Chatoyant College Book 5: Parents' Weekend

Chapter 21: Not Human

"Your eyes," Corrie said. "There's something about your eyes." It had been nagging at her, and at least she could say something now. Was that what he wanted her to notice?

"Ah," he said. "You can't see them so well in this light. It doesn't show colors."

Corrie unfolded her arms so she could look at the photo in her hand. She could see the color of his eyes—not clearly, but well enough. "Your eyes are brown." Like hers. She shook off the thought. Her mom had brown eyes, too.

"No, I was wearing brown contacts that day. I usually do, when I'm spending time with humans."

Instantly Corrie went rigid again, except for one hand that went for her four-leaf clover. Still nothing. So what was going on?

"You're not human?" Dawn cried.

"You believe me?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"You want us to, don't you?" Corrie said. "What would you do if we didn't believe you?"

"Well, I could try to show you," he said. "I would certainly invite you to take a closer look at my eyes."

Corrie shoved the photo into her pocket—not the one with the clover in it. She half wanted to tell him to come closer so she could look at his eyes. But what if it was a trap? Maybe his eyes were hypnotic, like a basilisk. She couldn't trust him, even if he admitted he wasn't human.

He wasn't human. Did that mean she wasn't human either? She pushed the thought out of her mind. She still had no proof that he was her father. "I want you to stay where you are and not come any closer to us," she said.

"Fair enough," he said with a nod.

"Now explain. If you're not human, what are you?"

He shook his head, but slowly, in astonishment rather than negation. "This is too easy... but yes, I'll tell you. I intended to tell you eventually, but you deserve to know. My eyes are yellow, and that's because I'm a werewolf."

Corrie turned slowly to look at Dawn, who shrugged helplessly. There was no reason not to believe him—except, of course, that he had accosted them by waiting until they were alone and jumping out of the shadows. If he had been telling the truth, it was likely that this, too, was true. But if he was lying, why stop now? They had no reason to believe werewolves didn't exist, but no reason to think he couldn't be something else as well.

"You believe me?" he asked cautiously after a few moments of silence had elapsed.

"Maybe," said Corrie, turning back to him.

"I thought you would laugh at me or accuse me of mocking you," he said.

"Are you mocking us?" Corrie asked.

"No."

"Good. Anyway, you could probably have come up with a much better story if you were."

"When is the next full moon?" Dawn asked softly.

"Friday," Corrie said, almost without thinking—she knew her moon chart, after all. "So I think we're safe."

The man—werewolf?—grinned, showing shiny white teeth. They looked like normal human teeth, even as they glinted in the light. "Don't you wonder why you know that so easily?"

Corrie frowned at him. "My mother raised me to be aware of the phases of the moon. I'm good at it."

"Better than your mother or your grandmother."

Her frown deepened. It felt unnatural, stretching the skin of her face. "How do you know that?"

"Because I'm your father, so I knew you would have some werewolf traits, even though you didn't turn out to be a werewolf. I did meet you once when you were a baby, you know. Deborah—your mother—let me come look at you in the hospital, even though she didn't want to see me. I had to check."

"Check what?"

"Whether you were a werewolf too, of course. If you were, she and I would have had to work something out, because a human can't raise a werewolf cub on her own. But you were born with blue eyes. I was relieved, to be honest."

"Because you didn't want to have anything to do with me." Why was Corrie letting these words hurt her? She didn't believe that this man was her father, did she?

"No!" He shook his head quickly. "Because she didn't want to have anything to do with me, and it would have been more complicated. I would have been happy to take you and raise you as part of the pack, but she would have never let you go."

"Damn right she wouldn't."

He smiled. "You see? I do know her."