The Party
Highabovethevalley,the moon hung like a beacon, brightly lit and luminous.
Despite the unseasonably warm weather, there wasn’t a single cloud to hide its brilliance. As Vanessa sped along the rural highway, it seemed the moon was shining a spotlight down the road, lighting the way to the celebration like a bright, white runway.
She was already running late. Work always seemed to know when she had plans, creating a domino effect of late meetings and endless piles of paperwork, and once she’d arrived home, wardrobe indecision had set her back further. Now, she was attempting to make up for the lost time. The stretch of highway between Cambric Creek and Starling Heights always seemed empty, no matter what time of day she traversed it, which wasn’t often. Being the only car on the road often left her feeling discomfited, but she was grateful for the empty road then. There was no one to impede her progress, no one to slow her haste. No one to make her any later than she already was.
He would understand. Perhaps more than anyone else she knew, he would understand her tardiness and wouldn’t care.If he even notices.After all, hadn’t he been late just the previous month, the first time they’d spoken in several?
“You don’t need to apologize,” she’d smiled up once he’d finally appeared before the table that night in the over-priced restaurant he’d suggested, the waist-coated server ducking his head, pulling out the chair across from her for her tardy companion. The linen-covered table was already littered with the half-empty water and wineglass, the latter having already been refilled twice by the time he’d arrived, but it hadn’t mattered.
“That’s a relief,” he’d grinned down, his skin still holding its sun-kissed glow, his perfect white teeth blinding her for a moment. He’d been on vacation a month prior to that night, somewhere in the Maldives with someone who wasn’t her, and the knowledge had made her twist . . . but twisting had only ever made her fight harder. “Because I hadn’t planned on it.” His smile was cutting, but she had met it with a sharp-edged grin of her own. He was a wolf, a cocky, arrogant bastard of a wolf. But then again, so was she.
Vanessa reminded herself that he’d not apologized then, and she didn’t need to apologize now. All she had to do was get there. The moving dot representing her car on the GPS’s digital display showed how close she was to the hidden cul-de-sac where she needed to turn, following the circular road until she reached a private drive leading into the woods. Greenbridge Glen was the perfect backdrop for the nearly full moon — a tiny, sparsely populated hamlet, comprising a small resort and a smattering of private homes and not much else — nestled in the rolling hills of agriculture that stretched between the two towns. It was lush and green, the hills providing a perfect sea of shadows for the moon to cast her white light upon, guiding the way.
The house was a country estate, built at the turn of the previous century, replete with hundreds of winking leaded windows and deco archways, high on a hillside, surrounded by forested peaks and valleys. The Greenbridge Glen address was a tax shelter owned by several members of the Cambric Creek elite — a shifter who lived halfway around the world and the troll couple who had started the Food Gryphon chain; the heiress to the Deliquesce fortune, a ubiquitous home plumbing product marketed to minotaurs and centaurs; and several others, including the evening’s host.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me . . .”
The vast estate was on a private drive, a perfect setting for that night’s celebration . . . or at least it would be if the line at the valet wasn’t ten cars deep. Vanessa sighed, tapping her lacquered nails against the edge of the steering wheel as she idled at the curb, watching as another sleek luxury sedan slid into the queue.Eleven cars.Fuck it. She didn’t want to waste any more of the evening than she already had, taking her foot off the brake as a twelfth car took its place in the valet line. She would park down the road and hoof it up the hill, and she wouldn’t be forced to waste any more of the party.
It had become one of her favorite celebrations of the year; ironic, as she’d only started celebrating it since she’d met him.Lupercalia. There was something primal about this night, a tumidness that would weight the air even before the smells of sweat and sex permeated the ceremony; a heavy sense of expectation that seemed to curl around her, lifting her hair and licking down her bare legs.That’s what happens when you get this many hard cocks in a room at once.
The throng of merrymakers had spilled out onto the lawn, she saw as soon as she crested the steep incline, only needing to step through a bit of landscaping, her spiked heels sinking into the black mulch at the base of the manicured shrubbery. A scowling security guard appeared before her, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening as she produced her gilt-edged invitation with a flourish and a beatific smile.It could have been worse, she reminded herself, kicking away the remnants of the mulch that clung to the toe of her black patent leather shoe.You could have wound up crawling through the bushes. You didn’t need to climb a tree or hop a fence, so we’ll call this a win.
As usual, no expense had been spared. The champagne was already flowing liberally, waistcoated servers gliding through the crowd, crystal flutes, hot hors d’oeuvres, and identical black masks on hand for those who had not brought their own. Vanessa wondered, as she looked around at the sea of staid cocktail attire, snagging a champagne flute from a passing tray, how many of these gossiping guests would stay as perfectly coiffed as they were now; how many of them would fall prey to the hysteria of the festivities, loosening their hair and clothing alike when the wolves began to run. She paused, wrinkling her nose at the unexpected taste of the champagne, before straightening her black lace mask and entering the fray.
“Have you heard the news?”
Vanessa melted into one of the clusters of partygoers, sipping her champagne as if she had been there the whole time, raising an eyebrow at the woman on her left’s excited utterance.
“There’s news? I must’ve missed it.”
They were ecstatic to have a newcomer, this circle she’d joined, explaining and reexplaining the same gossip she had steeled herself to hear repeatedly through the night. The group around her tightened ranks, their circle closing, excited whispers piling together into an indistinct susurration until the dark-haired woman on her left leaned in again.
“Jackson Hemming is running for mayor. You know what that means. Changes will be coming soon, mark my words, and they’re all in our favor.”
Vanessa had perfected an expression of artless innocence that served her well in the courtroom, and she employed it then.
“Running for mayor where? In Bridgeton? I didn’t think our election was for another two years! Just goes to show how much I pay attention, I guess . . . I can’t see a werewolf being elected, though, not with a human population of that size.”
Several of the other guests huffed in exasperation at the foolishness of her comment. Ofcourse,not Bridgeton — despite being the closest city, one of the largest in the state, where political aspiration might ripple beyond the well-insulated bubble of these privileged partygoers. She feigned ignorance as they corrected her misassumption, explaining the power dynamics in tiny, neighboring Cambric Creek. Multi-species. Werewolves and shifters started the town, didn’t she know;shouldbe running the town, and it was a relief that they would be again.
“I guess I’ve never been that interested in politics,” she shrugged, setting her empty flute on the tray of a passing server before turning to move on. The champagne had a sweet effervescence, certainly a top-shelf choice and fine for a crowd this size, but it was hardly his favorite.Correction:someexpenses were spared.“Jackson Hemming, he’s the host tonight, right? I haven’t met him.” She turned away, unable to hold back her small, self-satisfied smile as the man to her right snorted in disgust at her ignorance.
She didn’t wait to hear their corrections. Jacksonshouldbe there, she thought, moving on to the next group of people. He ought to be schmoozing and rubbing elbows, participating in the ancient rituals, leaving his judgment and the stick that lived up his ass at the door . . . but this wasn’t his party, and that wasn’t her business. One group of people turned into two, then three, on and on, the same tired gossip, identical masks, all blurring together until she was finally able to ascend the stone staircase, pushing through the crowd at the open, gilded doors.
The interior ballroom was similarly populated with circles of clucking hens and circling servers, but she knew it would not stay that way for long. Soon the altar space would be thick with incense and smoke. The music, which was currently so courtly and mild, would escalate slowly, gradually beginning to rise in intensity, nearly without notice. A drumbeat that would seem to thunder in her chest until her heart had absorbed its rhythm would keep the crowd in thrall as the wolves entered — as they ran, as the women in their path shrieked, skins striking skin, hands fitting against the curve of hips, cocks slipping between parted thighs like puzzle pieces slotting together. For now, though, the music was sedate, matching the elbow-rubbing that took place amongst this crowd of the well-heeled elite.
A slow scan of the room showed her where the altar space was set up and the doorways through which the wolves would enter. And there, along the far left wall, she saw him on a raised platform separated from the crowd by a gilded railing. The evening’s host.
He was tall and impossibly broad, with wide shoulders, heavy with muscle, a brick wall of a wolf. The definition of tall, dark, and handsome, at least she had always thought so, his square jaw and firm chin providing a striking profile, even with the black domino mask concealing the top portion of his face. The golden railing kept him separated from the rabble in an aloof bubble in the midst of what looked like a heated conversation with several other men.
“That’s one of the Hemmings,” hissed the woman who had sidled up to where she stood, following Vanessa’s line of sight. Human, from the smell of her, one of the seat fillers. Bursting with recently acquired knowledge and overeager to share, Vanessa thought, a suspicion the girl all but confirmed as she plowed on. “He’s the host. And I think that might be one of his brothers behind him. And the short one is Hasty Harland. No, wait. That’s not it. Harland Hast—”
“Harmond Hastings,” Vanessa corrected, her eyes not leaving the bigger man’s black mask. “Of Hastings-Durning Pharma.”
The name didn’t seem to ring a bell for the human girl, unsurprising considering she hadn’t spent most of her ovulating life taking monthly heat suppressants bearing the Hastings-Durning name. Whoever had brought the girl was a name-dropper, but Vanessa gave her credit — she was clearly a quick study.
