Forty
Edward had tripped
over the rolltop desk and hit the floor hard enough to actually see
stars. Wow, he thought, rubbing the
back of his head. Look at that! Actual stars.
All those Bugs Bunny cartoons were telling the
truth.
It was his fatal
mistake, of course, and his death was coming in the exact manner he
had always known it would: he’d gotten killed doing something
idiotic or clumsy or both. So he wasn’t at all surprised when the
slavering she-beast of the night rushed over to him, jaws dripping
foam, snarling her hatred for man, her ancient enemy.
Except what really
happened is that she let out a surprised yelp—
(funny, weird and funny that it seemed more like a gasp of
dismay than a yelp, funny how it was like she wasn’t all person and
she wasn’t all wolf, funny how it was like she was something in
between a creature that was both and neither, all the time, yes,
very funny)
—and rushed over to
him, anxiously sniffed him, then tried to lick the back of his
head.
“Wh—aagghh—stop it,
that tickles!” What he had first mistaken for slavering jaws
dripping enraged foam was the friendly wide wolf grin (accompanied
by a lashing tail) he’d seen on canines before.
“Oh boy,” he said,
bringing his hands up again to push her away, and letting them drop
to his sides again. “Ohhhhh, boy. If you don’t devour me in a
bloodlust born of a dire feeding frenzy, Rachael, I owe you a
gigantic apology. Like, the Galactus of apologies.”
She was still trying
to get at the back of his head. “No, it’s fine, Rachael. Just a
bump. You—you—” Scared the shit out of me!
Made me watch my life flash before my eyes, and y’know what? It
wasn’t that great a life! “You startled me.”
And it was his own
damned fault. She warned you. She wasn’t cute
or coy about it; she flat-out told you: I am a werewolf and I am
going into my hobbit hole to change into the form of a wolf by the
light of the full moon, so smoke ’em if you got
’em.
Or words to that
effect. But did he believe her? Noooooo. And why should he? It
wasn’t like he had, oh, I dunno . . . firsthand experience in tons
of weird paranormal shit due to the fact that he LIVED WITH an
ex-cop/current-comedian vampire and an albino vampire
slayer!
Perish the fucking
thought.
No sooner were they
in her apartment than she began stripping off her clothes. This had
the (perhaps predictable) effect of every coherent thought fleeing
his mind as blood raced from his brain into his dick. “Uh, Rache,
not that I don’t love seeing you naked, not that I don’t love just
the very thought of bluff sex—or would it be hobbit hole sex?
Anyway, I think if we have sex now, it would fall under the
taking-advantage-of-Rachael category.”
“Please stop
talking.”
“And not that—whoa,
bra shooting past my shoulder! You ever notice that those can be
used as slingshots? Wow, you’re really whipping them off, aren’t
you?”
“You’re still
talking.” Her voice had gotten lower; she sounded pissed, so he
figured shutting up wouldn’t be the worst idea he’d had, and then
she, and then she, and then she—
(Say it!)
—and then she turned
into a wolf.
If he’d blinked, he
would have missed it: one minute she was naked and hairless and
cute and pale and pink, and the next she’d dropped to all fours and
was hairy and grew a tail from somewhere and her ears got longer
and her snout got longer and her teeth got much, much,
much—
(Why grandma!)
—much, much, much
bigger and longer and sharper, and then he was shrieking, not so
much from fear, okay from a little fear, but also shock and
surprise and the sheer joy of it; he was screaming with the
knowledge that Rachael was beautiful in every mood, in every form
Rachael was—
(my God, Rachael, you’re so beautiful I didn’t know anyone
could be so beautiful)
—beautiful.
Cue Edward staggering
backward; cue Edward tripping over desk and hitting his big stupid
skull.
And now, he was
locked inside the den with the she-beast! She’d led him back here
in her treacherous human form, she had led him into a basement that
didn’t have an exit for a wolf, she’d penned him up with her, and
now he was trapped in the lair of the beast!
The beast had taken a
moment before devouring him to rush over and make sure he was okay.
Oh, the deceitful cunning of this ravenous monster knew no
bounds!
Dude: lock it down, will ya? You’re embarrassing
yourself.
Good advice. “Quit
it, Rache, I’m fine.” Again he brought up his hands, but this time
found the courage to very, very, very gently rest tented fingers on
her shoulder as he gave her a very, very, very slight
push.
Well, she didn’t bite
any of his fingers off. That was something. Emboldened, he
increased the pressure. She didn’t budge, nor did she
devour.
“Don’t worry about
me, it’s my own stupid fault and it’s just a bump. But you can’t
stay in here all night. Can you?” He’d never imagined such a thing.
Maybe real-world werewolves didn’t howl and hunt. Or at least, howl
and hunt during the entirety of the full moon. Maybe some of them
stayed indoors.
“Shouldn’t you be
roaming the countryside looking for chickens? Ow!” He glared at her
and rubbed the spot on his shoulder where she’d nipped him. “Okay,
sorry about the stereotype. Not very PC of me. Listen—no, I’m
fine.” He gave her another shove. It was like trying to knock over
a fire hydrant. Then she gave him another nip, her teeth and jaws
so quick he felt the mild pinch before he realized she’d moved at
all.
“Okay, o-kay! Jesus. You’re a nag in every form, anybody
ever tell you that? Look.” He dropped his head and she sniffed the
part in his hair. “Don’t worry, I cleansed myself thoroughly with
Suave Mountain Strawberry. You may sniff me without fear!” She
already was, so he figured he might as well give her
permission.
“Okay, I know what
you’re thinking. But it isn’t like that! Okay, it’s a little like
that.” He absently rested his hand on her lush dark fur. “Listen,
this is gonna sound pretty dumb, but when I was in your bathroom
the other day, I saw what you used for shampoo, so I went out and
bought some for my bathroom so it would be like you were there. I
know, I know. Just so lame, right?”
That was when he
realized what he was doing. He was speaking to her like she was a
real person. Like she could understand him, like this was a
conversation. How cool was
that?
Then he slapped his
forehead, hard. Of course she’s a real person,
you nimrod! What, you were expecting a hologram? Didja think she
was a computer program?
He examined the
almost-invisible nip she’d given him with her teeth, Rachael-ese
for, Do you think you can stop acting like a
dumbass for ten whole seconds?
“Y’know, that’s twice
you’ve subjected me to your unholy jaws. What if I turn into a
werewolf during the next full moon? Hey, is that it? That’s it,
isn’t it?” He sat bolt upright with excitement. “That’s why you
picked me! You want a boyfriend who you can run with by the light
of the full moon, a mate who shares your passion for the hunt as
well as a Quicken spreadsheet. It all makes sense
now!”
She laughed at
him.
Okay, it wasn’t
exactly a laugh. Her canine grin widened and her expression got
downright playful . . . amused, even, and he . . . he could just
tell. She was laughing.
“Fine, I guess I
deserved that.”
Her eyes were exactly
the same.
He looked closer.
Yes, it was true. She was a little different on the outside, but
her eyes, those gorgeous tip-tilted pools of deep brown, and what
was behind her eyes, was the same.
In that moment, he
knew that for the rest of his life he would always be able to spot
a member of Rachael’s family, her Pack. It was nothing he could
have taught someone. It was nothing he could have described.
Recognizing Pack was like riding a bicycle: it couldn’t be taught,
you had to learn it yourself . . . and once learned, you could
never un-learn it.
Her fur was also deep
brown, lush and thick as the hair on her head when she walked on
two legs. He gently flattened his hands on her pelt, then smoothed
it, then stroked it. It was like stroking a combination of velvet
and wool. Wolf fur, he realized, was like the taste of chicken:
hard to describe, but unmistakably its own thing. It wasn’t velvet
and it wasn’t wool; it was wolf fur; it was Pack.
Bolder, he ran his
hands all over her, curious and fascinated and awed all at once.
Her ears were scuffed velvet and pricked forward alertly. Her long
sleek snout was much darker than the rest of her, and—
“Wow. Just how many
teeth do you have, Rache? I would not want to meet you in a dark
alley. Okay, I absolutely would want to, but I wouldn’t want to
meet another Pack member in that alley. Though I bet you could take
’em.
“And speaking of
taking ’em, how lucky was that vampire dumb enough to throw a knife
at you? You could have bitten her whole face right off! I mean, you
could have run home and waited a couple hours for the moon to rise
and then changed into a wolf and then run back and bitten her face
off. And serve her right,” he added, enraged all over again at the
thought of someone throwing a lethal weapon at Rachael’s
head.
Though he admitted to
some bias: he wouldn’t have liked it if someone had thrown a
nonlethal object at her, either. Like a packet of shoelaces, or a
baby’s pacifier. Oh, the humanity! Wait. Did that even apply here,
when one of them wasn’t human?
“You just wait. Once
you get me back over there, that vampire’s gonna apolo—ow! No.
No,” he added firmly, rubbing his
now-stinging elbow. “I’m not bending on this one, Rache. You can
nibble on me until I’m skeletonized, you’re still taking me over
there and introducing me to those knife-wielding
psychopaths.
“I mean, how could
they? You came in peace, right? Me
acting like an asshole is one thing; I’ve acted like a true dumb
shit this whole time. It’s not a new thing to the world. But
they’re supposed to know better. They’re . . . they’re the
grownups! And me, I was just...”
He shook his head and
ran his hands over her fur again. Then he buried his face against
her side. “You’re so beautiful, Rachael. How could I not have seen
it? How could I have been such a hateful dumbass?” He thought of
the things he’d said earlier and went cold. “Mine was the face to
bite off, if anybody deserved having their face bitten off. If you
forgave me, it’d be a miracle.”
He sighed into her
fur, which smelled like soap and green grass and werewolf,
Rachael’s own special smell. “If you forgave me, I’d spend the rest
of my life trying to make it right. If you forgave me, I’d never
take your good faith for granted. If you could just give me that
one chance, Rachael, a chance I’ve done nothing to deserve.” He
swallowed a sob and rubbed his eyes, hard. On top of everything
else, he wouldn’t subject Rachael to his ongoing immaturity, his
babyish lack of control. He didn’t want forgiveness as a result of
her pity and his shame. Lock it back,
dumbass. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She only looked at
him, then leaned forward and snuffled behind his ear, the exact
spot she’d pressed many kisses in the last week. Then she yawned,
circled once, and curled up beside him.
And then she went to
sleep.
After a few minutes,
he said, “It’s wrong to find this anticlimactic, right? Grateful is
the emotion I should be going for, right?”
Then he leaned back
against the wall and dozed off, his hand resting on her
back.