by Amy Lane
They hovered for a moment over the giant blood and entrails spot that had been Ames, the insane werewolf, but Teague’s hyper-dog hearing caught Cory’s chattering teeth and irritation as she sputtered, “I’m…too…damned…cold…asshole. You…get…it. Serve you…r..r..r..r..right…”
Marcus, who had Teague up close to his cold, clammy body swore loud enough for Teague to hear. “She’s right,” he murmured. “We forget sometimes that she’s mortal, you know?”
Teague nodded—he was starting to shiver himself. Poor kid, he thought, looking at her, small and fragile enough to be cradled in Phillip’s arms, her lips and fingers tingeing blue in the chill wind as Phillip zipped over the trees and to the parking lot. Then he remembered the cool way she’d assessed Ames the insane werewolf and drawn her gun, her quick thinking as she tackled a grown man and shoved him into a river to save his life—or at least save him some pain-- and the way she’d competently planned the whole run from start to finish.
Poor kid indeed, he almost chuckled, but then Phillip set her down next to the car and Bracken started stripping her wet clothes off, and Marcus set him down too and without waiting to see if Teague’s stiff fingers could manage started doing the same for him.
“Aaahhh!” Teague protested when Marcus went for the fly of his jeans, but Marcus batted his hands away.
“Don’t get any ideas, werewolf,” he muttered. “The quicker we get you out of your clothes, the quicker you get the warm and dry ones Nicky’s getting out of the car.”
Teague looked over and saw that Nicky, indeed, had already landed, changed human, and was fishing a bunch of loudly colored green and yellow Sac State sweats from the back of the SUV and that Max had already started the car and was revving the heater. The fact that both men were laughing hysterically as they did their jobs didn’t stop them from being efficient.
“Oh…sh…sh…sh…” Cory tried, as Bracken stripped off her pea coat and literally ripped her sweatshirt and jeans off her body.
“Shut up?” Nicky supplied with a grin, and the look she sent him spoke volumes.
Teague got a glimpse of bony hips and breasts that had just barely started to gain a little weight under a light cotton bra before Marcus gave his tighty-whitey’s a haul down and Teague gave another girl-squeal in protest.
“For Christ’s sake, asshole, I’m not a five-year old!” For the love of little green fucking apples, he was mortally tired of being naked in public.
“Jesus, werewolf,” Marcus said, helping Teague impersonally into a truly heinous pair of yellow sweats, “did someone play tic-tac-toe on your ass with a switchblade?”
Something about Marcus’ bald-assed question seemed to flip a switch in Teague’s head. Yeah. He was naked. So was the skinny, flat-chested, wide-hipped little girl who had just led a military op with cold precision. He was just about to say ‘Yeah, so the fuck what?’ when Cory, reading his mood with surprising accuracy, snapped, “Marcus are you gonna come over here and talk about my scars? Jesus, leave him alone!”
Teague looked over again in time to see her putting her arms obediently into an ugly green hooded sweatshirt for the brooding presence who had hovered over her from the moment she’d landed. This time he saw that the front her shoulder looked like it had been blasted by a hand-grenade, and there was an ugly rip of scar tissue across her stomach. He felt his jaw drop, and he continued staring at her even as Marcus finished dressing him and shuttled him into the middle seat of the SUV.
“Phillip and I are going to take care of the body and fly home,” Marcus told him quietly, shaking out the water from his trench coat. “It was good working with you, wolf-man—nice job.”
Teague blinked. “Yeah,” he said, “you too.”
“She got those scars serving us, you know—and more you can’t see,” Marcus added, looking Teague in the eye, and Teague’s heart was so naked by now that he couldn’t prevaricate or lie or even throw up his usual bravado.
“I got mine being a punching bag as a kid.”
Marcus nodded. “I used to be a high school teacher, wolf-man. I know what those kids usually grow up to be. You must be something special to end up with us.”
And with that, he walked over to Lady Cory and bent down on one knee, even as Bracken was drying off her hair with a towel—another ubiquitous Sac State piece of merchandise, this one white with a big fat bee on it. Teague heard him apologize sincerely, and Phillip, who had given up trying to help her out since Bracken was there in full protective force, joined him.
Cory shook her head in disgust. “Morons,” she muttered, but it was affectionate. “Would you get off the fucking ground already…” a smile tilted her blue-tinged lips and a laugh shook her chest. “We were pretty fucking hilarious, weren’t we?”
The two vampires looked up, and Teague couldn’t see their expressions, but he could tell by the way she grinned at them, teeth chattering, body shivering and all, that they must have been grinning back.
“Be safe,” she told them, “Get home by dawn.” Without even bothering to stand, both men lifted into the sky and then stretched their bodies, aiming for the other side of the tree line and the horrible carcass left on the bike path. This time too, she watched them in the sky with a wide-open face and a delighted smile.
Bracken didn’t give her much more time to sky-watch after that. He grabbed a fleece blanket from the back, slammed the door shut and then shoved her into the back row of the warm car before getting in after her. Nicky was going to get into the way back with her, but Teague saw her touch his hand and offer her face up for a kiss.
“You may want to keep Max company,” she murmured, and Nicky didn’t take it personally. Teague wondered how long it had taken him to read the cues for when she wanted to be with Bracken or Green without him, and the thought crossed his mind that he and Jacky could be together alone sometimes after all.
He missed Jacky. They’d been sharing a room and a bed for a week, and he still missed him. He would have wanted to see him laugh at the werewolf and the sorceress, floundering around in the river, or see if he, like Cory, would lift her eyes to a night sky to watch vampires fly.
“Ow!” Cory protested, and Teague looked back to watch Bracken finger her jaw with careful fingers.
“Aw, shit,” he said sincerely over the back of the seat, “I’m so fucking sorry!” He’d connected with her hard, and she looked at him with a smile.
“I guess I could have handled that better,” she smiled ruefully and he shook his head.
“All my fault,” he denied. “I can’t quite think about myself as a werewolf yet.”
She nodded. “It takes a while, even when you don’t have a while.” She sounded like she knew, and he suddenly wondered if, in the midst of all of that tight high school gossip, there wasn’t someone who could tell him “Lady Cory stories”.
She brightened. “But you do think of yourself as one of ours—that’s a start!”
He flushed. She must have heard him then—someone must have heard him. We’re Green’s people.
Well shit. He’d been naked all day—he might as well make it count.
“Just so you know, Lady Cory, I’d follow you into hell. I hope I’m good enough to be yours.”
The look on her face was suddenly so vulnerable he strangled on anything he’d been going to say next.
“Teague Sullivan, we’d take you any day and twice on Sunday,” she said gruffly, and then, as though she couldn’t bear it anymore, she called, “Nicky, sweetheart, could you turn this song up for me?”
It wasn’t a headbanger—it was the Eels, something melancholy with a long, complicated title, but what it boiled down to was the chorus. I can finally admit that I broke your heart.
Teague swallowed and risked a glance in the back of the car again. The two of them were ignoring all seatbelt laws, and she was practically lying in Bracken’s lap. He was holding his hand to her face and rubbing his thumb through the glittery tear-track down her cheek. She was smiling g
amely up into his eyes and murmuring something private and Teague had to look away. Abruptly, with so much force he almost doubled over with the cramping in his chest, he wanted Jacky, sitting next to him, talking, saying something snarky, saying anything.
Holding his hand and telling him that what they could be together was worth all of the bullshit Teague had put him through.
Anything.
Teague leaned his head against the window and watched the streetlamps pass him by in the dark of highway 80, watched as it started to rain again, and prepared himself for another hour in the car while he wished for his friend and partner. Wished for his lover. Wished for home.
Jacky
Naked
By the time Teague got back, Jack had fallen asleep in bed, chest bare, propped up on pillows, reading. When he realized that Teague had come in, pulled up the covers, turned out the light and was in the shower, he felt absurdly naked, as though he’d been spied upon doing something private.
With a swallow, he knew how Teague must have felt knowing Jack had been awake while he poured his heart out.
He sat up in bed and turned on the light, fixing his book on the end-table and shaking himself awake, the relief at knowing Teague was home safe seeping in at small increments. He’s back. He’s safe.
With a start, Jack patted the space on the bed next to him. Katy had lain there for a little while, talking, telling him about werewolves and mating and anything else he cared to know. Her presence wasn’t quite as vital, as immediate as his need for Teague, but it had been nice—wonderful in fact. Sitting up in bed now and stretching, he had to wonder what it was about Teague, difficult, irascible, damaged Teague that made the man such an irreplaceable part of life for not only Jack, but Katy too.
Then Teague came out of the shower in a pair of sleep-shorts and a cream-colored sweatshirt with the arms and neck cut away, and Jack’s breath caught in his chest. Ask the question later, enjoy the look of him now.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Teague murmured gruffly. “I was coming right to bed.”
Jack squinted in the light. “What’d you do to your face?” There were red blotches on his left cheek, forehead, and chin, as though he’d been burned. His eye was red and irritated and he kept blinking it as it teared up.
Teague shrugged, a smile quirking at his lips. “I forgot I was a werewolf—you know, we’ve got to remember we’re allergic to silver-tainted blood now.”
Jack shook his head, a little angry at how casually Teague dismissed his own safety. “So you got spattered with blood? What in the hell were all those other people for if you’re the one who was eyeball deep in blood?”
Teague blinked and scowled. “Oh trust me, Jacky, we all had our parts to play.” With a little hop, he threw himself across the bed, resting his head on his arms about a foot below Jack’s chest. He regarded Jack solemnly until Jack blinked and reached out a tentative hand, touched the reddened skin on Teague’s cheek. Teague closed his eyes and leaned into the touch a little, his lean mouth curving up into a smile.
“Katy was here,” he murmured, scenting her on the quilt.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Jack kept up his touching, wondering how a guy who was about to become a werewolf could remind him so much of a feral cat, barely trusting the outstretched finger to stroke it. “I like her, Teague. I do.”
Teague opened his good eye. “She needs cherishing, Jacky. She’s had it rough—I like her too. Can we love her? We don’t do this unless we can love her.”
Jack’s mouth quirked up. “You all already do.”
Teague closed his eye and captured Jack’s hand against his cheek. “Cory has three lovers—husbands, I guess. They’ve got rings.”
Jack nodded. “I noticed.”
“She doesn’t love Nicky likes she loves Green and Bracken. He knows it, it’s not personal. I don’t know how that happened.”
Jack didn’t know where he was going with this. “It was involuntary—something about how the Avians bonded and some sort of power-wash. I think you’ve got to ask the folks who were there—sometime when he’s not around.”
Teague nodded. “I…I don’t think it would be that way with Katy. She’d be…personal. Ours. But…” he looked at Jack, his face scrunching up as he tried hard to put words to something ineffable. “I loved you at first sight, Jacky. I didn’t come to love you, or try to love you. I just saw you and thought ‘If I don’t have his back, he’ll get hurt’ and everything after that was me, trying not to let you get hurt. You just need to know that. We hang out with Katy, we treat her like a queen, like the light of our lives, and we see what comes. But you needed to know that other thing.”
Jack’s hand grew suddenly clammy and his breath literally stopped. Teague’s dark hazel eyes were serious, searching inside his own heart for something, and then he shrugged and smiled his usual fuck-me grin.
“So you want to hear how it went down?”
Jack was surprised to find that he did.
Teague got to the part where the vampires had to fish him and Cory out of the river and Jack gave a low whistle. “Man, she’s tough isn’t she?”
Teague nodded, and looked sheepish. “I clocked her on the jaw—I’m sure Green will heal it, but…”
At that moment there was a knock on the door. Teague jumped up and answered it, and Green himself stood there, tall, blond, and beautiful.
“Mmm…Cory was right—you were hurt,” he murmured, and Teague shrugged.
“It’ll heal by tomorrow…” but Green’s hand was already on his face, and Teague sighed and shivered.
“Or not,” Green finished, and bent and gave him a kiss on the brow that not even Jack could be jealous of. “Cory says you do good work,” Green looked over at Jack and smiled that amazing, kind, strong, warm smile, “and says maybe Jacky will want to come along next time?”
Teague shrugged a little, uncomfortably. “I… I worry,” he said baldly, and Jack closed his eyes. Of course. Of course Teague would worry. But Jack wouldn’t have that argument, not here, not in front of Green.
“As do I,” Green conceded, “but so far, mortal as she is, she’s come back every time.” He gave a little nod then and turned and left, and Teague shut the door after him thoughtfully. Jack was pleased to see that the redness had cleared up, but his eyes were troubled as he came back to almost the exact same place on the bed he had just been.
“I don’t know how he does it,” Teague murmured. “He sends her out, and it’s not because he doesn’t care, because I think it would kill him if she didn’t come back…” his voice stumbled, fell away, and he looked up from his crossed arms and rolled over on his side, propping his head up in his hand.
“I’ll think about it,” he said after a moment. “I still think you should go back to school but…”
Jack rolled over and slid down in the bed, assuming the same position until they were eye-level. “But what?” he asked softly.
“But I missed you, asshole,” Teague murmured. He shivered, and Jack ran his outside hand up and down Teague’s bare arms, trying to warm him up.
“I’ve missed you all week, you dumb motherfucker. But I was here when you got back.”
Teague smiled—not his fuck-me grin, but a soft, almost sleepy sort of bedroom-eyed smile, and Jack leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. Teague returned the kiss, and for a few moments Jack let himself drown in those kisses. They weren’t girl’s kisses—they were hard, and Teague’s taste was hard and sharp, and his hands and arms were tight and muscular and all in all, it was an opium dream, just to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.
Jack broke the kiss first and went to push his hands under Teague’s sweatshirt, and to his surprise, Teague backed away, his hand over the hem of the shirt, blushing furiously. With several awkward movements that pretty much took over the whole bed and changed the moment completely, he turned off the light and jumped up to the pillow so he could slide under the covers, wrapping them up tightly around his body. He lay there,
enormous dark eyes peering out at Jack, his head on the pillow, and this time his smile was not anything close to sincere.
Jack blinked in the dark, completely baffled. “What in the hell are you doing?”
Teague’s expression turned pained. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Jacky, but I’m really tired of being naked today. Maybe we could just go to sleep tonight, you think?”
Jack blinked again, and scooted under the covers until his bare legs tangled with Teague’s, the cut-off sweats against his skin an unwelcome reminder that something was wrong. “Fine,” he murmured, and bent his head to kiss again. Teague returned the kiss as though he couldn’t help himself, and Jack thought he might be on to something. They kissed some more, like teenagers in the dark, until Jack’s hands moved to the hem of the shirt again.
This time when Teague protested, Jack murmured, “Every night for a year and a half, you’ve been sleeping in your underwear. You’re going to stop now?”
Teague whimpered, but Jack persisted, his hands moving across the warm plane of Teague’s stomach and then smoothing over his chest. He hit the first of Teague’s raised scars and Teague shifted away. Jack pulled back from the kiss and murmured, “Is that it? I’ve seen the scars before, Teague…it’s not like I didn’t know what your body looked like before we touched.”
Teague let out a low groan of frustration. “Oh Christ, do we have to do this tonight?” He made to roll away but Jack stopped him.
“Yes, we have to do this tonight. I’m tired of not touching you, Teague! What, you figured you’d just fuck me blind and you’d never have to risk yourself?”
“I’m damaged,” Teague hissed. “Is that what you wanted to see? To feel? That I’m fucked up and twisted and…”
“Beautiful!” Jack argued, not wanting to watch Teague’s eyes glint in the dark anymore.