Werewolves of New York: Dontae

by Faleena Hopkins

  Darik crossed his lanky arms. “We are equals.”

  Eli spoke up. “Tell us why you’re here, Xavier. Enough.”

  With characteristic smoothness, Nathaniel agreed, “Stop trying to irritate us.” He stood with his legs hip width apart, behind Dontae and to the right.

  Xavier took an appreciative sip. “Good Scotch.” He smiled and glanced around the room. “But I already said that before, didn’t I? Well, let me get to the point. My boys and I live in Chicago. We got wind of what you’re doing here. So I came to check you out.”

  “That’s as much as we’ve gotten out of him,” Eli informed Dontae.

  “I see. Are you very interested in architecture?” Dontae asked, deadpan.

  Xavier chuckled and took another sip, stepping back for some room. “Excuse me, feels a little…tight.” He walked to the wall behind him and leaned against it, swinging one large booted foot too casually over the other. “I couldn’t give a shit about your buildings. I’m talking about your heroics.”

  The pack registered the announcement with little reaction, not wanting to give the wolf anything to feed off of. He was clearly enjoying this a little too much.

  “Heroics? Well, building green isn’t easy, that’s for sure,” Eli said with a smile in his voice. It made Dontae relax. Eli’s best talent.

  Darik picked up on it, too and chuckled lightly. “I’ll say. Talking old-fashioned humans into saving the environment—it can be such a bitch.”

  Dontae’s austere veneer broke and he smiled.

  Xavier’s eyes flickered as he took another sip of Scotch. He stared at the blonde wolf before him, noticing the change and not happy with it. Dontae angry was one thing, smiling, another. It was like you didn’t know what he was going to do. “And here I thought you were a bunch of pricks with poles up your asses, forgetting to have a little fun. Glad to see you’re laughing.” He stuck a finger in his glass and moved ice around with it. “I’m talking about the saving people. The superhero stuff. What’s the deal with that?”

  “What are you talking about?” Nathaniel asked.

  “That’s how it’s going to be?” Xavier smirked toward him, “Huh, Killer?”

  In a flash Nathaniel shifted, his wolf lunging at Xavier. Dontae had known Nathaniel since he was born and knew the sound of his transformation well, so he grabbed him in time. Xavier’s eyes glowed hot as he braced himself against the wall, feet spread. Dontae grabbed the dark brown fur and held fast. Darik was there in a flash to help. Eli raced forward and punched Xavier in the face, cracking his neck back with a horrible noise.

  “What the fuck do you know?” Eli demanded as Xavier adjusted his jaw, hand massaging his beard, eyes now the color of his drink.

  “I have a friend on the police force. He told me,” he growled. “I’m not here to threaten you. I’m just tired of playing games. I’ve been waiting for hours to get some answers. Call off your dog.”

  Nathaniel snarled and tried to free himself to get at the bastard, but two friends had him now and he wasn’t going anywhere. His fangs dripped with need for blood. “Control. Control. Control,” Darik whispered into his friend’s ear. “Control. Control. Control.”

  Eli stood between them and Xavier, his back wide and flexed, hands fisted and ready for use.

  Dontae was very interested in this business about the police. “How much do they know,” he asked, turning the heads of his friends. “We need information. He’s got it. Let’s take this a step back. Nathaniel? You hear me?”

  The wolf panted and after a few suspenseful moments shifted back. Nathaniel in his human form shook off his packmates. “I’ll go get dressed. Wait for me.”

  “Can’t you hear us through the walls, friend?”

  “I’m not your friend,” Nathaniel snarled.

  “Go,” Dontae said, firmly. Had it been him who was purposefully provoked in that way, with that ammo, he’d have done exactly the same.

  They waited for Nathaniel to return and when he did, he was in a suit. He walked right over the shards of his previous outfit and crossed his arms, waiting. “Well?”

  Xavier’s eyes lost their supernatural glow. “I like you guys. And I’m not just saying that. Okay, I have to admit, I’ve been a bit…dickish. Is that a word? Feels like a word. But you’ve gotta understand, I don’t know you. It was three to me, and then you called this one.” He motioned to Dontae. “Four to one? I’m big. But four wolves to one? Not good odds. You want to find out?” His eyebrows rose as he scanned the unamused faces. He smiled again. “Here’s the deal. I used to be a cop. I have friends on the force in quite a few major cities because over the years, people move, get transferred. Chicago’s weather ain’t the best in wintertime. But you know all about that, living on the East Coast. One year ago tomorrow, I stopped being a cop.” He looked up like he was counting the months. “Yeah. Wow.”

  “Get on with it,” Eli growled.

  Xavier held up his drink. “I think you need another one of these.”

  Last straw. At the top of his lungs, Dontae exploded, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?”

  Xavier blinked a few times, disarmed. He licked his lips. He glanced to the floor, to the leather couch Nathaniel and Eli bought together back when they were roommates, then back to Dontae. “I want to help people, too.”

  Dontae exchanged glances with the others.

  “You want to help people,” Nathaniel muttered with suspicion.

  “But you’re an asshole!” Darik sputtered, too shocked to be polite. Eli snorted and directed his attention back to Sargent Chicago.

  Dontae broke the ensuing silence. “You’re going to have give me a second drink. Hang on.” He downed his Scotch and embraced the burn it sent down his tense throat. The room was quiet until he said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

  Eli stretched his shoulders before crossing beefy arms. “You came here because you want to help people like we’re doing. That’s why you’re here.”

  Xavier looked a little sheepish, which on a wolf his size was oddly charming. Had there been a woman present, she would have said, “Awwwww.” But there wasn’t one.

  “I couldn’t do what you’re doing on the force. I had to live by the books, and you can’t do that and get anything done. Too many rules. Couldn’t get around them. You send a bad guy to jail and he’s out in a couple days because of the system. But you guys. My friends told me all about the criminals who are coming in confessing shit that guys like that would never own up to. Some of them were saying things about wolves.”

  “Do the police believe ‘em?” Darik demanded.

  Xavier shook his head, an incredulous, subdued smile playing on his lips. “That’s the thing. They don’t. Of course they don’t! It’s the perfect mask, and it’s not a mask at all!”

  Eli sucked on his teeth and turned to the others. “This is very interesting.”

  “I’ll say,” Dontae mumbled.

  “Let’s sit down,” Nathaniel walked back to the bar. “I’ll fill us all up.”

  “Tell us everything you know,” Darik said, stepped back so Xavier could get to the couch.

  The bearded wolf walked over, but his body held uncertainty. He was moving carefully, and he should. It was this behavior that made Dontae relax because it meant Xavier wasn’t insane. The attitude earlier had suggested the opposite. But his sarcasm and jabs could have been a tactic for self-defense. It was too early to tell for sure.

  Placing his now empty glass on the coffee table, Xavier sat down on the edge of the leather cushion. With forearms on his thighs, he launched in. “The only time they thought there really was a wolf was when that guy got killed downtown. And the scientific evidence came back wolf. As you know. So they were looking for an escaped zoo animal, but the zoo claimed they got the beast back and put him down. Media problem solved.” He paused as the room took in that information. “I don’t know if they actually killed a wolf.”

  “And they call us animals.”

  “We eat animals, if I may re
mind you, Darik,” Dontae sighed.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “It’s different when it’s a wolf. I get it. It’s like killing family,” Xavier said, meeting Darik’s eyes. He took the glass Nathaniel walked over to him. “Thanks. Back home, things are out of control. I want to do something about it.”

  “But it’s your home town. And you were a cop there. Won’t they recognize you?” Nathaniel asked, passing out drinks to the others who were all sitting in chairs like an audience, the couch and its occupant the stage and its player.

  Xavier shook his head and took a sip. “Damn, that is good! Yes and no. The bad guys won’t because I worked the suburbs mostly—like Norridge and Downers Grove. With the cops I was largely ignored. They hated my beard, my size and my attitude. Most of them didn’t want to work hard, like I did. They wanted the government benefits.”

  Dontae took a sip. “This is interesting. You’ll know how their system works, how to evade it. We had to learn that on our own.”

  “Wasn’t easy,” Darik muttered.

  Walking slowly back and forth with his glass in his hand, Nathaniel thought about this and asked, “Why come here? Why not just go ahead and do this?”

  Xavier made a surprised sound as if they should understand that already. “I had to see if you were really what I thought you were. They don’t know you’re here. But all the cases since that guy was…since he died…have been too interesting to me. I had to see if it was possible that werewolves had found a way to use their abilities to serve society. We’ve got enough evil on the planet. Why not open the drain and flush the fuckheads down it?”

  “You mentioned others,” Eli reminded him. “You have a pack?”

  Xavier nodded and stuck his finger in the glass again, moving the ice around. “There are three of us. Me, Curragh and Draik. And yes. We all want to do this, what you’re doing.” He trailed off, glancing to his drink.

  Eli seemed to get it. “It gives you something to do with all…this.” He motioned to his body. To the way it naturally ran hot. To the itch that pulled at their skin and made them all want to run as fast as they could. Chase things. Hunt.

  Dontae nodded to himself, and he noticed all the others were doing the same.

  Xavier said, “Exactly.”

  “Where are you staying?” Nathaniel's tone was much changed from before.

  “Hotel.”

  “You’ll stay with Dontae.”

  Dontae turned to glare at him. “He’ll what?”

  “You’re the only one who isn’t married. I’m sorry, but no man is going to let this guy stay in the same house with his wife.”

  Xavier smirked, but the others weren’t smiling.

  “Yeah, well, he can stay at the hotel. I’m back with Catherine.” Ignoring the dropped jaws and wide eyes of his packmates, he said, firmly, “I’m going to send for her to come back now that I know everything’s fine. So, no, Xavier Durant cannot fucking stay with me.”

  “Wait a minute!” Eli bellowed, hitting his thigh. “You’re what? You’re back with WHOM? You’re WHAT?”

  “Are you serious?” Nathaniel asked, dumbstruck. “Or are you fucking with us?”

  Darik had Dontae’s stare hostage and wasn’t letting go until he had answers. “Can we talk about this another time?”

  “NO.”

  “No.

  “No FUCKING WAY.”

  Dontae looked over to Xavier who shrugged. “I have no idea what’s going on, but apparently this Catherine person is bad news.”

  Dontae started laughing. He couldn’t stop. Somehow, at this moment, it got his funny bone going and he really lost it. Tears even came as his friends gaped at him. Eli was the first to smile, but no one laughed. They just couldn’t.

  “You should see your faces! Oh man,” Dontae chuckled, finally tapering off. “Okay long story short. I drove for the first time—great stuff by the way—broke the car. Lots of rain. Catherine rescued me. She hit me. I fucked her. She left me there while I stopped a rape. Then I went after her. But she’d gone back for me. So that meant that where I looked for her, she wasn’t there yet, because she was looking for me. We ended up staying at the same B&B. Very odd. I smelled her before I saw her. We fought. I showed her my wolf. We fucked. Now, as it turns out, she’s it. I’m going to marry the fucking cunt. Happy?” Dontae looked around at the speechless faces. “Oh, and she got engaged to the guy she left me for. It wasn’t just a fling. Turns out I was always hiding a secret from her and she didn’t feel I loved her. So she left.” He raised his eyebrows around the room like, Anyone wonder how that could happen?

  Forced to keep their secrets their entire lives, all four heads nodded understanding and recognition. Darik leaned back on the chair and said, “Wow. I mean, Wow.”

  “Right?” Eli mumbled. “How am I going to change the way I think about her?”

  Nathaniel said, “We’ll find a way,” but he wasn’t sure how.

  “This! You see this!” Xavier said, motioning around the wolves. “This is why I steer clear of women. They mess with your lives. All right, I’m getting out of here. Now that I know my suspicions were right, I want to get started.”

  Everyone rose up, save for the already standing Nathaniel who was heading for the door to walk out his ‘guest.’ He raked a hand through his dark brown hair, still processing Catherine’s return to their lives, muttering, “You just never know what’s going to happen, do you?”

  Dontae nodded. Now that everything was handled with the surprise visitor, he was uncomfortably aware that Catherine wasn’t even in the same city as he was. “When do the phone stores open up?”

  “Phone stores,” Eli chuckled. “What provider do you have, D? Call it that.”

  Xavier interrupted, “Ten o’clock where I come from. Dropped my phone in the toilet the other day. Had to get a new one. Fucking sucked.” He turned around at the front door to say goodbye. “Well, it’s been interesting. Let me give you my number in case you ever come to Chi Town.”

  “You really call it that?” Darik asked.

  “Never. Good catch,” Xavier smiled.

  “You like to fuck with people,” Eli smirked.

  “Yep.” He held out a hand and Eli pulled out his phone from his pocket and handed it to him. After the digits were entered, they all shook hands and stood by the closed, locked front door to listen as the wolf outside left down the stairs, just to make sure he really was leaving.

  “The stairs? Really? Fucking show off,” Eli mumbled, heading back to the living room.

  “Where are the girls?” Dontae asked.

  “Women,” Nathaniel corrected. “How many times I have to tell you they’re not girls. They’re women.”

  Darik laughed. “They’re at my place.”

  They stayed up for hours, just like the old days where none of them were married, when they used to meet here every weekend night they didn’t get lucky—or when the luck wasn’t a sleepover, which was both more common and desired. His friends grilled him for more details. For once in his life, he didn’t mind opening up and giving a little more than usual. When they’d exhausted that subject, and a whole bottle of Oban, they hashed out Xavier’s story, what the cops knew, and how they’d have to be more diligent and careful about how they battled the bad guys.

  “Won’t do anyone any good if we get caught and have to stop,” Darik said, the gravity of that possibility weighing on all of them.

  Eli added, “And we have women who depend on us now,” holding up his glass like a toast before taking a healthy gulp.

  Dontae lifted his glass and casually said, “And a child on the way.”

  Eli spit his drink all over the coffee table. “WHAT?!”

  The other two echoed him immediately, aghast.

  Dontae chuckled. “Fertile as the day is long, my Catherine.”

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Eli wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “Michelle’s no dummy. She knows I can smell her a
rousal so she asked if I knew when she was ready to go, and I couldn’t lie to her. She wants to wait.”

  Darik rose up off the chair. He’d been gaping at Dontae, trying to figure something out. “Does she know you did that?”

  Dontae started laughing. “Nope.” Darik slumped back down, mouth dropped.

  “Holy shit!” Eli guffawed so loudly their ears hurt. “You got her back!”

  Dontae shook his head. “No. I’ve just got her.” That silenced Eli right up. His friends stared at him. “Stop looking at me like a soulless monster. I’m more romantic than you think.”

  “Remember Talia? Why he wouldn’t show her?” Darik reminded the others.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Oh right. I forgot.”

  Dontae remembered that moment with them, then explained, “Catherine always wanted kids. Remember? I told you that, and that I stayed firm on the stance that I didn’t. Well, now I do. And she loves me. She does. I saw it. When I tell her, she’s going to be the happiest she’s probably ever been.” He felt a little tug at his chest as he added, “Michelle’s not ready, Nathaniel. But I know Catherine is. I would never have done it otherwise.”

  Darik whistled. “I never thought I’d see this day. And you showed her your wolf!”

  Dontae nodded, “Yeah. Have to say, it was hot.”

  They all agreed with him, and felt the same about their experiences on that subject.

  The night didn’t come to an end until dawn forced them to return to the reality of their daily lives. As great as those were, ‘guy’s time’ was a precious thing not one of the four was happy to give up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Well, hello there. Looks like you got your phone back,” she practically purred. The sound of her voice made him wish he hadn’t told her to stay in Maine.

  Cracking eggs into the oil covered pan, he corrected, “Not back. It was shattered. I’ve got a new one now. Even picked a new colored case.”

  “What’d you get? And are you frying eggs? That crackling sound…”

  “I am. And black.”

  She laughed. “Why do I have a feeling the old one was black?”