Page 1 of The Witch's Werewolf
Chapter
One
Timber
The only thingprettier than the autumn colors on Main Street is Cherry Woodbury’s hair that glows under the yellow-orange of the street lamps.
She always looks beautiful to me. Tonight, she looks different. Her cheeks are contoured, and her lips are a glossy, soft red.
Cherry’s curls are tied up in a loose knot on the crown of her head, the soft tendrils brushing her bare shoulders as she moves.
Those bitable, lickable shoulders.
Where is she going?
Parked in front of the bank, her car alarm chirps. She stuffs the key fob into her handbag, then nervously tugs at the hem of her dress. Cherry’s strides are slightly unsure in a pair of sexy heels.
It’s late October. She’s got to be freezing in a sleeveless dress.
Surely she’s not dressed up to do a bank deposit for the candle shop. Of course, the bank is closed already. The host of the Italian restaurant holds the door open for her.
It’s a Friday night. This is not her typical routine, which concerns me. Is something wrong? Did something change?
Maybe she’s simply picking up a pizza for her night in. But why would she do that in a little red dress, and no coat?
The table decor inside the restaurant has changed from its lunchtime red checked cloths and flower vases to white linen and candles. A Frank Sinatra song floats into the street as couples come and go through the doors.
Why would Cherry want to be surrounded by all this romance?
The reality of the situation hits me like a lead musket ball to the scrotum.
Cherry is on a date.
The thought is enough to make me thirst for blood, and the moon is not yet high enough for that.
I’d better go before my elevated blood pressure triggers the change too soon.
On any given first night of a full moon, I’m out of sight by now. The werewolf transition is grotesque when it hits, and I know better than to be hanging around people. Not only that, but no humans would want to be in the path of a half-man/half-wolf. At sunrise, I have little memory of what I need the night before.
Yet here I am, risking it all, watching Cherry stride into the nicest restaurant in town. Oddly, she clutches her handbag tighter when she spots her date.
The man she’s meeting doesn’t stand up when she approaches.
Does no one teach manners anymore?
I’m one to talk about manners, when I lurk in the shadows, coming dangerously close to wolfing out. If I loiter too much longer, I’ll be dining on Cherry’s rude date’s liver before he can order his starter.
I am transfixed as she takes a seat at the candlelit table, pulling out her own chair. In one hand, her date holds a glass of wine; in the other, his thumb scrolls on his phone.
When her date finally looks up, his gaze goes straight to her chest.
My ears twitch. Their conversation is clear as a bell to me through the walls separating us, thanks to the monthly shift having permanently altered my inner ears.
“Hi, Toby,” she says, with her sweet, wide smile and hopeful eyes.
“Well, well, well. You clean up nice,” Toby says.
Toby?
