Chapter 12
Jake discovered there were disadvantages to dating a werewolf.
The first was that Noah could tell when he changed deodorant.
The second was that Noah could hear Jake’s heart speed up whenever he looked particularly good.
The third was that Noah knew Jake was standing outside his bedroom door before Jake knocked.
“You can come in.”
Jake opened the door.
Noah was buttoning a dark blue shirt.
Jake forgot his prepared opening line.
Noah looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
A growl rumbled quietly from Noah’s chest.
Jake pointed.
“There it is.”
Noah closed his eyes.
“You are going to make that unbearable.”
“I’m going to make it adorable.”
“It is not adorable.”
Jake stepped closer and fixed the collar Noah had folded under.
Noah went very still.
Another tiny growl.
Jake grinned.
“Extremely adorable.”
Noah kissed him just to shut him up.
Their first official date was miniature golf.
Jake had chosen it because it was public, brightly lit, and approximately as far from moonlit woods as he could get without buying plane tickets.
Noah stared at the giant fiberglass pirate beside the first hole.
“This is your idea of romance?”
“It has waterfalls.”
“It has a pirate with one eye.”
“Atmosphere.”
“It smells like chlorine and nacho cheese.”
“See? You’re already making memories.”
Noah shook his head.
Then beat Jake by eleven strokes.
Jake accused him of supernatural cheating.
“I’m a werewolf, not a golf wizard.”
“That sounds exactly like something a golf wizard would say.”
By hole fourteen they were laughing too loudly.
By hole seventeen Noah had stolen Jake’s ball.
By hole eighteen Jake kissed him behind a fake treasure chest while two children nearby loudly informed their mother that the boys were kissing.
Jake laughed into Noah’s mouth.
Noah whispered, “Best date ever.”
“Obviously.”
They ate burgers afterward.
For forty minutes, nothing supernatural happened.
No hunters.
No tarot.
No voices from the dark.
Noah talked about wanting to study veterinary medicine before his family started moving so often that planning for college became ridiculous.
Jake told him he had applied to three schools and secretly hoped none of them accepted him because choosing terrified him.
“That makes no sense,” Noah said.
“I know.”
“What do you want?”
Jake looked down at his fries.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Everyone acts like eighteen is some magical age where you wake up knowing how taxes work and what you want for the next sixty years.”
Noah smiled.
“I woke up at eighteen without pants.”
Jake nearly spit out his drink.
“Okay. You win.”
Noah stole a fry.
“I usually do.”
The tarot card appeared beneath their windshield wiper.
Jake saw it when they returned to the car.
His good mood disappeared.
Noah stopped beside him.
Neither touched it.
The card showed a figure carrying swords away from a camp.
Seven of Swords.
Jake photographed it.
Then called Sofia.
She answered on the first ring.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“What card?”
“Seven of Swords.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Deception. Theft. Someone acting indirectly.”
Jake looked around the parking lot.
Families.
Teenagers.
A couple arguing beside an SUV.
Anyone could be watching.
Noah whispered, “It could just be a card.”
Sofia heard him.
“It could. That’s why you don’t let fear turn every coincidence into prophecy.”
Jake liked that answer.
Then Sofia added, “But considering someone has already put worked silver on your house, I’d still leave.”
They did.
At home Sofia burned the card in a metal bowl on the patio.
Jake expected green flames or screaming ghosts.
It burned like cardboard.
“That’s anticlimactic,” he said.
Sofia stirred the ash with a twig.
“Most useful magic is.”
Noah sat beside Jake on the porch steps.
Their shoulders touched.
Sofia sprinkled salt into the ashes.
“Someone wants you frightened enough to make mistakes.”
Jake watched the flame die.
“Thomas?”
“Maybe.”
“The woman from the game?”
“Maybe.”
“Who else?”
Sofia looked at him.
“That’s what bothers me.”
She opened her old notebook.
“The hunters who knew your grandfather were called the Ash Circle.”
Jake stared.
“That sounds aggressively evil.”
“They called themselves custodians.”
“Of course they did.”
“They believed Wardens and wolves had both become too dangerous to remain uncontrolled.”
Noah’s hand tightened around Jake’s.
Sofia turned a page.
“The last Warden recorded in this region disappeared eighteen years ago.”
Jake’s stomach dropped.
“Eighteen?”
Sofia looked at him.
“The year you were born.”