Page 1 of Witch's Wolf

1

SAM

The human world? Bah, no thanks, not for me.

I’ve seen what it does to my kind. What it did to my brother, Raul. The memory is raw and fresh, no matter how hard I try to shove it aside. The fear in his eyes is burned into my mind, the kind that strips you down to nothing, paralyzing you until there’s no fight left. He was teetering on the edge of the abyss, one misstep away from falling.

No matter what my family, Nora, Ray, and I tried to do to pull him back. In the end there’s no saving someone from themselves. Raul was all in on the human doctor and when she abandoned him, the curse kicked in.

That’s the trouble with loving a human. It’s a gamble. A reckless, stupid bet with the odds stacked against you. And when you lose? You don’t just lose love. You lose yourself, everything, including your life.

It’s not like that with other shifters. We understand that love is a bond in which you put your trust, not something that we ever take lightly. It’s a thread spun from respect, strength, andthe promise of forever. Between shifters it’s mutual, solid. If the worst happens and you lose them, there’s purpose in the pain.

Your children carry on, your bloodline endures, and that knowledge is enough to anchor you. But humans? Their world is built on fragility. They don’t understand permanence. They don’t understand us.

Raul’s ordeal didn’t last long, at least not by human standards. A few days of torment. A blip in time. But those days stretched into eternity for him, and I was there, at his side for every excruciating second of it.

He gambled his life for her. A woman who couldn’t even begin to understand what he was, what he’d risked for her. Monica, as smart, stubborn, and insufferable as she is, was completely incapable of seeing the truth. At least not easily.

In the end, she did figure it out and she saved him. I’m grateful for it, but it sealed my distrust. Both of her and humans in general. Not that I trusted them much before. Any shred of faith I might have had in humans disintegrated.

If someone like Monica, a doctor, a woman who swore an oath to protect life, could be so blind, so dangerous, then what hope was there for the rest of them? Raul could have his human. I couldn’t stop him if I tried. He’s my brother, my blood, and my alpha, and I know him well enough to know he’s going to do whatever the hell he wants. That doesn’t mean I will follow his example. Fuck. That.

It’s been two months since our fight with the vampire clan led by Damian. Dawson, our quiet small town, is almost back to normal. Almost. Except for one, highly annoying and distracting change. The new humans.

Raul only recently took over as Alpha of the pack, which is great. Except, since he’s mated with Monica, he’s welcomed more humans into Dawson. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and a low growl form in my throat. Humans with their petulance, their noise, their insistent need to be the center of attention. They haven’t come here in droves, thank God, but it’s still enough to be annoying.

Every other weekend, Monica brings her two friends, Erica Connors and Stacy Melvin. Obstinately, they come for dinner, but that’s not the reality. They actually come for the spectacle. The novelty of spending hours among shifters, sipping wine and laughing like they belong. Six or seven hours of their chatter, their human quirks, and their endless curiosity. It’s pure torture.

Ray, snarky as ever, nicknamed them “the sarcastic blonde and the squirrelly redhead.” I don’t usually agree with my brother, but he nailed this one. I especially have no patience for Monica’s sharp tongue, no matter how clever she thinks she is.

And Stacy? She’s a child in an adult’s body, giggling at every noise she makes, like she’s auditioning for a cartoon. My siblings love it. I don’t.

Raul knows I hate it. He’s not stupid and constantly rides my ass that I’m not “warming up” to his little experiment. Which I’m sure is what led to his current bright idea.

“Come on, drive with me to New York,” he says, again.

“And, I’ll repeat myself, why in the name of all that’s holy would I want to go to that shithole?” I ask.

“I want to see Erica perform. She’s a singer and a pianist. And hey it’s getting warmer so, if we like her, that’ll make theweekend dinners more fun. I’ll get a piano and she can perform for us in the summer.”

The entire idea irritates me, but even so it is intriguing as well. Music, live music, is rare in Dawson. We shifters love it, crave it even. Our naturally heightened senses make good music transport us, but despite that, none of us play an instrument and most of us couldn’t sing our way out of a paper bag. I can’t remember the last time I heard it outside of a stereo.

There’s another huge downside to his plan, though. If Erica’s as good as Raul says, she’ll draw a crowd. A crowd of shifters will invade our home. My private space will become her stage. My sanctuary invaded by dozens of my kind. All hungry for a taste of her magic. And I know the pack. Know how they act and what they do. They won’t ask permission, they’ll just come on in. Make themselves at home and leave a god awful mess in their wake.

“Come on,” Raul urges.

“Is this an order,alpha?” I ask.

“No,” he says, looking genuinely hurt. “It’s not, but come on Sam. Lighten up. You might like it, worst case we get out of town for a night.”

I agree, not because I want to see her and definitely not because I care about her talent. I couldn’t possibly care less about any of that. I agree because I know that if I don’t, Raul will never let it go. He’ll harass me until I finally do what he wants. Better to get it over with sooner than later. Only then will I get any peace.

Who knows, maybe I can say something to Erica that will stop her endless parade of sarcastic quips and squeaky laughs. I can always hope, can’t I? I contemplate things to say on the entiredrive into the city. It gives me something to think about besides Raul’s incessant droning on about how good Erica is supposed to be and pointing out how she’s a good looking woman.

“Do you ever shut up?” I ask, turning up the radio, hoping that Tom Petty will drown him out.

“You know better,” Raul laughs, but then he sings along with the song and we make the rest of the trip in relative quiet. Though I have to wonder if I didn’t come out of this trade-off on the losing end. His voice is terrible.

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