by Quinn Loftis
The bathing suit was a bikini that she'd let Sally and Jen talk her into. Though, she did get her two cents in by buying a mismatched bottom and top. She figured if she liked two different bathing suits, why not buy half of each? With that reasoning it's no wonder I'm hearing voices, she told herself.
Overall, Jacque thought, I don’t look too shabby. She slipped on her pink flip flops, grabbed her cell, iPod, towel, and sunglasses, and was out the back door.
Her backyard was very simple, just a square, and it didn’t even have a fence around it. They didn’t really need a fence. They didn’t have a dog, or little kids to corral in, so when her mom had bought the house she'd never bothered to have one built. There was a single tree growing smack dab in the middle of the backyard, so depending on the time of day Jacque either had to lie on the left or right side of the backyard.
The right side it is.
Jacque took her towel and laid it on the grass. She'd already put her ear phones in and set her iPod to shuffle – Pearl Jam was the band playing at the moment. She slid her sunglasses on and turned to sit down on her towel. It was then that she realized in choosing the right side of the backyard, she was directly in front of the Henrys' house. Wait folks, it gets even better. It’s the side of the house where Fane’s bedroom window is.
Bad, Jacque thought. This is very, very bad. I can get up and go lay on the left side of the back yard…in the shade…which makes no sense. Or I can lay here and look like I totally planned to put a bikini on and plaster myself in front of Fane’s window like a centerfold. For the love of pigtails, could someone throw me a bone? Jacque’s mind screamed.
She sat there debating for a minute or two, then threw her hands up and said, “To hell with it, I’m already down here. He can get an eyeful if he wants, and if he wants to know if I did it for his benefit he can just ask me.” With a decided humph, Jacque laid back on the towel, arms by her side, feet flat on the ground, and knees slightly bent.
As she closed her eyes, she began to feel the warmth of the sun seep into her skin and calm her. She took some deep breaths and focused on the lyrics to the song now playing in her ears. It was “Untouchable” by Taylor Swift. She'd heard it a couple times before but had never really listened to it. Now as she heard the words, something inside her awoke.
Untouchable like a distant diamond sky
I'm reaching out and I just can't tell you why
I'm caught up in you, I'm caught up in you
Untouchable, burning brighter than the sun
And when you're close, I feel like coming undone
In the middle of the night when I'm in this dream
It's like a million little stars spelling out your name
You gotta come on, come on, say that we'll be together
Come on, come on, little taste of heaven
It's half full and I won't wait here all day
I know you're saying that you'd be here anyway
But you're untouchable, burning brighter than the sun
Now that you're close, I feel like coming undone
Jacque didn’t really understand how she knew it, but she believed without a doubt that her future was with Fane. She wasn’t sure how or why, or when, and at that moment he seemed very untouchable – she sure as hell was coming undone.
The song stopped and her phone started vibrating. For a moment she was a little disoriented, then she realized she was getting a phone call. She looked at the screen on her phone and it was Jen.
“Hello?”
“Got good news, got bad news. Won’t charge you for either so which do you want first?” Jen answered.
“Slap me first, pat me on the back last,” Jacque told her.
“Bad news it is. I won’t be back over to your house until nine at the earliest. My mom and dad are in one of their ‘we’re a family, we need to eat at the table together, blah blah blah’ moods. So naturally, being the sweet little thing that I am, I didn’t argue with them for twenty minutes or slam my door and tell them how 1950s they were being. Nope, not me. I smiled sweetly.”
“Jen, you don’t do anything sweetly. How did you manage a smile?” Jacque retorted.
“Oh, shut up. That was the slap. The pat is I get to come over, even after the little fit that I didn’t throw,” she said with smug satisfaction.
“Try to keep your mouth shut between now and then so that you don’t have to call me later with something worse than a slap, okay?” Jacque told her.
“Okay, okay. Geez, who spit in your pizza?”
“I’ll give you the full details tonight, but suffice to say at least one piece has made its way into the puzzle.” Jacque thought about her words for a moment, then remembered a question Fane had asked her when he was “talking” to her. He had asked where she got her odd way of speaking. Did she speak oddly?
“Jen, do you think I speak oddly?” Jacque asked.
There was silence for a moment at the other end of the line. Jacque assumed either Jen was thinking or she had found something more interesting to pay attention to. Jacque was just about to ask again when Jen answered, “You do realize who you're asking, right? ‘Cause I just asked you who spit in your pizza and you knew exactly what I meant. So, I’m just saying I might not be the best judge of any oddities you may possess.”
“True dat,” Jacque responded.
“I’ll see you tonight. Try not to do anything too crazy without me. You know how I like to watch,” Jen said, cackling as she hung up.
Jacque shook her head, laughing to herself about her friend’s sick, twisted sense of humor. She didn’t bother to turn her music back on, she just listened to the sounds around her. For the most part the only noises were the occasional bird or dog bark. Other than that it was a quiet summer day. As beads of sweat ran down her collar bones she thought, Let’s qualify that. It’s a quiet, hot, summer day.
Jacque rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes, letting the heat and the sounds run over her. Before she realized it she had fallen asleep.
Chapter 8
Fane looked at his watch. It was half past noon. Sara had been gone an hour and he still hadn’t heard Brian at all. There was an eight hour time difference between Coldspring and Romania, so it was eight thirty in the evening where his family was. He decided to call his dad while Brian and Sara were out. He had some questions that he thought should be answered before he had to start explaining things to Jacquelyn.
He dialed his father’s cell phone number and listened to it ring.
“Da?” his father answered. This was the way he always answered, with a simple “yes.” No “hello” or “this is”, just yes. Something so small, but it made him homesick.
“Tată,” Fane answered.
“Fane? Cum te simţi?” his father asked him.
“English please, father, I’m trying to get in a better habit of not switching back and forth in conversation. I am good. How is mamă? How is the Pack?” Fane asked.
“Your mother is good, other than missing her pup. The Pack is good,” his father responded.
Fane asked about the Pack for two reasons. The first was that he was to be Alpha one day and his father had been teaching him for as long as he could remember that the other wolves in the Pack were like his children. He was to love them, protect them, and care for them. Sometimes that meant feeding them, other times it meant disciplining them. So as Prince and future Alpha he knew it was his duty to make sure the Pack was well.
The second reason was because there were a lot of un-mated males in the Pack, and un-mated males were restless, aggressive, and for lack of a better term, stupid. It really was true that behind every great man was an even greater woman – it stood true for wolves as well. Until a male wolf was mated, his emotions were volatile; he tended to be restless, and prone to wandering. All could lead to territorial battles and, needless to say, it could get messy. Once a male wolf bonded with his mate, all of those aggressive tendencies were balanced out by the gentle nature of his mate
. It was not really known how it worked, but from what some males had said, it was like the better half of their soul was given back to them and they felt whole.
Fane had make sure his father didn’t need him home if things were getting out of hand with the Pack.
“I need to ask you some questions about the mate bond,” Fane told his father. “Does the mate have to be a Canis lupus or can she be human? What does it mean when you suddenly have more markings on you than before? What if your mate doesn’t know anything about your world and won’t accept you?” Fane was sounding a little frantic by the time he stopped talking.
“You’re seventeen, you’ve been in America for less than twenty four hours, and you think you’ve found your mate?” his father asked him.
Fane heard his mother gasp in the background and begin speaking quickly in their native tongue. “Calm down, love. Let me find out,” he heard his father tell her.
“I know how it sounds, Tată,” Fane told his father. “But I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning and then we will try to figure out if this is indeed your mate,” his father suggested.
So Fane told him about how he had heard her thoughts the night he'd arrived. He told him about being able to “feel” how she felt and that her scent had nearly caused him to curl up at her feet and pant like a stupid pup. He told him that she'd spoken to his mind as well and figured out that Fane was indeed who she was hearing.
After Fane finished there was silence from the other end of the phone. For a second he thought they might have been disconnected, but then his father broke the silence.
“A mate cannot be fully human; there has to be Canis lupus blood somewhere in her line. It can be generations back, but it has to be there in order for her life to be bound to yours. You know how long we live, and when you bind her to you she will take on your longevity as long as she has Lupi in her blood.” His father paused, then continued. “As for the markings, I hadn’t discussed this with you yet because I didn’t think you would find your mate before you graduated from high school. It’s very, very rare. I was over a century old before I found your mother. The markings of a male Canis lupus only change when he finds a mate – it is a way to tell all Canis lupus you have a mate.”
“Don’t you have to do the blood rites before you can be mate bonded? I mean, the markings changed after seeing her through a window!” Fane stated incredulously.
“Aranjare (settle),” Fane’s father told him. “This is something to rejoice over, not fret. We will figure out the details later. You have a year to woo her and help her understand our world before you come back to Romania.”
Fane was breathing a little easier. It was true that there was no rush for him to bond with her. Especially since she was right across the street where he could see her and know she was safe. His wolf wasn’t totally pleased with the idea of leaving his mate un-bonded, but he would wait and watch. Wolves were very patient hunters.
Fane was brought out of his thoughts when his father asked, “Did you happen to notice any marks on her anywhere?”
“Marks on her like the marks I have?” Fane asked.
“Well, you might not have because the female Canis lupus marks are more of a private thing. I don’t mean they are anywhere that couldn’t be seen if she had on a bathing suit, I mean private as in they are for her mate. The markings will match yours like a puzzle piece, but might not be in the same location and usually cannot be seen by others if she has regular clothes on,” his father continued.
Fane felt a low growl in his throat as he realized his dislike at the idea of another male seeing Jacquelyn’s markings. Even if they were on her arm or leg, they were meant for him only.
“Fane? Fane, are you alright?” he heard his father ask him.
“I’m just a little…I don’t know what, I mean I’m seventeen, and the thought of another wolf seeing markings on a girl I barely know infuriates me. I’m not even out of high school,” Fane said with frustration and confusion.
“I know you are only seventeen, fiu (son), but you have to remember that when your wolf finds its mate he is no longer a juvenile – he becomes a full-fledged adult overnight. Your wolf expects you to step up and be ready to be the Alpha. You are meant to be because you are to protect her at all costs. Yes, you are only seventeen, but you are not a mere human, you are Canis lupus, you are Prince to your Pack, and you are Alpha,” Fane’s father told him.
Fane took some deep breaths to calm and compose himself. It wasn’t like him to get so upset over something he couldn’t change. His emotions seemed a little on edge today and he could only imagine it had everything to do with the sassy red head across the street.
“One more thing. I know that mates cannot usually go long periods without sharing their thoughts or being near one another without feeling discomfort from the separation. I haven’t had that since I discovered Jacquelyn. Why would that be?” Fane asked his father.
“You won’t begin to feel some effects of being mated until after the bond is completed through the blood rites. Until then neither one of you should have any problem being apart.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Fane mumbled.
Fane’s dad continued, saying, “There is a reason this has happened to you so young. She is part human, which means she can’t phase and she is weaker for that. Maybe she will need your protection in some way. Keep your eyes and ears open. Nothing happens by chance, there is purpose in everything.”
“But there are no Canis lupus in this area. What could possibly be a threat to her in this little, insignificant town?” Fane asked.
“Lesser words have preceded many a war, Fane,” his fathered answered ominously. “All will be well, fiu. Get to know her, be her friend. Keep your wolf in check and call me and keep me updated. Te iubesc (I love you), Fiul meu (my son).” And with that Fane’s father and Alpha hung up.
Fane sat there for awhile longer, going over in his head the things his father had told him. Jacquelyn had to have Canis lupus in her bloodline somewhere, and it was either very distant or a relative she did not know.
He heard the door open downstairs and caught Brian’s scent. He decided he needed to get some fresh air, preferably behind the handlebars of a motorcycle, and went downstairs in search of Brian. Maybe he would take him to a dealership to look at some used motorcycles.
Fane found Brian whistling an unknown tune in the kitchen while pouring himself some of the sweet tea.
“Hope you like sugar better than tea, because that’s about all you’re going to drink when you take a sip of that,” Fane told him with a smile.
Brian chuckled. “Yeah that’s how we do it in the south. It’s not really sweet tea, its tea flavored sugar.”
Fane laughed with him.
“I have a favor to ask, if you have time,” Fane started.
“Shoot.”
“My parents have given me money to buy a motorcycle but I need a ride to a dealership to look at some. Would you mind taking me to look at some bikes?” Fane asked.
Already nodding his head yes as he took a drink, Brian said, “Yeah, that’s not a problem. If you’re ready, I don’t have anything pressing. We can go now.”
“Ok, let me grab my phone. Give me just a sec,” Fane said as he headed toward the stairs.
When Fane got to his room, he picked up his phone and checked to make sure his wallet was in his back pocket. Then, just out of curiosity, he opened the curtains to glance out at Jacquelyn’s house.
Fane had to blink several times to get his brain to understand what it was seeing, and then he had to take slow, deep breaths to keep his wolf from growling possessively. For there, across the street to the right side of her yard, which, if she had a fence would be the backyard, was his Luna laying out in a skimpy bathing suit. That wasn’t the half of it. She was laying on her stomach and there at the top of her back, stretching out from shoulder to shoulder and up her neck to just below her hairline, wer
e the markings that would fit his perfectly. Her markings were there on display for any male to see, not to mention her mom, if she came out. Without thinking, his mind reached for hers.
“You do realize that they only sold you ¼ of that bathing suit don’t you?” Fane said, trying to sound casual and not like the jealous monster he felt to be.
At first he didn’t get a response. As he was looking at her, he realized she must have fallen asleep, which was not a good thing because in this heat she’d burn terribly.
Fane focused on her and using an Alpha push, spoke, “Jacquelyn, wake up!”
Still, she did not move or respond. Fane was deciding whether or not to walk across the street and disturb her when she finally spoke to him.
Chapter 9
Jacquelyn heard Fane ask her if she had inadvertently bought only a ¼ of a bathing suit. So he's a funny guy, she thought. Two can play at that game. She’d been asleep up until that point, but as soon as he spoke to her she had woken up. For now, she continued to lie perfectly still, knowing he must be watching her. She didn’t want him to know she had heard him. The second time he spoke to her she felt a push that made her want to obey him. He soooooo did not just give me command, she thought indignantly. She was surprised when he didn’t respond to that thought. What Jacque didn’t know was that she was blocking him because she didn’t want him to be able to hear her.