Reluctant

I refuse this life. I refuse this legacy. I will not become a wolf-killer.

Humans think Little Red Riding Hood is nothing more than a fairytale, but we hoods know better. We despise the woman who committed the darkest sin one of our kind can: falling in love with a werewolf and becoming his mate. The fairy tale didn’t end the way you’ve been told. Unless you’ve heard the version in which Little Red was roasted on a silver spit over a fire, that is.

And I almost walked down that same path. But in losing the werewolf I loved, I also realized the kind of person I want to be. That’s why I’ve turned my back on my heritage, denied my birthright. I will not hate werewolves just because they’re werewolves. I will not train to contain them, dominate them, and if I so choose, kill them. In fact, I refuse to be a hood at all.

I’ve walked away from my old life.

And that was going great, until an English werewolf on the run walked into my new one…

The amber liquid swishing about in Amy’s glass tempted both gravity and my nerves. To separate my blonde friend from the bar: a task much easier put to words than action. Side-eying the clock and the bartender’s focus on it, I realized last call was nigh. No need trying to liberate Amy’s fourth cup of poison from her grasp and shuffle her to our loft to sleep off her drunk. The regulation of liquor sales in the fine city of Chicago would cut her off soon enough. Besides, after the day she’d had, I couldn’t blame her for opting for inebriation, even if it did mean I’d likely end up with her slung over my shoulder on the way home.
“C***-s******* a*******!” Amy’s mouth pulled a double shift, vacillating between drinking and spewing profanities that would make the devil blush. “That’s what they are, Geri. Every single man is a c***-s******, f****** s***head. They can’t help it, they’re born like that.”
“Not everyone.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to let memory take me. Cody was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Oh yeah? Name me one – just one – who isn’t an ass.”
Amy didn’t know about Cody. No one I’d become friends with since moving to Chicago six months ago knew about Cody, or anything much else about my life back in Paradise. The less I talked, the less opportunity for anyone to figure out that the tiny town near the northern tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was populated mostly by werewolves and hoods.
Or that I was one of the latter.
“My dad isn’t so bad,” I offered. “Even if he’s willing to give my mom the benefit of the doubt.”
Still, I couldn’t shield my roomie from everything. She’d overheard enough of the arguments I’d had with my dad on the phone to get the basic gist. Things in the Kline household weren’t exactly Brady-like.
Amy blew a raspberry, leaving a mist of her saliva on the counter. “That’s only because your parents’ relationship is reversed and fucked up as shit. Your mom is the c***-s****** a******. Trust me, she’d be welcomed at A****** Camp with the male part of humanity.”
Who was I to argue? What little Amy did know of my home life came from me grumbling about my mother’s arrogance, or overhearing me argue with my dad in broken Spanish. One day, I thought she’d caught on to my family secret when she’d declared, “I didn’t know there were any of your kind that far north.”
My kind? What did she mean “my kind?”
“You know, Hispanics.” She said the word like some taboo turn of phrase that could launch riots. “Don’t worry, I’m cool with it. Besides, I love Enrique Iglesias.”
I left the comment to air-dry. First, because even though my dad was from Argentina, the rest of my family tree grew from Central and North European roots. Hood society bucked Western tradition by being matriarchal. Brunhild Kline, my mother-and-matron, embraced her Germanic heritage with the ferocity of a bear, and the identity had been passed down to me despite my papi’s Latino influences. And second, because Amy wasn’t rude, she was only socially isolated. Not so different from me. Only, where I’d grown up destined and trained to police werewolves, Amy had grown up on the Upper West Side where labels were openly accepted, if only worn to figure out someone’s proper shelf.
As for men, I couldn’t really debate Amy there either. I’d only ever had one boyfriend, and that relationship flatlined when I’d walked in on him in the arms of another woman.
Exactly one day after he'd proposed.