his mouth. “I'm bound to the hottest girl in school by magic. How cool is that? We're mates, Sylvia.”

  Aaaaaand there was the m-word again. I said I'd accepted it, not that it wasn't embarrassing to hear.

  “You just like making out with me,” I told him with a pretend air of condescension. In reality, I was thrilled. But also worried. Elsie Wakeham was still mad, really mad. And the dance was in three days. It was one of the biggest events in the entire school year, eclipsing pretty much everything else. Josiah and I, we could not miss this one.

  “I like more than just making out,” he said, raising his eyebrows and turning my cheeks as red as the hearts on his mother's sweater. He leaned down, brushed his hot mouth against mine and brought up goose bumps all across my skin. “I better go,” he said reluctantly, reaching down to squeeze my hand with a small sigh. “Don't forget to check inside the box I left you. There's a little something more than a stuffed animal in there.”

  And then he was pulling away, grabbing his backpack and heading up the stairs.

  At the top, Josiah turned to wave back at me and then I watched him disappear into the trees with a frown pulling down the corners of my lips.

  How the heck does a werewolf get a werewolf hunter to let her date her son?

  That was a question I desperately needed the answer to.

  “I'm home!” I called out after Deb dropped me off at the curb and gave my parents' Valentine's Day window display a skeptical look. The living room windows were covered in kitschy holiday decor—pink rose shaped lights, white and red and gold garlands, silhouettes of kissing couples. Mom and Dad weren't nearly as big into decorating for Valentine's Day as they were for New Year's or Christmas, but they still made some effort.

  Of course, the real effort would be their epic Valentine's Date. It was tradition in the Noe family, something the two of them had done every year since they started dating. They took turns planning and executing the date which could range from the traditional—dinner, a movie, and a box of chocolates—to the crazy, like that time Mom took Dad on a couples white-water rafting retreat.

  “Sylvia,” Mom said, greeting me at the door and planting a kiss on my head that made me wrinkle my nose. “I'm on my way out. I was just stopping by to grab some lunch.” She smiled down at me, her shiny brunette hair curled into one of those messy-pretty buns on the back of her head. Mom was wearing a red skirt suit with a pink top and a tie covered in white bow and arrow sets. Just as festive as Elsie Wakeham, but more modern, still very professional. “How was school?”

  Mom's question was laced with undertones. When she asked how school was nowadays, what she really meant was how was Josiah? She was as worried about him and Corine as I was. So much so that she'd taken to inviting ove
r Corine's mate, AJ, and his family for dinner once a week. They strategized about werewolf hunters, and werewolf politics, and what to do about the Wakeham family.

  I sighed and tried not to look too worried, determined instead to focus on DebLin and their little problem. It's so much easier to deal with other people's drama than your own, isn't it?

  “I barely saw him,” I said, feeling a small pang of disappointment in my chest. I straightened out my white tank with the gold heart on the front. It said Believe in Love in black cursive underneath, and I thought it was totally Valentine's Day without being over the top—like my panties. Today's pair said Be Mine, Baby? across the butt cheeks, complete with pastel colored candy hearts. Oh, and the bra matched, too. It even had a metal heart charm that hung from the center that gently bumped against my chest as I walked. Too bad Josiah wouldn't be seeing that either.

  Mom raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, inviting explanation.

  “Okay, so,” I paused and took a deep breath, tucking my fingers into the front pockets of my new white skinny jeans, “Josiah … had another incident today.”

  Mom pursed her lips, the bright red color on her mouth emphasizing the displeasure in her expression.

  “He started shifting in class again?” she asked, referencing last Tuesday's incident with the tail. I shook my head and paused at the sound of the bus pulling up outside. Crap. The little demons were home.

  “Not exactly,” I said, trying to condense the story so I could finish it before Trevor and Chase got in the front door and started harassing me. Yesterday, they'd stolen a pair of my new Valentine's undies, tied them to a stick and flew them in the front yard like a flag. They had a serious amount of payback coming their way. “But he felt the urge to run so bad that he skipped out on third period. His mom showed up at lunch and they sort of … had a fight. She took him and left the school.”

  Mom sighed, pausing and glancing down at her two demonic children as they burst inside with screams and a pseudo fistfight, arguing about who got to use Dad's laptop first. They were both obsessed with this online multiplayer game where, in an ironic twist of fate, the characters were all werewolves. Go figure.

  “I'll have to deal with this when I get home,” she said, her voice getting that scary steely determined edge that always gave me the chills. Honestly, more than any punishment she could ever mete out, it was that voice that kept me in line—most of the time anyway. “Go tell your father what happened, and then maybe help the boys with their Valentine's?” she asked, giving me a look that said she already knew I was going to protest.

  But then, she totally underestimated life without Josiah and Deb and Lincoln. I couldn't talk to my boyfriend Lincoln refused to answer any my of texts (plus I was mad at him anyway for breaking up with Deb), and Debra herself just wasn't in the mood for talking or hanging out.

  It was just me … and the demons.

  “Yeah, I'll help them,” I said on the tail end of a long sigh. I couldn't stop wondering about the dance and if Josiah had even talked to his mother about it. What if she refused to let him go? I mean, if the full moon wasn't enough to convince her that he needed a night out, what was a school dance really worth?

  “Thanks, honey.” Mom gave me another kiss, patted me on the head as I narrowed my eyes at her, and then disappeared out the door in her sexy black heels. One day, I was going to grow up to be my mother. Totally lame, I know, but I kind of … looked up to her?

  I went into the kitchen and looked at the pile of pink, red and white paper, the sea of tiny Valentine's Day cards and the massive piles of candy. In order to keep things fair, my brothers' school required that everyone give everyone else in the class Valentine's, that way nobody was left out. Which, of course, meant that I'd have to help put together like forty V-Day goody bags for my brothers' two classes.

  A grin twisted my lips as I snuck to the table and grabbed one of the tiny cards, scribbling a stupid sappy love note inside before slipping it into a tiny envelope with Trevor's crush's name on it. Roses are red, violets are blue, my heart is all yours, just for you. I sealed it up and moved it to the finished pile, so he wouldn't notice. How's that for payback?

  Later that night, I was sitting at the computer when a text popped up on my phone.

  Look out your window.

  It was from Lincoln. I raised my eyebrows and stood up from my desk, moving over to the window and pressing my hand to the glass so I could squint into the darkness. A faint shine reflected back at me from the bushes as my phone pinged with another text.

  Come down, it said. And use those sleuth-y werewolf powers of yours!

  I clamped my phone to my chest and tried not to squeal, biting my lower lip and shoving my feet into a pair of slippers shaped like fluffy clouds; they had big thick soles on the bottom for walking outside in the wet grass. If “Lincoln” was outside my window and texting me about werewolves, then that could only mean one thing: Josiah had borrowed his friend's phone.

  Cracking my door open a few inches, I listened in the hallway for any sign of the demons—or my parents. From down the hall, I could vaguely hear the murmur of voices behind their door. Good. Once they got settled in for the night, they were highly unlikely to come out until morning.

  With a deep breath, I sneaked out and headed down the stairs, carefully unlocking the front door and slipping out into the wet cold of late winter. I made my way around the house, past the garbage cans tucked up against the siding around the corner, and into the copse of trees that made up our backyard.

  Josiah was waiting for me.

  “Well, hello, little werewolf girl,” he said with a smile as I paused at the edge of the treeline and smiled at him through the shadows. He was sitting on the edge of a rock with a cluster of balloons held tightly in his right hand. The silver, pink, and white balloons danced on the quiet evening breeze, reflecting back stray shafts of moonlight as I made my way towards him, picking a path through the grass and pausing about a foot away.

  “You snuck out of your house, past your werewolf murdering mother … to bring me balloons?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and trying to pretend that I wasn't blushing furiously in the darkness. I could see the white flash of Josiah's grin from here.

  “It's part one of your Valentine's Day surprise,” he said, standing up and coming over to stand in front of me. This time, he was wearing a white hoodie that said Totally Taken on the front in red cursive, several black hearts clustered behind it. He reached down and lifted my left hand, the whorls of his fingertips brushing against my skin and making my breath hitch as he tied the strings of the balloons around my wrist like a bracelet.

  I shivered as I pulled my hand back and cradled it against my chest, looking up at Josiah's face limned in moonlight.

  “How did you get out?” I asked and his grin became a little wry.

  “My sister and I agreed to take turns occupying Mom this week, so we could each get a chance to sneak out. Tonight, Corine made cups of tea and invited my mom to sit down for a philosophical discussion about werewolves and the ethics of hunting them.” Josiah shrugged loosely. “I climbed out the window and Lincoln picked me up. We arranged it all this morning.”

  “Are you coming back to class tomorrow?” I asked, my voice soft, as if the darkness was keeping my words to a whisper. “To school, I mean?”

  Josiah sighed and took my hand in his, pulling me over to the rock and sitting me down next to him. We snuggled up close together, his arm around my waist, the warmth of his body chasing away the evening chill. The fact that he didn't just grin and answer me? Kind of scary. He was always so good-humored, always joking around and making light of things. The only times I'd seen him nervous, life and death situations had been at hand. Right now? He looked about as somber as he had the day he'd announced he'd discovered his mother was a professional werewolf killer.

  “Is it, um …” Josiah trailed off for a moment as I glanced up and studied the balloons with a more careful eye. There was a pair of c
urvy red lips, a silver wedding ring, a pink heart with the words Soul Mates. That one made me blush redder than the lip balloon, and I was suddenly glad it was so dark out beneath the trees. I could see the moon tracing its way across the lawn, but back here, everything was cloaked in shadow. “Is it possible to … turn a werewolf back into a human?” Josiah asked, his voice edgy and nervous.

  I glanced sharply over at him.

  “Why?” I blurted, anxiety and fear gripping me in icy fingers. My wolf rose up and howled against my heart, making my pulse shudder and thunder as I leaned in closer to Josiah and listened. But no, nothing had happened to him. When I pressed myself against him, I could still feel the pacing frustration of his wolf beneath his skin. He was still a werewolf, still my mate. If I closed my eyes hard enough, I could almost swear I could see a thread of magic tying us together into an impossible knot. “Did something happen?”

  “After she dragged me home from school, Mom made me this weird cup of herbal tea and then got really mad when I said didn't want any. So … I drank it and … then I threw up.”

  Both my eyebrows climbed up my forehead towards my hairline.

  “What was in it?” I asked, my eyes going wide, my heart thumping in time with Josiah's as I studied the full curve of his lower lip, the straight line of his nose, the long dark curves of his lashes.

  “Wolfsbane,” he said and I felt the blood rush out of my face.

  “What?! Josiah, that stuff is like, crazy poisonous—to humans and werewolves.”

  He pursed his lips tight and sighed, snuggling closer to me so that I was practically in his lap.