I Kissed a Werewolf and I Liked It

by Cat Hepburn

Genres: Dark Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

A first year university student and the werewolf that bit her begin a deadly will-they-won't-they affair in this steamy paranormal enemies-to-lovers sapphic romance. The perfect treat to sink your teeth into, for fans of Ali Hazelwood's Bride, The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson and My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine.

The howling doesn't stop after the full moon.

My first term of university: bad grades and worse sex. After losing my sister/best friend Grace and spending my teenage years suffering for it, I thought academia could be my saviour. So, I buried my head in as many books as I could find. But it turns out you can't just turn the page on years of guilt. Still, the university library has become something of a haven away from the darkness.

Until a werewolf bit me in the romance section. And to my surprise, I kinda liked it.

I should have died - but instead, in true me form, I fell in love with the mysterious wolf that nearly tore me to shreds.

Now I feel myself changing, experiencing urges like never before. Maybe I should run for my life, but suddenly a dark bond is pulling me in closer. Am I making a terrible mistake? Could they be luring me in to finish what we started?

Or could becoming a werewolf be the best thing that ever happened to me?

Release date: March 1, 2025

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 320

Sample

‘Enter freely and of your own free will!’

Discuss the significance of this line in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897).

I am splayed on a sticky kitchen worktop in Leith, being inexpertly eaten out by a first-year archaeology student called Gary. I didn’t want to get fully naked – I’ve only just met this man. So my tracksuit bottoms and knickers are twisted around one leg, as if I’m an overused clothes horse on the brink of collapse. Rusty pipes rumble as they fail to heat the draughty apartment, and there are what feels like old toast crumbs creeping up my bum crack. Gary plays rugby, drinks the cheapest available IPA beer, goes skiing in the winter and enjoys watching MMA fights at 5 a.m. And he is not good at oral sex. Trying to guide him to the correct pleasure zone would be mortifying – he is way off-piste – so instead I let out a token moan, hoping he’ll give up before I have to fake an orgasm. I was a solid B-plus student in drama, but pretending this feels good would require Oscar-worthy talent. While my wing-woman Autumn is getting the rattle of her life somewhere from the vampiric model she picked up earlier, I am practically counting sheep here. Poor Gary – with these skills, he wouldn’t know what to do with a first-class stamp. But maybe Gary’s not the problem. Maybe it’s me. This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself wondering whether I have less capacity for fun than the average twenty-year-old girl.

Then again, the average twenty-year-old girl probably didn’t kill their sister. So there’s that.

I spot a crooked Pulp Fiction poster on the greasy kitchen wall and wonder if Gary’s even seen the film or if it’s just a generic attempt at looking cool. The licks begin to slow; maybe the poor guy has a crick in his neck. I might not be reaching orgasm anytime soon, but at least I’ll have a titillating anecdote to share at lunch tomorrow. Cunnilingus in the kitchen wasn’t on my first-semester bingo card, but perhaps it should have been.

My eyes wander in boredom to a food processor perched on the floor, not even out of its box, and I think about Gary’s mum picking out kitchen appliances for this exciting new chapter in his life. Little did she know he’d be surviving on a diet of microwavable burgers and pussy.

Gary’s lazy licks come to an abrupt halt, signalling the welcome end of the act. It is possible that I am even drier than I was before he began. His grip on my thighs loosens and he comes up for air. His alabaster skin is somehow even paler now, thanks to the smears of glistening crimson decorating his mouth and chin. He wipes a thumb across his bottom lip and stares at it before stuttering, ‘Y-you’re bleeding.’

Let’s go back a couple hours. At The Lounge, an underground nightclub at the foot of Cowgate, a hundred or so students dance ironically to a cheesy remix of a screechy electro song that came out the year we were all born. A cohort of fists pumps energetically in the air to the escalating beat. A burly bald bouncer shouts for an adventurous show-off in a miniskirt to stop twerking on a table. An unfortunate soul rushes past me to throw up in the toilet, his fingers cupping his mouth. Two almost identical girls with puffy lips reapply lipstick, using their phones as mirrors. Wallflowers lurk in the shadows. And I am front left of the DJ booth with Autumn.

‘I told you I should have stayed at the library!’ I shout over the pounding music, now reaching a glitchy crescendo.

‘Behave yourself,’ Autumn answers in her strong Glaswegian accent. ‘I just met a six-foot spoken-word artist with a Prince Albert,’ she adds, with a glint in her eye. Autumn dances with ease, her long fiery-red hair swishing behind her as she moves. Her milky face, brushed with a full universe of freckles, shines with sweat. We found each other at registration for English literature last week, where she immediately welcomed me with a million questions over bubblegum breath. When I told her I liked her name, she replied, ‘My twin brother is called Winter. Parents are the best, aren’t they?’ I felt a sudden urge to tell her about my sister Grace there and then. But as always, I managed to resist it, burying her name until the scream became a whisper.

It’s only our second week at the University of Edinburgh, but I already feel a strong affinity with my new friend. Autumn is open and fizzing with energy. She has taught me that people can be really nice, and how to make the best spicy margarita (chilli-salt rim). And Zainab, my other new pal, has taught me how to roll a perfect joint (grind furiously before). And here we are, all three of us at a Singles Night. I’d much rather be cosied up with a good book, but I keep this thought to myself. At the door, we were given the choice of a green, amber or red sticker to signify our relationship statuses. As Autumn writhes unselfconsciously to the music, she proudly showcases two green stickers, one on each of her breasts. As if they need any extra attention. ‘We are getting fresh meat tonight,’ she had exclaimed excitedly on the street outside the club, startling the elderly man shuffling past us.

‘No, you are getting fresh meat tonight; I am here for anthropological reasons only,’ I’d corrected her.

‘We are the fresh meat,’ Zainab had added.

Now, Autumn sips her drink and gives me a gap-toothed smile. She is the type of person who always glitters, with her multiple tooth gems twinkling in the swooshing laser lights and her button nose decorated with a gem on either side. Her fashion sense jumps from effortlessly cool to completely outrageous. Tonight’s outfit is a faded noughties crop top that accentuates her curves, high-waisted second-hand men’s trousers and a giant furry hat, complete with a diamante handbag too small to hold anything. I’ve opted for my usual look – baggy track pants and a white tank top. Judging by the amount of leg on show, I am not sure I fit in. There’s a surprise. I try to move my hips in time to the beat and ask, ‘What’s a Prince Albert?’

‘A dick piercing!’ Autumn nudges me as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

‘Of course,’ I shoot back in her ear, wondering what the benefits could be. Whatever they are, I’m not sure they outweigh the risk of infection or getting it caught in a zipper. Ouch.

The short yet mighty Zainab shoves her way through a throng of dancers to join us without so much as an ‘excuse me’. She is striking, with rich brown skin and wide eyes, adorned with the type of lashes that people pay good money for. Her hair is oil-black, tucked behind her ears in a no-fuss bob that flicks out at the ends. Zainab likens herself to a ‘dykey, Indian Wednesday Addams’. Her humour is as dry as sandpaper, and she’s quicker than anyone I know. I met her in the library when she asked directions to the romance section. I had already made myself quite at home there. Turns out she was looking for a quiet place to vape. She wasn’t really into any of that mushy crap, as she called it.

Earlier this evening, we’d all got ready together at Zainab’s townhouse in Morningside, where she lives alone. I say we got ready, but I just brushed through my shoulder-length curly brown hair, chucked on some mascara and sipped my drink as I watched Zainab apply layer after layer of eyeliner, only taking a break to puff on a joint. Autumn sat cross-legged, nursing a wine, remarking that this apartment was bigger than the one she’d grown up in. It’s not far off the size of my mum and dad’s, either. Zainab just shrugged. I had never understood the phrase ‘filthy rich’ until I visited her place. Piles of clothes everywhere, Jenga-like towers of dishes in the kitchen sink, a bathroom overflowing with expensive lotions and potions, and congregations of old toilet-roll tubes strewn on the floor. Zainab’s lived here since she was sixteen. She has the privilege of fierce independence, only granted to people who come from money. She went to the top all-girl’s school in the city, and she has private healthcare and a nice car with her name on it – if she gets her degree. But despite her wealthy roots, Zainab is probably the least pretentious person I’ve met here. And in Edinburgh, pretension is easy to find. She talks straight, makes me laugh and is far too cool for me. Zainab’s mum runs a top cosmetic surgery clinic in the centre of the city, but much to her disappointment, Zainab chose to study veterinary medicine instead of following in her footsteps. She shrewdly told me she prefers animals to people. Which makes her interest in me all the more warming.

As Zainab swoops under a dancing man’s armpit, I point at the tray of jelly shots she’s balancing. ‘Are these vegan?’

Autumn swipes two of them. ‘Nope, but I can take the spare one to Prince.’ She gives us an exaggerated wink and we watch as she swans over to a skinny guy with a neck tattoo, in an oversized denim jacket, leaning on a pillar. His smouldering pose is so manufactured, I am half expecting a group of paparazzi to be lurking a few feet away. If smoking was still allowed inside, he’d be puffing on a Marlboro Red as we speak. It’s all too cool for school for my liking, but I guess he’s Autumn’s type. From our many conversations about dating and sex, anyone and everyone is Autumn’s type. She’s had them all – her butch football coach, her divorced supervisor when she worked at a supermarket, her pansexual hairdresser. Just about anyone can get her going, it seems. It’s quite the skill.

‘Let’s go,’ Zainab suggests, her voice dripping with boredom. ‘All the girls wearing green stickers here are straight.’

‘Always the way,’ I say more knowingly than I deserve to. ‘Maybe we should leave.’

Zainab looks pleased, the way she always does when she gets what she wants. Which, thanks to her bad-bitch energy, is often.

‘But I haven’t found any fresh meat yet,’ I add dryly. Just then, I catch the eye of a cute guy with broad shoulders and an even broader smile. Handsome, approachable and, lo and behold, he’s wearing a green sticker. The perfect man to pop my university sexcapade cherry with? I look over to Autumn, who is currently kissing the face off Prince Albert.

Zainab sighs and rips off her sticker. ‘He looks boring. Come on, shall we find a pub somewhere?’

‘At least let me chat to him first.’

Zainab sighs. ‘I’m not waiting around like a spare part. Just do me a favour. Please share your location if you go back to his. Safety first.’

‘That’s why I carry a condom in my bag.’ Along with painkillers, a mini torch and an electrolyte sachet, all of which came in one of the starter kits they were handing out at the freshers’ fair. If there’s a power cut in which I find myself horny and thirsty with a stubbed toe, I’ll be covered.

Zainab elbows her way through the crowd and I approach Green Sticker Guy. When Stevo, my first boyfriend at school, asked me out, it didn’t occur to me to say anything but yes – after all, I might never get asked out again. Who would want me? I had kissed a few girls and boys before then but never gotten that far, and I was acutely aware of my loner status. Fancying Stevo was easy, but I was never really sure if I loved him, or vice versa. We were just young kids in a small town, doing what everyone else was doing. Cosplaying as a normal teenage couple. We would watch films at the cinema, slowly teasing each other with popcorn-dusted fingers. Then we progressed to shagging in his car on the way home. But soon we stopped caring about one another. He cheated and I stayed with him. I didn’t get the hint, so he cheated again. Eventually, he took the initiative and broke up with me via a badly written letter. It started with ‘Yo’.

‘Hi, I’m Brodie,’ I say shyly.

Green Sticker Guy extends a meaty hand to shake mine and introduces himself: ‘Gary.’

Two vodka lemonades, some reasonable banter and a spot of oral later, I am filled with red-hot shame – and Gary’s chin and previously all-white tee are covered in it.

‘Sorry,’ I mumble. I take my leg off him, shimmying myself off the worktop. Saved by the bleed. Pulling up my track pants, I notice Gary is now so ghostly white he’s practically see-through.

‘Sorry, I’m . . . I don’t really like blood.’ His body starts to sway like he’s deflating, eyes rolling back in his head. Then, he has the audacity to faint. I try to catch him in my arms, but being relatively skinny and scrawny, I buckle under his weight. At the risk of putting my back out, I lower him onto the kitchen floor, cradling him on my lap like a giant floppy baby. Panic intensifying inside me, I grab a dish towel, run it under the cold tap, then dab it over his face. I quickly wipe the blood from his chin and wonder if this has ever happened to Autumn. Or anyone else, for that matter. A few painful minutes go by. I imagine him dying right here on the linoleum. Would I have to break the news to his parents? Would I need to speak at the funeral? I’d have to make up some extravagant lie, like saying we met at study group. But luckily, I won’t have to worry about any of that, because Gary starts to come around, his eyes eventually regaining focus. Pulling himself to standing, he glances down at his T-shirt, which is decorated in red blotches, and then back at me. He looks as embarrassed as I feel. Almost.

‘At least I know I’m not pregnant,’ I blurt out. It’s meant to provide a moment of levity, but it sounds deranged. Gary doesn’t see the funny side and I don’t blame him. I wanted the ground to swallow me up before. Now I need an even bigger sinkhole. ‘Where’s your bathroom?’ I ask, grabbing my bag, cursing my period for arriving a day early and wishing never to see this man ever again.

On my walk of shame towards the Old Town, the cool September air rushes up the sleeves of my coat, so I hug myself to keep warm. I pass doorways of bars where drunk men with gravelly smokers’ laughs assemble. These places are flanked by more gentrified establishments, artisan restaurants crammed with diners tucking into deconstructed burgers and sipping on overpriced cocktails. Women in fur coats spill out of a wine bar, shrieking as they take a quick selfie before flagging down a taxi. Walking up further, I pass a heaving kebab shop with a zigzag queue of plastered people waiting eagerly to satisfy their calorific needs. A hunched busker belts out an old folk song, accompanied by sporadic accordion-playing.

Coming from Seafall, a sleepy east-coast town about twenty miles from Kirkcaldy, to suddenly have all of this on my doorstep feels good. I’ve managed to secure accommodation right next to the George Square campus, in an old Georgian building in Bucky Place. It’s within a stone’s throw of all the hotspots – the library, cute cafés, the best pubs and cool thrift stores. I got some money to put towards the costs of student life thanks to the Margaret Wallace scholarship, and although my flat’s on the shabbier side, this was all I could afford. All I need to do is get straight As and everything will be fine. I feel a familiar spike of shame for going out tonight instead of prepping for my first tutorial tomorrow. Like I’ve let myself down. And my parents. Again. Anytime I have even the slightest bit of fun, I am tapped on the shoulder by an invisible Shame Goblin who nastily whispers in my ear, You know you don’t deserve that, right? Just then, my phone beeps with a message from Zainab.

Zainab:

How was the hook-up? Are you staying at his?

I pause, glancing through the window of a quaint indie bookshop called Beyond Books. I’ve already visited this store three times, chatting to the owner about the new reads that are out. She’s what my mum would call a true eccentric – a trans lady in her forties with wild bleached-blonde hair who wears thick seventies glasses and layers of bold jewellery. Seeing the books propped up in the window reminds me I need to go to the library tomorrow to return my most recent haul.

Looking back at my phone, I know I’m not ready to share my humiliating period story yet. It’s too raw.

Brodie:

It was OK. Tell you when I see you. Heading home now. Tired. xx

As I approach my block of flats, I see a petite and refined woman walking her pet poodle. I’ve seen her around a lot: she always wears a long fur coat, almost down to her ankles, her shiny dark hair teased into an expensive blowout. Her mobile phone is glued to her manicured hand. She throws a loud, ‘Good evening!’ my way before returning to her phone call. ‘I told Jeremy to come back to me when he stops feeding me horse shit! The only thing that talks in this equation is money.’

I let her and her poodle pass me.

‘Good boy, Pudding, you can wait until we get to the park.’ She pulls Pudding’s lead and he trots obediently in front of her, his little legs almost bouncing on the grass. I bet Pudding has a nice life. Premium dog food and walks around all the cute parks in Edinburgh. We didn’t have pets when I was young. I never asked why, but I always assumed it’s because pets inevitably die. And we’ve had enough death in our family.

As I put the key in my door, I think about how I couldn’t wait to move away from my parents and live independently. Leaving Seafall behind to immerse myself in a cosmopolitan life, rubbing shoulders with artists and writers. When I step inside, my new roommate Nathan is heading out the kitchen towards his bedroom, his droopy grey boxer shorts threatening to fall down as he holds a mixing bowl with a tablespoon poking out of it. I try to avert my eyes, but Nathan’s tubby figure is covered in tattoos of cartoon characters I have never heard of and kind of hard to look away from. Despite seemingly not caring much for clothes of any description, Nathan has a curiously ever-present blond quiff. No matter the time of day, that thing is styled, standing to attention.

‘Oh, are you baking?’ I gesture to the bowl.

‘No,’ Nathan replies, seemingly confused by my question.

Kicking off my shoes, I peer into the bowl and see a melting pot of different cereals, floating in a baby-pink liquid. There must be at least five different types in there.

‘Six,’ Nathan offers with pride, as if reading my mind. ‘I like to call it cereal soup.’

‘Is that . . .?’

‘Strawberry milk, yes. As an exception, I can make you one if you like?’ He scratches his forehead. ‘Although we only have one big bowl. I could do it in a pot if you want. However, I would prefer for us to each stick to our own utensils.’

‘Tempting, but I already ate.’ Zainab had ordered us a yummy Thai takeaway before the club. It pays to have rich friends who can’t cook, it seems.

He looks relieved as he disappears into his room, which briefly emits beams of light from his multiple screen set-up. Soon the familiar sounds of explosions from the action films he watches all night reverberate through the walls. I retire to my own room, which is beginning to feel like home. Granted, the peeling wallpaper is the shade of stale chewing gum, and the yucky brown carpet is so cheap and rough it’s borderline dangerous to have any direct contact with exposed skin. But I’ve done my best to decorate it and make it my own. I’ve stuck some arty photos on the walls, and my crisp new blue bed covers provide a colour pop. My real pride and joys are my books. The bookshelf is bursting at the seams already, so much of my beloved collection lies in piles on the floor. Sure, I need to step over them when I go to brush my teeth, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I climb under my covers, I habitually reach out to stroke Grace’s memory box, an old chocolate biscuit tin that I’ve kept beside my bed since I can remember. Inside are some tokens from her short life. A purple hair tie and a square of her favourite bumblebee pyjamas. As I try to fall into a much-needed sleep, I am haunted by the strange shadows in my new room. They taunt me, morphing into scary shapes. I ball my hands into fists and gulp down the familiar fear as I hear Shame Goblin’s throaty whisper: You don’t deserve a nice life. The worst thing about this is I know that it’s right.

I’m at the top of an impossibly high building. So high that when I look down from the window, all I can see is a pit, a deeper shade than black. A never-ending abyss that threatens to swallow me up. Grace is beside me. But she is no age. More like a spirit, or a presence. An impression of her. I start to back away from the window, but then I lose my footing. She reaches out to grab me.

‘Be careful!’ she begs.

The white net curtains whip in the wind. One curtain suddenly grabs me by my left wrist and yanks me forward. I dig my heels in, but I’m unable to gain purchase and I slide along the floor. I try to step back, but instead I am propelled towards the window as the other curtain snakes around my free arm, pulling my whole body. The wind slaps me for my insolence, rushes down my throat and into my eyes. I try to wrestle out of its grip but it’s pointless.

‘Brodie!’ Grace’s voice shouts, strangled with fear.

And then the curtains snatch me outside, and I am suspended over the nothingness, my bare feet dangling.

‘Let me go!’ I shout. And then suddenly, I am released. I plummet down and down and down and down and down.

Explore the importance of female relationships in Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott and how they impact Jo March’s character growth.

This morning I woke up with butterflies in my stomach. A nice change from the knot of anxiety that has made itself at home in there. As I go for a shower, I see Nathan hovering in the hallway. ‘Good morning. Please don’t use my shower gel – it’s medicated.’

‘Course not!’ I chirp back at him, wondering how long these types of comments will last.

After getting ready, I brush up on my notes that I prepared yesterday and set off for my first English literature tutorial. When I step out into the gloomy morning sun, the wind is especially boisterous, whipping my hair all over the place. I take a big deep sniff, breathing in the hoppy smell of the city as I tread the rain-soaked pavement. Some of the people I went to school with were bonkers enough to stay in Seafall. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I always had my sights on Edinburgh, the literary epicentre of the country. So many trailblazing authors and famous poets have lived here, drawing their inspiration from longing and heartbreak; their words of passion and romance dance invisibly in the air to the beat of my walk. Shutting my eyes, I allow the moment to soak in, but I’m swiftly interrupted by a delivery man wheeling a trolley of cardboard boxes towards me. ‘Watch it!’ he yells, and I spring out of the way apologetically, stepping into an ankle-deep puddle.

I arrive – my hair windswept and with what feels like a developing case of trench foot – at room 3B and settle in early, taking out the book we will be covering today: The Bell Jar. Like most of the books on this semester’s reading list, I’ve already read it. In this case, I’ve read it so many times that my copy is practically falling apart. Worried I look too keen, I second-guess myself and shove it back inside my bag. I rearrange my notepad and pen set on my desk. There are few things in life as satisfying as a new set of stationery. As the room fills up, I shyly observe my new classmates. I reserve the seat beside me for Autumn, although depending on what went down with Mr Cock Piercing last night, maybe she won’t turn up.

A few minutes after eleven, a boyishly handsome student in his mid-twenties sporting a shaved head and wearing a holey cable-knit sweater arrives and pulls out the chair I had reserved for Autumn.

‘Someone’s sitting there.’ My words come out clipped and rude.

‘My mistake,’ he says in a polite Northern Irish drawl, delivering an impish smile. I can’t help but notice his stirring bronze eyes and the dusting of freckles on his tawny skin. I blush for my rudeness. And his dimples.

Just as Autumn skulks in, wearing shades and a smug look on her face, he moves to the opposite side of the table and addresses the room. ‘Hello class, I’m Killian Maloney. Sorry I’m a little late, I had a run-in with the staff printer.’

I burst into a loud laugh at his joke, clapping my hand to my face as soon as it escapes my mouth. The whole class blinks at me in confusion. Autumn regards me with confused pity.

‘What did I miss?’ she whispers.

‘He’s so much younger . . .