Page 49

“I get a lot of cardio and kickboxing in,” I told her with a grin. “And there’s tomato on my burgers sometimes.”

She shuddered at the mere thought of it. “Dinner. Tonight.” She looked down at my shirt. “Wear something clean. I don’t even care if it’s a Stevie Nicks shirt, but pants would be appreciated.”

“I’m busy tonight.” I spoke on instinct, the idea of a sit-down dinner with the Hughes family was abhorrent to me. And though I didn’t have any firmly nailed-down plans, I sorely hoped I’d be in a death match with a werewolf tonight.

“No, you’re not.” She called my bluff. “You’re coming.”

Her tone told me this was nonnegotiable, and fuck if I was strong enough to go up against a genteel Southern woman.

I sucked my teeth. “Can I bring anything?” At least some of my manners remained intact.

She stood, brushing invisible crumbs off her slacks. “No, just yourself. I’ll take care of you, honey.” She squeezed my arm. “I doubt you’ve let anyone do that in a while. Plus, it’s not going to be easy for you… Colton is coming too. I suspect you two haven’t made up yet.”

I drew in a slow, deep breath. “We’re not getting back together, if that’s what you mean.”

She laughed, genuine and deep. Not cruel. “No, honey, I do not have designs for that. Not because I wouldn’t love to have you as a daughter-in-law, but because I’m not quite sure my son could handle you.”

And with that, she left.

I added dinner with the Hughes family on my list of things to do, in addition to killing a powerful witch, an old and established werewolf, and whatever the fuck else was lurking around town.

I’d almost forgotten about Dante.

Almost.

I’d left the house, avoiding any more unwanted visitors and because Sharon’s words seemed to echo through the halls. I no longer heard my parents’ screams. Worse, I heard their laughter. The gentle murmur of their voices as they read to me, helped me with homework, talked about my day.

The good memories were much, much worse than the bad. I’d relive their gory deaths over thinking about slow mornings and the scent of my mother’s perfume any day.

Not that public places were much safer. Every inch of this fucking town was littered with emotional landmines, past versions of me, old boyfriends, frenemies.

And Dante.

Who was obviously stalking me.

That or there was only one library in town, and he was a halfway decent hunter looking for the same thing as me.

“You look like shit,” Dante remarked, wrenching out the chair across from me and sitting down. But he did it like a douchebag, turning it to sit with his legs wide, arms resting on the back of the chair.

“No, you can’t sit there, and thanks. Looking unappealing to you is exactly what I was going for.” I glared back down at the records I’d managed to unearth from some old town files. There were some questionable deaths before my parents were attacked, some that fit the pattern of a supernatural hunting ground. But the clear-cut werewolf attacks seemed to start with my parents. Which begged the question… Was that night the wolf’s first kill? Was it turned then? By whom? The witch?

If I were to believe the subreddits about some werewolves being born and not made, then there was a possibility of my parents’ deaths being a kind of “coming of age” kill for the wolf.

So that required me to do heavier research about what that would look like. Were they human? Was turning a wolf a point of puberty? If so, they could’ve gone to high school with me. Granted, it was one of my less believable theories, and I’d had to wade through a fair amount of bullshit to find some reliable sources. But I was leaving no stone unturned.

“You need hobbies.” Dante stared at the papers that were cluttered across the table.

“I have hobbies,” I argued. “Unless you count following people who cut me off in traffic to their homes then slashing their tires.”

Dante’s lips twitched. “Well, I do approve of that and would love to be involved one day … but anything else?”

“I drink.” I tapped my fingers against the paper.

“I think that’s an addiction, not a hobby.” He craned his neck, trying to get a closer look at the papers, but I snatched them away.

“Some say potato, I say potahto.” No way did I want him to catch a glimpse of any of my research, come to some sort of conclusion I was blind to, and steal my kill. Not happening.

“Chill out, I’m not going to copy your notes,” he huffed. “I’m here to try to drag you out of this stuffy library.”