Nice Werewolves Don't Bite Vampires E-Book

Molly Harper

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 359

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The "enchanting" (Publishers Weekly) Jane Jameson series is back with a new paranormal romantic comedy about a werewolf yearning to find her own place world, and the group of admittedly unique vampires who help her find love. Tylene McClaine, black sheep of the McClaine Half-Moon Hollow werewolf pack, has spent a lifetime blocking out the criticisms of her boisterous pack. They say she's too bookish, too obstinate, and worst of all, too picky when it comes to finding a nice werewolf boy and settling down. But when she meets vampire and Half-Moon Hollow music teacher, Alex Bonfils, Tylene starts to wonder if she could create the life she's always wanted. She takes every precaution to meet her sexy vamp in secret, but when a vandal around town starts targeting vampire businesses, she fears her family might have found her out. When the damage in town escalates, Tylene and Alex join forces with Jane Jameson, Dick Cheney, and the whole vampire gang to find the culprit save Half-Moon Hollow before it's too late!

Leseprobe

Nice Werewolves Don’t Bite Vampires

A Half-Moon Hollow Novel

Molly Harper

This book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This book may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Nice Werewolves Don’t Bite Vampires

Copyright © 2020 by Molly Harper

Ebook ISBN:9781641971560

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This ebook is based on an Audible Original audiobook.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

121 W 27th St., Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001

http://www.nyliterary.com

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Excerpt from HOW TO DATE YOUR DRAGON

Also by Molly Harper

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My sincerest appreciation to the readers who continue to offer their support to this series. Thank you to my children, who were so patient and cooperative while we were all stuck at home together – homeschooling, Mom working, Dad working. It could have been a mess. But you worked hard and I am very proud of you. Thank you to all of the writer friends who have supported me and kept me sane over text while we all tried to navigate this weird new reality – Jeanette, Lish, Jenn, Anna, Kathleen, Jaye, Nicole, Melissa, Kristen, Robyn. I appreciate you all so much. And thanks, as always, to Natanya Wheeler, who is an amazing agent and human being.

1

“Find a way to honor the trappings of your youth without clinging to them. This is especially true if you grew up in an era of the ruff collar or parachute pants.”

—A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships

People who said libraries were a useless and outdated relic of the pre-Internet age had never spent time around the McClaine pack.

The Half-Moon Hollow Public Library might have been a dinosaur. But it was a silent dinosaur. A “keep-me-from-losing-from-my-freaking-mind-due-to-my-loud-ass-family-osaurus.”

Maybe calling it a “dinosaur” was unfair. The place certainly hadn’t seen new public funding in a few years. The most recent addition was the Jane Jameson-Nightengale Youth Reading Room, which was marked with a rather showy brass plaque very close to the head librarian’s office. But the computers in the lab were less than five years old. The gray industrial carpet was worn, but not shabby, the dust pilling ever so slightly around the edges of the floor-to-ceiling walnut shelving. And I did recognize some of the titles from the last few years’ bestseller lists, probably also donated by Jane Jameson-Nightengale. Her name seemed to be on a lot of plaques around the building, most of them within the direct eyeline of the head librarian’s office.

Something about that seemed to be a little vindictive. But having met Mrs. Stubblefield, the head librarian with the inexplicably aggressive eyebrows, that made sense.

Mrs. Stubblefield seemed to think the library was her kingdom to rule. She’d reminded me multiple times that the library didn’t allow “loitering” at the private study carrels—despite the fact that I had a laptop with me and was very clearly working. As a werewolf, I respected her need to protect her territory. As someone who depended on the library for a quiet workspace to earn their living, it was deeply annoying.

Living on the pack compound, surrounded by the constant noise and interruptions of my large extended family, going to the library was the only peace I got all day. I tried working from a café, using a secure wi-fi hotspot to protect my clients’ privacy while I designed their social media, email campaigns, and other digital promotional materials. But the constant motion from other customers, plus needing to pack up my stuff every time I left for the restroom, was a non-starter. It was just easier to work in the library, where there was less “traffic.” The locking study carrels—another contribution from Jane Jameson-Nightengale—were quiet and clean and comfortable. My productivity had skyrocketed when I started sneaking to the library in the afternoons several times a week.

My phone grumbled inside my precious backpack, a sturdy blue camouflage model I’d carried since high school. I’d set it up to sound like a growl when the text was from my family. I was sure it was a message from my mama, asking where I was. I glanced at the clock on my computer screen. It was after eight. Where had my time gone? It felt like I’d just gotten here! I rolled my shoulders. Nope, apparently, I’d been in this position for far too long.

The project I was working on—social media headers for a small bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York that themed itself around a Medieval Celtic romantic imagery—needed help. The owners kept insisting on using a specific stock photo of a sword, but it simply didn’t look right to me. The carvings on the hilt just didn’t have the sort of patterns I’d seen in Celtic weapons. It looked more like Viking swords I’d seen on TV shows, all pointy runes and triangles. But knowing these difficult-but-always-prompt-with-payments clients as I did, I was going to have to have evidence on my side if I was going to convince them that they were wrong.

I stood from the comfortable desk chair, cracking my spine back into place. I rarely ventured into the stacks unless it was for reference material. Sometimes clients wanted to center their promotional messages around some strange detail that was not accurate. I liked being able to check actual physical books written by experts—as opposed to online image searches—to prevent that embarrassment for them…and for me.

While they may not have liked being told when they were wrong (and sometimes “super-wrong”), it was my attention to that sort of thing that kept my clients coming back for repeat business. I’d developed a solid reputation for engaging, affordable, and correct work. Sure, there were plenty of platforms out there that helped not quite computer-literate people design their own graphics and such. But for small business owners who already had enough on their plate, it was easier to just pay my very reasonable rates to bring clients to their doors.

I slipped my phone into my back pocket, just as it growled a second time. I wouldn’t respond to my mother’s text, because that would only mean pointless arguing until I left earlier than planned. My time would be better spent wrapping up for the day and then texting her on my run home. I closed the small study carrel door behind me and punched in my temporary code to protect my stuff, silently blessing the name of Jane Jameson-Nightengale—even though she wasn’t exactly a favorite around my household.

Jane, who I’d only met in passing when I was a kid, was a close friend of my cousin. Jolene had been the pack’s pride and joy until she’d married a human, had his adorable children, and moved a whole ten miles away from the packlands. Well, Jolene was still pretty much the pack’s pride and joy, but my relatives grumbled under their breath about her a lot more often—usually involving the phrase “such a shame.” Jane was (unfairly) blamed for this.

Turning out of the study carrels, I narrowly missed bumping into a guy around my age, wearing a hoodie and jeans.

“Sorry,” I murmured, brushing past him without looking up. I had to move with purpose if I was going to finish this assignment and get home on time.

As I passed the European History section, I saw two teenage boys wrestling around, bumping against the bookshelf while they fought to look at woodcuttings of nude women from the Dark Ages.

This was one of many reasons why I’d rarely dated in high school.

What were so many teenage boys even doing at the library on a Friday night? That was suspicious in itself. Shouldn’t they be in a nearby field somewhere with an illegally-obtained keg, shouting “wooooo?” I knew why I was at a library on a Friday night. I was avoiding my house and pursuing cash. I liked cash. It was silent, dependable, and never judged you for not having a social life.

Rolling my eyes, I turned my back on the disruptive goofballs and walked into the weapons section. I crouched, scanning the bottom shelf for an illustrated guidebook to swords throughout history. I’d used it for a report on warfare in the Renaissance period when I attended Half-Moon Hollow High. There was a comforting sort of consistency to that book still being there seven years later. Being able to count on the little things was one of the perks of living in the Hollow. It almost outweighed the many, many drawbacks.

The teenage tussle behind me continued and I blocked it out to focus on the book in front of me. It was a skill I’d developed as a teenager, very useful when trying to ignore about a dozen people all trying to tell you how you should be running your life over Sunday dinner.

Opening the thick reference guide, I studied the illustration diagramming the various parts of Celtic swords versus Viking swords. The photo my clients wanted to use was definitely Viking. And even if it was a beautiful image, they couldn’t use it. People delighted in calling companies out on inaccuracies like this—especially history enthusiasts, who were very quick to pick up on social media gaffes, no matter what era. Sometimes, those gaffes made you famous for the wrong reasons.

I took my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of the pages showing examples of both swords. I sent an email to the client, explaining that we couldn’t use their preferred stock photo, but I would find a historically accurate image they would love just as much by tomorrow. Still concentrating on careful email phrasing, I heard a grunt behind me and what sounded like an appendage—an elbow?—thumping against book spines. My head whipped toward the noise.

Several things happened all at once. The bookshelf behind me wobbled, despite being almost floor-to-ceiling. A literal ton of wood and paper was clearly no match against the adolescent desire to see block-printed boobs. Several extremely heavy books on the last legal duels in Kentucky—I could see the titles on the spines as if they were frozen in time—tumbled towards me. All I could think to do was drop the sword guide, cover my head and hope I didn’t get knocked out. My ears detected lightning quick steps against the worn carpet just to my right. The soft, woodsy scent of cedar with the crisp edge of some sort of resin filled my nose and I felt my heart squeeze—though honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was the lovely smell or if I was having some sort of book-related cardiac event.

From under my arm, I saw a tall, dark-haired man dashing toward me, hands outstretched. I waited for the impact of the books against my skull, but despite the rain of reference material hitting the carpet all around me, the weight never landed on me. Dropping my arms hesitantly, I looked up and saw the man crouched over me. In his large hands, he held the books that should have been scattered on top of my unconscious body.

While sheets of music were littered around our feet like fallen snow, he held the books in a neat stack on his palms. He looked so calm, as if it was no big deal that he’d plucked falling hardbacks from mid-air. His eyes, a light shade of hazel surrounded by a darker ring, met mine and his generous mouth parted to say something. Because my brain seemed to be fixating on weird little details, I got completely absorbed in the thin, dark moustache on his upper lip. Normally, I automatically assigned men with moustaches in the creeper category, but on him…it worked. He was older than me, again, not to creeper levels, but enough for me to appreciate it.

I reached up to touch his face, to trace the sharp curve of his cheek and the soft flesh of his lip with my thumb. I wanted to wallow in the sweet woodsy scent of him, to roll around with him, until I could smell nothing else for the rest of my life. This was the way a person was supposed to smell, all complex warmth sending rippling energy along my nerves. And the pulse of that energy spelled out the word “WANT” like Morse Code in my belly. For the first time, I wanted to take advantage of the seclusion of the library stacks, drag him to the farthest corner and see what was hidden under those maddeningly practical clothes.

He spoke, but I had no idea what he was saying. I was too distracted by the roar of blood in my ears and the flash of his supernaturally white fangs. Well, everything made a lot more sense now. It was easy to defy the laws of physics when you were a vampire.

The idiot teens were now fighting over who was responsible for knocking into the books, meaning more bumping against the shelf. Over the vampire’s shoulder—wow, those were some broad shoulders—the bookshelf continued to sway back and forth, picking up momentum as it pitched forward. I shot to my feet and planted my shoulder against the shelf with an “oof,” easing it back up as yet more books fell to the floor. Miraculously, those books didn’t hit us, either.

It took all of my considerable upper body strength to push the shelves back into position. He grinned at me as I gripped the shelving, preventing it from overcorrecting and knocking into the shelf behind it. The last thing I needed was for Mrs. Stubblefield to find me in a mess of Three Stooges-style domino-ed bookshelves. That would not help my whole workplace situation.

This time I was able to hear the vampire say, “You’re rather fast on your feet, aren’t you?”

“Well, you saved me from a concussion first. It’s only neighborly that I return the favor.” I smiled, surprising even myself. I was not the kind of girl that came up with clever lines on the fly.

Usually, in an awkward situation like this, I froze up and let one of my louder family members take over the conversation. But I was able to pronounce all of my words clearly and smoothly, like I talked to attractive strangers every day. In a tone that was downright cheeky, I added, “Us supernaturals should stick together.”

His smile widened, his eyes becoming warmer. “I’ve noticed that sort of hospitality since I relocated here. It’s very refreshing. I’ve lived in many places that…weren’t as friendly, particularly to vampires.”

“Well, just be careful around other weres. We’re not all hot dishes and welcome wagons. I’m sort of the exception to the rule,” I said with a weird-sounding giggle. With growing dread, I realized I’d just exhausted my supplies of smoothness. It would all be downhill from here. I cleared my throat. “Not that you’re probably into hot dishes that much, what with vampire digestion…or lack of it. Also, I’ve heard not-great things about the vampire welcome wagon situation here in town. Be wary of vampires bearing gift baskets.”

I pressed my lips together because that was an awful lot of words. But in another unexpected turn, rather than looking disturbed by my verbal disgorgement, he threw his head back and laughed. Not in a “laughing at me” way, but “laughing with me.” I’d made him laugh! Simple pleasure, bright and warm, bloomed in my chest.

Damn, he was pretty. And he hung out at libraries. Who did that?

Besides me, that is.

Meanwhile, the boys were still fighting. The shelf I’d just corrected trembled as the taller one threw his friend against the Asian History section.

The vampire rolled his eyes. “Oh, for pity’s sake.”

I snorted. He sounded like a hero in one of those historical BBC movies I had to hide in my room like porn, to keep my parents from mocking my “fancy” choices. He held up his hand, not quite touching my shoulder. “Excuse me for a moment, miss. Please don’t go anywhere, I’d like to continue—”

The shelf rattled hard. I held up a hand to steady it.

He huffed out an unnecessary breath and ducked around the bookshelf. I took out my phone and checked the time. I needed to go. As if my mama could hear my thoughts, my cell phone vibrated to life in my hand. At the sight of my mother’s photo on my screen, I shook my head and hit the “deny” button. “Nope.”

I tiptoed through the minefield of fallen books and sheet music, careful not to step on any of the fragile covers. As much as I would have liked to score points with Mrs. Stubblefield and help clean them up, I should have been home already. My parents started asking intrusive questions if I put off going home too much. They had no idea what I did with my time outside of the house. If I didn’t go to a brick-and-mortar building—preferably one owned by family members, where I could be closely supervised—I didn’t have a real job, as far they were concerned. And any time I tried to explain I had an Internet-based job, they immediately jumped to thinking I was doing something inappropriate or that I was just goofing off. My daddy made a lot of comments about “those dumb dragon games” I played online. I didn’t actually play online games. No judgements - they just weren’t my thing. But if that’s what he wanted to believe, fine. I made a pretty good living and with no rent to pay, I had a considerable nest egg and could afford little extras like my laptop. And it was a lot more fun than working at my Uncle Hank’s butcher shop. It was certainly less bloody.

As I scurried away to the study carrel, I heard scuffling from the other side of the bookshelf. I unlocked the door and stuffed all of my belongings into my backpack. When I came out, the vampire was standing by the front desk, holding both boys by the collar, immobile as they tried to squirm away. He was speaking to Mrs. Stubblefield, giving the boys a gentle (by vampire standards) shake occasionally to make a point. I tried to catch his attention to at least wave goodbyes, but he was wholly focused on Mrs. Stubblefield…or maybe her eyebrows. They were like two gray, hairy exclamation points on her forehead. I knew I had trouble looking away when I talked to her.

My phone buzzed again. Another impatient text from Mama. “Where are you?! You better answer this phone now!!!”

I winced. Mama was not one for text speak, but she was one for excessive punctuation.

I glanced back toward the checkout desk and the handsome stranger with the velvety voice. Who was I kidding? Why would I need to stay to talk to him? It wasn’t like this attractive stranger was going to ask me out for…did vampires drink coffee? It didn’t matter. I doubted I would see him again. My life was too complicated for that sort of connection. I needed to get home, and quickly.

With one last look at the vampire’s back, I hurried out of the library and into the street. It would take me about twenty minutes to jog home—ten if I ran at full speed.

My pocket buzzed and somehow, it sounded angrier.

Full speed it was, then.

I ducked between the library and the courthouse, into the less desirable area of the Hollow’s town proper. It was shocking, really, how close the woods edged the more vital areas of town. I wasn’t the toughest member of the pack, or the fiercest, but I was the fastest.

When I reached the tree line, I slipped out of my clothes and stuffed them into my backpack with my phone and laptop. I secured the straps around my shoulders and clipped the belt around my chest so it would stay on my back when I changed into my other form.

I rolled my shoulders, glancing up at the moon. Just another Friday night, running naked in the woods.

I tried buying a car when I was nineteen, scrupulously saving my earnings at the butcher shop until I had enough for a used Ford sedan the color of spilled beer. I sold it within a year. Every time I turned around, my aunts and cousins had borrowed the keys without asking or my daddy had insisted that someone should use the car for some random errand because “pack shares with pack.” Eventually, it was just easier to sell the car to a distant cousin to avoid the frustration, and save my gas and insurance money.

As usual, shifting into a wolf felt far more comfortable than my human skin, like shedding an itchy wool sweater. I shook out my sleek chestnut fur, stretching the muscles I would need on a run over land I knew as well as the back of my human hand. My phone buzzed insistently in my backpack, reminding me that I didn’t have time to relish just how good this felt.

Scanning the area one last time for people or predators, I bounded through the trees and followed the scent of home. My paws slipped over the soft grass silently and the wind tickled at my sensitive ears. Scent and sound and sight blended into one sense, channeling information into my hind brain—the rustling of potential prey under the brush, the light of the moon against the leaves, exhaust from cars on the faraway interstate. It was like trying to read a dozen books simultaneously, all at once distracted and laser-focused. Home was the only thing that could keep me from following the myriad of prey scents that flared across my nose.

As I loped over what my cousins called the “wrassling hill,” the McClaine pack compound came into view. The McClaines were among the first to settle in Half-Moon Hollow, choosing to stay far away from the early human settlements and stick to our own. Though my family was sinfully proud of it, the compound was nothing fancy, an ancient farmhouse surrounded by a neat array of trailers on nearly seventy acres that stretched all the way to the Ohio River. The trailers stood in varying states of repair and the pickup trucks had seen better days, but as my Uncle Lonnie liked to say, “They’re paid for, and that’s what counts.”

Still, we were better off than some packs, who had to sell off their territories as the wilds of the world shrunk and poverty was an ever-looming threat. People talked about the disappearing middle class without realizing exactly how bad things were getting for were-creatures in this new modern world. While there were a precious few werewolves who could stand to live in crowded cities, to attend college and become doctors and lawyers, most of us remained pretty blue collar. The sort of jobs werewolves could do without losing our damn minds—mechanic work, farming, anything that kept us outdoors and out of an office—were changing so fast that we couldn’t keep up. And so, some packs were forced to sell their land to developers to keep the metaphorical wolves from the door.

All you had to get my old Uncle Creed cussing was say the words “gated community.”

Werewolves were the most highly evolved were species and underwent the most complete, dependable changes. We also had the most stable social hierarchy, so our lives were a bit easier to balance between the two forms. Each pack had an Alpha male mated to an Alpha female, who controlled their packs through a combination of biological imperative and social conditioning. While their “subjects”—like my parents—had all of the property rights and general free will of any regular person, all major decisions had to be approved by the Alpha couple. Everything from mate selection to major (or sometimes, minor) purchases had to be deemed for the good of the pack to be acceptable.

Our Alpha couple, my Uncle Lonnie and his wife, Mimi, lived in the trailer closest to the old farmhouse, which had mostly been used as a communal meeting space since the family outgrew it decades before. My daddy technically should have been Alpha as eldest son of the previous Alpha and Lonnie’s older brother, but he’d been overlooked after he’d left the packlands to wander. By some strange instinctive magic, leaving had stripped Daddy of his authority and transferred it to Uncle Lonnie. Personally, I’d always thought Lonnie did a much better job than my father would have done. He was fair, but firm, with a kindness in manner that made you want to do as he asked. And yes, he bothered to ask, which could not be said of all Alphas.

Of course, I never voiced these thoughts in front of my parents. That would lead nowhere good.

After years of his wandering, Daddy came back mated to my mama, who was carrying me. While Lonnie accepted Daddy back, it was just “understood” that Daddy’s place in the pack was tenuous. My whole life, I’d heard Daddy rail about being given a spot on the far end of the land, how he’d been edged out, rejected. Our placement may have allowed Daddy his privacy, but in his eyes, it was also a daily reminder that he’d never be fully accepted back into the pack.

So, the situation had soured long before I was born into it. I was an only child, an anomaly in werewolf society, and not the much-desired son – which only added to Daddy’s list of perceived slaps from the universe. We were an alarmingly fertile bunch, which was why there were so many trailers on the compound. Our three-person family unit was just another thing that made us “odd.”

Secretly, I’d always been grateful for it. Crowding more people into our house definitely wouldn’t have made it a happier home.

I whuffed off the calls of the uncles and aunts who were out on their front decks, enjoying the soft spring air. Uncle Eagan commented on how I was out late, with that tone that managed to express disapproval, along with genuine concern. Aunt Paulene asked if I’d eaten yet with the same fretting anxiety she always had: that any member of the younger generation would drop dead if she didn’t cram them full of carbs every three hours.

I stopped just in front of my family’s trailer. White and laminate paneling, it certainly wasn’t the nicest one on the compound, but it wasn’t the worst-off. (That particular honor belonged to my cousin Vance, whose moldy “bachelor pad” would be condemned by any health inspector with eyes and sense.) But Mama made an effort to spruce it up, planting bulb flowers around the stoop and hanging a pretty windchime she’d made from tumbled bits of old glass Coke bottles.

I ducked around the corner of the trailer to shift back to two legs and put on my clothes. Generally speaking, nudity was no big deal for a werewolf. Clothes just got in the way when you were trying to shift back and forth between two forms. But I didn’t enjoy seeing my family members naked, so I was a little more careful of where and when I was dressed. Fortunately, my parents felt pretty much the same, at least, if we were in the house.

Though the windows were lit, the trailer was silent aside from the screech of the front door. Normally, the TV would be blasting some sort of sports channel or one of Mama’s game shows. Maybe they’d decided I warranted the cold shoulder and decided to go to bed early? No—the last time they’d done that, they’d shut the trailer door with one of those anti-theft Club things and I’d had to sleep in my car.

“Tylene McClaine!”

Shit.

Like a lot of female McClaines over the last two generations, my name ended in some form of “lene.” Because my daddy was Tyler, I was Tylene. Still, I was better off than my poor cousin, Eugenelene.

“Where have you been?” my father thundered from where my parents were seated at the dinette set with two of my aunties, Lurlene and Braylene. Oh, hell.

Petite and cherubic with meticulously dyed auburn curls, Braylene had had three cubs by the time she was my age. She included that little factoid in almost every conversation we had. She even wrote it in my birthday card once. Lurlene had been a great beauty in her time, blessed with what she called an “hourglass figure.” She’d had her pick of mates from the best packs and never let anyone forget it. Of all my aunts, Lurlene and Braylene were the most “involved.” They didn’t like how I dressed, how I spoke, how I refused their constant advice. (I much preferred Aunt Paulene and her endless carbs.)

When I was younger, I’d learned how to quietly fade into background of the pack, easy enough to do when everybody else was so damn loud. My parents were lucky I was a good kid who was more interested in my schoolwork than the bad choices available to me as a teenager in a rural area. But once I graduated, it was if I popped back up on the pack’s radar and they started questioning what I was going to do with my life, when I was going to settle down, get serious about my role in the pack. My aunts and uncles, for the most part, weren’t content with my plans for community college and a job I enjoyed.

In general, werewolf attitudes towards social justice may have evolved over the last century or so, but it took much longer for my relatives to adjust to the idea that I might want something more from life than marriage to a big strong male who could provide for me and the children I would bear for him.

When I didn’t immediately change this attitude, they’d taken to ambushing me with makeovers and “sons of friends” visiting from nearby territories. I tensed, scanning the trailer for the sight or scent of an unknown male.

When I didn’t see a stranger, or a set of hot rollers , I relaxed ever so slightly and smiled, like I didn’t have a care in the world.

I hadn’t done anything wrong tonight, not even by werewolf standards. Okay, sure, I was about to lie…but that hadn’t happened yet. My whole life was spent dancing on the edge of this sort of subtle distinction. “I was out with some friends from school.”

“What friends? You haven’t talked about friends in months,” Daddy scoffed, rising from his seat. Like most McClaine men, he was huge, well over six feet tall and still fairly muscled for a man in his early fifties. Deep, unhappy lines bracketed his mouth, the roadmap of his unsatisfying life. My mother sat, quietly working through a crossword puzzle book, as if her husband wasn’t hollering to wake up the whole pack just a few feet from her face. I’d watched over the years as she’d perfected her little bubble of concentration, impervious to noise or tension or the verbal barbs from my aunts. Unfortunately, the bubble had also hardened against her daughter’s discontent a long time ago.

“Where were you?” Daddy demanded.

“I was at the library with friends,” I told him.

He burst out laughing. “What the hell would you be doing at the library on a Friday night?”

“Reading?” I suggested.

“A girl your age should be on a date,” Aunt Braylene said, shelling peas into an old stoneware bowl. “What happened with that Scottie? Darla’s boy? I gave him your phone number. Or do you kids just talk over the texting now?”

I clamped my lips together to keep my expression neutral. I’d agreed to one date with Scottie Briggs. He’d been so handsy, I’d barely escaped the movie theatre without popcorn butter-flavored handprints on my ass. I would not subject myself or my jeans to that again.

A headache started to bloom behind my eyes.

“It didn’t work out,” I said vaguely.

“You know, when I was your age, girls didn’t hide in their rooms behind computer screens. If you want to catch a man, you’re going to have to work for it,” Braylene told me.

I shrugged. “I’m good. Really.”

Lurlene looked sincerely offended. “You need to think about your future. You know, your daddy isn’t gonna put a roof over your head forever.”

I had a lot of opinions on this topic. I’d been willing to move out for years. I’d even tried a few times, only to cancel my plans when my parents claimed it would somehow make their position in the pack even worse. So, my secret savings account grew right along with my frustrations. Daddy glared at me hard enough not to bring those opinions up.

“Why don’t you come on over to my place tomorrow? We can freshen up your hairstyle a little bit, make you over,” Braylene pressed, with a significant look towards Mama and her dishwater blond hair. “You were lucky enough to get the McClaine coloring, honey, but you gotta take full advantage.”

“I’ll think about it,” I promised, angling my body towards my room, so I could make my escape as soon as possible. I would not submit to another torture session in the chair Lurlene’s oldest son had ripped out of a defunct hair salon. Last time, she’d damn near given me a perm.

“Well, what else do you have goin?” Lurlene asked. “Hank said that you’re not signed up for a shift at the butcher shop. Or the bait shop. Or the towing business. What are you gonna do with yourself all weekend?”

“I have homework,” I lied again smoothly. Community college coursework had been my go-to excuse for years. And while I did have a few associates degrees under my belt, including computer science and marketing, I hadn’t taken actual classes in about six months. My parents didn’t need to know that.

“Oh, honey, community college isn’t gonna get you anywhere you want to go,” Braylene said. “If working for family is good enough for your cousins, it’s good enough for you. You know how busy the butcher shop is on weekends.”

“Angelene met her husband while she was working at the butcher shop,” Lurlene added.

“Angelene’s husband thinks he’s gonna make money off of selling homemade batteries!” I retorted.

“He says it’s all about who you know,” Braylene said, shaking her head.

“Pardon me if that isn’t exactly what I’m looking for in a mate,” I huffed.

“Well, you’re never gonna find one if you’re so all-fired picky,” Lurlene shot back.

I objected, “It’s not ‘picky’ to—”

Daddy cut me off with a gesture. “All right, all right, enough. I’m sure Tylene will come to her senses soon enough.”

Braylene stood, picking up her bowl of peas. “You need to talk to that girl, Tyler.”

She pulled Lurlene up by her elbow. Lurlene was trying to pull away, whispering to me, “Just some layers around your face maybe. Or some bangs! We could tease ’em real high!”

“With all due respect, Aunt Lurlene, I would rather be bald,” I said quietly, shaking my head.

With the front door slamming behind my aunties, Daddy whirled on me. “I’ve had enough of that library bullshit, Tylene. I know when you’re lying to me. Where were you? Were you with some boy we don’t know? Go ahead and tell me. You know I could smell him on you if I wanted to.”

Pointing out that at twenty-four, I should be spending time with men,not boys, was a point that would have been completely lost on my whole family. Instead, I chose to focus on the idea of my father literally trying to sniff out my sins.

“Oh, gross, that is a huge violation of privacy,” I said, backing away from him.

“You live under my roof, so you follow my rules.”

“Well, then maybe I shouldn’t to be under your roof.”

“Don’t start that again, Tylene,” Mama said quietly. “Until you’re grown, your place is in our home. If you leave sooner, the whole pack will ask why. You’ll put our place at risk.”

“I am grown! I’m twenty-four years old! I have savings. I can pay my own bills, my own rent.”

Mama rolled her eyes. “You know what we mean by ‘grown!’”

“‘Married’ does not mean grown!”

“How do you all the sudden have all this money?” My father’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s been giving you money?”

I gritted my teeth and took a big breath through my nose. These arguments were always so circular, not to mention pointless, because they never listened to a word I said anyway. “I don’t suddenly have money. I’ve been saving it for years! I have more than enough to support myself. I could get out of your hair. You don’t even like having me around. You think I can’t tell when I’m not wanted? Trust me, I’ve picked up on the signs.”

“What do you mean ‘not wanted?’” Mama exclaimed. “We’re your parents!”

“Okay, but most people move out from their parents’ home by the time they’re twenty!”

“Most humans, you mean,” Daddy countered.

“I knew this was going to happen,” Mama murmured. “I told you, when Jolene married that human, that she’d bring the whole pack down with her.”

“This has nothing to do with Jolene,” I groaned.

“Just look at this.” Mama tossed a copy of the local newspaper onto the table. The headline read, Beeline Abuzz: Hollow-based vampire concierge service expanding to five new cities. When I failed to react—because I couldn’t figure out what that had to do with us or Jolene—Mama rolled her eyes and flipped the paper over to show a photo of an event celebrating Beeline’s “statewide launch.” Mama stabbed a long finger into the background of the photo, where Jolene and Zeb seemed to be happily wrapped in a sort of group hug with the vampires.

“Your cousin’s out there in public, huggin’ a bunch of vampires like she doesn’t have a care in the world,” Mama huffed. “Like vampires haven’t looked down their nose at us since before time began. Like everything is just rainbows and roses. And now she’s corrupted you along with her.”

“Mama, honestly, this has nothing do with Jolene.”

“Y’all be careful when you talk about the Alpha’s daughter,” Daddy stepped between us and growled in a low voice. “She’s still everybody’s favorite, even if my brother should have disowned her the minute she moved off the packlands.”

Considering Daddy’s own wanderings, this seemed more than a little hypocritical. This was definitely not the time to bring that up.

“Tylene’s always careful to stay on Jolene’s good side,” Mama said, her eyes begging me to help her change the subject. “She’s watching the twins on Monday night for her. Aren’t you, hon?”

I nodded. “They need a ride to some music class. Jolene’s got a meeting she has to go to.”

“See? That’s the sort of thing we want to see you doing with your time. Helping out the pack,” Daddy said, nodding, his mood suddenly lifted. “But when you’re out, you answer your mama’s calls, no matter what. And her texts. Otherwise, we come looking for you. And you know we can track you if we want to.”

When I opened my mouth to argue, he cut me off with a sharp gesture. “End of discussion. Now, why don’t you go on to bed? I’ll ask Hank to come by to talk about your shift tomorrow morning.”

“But—” He leveled me with a look and I clamped my lips shut. “Goodnight.”

I turned on my heel and walked to my room. I was careful not to slam the door. I sank onto the bed and rubbed my hand over my face. I’d been having such a nice, quiet night. How had so much gone so wrong so quickly? I hated arguing with my parents. It was always so pointless and frustrating. And I knew, just like I knew that I’d accomplished nothing talking to them, that I would end up working that damn butcher shop shift the next morning. Because I would feel too guilty to tell my sweet Uncle Hank “no” to his face.

Robotically, I changed into my pajamas and got ready for bed. As I pulled the blankets up to my chin, I realized I hadn’t looked for that replacement stock image for the sword. I would have to get up early to look for one in the morning.

I closed my eyes and the vampire’s face floated to the surface of my mind. Never mind the fact that he was a gorgeous specimen of man…vampire…manpire? He’d been so polite—just unfailingly appropriate and considerate. How sad was it that I was so impressed by basic manners that was what I remembered about him?

It didn’t matter. I doubted I would see him again.

2

“A stagnant vampire is a vampire who loses their will to live. Be open to new experiences. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your eternity. Nobody likes an eternity waster.”

—A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships

A vampire named Dick Cheney made me the best cappuccino I’d ever had.

My life was very strange.

I sat at the shiny maple bar at Specialty Books, scanning the shelves as I sipped my frothy coffee drink. After seeing Jane Jameson-Nightengale’s name on library plaques over the years, it was sort of shocking to find myself inside her shop, with its comfortable purple chairs, restful purplish-blue walls and twinkling fairy lights. The air smelled of coffee and old paper and dried herbs inside the pots lining the back wall. I could also smell the tang of blood in the air, which was a little off-putting, but I found I didn’t mind it all that much. It wasn’t that different than hanging out at Hank’s butcher shop.