Wren and the Werebear Read Free Page A

it was nice to know that somebody else was in the apartment, Wren had to admit. She felt safer with Jessica around. Well, when she wasn’t throwing dresses over the shower curtain, that is.
    "Is that the word of the day?" she said, trying not to sneeze as Jessica powdered her cheeks. "Morbid?"
    "Maybe."
    "I seem to remember the word morbid has its root in disease – morbus." Wren put on her best professorial voice and tugged at her cardigan, so flimsy it wouldn't keep a stick warm.
    "I think shifters were diseased," Jessica said. "In a way. How some of them needed to transform into animals—"
    "I believe a word like petrify might be more, ahem , fitting," Wren said, waggling her eyebrows comically to hide the distaste she felt at even thinking about those animals.
    Shifters were diseased, all right. They were a blight on society.
    Jessica held up a mirror and Wren was surprised at how elegant she looked. The smoky gray makeup Jessica had applied made her green eyes blaze brightly. Her roommate tossed the mirror back down and began plucking at her brows with a set of tweezers.
    "I know what petrify means," Jessica said, plucking away. "It means turn to stone. Shifters never turned anyone to stone." She brushed Wren's eyebrows—what was left of them, anyway—with something brown and shimmery.
    "They turn your muscles to stone. They make you freeze." Wren turned serious. "Their stare disables you if you meet their gaze. I've heard."
    Was that what had happened in the video? But no, the man had made a gesture first, before they attacked...
    "Good thing they don't exist anymore," Jessica said, turning to the door. "You ready to go?"
    "Yeah," Wren said, looking back behind her shoulder at the old TV screen. There was an afterimage of the shifters burned onto the screen. An optical illusion: the dark figures turned white, fuzzy and blurred. She flipped the apartment light off. "Good thing."

Chapter Four
    Jessica abandoned Wren at the party as soon as they got through the door. Par for the course. Her fingers reached absentmindedly for the tip of her braid but found only a mass of dark hair. Breathing hard, she stepped into the room.
    One. Check your surroundings. Clusters of well-dressed people all around the ballroom. Two exits in the back. The bar on her left. Wren headed to get a drink. At least she would have something to hold in her hand so that she wouldn't look quite so awkward. She wiggled her way through the crowd and ended up standing next to a tall, well-dressed businessman. Next to the bar, an elaborately sculpted ice fountain in the shape of a woman’s body poured rivulets of vodka down the front of her ice bosom. An attendant in a bow tie filled martini glasses of vodka from the tips of the ice woman’s nipples to pass out to partygoers. Wren rolled her eyes.
    "A Coke please," Wren said to the bartender.
    "Anything else?"
    "Yes," Wren said impulsively. "A cherry on top."
    "Designated driver or recovering alcoholic?" the businessman next to her asked. Gold cuff links flashed from his wrists.
    "I don't like to lose control," Wren said. She took her Coke from the bar.
    "Smart girl." He sipped at his whisky—god, the alcohol smelled strong—and the bartender turned away to help someone else.
    "Smart, anyway." Wren winced at the word girl. Everyone who saw her thought she was younger than her age. More fragile. Even the curves that had come back to her hips didn't add any inches to her height. Even ordering alcohol wouldn’t help her with looking older, not if she had to tiptoe to reach over the bar.
    "So let me guess," the man continued, unabashed. "You work as an accountant. Always in control."
    "Do I look that interesting?" Wren said, swirling the cherry around the top of her Coke. "No, I'm a consultant."
    "So you travel a lot?"
    "Not as much as I'd like."
    "Are you on a job here?"
    Immediately Wren knew that he was asking her a different question. The businessman was asking her if she had a place to stay, a