The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) (6 page)

Harry was moving now—moving and gathering his shredded clothes, shaking them free of dust and glass. “I know what you’re all thinking. So before you say anything, relax. I won’t tell a soul about you—any of you,” he said pointedly to Nina. “All I ask is that you let me go home—peacefully.”

Wanda was the first to react. She always was, according to Marty. She gathered his glasses up, crumpled and twisted, wrinkling her nose in disapproval. “You know, Harry, the last thing we’re worried about right now is whether you’ll out us. Partially because you’re one of us, and to out us to humans would only bring you big, big trouble, too. Our first priority is you. Helping you. Teaching you.” She gave him her warm, motherly smile, exuding grace and that refined air she was infamous for.

But Harry wasn’t having it. “I’ve been helped a lot today, thanks. I admit I panicked at first, and that’s why I called OOPS. But now that you’ve all explained what this means,” he swept his hand along the length of his body, “I get it. So I’m good for now. You all go back to doing what you do. I’ll go off and do me.
Alone.
That means without aid.” He gave Nina the warning eyeball before pushing his way past the women, hopping over a clump of drywall, and striding out the door, his sheet trailing behind him, leaving them all stunned.

Then there was a loud crash and the slap of Harry’s feet on the floor. Everyone sprang into action only to stop the moment he swore and yelled, “I got this!” in a tone that said even if he didn’t have it, he didn’t want them to help him get it either.

After the ding of the elevator, Mara looked to the three women for guidance, her anxiety mounting. What next? In all the OOPS adventures Marty regaled, they’d never mentioned what they did if the client was unwilling to accept their help. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single one of their clients not wanting their help.

Surely they weren’t just going to let Harry go off on his own to deal with the changes in his body? “You’re not just going to let him go home, are you? Why aren’t you stopping him?”

Nina’s sigh, annoyed and impatient, grated in Mara’s ears. “Don’t be a dumb ass. Of course we’re not gonna let him do this shit alone. We’re gonna let him do it with you, Miss Hot-For-Harry. Now, let’s go, baby-maker. Marty, Wanda? You two follow me, okay?”

Wanda began digging in her purse for her keys and then her head popped up. “What if . . .”

“What if what?” Marty’s head popped up, too, the vanilla tipped ends of her hair bouncing under the harsh glare of the lab’s lights.

Wanda’s eyes were wide with horror. She put a hand over her mouth, speaking between her fingers. “What if he shifts in front of the children? He’s newly turned. Probably unable to control his change. Oh, sweet Jesus.”

Marty and Wanda made a break for the elevator with Nina and Mara hot on their heels.

Mara’s stomach churned, growling its turmoil. Her chest grew tight. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again. As if apologizing was enough for the damage she’d caused.

Nina flicked Mara’s hair. “Shut up. It’s done. But damn all, leave it to a geek to find the lone geek in the world who’s just like her, who thinks he knows it all. So not only doesn’t Harry want our fucking help, but he thinks he can fix this. Like he can turn himself back into a human with all that crazy scientific shit he has running around in his big ol’ brain. And trust me when I tell you, he’s got all sorts of nutty-ass theories flying around in that overstuffed head of his.”

“He really thinks that?” Mara asked with a squeak. Sometimes, the most logical, rational people were the hardest to convince that improbability existed. Mara began to panic. She had to fix this.

Nina nodded her head. “He really thinks that. Among other things. Goin’ in with that attitude screws the whole damn process up. It’s a big kink, kiddo. Acceptance, and all that jazz. I might not be so freaked out if it was just Harry to think about. But kids? We can’t let anything happen to the kids. What if, like Wanda said, he frickin’ changes and can’t control it? Christ and a peacock—he’ll freak them out. Scar them for life. You heard him. They’re having trouble bonding as a unit since their folks died, or whatever fancy, hippy-schmippy therapist-like crap he spouted. I don’t give a shit what Harry says. It’s not just about him. If kids are involved, we gotta look out for them.”

When the elevator popped open, no one spoke. Instead, in almost eerie silence, they made a break for the parking lot, following the trail of dusty drywall and bits of glass Harry had left in his wake.

CHAPTER

4

“Ding-dong. Vampire calling,” Nina chirped at Harry’s eyeball, peeking out at her through the small peephole in his door.

Mara almost cowered behind her when Harry whipped open the heavy door, stepping just outside it, his eyes blazing, the arctic wind blowing the tails of his mussed shirt. He narrowed his gaze at Mara. “Didn’t I tell you I could handle this myself?”

Nina geared up to bluster, but Mara stepped in front of her. This was her fault. She’d own it.

Mara nodded, appeasing him the way she did everyone she’d managed to avoid confronting in her life. “You did. And I’m sure that’s probably true. Because you’re smart and resourceful.” So smart. So cutely resourceful. “But you’ve also been traumatized. It’s my duty to check on you during that trauma. I did this to you. If I don’t check on you, make sure that you’re really, really okay, I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“I wouldn’t want you to lose sleep over turning me into a
werewolf,
” he snapped the word, uncharacteristically baiting her.

The newly turned Harry was riding the crest of an enormous hormonal wave, according to Marty’s retelling of her accidental change. Mara tried to take that into consideration. She also tried to take into consideration the fact that her serum had been infused with more female hormones than a menopausal midlifer, and Harry was in for the ride of his male life if they mimicked a real pregnancy.

She stopped all thought. It was too horrific to consider.

Nina put her hand on Mara’s shoulder, using her as leverage to lean over Mara’s head and jam her face in Harry’s angry one. “Dude, you’re just a little too fucking aggressive for my taste. If you don’t play nice and at least entertain Short-Shot’s attempts to make her own kinda nice, your world’s gonna get hinkier. And fast.”

Harry gave Nina an “oh, yeah?” glance, one that was very unlike him. “I will not be intimidated by your threats, Crypt Keeper. She did this to me. Not the other way around. I have every right to be upset.”

Mara patted Nina’s hand and nodded some more. Astrid always said she was a great yes-man. “That’s absolutely the truth, and now I’m trying to fix it—or make it better. I just want to help you, Harry. All sorts of crazy things are going to happen to your body, your emotions, and you need someone who knows what’s going to happen to you to help you through it.”

Harry played statue.

The loud blaring of the TV from just beyond his front door brought up another point—a valid one—one that might appeal to him on a more sentimental level. “And your niece and nephew, Harry . . . What about them? What if what happened to you in the lab happens again and there’s no one here to shield the children from seeing it? You don’t want that, do you? We can help, if you’ll just let us,” Mara pleaded with him, desperate to keep his children unaffected.

Harry waffled, his eyes changing from hard, shiny slivers of blue to softer hues at the mention of his wards. It was only a little, but she sensed it. Smelled it. Saw it physically affect his entire demeanor. He rolled up the sleeves of his green and black flannel shirt, rumpled and buttoned incorrectly, and repeated, “I’m fine.”

Mara held up her hands as a sign of peace. “I know we’ve freaked you out, and I get it. But I swear to you, if you’ll just use your new sense of smell, you’ll be able to tell we’d never hurt you.”

Now he went all skeptical, his tone incredulous. “My nose . . .”

“Yeah,” Nina groused. “You’re officially an ass-sniffer now, which means you can smell danger.” She used her hand to push at the air under her neck, shooing it in Harry’s direction. “Sniff me.”

Harry almost did as he was told, rocking forward on the heels of his feet, but then he caught himself and stepped squarely back as though there were no way he was going to be caught falling for Nina’s joke. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, no! It’s true!” Mara infused as much sincerity as she could into her reassurance. “Look, even if you can’t smell that we’re not dangerous, where’s your sense of reason, Harry? How long have you worked for Pack now?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed again, but he was still wavering. If he couldn’t smell his own uncertainty about not trusting them, Mara could, and she was going to take that and run with it. “Long enough.”

Now that she had a point to make, Mara was all business. If they were talking logical conclusions, she wasn’t the timid wallflower she became when she put on her man-eater underwear. “And in that period of time, has anyone ever hurt you, Harry? Caused you to fear for your physical well-being? Ever?”

Again, more waffling, but he was stubbornly hanging on by a thread. “Not unless you count today. Today, I’d say my well-being was wholeheartedly and carelessly abused.”

Fair. “Today was an accident, Harry. I swear it. I was careless. I thought everyone had gone home and I was alone in the lab. It was stupid and reckless of me to put something so untested and dangerous in an empty bottle of vitaminwater. But all of us, at Pack or those who are part of our werewolf pack, respect humans. Humans do work at Pack, Harry you are—were—one of them. We’ve had human employees retire from Pack without a hair on their heads harmed. Don’t you remember Garvin Smithfield?”

“He had no hair,” he said it like werewolves had ripped it from his very scalp.

Mara rolled her eyes, tucking her chin into her coat. “That wasn’t because of us. Do you remember his
retirement
party? You were there. As I recall, you ate a lot of Missy Harver’s taco dip. You joked about it. Said you’d be feeling it for at least a week. Garvin was a human.”

Harry’s wheels began to turn again.

Aha! But then Mara cringed. When he’d made mention of the heartburn he’d experience from Missy’s famous taco dip, he’d been across the room with a group of his equally geeky friends from accounting, and she’d been eavesdropping because every word Harry spoke was like an angel’s wings fluttering in her eardrums.

“Wait. You
heard
that?” he asked, incredulous and again wary, the lantern-shaped light beside his front door enhancing the hesitance in his eyes.

Mara tugged her half-frozen ear. “Werewolf hearing. Sorry. It happens sometimes. But the point is, Garvin worked for Pack for over thirty-five years before he retired, and he was a human.” A kind, unassuming human, who’d been good friends with her father and wouldn’t have hurt a soul.

Harry popped his luscious lips in a “not flyin’ with me” way. “How do I know that? Maybe he was one of your people, and he hid it just like you and your sister-in-law and God knows who else. It’s not like I could
smell
what he was.”

“Garvin was a vegetarian, Harry. You know that. He shared his recipes all the time. We’re not vegetarians. We need meat. A lot of it. He wouldn’t be grazing on spinach salads at lunch every day if he was a werewolf. He’d need to eat red meat in order to keep his energy levels up.”

“Like that couldn’t have been a cover up?”

“Would you eat tofu just to hide you were a werewolf, especially feeling the way I know you’re feeling right now? Not to mention he’d have had to deny the gnawing hunger we experience. You feel it right now. I know you do.” Mara glanced down at his stomach for emphasis. On cue, it growled.

Realization struck him then. His eyes went wide like the Harry of old. “Holy shit! That’s why there’s steak on the menu in the cafeteria? And not just the crappy kind you’d expect in a cafeterialike setting. You know, injected with dyes and packed in water? The good stuff.”

While he chewed on that revelation, Mara nodded again, hoping to worm her way a little closer to the door. “Yes! And if you’ve ever really paid attention, you’ll see almost all of the Pack employees eat red meat for lunch. I’m sure, as health conscious and smart as you are, you’ve made note of that without ever realizing you’d made note of it. Until now.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, the fine sprinkling of dark hair on them part of many of her fantasies where he held her close in a hammock under a palm tree on some tropical island and told her no one else in the world was like her. Ahem . . .

“Fine,” he conceded. “So a lot of people eat red meat at Pack. I don’t even remember what your point was. I also find myself incredibly irritable right now. Unusual for me. So I’m having trouble focusing. Sorry. Guess it’s the
werewolf
in me,” he sneered.

Mara ignored his jab, focusing on her mission. Besides, Harry deserved a few pokes at her expense. She had two brothers who poked like they’d created the word. “The point was, we would never hurt you or anyone else, and you can trust us. So let us help you
. Please
.”

He eyed them both, and again Mara watched uncertainty and hesitance flit across his handsome face. And then it stuck. “I said I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Nina’s impatience exploded. “Bullshit,” she hissed in his face. “Now you can either let us in, or I can let myself in. Choose, Harry. Choose well, friend. Because if you choose not to, I’ll have to break things you’ll have to fix, and I get the impression you’re not Bob the Builder.”

“You watch that?”

“Yeah. With my kid. She loves Bob. Her Grandpa Arch bought her the DVD collection.”

Noting he was again relating to the enemy, Harry’s jaw tightened, silently expressing his anger in that all too sexy way he’d acquired just tonight.

Nina’s impatience only served to make Mara more agitated and more determined to convince him they were here in peace.

But without so much as another protest, he suddenly shoved the door open with a low grunt, revealing his inner sanctum.

The place she’d daydreamed about a million times since she’d begun to crush on him over a year ago. Her heart melted at the idea of seeing the house where she’d imagined his seductions—all with Harry as the lead, of course.

But her crush’s crib hadn’t included a Barbie Dreamhouse with its accessories scattered from one end of the room to the other. Nor had it included canned ravioli, dripping from the buttery soft leather couch and the hyper bouncing of a noisy, if not adorable, little boy, who happened to look a great deal like Harry, on said couch.

Mostly, it had included a lot of cheesy porn-ish music, heavy on the horn section, and Harry in his boxers, dragging her off to his red and black lairlike bedroom where he’d perform untoward, deliciously sinful acts on her person.

Harry’s small house, located in the outskirts of Buffalo, was in reality a disaster. So much unlike his work space, Mara was taken aback. This wasn’t the Harry she knew: in control, organized, unruffled—if not a little goofy.

As Harry picked his way across the room, he stepped on a bright red Lego, mouthing the word “fuck” while hopping around.

The little boy ignored their entry, and Harry, continuing his bid to reach the ceiling with a plastic sword as his guide. Nina approached him, shoving a pile of dirty clothes out of her way as she went, her head bobbing in time with his leaps. “I’m Nina. What’s your name, little man?”

He didn’t miss a beat when, without so much as acknowledging her, he said, “None of your business.”

A grumble escaped Harry’s throat as though he knew he needed to chastise his nephew for his disrespect, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. “Fletcher! Don’t be rude to our . . . guests. Now stop jumping up and down and tell the lady your name.”

Fletcher made a sour face at Harry’s demand, his small nose wrinkling, his words petulant. “You’re not my dad. I don’t have to do what you tell me.”

Mara watched Harry’s face change from parental to pained in the blink of an eye. His internal struggle to manage this child was so agonizingly obvious it wasn’t so internal. Oh, she’d done it and done it good. Not only was poor Harry struggling with his sister’s children, but now he was a werewolf.
Impeccable timing for a pile-on, Mara.

Nina grabbed onto the back of Fletcher’s pajama shirt, pulling him up into the air so his feet dangled. “Your uncle said to do something. Do it, dude.”

All motion stopped. His quiet defiance did not. “But you’re not my uncle.”

“Nope, but I am somebody who likes little dudes who have good manners. You? Your manners are in the toilet, Shorty. So, let’s start all over again. Introduce yourself to me, little man, and do it right or I get cranky. You don’t want to see Auntie Nina cranky.”

No truer words.

Harry’s feet, clad in fuzzy, black slippers, made a scuffling noise. But Mara placed a hand on his arm to prevent him from chastising the boy or even Nina. She’d seen Nina in action with not just her own little girl Charlie, but with Mara’s niece Hollis and countless others at pack picnics. All animals and children adored Nina, something that never failed to amaze Mara, seeing as Nina was the crankiest of the undead, maybe even the world.

Yet, when Nina had become a mother herself, something no one thought possible, she’d become even better at child wrangling.

Fletcher hung there, doing exactly what his uncle had done earlier—weighing Nina’s mood—averaging his options. “You’re not giving me enough choices.”

Nina popped her lips. “Funny thing about that. I don’t have to. Know why?”