“Carl put you up to this.”
“No. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You’ve got a following. I can see Carl thinking that you’re stepping on his toes. I can see this breaking up the pack.”
“I would never hurt the pack—”
“Not on purpose.”
I snuggled deeper into his embrace. I didn’t want to be cocky. I wanted to be safe.
Chapter 5
Next caller, hello. You’re on the air.”
“It—it’s my girlfriend. She won’t bite me.”
Bobby from St. Louis sounded about twenty, boyish and nervous, a gawky postadolescent with bigger fantasies than he knew what to do with. He probably wore a black leather jacket and had at least one tattoo in a place he could cover with a shirt.
“Okay, Bobby, let’s back up a little. Your girlfriend.”
“Yeah?”
“Your girlfriend is a werewolf.”
“Yeah,” he said in a voice gone slightly dreamy.
“And you want her to bite you and infect you with lycanthropy.”
“Uh, yeah. She says I don’t know what I’d be getting into.”
“Do you think that she may be right?”
“Well, it’s my decision—”
“Would you force her to have sex with you, Bobby?”
“No! That’d be rape.”
“Then don’t force her to do this. Just imagine how guilty she’d feel if she did it and you changed your mind afterward. This isn’t a tattoo you can have lasered off. We’re talking about an entire lifestyle change here. Turning into a bloodthirsty animal once a month, hiding that fact from everyone around you, trying to lead a normal life when you’re not fully human. Have you met her pack?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then you really don’t know what you’re talking about when you say you want to be a werewolf.”
“Uh, no.”
“Bobby, I usually make suggestions rather than tell people flat out what to do, but I’m making an exception in your case. Listen to your girlfriend. She knows a heck of a lot more about it than you do, okay?”
“Uh, okay. Thanks, Kitty.”
“Good luck to you, Bobby,” I said and clicked Bobby off. “And good luck to Bobby’s girlfriend. My advice to her is dump the guy; she doesn’t need that kind of stress in her life. You’re listening to The Midnight Hour with me, Kitty Norville. The last hour we’ve been discussing relationships with lycanthropes, bones to pick and beef to grind. Let’s break now for station ID and when we come back, more calls.”
I waved to Matt through the booth window. He hit the switch. The On-Air sign dimmed and the show’s theme song, CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” played. Not the usual synthesized goth fare one might expect with a show like this. I picked the song for its grittiness, and the joy with which it seemed to face impending doom.
I pulled off my headphones and pushed the microphone away. If I’d gotten tired of this, as I expected I would during the first six months, quitting would be easy. But I liked it. I still liked it. I hated making T.J. angry, though. Not in the same way I hated making Carl angry. But still. If they were both pissed off at me, what could I do? I didn’t want to give up something that I was proud of, like I was proud of the show. I hated them for making me this stressed out about it.
A werewolf pack was the most codependent group of beings in existence.
“You okay in there?” Matt said. His dark hair was just long enough to tie in a ponytail, and he was a few days late shaving. Anywhere but here he’d have looked disreputable. Behind the control board, he looked right at home.