Sins of Long Ago

by Naomi Bellina

  “I prefer the term working girl,” Chloe said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Don’t look at me like that. This is a side business, no worse than waiting tables. It’s just another part of the service industry. Shit, I get treated better giving blowjobs than I do slinging food. Hey, chill out.” She frowned and took a step to the side.

  Vincent’s hands clenched. “You’re not attracted to me? You only want to have sex with me for money?”

  “Well, duh. Come on, dude. When is the last time a hot girl like me wanted sex with you?”

  “You’d be surprised. Don’t lie, you are attracted to me. I can…” Uh-uh, don’t say you can smell her arousal.

  Chloe shrugged. “Yeah, so, you are kinda sexy for an older guy. Sometimes I get lucky.”

  Older guy? The anger that rippled through him at her revelation intensified. He automatically pushed it down and put his hands behind his back, certain his claws would start to grow. To his relief, they didn’t. Sending a silent prayer of thanks to Morgan and her formula, he let out a breath. Time to end this.

  “Have a good night. I’m outta here.” He turned to go, but she put a hand on his shoulder and stepped in front of him.

  “Don’t be all sad. Like I said, you’re pretty sexy. Go make up with your girlfriend and don’t be mad at me. Everyone is hiding some part of themselves they don’t let others see.”

  And you have no idea how close you came to seeing mine.

  Chapter 3

  Vincent studied his reflection in the mirror as he dried off from his shower. He’d never had trouble attracting female attention, even when he didn’t turn on the wolf charm. He’d been told he looked “rugged,” and apparently, chicks dug rugged. He leaned in over the sink for a closer look. Maybe there were a few more lines around his eyes, but not many. Old, my ass. You still got it, big guy.

  Knowing he should grab the time to sleep but still fired up, he sat at his desk, a shot of whiskey at his elbow, and picked up his lucky jade stone, a gift from a client he’d helped with a particularly nasty security issue. Rubbing the rock helped him think, gave his hands something to do when his mind needed to focus. Kept them occupied when he felt an overwhelming desire to wrap them around some asshole’s throat, like he desperately wanted to do now. The last call he’d got from Dylan about sent him through the roof. So much for a peaceful recon mission.

  What the hell were those two thinking, going after Sysco by themselves? From what he’d picked up from Dylan’s story, they’d had no choice but to follow Sysco and had stayed in the background, not putting themselves in harm’s way intentionally. When the shit hit the fan, they got out of the situation as fast as they could.

  He hadn’t wanted them that close to danger, Morgan especially. She was human and couldn’t protect herself. Smart, though. She’d filled him in briefly on what she’d learned from Sysco and promised to give him a more complete report the next day. Had to write down the details, she said, before she forgot. That was the way doctors worked, apparently. At least he’d learned firsthand, Morgan’s potion worked. With all the crap going on this evening, he should be way more agitated than he felt, like looking for a fight rather than kind of pissed off.

  Instead he sat here, mind focused, ready to start finding out what he could about these fuckers messing with his wolves. The Woods. Morgan had seen a vision of a werewolf being held captive and a sign on a building with that name. An Internet search revealed not much more than he already knew. The Woods was a resort area, and from what he could see from their website, it consisted of eight luxury cabins—houses really—for people who wanted to connect with the great outdoors but with all the conveniences of home. It looked fairly secluded, and the units were spaced far apart. The perfect place to stash a prisoner.

  He could do little else tonight. Between Morgan’s potion and the whiskey, his mind finally slowed. He climbed into bed, mentally going over the last-minute details for the ceremony the next day. Normally, they would have the body in the woods, and if their shaman, Hallmar, was nearby, he would perform their version of the last rites. All the pack members would take the opportunity to say a few words, and then they would each put a memento of the deceased into a bonfire, as a way to send a reminder of his humanity to travel along with his spirit to the next life. In the old days, they burned the body. Some of the packs who had acres of open land could still get away with the ancient fiery tradition, but the Howlers had to be satisfied with this arrangement. Mr. Leidolf then took care of the cremation at his mortuary, and the ashes were divided among family and friends.

  Vincent glanced at the clock. Not too late. He could give Sharon a call. She’d meant a lot to Michael, he knew. After being bitten, the young werewolf had moved to the Midwest area to be near the Howler pack, which he’d found with the help of another pack on the East coast. Michael had wanted to start a new life, and the Howlers had a good reputation. Having his sister nearby made adjusting to the changes a little easier.

  Only shifters were allowed at the Final Ceremony. Vincent understood the reasoning behind this rule, but recalling the look in Sharon’s eyes, he decided to screw the rules. He got out of bed and found her number in his files.

  “Sharon, it’s Vincent. I hope I’m not calling too late.”

  “No, I’m still awake.” Her tone rang cold, but she didn’t hang up.

  “I’d like to invite you to our ceremony, after the service at Leidolf’s tomorrow.”

  Silence. Did she disconnect?

  “Sharon?”

  “Thank you, Vincent.” A touch of warmth in her voice now. “I don’t think I’m up to attending your ceremony. I appreciate the offer, though.”

  “We’ll send his spirit off in a fire on his final journey with tokens of our affection. Something that reminds us of him and maybe a good time we had. If you’d like to bring anything to Leidolf’s, we’ll include it.”

  “I have his favorite baseball cap. He left it in my car one day. I think he’d like to take it along.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. “Do you all really think he’s on a journey? That there’s life beyond this one? He told me a little about what you and some of the others believe, but we didn’t talk about the afterlife much. I thought he would be around a lot longer.”

  “Some of us do believe in an afterlife and reincarnation, yes. After becoming these creatures, we have to have faith we’ll get to live another life, a normal one, the life we were supposed to live. We trust we’ll be incarnated as men and women, fully human again.”

  Sharon sniffed. “I didn’t care about his wolf side. It didn’t change him, really. He was still awesome. That bitch Jessica, she’s just a shallow little girl. Not worthy of him. I wish he’d never met her.”

  Vincent closed his eyes, a picture of Michael’s easy smile filling his memory. “I didn’t know anything about her. He stopped hanging around the past months, said he was busy with work. Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “He didn’t want to upset you. He barely told me. I practically had to beat it out of him. Love at first sight, according to him. He knew better than to fall in love with, what do you call us? Nowepes?”

  Vincent smiled. A few of the pack members had invented that term which stood for non-were people. Several bottles of beer had been involved in coming up with that the nickname, if he recalled correctly.

  “He was goofy in love with Jessica. I met her twice, couldn’t see the attraction. He was going to break the news to her about his wolf side.”

  “And did he?” Vincent asked, hoping to hell the answer was no. Werewolf laws were brutal but necessary to maintain their secrecy. If an incident involving a werewolf and a human made it to the public eye, the human was killed. Their organization had people who were trained to make it look like an accident. Their existence could not be revealed.

  “No, I don’t think he did. He called me, just a few nights ago. Said he loved Jessica too much to hurt her. He knew he was no good for her; it would never work. I thought he planned to bre
ak up with her. I argued with him a little, told him all the usual BS. They should give it a try, maybe it would be okay, blah, blah, blah. Truth is, I hoped he would leave her. Like I said, too good for the bitch.” Sharon sniffed. “There are female werewolves, right? And some weres with humans, aren’t there?”

  “Yes, to both of those.”

  “The females, are they like the guys? Do they change, to wolf, the same way?”

  “Pretty much, yes.” Sharon’s tone conveyed true curiosity, and no doubt, she wanted to know more about the way her brother had lived, but it no longer mattered. Anyway, Vincent didn’t have the energy to discuss the subject tonight.

  When women came to his pack, they were generally freaked out, more so than men. They were given another female to guide them, and once they got over the initial horror of what they’d become, fell into the rhythm of pack life.

  Some of them ended up marrying pack members, some chose the hard life of marriage to a human. A few even adopted children and made that conventional existence work. Thankfully, if a woman had ever been pregnant, she could not become a were creature. Something about her DNA changing. Mothers never had to do the unthinkable and leave their children. All of them were given choices on how they wanted to live and most took advantage of counseling with a werewolf psychiatrist in Maine.

  “The couples. Do they manage to live that way? Without destroying each other or having other humans find out about them?”

  Chances were, with a man as young as Michael and presuming his mate was young also, it would not succeed. Pack leaders tried to dissuade young members from taking humans as permanent mates. There were success stories, but the chances of failure were high.

  “It’s a tough life, but a few manage to make it work.”

  “And you’d really kill her, Jessica, if she let anyone know Michael was a werewolf?”

  They sure as hell would. This terrifying fact was made known to the human, and not surprisingly, deterred many from entering into a permanent union.

  Stupid. This method of handling their affairs was stupid. There had to be another way to deal with humans and weres who wanted to be together.

  “We would. We have to protect ourselves.”

  Certain he would be subjected to another outburst from Sharon, Vincent held the phone away from his ear slightly.

  “Have you ever been in love? Since, you know, you changed.”

  Thinking of Gen his cock twitched. Lust, maybe. Love, no. He refused to let his heart rule, to give himself totally to a woman. Unlike Michael, he would never allow his situation to affect another person who could be harmed. Bad enough a young woman died because he’d let his guard down.

  “No, I have never been in love. You know where Leidolf’s Chapel is, right?” End of discussion.

  “Yes, I do. I’ll come by there early tomorrow and drop off the cap. Please save his ashes for me. I haven’t even called our dad yet. He’s out of state, and they’re not terribly close, but I’ll have to come up with some story. Maybe a car wreck. That might explain the cremation. Thank you, Vincent. Oh, and hey, sorry about pitching a bitch at the funeral home today. I was pretty…you know.”

  “No worries. You have every right to be angry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  * * * *

  Saturday.

  “A little more, bend a little more, now spread your legs, wider, that’s it, lift your hips, right there. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Genevieve moaned. No, it didn’t feel good. It felt like she lay on a medieval torture device. She already regretted letting Morgan talk her into this early morning exercise class with Sally, co-owner of the local Down to Earth Diner. “It will be fun,” Morgan said. “It will give us energy,” she said.

  The only thing going to happen was a torn hamstring if she didn’t stop contorting her body into these ridiculous positions. And participating in a class called Sally’s Super Sex Yoga? What had she been thinking?

  “You’re looking good, ladies. Feel the energy rising from the Earth, filling your body and soul. Move it through you; let it work its magic.”

  A quick look around at the faces of the other women led Gen to believe not so much magic energy as sweat flowing. Moisture beaded many brows, and most every participant’s face wore a grimace. If this sadistic woman did not end the class soon, there would be a mutiny right here in the YMCA of Nocturne. As if reading Genevieve’s mind, Sally clapped her hands gently.

  “Okay, enough for today. Stand up. Shake it out. Don’t your muscles feel fantastic? Remember, if you do this practice every day it will become easier. You’ll loosen up, and your body will love you. So will your partner, trust me. Next week we’ll move deeper into sexual positioning and energy transfer.”

  Mopping her face and rolling up her mat, Genevieve had to admit, she did feel looser. “I don’t know about all this sexual positioning stuff,” she said to Morgan as they headed to the locker room for a quick shower.

  “Yeah, I’m afraid my wimpy little body might be too sore to get into any position other than missionary after being twisted like spaghetti on a fork. I sure needed to unwind, though. Wait till I tell you about last night.” Morgan lowered her voice. “I take it your date with Vincent didn’t go so well?”

  “No, it did not. He’s awfully busy and seems really stressed right now. One of his guys died…Oh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you. All the werewolf stuff is kind of secret-like.”

  “That’s okay. I already heard. Dylan told me last night. The guy committed suicide; that’s why it’s so weird. Apparently, killing oneself is just not done in the werewolf world.”

  “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. I might be kind of pissed if someone bit me and turned me into a paranormal creature. Those weres, they seem to have temper issues anyway.” They stopped talking as they stepped into the showers. Gen turned on the water and let the warmth cascade over her, releasing more knots in her back the yoga routine had missed.

  Outside in the parking lot they stood by their cars. Gen wrapped her arms around her body. “Brrr. Let’s get out of this cold before we tighten back up. I have time for a quick cup of coffee. How about you? I want to hear about your evening.”

  Morgan agreed, and they headed to the Down to Earth Diner that Sally and her husband, Greg, owned. The minute she entered the restaurant, saliva formed as the smell of cinnamon and butter wafted up to her nose.

  “Is my woman done turning you all into pretzels?” Greg asked. “She needs to get her pretty little butt in here. I’m going to get busy shortly and need to start cooking. All I have now are homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee.”

  “Which is all we need,” Morgan said. The two women took the steaming cups and gooey pastries he handed them and settled into a booth by the window. Morgan proceeded to tell Gen about locating Colin Sysco and how they determined he was the man behind the recent attacks on the weres in the area. She gave her friend further details about how they hunted him down, how he’d been killed, and how the men who shot him got away.

  “Wow, are you okay? You guys didn’t get hurt?”

  “We’re fine, though I think Vincent about had a heart attack when we called him and told him what happened. He really wanted us just to observe.”

  Gen’s stomach twanged with guilt. Part of Morgan’s wild evening had been unfolding during her date with him. No wonder he seemed wound up tight.

  “And what will happen now?”

  “We picked up a few clues Vincent can use to track down the guys we saw. I’m going to be a good girl and stay out of the investigation. Well, I’m going to try real hard to stay out. Vincent was a tad bit pissed at me for acting on my own and putting myself in danger.”

  “Speaking of temper issues, how are you and Dylan doing with all his stuff?”

  “We are doing just fine.” Morgan’s face glowed, and a stab of jealousy poked Gen’s heart. “He’s used my protocol twice, and it works. We’ve had sex and nothing happened. Well, something happened,
just nothing scary with big teeth and claws.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Gen meant it. Dylan had never been able to have passionate, emotional sex without shifting to wolf form. Morgan had come up with a way to calm him using a protocol consisting of music, tuning forks, acupressure, and Peaceful Soul, the potion she and Gen had developed together. Apparently it worked. Envious though she was, Gen rejoiced that the two were doing so well.

  “He’s going to join Vincent’s pack soon, and if they weren’t doing the Final Ceremony for that poor man who died, it probably would have been tonight.”

  “Is Dylan kind of nervous about becoming a member of the Howlers? You said he never belonged to a pack before, right?”

  “He’s got more of a lone wolf mentality, but after all Vincent and his crew have done for him recently, he’s starting to see the benefits of belonging to a group. So enough about me. Don’t you have any juicy details from your evening?”

  “I ate dinner alone while Vincent took a phone call, then he answered a text and took another call. Between getting their ceremony ready and dealing with you guys, he had his hands full. We didn’t even make it to dessert. The juiciest thing happened later at night, just me and my vibrator.”

  “Gen!”

  Genevieve laughed. She enjoyed teasing Morgan and watching her cheeks turn pink. Her friend was far too modest. Super Sex Yoga and being with an earthy wild man would be good for her.

  “Speak of the devil.” Gen looked at her phone. “Vincent. Apologizing for being an asshole and wants to try again. Should I give him a second chance?”

  “Yes, you absolutely should. I think you two would make a good couple. Do you want to be alone forever?”

  Letting her hair fall in her face, Genevieve turned to dig in her purse. That remark hit too close to home. Morgan put her hand on Gen’s arm, but she pulled it away. She didn’t want her psychic friend to read her right now.

  “Hey, what? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything. Come on, I’m like the pot calling the kettle black. I’m just a few cats away from being a crazy cat lady myself, rambling around in my big house, just me and my four-legged friends for companionship. I gave up ever finding a strong man who could handle an independent woman. If this doesn’t work out with Dylan, I might as well head over to the animal shelter and pick up those felines. I’m doomed.”