by Mandy Rosko
“You know something else! Have you heard anything about Pearl? What have you been hiding from me?”
He sighed, reached out, and took one of her hands away from gripping her arms and held it in his giant palms. “There’s a rumor in the vampire circles that Pearl is collecting a small group of her father’s soldiers. They can only be for one thing.”
Great.
“That’s why I had Alex tell you my new plan, and I know what you’re thinking. You’re not confined to the house, just the land. It’s safer for you here with Chris, Alex, and Jake to protect you, and no one from the town comes here. I know you dyed your hair,” he said, touching the red locks that had once been blonde, “but with your picture everywhere, that won’t do it anymore.”
Shelley crossed her arms and sat away from him. His face twisted in confusion at the movement, but she couldn’t enjoy it because of how pissed off she was.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Me neither.”
He cocked his head, still staring at her wearily.
“I’m not some chick you chained to your cabin anymore, but the idea is the same. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now.”
He still looked confused. “But I just explained—”
“It doesn’t matter if you explain it. The point is that you made this decision, and then had your second tell me about it like I was one of your underlings or something. That doesn’t sit well with me.”
Especially since she promised herself to never, ever let herself get pushed around again. Not after she let her parents do it her whole life.
Michael’s face softened. “Shelley, would it be all right if you stayed on the property and always had an escort while outside the house, for the time being?”
She took a breath, his half-lidded eyes taking all the anger out of her. “I’ll keep myself on the property and promise not to do anything that’ll expose your family.”
He leaned in and kissed her, his mouth a firm press that made her grip the sheets. Shelley’s eyes fell shut.
Then he pulled away, contentment on his face as he stared at her, his bright gray eyes looking more and more silver. “Thanks. I’ll go find Alex now before he wanders into Clearwater and scares a jogger.”
The bed shifted heavily as Michael rose up. With a parting glance, he left their bedroom.
Shelley drew her bare knees up and wrapped her arms around her crossed ankles. The pack wanted her out, a vampire stalker wanted her man dead, and the whole damn world just refused to forget that Shelley Star existed, but so long as he kissed her like that, everything was going to be okay.
Then a familiar, heavy dread lodged itself in the pit of her stomach, like a sticky tar she couldn’t escape. The realization was almost too much to bear.
She and Michael still hadn’t had sex.
Chapter Two
If Shelley couldn’t throw any of her pent-up energy into sex, she figured she’d go jogging. It was either that or work on her manuscript, and at the moment that project was going a whole lot of nowhere fast.
She switched out of her jeans and T-shirt and got into her loose beige trousers with the pink stripe and matching short top, tied her hair back, and headed for the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.
Chris and Deena were in there, sitting in the breakfast nook, sun shining through the curved windows behind them. Their conversation sounded awkward, so Shelley tried to get by unnoticed.
Yeah, not going to happen with a werewolf in the house. Even with their backs to her, Chris’s head snapped around when her foot stepped from carpet to tile. Shelley sent him a limp wave and continued on to the stainless steel fridge.
He looked reasonably embarrassed for having spun around as though an enemy could be prowling in the house, then turned and continued on with Deena, his voice lower this time, but Shelley still heard. “Can’t you just pee on a stick?”
Deena wasn’t as embarrassed by the topic to keep her voice down. Shelley almost wished she was. Despite the pixie-pink hair and tiny unicorn earrings, Deena was well known for getting her point across the way grown-ups did. Most of the time. “I’d rather know for sure this time. I’m seeing a female gynecologist anyway. What are you acting so prissy about?”
Shelley quietly opened the door to the fridge, grabbed the first thing her hand touched, then slunk back toward the exit. She totally didn’t want to hear this conversation.
“Okay, I get that you need to go to make sure you’re actually, hopefully…” He trailed off, making a vague motion toward her gut. “My human self gets it, but my inner wolf isn’t happy about anyone poking around my mate’s hoo-ha, regardless of the reason.”
“God, will you shut up?”
From her peripheral vision, Shelley watched Deena lift a dish rag from the table and throw it at her husband with a laugh in her voice. Chris caught it in his teeth, then thought better of it and spat it out real fast, making a face.
They were always teasing each other.
With a tiny pang of envy, Shelley left them to their banter. In the month she’d lived in this house, Deena, the only other human woman living here and the pack veterinarian, had become the sister Shelley had always wanted, and Chris became the big brother she never had.
Chris even teased her, too, in the way Shelley assumed older brothers teased their sisters. When she’d mentioned she was writing a romance novel, he’d surprised her by saying he was writing one too. They’d become critique partners for about a week. It ended when Shelley read his first chapter and realized she was being had when the heroine of Chris’s novel described the hero’s penis as being prick-tastic and demanded he enter her heavenly woman cave.
She hadn’t been too angry with him for that.
The couple had been trying to have a baby with no luck, but two weeks ago Deena had announced to Chris that she was late. They’d had enough false alarms that Deena was going to see a doctor for the confirmation this time, and Shelley desperately hoped the couple was going to get their child.
The woman was having the weird food cravings, at any rate. That had to mean there was something more than her wishful thinking brewing in there.
Shelley didn’t run into anyone else on her way out. Must be in their rooms, she thought. Good. Sometimes it was hard getting alone time in this house, and after what she’d just seen and what Michael told her, she wouldn’t mind keeping more mood killers out of her head.
A long dirt road stretched into the woods of the property, winding off in several places, sometimes thinning into a trail barely fit for one, but that was only if she went deeper into the trees. Shelley knew to stay along the fences to keep from getting lost. Even then, there was no way she’d be able to do a full circle around the entire property. It was just too big. When she got tired, she’d turn back.
Michael said to not leave the property, and she wouldn’t be, as long as she stayed inside the fence.
She took her first drink from her bottle of what turned out to be orange Gatorade and was just adjusting her iPod in her armband when a silver wolf appeared, trotting into sight from the other side of the house.
Shelley’s hand stopped. Then her heart did a little jump at the sight of Michael in his wolf form.
“Hey!” she called, waving to grab his attention. He must’ve just transformed after leaving her in their room. Whatever. She was just glad to see him again.
He spotted her and returned her greeting with a bark and a sway of his shaggy tail.
She was already jogging toward him, thinking to interest the wolf into running with her, when another larger, scruffier canine came into view. Shelley stopped.
Jake. He usually followed other members of the pack around who were in their wolf forms. The need for company, Shelley supposed, though he stayed at least five feet away from Michael in his wolf form at all times.
Michael was not allergic to silver because of the silver in his pelt, but everyone else still felt the effects. Shelley had yet to see what the e
xact consequences would be, but it was enough that the pack gave Michael’s wolf the right of way. Always.
Michael trotted toward her, tongue hanging out of his yap, and Shelley hunched down enough to rub his ears the way he liked. Jake followed at a slower pace, head bent a little, watching her with that suspicion his wolf still had of her, even after a month living on the same land.
“Hey, come on, you know who I am.” Shelley stretched her palm out, inviting him for a closer sniff. Jake hesitated, his furry head cocking at the offer, then he came, his paws slowing more and more as he neared until he was finally close enough to stretch out his neck and nose just enough for a better whiff.
His wet snout touched her thumb, and he began sniffing in frantic earnest now. Michael sat on his haunches, watching the exchange with clear silver eyes.
Jake sneezed, shook his head and body out, and that was the end of that. Tail wagging, he passed by her and headed down the trail.
“Good seeing you, too,” she called after him, wiping the hand he’d callously sneezed his dog slobber on onto the grass. When he was a man, things were easier. He recognized her on sight, usually. Jake was the kind of werewolf who, for the most part, was more wolf than man, and his wolf needed the sound of her voice or her scent to figure things out.
It was like that with all the werewolves. Their wolves were like separate entities that needed releasing every once in a while. The man never had any memories of being the wolf, and the wolf had no memories of being a man, though Shelly suspected Jake, being so in tune with his wolf, carried some of that part of himself over when he transformed, rare as those occurrences were.
It was why the packs had to be as isolated as they were—not because of Jake, but because of how wild the werewolves could become. Shelley might be able to walk amongst them without a problem, but that was only because she was mated to one of their own and had Michael’s scent all over her. These wolves were anything but tame animals. Normal people didn’t mix so well when the wolves thought their territory was being stomped all over, so it was best to keep things quiet.
Any member of the pack who didn’t live on the property with Michael and the others only did so because they owned houses of their own, houses that were far enough away from any humans to cause trouble.
If they did cause trouble, they still had Michael to answer for it.
Shelley stuck her earbuds in and looked down at Michael. “Coming?”
His answering bark was cut off by the string of violins in Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.” He followed her as she headed down the path, eventually coming up alongside her and keeping pace.
Jake followed, sort of. He wandered here and there, vanishing into the thick pines after something that’d caught his eye, returning other times to run on Shelley’s other side so she was surrounded, but always he remained a constant presence.
Shelley liked him well enough but longed for it to be just her and Michael. Another thing that had changed when she came here was that she had never once been alone with his wolf. Michael had made her promise up and down that she would never, ever have him playing fetch in front of anyone else in the pack, or scratching his belly, or doing anything that would make him look less than fierce.
It made sense. His status here was protected by his strength, and if she was treating him like a puppy, well, then anyone could challenge him, and Shelley would be seeing a whole lot more blood splattered around the house. So she had promised.
Still, Shelley couldn’t help that she’d almost started to see his wolf as her pet, and now that she couldn’t play with him either, it was just another thing to bring her down.
There was way too much reminiscing on this jog.
Shelley skidded to a halt when she realized neither wolf was beside her. Jake taking off was one thing, but Michael would never have veered away from her in his wolf form. She turned back and spotted them. They both stood on the trail, closer than was usual, heads turned to look at what was beyond the old wooden fence.
She nearly whistled for them but caught herself. She turned off the iPod on her arm and pulled the buds from her ears, running to them. “Hey! Michael, Jake, what’s wrong? What’s the…oh…”
As Shelley got closer, she could see the hackles of both wolves raised high. Michael stepped in front of her in a protective stance, a low growl in his throat that Jake angrily backed up.
A figure stood beyond the fence, thirty or so yards away. Shelley could tell it was a woman by the slim, hourglass figure that her cloak and hood could not conceal.
Twilight stretched just behind the girl, and Shelley put her hand over her eyes to block out the sun’s rays.
The glow of red eyes made her heart jump, and she stumbled back so fast that she nearly tripped and landed on her ass on the dirt trail. Memories from last month came back to her in a dizzying clash.
Teeth in her neck, her body becoming weak, useless, and Michael fighting for their lives, dark blood spreading over clothing like a rose blooming in high speed. Shelley reached for the place where she’d been bitten without thinking.
“Pearl.”
In the distance, Pearl’s canines flashed. The vampire’d heard her, and the undead bitch was grinning.
Suddenly, every nerve in Shelley’s body was on high alert. Pearl had recovered from that stab wound fast, but then, she was a vampire. It was just a matter of time before she came back to get what she really wanted. Michael.
A soft whine sounded far away, then closer as a cold nose bumped her hand. Shelley looked down as Michael wiggled his head so that her palm was resting on top of it, between his ears.
His silver eyes were soft as he looked at her, then his head turned to Pearl, and another growl rumbled out of his chest, the hair on his back rising high.
And just like that, she knew. Even as a wolf with little to no human reasoning skills, Michael would still not leave her to chase a vampire through the valley. Jake was likely doing the same just because his alpha hadn’t taken off after her, but he looked like he wanted nothing better than to run to her. He lifted his paws onto one of the fence rails and whined.
Pearl definitely couldn’t attack yet because the sun was still partially up. If she threw off her dark hood or revealed her wings, she’d be cooked. Literally.
Not when the sun went down in the next couple of minutes.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and ran back in the direction of the house. The others needed to know Pearl was back and she still wanted to make a try for Michael’s silver pelt.
Michael was beside her the whole time, paws pounding the dirt. Shelley doubted he would appreciate it if she was more worried about him than she was about herself. It wasn’t like the vampire king would want the dyed hair of a burnt-out actress to line his royal robes.
Shelley made the mistake of looking back as she ran. Pearl was on the trail now, looking like a grim reaper with her face concealed beneath the hood. All she needed to complete the image was a scythe.
Five other vampires, similarly dressed to protect them from the dimming sun, stood in a V formation behind her.
Shelley picked up the pace. Princess Pearl had backup this time.
Chapter Three
The vampires didn’t chase her, though she was constantly looking over her shoulder until she got in the house. Two wolves in the sunlight were too much even for them, it seemed. Thank God.
“They were trying to scare you,” Deena said, putting a steaming mug of coffee into Shelley’s hands. The sun was completely down now, but even with the doors all locked and surrounded by at least four other werewolves, she didn’t feel safe.
She wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic cup, trying to hide from Deena how they trembled. “It worked.”
Vampires, like werewolves, didn’t seem to follow all the rules Shelley had grown up reading about. One of which being that they didn’t need an invitation to enter onto someone else’s property.
As the sun was currently down outsi
de, the only thing that was keeping the vampires away now was the houseful of angry werewolves.
Either that or they were biding their time. Maybe that show was meant to be a message?
A loud roar sounded through the walls, and a heavy slam shook them. A framed painting rattled until the tremors settled. Angry voices spoke, but Shelley couldn’t make out what they were saying, just the tone.
Shelley had never seen, or heard, as the case was, Michael so out-of-his-mind angry like this.
“Is it a good idea to keep Jake outside? With them…” Shelley trailed off.
Deena poured herself a cup from the pot on the marble kitchen counter then took her seat on one of the high stools with Shelley at the bar. “The boys can handle themselves when they want to, and Jake wasn’t too eager to come inside.”
Jake was still in wolf form out there. The second Shelley’s sneakers had touched the first stair of the deck, he’d halted, sat, and stayed, refusing to go any farther despite Shelley’s calls to him to come to safety. Michael ran up the stairs and into the house with her, transforming almost instantly back into a man, the wolf leaving her now that she was safely at home.
Sometimes Michael’s transformations were spontaneous, difficult to control, but could be predicted depending on his mood. Sometimes too much anger, other times too much pleasure. One time he was just working out too hard, and it happened. There was never any knowing for sure what would do the trick.
When he became a man again, heart racing with adrenaline and not knowing why, he’d grabbed her and demanded to know why she was crying.
Shelley hadn’t even realized she was doing it. She did her best to keep her voice coherent while she told him. In his anger, he’d nearly transformed again, and she had to calm him down. He was getting his emotions out by punching the walls and trashing his office.
Another roar sounded, and this time that rattling painting did fall. Deena said nothing. She silently stirred sugar into her coffee, concern on her face, and neither she nor Shelley moved to pick up the frame. It hadn’t broken anyway. Stuff in a werewolf’s home needed to be sturdy anyway.
