Halloween Werewolf (The Holiday Shifter Mates Book 1) Page 10

  “Thank you, Timothy,” Austin said, taking some stapled papers. “Not a moment too soon. Finish this on your lunch break? Cutting it close.”

  “Just wanted to read through it one more time, Mr. Cheshire,” the boy said. He looked a lot like a guy who was on the football team with Mateo, before Mateo’s parents were killed. This kid could have easily been a brother with his golden-blond hair and that winning smile that made him easy on the eyes for literally anyone. Mateo hated that smile. Because, Joe, the guy he knew, used it calculatingly, laying all the girls he could get, charming his teachers into giving him a better grade. It was never genuine. Mateo read this boy’s smile the same way, but he shook it off. Kids were kids, and this one would learn a lot in years to come.

  Probably.

  Mateo had learned a lot. And maybe he had regressed a lot, too. In some ways. Sometimes he missed those days before everything went to shit. He had many friends before his parents died. He even liked Joe, though he didn’t like everything he did. And then he pushed them all away after those bastards took everything from him, while Austin, that stubborn and shy boy, pushed his way into Mateo’s life when he needed him most. And now Austin was his.

  Mateo’s eyes softened as he watched his mate. He looked at the taped-down white gauze covering his bite, barely peeking out from the pressed collar of Austin’s button-down plaid shirt. His mate looked good. And the plaid of his shirt was green to match the rim of his glasses. Mateo had never cared much about appearances, but Austin had always liked this hot-nerd kind of look. Mateo liked it on him too, so he wasn’t complaining.

  “Mr. Cheshire,” the boy said, eyes downcast. That fake smile fell, and real emotion washed over him. He looked guilty.

  “Yeah, Timothy?” Austin asked.

  “About leaving you in the forest the other night. I’ve been thinking about it and wanted to say something. Then you weren’t there for my class yesterday, and I got worried. I was going to come to your house if you hadn’t come today. You could have gotten hurt.” This boy wasn’t bad at all. He was likely cocky, but he had a solid core. He respected Austin. Mateo approved.

  “I’m fine.” Austin smiled. “It was just a big dog. Poor thing probably got lost out there. Can you believe it? Those shadows were really playing tricks on us, huh? Thanks for the concern, though. Don’t ever leave your friends behind.”

  Timothy nodded. “I won’t run again. Man, it really wasn’t a werewolf though? I mean, that’s crazy, sounds crazy, but one of the scarers in Gordon Callahan’s Haunted Corn Maze the other night ran out of there screaming about a monster with yellow eyes and sharp teeth, and I started—”

  “That guy spooked himself. Those sorts of claims happen all the time on Halloween,” Austin said. “Nothing to worry about. I promise.”

  Timothy nodded his head, seeming to accept this easily enough with the way his shoulders visibly relaxed. He really trusted Austin. “Guess… Yeah, I’ll go then. Thanks, Mr. Cheshire!” The boy headed for the door, and then his tennis shoes dug into the carpet as he came to an abrupt stop. His mouth hung ajar, and he stared up at Mateo. Mateo gave him a wicked grin just to see what he’d do.

  “Mateo!” Austin exclaimed. “I was just about to call you.”

  “No need. Already here,” Mateo said.

  Austin raised an eyebrow. “So I see. Don’t harass my students, okay?”

  Mateo held out his arm, letting the boy know he could move past him if he wanted to. He knew Austin was joking, but Timothy did look like he was about to shit himself. Mateo didn’t think he looked that scary, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was more wolf than ever since coming back from Alaska.

  “Who’s this, Mr. Cheshire?” Timothy asked, getting a hold of himself.

  “My…,” Austin looked at Mateo thoughtfully, green eyes glittering, hand absentmindedly brushing against the claiming bite on his neck, “fiancé. Timothy, meet Mateo. Mateo, meet Timothy.”

  “Dude, how come you’ve never brought him to school before?” Timothy asked. “Were you keeping him a secret? Do we all get to go to your wedding?”

  “I uh… we haven’t set a date yet.”

  “I’ve never even seen him before! I didn’t know you kept secrets, Mr. Cheshire.”

  Mateo chuckled as Austin got flustered, face turning red. Austin was a teacher, but his students saw him as a friend, too. That was so like Austin. Mateo’s fiancé.

  “Man.” Timothy looked over Mateo with newfound interest. “I never would have thought.”

  Mateo could agree he and Austin didn’t look like the picture-perfect couples you’d find on advertisements, the ones handpicked because they looked like a package deal, but that didn’t mean shit to him. Austin was perfect. Mateo loved him. And he loved Mateo back.

  “All right, Timothy. I have to finish up here. Don’t you have a date for the dance?” Austin said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, get going!”

  “See you later, Mr. Cheshire and Mateo!” Timothy ran out of the classroom in a hurry, a big grin on his face, this one quite genuine. Austin had a similar grin on his own face.

  “You’ve seriously changed a lot,” Mateo said, meeting his mate, kissing him on the lips. “It’s sexy.”

  “I wasn’t sexy before?” Austin teased.

  Mateo grinned. “You were, but I like you confident, comfortable in your own skin.” He cupped the back of Austin’s neck and kissed the front. Then he unbuttoned the top two buttons of Austin’s shirt and kissed lower.

  “Mateo.” Austin laughed and gently pushed him away. “Not in the school. Just. No.”

  “Still a stickler for the rules? Straight-laced man.”

  Austin rolled his eyes, but the smile on his face meant he wasn’t annoyed, and Mateo could smell the contentment radiating off his skin; it was slightly sweet.

  “Ready to decorate the gym?” Austin asked.

  “As long as you aren’t expecting input. Just put me to work.”

  “All right.” Austin brushed his fingers across the stubble on Mateo’s jaw. “I never want to stop touching you.”

  Mateo took Austin’s hand and kissed the back of it. “Good thing you never have to.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DECORATING THE GYM DIDN’T have to be a big deal, but Austin made it one—though not in a bad way. He just had a certain vision, and he had learned how to be a leader. Even Mateo had to admit the place was looking nice. Austin’s students were eager to please, and Austin was eager to hear their input. It was a collaborative effort, and Mateo mostly stood in the background, observing, listening, doing the heavy lifting.

  “Timothy ran by earlier and said you’re Mr. Cheshire’s fiancé,” a girl named Katey said. She and her friends had seen Austin and Mateo kiss outside of the school yesterday.

  “That’s right,” Mateo said, moving some props and hay bales out into the corners of the gym to add atmosphere without taking up the dance floor. The art students went all out with the zombies. Or they took the easy way out. They were almost nothing but blood and gore. This was definitely more of a Halloween dance than the traditional Fall Formal, though Austin had somehow balanced out all that gore with strings and makeshift walls of Red Maple leaves punctuated by the oranges and yellows from other trees. Austin’s vision was pretty, sweet, but he let the students have their fun.

  “How come we’ve never seen you before?” Katey asked.

  “I just recently moved back,” Mateo said.

  “So, it was a long-distance relationship?”

  “Yep.”

  “But Mr. Cheshire was dating another guy like two days ago. I swear.”

  Mateo almost let a growl slip, but he caught himself. He wasn’t mad at Austin or this Matt guy Austin thought highly of, but he didn’t like the thought of anyone else touching his mate, kissing him. Austin said they hadn’t fucked, but Mateo was pretty sure they had kissed.

  “It’s complicated,” Mateo said gruffly. Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. It
was a number he didn’t know. He took it out and answered. “Hello?”

  “Jane and Clyde. We received your video and have confirmed you have a werewolf in Glasglow,” the woman on the other end said.

  “Just a minute.” Mateo turned away from Katey, waving her off as he left the gym for the quiet space just outside in the hall where he sensed no one and was satisfied no one would be listening in on the conversation. “Meet me somewhere. I can show you the place I saw it,” Mateo said.

  “Courageous or stupid,” the woman mused. “I knew calling you would be interesting.”

  “You’re busy, aren’t you? Why waste your time? I can help.”

  “You an amateur monster hunter?”

  “Something like that.”

  She hummed. “Fine. We’ll meet. We’ll call you when we’ve made it to Glasglow. Then we’ll arrange the time and place.”

  “Fine. When will you arrive?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Mateo was just returning his phone to his pocket when the gym doors opened, and there was Austin. “Hey, you disappeared,” he said. The light-infused smile he wore dulled when he spotted Mateo’s phone. “Them?”

  “Yes. They’re coming tomorrow. I’m going to meet them,” Mateo said, keeping his promise. He wouldn’t lie.

  Austin grabbed his arm. “Mateo, please. Tell the police. Let them handle it. If they’re really willing to meet you, this is the perfect opportunity.”

  Mateo didn’t like the look in Austin’s eyes. He didn’t like how they were extra shiny with a sheen of water, threatening to spill tears.

  “It’ll take care of them and keep you safe,” Austin insisted.

  “But they won’t pay for anything,” Mateo argued. “They’ll get out, and they’ll kill again.”

  “You’re not—You’re not supposed to just take justice into your own hands like this.”

  “What justice? There ain’t any for shifters.” Mateo growled and regretted it when Austin flinched. “Austin—”

  Austin wrapped his arms around Mateo’s waist and hugged him tightly. Mateo shuddered a sigh and buried his face in Austin’s shoulder. He wasn’t as broad or tall as Mateo, but he fit just right.

  “There has to be another way,” Austin whispered, “a way I can keep you safe and other shifters too. A win-win situation. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, Mateo. I’ll do it.”

  Mateo didn’t know what to say. Austin was using the same argument Gale had five years ago. Gale said that Trinity, the Almighty Trinity, wouldn’t take the hunter matter into their own hands, not the tracking them down bit. They wouldn’t actively seek justice for Mateo’s parents because they were spread thin, and the monster hunters were wanted by the humans. The humans would arrest the hunters for Trinity. Only then would Trinity step in. But that wasn’t good enough. Trinity never promised the hunters would pay with their lives.

  Death wasn’t as much of a taboo for shifters as it was for humans—at least in the history of wolf shifter packs that Weston had told Mateo about. Mateo learned a lot about wolf packs since moving to Eurio, Alaska, and it made everything more confusing. It made Trinity’s decision more confusing. Maybe Trinity was happy to leave justice to humans because they were trying to make shifters more human-like than ever in their cry for peace, their plan to eventually out shifters to the world—that was what he heard anyway. He didn’t really give a damn about Trinity. Trinity didn’t give a damn about him either.

  “There will always be more like them, Mateo. It’s not worth risking your life,” Austin said, voice trembling.

  “Do you know why my parents died, Austin?”

  “The hunter—”

  “No. My parents died because they saved Glasglow from Berserkers, wolf shifters who had lost their minds and went rabid. My parents saved human lives, and they weren’t expecting anyone to thank them for it. But they did something.”

  Austin pursed his lips.

  “Yeah, there’s always gonna be shit blowing in, but it’d be way worse if we just stood by and did nothing. Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

  “No.” Austin frowned. “But someone else…”

  “There is no ‘someone else.’ My parents knew that too, so they did something. But those Berserkers, the howls in the woods people kept talking about when that all happened, drew the hunters here, and they found my parents instead.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mateo.”

  “I won’t lie and say my parents were being completely selfless. They were keeping our secret too, since we were the only shifters living in the city. But they saved the lives of a bunch of humans and prevented anyone from being turned.”

  “Turned? I thought…”

  “Only Berserkers can turn humans into shifters with a bite.”

  Austin held Mateo tighter.

  “We didn’t hurt anyone.” Mateo growled. “If the police knew my parents were more than animals, I’d do what you want, Austin. I swear I would, because then this would be treated as murder.”

  “Okay, Mateo,” Austin whispered.

  “Okay?”

  “Tell me how I can help.”

  “Just wait for me. Let me finish it.”

  Austin loosened his grip and ran his fingers along Mateo’s back, gently pressing in with his nails. Mateo’s ears twitched as a door leading outside opened from down the hall. He wouldn’t have cared if the familiar scent of polar bear hadn’t hit his nose at the same time. He suddenly jerked upright, pulling Austin away, but just so he could keep him at his side, hand curled possessively around his waist.

  Gale walked steadily down the hall, his pace quick. His light-brown hair was a bit too long again, dangling in his eyes since he never cut it often enough. It wasn’t long enough to hide the dangerous glint in his brown eyes, though. Mateo was sure he would have been roaring, running toward him and Austin, if not for all the humans around. Mateo’s hackles rose in response. Gale needed to chill the fuck out unless he wanted a fight right here and now. He seemed to understand that, because he relaxed his big shoulders back, blinked, and the challenge was gone. Gale was never much of a wrestler, but he was like any other shifter. Physicality was just a part of what they were—or so Mateo had always been told whenever anyone tried to reassure him he wasn’t actually all that abnormal. No one ever told Mateo he had anger issues. It was a label he had given himself because he wasn’t that stupid. He could see the difference. No one else talked about their vision burning away to nothing but white.

  Austin murmured, “That’s…?”

  “Gale,” Mateo informed.

  “Right. It’s been a while. And I never really met him.”

  “Mateo,” Gale growled.

  “Knock it off unless you want me to shift right here and now,” Mateo growled back.

  Gale closed his eyes. “We need to talk.” When he opened his eyes again, they went to Austin, to the gauze barely sticking out from his collar.

  “If you want to talk, Austin comes too,” Mateo said.

  “That’s fine.”

  “Uhm, let me check in with my students first. Then we can talk outside,” Austin said.

  When Austin came back, Gale regarded him with another long look. It would have bothered Mateo if he had felt anything hostile coming from the polar bear shifter, but it wasn’t anything like that. Gale was calm, simply observing.

  Austin wordlessly led the way out to the back of the school, which was empty of any students, quiet except for the autumn leaves scattered around the blacktop, being blown every which way by the wind. Gale’s eyes went to Austin again. The bite.

  “I had to,” Mateo growled.

  Austin clung tightly to Mateo’s side. “I wanted it.” Austin covered the bite on his neck with his hand.

  “I’m not used to humans knowing about us,” Gale said. Then he sighed. “I thought you’d be in trouble, Mateo… Did you come out here for Austin or was it something else?”

  Mateo frowned. “And—”

  Gale growled, “Dam
mit. I knew it. And the hunters.”

  “Yeah. They’re coming tomorrow.”

  Gale scrubbed his large hand over his face. Suddenly, he looked old and tired. He was tired, but he wasn’t that old. He was thirty-two, but he had been through a lot in his life. Mateo had been told that losing a mate was one of the hardest things a shifter could go through, and the one left behind often didn’t survive it.

  “You’ve been in contact with them?” Gale asked.

  “Yeah, took video of a ‘werewolf’ so they’d come,” Mateo said.

  Gale pinched the bridge of his straight nose. “Mateo, I don’t—How was that a good idea?”

  “I’m going to end it. They’re going to come, and I’m going to end it.”

  “Fine, you’re going to end it, but you won’t do it alone.”

  Mateo cocked his head, and Austin squeezed his side at the same time. “You’re going to help me? Isn’t that against Trinity rules?”

  “I don’t care about that. Trinity will understand.” Gale lowered his voice. “I should have done this for you a long time ago.”

  Mateo’s hackles rose. His wolf was surfacing. There was too much fucking tension in the air. It made his skin crawl. He wanted to break something. “I didn’t ask for your help,” Mateo said. There was a constant grumble under his words, a growl that wouldn’t go away.

  “You didn’t, but I care about you, and you’ll have to deal with it.”

  Austin let out a pent-up breath. Mateo could smell the relief on his mate, subtle and earthy. Austin put a hand on Mateo’s chest and gently rubbed the space near his heart. “You have to let us help,” Austin said. “I get it. You’re right. The human justice system isn’t going to work here. I don’t… I don’t like the thought of killing, but we care about you. Maybe we could find a middle ground. Maybe they don’t think werewolves have any humanity—”

  “They know,” Mateo growled. “They know exactly what they’re doing.”

  “Then they have to be stopped, don’t they?” Austin’s lips set into a firm line. “Let’s end it.”

  Mateo didn’t know how to be a team player here. This wasn’t football. This was life or death, and he didn’t want those he loved in death’s way.