His hair is dark brown. So are his beard, eyebrows, and mustache, all of which are very… full. Like… beginning to cover his face full. He’s either very rugged-looking, or he’s seconds away from turning from a man into an animal.
Cauley shoots me a sexy smile. “Relax, Sue.” His grin goes lopsided, which makes my stomach flip. “Trust me, swayt hart. This is going to be fine.”
It takes my brain the tiniest moment to recognize the endearment as ‘sweetheart.’ But my body responds to the endearment the moment it rolls out of his mouth. I should tell you right here that Cauley is Irish.
(If you’re thinking, “But he’s so tall!” that’s pretty much everybody’s first reaction. I’m sure he just loves to keep hearing the short jokes.)
He’s really, really Irish though, and when his accent gets thick, it makes women stupid. It makes women do whatever he tells them to do, makes them agree with whatever he’d like us to agree with—moi included. “Right,” I concur on an exhale.
When the hunched werewolf only crouches lower and shivers, Cauley wraps his hand around the back of the man’s (male’s? How does one refer to a werewolf?) neck and hauls him inside.
Stomach twisting with nerves, I close the door and turn to face them. “Have a seat anywhere you like.” I gesture to my living room, which is off to the right. My townhouse is humble, but clean and well-maintained. There’s one sectional sofa that dominates the space in front of the TV, and I expect the men to take it, but Cauley walks the frightened-looking wolfman into the kitchen on our left, letting the man sag to the floor by the island. His big body knocks the barstools to the side, making screeching noises on the linoleum flooring.
“Is he all right—” I start, worried. Okay, if I’m being honest, I’m quickly shifting from naturally worried to straight up freaked out. I was already nervous about bringing a stranger—let alone a werewolf stranger—into our house; this isn’t helping.
“Awf, for the sweet love of Jaysus,” Cauley murmurs to himself—or to God. “He’ll be fine,” he assures (‘Heel b’fyne!’ is what my ears first hear before my brain can translate), righting the stools and propping the man up before throwing me his patented sex-charged smile. But my eyes hone in on the gleam to Cauley’s teeth. I’d swear, they almost look… sharp. His eyes do too. And for the first time, I feel a little bit unsafe with him.
The absolute besheeshus is scared out of me when Cauley whips his head up, bares his teeth, and turns a hard smile on me. “Susan? Getting scared with a werewolf isn’t a helpful thing. So don’t be scared, okay?”
Fear rips through me, but I get a throttlehold on it, and try for an apologetic grin that I don’t feel and nobody believes. Faintly, I murmur, “Got it. Sorry.”
Cauley gives me an appreciative nod. “This,” he says, squeezing the nape of the now-shivering man, “is Lucan. But everyone calls him Deek. And she,” he says firmly, giving the man a shake that makes me unconsciously hug myself in shock (ironically, almost the same move is made by the werewolf being shaken on the floor), “is Susan Taylor. Say her name.”
The shaking wolf—Lucan—stammers my name on a panted whisper. He draws his wrists closer to his chest, protectively and submissively, projecting the strange impression that he’s more beaten dog than man. “Su-susan.”
“Good,” Cauley says, and without releasing the man’s nape, his other hand gruffly pets the top of the werewolf’s head, mussing the thick hair between his rapidly changing ears. They aren’t a man’s ears anymore. They’re furry and triangle-shaped, and they’re moving—sliding higher up on his skull. “For the foreseeable future, Susan is your alpha. Repeat after me.”
“S-s-susan is my alpha,” the trembling man whispers.
“MOM! Can we see him?” Maggie, my six-year-old, shouts excitedly from the living room where she is not supposed to be. She was told that she was to wait in her room until Cauley gave me the a-okay.
I expect that her older sister at least obeyed the directive. Charlotte is fourteen, and she is, in a word, dependable. Capable too. She wanted to oppose this plan to bring a werewolf stranger into our house for the purpose of babysitting Maggie—yes, that’s what this Deek guy is here for, and I know how crazy that sounds—but Charlotte is enrolled in advanced courses in summer school and thus can’t babysit her little sister herself.