“Liar! I can hear it in your voice. You’re lying just like this morning. Bryson!” he called.
Wes could hear the murmuring of Bryson’s voice from some distance off and the bawling of the cows. They must’ve still been outside working.
Wes chewed on a rough edge of his short thumbnail. “It’s late. Why are you still out there in the dark?”
“We got two cows having trouble calving,” Hunter explained.
“Shhhit. Which ones?” Wes asked.
“One-oh-four and Maris’s baldface cow.”
“Marshmallow?” Wes asked.
“Kinda weird that you know her cows’ names, but yeah. That’s the one.”
“She’s had three calves before this one and never had any trouble. Is it breech?” Wes asked, staring at the hotel window. Still dark, which meant Summer was still in the bathroom. Girls took really long showers.
“No, not breech. I told you that bull was gonna throw big calves. They’re too big. Bryson’s trying to pull it right now.”
More guilt. Wes should be there, but Hunter didn’t know that Sam was alive. And a part of Wes didn’t believe it himself, so he couldn’t get Hunter’s hopes up by telling him he was hunting down their dead brother. He had to keep this quiet until he was certain.
“Can I ask you somethin’?” Wes asked his brother.
Hunter’s response was immediate. “Anything. Well…except probably math questions. Or anything about history or naming the bones in the body. Or anything about constellations or what my favorite book is. Or—”
“Shut it,” Wes demanded. “I don’t need a bunch of nerd answers. I need to know…” He swallowed hard and cleared his throat, tried again. “I need to know how to shop for a woman. What do those she-critters need?”
“What do you mean, what do they need? You just feed ’em and hug ’em sometimes and tell them they’re pretty when they’re on their periods.”
Wes squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers and counted to three for patience. He would rather eat grass than talk about periods. “If I have a friend, who is a girl, and she doesn’t have anything to wear, or like…brush her hair with…what do I get her from the store?”
“Oh. I’m good at this. I done it for Sadey before.”
“I’m aware, dipshit, that’s why I’m askin’ you.”
“Call me something nicer, and I’ll tell you.”
In the background, Bryson called out, “I could use a little help, Hunter!”
“Hurry up and call me nice stuff. Bryson just got kicked in the ball sack by Marshmallow.”
A growl rattled Wes’s throat. Through gritted teeth, he ground out, “I’m aware, Shit Biscuit, that’s why I’m askin’.”
“I know you triiiiied,” Hunter drawled out, “but that’s not any nicer.”
“What do I get a girl!” Wes barked out.
“T-shirt, tank top, bra, panties—do the cute colors, she’ll appreciate the effort—flip-flops, nail polish, shorts, jeans, deodorant, shaving cream, razor because, for some reason, girls like to be smooth like hairless little mole-rats. I have to admit, it’s a nice feelin’ on Sadey’s legs and cootchie when she shaves, and some girls even shave their tooter ports—”
“Hunter.”
“Right. Toothbrush, toothpaste, makeup, and if you don’t have a big hoodie to give her, get her one of those, too. And flowers. And chocolate if she’s on her period. And Butterfingers, lots of them, and if she doesn’t like Butterfingers or can’t eat that many, that’s okay. You just eat the leftover ones.”
“Okay, thanks, man.”
“Don’t forget to feed her.”
“Okaaaay,” Wes gritted out.
“And tell her she’s pretty! Even if she’s not on her peri—”
Click. Wes disconnected the call.
A picture text came through from Hunter almost immediately. It was of Bryson hunched over, holding his dick, while Marshmallow pulled against a rope she was tied to the fence with. Ha ha. Bryson’s pained face looked so dumb.
Wes hopped in his truck and took off for the grocery store down the road. One hour was how long it took to gather the stuff Hunter had suggested, and even then, he wasn’t sure on the sizing for anything. The makeup thing was beyond him so he grabbed about six solid pounds of glittery shit from the cosmetic aisles and hoped she could use some of it. Spent way too much money, but that was okay. He’d buy her a fuckin’ Ferrari if it eased her hatred of him, and nope, he didn’t care what that said about him.
Guilt made him insane, apparently.
Chapter Six
A plume of steam escaped the bathroom when she opened the door, but the hotel room was dark. She’d spent every last drop of hot water there was, thinking about what had happened today with Wes. What was happening to her heart. She didn’t feel so angry anymore. Not now that he owned what he’d done. That had been the worst part of everything, the feeling that he’d been able to leave her so easily. That he didn’t care. He’d been wrong to do that to her, but she’d also been wrong in assuming his reasons. In assuming she didn’t have value or wasn’t enough.
Something strange had happened in the shower. The wolf had quieted. She’d stopped growling for a little while, and for the first time in years, she could inhale deeply.
This was the breakthrough her therapist had wanted for her. The pause in the growling. The proof that the wolf could improve.
And she felt it swirling inside of her chest, fogging up her mind—hope.
“Wes?” she asked. Maybe he was asleep on the bed, but when she opened up her senses, she couldn’t smell him and couldn’t feel the bond.
The growl was back. No, no, no, everything was fine. He probably just went to the vending machine.
Summer wrapped the towel tighter around her and padded across the thin hotel carpet to the window. The parking spot Wes had left the truck in was empty, highlighted by blue moonlight, and a frantic glance around said he’d really left. His truck wasn’t anywhere in the parking lot.
The snarl got bigger.
He left us again.
“No,” she grunted, the end of the word morphing to a snarl as she fell to her knees.
“He left us again,” she growled out in a voice that didn’t belong to Summer. It belonged to the wolf.
Fire crackled through her veins as she fought the Change. It always felt like dying when she fought it. She’d stopped fighting it, but this wasn’t a good place to Change. It wasn’t a safe place. She wasn’t in the wilderness or she wasn’t locked up to keep the world safe from her fury.
Her spine always broke first and elongated for her tail. Her face shattered and reshaped to a long snout, and her teeth changed from the blunt enamel of a human to the razor-sharp weapons of her animal. Nails turned to claws, and smooth skin burned with the sprouting of fur.
She’d seen her reflection before, whenever she drank out of a creek or river. A tar-black monster with one silver eye and one brown always stared back at her. Before the Turning, she’d been blond and light, fun and happy, and laughed all the time. And then Wes had put Wolf in her, the complete opposite of her human side. Black as pitch, devilish by nature, angry with a short fuse and a dynamite temper. And weapons. Teeth, claws, speed, power.