The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) (16 page)

“Pleasure,” Harry said, his gaze stopping on Astrid who was ripping apart a beef shish kebab.

“And this is Astrid, Harry,” Mara said as Leah nudged her to get her attention. “Astrid, this is Harry. Remember, we crashed into him in the lunch line a couple of days ago?”

Her eyes, narrowed and shiny, acknowledged Harry before returning to the chunk of pepper on her plate. “I know all about Harry.”

Perfect. Astrid was angry. She didn’t like newcomers, and she was doing her best to make that incredibly clear.

But Harry wasn’t having it. He leaned forward, sticking his hand under Astrid’s bent-out-of-shape nose. “Pleasure, Astrid. You work in production, too, right?”

Mara fought a dreamy sigh while Ying and Leah rolled their eyes at Astrid. “She does,” Leah answered for her. “With Ying. Astrid’s the socially maladjusted crankypants in our little group.”

Harry smiled, lopsided and adorable. “Every group needs one. We can’t have too much happy. We need balance in the universe.”

Ying giggled, nodding her approval of Harry’s sentiment with a warm, wide smile.

“So tell us everything,” Leah demanded with a wink and a smile, sinking her teeth into a shiny apple.

“Everything!” Ying chimed in, popping open her bag of chips.

Mara hedged, sipping at her milk, her grin sly. “Everything,” she teased.

Leah and Jiaying giggled, but Astrid, not so much. Mara knew exactly what Astrid was thinking. Harry was yet another person taking up time Mara should be spending with her. It was a good thing Harry wasn’t really her boyfriend. Soon this would all be over and everything would go back to the way Astrid liked it.

Except, she’d be in jail. Which would probably please possessive, smothering Astrid to no end. All she’d have to do to find Mara was pop in on visiting days at werewolf jail.

Mara caught herself. Yes, Astrid drove her nuts sometimes, and she didn’t love to share Mara’s attention. But Astrid was also a good friend. Not the kind of friend you did girls’ night with—or shopped with. But one who’d text you links to recipes for chicken soup when you were home sick with the flu. Or offer to hack another employee’s phone and wipe out their contacts list when you groused about them over lunch.

Her mean thoughts left her ashamed of herself. So Mara reached across the table, tapping Astrid’s arm. “Wanna do coffee together later on our afternoon break? I’ve got the most awesome article to show you on ALMA. You know, the telescope we were talking about the other day?”

“The one in Chile?” Harry asked.

Mara’s eyes widened at her pretend boyfriend before she grinned. God. He was so . . . perfectly perfect. “You know about it?”

“You bet. Just read about it in
Popular Science
, I think—”

“I have other plans for my break with another
friend
,” Astrid belted out, jumping up from the table, her chair scraping against the floor so hard it made the floor beneath Mara’s feet tremble. “But you won’t miss me. You have Harry,” she spat, grabbing her leftovers and stalking out of the cafeteria—but not before she all but hurled her lunch tray at the top of the trash bin.

Silence prevailed, in all its awkwardness. She’d hurt Astrid. Totally not her intention. But what if Harry were her real boyfriend? Wasn’t it okay for her to expect support from her friend? Wasn’t it okay to fall in love?

Harry broke the still air with a grin when he said, “So I guess Astrid and I doing Jell-O shots and karaoke is off the table?”

Everyone dissolved into laughter, breaking the tension.

Harry looked at his watch and frowned. “I have to get back to work. Regrets, ladies. I hope we’ll get the chance to talk more later. Until then,” he said on a chuckle, pulling Mara to stand with him, and tucking her close. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner, right?” He didn’t bother to wait for her response. Instead, he planted a light but lingering kiss on her lips before scooping up the bag Carl had packed and heading out of the cafeteria.

Her eyes strayed to his tight backside, before admiring the way he sauntered out of the cafeteria like he owned the joint.

Well, until he crashed into the glass door, forgetting to push it open and knocked over a potted palm, spraying the dirt and moss from the base all over the floor.

He bent to pick it up, waving at her with a sheepish grin as the women giggled.

She cupped her chin in her hands and sighed. Even clumsy Harry was dreamy.

Leah reached her hand out and patted Mara’s to console her. “Don’t let Astrid upset you. She’s got a lot of stuff going on I think even we don’t know about. It bothers both of us the way she hoards you, and creates drama when there isn’t any. If she would just accept the fact that when she’s not behaving like she’s the antagonist in some psychopathic killer movie, and always worrying about whether we’re mocking her in some weird code, everything is okay. But something’s not right with her, and sometimes it scares me. I’ve always said that, haven’t I, Ying?”

Ying nodded her agreement, her deep eyes solemn as she twisted the multicolored scarf around her neck. “Um, yeah. We knew you before she did. So if anyone has first dibs on lopping your head off, it’s us. But in all seriousness, she can be really lurky and creepy sometimes. I know she’s valuable to Pack and the brightest star in production, but she’s also the moodiest. I tread lightly because I can never seem to gauge her moods.”

Leah patted Mara’s hand and smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Either way, if she’s not happy for you, we are. It’s like your dream come true,” she gushed, batting her eyelashes. “And you guys are adorable together. You make a gorgeous couple, so dark and just pretty. And who knew Harry was so funny and charming. Did you, Ying? Up top, girlie. Score for the nerds!”

Mara clapped Leah’s hand, but she was uncomfortable brushing aside Astrid’s unhappiness. She didn’t want to lose a loyal friend due to a lie that would soon end.

Yet she couldn’t deny Leah was right. Something was off about Astrid. She’d always chalked it up to her quirky genius, and that intense glare she wore when she thought no one was looking was just her brain in constant overdrive—solving some Rubik’s Cube of a problem in the dark corridors of her mind.

But she’d known how nuts Mara had been about Harry for all this time, and she’d supported her fantasy about him—her ridiculous gushing about him—until it had actually become a reality. It stung a little to see a dream realized, even if it was a pretend dream, crushed by Astrid’s discontent.

However, the good news?

Mara found herself less uncomfortable pretending Harry was her new BF.

Especially after that Vulcan mind-meld of a kiss.

She’d be fanning her lady-garden for days after.

CHAPTER

10

“Darnell!” Mara cried, lunging at her favorite demon disguised in a teddy bear’s body, thrilled to find him looming with a cheerful grin in the middle of her tiny cottage. She hugged him hard, kissing his cheek.

He looked as big and out of place as Harry did amongst the large willow baskets of hydrangeas and overflowing vases of silk peonies, ducking his head when he dropped her to his side. “How are you? How was Carl today?”

Darnell tucked her beside his solid, lumbering girth. “Aw, you know how it goes with ol’ Darnell. People always end up comfortable with me. Carl and me made cupcakes today, didn’t we Carl? Outta cauliflower and cornbread. He’s a good helper in the kitchen, our Carl is.”

Carl grunted and groaned, lifting his stiff arm to thump Mara on the back. He drew her into a rigid headlock intended as an affectionate hug, making Mara tug at the arm he’d planted around her neck.

Darnell put his hand on Carl’s sweater-covered arm. “Easy now, brotha. I tol’ ya, Carl. You gotta be nice to e’rybody, gentle, right? But remember, not just the ladies, the menfolk, too.” Darnell tugged at Carl’s arm, stroking them with his paw-sized hands until Carl let go.

Carl looked to Darnell for approval, his crooked smile in place, his glassy eyes searching the demon’s for confirmation.

“Yeah,” Darnell muttered on a grin. “Just like that, pal. You’re a good dude, buddy. Now you go do like I told ya and rinse your mouth out with the mouthwash, ’k? Can’t have you with death-breath.” Darnell waggled a finger at Carl in the direction of her small bathroom. “After every meal—that’s the deal if you want ol’ Darnell to bring you more cabbage. Now go be a good zombie n’ rinse, rinse, rinse.”

“Half zombie,” Harry piped in, loosening his tie as Carl dragged his left foot across Mara’s floor, scattering her white and moss green throw rugs as he went.

Darnell barreled toward Harry, white high-tops thumping, the chains around his neck swaying against his football jersey. “You must be the poor sum-bitch Mara made outta baby juice,” Darnell said, putting his wrist over his mouth to attempt to hide his cackle. “I’m Darnell—a demon. Mara can explain the how and why to ya later.”

Mara expected Harry to react with anger to the demonic branch of their paranormal group. But Harry didn’t look angry. He smiled and laughed, too. Like he and Darnell were old friends, laughing over an inappropriate joke.

Wow. She liked whoever was in charge of Harry’s mood swings today. Whoever it was, they were invited to stay the duration of his adjustment period. “I am, indeed, the product of the infamous baby-maker.” He shook Darnell’s hand with a friendly grin.

And now we were bathing in the fodder of this all? What was with the ha-ha-ha?

“Have you heard anything about who might have abducted the children, Darnell?” Mara asked. All day long, aside from her other worries, it had troubled her.

While they were safe with Wanda, it didn’t change the fact that someone had tried to take them. Someone who wasn’t a human. Every time she thought about it, she couldn’t help but feel completely responsible and sick to her stomach. Maybe someone had seen something the other night in the lab? But who? And what did it have to do with Harry’s children?

“Not a rumble,” Darnell said, shaking his head, directing his next comment to Harry with a slap on his back. “But you count on this, ain’t no one gonna get past me and get yo’ kids. I promise ya that. And if I hear anything at all in my world, you’ll be the first to know.”

Harry’s eyes clouded over. “Appreciate it.”

“So how ya feelin’, man? You got the fever tonight?” Darnell asked on a grin meant mostly for Harry.

Harry’s alarm was evident, his lean face losing its easygoing smile and expressing concern. “Fever?”

“Yeah, buddy. Mara ain’t told ya about the fever yet?” Darnell whistled, rubbing his hand over his shortly cropped hair.

Mara’s sigh was meant to grate on its way out. It wasn’t really a fever. It was more like a really extended hot flash. No big deal. “I was getting to that.” Because it was touchy and shouldn’t be explained in a rush. Or without the purchase of condoms or maybe a dirty magazine.

Darnell pointed to the window where darkness began to fall. “Well you better get the gettin’ on. Tonight’s the full moon.”

Harry looked to Mara, his eyes narrowing. “It’s not really like the myth is it?”

“Do you mean like the
American Werewolf in London
myth? Or like myth-myth, folklore-myth?” she hedged, backing away from him and bumping into Carl who thumped her on the back just the way Darnell instructed. Mara grabbed Carl’s hand and let it rest on her shoulder to show him he’d done good.

Harry’s approach was swift, leading Mara to believe he’d been trying out his new werewolf powers. His face hovered above hers, making Carl’s feet shift in a nervous shuffle. “I mean, am I going to . . .” He paused, clearly searching. “Do that thing . . .”

“Shift,” Mara filled in his blank.

His lips, lips that had touched her soul, thinned in disapproval. “Yeah. That. Then turn into some werewolf version of a mad dog and eat a herd of cows?”

Mara laughed. “No, silly. Yes. You’ll shift. No. You won’t eat cows. We don’t allow that. I mean, you’ll want to, but I’ll make sure you consume plenty of food beforehand so the hunger doesn’t eat you alive. It won’t be easy to fight it off, but you’ll learn. I’ll help.”

His expression was bland. “How accommodating. So that’s it? There’s nothing else I should know about other than my body is going to be ripped apart in an agonizing grip of twisting flesh and shattered bones?”

She’d always wondered what it was like to not have the urge to shift. Or for that matter, to never have shifted at all. She’d been doing it since birth, with no recollection of her first time, much like a human baby doesn’t remember abruptly leaving the womb or the pain of teething.

But to have it occur, and actually remember the first time, was, if Marty and Harry’s descriptions weren’t an exaggeration, quite painful.

Mara winced at his description and made a mock pouty face, hoping to coax him back to the place where he wasn’t scowling at her. “Oh, c’mon, Harry. Was it really that bad?”

“Bad? Are your bones grinding together and your flesh splitting apart bad? Is feeling new follicles form under your skin, then sprout thousands of tiny hairs like they’re each individual razor blades bad?”

Mara put a hand up, resisting the urge to place it on his chest. Because here at home, he wasn’t her pretend boyfriend. “I can help with that, Harry. My brother helped Marty, and she shifts like a champ now. It’s just about breathing and focusing.”

“Sounds more like giving birth.”

Okay. So that analogy had been bandied about once or twice during Marty’s adjustment—or maybe it was a million times. It was Marty. Of course it was a million times. “Well, Marty did make that comparison.”

“Great,” he said between clenched teeth.

Carl mewled, reaching over Mara’s shoulder, putting his fingers on Harry’s lips.

Harry let his head drop; regret slashing his eyes just as his chin hit his chest. He sighed. “Okay, Carl. I get it. I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just a little tense.”

Carl reached out and ruffled Harry’s hair, lifting his chin with a grunt.

Harry gave his hand a quick squeeze before asking, “So is there anything else I need to know about the full moon thing?”

“Hoo, boy,” Darnell said on a whistle. “I’mma go make ya’ll some dinner fit to feed an army. C’mon, Carl. You can peel potatoes so you don’t have to hear what all goes on up in here.” Darnell held out his large hand to him. “There’s gonna be some outside voices.”

Harry glowered at Mara.

Funny that.

She shrunk against the wall. Okay, fine. So she’d left the part out about how his hormones weren’t just going to run rampant, but explode—maybe it was implode? Whatever. They were going to be hard to teach him to contain.

When a human was turned, not only did they experience the rush of hormones, exaggerated by their new inner werewolf, but according to Marty, it was magnified tenfold. Full weres were taught from a very young age to control their powerful urges—over time, and with much preparation.

It wasn’t always easy—sometimes it was like a sixteen-year-old in the backseat of a car with a willing girl times a million, but it was manageable when you knew what to expect.

If Marty’s account was right, for a human who hadn’t grown into their were status over time—it could be an all-out hormonal war.

Harry crossed his arms over his chest. “Outside voices? Hmmm, Mara—why does Darnell think we’ll be using our outside voices?”

She sighed, letting her shoulders sag. “Well . . .”

He glowered harder, the lines on either side of his mouth deepening as his lips curled inward.

Mara’s gaze upward was tentative. “So, orgies? What’s your take on them?”

* * *

“
A
RE
you ready, Harry?” Marty asked.

Harry nodded. Hell no, he wasn’t ready. But he wasn’t going to share that with the group. Not out loud. Not if his life depended on it.

“Are you okay, Harry?” Marty tilted her head, her eyes concerned. “We have to do this soon, Harry, or it’ll happen anyway. Let’s make it as pleasant a journey as possible, yes?”

Harry heard Marty. Yet he couldn’t look away. He knew his eyes were wide with geek wonder, but holy shit. The land surrounding the Flaherty estate and Mara’s cottage was crawling with werewolves. Crawling. Small, short, burly, wide, all sorts of various shapes and sizes of people who’d shifted just like Mara had—right before his eyes, running, trotting, intermittently stopping in small groups to mingle. It was like a paranormal church picnic or something.

Jesus Christ. He was watching, from a distance, while tucked into a cluster of towering pines, actual
people
turn into werewolves.

The rolling hills and frozen landscape, dotted by stars and trees, were beautiful, leaving him irrationally angry. He didn’t want to appreciate this. He didn’t want to live this life thrust upon him because of some mistake. Yet, the call of it, the allure of superhuman power, and his newfound, almost cocky confidence tempted him, tempted him until he had to clench his teeth to stave it off.

Where was this gig when he’d been an awkward fifteen-year-old with a retainer, Coke-bottle glasses, and only a hundred and twenty pounds at almost six feet?

But then there were the kids. How could he possibly explain something like this to them without scaring the hell out of them? He couldn’t raise his sister’s children if he was turning into something kids had nightmares about. How could he explain this eternal life deal? How would he explain that as they aged, he wouldn’t, or rather, the process would be much slower for him.

It was incomprehensible that he’d outlive the kids.

And that was the angry part of all this. If it were just him, he’d figure it out. But ending this crazy as soon as possible so the kids could return to their lives was the only way. If that meant shifting comfortably rather than having his face ripped off until he could find a way out, he was in.

“Harry?” Marty poked him in the arm, her pretty smile encouraging and warm. “We have to do this before Keegan notices I’m missing, if we hope to keep Mara out of trouble and keep you away from the rest of the pack while we do it.”

Marty had kindly offered to help Mara with his shift, her understanding of his dilemma keener than that of Mara’s. The damned trouble with these people was they were so nice. So ready and willing to stop their lives, mid-living, and help out a perfect stranger. Darnell was a demon, yet he’d offered him comfort like they’d been friends for life. Even Nina, ghastly, foul-tempered beast that she was, had held out her hand for him to grab on to. He’d been despicable concerning Carl’s existence. Regretted it the moment it had come from his lips. Hated that he’d sounded like an ass for the ages.

Yet each of them expressed their emotions, got it out, and considered it done. Like a family.

That tempted him, too. This sense of family, the solidarity they all shared. It was just he and the kids. No remaining relatives, no friends of theirs close enough to be counted on. What if something happened to him? Who would take them then? The state? The kids needed a strong home base, a soft place to fall—a network of soft places to fall—and Mara’s pack offered that.

“Harry? I need you to really focus. We don’t want to draw attention to my absence or you. So remember what I told you, okay? Just let it happen. The first time you fought it because you didn’t know what was happening. This time, you’re going to relax into it and focus on the change in your body.”

Mara stood just behind Marty, beautiful in the glow of the moonlight, hesitation and uncertainty shadowing her eyes, and he felt that fever thing she’d told him about.

For her.

Every breath she took, he smelled, savored, wanted to inhale by pressing his mouth over hers. He wanted to tear her clothes from her body, lick her from head to toe, bury his face between her legs, taste every inch of her.