by Amy Lane
She looked up at him and smiled just enough for him to know it hurt. Teague had kissed her on the temple as he’d left. She remembered that much. Don’t give up on me, Katy. I’ll make it worth it.
“I can’t give up on him. There’s too much promise of good, you know? It… I know he loves me. I know he loves us. It hurts that he thinks we can’t love him back. It hurts…”
“That he wants to apologize for being broken.” Jack sighed and Katy sighed with him.
“I tell you, mijo, we live in a place with werewolves, werecats, vampires, elves, fairies, and a vampire’s ghost. You wanna know what I really want to see? Seriously?” His eyes were so blue, she thought besottedly, and fringed with the lushest dark lashes. She wondered if Teague took in these details, the paleness of Jack’s skin, the way his hair fell over his forehead or the way the blood traveled over his cheekbones as he flushed. Did Teague see all these things, or did he just see the way Jack loved him, and that made for all the beauty in the world?
“I’d love to know what you want to see,” Jack replied with a faint smile.
“I want to see his daddy, resurrected, so we could tear that cocksucking ass-ripper to shreds.”
Jack laughed, but there was no humor in it—only heartbreak. “Yeah—you and me both.”
They were quiet then, and Katy thought there were worse ways to spend time than trailing her fingertips over Jack’s flushed cheeks. “So, what you two doing tonight?”
Jack blinked sleepily, and she felt bad. He and Teague—they apparently had whatever they had too early as well. “We’re picking up werewolves from the airport.”
“The So-Cal werewolves?” Katy knew her voice got shrill but she didn’t care. She scrambled to sit up, and then remembered she was naked, with Teague’s spend coating her thighs, so she managed to pull up a sheet. “Like, the people that they dusted last week?”
Jack had an amused quirk to his mouth as he pushed himself up on an elbow. “Hopefully these guys aren’t crazy.”
“You don’t be so sure, mijo… you don’t understand. The So-Cal werewolves, they’re like the So-Cal gangs. They’re scattered, and they mostly kill each other, but if they decide to gang up together, they can be dangerous!”
“Does Cory know this?” Jack asked, but he didn’t seem to be alarmed and Katy knew she wasn’t getting through.
“Yeah—where you think I get my information? It’s all through the common room! We all know this! You spend too much time holed up in here, mijo, and now it’s gonna get you killed!”
Jack sat up a little more, but he was a man so he didn’t seem to care about the sheet coming down to his hip. “Katy, it’s a run—Teague and I were doing this for year and a half, remember?”
Katy’s face went cold. Oh God. “Jacky,” she said, a little too panicked to remember tact, “you know when I almost killed you?”
Jack grimaced. “Vaguely.”
“You ever ask why I didn’t go for you in the first place? You were bending over… your back was right there—your neck… you’ve been a wolf. You know what it’s like to smell prey. I watched you last night… you went chasing rabbits, you know the smell of something you can kill.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But I knew I could kill you—that’s why I left you alone. I knew Teague could kill me—that’s why I went for him. You’re not a predator, mijo… you’re prey. Teague not wanting to take you—I been thinking that just proved how smart he really is. The fact that he want to take you now? That just proves how stupid love can make a person, Jacky. I don’t know how you survived for a year and a half, but I know some of the scars on that boy’s body are pretty fucking fresh!”
The hurt on Jack’s face… aww shit. Katy started to cry and she hated doing that, but dammit, this was not the sweet pillow-talk she had been imagining since she knew Teague Sullivan, man of her dreams, was here at the hill. But then, she hadn’t counted on learning to love Teague and his Jacky, both together, either.
“Are you saying I’m just a giant bunny, waiting to get eaten?” Jack asked, still trying to process the terrible insult. “That’s it, right? You’re saying I’m a liability—I’ll get him killed!”
Katy shook her head and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m saying you got to think about what’s good for him, mijo, and not what’s good for your ego. You think about it—you tell me, how many times that man took a hit for you? How many times he say “It’s nothin’ Jacky—next time I’ll duck.” How many times he step between you and the big bad-ass on the other end…”
“You weren’t even there!” Oh Christ—she’d made him cry too.
She took one of those big shuddering breaths, the kind that got in the way of breathing and came out in tears and snot. “I don’t have to be there—I can see it on your face. I can see it on his body… hell, I can smell it on your wolf. You remember that scuffle he got into last night? One of the smaller wolves… Teague had to snap and growl and Colin just shrunk into himself and skulked for a bit? That was you, Jacky—Colin was going to jump your meat-ass, and Teague jumped in front. That happen when you two were on runs? Be honest.”
“I can hold my own in a fight,” Jack said mutinously, but something flickered in his eyes, and Katy knew, knew she was right.
“Good to know that—because you been promising that man everything he’s ever wanted for his entire life. Everything. You see that? And the whole reason he won’t look at us, even when he’s inside our bodies is that he’s afraid that’s going to get taken away. What you think happens if you die? What you think happens to everything he’s ever wanted his entire life?”
For a moment—she could see it. For a moment, Jack understood. They were sitting, facing each other, and she was still clutching the sheet to her chest. Jack’s corner of it was down around his hips and she looked wistfully at the hipbone poking it’s way out from under the fine cotton. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to lay on him and touch him and explore his body the same way she wanted to explore Teague’s.
But Teague was broken—he’d said it himself. If Teague was broken, it was up to her and Jacky to make the bandage and stop the bleeding. Jack was no good for that if he kept ripping Teague up again. She’d never get to see Teague’s eyes on her, if Jack kept threatening to take away all that he’d built his slender, battered hopes on.
“All I ever wanted,” Jack muttered, “was to be by his side. Is that so much to ask?”
“Why you got to be there in the fighting, Jacky? That’s not where your heart is. It’s with him, sure—but not in the fighting.” And the look on his face made her cry harder and she didn’t think that was possible.
“I kept him alive when you attacked,” Jack said harshly, and Katy nodded even though she wasn’t sure her attack would have been any more lethal against Teague than it had been against Jack.
“I know, Jacky,” she whispered, but she knew nothing other than that look of acceptance the one that had given her hope, had passed. “It’s just… I know it’s hard, staying home. Not being all ninja and shit. You just got to trust that your man’s coming home, that’s all. You think maybe you can do that for him, and not make him take you tonight?”
Jack shook his head and stood up, moving restlessly. He had a fine, lean ass, and that longing assaulted her again, the terrible, lean-gnawing want to touch these men, to claim them with softness, to shelter them from the jagged edges of the other’s heart.
“We work together fine,” he said after a moment. He got to his knees heavily and started looking for his clothes, and Katy was almost disappointed when he found them under the comforter at the edge of the bed. “Cory and Bracken go out on runs… Marcus and Phillip, hell—even Nicky goes with Cory. Teague and I—we can be the same thing.”
“You ever see Cory work?” she asked tonelessly, and Jack grunted “No,” as he was putting on his boxers.
“Me neither—but Nicky, he hangs in the were room, right? The way he talks about her… it’s like
she’s… shit—who’s that Goddess of war?”
Jack blinked. “Bellona?”
Katy laughed through the terrible congestion all that crying caused. “Yeah—her.”
“How do you know that? I barely know that—and only because my twelfth grade teacher had a total obsession with MacBeth!” Jack was wearing his jeans now and looking at Katy like she totally fascinated him. Yeah, maybe—but not enough to stay home. Not enough to not break Teague’s heart. Not enough to hear what she had to say.
“The elves here—they all got a hard-on for Shakespeare. But it don’t matter. Cory can fight, Jacky—Cory can fight and Bracken can make people bleed. They’re like the perfect weapon together.”
“If they’re so fucking perfect, why do they need Teague?” he demanded, and Katy groaned and flopped sideways. If she was going to be left alone in this wretched bed, the least she could do is smell her two lovers while they still lingered on the sheets.
“Don’t you see?” Her voice was small, and she wondered if she could find words for this. It was complicated—outside her immediate circle of knowledge, but something she’d seen on the night Teague had come to visit her in the garden.
There was something in him… beyond them. Something that needed to do something larger, serve a larger purpose than just the things his heart wanted. Maybe it came from so many years of not daring to reach for anything himself, but Teague had learned to reach for something better for the world.
“See what?” Jack asked, throwing himself across the bed. His finger came out and traced the damp tracks of her tears and she tried to smile bravely for him. She failed.
“I don’t got no more words for you, mijo,” she murmured. “Teague’s bigger than you and me. He just needs room to be bigger, and we got to hold him when he’s feeling small.”
Jack smoothed his hands over her cheeks and through her hair. He kissed her bare collarbone, the hollow of her neck, and the softness of her temple. Katy clung to him and let him soothe her and sweeten her and hold her, but the whole time she was cursing her education, and how short it had been. Jack—he knew who that goddess was. Jack would know how to make this sound right even if he didn’t feel it in his heart yet. She had so few words—oh God, if only she had more words, maybe she could make Jack stay. If she had more words, maybe she could tell Teague he never had to say he was sorry. If she had more words, maybe she could make this right.
Teague
Bad-shit Stories
It was not a comfortable briefing.
“Okay—so Teague and Brack in the pick-up car...” Cory looked up with a squinty-eyed scowl from her position on the club chair and met Teague’s eyes. He’d grimaced when she’d spoken and she held up her hands, palms forward. “Teague, Jacky and Brack—are you sure?”
No. No he wasn’t. The part of him that woke up screaming every night because he dreamed about Jacky in a puddle of blood was damned fucking sure that this was NOT the course of action he wanted to take. But… There’s only so many right ways to say I’m sorry.
“Yeah,” he said through a dry mouth and a razor-blade throat. “Positive.”
She glared at Bracken and he glared back, speaking a language Teague could barely translate, only with their eyes. “Okay—you and Jack and Bracken, car one. Brack’s sitting in the back—he can look all pretty and mysterious that way, and they don’t have to know he’s a walking Ebola virus, right?”
Everyone in the room cringed, including Brack. “Harsh…” Nicky muttered, and she scowled in his direction. He ducked behind Teague who was not in the mood for his antics even a little.
“Then we’ll have Marcus, Phillip, Lambent, Nicky, La Mark, and Max in the car tailing you guys, to make sure you get home.”
“Man, that’s crowded,” La Mark said tentatively, and Max sighed.
“I’ll sit this one out,” he said resignedly, and La Mark perked up.
“You sure, man? I’d hate to…”
The stoic cop shrugged, although Teague could see it was killing him. “Nah—you’ve missed the last two runs… nobody can party all the time.”
La Mark’s white smile in his dark-chocolate face was about one of the most hopeful, beautiful things Teague had ever seen. “Thanks, cop-man. I’ll try not to fuck this up!”
“Are we telling the werewolves about the other car?” Nicky interrupted, bringing everybody back to the task at hand.
“No,” Cory replied sharply. “I don’t trust these guys. We called Ellen Beth’s contact last week and suddenly he’s all kissy-face about working together?” She shook her head. “Our world is a helluva lot cagier than that especially in So-Cal where nobody will cop to a leader or a hierarchy. Nope. I smell trap. We show them enough guys so they think they got power and we keep our eyes on them the entire way. Everyone has following sprites, you hear me? And when the vamps wake up, they’re feeding from everyone in the party.”
“Right not!” Lambent scowled, and Cory scowled back. Green put a restraining hand on her leg, and she sneered instead.
“Fine. Lambent can get shanked by lowlife werewolves because he thinks he’s too rich to be vamp-food. One way or another, boy, you’ll end up covered in digestive goo!”
“You can be a right bitch when you feel like it…” The ruddy-faced sidhe was turning even redder, and suddenly, he was glowing blue.
“I can be a right bitch when I don’t feel like it,” Cory said sweetly, and Lambent made a ‘gurk’ noise before Green cleared his throat meaningfully.
Cory sighed and the glow went away. Lambent’s baleful glare remained. “Everybody gets fed from—even sidhe. I understand you guys taste like dessert—go with that. The vamps feed from you, they link with you, I link with them, they track you—if anything goes wrong, we’ll have a…” her voice trailed off.
“Well shit, fuck, cocksucking whoremongering oozing bitching rat’s ass. Fuck.”
There was a lot of uncomfortable shifting on Green’s nice white couches as it occurred to her that she wouldn’t be in the action to take immediate advantage of her mind link with the vampires.
“Lambent, you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to come. Everybody else will get fed from anyway because I fucking said so!” she snapped, and even Teague winced.
“Absolutely, Lady Cory,” he said into the silence, and Green, Bracken, Nicky, Max, and La Mark shot him a grateful look, like he’d thrown himself on a grenade or something.
Cory grunted. “I’m gonna go ask Arturo about the cars and GPS—stay the fuck out of my way.” With that she turned on her heel and stalked out, leaving the air quality considerably less chafing.
“That was pleasant,” Teague muttered and Max sent a sideways look at him.
“So was last year. This is better.”
Ouch. “Where’s Mario?” Teague asked curiously. He’d only just met La Mark, and he had an impression of a very young man just reaching the age where his shoulders grew out a little more than his wrists grew long. Nice kid, but Teague liked Mario—he’d been good company the night before.
There was a terrible silence at Teague’s question, though. “Cory’s not the only one with a bad-shit anniversary,” Nicky muttered, and Teague’s eyes widened.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, someone needs to tell me what went down last year!”
All eyes turned to Green, who shared a kind glance with Nicky and shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass on story hour, children. I need to go see if I can calm her down.”
“You might want to think about putting a leash on her while you’re at it!” Lambent snapped, and suddenly he was shoved back, flat against the far wall by an invisible force, and Green’s long suffering smile was replaced by the haughty disdain of someone who knew his true worth.
“Only if I can put a muzzle on you, mate—what do you say?”
“No, my Lord Green,” Lambent hissed through strangled voice-cords. Green let him go and he landed heavily on his knees, muttering to himself.
&nb
sp; “I heard that,” Bracken said, his brow scrunched ferociously, even as Green made a graceful exit. “Care to repeat it for the rest of the class?”
“I said,” Lambent growled, “that it’s just like the old country. Some heifer tells me what to do while she sits back and drinks tea in comfort.”
Suddenly Lambent was surrounded by angry shape-shifters—and one really pissed off red-cap sidhe.
“Do you think she wants to leave us here?” Bracken snarled. “We’re forcing her to stay. If she got to go… risk herself, play flaming-power-bitch, she’d be in a much better mood!”
Lambent massaged his throat and glared up at Bracken, but something in the cold blue wall of hostility penetrated his ruddy ire. “Why aren’t you letting her go?”
Bracken and Nicky looked at each other, and Nicky muttered, “Well shit. Okay, you two want a bedtime story, here’s a bedtime story.”
Lambent picked himself off the ground and looked up expectantly. The rest of the men around Nicky relaxed unconsciously, and gathered into a small group. It was, apparently, a humanoid’s perennial response to a story.
“Once upon a time,” Nicky said archly, “there was a real fucking old Avian. Now this species doesn’t start aging until we get laid and mated, right? And then, we age along with whatever we bond to. Well this guy was real fucking cranky, because he was like… six-hundred years old, and that’s a long goddamned time to not get laid. So Goshawk, our Avian asshole, starts accruing powers as he ages—who knew how that worked, because seriously—who waits six-hundred years to get his rocks off? Well this fucker did, and it turns out, he could be powerful like the elves—and because of his own personal glitches, he could feed off of other people’s memories. So what does an uber-powerful psychopath with six-hundred years of repression want to do with himself since he can’t even whack off?”
“World domination?” Lambent said into the pause left by the rhetorical question. They were all quiet now—even the people who should, Teague thought, know how the story went. Maybe it was all in Nicky’s rapid-fire delivery—but Teague didn’t think so. Bracken, Max, and La Mark were all watching Nicky in the same way Teague had watched Cory bare her soul.