by C. J. Pinard
We did it on every shift, too. Ugh.
Graduation was amazing. I had never been so happy in my life. To walk on that stage and accept that diploma, and to see the pride and happiness on my parents’ faces was the best feeling in the world.
With our caps and gowns on, Ryder lifted me up and twirled me around. When he set me back down, he wrapped me in a hug. “We did it, baby. We did it.” He pulled back from the hug and put his hand on my face. “I love you, and I’m proud of you.”
I felt like I had been through so much with him with his werewolf stuff, so to hear him say those things to me made me all warm inside. I had to fight back tears. “I am proud of you, too, Ryder. Onto bigger and better things.”
CU Boulder had, to my amazement, accepted the both of us, and we were set to start in the fall. Thankfully, my parents told me they had enough money that I could live in student housing. After all, Aden and Austyn hadn’t gone to college, so I got all the college money they’d saved.
Yay me.
After the graduation ceremony, we got in all our hugs and photos, and we all went to Benson’s house for a huge party. The wolves were happy and relieved that the full moon wasn’t going to be at its highest peak until after eleven so we could enjoy ourselves a little.
Benson’s parents weren’t home… I suspected they had to go someplace themselves for their shift… and I wasn’t quite sure if they knew Benson had offered to throw the graduation party, but regardless, it was fun.
I had had two beers and was feeling pretty loose and happy. Gemma and I were laughing together, when suddenly, my buzz wore off just like that. I checked my phone to see it was 10:35. I started to feel twitchy and angry—the feelings I always got when the shift was close.
“I need to find Ryder,” I said to Gemma.
“Oh, whatever. You go find your man. I’m gonna find myself one.”
I smiled weakly at her, threw my plastic cup in the trash, and began to wander around the massive house. Spotting Ryder in the front room talking to Benson, I went over and put my hand on his arm, and then looked at Benson.
“I think we need to go,” I said, bouncing from foot to foot.
I saw both Ryder’s and Benson’s eyes flash yellow, and then back to their natural colors. Ryder looked at his fitness watch. “It’s not even eleven yet.”
“I know, but we need to go.” I looked around briefly, and then added, “I know you feel it, too.”
Chancing a glance at Benson, I could see sweat starting to break out along his hairline.
“What do I do? Just leave these people in my house?”
“Tell them the party’s over, they need to go somewhere else,” I suggested.
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, that’s probably the safest thing. I can’t stay here and make sure they don’t trash my shit.”
Ryder put his fingers to his mouth and blew out a whistle. “Attention, everyone!”
Then Benson spoke. “Something’s come up, everyone has to go! Make your way toward the front door… now.”
A chorus of groans followed as I watched him unplug the speakers from his cell phone, which had been playing music, and I think that helped kill the mood.
Thankfully, nobody gave us much hassle as we began ushering people outside.
Suddenly I felt scorching hot—on fire. My body tingled and I could feel the shift coming.
“Ryder,” I whimpered as I tried my hardest not to strip my clothes off.
He looked over at me, his eyes wide, and also turning yellow.
Benson, who was sweating profusely now and had already stripped off his shirt, was urging the last of the guests to leave.
Crack… my arm bone. I muffled a cry.
I kicked my shoes off. Next came my pants, shirt, bra, and then my underwear.
Crack… my spine. I fell to the ground and whined.
I watched as Benson closed and locked the door, including the chain at the top of the door, and then went and closed all the blinds and curtains. He was shaking.
Crack… my shin bone. I screamed out in pain.
The shift happened fast after that, and it was a total relief to be the wolf. Lightweight and carefree. Now wandering the house.
Ryder’s and Benson’s clothing was shredded as they shifted quickly.
“We have to spend the night in this house like this?” I asked, horrified.
“Well, we can’t exactly go roaming my neighborhood like this,” Benson replied.
He had a point, but seriously? I needed to hunt. I needed to run.
Seeing that the backdoor had been left open, I bolted for it and happily bounded into the massive greenery of his backyard.
“Ayla, no!” Ryder said, running after me.
“There are no fences,” I said, looking at all the space I had to run. A small, short length of chicken wire separated each backyard, and I knew I could easily bound over it.
Benson’s backyard had a lot of tall scrub oak trees jutting up from the ground. I began sniffing around at all the different smells.
“We have to go back inside the house,” Benson said inside my head.
“No, I don’t want to be inside, I need to run around.”
I won that battle pretty easily, as the other two had to know we couldn’t be cooped up in a house for the next eight hours.
They both sniffed around the backyard when we all stopped suddenly and lifted our heads. I followed Ryder’s big, black wolf’s gaze to where a family of deer stood, frozen in the neighbor’s yard.
“Get them!” Benson yelled, and we all tore off toward the deer, who began to run in the opposite direction.
The run felt exhilarating and fun. The deer ran, but we were able to catch up. As I was about to swipe at the back leg of one of the smaller deer, we heard a deep, threatening growl. I looked over to see a large mountain lion headed our way.
“Ahhh!” I screamed as it pounced on me, knocking me to the ground.
Benson and Ryder stopped short and turned around to see what had happened. With a growl, they both jumped on the mountain lion as I bit and scratched at him to get him off of me.
The lion growled and turned to fight the males. With anger and bloodlust now fueling me, I sank my razor-sharp teeth into its back leg as it was fighting Benson’s and Ryder’s wolves. The mountain lion howled in pain, so I bit him again.
Knowing he was outnumbered, he turned to run, but Ryder jumped on him. With a swift movement, Ryder bit into its neck and I watched as the life drained out of the animal. That was when Benson and I jumped in, licking and drinking its blood.
Huh. Mountain lion blood is pretty tasty.
We woke the next morning to a blood-curdling scream.
Blinking open my tired eyes, I had to wait for them to focus before I saw a small child standing at an open sliding-glass door. She wore a long, pink nightgown and her hair was sticking up in places.
Then I smelled urine and dog. I looked over to see a large German Shepard with his leg lifted, pissing all over Benson’s naked body.
“Shit!” he said, jumping up. “Shit! Get the hell away from me!” he said, shooing the dog.
The little girl screamed again. It was like one long, continuous scream.
Two adults came to the door and stared at us in horror. And did I blame them? Three filthy, naked, bloodstained teens sleeping in their grass.
I immediately placed an arm over my breasts. “Um, we need to leave,” I said under my breath.
“Is that the Gibbs kid?” I heard the mom say.
“Benson? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man asked, finally gaining his composure.
“Axel, get in here!” the mom called to the dog, as he went bounding for the door.
We didn’t answer the man. We just took off running through three yards to get back to Benson’s house.
Weirdest graduation night ever.
“What the hell happened, Ayla?” Benson said, emerging from his room, still filthy but now in a pair of athle
tic shorts. He threw Ryder his clothes.
“Why are you blaming me?” I asked, slipping my shirt over my head. My modesty had completely left about three months ago when I realized that nakedness was just part of being a wolf. At this point, Benson had seen me naked more than my own mother had.
“You said eleven thirty-six was the time the moon would be the highest. We barely had time to get everyone out of the house before we shifted and it wasn’t even eleven yet!”
“I can’t control what the website says!” I bantered. “It’s never been wrong before.”
“Then what happened?” Ryder asked, slipping on the last shoe.
I bit my lip, exhaustion taking over. “I don’t know.” And I truly didn’t. I would need to do some research on this, and clearly not rely on that stupid “moon-phases calendar dot net” website anymore.
Stupid, stupid website.
Pound-pound-pound… was the sound coming from the front door.
Benson ran a hand through his filthy blond hair. “Shit.”
Opening it slowly, we were greeted by the man whose backyard we’d just woken up in.
“What?” Benson asked.
“Don’t you ‘what’ me, boy. What the hell were you doing in my yard, all naked?” He looked at the three of us, and then said, “Are you kids on drugs?”
Benson sighed, clearly not wanting to deal with this right now. “No, Mr. Ashton. We’re not on drugs. It was just a rough night.”
He narrowed his eyes at us. “Did you three have some kind of orgy in my backyard last night?”
My eyes went big. “No, no way! We just had a bit too much to drink. Sorry, sir.”
Benson glared at me, and then said, “Yeah, rough night.”
“I want to talk to your mom or dad. Get them now,” he demanded.
Benson shook his head. “They’re not here. Sorry.”
Mr. Ashton huffed. “Well I’ll be by later to talk to them. You three scared, and probably traumatized my daughter. She was just letting the dog out and did not need to see that!”
“There wasn’t anything to see,” Ryder said under his breath, clearly as irritated as we all were.
Mr. Ashton tied his robe tighter around his middle, and stormed off in a huff. We waited for him to go into his house before Ryder and I left.
I would be an ass if I admitted that I was laughing at the whole situation, but hell, if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.
Chapter 8
After a lot of contemplation, and the nightmare of what had happened on graduation night, I decided that living in student housing was just not going to be a good idea for obvious reasons.
Yet another dream killed by the fact that I was a damn werewolf.
Trying not to wallow in pity, and putting on a happy, brave face, I walked into the kitchen the following Sunday morning to where my mom was cooking a big breakfast.
I picked up a warm pancake from the stack and rolled it up, taking a bite from the end.
“Good morning, sunshine, have a seat at the table.”
I swallowed down my bite and said, “I actually wanted to talk to you for a minute, Mom.”
She glanced at me and nodded, turning the burners off on the stove, and instructed me to sit. I did, and then she sat across from me. “What’s on your mind, Ayla?”
“Well, I was thinking that I would rather live off campus. Would that be cheaper?”
She cocked her head at me, smoothing some hair behind her hair. She regarded me carefully with light-brown eyes. “Are you worried we can’t pay for your college?”
I shook my head before taking another bite of my pancake. “No, not at all. I just don’t think I want to live on campus. I have a car and can drive there every day.”
Mom folded her hands in front of her on the table and continued to pierce me with her motherly stare. “What brought about this change?”
I shrugged casually, even though I was nervous. I hated lying, but I didn’t think telling the truth would go over very well. “I just don’t want to be around all those girls, all that drama. And I especially don’t want to have to eat in the school cafeteria three meals a day. I know if I live in housing you’ll have to pay for a meal plan too. I’d rather learn to cook.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me as if she didn’t believe me. I’d seen the look plenty, so it didn’t surprise me. “Does this have anything to do with Ryder? Because I don’t want you two living together while you’re in college. I know you’re an adult now, and can do what you want, but if you plan on moving in with him, you’ll be paying for it.”
Ouch.
“No, it has nothing to do with him.”
Lie. It had a little bit to do with him. We needed a safe place to hang out once a month in case we didn’t make it to Wolfe Point. Ryder was going to be living on campus, and his parents said they trusted him to get away once a month to the shifting location. I was glad they had that much faith in him, because I didn’t trust myself at all.
“So you want an apartment, then?” she asked.
“Actually, I think I want a small house. I will get roommates.”
Other wolves.
“Houses in Boulder aren’t cheap to rent. But if you have roommates it would help. Maybe we should look into buying one…” She trailed off, seeming to be deep in thought, and stood up.
Seeming to snap back to reality, she looked down at me as I shoveled the last of the pancake in my mouth, and said, “I’ll talk to your dad this afternoon after he gets back from the club. I’ll have an answer for you in a couple of days.”
I stood up, walked over to my mom and hugged her. “Thank you.”
The timer on the oven went off and she pulled out some kind of breakfast casserole and told me to sit. I obeyed because the casserole smelled delicious.
Two months later, I was standing in my empty living room of the two-bedroom house my parents had bought. I was instructed to get a roommate and she was to pay my parents 400 dollars a month, but I was to collect it. I know they were just doing it to make me be a responsible adult. My father was an investment analyst for a very popular investment company and they had more than enough money. In fact, I was sure they bought the house so they could have another tax write-off. Not that I was complaining.
They were, however, pretty frugal most of the time. Yes, the house we grew up in was nice, but my mom was never one to splurge on expensive clothes or anything like that. It was always the sales racks and discounts where my clothes and accessories had come from. And now, as I looked around my moderately furnished house, with the futon for a sofa and the flat-screen TV sitting on a small TV stand, I smiled. I didn’t need much, I just wanted to get through these next four years, come out on the other side with a degree, and then start planning my life with Ryder.
He was onboard, too, as we had discussed this several times. We had our lives mapped out, and we both liked it that way. My parents and his both agreed to this, and that was the way it was going to be. The only thing I didn’t know was what my major was going to be, but my dad had told me not to worry about it right now. Just knock out the undergraduate crap like English and History, then I could spend the last two years taking classes for the degree I wanted.
This plan—it made me feel safe and content. It made me worry less, and work more on my schoolwork, and for the most part, I did. It was bad enough nature had dealt me a monthly curse as a woman, but to have to be doubly cursed once a month, well, that just sucked.
It sucked badly.
The doorbell rang and I opened it. A girl about my age stood there with one of the tear-offs from the flyer I had posted on the bulletin board in the main corridor for buy-sell-trade.
“Hi, I saw your flyer. Still need a roommate?”
I nodded and opened the door wider. “Yes, you’re the first. Have a seat.”
She sat on the sofa and I studied her briefly before beginning my questioning. She had long, dark hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. With full lips and a flawless complexion, I won
dered if she was trouble, or still innocent.
“My name is Ayla and this is my house. Actually, it’s my parents’ house, but they instructed me to get a roommate, so here we are.” I smiled at her.
She smiled back and slowly brushed some of her dark hair behind her shoulder. “My name is Sanja. Nice to meet you Ayla.” She reached out to shake my hand and I felt something strange as our hands touched. I wouldn’t say it was an electric spark or anything, just a strange sensation that ran through me, and honestly, made me a little queasy for a split second. It seemed she felt it too, and pulled back abruptly. Her smile fell briefly, but she put it back on again, albeit a little more forced this time.
I cleared my throat and said, “Well, tell me a little about yourself.”
Still smiling, she said, “Okay. I’m originally from Texas. I am a sophomore this year, but am tired of living in student housing. I need something quieter. I am majoring in paranormal studies, with a minor in nature science. My mom and brother still live in Texas, and I have a few friends here that I made last year, but other than that, I’m pretty much alone.”
“Paranormal studies, that’s interesting. I didn’t even know that was an option.”
She nodded. “It’s a very interesting subject, although I haven’t gotten to take many classes in it, as I’m doing my undergraduate junk right now.”
I nodded, and said, “So do you like to party, or are you more like the quiet, studious type?”
She grinned. Damn those lips, I was so jealous. They were like the Angelina ones people pay big money for. “Honestly, I’m quiet most of the time, but if I get invited to a party, I’m game to go. I have a few social bones in my body. But you have my word I would never throw a party over here, not unless you weren’t home, or I had your permission.”
My eyes went big. “Uh...”
She laughed, and it was a high tinkling sound that made me laugh too. “I’m just screwing with you. I don’t have enough time to throw parties.”
