by Juniper Hart
Relieved, Missy hurried away and ducked inside the mall. She had no interest in shopping for lingerie, but she knew it was a sure-fire excuse to get rid of her brother, at least for the next two hours.
Maybe I should buy myself a present, Missy mused, wandering through the corridors, looking for something to catch her eye.
She walked by Pottery Barn, and she peered at the items through the glass display.
Oh, I like that lamp. It would go amazing in my room at Kappa Mu—
She bumped into someone else, and Missy lost her footing, an apology springing from her lips as she tried to stand up.
“Oh, no!” she squealed as the man she had collided with regained his footing. “I’m so sorry! Are you all right?”
He looked up at her, and Missy was suddenly unable to breathe as she stared at the bluest eyes she had ever seen. They did not seem real, and she found herself leaning in to see if he was wearing contact lenses.
No, those are really his eyes! she realized, biting on her lower lip in amazement.
His face registered the same interest as she felt. They both simply glanced at each other, as though they were trying to prove that the other one was real.
It took a long moment before Missy realized neither of them had spoken.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, but her voice sounded raspy, and red tinged her cheeks.
A slow, broad smile broke out onto the stranger’s face, and Missy’s pulse quickened as she saw how his teeth gleamed. He ran his tongue over his lips, a gesture that Missy found herself entranced by.
“You’re Missy, aren’t you?” he asked, and her eyes grew wide with shock.
“How… how do you know my name?” she demanded, her brow furrowing.
She was certain she had never seen him before, despite the fact that she felt almost immediately at ease beneath is startling blue eyes. Did they know each other? Had they known each other once, and she had just forgotten about it? She doubted she would ever forget those eyes, though there was already so much mystery in her life that it was a possibility she had to consider.
The man grinned enigmatically.
“I know lots of things,” he told her.
Missy felt pleasure spark through her body. “Oh, yeah?” she challenged flirtatiously, cocking her head to the side. “Like what?”
“Come on, now,” he purred, pressing a finger to his mouth. “I can’t divulge all my secrets.”
Missy laughed.
“How about just your name, then?”
His smile widened, and Missy’s heart began to hammer in her chest.
“Dev,” he replied, extending his hand. When Missy reached out to shake it, she was instantly filled with electricity, as though he had shocked her.
What is it about this guy? she wondered, her lips parting in surprise. Her eyes nervously glanced downward, but she could still feel his intense eyes boring into hers.
“Can I buy you a coffee?” Dev asked.
“Sure!” Missy cried too enthusiastically, and she hated herself for sounding so eager.
Dev, however, just smiled at her. He had a beautiful smile.
“Come on,” he told her with a gesture of his head. “The food court is this way.”
Missy didn’t tell him that she knew where the food court was—she had visited the mall a thousand times in her life. Instead, she followed him, wanting to reach out and slip her hand into his as they made their way toward the coffee shop in the food court.
She had already appeared too eager, though, and she didn’t want to scare Dev away.
“How do you know my name?” she asked him after they had grabbed their orders. “Did we go to school together or something?”
Dev’s grin seemed impossibly big as he shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “Something a little closer to home than that.”
If the circumstances had been different, Missy would have been annoyed at the coy game Dev seemed to be playing, but she only found herself intrigued by him. After ordering a latte, Dev paid for their drinks. She started to walk toward a table, only for Dev to gently grab her by the elbow, steering her away and catching her by surprise.
“I thought we could walk a little,” he said, and Missy found herself agreeing again. She knew she would go anywhere the handsome but mysterious man wanted her to go.
She barely noticed as he led the way toward the back of the mall, chattering at her pleasantly. God, she couldn’t stop studying his face with fascination: his jawline, his curly blonde hair…
Abruptly, Dev whirled and looked at her.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked, and she was stunned by his brazen question.
But even more surprising was her instant head bob.
Dev snatched the latte from her hands, casting it into a nearby garbage container, and hurried her around the back of a privacy wall.
Before she could meet his eyes again, he had her pinned against the painted brick, his mouth hot and open against hers.
If his hand had caused shocks of energy through her body, his kiss lit Missy on fire, and she moaned softly as he grabbed at her neck, pulling her close. Her tongue jutted out to meet his, sending a spate of heat through her.
Dev’s hand tightened around the back of her neck, and she dipped her head to encourage him to taste the skin of her shoulders. Each kiss impassioned her further, his other hand reaching up to caress her breasts over her clothes.
Oh, my God, Missy thought. I’m making out with a man I just met at the mall.
But it didn’t deter her from continuing, and she gasped aloud when Dev’s fingers squeezed her firm, small breasts through her top.
Her hands reached out desperately, yanking his broad hips to hers. She wanted to feel his hardness against her, and when their bodies were finally pressed together, she was awed at the sheer size of him.
Dev’s face was at her collarbone, and Missy knew that, in seconds, he would be pulling her top down and kneading her naked bosom between his lips.
“Let’s go somewhere more private,” she breathed, unsure if she could be trusted to keep her clothes on for that long.
Suddenly, Dev jerked back and stared at her as if he didn’t know who she was. His hands dropped to their sides and he shook his head.
If Missy had not known better, she would have thought he was blushing.
“I have to get going, Missy,” he told her. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?”
She blinked at him, trying to clear the haze she was still in from her mind. She had surely misunderstood his words.
“What?”
Dev looked away, and Missy realized he was embarrassed. She had seen a blush on his cheeks!
“I’m really sorry,” he murmured. “I… I have somewhere to be right now.”
Disappointment flooded through Missy, and she could do nothing but gape at him.
Was I that bad a kisser? she wondered. Did I come on too strong?
No, that couldn’t have been. Dev was the one who had brought her here, the one who had kissed her first. He had wanted this as much as Missy. Why was he backing out of it now?
“Oh,” she replied, trying to stop her voice from breaking. “Okay. See you later.”
Dev winked at her, as if he were attempting to take the incredible sting from what he had said, and turned away, leaving her staring after him.
Missy could not wrap her mind around the fact that he had not even asked for her number.
I guess he didn’t feel the connection at all, she thought, a sweeping sense of desolation passing through her while Dev disappeared around the corner and out of view.
She felt ridiculous for reacting in such a way. It wasn’t like they had done anything—not really.
He’s just some stranger, she reminded herself angrily, spinning to walk toward Pottery Barn. I’m buying that damned lamp as a consolation prize. It’s the least I deserve for having such a crappy birthday.
When she and Andrew returned to Gendry’s just after
noon, their shipment had not arrived yet.
Missy was not sure who was more annoyed at that point.
Besides, she could still taste Dev on her lips and she wished she could not.
“Just forget it!” Andrew snapped when Louis tried to placate him. “Call the house if you guys ever get your shit together.”
“Drew!” Missy gasped. She turned apologetically to the owner. “It’s fine. Just let us know and we’ll come right back,” she assured him, even though her nerves were growing tauter by the second.
By the time Louis calls, she thought, hopefully Dad will be home from work, and I will be out with my friends, forgetting about this upsetting day.
Louis promised he would, and once more, the siblings were back in the truck, heading home.
“What a waste of time,” Andrew complained, but Missy didn’t want to hear it. She wisely held her tongue, though—she did not want to get into an argument with her brother again, either.
As they approached the house, Missy was surprised to see both of her parents’ cars in the driveway.
“What are they doing home?” she asked aloud, forgetting her silent vow not to speak to Andrew while they were still in the car.
Her brother only shrugged and frowned at her. “How am I supposed to know that?”
“Mom? Dad?” Missy called when she entered the house, kicking off her flip flops as she dashed inside. “Where are you guys?”
“In the kitchen, Missy!” her father called.
Missy cast her brother a curious look as he sauntered in behind her. He wore a faint smile on his face, and her brown eyes narrowed.
Why does he look so smug? she wondered, a shiver of apprehension snaking through her body.
She made her way toward the kitchen and found her parents sitting at the table in precisely the same spot she and Andrew had been sitting that morning.
“Hey,” she greeted them. “We, uh… we didn’t get the lumber. Louis said the order hasn’t showed up yet,” she informed them.
“He just called,” her mother, Terry, said. “It’s in. You guys have to go back and get it.”
His words made Missy explode.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she yelled. “We’ve been all over Sun Prairie today! You can’t make us go back! Mom!”
“You can go after we talk to you,” her father, Jake, told her. “Sit down, Missy.”
Missy’s mind was still focused on the morning she had spent running around all over town, and it was also focused on the boy she had met; the boy who had dismissed her so easily. She was in no mood to chat with her mom and dad, especially not when they wore such serious expressions on their faces.
“Can’t this wait?” she groaned. “It’s been a long, crappy day, and it’s barely noon.”
“It won’t take long, Missy,” her mother insisted. “Sit down.”
Begrudgingly, she obeyed, staring expectantly at her parents. Although she wondered if this had anything to do with her present, she just wasn’t in the mood to deal with it—not anymore.
Suddenly, she just wanted to take a nap.
“We have something to tell you,” her father started slowly, shooting Terry a nervous look. “And it’s something you’ve probably suspected for a long time.”
Missy’s brow creased.
What are they talking about?
They probably had a carefully planned speech, so she decided to wait for them to continue.
“You look confused, Missy,” Terry said, “but surely you must have guessed that there is something we haven’t told you about who you are by now.”
Uneasiness seized Missy, and she shook her head. She suddenly didn’t want to know what they were about to say.
Before she could realize it, a thousand images fluttered through her mind: strange, foreign pictures of beasts and blood, a collection of stifled memories threatening to resurface.
Missy rose, a chocked-back scream on her throat.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled, but Jake ordered her back into her chair.
“You’re twenty-one now, Missy,” he declared. “It’s clear that you aren’t going to come to the knowledge on your own, so you need to know…”
He turned to his mother, and he reached out to hold Terry’s hand as they both turned back to look at her.
“Missy,” her father said. “You’re a Lycan.”
Missy stared at him blankly.
“I’m a what now?” she replied, even though she had heard him just fine.
It still did not make any sense.
“Missy,” her mother started, “you have lived in this house for twenty-one years. You have seen things—inexplicable things—from your brother and us, we know.”
Missy shook her head in denial.
“No,” she insisted, covering her ears with her hands. “No way. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” Terry said gently. “You have just never shifted… for some reason. We doubt you ever will.”
Missy whipped her head around to look for her brother, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Funny that he would want to miss out on this conversation, she thought grimly.
“You deserved to know the truth,” Jake told her. “Even if it amounts to nothing for you. It just gives us a bit of peace of mind, knowing that we can act naturally around you. And so can your peers.”
Missy’s eyes narrowed. “What peers?” she demanded, her face almost opaque with fear. “Who else has this secret?”
Her parents laughed aloud and shook their heads, which did not make her feel any better about this entire ordeal.
“You really have been sticking your head in the sand all these years, haven’t you?” Jake chuckled.
“Anyway, that’s your birthday present, sweetie,” Terry concluded. “Once you process it, you’ll realize what a blessing it is.”
Missy’s jaw dropped open, but no words came out.
“You better run along and find your brother now,” Jake said. “The lumber order is finally in. I want to start working on the house extension first thing in the morning.”
“Dad!” Missy protested with a high-pitched shriek. “You just dropped this bombshell on me, and now you expect me to pretend like it’s nothing? You expect me to just go pick up wood?”
Her father smiled and reached up to lovingly pat his daughter’s cheek.
“It’ll be good for you to take your mind off it,” he said encouragingly. “Anyway, your mom and I have to get back to work, and Drew can’t do it alone.”
As if the matter was resolved, her parents rose from the table and shuffled toward the fridge chattering amongst themselves like she had disappeared from the room.
Slowly, Missy turned to head back the way she had come, and she jumped at the sight of her brother lounging against the wall.
“So, how does it feel, sis?” he asked leeringly. “To know you’re one of us?”
It feels awful! Missy wanted to scream, but she dared not. No wonder Dev took off so fast. He could probably sense I’m a weirdo.
The final trip to Gendry’s Lumber proved to be fruitful, and Louis helped the siblings fill up the bed of the truck before waving them off.
“I’m hungry,” Andrew informed Missy as they drove away. “I’m stopping at McDonald’s.”
She stared at him balefully, and when Andrew raised his eyebrows, expecting a reply from her, Missy just muttered, “Whatever.”
It was the worst birthday she had ever had. What difference did whatever they did now make? Her desire to go anywhere was crushed, her faith in humanity doubly so.
It was all Missy could do to keep from hailing a cab to the airport and making her way back to Boulder and the sanctuary of her room at the sorority house.
To add insult to injury, Andrew wanted to eat at the restaurant instead of ordering to-go.
This just gets better and better, Missy thought bitterly, but she still said nothing. She was far too upset to e
ngage in conversation.
Her mind was racing, coming back to the same thought, over and over again.
I am a werewolf. My family has withheld this from me for who knows how long, and I made out with the most handsome stranger I’ve ever met, only for him to throw me away without any explanation.
In some way, she was irritated that what had happened with Dev still weighed on her mind. But it was her birthday, and she could cry if she wanted.
“You want something?” Andrew asked, and she shook her head sullenly.
“Suit yourself.”
A few minutes later, her brother was digging into his burger with gusto, and as Missy watched him devour the food, she realized she was starving.
I don’t care. I just want to go home and throw the covers over my head and stay there for the rest of summer break.
She tried not to watch as Andrew inhaled his fries before sitting back with a satisfied smirk on his face.
“Ah,” he sighed. “Good stuff.”
“Can we go?” Missy snapped, and he shrugged nonchalantly.
“I just have to use the bathroom,” he told her, and Missy was sure she was going to scream. Grinding her teeth, she stormed out into the parking lot to wait for her brother, beginning to pace around in annoyance.
After fifteen minutes, Andrew finally emerged. Missy gave him a furious look.
“Sorry,” he chuckled, though his voice told her he was not sorry in the least. “Number one became—”
“I got it!” Missy snapped, holding up her hand to stop his sentence. “Can we just go now?”
They returned to his truck, and Missy hoped she never had to ride in it ever again. She had seen the vehicle enough for a lifetime.
Another silent ride ensued, and as they approached the farmhouse, Missy suddenly felt a lump of self-pity form in her throat. She gulped it down, unwilling to cry in front of her brother, but she could not remember a time when she had felt as low as she did today.
Had her twenty-first birthday seriously been one of the worst days of her life?
Andrew parked the truck. Missy slipped around the back to help him unload.
“Nah, don’t worry,” he said before she could start. “I can do that when Dad gets home. You look really pissed off. Just go inside.”
