The idea of Felicia not being a hunter was certainly appealing, but how much of that was just wistful thinking? I was so turned about inside my mind. My embarrassment at how fast I’d peeled out of her place was growing by the second. Should I have laughed it off? Pretended she was crazy? Heard her out? Had my panic and fear of failure overridden everything?
“Hey, I know this is a lot. Why don’t I walk you to your cabin and then you can sleep on this? There’s nothing you can do about it right now. It’s amazing what rest can do to remedy a bad situation.”
I nodded dully, so incredibly grateful for my best friend. While I was particularly apt at catastrophizing, he was definitely a glass-half-full kind of guy. I needed that.
“Okay,” I said, and then the two of us made the short walk across our yards to my place. But before I could enter, Chris embraced me.
“It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I’ve got a feeling about this, okay?”
“Okay,” I repeated, this time with more steadiness to my voice. The endless dread and fear that I’d doomed those I loved was waning, but now my mind was swirling around what it would mean if Felicia was just a regular human who figured everything out.
“Goodnight, Cas.”
“Night, Chris.”
“You sure you’re gonna be all right? I can crash on your couch.”
“No, I’m good. I promise. Getting some sleep will help everything.”
“Sounds good. But if you need me, just give me a howl.”
“Roger.”
He walked off, and I entered my dark cabin, trying to convince myself that everything was going to be okay. But as I collapsed into my bed, I couldn’t get Felicia’s scent out of my nose.c20W
Felicia
One Hell of a Hunch
Huh, so I’d guessed right.
I hadn’t really expected that outcome, and I didn’t know what had prompted me to drop the bomb like I did, but Cas’s reaction had proved my suspicions to be true. Part of me was in shock, because he’d ran out of here like his ass was on fire, but I was still so full of those amazing feelings he’d drawn out of me that I wasn’t all that bothered.
I figured he’d had to keep things a secret for a really long time, so it must have been pretty alarming when a random woman figured it out. It was perfectly natural for him to panic. Hopefully, he’d text me in a few days when he realized I wasn’t a danger to him. Sure, maybe I would be the first one to message him, but I knew enough to recognize that it was far too early for me to extend that bridge.
Despite his very abrupt exit, I still had hope. Perhaps that was why I picked his shirt up off the ground and decided to sleep with it. Despite the shock of everything, I was pretty exhausted and ready to sleep.
As I settled into bed, I wished his warm body was still next to me, that his warm breath was on my neck. Hopefully, with a little time, a little patience, and a fewer life-changing revelations involving bar soap, we’d be able to do it again. Only time would tell.
I had a whole lot to think about in the meantime.
I woke up with Cas’s shirt tangled up in my arms, defying my very first conscious thought, which was that last night’s craziness had been all a dream. Nope, it was real. The wonderful date. The best sex of my life. Cas pulling a runaway bride off into the night. I’d heard of “wham-bam thank you ma’am”, but he’d taken it to a new level.
I wanted to lie in bed and contemplate the fact that werewolves were real, but I had a bakery to run. After allowing myself ten minutes to come to terms with my new reality, I got up and started my morning routine.
And if I did spend what spare time I had looking up more things online… Well, that was my business. Maybe also the business of my printer since I had to spend twenty minutes unjamming it after trying to print out an article about a millennia-long conflict between ancient witch covens and fairy conclaves.
There was a surprising amount of information to be had, but half of it directly conflicted with the other half, and a truly incalculable percentage seemed convinced that the government was involved in the cover-up of magical beings as some sort of psy-op. I was sure that wasn’t the case. Cas didn’t really seem like a government man, but what did I know? I’d just found out that werewolves existed.
Unless… unless he was just freaked out because I’d suggested he was some sort of animal. Maybe he just had a deep and abiding fear of furries, and I’d triggered him. Stranger things had happened.
Like sleeping with a probable werewolf and not being that concerned about it.
I knew I should have been a lot more worried about our intermingling, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t really explain why, but something inside me refused to believe Cas would purposefully hurt me. If there were negative consequences to our coupling, I fully believed he wouldn’t have let it happen. He didn’t seem like the type who would let harm come to anyone just so he could get his rocks off-at least not without consent.
My mind immediately supplied a thought of his teeth sinking into my skin at very specific places, or his claws nicking me as he held me tightly, and I was entirely onboard. Which was kind of surprising. I’d never thought BDSM was my thing, but maybe I had a tiny streak of masochism in me, because thinking of Cas being a little rough had blood rushing to my cheeks and my underwear growing damp.
Not the right time, girl, I chided as I piped raspberry frosting between layers of the mini-cake. It was more of a summery flavor, but I figured the promise of warmth would be perfect if an adventurous customer came in.
“Focus, Felicia.”
I did. For a time, at least. But whenever I had a few minutes to myself, I was looking at my phone for more articles and message boards.
As confusing as it all was, by the time closing rolled around, I had come to a concrete conclusion: werewolves were not evil by nature. They were just like humans in the fact that there were lovely ones, horrible ones, and plenty of neutral ones.
I was certain of where the McCallisters fit.
Even with the full force of my creative imagination, I couldn’t imagine Penny or Polly being evil, bloodthirsty creatures who ripped innocent people limb from limb. Nor could I imagine the pile of young wolves I’d cuddled with hunting down a human.
No, if they were werewolves, they were lovely ones.
The real question was… did I even care?
I didn’t think so.
So what if they were mythical creatures? What did it matter? In fact, it was actually pretty cool. Other than wondering about the complications of being a shapeshifter in the modern age, the whole thing seemed pretty irrelevant to me.
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