The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Read online

  Praise for

  The Accidental Genie

  “A fast-paced, amusing tale starring an engaging lead couple and the return of the previous stars. Lighthearted, fans will laugh at the scenarios that the OOPS squad confronts due to Jeannie’s out-of-control wishes.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “The OOPS team faces a peculiar problem in the newest wisecracking and wacky novel from the always delightful Cassidy. The dialogue is fast and furious, the characters are offbeat, and the situations bizarre, but Cassidy pulls it all together for another laugh-filled adventure.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Accidentally Dead, Again

  “Cassidy’s quirky and offbeat series continues to be outlandish fun laced with a hint of poignancy. There’s never a dull moment with this bunch!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “I really loved this book from beginning to end. From the start I fell into a daze with the characters’ quips and quirks . . . This book is great at intertwining a great plot with quirky characters espousing wonderful dialogue, which just happens to be funny.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Do yourself a favor and go buy everything that Dakota Cassidy has ever written . . . This book is not only well written, with a twisty plot and great characters, it is hysterical. HYSTERICAL! . . . The characters are over-the-top but hilarious, and you really do care about them and their situations, which makes this paranormal romantic romp even more wonderful.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Accidentally Catty

  “This light, comedic, paranormal romance delivers simple, unencumbered entertainment. A lively pace, the bonds of friendship, and bright humor aided by vampiric sarcasm make for a breezy read with charming characters and no shortage of drama. Cassidy’s fans are sure to enjoy this, while newcomers will be reminded of MaryJanice Davidson’s or Kimberly Frost’s work.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “I have been a fan of Dakota’s since The Accidental Werewolf. I loved all of the books in the series, but I think this book is my favorite . . . Accidentally Catty is very funny, cute, and sexy.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “A fun read with some meat to it that will have people looking at you, wondering why you’re laughing if you’re out in public.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Accidentally Demonic

  “The Accidental series by Ms. Cassidy gets better and better with each book. The snark, the HAWT, the characters, it’s all a winning combination.”

  —Bitten by Books

  “An outstanding paranormal romance . . . Dakota Cassidy delivers snappy dialogue, hot sex scenes, and secondary characters that are just too funny . . . A hold-your-sides, laugh-out-loud book. With vampires, werewolves, and demons running around, paranormal romance will never be the same.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “Dakota Cassidy’s books make me laugh and laugh. They are such great fun that I always look forward to the next one with gusto . . . I totally loved this book with a capital ‘L.’”

  —Fresh Fiction

  The Accidental Human

  “A delightful, at times droll, contemporary tale starring a decidedly human heroine . . . Dakota Cassidy provides a fitting twisted ending to this amusingly warm urban romantic fantasy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “The final member of Cassidy’s trio of decidedly offbeat friends faces her toughest challenge, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t humor to spare! With emotion, laughter, and some pathos, Cassidy serves up another winner!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Accidentally Dead

  “A laugh-out-loud follow-up to The Accidental Werewolf, and it’s a winner . . . Ms. Cassidy is an up-and-comer in the world of paranormal romance.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “An enjoyable, humorous satire that takes a bite out of the vampire romance subgenre . . . Fans will appreciate the nonstop hilarity.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  The Accidental Werewolf

  “Cassidy, a prolific author of erotica, has ventured into MaryJanice Davidson territory with a humorous, sexy tale.”

  —Booklist

  “A riot! Marty’s internal dialogue will have you howling, and her antics will keep the laughs coming. If you love paranormal with a comedic twist, you’ll love this book.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A lighthearted romp . . . [An] entertaining tale with an alpha twist.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  More praise for the novels of

  Dakota Cassidy

  “The fictional equivalent of the little black dress—every reader should have one!”

  —Michele Bardsley, national bestselling author of Only Lycans Need Apply

  “Serious, laugh-out-loud humor with heart, the kind of love story that leaves you rooting for the heroine, sighing for the hero, and looking for your own significant other at the same time.”

  —Kate Douglas, author of Dark Wolf

  “Very fun, sexy. Five stars!”

  —Affaire de Cœur

  “Dakota Cassidy is going on my must-read list!”

  —Joyfully Reviewed

  “If you’re looking for some steamy romance with something that will have you smiling, you have to read [Dakota Cassidy].”

  —The Best Reviews

  Berkley Sensation titles by Dakota Cassidy

  YOU DROPPED A BLONDE ON ME

  BURNING DOWN THE SPOUSE

  WALTZ THIS WAY

  KISS & HELL

  MY WAY TO HELL

  THE ACCIDENTAL WEREWOLF

  ACCIDENTALLY DEAD

  THE ACCIDENTAL HUMAN

  ACCIDENTALLY DEMONIC

  ACCIDENTALLY CATTY

  ACCIDENTALLY DEAD, AGAIN

  THE ACCIDENTAL GENIE

  THE ACCIDENTAL WEREWOLF 2: SOMETHING ABOUT HARRY

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2013 by Dakota Cassidy.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63030-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cassidy, Dakota.

  The Accidental Werewolf 2 : Something About Harry / Dakota Cassidy. — Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition.

  pages cm
. — (Accidentally paranormal novel)

  ISBN 978-0-425-26865-0 (pbk.)

  1. Werewolves—Fiction. 2. Paranormal fiction. 3. Humorous fiction. 4. Love stories. I. Title.

  PS3603.A8685A653 2013

  813'.6—dc23 2013032755

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / December 2013

  Cover art by Katie Wood.

  Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Berkley Sensation titles by Dakota Cassidy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Cindy McCune for the absolutely amazing title Something About Harry. You’re a joy to hang out with on my Facebook page, and I adore you!

  Also, Pam Elliot (my Spaz), for the awesome phrase “stranger junk.” Every time I think about that muggy night when we all sat around a table in the hotel’s courtyard after a long day of seeing things we couldn’t unsee in NO, laughing about our amazing experiences on Bourbon Street, I think of you and giggle to myself. You’re an angel, and the cutest thing evah!

  More New Orleans hijinks love to my “balcony” girls. The word moresome is forever ours—as is the laughter! So much laughter. I’m pretty sure you ladies are how I discovered the meaning of incontinence!

  Dawn Montgomery, who gave me amazing insight to this book, and also writes amazing books!

  Kaz, because seriously, it’s all in the details.

  Most of all, to my BFF Renee George, who talks me down when I’m freaked out, and is always around to help me hash out a plot when my idea tank’s on empty. I love you, lady!

  And for my son, Cameron, who we lovingly, jokingly call The Antichrist (we’re sure, due to his genius level smarts, all the time he spends studying—quote unquote—is really a ploy to keep us distracted while he plots world domination ). By the time this book is published, you’ll have left home for college to begin your own life. To say I’m incredibly proud of you is too little, too small a sentiment to express the amazingly funny, smart, wise, well-adjusted young man you’ve become.

  And always, always know, wherever you are, wherever I am—there’s this thing called Skype. You’d better show your pretty face on it at least once a week—or I’m coming for a collegiate visit all your smartsy-fartsy friends won’t soon forget. LOL!

  I’ll miss your footsteps on the stairs. Your moody grunt “hello” when you come in from school. Your haughty disdain for everyone and everything because you’re a teenager and nothing is supposed to outwardly impress you. Your grin, your laughter . . . your everything.

  I love you, son. So, so much.

  Dakota Cassidy

  CHAPTER

  1

  “This is OOPS, correct? The Out in the Open Paranormal Support crisis hotline?” Harry Emmerson hissed into his cell phone, casting a suspicious glance around the room he was trapped in.

  There was a sharp creak, one he suspected was an office chair, and then a husky voice rasped, “Dude, you deaf? That’s what I fucking said when I answered. Now what’s your crisis, and it damn well better be a real one or I’m gonna use my vampy senses to sniff your location out. It takes a little time, but when I hone in on you, and I will, I’ll beat you to death with your very own leg. The one I amputate clean off your torso courtesy of my sharp teeth.”

  Harry bristled, a spike of anger shooting up his spine, making his hair—a lot of frickin’ hair—stand on end. What kind of customer service was this? “How is a threat in response to my call for help in any way supportive?” he whisper-yelled into the phone, running his very hairy fingers over his equally hairy temple in exasperation.

  Hairy Harry.

  Hah!

  “Look, pal. If you knew the kind of crank shit I deal with on a daily basis because of this damn hotline, you’d get the reason for the threat. So get to the point. Get there fast.”

  The woman on the other end of the line sent a vibe that was anything but soothing. It was almost antagonistic. No, there was no almost about this. It was definitely antagonistic, and it riled him from the tips of his toes to the frames of his, as his sister had once called them, nerd-dweeb glasses.

  Under normal circumstances, he wasn’t easily riled. Harry Ralph Emmerson was a problem solver, and he always remained calm whenever a quandary arose. But this problem? This wasn’t a problem that could be solved with a calculator, and it didn’t have a definitive answer. This problem would rile even the most patient and sage of wise men.

  Harry crouched lower under the table, thankful for his flexibility, while fighting the strange onslaught of heat rushing through his veins. “Again, how is this supportive?”

  “Awww,” the angry woman cooed with a mocking tone. “You just missed the sensitive, squishy paranormal-counselor-with-a-heart by like twenty minutes. She skipped off to have date night with her man. Instead, you’re stuck with the cranky, impatient, bitchy counselor-who-doesn’t-have-a-heart. Like literally. So get on with this shit. I got a kid to go home and feed.”

  Harry cleared his throat and ignored the scream of his rumbling stomach. He’d just had trail mix a half hour ago. That should have held him over until dinner, but this ache in his gut was bigger than just a warning sign. It was time for dinner.

  Images of heaping piles of red meat dripping in blood, with a side of more red meat dripping in blood, flickered through his mind’s eye in startling detail.

  Swallowing hard, he remained as focused as he could with the caged lion in his belly. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. So let me start by apologizing for any and all faux pas I mistakenly made due to the stress of my predicament. I can’t promise there won’t be more. I’m walking a tightrope where my sanity’s concerned here, and that could make for bad judgment on my part. Please, can we begin again? First, I’m Harry, not Harold, Emmerson. Sort of like the writer, but not. My father’s name was Harry, and my mother loved—”

  There was an abrasive peal of a horn in his ear. Like a bike horn. “Hear that, Harry?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I did.” Jesus—it was still vibrating in his head.

  “Good. That’s my ‘I don’t give a shit about your life story’ horn. It’s from my kid’s Barbie tricycle she won’t even be able to ride for at least another five years. But her Grandpa Arch insisted she have it because he’s addicted to woot.com and online shopping. Anyway, if I sound the horn—that means I don’t give a shit and you move on.”

  Abrasive horn equaled moving on. Understood. “Got it. And you are?”

  There was a grating snort, and then the woman with the steeped-in-whiskey voice said, “Well, Harry, not Harold, Emmerson, I’m Nina Blackman-Statleon—unwilling fucking paranormal crisis counselor and full-time vampire. Now, go!” She barked the order, making him cringe at how sharp and clear her voice rang in his ear.

  He cleared his throat, loosening his tightening tie with his forefinger and stretched his neck, ig
noring Nina’s use of the word “vampire” in order to maintain the vestiges of his sanity. “I read on the Internet that you can help me with my paranormal crisis needs. Is that true?” Jesus and hell. He hoped it was true. Because if it wasn’t—really, where else was there to turn? Who could you call when something like this happened?

  Dean and Sam?

  The lucid, almost always able to find a reasonable explanation, half of his brain said this number he’d found on the Internet and the crackpot who’d answered was all just a bunch of hooey.

  Yet, despite his misgivings about vampires and demons, he’d dialed it anyway. Out of sheer desperation, and with more hair than a pack of Siberian huskies sprouting from his face, his fingers had punched in the OOPS number without ever looking back.

  Because his sensible, thinking mind told him what had just occurred after he’d sipped his vitaminwater wasn’t a case of hypertrichosis. Not with the speed in which he’d been affected. It couldn’t be . . .

  Not to mention, he was well and truly stuck in this room—under a table. There was no getting out of here—not like this—not at the end of a workday when every one of his colleagues could see him leaving the offices in tumbleweeds of unsightly hair. He needed help to escape quickly and quietly before he was discovered—all hairy and sharp-of-tooth. This OOPS website claimed it could help. It listed all sorts of examples of how they could help.

  The tapping of a finger, like the sound of a hydraulic jack in his head, recaptured his attention. “Harrry?”

  He grimaced at the throb of pressure Nina’s incessant thrumming created in his head. “Ms. Statleon?”

  “Get . . . to . . . the . . . fucking . . . point!”

  Harry squeezed his temple with his thumb and forefinger. “I need help. I’m trapped. Can you help?”

  There was a sharp cluck of Nina’s tongue and then she said, “Depends on the crisis.”

  “Could you be any more vague?” he snarled, baring his teeth. Oh, shit. He’d snarled. And bared his teeth.

  “Could you be in a shittier position?”

  Drool formed at the corner of his mouth. He swiped at it with an impatient thumb and fought the irrational, uncommon urge to hunt this woman down and rip her head off. “Meaning?”