The Last Werewolf (The Weres of Europe)

Evernight Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2012 Jennifer Denys and Susan Laine

ISBN:
978-1-77130-153-4

Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor: Lauren Fisher

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or
in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION
S

Jennifer Denys:

For my co-author, Susan. It has been a privilege and honor working with you on this book. I have learned so much about myself as a writer thanks to you, as well as enjoyed having the opportunity to get to know you much better than we would have otherwise. I am so glad we decided to go ahead when we said, “Are we really going to do this....?”

And for our wonderful friends, Tatum Throne and Angela Wray, who have also been through this eventful journey with us. Thank you for your support and encouragement. We couldn't have done it without you.

Susan Laine:

I dedicate this story to old friends and fellow authors who have become new friends.

To Jennifer without whom this story could not exist. Thank you. This project of ours has been such a fun ride and a wonderful learning experience, one I wouldn't change for the world.

To Tatum Throne who has shown me that a friendship of kindred spirits surpasses even great distances.

To Angela Wray who has given me a rare and precious glimpse into the life of a fascinating woman.

And to my Finnish best friends, Saara and Erna, who continuously support and care for me—even though I have been a no-show for so long that anyone else would have written me off as a hopeless recluse long ago.

THE LAST WEREWOLF

Jennifer Denys and Susan Laine

Copyright © 2012

Chapter One

“
I’m the last werewolf
.”

That thought kept going through Summer Harrison’s head as she traveled south to her father’s home in
London
—her
late
father’s home.

Just a few short hours ago she’d received a phone call from the hospice her father, Robert, had gone into for a respite from his struggle against cancer, to say that he had died in the night. Even knowing that he was going to die at some stage, her heart had still been torn into pieces. It had been just her dad and herself for such a long time. He was her entire family, and she utterly adored him. Living so far from home—well, her dad’s house, but she still called it home since it was where she grew up, and as such the place of many happy memories—she had cherished each and every visit these last few years.

Raising her head Summer had noticed the phone was lying on the floor where she dropped it when her knees gave out and she slumped to the floor in a heap, her body shaking with the intensity of her anguish. She had a violent urge to kick the phone against the wall, as if by doing so she would get revenge on it for imparting such awful news. 

“Dammit, Dad, we could have had more time together if you hadn’t smoked.”

Her anger at the habit that cost him his life then gave way to guilt that she lived so far away. But that was because of her job. Summer worked in a university in the north of
England
as a sports coach and had debated long and hard about taking the job in the first place, but it had been a wonderful opportunity.
You encouraged me to take up the post, even though it meant being so far apart.

Shaking her head to clear these bizarre, conflicting emotions of anger and guilt, Summer sat up and wiped her face as she thought back to the times she had been able to visit her father. They loved to talk about current affairs, although he had a tendency to wind her up by taking the opposing view even though his beliefs were the same as hers on most things.

On one trip they had argued about the re-introduction of the death penalty. Since he had raised her by himself, many of her principles and views came from him, so she knew full well he didn’t really want the death penalty brought back. Nonetheless, those loving talks—as they weren’t real arguments in any sense of the word—just proved that they were of like minds, ideals, and sensibilities. Robert had been not only Summer’s dad, but her idol in many ways.

After composing herself, as much as someone as grief-stricken as she was could do, she had gone into her kitchen and, with trembling hands, made herself a cup of tea.

“Thank God for tea in times like this.”

Curling her hands around the cup in an attempt to warm them, Summer sat at her kitchen table for some time as grief lessened and the welcome relief of numbness took over.

Finally she wandered back to the hall and picked up the discarded phone to discuss time off from work with her employers. She felt dazed as she spoke to her supervisor, hardly able to take in his kind words of condolence. Thankfully, it was near the end of term, so she was granted several weeks’ leave.

Shaking her head she then replaced the phone in its proper place. Her mind was so foggy she wasn’t sure she could concentrate on work at the moment anyway. She desperately tried to think what she needed to do and frowned when she wandered into her spare room which doubled as a dumping ground for everything from clothes to books to anything that she didn’t have time to put away properly.

“Where the hell did I put the suitcase?” She looked in the obvious place and it wasn’t there. “Dammit I don’t need this.” Rubbing her hands over her face, she tried to concentrate and remembered she had put it under her bed.

A few hours later she was on her way to her father’s home to sort out his funeral, although she figured there would be precious few attending. Summer scrunched her face as she deliberately avoided seats where other people were sitting, wanting to find a secluded spot. Amazingly the train was fairly quiet, and she found a seat where the nearest person was several places away.

With her father’s death she was the last werewolf. There was no one left of her family. And she was destined to be the last of her line, even the last one in the whole world for all she knew, because she’d never get involved with a man just to have children, and that made her feel so lonely. At least, she wouldn’t get intimate with anyone for more than one night. She liked sex too much to give it up entirely.

She giggled—a noise that sounded alien in her raw emotional state—thinking that her dad would never have allowed her to marry anyway. He had always disapproved of any male friends she had. She shook her head. She was never quite sure if it was because he was being a typical dad, and no man was going to be good enough for his only daughter, or if he was worried that she was going to give her husband a death bite instead of a love bite.

Barking out a louder laugh she turned her head away from the person further down the train who glanced in her direction, not in the mood to make eye contact, though he was rather cute. She admitted to herself that the reason she wasn’t going to settle down with any man was because there was no way she could marry them and then on the wedding night as she draped herself against him sensuously drawl, “Oh, by the way, darling, I should warn you that there is every chance I could rip your throat out in the middle of the night.”

Summer had this recurring dream of laughingly straddling a lover, maybe her husband, as they tumbled onto their bed. Naturally she would be on top, pushing him back as he tried to gain ascendancy, her firm athletic thighs holding his hips tightly, using her excellent upper body strength, borne from her werewolf genes as much as her profession, to hold his arms down as she eased herself down onto his hard, throbbing cock.

He would chuckle at her determination and give up, relaxing back to let her accustom herself to his size before she started to ride him, slow at first, rocking gently backward and forward as her juices moistened her channel, getting faster as their bodies became slick with sweat. His hands would caress her quivering body, stroking her flank and then reaching up to pluck her hard, pointed nipples. Her hands, meanwhile, would caress the magnificent pecs of his hairless chest and his wonderful firm six-pack. Her chosen would be as fit as she, of course.

As they moved in time-honored fashion, the moans, whimpers, and cries of their mutual passion would echo around the room as their orgasm grew inexorably to its climax.

It was a wonderful vision—and then it turned into an inevitable nightmare when she leaned forward in the throes of passion, her claws emerging as she gripped his shoulders, holding him tightly, fiercely, as she pumped him rapidly up and down, desperate to reach the final hurdle, and fur suddenly began to sprout all over her body, her fangs dropping as her face tightened.

When she smiled down at him all she could see was a look of absolute horror on his face as his body tensed in deathly fear, his arms desperately trying to push her away, and in that moment her passion—and her fantasy—died a quick death.

She snorted to herself and shuffled in her seat, unable to settle down and get comfortable. Actually if any man ever attempted to say, “You’re looking rather hairy tonight, dear,” she really would do him mortal injury. Not one to worry about having a big butt, she was rather conscious of her fur covering. Women who complained about having to shave their legs had nothing to worry about.

Slouching back against her seat, she tried to drum up a smile at her own joke, but her throat was still clogged with unshed tears. Swallowing several times to clear her airway, she turned to look out of the window of the train taking her from her home in York not really seeing the verdant landscape with its new spring leaves and the yellow of the rapeseed as she pondered how her mother had coped with being married to a werewolf.