Traitor Wolf of Piston by T. S. Joyce

Author:T. S. Joyce [Joyce, T. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wicked Willow Press
Published: 2023-01-25T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“He didn’t ever love you,” his mom’s screechy voice echoed across the yard.

Vaughn froze, chills creeping up the back of his neck. Harlow was headed to her truck, but Vaughn turned to look at the ghost on the tattered steps of that old house. She was in her robe and slippers, hair greasy and stringy and uneven down her shoulders.

“What would that matter anymore?” he asked. “I turned out all right either way.”

The gap-toothed grin fell from his mom’s face. “No you ain’t. You ain’t all right. You’re thirty-something and still unpaired, living in a trailer park, bottom of your Pack. You’re a nothing, just like I always knew you would be. Just like your daddy. I was the only one who ever tried to get you to reach your potential, and you threw it away. You and your worthless brother never knew what I was giving you. I was trying to make you strong! Didn’t want to raise no weak-ass men like your daddy. That’s what a mother’s love does for ungrateful sons. You ruined me. I was pretty. I turned heads. I had a good family. Your dad got me knocked up with you worthless pups and I didn’t even know what he was. I was carrying the devil’s sons and I didn’t even know.” She fluffed out her dirty robe. “You did this to me. I loved you and you did this to me.”

Oh, he felt it. Her words stung, but that’s what Ma had always been best at—mind grenades. “Wrap your head around your feelings quick, Ma. Blame everyone but yourself. Enjoy that high horse. Your days are numbered.”

And it felt good. Felt right saying those words. They weren’t a bluff. He was ready to burn her shit to the ground now.

Harlow had made it easier this week to think of the ‘onward and upward’ part of his life.

He wouldn’t miss this place, and he wouldn’t regret the ashes that would fill the air here soon enough.

“What is she saying?” Harlow asked somberly as he approached her truck.

“Nothing that matters. She’s scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of what’s coming.”

“I’m not scared of anything!” Mom shrieked. “You’ll see. You’ll see! You’ll see the hell that’s coming for you and your abomination friends.”

A whoosh of air blasted against his back, and he slapped at the electrified hairs on the back of his neck as he spun around.

Nothing was there—just him and Harlow and her truck, and an overgrown yard of dandelion weeds.

Harlow looked disturbed, to be sure, but she offered him a lopsided grin and said, “For the nutcase lineage running through you, you turned out pretty normal. If you ignore the whole werewolf part.”

His laugh surprised him. She had a way of making everything light, and that was a talent. Maybe it was magic.

Harlow held up the keys and said, “You can drive on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I get to pick the music.”

He narrowed his eyes, mentally preparing for the pop-song playlist she’d played on repeat the entire summer of her thirteenth year, and snatched the keys.

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