Chapter 3 Will
Will
Will stood in the massive foyer, facing the door. His stomach was growling, but he’d be fine. He’d endured worse hunger.
The money Peter had left him felt like a lot, and spending it on delivery would be a waste.
Will still needed to find out what the vampire would do to help him, and what Will would have to do in order to pay Peter back for his help.
Spending so much money on a meal…Will couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He’d run past a small organic store just around the corner last night, and he was sure he could get something there that was less expensive than curry or Thai food. With a sigh, he decided he couldn’t make a decision about food right then and there.
He looked over his shoulder. The door to the office was open.
With daylight flooding in through all the windows, he’d also had the chance to take in the large living room on the ground floor.
It was all very neat, almost like a museum or a display room no one ever touched; one that wasn’t lived in.
Still, he’d sat in an armchair for about five minutes, just so he could experience the exquisitely made piece of furniture.
It had felt like a forbidden thing to do.
What complicated the issue of food further was that Peter had told Will not to leave the house. But Peter had also forbidden Will from going into the basement.
In all the tales, forbidden things are where the clues are. Touching something you’re not allowed to touch, pricking your finger on the spindle, that’s how you can be sure your knight comes and saves you.
Will had grown up with fairy tales. Or rather, while his sister had clutched her flute to her when they’d come to live with their grandfather’s pack, Will had hung on to a battered collection of fairy tales, and he’d read it over and over, over and over.
He’d taken the book with him when he’d been given to Ed, but Ed had burned it in the kitchen sink during the first year when Will had still resisted.
Will pushed the memory of flames aside. “Maybe he’s not Peter Collins, but Rumpelstiltskin. Or the evil fairy godmother,” Will whispered in the large, empty house, hoping his words would fill the space. They didn’t.
He looked down at the menus, the note, and the bill in his hands. It’s like this is some kind of challenge. Or a trick. Maybe it’s a trick?
Despite his hunger, he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the menus and the note quite yet, so when he carefully walked to the basement door, he held on to them. He was quiet, even though he couldn’t hear anyone in the entire house.
“Doesn’t mean there are no humans locked up down there.” He didn’t really think there were, but he had to check, if only to distract himself from the issue of food.
The basement door was unlocked, and it opened to pitch-black darkness. He found the light switch, and a single bulb flickered to life, casting the vault below in an umber glow.
As carefully as he was able, Will ventured down about half the steps until he could see beyond if he craned his neck.
The lighting was poor with just that one bulb, and thanks to several shelves loaded with piles of tech junk, the eerie shadows were practically built in.
Will kept listening. The only sounds came from a computer setup that wouldn’t have looked out of place in some spy movie.
It hummed away like a living thing that was only sleeping, waiting for him to make a wrong move.
He went down the rest of the stairs, still listening for anything unusual. He gave the tech setup a closer look because it dominated the room, and it was clearly where Peter spent his time here.
A large L-shaped desk held several screens, even one turned ninety degrees so it was upright rather than horizontal.
Will went to investigate, but nothing on the desk looked suspicious.
Color palettes were taped to the tabletop, but that was about the strangest thing there.
When he dropped into the desk chair, he accidentally brushed against the mouse with his hand, and the screens came to life…
and Will found the weird staring right at him.
“Oh.”
Each screen had a different screen saver. The first was of a guy feeling up the chest of another guy. Neither wore clothes. It was a rather explicit photo.
The second was cartoonlike, but almost photorealistic, with one guy in white and the other in a black tux.
They were both blushing as they held on to one another and stared into each other’s eyes with…
a lot of sexy thoughts, Will was sure. Their fingers were intertwined, and wedding bands with gleaming, too-large stones shone brightly.
The third had to be the wedding night, and once more, there were no clothes, but the two had gotten way closer, deeper, harder. One of them was even drooling.
“Oh, wow.” Will narrowed his eyes, looking from one screen to the other. “These’re…you’re all the same, aren’t you? That’s some stalkery shit.”
Will wondered who these two were. One was blond and green-eyed, the other was taller and had nearly black hair, his eyes a shimmering blue. Not the sharp blue of Peter’s eyes, but still nice enough.
I used to like blue eyes, didn’t I? I guess I still do.
Will cleared his throat and pushed the mouse away from him as he stood. “I guess I found his secret.”
Maybe it was just a hobby the vampire had. Maybe it was a fan thing, and those guys were actors in some TV show Will didn’t know. He’d not been allowed to watch or stream anything he wanted to with the loups-garous, and he had no idea what was popular right now.
Will’s stomach growled. He decided that art stuff was super weird and a little upsetting, but not a reason to run, so he left the basement and went back upstairs.
Peter had probably been embarrassed about his…
unusual pastime. Maybe he was even lonely.
Maybe he’d want to keep Will around for some company.
Maybe, if I don’t get in his way, I can be like a…houseboy? That wouldn’t be so bad, maybe? I just have to do what he tells me to.
Will turned off the light and closed the basement door behind himself. It was later in the afternoon by now. He looked at the note and money in his hand again. The store wasn’t that far. Peter would never have to know.
Just twenty minutes, max.
Instead of the whole trip taking twenty minutes, Will spent that long just looking at all the stuff on the shelves.
The store had made that easy. There was a large selection of nuts and seeds, nut and seed butters, high-end ice creams in the freezers, and beautifully presented ready-to-heat meals in the fridges. There was chocolate from Belgium and large grapes that looked like candy.
The money was in his pocket. Seeing all the food and the premade lunches, Will wanted to get everything, lock himself in the bedroom Peter had put him in, and wolf it all down.
But he knew that would be stupid, so he couldn’t decide what to get.
He didn’t want to spend too much in case he made Peter think he was a freeloader.
In the end, he chose three granola bars: cherry, apricot, and walnut.
The interaction with the cashier was daunting, and Will stuck with what he knew was safe: thanks, fine, here you go, thanks, bye.
He felt so guilty for spending Peter’s money.
Part of him really wanted to spend Peter’s money, seeing as how it was obvious that the vampire wasn’t hurting for it, but Will couldn’t get those two sides of himself to find a middle ground.
In the end, it left him feeling both anxious and guilty.
He left the freshly squeezed orange juice and patchouli smell of the organic store behind and walked out on the street, his three granola bars clutched tightly in a paper bag. He hadn’t even quite reached the corner when his wolf screamed at him in terror.
Will froze. He looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, Ed was jogging toward him, avoiding other pedestrians so as not to cause a scene.
For a heartbeat, Will thought he was mistaken about this being Ed, but he wasn’t.
Fear kicked in, survival instinct, and Will ran, his heartbeat drowning the sound of his feet hitting the pavement.
He breathed hard, lungs heaving from the panic and the need to get away both.
If he stuck to where people were, Ed wouldn’t be able to shift, and if he stayed in his human form, he wouldn’t necessarily be able to catch Will.
He took two corners at a dead run, then realized he hadn’t been paying close attention to where he’d been running.
Shit shit shit shit—the houses look familiar. I’m still close. I can get back. Will stopped, turning west toward the setting sun. He came to an alley with trees on either side. Where’s the house? Shit, where is the house?
Will sniffed the air. Right. His gut told him right, and for all the things Will sucked at, he was good with directions.
He cleared the alley and went right, hearing the echoes of Ed’s footfalls behind him. Will was doing his best to keep to where people were still out and about.
“Do not make me come and get you, boy!” Ed yelled.
Will didn’t react, but the voice, that voice… Will took a left without thinking, and it led him to another alley that was both lonely and a dead end.
Shit!
There was nothing he could do but scale a tall wooden fence and pray he didn’t end up nose to nose with some angry neighbor. Will sprinted to the fence and reached for the top.
Just as he pulled himself up and over it, Ed rounded the corner. “I’ll make you pay for this, you little bitch,” Ed said, his voice dripping with anticipation.
Will’s fingers almost gave out when he heard those words in that voice.
“Fuck you, fuck you.”
Will couldn’t say it loudly—it seemed a physical impossibility—but at least he’d said it. He still could do that.
With more effort than it should have taken, Will cleared the fence. There was a dog in the garden, and it barked in surprise at Will’s presence.
Few dogs minded a werewolf though, and this one wasn’t one of the few. Will ran past the animal, hearing a woman’s scream as he passed.
Will couldn’t stop for that. He ran across the neat lawn and through a flower bed, crushing a bunch of primroses under his shoes as he jumped the next fence.
Behind him, Ed landed with a heavy thud and growled at the small terrier, who was now barking at the loup-garou.
Stay away from him, dog. He’ll go out of his way to hurt you. Keep clear.
Will hoped the dog was sensible, but he didn’t stop and wait to find out.
The next garden was abandoned and more unkempt than the last. Will’s left foot caught on a stone on the side of another flower bed, and he faceplanted onto the mossy ground.
Back in the other garden, the woman was screaming still, but no longer as if she were scared. In fact, Will heard her yell, “Leave my fucking dog alone, you fucker!”
That might slow Ed down. Maybe he’ll make a scene.
Will picked himself up off the ground and made for the next fence, his muscles pushing but aching now. He barely cleared this one, his arms burning and trembling, and the moment he had his center of gravity over the top, he let himself drop.
Bushes broke his fall, and branches raked through his hair, effectively negating how clean he’d been after that shower last night, but he didn’t give a fuck about that right now. He needed to get away, he needed to get back to Peter’s house—
Ed grabbed his arm.
The panic broke out of him in a keening scream, and he fought against the hold with everything he had, scratching, kicking, and biting at whatever he could reach.
Will heard a hiss, and a second later, his entire body was pinned so tightly to the ground that he couldn’t move an inch.
“It’s me. Peter. Calm yourself.”
Oh, fuck.
Will whined and buried his face in the dirt. He’d gotten it all wrong. Ed was still arguing with the dog mom. He’d made it back to the house.
Before he could so much as form an apology, he was half lifted to his feet and dragged along. The whole thing couldn’t have taken longer than a few seconds, but it felt like much longer.
Will trembled, and Peter only let go of him once he had led him back into the foyer through a conservatory at the back of the house. The basement door was to Will’s right, and it was open now. Will knew for a fact he had closed it. His chin started trembling.
Peter stopped and let go of him.
“Are you all right?”
Will nodded. “Y-yeah.”
“Good. Why were you outside, William?”
Will didn’t dare lift his gaze to look at Peter, so there was no telling whether he looked pissed, but he sounded pissed—just not the kind of aggressive pissed that usually came before the fists hit.
Annoyed, yes. Peter sounds annoyed. My sister used to sound that way when I told her she was off-key even though she wasn’t.
“I wanted to get—” But when Will looked down, he saw his hands were empty. He’d dropped the bag with the granola bars, so it had all been for fucking nothing. A lot like me, a lot like everything I’ve ever done. “I…needed some air.”
“And you were also looking for air in the basement?” Peter sounded decidedly unimpressed.
Will shrugged.
“Why is the dog lady screaming her head off, William?” Peter went on, the annoyance gone.
Will’s throat was dry, and swallowing hurt. “Ed.”
“Well, isn’t that just wonderful timing,” Peter said. His tone of voice had changed. He sounded…he sounded like a werewolf elder telling the pack children stories about the moon. “Now, pup, we are going to take a trip to my office.”
Will wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was too scared to ask.