Forbidden Alliance: A Werewolf's Tale (Forbidden Alliance Trilogy) (2 page)

Dork.

“More than ju
st the local tribes are coming
,” he whispered ominously.

“Lovely,
that isn’t a very good secret,” I pointed out.

“Some vampires will be there as well.”
He smirked when I turned and looked at him with wide eyes.
“Exactly!” he giggled.
“The area has been free of vampires for more than three generations, but a small coven has asked per
mission to move into the area.”

“And you know this how?” I asked
skeptically
.

He shrugged with a mischievous smirk on his face.
“Oh I don’t know, maybe a certain
little
werewolf was eavesdropping
on pack business
again.”

I snorted.
“Little my ass,” I mumbled.

He ignored me.
“The vamps
feed on animals and donated blood.
So that’s cool, it means they won’t cause an inflat
ion in the crime rate, and the Alphas
thought it’d be a show of goodwill towards our immortal cousins if we partied together.”

“Vampires?” I laughed
but it was strained
.
“This just keeps gettin
g better and better,” I groaned
.
“I seriously don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t have a choice, Jay,” he lovingly pointed out.
“If you don’t show, your parents will be disappointed and it will make them look foolish.
Suck it up and get over it.
You’re going.”
He kissed the side of my head before phasing back into a wolf
and smiled at me with a toothy grin
.

Yahto sat there looking at me, waiting for me to agree
as
I always
did
, his
large light gray eyes
moving over my face many times
.
He was silently telling me
to get off my ass and join him because
we were going to be late for school if I didn’t.

“Fine, whatever, privacy?” I groaned and he snorted but looked away.
I phased and took off running with Yahto on my heels.

Vampires?
What in the hell was my father thinking?
I wondered.

A century ago
,
vampires and werewolves were immortal enemies.
Our kinds fought until near extinction on both sides.
Eventually
they said screw it and threw in the towel
,
so-to-speak.
Each side decided, and agreed, that the life loss was ridiculous
,
and
that
there was no reason why
they
couldn’t coe
xist peacefully.
However, you’d
be hard pressed to find werewolves and vampires in the same territory.
The war m
ay
have ended but the memories were still
very
vivid in most immortals’ minds.
Only time would tell if time was all that was needed to change their perspectives of each other.

Personally, I had never met a vampire.
I had
heard rumors and
had
seen many movies and read a bunch of books, but I had never actually met one before.
Then again, it wasn’t anything that was on my list of things to do
either.
But u
nfortunately
,
I’d have no say in the matter.

By the time we
had
made it back to town, Yahto was bored so he kept knocking into me, trying to get me to play
with him
but I wasn’t in the mood.
I sidestepped all of his advances and ducked when he jumped at me.
The males may be bigger and stronger but the females
were
faster and more agile.

Werewolves
were
rare
in comparison to vampires, I suppose
; the lycanthropy virus
was only
hereditary.
If you
were
born to werewolf parents
,
you would be a werewolf.
Unlike vampires,
who
were once human
and
had
to be bitten by a vampire
in order
to be turned
into a vampire.
They were lucky, in my opinion, because
we
were
born with
this
curse.

Okay, it wa
sn’t a curse, but in my
mind
it was.
I didn’t want to be like that.
I wanted to be normal...whatever that was.
I didn’t want to outlive friends and
human
family
members
.
I didn’t want to have to hunt and consume fresh blood in order to survive.
I didn’t want to be anything but normal and human.

However, n
ormal was the farthest thing I c
ould ever be.

“Hey kids,” Warner,
one of the human members of the tribal council
, greeted,
and slammed
the hood of his car shut.
“Who won?”

I rolled my eyes and strolled towards home.

“She gave up,” Yahto complained, leaning against the car completely naked and oblivious to it.
“She’s depressed because of her approaching
birthday
.”

“Oh,” Warner said with a chuckle.
“Happy early bi
rthday, Jay Dee!” he called out; h
e acted as if he didn’t know, but
everyone knew.

For whatever reason
,
the
Lhaq'temish
loved
birthdays
,
and any excuse to party
was
as good as any.
I was the only birthday in August
, how that happened
,
I
didn’t
know,
so they tended to go all out:
a last soirée of the summer
,
if you will.
School started last Thursday, and all anyon
e ha
d
talked about all weekend wa
s the impending party the following Friday.
The humans we
went
to school with complain
ed
that they never
got
to go to our
epic
parties.
But they
might have gotten
freaked out by all the werewolves, and now vampires.
There
were
some humans who
knew
about us, both non-werewolf
tribe
members and extended famil
y, but
they were
sworn to secrecy; t
here
would
be at least three hundred people flooding our
tiny
town Friday.

I sprinted when
home
came into view and quickly
bound
up the large maple tree in the front yard, swinging around one of the thick branches, and launched myself through the open bedroom window, phasing in the process.
I landed with ironic catlike grace on the balls of my feet and headed to my bathroom to shower.
The stench of lavender was killing me; I really
didn’t
like that particular smell.
Yahto
knew it,
henc
e the reason the punk hid in it, but t
hat
was
why I love
d
him.
Yahto ha
d
his moments, who
didn’t
?
But I wouldn’t
have wanted
him any other way.
He was
a pain in my ass but he love
d me and wa
s always there for me
no matter what
, and saved my life
, delivering me to my parents
. How could
not
love him after all of that?

The smell of bacon, waffles and hash browns floated up the stairs and down the hallway to my room.
I hurried to finish tying my shoe
s
.
There wa
s only one person who
made
fresh waffles in our
house
,
and he hadn’t been home in months!

I ran down the hall and hopped over the railing, avoiding the stairs all together.

“Jarvis?” I called out, rounding the corner into the kitchen.
“Bro?”

Mom and Dad were sitting at the table, each reading the paper, a plate of
untouched
food in front of them.
The small smiles pulling at the corners of the
ir mouths tipped me off that I was
being ambushed.
But before I could run, two strong arms wrapped around me from behind and
lifted me up off of my feet
.

“Surpri
se, Little Sister!” Jarvis sang loudly in my ear.

“Can’t breathe,
Asswipe
,” I choked.

Jarvis put me down and spun me around to face him.

God I missed him!

“Look at you!
All grown up,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes and hugged him tight.

When my parents adopted me,
they gave me the greatest gift in the world: a big brother who I love
d
and
wa
s my best friend.
He had
been in Russia studying architecture for months and
I missed
him more than he’d ever know.

“You said you couldn’t get home until Christmas,” I
said and
smacked him in the back of the head for lying to me.

“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his head.
“What kind of surprise would it be if I told
you the
truth?
Hello
, blonde moment,” he teased so I smacked him again.
“Have you always been so abusive?
I made waffles!”
he beamed.

We ate as a family for the first time in
months
,
and Jarvis rambled
a mile a minute telling us
about Russia and everything he’d
seen.
It was cute.
I forgot how he turn
ed
into a ki
d with a new toy when he wa
s excited.
Jarvis had just turned twenty before he left to get his
masters degree in architecture; h
e was able to get his Associates Degree out of the way while in high school through a running start program, and he breezed through col
lege correspondence courses at the University of Washington
for his Bachelors degree before focusing on a Master
s
earned abroad.

Needless to say, he was the pride
of
the
Lhaq'temish
; not many got off of the
Res
,
and no one had a damn college degree, let alone, three of them!

Jarvis w
as the same as I remembered him;
I don’t know why I thought he’d change, but when he was gone the months felt like years
.
He wa
s s
mart, funny, caring, sarcastic, protective, beautiful,
and wa
s physically the opposite of me; dark
bronze
skin, cropped black hair, his bangs falling in his light amber eyes
thanks to a European styled haircut—he was such a poser—
tribal tattoos
on his arms and chest,
and
a naturally
muscular physique.
We’re nearly the same height but he has me beat by an inch and fifty pounds.
The approaching weekend just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
Every damn chick on the reservation that wasn’t married or in a relationship would be flirting with him.
It irritated the living hell out of me.
Luckily, he never showed in
terest in any of them, but it was
still irritating and stomach turning
to watch.

“You’re going to be late for school,” Mom scolded before laughing and looked at the clock.
“Yup,
totally
late.
At least you can blame it on your troublesome, bad influence
,
big brother,” she teased.