Free Moonshifted by Cassie Alexander

bad.”
    Random weres surprising me at my car? Yeah. I made a face as he went on. “Helen’s distraught, and Jorgen is only bitten—he can’t scent his own piss unless it’s by the light of the moon. But I knew this was your car, and that you’d come out eventually.”
    “You’ve been standing here all night?”
    “For the last four or so hours.”
    It was easier to see him out here in the daylight, not the fluorescent lighting of Y4’s halls—maybe I because I found it easier to breathe, surrounded by so much more space. He would be a few inches taller than me when standing, with short wavy brown hair. He had a strong nose that had been broken before—what did it say about him that he hadn’t used his ability to change into a wolf to heal it?—and he was lean. He looked a little like one of my brother’s junkie friends: not the addicted part, but hungry, haunted.
    He pushed himself off my car. “How is he?”
    It wasn’t that I was bad at lying, although I was. It was that I hated doing it. I looked down at the slushy ground. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I just want to know if he’s okay. That’s it. It’s Christmas. He’s my uncle.”
    His grief and worry seemed earnest, plus the standing outside for five hours in December—but it didn’t matter. There was nothing I could say. Hospital rules and privacy laws prevented it. There was no way to know if this man—werewolf, I corrected—didn’t have some part in Winter’s state. Sure, he felt genuine, but I’d been conned before. Recently, even. I turned my attention to my purse and pulled my keys out, then walked to my car door.
    He didn’t move. I was close enough to feel how warm he was as I unlocked my door, his excess heat bleeding through his cotton coat. I could see the melt line on my windshield that a few hours of his body’s warmth had de-iced for me.
    “Is it really going to be like this?” His eyes searched me for answers, lips pressed thin, as I got inside my car.
    “For right now, I’m afraid so.” Ignoring him, I closed my car’s door. He stepped aside.

 
    CHAPTER TWELVE
    The look in his eyes haunted me all the way home. If someone I loved, say my mom or my brother, was alone in the hospital, and I wasn’t allowed to see them—but no. I’d done the right thing, and more important I’d done the legally correct thing, which was crucial for someone who wanted to keep her job.
    I lost more theoretical sleep that morning hauling my new couch cover onto my couch. The directions were in Chinese, and Grandfather offered a few comments in German; both were equally unhelpful. Then I went back to my bedroom, switched into my flannel pajamas, and snuggled under the electric blanket. I didn’t set my alarm—I figured my family could wake me up when they got there, and if they were late for some reason, then I’d be lucky enough to have slept in.
    I was fast asleep until the doorbell rang.
    “Oh, man.” I looked at my alarm clock. Ten thirty A.M. A full half hour earlier than I’d expected them. Unfair.
    I lurched out of bed and made it to the hallway. Usually I’d brush my teeth first, but it was cold outside, and I’d brushed them before going to bed, oh, two hours before. I looked out the peephole and saw Jake standing there, waddling back and forth like a penguin.
    “What’s the password?” I yelled through the door, just like we used to do when we were kids.
    “ It’s fucking cold is the password.” He stuck his tongue out at the peephole.
    “Hey, don’t lick the door, you’ll get stuck.” I opened it with a grin. “Come on in.”
    “Thanks.” He came in and stamped around in my hallway. Every time I saw him he looked cleaner than the time before. Admittedly, today he was helped by the slightly newer coat he was wearing since the last time I’d seen him—it made him look more filled out, possibly a trick of the extra down.
    “That’s a nice coat.”
    “It’s a gift