Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,87

or Regan caught wind of it? Neither of them seemed willing to take the title by force. Were female werewolves just as physically strong as their male counterparts?

Blinking, she cranked her radio sky-high and clenched her hands around the steering wheel. If something happened, they’d call her, wouldn’t they?

She got home and brooded until dinnertime, braced for a phone call, an email, something. Nothing came.

“Everything okay?” her grandfather asked her over a piece of fried chicken. She was eating steamed vegetables and they tasted like cardboard.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she blurted.

He blinked at her. “Haven’t given it too much thought. This something for school?”

She pushed wisps of her blonde hair away from her face. “I’ve just heard a lot of people say there are a bunch of ghost stories around here.” She studied him while she took a sip of water. “A friend back home said she saw a ghost when we were kids and I — I was just thinking about it while I was driving home,” she lied.

“I’d like to think people move on when they die instead of being stuck here,” he said.

His choice of words made her want to laugh. Stuck here. Like me. Maybe I’m a ghost.

“I know people believe in all kinds of things like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster,” she said, trying desperately to sound casual as she pushed some peas around her plate. “What do you think? You think vampires and werewolves might actually exist?”

She counted off the seconds before he chuckled and set down his fork. “I know they’re popular with the kids and all, but I just don’t see vampires as being real. I mean, think about it. The undead?”

More silence passed. He didn’t say a thing about werewolves. She wanted to persist — to make him speak — but she was afraid that if he wasn’t suspicious already, then he’d know for sure something was up.

So she just nodded and focused her attention back on her meal. Later, when she went to bed, she couldn’t remember eating a single bite.

~

Monday morning rolled around and she still hadn’t heard anything from Justin. The silence was driving her crazy. Despite their twisted relationship, she cared what happened to him. Though she tried to remind herself that he was pretty much her jailer, and that their attraction to each other was just physical, she also remembered how he had risked his life to save a little girl; that he was kind to Jesse; and that he was suffering over his uncle’s deterioration.

And he came from a world of high passions and brutality. Katelyn was beginning to grasp that the many dead parents of the werewolves she had met weren’t “hunting accidents,” not in the way she had originally assumed. Had they died challenging each other? Or had they been killed for violating the rules of the pack?

The thought that death — murder — might be so commonplace sickened her. What difference would it make to them if a few humans died, too? Mr. Fenner had talked about six dying back when he was eighteen. The three recent deaths — possibly four, if Mr. Henderson had been killed — had to have been caused by werewolves.

Or the Hellhound.

She got in her car and drove through the forest, seeing shapes that weren’t really there. Or weren’t there currently. Wondering about Justin. About what would happen if he became the alpha. About what would happen to Mr. Fenner.

And to her.

~

She got to school early, which was her plan. Trick’s Mustang was there and she took deep breaths for courage as she walked through the main hall, looking for him. He had gone silent as soon as her grandfather had told him that he and Kat were going to the Fenners’ for Thanksgiving. She had let him have his snit.

Finally she saw him about ten feet ahead of her, ambling along in boot-cut jeans and cowboy boots. She was about to call his name when he turned around. He was scowling, and she took a step back, which he didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, hi,” she said.

He made no reply.

“So Thanksgiving sucked,” she said.

“Stop. Don’t even,” he said harshly. “What do you want?” He shifted his weight, impatient, huffy.

“‘Stop. Don’t even,’” she mimicked. Then she grimaced. “This is stupid. They invited us and Grandpa said yes without asking me. Just like he decided we’d stay in our cabin instead of going to your house if we got snowed in. He didn’t ask me about that, either.