Page 4 of Ravaged Wolf
I’m going to mate with Trevor Floyd, and my parents are going to disinherit me.
If they don’t kill me first.
2
IZZY
Except for thenoxious smell and the crippling anxiety, my first day in accounting goes well. They stick all of us new interns in a windowless conference room for onboarding, and I’m lucky enough that my seat is under a vent, so whenever the air conditioning kicks on, I get a little respite from the heat and stench of the two males in our group.
I don’t know why people don’t make a bigger deal about the smell. Maybe because people tend to do the deed pretty quickly after they recognize their mate. When Steffan Dee recognized Morgan Lewis at the end of junior year, they snuck off that mod and did it in the art supply closet. It was a huge scandal when they came strolling out the next morning during homeroom. They’d gotten themselves locked in overnight.
I didn’t notice the stink for the first couple of days after I saw Trevor at the salad bar, but now it’s getting worse by the hour.
How much longer do I have?
What did they say in the shifter biology unit during freshman year science? All I can remember is coloring diagrams and labeling fallopian tubes and the vas deferensand bulbus glandis, but I couldn’t identify them now if you paid me.
My temperature can’t get much higher. My skin is hot to the touch, and I’m not sweating so much anymore as maintaining a permanent sickly sheen. I’ve gone a pasty grayish white, and honestly, I’m sorry for the other interns because I don’t smell very good either.
I’ve braced myself for the fact that Mom will know there’s something wrong as soon as she sees me, but when I get home, it’s still a jolt when I open the door and she’s sitting with Dad on the sofa, stiff-backed and grim, waiting for me.
They know. Brynn told. I’m in trouble.
My throat swells shut, and my eyes burn. I want Mom to open her arms, and say, “Come here, baby,” but she’s not that kind of mother.
“Were you ever going to tell us?” she says instead, her sweet, prim voice as sharp as a papercut.
“I-I—”
“Sit down,” my father interrupts. I sink into the chair across from them as my wolf springs to her feet, both of us on high alert. We scent danger, but it’s crucial that we don’t react. Dad’s wolf reads defense as aggression.
I end up in this seat a lot—on report card days and after recitals and concerts and meets and games and science fairs. I can always benefit from feedback on my presence and delivery and follow through and tri-fold design. The process of continuous self-improvement cannot wait for a shower or a snack or a good cry.
I clasp my hands and wait. Pre-empting the lecture with excuses will only make it last longer in the end, and it provokes Dad’s wolf.
“Trevor Floyd?” my mother says. It’s an accusation.
I drop my eyes to the beige carpet.
“Is he even in an internship?” my father asks, even though he must already know that he’s not.
“He’s in an apprenticeship.” I force myself to enunciate so that I don’t get yelled at to speak up. Dad gets mad if I mumble. His wolf gets mad if I raise my voice.
“An apprenticeship.” Dad snorts and exchanges disgusted looks with my mother. “In facilities management?”
My shoulder lifts a quarter inch before I catch myself and splint my spine straight. Shoulder shrugs, stammering, fidgeting—the slightest motion can be a match to gasoline when Dad’s committed to working himself up, and his wolf wants out.
“Well?” he demands.
“I don’t know,” I say, contorting my neck so that I can bend my head while maintaining eye contact. Dad has worked in human relations for his whole career, so he reacts to lowered eyes as disrespectful. At the same time, his wolf takes offense and rumbles, demanding a show of throat.
“Don’t you think you should? Hasn’t it occurred to you that that’s the kind of information that might be material to your future? Izzy?” Dad’s face flushes red as he waits for me to find my tongue.
“Yes.” I don’t know which question I’m answering or whether I’m responding the right way, but my damp shirt is sticking to my clammy back, and my pants stick to my skin everywhere my body touches the chair’s cushions. I want to stick my head in the freezer and shove ice cubes in my underwear.
I can’t think about my body now. I need to get out of this.
“I understand,” I say. I don’t, but that’s what they want to hear. I understand, I’ll comply, I won’t make them repeat themselves.
