Chapter 13
thirteen
. . .
I was naked when I woke up, but I wasn’t licking Joe, no, I was alone in my enormous bed while Danny yelled loudly enough that I could hear him through the solid wood door.
“I don’t care if you’re some alpha! You can’t go around turning perfectly nice mothers, just because they happened to have had your kid. You’ve got plenty of women here. How could you take the one desperate not to be trapped? You made her fight, broke her, but that wasn’t enough? You had to lock her up too? I’m going in there. If you don’t want me to, you’ll have to kill me.”
I rolled my eyes at the drama, but the next thing, he was throwing open the door to my bedroom while I scrambled to pull the sheet up.
He took one look at me and then blinked. “Oh, you’re in bed. I don’t think that this is helping Sam. She’s freaking out when she’s not giving everyone the silent treatment. Let’s go home, okay? Let’s just go right now, disappear and…”
I threw a pillow at him. “I’m a werewolf. I can’t just run away, and neither can Sammy. There’s no point getting upset about the inevitable. It’s done. The only thing we can do is to mitigate the situation.”
“Because he infected you?” He pointed at the door, but Joe hadn’t come in with him, leaving us together alone instead. Why wasn’t he jealous of Danny? He shouldn’t let me be alone with another man like he didn’t really care about me. Joe had better care about me after all of this mess. “There has to be a way to undo it.”
I shook my head because there was no going back, not when it was so hard to get to be a werewolf in the first place, but something about Danny was kind of nice, normal, so I smiled at him. “You know, you kind of smell and sound like the tentacle beard guy, all upset about the abused wolf.” That had been really nice to fight with him, and nice to make money without trying to type on a computer.
“Tentacle beard?” He leaned too close, peering into my eyes. “Are you delirious?”
My mind whirled in a million different directions, but most of them were coming to the same conclusion. I was a werewolf, but that didn’t mean I had to be the kind of werewolf anyone else wanted me to be. If Jane could defy the alpha, why couldn’t I? Working at the coffee shop would be better than being his mindless mate. Mindless. Oh, the shame to remember how absolutely mindless I’d gotten when I’d seen Joe with that other woman. It was ridiculous that a woman my age should get jealous of some twenty-year-old, and if Joe was interested in her, then he wouldn’t be interested in me, and I would return the feeling. “No, I went to an underground fight club for monsters. Won ten thousand for a fight.” Not that I had the money. I definitely needed the money. I gave him a look, and he rubbed his chin, looking intrigued.
“You sure you aren’t delirious?”
I made a face. “Well, Joe still has my cash, but he promised to give it back, although what’s a promise from a werewolf? The bills were in my waistband, but then I got hit by a car, a few cars, something like that, and the next thing I knew, I woke up naked. I turn into a wolf when I’m stressed out, so keep it low-key, okay? It’s really good money, and I think maybe we should take advantage of the fact that they think that because I’m a fresh-turned werewolf, I’m easy prey.” I wiggled my brows at him before I got up, wrapping the sheet around me and headed to the closet.
He put a hand on my arm and I bared my teeth, growling.
“Bite me if you want, and then I’ll be in this fight cage with you.”
I immediately covered my teeth with my lips and leaned away from him, tripping on the sheet and almost losing it in the process because he was standing on it.
“Crap! Don’t look at me,” I said, scrambling to pull it up.
He whirled around, back towards me. “What are you doing flashing your junk around like that, Honey? It’s going to give a guy ideas.”
“Oh, shut up. What do you think about my idea?”
“The one where we sneak out of here and go play fight club with a bunch of vicious paranormals? You know that I’m game, and with my help, you can’t lose, but Honey, I don’t think your big bad is going to be happy that you’re running off without him. It sounds incredibly dangerous.” He frowned at me. “Which means that I should make a will before we go.”
I punched his shoulder too hard, and he grimaced. “What do you have to leave to someone?”
“I have all sorts of illicit goods that you don’t get to know about.”
“You really might get hurt,” I said, frowning at him.
“You too, but think of the gains! My mouth is watering at the thought of ten G’s just for giving you a bloody nose.”
Mm hm. My great protector. “I like the idea of financial independence.”
“Oh, come on, Honey. You’re doing it to piss off your beard, and he’s going to be pissed.” He grinned at me and I smiled back.
“That’s part of it,” I admitted.
He snorted. “Okay. You get geared up while I grab you breakfast. I’ll tell Joe that you don’t want to see anyone, because…” He raised a brow. “He seemed to think that you didn’t want to see him, like something happened besides Sam freaking out yesterday.”
I winced. “Not talking about it.”
He pointed at me. “That’s what I thought, so you don’t want to see anyone because of whatever humiliating thing you did yesterday that freaked out Sam and made you shift into that sweet ball of russet fluff. You are a very pretty wolf, Honey, much sweeter than your human version, snuggly too. Licked me where I was ticklish, and then Joe had to take you away before you got too excited. Seriously, if my girls are werewolves, how can I not be?” He sighed heavily and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Can you get me something that he didn’t make? Maybe a plate from the cafeteria?”
“Oh, really? Pushing all the buttons, hm? I’ve got you. I’ll make sure he understands how upset you are about whatever humiliating thing you did that you don’t want to talk about. Did it involve sniffing him in public, like, dog-style?”
I made a face at him. “I’d bite you, but then you’d be pack, and I’d never get rid of you. Get out!”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m going, I’m going. I’ll be back with food.” He ducked out of the room, leaving me to dwell on the agonizing humiliation of publicly leaping off a merry-go-round to claim Joe as mine, also to rend the girl limb from limb. Also, I just wasn’t acting right, not with Danny, not with anyone. My nerves were bare, raw, and I couldn’t deal with the slightest provocation without wanting to melt down. I was being meaner to Danny than usual. That wasn’t right, and I’d actually wanted to kill that woman just for touching my mate.
“He was wearing a wedding ring,” I muttered. How old had Joe been when he was turned and frozen in time? He was older than my thirty-five, right? Although life expectancy seven hundred years ago wasn’t that great. Thirty-five would be ancient. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t let insecurities and jealousies control me, or I really would become a monster.
I rifled through clothes by scent until I found the perfect pair of shorts, tank top and sports bra. The colors were hard to match, but I was almost certain that the mustard shorts matched the blue top. After I dressed, I pulled on a slinky black number so it wouldn’t be obvious what I was up to if someone saw me climbing out the window.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long time. The dress was sophisticated and sleek, or it would have been without shorts and the wrong kind of breast support. I still looked thirty-five, the same moderately fit mom body I’d had before I turned into a werewolf, which was nothing like Celeste. I’d worked hard to become more than the twenty-year-old na?ve idiot I’d been, and if I’d suddenly looked like Celeste, I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself. My eyes glowed gold when I suddenly thought of the twenty-year-old and my upper lip rose to reveal a snarl and teeth that seemed sharper than a few days ago.
I blinked at myself while I compared myself to the other girl and found myself lacking in youth and carefree spirit, but I hadn’t been particularly carefree when I was so young and stupid. Then again, living in the moment was as carefree as you could get, which is who I’d been when Josiah had married me and that was my mantra, so maybe he actually preferred…
Danny broke me out of my reverie with a huge tray piled with food. “Good news is that I convinced Joe to play chess with Sam all day, bad news, he wouldn’t let me feed you anything he hadn’t made, and by wouldn’t let me, I mean that he manhandled me and threatened to throw me out and never let me back in if I didn’t deliver the properly nutritious meal that he’d prepared for you.” He sat down on the bed and raised the lid on the tray, revealing five courses of mostly raw steak and steamed greens, with a smoothie that was probably octopus and intestines.
I pounced on the food before I could stop myself, because I was starving, and if I didn’t eat right that second, I’d eat Danny. I focused on the food, ripping it apart with my hands and teeth until everything was devoured and I was licking the plate clean. I looked up and saw his large eyes as he watched me eat.
“What?” I snapped. I took a deep breath. I had to stop losing it with him. I was still the same person, even if I sprouted fur and teeth. I’d struggled my whole life to control my temper. I wasn’t about to lose it now.
He stood and raised his hands. “Nothing, just wow. I’ll take this tray to the kitchen and then take a drive around while I question whether or not you’re going to be okay. I’ll be passing you out that window, so try to wave at me and feel nostalgic, okay? Okay.” He frowned at me, a question in his eyes and scent. Did I actually want to go to a fight club where it would be incredibly dangerous just to make some cash?
“I’ll wave, now get out!” I winced. “Please,” I added.
He gave mem a look, took the tray and slammed the door behind him, making me sigh.
I paced around the large room, past the small balcony that looked out on the street. Other than the massive bed, there wasn’t any furniture, so there was plenty of pacing room. I peered out the glass every time I passed it, but no Danny in my old car. Wait, if I was leaving, I should leave some kind of diversion.
I stuffed the bed with clothes that were more or less my shape and threw the sheet over the whole thing before I went back to the balcony, opening it up quietly and slipping out. It was three stories up, but I was a werewolf. And wolves were such fabulous climbers.
I climbed over the railing and stepped onto the small ledge that led to the corner of the building and the drainpipe. It looked high quality, bronze, but would it hold my weight? Only one way to find out. I mean, if I broke my back or my legs, I’d heal overnight. And if I died, I’d stay dead. That wouldn’t be great for Sammy, but nothing was great for her right now, particularly having a mother who had no control, no ability to do anything in the face of irrational jealousy. She must be so disappointed in me, so betrayed.
I side-stepped down the ledge and got to a window where the green-haired pix was looking out at me. I stared at him while he stared back. He pushed up the window while I balanced, trying not to look down.
“You’re a werewolf now.”
“Yep. You’re still a pix.”
He smiled, and I was terrified that he’d suggest I eat something, but he only said, “Do they torture all their new recruits?”
“Only the lucky ones.”
“Are you trying to escape?” he asked with a raised brow.
“No! Me? Escape? Ha!” I gurgled laughter and then had to flail around to grab the window frame and not plummet to my death. “I’m just seeing how my new reflexes work.”
“Ah. Werewolves can smell lies, but Pix can read truth. And that, my dear, was no truth. It’s best not to lie, but to divert the question into something else, such as, ‘Are you trying to escape?’ he asked in a fake deep voice, then continued in a falsetto, ‘What about you? Are you going to escape?’ or ‘Do you have any pie?’ you know, something random that distracts the questioner, puts them off guard.”
“Oh. Thanks for the advice. I’m going now.” I edged away from him while he kept watching me with amusement until I reached the corner. Pix were weird, no doubt about that, but at least he hadn’t been interested in telling Joe that I was escaping.
Luckily, the drainpipe held as I scooted and slid down it until I hit the sidewalk at the same time I saw my car coming around the corner. I stepped into the street and slid into the passenger’s side when he slowed down before he even stopped.
“Fancy,” he said while I buckled up. “Let’s go to Gloria’s and practice.”
I sighed heavily and ducked down, although I could still see the Pix in the window. He waved at me, annoyingly enough. I offered him a tiny way, hoping that he wouldn’t immediately report me. “Can’t. I’m a werewolf, and I want to eat Gloria.”
“Wait, you don’t want to eat me? Why not? I’m beautiful lean meat, not scrawny chicken bones like Gloria.” He gave me a ridiculous scowl. So much drama.
“You smell like other women’s stale perfume, particularly Clarissa Rowlings’s. I don’t want to put my tongue on that.”
“I took a shower.”
I shook my head and looked back, trying to see if anyone had noticed me leaving, but the street was quiet. “You’re impossible.”
“What? You deal with your stress by turning into a werewolf. I do it by turning into a manwhore. Everyone has their own coping methods. Also, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Maybe if you rolled around in a bed with your beard, you wouldn’t be so touchy.”
I snarled at him. “I’m not touchy!”
He gave me a pointed look while I scowled and slumped down in the seat. I was acting like Sammy when she needed to eat.
“Sorry. I have been a lot more touchy since I turned. Did you see Sam? Is she okay?” I asked, so frustrated about it, because I wasn’t sure what I could do to help her when I wasn’t in control of myself.
“Sure. I was there when she was trying to come to terms with your fluffy sweet wolf. You tried to be so friendly, licked me and tried to lick her, but she just freaked out, screaming like a banshee until you went and crawled under a desk until Joe sent Sam to her room with one of his ‘people’ I use the term lightly, and then had to get you out. Took him almost an hour to lure you out with a variety of unhealthy snacks, and then you climbed on his lap and wouldn’t leave. He carried you to bed like that. When I visited her this morning, she was past hysterical and on to scheming. A little like you to be perfectly honest, or semi-perfectly honest, because perfect honesty is for idiots.”
“I hope we don’t die.”
He smiled cheerfully. “It’s a worthy cause.”
And he thought he wasn’t an idiot.
Maybe it seemed idiotic to bring a human into a monster’s fight club and gambling den, but the thing about Danny, his superpower, if you will, was his ability to see the weakness in a fighter. It wasn’t too hard to get Drigo to put me in a fight, as long as I played a cascade, which meant that I was required to fight until I lost, with the payment of one thousand to the winner of the first fight, but then multiplied for the next fight, and the next, until we were talking about ridiculous money.
Truthfully, the money seemed like a good idea, but what I really wanted to do was forget about being a werewolf for awhile, to forget about myself, and all of the mistakes I’d made, and the problems I’d caused, and just be in that elusive moment.
Danny stayed on the balcony watching the fight, his ear bud tucked away so he could hear me and vice versa while I faced off against my first contender, the vampire woman from the last time. She stretched her fingers, showing off her beautiful nails, which had some mini rhinestones embedded in the black lacquer.
“Your nails are fabulous,” I said, taking my starting pose, fists up, crouched down.
“I heard that you fought Celeste, but none of her fashion rubbed off on you, did it?”
I sighed. “I’m having a rough transition stylistically. I wasn’t ever what you’d call fashionable, but now I can’t tell if things match, in color or cut. Like I wore a turquoise shirt with fringe, embroidery, and sequins with forest green work pants.”
She flinched like I’d punched her gut. “That sounds terrible.”
“It was, but I’m not sure I’m capable of making good fashion choices. I should probably hire someone to pick out my clothes for me.”
“You can’t have Celeste do it, since she’s lower than you in the hierarchy?”
I shrugged. “I’m not chic like Celeste, more simple and functional, like Jane.”
She shivered at the mention of her name. “Then you could have her do it, if you dared.”
I smiled at her. Then the shriek sounded and it was on. I’d already seen her fight, and knew what I could do, which was wait until she was distracted by drinking my blood to crush her with my bare hands, but letting her get her teeth in me wasn’t really my plan.
I held back, fists up, while I waited for her to make a move, but she seemed reluctant to begin as well. When she finally moved, it was so fast, her razor-sharp claws aiming at my throat before she floated away.
I blocked her attack, then heard Danny’s whisper, “She favors her left ankle. Looks like that leg is slightly shorter than the other, probably from a bad break. And she leans away from an attack, like she’s afraid of losing face.”
And that was all I needed to lay down a plan to destroy the pretty vampire diva. I didn’t crush her ankle and smash her face first thing, no, but I attacked low on that side, so that she over-prepared, invested in defense so when I switched angles and pounded her from the right, she didn’t have anything there to protect her ribs, so they shattered. How do you defeat a vampire without killing them? I didn’t shove those broken ribs up into her heart, just sprang away, so her grab with teeth and claws barely scratched me. We circled for a few seconds then she came at me, a whirlwind of teeth and claws that I took, grasping her wrists while I threw myself backwards, flipping us both and landing full on her, slamming her hard enough that she gasped, and I took that second of distraction to bite her throat, ripping it open while she scrabbled around weakly.
I had her pinned, bleeding her out until she grew still, and then the scream sounded that signaled the end of the round, and I rolled off the vampire, spitting her bitter blood out of my mouth in case it messed with me like the tentacle beard’s did. Her neck was only attached by a couple of inches, but I didn’t let it get to me. Vampires wouldn’t die so easily. Probably.
My next opponent was a skinny version of Drigo, so a demon, I guess, like red skin, barbed tail, horns, that kind of thing. Still, he had flesh and blood, so he could be killed. Theoretically. I was so in over my head, but at the same time, fighting is what I’d always known.
“Tail looks weird. Watch out for it. Also those teeth. Look how cocky he is. You’ll have no problem with this one,” Danny said reassuringly.
No problem? The demon guy broke my ribs and took advantage of my still weak ankle before I tied his tail in knots and ripped out his throat. His blood was sweet, much nicer than the vampire’s.
My next five opponents were a blur of creepiness, taste and smell of their blood being the one thing that stood out in the cascade of violence. I noticed Straldi standing outside the cage, cleaned up, wearing a suit like he wasn’t one of Drigo’s fighters, and those rainbow eyes swirled while I waited for my next opponent. Would he be fighting me in that suit? It seemed unlikely.
No, it was a female with blood that smelled like venom, serpentine, which went with her green scales and tinted skin. Bring it, snake eyes.
She brought it, but Danny kept me company in my ear, and I sank into the violence, taking longer to win, but not quitting until I did. Healing so fast meant that I could fight until I won. No one else could take pain and beating as long as me.
That is to say, I was earning my money, no question. The next few fights were a blur of pain and Danny’s voice, along with the acrid taste of poisonous blood until there was a break between the siren’s scream and someone stepping into the cage.
“Oh, crap,” Danny muttered. “The beard’s in the house.”
I focused past the bars of the cage through swollen eyes and there was Josiah, my beautiful beard crossing the floor between tables, ignoring everyone else in the world but me. He saw me, and the world was fine. Did he come to watch me fight? Would he be proud of the way I was representing his pack?
He smiled at me and then took off his shirt, showing an expanse of muscles that rippled impressively. Everything else disappeared.