Wolf at the Door - By MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,51

her to ask Edward to change into someone with white skin and blue eyes.

“Yeah, well, I believe you when you say you’re not the vampire queen—I’m pretty sure—but I gotta call bullshit on this werewolf thing. Not that I think you’re lying,” he added when she opened her mouth. “I think you could take a polygraph and never bounce a needle. But that proves my point about you needing help. You can’t ask me to believe that every full moon . . . Let’s just say I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Thirty-nine

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Forty

Edward had tripped over the rolltop desk and hit the floor hard enough to actually see stars. Wow, he thought, rubbing the back of his head. Look at that! Actual stars. All those Bugs Bunny cartoons were telling the truth.

It was his fatal mistake, of course, and his death was coming in the exact manner he had always known it would: he’d gotten killed doing something idiotic or clumsy or both. So he wasn’t at all surprised when the slavering she-beast of the night rushed over to him, jaws dripping foam, snarling her hatred for man, her ancient enemy.

Except what really happened is that she let out a surprised yelp—

(funny, weird and funny that it seemed more like a gasp of dismay than a yelp, funny how it was like she wasn’t all person and she wasn’t all wolf, funny how it was like she was something in between a creature that was both and neither, all the time, yes, very funny)

—and rushed over to him, anxiously sniffed him, then tried to lick the back of his head.

“Wh—aagghh—stop it, that tickles!” What he had first mistaken for slavering jaws dripping enraged foam was the friendly wide wolf grin (accompanied by a lashing tail) he’d seen on canines before.

“Oh boy,” he said, bringing his hands up again to push her away, and letting them drop to his sides again. “Ohhhhh, boy. If you don’t devour me in a bloodlust born of a dire feeding frenzy, Rachael, I owe you a gigantic apology. Like, the Galactus of apologies.”

She was still trying to get at the back of his head. “No, it’s fine, Rachael. Just a bump. You—you—” Scared the shit out of me! Made me watch my life flash before my eyes, and y’know what? It wasn’t that great a life! “You startled me.”

And it was his own damned fault. She warned you. She wasn’t cute or coy about it; she flat-out told you: I am a werewolf and I am going into my hobbit hole to change into the form of a wolf by the light of the full moon, so smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Or words to that effect. But did he believe her? Noooooo. And why should he? It wasn’t like he had, oh, I dunno . . . firsthand experience in tons of weird paranormal shit due to the fact that he LIVED WITH an ex-cop/current-comedian vampire and an albino vampire slayer!

Perish the fucking thought.

No sooner were they in her apartment than she began stripping off her clothes. This had the (perhaps predictable) effect of every coherent thought fleeing his mind as blood raced from his brain into his dick. “Uh, Rache, not that I don’t love seeing you naked, not that I don’t love just the very thought of bluff sex—or would it be hobbit hole sex? Anyway, I think if we have sex now, it would fall under the taking-advantage-of-Rachael category.”

“Please stop talking.”

“And not that—whoa, bra shooting past my shoulder! You ever notice that those can be used as slingshots? Wow, you’re really whipping them off, aren’t you?”

“You’re still talking.” Her voice had gotten lower; she sounded pissed, so he figured shutting up wouldn’t be the worst idea he’d had, and then she, and then she, and then she—

(Say it!)

—and then she turned into a wolf.

If he’d blinked, he would have missed it: one minute she was naked and hairless and cute and pale and pink, and the next she’d dropped to all fours and was hairy and grew a tail from somewhere and her ears got longer and her snout got longer and her teeth got much, much, much—

(Why grandma!)

—much, much, much bigger and longer and sharper, and then he was shrieking, not so much from fear, okay from a little fear, but also shock and surprise and the sheer joy of it; he was screaming with the knowledge that Rachael was beautiful in every mood, in every form Rachael was—

(my God,