GET BENT! (the Hybrid of High Moon book 1)
THEY SAY I'M AN ABOMINATION.
I SAY WORDS HURT ... BUT NOT AS MUCH AS MY FISTS.
My name is Tamara Bentley, Bent to my friends, and I’m not supposed to exist. I was born of the forbidden union between a witch and a werewolf, and they’ve been trying their damnedest to hide my existence ever since.
But now my secret is out, and my uncle, the leader of the wolf pack, is pissed beyond belief. In his eyes, I’m something that should’ve never been born. He wants me dead and doesn’t care who he has to sacrifice to get the job done.
I’m far from helpless, though. Not only am I a champion athlete, but I’m strong enough to punch out a bus. Good thing, too, because a rare lunar event is about to increase my uncle’s already terrifying power. I’ll have to call on every last ounce of strength I have to survive the night and save the lives of everyone counting on me.
For a moment, I was too stunned to react, but then he blinked and the dull brown of his eyes was replaced with bloodshot yellow – the same eyes I’d seen staring back at me from multiple hairy heads the night before.
No flipping way!
How? The full moon was last night. It was over, it wouldn’t happen again for...
The questions would have to wait. Whether or not I believed what I was seeing, my reality was about to become seriously hairy.
The man’s ... err, wolf’s claws tore painfully through my shirt and started to drag me from my seat. I instinctively grabbed hold of the table to stop myself from being pulled out and felt its moorings groan in protest.
That gave me an idea.
“Lean back,” I said to Riva.
There wasn’t time to say more. I just had to hope she trusted me. I gave a yank, adding my own strength to my attacker’s, and the table tore free from the wall. I flipped it up and slammed it into the waiting faces of both our would-be assailants, sending them staggering back.
Impossible as it had seemed only moments ago, apparently whatever I had in me functioned just fine in the light of day, too – a handy thing to know.
Pity that the same could also be said about our gracious hosts.
I turned to find the waitress and cook both changing. And I don’t mean their clothes.
Both of them were growing taller, more muscular, and a lot furrier.
“I told you we should have gone to Gib’s!” Riva screeched, huddled in her seat.
“Fair enough. Next time, you can choose where we eat. Stay behind me!”
Both Phillies Cap and Wife Beater recovered quickly and likewise continued to change. Hands became claws, ears became longer and pointier, and clothes ripped to shreds, affording me a far better view of them than I really wanted.
While I’d seen my fair share of horror movies, I didn’t really consider myself a connoisseur. Still, one of the more obvious mistakes in them is that people always stand around gaping when they should be moving. It’s like that old Michael Jackson video Thriller. The girl stands there for like five minutes as he turns into a monster, when she could have been halfway to the next county.
It was a lesson I took to heart.
The two truck stop werewolves were still busy snarling, snapping, and growing extra hair when I charged. I plowed into Phillies Cap, the larger of the two, shoulder-first. I half expected to rebound off the much bigger man – my mind still insisting we were playing by the normal rules. Instead, I took him off his feet, carried him across the room, and plowed into the mirrored wall of the diner hard enough to make the building shudder.
Glass shattered all around us and he let out a great big belch of air. Not satisfied that he was properly dissuaded, I drove a fist into his gut, the oddly undulating flesh giving way as I pushed the contents of his stomach up against his spine.
I backed up a step and he fell to his knees retching, just in time for me to sense movement from behind.
Wife Beater had double-timed his change, seeing that I wasn’t going to stand there and scream like a good victim. Eww, a werewolf with a beer belly – not a good look.
He raced forward and I half turned so that my profile was facing him. At the last moment, I bent low, letting his momentum carry him into me.
Oof! Damn, these things were strong.
I lifted him up in a fireman’s carry, meaning to dump his ass on the floor and put him in the danger position. But I underestimated my own strength and sent him flying instead. Oops.
“Um, I meant to do that.” Oh yeah, some practice was definitely in my future ... if I lived through this.
Fortunately, if there was only one upside to fighting monsters, as opposed to wrestling, there was no such thing as being called for an illegal move. So I, in a rare display of unsportsmanlike conduct, hurried across the room before Wife Beater could get up and planted my foot into his face with a satisfying crunch.
Two down – for now anyway. That left two more asses to kick.
“Bent! Look out!”
Or not.
Yeah, that’s what I’d been afraid of. Seeing that I was no pushover, it was only a matter of time before the other side threw the Marquess of Queensberry Rules out the window and rushed me all at once.
The others weren’t stupid either, not like their hick cousins. There was no grandstanding, no attempt to intimidate me. They simply slammed into me as I turned their way, one high and one low.
It was like being hit by a fur-covered truck.
The wind was driven out of my lungs and I landed atop of the one I’d just given the boot to, the meat in a werewolf sandwich. I didn’t consider myself a prude, but this was one kink I really didn’t see myself getting into. A little hair on a man’s chest was one thing, but even I had my limits.
Mind you, that was the least of my problems right then.
Fire raced up my leg as one of the wolves, the waitress I think, bit into my thigh, her teeth shredding my jeans and probably not doing wonders to the flesh beneath.
Before I could cry out, the one atop me – the cook most likely – slashed my face. There came a spray of blood, almost certainly my own, and my cheek instantly felt like it was on fire.
See if I leave you assholes a tip now.
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