Rene Landry

The bass thrumming from within the frat house almost deterred Rene. Almost. The sound rattled through the soles of his boots, a relentless pulse that seemed to vibrate straight through the concrete and into his bones. Colored lights flashed behind the front windows, painting the curtains in violent shades of red and blue. Every few seconds, the front door swung open, spilling out a wave of noise, stale beer, and the overwhelming scent of too many bodies packed into too little space. Moving product through a bunch of stupid college kids was enough to keep his boots planted firmly on the concrete walkway. Besides, a job was a job. The bills didn't pay themselves, and his people didn't particularly care whether their customers were obnoxious frat boys or the kind of men who would slit a throat over a bad deal. Money was money. Lazare stood beside him, his switchblade flipping open and closed, shick, shick, shick. The metallic sound was almost lost beneath the music, but Rene could hear it just fine. He always could. He could hear the frantic beat of a heart from several feet away, the scuttle of a rat beneath a porch, the distant rumble of an engine turning over at the end of the street. Tonight, every little sound seemed amplified. Every smell was a distraction. And the moon wasn't helping matters. “T'as une marque?”(Got a mark?) Laz asked, looking around at the college girls, their Halloween costumes barely covering their bodies. Licking his lips, Laz took a deep breath, his eyes beginning to glow. A girl dressed as a devil stumbled past them, laughing into her phone, the scent of cheap vodka clinging to her skin. Laz's nostrils flared. For one unsettling moment, his gaze followed the exposed line of her throat. Rene knew that look. He'd seen it too many times before. Laz wasn't nearly as good at pretending to be human when the moon was up. “Tiens-toé,”(Keep it together) Rene growled, smacking Laz’s shoulder. “We here to sell to college kids, nothing more.” Laz shot him a sideways glance, his mouth curling into a grin that showed just a little too much tooth. “J'suis correct,” he muttered. (I'm fine.) “Ouais. Pis moi, j'suis le pape.” (Yeah. And I'm the pope.) Laz snorted, snapping the blade shut and tucking it away. For the moment, at least. The moon was high, making Rene’s skin itch, like it was suddenly too small for his frame. He could feel his teeth vibrating, his canines extending slightly, his eyes flashing an unnatural gold. The sensation began at the base of his skull, a crawling pressure that traveled down his spine and settled between his shoulder blades. His muscles felt too tight, his hands too large, his clothes suddenly unbearable. He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift beneath his skin. He'd spent years learning to live with the beast inside him. Years learning to distinguish hunger from instinct, anger from territorial aggression, and the urge to hunt from the simple need to breathe. The full moon didn't give a damn about any of that. It made everything louder. Brighter. More tempting. And if there was one thing Rene had learned the hard way, it was that the wolf didn't care about consequences. Merci à Dieu que c’est l’Halloween(Thank God it’s Halloween) At least if anyone noticed his eyes, they could blame the contacts. If his teeth looked a little too sharp, well, there were plenty of people in this neighborhood who'd spent good money on fake fangs. And if someone noticed the way he moved, the way his shoulders seemed too broad beneath his jacket, they could blame the gym. Humans were remarkably good at explaining away the things they didn't want to understand. Laz and Rene move into the frat house, a few boys in popped collars and khaki pants giving them a second glance, but a well-timed glare and flick of a switchblade from Laz made them think twice. The moment they crossed the threshold, the noise swallowed them whole. The place was a disaster. Plastic cups littered the hardwood floors, crushed cans rolled beneath the furniture, and someone had apparently decided that pouring beer over the kitchen counter was an acceptable form of decoration. A skeleton hung crookedly from the staircase railing, its plastic fingers tangled in a strand of orange fairy lights. Somewhere upstairs, a girl shrieked with laughter, followed by a loud crash and a chorus of drunken cheers. Rene's nose wrinkled. Beer. Sweat. Cheap cologne. Weed. Sugary cocktails. Perfume so heavily applied it practically burned the inside of his sinuses. Underneath it all was the unmistakable scent of human blood, warm and living, pulsing through dozens of bodies pressed together in the dimly lit rooms. His wolf stirred. Not tonight. He shoved the thought down and adjusted the collar of his jacket. They had a short list of buyers, a specific amount to move, and absolutely no reason to draw attention to themselves. Rene intended to finish the job, collect the money, and get the hell out before the moon did something particularly unpleasant to his self-control. “Take that side,” Rene growled, tilting his head to the left side of the house, his eyes scanning for any potential buyers. As the two peel off from each other, Rene pushes his way through the crowd, bodies parting like the Red Sea by just his very presence. It wasn't entirely intentional. At six-foot-seven, Rene was difficult to overlook on a good day. Add his broad shoulders, the permanent scowl carved into his features, and the unsettling impression that he was deciding which part of a person to break first, and most people found somewhere else to be. A guy dressed as a vampire stepped into his path, took one look at Rene's face, and immediately reconsidered his life choices. “Sorry, man,” the guy muttered, sidestepping him. Rene barely acknowledged him. He had other things to worry about. The energy in the room was intoxicating, Rene’s wolf pacing behind his ribs, scenting the air. Rubbing his chest, he fights down the urge to shift and taste, making his way into the kitchen area, a small body in a red hood colliding into his chest. The impact was slight. Barely enough to make him rock back on his heels. Still, it caught him off guard. He'd been tracking the movement of a couple of potential buyers near the kitchen island, mentally calculating how long he could stand the noise before his temper got the better of him. He hadn't noticed the smaller figure slipping through the crowd until she was already against him. A flash of red. The soft brush of fabric against his jacket. A small hand catching briefly at his side to keep from falling. For one strange, suspended second, the chaos around them seemed to narrow to that single point of contact. ”Fais attention,” (Watch it) Rene grumbled, but his large hands gripped their slender shoulders, keeping them upright. Taking a deep breath, he realized then he had made a fatal error. The words came out automatically, rough and impatient, but his hands were careful. He could feel the delicate bones of her shoulders beneath his palms, the warmth of her through the thin fabric of her costume. She was small. Ridiculously small compared to him. He should have released her immediately. Instead, he inhaled. Mon Dieu. (My God.) Their scent was intoxicating, pulling him in. HIs wolf went completely haywire, howling and thumping inside of him. It was deeper than the cheap perfume choking him from the other women here. This was sweeter, deeper, like the swamp moss after a rain. It was the smell of wet earth and crushed green leaves, of cool water slipping between the roots of ancient trees. Something wild and untouched, with a sweetness underneath that made his mouth go dry. It didn't belong in a house full of drunken college kids. It didn't belong beneath the artificial sweetness of Halloween candy and the suffocating cloud of perfume. And it certainly didn't belong this close to him. His wolf slammed against the inside of his ribs, suddenly frantic. The beast that had spent the entire evening pacing and snarling at the world went utterly still for half a heartbeat before erupting into a frenzy. There. The instinct wasn't a word, not exactly. It was a certainty that struck somewhere deep beneath his consciousness, primal and absolute. There. There. There. Rene's fingers tightened reflexively around her shoulders. He forced them to loosen. He had never experienced anything quite like this. He'd smelled attractive women before. He'd been drawn to people, felt desire, even experienced the occasional inconvenient flicker of interest. None of that had ever made his wolf behave like it had just found the one thing in the world worth tearing the entire place apart to protect. His pulse thundered in his ears. He could hear hers, too. Steady. Warm. Alive. Every instinct in him demanded that he get closer, lower his head, and take another breath. His wolf wanted to memorize her scent, to press his face against the crown of her head and mark the moment as something belonging entirely to them. Rene wanted to do none of those things. He was a grown man, not some half-feral pup discovering his first crush. He had a job to do. He had a reputation to maintain. And he was absolutely not going to lose his mind over a girl in a red hood. He let go of her shoulders, moving his hands as if he had been burned. Every sound around him seemed to fade out, like he was underwater, until the sound of her laugh brought him back, a joke, something about ‘what big eyes he had’. Her laughter was light and amused, utterly unbothered by the way he'd frozen in front of her. She tilted her head, the red hood slipping slightly to one side, revealing a glimpse of her hair beneath it. For a moment, he could only stare. He'd been called plenty of things in his life. Intimidating. Dangerous. A bastard. Once, memorably, a walking natural disaster. No one had ever accused him of having big eyes. He was fairly certain that was not the point she had intended to make. Still, the sound of her laughter settled somewhere beneath his skin, lingering long after the rest of the party seemed to dissolve into muffled noise. His wolf, the ungrateful bastard, appeared to like it. Rene's jaw tightened. He needed to get a grip. “Big eyes?” Rene grumbled, leaning his 6’7” frame down to look into her eyes. “Better to see you with, Cher.”

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