by Flynn Eire
“If you contact a few leaders of the East Coast female warrior camp, you will find some who agree with your worries exactly,” Mom confessed, London holding out his hands as if to say I rest my case. “Call in whoever you feel should hear this; as long as I and Gary are protected, I will speak with whomever to give the first-hand account.”
And while everyone jumped to handle it or call friends and allies they had, part of my heart died at the loss of everything and danger this would put my mother in.
She took my hand and led me into the cafeteria, the middle of lunch going on now that the meeting hadn’t taken all that long. She smiled at me as she twirled under my arm, probably feeling too much tension in the large room, as she always got goofy when too many bad emotions overwhelmed her. “It’s time, darling.”
“We’re not doing that here, Mom,” I chuckled, knowing what she meant.
“Oh Lynx, where is the music controls?” she purred, letting go of my hand. “My naughty son won’t help his mother have fun.”
“Fine, fine, you have it?” I asked, holding out my hand to her. She nodded and pulled out her iPod from her pants pocket, never leaving home without music. I took it and her hand again, pulling her over to the small music player that hooked into the cafeteria speakers that a microphone and other stuff could be plugged into.
This time I plugged in her iPod without even asking, more worried about what was going on with her than the trouble I could maybe get into.
“Na na na na na na na,” I sang as Pink’s “So What” started up. My mom took the first lines, having a beautiful voice, as everything about her was too perfect.
When the song picked up, we were ready, shaking our butts and dancing as if we were the only ones there. I burst out laughing as she linked arms with me as if to flip me over her back when she leaned over her, way bigger than her now. I shook my head, and she caught on, falling into peels of giggles. She nodded for me to try, and I actually did a pretty good job of trading places in how it normally went.
When she spun off and linked arms with Evan, who was waiting for his mate to make calls, he simply chuckled and danced with her. My mother had that kind of gift—she could infect people with her happy. I did the same with Lynx, who couldn’t stop laughing at us crazy people.
“Okay, no more dancing around the worry, time to embrace it,” she declared as she jogged over to the iPod when the song finished.
I rolled my eyes when Nickleback’s “This Means War” started. She let down her hair from her bun and started head banging while holding her hand up in the “rock out” gesture. I shook my head and bounced over to her, joining in her crazy. The best was when I hopped around next, I saw half the cafeteria doing the same, all the pre- and post-trans needing the break in the tension and having no problem being goofy.
When that song finished, she shut off the music and focused on Matteo. “That’s how you don’t get overwhelmed by it all. You might have the power to see it all, for it to affect you, but never forget you also have the power to affect it too. How have the auras changed in the room? How much lighter do you feel now because of something so silly as a few dances?”
“It’s more visually distracting for me than how I feel,” he confessed.
“Ahh, for me I can get practically drunk on too many emotions that all are the same and deep. When it’s back and forth or just too many, I feel a bit like a pinball after going through the machine.”
“I would think happy is a deep emotion,” Matteo muttered, studying her. “No? The colors are vibrant.”
“Yes, but I think of emotions as a well. Happy tends to come to the top, and we can all see it along with those of us who can feel it. It’s rage and fear and grief that drag us and the well down and can overwhelm us. I’ve never heard someone say they were overwhelmed by happy. Love, sure. Not so much happy or joy.”
“Makes sense,” he conceded.
“How are you feeling, darling?” she asked, focusing back on me. “You were supposed to not be doing much of anything, and I have you dancing around like a loon.”
“A few quick songs to perk us up was exactly what we both needed,” I assured her as I led her over to the trays. We both loaded up on so much food that we got several comments as to where—my mother especially—we were putting it all.
“I’m a growing woman with a lot more massages to give still today.”
That and she had been underfed with blood for a while, much longer than I had done to myself, and still going as hard as she normally did. I found myself pushing more food to her plate and fussing over her while she tried to do the same to me.
Lunch ended, and I think Lynx knew something was up with me because he made sure Mom headed off with Dimitri—who she was giving a massage to next—while we left for the warrior dorm. I said it was to get my room ready for her to stay in, but he knew it was more than that since I’d already said my sheets had just been washed and I had other post-trans just clean it.
“Wanna talk?” he asked me quietly when we were walking outside to the dorm.
“I’m scared,” I confessed. “I mean really scared, like as scared as I was when the attack was happening. My mom is everything to me, Lynx. If this backfires or they can’t protect her because, well, Councilman Ashton apparently already has a huge target on him and lots of enemies, so could she get those enemies by association? Can they cover him and her? Let’s be honest, they’ll cover him first because he’s important and she’s not to others—”
“Shit, I knew you were about to blow, but that’s heavy,” he muttered, moving his arm around my shoulders. I found the gesture comforting and sighed. “Guard details split if there’s more than one person to worry about, so even if something happened, they’re not all going to jump in front of Ashton and leave your mom on her own. We know how to handle that because councilmembers are rarely just by themselves when we guard them.”
“Right, yeah, okay. Sorry, my mind just went boom the moment we were away from everyone. I mean, how horrible of a son am I that I didn’t know this was all going on with the coven leader even before I came here. Sure, he stopped by the apartment, and I thought he was slimy, but it made sense that a coven leader would check on his people that didn’t live at the estate, right? Like a boss who does quarterly evals. I’ve sat down with Alexander—”
“You’re spiraling.” He opened the door for us, and I went in first, pulling out the keys to my room. “Yes, I’ve heard of good coven leaders doing exactly what you were just saying. They should check in with their people, and stopping by homes would be a good way to see with their own eyes that things are fine. When I was a kid, our coven leader would do that at the start of harvest to see who might need help and who could.”
“I know nothing about your childhood or where you’re from,” I admitted.
“Another conversation for another time,” he chuckled easily. “Now, you’re not a bad son, Gary. You might be the most adorable mother and son combo I’ve ever seen. Drake’s got a great relationship with his parents, and they’re so damn cute I laugh when I see him in the lounge on Skype calls with them. But you adore her. You’re a good son.”
“Okay,” I rasped, that worry lifting off my shoulders at least. I wasn’t sure how he could simply declare it and I would listen, but it worked, and I obviously needed it. I unlocked the door and let him in my room, realizing it was the first time he was. I was almost more nervous about that than my mom would see it later.
“Not much here,” he muttered. “I forgot how small the pre-trans rooms are. It seems like eons ago that I was one.” He gestured around to the spotless room. “Anything I can do?”
“No, but I think I’m going to crash. I—I need to digest all this, I think.”
“Okay, well, let’s go nap in my room so we can both fit on the bed.”
“I’m okay.” He frowned at me, and I blinked up at him. “I’m sure you’ve got lots to do, Lynx, and I know you said I was your, um, person, but you don’t have to be the
re all the time to—”
“Lover. I said you were my lover, and I will love on you when things settle down, but for now, you were dealt a big blow, so as a lover should, I’m going to hold you while you digest. What I have to do will keep.” He smiled at me, and I couldn’t get over the change in his attitude from player to boyfriend basically. I think he knew what I was thinking and shrugged. “It’s you. Something about you just makes this feel so natural.”
“Okay, not going to shoot a gift horse in the mouth.” He walked out first, and I locked up. “That’s a really stupid saying. What the hell is a gift horse? And what does its mouth have to do with anything?”
“You are so fucking adorable,” he chuckled as his arm moved around my shoulders again. “So fucking adorable.”
We snuggled down to nap, and he was a perfect gentleman… But when I woke and something massive was poking me from behind, fun sounded as good as sleep. I squirmed around a bit, his arm like a steel band keeping me against him.
“You keep waking him up, and he won’t be nice about being teased,” Lynx mumbled behind me, his voice heavy with sleep.
“Let me turn over,” I sighed, pouting that I was caught before I got to do anything good. His arm loosened enough for it, and I did flip over, his curious gaze playing at being sleepy not fooling me. He was up now, wondering what I’d do.
So I tried not to disappoint, sliding my hand into his shorts and stroking him. He growled and pulled me closer, making the angle a bit awkward, but he fixed that by thrusting against my hand.
“I had planned on being a gentleman.”
“Then you should return the favor?” I asked, yeah, more asked than stated.
He moved onto his knee and dragged me under him as he pulled down the front of both of our shorts. I watched in awe as he grabbed both our cocks and started jerking them off pressed together and leaking. Ignoring the size difference, it was a new sight for me and one I seemed fascinated with.
“I want to come on you, Gary,” he growled, kissing all over my neck and blocking my view of what he was doing, as his pecs weren’t easy to see around. “Want to smell like me, lover? Want my spunk all over you?”
“Okay,” I panted, about ready to agree to anything I was so wound up at what he was doing and the way he talked. I got close too fast and started pushing at his chest, completely mortified.
But he simply moved his hand faster, nuzzling my neck. “I love how sensitive you are to my touch, Gary.”
It was the exact right thing to say, and I came so hard I thought my head might pop off. I bellowed his name, which he swallowed down by kissing me, and came.
Then came some more.
And then kept coming until it almost started to hurt.
Finally, it did start to ache and become too tender, and I had to pull my mouth away from his lips so I could tell him to stop.
He blinked down at me and grunted, finishing all over my naked stomach and chest. He sat back on his feet when he was done, staring at me in a way I didn’t get and made me a bit uncomfortable.
“Never in all my years have I come so hard off a hand job,” he finally explained, seeming a bit shocked. “You kept twitching against mine, and it was like I got mini orgasms from it. I couldn’t stop. I wanted more. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it just gets really sensitive after going more than once,” I muttered, glad he liked it but embarrassed as well at how different I was. I mean, he basically said that when trying to tell me why he was acting weird. Fine, it was a good kind of different to him but still weird.
I think he realized that, because he jumped off me and found some paper towels to clean me off, shooting me odd gazes the whole time. “So it’s dinnertime, so we should go so your mom doesn’t worry so.”
That’s a lot of “so’s,” and I’m not sure they all worked. I nodded, though, taking the paper towels from him and finishing the cleaning as he pulled up the front of his shorts. I did the same as he reached for the door, not sure why he was in that much of a hurry.
I was already a ball of nerves as we arrived at the main building and headed to the cafeteria, the last thing that was best for my heart was my mother staring down a woman who had an air about her that screamed important. I didn’t need more than one guess to put it together that it was London Aberdeen’s mother, Councilwoman Aberdeen.
Awesome. Just awesome. In what world could she just drop everything and get here by dinner from Seattle?
“I feel like I’m walking into a cat fight, and I hate that term, as it’s demeaning to women and cats, but seriously, that’s the air here,” Helios grumbled as he breezed past us. The only thing the women agreed on was they didn’t want the Wyrok too close to them, as they were instantly on guard.
I hurried over to Mom, not much good against Helios, but to remind her I trusted him and there was no reason to be so worried about him.
“It has been requested that your interview be recorded and under Helios’s power,” Councilman Ashton told Mom as he approached, noting London’s mom with a nod.
“It is a very grave accusation,” Councilwoman Aberdeen agreed.
Mom simply blinked between them both and waited for more, much to their dismay. After a few not so funny minutes, she finally sighed. “I don’t know what you’re looking for here, and you are both a mess of emotions, so I still can’t guess. Do you need my permission? I doubt that. I would like to know what this gift is, but I also feel like you’re waiting for me to acknowledge what the horrible excuse for a woman said. I mean, no shit is what I’m feeling but sounds rude—”
“‘Horrible excuse for a woman’ isn’t?” Councilwoman Aberdeen drawled.
“—but I’m also wondering if you’re waiting for me to confess it was all shit? I mean, do people do that when you warn them it’s ‘a grave accusation?’ Or is that the warning I’m in deep shit the moment I go on the record? Yeah, I got that. I can’t ever return to my home coven, Gary’s in danger if not kept out of the East Coast warriors, and well, I kinda want this new idea of traveling massage therapist for the warriors, so yeah, I get this is serious.”
London slid in front of his mother’s view… And in front of Mom to block her, much to his mother’s dismay. “You heard me say I needed to see you, and as it’s the first time we spoke since you were here last, you didn’t let me finish the explanation and got on a plane. I understand this is shocking to learn, but you only got the quick version, as I know you prefer to hear things from the source. She is the source.”
Okay, that explained a little bit more of the hostility. Councilwoman Aberdeen had been hoping to make up with London who even I knew she was fighting with.
“When you stand in front of people, protecting them from me, you clearly say you’re on their side and against me,” his mother fumed.
London swallowed deeply and took in a slow breath, looking as if he wasn’t used to going up against his mother, or not since he was an adult? It was interesting to see as an outsider and mostly because I couldn’t ever imagine being on the other side of Mom on anything.
“I could see how you would see it as that, but I actually do it so you can see me and I see you but no one else you might be upset with. It also puts me in harm’s way first, as you are my mother, but you are a councilwoman first and—”
“Why? Why is she councilwoman first?” Mom bitched, telling everyone exactly her problem. “You are a mother. You bore a child. You agreed to take care of that person as they need you no matter their age. If you couldn’t handle both responsibilities—as other women can, and not doing it makes us all bad—then you give up the job. You don’t—”
“Yes, so easy for you to judge as you give massages,” Councilwoman Aberdeen drawled, complete with eye roll, and I felt my hackles raise.
“I’m an empath,” Mom snapped, moving London aside. “It’s more complicated than that, you know it. I have degrees and training to give my massages. I’ve rehabbed professional athletes, so don’t act like your work is so imp
ortant I wouldn’t understand juggling. I’m a single mother, and I don’t have the money for nannies and tutors, so I did it all. And all with a shit coven leader and blending with humans to stay off his radar.
“It’s like me saying all council members do is fight because the laws haven’t changed in decades and decades, so what do they really do but judge? But I know it’s more complicated than that, and I haven’t walked in your shoes. So I judge as a mother and a woman because I can’t as a council member. Your son says you are a magnificent councilwoman, and good for you.
“But you failed him as a mother, and he deserves an apology for that, not to hurt as he does. Not to feel shame when he lays eyes on you because he isn’t what you wanted. He’s a wonderful boy with a huge heart. I can feel it. I feel it all. And as a woman, I get to be pissed you make us look bad as women that we can’t do both job and family.”
“You’ve made your point,” she cut in when Mom seemed to gear up into another round. “I apologize for demeaning your profession.” London was doing as I was and watching them like a tennis match. She stepped closer into Mom, and I found myself inching towards Mom as London looked as if he would step between them, not really choosing sides. “But do not presume to know my circumstances either. I was a single mother as well.”
“Fine, as long as you admit for him to hear it was you not him, as I can feel from him how you’ve said it was him before.”
“It was me,” she snarled. “Are you happy? I failed him as a mother. I’m a horrible mother. Can we get to the business at hand now? I thought I was coming for him, and I’m not, and here he’s such a favorite of yours already I’ve been replaced. So enough with the floor show and personal if I’m being called here as a councilwoman.”
“Onto business then,” Mom agreed, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who let out a heavy—albeit relieved—breath. She glanced at me. “What is his gift? Have you seen it or been party to it?”