Tales of the Otherworld (12 page)

“There’s a desk out front.”

At 2:37, I handed the article to Ms. Milken. I’d worked on it for fifty-five minutes, but she’d informed me that the company paid in fifteen-minute increments, so I’d be reimbursed for forty-five.

Any other time, I’d have suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to add something, and tinkered until I reached a full hour. But nothing makes a worse impression than being late for your first class…especially one you aren’t officially registered in. So I accepted my loss and hurried out the door.

The office was on Grosvenor Street, within easy walking distance of the University of Toronto, which had been a major factor in my accepting the job. I’d been offered a proofreading position at a small press in Pickering, and it had paid better, but the round-trip on the Go train three times a week would have seriously cut into my earnings. And a job writing articles, however crappy, would look better on my résumé than proofreading.

Now, though, proofreading—as much as I hated it—didn’t sound so bad. Nor did the coffee shop job or the clothing store job or any others that had phoned me back after I’d showered the city with my résumé.

Maybe I could call them, see whether any jobs were still open. Or I could do what I’d done last year—work two jobs. Oh yeah, and that had gone
so
well for me—stressing over scheduling, giving up all pretense of a social life, dropping off the running team, studying over breakfast, lunch, dinner…even reading while walking to class.

I’d nearly worked my way into a breakdown…and almost lost my A average, which would have ended my partial scholarship and made it impossible to finish my degree.

That officious, conniving bitch. From “Of course you can expect twenty hours a week” to “Is this going to be a problem, Elena?” I should have complained. Hell, I should have told her where to stuff her gardening tips and her twelve-hour-a-week job and her ugly mauve suit and her condescending—

I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands over my face. Think of something else, like this next class.

I was looking forward to it, the only optional course on my schedule. Like last year, I’d chosen anthropology. It wouldn’t help my future career one whit, but that was why I chose it, as a mental break in a life where everything was—and had to be—focused on the goal of a degree and a job.

In last year’s anthro course, I’d had to do a paper on ancient religion. After some research, I’d decided to focus on animal symbolism in religious ritual, which sounded marginally more interesting than anything else. There I’d stumbled across a doctoral thesis by a guy whose specialty was gods that were part human and part animal.

He had some really fascinating ideas, and I’d based my paper on
them. A few weeks later, I’d been writing a student paper article on staff changes when a name had jumped out at me. Clayton Danvers, the guy whose thesis I’d used. Seemed he’d participated in a lecture series the year before, and the school had invited him back to cover a partial term for a prof on sabbatical. I’d noted that in my planner so I could sign up for one of his courses. Then just before registration, my life had careened off course.

A former foster brother had tracked me down. After a lifetime of dealing with guys like Jason, I’d learned that most were cowards. Taking a firm stance usually scared them away. Jason was different.

Short of holding a gun to his head, there was nothing I could do to make him back off. After two weeks of darting between friends’ apartments and cheap motel rooms, I’d finally persuaded the cops to enforce the damned restraining order.

Then I’d gone back to school, and registration had been the last thing on my mind. When I’d finally remembered, I’d discovered that Danvers’s general-level anthropology course was full.

I was third on the waiting list, though, and in my two years at university, I’d learned a bit about waiting lists. Being third usually meant you were in, but sometimes it took a couple of weeks before a spot cleared, and by then you’d have missed those critical first classes. What you had to do was go to class anyway, on the assumption you’d eventually get a place. Most profs didn’t mind. Hell, most profs didn’t even notice. So that’s what I planned to do: show up, sneak in, and start learning.

A
N EIGHT O’CLOCK CLASS,” I SAID, GRIPPING
the phone as I dropped into my office chair. “I only asked for one thing: no classes before ten. Probably think they’re doing me such a big favor, letting me teach at their damned school, that I shouldn’t dare ask for anything special.”

“Uh-huh,” Nick said. “Well, at least—”

“What the hell am I doing here anyway? Oh, sure, I’d
love
to teach in Canada. It’s only a few hundred miles from every goddamned person I know.”

“Jeremy was right. You
are
in a pissy mood.”

I swung my feet onto the desktop. “Bullshit. He’d never say that.”

“No, he said you were in a foul mood. Not like I needed anyone to tell me that. I can even predict them now. Every fall, you’re this way for at least a month. Like an annual round of PMS.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Point is, I know what you need, and if you’d stop being so damned stubborn, we could fix this little problem. Why don’t I come up this weekend, we’ll hit the town—” He paused. “Do they have bars in Toronto?”

“How the fuck should I know? But if you mean what I think you mean—”

“Hey, you’re going to need something—or someone—to keep you warm up there. How bad is it, anyway? Blizzards and stuff?”

“It’s the second week of September.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Was it snowing when you went with your dad to Minneapolis last week?”

“Course not.”

“Well, Toronto is a few latitudes south of that.”

He snorted. “Right. I might have failed geography, but I know where Canada is. North. Now, stop trying to change the subject.”

A tentative rap at the door.

“You gonna answer that?” Nick said.

“No.”

The door creaked open and a student popped her head in. “Professor Danvers?”

Nick’s laugh echoed down the line. “Oooh, sounds cute. You—”

I dropped the phone, got to my feet, and turned on the intruder—a dark-haired girl in a skirt too short for any student who hoped to be taken seriously.

“Professor Danvers, sir? I was just wondering—”

“Was that door shut?”

“Uh, yes, but—”

“When you knock on a closed door, you’re supposed to wait for it to be opened. Isn’t that the point of knocking?”

The girl took a slow step back into the hall. “Y—yes, sir, but I wasn’t sure you heard me. I just wanted to ask about your class this afternoon. I heard it’s full—”

“It is.”

“I was hoping maybe—”

“You want a spot? That’s what waiting lists are for. If a place opens up, someone will call you.”

“Is it okay if I just sit in—?”

“No.”

I slammed the door. When I picked up the phone, Nick was laughing.

“Oh, Professor,” he said. “Nasty boy. No wonder the little coeds line up for your classes, all hot for teacher.”

“Yeah, you think it’s funny? You wouldn’t think it was funny if you were teaching classes full of those idiots, taking spots away from serious students—who might actually listen to my lecture instead of giggling with their girlfriends about me.”

“Oh, you’ve got a rough life, buddy. If
I
was teaching your classes, and having your ‘problem’…let’s just say I’d be a very tired, but very happy, guy.”

“Yeah? Well, thanks for taking my problems so seriously,
buddy.
Next time you get the urge to call and cheer me up? Don’t bother.”

I slammed the phone into the receiver. Ten seconds later, it rang again. I ignored it. I’d call him back tonight. I knew Nick didn’t mean anything by it, but we’d had the same damned discussion a million times, and you’d really think that by now he’d know how I felt—or didn’t feel—about women.

In Nick’s world, it wasn’t possible for a guy not to want all the women he could get. Well, there
was
one logical explanation, and five years ago he’d tricked me into a gay bar, just to check. But when that didn’t seem to be the answer, he’d returned to his quest, certain that if he just kept pushing, I’d “stop being so damned stubborn” and give in.

I slumped into my chair and stared out the window. Since the day Jeremy brought me home to Stonehaven, I’d never spent more than a week away from it or him, and balked at even being gone that long. Now here I was, voluntarily embarking on a two-month sojourn where I’d be lucky to get home every other weekend.

When the offer first came, I’d made the mistake of mentioning it to Jeremy, and the moment I’d seen his reaction, I’d known I was going to Toronto. He’d thought I was considering it, and he’d been so damned proud of me that there’d been no way I could back down without disappointing him.

This was what he’d once wanted for me—a life and a career that extended beyond the Pack. I’d kiboshed that plan before I’d even graduated from high school. Stonehaven was my home, Jeremy was my Alpha, and I wasn’t going anywhere. He’d accepted that, but he still liked to see me make the occasional foray into the human world. As much as I loathed every minute away, I did it to please him. So I was here in Toronto until November. And I sure as hell hoped it would tide him over for at least the next decade.

I knew I was overreacting. I’d survive this, much like I’d survived having Jeremy pull out the odd batch of porcupine quills when I’d been a child—grit my teeth and suffer through it. But right now, I was, as Nick said, in one of my fall moods.

They’d started after my eighteenth birthday, but back then, they were mild enough that I’d passed them off as just another bout of moodiness. By my midtwenties, though, that annual dip had become a month-long crater. Edgy all the time, snapping at everyone, haunted by the constant gnawing feeling that I was missing something, that I was supposed to be doing something,
looking
for something.

As I looked out the window, my gaze lifted to a distant line of treetops. That’s where I wanted to be—in the woods, someplace deep and dark and silent, where I could lose myself for a few hours. A run wasn’t the answer to whatever was bothering me, but if I ran far enough and fast enough, if I hunted and killed and fed, the blackness would lift for a day or so.

I’d do that tonight. Then, when I was feeling more myself, I’d call Nick back and make amends.

A good plan. If only I didn’t need to get through the rest of my day to reach it. I scowled at the stack of notes for my next class. It was the general-level course, the one the girl had been trying to squeeze into. According to the clock, I had about five minutes before class began. Might as well get it over with.

I grabbed the notes, stuffed them into my satchel, and left.

I
CUT THROUGH QUEEN’S PARK. ONCE THROUGH
the university gates, I veered toward Sidney Smith Hall, then stopped dead. I didn’t have the classroom number. My timetable was in my knapsack, which I’d left in my dorm room, wanting to look professional for Ms. Milken. I’d assumed I’d have plenty of time to grab it. But my dorm was on the other side of the campus, and I only had a few minutes to get to class.

I hurried into University College, found a phone, dialed my room, and crossed my fingers. Penny, my roommate, picked up on the fourth ring. I directed her to my knapsack and my timetable.

You’d really think that someone who was in her third year would know how to read a timetable. But Penny’s inability to decipher the paper probably explained why she was still in her dorm room half asleep. That and the fact that she’d told me on our first meeting that she was a night person, and would I mind not turning on any lights or opening the blinds before noon? Her parents wanted her at university, so she’d go, but damned if she was going to let it affect her social life.

If someone had been paying
my
tuition, I’d have been so happy—

I cut the thought short. With any luck, by the end of the term I’d have enough saved to move into the off-campus apartment two of my friends shared. Or so I’d thought, until Ms. Purple Polyester cut my hours.

Penny finally deciphered the schedule enough to give me the room number. I had three minutes to get there.

“Oh, and the bookstore called,” she said. “About some job you applied for.”

“Oh? That’s great. Do they want—?”

“I told them you already had one. Oh, and tonight? Don’t lock the door when you go to sleep, okay? I had a bitch of a time getting it open when I came in.”

She hung up.

I let out a string of curses. Not out loud, of course. Too many people around for that.

I’d really wanted that campus bookstore job. It would have been perfect. And now I was stuck with—

Hold on. What if I called the bookstore back and said my roommate was mistaken, that I didn’t already have a job? But that wasn’t fair. I’d accepted this other position in good faith.

Yes, and she screwed you around! Cut your hours before you even started!