Free Werewolf Sings the Blues by Jennifer Harlow Page A

you’re not comfortable yet. I will get it out of you, though.” I raise an eyebrow and smile seductively. “I have ways of making you talk, Blondie.” Damned if he isn’t blushing again. Once again, so adorable it makes a basket of puppies look like a basket of rats. “But I am about ten seconds from falling asleep at the wheel, so as co-pilot it’s your job to entertain me. Them’s the rules.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I think for a second. “Tell me about my sperm donor.”
    â€œDa— Frank ?”
    â€œYeah. What’s he like? Get me prepped for the reunion.”
    â€œWhat do you want to know?”
    â€œUh, how’d you meet him? Start at the beginning,” I suggest.
    â€œIt was … complicated.”
    I roll my eyes. “Come on, Blondie. You can do better than that. He’s my bio-dad, I kind of have a right to know what he’s been up to since he ditched me.”
    â€œHe didn’t ditch you,” Jason insists.
    â€œSure. Whatever.” I roll my eyes again. “So, how’d you meet? When he joined your pack?”
    â€œNo. He brought me in some years later.”
    â€œ He brought you in?”
    â€œWhen I was eight. He saved my life,” Jason says.
    â€œHow? What happened?” Jason doesn’t answer. He stares out the window at the brown prairie and rolling hills outside. “Sorry. Too personal, I’m sure. You don’t have to answer.”
    â€œNo,” he says, glancing back at me. “You’re right. You should know what kind of man he is.”
    â€œI’d appreciate it.”
    Jason’s jaw sets, and all the muscles in his face stand at attention. He hasn’t even begun the story, and he’s already rigid. “My father … was not a good man. Before I was born, he was exiled from his pack in Russia. For the rape of another member. He wasn’t arrested, but he emigrated to America, worked as a translator for the government and later as a bodyguard for the vampire Lord of D.C.”
    â€œWait, vampires are real too?”
    â€œYes. Our kind doesn’t mix well with theirs. My father was an exception. He was fond of Peter. Loyal, though only to Peter. With everyone else, my mother and myself included, he was brutal. One of my earliest memories is of him beating my mother for making a comment about his haircut. When I was six, I fell asleep to their fighting, and when I woke, she was gone. He claimed she abandoned us, me, but I know now he must have killed her.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œFor the next two years, I was basically on my own. Alone. The only times my father paid attention to me was to beat me after a stressful day. I took care of myself. Cooking, cleaning. I didn’t go to school, I just stayed in the house watching TV as I was told. No one but him, the odd girlfriend, and colleague ever came over. I’d hide in my room. Then one night, he didn’t return home. I though t nothing of it. He’d been angrier, more agitated than normal for days. I know now he was scared.”
    â€œWhy?” I ask, captivated.
    â€œBobby Conlon and Lord Peter had no love lost between them, but they tolerated one another for decades until they both wanted to buy a piece of property in D.C. A few days later, one of the pack was found drained of blood—Abigail was seventeen. Then another wolf was murdered in the same manner. In retaliation, some wolves took it upon themselves to slaughter a few vampires, along with their human companions. That brought in the F.R.E.A.K.S.”
    â€œThe who?”
    â€œThe preternatural police. They investigated, then acted as mediator between our two factions. The men finally agreed to a cease fire when it was uncovered my father was responsible. He’d been dating Abigail, and when she refused him sex one night, he beat and raped her. Fearing she’d talk, knowing she was pack, and that