Just last week the local sorority protested the treatment of the animals that were packaged up for food in the cafeteria.
Really?
They have no understanding of nature. If they had to catch and eat their own food, these people would die. Back when I was human, we still got the majority of our meat from the local farmer. Yeah, back in the old days, uphill both ways to school and all that.
I wasn’t going to class. No, I wasn’t dazzled by Vampire Barbie, but I’d realized she was right. I could ace every class I was in with my eyes closed and while drunk off my ass. I still remember what happened six years ago in a freshman math class. The night before finals I lost a game of Kings Cup. Badly.
Werewolves have a fast metabolism and a really fast healing time. They usually also have a kickass tolerance for alcohol. Sure, I could withstand Vampire Barbie’s glittery irises, but I couldn’t tolerate more than a couple Bud Lights. I never imbibed as a human, so I don’t know if it involves how we change as we transform or what. All I know is, after that drinking game, I had to concentrate to focus my vision, but I aced the test that day.
Usually I try and miss some questions here or there to make my guise more believable. Apparently, I forget this when trashed. My teacher ended that term telling me that I needed to party more, and it might improve my grades.
Today was not a day to worry about my kickass brainpower. I was trying to lose myself in my people watching. Credit cards were being pimped under a pop-up tent to the left of me, and like flies to water, all the little humans piled in to put themselves in debt. I think they were giving away a free pizza if you signed up. Yup. That was totally worth ten knocks on your credit score.
I pulled my iPod out of my messenger bag and plugged in one ear bud. I let the latest audio book talk to me as I sat myself down on a stone wall. Call it perverse, but I enjoy watching people do stupid things. It’s like a live version of reality TV. And watching one or two people try and be the voice of reason to their friends or significant others is the best part.
I watched a football player and his girl fighting. She told him he didn’t need the card. He told her he did. She told him he needed to walk away and get to class. He said he’d spend half of whatever balance he qualified for on a pair of shoes for her at Macy’s. She shut up and got him a pen. See? It’s better than reality shows.
I tried to ignore the goose bumps that began to develop across my body. I was going to convince myself that it was due to the cold water I kept by my side. I wasn’t going to let myself believe that it was mating pheromones causing this tingly awareness in my skin. I was going to just listen to the deep baritone voice of the audio book narrator detail a fantastic vision of an epic romance for my literary enjoyment. It was too bad my body wouldn’t stop buzzing.
Fuck
. I didn’t need this. Jake was somewhere in the area.
He had to be, because the mating pheromones that came bursting to life when a wolf finds her mate were out in force. A supernatural swarm of sexy had descended. My instinct told me I was going into heat. Stupid instinct didn’t understand this was a bad idea.
I turned to the right. He was watching me from the other side of the street. His eyes met mine immediately. And they stayed there. He didn’t blink. It would have been unsettling had I not known he was a vampire. He was completely still. He looked solid, and damn, I wanted to feel if he was as solid below the belt as he looked above it. It shouldn’t be possible for him to be my mate. He wasn’t Pack. He wasn’t even alive.
Council always said a wolf knew her mate, and my wolf was on her back exposing her belly at the sight of him. I was panting, too, and seriously daydreaming of exposing more than my belly. I flipped my audio book off and yanked the bud from my ear.
His brows drew together in confusion. His forehead wrinkled. He even had sexy pensive wrinkles. He moved only his arm and reached in his pocket to draw out a cell phone. Then only his mouth moved. He had to be talking to another vampire. His voice was quiet enough that even I couldn’t hear him. Despite being blocked by a steady stream of traffic, had he been talking to a human, I would have heard everything.
He flipped his phone closed and walked ten steps. I counted them. He stopped. He cocked his head to the side. Stared. Then he came to me. He didn’t stop until he was standing over me. His eyes never left mine, and I had to remember to breathe. He was beautiful. Stunning. I melted.
Or at least something in my center did, because it started to leak out of me, and now my underwear was damp. From a look. My pulse was racing at hamster-on-a-wheel pace, and I gulped to try and swallow the fact that my mate was a vampire.
“Who are you?” Jake asked. His voice had a note of disbelief in it. He felt something, too.
Great.
He was just as confused as I was.
Not really the way to meet your mate, but he was mine so two things hit my brain. First, I needed to put this guy in his place. Second, his voice was like melted Godiva chocolate turning my insides gooey.
Did he really even need to speak? I could feel his presence in the pit of my stomach, but I couldn’t let him know how he affected me if I was going to walk away from the mating pheromones—and I had to do just that.
“Are you asking because you’re interested or do you just want to know why am I not walking the other direction after seeing you?” The compulsion garbage still had me a bit ticked. I’d focus on that until I could get my feet back under me. “I guess I should feel glad your sister didn’t add ‘cluck like a chicken’ in there, but do us all a favor and tell your little sis that if she tries that shit again, I won’t pretend it worked to make her feel better.”
His eyebrows met his dark hair. “You know she dazzled you? And you can overcome the compulsion?” He had silvery-gray eyes. The penetrating power of the steely gaze kept me in place. Silver and wolves don’t go together. It was another reminder that I had to make this go away.
His pupils flexed. Those metallic eyes looked me up and down. He was taking me in.
I really hoped he knew about mating, otherwise I was going to sound stupid. Not like it would be the first time, but for some reason I cared what he thought of me. Stupid mating pheromones.
“I can’t be dazzled. It’s a cool trick I have. I’m not running in the other direction right now, because you are my mate and we need to figure out how to fix that.” Or I could just blurt it out.
He stopped moving again. Man, that was creepy. “Excuse me?”
I let the sigh escape me. I really had no patience. It was my wolf. I swear. “I don’t get it either, but I know you’re my mate. The la-la-land feeling. The happy music playing in my head. The fact that I stopped and stared at you and put up with your sister trying to compel me… It all adds up.” I didn’t mention the fact that my gut was clenching and my pulse was rushing blood to places that were totally inappropriate to be filling with blood in public.
Hmm
. He was a vampire. Wonder if he could sense that stuff like a wolf could. With our heightened sense of smell, any wolf for a mile could smell how wet I was getting in this guy’s presence.
Jake—still didn’t know his last name—didn’t move. It made me want to push him. “I do give off certain pheromones to attract prey. Are you sure you aren’t just responding to those?”
That would be convenient, but… “I’m sure. Your sister gives off those pheromones too. She couldn’t dazzle me, so I doubt the pheromone thing works on me either. And I had no desire to walk up and lick water off your sister’s chest.”
His irises flexed, and his face erupted in a grin that could have made straight men gay. “You want to lick me?”
Like a lollipop.
“I wish I didn’t, but here’s the deal. I have to find out more about this mate-bond thing. I’m tight with the Pack doctor.”
“Don’t you mean vet?” Great. A smartass. Damn fate.
“Funny,
Edward.”
He frowned. “I hate that movie.”
“Me too, but I wouldn’t be averse to Taylor Lautner joining my Pack for a bit. Anyway, before I was interrupted…” He waved his hand to tell me to continue, or get to the point. “I’m headed back to the Pack doc to see if there is anything I can do about this. Gotta be a way to fix this. Some kind of mistake. It’s not even possible for vampires and wolves to mate, is it?”
“You should ask my mother.”
“Why’s that?”
“She was a wolf.”
Of course she was.
Chapter Three
Escaping is another talent of mine. I have mad skills at avoiding topics I don’t want to discuss. That’s why Mary and I were out together, just sitting outside and watching the world. Mary was safe. Mary was human. And Mary had a thing for the dude standing across the street.
“Does he really get paid to do this?” Mary asked.
“Yup.” I was a bit too distracted to enjoy the show.
“He’s so…sweaty.”
“Yup.”
“Think he’s going to take his shirt off? I bet he’s got that great sweaty-pecs thing going on. You know when it beads up and forms little lickable pearls. He needs to take his shirt off.” She looked pretty thirsty.
“Think he gets paid more if he does?”
“I think he just gets paid to dance.”
I passed one of the bottles of water we had frozen that morning to Mary. She pressed it against her cheek before taking a drink. It was damn near thawed already. We were sitting a few blocks from the Quad partaking in people watching. Again. It was one of our favorite activities. Mary had her sketchpad, and I had my desperate need to be anywhere that Jake wasn’t.
Our distraction today was a Nordic avenger, or he would have been in a past life. Long blond hair escaped piece by piece from his ponytail. His tank top couldn’t contain his muscled chest. I had to admit, despite the cargo shorts that had seen better days, he made up for the fashion with thick, tanned legs. Mary said she liked his bone structure. I think what she was interested in involved boning.
He was tossing a sign in the air and catching it in various ways while dancing to random techno tracks being pumped into his ears by a bright blue set of ear buds. Mary couldn’t hear the music. She was human, and he was a few hundred feet away. I tried to tune it out. Techno grated on my nerves.
I was about to start our never-ending argument about dancing versus spastic movements to computers, when my mouth went dry. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt him coming closer. That’s right. Felt him. I was so screwed.
I tried to concentrate on the sign flipper, contemplating whether I wanted any cash for my gold, but Mary started slapping my bicep. It didn’t hurt, but she was putting some effort into it, so I gave her an obliging, “Ow. What?”
“Freaking Jake Meyers is coming this way. And he is looking at me!”
He had to be in the Meyers Family. The few times that I had paid attention at Pack Council there was one thing we were all told to do. Stay away from the Meyers vampires.
No monster stories were needed when you are the monsters, just who was a friend and who was a foe. Meyers was a name that equaled foe. I turned and, unfortunately, the namesake of the big bad was looking right at me. That must have been why his sis gave me the cold shoulder.
Why did he have to be so hot? I had been able to avoid him for two days now. After booking it home and blowing off two more classes, I had nursed a bottle of Pucker all night. I needed it because I found out that wolves and vamps can and do mate. Turns out, due to our long-lived situations and a little more forward thinking in society, even though it is uncommon, it’s not unheard of. I’m just sheltered. Very sheltered.
Doc had looked like I was asking him to string up Elmo in front of preschoolers when I probed him for how to break a mating bond. The mating bond was beyond sacred. Got it, but with Jake so close, I wasn’t remembering last night’s conversation where Doc told me there was no undoing a mating call. And I certainly wasn’t even thinking about the fact that Doc said he wouldn’t say anything to my dad, because the thought that the Alpha’s daughter would think of mating outside not only her Pack, but her species…well let’s just say “frowned upon” doesn’t cut it.
Wolves had the “Pack”. Vampires had the “Family”. And according to Doc, it needed to stay that way.
None of that mattered to my mating-pheromone-filled brain. Nope. All I could think as he strode toward me was that I really wished he was naked, so I could see everything on him flex. Because from his forearms, to his hands, to his neck, this man flexed and pulsed and just plain exuded power.
My wolf was impressed. And horny. If I could have turned and bent over with my pants and panties around my ankles for him right there without public embarrassment, my wolf would have had me do it. If I wanted to be honest, that urge wasn’t all my wolf. But denial is not just a river in Egypt. It was my new motto.
I couldn’t change it, so I was going to try and ignore it. Or avoid it.
Both options were failing as he reached where we sat, and I stood at his approach. My height and attitude are usually enough to keep people from invading my space. This man jumped inside my personal bubble with both feet. He was mere inches from slamming into me when he stopped.
“What did you do to me?”
“I did nothing to you. And would you back up?” He allowed me to push him back. Man his chest felt nice.
“I had a date last night.”
Jealousy is not pretty. It’s painful. I was feeling it about a guy I didn’t really know.
Fucking mating
. “Yippee for you. Did you eat her afterward?” I meant suck her blood for nourishment. Really.
His eyes narrowed. “I am usually a connoisseur of the female form, and if I do take donation, it is after my companion is numb from having her every desire satisfied, and every body part limp with pleasure.”
Yum.
I stuffed my hands in my pocket to keep them from unbuttoning my jeans on their own. He kept talking. Thank goodness. It gave me time to swallow and get some saliva back in my mouth.
“I found myself unable to think of anything but you. Then I—what did you do?” He hissed the last part. He eyed Mary to let me know that we should probably have the remainder of this conversation in real words and in a real private place. Um…yeah, didn’t want to do that.