“Yes!” Eleni gave a little fist pump and did a happy dance in her seat.
Orion could not help but laugh and shake his head at her. “You’re pretty cutthroat, hmm?”
“I don’t drive a tiny compact car for nothing,” she told him with mock severity. “You should see me fighting for a parking spot. I’m absolutely brutal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Orion put the truck in park and turned off the engine. “Are you ready? I hope your cutthroat skills are up to snuff because we are going into the lion’s den.”
“Okay.” She seemed to be getting right down to business. “You need gifts for your sisters-in-law?”
They got out of the truck. Fortunately, there had been a break in the rain. Unfortunately, the sky was still so overcast that even in mid-afternoon it looked as though the sun had retired for the night. Orion waited for Eleni to come around the back of the truck and then shielded her as best he could from the spray coming off the pavement from all of the cars speeding by on their way to find a parking space.
“Yes. Skye and Landry and then Diana.” Orion thought about that last one and felt a moment’s jolt of anger. “Landry came up with the idea of sending a big package to Diana and Edward to let them know we’re thinking about them at Christmas.”
“That’s really sweet!” Eleni gushed.
Of course she thought so. Orion could not help but feel like that was a chick sentiment. Orion personally felt like Edward had run away from the family and all of their problems. Now he and Diana had gotten married over in Italy. They were happy and content together and seemed totally insulated from all of the crap going on in the King’s home and in their business. In Orion’s book, that made Edward dead to the rest of them.
“You don’t think it’s sweet.” Eleni’s tone grew subdued as she reached for the big glass door of the mall’s enormous front entrance. “You think what?”
“That Edward ran away.”
The two of them strolled into the chaos, and for just a moment Orion felt dazzled by the complete saturation of the mall’s Christmas atmosphere. The music piped in was loud and practically pushing the notion that anyone who didn’t buy a toy for every kid they knew was a horrible person indeed. There were huge Christmas ornaments dangling from the ceiling above the escalators, and dead center in the mall’s atrium was a Santa’s village set-up complete with animatronic reindeer and mall employees dressed like elves.
“Wow.” Orion shook his head. “I thought it was bad the other night. Apparently during the day they make it even worse.”
“They’re just catering to children.” Her tone was gentle and maybe even indulgent.
Orion looked sharply down at her. “Catering to children is dangerous. They’re like materialistic sponges. Like our mothers actually.”
“So our mothers are like children?” she asked drily.
Orion realized that she was no longer following or even pretending to let him lead. Eleni was walking very deliberately toward a store that appeared to sell collectibles.
“You said your one sister-in-law is a teacher, right?” Eleni kept walking and did not stop in front of the store as he had expected. No. Hoped. Orion had hoped they would not have to go inside this horrible-looking store, and yet, there he was, following her inside.
“Yes. Landy teaches middle school, I think. Or did. It’s complicated.”
“Oh right!” Eleni bobbed her head. “I remember the story now. It was all over the news. It’s like every teacher’s nightmare.”
Orion kept his elbows in. He felt like a bull in a china shop as they squeezed past shelf after shelf of little glass animals. There was another wall covered in T-shirt samples for screen printing. And then there was a whole wall full of what seemed like quilt pieces or some other kind of nonsense. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the store.
“What is she doing now?”
“Tutoring, I think.”
Eleni stopped in front of a display. “Perfect.”
It looked like a school supply display. Or maybe teacher supply. Orion was too busy trying not to bang his head on a giant stuffed rabbit suspended from the ceiling to pay enough attention to what Eleni was getting ready to purchase.
“Okay. So do you think she would prefer blue or red?”
Orion blinked. Eleni was asking him? He shrugged. “Blue?”
“Perfect.” Eleni gathered up a bunch of little things. Pads of paper, pencils, pens, a blotter of some kind. It was like a teacher’s desk set or something.
“What is this? I could have picked this up at the drugstore,” Orion grumbled. “Why are we at the mall?”
“Because the store is called Teachers,” Eleni said drily. “I promise. This is the best stuff. Teachers kill for these gifts. They’re mildly collectible, but still useable. There’s even a little desk reference set.”
“Oh. Well, if you think that’s a thing. I guess I can’t really argue.” Orion couldn’t argue. He had asked Eleni to help. That meant he had already acknowledged that she knew more than he did about the whole thing.
Then the store clerk rang up the purchases and Orion handed her his bankcard so he could pay the eighty dollar cost. He shook his head and sighed. He really hoped that he knew what he was doing. The clerk put the purchases in a bag and handed it over the counter to Orion.
As Orion followed Eleni back into the crowded thoroughfare outside the store, he hoped that he was making the right decision. Then he felt like an ass for even second-guessing Eleni because he had been the one to come to her with this request. It wasn’t like she had begged him to help or anything.
“So you bought something the other night for your brother—Jason, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Orion glanced down at Eleni and had to practically spin sideways in order to avoid plowing through a gaggle of teenage girls coming down the walkway in a herd formation. “I still need something for Edward and Zane.”
“Do you know what you’d like to get them?”
“I don’t know. Something electronic.”
Eleni snorted. “Zane? I think you should buy him something outdoorsy like new boots or something.”
“He buys his own boots.”
“Does he?” Eleni pursed her lips. “Think back to the last time you saw him with a new pair of boots. Is he a shopper?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Then boots.”
She was being bossy. Orion should have wanted badly to put her in her place and yet he didn’t. He was even feeling strangely forgiving about it. Or happy. Or something equally weird. They were strolling through the mall together along with a horde of humanity. He didn’t feel tense or angry or anything of that nature. It was kind of odd. No. Strike that. It was straight-up weird. As in, he could not believe that anyone could keep him calm in a situation like this.
Orion had always been on the tense and angry side. It was a combination of things. When he had turned ten years old he had started having a lot of physical issues. He’d been so afraid to mention them until his father and—at the time—his grandfather, had taken him aside and explained that he was not a normal human boy. He was more. He was a shifter. And soon he was going to start turning into a wolf.
Orion had never felt so isolated. He also felt a bit crazy. As if he were somehow ostracized from his family and his friends because of this new anomaly that was affecting him. Nobody seemed to understand how deeply this had affected Orion. It had made him angry at his brothers and his parents and at the world in general.
For some reason his brothers had never seemed as affected by it all. That was great for them. But it didn’t help Orion at all. He was still angry. He still felt as though he were held to some higher standard by their mother and prior to that by their father.
“My father had another child,” Orion told Eleni. “Did you know that? He had a kid before I was born with some woman he met after he and my mother were married.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. At least Orion i
magined that it was stunned. In reality, he had no idea what Eleni was thinking. She had a very strange expression on her face as they both dodged and danced their way through the heavy traffic in the mall thoroughfares. They were practically walking at half the speed of everyone around them. But maybe it would not have mattered what speed they were walking since they seemed to be going against traffic in general.
“I don’t think I’m surprised.”
“What?” Orion was pretty sure he’d heard her wrong. “How can you say that?”
“I always wondered why my father never cheated on my mother. She would have deserved it, you know? She was horrible to him. She was selfish and rude, and she did nothing but spend his money and then complain that he wasn’t making enough because she wanted to spend more. Is Tisha really any different? I have a bad feeling that the two of them were competing with each other to see who could make their husband buy them the most stuff for decades.”
Okay, so that was an interesting perspective. Orion chuffed out a sigh. “I’ve always seen my mother as a victim of sorts.”
“Really?” She gazed up at him with an expression that suggested he was out of his mind. “Don’t kid yourself, Orion. Your father’s infidelity did not make your mother into the woman she is today. She started out like that. I’ve heard my mother talk about the two of them as kids. They’ve always been like this. Selfish. Materialistic. Bitches to the core.”
Her words got Orion’s brain moving. That was for sure. He followed her into another store and bought something. Orion could not have said what it was. He just knew that he bought something for Skye and that they were heading into an outdoor store to purchase boots for Zane.
Orion’s mind was utterly preoccupied with the thoughts that would not let go. Thoughts about his illegitimate half brother, Gemini. Orion could never openly admit to himself that he was dead curious about Gemini’s mother. What was she like? Had she been happy with Mac King? Had Mac King been happy with her? Had Tisha Olivares-King deserved to be a divorcee long before Orion and his brothers had even been born?
“You’re thinking awfully hard about all of this.” Eleni reached out and gently touched Orion’s forearm. “Why don’t we duck into that restaurant, get some dessert, and sit for a minute. That way I don’t have to sit here and watch your head explode.”
“Okay,” Orion agreed. “I suppose I could use some food.”
“Not food.” She bumped him with her shoulder and gave him a mischievous smile. “Junk food. It’s not the same thing. Dessert. We need cheesecake and strawberry shortcake and pretty much any other kind of cake that will make us forget what’s going on in our lives right now.”
It was pretty much impossible to argue with that. In fact, Orion didn’t even want to try.
Chapter Ten
This was not a date. At least that’s what Eleni kept telling herself. She wondered in the back of her mind what their mothers would have said about the two of them getting so chummy. The two women had been absolutely determined to join their families by marriage right up until Tisha and Alaina had come to the mutual realization that both of them were trying to screw over the other in the process. Apparently they wanted no part of that and boom! The friendship had been over and seemed now to be the opposite.
If the two sixty-something mothers had been Eleni’s students she would have described them as frenemies. But there was no doubting the idea that they should have been too mature to behave like that at their ages.
A waitress brought Eleni and Orion their tall glasses of iced tea and water along with two enormous slices of cheesecake, an order of a bananas foster that looked large enough to feed a wild animal, and a strawberry shortcake piled high with whipped topping. It was a delectable offering and for a moment Eleni could not believe she was about to devour all of this junk food in the presence of the best looking man she had ever seen.
Best not to think about that. She picked up her fork instead and dug into the strawberry shortcake. Orion was already going for the key lime cheesecake. The two of them munched in companionable silence. It was so odd. They could have serious conversations that were probably disturbing to both of them and yet only a few minutes later they were still calm enough to enjoy what was in the moment.
“What?” He quirked one eyebrow at her.
The sight of him was rather breathtaking. Eleni couldn’t help it. She felt like a little girl when Orion was around. His face was chiseled now and nothing like it had been when they were young and yet she could still feel that thing that happened each time he smiled at her. It was a thing that made her feel fifteen again.
“You’re really good looking, Orion King.” Eleni licked the whipped cream from her lips and wondered if she was about to make a total fool of herself. “How is it possible that you haven’t found some woman to love and adore you for the rest of your life?”
“I’m just weird.”
It was probably the oddest response she could have expected under the circumstances. Scraping a berry off the shortcake, she popped it into her mouth to give herself a moment to come up with a response. “Weird. Hmm. Can I just say that everyone is weird? I’m weird. So what? We’re all just different. Right? So why the big deal about it? Can’t we just say that you’re unique and I can still wonder why some woman hasn’t swept you off your feet?”
“I have secrets, Eleni.” His voice was suddenly quiet. Very quiet. “Our whole family has secrets.”
“Your father’s illegitimate child?” Eleni shook her head. “This isn’t the Victorian era, Orion. That happens. A lot. Plenty of people have brothers and sisters that weren’t born on the right side of the blanket. Don’t make a big deal about it. I know I certainly wouldn’t.”
“Gemini is only the tip of the iceberg,” Orion said drily.
That took a second to sink in. Then Eleni shook her head and stabbed a bite of key lime cheesecake because if she didn’t get one now she was never going to get any at all. “Wait a second. Your half brother is named Gemini?”
“Yes. The first borns in the King family are always given constellation names.”
“And his name is Gemini?”
Orion bobbed his head. Apparently he did not see this as significant in any way. “Gemini King. He’s a very interesting guy.”
“That’s not weird.” Focus. She had to go back to his original statement. “Tell me why you think you’re weird.”
“I’m grouchy.”
She waved her fork at him. “That’s not weird. It just makes you a grouch. Lots of chicks will still fall all over a guy who looks like you do. Male models get to be grouchy. It’s their prerogative.
“Sheesh!” Orion rolled his eyes. “I’m having to prove to you that I’m weird? What? Should I talk about how my thumbs are double jointed or something?”
“Sure. Try me!” she challenged with a laugh. “So far you’re just making me think that maybe you’re hiding something else.”
“I am.”
Her heart was beating. Maybe he was going to say that he’d been waiting his whole life for her! Like he had been in love with her for so long that he couldn’t even entertain the romantic interest of anyone else.
I am so ridiculous!
“Fine.” He glanced around as though he needed to make sure that everyone around them was busy and they were. In fact, the restaurant was so crowded that Eleni was surprised they could even hear each other speaking. Then Orion leaned over the table so far toward her that for a second she thought he was going to lay in the cheesecake. “I’m weird because I can turn into a wolf.”
Okay. That was... certainly not what she was expecting. Eleni did not have words. She couldn’t even begin to put together a single word response, let alone an entire sentence. Then she realized that he must be joking. “You know, when I challenged you to prove to me that you’re really weird, I wasn’t suggesting that you start making stuff up!”
“I’m not making this up.”
The shortcake in Eleni’s belly started
rolling around. She felt mildly ill. Setting her fork on the tabletop, she struggled to put her thoughts together. He was a wolf. No. He could turn into a wolf. She cleared her throat. “How exactly is that possible?”
“It just is. Call it a genetic anomaly. All of us King brothers are like that. It’s one of the things that our mother has always hated about our father. It’s one of the reasons that I know she killed him or at least had him killed.”
The implications of that statement were absolutely mind boggling. Eleni put both hands flat on the tabletop as she tried to process what he was telling her. “Are you saying that Big Mac King was some kind of werewolf?”
“Shifter, but yes.”
“And I don’t want to talk about all of the weird mythology surrounding that word.” Eleni waved her hands in front of her. She could not process anything else right now. “But I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that this nonsense comes with its own variety of increased strength, health, vitality, and that sort of thing. Right?”
“Exactly.” He tilted his head to one side and speared the last portion of key lime cheesecake. “You know, you’re taking this rather well.”
“I’m not.” She stabbed the chunk of key lime cheesecake so hard that she nearly stole half the last bite. “Do not even begin to mistake that! I think you’re absolutely insane. I’m beginning to think that you haven’t found a girl because you’re crazy, not weird.”
“That’s fair.”
“But your dad,” Eleni murmured. She was trying to wrap her mind around that. “The coroner didn’t know about his, ah, specialness, right?”
“No. It’s not something we tell anyone but those closest to us.”
“Obviously.” At the moment Eleni was almost wishing that Orion hadn’t told her anything at all. Now all she could think about was the fact that the King brothers had to sit there and listen to the whole city of Dallas talk about how their father was killed in a hunting accident all the while knowing that was utterly impossible. “Your mother is a real piece of work, Orion.”
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