Werewolf Wedding(48)

Jake sighed and edged toward the door. “If it’s Dane though, or one of his idiot groupies, he might be making a play. All it’d take is one good pitchfork in the chest and it wouldn’t matter how many times you convinced me to change my mind about giving up the pack.”

“Pitchfork?” George asked. “You going for a Tony?”

He grinned, but motioned for her to be quiet. “Daytime Emmy. Shh.”

With his ear pressed against the door, Jake began to hear what he thought was a foot dragging behind, like the person was either a zombie or injured. Since zombies are just a dumb story for kids, he had a strong inclination toward the latter. Every shred of his being told him to leave the door shut and to remember that he needed to get Irvin, his handyman, to install a peephole.

He was almost convinced. His paranoia – usually justified – about his brother being a whackjob, was about to make him batten down the hatches, but then he heard her.

“J...Jake?” The voice was weak, distant, and most definitely Delilah. He’d recognize that vaguely southern twist anywhere. “The door guy, said... you were up...”

“This is no trap!” George pushed past the huge wolf, swung the door open just in time to catch a flailing fist in the side of the head as Dilly fell forward and tried to catch herself. It was a glancing blow, but still enough to surprise George, who stumbled backward.

The whole pile of George and Dilly managed to get arms wrapped around heads, and legs tangled up with each other and were on the way to the ground when Jake finally regained enough of his cognizance to catch them before they hit. But then, in a moment of complete stupefaction, he saw the marks on Delilah’s neck and shoulder – tooth marks, big ones – and dropped them the rest of the way.

Thankfully, it wasn’t very far.





-16-


“You’re never going to believe this.”





-Delilah


––––––––

I blinked, not really sure where I was, but with a vague memory that a very nice doorman at Somerset Industries directed me to an elevator. Then I had some more fuzzy remembrances of being on that elevator for an extended period of time, passing out at least once, and then stumbling down a hall.

And then I think I punched George in the face.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my mouth not working quite as well as I’d hoped. The words came out in a garbled mess. The drugs had really got me looped.

“Who did this to you?” Jake asked, ripping part of his shirt sleeve – about half of it, which revealed a really nice forearm – to use on part of me that seemed to be bleeding. “Dilly,” he was demanding, in a way that had me squiggling in my damn ladyparts. “Look at me. Follow my fingertip.”

Like a scene from ER, I tracked his fingertip back and forth across my field of vision. It got a little fuzzy.

“I don’t feel so—”

He took being thrown up on a lot better than I would have. Not even so much as an irritated look crossed his beautiful face as he nonchalantly took off his shirt and tossed it away. “Bet you feel better now,” he said with a smile that made me momentarily forget that somehow my neck was bleeding, and somehow I’d punched my new friend in the mouth.

“George,” I managed to get out, finally. “Sorry for the, er, mouth punch.”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing, girly. There’s honestly no telling what’s going to be flying through the air when werewolves start drinking. I can’t tell you how much flying shit I’ve been hit with that was no one’s fault at all. Your little flail will barely even leave a red mark. Most important thing is that you’re okay.”

“You’ve done this before,” I whispered as she helped me lay down flat, and stuffed a wadded up... golf green? Under my head. Next, she felt my forehead and took my pulse.

“Yeah, well, like I said. You never know what’s going to happen when werewolves start gettin’ their drink on. They might heal faster than normal people, but they still need first aid when a tooth gets knocked out or someone gets cold cocked with an anvil.”

Tilting my head made my neck sting so badly I squealed, and then straightened it out again. “Anvil?”

She shook her head. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime. But for now, we need to get you warmed up, you’re going into shock.”

I looked over at Jake, who was chowing down on his bottom lip. He ran his hand through his hair, and then did the same thing with the other one. “I’m okay,” I squeaked. “Just had an accident.”

“Yeah,” he said, “accident my big, gray, wolfy ass. Was this Dane?”

I felt my voice fading again, along with my brainwaves. “Yeah,” I managed to say. “He... he bit me, took me to see your mother, she’s very nice by the way. Then he bit me again, and uh... yeah, all kind of a blur after that. He’s been giving me some kind of pills, but not the good kind.”

Thankfully, George calmed him down before Jake could get too worked up. “Give me a few minutes to get her hyperventilating under control. The bite won’t need stitches because... well, that’s why wolf mouths are designed like that. He—er—whoever it was missed the artery, but she’s gonna need some fluids, and some blankets. You got anything?”