An American Werewolf in Hoboken (15 page)

Max scooped his phone up when his mother’s ringtone chimed. “Everything all right, Mom?” His stomach tightened. He was pushing almost a month away from home, leaving everything to his brother Derrick to handle. It was a lot for just one person, especially with his pack.

“Couldn’t you at least say hello first, son?” his mother’s sweet voice chided.

“Sorry. Have a lot on my mind. How are you? How’s everyone back home?”

“We miss you, honey, but we’re all just fine. How are
you
? How’s JC?”

Waffling. That’s how she was. If she was waffling right now, he could only imagine how she’d react when he told her what he was hiding. “She’s good,” he replied, purposely evasive.

“I don’t like the sound of that, Max. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

He imagined her settling into the big window seat in her warm kitchen, tucking her legs under her to get comfortable. “Well, while I’m busy playing her dog undercover, I’ve heard things I wouldn’t otherwise be privy to.” And it was killing him, tearing up his insides.

“Like?”

“She told Fluffy she thought I must be hiding something.”

“Well, you are, honey.”

“Do you know anyone else with a human life mate, Mom? Anyone in the pack ever gone through this?”

“Not one. I’ve asked all over Cedar Glen, too. But Eva stands by her reading. This woman, JC, is the one.”

“Does she have to turn, too?”

“No. According to Eva, she just has to be your mate, sweetie.”

“Or I die because of the curse, right? I have to question this curse, Mom. I mean, ask yourself; what kind of curse would kill off a healthy male able to produce wolflings just because he didn’t mate on the curse’s timetable?”

“I’m going to tell you a story, Max, and I want you to listen carefully. Do you remember your Uncle Elmont?”

Max ran a hand over his hair. “He ran the old mill, right? The one they found dead in his barn?” It was a vague memory from his childhood, and only because some of the elders in the pack whispered his name behind their hands.

“That’s him. Do you remember what happened to him? You were pretty young, so we made up a story about his untimely demise, but it wasn’t the truth. He was supposed to take his life-mate journey, but Elmont was fonder of moonshine than he was of finding a mate and settling down. Eva warned him. We all warned him, but no one could tell Elmont what to do. He didn’t believe. He thought, much like you did before you discovered JC, that it was all a bunch of bunk. So he didn’t make the journey for his life mate—refused to listen to Eva’s prophecy.”

Max leaned back in his office chair, making a fist. “And he died because of it? You’re not serious, Mom.”

“I
am
serious, honey,” she whispered, her voice urgent, hissing in his ear. “I’m so serious I’ve been up nights sick with worry for you over it.”

“Where’s the proof it was the curse that killed Uncle Elmont?”

“When we found Elmont, it wasn’t at the barn like we told you children. We found him out in the woods behind his house—petrified like wood, fossilized, if you will. Right where he stood, on the evening he was supposed to mate with his intended under the full moon. When your father touched him, he shattered just like glass. I’ve never seen anything like it, Max, and I never want to again. What else could be responsible for something like that but the curse? It happened exactly when Eva said it would if Elmont didn’t listen.”

Holy Shit.

“You know why the curse exists, Max?”

“Because of the extermination.” The story of how Cedar Glen had come to be,
why
it had come to be, still made him want to punch a wall. Find the elders and
exterminate
them.

“And because of us. Because of the Adamses. Because we did the forbidden and brought all those sick weres here to Cedar Glen—to protect them from the extermination. The elders cursed the Adamses to spite us, to lash out at our disobedience, thinking they’d somehow force your father’s family to return to the fold with the threat of death.”

Ah. He’d toyed with this theory before, but it was almost too deplorable for him to believe. Yet, now he understood. The elders didn’t want any Adams to successfully mate. They wanted them dead—extinct as retribution. And they’d given him a destiny they considered impossible to fulfill.

Beautiful.

“So they cursed me by giving me a human life mate. To make things incredibly difficult, because I don’t just have to explain to J that she’s my mate, something she won’t understand because it isn’t a human practice in this day and age, but also that I’m a werewolf. Something she doesn’t even know exists.”

Max heard his mother swallow hard. “Yes. They set you up to fail. I know this sounds awful on your grandparents’ behalf, but they never in a million years believed the elders would curse their heirs. They thought the pack would simply shun them for helping those due to be extinguished.”

Jesus Christ. “And I’m betting the elders figured if us stronger weres didn’t live and stick around to help the needier ones, everything would fall apart, right?”

“They called your grandparents weak for wanting to save the diseased. They said they should want to keep the pack strong like all good werewolves,” she spat.

“So they put impossible standards on my life-mate journey, along with an impossible timetable, in an effort to eradicate us completely.” And what about Derrick? What kind of hoops would his destiny have him jumping through?

Every other werewolf outside the Adams pack didn’t have the threat of death hanging over them if they didn’t mate up almost from the moment they met. They were allowed time for a courtship—time to ease into spending the rest of their lives together, time to get to know each other.

This was like putting JC’s head on the chopping block and offering her a life sentence with a man she might not want to spend her life with—or watch him die. It was insane.

“You know you have to mate by the first full moon of your courtship—which will be here sooner than you know it. Those are just the rules of the curse, Max.”

“Jesus…” he muttered under his breath. It was all the more real now. He’d been pushing the dire part of this whole mess to the back of his mind for far too long. He’d spent too much time pretending it didn’t exist.

“It wasn’t an easy decision your grandparents made,” his mother reminded him. “They bucked the system, so to speak. They didn’t know it would buck back until it was too late. They didn’t know what it would mean to your father and I, but you were already here and I was already pregnant with Derrick when the elders cursed us, or I never would have…”

The hitch in his mother’s voice always killed him. They’d done what was right, what
he
would have done had he been in the same position.

But his mother’s words also reminded him of another sticking point—explaining to JC that he wasn’t really thirty-eight, but almost one hundred and four.

“Mom, it’s okay. Don’t get upset, please. I’ve always known the story behind it. I guess I just never really believed the curse had actually been carried out before.”

“So you thought you might tempt fate with your life?”

“No. Yes.” He ran an impatient hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“Well, that’s the truth of the matter, and it’s why I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in almost a month.”

His gut clenched knowing his mother was worried about him. She had enough to worry about with his siblings and extended family. “But won’t having pups with JC produce only half-weres? Doesn’t that screw up something for the purity of the pack?”

“What difference does it make now? We’ve been excommunicated, if you will. The elders clearly didn’t want you to get as far as you have anyway. Besides, I choose to believe JC must have something special the universe decided our pack needs.”

“Like less crazy?” he asked on a chuckle.

“Oh, you,” his mother admonished. “They’re not all crazy, honey. But you and Derrick are the only two men left in the pack who don’t have…” She paused, and with good reason.

“Issues,” he finished for her. They were certainly a pack full of issues, but he loved them all the same. All of them. And he’d do whatever he had to do to take care of them.

“You call them issues, I call them quirks.”

He smiled, but then the worry set in again. He needed more time—time he didn’t have—to explain, to ease JC into this. “I wish Dad was still here.”

His mother paused for a moment, her breathing slowing. “I do, too,” she finally said.

They didn’t talk about Brock Adams often anymore. The rumor was, Brock didn’t really leave to meet with the elders five years ago when he was summoned, but deserted his family due to the pressures of handling a pack such as theirs.

Max had spent a good portion of his life these past few years looking for a single clue about what had happened to his father. He’d even contacted the elders by proxy through some sources, and the silence from that end of the werewolf universe had been resounding. When they shunned you, they did it hard.

No one had seen or heard from Brock since, leaving Max in charge of the pack as the oldest Adams male.

But Max never subscribed to the theory his father had deserted them. Even to this day, though he’d spent endless hours trying to disprove just that, to no avail.

“I’m worried, Mom.”

“I know, son. But here’s my question. Does JC make you happy?”

That odd shift in his chest, the tight pull of his gut, the smile she put on his face every time he thought of her, made his next answer easy. “She does. Very.”

“Bring her here, honey. Let me meet her.”

“So you can nag her to death about mating with me?”

“No. So I can get to know this woman who’s captured my son’s heart. She must be amazing if she’s meant to be yours.”

Yes. JC was amazing. Smart, funny, kind—everything. “She is, Mom. She’s a lot like you.”

“Then invite her home for a visit, Max. I promise to make sure everyone knows she’s human and doesn’t know about us yet. We’ll show her a good time, feed her, get to know her a little. But we can’t wait long. Time is of the essence. I know that as a pack, no matter how crazy it seems to everyone else, we can do this.”

He smiled into the phone, using the pen on his desk to circle a date on the calendar. “You know what, Mom?”

“What’s that, son?”

“You’re all right.”

She barked a laugh. “Just you remember that, Fluffy. I love you, honey. See you soon.” She hung up the phone, ending their call.

Home.

He needed to be there. To get his feet under him again.

He needed JC to see what he saw in Cedar Glen…learn about his life…meet the people who meant so much to him.

Most of all he realized what he really needed, wanted, was JC.

Chapter Thirteen

JC pulled up to the doggie spa and hotel Viv had recommended. After carefully researching online for hours on end, paying surprise visits to several different dog hotels, she’d settled on this one for Fluffy.

It had a five-star rating and a five-star price, but she didn’t care. Nothing was too good for Fluffy.

She popped open the back door of her car and patted her thigh. “C’mon, buddy. Time for some pampering.”

He gazed up at her, but his intimidating stares had started to seem less like he was trying to bend her mind, more relaxed in the weeks since she’d adopted him, and she loved him. Loved having him at her feet when she watched TV. Loved having him beside her when she went to bed at night. Loved taking long walks with him before Max got in from work. It was then she did most of her thinking. She’d fallen in love with Fluffy.

She also was on the verge of falling in love with someone else, and it was about time those two someones met. Kneeling on the hard pavement, she stroked his enormous head. “So here’s the deal, Fluffernutter, Mommy’s only going to be gone for a few days to meet Max’s family, but when I come back, it’s time for you to meet Max. I might’ve brought you with me, but Max says his mom’s allergic to dogs. God knows, with all this hair, you’d probably give her asthma. I want my first impression to be a good one, not full of hairballs and runny eyes. But don’t worry; I’ll be home before you know it, okay?”

He pressed his wet nose to her forehead.

She grinned at him. “I love you, buddy. You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me, and I’ll miss you like crazy. Now, c’mon, let’s get you settled so I can meet Max. I signed you up for some obedience training. I want you to promise to try, okay?”

Fluffy trotted beside her across the parking lot and up the steps, entering the door without any trouble. He’d come such a long way in such a short time.

Stopping at the reception area, she nodded to the kind woman at the counter she’d met on her previous visit to inspect the rooms and watch the classes they gave. “Hi, Adele! Good to see you again. This,” she held up the leash attached to his harness, “is Fluffy.”

Adele came around the counter without batting an eye, her chubby arms going in for a hug. “Would you look at him? Hey, big boy,” she called cheerfully, her weathered face scrunching up into a smile. “Aren’t you the prettiest, biggest boy ever?”

* * *

If there was someone in charge of the universe, Max wanted names—someone to hold accountable for all the humiliation he’d suffered as Fluffy.

Eyeing the woman named Adele, he had to admit, she reminded him of his grandmother. And she smelled good. Like vanilla and warm cookies fresh from the oven.

But he didn’t have time to play the “prettiest, biggest boy ever” for very long. He had to get situated in the ridiculously expensive suite JC had rented him—with a TV that played Animal Planet and a bed fit for a king—shift, hunt down the clothes he’d left hidden outside, get to his pack mate Lowell’s car and get back to the apartment before JC did.

Lowell, for a huge sum of money and the promise of a year’s worth of beer, had agreed to pretend to be him while he was away with JC. They looked similar enough in shift, and if Lowell was careful, paid attention to the email he’d sent him with all the particulars on Fluffy, and directions on how to get in and out of the spa, they could pull it off.