Page 5 of Werewolves Don't Howl
In the end, it turned out that he wasn’t the monster who turned me. That was a huge disappointment, working so hard to get my vengeance only to realize in the end that I’d had the wrong target. It hit the point home that I’m not meant for vengeance or killing, so I let go of the idea of finding the monster who ruined my life, and focused on having a life worth living. It was the best decision of my life. At any rate, my parents were informed by Zephin Clay that the werewolves had kidnapped me, so they hate werewolves with more than a passion. My mom still didn’t understand why I’d choose to live in Singsong City when it has one of the largest packs in the world who might infect me to death. It’s the only thing that could have kept her from visiting over the last decade she could have spent nagging me about getting married and having children. So I guess there were some perks.
If I were a hard-nosed reporter determined to uncover the truth, I’d be tracking down every new case of werewolf infection to find the monster who infected me as well as the identity of the psychopath who had kept me alive until I could transition, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t. Two years of my life was enough. I focused on the positive, the fluff as the diabolically handsome senator had said so bluntly, and I had no interest in changing.
Later that afternoon, the baseball game was enjoyable enough. I took my knitting project to the stands to work on. The sweater was for my brother’s fiancé, knitted in a very fine lace pattern and spelled with gnomish coziness and Elven protection runes. I’d promised to go to the wedding, even though I’d managed to avoid most of our family get-togethers for the last thirteen years. I had to bring a present that would show how much I cared. Nothing said care like hand knitting. Hopefully, she agreed. She was a full-blooded gnome and the finest cheese-maker in the world if my brother’s rhapsodic tales of brie could be trusted. She was also a nurse at the local hospital where he worked as a therapist. They sounded perfect for each other, and I was so happy that he’d found a way to his happily ever after. I just hoped that no one smelled the werewolf in me while I was there.
I cheered with the crowd when Piney the werewolf hit the ball over the fence and made his leisurely way around the plates. I jotted down notes about the tension in the air as we watched the opposition close in at the end. It was satisfyingly close, and thanks to the new pitcher striking out the opposition’s batter, we won. The pitcher was good, but he looked like he knew it, and would rub it in. I’d get to find out if my snap judgment was on target. Lucky me.
When the game was over, I put up my knitting and made my way along with the crowd down the steps, then continued down to the basement areas outside the locker rooms where I could interview the players.
“Delphi, what brings you down to our level?” Jake the Rake said with a wiggle of his bushy brows as soon as he came out of the locker room. The werewolf was good-natured about my desire to not be included in the pack, but he’d still tease me about it.
“Tax season. It brings everybody down. Well, Jake, to what do you owe your fine form this evening?”
“Well,” he said, edging closer to me so I could smell the stench of his unwashed, sweaty body. He’d come out for the interview before he showered. “It would have to be you, wouldn’t it?” He grabbed me in a hug, squeezing me tight while I wheezed and tried not to drop my knitting bag.
“Delphi pile-up!” Piney cried and crowded in on the other side. I was half gnome, half elf, so I wasn’t very tall, not unless I shifted, and then I’d be bigger than whatever form they’d come up with. My beast was massive, which didn’t help me when I was completely overwhelmed by the werewolves’ stench, their size, and their eagerness to squeeze the life out of me.
“What’s this game?” another man asked, but his voice was oily slick while these two were just sweaty. They pulled away, both of them draping arms over my shoulders, so I got a double whiff of all they had to offer. I was either going to faint or puke from their overwhelming manliness.
“It’s just Delphi the reporter,” Piney said, a warning in his voice as he faced off with the newcomer.
I smiled at Ridley, the blonde new pitcher who didn’t smell nearly as terrible as the other two. “Welcome to the team. I haven’t seen you play until now, but the hype certainly wasn’t overrated. Your pitching was absolutely stellar. How are you liking Singsong City?”
“You smell very nice.” He flashed his teeth, and I remembered something about why he’d left Angel City on the west coast. Something about a woman he’d dated disappearing? I’d have to look it up.
“Thanks. That’s because I bathe regularly, unlike some filthy beasts I know,” I said, smiling up at Piney and Jake. They were watching the new guy, who by the smell of him was another wolf, but from a very different pack. Was it him, the one who had infected me? I hadn’t noticed being bitten, so it was highly unlikely I’d be able to smell the monster, but I always tried every time I met a new werewolf.
“Do you? Do you like baths or showers? I’m good with either,” the new wolf said with a leer and a wink that might have been attractive if I wasn’t half elf and ergo understood raw sex appeal. My gnome mother would laugh so hard if she heard me say that. Nope, it’s just that my type was more tall, dark, violet-eyed, carnation-smelling, calculating manipulator than this tawny-haired, white-toothed predator whose warm eyes didn’t cover up the hunger in him. He was used to getting his way, and didn’t care very much about consequences. That was a dangerous combination.
“She’s ours,” Piney growled, gripping my shoulder more possessively.
Usually, I’d push him away and remind him that I wasn’t an object to be owned, but this newcomer would probably understand their claim on me better than my claim on myself. Most werewolves were like that. Just another reason to resent the fact that I was one of them.
Ridley smiled easily. “Yeah? Which one of you is mated to her? She smells untouched. I can take care of you, my pretty, soft sweet,” he rumbled, eyes flickering golden.
The other team members weren’t paying much attention, but they were right there where they’d see me if I shifted into my ridiculously overpowered wolf and ate this guy raw and screaming. That meant I’d rely on Piney and Jake to save me. I took a half-step away from him and moved slightly behind Jake with my hand on his muscular arm. That body language screamed, ‘protect the helpless damsel,’ really loudly.
“She doesn’t have to be mated to one of us to be ours,” Jake said, which made no logical sense, but werewolves used instinct in the place of logic.
Golden-eyes smiled. “She’s not a born wolf. That means that she requires more than a protector, a mate. I’ve never seen a female who needs more protecting.” He looked me up and down slowly, ogling me more than was necessary. Apparently, he liked the curves my gnome genetics gave me and didn’t mind the shortness. He was completely wrong about my needing a protector or a mate, but I wasn’t going to contradict him. Somewhere in the back of my head, my wolf whined. She wanted her mate. You know, the monster who had caged me for two months, so I survived being turned. She got no say in my life as long as she wanted something so incredibly bad for all of me.
“I’m under Max’s protection,” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at Ridley’s drama and my wolf’s whining. “If you don’t want to get kicked out of Singsong like you were out of Golden, you’ll respect the alpha and mind your manners.”
He laughed, low and threatening. “Sure. I’ll let you teach me any manners you want, Soft-Sweet.” Lovely. He’d come up with a pet name for me. I should have flirted with him and stroked his ego so he didn’t feel like he had to step up to the challenge. Jake and Piney were feeding into his whole desperate need to be the best and brightest in the pack. I needed to diffuse this situation before things got any worse.
Jake lunged forward and slugged the new guy in the face. Yep. That’s exactly the kind of worse I was worried about. For a second it was quiet, and then they both erupted into wolves who would probably rip the green room apart.
I jumped away from them and then let Piney escort me out, arm still draped over my shoulder all the way outside to the curb where he helped me into a cab. “Sorry about this, Delphi,” he said with a frown. “Jerk’s not wrong, though. You should be mated. We’ve all been bothering Max about it. It’s not right for you to live in Sing away from the safety of the pack. Think about it, okay? We’re not all bad.” He winked at me and then closed the door, nodding at the driver to pull out, which he did. Most people didn’t argue with werewolves for some reason.
Me? Mated to a werewolf? That would go over well with my family and my co-workers. I slumped against the backseat, clutching my knitting bag. The only reason I had my job was because I was my Elven father’s daughter, and he was old friends with Zephin Clay, media mogul. I could embrace the wolf and become the alpha. My beast was ridiculously overpowered, and Max wouldn’t fight very hard. No, he’d be delighted if someone else took the pack off his hands. I shivered at the thought of managing other wolves. Not a chance. That would be a complete nightmare. Also, my family wouldn’t talk to me again. Not that we talked much. Things had been strained for some time now. I didn’t come home enough. I didn’t call enough. I lived in Singsong City, which had all the most dangerous elements imaginable. I wasn’t appreciated at my work. I was too thin. And worst of all, I wasn’t dating, so how could I give my mother grandchildren?
I pulled the sweater out of my bag and sniffed it before I started another row. It didn’t smell too much like werewolves. I hoped. I didn’t need to worry about a too-friendly guy, and I definitely didn’t need to worry about my nonexistent love life. I had a great job and lived in the most amazing city in the world. I liked being independent and making as many choices for myself as I could, with my limitations. Life was good, and I intended to keep it that way.
The next morning, I got up, made my usual batch of cookies, which would disguise the scent of werewolf, and opened the door to find a bloody ripped-up corpse laid out on my ‘Hello Spring’ doormat. As a werewolf, I wasn’t particularly bothered by a dead animal, but as the elf-gnome society reporter who made her living being part of polite society, it was problematic.
Written in blood were the words:Soft Sweet. Minewhich were a lot of words to write in blood. I sighed and got some garbage bags to clean up the carcass, probably rabbit. I washed off the blood and then had to hurry the to make it the six blocks to work. I barely had time to rush into the soup kitchen to drop off my cookies up the street from the Singer office building before I had to keep running. On my lunch break, I left the office, sat in the park in the spring sunshine with happy families all around, and called Max.
He answered with a grumbling, “Just the person I wanted to hear. I’m actually outside your apartment. He left another gift for you. Did you enjoy the first?”
