Life’s Spiced Up with Some Werewolf Reads

Chapter 18 – Beastly Tenderness

“Ahwooooooo!” he yanked at her wrist with both hands.

“Ah, come on. You love it,” she said, gripping tighter.

“Lemme go!”

Esmé called from the living room. “What’s going on?”

Vivian glanced toward the door. She was startled to see Gabriel standing there. His eyes sparkled with laughter and his teeth gleamed white.

Vivian released Rafe. “Nothing, Mom. Just fooling around. Huh, Rafe?”

Rafe didn’t say anything. He turned and sucked in a whimper of embarrassed rage when he saw Gabriel. He stalked out of the kitchen, his face clenched in anger.

“You can take care of yourself,” Gabriel said, nodding in appreciation.

“And don’t you forget it,” Vivian answered. She caught the tangy whiff of his sweat as she swept by him, and felt a brief surge of fear mixed in with the heady tingle of sweet defiance. Maybe he would swat her for her insolence. Instead she heard a throaty chuckle.

She shouldn’t have encouraged the Five. All the next week they were at the door or on the phone. She wouldn’t run with them at night, but she finally gave up and spent some daylight time with them. Mostly they hung out and traded jokes with the bikers in front of Tooley’s bar. Once they went to the mall, and the five cracked each other up menacing middle-school girls by wiggling long, long tongues at them. Vivian left in disgust.

The Five’s continual bickering and jostling for rank got on her nerves. It was a relief to pick up the phone one day and hear Aiden’s voice.

“Ready for fireworks?” he asked.

“Baby, are you?” she replied.

It was still light when Aiden arrived the next evening. He looked sleek and suntanned. Vivian wanted to bite the buttons off his shirt.

“I missed you,” he said, and handed her a small, brightly wrapped package.

Vivian turned it over and over in her hands, admiring it as if it were a jewel. Was this the shell she had asked for? No one outside the pack had ever bought her a present. How exquisite and full of promise it was.

“You’re supposed to open it,” Aiden prompted gently.

“Oh, yeah.” Vivian sliced through the tape with her nails and peeled off the paper, slowly savoring each crackle. Inside was a velvet box. “Ooooh!” She stroked its plushness, delayed a second more, then opened the box and found a sparkling silver pentagram on a silver chain.

Vivian was speechless for a moment; then she burst into laughter. He had given her silver.

When paired with wolf-kind blood, silver burned through the flesh like acid, doing more damage than even her people’s amazing powers of healing could stop. That was why silver bullets were often fatal no matter where or how slight the wound. Silver was safe enough to wear as long as it didn’t touch an open wound, but among her kind fights were common. Wolf-kind preferred to wear gold, just in case.

A legend told of the double-edged gift of Lady Moon, who gave them the ability to change, but also turned her light into the silver that could kill them if they abused the power. Aiden had given her a double-edged gift: the sign of her people made out of poison.

Aiden looked mystified by her laughter, then hurt. “You don’t like it,” he said.

I could wear it on our dates, at least, she decided. That seemed safe enough. “Yes, I do like it,” she said solemnly. “It’s more perfect than I could ever tell you.”

Because I, too, have a double edge, she thought.

And you should run from me as fast as your legs can carry you.

July—–

They left Aiden’s car outside her house; it would be hard to find a parking spot close to the middle-school field where the fireworks display was held. The Fourth of July festival had been going on all day, starting with the parade and continuing with clowns, competitions, races, and music. The best places to park had been claimed hours before.

“Let’s go the back way,” Vivian said. “It’s quicker.”

They cut through her yard and followed the river upstream. The sun was going down and the evening was golden. Vivian inhaled deeply, as if she could suck it all in and keep it forever. The rich bursts of odor released by a day of heat mixed with the salty exquisite smell of Aiden swelled her with happiness. As they crashed through the tufted grass to the border mowed alongside the river, Vivian felt the urge to run. “Come on,” she cried, and took off full of the joy of breath, her limbs as strong as if she danced on the moon.

When she hurdled a wall to an alley behind some apartments he was a minute behind. She waited until he caught up. He vaulted over, using both arms, and she was sad he’d not leaped as she had, touching nothing but wind. Perhaps he couldn’t. Immediately she wanted to give him flight wrapped up in a pretty box like his gift to her. Instead, she gave him a quick hard hug, which made him grunt, then laugh.

The alley led to a bridge. Vivian bounced across beside Aiden, eager to run again. His breathing was coarse, but he didn’t complain. A drop of sweat hung at the tip of his nose. She darted her tongue and slurped it off.

“Yugh!” Aiden wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then grinned.

“You don’t get enough exercise,” Vivian said. “You should run more often.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“No, come on. I’ll teach you.” She set off again at a steady, slower pace. He groaned behind her, but she heard him follow. As soon as they were in the baseball field she danced around him, giving him advice about breathing and stride. She jogged sedately for a while, enjoying the feel of him running at her side. His face was flushed, and he puffed a bit, but he would learn.

A sparkle crackled between the trees ahead and for a moment she thought the fireworks had started too soon, but it was only the setting sun caught in the school windows, broken up by leaves shimmied in a sudden evening breeze. She glanced behind. The western sky blazed vermilion as if it were drenched in the blood of night, and she choked back a howl of joy. She had to run loose. She took off, driven by excitement into the arms of the dark.

The grass whipped her ankles; the dusk licked her face. If she ran fast enough she could climb invisible stairs right into the stars. She reached the twelve-foot chain-link fence at the back of the school and threw herself up. She swarmed over with barely a thought.

When Aiden caught up he rattled like chaos climbing the fence, and panted and scrambled and slid.

“When did you go to boot camp?” he managed to gasp when he dropped at her feet. He looked put out but not angry. “Jeez. I didn’t know my sweetheart was the Amazon Queen.”

Sweetheart. He’d called her his sweetheart. She’d been a main squeeze, an ol’ lady, and a piece of tail, but she’d never been a sweetheart before. The word bubbled through her like champagne. She threw herself to the ground, giggling. “I’m exhausted,” she lied.

He tried to gently wrestle her to her feet but she kept on sliding limply from his arms, and soon they were a giggling puppy tumble in the grass. His sweet wet kisses made her sure he wasn’t angry, and he was out of breath again, but for reasons he couldn’t complain about.

They walked into the gathering crowd tangled in each other’s arms and hair, their lips unable to stay apart.

The Amoeba was down by the edge of the tarmac playground, spilling into the forbidden field where the fireworks were set up. Some of them called greetings when they saw Aiden and Vivian arrive. Kelly smiled tightly, her eyes shallow. She leaned back to her regular troupe of gigglers and said something for their ears alone. Vivian clicked her teeth in Kelly’s direction, wrinkling her nose, and grinned wickedly when Aiden pulled her down with him to a tartan blanket and nuzzled her neck.

Look at me, Kelly, Vivian gloated silently.

I’ve got him. You don’t. Too bad.

One of the guys handed Aiden a Coke. Aiden sipped, grimaced, and handed it to Vivian. “All yours if you want. I’ve got to drive later.” Vivian took a swig. The Coke was laced with rum and sent a delicious fire rippling to her toes. She drank some more and held the bottle tight.

Every so often a tired-looking cop would walk by and tell them to get their butts back onto the yard, and the Amoeba would mutter and move blankets around and make a great show of activity and eventually not move an inch.

“Yo, buddy!” Aiden’s best friend, Peter Quincey, arrived, pounding Aiden’s back and calling greetings to everybody. Two of the gigglers peeled away from Kelly and fawned on him. Girls always wanted to touch him and hug him.

Then Bingo and Jem showed up, arguing loudly about which bands sucked. They soon got everyone involved.


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