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

  His vision burned to white, all thought eradicated. He ran, and he ran some more. He would run all through the night until he couldn’t run anymore, until his paws were cut and bleeding. There was always blood.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE ALARM HAD ROUSED Austin. He never hit snooze, but today he did. He wasn’t ready to face whatever the day planned on throwing at him. He had dozed off again when he heard his front door open. His house didn’t have especially thin walls or anything, but it was quiet, so the disturbance was easy to catch. Austin turned off his alarm so it wouldn’t ring again, put on his glasses, and was about to dash out of his room. If Mateo was leaving, he had to catch him. If he left now, Austin wasn’t sure he’d ever see him again.

  Austin grabbed his phone. He had a new text message from Matt he hadn’t caught because it was on silent: I’m coming over.

  “Oh, God,” Austin whispered. He hadn’t planned this out very well. Were Mateo and Matt face to face right now? Austin couldn’t even picture it, but it worried him because whatever it’d turn into couldn’t be a good thing.

  “Austin?” Matt’s voice rang out.

  “Coming!” Austin steeled himself and left his room.

  Matt was in the living room, looking at the blankets and pillow thrown on the coffee table. “Have a bad night?”

  “Uh, yes.” Austin didn’t know whether to be relieved or extremely disappointed. When had Mateo left? He had to have left. He wasn’t the type to hide. He faced things head-on, without fear or caution.

  “Is that why you’re still in your sweats? Man, you look a bit roughed up.”

  Austin scrubbed his hand down his face. “Give me a minute, and I’ll look more presentable.” He didn’t care how he looked right now, but he just noticed the single red rose Matt was carrying and was ready to run.

  “Wait, Austin. We need to talk.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m the one who said that.” Austin puffed out a breath of air and put his cowardice aside. His legs were stiff as he moved forward and met Matt in the living room.

  “Got you these,” Matt said with that radiant smile of his. He was holding a book, too. A book of poetry.

  “Matt…” Austin almost held out his hands to accept the gifts. It was sweet. But he couldn’t do that. He needed to stop this now. So, instead, he folded his arms. “I really appreciate it. You’re probably the sweetest guy I know, but I can’t accept these.”

  Matt’s smile shrunk. “Why not?”

  “Because this is wrong. I don’t know how you haven’t given up on me yet.”

  “Do you want me to give up on you?”

  “I didn’t, but it was entirely selfish. I have to stop being selfish. You’re basically perfect, Matt. You have so much love to give, and you deserve someone who can give you that much love back. That guy isn’t me. We need to break up.”

  Matt’s eyes glossed over. “What did I do wrong?”

  Austin winced at his words. He sounded just like Austin did with Mateo. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just… I’m in love with someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Mateo. I never told you his name before, but I sort of told you about him. He was the one who put an end to me being bullied in elementary school. The guy I had a crush on in high school…”

  “But he doesn’t live here anymore, does he?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Shouldn’t you move on? Unless you’re still in contact with him when I thought you weren’t.” Matt squeezed the rose in his hand just a little too tightly. It was a good thing the thorns had been cut off.

  “We aren’t. We weren’t.” Austin sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I was going to do this before I even knew I’d see him again. This isn’t fair to you.”

  “I love you.”

  Austin took a sharp breath. “I love you too, but not the way you want me to. You were there for me when no one else was.”

  “I just don’t get it.”

  “Honestly, neither do I. I’m sorry, Matt. I really am.”

  “I guess if I haven’t won you over yet, I never will. We’ve been together for three months.” Matt smiled sadly, eyes bright, a stray tear racing down his cheek. He wiped the tear away, cleared his throat, and held out the rose and book of poetry. “Keep these anyway. They are for you after all.”

  Austin did his best to swallow the lump in his throat. He unfolded his arms and accepted the gifts with shaking hands. Then Matt leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “You’ll always have a piece of my heart, Austin. Maybe one day we can manage to be just friends.”

  “I’d like that, but only if you’re okay with it,” Austin replied. “I’m sorry.”

  Matt pulled away and grinned. The moisture was gone from his eyes. It looked like he was going to be okay. Maybe it was his sunny disposition or his life philosophy at work, but Matt was probably the most well-adjusted person Austin knew. He took the bad days in stride, and he kept on keeping on. He had confidence in himself. He didn’t rely on anyone else for his happiness. “Yeah, give me a few days, and I’ll be over it. You’re going to be late for school if you don’t get ready soon. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Thanks, Matt.”

  Matt gave a playful and elaborate bow. “Oh.” He fished inside of his pants pocket. “I should give this back to you.” He handed Austin the house key Austin had made for him when he was trying to make this thing feel real.

  “Bye, Matt.”

  “Bye, Austin.”

  Matt saw himself out.

  The house was deathly quiet in his absence.

  The loneliness was setting in.

  Austin wasn’t particularly outgoing, not even since he fought his natural shyness and became a teacher. Matt was a lifeline before they started dating and especially after. Now Austin had no one to lean on. Matt had no obligation to him because Austin let him loose. Austin couldn’t count on them ever being friends after this. He couldn’t use Matt anymore, but he already felt the loss of stability.

  Mateo was off doing God knew what.

  Austin grabbed at his longish hair and bit his lip as he let out an angry groan. He would have screamed if he had been one for expressing himself loudly, but he wasn’t.

  After school, Austin would track Mateo down. Mateo hadn’t left Glasglow. Austin was sure of that. Mateo was probably out in the woods again, trying to get someone to catch him on camera apparently. He was playing a dangerous game if he wanted to lure that psychotic pair of “monster” hunters back here like that. He was going to get himself killed—unless those hunters didn’t come. No one had heard from them since five years ago, and they were profiled poachers. There had been illegal animal killings since then that fit their hunting style and usual targets, but they hadn’t been seen. They had stopped flaunting their kills. That had to mean they were feeling some heat from legal authorities at least. Austin knew all of this because he sort of obsessed over the whole “werewolf” thing after the outburst that got Mateo expelled and resulted in him moving away.

  Austin hadn’t been able to save Mateo back then, but he was determined to do it now. At the very least, he wanted Mateo to know he wasn’t alone. Austin was on his side.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MATEO HAD A PHONE number and an email address. He was at the library again, one of the few places with a public phone. He could have used the cell phone Lance gave him, but he didn’t know how tracking phones and all of that worked. He didn’t want the hunters right on his ass. He wanted to lure them to Glasglow and hunt them at his leisure.

  He tapped his foot impatiently as he stood in a separate room at the back of the library, allowing some privacy for anyone using the phone while keeping the main body of the library quiet for reading and studying. Mateo twisted the wire around and around his finger and would have snapped it if the hunters hadn’t picked up that exact moment.

  “Jane and Clyde, monster hunters making the world a better place. What’s the sighting?” a woman said through the l
ine.

  “You took care of those werewolves in Glasglow, Utah,” Mateo said.

  The woman didn’t respond.

  “I heard one again last night,” Mateo persisted.

  “Send proof. Did you get video, a picture? We can’t come out on a whim, and we don’t respond to prank calls.”

  “If I get you proof, you’ll come out here?”

  “That’s what we do.”

  “Fine.”

  “I trust you have our email?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She hung up.

  Mateo cursed under his breath. He should have just recorded himself with his phone last night. He could probably find a way to do it without revealing his identity, place the phone against a tree trunk and shift safely inside of the brush and then jump out as a wolf. That’d work, right?

  What if Austin did it for him?

  He shook his head.

  He couldn’t ask Austin to do that.

  He wondered if Austin would jerk off to a video of him naked, though. That thought got him hot, got his wolf riled up in his chest and snarling. He pressed his lips together. He was in a public space. He lived among humans for most of his life without incident somehow, thanks to his mother’s persistence probably, but he had backtracked significantly. He didn’t control his wolf in Eurio, Alaska. He was allowed to be a wolf shifter. He was allowed to wrestle, to fight, but he still got too rough. He wasn’t Berserker because he could think—even if he didn’t think well. He wasn’t a mindless beast, but he might as well have been with how he ripped into Weston like that. He simply couldn’t be contained. But maybe Austin could contain him. Austin stopped him from killing one of their classmates senior year.

  Austin felt good. Mateo ached to feel him again. His gums were sore and the memory of touching Austin got him hard. And Austin loved him. He said so. The thought had Mateo grinning like a fool as he leaned against the wall the public phone was attached to. After all this time, Austin still loved him. Mateo wanted to take that love and keep it safe, but he didn’t know how when he was probably the one Austin needed safety from. When he got overloaded, he became Bleeder, and it didn’t matter who got in his way.

  Absentmindedly, Mateo flexed his hands. The skin on his palms was new and soft, barely healed over from what he did to himself by running for hours on end last night. His feet were in the same state: tender. The pain was good. It was one of the things that grounded him.

  Mateo stood at attention when a generic tune filled the little room. He almost forgot about the cell phone in his pocket. He grabbed it, saw Lance’s name, and accepted the call as he glanced out the glass door separating this room from the main library. He hadn’t drawn any eyes, so he figured no one would listen in on his conversation.

  “Yeah?” Mateo answered.

  “How are you doing?” Lance asked.

  “Fine. You don’t have to check up on me every day. Must be a pain since you aren’t using the landline.”

  “It’s fine. And Weston is fine. You never asked. He says you should come back.”

  “I got a couple of monster hunters that need hunting,” Mateo said. And he never asked about Weston because he didn’t know what kind of news he’d get. Still, he was relieved to hear he was fine.

  “I get that. But after that,” Lance said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Gale is worried. Ike misses you. Yuri and I do, too. You coming home after this shit blows over?”

  Home. Mateo stared hard at the laminate flooring. How could they miss him when he had constantly been nothing but trouble? He got Gale and Weston in a tizzy all the time. But he cared about them. He knew they cared about him too. Maybe he could go home after this was all over. Maybe killing these hunters would satisfy his bloodlust. He doubted it though. Hunting in the forests never satisfied him for long either. To temporarily fix the overload, it always ended with this: Someone had to bleed.

  Mateo asked, “How is Yuri?”

  “He’s good. Doing really good. He hasn’t had a seizure since that last episode. I could come out and help you,” Lance said.

  “No way. He needs you, and I can handle this.”

  Lance paused. “I’m worried, Mateo. I’ve been looking into these assholes you’re hunting. They haven’t stopped or even taken a break. I don’t know if you can do this on your own. They’re brutal, merciless killers.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not allowed to die. I would have to bring you back to life so I can kill you again myself.”

  Mateo snickered. “Got it.”

  “I’m serious about coming out, though.”

  “I gotta do this on my own. Don’t tell Gale or anyone else where I am either.”

  “I’m sure Gale already knows to be honest, but I won’t. I’m not a snitch,” Lance said.

  “Damn right.”

  “But I’m not going to stop him if he storms out of here—which he’s about to. Good thing, since you're such a stubborn ass.”

  Mateo huffed. “Damn polar bear.”

  “It’s what he does. He never would have let you go if it was up to him. He’s pissed at me and Yuri.”

  “Sticking his nose in other shifters’ business. Probably would have caught me too, like before, if you hadn’t had things all set for me.”

  “Yep.”

  Mateo spotted someone heading to the little room he had commandeered. “Gotta go. Later, Lance.” He ended the call without waiting for a reply. He shoved his phone back inside of his pocket and left the library through the back door, leaving the warmth of the building for the chilled world outside—though it was nothing compared to the cold in Alaska; that had taken some getting used to when he first moved there.

  He was doing his best to avoid crowds since he couldn’t stand the nonsensical conversations that combined into a giant vat of noise since returning to Glasglow. It got his hackles raised, made his vision burn white at the edges and threatened an overload. And now there was nothing for him to do. He’d need the darkness of night to get that video the hunters wanted. No way was he recording himself in broad daylight. He wasn’t a complete idiot. But that meant he had an entire day to kill. It was only late morning.

  Austin.

  His feet moved on their own, taking him in the direction of the high school. Glasglow wasn’t a huge city, but it was big enough it would take him a half hour or so before he reached it if he walked like a normal human. He might have tried talking himself out of it if he were the type to do that. He did try that from time to time, a lot more since leaving Eurio, but he didn’t now. He just thought the same thing over and over: Austin.

  Mateo wore a simple gray hoodie. He pulled the hood up to conceal his face. He didn’t really think anyone would recognize him or care if they did. He used the hood because it was like wearing blinders, inhibiting his peripheral vision. It helped to stop the wild energy from growing out of control. It kept him calmer and his head clearer.

  “Free tickets for Gordon Callahan’s Haunted Corn Maze, best corn maze in Glasglow! For you and your date!” a man yelled on the streets. Mateo remembered the cornfields farther south where the farms were. He hadn’t lived in that area of the city, but his parents had taken him there plenty of times. They liked to buy organic eggs and shit, support the local farms.

  Mateo lowered his hood and sped up, intending to pass by the man without drawing any attention like a harmless shadow.

  “You there,” the guy said.

  Mateo walked a little faster.

  “You, guy in a hurry.”

  Mateo rolled his eyes and came to a stop. “What?” he asked.

  “Free tickets, man. Didn’t you hear me shouting?” The guy leaned forward to peek under Mateo’s hood. He was bright-eyed, energy radiated off of him, and he looked about Mateo’s age. He wasn’t taking the chilly weather as well as Mateo though. His nose was a bright red.

  “Don’t want ‘em,” Mateo said. “Save them for someone else.”

  “Serious
ly? You don’t have a date you want to take to the haunted corn maze? Or a crush? This is the perfect place to get some extra attention from that special somebody if they’re a scaredy-cat.” He winked. “If you know what I mean. Keep your cool while they freak out, have them cling to you. It’s all about the romance at our age, am I right? Screw the fear factor. That stuff’s for kids.”

  Mateo scowled. This guy was weird. Since when was Halloween about romance? If accepting the tickets got the guy to back off, Mateo was more than happy to do it. He was getting agitated. He held out his hand and the guy dropped two orange tickets into his palm.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “Be sure to tell your friends about it too! Halloween is this Friday, and then they’ll have to wait a whole year before they’ll get a chance like this again. It’s only five bucks per person.” Then he ran off down the street to accost some other innocent passerby.

  Mateo didn’t move. He stared at the little orange tickets in his big hand. And then he was walking again, straight for the school. He shoved the tickets in his pocket, not sure what he was going to do with them, not sure why he was going to the school, because Austin would be working, but he did it anyway. Whatever rational thoughts he had were shut down. He was being his typical, impulsive self. He was going to Austin.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FINDING A SUBSTITUTE LAST minute like this wasn’t usually feasible, but Austin had lucked out—and he hadn’t missed a day of school this year, and everyone liked him. It all worked in his favor. He hadn’t needed to lie about why he was leaving either. Nobody even asked. Maybe they could read the worry on his face. It was lunchtime right now, so he was wading through a stream of students in the halls before he made it to the much-less-crowded outdoors. He was carrying a box of the student papers he had received so far so he wouldn’t be too behind when he had extra work tomorrow. He was starting to think he gave them too much homework. More homework for them meant more homework for him, but, by golly, they were going to learn.