by Roxie Noir
Also, the sublet hadn’t come with any cooking utensils beyond two dinged-up aluminum pots, a very dirty cast iron frying pan, and some silverware. Not even a baking sheet.
Her grandmother had once told her, be a lamb in the kitchen and a lion in the bedroom, though given her current beau’s status of “man who turns into a bear sometimes,” it seemed like her grandmother had gotten the animals all wrong.
Ariana’s phone rang in her pocket before she could fully contemplate which animals she should be in which rooms of the house, which was probably for the best. Caller ID said Jake, and she smiled.
“Hey, you,” she said.
“Good evening, beautiful,” he said, his deep voice carrying even over the phone. As usual, Ariana blushed and wondered again when the honeymoon phase was going to wear off. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” she said. “I want to have you over for dinner, but that’s... not looking like an option tonight.”
“All I’ve got at the cabin is a deep freezer full of venison,” he said. Ariana, a lifelong city girl, wondered again how she’d ended up romantically entangled with a former lumberjack who lived deep in the woods and kept half a deer in his freezer.
“Maybe we should get out of bed once in a while and go grocery shopping,” she said, teasing.
“Why?” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
“Because you live too far out in the country for pizza delivery,” she said.
“Fine, fine,” he said. “Want to go out tonight? There’s a Lebanese place I’ve heard is good. It’s pretty new.”
“I’d love to,” she said. She was beginning to sorely miss food that was more than meat-and-potatoes or Americanized Chinese food.
“Meet you there in thirty minutes?” he said. “It’s about halfway between your place and my office.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “I’ve just got to send off this one email and then I’ll be on my way.”
They hung up and Ariana walked back into her tiny bedroom, which currently doubled as her office. Open on her laptop was an email, detailing her latest round of interviews concerning people who claimed they’d seen Bigfoot. None of them had really presented a compelling case, but she tried to make them sound like they were. After all, she’d gotten the Cryptid Research Foundation — the CRF — to pay for a month of this sublet on the premise that she had more Bigfoot research to do. She was really there so she could stay close to Jake, who she’d met just two weeks ago, but her boss didn’t need to know that.
She knew her job as a cryptid researcher wasn’t normal, but it was pretty fun. Maybe she wasn’t doing the hard science she’d hoped for, but how many of her friends who worked at labs for pharmaceutical companies got to travel the world, looking for monsters? None, that was how many.
Ariana hit send, and then noticed another new email in her inbox. She rolled her eyes. It was nearly nine at night on the east coast — why on earth were they emailing her at that hour?
The subject line of the email was Please Read - From David Lycan. She’d told David, her boss and the very wealthy owner of the CRF, that he didn’t need to put “From David Lycan” in the subject line of every email he sent, but he’d kept on doing it anyway. She hadn’t even bothered trying to explain that “Please Read” was equally useless. By now it was just a funny anecdote she told her friends about how tech-illiterate her boss was.
The email itself read:
chupacabra sighting in n. mexico desert not far from juarez please keep situation on radar.
Ariana wished that David would at least hire an assistant and start dictating his email. Sometimes the lack of grammar and punctuation hurt her eyes. This was a fairly standard email, though: when something got reported, it was her and her coworker Theresa’s job to stay on top of it, and then visit the area if there were more than a couple of reports in the same few week period.
Of course, Theresa was thoroughly out of commission for another month or so, after being attacked two weeks ago by a mountain lion while looking for Bigfoot. Thankfully Jake had been there, and he’d managed to fight off the lion while Ariana dragged the other girl to safety.
Still, Ariana didn’t relish the idea of heading into the desert to look for a goat-eating monster. It wasn’t the monster she was afraid of, of course — it was the drug-running cartels that she knew infested the area.
Will do, she wrote back. Then she hit send, put on her rain jacket, and headed out her front door to meet Jake.
* * *
Jake was already waiting in the restaurant, of course. Ariana considered herself punctual, but she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever beat Jake somewhere — the man was the very definition of early.
He stood when he saw her, reached out, and bent down to give her a kiss.
The feel of his lips made her melt just a little, and she leaned against him, wanting more, even though they were in the middle of a restaurant. Finally she tore herself away and looked up at him, to see his smiling, teasing eyes looking down at her.
They sat.
“How was your day?” he asked. He reached across the table and took her hand, holding it casually on the table.
Ariana shrugged. “It was fine,” she said. “I interviewed a hiker by phone and tried to plot where these sightings are most common.” Normally, PDA like this — holding hands across the table, like they were in a movie or something — made her uncomfortable, but with Jake it felt oddly normal, like this was what she was supposed to be doing.
He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand, absentmindedly.
“You?” she asked.
Jake shrugged. “The usual office day. Issued some permits, sent a report in. Nothing spectacular.”
“What’s good here?” she asked, picking up the menu with the other hand.
“I’m not really sure,” he said. “I’ve never been before.”
“Well, what do you like?”
Jake was reading the menu like it was in Martian. “I like meat?” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s a start. Do you like chicken, or beef better? And what about yogurt and cilantro, most of these come with spiced dipping sauces...”
They figured it out and ordered — beef kofta for her, lamb shawarma for him — and sat, waiting for the food.
“This last guy claimed he saw Bigfoot climb out of a lake and then fly off, so that’s a nonstarter,” said Ariana. “I wish people would just tell me when they take a shitload of shrooms and go off on their vision quests or whatever, it would make my job so much easier—“
Ariana trailed off. Jake had frozen and was looking over her shoulder, not listening to her at all. She made a goofy face at him, sticking out her tongue, but he didn’t move at all.
Finally she turned to look behind her, to see what he was staring at. All she saw was another couple, both tall and athletic, politely asking the hostess where they should sit. She frowned and kept looking, trying to figure out what had gotten Jake so weird all of a sudden.
“Jake,” she whispered. “Hey.”
Suddenly, he snapped out of it and looked at Ariana. The intensity of his gaze frightened her for a moment, and she swallowed, her mouth dry.
“What is it?” she asked. Impulsively, she looked over her shoulder one more time, but there was nothing there, just the couple.
“I know them,” he murmured.
“Want to invite them over?” she asked.
“We’re not really friends,” he said, and before he could explain more, the waitress came over with their food.
“Who had the lamb?” she asked.
“Could we actually get that to go?” Jake said. “Sorry, something’s come up.”
The waitress looked confused, but shrugged. “Sure,” she said, and left with their food.
“What is going on,” Ariana said. “Why are you being so weird?”
“Can I explain later?” he said, his eyes back on the couple. Ariana turned to look again, and realized that the w
oman was looking right at her as she pulled out a chair to sit.
Embarrassed, she turned her head away.
“They can see you staring,” she muttered.
“I don’t care.”
Ariana didn’t respond, her mind working at a thousand miles an hour. Is this what I get for dating someone I barely know? She wondered. Has he been this weird the whole time, and I didn’t notice because of the great sex?
The waitress came back with their food and the check. Jake stood right away, put two twenties on the table, and grabbed the food.
“That’s a big tip,” said Ariana doubtfully.
“Come on,” he said, took her hand, and began walking out of the restaurant, right past the other couple.
As they walked by them, Ariana snuck a look. The man had light brown hair and long sideburns, and even sitting down he looked tall and broad. He had the sort of muscles that came from a life spent working outside, not a life spent lifting weights. The woman was obviously strong and tall too, though more feminine and lithe. She had nearly jet-black hair, blue eyes, and very red lips.
When she caught Ariana looking, Jake practically dragging her behind him, she smiled the tiniest bit.
And then she winked.
Back in the cool night, standing between their cars, Jake turned to face Ariana, exhaling as though he’d been holding his breath for hours. “I’m sorry,” he started.
“They’re shifters,” Ariana said, surprising even herself.
“How could you tell?” Jake asked, his brows furrowing.
Ariana shrugged. How had she been able to tell?
“They just have that look,” she said. “That, plus they freaked you out so much, and the woman winked at me.”
Jake didn’t answer, but Ariana could see his jaw flexing as he ground his teeth together. “We need to go back to the cabin,” he said.
“Our food’s going to get cold.”
Jake shook his head. “You need to stay with me for a while.”
Ariana balked. “What? No.”
“I need to know where you are and that you’re safe.”
“You don’t even have internet! How am I supposed to work?”
He was heading toward his truck already.
“Jake!” she shouted. He turned his head. “You have to tell me what’s going on and that is not optional.”
He put one hand on her face, bent down, and kissed her very, very gently. Despite herself, Ariana felt her resistance melting away at the touch of those wonderful lips.
“I promise I’ll explain at the cabin,” he said.
“Can I at least get my stuff?” she asked.
Jake sighed.
They were in and out of her new apartment in five minutes, Jake continually pacing through both rooms, checking the locks on the windows, casting annoyed glances at Ariana. Finally she had her stuff and they left together in Jake’s truck, her watching nervously as he hit fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five on the narrow, windy country roads. She began to wish that she’d driven on her own. At least then she’d have her car there, and she could leave if she had to. It didn’t escape her at all that she barely knew this man, and despite how she felt about him — wildly infatuated, head-over-heels — he could still be an axe murderer, and now she was going to his backwoods cabin alone with him, with no real way to escape.
Once inside he locked the door behind her and lowered a bar across it.
“Whoa,” she said.
“It’s just for my peace of mind,” he told her, and crossed the cabin to check on the back door. Meanwhile, she turned the oven on.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m reheating our food,” she said. “It’s gone cold, and I’m hungry.”
He relaxed a little. “Of course, sorry,” he said. “Thanks.”
Ariana just shook her head. “How about you tell me what’s going on?”
Jake collapsed onto a sofa and patted a cushion. Ariana flopped next to him.
“I’m not the only shifter around,” he started.
“Right,” Ariana said.
“Most shifters live in packs, and I used to be part of one.”
“Okay.”
“I grew up part of the grizzly pack in Alaska, and we have some bad history.”
Ariana settled in.
Chapter Two
Fifteen Years Earlier
Fjords, a little town on the southern coast of Alaska
On the movie theater screen in front of them, one man dressed in black leather shot at another man wearing the same thing. The second man dodged. A sixteen-year-old Jake turned his neck to look behind him at the teenage couple furiously making out, and then turned back to the screen, grossed out.
“They still at it?” asked Coleman, another teenager, stuffing his face with popcorn.
“Yeah,” said Jake.
“I hope their braces get stuck together.”
“I hope he cums in his down jacket and has to explain it to his mom.”
The boys both giggled. Besides the two of them and the couple with their tongues down each other’s throats, there were a few scattered people in the front of the theater, but that was it. Fjords, Alaska, only had one tiny movie theater, but they could barely fill it. Even so, it was nearly a miracle that none of the shifter pack besides them was in the theater: Boone, the guy sucking face behind them, was a shifter but Kaitlyn, the girl, wasn’t, and they didn’t need pack leadership figuring out what they were up to.
“You want more popcorn?” asked Coleman, shaking the few kernels left at the bottom of the XXL-sized bag. “We’re almost out.”
“How many times you refilled that thing?” asked Jake.
“Tim’s working the stand so he’s giving it to me for free,” Coleman said, grinning.
From the front of the theater, someone shushed them.
“Sure,” whispered Jake, and Coleman got up and left.
After the movie they walked back to the car they’d all come in together, crunching over the gravel parking lot in show boots and down parkas. Boone still had his arm around Kaitlyn, both of them rosy-cheeked and smug.
“I thought that movie was pretty cool,” said Coleman. “You ever think about stuff like that? Like, what if this is all a dream and we’re really plugged in somewhere?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake thought he saw something move. He looked, but there was nothing there, just the cold dark of early springtime.
“I really enjoyed the movie,” said Boone.
“Me too,” said Kaitlyn, giggling.
Jake rolled his eyes and reached for his keys. As the first to turn sixteen, it was his job to drive all his dumb friends around.
“We call the backseat!” shouted Boone. Kaitlyn giggled louder. Coleman rolled his eyes dramatically. Jake pulled his keys out, trying his best to ignore them.
But then, as they closed in on his car, two huge trucks drove up behind them, high beams on, and stopped.
The three boys froze. They recognized the trucks; Kaitlyn was the only one to react, shading her eyes and shouting, “Turn your lights off, numbnuts!”
Three huge men got out of the trucks, none of them wearing jackets even in the cold Alaska night. Kaitlyn’s eyes went wide at the men, built like tanks.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just really bright...”
One of them strode up to her, and before she could react, backhanded her across the face. She fell to the gravel, unconscious.
With a roar, Boone charged at the man, all six feet and one hundred forty pounds of him flailing furiously. He tried to punch the man who’d backhanded Kaitlyn and missed completely, the huge man easily dodging out of the way. Before any of them could blink, the man had both of Boone’s hands twisted behind his back, the teenager nearly in tears.
Without thinking, Jake started to shift. The rage and the animal urge to attack flowed through his veins and he felt the fur sprout, felt himself grow bigger and stronger — and then, before he could react, an
other of the men had him a rough headlock, forcing Jake to his knees.
“Shift back,” the other man said, his voice a low growl, into his ear. “Shift back or I swear to God I’ll break your neck.” His hands tightened, just to make sure he got his point across.
Jake shifted back. Coleman stood, shaking, in the middle of the half-circle. He hadn’t moved a muscle.
“Let’s go talk somewhere,” one of the men said, and they forced the boys into the trucks.
“I’m not leaving her here,” Boone managed to choke out, struggling. “Kaitlyn!”
A dull snap sounded across the parking lot, followed by a teenage boy’s howl of pain. Boone got into a truck, now sobbing.
Jake sat in the jump seat of the truck, quiet and furious but knowing he couldn’t do anything. How could they just leave her there? She was annoying, sure, but he didn’t want her to freeze to death. It’s my fault, he thought. I should have never driven them, I should have said something to Boone—
The truck pulled into an empty lot, other trucks and four wheel drives scattered around. At least ten huge adult men stood in a circle, all looking angry. The boys were forced to kneel in the middle, and then one man, with light brown hair and long sideburns, stood.
Jake knew exactly who he was, even though he’d barely ever spoken to him. Brock had been their packmaster for the past couple of years, overthrowing the previous one when he got too old. He was the kind of leader who ruled by force, and thought his word was the absolute law.
“Which one of you was dating outside?” he said.
None spoke.
“WHICH ONE?” he roared.
He waited.
“Me,” whispered Boone, his shoulder shaking, his arm hanging at an odd angle.
“And the two of you,” Brock went on. “You were complicit in this?”
Both of them nodded, looking down.
“Do we fucking date outside?” he shouted.
The boys all shook their heads.
“Say it,” he said.
Boone started sobbing.
