Werewolf Wedding(20)
She started nodding and made her way to the door.
“I was kidding, you moron! Don’t go out there! Look at those two, they’re—”
“I’m not much of a risk taker, you know that,” Jeannie said. “But to get between those two?” She shrugged as Jake’s brother – Dane he’d called him – got some leverage on Jake and hip-tossed him to the ground. He followed his brother down, crouched on top of him and landed one single punch before Jake rolled out from under him and got to his feet. “I’d risk an arm. Hell, maybe a leg. Depends on how long I’d be between ‘em.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I said with a laugh.
“You are too,” she replied, still staring out the window at the battling giants. “I hope they’re fighting over you. How, like, primal and satisfying would that be? Two enormous Neanderthals beating the shit out of each other to claim their princess; it’s the story of half the fairytales on earth. Except, you know, it’s happening right here, and as far as I know, you’re no princess.”
“Says you.” I stared in a mixture of shock and awe as Jake dodged a punch and promptly crunched a fist straight into his brother’s nose. “Also, we have to do something. Or one of them actually is going to kill the other one.”
Finally, one of the two participants started speaking loudly enough for us to hear. It was Jake, and he wasn’t not happy. “I will never let you take over the pack! I don’t care what kind of challenges you give me, or what you pretend to want to do, I’m not letting you get everyone killed!”
He punctuated this with a punch that made Dane’s teeth turn red with the blood from a busted lip, even though the black-haired brother was still grinning like a psychopath. The crimson stain just enhanced the wild look in his eyes, which I’m gonna admit this, even if I’m not entirely comfortable with it – the whole feral, wild, savage thing? Kinda hot. From the way she was gnawing on her lip, I figured Jeannie agreed.
“Did he just say pack?” Jeannie asked. “That’s weird.”
I shook my head, immediately thinking back to the whole werewolf joke he told. “Must be a family joke,” I said. “What the hell runs in a pack? Werewolves?” I scoffed to indicate that I wasn’t serious.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve read enough books about them. Shit, you know what? They kinda look like werewolves are supposed to look. And I’m getting kinda... you don’t have any need for some lesbian experimentation do you?” She was laughing nervously. “Don’t answer that.”
“What the hell do you know about it, brother?” Dane snarled outside, loudly enough for me to clearly hear him. It was... pretty terrifying, to be honest. With the blood dripping everywhere and the pissed off yelling, I was starting to see the werewolf thing – er, I mean, it made sense. You don’t have to believe everything that makes sense. “You’re fighting right now! How can you possibly go on and on about violence being bad and all this, while you are fighting me? How is that reasonable at all?”
“You won’t listen to anything else,” Jake said. He was doing that thing where you talk really low, but it’s still loud and kind of whispery and raspy. That was awesomely hot too, but at that point I was more interested in no one being murdered than the tingling ladyparts. “So I’m doing whatever I can to convince you of how stupid you’re being.”
Dane threw his head back and started laughing, apparently forgetting entirely that he was bleeding all over the place. “I’m the stupid one. I am the one trying to screw everything up, is that right? And yet I’m the only one acting like a predator.”
At that, Jeannie and I exchanged glances. “Predator?” she asked. I shook my head, a little perplexed about the whole predator and prey business.
“If you’re leading the pack, we’re prey,” Dane said and then spat a gross wad on the ground. “We’re wolves brother, we shouldn’t be hiding in the shadows, scared to be who we really are!”
“Holy f*ck,” Jeannie said. “I knew it. I totally knew it. I read this one book, and there were—”
“Shhh!” I hissed at her, a finger on my lips. “I have no idea why they decided to do this here, but I’ve got a fairly good idea that we probably don’t want to get between them.”
“Jeez,” Jeannie whined with a wistful look on her face. “That’s what you think. I’m still thinking that I’d accept the lack of at least one arm for... twenty minutes between them. A finger for five.”
I had to laugh. “What do you think being between them would do?”
Jeannie was just shaking her head, repeating the same words over and over – I don’t care what they’d do.
The thing was, she didn’t know what it was actually like to be between those two warring brothers. It was a little irritating, honestly, especially since I didn’t even know what I was in the middle of, much less why the hell I was in the middle of it. One thing she was yammering about did ring true though – there was something about Jake and what he did to me that I couldn’t deny. And even with his yelling at his – admittedly cocky, slightly taller, and pretty good looking – brother and all their going back and forth about the weird predator shit? I was glad he was outside my studio.