Page 46 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

“I didn’t say shifter. I said werewolf.”

None of them said anything for a second, and then Matt broke the silence. “You mean she can only shift on the full moon?” I nodded. He sat back in the rocking chair and whistled low. “Woah. I don’t think I’ve ever met a werewolf before.”

“I didn’t even think they were real,” Nic admitted. “Or maybe I just thought they were a thing of the past. Are you sure she’s telling you the truth?”

“It would be a pretty weird thing to lie about,” I said. “Plus, she seemed pretty freaked out about the whole thing. Apparently, she was hit by some rogue curse while she was in Guatemala. I didn’t get all the details, but she’s only turned once. The first time she became the wolf was on the last full moon. She has no idea what she did that night, but she woke up bloody.”

“Fuck.” Cornelius, who didn’t swear very often, shot me an icy look. “This isn’t good. We’ve worked so hard to keep a low profile in this town. If she brings this kind of attention to herself…” He trailed off.

“We can’t let her do that!” Nic stood. “We can’t let her stay here. I’m going over there right now and telling her she needs to leave town.”

I grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto the couch. “Don’t do that. We can’t make her leave town; we don’t own Solara Bay.”

“But Rory, this could put all of us in danger.”

“I know. And trust me, I’m angry too. But it’s not as if Katrina asked for this. She’s scared and unsure of herself, and you busting down her door and telling her to leave won’t help the situation.”

“Does she know about us?” Cornelius didn’t even try to hide his anger. “Does she have any reason to connect all of this to the pack?”

“No. But she knows that there’s something about all this I’m not telling her. I didn’t do a great job of acting shocked when she first told me, seeing as werewolves don’t exactly scare me. My reaction clearly tipped her off.”

“We need to go,” he said.

“Go where?”

“I’ve been saying we should go back to the compound for a while now, and this is a sign.”

“No fucking way,” I said. “You know I’m never going back there.”

“We don’t have a lot of other options,” he argued. “Things are no longer safe for us here, and based on the news that trickles in from the south, I have a feeling the pack needs us.”

I put my hands up to stop this bullet train to South Carolina. “Just because Katrina potentially poses a threat doesn’t mean we should go back to the compound. They don’t want us there anyway. We never fit in with the rest of them, and I’m willing to bet most of our previous pack members were happy to see us go.”

“Not everyone.” Cornelius’s jaw tensed. “Things have changed.”

“You don’t know that for sure. Just because you’ve gotten a few sporadic letters from people back home, that doesn’t mean you have any idea what’s been going on there for the last two decades! What if the letters are a trick? What if they want us back to kill us?”

“They have no reason to do that.”

“Hasn’t stopped them before,” I sneered.

Cornelius moved like he was going to take a swing at me, but Matt was faster. He got up and put a hand on Cornelius’s shoulder. A fight was unlikely to break out, though I could tell Cornelius was angrier than I’d seen him in a while.

“Okay, everyone, just take a breath,” said Matt. “Things are heated right now, but we can’t be at each other’s throats. There are more important matters at hand. Forcing Katrina to leave town isn’t an option, and neither is us returning to the compound. Not right now, at least. So, does anyone have a different idea?”

Cornelius glared down at me, and I met his gaze. If he wanted a fight, I would give him one. I’d love an excuse to eliminate some of this adrenaline. Matt, however, wasn’t letting go, and after a few charged seconds, Cornelius backed down. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “You know where I stand on all this, but I won’t sit here and argue with you. We should’ve gone back to see how things were going in South Carolina a long time ago, and this latest development only solidifies my thoughts on the matter.”

He walked off in a huff, and nobody chased after him. We all knew better than to do that.

Once it was just the three of us, Matt sat back down and folded his hands calmly in his lap. “Okay, so Cornelius votes that we go back to the compound before your girlfriend has a chance to do any more damage.”

“Which is out of the question.”

“You’re awfully quick to throw out a good idea,” said Nic.

“Now you think we should go back?” I laughed. “I never thought Cornelius would’ve been able to convince you.”

“He didn’t… I’ve just been thinking about some of the people we left behind. I sometimes wonder whether or not we’ve stayed away too long.”

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