by D. R. Perry
“Could have been worse.” He shrugged. “There’s that best-selling book with the handcuffs on the cover.
“You really think someone like Olivia Adler would read mommy porn?” I shook my head.
“Why shouldn’t she?” He actually winked, the sly dog.
“Well, she should if she wants to. I’d never.” I leaned against the wall next to Jeannie’s door, not quite ready to be alone behind a closed door with him yet. “But this is the twenty-first century.”
“Girl’s gotta get her kicks somehow, and I don’t see anyone hanging around her door.” He gave me a toothy grin. “Same can’t be said for you.” He put one hand on the wall above my shoulder, then leaned on it. Just as he bent his elbow to move closer, I stepped away, turning my back to him so I could open the door.
I headed in, standing in the middle of the room with my hands on my hips. He’d gone in after me, of course, before I could say goodbye and shut the door which was the exact opposite of what I really wanted. I rolled my eyes, opening my mouth to say something snarkily reminiscent of Lynn. He covered it with his, wrapping his arms around me.
The way his body felt against mine was even more intense than the night before. How could that be when we weren’t out in a semi-public place, and I had more on than an old blanket? Josh’s hands moved up my back, one stopping across my shoulder blades and the other sliding up the back of my neck. He twined his hand in my hair, not pulling, but still holding firmly. He broke the kiss. I’d never have been able to. Somehow, I felt on fire and frozen solid at the same time.
The heat of his breath misted my cheek as he moved to the side and down to nuzzle my neck. I tried to say something, hoping maybe whatever words I’d utter might give me an idea of what this feeling was. No luck. The only sound out of my mouth was a breathy moan. This was ridiculous. I’d been there and done that, even if it was all the way back with my High School boyfriend. Of course, that was ancient history. I hadn’t even looked at a man since Dad died and left me with the pelt way too soon.
If this had been a fight, I would have had the upper hand. Any move he made, I’d react with the counter, know where to look in order to anticipate his actions. I could do nothing but shudder. It was like the rest of the world went away. The only thing that existed besides me was him.
That probably sounds more romantic than Olivia’s recent reading material. It might have been for someone else. I’m used to hearing eleven voices in my head and sensing magic in everything. I couldn’t move. Nothing was in context anymore with the rest of the world on vacation.
Josh sensed this somehow. He pulled back, still cradling me against him, then ushered me to the edge of the bed. He pulled the chair out from under the desk, turned it around, and sat on it like a normal person instead of backward, for once. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his thighs and resting his head on folded hands. Even though his posture was the height of informality, his face wore an expression of deep concern. I’d expected a million questions, possibly some kind of outburst driven by wounded pride. He said nothing, just sat and let me collect myself.
“That’s it. Of course.” I stood up on shaky legs. “Collect myself. Of course. That’s why this isn’t working. How stupid could I be?”
He cocked his head to one side, watching as I crossed the room to the desk. He still looked puzzled when I opened my bag. After I retrieved the oilcloth and put on my pelt, his eyes glimmered with a hint of understanding. I turned to face him, finally feeling ready for something other than a fight. I didn’t waste time wondering whether it had been stupid to use it. Only what happened next could answer that question.
“You weren’t really yourself either time then, huh?” He looked up at me, comprehension in his expression.
“Nope.” I smiled. “Am now.” A little thrill of anticipation shivered up my spine. The nearly numb tingle left over from his earlier caresses ran swiftly from cold to hot. It was my turn to chuckle now. I shook my head, sensing the approval and then slow retreat of my ancestors. Even Grandpa quieted, the stormy force of his personality calming to leave me with more control over the pelt’s powers than I’d ever experienced.
It only took a few steps to cross the distance between us. Josh sat up, gathering his legs under him as he prepared to stand. I didn’t let him. Instead, I reached down and tilted his chin up. Then, I planted one on him. A kiss, of course. He reached up, and I let him pull me down against him.
Later, when I pulled the borrowed sheet up to cover us, I heard the murmur of a twelfth voice, the song it sang familiar and sorely missed. Dad. Everything but the piece of him that’d live in the pelt had moved on. My eyes closed, heavy with profound relief and weariness.
“We were right,” I managed. Then, I followed Josh’s even breath under the surface of consciousness.
Chapter Thirteen
Josh
Pins and needles in my arm woke me up. I blinked, then tilted my head so I could kiss the top of Nox’s head. She’d completely shocked me by rocking my world half the night like that. I smirked, remembering how awkward a kid I’d been before my first shift. I should have realized that without her pelt, she wasn’t her whole self. I’d met Magi who’d lost their powers before, from encounters with Spites. If she lost her pelt, Nox would lose part of herself just like those Magi.
Now I’d have to find that drunk asshole Selkie’s pelt or die trying. Literally, because she’d been right just before she fell asleep. Our hunches had been correct. This was righter than anything had ever been before in my life. I wouldn’t tolerate anyone turning my mate into a shell of herself, not even the Sidhe Queen. I guess I’d finally taken a side, chosen a Faerie Court after all. I huffed out a little laugh.
It should have felt more like a major fail. It didn’t. Even though I’d been like a second spare tire in the family hierarchy, neutrality had been hammered so hard into Derek’s and Beth’s heads I couldn’t have escaped the idea if I’d wanted to. Dad always said taking a side would mean betraying the trust people placed in wolf shifters. We’d been the first shifters in general law enforcement positions after the Big Reveal, so the pressure was higher on our family to work harder, be more upstanding than others.
But Mom always said it was even bigger than that. Taking one side weakened the other. An imbalance could tip the scales toward the first open Extrahuman war ever. But something always bothered me about that idea. Sometimes, conflict happened. You couldn’t avoid it all the time, no matter how hard you tried. Someone somewhere wanted to screw things up until all the hard work and impeccable standards in the world couldn’t prevent a fight. And that’s exactly what was happening right here and now.
The Extramagus was smart. He or she knew that more young Changelings tithed to the King since the Big Reveal because the old rules Seelies had to follow didn’t work in the new mingled world. The Kings Court grew while hers stayed the same. That Extramagus knew the Queen had more to lose if, say, a Spite got defeated and destroyed in combat, or a Selkie pelt went missing. Or the mortal police force aligned with the Unseelies.
But then, there was coincidence to worry about. I had no idea what Derek’s mate might have been like as he hadn’t told us about one before he’d gone missing. Beth had happened to make a nice appropriate match, but then he’d also gone missing. Was it my turn to disappear, or worse? Or did coincidence make things for Pack Dennison hard this time around because my mate happened to be Unseelie? Should I be waiting for some kind of accident? I shuddered.
“Okay.” Nox wrapped her arms around me, holding me closer. One of her hands reached up to stroke my cheek. “We got this. Whatever it is.”
“Might be coincidence calling in its marker.” I sighed. “Whammied both my siblings. Still think we got this?”
“Yeah, actually.” She sat up, beaming at me in the morning light. Her black hair stood out against one pale shoulder, and a defiant twinkle lit her blue eyes like moonlight on water. “If Tinfoil Hat’s Beta can give coincidence a one-finge
r salute, so can its Alpha.”
“Thanks. I needed a magic horse shifter to encourage me to buck the odds.” I winked. She laughed, then leaned down. When her lips met mine, my wolf surged forward in complete agreement with my state of arousal. I turned the tables on her, getting the upper hand in this round more handily than I’d done when we sparred at the dojo. The thought of what a challenging opponent she’d been just made me want her more.
The knock and music of female voices out in the hall was worse at that moment than taking the ice-bucket challenge. I groaned, getting up to grab my clothes and pull them on. Being a shifter had at least given me years of practice in getting decent quickly. Nox was right behind me, but slower. I smoothed out the bed while she went to the door.
“Who is it?” Her voice was higher-pitched than usual, the only indication I got that she might be as frustrated as I was just then.
“We’re going for breakfast. Come on already, or I’ll force choke you through the door.”
“Okay, Darth Lynn.” Nox peered in the mirror next to the door, detangling her hair with her fingers. “Give me a minute. Meet you at the front door.”
“One minute, or Alderaan gets it.” Lynn’s quip faded, along with some giggling accompaniment that sounded like Maddie the Umbral Magus. Yeah, I remembered her. She was a packmate, which Alphas never forget. Kind of convenient that she was dating the Beta.
“Look, Nox. We still need to talk about what’s happening on Monday. I made a promise to, um, your lawyer.” I leaned one elbow on the wall next to the door and stuck the other out, scratching the back of my head. One glimpse in the mirror on the closet door put an end to that. No self-respecting guy wants to look like the awkward anime character trying to talk to his girlfriend.
“Yeah. Can you do it in a minute?”
“Talking, maybe. Anything else…” I shrugged and dropped her a wink. Nox threw back her head and laughed.
“Okay. I didn’t much care about Alderaan anyway.” Her smile made my breath catch in my throat.
“Look, at the end, when I win the match against Uncle Jake, I can’t just trade you away to the Queen.”
“But you have to.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s the only way to make up for what I did.”
“No. I don’t have to. I’m going to refuse to order you around on this as either your Alpha or your mate.” I tucked my chin, gazing into her eyes, fighting the urge to get lost in that bright steely blue. “I can’t do anything but give an honest account of events and then leave it up to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain it as best I can, then.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “If I give in to the Queen, just hand over one of my most accomplished pack members who also happens to be my mate, I’ll look like I’m siding with her. Wolf shifters mate. We have to, or we go nuts and can’t be leaders. Someone as old as the Sidhe fricking Queen can’t pretend to be ignorant about that. Coincidence makes mates, not Faerie or pack politics. If I roll over for her, I look weak. That and I couldn’t live with myself if I cuffed you and handed you over like you did something wrong instead of being a hero. So, that’s why it’s going to be up to you. You go with her willingly, of your own volition and under your own power, or not at all.”
“So you’re letting me decide whether to stand trial?”
“Yup.”
She closed her eyes, nodding. I smelled salt before I saw the glimmers at the corners of her eyes. When she opened them, a matched set of tears rolled down. Her lips parted, teeth stark and bared in a flavor of defiance I’d never seen before. She raised her hands to her shoulders, placing them firmly over mine. I’d shaken the hands of probably half the politicians, law enforcement officials, and society heads in the state of Rhode Island. None of them had possessed even half the strong confidence in Nox’s grip.
“Then after you beat your jerk of an uncle, I’ll turn myself in. Let the Sidhe fricking Queen figure out what to do about a Kelpie with a Tanuki lawyer.” She closed her lips, letting them meet as she leaned in to press them quickly but firmly against mine.
If only that was how it went.
Chapter Fourteen
Josh
I met my pack on Monday an hour after sundown on the bridge near the Temple to Music in Roger Williams Park. They’d all had a look at Nox’s local shifter history books over the weekend. Extrahuman affairs that had to be settled in front of an audience usually happened there. A crowd had already gathered. I spotted all the guys in the Night Creatures, plus Jeannie, Mr. Ichiro, and Kimiko. A smoky whisper from Blaine confirmed my suspicion that Taki Waban had shown up as well.
Henry pointed out the Redford family sitting far away from Albert the Sidhe Changeling. Maddie and Lynn put their hands to their cheeks at almost the same time when they spied Headmistress Thurston. Bobby scratched his head, then pointed out Professor Watkins next to a decrepit guy in a black Greek fisherman’s cap, but when I blinked, the professor was alone again. Tony jerked his chin at Bianca the Medium. Pretty much everyone from PPC had shown. I didn’t let it go to my head, though. The campus loved my dad.
And then I saw him. He and my mom were up on the dais, chained to one of the columns by shiny manacles around their wrists. My wolf snarled deep within, and I had to fight back hard to keep him from taking over. They’d used silver. Beth must have known and decided not to tell me because she knew how I’d react. Chaining a wolf shifter with silver, even something silver-plated, was pure torture. I’d always thought Uncle Jake had been kind of an asshole, but I’d never believed he’d do something that heinous.
A cool hand on my shoulder settled me for the moment. I didn’t have to look; I knew the feel of Nox’s hand by heart already. I nodded at her, then took a step forward and put my hands on my hips.
“Let’s do this.” I walked down off the bridge and down the gentle slope designed to let voices carry. The rest of Tinfoil Hat followed. Well, everyone except Olivia. She’d fallen asleep in the Harcourt family party bus on the way over from campus, the poor thing.
Everyone else stopped at the curved line in the grass that marked the division between the seats and the flat expanse of lawn in front of the white marble temple. I crossed it, continuing on until I stood in front of Uncle Jake in the middle. The mutineers, about two-thirds of the members of Mom’s pack and a little less of Dad’s, stood on the steps between my parents and me. I glanced over to see Beth hobble out of the audience and stand between Bobby and Blaine. The dragon shifter offered her his arm and she took it, somehow managing to look more like a girl posing for her senior prom picture than a woman who needed assistance to make up for the ill-fitting prosthetic on her missing leg. She caught my eye, and I nodded. If I couldn’t beat Uncle Jake, she’d step up. It’d be a long shot, but if I injured him badly enough, she just might do it. Her leg was less of a liability in wolf form.
“So, you actually showed up.” Uncle Jake jerked his chin, sneering over my shoulder at my pack. “Nice crew. Too bad none of them can fight worth a damn.”
“You know what they say about people who assume.” I glared down at him, glad I’d ended up being taller than Mom’s little brother, even if he did have nine years on me. “None of them will need to fight anyway. I’ll beat you alone.”
“No, you won’t.” Uncle Jake whistled. A statuesque redheaded woman dressed in a long, flowing robe stepped out of the pack behind him. “I’m invoking the trial of mates. Laila will be fighting tonight, against whatever psychic waif you have that passes for a mate these days.” He eyed Lynn and Maddie.
“Awesome.” I’d seen Laila fight before. She was savage, brutal, and exploited any weakness she could find. She also answered to a whistle. Nox would wipe the floor with her. Well, the grass, okay? You know what I mean.
I heard the sound of muddled murmurs carry across the lawn from my uncle’s side as I turned on my heel and walked away. Yup, I put my back to Jake. From the low growl, he was the opposite of pleased. I walked rig
ht up to Maddie May, who still might have given Laila a run for her money considering her Umbral magic. Then, I held out my hand to Nox, who’d been standing behind her.
I turned around, heading back the way I’d come, hand in hand with my mate. She stood half a head taller than Laila, although she was thinner. Nox’s smile was nothing nice when she turned it first to Laila, then to Uncle Jake. A clammy chill emanated from her as she locked gazes with the man trying to usurp my parents.
“So this is your Uncle Jake?” Nox raised an eyebrow. “I thought the trial of mates was intended for use by pregnant female Alphas, Josh.” By addressing me instead of my uncle, Nox’s statement couldn’t be taken as a direct challenge.
“Yup.” I shrugged. “Mom did it last time something like this happened. That was before I was born.” I gave Uncle Jake my best smile.
“No more ignorant questions from the human peanut gallery.” Jake’s lip curled up in a more severe sneer than before. “I called the trial and named my champion. Name her already and let them start.”
“Fine.” I let go of Nox’s hand, then turned to her and gave her a slight bow. “This is a veteran member of my pack and my mate. You might have heard of her since she’s a little bit infamous right now. I present the Kelpie, Nox Phillips.”
Nox
There was no way I’d beat Laila, even though I’d spent half the weekend reading the local shifter history book. All the same, when Josh introduced me, I waved to the crowd. This wasn’t my first public fight. Most of the Cherry Blossom School’s trophies belonged to me, after all. Then again, that was before I became an Extrahuman.
I’d expected a reaction from both packs and the crowd in general, but nothing like what happened. A few boos started up behind Uncle Jake, but then an eerie trilling sound rose from Bobby Tremain’s throat. Was it a Rebel Yell? It didn’t matter. The moment of silence that followed it gave Tinfoil Hat time to start a huge cheer. Everyone in the general audience joined in, hollering their approval far and away beyond any low sounds of dissent. I even saw Headmistress Thurston with her fingers in her mouth, whistling.