Chapter 4: 2

They walked past the other tables. Everyone was talking, so it had gotten pretty loud. They walked to a table in the corner, and then he pulled out one of the chairs for her. Aurora looked at the chair, confused and then she looked up at him with question. Was he actually pulling her seat out for her? No one had ever shown her any consideration before. Aurora sat down, and he slid her chair into the table with ease. He then pulled out the chair across from hers and flagged down a waitress.

The waitress came over, eyeing Aurora with disgust but then asked what they wanted. “I’ll have a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and whatever beer you got on tap today.”

“Anything else?” The waitress sneered at Aurora.

“What would you like for lunch?” He asked her.

Aurora looked up at the waitress with a glare. “I'll have what he’s having.”

“You got ID?” The waitress asked knowingly.

“Bitch, don’t make me call Sam over,” Aurora barked, threatening to call the bartender she had paid off.

“Whore,” the waitress snarled as she walked away.

Aurora returned her gaze to the man that was buying. He looked at her and slightly shook his head in disapproval. “What?” Aurora asked. She didn’t know why, but his disapproval slightly bugged her.

“You shouldn’t talk like that. It’s ugly.”

Aurora laughed. Was this man lecturing her about ugly? “So?”

“You are way too pretty for such ugly language,” then the corner of his mouth twitched… was he sneering or smiling? She couldn’t tell. “And believe me, I know a thing or two about being ugly,” Aurora laughed out loud when she realized he was making a joke, so that strange little twitch was an attempt to smile. This man was hard to figure out. “What’s your name.

“Does it matter?” She shrugged.

“It does to me.”

No one had ever cared enough to ask her what her name was. Although she supposed many of them, she wouldn’t have told. Aurora leaned forward and braced her forearms on the table’s edge. “Baby, you can call me whatever name you like.”

“I’d like to call you by the name you were given at birth.”

Aurora sat back. She didn’t know what to tell him. She should lie and give him a false name; it wouldn’t matter what her name was. No one in this world knew her. She sat looking into his eyes, and it was so strange despite this big ugly monster. There was such kindness in those eyes. She had never seen kindness in the eyes of anyone, and she found herself wanting to tell him her name. she couldn’t explain it, but some part of her wanted this man to know her.

“Aurora,” She said softly, “my name is Aurora.”

“Like the Northern lights?” He asked.

“Like the Destiny princess,” she blushed.

He did it again. He laughed, and everyone in the immediate area jumped at the sound of it. Aurora wasn’t sure she could get used to that sound. Everyone quickly disregarded his outburst. “Well, Aurora, my name is Stanton, and it is very nice to meet you,” she wasn’t so sure; the jury was still out as to whether or not knowing this man was going to be nice or not, but up to this point, he wasn’t that bad.

Sure, he looked like a gargoyle, and he sounded like a wild animal, but he had been kind to her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what his motivation was. Everyone had an agenda, and she had yet to figure out his.

It wasn’t long before the waitress walked over and placed both drinks on the table without any grace.

The woman clearly didn’t like them. Aurora would have said the woman hated her, but she got the feeling that the waitress didn’t like Stanton too much either, probably because he seemed so unapproachable.

As the woman wandered off to the next table and Stanton picked up his chilled glass. “Well, doesn’t she have a winning personality,” he muttered, and Aurora couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re not from here, are you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You stand out.”

“Well, I came here from Las Vegas. Before that, I was in Seattle.”

“What brings you to Aspen?”

“A bus,” she smiled as she sipped her beer. She didn’t feel like telling her life story to a stranger.

The corner of his mouth twitched again. It that strange non-existent smile he had. “I get it not sharing with people, but you can trust me. If you can’t trust your own kind, then we will never survive as a species.

Aurora laughed. “I have heard a lot of bullshit lines, but that one has got to be a new one… save the species.”

He looked confused by her reaction. “Have you been alone long?” He asked.

“Since the day I was born. I was raised in an orphanage. “She had no idea why she was telling him this. She really shouldn’t.

He seemed shocked. Stanton leaned into the table and lowered his voice. “You don’t know what you are, do you?”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to his odd question. Just then, the waitress rudely dropped both their plates on the table before them and wandered off. “I know what I am,” she said, picking up her burger.

She was so hungry, and she took a huge unladylike bite. Her mouth so full it made chewing difficult but damn if it didn’t taste like heaven.

“What are you?” He asked, picking up his own burger and taking a big bite.

“I’m a prostitute.”

“IS that all?”

She shrugged her shoulders, “I’m not exactly a deep, complex person.”

He shook his head with an ironic chuckle. “You have no idea what you are.”

Ok, she was starting to get annoyed. “What am I?”

“You’re different, just like me. I can see it in your eyes. The eyes give us away. In case you haven’t noticed, you and eye have eyes that are not common.”

“So?”

He placed his burger on the plate as he watched Aurora devour her own and practically lick her fingers.

She had no idea how long his hospitality would last, so she was eating as much as she could as quick as she could.

Stanton leaned in and lowered his voice so no one beyond their table could hear him. “You and I are not human,” he whispered.

Aurora was so surprised by his words. She stopped eating and leaned into the table, lowering her voice. “What are we?”

“We are Lycan’s.”

“What the fuck is Lycan?”

He looked like he didn’t want to explain it to her, but he was going to. “Humans call us werewolves, but that’s a derogatory term. We don’t like it. We prefer Lycan or Lycanthrope.”

Aurora laughed, and then she stopped when she realized he was totally serious. “You’re a werewolf?”

“Yes.”

“And you think I’m a werewolf?”

“Yes.”

She laughed again and picked up a fry. “That has got to be the worse line I have ever heard.”

“It’s not a line.”

“Sure. Look, I’m not into those stupid little loser fantasy games where you glue fake plastic fangs to your teeth and pretend to bite people. So, if you want to play this supernatural fanboy shit, you are going to have to pay me a lot more.”

“Have you ever felt the change?” He asked. “You must have. Let me guess, in times of extreme emotional turmoil, you change. Your hands become claws, your teeth become fangs, and your eyes glow. You hurt people when you do it, don’t you? You don’t know what it is, and you can’t control it. I’m willing to bet you may have even killed someone in the past when it happened.”

Aurora didn’t know what to say. How could he know that? There was no way he could possibly know that? Was it possible he was telling her the truth, was she really not human and was he just like her? It was all too much to deal with. Aurora shot to her feet and fled the pub. She couldn’t deal with this at the moment.