Werewolf Wedding (18 page)

“Can, uh... can we stop?” I asked in the softest voice I possibly could use. “It hurts.”

I must’ve hit exactly the right note between deference and begging. He released my wrist, drawing his hand back dramatically, like he just touched the side of a hot Dutch oven and recoiled in pain.

“Sorry,” I murmured bashfully, making sure this big, strong man knew he was in complete control of hapless little Delilah. Shooting a glance at Greta, I caught her watching me. She flashed another almost imperceptible smile and went back to the kitchen. “Dane?” I made him face me with a little pleading in my voice. I was just about on the cusp of making myself sick from turning into the female movie archetype I hate the most, but when he looked down at me, completely and totally fooled, it was all worth it.

I took his hand and tugged him toward the door. “You’re so strong,” I said, hoping I wasn’t laying it on too thick. Although with this guy, I’m almost certain that no amount of slathered on ass-kissing or false deference would
ever
be too much, just like mayonnaise on a chicken sandwich. “I can’t believe I have you to take care of me.”

He looked around with such aplomb and swagger that I could smell the Axe Body Spray wafting off his muscled frame, and from his sure of himself smile, I thought he might be trying out for a cosmetic dentist commercial.

There it was again
, I thought. The same tic that he acquired when his stepmother had intimidated him – the little twitch in the corner of his mouth that made his cheek jumps lightly, there it was again. And then again as he looked at me, there it was. He couldn’t stand what was happening. The fact that he’d lost control of himself, that he’d showed emotion that was something other than John Wayne bullshit... he couldn’t handle it. Or maybe it was that as soon as he was no longer making a big, loud, violent scene, everyone just kind of stopped paying any attention to him?

I’ve known a thousand people like Dane, who seem like the biggest bad ass on the planet, but as soon as they have to face some uncomfortable reality or another one, they immediately lose the ability to do anything except either get unreasonably angry, or make callous jokes.

“What are all you slack-jawed hicks staring at?” he began, much louder than necessary. “Never seen how a
real man
handles himself?”

I could have rolled my eyes so hard they would pop out the back of my head and keep right on going. Instead, I kept my composure for the sake of staying alive and keeping my friends safe instead of indulging in my favorite hobby of sarcasm. “They just don’t know, Dane,” I said, trying to keep my snacks from earlier in my stomach instead of on the carpet.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding smugly as you please. “Everyone that
does
know already left. The rest of you sheep,” he paused, looking around. “I’d rather not have you on my side when it all comes down.”

Creepy Charlie Manson vibes notwithstanding, I could see how the weaker-minded of his cousins or... whatever they were, would fall for him. Dane had a powerful way of speaking, a booming voice, and that attitude that just screamed that he didn’t give a shit – how could he, since he was always right?

Of course, I knew his tells, I knew better than to think he believed his own bullshit. Or at least, I knew better than to think he bought
all
of his own bullshit. I’m sure he was definitely feeling himself on most of it. Greta was watching through the small service window between the kitchen and formal dining room, rolling the hem of her sweater back and forth between her thumb and forefinger so hard I was surprised the fabric hadn’t frayed.

As I was watching her, Dane snatched my wrist again, yanking me toward the door. “Come on, girl,” he hissed. “We got better folks to deal with than these ignorant hobos.”

I didn’t quite understand what that was supposed to mean, and from the looks on everyone else’s face, neither did they. Once we were back on his obnoxious motorcycle, I plucked a helmet off the back seat’s post, which he immediately knocked out of my hands. “You don’t have any brains anyway,” he sneered. “What the hell good is that gonna do you? Keep you pretty, I guess.”

I nodded and just sat, wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t have to wait long. I began to recognize the turns we were taking and the overpass exits he chose. “We’re going to Jake?” I asked.

“What better way to announce our mating, and my idiot brother’s complete and utter subjugation than by sending his ex-girlfriend to tell him the good news?”

I was chewing my lip so hard I thought it might bleed.
The only good news
, I thought, but dare not say,
is that I’ll get to see Jake. He’ll know what to do.

––––––––

“N
o. I’m not changing my mind. I made a deal with Dane, and I’m sticking to it. I can’t live without her, George, no matter what I said before, he got me and he knows it.”

Jake put the phone down on his desk and pushed his fingers into his temples so hard he was slightly afraid he’d punch through his skull. Ever since he’d promised the world to Dane, he’d had a headache. Somehow, he had chosen not to see the connection.

The voice on the other end was chirping so loudly he could still hear it even though the receiver was ten feet away and he was batting at golf balls as he threw them up in the air, one after another. White, dimpled orbs
thunked
against the wood paneling, and one of them hit the portrait of his dad and his red-nosed golfing buddies.
Wonder how many of them knew he bayed at the moon every so often and ran around that same golf course buck naked at night to hunt squirrels? And what the hell am I doing?

As Jake realized that he was becoming his father
way
too early, he tossed the putter harmlessly to the ground. It landed with a muffled thud on the thick, cushy red rug.

“You can’t!” the voice on the phone was high pitched, obnoxious, and Jake was concerned, had caused his headache. “The pack, Jake, the pack needs you.”

“So does the company, huh?” he shouted at the receiver on his desk.

“Pick up the phone,” the voice said.

“George, good God, my head hurts and you’re yelling at me,” Jake protested. His voice was growing stormy and thunderous.

The phone went dead. About two minutes later, she strolled right into his office. “Your head hurts, and you’re an idiot who is trying to turn his back on all his friends.”

Jake sighed very heavily. “If you don’t think I’ve—”

“Oh, I know,” she said, a little mocking twist in her voice. “Trust me, I know. You just want to get away from it all, right? You’re tired of living a life you never asked for?”

He shrugged, feeling a little sheepish at her surgical dissection. “I guess I—”

“My entire life has been helping
your
pack. Why?”

Jake shrugged.

“Because I stumbled into it when I was nineteen fuckin’ years old, and you guys became my family. Aside from Jonathan and the kids, you guys are all I have. Remember how we were friends our whole lives and then my parents died? Remember how at the beginning of high school your dad took me in? Remember that?”

Big hands with black hair on the backs lifted off a desk in a defensive gesture. “Okay, okay, I—”

“Nope, not done yet,” she said, picking one of the golf balls up off the floor and hurling it at Jake’s chest, although she missed.

“Good thing those are tempered,” Jake remarked as the ball bounced off one of the windows. “All I want is for me and Delilah to be—”

“
There’s
a laugh! You think so little of her that you honestly believe she’s going to not care about you turning your back on everything? I’m sure she’ll be really happy on the run from your crazy fucking brother and... oh wait a minute, wait just a minute.”

“What?” he took a step forward, then one back.

“You actually think he’s just going to keep up his end of the deal, don’t you? You’re actually that much of a dingus.”

“I don’t... dingus?” Jake chuckled. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Cute,” George said with a sneer. “Real cute. What happened to all your big shot talk about duty and honor and all that bullshit? That’s all it was, huh? Just bullshit. When life gets tough, just shrug and give it all up?”

“Are you sure you and Dilly haven’t been talking?”

George didn’t answer. Pointedly, she didn’t answer. Instead, she went straight to tugging on the curl of dark hair that normally fell right in front of her ear.

With werewolf speed, Jake was on her. He stiffened a single finger and drove it straight into a place between George’s eighth and ninth rib and jabbed her furiously.

“Ah!” she squawked, trying to throttle her laughter. “No! No! Ah God! Okay fine, fine, yeah. Stop!”

He gave his finger one more twist for good measure, digging deeper in her ribs. “Did you say something?”

They’d done this since they met. She’d taunt him with something, he’d tickle her until she started crying a little, then she’d relent and tell him whatever it was he wanted to know. It really is no wonder everyone always thought they were a thing. George knew better than to get mixed up with werewolves though.

“Quit!” she writhed around, managing to catch Jake in the side with one of her pointy, bony elbows. “Let go!”

Laughing at her struggle, and hurting in his side a little more than he expected to, Jake finally released his iron grip on his friend’s wrist. They were both breathing hard, both red-faced. “So,” he said, with as much composure as he could manage, “you and Dilly?”

George sat down – flopped more like – on the reclining sofa. She let out a huge exhale and crossed her arms over her stomach as she stretched. “I really do love this couch,” she said.

Jake stared at her. If life were
slightly
more cartoonish, he’d be tapping his foot or drumming his fingers on the desk.

“It’s so soft, you know? But at the same time...”

He growled.

“It’s soft, but...”

He growled again.

“Oh, fine!” she threw her hands over her head. “Yeah so we talked. What’s the harm in that? Your future wife, my future... uh... I dunno, friend in law?”

“Wait, what? When?” Jake asked.

“She called up here last week asking for you. I figured there’d only be one woman calling for you, and took a stab in the dark.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Forgot.”

Jake shook his head. “Anyway, sister is more like it,” Jake said with a grumble. “I’m closer to you than anyone else in my damn family.”

“We pick our friends,” she said, getting up and patting him on the shoulder. “Our families are just carefully crafted sets of problems. At least when it comes to werewolves. I’ve never understood one thing – and it’s the same thing Dilly didn’t get.”

“Which is?”

George bit her lip, trying to find the words. “Well, like with humans, if – just as a for instance – my brother decided to abandon the family for five years, go on a murder rampage across half the country and then come back to take over all the family’s assets?”

Jake arched an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“How blunt do you want me to be?” she asked, still chewing her lip. George wasn’t afraid of him by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t exactly insensitive when it came to pack business.

“Has it ever mattered?” he asked.

She thought for a second. “Yeah, well fair enough. To be blunt about it, we’d just tell him to fuck himself and go on with our lives. People don’t do that to people they care about. And if they do, it’s because they either think they can get away with it, or they’re some kind of pathological assface.”

“Wow,” Jake said, his face going blank. “Assface. Is that a technical term? Maybe some kind of psychiatric diagnosis I’m not familiar with?”

George pursed her lips and stuck her fists into her hips. “You know what I mean. If someone treated
my
family like that? The only thing they’d get if they decided to show up again is a restraining order.”

He began to pace. He
always
paced when something was bothering him, but this time the big werewolf’s head was hanging. Where he stepped, his bare feet either plopped against the marble floor, or left off-color streaks from pushing the carpet down. He was nodding, slowly, which to most people would make him look a little crazy, but George knew this was just how he processed information.

Jake glided over to his father’s desk, lifted one executive ball clacker ball, and let it snap into the others. He stooped over, elbows propped on the desktop, and watched the balls. At first just his eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, but soon his head was tilting in time with the silver orbs. A million thoughts were going through his head, although only on two subjects. First of them was Delilah. The second, his brother.

“I don’t think a restraining order would do very much against Dane and the pack idiots who think he’s some kind of second werewolf coming.”

Inadvertently, George snickered and snorted for a brief second before regaining her composure. “Sorry,” she said.

When Jake shot her a look, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “You said second werewolf
coming
,” she said apologetically. “And I’m a child.”

A puff of air escaped his nose, which was almost a laugh, but much less committed. “Anyway,” he continued, “my point is, that we can’t work within human laws. Werewolf laws – pack laws – are much older. Two thousand years, at least.”

“There’s another thing,” George cut in. “How can you not know exactly how old your laws are?”

“It gets a little fuzzy after the omegas,” omegas, George knew, were the original werewolves, “left Egypt. Not much of a trail until they showed back up in the packs we have now. But there’s a pretty good chance that
our
laws are as old as the pyramids, maybe older. What in the world would life be like if
human
laws were that old?”

“I’m sure there are more than a few politicians who wouldn’t mind being literal god-kings,” George said, sitting back down on the couch. Jake paced, she rose and sat.