Halloween Werewolf (The Holiday Shifter Mates Book 1) Read online

  Laziness was not one of Austin’s qualities. He was a hard worker and only rested the exact amount he needed to. But here he was, lying in bed with his glasses on, unable to move, the sun shining in through his window because he couldn’t be bothered to close the curtains. Matt had called him like he said he would. It was a short-lived conversation. Austin didn’t have the energy for it. He had been right here in bed since driving home from the high school. There was still time to catch up on grading homework before it was time to sleep. He should get up and do it. Working would make him feel better. It would give him something to think about other than Mateo.

  Screw that. It wouldn’t matter if he tried or not. All he could think about was Mateo.

  Austin thought about the day he left. Officially, Mateo’s parents died in a car accident. A relative came up to live with him after that. Or so they said. Austin knew there was more to it than that—though not initially—because he saw Mateo change that day, around this same time of year. It had been almost an exact year after his parents died. A classmate, harmless Finn, was excited for Halloween. He was talking about werewolves and mentioned that messed-up video everyone saw somewhere on the internet the year before. Mateo lost it. It happened in the middle of the classroom, right before school had started for the day. Most of the students were there, but Mateo hadn’t cared. It was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly, Mateo was pummeling the crap out of poor Finn. It was completely out of character for him. He was never the bully. He was the bully beater.

  Somehow, Austin was brave enough to step in. That would never have happened if he hadn’t found the courage to talk to Mateo a few months after his parents died, after Mateo had lost all of his friends and became a shadow of the magnetic, hot-headed boy he once was. Austin hadn’t been able to stand it. He had always silently been watching Mateo after Mateo put a stop to Austin’s bully one day in elementary school, but he never worked up the courage to talk to him until after the tragedy. And, selfishly, he was happy. He had Mateo all to himself then. And he would never forget the day Mateo kissed him.

  “You always look at me like that,” Mateo had said.

  “Like what?” Austin asked. His ears were hot, and the heat spread to his cheeks as he adjusted his glasses that didn’t need adjusting.

  “Like you want me to kiss you.”

  Austin had sputtered and searched for something to say, but it was all a moot point when Mateo kissed him. Austin hadn’t even known if Mateo was into guys or not. They never gave themselves an official title to define their relationship, but Mateo had kissed him time and time again after that, randomly, when Austin least expected it, and he didn’t mind because that was how Mateo was. Each kiss, each touch, was sincere. They didn’t need to name their relationship when Austin fell so hard in love and was certain Mateo loved him back just as much.

  So, Austin was brave enough to step in when Mateo was lost in his fury, pounding his fists into a classmate who didn’t deserve it, a classmate who had just run his mouth a little too much because he was excited for Halloween. Mateo didn’t pay Austin any attention at first, but Austin was desperate to get him to stop, to calm him down. Austin went into the danger zone. He risked getting punched by Mateo and grabbed his shoulder, wedging his way between Mateo and Finn. He thought he would taste Mateo’s fist, but Mateo didn’t hit him. Mateo stopped and heaved. His breathing was labored. And his brown eyes were a vivid yellow, big and round like the full moon. His teeth were long and sharp. His face was contorted in pain. There was something moving underneath his skin, trying to surface. That was when it clicked, and Austin knew there had to be much more to the death of Mateo’s parents and the “werewolves” killed by those “monster” hunters. It all happened at the same time.

  I have to protect him. That thought went through Austin’s mind. He redoubled his efforts. He took Mateo’s face in his hands and begged him to calm down. He kissed him carefully, gently. When he looked at him again, Mateo’s eyes were a familiar chocolate brown. The massive canines were gone. His skin was still, smooth. He wasn’t even wearing his usual scowl.

  No one else saw Mateo’s face when it was monster-like, but he was expelled for pummeling Finn, and his relative moved him away. Austin hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye. One day, Mateo was there. The next, he was gone. Austin hadn’t seen him since—until today. But that had just been a figment of his imagination. After all, when Austin had tried to catch up to him, he vanished.

  Austin rolled over onto his stomach, tangling himself up in his blankets. He flopped his hand onto his nightstand and groped around for his phone. Once he found it, he propped himself up on his elbows, unlocked it, and stared at the screen. This was it. It was time to break up with Matt.

  He texted a message: We need to talk tomorrow. In person.

  It took no time for Matt to reply: OK.

  A shaky breath escaped Austin’s lips. Tomorrow he’d tell Matt the truth, how he couldn’t be with him anymore, how his heart belonged to someone else and always would. If that meant Austin ended up alone, that was his own decision, but he wouldn’t bring Matt down with him. Not anymore.

  Matt deserved to be happy and to be loved as much as he loved. Austin would likely spend the rest of his days pining for a werewolf. He tried to laugh off how absurd that thought sounded, but it turned into a choked sob. He’d never forget the moon in Mateo’s eyes.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AUSTIN TOSSED AND TURNED in his bed. There was an endless loop of howling trapped in his nightmares. But he forgot all about those nightmares when he sat up straight in his bed, chest heaving, eyes opened wide, because the howling followed him outside of his dreams.

  He snatched his glasses from off his nightstand and slid his window open. He was blasted with cold air, and the howling was louder. It was coming from the forest. He knew he wasn’t just imagining it because the houses on his block were lighting up. Some people were venturing outside of their houses and making their way to the hiking trail leading along the edge of the lake and up the forested mountain. It only took a few minutes to get there from here on foot.

  Wolves weren’t native to this area. It was just like five years ago. All Austin could think was Mateo. This howl belonged to Mateo.

  Austin wasted no time putting on some suitable clothes for the cold, rushing out his door, and hitting the hiking trail to find Mateo before anyone else did. He didn’t stay on the trail for long after he reached the base of the mountain and the trees grew thicker. There were a handful of people ahead on the trail. He didn’t want to draw their attention. They were likely just some adventurous individuals looking to take some pictures or videos, and they would give up soon. Mateo wouldn’t show himself. Would he?

  It was dark now that the trees were obscuring the moonlight. Austin stumbled and nearly tripped on a rock. He stubbed his toe and hopped around for a moment, biting his lower lip to keep himself from exclaiming his pain. He took out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and slowed his pace after that. Mateo was still howling. Was he trying to draw people to him after all?

  Austin nearly jumped out of his skin when some teenagers skidded down from a slope, through the trees, and came to a stop in front of him. There were three of them, and they were being led by none other than Austin’s student Timothy.

  “Mr. Cheshire,” Timothy said with hiked-up thick brown eyebrows. “Didn’t know you were a thrill seeker.”

  “I’m not really,” Austin said. “You know it’s dangerous to be out here this late. Visibility is bad.”

  “Teach by example, Mr. Cheshire.” Timothy grinned. “Isn’t that what you’re always saying?”

  Austin huffed and fixed his glasses. His student had him there. And, unlike him, Timothy and his friends thought to bring actual flashlights.

  “C’mon, guys!” Timothy called and raced forward.

  The hairs on the back of Austin’s neck stood on end as another howl sounded. This one was close. Very close. Timothy and his friends stopped. A
ustin was frozen in his place. But there was movement beyond them, crunching leaves and snapping twigs. The high schoolers waved their flashlights around to find the source until one of them shouted. The beams converged on a single point inside of the pines, maples, and brush. There was a huge gray wolf. His eyes flashed yellow before he ducked farther into the brush, leaving only a black silhouette. A combination of crackling and snapping filled the air like little pellets were being fired from the trees. At the same moment, the wolf silhouette changed shape. The fur disappeared, he hunched over, his back rounded, shoulders forward, and then he stood on two legs. Now the silhouette was human-like, a big man flexing his muscles and snarling like a wild animal.

  Timothy and his friends let out high-pitched screams and made a hasty retreat. One of them dropped his flashlight. Austin didn’t move. He held his phone, casting a beam of light on the dark figure, and he stared. Austin was alone with him. Silence blanketed the area. Not even the wind whistled through the trees.

  “M-Mateo?” Austin squeaked. All he had to go on were those yellow eyes. But he knew those eyes. He did.

  “Austin.”

  Austin sighed out his relief and the shiver Mateo’s deep voice coaxed from him. “You were really there yesterday. I didn’t imagine you.”

  He stepped forward when Mateo didn’t move. He kept his phone up for the light it cast, desperate to see Mateo again after so long. He hadn’t been thinking about what he’d see when he did that. Mateo was naked as the day he was born. His brown skin was familiar, but the tattoos were new. And that muscle mass. Mateo could snap tree trunks in half with those thighs. Austin meant to look back up, to take in the familiar scowl on Mateo’s face, though his face had filled out too, harder edges, a sharp jaw, but his gaze ended up on Mateo’s thick cock. He was huge, half-hard, and Austin was getting lightheaded.

  “You going to take video of me?” Mateo asked. He folded his arms and didn’t make an effort to cover himself even partway.

  Austin turned the flashlight off on his phone and shoved it inside his pocket. He thought about the flashlight behind him, illuminating the background and wished it was pointing this way. He couldn’t see Mateo well now. “Of course I’m not taking video.”

  “Too bad.”

  Austin adjusted his glasses. His heart palpitated. It throbbed as if it was begging Mateo to speak again. Hearing his voice alone, how much deeper it had gotten, how warm it felt, nearly had Austin in tears. That wasn’t the only way he was feeling worked up either. His lower stomach was buzzing. His dick was coming alive.

  Austin swallowed. “Wait. What do you mean ‘too bad’?”

  “What about the kids. Did they?”

  Austin’s mouth dropped open. “They were too busy running away and screaming.” He stepped back without turning his back on Mateo. He couldn’t afford to let him out of his sight, but he needed to turn off that flashlight. He didn’t want to draw anyone this way. He needed to protect Mateo.

  And he wanted Mateo all to himself.

  “Why do you want people taking video of you?” Austin asked when he turned off the light and dropped it back onto the ground. His breath caught when Mateo moved forward, out of the brush and into a ray of moonlight that acted like a spotlight, giving Austin a much subtler, but still perfect, view of the man who took his heart so many years ago.

  “It doesn’t matter. Go home, Austin,” he said.

  The words felt like a slap in the face. Austin’s head even jerked to the side in response. He pushed his glasses up his nose again and said softly, “No.”

  “I’m busy. And your boyfriend,” Mateo snarled, “is probably waiting for you.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend anymore. I’m breaking up with him tomorrow. And I’m not leaving.”

  Mateo’s eyes flickered.

  “I’m not stupid,” Austin whispered. “This is about your parents, isn’t it? This is just like five years ago. The sudden howling out in the woods, in our mountain, even though we don’t have wolves here. Those “monster” hunters, killing those wolves illegally and flaunting it. It was all bad enough, but that’s not even the half of it, right? Were they… were those wolves your parents, Mateo?”

  Mateo’s eyes went to the ground, but Austin didn’t miss the flicker of yellow, the vein pulsing in his neck, or the way his fists were clenched and shaking at his sides. “Yes.”

  Austin closed the small distance between them, reached up, and took Mateo’s face in his hands. He cupped his cheeks, savoring the vast difference in body temperature. It was cold out here, Mateo was naked, but he was warmer than Austin. He savored the itch of Mateo’s scruff. When Mateo met his eyes, he saw the emotion there, the way they shimmered in the light, anger, pain, sadness. “I’m so sorry,” Austin said.

  “Hopefully it’s still fresh in people’s minds,” Mateo replied. And his eyes went dark. His pupils dilated. “Those hunters will come back, and I will kill them.”

  “What they did was wrong.” Austin’s hands trembled against Mateo’s face, but he didn’t let go. He had to keep him there. He needed to look him in the eye as he spoke. “I’ll help you get them arrested, Mateo, but you can’t kill them.”

  Mateo growled, and his voice went cold. “Not good enough.”

  “Killing is wrong.” Austin’s voice was weak. If this were another situation, if those “wolves” had been humans, these hunters would have been labeled murderers, not poachers.

  Mateo took Austin’s wrists, forcing Austin’s hands away from his face and releasing them right after like Austin’s touch was burning him. “Go home, Austin. This has nothing to do with you.”

  This time, Austin burst into tears. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, do you? You haven’t missed me at all. You’re here for revenge and nothing else. Don’t let this stuff eat you alive, Mateo. Anger will do that. And I know what I’m talking about. I used to be an angry kid. I used to want to find my mom and give her a piece of my mind for leaving me with her sick mother without a care for either of us, but Gran never gave me any contact information, and knowing my mother’s history, she probably ODed and died somewhere.”

  He clenched his jaw and angrily wiped his tears away. “You’re here alone, and that’s a choice. I’m alone by choice too, because I’ve been keeping Matthew and everyone else at arm’s length, waiting for you to come back, Mateo. We’re both self-sabotaging.”

  Mateo growled again. He moved faster than Austin’s brain could process. All of a sudden Austin’s back was pressed against the trunk of a pine tree. Mateo was leaning in close to him, still very naked, right hand pressed to the tree trunk at the side of Austin’s head. Mateo leaned in closer, his hot breath caressing Austin’s neck and making him shiver at the same time.

  “Matthew?” Mateo gritted out. “That’s his name?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “You’ve been thinking about me instead.”

  “Always.”

  “Even when you’ve fucked him?”

  Austin could barely breathe, he couldn’t look away from Mateo. He couldn’t stop the discomfort of his erection in his pants. “We haven’t done that.”

  “I know the look you’re giving me.”

  “What look?”

  “You want me to kiss you.”

  Austin’s voice quavered as he admitted, “Yes.”

  Mateo stole his glasses and kissed him. Hard. His lips pressed against Austin’s closed ones, and Austin opened up for him without hesitation. Mateo swiped his tongue along the edges of Austin’s mouth, tracing along his lips. Then he found Austin’s tongue with his own. Austin moaned deep in his throat. No one kissed like Mateo—not that Austin had been kissed by many. His hands went to Mateo’s short black hair. He couldn’t get a grip there, so he pressed the pads of his fingers against Mateo’s skull. Mateo stepped closer, pressing their hips together. Austin was acutely aware of Mateo’s free cock sliding against his inner thigh. He wiggled his hips and pressed harder against Mateo. He was desperate to feel all
of Mateo’s skin, but that wouldn’t happen unless he got undressed.

  There was a growl in Mateo’s throat, a sexy, gritty sound Austin was eager to swallow. Then Mateo pulled away without warning, without reason. He even turned around like he couldn’t bear to look at Austin.

  Austin reached out and desperately grabbed his shoulder. “Mateo, wait. Where are you staying tonight?”

  “Out here,” he said without turning around, though he held Austin’s glasses over his shoulder so Austin could reclaim them and see again.

  “Not after all that howling you’re not. You’re staying with me.” Austin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  Mateo huffed.

  “Please,” Austin begged. “We can just talk. I need closure at least. I need to keep you safe. It’ll only be for tonight, and then you never have to see me again if that’s what you want.”

  Mateo turned around. His eyes flickered from brown to yellow and back to brown.

  Austin couldn’t look at him now. His gaze went to his shoes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Just… don’t kiss me like that again if you don’t mean it, okay?”

  “I meant it.”

  Austin jerked his head back up to meet Mateo’s gaze. “Then why…?”

  With a frown, Mateo shook his head. “You have a boyfriend.”

  “I told you. I’m breaking up with him.”

  “I shouldn’t ruin your life.”

  “You’ve only ever made my life better.”

  Mateo let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re going to regret this.”

  “Never ever.”

  A dangerous grin spread across Mateo’s lips. The heat in his eyes fried Austin’s insides. He felt like he was short-circuiting. He had to pry his eyes away and focused on the turned-off flashlight sitting in the grass. He picked it up. At least it’d give them adequate light for the trek home—not that Mateo probably needed it. Oh, yeah. And he was naked.

  “Uhm… do you have some pants?” Austin asked. “Not that I mind, but anyone we pass on our way to my house might.”