Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate

For those who yearn, and pine, and fret. And for the stubborn outcasts, and those who live with silence. I feel you, bbs.

Chapter 1

Z
EKI
CONTEMPLATED
the poster for the Spring Thaw in bemused silence. He noted the date and the list of events, as well as the drawing of the mountains in the background. The mountain imagery had been part of the festival probably since the festival had first begun. Many of the events were the same as the events he’d read about as a kid. What had him confused were the sparkly hearts at the edges and sprinkled among the lettering. It looked like a fairy child had gone at the paper with glue and a bottle of glitter. It looked sweet. It looked
pink
. In short, it looked like anything but the advertisements for the Spring Thaw Zeki had seen the last time he’d been in Wolf’s Paw.

“Singles dances?” Zeki almost tried to touch one of the hearts through the shop window as he read the list of events aloud. “Date auction? Romantic Ferris wheel rides? Wine tasting?” Werewolves couldn’t get drunk without considerable effort. He doubted they bothered with a good bottle of pinot noir if the mood to drink struck them. But if they were on a date with a human, they might go through the motions. Of course, Zeki had no idea what people did on dates, humans or otherwise. He hadn’t had much time or interest while in school for anything beyond casually hanging out and then going to bed, nothing that qualified as a real date. He doubted he was going to get much of a chance to learn in Wolf’s Paw either, even if the town was depicting itself as “the place to meet your mate.”

Which was all well and good, and again, sweet, except that werewolves had never been very sweet to Zeki, and the Spring Thaw had never been about dates. Not
romantic
dates anyway, and never with human tastes in mind. Spring Thaw, like many other spring festivals the world over, had always been about feeling wild and sexy, celebrating the end of winter with frisky behavior, or so Zeki had always assumed.

He’d been too young, awkward, and virginal to do much of anything but walk around the first and only time he’d attended the festival. But back in his high school days, the posters had been more generic advertisements for the event, with a few innuendos thrown in about how “wild” and “untamed” werewolves could be, playing on the growing idea among the human population that werewolves were incredible lovers.

Werewolves from outside Wolf’s Paw had always traveled to the festival, but the hints about sex with werewolves had been aimed at non-were tourists, who were starting to believe the hype about werewolf lovers more and more every year thanks to Hollywood and books like the ones written by Ramona Greenleaf.

In almost two centuries of existence, Wolf’s Paw had gone from a refuge for weres and other beings seeking to avoiding discovery by humans, to a mecca of sorts for beings who didn’t wish to live alongside humans after most of the other beings had come out of the shadows. At some point after that, Wolf’s Paw had also become a home for humans seeking to avoid the enmity of other humans, but it had always been first and foremost a place for weres. The majority of its citizens marked werewolf or some form of shifter on their census forms, and though the town had a human mayor, the real power rested with the sheriff, a werewolf, and the proverbial leader of the pack.

Despite a healthy respect, even fear, for the giant predators who called the town home, the tourists continued to be drawn to Wolf’s Paw for the fabled hot werewolf sex. Zeki couldn’t vouch for that cliché personally, but he couldn’t help but be aware of it. Ever since the werewolves and other beings came out of hiding, humans had reduced them to a few stereotypes, usually based on misunderstandings of their respective cultures. Fairies were generally regarded as a joke, imps as evil, although not as slutty as fairies. And weres, well, werewolves were either savage beasts or insatiable, possessive, sexual animals. The latter image appealed to many, and Wolf’s Paw wasn’t above using it to get tourist dollars. In fact, sometimes Zeki thought the citizens of Wolf’s Paw were deliberately misleading.

Even Zeki would have had difficulty explaining the unspoken rules of Wolf’s Paw, and he’d lived there from the age of thirteen until he’d left for college. He supposed that’s what came of being human in a town run by werewolves. If attending high school in one of the longest surviving werewolf refuges in the country had taught him anything, it was wolves were twice as cliquish as humans could ever be—and they justified nearly everything they did with a shrug and the word “instinct.”

“Instinct” explained exactly nothing. Weres had heightened senses, which, as far as Zeki could tell, gave them information humans didn’t have. That was great and all, and humans who didn’t know any weres might be in awe of their abilities, but only because those humans had never had to live alongside creatures who knew things humans didn’t, yet never bothered to explain themselves.

Instinct, more than laws or common sense, governed how things were done in this town. Perfumes, while not officially banned, were frowned upon within the county limits. Ditto for scented detergents. There was a field out near the woods that humans—although never explicitly prohibited from entering—were encouraged to avoid. Most restaurants, and the single movie theater in town, closed early on nights with full moons. Sex Ed was a mandatory course for humans and nonhumans alike, and, as it was taught in Wolf’s Paw’s combined high school and middle school, included a course on first aid as well as treatments for exhaustion.

The most traumatizing nonofficial rule had also been the most confusing: Non-werewolves were to approach werewolves if a sexual or romantic relationship was desired. It was never the other way around, no matter how much awkward teen nerd Zeki had wished it was. Considering that werewolves had a reputation as sexual dynamos, it hardly seemed fair to expect humans to do all the asking. It was like the town itself had wanted to make Zeki’s puberty as difficult and lonely as possible.

The rule was especially frustrating since Zeki knew for a fact that werewolves courted each other all the time. They had definite wooing behaviors that he’d witnessed—from a distance, and usually from behind a book—and yet they insisted humans make the first move with them. It was baffling, but it was the law of the land, so to speak, and no one had ever challenged it.

No matter how much Zeki’s teenaged self had wished otherwise, Zeki had no personal knowledge of the sensual nature of weres and how that might apply in the bedroom. But whatever the tourists actually found when they got here had never seemed to disappoint them. And if they did somehow find themselves alone, there was still plenty to do—camping, hiking, an increasing number of restaurants and boutiques, and naturally, the festivals. For the first time it occurred to him that many of these things were ideal for dating, as he’d seen it in movies, anyway. He’d been so awkward and alone in high school he’d never let himself imagine an actual date. Now it was as if the town was inviting him to think about it.

Zeki considered the poster again. He would have found the heart symbol and the feelings it evoked fascinating on any other day. His degree was in magical studies, with an emphasis in practical applications. Symbols and their attached meanings were naturally a part of that. But there wasn’t anyone out on the street he thought would be interested. Discussions with a frustrated former student and currently jobless wizard were not why these people had come to town, and frankly, none of the werewolves he’d known back in his high school days would have given a shit either. Magic, the kind humans practiced, was another thing weres did not do, or even talk about, if they could help it.

Zeki moved from the window and continued down Main Street, checking out the shops, looking at displays of kitschy werewolf-themed merchandise, and keeping an eye out for friendly faces without expecting to see any. He had not been a popular kid. But the move back to town had left him restless, so he’d thrown his things down, smiled as his dad had gone to work, then immediately grabbed his wallet and bolted from the house. He still wasn’t sure why. Zeki had never liked Wolf’s Paw, and the feeling seemed mutual.

He stopped to peer inside Robin’s Egg Café through the large front window facing Main Street. The café, which was really more of a diner, might be the only thing that hadn’t changed during his absence. He’d always liked Robin’s Egg. For a fairy, she was old and remarkably calm. She’d never failed to offer him a smile and extra cherries for his milkshakes.

Actually, now that he thought about it without the haze of adolescent angst and hormones, Zeki
had
liked Wolf’s Paw. The town was fine. Small, gossipy, but clean and fairly safe, all fresh air and a gorgeous view of the mountains. Carson, a slightly bigger town, was about forty minutes away if he needed privacy or a multiplex theater or a shopping mall, and the city a few hours farther than that if he wanted civilization.

The town wasn’t the problem.
Zeki
was the problem. Zeki had always been the problem, in any of the towns he and his dad had moved to when Zeki had been a kid. With his unusual name and his questions and his magic, Zeki had been the odd one out. It was due to fate that when he’d been all that
and
at his most physically awkward, he’d also been enduring puberty amid a school of large, athletic, beautiful werewolves.

He sighed at the thought and headed for the library, his own personal refuge in a town built as one. No surprise he’d left for college a virgin, considering he’d spent most of his weekends researching, preparing himself for the intensive study that being a fully trained wizard required.

But when he reached the library, he passed the doors without going in. Places could absorb a lot of emotion, and a lot of magic, and Zeki’s high school self hadn’t been leaking a lot of happiness into that building. He didn’t really need to revisit it, not on his first day back. He hadn’t returned to town to get lost in memories.

The bookshop attached to the library had a coffee shop. That was familiar too, mostly unchanged despite the years. Inside were an exquisite old copper espresso machine and a display of sugary treats more suited to fairies than werewolves. The variety and selection of sweet pastries was a change Zeki was happy to see, and he was pleased to see the owner himself behind the counter.

Marvin Elliot had never once minded Zeki sitting alone at his intimate tables for two with his attention on a printout of a grimoire, as long as Zeki bought something first. His surprise when Zeki walked in didn’t seem negative, although he blinked after he took in Zeki’s appearance.

“Zeki Janowitz,” Mr. Elliot greeted him, glancing down to Zeki’s tattoos. The ink was visible on Zeki’s neck and the backs of his hands. Zeki had on jeans and a cardigan over a T-shirt, nothing fancy—no robes ever, despite what humans still thought after years of dealing with open magic practitioners. He dressed better now, with more confidence. In high school Zeki had worn a lot of baggy shirts and loose sweaters, not wanting to be compared with the muscular werewolf bodies around him. Since then, he had lost some weight, mostly when he’d finally had that last growth spurt at nineteen. He almost reached six feet. Not as tall as a werewolf, but enough to mean he didn’t have to look up so much now. Between his height and his tats he must look almost like someone new.