“Hey,” he says, sitting on the bench across from me.
My lip curls, but my mama taught me to never be rude unless it was time to be rude. His being a werewolf, according to her, was not a good enough excuse.
“Hey,” I grit out.
“I guess this damn Hunter's Moon has all of us in a little bit of a swirl,” the guy says. He's a little older than me and seems pretty laid-back for a man who’s a couple hours away from being an uncontrollable beast.
“You could say.” I shake my head, trying not to imagine how satisfying it would be to rip this fucking door off its frame. “But I’m not official, so if you could keep that under your hat…”
“Me too, brother.”
I roll my shoulder, agitated by his familial greeting. But I don't say anything.
He grins, still easy. “Ah. You're one of those shifters who doesn't like his were counterparts.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, fisting my hands to keep my claws in check. “That opinion didn't occur in a bubble. But I'm not here to cause any trouble with anybody.”
“No, I get it. The unfortunate thing is that if you were born and raised in this area, the only weres you know are assholes. And the werewolves are the worst.”
“The Fontenots,” I growl.
“Yeah. If it'd been my pack, the assholes in that family would have had their nuts in a vise right quick. I ain't never seen a pack so fucking dysfunctional, rude, and greedy. That's not what pack is about.”
It's only then that I register that his accent, while French, isn't Cajun. I ask him in my mother tongue, “Where you from?”
“Acadia, up in Canada. Is that Cajun you're speaking?” he asks in a slightly more fussed-up version of French.
“Oui. But you understand me, okay?”
He nods, continuing to speak his dialect. “And you understand me pretty well too, right?”
I nod and answer in perfect French, “It's helpful to know the original language so that when you bastardize it, you know exactly what you're doing.”
He smiles and replies in equally beautiful French, “Agreed. It's important to know which colonizers’ rules you're breaking when you're breaking them.”
We chuckle, knowing our shared cultural history.
I run my hands through my hair, shaking my head again. “Look, dude. It wasn't cool of me to just make assumptions. My friends remind me that I’m particularly bad with werewolves.”
“If I was from this area, I’d be hard-pressed not to make the same assumptions. But I gotta say, it seems awfully personal to you. Did a werewolf do something bad to your family?”
I nod, sharpening my jaw. “My mother. Killed by a werewolf. Left in the swamp to rot.”
His eyes look unbearably sad with this information. “Pack is everything. To kill the matriarch of another’s pack is the mark of someone with no sense of justice or honor. Person like that would get his throat ripped out in my pack.”
“Funny. I happen to agree with that response.”
He pats my shoulder, and I'll be honest, this is the first werewolf I haven't wanted to rip to shreds. We’ll call it progress.
“So what’re you doing here in New Orleans? How’d you find yourself in jail?”
“Found out I had some cousins down here that made the great migration, thought I might come and see about them. But you've already met them, and you can imagine how unimpressed I am.”
“Dear God. Don't tell me you're a Fontenot.”
“Hell no.And if I was, I’d change my fucking name after meeting these people. No. Cherier is the last name. First name Toulouse.”
“Nice to meet you. I'm Lazare.”
