The Better To Kiss You With

by Michelle Osgood

  Deanna didn’t reply. The thought of quitting her job just because someone was harassing her made her hackles go up as though she were the wolf, not Jamie—but she couldn’t deny that Jamie had a point. If this guy was a werewolf, and could do what she’d seen Jamie do earlier—could wear the same fangs Jamie had sported earlier—Deanna had good reason to take his threats seriously. But let him control her life? No. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t.

  “I won’t be an idiot. I’m not going to take stupid risks,” she began.

  “Dee—”

  “No,” Deanna said firmly. “I won’t quit my job. I understand now why you asked, but please don’t ask me again.”

  Jamie looked ready to argue, but, to Deanna’s relief, she bit her tongue.

  “I’ll be careful, though. And, I mean, we don’t have proof that he’s actually hurt anyone.” Deanna’s mind flicked to the picture he’d sent her and the woman who’d been torn to shreds. She’d never thought crywolf had been responsible for it, but now… well, now she wasn’t so sure. “It could still blow over.”

  Jamie didn’t look convinced. “He’s chancing a lot, contacting you like he is. We have rules, and he’s breaking them. He’s going rogue. Gone rogue?” She gave a useless shrug. “I haven’t heard of it happening in years.” She looked as troubled as she had before she’d dropped the whole werewolf bomb. “I’ve asked my pack to reach out, to see if anyone knows who he is, or where.”

  “We’re safe tonight though, right?” Deanna, hoping to ease the worried lines on her face, lifted Jamie’s hand and dropped a quick kiss on her knuckles.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” Jamie swore, with something fierce in her voice. Deanna had a flash of the large, deadly fangs that were as much a part of Jamie as her blunt, human teeth. She suppressed a shudder—not at what Jamie could do, but at what Jamie was obviously prepared to do. Deanna wasn’t a complete moron. She had known from the pictures he’d sent her that crywolf was no longer a laughing matter, but he suddenly felt more real than anything else. Because not only did Jamie have fangs, crywolf probably did as well—and his could tear at Jamie as easily as hers could tear at him.

  “Tell me more, though. How many werewolves are there? How big is your pack? Do you have an ‘alpha’?” Deanna said the last word mockingly, finger quotes and all, and was astounded when Jamie actually blushed. “Oh, you’re not serious,” she groaned. “Alphas, really?”

  “What? Pop culture had to get it right some time.”

  Chapter Twelve |

  For all intents and purposes, Jamie moved into Deanna’s apartment. Deanna didn’t have the room, not exactly, but they had managed to make it work for one week and were starting their second. If Nathan thought their sudden cohabitation was remarkable, he kept it to himself, winking cheekily at Deanna the next time he stopped by and was just in time to catch Jamie going to campus after having very clearly used Deanna’s shower.

  For the first few days Jamie had refused to leave Deanna’s side, but having someone constantly underfoot—and the small size of Deanna’s apartment meant Jamie would be in the way—had driven Deanna dangerously close to snapping. When Deanna had expressed this sentiment through gritted teeth and with an ominously raised spatula, Jamie had agreed to continue her schoolwork as usual. Deanna had reasoned with her that she was only a phone call away, and had sworn up and down that she wouldn’t answer her door to anyone she didn’t know or wasn’t expecting. Besides, she doubted very much that a werewolf would stage an attack on her in the middle of the city and in broad daylight. Jamie had relented on the condition that she would be back at Deanna’s apartment every evening at five on the dot.

  Living with Jamie had been illuminating—and not just because Deanna learned several new and interesting places in her apartment they could have sex, but because it allowed Deanna to pepper Jamie with questions about her “furry little problem.”

  “My furry little what?”

  “You know, like in Harry Potter. You did read Harry Potter, right?”

  “Yeah. Once.”

  “Well, it’s a literary classic so you should probably reread it. But Professor Lupin used to be friends with—you know what, never mind.” The unimpressed expression on Jamie’s face led Deanna to abandon her explanation and hasten to her question. “Wolfsbane: pretty or poison?”

  “Pretty. Silver’s the thing that really hurts.” Jamie popped her earbud back in and returned to her research.

  Deanna made a mental note to reorganize her jewelry box.

  ***

  Werewolves had only three big rules, Deanna learned. One: protect your pack. Two: don’t kill anyone. Three: don’t get caught.

  Jamie’s pack was her family. Deanna had been only slightly disappointed to learn that it was impossible for a bite from a werewolf to turn a human into one, and that the ability was passed down from parent to child. Or grandparent to child—Jamie’s mother was fully human, as well as her father. Both of her mother’s siblings, Trevor of the “bored games” and the pack’s current alpha, Michael, had the ability to shift, as had their mother, who was the previous alpha. Knowing that Jamie’s father had married into a family of werewolves, aware and apparently unconcerned that his child could grow fur, made Deanna eager to meet him. Assuming, of course, that things continued to go so well with Jamie.

  With one hand wrapped around Arthur’s leash and the other tucked firmly into the crook of Jamie’s arm, Deanna tried not to be too smug as they walked home from Granville Island’s public market with Jamie talking about the romantic comedy she was trying to convince Deanna to watch.

  “I know you don’t like Vince Vaughn—”

  “He looks like how a pube in your mouth feels.”

  Jamie looked at Deanna askance and not a little horrified, but gamely continued. “The Breakup is incredibly underrated. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie with a more honest representation of—”

  “I’ll watch it if you watch Jupiter Ascending,” Deanna offered smoothly, turning to Jamie with a winning smile.

  Jamie’s step faltered; a pained expression crossed her face as she weighed the pros and cons of sitting through more sci-fi. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally.

  “Great.” If someone had told Deanna a month ago that her quiet, mysterious, sexy upstairs neighbor had a weak spot for romcoms, of all things, Deanna wouldn’t have believed it for a second. Somehow that seemed more out of character than the fact that Jamie could turn into a wolf.

  Deciding it was time to change the subject before she had to hear more about Vince Vaughn, Deanna pointed with their joined hands to a man several meters away. He was talking on his cell phone, with one finger jabbing at the empty air in front of him.

  “What can you tell me about that guy?”

  Jamie blinked. “He’s frustrated?”

  “No.” Deanna elbowed Jamie in the side. “Like what can you,” she dropped her voice and glanced around to make sure they were unobserved, “tell me about him. With your, you know.”

  “Oh. With my you know. Right.” Jamie pulled Deanna to a stop. Arthur grumbled as he waited. Jamie pursed her lips and cocked her head to listen.

  “He’s arguing with a woman named Kat. She found out that he was only dating her because he was bribed by a friend.”

  Deanna’s eyes widened.

  “He’s trying to convince her that he actually fell for her. But he only started dating her because his friend wanted to date her sister Bianca.”

  “Seriously? Holy crap.” Straight people were amazing.

  “No, Dee, not seriously.” Jamie rolled her eyes. “That’s the plot to 10 Things I Hate About You.”

  “Oh.” Deanna deflated.

  “You have got to stop watching Teen Wolf. You know that show’s completely inaccurate, right?”

  Deanna huffed to cover her embarrassment and
tugged on Jamie’s hand so they continued forward. So what if she had the MTV show on in the background while she worked? Those dudes were hot. And gratuitously shirtless.

  “You’re useless on two legs, that’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Hey.” It was Jamie’s turn to be offended. “I’m not useless.” She hefted the bag of fresh groceries she was carrying.

  “All right, not totally useless,” Deanna amended.

  “I can do stuff,” Jamie said defensively. “Just not, like, superhero stuff.”

  “Superhero lite.” Deanna snickered.

  “It’s like…” Jamie hummed thoughtfully. “When I’m a wolf everything is heightened, and when I’m a human it’s dull. Probably less dull than it is for you—”

  “Thanks.”

  “But still less. And because I’ve always been this way, it’s hard to say what’s different for me.”

  “You can heal instantly. And you’re strong. Fast, too,” Deanna pointed out.

  Jamie nodded. “I’ve probably got better hearing, a better sense of smell. I’ve never needed glasses—that might be tied into the healing thing—and I think touch might be more important to me than to other people.” She gave Deanna’s hand a squeeze.

  “Oh yeah?” Deanna kept her voice casual as she slid her hand up to Jamie’s wrist and tightened her fingers until she could feel the Jamie’s pulse scramble against her fingertips.

  Jamie sucked in a breath.

  Deanna smirked and picked up the pace.

  ***

  “So who, like, enforces your rules?”

  “Mmmph?” Jamie nuzzled deeper into the pillow.

  “Are there cops? Oh my god,” Deanna gave a delighted laugh. “Do they have a K-9 unit? K-9. Canine. Get it?”

  “Wolf. Lupine. Do we have to do this now,” Jamie’s voice was slurred with sleep and muffled against the pillowcase.

  “Come on, I wanna know.” Deanna snuggled closer to Jamie and propped her chin against Jamie’s back.

  Jamie groaned, but shifted her head so that she was no longer talking directly into the bedding. “There’s an assembly. We appoint people to it. They’re in charge.”

  “An assembly?” Deanna asked, crestfallen. That didn’t sound especially supernatural. Kind of boring. More like a corporation than a coven.

  “GNAAW.”

  “What do you mean, naw? You just said—”

  “No, not naw,” Jamie mumbled. She hadn’t opened her eyes and was clearly hoping Deanna would drop it so she could go back to sleep. “G.N.A.A.W. General North American Assembly of Werewolves.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I’m sleeping.”

  “Right. Okay.” Deanna kissed Jamie’s shoulder and felt Jamie slump, her entire body going lax as she instantly dropped off again.

  GNAAW. Deanna needed to meet whomever it was that came up with the name. They clearly appreciated a good werewolf pun when they found one.

  Chapter Thirteen |

  Crywolf had been silent for the better part of two weeks. He was quiet on the Wolf’s Run message boards, and several of the staff and players were celebrating his absence. While the staff had done their best to shut him down almost as soon as his comments popped up, he had still managed to make such a nuisance of himself that amongst the hardcore players, and even the part-time and volunteer staff, his name was infamous.

  Since the full moon was approaching, and along with it Wolf’s Run’s monthly Moon Revel event, Deanna was taking his distance as a reprieve. She could hardly believe that it had been so easy to get rid of him—but maybe Nathan’s theory had been right, and he’d seen them go to the cops. It wasn’t impossible that the threat of human police had been enough to scare him away. Though she couldn’t tell Nathan, Deanna suspected that it might have more to do with the werewolf laws crywolf was breaking than the human ones.

  Not being able to tell Nathan was practically killing Deanna. They’d been best friends for years, and as Deanna had never been good at keeping secrets, this was torture. So far she’d managed to dodge serious conversations and was using the not entirely untrue excuse of wanting to spend time with her new live-in girlfriend to avoid hanging out with Nathan. Deanna wasn’t sure how long she could keep up the ruse, but was determined not to let Jamie down. Telling someone she was a werewolf took a lot of trust, and Deanna didn’t want Jamie to have misplaced it.

  However, when she got bored working she rehearsed how to tell him—there was no way she could keep the secret forever, and Nathan’s face when he found out was going to be great.

  As for Jamie, she was happier than Deanna had ever seen her. With the exception of crywolf, and the way Jamie sprang instantly to alert whenever Deanna’s buzzer or phone rang, she seemed to float through the air every evening when she came home to Deanna.

  Deanna couldn’t deny that the domestic bliss they’d achieved was affecting her as well. She was getting used to sleeping curled up in Jamie’s arms, and that morning she’d spent five minutes staring adoringly at Jamie’s toothbrush tucked into the cup beside hers on the bathroom sink. She’d been mortified when she snapped out of it, and done her best to be irritated when she’d gone to do a load of laundry, only to find that Jamie had tossed a number of her dirty clothes into Deanna’s hamper. Of course, seeing Jamie’s T-shirts and the tank top and underwear she slept in tangled up with Deanna’s own working-from-home-yoga-pants ensemble had just made Deanna grin like an idiot as she loaded up the washing machine.

  If Deanna weren’t careful, she might get used to this.

  Realizing that she’d been waxing romantic over the memory of doing laundry, of all things, Deanna shook herself back to alertness. She’d been skimming through the Out Of Character message boards on Wolf’s Run while she jotted down information about that evening’s Moon Revel so that she could send out a mass howl about it before her shift was over.

  Whenever the full moon fell on a Friday or Saturday night—only a few times a year—the monthly Moon Revel became less a player meetup and more of a party. They changed the location for the Moon Revels every month, which were always integral to the plot of Wolf’s Run. The Moon Revels represented major battles for territory, and often introduced a new storyline or direction for the game. Whichever two packs had the most members show up and claim territory could compete in a scavenger hunt. Whichever pack won the Hunt won the territory.

  Generally, the Wolf’s Run admin team chose public parks or, in the winter months, a shopping mall, but this month they were holding the Moon Revel in the woods surrounding the university. They’d rented the large amphitheater buried deep in the forest, and due to the excitement surrounding the venue, the Friday night and the number of players planning to attend, Deanna knew that the admin team planned to reveal a new chapter of Wolf’s Run after the Hunt.

  Pulling up Taylor Swift’s 1989 on iTunes, Deanna settled into her chair and began to compose her message to the players, letting them know what time to expect the event kickoff and the availability of parking near the venue.

  She was halfway through typing the third paragraph when her music cut off. Frowning, she traced over her trackpad to pull iTunes back up, but it wouldn’t respond.

  “Oh, come on, you’re brand new! You can’t give out on me now,” she complained, pressing down again to see if anything changed. When her screen went black, she yelped, jerking her hands back in case she did any more damage.

  Arthur heaved himself up from where he’d been staring out the window to see what the fuss was about, and Deanna gave him an absent pat as she reached for the power button. She’d try the age-old cure of turn-it-off-and-then-on-again before she truly panicked.

  “Don’t touch it, Dee,” a voice growled from her speakers. Deanna clamped her mouth shut; a startled scream choked off in her throat.

  “What the fuck,” she whispered, pulse pounding in he
r ears. There must be some sort of malware on her computer. Some kind of virus. She reached forward again.

  “I said, don’t touch it.”

  This time she flew back from the computer, standing up so abruptly that her chair crashed to the floor behind her and Arthur scrambled out of the way, his claws skidding on the hardwood.

  Her screen flickered and then a face filled it: a wide grin stretched and distorted as a pair of orange eyes gleamed out at her.

  Deanna pressed a hand against her chest as though she could control the frightened leap of her heart through sheer force of will. Her eyes flicked to the top of the screen, where the cheerful green light of her webcam winked at her. Whoever was grinning out at her from her screen—and Deanna had a pretty good idea who it might be—had taken over her webcam as well. Fuck him. If he thought some high school hacker tricks were enough to have her running scared, he had another thing coming.

  Moving with deliberate calm, Deanna dropped her hand and looked dispassionately into the camera. “Let me guess,” she said, “crywolf.”

  “Bingo.” The man’s grin widened. “You’ve been a bad girl, Dee.”

  Deanna snorted, rolling her eyes though she could feel her fingers tremble at her sides. “What next, are you going to tell me I need to be punished?”

  The man’s eyes hardened; his grin fractured into something sharp and brittle as he bared his teeth. “Careful.”

  “Or what?” Deanna raised an eyebrow. “You’ll spam my Twitter account again? Don’t you think that’s getting a bit old?”

  The man shook his head, tsking. “We’ve moved past that. I’d hoped you would realize that by now. Didn’t my present teach you anything?”

  “Yeah. You’re shit at Photoshop.”

  “No one likes a bitch.”

  “I don’t need you to like me. I need you to leave me alone.”