Secret Wolf: A Steamy Werewolf Romance

by Dancer Vane

  “Yes. They wanted to tell me…” I hadn’t told them about the assault in the alley, so I stopped. Their curious eyes remained on me, so I went on: “They told me they didn’t have a suspect for the fire. Apparently they were thinking of two guys, but they turned out to have an alibi.”

  “Oh, I know these two. McGill and Farnell. Tom Decca’s boy and the other, the cute one, they asked us questions about McGill and Farnell the first time they came here. What did they do now?”

  “Nothing,” I muttered.

  “These two, they’re bad news.” Mrs. Betty bounced her bun up and down with conviction. “And we told them, didn’t we, Burr? I told them, I don’t care if they have an alibi, you need to arrest them anyway. But young people, you know, they always believe they know better.”

  “I know,” I admitted sternly, and she laughed. “Not you, my dear. But these two boys, not the policemen, the other two, they’re going to create some serious trouble some day. Especially Farnell; that one is mean. Vicious.”

  I remembered one of them holding my arms, in wrists that felt like iron, and felt a sob rise in my throat. God, I couldn’t still be choked up about something that had happened a week before, could I? And nothing had happened, in the end. Yet my heart was racing, and I felt like crying. I fought it hard.

  “These two, you can’t tell them where I live,” I managed.

  “We’re not telling anyone, darling, of course not. Burr, you told her about the other guy? I didn’t see that one. He came while I was at church.”

  “I’m very popular, apparently,” I joked darkly.

  I wondered if it could be laptop guy. Yeah, right, because I was that much of a heart-breaker, he would be in town trying to find me. Because he couldn’t live without me until the next week.

  And that was what worried me. Most of the people I knew, they knew where to find me. I spent the whole day at the bakery. To look for me, either one didn’t know where I worked, or… their wanted to see me without Blake present. And none of the two options were reassuring.

  “I don’t see who it could be.”

  Maybe the mayor? But he knew where to find me, too, already had. Mrs. Betty didn’t seemed worried.

  “Pretty girl like you, it’s not surprising you have gentlemen calling. Don’t worry about it. Whoever that man is, he’ll tell you when he finds you.”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Burr rumbled. He coughed, and for a moment we watched him with anxious eyes, as he fought to regain his breath. It took a moment before he could speak again.

  “I don’t know about any gentleman. I didn’t like that guy. He’s not from around here, that’s for sure. And I didn’t like his style.”

  I felt a chill down my spine. But then, Mr. Burr didn’t like anyone that he hadn’t known all his life, did he? He didn’t like my boss, or his friends, and at first when I had moved in in the trailer next to his he had given me a hard time, too. Talking to me as if I were a child, and a rather grubby one. It had taken a couple of weeks for me to earn his respect.

  “His style,” I repeated.

  “Hard. Like life threw him into a washing machine, gave him a long wash, a hard spin, and then put it on dryer mode.”

  I laughed. “Don’t we all feel like that?”

  They didn’t smile.

  “Well, no, darling, I don’t feel like that,” objected Mrs. Betty in a soft voice.

  “So… he looked clean and dry? That could be worse.”

  Mr. Burr laughed, but he seemed uncomfortable.

  “Well, yes. Except his teeth. He had really bad teeth. Anyway, you can count on us. We’re not telling anyone anything.” He coughed again, but this time the fit was mercifully short. “Anything at all. But that man, he wanted to know where you live now. Not where you live; but where you live now. Like, he knew you had been here before and had moved on. Like he was following a trail.”

  I forced myself to take a deep breath.

  “I don’t know who that could be,” I said flatly.

  Mr. Burr watched me, eyes small and intent:

  “I hope you’re not bringing bad people to this town.”

  “Come on. I’ve been living here for months. I’m not bringing anyone at all.”

  Mrs. Betty rose and took both their cups to bring them back to her kitchen. I hadn’t finished mine.

  “I know,” Mr. Burr said in a low voice, and he glanced guiltily at her receding back. “I know you’re not a bad kid. And you’ve been discreet. In fact, you’ve been so discreet, that it made me wonder. If you’re hiding.”

  “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,” I retorted, keeping my voice low myself. “If I’m wild, I’m a bad person, and if I’m discreet, I have something to hide.”

  He laughed softly.

  “Well, girl, there’s something to be said for a safe middle.”

  I shook my head, smiling. Then rose to take my own cup to Mrs. Betty’s trailer, along with the sugar bowl.

  “I’m not running from anyone,” I told him. “But please don’t tell anything about me to strangers.”

  After that, I washed the cups and spoons in spite of Mrs. Betty’s protests, but I was anxious to leave that place. It was still early, but night falls quickly in autumn. And I definitely wanted to be home before dark.

  When I came back to town after the trailer park, I didn’t feel tired. I had slept late in the morning, after all, and I felt… restless. It was my day off and while I already used it to rest, I felt a fierce desire to enjoy it somehow. So I took a walk in the center of town, like a tourist.

  The town was small, but there were a few storefronts I liked. I walked by Blake’s, all dark and empty, and it made me feel sad. Our joyful, warmly lit shop was a beacon in this rather bleak mountain town, and it now looked forlorn.

  At least, it was, for me. And since then was it “our” shop? I made minimal wage selling fancy cakes. It occurred to me that I might be investing far too much of myself in this. For Blake, I was convenient and new, but as soon as he tired of the novelty, I might find myself out of a job pretty quickly.

  And that’s why I knew it was a bad idea to sleep with my boss. Why I had fought what I felt, so much. Nice to remember it now.

  I stopped for a latte at a chain coffee-shop on Main Street. I had meant to sit outside, but the afternoon had become colder, and my clothes were too thin for the weather. So I sat down inside, on a high barstool at the front, watching the street in front of me.

  Clouds hid the pale autumn sunshine, giving the town a sad, grey appearance. Hard to believe that magical creatures lived here.

  In fact, I thought, holding my latte between both hands, they might not be magic at all. Just another freak of nature, like the two-headed calf. Just more discreet.

  Our T.V. when I was a kid was more tuned on porn than on nature’s other wonders, but I remembered distinctly that the two-headed calf didn’t have a long life expectancy. I wondered if anyone had tried to breed these calves; to create a new blood line. A new species.

  Hard to imagine why anyone would want to.

  But then… I sipped on my early Halloween latte, and shut up the voice in my head that said it would be even better with a touch more cinnamon.

  But then, why did I call them freaks? Not the calves, of course, but the wolves. Just because we were the dominant species, didn’t give me a right to decide what was right and what was “freak”.

  They were just another species, then. A minority, and an unprotected one, that had to remain a secret, for their own protection. I could imagine how people would react. The fear.

  But also, the wonder. What wasn’t to love in that man?

  I was way to biased to be able to predict how others would react. So far, I knew Mrs. Betty preferred to pretend they didn’t exist, while throwing little fearful glances in the direction of the Farnwood compound, and that Mr. Burr tolerated them, but didn’t think it “right” for humans to have any contact with them. They were allowed to live, but not to mingle. Clearly
, he didn’t consider them as equals.

  And why would the opinion of an old man living in a trailer park matter? Because at least half the town would side with him or have even stronger feelings. As a foreigner, having lived half my life in this country, I was under no illusions about how people treated those who were different. It had been the same in my own country, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be much better anywhere. One had to fit. Had to be normal. If they couldn’t, it was on them. That was how most of the town would react. I had little hopes to the contrary.

  So far, the three wolves I knew of were doing well, they were rich and fit, and practically breathed power. But that could turn into jealousy in the blink of an eye. Jealousy and hate.

  And I couldn’t protect them myself. I couldn’t even protect only one of them.

  Not that I wouldn’t try.

  The sidewalk was busy on a Monday afternoon. This was a small mountain town, and the lanes were rather narrow, so on one of the last autumn afternoons, people were milling around, lugging shopping bags and meeting with friends.

  The coffee shop had a line, although most patrons only asked for a coffee to go, and there were still tables available. Out of professional habit, I counted their tables. We had less clients than them on a weekday afternoon, I estimated, but each one of ours spent more. Blake’s wasn’t cheap, and had many options to tempt the customer. It was a pastry shop, not a coffee shop. Still. I ran numbers in my head and decided we were doing at least as well as they were, and probably better.

  I watched the street outside, and sipped my latte. I wasn’t in a hurry to be alone at home again.

  There — a figure in the scattered crowd made my heart flip. I reacted to a resemblance before my brain caught up: no, silly. My father was safely in jail. This, a figure lost in the crowd in an instant, must have been someone more or less of the same built.

  I had reacted like a lovelorn girl who sees her lover everywhere; except in my case, it must have been more like post-traumatic stress, because my skin was now clammy with a cold sweat. I shook my head and tried to unclench my stomach. I had had a glimpse of a stranger more or less similar in built to my father, and I was already shaking, and sweating? Great. If some people in this town had something of the wolf, I sure had my animal side too. Instinct had focused on a shape half-remembered and my body had reacted before my brain had a chance to.

  I thought of a werewolf calling me a little rabbit, and that only made me smile, I didn’t feel threatened; but the shape of a stranger in the crowd was enough to send me into a panic. Great. Maybe it was time to reorganise the playlist of my greatest fears. Maybe werewolves should hold a place closer to the top.

  Werewolves. I was able to think the word without flinching, now. It had had time to seep into my consciousness, and to lose its power to scare me. Blake could be dangerous; but any man was dangerous. And a lot of them were more vicious than the confident, strong werewolf. In fact, the less confident they were, the more dangerous, it seemed to me.

  My father didn’t have Blake’s muscular power. He hadn’t been strong; but he only needed to be stronger than me. It didn’t take much to be able to hurt someone else.

  That the man I was starting to love was so powerful physically wasn’t what made him dangerous. The two lowlifes in the alley had been closer to hurt me, and they didn’t have half his strength, or his claws. Any man with a knife, or with a friend ready to give him a hand, could be as dangerous as a werewolf.

  Wow. Just a shape on the periphery on my vision, and that had sent me into dark, dark thoughts.

  I tried to shake the unease I felt. It helped to remember Blake’s hands on me, warm, possessive. The hardness of his body and the soft, relaxed sound of his voice.

  I would be safe, I thought. And more importantly, I would keep him safe. Somehow.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ALANNA

  The alarm tore me from my dreams in the middle of the night. The shrill sound made me jump, heart racing suddenly, before I could orient myself.

  It took me a minute to recognise where I was. My phone was plugged in the kitchen, so I couldn’t be sure of the time, but the night seemed very dark behind the curtains.

  The sound didn’t last much. As soon as I jumped out of bed, searching frantically for my phone, for my clothes, it stopped.

  The silence after that seemed too deep. Ominous.

  I grabbed my jeans and a tank top and slid down to the kitchen.

  1h30 am. While I was standing in the kitchen, wondering what to do, clouds shifted, and moonlight illuminated the room.

  This had been the intruder alarm. The fence, or the main house. I had never heard it before, but Blake had warned me that it was loud. Someone must have tripped it trying to enter the property… or some animal had walked into the gate or the fence in the dark.

  Or could it be the house? What if there were intruders at the house?

  Blake couldn’t be asleep — he must have been the one to turn the alarm down.

  Truth is, I had no idea how the alarm worked. I hadn’t asked. Blake had given me a little device that opened the doors without triggering the alarm, but I hadn’t asked if it was connected to some security company, or only a warning system.

  I should have stayed inside the house, of course. But… I refused to stay locked inside when he might be in trouble.

  Rationally? He might have come home drunk and triggered the alarm, it might be a small animal bumping into a window outside the house… it could be anything, sure. But what if someone had broken a window to get inside the house?

  Blake must have been asleep; he could have been surprised. I couldn’t just lock myself inside the carriage house and let whatever was happening… happen.

  Images ran through my mind: wolves attacking the house. Or the guys who apparently had burned down my trailer, following me here and burning down the main house thinking I was inside.

  I couldn’t be sure Blake had turned down the alarm. Maybe it was programmed to shut down after a few minutes.

  I put on my tennis shoes, and grabbed my phone. After a second, I slid into the kitchen and grabbed a paring knife too. Small, but a good grip.

  Not that I had ever used a knife on anyone, but I wasn’t getting out of the house unarmed and empty-handed.

  So I walked out of the house, the phone in my back pocket and the knife in hand, and walked towards the gate.

  It looked locked and I didn’t try it for fear of triggering the alarm again.

  I walked quickly down the path, to the house. The night was clear, with sudden moments of darkness whenever a cloud moved in front of the moon. I glanced up: the moon was full. But I had something much more real and urgent to think about than werewolves.

  The night seemed more silent than usual.

  I walked right up to the house. No light on this side, no sign of life either. I had been afraid of finding two guys trying to open the door, so finding the place empty didn’t seem bad.

  I really didn’t want to take the path around the house, given what I had found the night before… but the sound of the alarm was still ringing in my ears. I had to.

  I took the path, then. On the other side of the house, no light either.

  Could it be that Blake didn’t wake up? Could anyone sleep through the alarm?

  No light, though. The moonlight illuminated the kitchen, the empty (thank God) marble island, with only his phone on top, and the empty living room, tidy to the point of looking sinister. Blake didn’t seem to do much living in there. Well, if the open-plan kitchen was considered part of the living room, then… he was.

  His phone vibrated on the island.

  I couldn’t hear anything, but I saw it vibrate, there was not the slightest doubt about that.

  And no sign of Blake.

  I waited for a moment to see if he would come to answer the phone. This time, I would have had no problem knocking on the window to ask him if everything was alright.

  I was starting to be s
eriously worried. Hard to imagine the alarm would not have woken him up; but he might not be home. Except, once I saw his phone, I knew he had to be home. And… still in bed? Or was someone stopping him from answering?

  Maybe his alarm was connected to the police or something, and he knew the safest option was to stay in bed and wait for the police to come check?

  I should have asked him.

  I took a deep breath. I still felt uncomfortable, as if someone was watching me. But given the jolt of adrenaline when the alarm had woken me up, it wasn’t surprising.

  Behind the house, the little path wasn’t so well-lit. I watched my step and returned to the front of the house.

  I was walking up the hill to get back to the carriage house, unsure what to do next, when I heard a car parking on the roadside.

  I ran up, staying on the side of the path, along the bushes, where the trees would throw shadows. Once I was closer, though, I could hear voices, clear and calm.

  “He doesn’t answer his phone.”

  “Shit. What do we do?”

  Two men stood next to a white car, decorated with the logo of a security company. I stepped out of the shadows, and one of them startled and placed a hand on his gun — the other one turned his head to me and smiled. He didn’t seem worried.

  “Miss. Good evening. The alarm was triggered, so we have to check if there was a breach in security. Are you the owner?”

  “I’m not… I’m not sure he’s at home.”

  “He’s not answering his phone.”

  “His phone is here, but I don’t think he is.”

  “We have checked the fence and didn’t see anything suspicious. It’s electrified, so it hasn’t been broken anywhere, otherwise we would see a loss of tension.”

  “Or have found a corpse,” the other guy grinned.

  I watched them both, horrified: “Seriously? Is it that dangerous?”

  I thought of the large wolf I had seen inside. I didn’t want him to be fried.

  They laughed. “No, of course not. Have you seen any sign of trouble at the house? Anything suspicious?”