by Roxie Noir
Some things just weren’t meant to fade. After five removal sessions, Hudson had given up getting the thing off completely.
He turned off his SUV and he and Julius sat there for a moment, in silence, letting the moonlight filter through the sunroof.
“Why do people pull shit like this?” Julius finally asked. “Why the hell can’t we just live?”
It had been over twelve hours since the shooting, but Hudson could tell he was still furious. Utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally, but furious.
Hudson just shook his head. It was new to him as well. He’d seen people shot over drugs, jealousy, or just because someone with a gun was drunk and angry, but not because three people wanted to get married.
“I wish I knew,” he said, looking at the hedge that separated them from their next door neighbors.
“I wish Cascadia had the death penalty,” Julius said. Hudson looked over at his mate and could see his jaw working, the muscles clenched beneath his skin.
People tended to forget how huge and powerful Julius was. When humans saw Hudson, he knew that they looked at him twice: long hair, covered in tattoos, six and a half feet tall.
But when humans saw short-haired, clean-shaven Julius wearing a well-tailored suit, they forgot that he could probably tear them limb from limb without even shifting.
It was intentional on Julius’s part. He wanted people to find him non threatening.
“Maybe it will make sense in the morning,” Hudson said.
They walked into their dark house, and for the first time in years, Hudson couldn’t help but imagine people lurking in the shadows, waiting with guns to come after him and his mate. Both of them paused inside the front door, listening and smelling, before turning on the lights.
Nothing happened. No one jumped out.
Julius rubbed his temples and tossed his bloodstained suit jacket onto a side table.
“I’m jumping at shadows,” he said.
“Go get changed,” said Hudson. “I’ll get you something to fix you right up.”
Julius smiled, and for the first time all day, the expression reached his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said.
Hudson walked into the dark kitchen, flipping on lights as he went, and got down the good bourbon and the nice glasses. Two cubes of ice in each, then a good three fingers of whiskey.
He stopped, looked at the glasses, and considered. Then he poured them each another finger of bourbon before walking into the living room, turning on every light on the way.
Hudson knew he was being ridiculous, but they’d been shot at today. He was on edge that there could be someone in their house, just waiting, and if someone had to find a shooter, it should be him.
He, at least, had a halfway decent chance of taking someone down. He’d had plenty of experience. Julius, on the other hand, had had plenty of experience arguing cases in court.
Hudson sipped as he walked to the leather couch in front of the fireplace, and he flipped the flames on before sitting down.
For one moment he marveled, as he always did, that he’d managed to end up in a place like this. By rights he should have been in an early grave, but instead he’d met Julius, and the rest was history.
The bedroom door opened and Julius padded out, barefoot, wearing plaid pajama pants and a tight white undershirt. Despite the day, Hudson felt himself warm up, just a little, seeing Julius’s physique on display like that, every muscle visible beneath the thin white cotton.
“You made my favorite,” Julius said.
He smiled. It reached his eyes again, and he reached for the glass.
“I’m an expert bartender,” said Hudson, matching Julius’s smile with his own. “Step one: uncork bottle. Step two: pour.”
“I can’t argue with the results,” said Julius.
Both men stared at the fire for a little while, lost in their own thoughts.
“Her name is Quinn,” Hudson said, finally. Even though the day had been a flurry of ambulances, news cameras and hospitals, he’d thought of her every couple of moments. He’d only just seen her, but he’d found himself captivated, transported to a place where people weren’t screaming and he didn’t have a woman’s blood on his hands.
“Her name is Quinn Taylor,” Julius said, darkly.
Hudson raised his eyebrows, and Julius just nodded.
“She’s their daughter,” Julius said.
Hudson nodded. He understood what that meant. There was no way in hell that they were completing their triad with a member of the Taylor family. After all, they were the face of anti-shifter sentiment.
He wanted her. Julius wanted her. That much was obvious.
But sometimes, these things just didn’t work out, and this was one of those times.
“I’m sorry,” Julius said. He leaned forward, toward the fire, his deep brown eyes gleaming in its reflected light. “If I hadn’t pursued this triad marriage thing, maybe it could have gone differently for us.”
He meant children, Hudson knew. He could see the way his mate looked at all the cubs running around Granite Valley, and it was a look that made him feel oddly warm and squishy inside.
Hudson leaned over and took Julius’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together firmly.
“I’m not sorry about a damn thing,” he growled. “It’s a miracle I got you at all. We both know you saved me.”
Hudson kissed the back of Julius’s hand, and Julius smiled.
“Who saved who?” he said.
“They say that about adopted dogs, you know,” Hudson teased.
“You do turn into a bear sometimes,” Julius said.
“It’s very different.”
Julius drained his glass and stretched his feet out onto their antique coffee table, relaxing back onto the leather couch.
“I just want this trial over,” he said. “I just wanted people to get married the way they want.”
“They won’t stop,” Hudson said. “They’ll probably start coming and protesting maternity wards.” He swirled the last few sips of whiskey around his glass.
“I hope not,” said Julius.
The next morning, Julius was up first. Hudson wasn’t even sure if he’d slept. The other man had been in bed when he’d fallen asleep, but when he’d woken up at four in the morning, Julius had been staring out a window into the back yard.
“I made coffee,” Julius said. He pointed to their massive French press, still mostly full. “It’s only about twenty minutes old, so get it while it’s hot.”
Hudson recognized that coffee maker as the emergency coffee maker, for when Julius needed extra caffeine. The other man was already pacing around the kitchen, his hair still mussed from his pillow, as he talked to himself about what he needed to do that day.
“Okay,” he said, pouring himself another cup. “I need to draft a statement about yesterday. I need to go see Noah in the hospital, and I need to send him flowers, and I need to contact Judge Coso about delaying the trial—”
“No,” said Hudson. He put one hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You’re taking the morning off.”
Julius looked at him like he was insane.
“I’m dead serious,” Hudson went on. “You haven’t slept. You got shot at yesterday. You’re not going to make it much longer if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“But—”
“I’ll send Noah flowers. The rest can wait.”
Julius opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Go take a bath. We’ve got a fancy-ass bathtub that we never use.”
Julius took in a deep breath in, exhaled, and then leaned forward and kissed Hudson.
“Thank you,” he said, disappearing into the bedroom.
Hudson half-smiled, watching him go.
Give him fifteen minutes and then join him, he thought.
He knew exactly how to get the tension out of Julius.
As Hudson got out stuff for breakfast-in-bath, he smiled to himself, thinking of the de
licious things he was about to do to his mate.
But then, just as the pan was heating on the stove, the doorbell rang.
Hudson rolled his eyes, turned the stove off, and went to go see what the UPS guy had brought. Hopefully it was that new tailpipe for the Harley he was customizing for one of the lions.
Instead, he opened the door to a bored-looking young woman in a polo shirt and khakis.
“Are you Julius Bloom and or Hudson Trager?” she asked, reading from a form on a clipboard.
“I’m just Hudson Trager,” he said.
“Please sign here,” she went on in the same monotone. “You’ve been served. Have a nice day.”
She retreated back down the porch steps, then got into her car and drove away.
Hudson stared down at the envelope in his hands.
It was a fucking subpoena.
He stomped back into the house, all the thoughts of getting some alone time with Julius ruined. He tossed it angrily onto the kitchen counter, clutching the granite surface in both hands, trying to fight down his rage.
Why can’t people just leave us alone? he thought.
We should just move out into the woods, like Kade and Daniel. I bet they never deal with this bullshit.
The bedroom door swung open and Julius stood there, a towel around his waist, dripping onto the hardwood floor. His phone was in one hand.
I should have made him leave the damn thing with me, Hudson thought, looking at it.
“The Taylors are suing us,” he said, his voice tight with rage. He looked like he might snap the phone in half. “Me for spraining their daughter’s wrist, and both of us for the emotional damages from that bitch watching us kiss when I realized you weren’t dead.”
Everything in front of Hudson’s eyes went red in a flash and he squeezed the countertop even harder. He wanted to sweep everything off of the counter — plates, eggs, mugs — then take the pots off the stove and throw them around the kitchen until everything in the place was good and broken.
Ten years ago, that’s exactly what he would have done.
Instead, he took a deep breath and envisioned his lungs as a balloon, expanding and deflating as he breathed. It was a trick his therapist had taught him a long time ago, a trick that allowed him to live in polite society instead of as a nearly-feral shifter who’d get in a fight over any little thing.
“I could kill those assholes,” he said, in between breaths. “I really, truly could.”
Julius didn’t even answer. Hudson looked up at his mate, and could see the anger practically rolling off of him in waves, his body nearly shaking with the force of it. He dialed a number on his phone and held it up to his hear, then walked into the living room, talking to someone tensely.
They handled rage differently. At first, Hudson had wanted Julius to feel it the way he did — he hadn’t understood why the other man didn’t shout and throw things or shift and tear off into the woods.
But, after years together, he had to admit that Julius’s way was more effective. Throwing pans around the kitchen would only create a problem that he’d have to clean up later. On the other hand, Julius was calling someone right this minute who could help him with their problem.
Hudson expanded and deflated the balloon again. He still only felt half-civilized on his best days.
He was just lucky that it was enough, and he was lucky that Julius had seen fit to half-civilize him.
Finally, he felt under control enough to stalk into the bedroom and take a shower without punching the tiles. He had a bad feeling that he’d have to wear a suit before the day was over.
4
Quinn
Quinn narrowed her eyes at her mother and father in disbelief.
“My wrist isn’t even sprained!” she said. With her left hand, she tore the splint from her right, the velcro making a tearing sound in the small motel room.
She flopped her wrist back and forth, her tendons barely even protesting.
“Look,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Her mother grabbed her hand and held her wrist straight.
“Don’t hurt yourself more, dear,” she said as her father retrieved the splint. Together, they put it back on her as Quinn watched.
“Besides, that nauseating display of affection will take you years of therapy to get over,” her father said.
Quinn thought of the display again. The two men, kneeling on the stone steps of the courthouse, utterly oblivious to the world beyond themselves.
Nauseating wasn’t the word she’d use.
“You don’t think this is a bit frivolous?” she said, doing her best to sound calm. “Didn’t the Nebraska State bar threaten to take away your law license if you keep doing this, dad?”
“Are we in Nebraska?” he asked, his jaw set. He yanked the velcro strap of her splint, pulling it too tight.
“No, father,” she said. Her mother scowled and nodded.
“Go get ready,” her father said. “The judge just called. She wants us in chambers at three on the dot.”
“Three today?” she asked.
“Yes, three today,” her mother said, sounding exasperated. “Who taught you to listen, girl?”
Quinn bit back a reply.
“Hurry up,” her father said. Then he turned toward the dresser in his motel room and began rooting through white button down shirt after white button down shirt.
Back in her own motel room — that she’d paid for herself — Quinn stared forlornly at the wall.
This can’t be happening, she thought. I thought I was going to show up at some protests and see part of the country I’d never been to before.
True, she didn’t like shifters and didn’t think they should be afforded the same rights as humans — let alone the right to marry two people at once.
Or, at least, she hadn’t liked shifters.
Quinn wasn’t sure what she thought any more. Growing up, her parents had seemed so certain of everything, all the time, and their overwhelming dedication to their values was hard to argue with, particularly as a kid.
She wasn’t a kid anymore, though. Granted, twenty-five was a little old to be finally forming her own ideas about things, but she’d never needed to before. She lived in their house, worked for their website, and subscribed wholeheartedly to their views.
They were wrong, though. Quinn wasn’t quite sure how wrong yet, but she knew that much.
Unbidden, she thought again of her brother George, his number hidden inside a book in her duffel bag.
Then it occurred to her: they had that huge fight after he went to Meriweather with them. Meriweather was another shifter state, north of Nevada.
I wonder if the same thing happened to him, she thought.
She walked to her bag and pulled out the thick novel, opening it to page 337.
Just as she took the slip of paper in her hands, there was a loud knock on the door.
“Ten minutes!” her father boomed.
Quinn fumbled the paper, dropping it onto the carpet. She dove after it, then shoved it back into the book, her hands shaking.
“Okay!” she called, jamming the book back into the bag, under a layer of dirty underwear.
Thankfully, she heard her father walking back to the room next door.
Quinn went lightheaded with relief.
At two fifty-five, she trailed her parents through the Granite County courthouse. The floors were made of the county’s namesake rock, but the rest of the building had a strangely airy, casual feel to it, a far cry from the brick-and-marble courthouses she was used to in Nebraska.
She followed them through a minor labyrinth of rooms and hallways, trying her best to pretend that she wasn’t there.
Just daydream for an hour or so, and you’ll be fine, she thought. Go to your happy place.
Instead, she thought about George.
It had been three and a half years since she’d last spoken to her brother, when he’d slammed the front door at midnight and then squealed away
in his car.
Ever since, her parents had pretended that their son didn’t exist. Quinn had been twenty-two when it happened, and the day after he’d slammed that door, she’d been informed that she was now the webmaster for ShifterSexPerverts.com.
Usually, when her parents were angry with someone, they tried to sue them into oblivion, like they were doing to the shifter lawyer and his partner now. That’s how Quinn had known that what was happening with her older brother was bad — really, really bad. They didn’t try to make George’s life harder, they didn’t try to get money out of him — they just started acting like they’d never had a son.
It was much, much worse than spite.
When they walked into Judge Wood’s chambers, she was sitting behind a huge mahogany desk, half-moon glasses partway down her nose. She had a gray helmet of hair and a no-nonsense expression on her face.
Quinn’s stomach twisted. She had a feeling that she was about to get raked over the coals.
“You must be Barbara, Arthur, and Quinn,” she said. “Please have a seat.”
Her eyes went splint to the cast on Quinn’s wrist, and Quinn felt her face flush.
I wonder if she’s a shifter, Quinn thought. The older judge didn’t look like a shifter, but Quinn certainly wasn’t an expert. Some people you could tell, some you couldn’t, and there were more than enough kinds of shifter to keep it confusing: bears and wolves and lions, but there were also coyotes, hawks, bobcats, and probably plenty of other types she didn’t know anything about.
She could be an owl, Quinn thought. The judge had gone back to looking down at her papers, ignoring the Taylors as they sat, primly, in uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs. I could see her ripping the head off of something small and helpless.
Before Quinn could wonder any further, the door to the judge’s chambers swung open again and the lawyer and his partner walked in.