“You’re such a—” I whispered but stopped and forced a smile when he glared at me. “So, I take it our two nights a week have been canceled?”
“Regrettably.”
Austin’s stomach rumbled from across the fire.
“It’s two o’clock. When the hell is Roscoe gonna be finished?” he asked.
“One mustn’t rush perfection,” Roscoe said in a fake Italian accent as he made his way to the fire. “Everything’s almost done. Just waitin’ on the rest of the turkeys in the smoker. They’re gonna be so juicy.”
“How many turkeys did you end up getting?” Austin asked. “I counted like eight of ’em. We expecting more, or are you gonna go on a binge?”
“They’re on their way.” Adam had been glancing at his phone every five minutes until now. “I wanted to invite a few of my friends from the city.”
“Well shit. How about some damn appetizers then?” Austin held his stomach. “I haven’t eaten since last night.”
“That’s not the sound of hunger. The seven lobster dinners you ordered for room service and horked down on my bill are likely still digesting,” Mosavi said through his teeth.
“Oh yeah. That was good shit,” Austin said casually. “Thanks, Mayor Moneybags.”
Mosavi was close to lunging, but Willa grabbed the sensitive area between his shoulder blades to calm him like she had the other day.
The sound of bus brakes squealed in the parking lot far behind Darryl’s shack, and Adam leapt to his feet before making a mad dash toward the commotion.
“Good. Everyone’s here,” Austin muttered, turning to Roscoe. “Bring on the food, Emeril Lagasse.”
Roscoe scooped up a handful of sand.
“Bam!” he shouted, throwing it to the ground, but a strong breeze whipped it directly into Mosavi’s face. “Uh oh.” Roscoe tore away from the fire before running back into Darryl’s house with his tail between his legs.
“This is all a test, isn’t it?” Mosavi snarled, turning to Willa. “Everyone is seeing how far they can push me before I start rampaging.”
“Relax, dear,” she said, brushing the sand away. “It’s the beach. We’re going to get sand everywhere anyway.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Adam was quietly leading three werewolves to the beach, signaling for me to keep Austin distracted.
“Uh, Austin, what’s in that little box you brought with you?”
His eyes brightened. “It’s a surprise for Adam, but don’t tell him. He thinks I was just working on the still.”
“I take it things have been going alright for you two,” Darryl said.
“I think so,” Austin said. “I’ve got a lot to make up for.”
“Adam doesn’t see it that way,” I said as the four werewolves stopped just shy of the fire. There was a short brown werewolf with a thick black mane, a silver werewolf around Roscoe’s height with dark gray mane, and a taller skinnier werewolf with shaggy black fur. They each wore a dog tag and army fatigues similar to Austin’s.
“The pack’s got your back, ain’t that right boys?” the silver werewolf said, his voice cracking and shuddering slightly.
Austin snapped his head toward them as the others shouted in unison, “Yes sir!”
“W—what?” Austin scrambled to his feet, stumbling a few times in the sand before running up to the other three. He let out a high-pitched whine. “How?”
“Where the hell have you been?” the silver werewolf said through tears as they all surrounded the larger werewolf in a group hug. “You went AWOL without saying a word to us.”
“I thought you guys were dead,” he shouted hysterically, pulling away before wiping the deluge of tears from his eyes. He reached for his chest and snatched the dog tags he wore beforepulling them away until the chain broke. “They threw these in the trash. I thought they killed you all, and I thought I was next.” He struggled to catch his breath, his legs shaking as though he would collapse at any second.
“It was all classified, and they didn’t fill us in on anything until later. North Korea developed a nerve agent that can take down werewolves without having any effect on humans. They were testing ways to immunize us against it, but they weren’t gonna kill us. They kept the doses really low until they found something that worked. They were protecting all of us.”
Austin looked down at the tags in his hand. “All this time…” His voice was weak and shaky just like his legs.
