Danville Horror: A Pat Wyatt Novel (The Pat Wyatt Series Book 3) (18 page)

My eyes widened. “That’s tonight?”

“Didn’t I tell you, darling?”

I shook my head. “No, you didn’t.”

She grimaced, which looked weird on Cindy’s face. “I’m sorry. I do need your help, though.”

“No problem, Moms.”

“Thank you, darling. Now,” she sighed, “I have to get the tablecloth and everything out of the garage.”

“No,” I screamed, and all three of them looked at me. “Mortimer’s in there.”

“What?” Tina asked. “Why?”

I pointed out the sliding glass door. “It’s a sunny day.”

“I guess no tablecloth then,” Moms chimed in.

“I’m sure he’ll be up before people arrive,” Andrew offered. “But whatever else we can do to help Mrs.—”

Before he could finish, there was a loud bang from upstairs, and we all jumped. “What the hell was that?” Tina breathed, her hand over her heart.

“It sounded like something fell upstairs,” I said. “I’ll go see what it is.”

“Patty,” Tina yelled when I was halfway down the hall, “be careful. If there is anything up there you holler, okay?”

I gave her a thumbs up and then ascended the stairs. There was another little rumble from inside my room, so I opened the door to find the window was wide open. It appeared as though the wind had knocked it open, and as I walked into the room, I heard the door slam shut. Before I could turn around, someone grabbed me from behind and placed a hand over my mouth.

chapter

EIGHTEEN

I screamed into the hand covering my mouth, and I tried to get out of the person’s grasp, but they were too strong. They pinned my arms down to my sides, and no matter how hard I struggled, their grip only became tighter.

“Sh,” the male voice hissed in my ear, “bébé, it’s me.”

I stopped fighting when I recognized Mike’s voice. “Mike?” I asked into his hand so it came out muffled.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Surprise.”

When he let me go, I turned around to look up into his smiling face, his green eyes sparkling as they usually did when he looked at me. Without missing a beat, I started hitting him with my good hand. “What is wrong with you?”

“Ow,” he yelped, holding up his arms to defend himself. “What’d I do?”

“You scared the living daylights out of me,” I hissed. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with his arms in front of his face. “I thought it’d be a good surprise.”

“Really? You thought sneaking into my bedroom through the window and creeping up behind me was a good surprise?”

He grimaced, rubbing the back of his very-tanned neck. “I see what you mean. I’m sorry, bébé. That was stupid.” His dirty blond hair fell into his face and I had the urge to sweep it away, but I had bigger things to discuss with him.

“Why are you here?” I asked, folding my arms.

“Contain your excitement, Pat.”

“What should I be excited about? The fact that you sneaked in or the fact that you lied to me?”

He cocked his head at me. “Lie to you, I didn’t… ow,” Mike screamed again as I hit his arm. “Why do you keep doin’ that?”

“Because you’re still lying to me,” I hissed.

“About what?” he asked in silent confusion.

“You never tried to kill me. You just said that because you wanted me gone. Why?”

“What? I think I remember—”

“How do werewolves eat, Mike?” I interrupted him.

“With our teeth,” he answered without thinking, and I just glared at him. “What does that have to do with anythin’?”

“Mortimer explained it to me.”

“Mort’s here?” he asked with a smile. “How is he?”

“That’s not the point,” I hollered. “You lied to me!”

“Patty,” Tina called from downstairs, “is everything all right?”

“Yes,” I yelled back, “everything’s fine. My bags fell, and I’m just cleaning up the mess.”

“You need any help, sweetie?”

“No, I’m good. I got it.”

“Okay,” she said, and I waited for a couple seconds until I knew she was out of earshot.

“Why did you do it?” I whispered

“Do what?” he responded just as softly.

“Lie to me? You could have just told me the truth.”

He sighed. “The way you were that night, no I couldn’t have. I had a lucid change, and I tried to save you, but everything that I did just seemed to make it worse. Then Angel thought I was tryin’ to kill ya, and growled at me…” his voice trailed away. “It was just better to leave ya alone and let her take care of it. Then when ya woke up, I could tell you were dealin’ with a lot, so—” I pulled him down by his t-shirt, kissing him passionately on the lips.

“I kind of figured all that out already,” I said against his lips. “Now, why are you here?”

He took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around my waist. “We’ve got a little bit of a problem.”

I closed my eyes. “Could this week get any worse? What now?”

“Okay,” he breathed, moving me to back to sit on the bed. I looked up at him and then he knelt in front of me. “Everythin’ is all screwed up, bébé. The pack wants an answer from me, and they want it now. So I said I’d come here and ask for your answer.”

“Mike,” I sighed, “you know what the answer is. I don’t want to be a werewolf.”

“I know that, Pat. Just because I told them that, doesn’t mean that’s why I’m really here,” he paused, smiling up at me. “There’s one surefire way to screw all of ‘em over.” He took a deep breath, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a small black box. “Marry me?” My mouth dropped open, and I stopped breathing for a second or two, and when I could finally breathe, I was speechless.

Mike sensed my hesitation, which wasn’t hard considering I was sitting with my mouth open, not saying anything, and he shook his head while still smiling. “That was dumb and unromantic and just stupid. I’m sorry. And you’re just gettin’ over the whole nearly dyin’ thing, your daddy’s gettin’ married and on top of all this you have to deal with an idiot who lied to you, askin’ you to marry him. I’m just—”

“Mike,” I finally said, interrupting his babble.

“Yeah?” he breathed.

“Shut up for a minute, will you?”

“Sure.” I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he finally noticed my cast. “What the hell happened?”

“Samuel,” I replied. “I thought you said you were going to shut up for a minute.”

“I was. But what the hell happened? Andrew didn’t tell me that you were hurt. I’m gonna—”

“You’re going to do nothing, Wolf,” I interrupted again. “And I mean that. I mean, Andrew knew you were coming and didn’t tell me about it.” I finally figured out why he wouldn’t say anything about Mike’s whereabouts. He was on his way here. “So you are going to do nothing. Understood?” I asked, and he nodded. “Now, about this whole pack thing and the fact that you just proposed to me. I’m not opposed to being proposed to, in fact, it seems to be happening quite a lot, but I don’t want to do it just to spite your pack. And I know you love me, I do. But this is just not the right time for it. Okay?”

He nodded, putting the box back into his jeans. Then he crawled his way up onto the bed, sitting next to me. “Okay.”

We sat there in silence for a minute or two, and I placed my chin on his shoulder, looking up at him. He looked a little worse for wear; he hadn’t shaved in the days since I saw him, and I swear I could see a little bit of gray at his temples. Mike looked like he was in one hell of a battle, and I could only imagine what torment the pack had put him through as Alpha. That’s when I remembered something very important, so important that I could have hit myself for forgetting.

“Mike?” I broke the silence.

“Yeah, bébé?” he asked, looking down at me.

“Tell me again how an Alpha becomes an Alpha?”

“He’s beaten in battle,” he answered. “Why?”

“So the pack assumed you beat Stag?”

He shook his head. “No, my ascension was sorta already in place from when I beat the Alpha before.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, taking my chin off his shoulder so I could think.

“What are ya thinkin’?” he asked after a few seconds.

What wasn’t I thinking? That would have been the better question. I needed to focus on the one thing that would save both me, Mike, and Angel from being miserable and in danger for the rest of our lives. “Mike,” I said slowly, “I think I may have just figured out another loophole.”

“Who’s the lawyer here, Pat?” he huffed. “If there was any other way, I would’ve figured it out already.”

“Not if you were looking too hard at the problem.” I bolted off the bed, rummaging through my handbag for my phone. Once I found it, I scrolled through the contacts until I found the number I was looking for. Then I smiled.

Clinking on it, I quickly pressed the cell to my ear and waited for the rings. Finally, it connected and it only rang twice before Angel answered. “Hey, Patty,” she said in her endearing, yet annoying, way, “what’s up?”

“Are you at Big Bears?” I asked, hoping that she was.

“You betcha,” she replied. “Why?”

“Is the pack there with you?”

“Yup,” she breathed. “Why?”

“We are going to stir thing up a bit,” I finally answered.

“Hell yeah,” she shouted. “Whatever it is, I am in!”

“What’re you thinkin’ of doin’, bébé?” Mike interrupted the conversation.

I looked at him with a wide smile on my face. “I’m going to ask the pack to grant me amnesty from this ridiculous ruling they’ve placed on me.”

“How are ya gonna do that?”

“By telling them that I’m technically their Alpha and that they need to obey me or there will be consequences.”

His mouth fell open, and Angel laughed in my ear. “Holy shit,” she screamed. “That’s totally fuckin’ true. Why the hell didn’t we think of that?”

“You weren’t looking at the bigger picture,” I replied to her as I watched Mike stare at me. He looked thoroughly stunned. “What?” I asked him, and he blinked out of his stupor.

“What’re you gonna threaten them with?” he asked.

“Half the pack and the queen of all vampires,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’m assuming it was the rest of the wolves that were still on Stag’s side that voted for me being turned.”

He nodded, and Angel started freaking out. “How are we gonna do this? I mean, ya can’t do it in person.”

“No, but we can do a video conference on your computer,” I suggested. “Or you can just call a meeting right now and put me on speaker.”

“The video thing sounds good,” she responded. “Let me call a meetin’ real quick, and we can do this thing. Pat? Did I ever mention that you’re one of the most badass people I have ever met?”

I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see it. “No, but thanks.”

“No prob,” she laughed. “Call you back as soon as I can. Bye.”

“Bye,” I said, and we hung up.

“Why is it that you come up with the most dangerous plans?” Mike huffed, folding his arms.

I tried to smile at him, but I could tell that he wanted a serious answer. Then I shrugged. “They just pop into my head, Mike. I can’t help it.”

He shook his head. “Of course you can’t because you’re Patricia Anne Wyatt, and you’re all about saving others before yourself. Just once, I’d like for you to think of yourself instead of everybody else.”

“Are you serious?” I asked confused. “I am thinking of myself. I don’t want to turn into a—”

“Monster,” he interrupted with a sigh.

“Werewolf,” I corrected him. “Trust me. You wouldn’t want me as one of you. I’d try to turn all the pack into vegans, and I’m pretty sure half of them would wind up dead. That’s just my personality.”

A smile played around his lips as he tried not to laugh. “It’s not funny, bébé.”

“Who’s joking? I happen to be dead serious. I cannot be trusted as a werewolf or a vampire. I would overthrow everything you believe in and probably start a revolution. It wouldn’t be good. It would be a catastrophe.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re probably right. You would suck as a werewolf.”

“No. I’d suck as a vampire,” I corrected, winking at him and he laughed harder.

Sitting back down on the bed next to him, we were silent for a second, then he said, “What’re you gonna tell ‘em?”

“The truth,” I answered, looking into his tired eyes. “That’s the only thing I can tell them. Hopefully, they’ll be embarrassed enough that they’ll just let this decision slide. After all, they don’t want a human as Alpha. That would ruin their reputation with all the other packs, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. “It sure would. I’m just not sure they’ll take it that way. Some of them are really strict when it comes to pack rules.”

“I’ll make them see it my way,” I promised, placing my hand on his shoulder, “don’t worry.”

He smiled, his green eyes sparkling like they did. “If anyone can turn them around, you can, Pat. And why does this bed smell like vampire?” he asked, off topic.

“Mortimer’s been sleeping with me,” I answered, and his eyes widened. “Not like that.” I hit his arm. “This is Mortimer we’re talking about.”

“True,” he breathed. “Why’s he sleepin’ with ya?”

“To keep Samuel out of my dreams. Only last night it was me who kept him out.”

Mike’s brow furrowed. “What do ya mean by that?”

“I staked him in my dream.”

His mouth dropped open. “You broke the connection?”

“Why does everybody keep saying that like it’s a big deal?”

“‘Cause it is,” he responded, still surprised. “No one, and I mean no one, has ever done that. No one has ever tried, really. Do ya think he’s still alive?”

I shrugged. “I have no clue. I guess I’ll find out sooner or later.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Leave it to you to figure out how to nearly kill a vampire in a dream. And I’m glad that Mortimer is sleeping with ya. It makes me feel better.”

“I’m so glad I have your approval,” I said sarcastically.

“All right,” he huffed, “no need for that. I’m just sayin’.”

“So am I.”

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and we both jumped. “You okay in there?” Tina said from the other side. “You’ve been in there an awfully long time. You’re not having another breakdown, are you?”

“Breakdown?” Mike mouthed.

“I’ll tell you later.” I did the same and then I answered Tina, “Nope. Everything’s fine. We’ll talk later.”

“Oh,” I could hear the realization in her voice. She knew something was going on. “Okay. Just a reminder though, we got guests coming, so remember to come downstairs as soon as you’re done, all right?”

“Yup,” I replied, “you got it.”

“Okay, Patty.” After that, I heard her walk back downstairs.

Before I could explain the breakdown to Mike, my phone rang, and I saw that it was Angel. I answered without a second thought. “Ready so soon?” I asked her.

“You bet,” she said. “We’re all set. They’re all waitin’ in the diner. When Alpha calls a meeting, they must obey.”

“It’s good to be Alpha.”

She laughed. Then I heard a commotion in the background, and she screamed, “Keep your fucking shirts on! You ready to do this?” she asked me in a reasonable voice.

“Let me just get my computer out.” I rummaged through my bag, placing the computer on the bed. Scooting Mike off the bed, I waited for it to power up. When it did, I asked Angel for her screen name, and she promptly gave it to me. After two seconds, she was waving to me from Louisiana over the computer.

“Place me on the counter for everyone to see,” I suggested.

“You got it.” She did as I requested, and I saw that she had a full house. “You’re on, fleshy girl.”

“Hello,” I said, waving to faces that I didn’t recognize and some that I did. “My name is Patricia Wyatt. Some of you know me—”