Free She Smells the Dead by E.J. Stevens Page B

things were getting serious between you two.”
    Were we getting serious? I didn’t have enough experience in the dating department to know. “We’re not getting married anytime soon if that’s what you mean,” I joked. I had intended to sound lighthearted but I stumbled a bit on the M word.
    “Whose getting married?” Calvin asked as he sat down next to me.
    I hadn’t heard him come up behind me and I started to blush. Emma winked at me then laughed. Thanks for the heads up Emma .

Chapter 26
     
     
    Calvin and I went back to his dad’s workshop cabin after school. It was peaceful here without the watchful eyes and prying ears we had to deal with in the school hallways.
    Earlier today I had overheard a sophomore telling a group of freshman that the school witch had cursed one of the hot senior boys into going out with her. I was nearly to my next class when I realized they had been gossiping about me and Calvin. If they were going to talk about me, and claim that I could cast spells on boys, I wished that they at least had the decency to call me Yuki the Enchantress or something. I guess I was still stuck with witch. I never should have bought that evil eye pendant. How much luck had it brought me? Zero, zip, nada .
    Calvin came back into the cabin with blankets he had brought over from the main house. Well, maybe that pendant had brought me a little luck . He was dressed all in black today and it made his eyes look like dark pools of water. I could drown in those eyes.
    “Sorry it’s so drafty,” Cal apologized.
    We both wrapped ourselves in clean smelling blankets and curled up on two armchairs facing each other. The armchairs looked worn, but they hadn’t been here on my last visit. I wondered fleetingly if Calvin had stolen them from his parent’s family room. They looked vaguely familiar. His parents must really be worried about him .
    “I’d like you to go camping with me in a few weeks,” Calvin said surprising me, “when we get closer to the new moon.”
    My thoughts were immediately swept up in daydreams of being alone with Cal in the woods. In a tent . I had never been a big fan of camping in the great buggy outdoors, but if it meant a weekend alone with Cal I was game. Then a question struck me. “Why the new moon?” I asked.
    “They almost always have Wolf Camp as far away from the full moon as possible,” he said, “for obvious reasons. It’s hard to learn focus when you’re shifting into a wolf.” Calvin smiled his toothy grin.
    “Wolf Camp?” I asked incredulously.
    “Well, that’s what some of us call it,” he said, “I don’t think it really has a name.”
    “Would they even let me come with you?” I asked, “Since, you know, I’m not a wolf.”
    Just dating one .
    “They’ll make a special exception for you,” he said, “since you’re touched by spirit. We have teachers who can help you learn to control your powers and communicate with my wolf. Well, at least that’s what my dad says.”
    Cal had been talking about me to his dad? This was getting weirder by the second.
    “What kind of camp is this?” I asked.
    What was I getting myself into ? I didn’t think I wanted to be the only vanilla human alone in the woods with a camp filled with wolf possessed nature enthusiasts.
    “It’s a lot like a corporate team building retreat,” Calvin said and laughed. “We do team building and trust exercises,” he said, “but we also work on meditation and how to focus our will. We learn how to communicate with our wolf spirit and ways to gain more control over our change. They even have couples therapy.”
    “They offer couples therapy?” I asked, surprised, “Is that why they let other humans come to camp?”
    Calvin looked embarrassed. “Well, not exactly. Most of our kind mate, um I mean hook up, with other wolves,” he said. “One of the elders said that our blood sings to one another.”
    Great. Howling blood .
    “But I’m not a wolf,” I said stating the