“Austin, I’m not a shrink,” I said, placing my hand on his leg. “I haven’t exactly been patient or understanding with Adam either. He’s been in pain, and you should tell him what you want him to do. See how he responds. I’ll mediate if you want.”
“What do you mean, he’s in pain?”
“The whole shifting thing. I think he needs a lot more attention than I can give him.”
Austin’s eyes widened. “Aw, jeez,” he whispered. “I forgot about that.”
“About what?”
He jumped up from the chair and hurried back to the house, not responding. The door shut behind him, and I stared out intothe woods. If anyone understood what Adam was going through, it would be another werewolf.
A bird let out a cackle high in one of the trees, but I couldn’t see what it looked like. I could only hear its creepy call, which echoed farther away. After a few minutes, more birds sang, their calls seeming to echo and reverberate through my head in a deafening chant.
“Cody. So sweet,”a soft, feminine voice whispered in my ear.“We would love to meet you.”
Tens of red, beady eyes stared unblinking from the shady pines. A familiar, hot and heavy sensation pressed in from all around, more intense than when Willa had escorted me through her restaurant. It was the same primal screaming from the wolf to take cover, and this time, I wouldn’t ignore it.
Trying to stay calm, I stood and made my way to the door. When the knob clicked, the woods fell silent and the voices vanished.
Adam and Austin’s bedroom door was closed, but there weren’t any sounds coming from the other side. The bathroom door was also shut, and I assumed Roscoe was still working off an impacted bowel from all the meat he’d consumed. As I approached the kitchen, however, I found Roscoe at the dining room table, nodding to music while peeling potatoes.
“I thought you were still in the bathroom,” I said, sitting in the chair next to him. “Why are you making more food?”
Roscoe turned down the small bluetooth radio next to him. “These are gonna go bad soon if I don’t cook ‘em now.” He looked over at me. “You hungry?”
“Not at the moment.” I turned the radio all the way off. “What you did last night was really sweet.”
“I knew you’d like it. You always pretend like you hate somethin’ until you actually give it a chance.” He smiled and dropped a peeled potato in the bowl, pointing to himself with the dull side of his paring knife. “Like me.”
“That all depends on if you’re going to clean that nasty couch today. I saw roaches in the kitchen this morning.”
“A little more protein wouldn’t hurt ya,” Roscoe said, picking up another potato before noticing the disgust on my face. “Ya know I’m kidding. I’ll clean it.”
“Am I an asshole?” I asked, gauging Roscoe’s shifty eyes.
“Uh…” He set the knife on the other side of the table. “That depends. Do you know where I hid that bag?”
“I guess that’s my answer.”
“Listen. Ever since that night with the mayor, you’ve been a little short.”
“I’m on edge,” I responded, resting my head against my knuckles.
“You gotta learn how to deal with that stuff in a constructive way instead of takin’ it out on the pack.” He nudged my arm. “You should take it out on me in bed.”
“It’s always about sex, isn’t it?”
“Naw. I’m just telling you to start using me the way yer supposed to. That’s why we’re kuu mates. You think all this is just to get free housing? All half-turns need a trusty werewolf that’ll be there when they need to blow off steam.”
“I thought the whole kuu thing was a recent policy.”
Roscoe nodded. “Yeah, but this stuff’s been happening well before that.”
“Then why do we even need these?” I pointed at my earrings, which I found out from Mosavi didn’t really work for me. “Ifhalf-turns and werewolves end up together anyway, why do we need some kind of magical bond?”
Roscoe paused for a moment and shrugged. “I ain’t an elder, so I don’t know what the purpose is for any of this shit. I just know that we’ll get a free ride when it’s over.”
“And you know this, how?”
