Free SwitchBack: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Knightsbridge Canyon Series Book 1) by David VanDyke, Drew VanDyke

Believe me, I always knew. I sighed and tapped the hot water faucet with my foot to heat up the by-now-lukewarm bath.
    “Ten days before the next cycle,” my mother said.
    “Bummer,” I mumbled.
    “Oops, gotta run.” She apologized and condensed to a small drop of water that plinked into the bowl.
    “Aunt Ash?” came J.R.’s voice through the door. “Who are you talking to?”
    I cringed. Great. Now even my nephew thinks I’m a freak.
    “No one, honey. Just to myself. Do you need something?” I asked sweetly, testing the air.
    “No. I was passing by and Spanky was sitting here listening to you talk and I thought it was really weird. I almost thought there was somebody else in there with you. Anyways, I need to brush my teeth and my toothbrush is in there.”
    “Nope. Nobody but me, myself and I. I’ll be out in a sec.” I said and stood up, dried off and let the kid have his space, retiring to my room and puttering on my laptop while I thought.
    Ten days. Cripes. First the dog, now the kid. And a full moon coming up. I really needed to figure out how I should handle the next change. I supposed I could just do what I used to when I lived in town, which was to leave the basement window unlatched and set so I could enter in whatever form I happened to be at the time.
    Only this house had no basement, unlike the one I’d grown up in. You know, the one where Will was now. The one where, if I could just get my head screwed on straight, I could probably stay over and do the same thing. Only, how was I supposed to sneak out of Will’s bed without him noticing?
    I thought about drugging him. Hey, it was a plan, but there had to be a better way. Maybe I should just go home to my place in the City and take my usual laps around Golden Gate Park.
    I was still thinking about this when my email beeped, and I brought it up without even reading the subject line.
    Oh, great. Another one.
     
    TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
    I AM STILL WARNING YOU ABOUT WHAT MY EMPLOYER WANTS TO DO TO YOU FOR SOME REASON. LIKE I SAID BEFORE I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE WHAT IS SAID ABOUT YOU BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER SO JUST BEWARE. THERE IS CERTAINLY A CONSPIRACY SURROUNDING THIS SO TRUST NO ONE NOT EVEN THOSE CLOSEST TO YOU AND DO NOT DO WHAT ANYONE WANTS EVEN IF THEY WANT YOU TO.
    SINCERELY,
    A FRIEND
     
    I felt like I was back in first-year creative writing class, willing to drive icepicks into my eyeballs rather than suffer through another round of insufferably sophomoric prose. Yeah, I know here in my diary I take liberties with the language but holy freaking Grammar Girl, what are they teaching kids these days in English class?
    Then I forced myself to focus on the meaning and ignore the execrable delivery.
    It seemed as if he, if it was a he, was trying to give me a friendly warning that someone was trying to force him to do something to me, along with the implication that someone close to me was not to be trusted.
    Master of the obvious, right? But I was no detective, and besides, nothing other than these emails themselves had appeared to threaten me since I had returned to Knightsbridge. Also, there was a kind of lunatic, conspiracy-nut quality to the messages that made me think the sender wasn’t really all there.
    So.
    I had to figure out whether or not to tell anyone. After a moment’s thought, I moved the email to my saved file and decided not to say anything. It would just get everyone spun up again and worried about nothing. I would just have to keep my eyes open and stay away from animal control officers, biker chicks, local hunters or old flames trying to entice me to crawl back into the cozy shell of my former life.

Chapter 9
    Busted. I was busted.
    The next morning when I opened the front door, I ran into Will Stenfield camped out on the porch, and he wouldn’t leave until I talked to him. I guess I could have slammed the door and not come out, or tried to run out the back, but…he was right, in a John Cusack,
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