The Biting Cold: High School Bites Book 2, page 1
The Biting Cold
High School Bites, Book 2
By Rachael Alcobia
Copyright © 2021 Rachael Alcobia.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America.
First printing, 2021.
For Hutch,
You stayed on me to follow through.
And for my big brother, Josh.
I found you.
One
The alarm clock blared loudly and I groggily reached over to hit the button on the top. I knew it was only the snooze button and that the alarm would go off again in five minutes, but this system worked for our routine. The first time the alarm goes off is when I would get up and jump in the shower. While I was in there, Kodi would have no choice but to physically get up to turn the alarm off which would wake him up enough to not fall back asleep, which he was in the habit of doing. Since we lived in his parent’s house this system worked out great for Kodi’s mother, Trina, as well since she no longer had to hassle with her son to get up and ready for school.
Once I got into the bathroom I set the clothes that I planned on changing into on the counter and looked at my reflection. Even after being a werewolf for a month now, there was still no noticeable difference in my appearance. I don’t know what I expected but I just thought that since I felt so changed on the inside that it might somehow reflect outwardly. Tomorrow will be the first full moon since my initial Change, an incredibly painful process where I’d actually died for a few minutes before Kodi pulled me back. He’d saved me, a couple of times.
A few months ago I had been living in a group home for girls in the foster system here in Mountain Falls, California when I had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. I was on one-lane street to dying before a werewolf from Kodi’s pack, a teenage girl jealous of my growing relationship with him, had bitten me and changed my fate forever.
What Simone had done violated the code of the Mountain
Falls werewolf pack by attacking a human and risking discovery. The pack Alpha, Jack, who happened to be Kodi’s father, had left the choice of her punishment up to me and I had been lenient because with the new werewolf gene, it had brought me closer to Kodi and his family and had made my cancer disappear. In a sense she had saved my life by attacking me, but the act was not forgotten.
I’d gotten a little bit of payback when her father, Samuel, had challenged Kodi and I’d volunteered to be his Ringer, the person who gets to attack or restrain any wolf that dared to interrupt the fight. When her father had begun to lose, Simone had shifted and run into the fray. I’d tackled her in wolf form and bitten her neck, causing her to submit.
I think that day had a lot to do with why for the past month, she hadn’t been giving me any problems and had pretty much avoided me altogether. I was fine with that. We saw each other at pack meetings and she tended to look everywhere but at me. Her brother sometimes glared at me or Kodi but I tended to ignore him although I’ve caught Kodi winking back at him to anger the wolf further. I had a feeling with provocation like that, that it wouldn’t be long before Lucas McGrath Challenged Kodi and although I had faith that Kodi would win, I did not want to see him fight again. It was nerve wracking to think he could get hurt or killed in a senseless fight.
There was an old Cherokee proverb that I’d once heard in one of my classes from a teacher. She’d said the condensed version which was, “There are two wolves in every heart. One is love, the other is hate. The one that wins is the one you feed the most.”
I remembered thinking that it was beautiful when I’d heard it as a human, but now that I’m a wolf, I considered it my own code to live by.
I didn’t need to fight with Simone or anyone else for that matter, because the way I saw it, I’d already won. I’ve got the love of Kodi, his family, new friends and all of it came with a second chance at life that I didn’t plan to waste.
Turning the water off, I began drying myself with a towel. Kodi should be up any minute now to take his shower so I didn’t want to waste too much time. I dressed quickly in the new black jeans that Kodi’s mother Trina had bought for me. She’d said that with all my adventures last month, my own jeans had taken a beating and she’d been right. Those jeans, however, were still in my wardrobe rotation and until they were ripped to the point of indecency, they were staying. I topped the outfit off with a purple Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirt and began brushing my teeth.
There was a quick triple knock on the door and I already knew who it was.
“Come in,” I said around a mouthful of toothpaste. The door opened and a sleepy-looking Kodi shuffled into the bathroom holding a towel and his own bundle of clothes. He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before setting his stuff down on top of the toilet seat.
“Good morning,” he said groggily.
“Morning,” I said back just after spitting into the sink. I couldn’t help but watch him from behind, as I often did, while he leaned over to turn the water on. He was wearing a striped pair of boxers which was all he usually wore to bed. All the times I’d watched him before could not have prepared me for what happened next. Out of nowhere he dropped his underwear to the floor and stepped into the shower before closing the curtain behind him. Jokes that centered around this kind of situation say that I should have started drooling when in fact, my mouth and throat had completely dried up.
I resisted the urge to cough from the sudden dryness as the image of Kodi’s toned rear that I’d only seen glimpses of as we shifted to wolf form permanently imprinted itself into my brain. Had he done that on purpose? My heart beat wildly and I struggled to keep a blush from staining my cheeks in case I ran into anyone in the hall. I blinked myself out of my stupor, gathered my dirty clothes and towel and headed toward the bathroom door.
“Did you know that I can hear your heart pounding?” he asked and I could just imagine the smile that came along with the question. So it had been intentional. Could he hear my heartbeat or was he bluffing? No time like the present to find out. I took a focusing breath and allowed my senses to pick up the sounds around me. It was hard at first to get past the sound of the water spraying Kodi and just after that…there it was. A small pattering that got louder the harder I focused on it. His heart was beating quickly as well. Instead of responding as I’m sure he’d like me to, I took a step forward and flushed the toilet.
One…two…three… A loud yelp echoed throughout the bathroom and I didn’t bother trying to contain my laugh as I exited the bathroom. Twenty minutes passed until we were in the car and since Kodi’s mom was a teacher at our school, we were lucky as far as rides went.
Trina dropped us off at the front before driving off toward the staff parking lot and Kodi and I walked hand-in-hand to our first class. We waved to Mr. Peters as we entered before taking our usual seats in the back of the class. Simone used to sit at the front of the class but after last month she transferred out of the class by having the school counselor switch up her schedule. The hour-long class went by fairly quickly with minimal homework assigned which was good news for us. Kodi and I have second and third period free to do as we please thanks to both of us being all caught up with most of our required credits.
After the two free periods was lunch which we weren’t required to be at the school for so it was kind of like having three periods free in a row.
Once the bell rang we quickly packed up our stuff so that we could get to Mrs. Barrett before her next class began. There weren’t very many ways to spend free time here unless we went to the swimming pool inside the gymnasium. We’d gone to the pool yesterday and felt like going back to the house where our options were endless. Sometimes we watched a movie, did schoolwork or went for a run as wolves. The edge of the woods where the house was located was at least ten miles away from the school which was why we were on our way to borrow Trina’s car keys, as we tended to do a couple of times a week.
Jack, Kodi’s father, was a lawyer and would be at work until around 5 o’clock, about the same time that I would help Trina get dinner started. Sometimes Jack and Kodi made dinner and although they weren’t superhuman in the kitchen, the men knew how to throw a mean barbeque.
Students were still filing into the classroom when we got to
Trina so it wasn’t too crowded.
“Hey, Mom. Can we get the keys?” Kodi asked
“Sure, and Meghan, would you take out the tri-tip steaks from the freezer to defrost for tonight?” she asked while digging in her purse.
“Sure thing, Mrs. Barrett,” I replied while grabbing the keys from her outstretched hand. At home I would call her Trina but here at school it seemed only right to refer to her as I would any other teacher.
“Thank you. Just go ahead and hold onto the keys until the end of school, then we can just meet at the car. I don’t have any extra work to do today,” she said before turning her attention back to her class.
It didn’t take long to get to the house so we had plenty of time before we needed to head back. Once we pulled up, Kodi was out of the car and opening my door before I’d even gotten my seat belt unbuckled. He tended to do this unless I purposely moved as fast as possible to beat him to it, just to get a reaction out of him. We made our way inside and decided to get our
Thirty minutes later I was laying on my stomach on Kodi’s bed working on my Algebra homework while he lay on his back, his head resting on my hip as a pillow, the turning of the pages of his book being the only sound in the room.
“That’s just gross,” he muttered, as he turned the page again.
“What’s gross?” I asked while working out the division of a fraction in my head. He rolled over so that he was lying next to me.
“This guy was bitten by a werewolf and now he’s turning into one for the first time. They’re going into great detail about how the first things to change were his fingernails. They grew wider and longer while ripping the skin around the nail. This dude has like four-inch claws right now,” he said while shaking his head.
“You’re right, that’s gross,” I said with a grimace. “I can relate to the fact that he was bitten and is now turning into one, and that it was painful, but I’m glad nothing like the nail thing happened.” He tore his gaze away from his book to look at me.
“Of course not. Your change was graceful and beautiful,” he said, sincerity shining in his grass-green eyes. I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Not to mention sexy, incredibly sexy,” he said with a mischievous smile and I laughed as I swatted him with my homework. He didn’t retaliate and chose to lean over and plant a kiss on my lips instead. Homework was forgotten along with everything else in the world other than him. He made me feel sensations that I knew I’d never get tired of. His scent, his taste, everything about him I just couldn’t get enough of. He smelled like wild freedom. Woodsy with a hint of spice just under the slight saltiness of his skin. I put my mouth to that skin now, just under his jaw on the softness of his throat.
He slowly rolled onto his back with a smile, “You don’t have to bite through my neck to get me to submit to you, I’d do it freely.” The hot look he gave me then scorched me to the bone and I felt my blood boil. Whenever I was with Kodi, controlling my hormones became nearly impossible. The fact that we hadn’t actually had sex yet had nothing to do with our attraction to each other, which was as strong as ever. Kodi and I were Bondmates. It was like the werewolf equivalent of soul-mates. We could visit each other’s dreams and we shared a connection that was on a level higher than I could have ever imagined. Once Bondmates have sex for the first time, it was a ritual of sorts, and they would become a Bonded pair. Once a pair is Bonded, if one partner dies, the remaining person is in their own living hell. Their grief swallows them whole and they rarely survive the loss. It was like they literally died from a broken heart.
I never wanted to even ponder what I might feel if I’d ever lost Kodi. He was everything to me. He was my best friend, boyfriend and family all rolled into this one perfect being that I never wanted to be apart from.
Kodi rolled over so that he hovered above me, his brown hair falling into his eyes as it often did. I reached out and tucked the pieces behind his ear which was a habit of mine, before gripping the back of his head with the same hand and bringing it down. Our tongues danced a familiar duel and the taste of him was like eating a favorite food on an ever empty stomach. I was hungry for him and I’d never get enough.
Kodi gave my bottom lip a nip with his teeth before pulling back to look at me. He brought a hand up and stroked the lip he’d bitten with his thumb and I gave it a kiss.
“I love you,” he said softly, immediately bringing a smile to my face.
“Right back at you, wolf-boy,” I said with a grin.
“That’s wolf-man to you, missy,” he said before quickly nuzzling the side of my neck while making growling noises. I squealed but turned my head away to allow him to continue. We laughed and once again I found myself the happiest I’d ever been, so much so that sometimes I had to wonder when it would all come crashing down. A perfect example was when I was younger and in what I had considered at the time the perfect foster home until my foster mother had walked in on her husband in bed with another man. They’d sent me back to the system and I was then placed into a group home for girls. It wasn’t all bad though, I’d met Jane, a staff member who was just as close to me as a maternal grandmother would have been. She’d even gotten me a job at her brother’s veterinary office, which I’d had to quit since becoming a werewolf. I missed working for Dr. Thomas and seeing the animals but safety was a concern and I would never want to endanger anyone’s beloved pets.
The doorbell rang and I barely had time to register what the noise was before Kodi jumped off the bed.
“I got it!” he yelled behind him before speeding out the door and down the stairs. While he was downstairs I stacked my homework together and shoved it into my backpack. I had just finished zipping it up when Kodi came in wielding a large pizza box from the place we always ordered from.
“When did you order pizza?” I asked with confusion. We’d been together since we got to school and I would think I’d have noticed if he’d ordered a pizza, but apparently not.
“This morning,” he said with a proud grin, “when you got up to get in the shower I called ahead and gave them a later delivery time so that we wouldn’t have to wait for it.”
“Nice! I’m impressed,” I said and stood from the bed. “I’ll go grab us some sodas, you pick out a movie.”
I was halfway down the stairs when I heard Kodi call out, “I love it when you’re bossy!” I laughed and continued on to the kitchen. After grabbing two sodas from the fridge and a small stack of napkins from the rack on the kitchen island, I turned to head back upstairs when my werewolf hearing picked up the distinct sounds of the Super Mario Bros theme music. The music was the ringtone for Kodi’s cell phone. The ringtone to mine was Bad Moon Rising. Jack hated it, which only made it funnier to me. I walked into the bedroom just in time to catch the end of the phone call.
“Yeah, I’ll let her know,” he said while looking at me before hanging up.
“Who was that?” I said while setting the cans on the dresser next to the pizza. Lifting the lid, I smiled that he’d gotten pepperoni, my favorite, and took a piece. The first bite was like heaven. I’d had to give up pizza a long time ago thanks to the stomach cancer because it made me incredibly sick, as had many other foods. After being Changed into a werewolf cured my cancer, I was finally able to eat pizza again and Kodi was sure I got to feed the craving often. He was thoughtful like that. Sometimes I was self-conscious about my weight, being size fourteen, but Kodi never made me feel fat or made me uncomfortable. One time I refused cheesecake, another favorite of mine, because I knew I didn’t need it but Kodi had put some on a plate and encouraged me to eat it.
“That was my dad. He called to remind me that the Summit will be here this weekend and he wanted me to explain to you exactly what that means,” he said. What I knew about the Summit so far, was that once a year, the Alphas of California’s twenty-eight werewolf packs met to update each other on any major packhappenings. The location of the Summit is held at a different pack location every year and this year, it would be in Mountain Falls.
The only other Alpha that I knew of beside Jack was Moki, who led the White Point pack. There were only two towns on this mountain if you weren’t counting the city surrounding the base. Mountain falls covered the lower mid-section while White Point claimed the upper half. Moki’s pack, I’ve been told, is predominately Native-American. One of our pack members, Travis Porter, an African-American police officer, is married to a lovely woman that was originally from the White Point pack. I’d heard that Moki was a charismatic yet peculiar man and I myself couldn’t wait to meet him.
Two
What I really liked about the White Point pack was that they didn’t actually consider us werewolves. Also, according to their legends, there were stories going back centuries about man turning into their spirit animal, so they didn’t much care for the term shapeshifters either. They referred to themselves as moon-called. The first I time tried to shift it didn’t work out so well. It was only after I basked in whatever energy the moon gave us that I was able to focus enough to change forms. I thought the term moon-called was not only fairly accurate, but beautiful.
