by Amy Lane
“Good. Send Kyle with them—he doesn’t swing that way and they’ll keep their mind on business,” she said hopefully, then looked around at all of them. “You’re in the SUV so the vamps can ride home with you if they want. Arturo?”
The South-American elf flashed his silver-capped teeth in a responsive smile.
“The solar blankets are loaded in the back, right?”
“Absolutely, Lady Cory,” he said with a bow, and of all the strange things about that conversation, that was the one that discomfited her.
“Arturo…” she whined and he laughed evilly.
“You’re doing fine—I’ll go gas up the SUV, and don’t take too long kissing Bracken.”
She grinned, and Teague was starting to find the expression more than charming. It was, in fact, becoming completely enchanting, an amazing sunrise breaking across a plain dirt landscape, showing both strength and a remarkable beauty. “There’s no such thing as too long kissing Bracken,” she replied, and Arturo smiled in appreciation and then grew sober.
Teague sensed a look in his direction that she followed, and she nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” she murmured, “but I’m not Green.”
“Speaking of…” Arturo said meaningfully, and she snorted.
“Now that is one thing you don’t have remind me to do,” she replied dryly. And with that she placed an affectionate, passionate kiss on Nicky that he returned with interest, and she broke off from that breathlessly for another knee-melter with Bracken. Then she shooed them all out the door and started moving around the kitchen, calling over her shoulder until Teague realized she was talking to him.
“Sullivan…you’re Mr. Sullivan, right?”
Teague blinked, as though coming out of a dream, the reality of this strangely magnetic little person being in the same room with him actually penetrating the awful waiting misery of the past hour.
“Call me Teague,” he said, wishing he knew how to be gracious.
“Well how about last night’s meatloaf for dinner, ‘kay? It’s good.” She looked at him hopefully, and although he’d never felt less like eating in his life, he couldn’t find it in himself to argue with her.
“Sounds good,” he lied, and she laughed and called him on it.
“It sounds like fermented sewage with a booger-snot chaser,” she said with a gentle laugh. “It always does when I’m where you’re at. But you need to eat.”
Teague looked at her, surprised again. “Where I’m at?”
‘Lady Cory’ made little hand gestures and then pulled a plate out of the microwave which she put on a placemat and brought to him, talking the whole time. “Beloved in trouble? Fucking up the universe? Having your heart ripped into six-billion pieces every time the second-hand pops on the clock? “ She looked at him and nodded expectantly, until he nodded back, bemused. “You know—what you’re doing right now. Waiting for Green to help your beloved…”
“Partner,” he corrected automatically, and she shook her head and rolled her eyes, while handing him the plate gently, making sure none of his bare skin was touching the hot edges.
“Bullshit.” She looked him head on and dared him to square off with her.
To his surprise, Teague found himself tempted to back down, but he never went under easy.
“I like women,” he said obstinately, and to his surprise (she was constantly surprising him) she smiled a heavy-lidded, sexy woman’s smile. The real shocker was that she pulled it off—in that moment, she was every hot, sexy bombshell he’d ever sprung a boner for, except she had more class.
“So does Green,” she said throatily, and then she laughed—again, gently—when he blushed. “But I see you know that.”
Teague shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth in a transparent attempt not to answer. Suddenly, the surprising woman let out a purely female shriek of outrage.
“Renny, you bitch—could you at least take the fucking socks off!”
The cat at his feet changed into a girl again, gave a sheepish smile and a “Sorry, Cory,” before taking the wool socks off. She turned back into a cat again while holding the socks in her hand, and this time she kneaded them as she purred at his feet.
“Fuck,” said Cory, just looking at the cat and the socks. She stood up then and dashed out of the room, swearing the entire time. “Fuck, fuck fuck fuck bugger fuck shit damn cocksucking cuntwhore bitchkissing assreaming bugger bugger bugger fuck fuck fuck…”
Teague blinked, taking another bemused bite of food (the meatloaf really was wonderful) and watched as Cory returned with a quilted bag of knitting at her side. The swearing stopped abruptly, and the plain girl with the flat chest and the entire hill wrapped around her little finger looked up at him apologetically.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “It wouldn’t be so bad, but see,” she held up a completely finished sock in a rusty read and purple color, and a partial one that looked like it was wrestling with a Chinese throwing star, “I’m making like, her third pair. And that one she’s got in her paws and is making a hash out of? That one in mine and Adrian’s colors!” (Her voice rose a little on those last words.) “That pair is mine!”
Renny’s cat’s eyes shot open, and she got a good look at the purple, orange, and turquoise socks in her claws. She gave a startled ‘mreowr!’ dropped the socks, and shot off for parts unknown.
Cory bent down and picked up the much-abused socks, pushing her hands through them and looking for holes. Satisfied after a couple of moments, she folded them neatly and put them on her lap, then picked up the Chinese throwing star and started knitting with it.
Teague’s bemusement gave way to blank shock.
“Adrian?” He asked, looking at her with new eyes.
She looked away. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Adrian.” She turned back to him with a beautiful, heartbreaking smile. “See—I do know something about pain, right? Now eat.”
He took another bite and let her gain her composure back with the five metal sticks and the pretty, multi-color wool between her fingers. The colors were familiar and he looked at the walls and had another revelation.
“You’re the sorceress,” he murmured, “the one who went honeymooning with three men and couldn’t keep her orgasms in check.”
And now he had surprised her badly, because she actually dropped a stitch and spent the next few moments blushing and stammering and fixing the mistake. When she was done, she looked at him irritably. “And you’re the one breaking his heart over his ‘partner’ because he only likes women.”
He shoved another bite of food in his mouth and then spoke through it, because he had behaved badly and she was right. “Touche`.”
She rewarded him with another brilliant, heartbreaking smile. “So you knew Adrian?” She asked hopefully, and he flushed again.
“I…” he shook his head. He’d been so amazingly stupid back then. And he felt the urge to come clean in front of this surprising woman. “I thought I was saving his life,” he said lamely. And then it came out, the whole stupid story. A bunch of dumber-than-hammered-whale-shit kids had been out at Lake Clementine, and they’d thought they’d seen a wolf. The story had made the hunter bar in Auburn, and Teague, worried that the damned fool kids would go out and shoot themselves, told them he’d take care of it—and now, sitting in an elf’s living room with his beloved (and didn’t that word just seem to fit her more and more?) the shocking hubris of going to a place under Green’s aegis and trying to take over wounded his sensibilities like a crossbow wounded a sparrow.
“And there was Adrian, crouched by the lake—and, man, I’d seen vampires before, you know, the ones I usually saw had gone…you know…wild and…”
“Bloodlust,” she supplied gently, nodding. “The ones who weren’t treated right, after they died—they go insane. Those were the ones you saw.”
Oh, God—she knew. She knew who he was and what he’d done, and she forgave him. “Yeah,” he exhaled. “Yeah. And Adrian…he…damn, he actually breathed, in and ou
t, like a person…”
Cory laughed a little, but her eyes were bright. “He could blush,” she murmured. “After he fed…sometimes, just if he wasn’t hungry. He would blush.”
Teague looked at her, smiling at him brightly through pending tears, and felt his heart beat just a little stronger. “So he looked like some kid, crouching by the lake, and here came this big-assed Mexican dude with a knife, moving faster than human…”
“Why did Arturo have a knife?” She asked, drawn into a story that he hadn’t ever told anyone, not even Jack.
“Because they were out looking for the same thing I was—stupid kids or rabid wolves. But I saw Arturo, and I stepped in front of Adrian and caught that big fucking silver machete in my guts.” Teague shook his head. “It was bad. I think it was even…” this, thoughtfully, “I think it was even worse than Jacky, you know? But Green, he took me in and healed me, because as far as he was concerned…”
“You were protecting Adrian,” she finished, looking at him with shining eyes, like he was some sort of hero.
“I was a hunter…you know, not the good kind, right?” He couldn’t have her thinking good about him that wasn’t there. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair that she should think he was a good guy.
“Nah, baby,” she said with a smile and a kind pat to his knee. “You were a good guy—you were just working for the wrong side. I bet…I bet the minute you woke up, and Green looked you in the eyes…I’m betting you suddenly had a whole lot of better things to do than to hunt down poor virgin vampires or werewolves that got lost, didn’t you?”
“How does he do that?” Teague asked, almost to himself.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, “but he did it for me. He did it for Adrian…the three of us were…we were spe-fucking-tacular, you know? But me? Even Adrian too—we would have been nothing, if Green hadn’t seen the something in us.”
Teague looked at her again, his sight blearing with worry and loneliness that he’d had a pretty good hold on until that pat on his knee. With the sheen of tears in his eyes, her plain face, with it’s freckles and pointed nose and chin assumed an unearthly beauty that shipped his breath off somewhere to go find that fucking cat.
“Who are you?” He asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I’m Cory Kirkpatrick op Crocken Green,” she said, making his eyes cross with the length of her name. She grinned again. “Don’t even try—that’s not even all of it, either.”
“What do people call you?” He asked in wonder.
“Lady Cory,” said a crisp, maternal voice, and Teague looked up in time to see a rangy woman with freckles, curly red hair and an outstanding pair of incisors walking towards them. He recognized Grace, Green’s cook/housekeeper/den mother, and he was not surprised when she walked up to ‘Lady Cory’ with a plate of food.
“Cory,” Lady Cory corrected with a roll of her eyes.
Grace ignored her. “Let me guess—she dished you up a complete plate, but didn’t eat a damned thing, did she?”
“Right,” said Teague, smiling as Lady Cory stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m not hungry,” she said back, smiling winningly, and Grace rolled her eyes.
“She’s never hungry when the boys are gone—any one of them. But if you don’t eat, darling, there will be nothing left of you when they get back, so here.” And then Lady Cory, who wrought miracles like Teague’s laughter and peace of mind with a few stitches on her Chinese-throwing-star of a sock, sat in chastened silence and ate her meatloaf like an obedient child.
Teague must have dozed off then for a while in the corner of the couch. When he woke up, the rainy gray light coming in through the wraparound window was gone. There was a rustle of people through the living room, and then someone ran up the granite steps in the back of the living room (another new addition since Teague’s last visit) and when he looked to the love seat, Lady Cory was there, blinking groggily over a textbook, her knitting sitting neglected in her lap. She caught his gaze in mid-yawn, laughed self-consciously, and pointed to the granite staircase.
“Your wolf’s back,” she said softly. “The pack brought Katy in a few minutes ago—she’s a bit shook, but she seems to be fine. Marcus took her to the grove. It’s soothing when the vampires feed from them—makes them feel protected, you know? So Marcus is going to have a snack, and Katy is going to nap in the Goddess Grove, and in the morning, Green will have some time with her and hopefully, we’ll all live, you think?”
Teague blinked trying to process all of that, but the only word that could come out of his mouth was, “Jacky?”
Her face went blank for a moment, and a brief woman’s smile quirked at her full lips. “He’ll be fine, Teague,” she said after a pause. “But you of all people should know, we can’t rush Green when he’s doing this, right?”
Teague nodded. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely should not rush the god currently fucking Jacky silly, because then Jacky might not realize what a total loser Teague was and all of the reasons he had to not hang with an old bastard who couldn’t tell the person he loved any of the things that he deserved to know.
“So, what are you going to do, now that Jack’s a werewolf?” Cory asked now. She dragged a hand through her riotous hair, wrecking her ponytail and exposing lines of tiny earrings up the curve or each ear. “I mean—he will be, as soon as the moon’s full, and then pretty much anytime he wants after that. It’s not something the two of you planned—most of our wolves and weres are here by choice, you know? He may want to stay here—at least until after Christmas and the next full moon.”
The thought of going back to their little apartment without Jack made the meatloaf congeal in Teague’s stomach. Don’t leave me, Teague. Don’t push me away for a future I don’t want.
Teague’s vision went in and out again, replaced by the smell of Jacky’s skin as Teague lay in his arms that morning.
“Will Katy be all right, after the vampire’s done with her?” He asked groggily, and Cory’s glance seemed to understand what he was asking.
“She will. You didn’t answer my question,” she said softly.
“I’d follow him anywhere,” Teague replied, his heart and soul naked in the words.
Her hug was unexpected, but her kiss on his temple felt like a blessing. “Of course you would,” she whispered. She sat down again and opened her textbook. “Now do you know anything about math, because if we’re going to sit out here and wait any longer, I’ve got a statistics class to study for.”
He knew nothing about math, but Cory was amusing company—if nothing else, she taught him some new swear words while scuffling with her homework, and that in itself was entertaining. Now he knew Jack would be all right, he could afford to smile at her, to be company for her, to not sink so completely into misery and fear that he lost all personality in front of this fascinating, terrifying person.
About an hour after his nap, her face went blank again, and then she got a look of annoyance. “If you’re both going to be in my head at the same time, for crap’s sake take turns,” she said shortly, and then the annoyance was replaced with a soft dreaminess that made Teague’s eyes widen. And then the dreaminess was replaced with the demeanor of a general, taking a report.
She looked up then, smiling at him as though she had never stopped talking about statistics. “Okay—when Marcus comes down the stairs, Katy will be ready to see you—she wants to apologize, if that’s okay.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It is for her.” Cory looked very seriously into his eyes then, and he bowed his head to the order that he’d been given. “Good. And Green has…” she blushed, “Not too much longer—if you’re going to talk to Katy, it might as well be now.”
Teague blinked and stood up, wondering why it felt like he should bow. “Uhm,” he stammered, blushing, and she looked up at him, her expression as open and sunny as the college student he’d assumed she was when she’d first walked into Green’s home.
She stood up with him and threw her arms around him, fitting into his embrace like a lover, but he knew without a doubt that she was too, too bright for the likes of Teague Sullivan. “You’re going to be all right, Teague,” she murmured. “Jacky’s going to be fine, and you…you’re going to follow him.” She backed up then and grabbed his hand, giving him just enough time for him to grab his jacket off the couch.
She hauled him through the hallway, and then took a left away from the vampire darkling and then another left, and stopped in front of a door with a quilted hanging in front of it showing two wolves, howling at the moon.
“Here—this is your guest room. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like—and we’re hoping you’ll stay at least until the moon after Christmas, okay? Green asked for some stuff—clothes and things—to be brought over from your apartment, and he probably bought some for you too—he likes doing that. Now you remember where this is?”
Teague nodded dumbly, and she grabbed his hand again and hauled him back (right and right, he remembered) and then shoved him towards the granite staircase, where a vampire about his height, with dark hair and limpid eyes, was just coming down. Markus shook his hand with a cool, strong grip, and gestured him up, and Teague found himself stumbling into the cool mist of the crown of Green’s Hill.
Teague
In the Goddess Grove
The crown of Green’s hill used to be the same scrub oak/lower elevation pine that was prevalent around Placer County and Forresthill. Sometime in the last two years, all of that had changed.
Now it was a grove of trees—oak trees, lime trees and rose trees without thorns, growing together, sinuously intertwined, the shapes of the boles and the trunks and the branches startlingly like human bodies—the oak tree always female, and the rose and the lime always male. There was a soft, ambient light from fuck-all-knew, and it permeated the grove with a misty sort of romance.
Teague stopped as he emerged from the trap door and blinked. Jacky, you will never believe this, but there is a fucking erotic Pan’s Labyrinth up here—all it needs is the squishy music and a dreamy woman in a white dress.