Nina and Stephen sat across from each other at a corner table in the nearly deserted café, where the barista's occasional clattering of cups echoed through the empty space.
It was night-time and they should have been with their other halves but they had something important to discuss.
"How do I get rid of Priya?" Nina asked.
Stephen let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, this was not about Damien being unfaithful, he thought. Because there was no solution for that.
He put a hand over Nina's. "She's your stepmother now."
Nina reluctantly released her hand from his manly grasp. "So?"
"So." Stephen sipped his latte. "You'll get used to it."
**
Despite the thick wool sweater and thermal blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Helena's mother couldn't stop the violent shivers that ran through her body.
"Nicole?" Damien asked holding a cup of hot chocolate.
"Yes?" Nicole asked with puppy dog eyes.
She's beautiful, Damien thought. Just like her daughter.
He handed her the warm cup. "This will help keep you warm."
Or how about you take off your shirt, Mr. Handsome?
Damien turned around but noticed Helena hadn't said anything. She was busy texting over the kitchen counter.
I must have a concussion, Damien thought.
Damien's boots creaked against the worn pine floorboards, the same ones Helena had crawled across as a baby, where faded watermarks still showed where her father had spilled his whiskey the night she was born.
The stone fireplace crackled, casting long shadows across the mounted deer head that had watched over family dinners for three generations.
This was Helena's ancestral cabin in the woods. But there was definitely something unwelcoming about this ordeal.
For starters, how did Nicole just shoot out of the sky? Damien wanted to punch something. Or fuck someone.
He noticed Nicole's beauty. She was older, for sure, but Damien had affairs with MILFs all the time.
How he would like to run his shaft against her giant boobs.
"Damien!" Helena shouted returning him to planet earth.
"Huh?" He was conscious now.
"I said I can't get a hold of Stephen." She said. "He isn't returning my texts."
"I'll go." Damien grabbed his leather jacket off of the kitchen chair.
Helena grabbed Damien's arm before he could put on the jacket. "No. You stay with Mom. I'm too afraid someone would do something if I'm alone with her. Maybe attack us or something."
Helena wasn't even looking at Damien anymore. She was biting her nails and pacing nervously across the kitchen floor.
Damien handed her the keys to his 1967 Chevrolet Impala.
**
Helena navigated Damien's Impala through streets that grew increasingly narrow, raindrops drumming against the glass. Something inside her—that primal part of her nature she was still learning to understand—pulled her toward Stephen's location like an invisible thread connecting them across the darkness.
But she didn't only think about Stephen in those moments. Nicole was in her thoughts as well.
Damien, you better not bang my Mom, she thought with embarrassment etched on her face.
**
Damien and Nicole were finally alone together.
Outside, the rain was pouring heavily now. A thunderclap made Nicole suddenly latch onto Damien.
"Sorry." She retreated. "I thought you were my husband."
Damien cleared his throat. "What happened to Arthur?"
"Didn't Helena tell you?" Nicole raised her eyebrows at him. "He was killed in a car accident. The same accident where I was…"
There was a momentary silence, heavy as a wolf's paw on fresh snow, broken only by the soft crackle of the dying fire and the distant rumble of thunder that seemed to echo the unspoken grief hanging between them in the cabin's stale air.
"Where you were also killed?" Damien broke the ice.
Nicole held a soft hand to his cheek. "Let's speak more about this when Helena is here."
Damien calmly removed her hand. "I'm married."
He was going to get up to leave when Nicole straddled him.
The next thing they did was make sweet love where Helena was conceived.
**
"Stephen!" Helena barged into the cafe where Stephen and Nina were giggling together.
Stephen was flabbergasted. "It's not what it looks like."
"I don't have time for this." She grabbed a hold of Stephen's hand completely ignoring Nina's presence.
**
Nicole clawed at Damien's back, drawing blood as lightning illuminated their entangled bodies. The cabin walls seemed to tremble with each thrust, the ancient wood creaking in rhythm with their savage reunion.
Damien growled—not metaphorically, but the actual rumbling snarl of his wolf nature—as he claimed Helena's mother with a primal ferocity that obliterated all thought of his marriage vows.
Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open.
Stephen and Helena's heads poked inside the doorway.
Helena just gritted her teeth. She had a feeling this was going to happen but she also didn't want Stephen turning horny for Damien's wife Nina.
Nicole and Damien were lying side by side - spent. She still had her finger on the relatively young werewolf's chest.
"Is Nina with you?" Damien asked smirking.
Both his brother and his new lover's daughter shook their heads.