Bite Me! - You Know I Like It (Spooky Boys #1)

by Fae Quin

Right now, my body composition was almost eighty percent righteous indignation.

made me feel…real, for probably the first time since I’d been nine years old and my world had been torn apart.

For the first few years of my life, I’d lived in Elmwood, basking in the sun of my mother’s smiles, until those smiles turned to storm clouds and I watched as the woman who raised me disappeared from my life.

But the happy memories seemed to cling despite the fact I’d lived sixteen long years with only my parents’ ghosts for company.

when I looked in the mirror on days I was feeling particularly vulnerable I saw her eyes staring back at me. She wasn’t my mother, but her face was close enough that I had tried to forget my mother’s likeness so it wouldn’t hurt quite so much to look at her.

It meant I would have daylight to light my way as I broke into my parents’ abandoned house.

The big brother that was mine in everything but blood.

When I’d discovered papers hidden deep within my uncle’s desk, my fate had been sealed. I owned a house. It was my parents’ house, the one I’d spent the first half of my childhood in. It was halfway across the country, but it was mine. We’d hatched up a plan, and though I’d left earlier than expected, I knew where I needed to be if I was going to escape once and for all.

So much of who I was, who I was supposed to be, had been broken apart to fit inside the mold my aunt had created for me.

I was a five-foot-nothing ball of rage. I ran on plant fuel and sarcasm—even dragging a thousand-pound chain of trauma behind me, I still only weighed about five pounds soaking wet.

I was still self-aware enough to realize I’d spent more of my life under fists than I had raising my own.

There was nothing I could do about my bruising or the fact that I hadn’t showered since passing through a Flying J in Indiana. I’d grown up practically glowing neon from an invisible sign over my head that said ‘this one’s gay.’

I watched his large shoulders absorb the rain as I inspected him for clues. My eyes caught on the extra body hair, the almost yellow glint to his eyes, and the way his nostrils flared every time a bird chirped in the distance. Or maybe he was just smelling me? In the end, my observations were inconclusive.

as he seemed to do a double take, as he clearly realized the startling resemblance I bore to my mother.

had no idea why he would’ve reacted so strongly to it but…it wasn’t like I knew my parents well either. For all I knew, they’d owed him money before they died or something.

I wanted to erase the parts of me that made me feel like this was my fault. It was always my fault.

What was the point of turning if you had little to none of the benefits? they whispered. What a pity poor Richard took the change at all. I’d gotten what I wanted though. Eternal life and the ability to spend time in the daylight with Collin. Everything else was of little consequence. I didn’t want the ‘perks’ if having them meant I would become what my parents had become, what my brothers had become.

Everything I had went into my job and my little brother.

“Cute kid. He’s all beat up, bruises all over, these horrible black eyes—and

Blair Evans. An Evans back in town— Shit.

I wondered if he’d look the same as he did in my memories.

I knew now that what I’d been feeling was the beginnings of a crush, my first and only crush. I’d never seen him again.

Would he be as unhinged as his mother? Would I be able to see the sickness behind his eyes? See the depravity bled through his bloodline like poison? Would looking at him remind me of what I’d lost?

Looking at Blair Evans was like staring into the sun. Too long, and I was sure he would blind me.

Blair was a hurricane, a storm, a natural disaster. Beautiful and world-shattering, with the power to rewrite the future and repaint the past.

He wasn’t the man I knew the town would fear either—that much was clear.

I headed back into town and towards the local mechanic shop with a weird anticipation in my chest.

When the car spluttered to life I nearly cried. All the engine lights were off, the engine purring happily

Despite my trepidation, showering was a religious experience. Normally I did it as quickly as possible, too self-conscious to be naked too long, too frightened of the scrutiny that would come when our water bill was due. After the first time I’d been blamed for that mess I’d started timing myself. Two minutes under the spray was all I allowed when I knew there were cameras watching.

a cross-eyed Dracula on it. He had his tongue out and a cross was laid atop it, his eyes winking in a cartoony style that was both erotic and just a little sacrilegious.

With the allowance our aunt had given him

I marveled at the lack of dust underneath the window. It wasn’t like I was a dust expert, but it seemed to me for a house that had been abandoned this long there was a suspicious lack of it.

piled up the blankets I’d pilfered from our apartment before I’d left. I almost laughed when I realized that there was probably footage of me stealing them sitting on my aunt’s laptop just waiting for her to discover it. If she hadn’t already.

cringing as I coughed on a wayward plume of dust that exploded from the mattress when I shifted. The lack of dust under the window looked even more suspicious now.

“I’m Collin,”

“It’s so loud at home and no one is like me—and

twenty-three

She rose from her seat with a commanding air about her, her fist closing around the cross she wore around her neck, green eyes flashing.

Her words were weapons, sharp with the force of their damage, and I crumpled beneath them long before her fists met my body.

I remembered there being a treehouse there when I was little. But the memory was shallow enough I wasn’t sure if it was a memory at all, or just a wishful thought. It was clear something had happened here and a feeling of deep sadness choked its way up my throat. I stumbled back, stricken, and escaped into the forest as quickly as I could to get away from the heat in my eyes and the shaking in my limbs. The sadness followed me all the way home. Something bad had happened there. I could feel it in my very bones.

I’d wanted to get out of the house, to be as far away from my parents as possible.

“You want me to hire Blair Evans? The kid with a psycho mom? Because The Council is concerned that he’s going to be just as psycho as she was…and you want to spy on him?” “That’s correct.” I nodded, folding my hands over each other as I stared at her. “And you’re going to, what? Pretend to work here too?” “Correct.”

Besides, connecting to somewhere I’d frequented as a human couldn’t be a bad thing. Some people lost their humanity if they focused too much on the change, and I refused to be one of them.

The only reason they’d even accepted my proposal was because, out of everyone in town, I had the most reason to hold a grudge against his family. What occurred had been a town-wide tragedy, but it had been my life that was ruined, forever impacted by one woman’s rash decision. God, I probably should hold a grudge. I should hate Blair on principle for what his mother did to my family. I should loathe him.

“He’ll probably need a place to stay,” she commented. “I’ve been looking for someone to clean my place and we’ve got a spare bedroom. I could offer him that, too.”

Elmwood had a variety of residents, but werewolves tended to cause the most trouble. I knew them all by name.

God forbid, it would’ve meant an end to my time with Collin. I shuddered at the thought, picturing the look on my little brother’s face when I’d announced on a quiet Sunday that I was ready to take the change after my twenty-fifth birthday.

I could feel Markus’s ghost hidden in the walls, his spirit caught in limbo, dragging the house into the past where it could never move on. It was a time capsule of nothing but the worst time in all of our lives.

Collin So I secretly work for the diner in town. Under the table. DON’T TELL ANYONE.

Collin Yes! But like I said. This is on the down low! So don’t tell anyone I work there. Or you’re on my shit-list. Especially my brother.