Howl at the Moon (5 page)

“She released the wolf.
He
will lead you now. Fight it, my
sohn
. Don’t let him win. If you do, you will both be abominations and I will find a way to put an end to us all.”

“Wolf?
Vater
. Wait,” Clyde cried but his father was already dragging him into a back area, away from the front living area through the home into the bathroom. A large walk-in shower, at one time his favorite place to be, with its forest showerhead, was now reinforced with what looked like steel. His father reached in and turned the shower on to full blast, the cold water spraying onto Clyde’s burning flesh.

“Let it come. I will be here through it.” With that, his father dragged him into the shower, propping him up against the wall, and closed the door behind him.

Clyde couldn’t even speak as the darkness closed in around him. He tore the rest of his clothes off, trying to get the cold spray to touch all of his flesh. The burn was now chased by the worst itch of his life as his skin pulled tighter and tighter. His eyes closed without his volition. He yelled as he felt a popping sensation in his back, followed by a horrible blaze of pain.

He gritted his teeth as a numb sensation kicked in, only to be masked by sandpaper grinding in his toes and fingers. His legs snapped, twisting misshapen before his body was one big ache. His skin split and thick, dark hair pushed through. He screamed and screamed until his throat went raw, until the pain subsided, and his scream no longer sounded quite human. A howl that reverberated back at him over and over pierced the darkness. Until he put his head down to the floor and water flooded in his mouth, stopping the sound, he didn’t even realize the sound came from him.

He stood, feeling closer to the ground. His eyes opened and the world looked different. As the door opened, everything seemed washed in tones of red and yellow or a variation of those. He knew the bathroom was a soft blue and brown, but he didn’t see it the same way. Nor was he at the same vantage point. He was looking a little above the counter and felt he was kneeling. A curious shift out of the corner of his eyes had him spinning around and tripping over his own feet. Feet, more than two. Fur-covered. He had four feet.

“
What the hell?
” he thought but only a faint whimper came out. He was covered like a dog!

“Be calm. It is how it should be. I felt much the same the first time I shifted. Do not worry. The pain shall be no more. Your body has already transformed to make it so much easier. But your control will not be there. Stay away from the woman or you could kill her. The wolf will kill her.”

Clyde whimpered. He couldn’t control his feet. He tried to get out of the bathroom. It took three tries before he thought to move, like a kid crawling on the floor. Suddenly he propelled forward. He moved as slowly as possible, his father behind him, the flame in the front fireplace looking like a macabre picture show. He walked until he was in front of it, noting random shoots of red here and there. He shook his head. His ears twitched as his father moved behind him through the room.

“Control it. You have no choice. If you don’t control it, you will hurt someone. You have to fight every day until your control is better. She could help you with that but the tradeoff is not worth it. It is not worth it. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I will stay with you for the next few days. Take your time. You have much to learn.”

Clyde didn’t care about learning. He wanted to know why the hell he was walking around like a wolf. Why his body had shifted. That was what he was worried about. Things like this shouldn’t be possible. He shouldn’t be able to turn into a fucking wolf when he was human. This was a thing for
Twilight
. Not for a Texas-born-and-bred businessman. He was losing his mind. He had to be. That was it. He was sleeping in his bed, all messed up because he’d finally given into his want of Tatiana. His worry and stress over what would become of his relationship with who amounted to one of his best friends and coworkers had created a dream that was so real he could barely breathe.

He’d found a horrible example of what a loving relationship should have been, thanks to his parents. They’d loved each other, sure, but it was as if one could not live without the other. It didn’t matter who or what depended on them. They had one child and left it at that. They didn’t have time for more. They barely tried to make time for the one they created. He knew what that was. He never wanted to feel the emotion of love and know what it was to turn his child away for that love.

This was all a dream. He shook his head trying to wake himself up.

“It’s not going to work, Clyde. This is real. I know what you must be thinking. For what it’s worth, your mother and I loved each other. More than anything else, we loved each other. It was all consuming. All encompassing, and we couldn’t see past it to the danger that could come. We loved so fiercely that everything else burned around it. Even having a child couldn’t drag us away. We were young and stupid, and I am suffering for it. We forced you to suffer for it. But we are it,
der sohn
. We will end this vicious cycle and never let it permeate the world again. It is what my father should have done for me.”

Igor dropped then, lifting Clyde into his arms as if he weighed a feather and carrying him to one of the rooms. He laid him on the bed and rubbed his head between his ears, a caress Clyde never would have thought possible for his father. It further made him believe this was all a dream. He couldn’t see it any other way.

What he did know was that there was something inside of him. Whatever it was wanted Tatiana with everything he was. He didn’t know if he was strong enough not to listen. Somehow, he knew he could hurt her despite not wanting to.

Chapter Five

“You are going to walk into Clyde’s office, lock the door, walk right up to him at his desk, and then kiss him like you mean it.”

“You have got to shitting me, Aaron. Having these little fun conversations when we’re drinking and dancing the night away is one thing. Monday morning over breakfast when I’m struggling with a queasy stomach is not the way to go.”

“I thought you said you were ready.”

“I, but I’m not ready to just jump back into sex with him. I want
him,
not just his body.”

“I know that’s what you want, Tatiana, but you have to bring him around. You have been his friend for the last three years but you’ve been on the sidelines. You just slept with him. You can’t come out with, ‘Hey, we are soul mates. Let’s say we love each other and live happily ever after.’ It just doesn’t work that way. That’s for romance novels and fairy tales. In the real world, you might just have to rock his world, and yours for that matter, until he can’t see himself without you.”

“Aaron,” Tatiana began, shaking her head. She’d attempted to do the messy bun this morning and had been proud of the results. A little makeup magic from her own personal Queen and she felt a little more ready for seeing Clyde for the first time since the stolen moments in his office. She wore a smart, high-waisted pair of black slacks that were wider as the leg continued. Tucked into that was a slim-fitting body tank topped with a short sports jacket stopping just under her armpits. Black on white, she had to say the outfit looked good. She had a tendency of wearing the slacks like any other and not tucking the shirt in. Aaron had none of that.

“Aaron my ass. Honey, I know men. Sometimes sex comes a long time before emotion. Sad, but it’s the way of the game. It’s just ass. It’s not going to kill you. Plus you said he’s good in, well, the office.”

“We’ve had sex.”

“Not enough.”

“I will not whore myself for no man, I don’t give a shit how much I want him. I’m above that.”

“There is the fire.”

“Come again.”

“There’s the fire you need. Stop mopping around here like a whipped dog. You need to show that fire to him. You are not just some friend with benefits. You are a woman that has needs and you assuaged them. Now, if he’d like to have more, you are open to that, but it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

“Doesn’t that go the exact opposite of what I want?”

“Yes but he doesn’t know that.”

“Reverse psychology. I get the point. Look, Aaron, I don’t want you to get some impression that I am just some pushover that takes whatever comes my way. I am not. It’s just Clyde is a whole other matter.”

“I don’t doubt it. You’ve been his assistant for three years, and I don’t see him wanting some slip of a girl that runs every time he yells. He wants someone who can give just as good as she gets.”

“You have a crystal ball or something?”

“No, my dear, I do not. I just know that love makes people act crazy sometimes. That’s the point. It’s like overindulging on chocolate sometimes. For some it has a sick aftertaste for others it’s a high they never quite come down from. I want you to be the latter. So try to do what I said.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Bitch.”

“Heifer.”

“That’s my girl. Now go on to work. I have a store to get to. Come by after work and tell me how it went. If you don’t, I’ll be at your front door, you hear me?” Aaron said, heading toward the front door. Tatiana followed quickly behind him, catching a glimpse of the clock. She was not going to be late. Not today of all days.

“Yes sir.” She laughed, tossing a mock salute and climbed into her car.

The sleek CLS500 purred when she started it. Thanks to a healthy bonus one year with Clyde she’d finally decided to reward herself for all her good work. Diamond, she called her desert-silver metallic car, was that gift. She loved the feel of it. The power as she soared through traffic, feeling freer than she had in days. Yes, she was worried about seeing Clyde again. So worried her tummy wasn’t feeling the best, but she had weapons now. She had a new style, a new look, and a new outlook. Aaron had done that for her. She realized, as she dealt with him over the weekend, that he and Coco were most definitely the same person. Some differences in voice and temperament, but the mind was the same. Two friends for the price of one, what girl wouldn’t want that?

She pulled off Interstate 59, weaving through typical traffic. She thought when she’d first come out here that she was going to kill herself driving. She had never seen more drivers boguard and push their way to their destinations outside of New York. A semester up in Ithaca had taught her she really wasn’t an upstate girl. She needed the South. The good old hospitality and warmth one usually found there. Plus, she wasn’t too fond of the snow. It was pretty to look at it, but the cold, fluffy stuff was not all it cracked up to be. Not by a long shot.

Mansil Enterprise rose in front of her like a sterling reflection of the clouds, coated in silver. Architecturally, it was perfect in so many ways. Tatiana enjoyed seeing the sky move from the window across from her desk. She’d always loved that the office Clyde had put her in shared his view. One that looked over downtown and would come to life in the late-night hours she worked. She loved what she did, and, if Aaron’s advice worked, she would also be getting back love of
who
she did. Chuckling to herself, she got out the car and walked to the building and into the closing elevator.

She should have waited for the next one.

Her assistant, Sharice, was bouncing inside, her own dose of chipper filtering out in her rosy cheeks and brilliant smile. At twenty-four, she was only two years younger than Tatiana. Blonde, blue-eyed, and chic at all times, many didn’t immediately give her credit for having a crack mind. Their loss. The girl was going to be a CEO one day, Tatiana just knew it. With all that, as much as she enjoyed the girl, she was not the one she wanted to see right now. She couldn’t be lucky enough to avoid seeing the same freaking person she’d seen on the way out of Clyde’s office on Friday afternoon. After sleeping with him.

“Hey, Sharice,” she said brightly, trying not to give her anything to start a conversation with. When Sharice’s smiled turned knowingly, she figured she didn’t succeed.

“Don’t ‘Hey, Sharice’ me. First of all it sounds too much like Hannibal in
Silence of the Lambs
. Second I heard you.”

“Heard me?”

“Do I need to tell you which part?”

“Damn. Sharice, look,” Tatiana started. She swore. Tatiana had never been able to see one of her blushes before, but she was sure that it could be seen today.

“Hey, I’m jealous. I’ve been trying to get that man for months. I didn’t even think you did the whole bwwm thing.”

“Bwwm? Ah, black woman, white male. Did you really just use that?”

“Well, it fits.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d take that negatively.”

“But you do know me, and even if you didn’t, what would be there to take offense to? I think it’s hot. So, details, how was it?”

“That’s my business.”

“Come on. You know, even right now, he’s probably off with one of his many other flings. You got him for that time. Tell me. Is it worth me going for it?”

“Off with whom?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? He left on a vacation this Friday. Should be back about lunchtime, supposedly. Very sudden, it seemed. Not too long after you left, he headed out. Heading out to some resort, I was told.”

“Oh, yeah, to Dos Brisas. He loves that place.”

“So I understand. Anyway, I figured you would be trying to hightail it over there since Friday seemed so very fun for you. So…since the big boss isn’t here, how was he?”

“Again, I say that’s not your business. If you want to try for him, go right ahead. I wish you the best, but, trust me,” Tatiana continued, turning to Sharice with her own knowing smile, “you won’t make it.”

“T,” Sharice sputtered, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Don’t ‘T’ me. You shouldn’t have thought you could ask like that. I’m not some damn tart and you know it. The fact that you thought I was says a lot about you. If you were so interested in how he was, you should have gotten him before I did. Your loss. Now, by ten I’m going to need that Albertson, Albertson, and White report. Not a minute after, okay?”