Change For Me (Werewolf Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) (17 page)

Damon absently scrubbed at the table, spraying it with whatever the acrid yellow stuff was in his spray bottle.
They couldn’t be talking about Devin, could they? No way he’s already up and causing problems again
.

“Damndest thing,” a third voice chimed in. “It wasn’t so much like there was a hole punched in that gas station wall, it was more like a cannon blew through it. Concrete was just, I dunno, splattered all over the floor.”

One of them ate a nacho, another one whistled. “Yeah, I saw it. It was—” he paused. Damon’s ears perked up and he froze. “It was like, you know, powder.”

Damon chewed his lip. Only one thing was strong enough to punch a hole through a cinderblock wall and turn it into powder. A gun couldn’t do it unless it was from a tank. He knew it had to be Devin, and he also knew that if his rival managed to undergo his transformation ritual
first
, then there wasn’t a damn think that could be done about it. The Skarachee would have to convene to handle a wild Carak alpha.

They didn’t control their own people. They thought they shouldn’t have to bother. Poko had brought Damon up to understand that the Skarachee wolves existed to protect, not to run wild and feed their own vicious desires. The Skarachee, he learned, had for thousands of years, been in charge of keeping the Carak in check.

And soon, he knew that it would all be his problem.

“Hell if I know,” one of the police said. “But something sure as shit busted that wall in. Weirdest thing is what was missing from inside. No money, nothing like that. Just food. Lots and lots and lots of food. Must’ve eaten about forty of those crispy burrito things.”

“I’m sure that set well,” another of them said.

The little group laughed. “Well boys,” the biggest-bellied one, with the mustache, said as he pushed away from the table. “I’m thinking it is just about time to kick on outta here. That fella workin’ probably wants to get our dishes for the dinner rush.”

“Huh. Half of four already,” another one said.

Damon’s breath caught in his chest. A cold sweat beaded up on his forehead and he tried to keep calm. Slowly, he forced his lungs full, then empty. Willing his heart to slow, the way Poko showed him, he thought he’d calmed himself enough.

Pop!

A glass that he’d just picked up exploded in his hand. One second, his slashed palm bled a river down his arm, and the next moment, the cut sealed. Damon looked down just in time to see the gout of blood begin soaking into his sleeve before he managed to mop it up with a dishtowel.

“You all right, son?” One of the cops called over. “Hell of a—”

“No, no, it’s nothing,” Damon said. He tied his towel around his hand, play acting like it was necessary. “Hazard of the job, I guess. Hand cuts bleed the worst, even if they’re not that bad.”

He couldn’t help himself. Damon just had to know.

“I’m sorry to have listened in to your talking,” he said to the police officer who asked about his hand as the others gathered their belongings. “But I have a friend who works at Lottie’s.”

“The... oh,” the officer’s voice grew quiet. “Really not supposed to talk about that, bein’ as how it’s an open investigation. Don’t blame you for listening though, crazy story, that one. Nothing ever happens here in Fort Branch, except roadrunners getting hit, I guess.”

Damon grunted in response. “Is there anything you can tell me because,” he paused. “Look, I’m really nervous about my buddy. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. Could you at least tell me if anyone was hurt?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh come on, Neely,” another of the officers said, coming up beside the one speaking with Damon. “It ain’t gonna hurt anything to keep this kid’s mind at ease. Yes, son, someone was hurt, but I doubt it was your friend.”

“What?” Damon asked. “But who – how do you know?”

The cop lifted his shoulders in a shrug, and relaxed them with a sigh. “It was an older fella working on Tuesday. I can’t remember his name off hand. Peter, something like that. Anyway, yeah, older guy in his sixties. Balding with a ponytail.”

“You said he was hurt?”

“Worse than that, I’m afraid. Real bad situation. Fella didn’t make it.”

Damon gritted his teeth so hard he heard the enamel grating in his ears.

The officer stuck a toothpick in his mouth. “Don’t tell me the old guy was your friend?”

“No,” Damon said. “Just... it’s nothing. I can’t believe someone did that to someone else.”

The police, both of them, nodded. “Real tragedy. But now remember. Like Neely said, it’s still under investigation, so don’t go saying anything to anyone. Understand?”

“Yes sir,” Damon replied. “Of course. Thanks for letting me know.”

Damon watched the cops get their stuff, and drop a couple twenties on the table. From across the room, he could read the print on the bills. That stuck in the back of his mind, but he had other things to consider.

The first of them was that if Devin was on the loose, that meant the Carak alpha was tearing around town, and if he was causing as much carnage as the police said, then his transformation was soon – if it wasn’t already happening.

That was bad. It meant a war if he couldn’t stop Devin. A war the Skarachee probably wouldn’t be able to win with an inexperienced alpha and dwindling numbers scattered to the winds.

“Lily,” he said under his breath, as he put the dish bucket down on the ground. “Oh no, no, no.”

Damon threw the bloody towel on top of a plate, then thought maybe that was a health hazard, grunting as he stuffed it back in his pocket.

Aside from the transformation ritual, there was one other thing that an alpha needed to complete his coming of age.

A mate.

“Lily,” he whispered again, clenching his recently healed fingers into a fist so tight his knuckles went white with rage. “I’m not going to let this happen. Never.”

Damon looked through the kitchen window at his boss, who was passively jabbing a pencil at a ledger while watching a TV judge berate someone for fathering children they couldn’t afford and then pretending he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Dan laughed, maybe a little too hard, as Damon pushed out the back door and into the blistering white of the Arizona sun. The motorcycle between his legs was still warm, either from the sun or from being ridden an hour before. Either way it felt good.

It felt safe.

“You’re not going to hurt Lily,” Damon said under his breath as he stood up and kicked the gas. “I’ll kill you first.”

Damon hated to think what Poko would have said about his swearing to kill if Lily was threatened.

Somehow, in that moment, he just didn’t care.

*

D
amon’s mind flickered, faded, jumped and pulled as he approached Lily’s house.

He had vague memories that browned out, then came into focus, then squiggled out of his vision. Poko warned him about this. Something about the wolf vision blurring the lines between real and dream. The elder told him he’d go through blackouts, wake up in places he didn’t remember, but this was a new sensation.

His bike’s engine slowed to a drawling putter, and when he finally killed it, Damon felt like he was somewhere he didn’t recognize, though it was a place he’d been a thousand times before.

Not a hundred feet away on his left was Lily’s house. His safe place, his comfort, the only person in the world he needed to see, to make sure she was okay.

In the opposite direction lay a small field. Some short desert grass and a couple of rogue daffodils sprang up defiantly from the rocky, orange dirt. When he looked at that little clearing, his mind instantly shut off.

Damon jerked his head back and forth, almost panicked but not quite. He could still remember who he was, or at least who he was supposed to be. Even though he could no longer recall whose house he was at, it was a safe place for him to be. Looking back at the field, more blackness spread out behind his eyes until all he could visualize was the fire in the cave.

The cave. Need to hide, need to sleep, or run, or...

“Damon?” A voice called out. It wasn’t the one he needed to hear, it was a man’s voice. Old, but not Poko old. “Meathead Donnie? Is that you? We’ll I’ll be...”

Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I think? That voice, that nickname, is sounds familiar, but...

“It
is
you! There’s a face I haven’t seen in a while. Come on in, I just made some tea. Real cold.” The voice had an arm that followed it, and touched Damon’s shoulder.

“You okay? It’s me, Joe – you remember me, don’t you? Lily’s grandfather.”

“Lily,” Damon stuttered. He blinked hard, then clenched his eyes shut and shook his head.

The taste came back into his mouth and a moment later, memory returned in a flush of color that threatened to outshine the sun for a split second.

“It can’t be... can it?” Joe’s kindly eyes went back and forth. “Hold on a sec, let me see this.”

He drew close and looked straight into Damon’s eyes, and then let out a satisfied grunt. “Can you focus?”

“Y – yeah,” Damon said as his stupor lifted. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t know what happened, I just felt this... wave or something kinda come over me. Is Lily here? I need to see her, I—”

Joe grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the house. “No, she’s not, but she’ll be back shortly, and you need to come in. You’re probably about ten degrees hotter than you should be.”

Inside the house, the air conditioner immediately cooled sweat that Damon didn’t know he’d poured. It felt like ice running down his chest, forcing him back to reality. He shook his head again, clearing the rest of the cobwebs.

“Thanks, I really appreciate this.” Damon rolled the huge glass around in his hand, watching the condensation roll over his fingers. He took a drink that turned into a gulp, and before long he drained the whole thing in one go. “Is there any—”

“More?” Joe smiled and poured him full again. “Lily, she’s running off some pictures she found. For the story she’s writing, she probably told you about it.”

Damon shook his head, immediately feeling guilty. He’d been so volatile that Lily hadn’t done a whole lot of talking about anything lately.

“You’ve been in a way, I suppose. Happens to the best of us.”

Looking up from his glass, Damon cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, you know what I mean.” The old man smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Not exactly
all
of us. We go way back, which I bet you don’t know. I think he talked to Lily about it during one of her trips to that cave. You know, I told that old bastard he was going to catch a cold in there, but I suppose it does him well enough.”

“I’m sorry, I...”

“Oh, you don’t have to play dumb with me. I’ve been here a long time, son. A long,
long
time. I remember Pokorann when he was about as strapping as you. Of course, at the time he was, what, about seven hundred years old or so? I guess the last forty really do a number on everyone. Forty-five maybe? Hell, I can’t remember anymore.”

Damon’s mouth fell open. “I thought that was something kept secret, I had no idea.”

A wizened, almost spry smile crept across Joe’s face. “I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the whole business, just what he told me, and like I said, it was a long, long time ago. But listen.”

“Yes sir?”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. If you ever need a friend, or a place to lay your head, my door is always open. Except you’ve got one thing that Poko never did. There is one extra thing that makes you more dear to me than you are even my old friend.”

“Sir?”

“Lily,” Joe answered. “She’s done nothing but talk about you for the last month. Anyone my little girl loves as much as she does you, well, I’ll just leave it at that. Old people flap their gums too much.”

Joe shook the pitcher and topped Damon’s glass.

She loves me? Still? Even after everything I did?

In the other room, the television buzzed with a news alert. Both Damon and Joe turned to see what it was.

“These things have popped up more in the last week than I remember in all my years,” Joe said, scratching his chin. “At least since your grandpa Poko and that crazed wild’un he faced off against. Back then there was barely television though. I got my news about that scuffle from patching Poko up since he wouldn’t go to the hospital. Damn good thing I learned how to sew up a cut in the war.”

Damon grunted a laugh. “Wouldn’t need to do that with me,” he said. “That’s my gift. I heal. But I’m nowhere near as strong as my elder. Poko is... well, I’m scared to replace him. I don’t know how I’ll manage. He’s wiser than I can imagine anyone being.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Joe said. “Anyway, he’s got about seven centuries on you. Hard to compare to that sort of experience.”

“Does Lily know? I mean, she knows about me,” Damon said with a worried look on his face. “But does she know the rest about you and my elder and all that?”

Joe laughed and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Well, all I can say is I told her some stories. Now, whether or not she believes them? That’s a whole different story.”

––––––––

I
pushed the hair out of my face and tried to tie it back. Eight seconds later, I pulled the rubber band out, put it in again, and pulled it back out.

Sitting at one of the big, square, four-seat tables, I had somehow still managed to pile up photograph books, mounds of old folk tales, reel-to-reel tapes I could barely understand, and a whole mess of some weird microfiche things that I had to wait on a guy researching his family tree to use. The library, of course, only had one microfiche machine.

“You know how it goes, first time in a year someone wants to use that thing, and then twenty minutes later someone else wants it,” the librarian said, in between double-gulps of coffee. She was probably the only person in the world more stressed out than me, judging from the circles under her eyes.

Between nursing him back to health, and then our can’t-take-a-werewolf-to-physiotherapy physical rehab sessions where I spent entire days walking him back and forth in the cave and coaxing Damon through all kinds of exercises, I’d put this story off for way too long.