Change For Me (Werewolf Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) (9 page)

“Go!” he roared, startling me out of the lull into which I’d fallen. “Go and don’t... look back... mate!”

The wolf lurched again, sat down then stretched his back. He opened his jaws, snapped them shut.

Through all of it, I couldn’t force myself to turn away. My dream came back in a burst of memory. The disjointed scenes played out immediately in my mind. I watched him for a second longer, then recalled the last moment of the dream; his body trembling against mine. Was this the same? The same half-wolf monster? Was this... no, it couldn’t be Damon. That, I decided out of all the things happening, that was where it just went too crazy.

“You’re my,” I swallowed. “You came for me, didn’t you?” I reached out again and he snapped then recoiled. This time though, I didn’t retreat. I knew, somehow I
knew
that he wouldn’t hurt me, even if he couldn’t control himself.

It wasn’t pain he wanted to inflict upon me, not at all.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

The monster writhed around, his legs thickening with every passing second, the fur on them thinning, falling out, and vanishing before my eyes.

“You came for me.” My voice was almost accusing. “You visited my dreams last night and made me come out here. And now you tell me to run? No,” I said. “I won’t do it.”

My words were strong and sure, but my knees were just about hitting together they were shaking so hard.

“If I’m to be your mate, at least tell me your name,” I said. Talking, somehow, was keeping me from giving completely in to fear. Or was it fear? I shook my head. It wasn’t fear I felt, no, not at all.

I felt lust burning in my stomach, twisting me in knots. I wanted the creature before me, with the mighty muscles and wild, furious strength so badly it hurt.

He punched the ground with slightly clenched paws, scratching his claws into the hardscrabble dirt. “My name...,” he gave in to another fit of clawing and snorting before he managed to focus. “No, can’t say... can’t remember.” There was a hint of sadness behind the fury in his voice.

But I knew that if what grandpa said was true, and at that point, it seemed to me that anything might be true, he wasn’t stuck in this form, not forever. I took another halting step forward and reached out a hand.

Clawing and sputtering, the man-beast pulled back and shook with rage.

He charged, and the instant before he took me off my feet, I felt his teeth close around my wrist, stopping just short of breaking my skin, but clamped down so that I wasn’t going to escape even if I wanted.

I pulled, almost like I was wrestling with a friend. The look in his eyes was desperate when he let go of me and I fell backwards, thumping against the ground, hard. I grunted, and at the sound, the beast recoiled, once again looking very afraid, almost pitiful.

“N... no, Lily, no, please go.” He said. There was almost a whimper in his voice as he pleaded with me to leave. “This... isn’t right, isn’t...”

He twisted left and then right, fell into a sticker bush, and fell on his side after a brief tussle to get free. A bit of blood spotted his half-gone fur, and I rushed to his side, tearing off a piece of my shirt to wipe his cuts. He turned to face me, with a pleading, thankful look in his eyes.

His eyes, they’re...

I stood up quickly, amazed at what I’d seen. Green, with little gray flecks running from his pupils to the edge of his irises, just like... “Damon?” I said with a hitch in my throat. “Is that... is that you?”

Bending over I dabbed at his wound again and sat down on my knees. “If it is you, everything’s okay, I just,” my voice trailed off. “Wow, this is—”

“Me...” he groaned and twisted, climbing first to his knees, then to his feet. “I’m... no, Lily, I can’t do this to you. You have... a life... not this... I...”

“No! Damon!” I shouted after him, my hand falling off his shoulder, a piece of my shirt stuck to the bloody cut on his back. “Don’t run! I can’t have you right here then have you gone, not again! You have to stop doing this to me!”

Again? Did I just say that?

He jumped, straight off the side of the bluff.

“No!” I shouted again, running to the side where he’d leapt. Steeling myself for the worst, when I peered over, there was nothing below, no broken body, no injured Damon limping off, he was just
gone
. “Where did you go? Why?”

I sucked a breath, pulling my shoulders to my ears and then slumped over, suddenly exhausted. “You came here... for me?”

None of it made any sense. This roving pack of wolves that I remembered appearing three times through my whole life, and Damon was one of them?

No, I just can’t believe it. Just can’t do it. There’s no way.

I laughed softly. What else could I do? Werewolves? Half-human monsters? Even with all the stories Grandpa told me, I hadn’t believed any of that stuff. Not really.

Looking down, though, Damon’s blood was on my fingertips where I’d dabbed him with my shirt. A chill shot through me when a desert wind hit my exposed skin. Hot day, cold skin. I shivered again, holding my elbows.

Up above, a small airplane buzzed past, a puffy fuel trail in its wake. I was just thankful for the brief respite from being lost in my own head. The reflective silver sped across my field of vision, before disappearing behind a bluff.

––––––––

I
hadn’t seen Damon for almost a week. Even stranger, all those admittedly – though embarrassingly – eager and exciting dreams stopped too.

Somehow I just put it all out of my mind. I needed to get something done with my story for the
Times
and I still needed to deal with Caitlyn Hodges, who was calling and texting me more than she had in the ten years we’d known each other. She got a little nuttier every time, but she never showed up again.

Grandpa kept saying she was going crazy from the stress of school and everything else, and that made a certain amount of sense. After seeing Damon though, I had my doubts that he and Devin had just had a little scuffle.

Fucking trauma.

Every single time, it does this to me.

When my parents died all those years ago, it was like I convinced myself that life was totally normal a week after they were gone. I don’t think I ever really dealt with it. I didn’t have any time.

I started that year, fourth grade, without missing a beat. I had to get good grades, keep on top of the class, and on and on. Of course, then I got over my denial in a pretty massive way when my sophomore year started.

I unloaded on Damon like they died a week before we met. I couldn’t stop myself. It just came in a torrent of tears, crying and screaming that lasted most of a month. When it was all over, my ambition, my drive, and my grades stopped mattering at all.

Just quit giving a shit. Just gave up on it. Well, on everything except my newspaper stuff, but everyone with any sense will tell you that’s not going to pay the bills. I guess I couldn’t see any real way out of Fort Branch, so it didn’t make any sense to me to keep killing myself. I’d never be able to afford Harvard, and I wasn’t going to get a scholarship like Caitlyn, so why even try at all?

Dumb way to think, I guess, but try telling that to a boy-crazy thirteen year old girl.

Crazy for boys but too shy to do anything about it, that’s me. Until Damon came along, anyway, there was a ten-foot wall around me.

With him it was different though, it was from the very start. He came from the desert in California, some little town in So-Cal a hundred miles or so from LA, and changed my whole world the first time I saw him. It was stupid, really, but whatever. From the very beginning, I felt like we were connected, like we understood each other.

I never much felt like I belonged in Fort Branch, and since he was literally the only person who moved
in
to town through my entire school career, we were two lost souls that found each other.

And then, of course, he never did anything. He was so achingly slow that even in the worst of my throes, he seemed to either not want me, or just not understand that I was hurling myself at him.

“Ugh,” I moaned, pushing myself up off the bed and stared out the window for a moment as I sniffed the air. The smell of eggs, bacon, and grandpa’s pancake mix floated up the stairs and under my door.

I tried to dress as fast as humanly possible. I needed some of those eggs.

At the exact instant I buttoned my jeans, there went my phone, buzzing so hard against the random coins and junk underneath it that I just about hit the floor and let out a “Jesus!” and bounced off the bed.

I rolled to the side and grabbed by phone off my nightstand in a move that would have made a ninja proud. I laughed at my own deftness, forgetting about the fact that it only happened because I almost broke my ass, when the phone buzzed again.

Guess I have to answer someday
.

“Lily?” It was Caitlyn, but she sounded a lot less, uh, irritated than I was used to her sounding. “Are you there?”

Her voice was thick, like she either had a cold, or was crying.

“Lily? Please answer, please, I just,” she let out a choked gulp, and then a sob.

It took every fiber of effort I could muster not to say something really cruel. I was just so sick of her constant texts.

I swallowed both my pride, and a gulp of water to get the morning frog out of my throat. “Yeah, sorry, allergies. What’s going on?”

“I know,” she stopped every few seconds to let out another sobbing burst. “I – I know it’s early and I,” another sniff and a cough. She had it bad, whatever it was. “I’m so, so sorry, but can you... I don’t even know why I’m asking, I—”

“Slow down Cat, I can barely understand you,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster. “If there’s an emergency call the police.”

Great line, perfect advice, I’m sure she never thought of that
. It was the best thing I could think to say at the time though.

“No,” she pressed on, fighting through the tears, “it’s nothing like that, it’s Devin, he...”

“Is he hurt?”

Another wave of crying wracked Caitlyn then she sniffed and caught her breath for a moment. “Yes but that’s not what I’m calling for.” Cat took a long, slow breath, in and out. “He came back and he’s hurt but it’s just cuts and scrapes. Lily, he’s,” she trailed off again.

I knew what she was about to say before she talked. An uncomfortable, nauseous wave of deja vu passed through me while she took another calming breath.

“He’s gone... crazy, Lily. He can’t calm down. He’s going from totally normal to like, I dunno, wild or something. Over and over, he just,” she quieted and I heard a scream from somewhere distant, like someone was pounding on a wall or a door near her. The voice was screaming my name.

Of course it was. Five years of wanting a boy I liked to get excited over me and now I had two of them. Well okay, one of them I liked quite a bit less than the other, but there was still a little bit of a thrill to it, as sad as that was.

I clenched my eyes tight and pushed my fingers into them.
All I wanted was some pancakes.
“Okay, two things before you say whatever you’re going to say. I don’t know why your boyfriend is screaming my name but –”

“I don’t care about that Lily, I don’t care,” she sucked a breath. “There’s... Lily, I know I’ve been kind of nasty to you but please help me, please come and talk to him. I don’t know what’s going on but I just want it to stop, okay?” Her voice had gone quiet. She’d cried herself out and went all the way back around to rational.

The address she gave was around a ten minute drive from where grandpa and I lived, but I recognized the street. In a place like Fort Branch, there’s always a nice part, and you always know the streets that make it up.

Naturally, Cat lived on the most expensive one.

Throwing that tidbit aside, I jotted down the address and told her I’d be there in a few minutes.

I tromped down the stairs to find Grandpa Joe drinking his coffee, sitting at a table made up with two plates. God
damn
did I want some of those pancakes.

“I’m... so sorry about this, but I can’t stay for breakfast. Caitlyn Hodges just called me and she needs some help,” I said, trying really hard not to smell the food. “Is it okay if I take the Bronco?”

Grandpa fluttered his eyebrows. “Take the what?”

“Sorry. Can I take Betty for a bit?”

“Say her whole name, Leroy. She gets cranky otherwise.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “All right, fine,” I said as I grabbed a pancake, stuffed it with a fried egg, two pieces of bacon, and took a bite of my fluffy burrito. “May I take Betty Boop for a drive? I promise she’ll return without a scratch. Hopefully.”

It was hard to think of anything except for Damon and Devin utterly destroying each other. Damon was big and strong enough to do some really horrible damage, even without his, uh, claws.

He tossed me the keys. “Be careful. You know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks Grandpa,” I said. “You’re the best.”

“I know,” he said back. “Get gone, your friend needs you.”

Friend? I’m not so sure about that.

*

I
n any other town, the houses on Crest Street would have cost in the millions, but here, the only one that I remembered selling for anything near that much was exactly the address I stopped in front of. When it sold, the town was all excited about it. Almost as excited as when then Jack-in-the-Box opened by the movie theater.

Money never made me jealous. It was like this external thing that didn’t even really occur to me to think about until I saw it. Compared to the way my grandpa and I lived, this place might as well have been the King of Jordan’s palace.

I shook my head and hopped out of the Bronco just in time to hear something that could only be described as an unkind scream.

“Cat! Get over here! Now!”

Devin. He’s in a rage all right
.

I ran to the front door, and put my hand on the knob. Just then, a body hit the door, jolting it backwards against me so hard I fell off the porch and rolled. Devin Cline took one step out of the house, then Cat grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back inside before slamming the door.