Thirteenth Werewolf and Other Stories Read online

  Thirteenth Werewolf and Other Stories

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THIRTEENTH WEREWOLF AND OTHER STORIES

  First edition. August 29, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Aimee Easterling.

  Written by Aimee Easterling.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Thirteenth Werewolf

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Bloodling Song

  Tough As Nails

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Biological Clock

  Mop Magic

  Salamander in the Basement

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Thirteenth Werewolf

  Chapter 1

  “Welcome to Death Camp. You have a 42% chance of survival. Please take your orientation packet and head directly to your cabin.”

  The kid stood in the doorway like a deer in the headlights. Tattoos marbled his skin while a deflated army-surplus duffel bag hung over one shoulder. It took a second for Becca’s words to sink in. Then—predictably—he turned on his heel to flee the premises...and crashed chest first into me.

  “Perhaps you could tone down the welcome,” I suggested to my cousin.

  “Just saying it the way I see it, Luke.”

  “Well, start seeing it differently.”

  Despite our banter, my eyes never left the kid. I did, however, take a single step backwards so I could take in the entirety of his form.

  He was early twenties, I guessed. Older than usual. And.... “Where’s Mommy?”

  His eyes squinted half shut. The scent of wolf flashed from his pores. If I didn’t get out of his way fast, he would shift and tear into me like half a dozen others had before him.

  I cocked my head. A wolf tussle could be fun. But that wasn’t what this kid needed right now.

  Because Tattoo Kid was scrawny, his bones having outgrown the flesh atop them. He smelled faintly of fast-food-bathroom antibacterial soap, as if he’d washed up as best he could at the McDonalds three miles down the road in lieu of an actual shower. Beneath the tattoos, his skin was the sickly pale of a couch potato...or of a shifter who’d spent the last many moons in the form of his wolf.

  No, this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill camper. Which meant....

  Behind me, a gust of wind informed me that the building’s main door had opened. Chattering voices drifted down the hall.

  “Well, honey, I wish we could....” The mother.

  “I can’t believe you listened to him....” The son.

  The youngster’s scent was full of furry confusion. A typical Death Camper sent to me because his pack couldn’t handle his strength.

  To most alpha werewolves, a single sniff of the incoming camper would have been enough to get their territorial motors revving. To my surprise, Tattoo Kid’s mouth quirked upward into the barest hint of a smile. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh,” I answered.

  It was nice to be understood...but Tattoo Kid needed to get out of here ASAP. Our operation wasn’t exactly set up for walk-in guests.

  The thing was, Death Campers weren’t allowed in each other’s vicinity for the first twenty-four hours. We staggered their arrivals. Locked them in their cabins. Went to crazy extremes to keep their testosterone hazes out of each others’ face.

  Because unplanned sightings tended to lead to fights. Fights led to injuries. Injuries led to mortalities.

  I might call this place Death Camp, but it was intended to be the campers’ salvation. Tattoo Kid would derail that intention if we didn’t get him out of here immediately.

  Unfortunately, the office had only one door.

  Chapter 2

  Footsteps drew closer. A clatter of high heels. A thud-squeak of brand new, high end sneakers. That was the expected camper.

  Tattoo Kid, in contrast, wasn’t on the roster. Thirty more seconds and this would turn into a shit show.

  “This isn’t what I expected.” Tattoo Kid let the duffel slide off his shoulder. A human dropping his bag would have been letting down his guard, making himself comfortable. The werewolf before me, in contrast, was preparing himself for offensive action.

  And no wonder. Sneaker Boy was close enough so his reek of alpha aggression almost yanked my wolf to the forefront. I’d trained myself to resist lupine instinct, so the urge was just a tickling in the back of my throat. Tattoo Kid had no such defense.

  I clenched my fists, hating what I had to do next. But it was all part of the package. Some I could save. Some I could not.

  I offered Tattoo Kid one final sliver of hope.

  “You are on Death Camp land,” I warned, gaze never wavering. “Last chance.”

  The tone of my voice should have slapped him into submission. But Tattoo Kid didn’t blink or look away.

  His wolf was nowhere near ready to submit to mine. His human half, on the other hand, was surprisingly cognizant of the repercussions of gainsaying the owner of Death Camp.

  “Meaning you can kill me now and no one will bat an eyelash.”

  A grunt from Sneaker Boy. “Mom, did you hear that? I don’t want....”

  I ignored the youngster even as his voice hit the squeaky soprano of a terrified teenager. I could lay him flat on his back without breaking a sweat, zip-tie him and send him home with his mommy in thirty seconds or less.

  Maybe if the camper didn’t actually start the session before washing out, the usual wouldn’t happen. Maybe his daddy would give him a second chance rather than snapping his toothpick neck.

  While I pondered, Tattoo Kid was sprouting fur in the usual places. Under his chin—the better to protect himself from the expected death blow. Between his fingers as claws sprouted in an effort to defend himself.

  I couldn’t see it, but there would also be a haze of fluff running the length of his spine. Under his arms. Between his legs.

  Tattoo Kid was more than half lupine already. He wouldn’t survive twenty-four hours locked in a cabin-turned-cell.

  On the other hand, if Tattoo Kid shifted in the confines of our office, Sneaker Boy wouldn’t be able to help himself from joining in a brawl.

  Two dead kids or one? That was my decision. My stomach sank.

  But Tattoo Kid surprised me. His fingers hooked themselves around the duffel-bag strap even though they were almost paws already. He stepped closer to Becca and further from the youngster who now stunk of fury and fur.

  Then Tattoo Kid picked up a wooden chair. And for the first time, I grew worried.

  We hadn’t suffered through a hostage situation since our second season. Becca was one tough cookie, but she was seated and entirely human. Tattoo Kid outweighed her by at least fifty pounds.

  He didn’t make a move toward my favorite family member however. Instead—still not breaking our eye lock—he made me a promise.

  “I’ll be back in twenty-four hours.”

  The window shattered as the chair crashed through it. Then Tattoo Kid defenestrated himself.

  Chapter 3

  “Defenestra
tion means throwing something out a window,” Becca complained twenty-three-and-three-quarters hours later. We’d been up all night alternately browbeating (me) and sugarcoating (Becca) the campers. In fifteen minutes, we’d let all twelve out of their cabins and hope they didn’t kill each other over lunch.

  My cousin, predictably, was more interested in debating semantics. “You can’t defenestrate yourself,” she continued.

  I shrugged. “I say it the way I see it.”

  “Luke.”

  “Becca.”

  “Well, either way, he’s long gone now.” Becca dug her bare foot into the dust at the edge of the driveway. One big circle, two dots for eyes, then a turned-down frowny mouth.

  My cousin was too soft-hearted for this gig. But she did it anyway. And not for the money, either.

  Although that part was pretty good. We got twenty grand a head up front, and there was no money-back guarantee to cut into our earnings if we sent campers home in a box.

  “Luke, you know you’ve atoned for....”

  “Enough.”

  “No, we need to talk about this. It’s been a decade. It wasn’t your fault in the first place. And even if it had been, your brother’s death is washed out. Bleached away. Air dried.”

  “Becca.”

  “For once in your life, shut up and listen.” She turned on me, eyes so fiery I half expected the cotton of my shirt to start smoking.

  The campers thought Becca was the good cop. But by the end of the month, they would see her like this and reassess their assumptions. The preview was enough to make me forget, for a single second, why I’d interrupted her incipient tirade.

  “You’re not a lone wolf,” she continued. “You’re an alpha protector. I see it every summer. You build packs, for crying out loud. Choose one and lead it. You have land. Good standing in the shifter community. You could hold your own easily. Don’t keep doing this to yourself.”

  “Am I the one who needs a pack? Or are you?”

  She growled, one of many traits she’d picked up while spending summers among werewolves. At fifteen, when her lack of fur cut off further pack connection, she’d already cemented a slew of characteristics that were decidedly wolf.

  “I’m human,” Becca said, rebutting both my words and my thought processes.

  “Physically maybe.”

  “It’s the only way that matters. No wolf pack will have me.”

  Unfortunately, she was right. Stupid shifters, unable to look beneath the surface.

  Not for the first time, I wished I wasn’t too broken to give my cousin what she both craved and deserved.

  We sat there in silence for one long moment. And even though a tingle at the back of my neck promised a predator was creeping toward us, I did my best to listen to what Becca was saying between the lines.

  I’d thought she was as committed to this task as I was. But, instead, I got the distinct impression her commitment was to me, not to the Death Campers. She craved a pack. And, apparently, I was it.

  Becca was bone-deep weary of watching seven out of twelve kids die within the first week of making our acquaintance each season. She wanted out...and I’d trapped her here with my own unwillingness to give up on the atonement process.

  The issue would have to be dealt with. Soon. Before the end of this round of Death Camp.

  But not at the present moment.

  Instead, I turned to face the dusty-pawed wolf lingering beneath the dining pavilion’s awning.

  “Welcome back to Death Camp,” I told Tattoo Kid. “Two legs only for the next twenty-four hours. That’s your first demerit. Third demerit and you’re out.”

  Chapter 4

  “That’s shit. I’m not eating it.”

  Alex—one of a dozen campers who’d been dragged here by their mamas—slammed the spoon down so hard it slopped burnt oatmeal onto Becca’s apron. “First demerit,” I said just loudly enough so he could hear me from the other side of the room.

  Then I went back to watching the door. Tattoo Kid wasn’t here yet. Lateness—I winced—a second demerit.

  I liked every camper to end their first day with a reason to read the rule packet they’d either ignored or lackadaisically flipped through during their twenty-four-hour confinement. That meant I handed out first demerits like candy on Halloween.

  But second demerits were tricky. Second demerits meant campers I’d hoped to save were one step away from certain death. If the stars didn’t align properly, I might have to snap their necks myself.

  So I tapped my foot and drifted closer to the only entrance. Fire codes weren’t an issue here—crowd control was.

  Meanwhile, Becca was managing the oatmeal disdainer admirably, as usual. “You just won the first round of kitchen duty,” she said cheerfully. Then—presumably responding to something on Alex’s face—“If you spit in my vat of oatmeal, you’ll eat this batch and nothing else until it’s all gone.”

  The other campers laughed. The inevitable round of heckling started immediately.

  “You’ll look good in a ruffled apron.”

  “Holly Homemaker.”

  “Ooh burn!”

  Little did they know that KP duty was the best of the jobs they’d cycle through during the month ahead of them. Smirking only slightly, I was relieved to see Tattoo Kid finally making his way in through the door.

  Even though it wouldn’t lessen his punishment, I could tell he had a good reason for being tardy. He’d spent the intervening minutes in a much-needed shower. His hair was slicked back and he walked with the contented grace of a recently licked house cat.

  The only factor marring his perfection was that same ratty duffel bag dropping dust onto his otherwise clean shirt.

  “Lateness is a demerit,” I informed him.

  He nodded, reaching for his back pocket. Here it came. The first overt display of disobedience, the example I’d have to make for the good of the eventual pack.

  But all that emerged was a sheaf of stapled papers folded to the final page then coiled to fit into his pocket. Even from a distance, I could see he’d marked an X rather than signing his name on what appeared to be a camp contract.

  “You can’t read?” I raised my eyebrows. Could I call that extenuating circumstances? No, I decided. It was safer for everyone if rules remained rules.

  “I read just fine....”

  The abrupt silence in the room suggested the other campers had clued in to our quiet drama. But, no, eyes weren’t pointed in our direction....

  I slung around to face the food line, saw Becca with a splotch of spittle dripping down her cheek. My vision darkened around the edges as my wolf tried to rip its way out through my skin.

  Instead of succumbing to alpha anger, I pulled out my phone as I sprinted toward her. Where was it? Where was it? Ah—there.

  Good thing contacts arranged themselves alphabetically by a camper’s first name. I dialed and dove between shocked shifters, coming up one table away from Alex and Becca just as Daddy Not So Dear replied.

  “What?”

  “He’s done.”

  “But....”

  I hung up. There was no time for external tantrums. Not when Becca was drawing her taser and preparing to fire.

  In her anger, she must have forgotten that Alex’s questionnaire included the data that he had a super-human pain tolerance. Shooting him now would be like a honeybee stinging the nose of a rampaging bull.

  “Becca, back!” I barked one second too late. The electrodes hit...and were ripped free so fast I barely saw the motion. Yep, that bee sting had definitely awoken Alex’s inner beast.

  But he wasn’t lupine when his hands went for her throat, which was bad news for my cousin’s safety. It meant my surefire method of stopping crazy shifters wasn’t going to work.

  I had to try, though. “Freeze! Vital processes only!” I ordered, alpha commandment slapping 90% of the shifters in the room into instant obedience.

  But, just as I’d expected, Alex was unaffected. His iron
control over his wolf would have made him good alpha material...

  ...If he wasn’t about to die.

  Chapter 5

  There was no time left for kid gloves, so I shifted as I leapt over the intervening table. Jeans slid off my hindquarters while my shirt slung sideways to twist around my furry neck. Ignoring the handicap, I struck Alex with the full weight of my body just as Becca’s face went from the tint of cream-of-potato to tomato soup.

  We went down in a jumble of legs and fur. And it took me longer than it should have to realize I wasn’t the only wolf in the pile.

  Tattoo Kid was there alongside me. Brawling on camp property—his third demerit. It didn’t matter that he was trying to save Becca. Three strikes and you’re out.

  At the moment, however, Becca’s safety remained my top priority. Alex yelped as my teeth bit into the tendons of his right wrist. The bone beneath was crunchy. His instinctive kick with his hind legs struck me straight in the gut.

  My teeth loosened without my permission just as the kid’s unwounded hand tightened around Becca’s tender human jugular. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t....

  Then, abruptly, Alex’s fingers slackened. He was flat on his back, Tattoo Kid’s teeth at his throat, before I even managed to regain my breath.

  Becca inhaled a great big gulp of air and my own chest expanded in sympathy. She lay there gasping while I stepped back, stiff-legged. A wolf and a teenager struggled for dominance at my feet.

  The pair battled in complete silence. Tattoo Kid’s teeth were too deeply embedded in Alex’s throat for me to hear him growl. Alex’s windpipe was too constricted for him to breathe.

  And, to make matters worse, Alex’s father’s henchmen would be here at any minute. Executioners were, by definition, sick motherfuckers. If I was wiping the floor with recalcitrant campers when they arrived...well, they might take that as an excuse to slaughter everyone in the room.

  Perhaps that’s why I didn’t shift and disagree when Becca rose to tower above the two entwined campers. She swallowed twice, and when she spoke her voice was raspy.