The Night Has Teeth (12 page)

Amara gets back to the flat in the middle of the
night. I see her standing at the doorway, the streetlight streaming
in from the window silhouetting her in an ethereal glow. As she
sets down her bag, she lets out a sigh and throws a glance in the
general direction of my bedroom. She gestures for me to get up, and
I follow her into my room. Sure enough, Arden lies on my bed in
wolf form, lounging diagonally across the mattress. He only
partially raises his head at our entry before rolling across the
blankets and nipping at the pillows, leaving a trail of auburn
hairs in his wake. By my side, Amara crosses her arms. With a huff,
he leaps off the bed and scampers away. She bids me goodnight and
closes the door behind them.

Sleep doesn’t come easy. I can hear their voices in
the other room speaking in French, hushed but angry. They argue
this way for a stretch of time that is clouded by a fog of
exhaustion. I have no doubt their disagreement is over me. Even
though I’m in the middle of a werewolf squabble, it’s too domestic
to fully alarm me. This is precisely the same way my parents fight
back home: the low voices behind closed doors, followed by a
coldness throughout the house brought on by no longer wanting to
see, let alone talk to each other. Egos bruised but issues
unresolved, there’s always that quiet period in between arguments
before pretending it never happened and going back to business as
usual. In this case, the wolves part ways to lick their wounds.

In the morning, after I’ve washed up, I find Arden
on the sofa in what is clearly his preferred form. At least we
don’t have to talk to each other, one of us being a wolf and all. I
stuff my backpack with the books I’ll need for the day and scarf
down a bowl of cereal while completely aware of his eyes on me.
When I open the fridge to find something to bring for lunch, my
eyes fall on a package of deli meat, but he swoops in and snatches
it off the shelf, scrambling back to the couch.

“Hey!” I cry, chasing after him.

But it’s too late. I watch in astonishment as he
tears through the brown paper and scarfs down a mouthful of cured
meat. When I make a move to take it back, he snarls. Even though
his bared teeth are a frightening warning to do otherwise, I don’t
back down. In frustration, I point and say the only thing that
comes to mind in this kind of situation. “Bad!”

He huffs while squinting at me, then penitently
nuzzles away the half-eaten package of meat. I feel a sense of
relief at not being torn to pieces, mixed with feelings of dismay
at the shredded salami.

“I’m not eating it now that you’ve drooled all
over it.”

Mustard-and-cheese sandwich it is then. After
tossing my pathetic lunch into my backpack along with a bag of
chips for good measure, I fill a water bottle. He disappears, off
to sulk maybe. Amara is nowhere to be seen. Her messenger bag and
keys are gone, so I can only assume she’s out again. When he
emerges from the hallway, he’s half dressed.

“Why did I not know you were living here?” I ask,
unable to mask my annoyance. “I mean from the
beginning?”

He merely shrugs.

“Were you just messing with me?”

“This form, it’s clumsy,” he tells me. “Awkward.
This space, it’s closed. Suffocating. All of it makes my skin
itch.”

“Then why bother?” I press. “And why take in a
student?”

Without answering, Arden does up the fly of his dark
jeans and pulls on a black sweater. He’s a guy of few words. Or at
the very least, he has very few of them to spare for me.

“Whatever, I have to go.”

He finally says, in a tone that for once doesn’t
sound very serious at all, “It was what Amara wanted. She doesn’t
think I’d make a very good father.”

I look around for hidden cameras in case I’m being
punk’d. “Um, you’d make a
terrible
dad.”

With a wave, he writes me off. “What would you
know?”

“Isn’t that why you’re in the doghouse?” I ask,
gesturing to the sofa.

“You try my patience.”

“That’s what kids do,” I explain. “Besides, you
haven’t exactly been all warm fuzzies.”

“That’s called mollycoddling.”

“No, it’s called being hospitable.”

“Hospitality is for strangers,” he
remarks.

“Well, at least you could have given me that
courtesy,” I fire back.

I’m some sort of guinea pig in a home economics
crash course for werewolves. They may mate for life, but if I’m to
read between the lines, Amara hasn’t exactly said
“
I
do
” yet. Their
cohabitation seems to be on a trial period before she lets him put
a ring on it. The fact that Arden and I are getting along as well
as salt on a slug is a testament to the failure of this experiment.
Obviously, we’ve reached an impasse. This amuses Arden, who grins
while turning to pick up his leather jacket and what appears to be
two motorcycle helmets.

“Don’t you have classes to attend?”

I shake my head in exasperation. “You’ve got a lot
to learn about humans.”

“I’ve had my fill of them.”

The mere thought of it makes me shudder, and I
wonder if Arden intended the double entendre. But I won’t let him
get away with these mind games so easily. Instead, I carry on as if
he’s invisible. He follows me out the door, locking up behind us.
As I grab the handlebars of my bicycle, the anticipation of how
glad I’ll be to get away from him for the day consumes me. He
clutches me firmly by the shoulder before I can head
downstairs.

I try to shrug him off. Easier said than done. “Let
go of me.”

After releasing me from his steel grip, Arden says,
“I’m driving you to school.”

Irritated, I follow him outside to a motorcycle
parked at the curb on the other side of the street. It’s my turn to
be without words as I stand in the middle of the asphalt gaping at
the machine. Cars compel me to move off the roadway. It’s a sleek
black Ducati, something that looks sporty and insensibly fast. I’m
certain I should be impressed ― if only I knew more about bikes ―
and issue an unintelligible grunt that I hope comes off as manly
appreciation. Some unsuspecting woman leans against the machine.
Her pale red hair is twisted neatly at the nape of her neck, and
she’s wearing an elegant green wool overcoat cinched at the waist.
She texts someone, completely oblivious that she’s propped up
against the property of what I can only assume is an angry
werewolf. Catching sight of her, Arden snarls contemptuously.
Correction: a totally pissed off werewolf.

It isn’t until we’re just a few feet away, when she
turns her profile into partial view, that I realize, too late, that
she’s the modern-day Venus I met at the club: Boadicea Faelen.
Arden, on the other hand, shows no sign of surprise. He moves with
inhuman speed to cross over to her. While he doesn’t say a word,
even I can sense him sending out all sorts of warning signals for
her to back away. When she doesn’t ― when she doesn’t even so much
as flinch ― he tosses the helmets from his arm and moves to strike
her. But when his fist doesn’t make contact, Arden stares down the
length of his arm at me. I managed to wedge my way between the two
werewolves, intervening by using the force of both my hands to stop
him.

“Dude, you can’t hit her.”

Arden simply glares.

“For one, it’s not cool to hit a girl,” I say as I
struggle against his alarmingly strong arm. “And two, you’ll cause
a scene.”

Boadicea smiles as Arden backs down. “My, my,
gallantry is still alive,” she remarks airily in her lilting Irish
accent.

Arden huffs.

“Heel, boy,” she continues, goading him, clearly
enjoying herself. “You don’t even know who I am.”

“You work for Boguet,” he answers. “That’s all I
need to know.”

“Why should that be of any concern to
you?”

“Whatever your reasons, with Boguet behind it, it
can’t be good.”

“So sayeth the werewolf who bit him,” she argues.
“You ought to allow Connor the benefit of hearing the other side of
the story.”

He shakes his head infinitesimally. “I can’t. Not in
good conscience.”

“Conscience?” she cries, as though he’s just
purported that werewolves don’t exist. “Oh, Pinocchio, isn’t that a
human trait?”

Arden growls but doesn’t otherwise acknowledge the
remark. “You’ll have to get through me before you can spread your
lies.”

“I’m not here to tussle with you.”

“What do you want?”

Her eyes scan him, noting the barely concealed rage
in his tense body and scalding eyes. “You’re walking a very thin
line, aren’t you? Like a completely wild animal who’s found himself
straying too far from the woods. It wouldn’t take very much to push
you over that line, would it? Enough that you could kill for the
sheer pleasure of it.”

“I take no pleasure in killing,” he says
flatly.

“No, I suppose not,” she agrees. “All you know is
your instincts.”

“You’re no different.”

“Oh, believe me, there’s a world of difference
between us.”

I don’t like the route this conversation is taking
and interject before it can escalate beyond a point of return.
“Boadicea―”

Whatever my next words were supposed to be, they’re
halted in my throat by her eyes as they fall on me: green like
emeralds, shimmering but hard too. And for a moment I believe her
words about there being a difference between the two werewolves.
There’s something tamer about her appearance. She seems somehow
safer. And yet, by all accounts, I’m supposed to be more frightened
of her than I am of Arden. It doesn’t really make sense. She looks
at me, but I don’t get the sense that I’m prey to her. It’s more
like that first time we met at Club Cin-Cin, full of purpose. And I
have to wonder what her intent is for me when she works for such a
sinister man ― make that wolf-man.

“How I do love it when a lad takes the care to
pronounce my name properly,” she remarks. “You’re a rare bird,
aren’t you?”

Arden closes in. “Leave him out of this.”

“Really, I should say the same of you,” she
replies, adding to me, “Connor, I suspect once you come to your
senses, you’ll give me a ring. Not too late, I hope.”

When she says the last words, I wonder again if
there’s a second meaning. Too late? What does she mean? At that
moment I remember that I don’t even have her card anymore because
of Arden’s reckless disregard. But then she pushes off the bike in
a bid to leave, knocking it over.

“Oops,” she says, feigning innocence.

Before I figure out what’s happened, Arden swings
his fist. Much to my surprise, he’s again stopped by what I have to
say is the unlikeliest opponent. Boadicea single-handedly holds him
at bay. It looks effortless.

“Not very gentlemanly of you.”

He takes a swing with his other arm, which she
catches again, deftly.

“Didn’t get enough from milling with me the other
night, did you?”

Arden’s face reddens.

“I suggest you tame that temper of yours,” she
advises silkily, eyeing a pair of
gendarmes
walking toward us, “lest you cause a
scene.”

Catching on quickly, he reluctantly pulls his arms
away. As the officers walk by, Boadicea takes advantage of the
moment and slaps Arden, hard, across the face then walks off
indignantly, calling him all kinds of names in French. She plays
the part of the distressed damsel in a lover’s quarrel, much to the
amusement of the officers, who slow their pace. Clever, keeping
them around for cover as she flees the scene. Their eyes follow the
elegant sway of her hips as she makes her getaway down the
sidewalk.

Arden forgets himself and picks up his motorcycle
without any effort. The officers halt in their footsteps and watch
as he leaps onto the seat and revs the engine. Truthfully, I’ve
never been on a motorcycle. The streets of New York are crowded
enough as a pedestrian or cyclist. I got my driver’s license last
year more as a rite of passage than anything. Not once have I even
thought about getting a car of my own. Not when there are so many
other more efficient ways of getting around the city.

He tosses me the other helmet, which I catch in the
stomach with a grunt. The engine roars as I put it on. When he
throws a look over his shoulder to the back of the bike, I
grudgingly get on. No sooner than I’m seated does Arden take off
down the street toward the school. In a fraction of a second, we
are tearing through the streets of Paris. As we zip through
traffic, dodging dangerously between cars and delivery vans, I have
no choice but to cling tightly to him. It’s beyond awkward, but
it’s too late to do anything about it. I want to say something to
him ― there are a million questions in my head about the perceived
threat that I’m under ― but I’m afraid that the smallest
distraction will wind up killing us. By the time we arrive, I’m
uncomfortable on so many levels that I’m eager to leap off the
bike. Arden leaves the engine purring, staring ahead and waiting as
I unstrap the helmet. Before I have it fully removed, he’s snatched
it from my hands.

“The next time you come between me and an enemy, I
won’t hesitate to hit you,” he snarls.

“I thought your job was to be all fatherly and
protect me,” I retort while running fingers through my hair to undo
the stylistic damage.

“You want to learn from this? Don’t challenge
me.”