Authors: Ryan Loveless
“What are you doing?” Her voice shook and she started to run, but she wasn’t fast enough, not in her human form.
“
Your boss, huh? Or your father?”
She raised her chin. “What’s it to you?”
He caught her and pushed his knife into her gut. He eased her down next to the counter. “You’re all the same to me,” he said as her eyes went dark. He slit her throat and she died. He picked up his coffee and swept the coins she hadn’t put away back into his palm—partly to get rid of anything with his fingerprints on it, but mostly because killing monsters paid shit. Covering his hand with his sleeve, he flipped the lit logo sign off at its cord, locked the door, and pulled the shades.
He managed to drag the male behind the counter before his stomach cramped. Gritting his teeth against the groan that wanted to come out as his body submitted to the drug’s demands for attention, he pushed his forearm against his gut until the pain passed. Then he dragged himself into the back for a mop and pail and got to work.
WESTLEY STARED AT his calendar as he leaned on the chest-high counter separating the kitchen from the main living space in the cabin. (The calendar featured “16 months of playful kittens!” given to him without a trace of irony by a very traditional aunt. He had accepted it, and her sincere “You’ll find yourself, son,” with the practiced disinterest of someone told too many times that he was “wrong.”) Ignoring the gray kitten in a bowler hat featured above the dates, he peered again at the little circular moon symbol. Ten days out until the full, and yet his body was acting like it was only a few days away. He tried to ignore it, but it was hard to ignore anything when his super-charged hearing could pick up rabbits chomping on his garden vegetables a hundred yards away through walls constructed of felled trees.
He sipped his tea. Well, Auntie, he had found himself. After countless experiments, he’d finally developed a way to stop himself from shifting. The last six months had been amazing. A cup of tea at breakfast and another after dinner, and he could have a normal life. Hell, he was ready to do an infomercial about it.
“Now you, too, can be your best self. Let me show you how!”
Because of the weirdness, for lack of something else to call it, amping him up, he’d made it full-moon-strong this morning, and his stomach rumbled in uncomfortable protest.
Better dead than a killer.
He needed to find a more powerful herb that worked the same way but didn’t make his insides feel like puking themselves up—one he could grow in his garden and which he could obtain by the next full moon. During the full moon he needed to triple his dosage to stop the shift, and since he was at triple force now on a regular day, if things kept up as they were, he’d be at triple triple over the upcoming full moon, and he didn’t want to think what that might do to him.
He’d exhausted all the resources he had. Time for a library trip
—
“
Do you have any more of that tea?” Tom’s voice came from the couch, grumbling and woozy like a post-hibernation bear emerging out of a cave.
—
as soon as he got Tom’s hungover ass out of his house.
Tom meant the intoxicated-dumb-ass tea, not the brew Westley was drinking.
Westley left the calendar alone and glanced at him. Ever since Westley had shown him his hangover cure, Tom had sworn by it.
“
I can make some,” Westley said, heading for the refrigerator where he had his freshly cut herbs stored. Tom was doing his best to make Westley’s already over-sized couch look like part of a child’s play set. His huge socked feet hung off the edge, and Tom had wedged his shoulders against the arm in an attempt to pillow his head on it, but had instead succeeded in manipulating his neck into an unnatural ninety-degree angle. One arm was flung up the back of the couch, hand hovering stuck in the air, while the other arm bent at the elbow to make a V over his chest and ended where his fingers curled into the collar of Westley’s borrowed T-shirt.
“
Don’t start.” Tom opened his raised hand, as if warding Westley’s lecture off.
“
I’m making you tea.”
“
It’s your own fault you got drunk,” Tom said, ignoring him as he did a high-pitched, nasal-focused impersonation of Westley that sounded nothing like him. “You know what happens when you mix beer and liquor.”
“
Making tea,” Westley sang.
Groaning, Tom rolled himself over. “Screw you. It’s my goddamn birthday. I’ll drink if I want—”
“Not saying anything,” Westley said, though he paused in putting the herbs into the mesh strainer and looked pointedly at his swinging screen door, visible because Westley had opened the front door to let in the bracing cool air. Tom had knocked it off the latch with his “entrance” the night before. Plus, Tom had slept in Westley’s shirt because he’d “lost” his own somewhere between O’Riley’s Pub and the tailgate party at the rock quarry. He’d lost a shoe as well. It was a miracle he’d arrived at Westley’s (intact) door with pants. At least he hadn’t driven himself. Westley had seen Cody’s departing taillights speed away after he’d dumped Tom in the front yard, leaving him to drag his stupid self up to the porch. Cody had stopped long enough to yell for Westley to “wake the hell up” before he got his coward ass clear of Westley yelling at him that his house wasn’t a drop off point for drunken idiots.
“
Screw you,” Tom repeated. He lurched to his feet. “I’m a... I’m an alph... oh shit.” Clapping his hand over his mouth, he stumbled toward the bathroom, crashing into the couch as he went. When the retching started, Westley covered his ears and prayed he’d made it to the toilet.
“
Tom? You okay?” Tom never pulled this alpha wolf shit unless he was wasted, which would have worried Westley—made him think Tom’s “we’re all equal when I’m sober” spiel was an act—except Tom tended to be miserable when he was drunk, so it was probably more expectation weighing on him than his actual belief system coming through.
A weak groan offered a reply. Westley grabbed a towel and a bucket and headed for the sorry sound. The vomit splash started at the edge of the bathroom and made a V up to the toilet. Westley pulled Tom out of it and wiped his mouth. Leaving Tom kneeling over the bowl, he cleaned up the floor and then ran water over a clean washrag.
“You’re an idiot,” Westley said, crouching beside him. Tom looked up, bleary eyed, and made a face that hadn’t changed since he’d gotten owwies as a wolf pup and gone running to his mother. Westley couldn’t resist it either. He tried for keeping his expression stern as he tenderly laid the damp rag over Tom’s forehead. “You alphas are all the same.”
“
Generalize much?” Tom grabbed Westley’s wrist when Westley started to pull away and leave the washrag to Tom’s own hand.
“
Everyone thinks alphas are these big dominant overachieving heroes, but the second somebody shows the slightest inclination to take care of you, you all roll over and show your bellies for a scratch.”
Tom pushed the washrag out of his eyes to reveal a mischievous glint. “You want to scratch my belly, West?”
Westley pushed the rag back down. “Omegas don’t get away with this crap. I don’t have anyone holding my hair back when I act like a dumb ass. I’m expected to take care of myself and you while pretending I’m totally helpless and holding up the illusion that you’re my big strong hero.”
Tom patted Westley’s hand, which Westley was still holding pressed to his forehead. “You’re too focused on image. You never do any dumb ass stuff.” Wincing, he reached up and flushed the toilet. He leaned on the seat as his dinner swirled away.
“Did we have sex last night?”
“
Let me check my ass.” Westley patted himself down. “No.”
“
Good. I probably wanted to, though, right?”
“
When don’t you?” Westley asked. He grinned. “Hell, when don’t I?”
“
Thanks for letting me in, anyway.”
“
You’re not that big a threat, Tom.”
“
No.” Tom shook his head, determination clear in his otherwise queasy expression. “Just because we do it sometimes doesn’t mean I should take advantage.”
“
You didn’t.”
“
If you were smaller—”
“
Tom. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t try to do anything. And you wouldn’t have even if I couldn’t kick your ass for trying. Got it?”
Tom looked uncertain, or greener.
“Geez, man, what is wrong with you?”
“
Don’t know.” Tom lurched up again. Westley patted his back as the last of the night’s festivities hurtled out of him. “Just feel weird, I guess.”
“
You drink too much.”
“
No. Felt weird before.”
“
Probably because you’re getting old. Come on.” Westley helped him up and over to the sink. “Let’s get you rinsed out and then I’ll finish making you that tea.”
“
What if we got mated?” Tom wobbled at the sink as Westley held him up. “I could make an honest wolf out of you.”
“
You are not asking me to be your mate after you puked on my tiles.”
“
I could make you.” Tom’s voice grew stronger. “You’d have to say yes.”
Westley squeezed him, a solid threat. “You do, and it will be the last word I ever say to you.”
Tom stared down at the running water. “Guess I wouldn’t have to worry about dinner conversation being awkward.”
Westley pushed a Dixie cup to his lips. “Drink this and shut up.”
Tom nodded, his face pinched and sad. He swished and spat. “Thanks. Sorry I tried to make you the happiest wolfman alive.” He leaned over and put a chaste kiss on Westley’s shoulder. “And about your tiles.”
“
Weirdo,” Westley said, with fondness. Then, “I don’t know why you’re talking about mating with me anyway. You’re going to settle down with a nice she-wolf and have lots of puppies and I’m going to settle down with a nice beta or alpha male, or, you know, Cody, and you’ll make your parents proud and mine might start speaking to me again, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“
And that’s that?” Tom asked.
“
That’s that,” Westley said, as kindly as he could.
JAYLEN CHECKED the knots around his ankles. He’d had to run the rope beneath the mattress. Damn motel beds had nothing to tie onto. He bound himself secure enough that he couldn’t thrash out of it, but loose enough that he could get free when he was lucid again. Reaching to the nape of his neck, he pulled loose his cloth-covered rubber band and freed his individual cornrows. Once he had his hair arranged so he could lay comfortably, he stuck his knife in its thick leather sheath beneath his pillow. With the door locked and warded in wolfsbane and the sun shining on the other side of the thick brown curtains, he started the harsh process of sweating out the drug.
If he had his preferences, he’d stay on it all the time, always know how to tell a monster from a human. His body, however, had other plans. He’d been lucky to finish cleaning up at the Curlicue. By the end, he wasn’t sure if he was on his knees scrubbing the floor because it was a better way to get the blood up or because it hurt too much to stand. Ignoring detox and continuing to use the drug left him as weak as a baby. Recovery could lose him days—days in which the Alpha could track him or move on as it pleased. Hard to tell sometimes who was chasing whom.
Detoxing was no picnic either. But it was over in hours versus days, and if he timed it right, he could keep the symptoms down. He couldn’t stop the hallucinations that came with it, but the part he found hardest to tolerate was the leveling moment when everyone became the same; first monster, then human, and he couldn’t tell which was which, filled by a vengeful rage at the first and an abiding fear at the second, struggling with his gut feeling against what his senses were telling him.
YOU ARE SAFE. NO MONSTERS HERE. SAFE. SAFE. SAFE.
For this reason, he locked himself away to detox, lest he accidentally kill a human, or that a wolf might slip beneath his mind and take its revenge for the hundreds of its kind he’d slaughtered since he’d first picked up his knife.
The first etchings of a headache made an appearance beneath his temples. Reaching for one of several opened bottles of water on the nightstand, he chugged it halfway down. It did nothing to ease his parched throat. He set the bottle down, only shaking slightly, and rolled onto his side, bracing himself as a wave of nausea struck. He blinked through it, and another. After checking the knots again—he could never check too much—he laid back as his vision blurred. With his only comforts the solid feeling of his knife beneath his head and the knowledge this could be so much worse, he looked toward the swirling ceiling and succumbed to the process.
TOM TUCKED HIS long legs underneath him on the couch. “God,” he moaned. He cupped his half-empty mug of hangover cure in both hands.
“Headache not any better?” Westley asked.
“
Worse. There’s buzzing. I feel like...” He paused, mouth open and contorted, eyes wide in pain. “Like killing everything.”