Still fully in tourist mode, I purchased the most expensive class of train ticket, which gave Lauren and me a room with two beds. We slept well at night, we ate well during the day — it was an enjoyable twenty-two hour high-speed train ride.
Our passports were still sewn inside the lining of my backpack, between the padding. I retrieved them before we got off the train, both sad our trip was coming to an end, and happy it meant we’d soon get to go home. I missed Smokey, and my friends, my bed, my car, and salads.
As much as I hate riding in Chinese taxis, we hailed one, and I gave the driver the name of a five-star hotel I knew to be excellent. We didn’t have reservations, but if they didn’t have a vacancy there were three other five-star hotels on the same block.
Thankfully, the first hotel had a room with western beds.
We bought new phones with international minutes, and late in the evening — morning back home — I called Nathan without using the messaging app. He didn’t recognize the number and answered with his formal voice.
“Wow, you sound like an asshole when you answer the phone for other people.”
“Kirsten? Are you okay?” His voice was completely different for me, and my heart warmed.
“Yes. We’re back in Changsha and will be here another week unless I rearrange our airline tickets, but I think Lauren wants to see some friends while we’re here.”
I’d messaged him once we came off the mountain, and again while on the train, but I hadn’t talked to him in weeks.
“Your quest is over?”
“I’m tired, and I’m afraid I’ll jinx something by answering your question.”
He laughed. “It’s good to hear your voice. Lauren is well?”
“Better than good.” I told him about her handling the street people when we gave them the clothes we no longer needed.
“I’m glad things worked out. I was worried.”
Me too, but I didn’t want to admit it out loud.
“Anything back home I need to know about? Is Patrick still doing okay?” He’d taken over the Ringgold Pack and mated with a previously lone wolf.
“I’m almost afraid to say things seem to have settled down a little for fear I’ll jinx the whole works, but it appears they have. You picked a good time to pull away and regroup.”
“You know I’m not jumping back in with both feet when I return, right? I mean, I’ll go back to helping when I’m needed, but I think the supernatural community might be better off when I’ve withdrawn. Look at how things’ve gone since I refused to engage.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Please tell me you’re getting nice sex from someone? Not just Pride stuff, where you have to be the Amakhosi?”
“Yes. Sometimes I think Gabby keeps me sane.” He took a breath. “Gavin needed a small favor, and traded it for a few days with Queenie, last week. I rented one of James’s cabins for three days, so I could make full use of her. She has some power I don’t think anyone’s aware of. I mean, I’m sure Abbott and Gavin know, and likely Kendra, but I doubt anyone else does. I’m not sure what’s going on there, if anything, but it’s something to keep in mind.”
“Do you think Gavin knew you’d pick up on it?”
“No idea.”
I talked to Nathan for over an hour, and then Cora about the same, while Lauren texted her friends. It was good to catch up.
The next day, we met LìMéi for lunch. She looked good. Thin, but good. Healthy.
Our conversation stayed random and casual while we ate, but then we took her to our hotel room. I’d splurged for a suite, with a sitting area.
“If you could do whatever you wanted, what would you want to do? Nanny? Nurse? Hairstylist?”
“If I could drive a cab, it would be wonderful. Even better if I could be a bus driver. I could carry people around, talk to them, make sure they got where they needed! It would be the best.”
I smiled. This, I could help make happen.
“It won’t be easy to learn, but I know you can do it, if you’re prepared to work hard.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a way to learn. It’s impossible.”
“Not impossible. I’ll pay your tuition, and make sure you have enough money to live while you take classes and learn.”
“There’ll be book learning too,” Lauren warned. She should know, she’d failed her written driving exam the first time she took it, and had to focus on studying to pass it the second time. “You’ll have to learn all of the driving rules and laws, and there will be tests, but I know you can do it. There shouldn’t be much math.”
LìMéi looked from me to Lauren, and back to me. Unsure. “Why would you do this for me?”
“You’re Lìlíng’s number one friend. She loves you. She worries about you.”
LìMéi didn’t get it. I tried again.
“She’s my family, you’re her family. This makes you and me family, even though we don’t know each other well. I can afford to help you now. I wasn’t able to, before.”
It turned out, getting her into a school to learn to drive a bus wasn’t easy, but — as with most things in China — a little extra to grease the wheels, and I made it happen. I also set her up with an apartment, and opened a bank account in her name with enough funds to be sure she could eat well and ride the bus to classes, once they started. The school said most students could pass the test within eleven months, but some could pass it as early as nine months. LìMéi was in it for the long haul and excited about the opportunity.
We spent the next day with Xiaolan’s family. Her brother is a dear friend, and I’d been sad it hadn’t worked out for me to be able to see him when we came through Changsha the first time, but it’d been important for us to quickly get off the grid and stay there.
Lauren didn’t want to visit the orphanage, but I felt it important to touch base. She made plans to spend the day with LìMéi, and I arranged to visit the only home my daughter had known before I was allowed to adopt her.
I arrived with bags of new clothes, and arranged for a large lunch to be delivered for the staff while there. While we ate, I learned of a few children who were doing well in primary school, and I arranged to pay for them to continue with their schooling as long as their grades remained high. If I could help a few girls escape a life of sex work when they didn’t want to sell their bodies, I would.
16
Flying home from China is always exhausting. We went from Changsha to Beijing, over the north pole to Detroit, and finally into the Nashville airport. I splurged for first class tickets for our longest flight — fourteen hours — but we flew coach for the rest of the jumps and Lauren leaned on me the entire time. I both loved it and wanted her off me. Eventually, she’d have a boyfriend or husband who’d have her leaning into him all the time. I could handle giving her whatever she needed until that happened — even when exhausted from months of travel and a quest across China and back. She may be mostly grown but she’ll always be my little girl.
Nathan and Cora met us in Nashville to keep us from having to face a three-hour layover and a thirty-minute flight. They could drive us home in two and a half hours, and we’d be with friends instead of on yet another plane.
Cora hadn’t told me she was having problems without me around, but I felt it as soon as I saw her. Perhaps I should’ve hugged Nathan first, but I felt the pull from Cora and I had to help her.
I’d adjusted my energy so I was okay without her, but she hadn’t been able to. Fuck, why hadn’t I realized? I wrapped my arms around her and poured energy into her, accepted some of hers, mixed it with mine, and gave it back.
She breathed in everything I gave her, and I could sense some of it going to Cora the human, and some going to the wolf.
“A few weeks after you left,” she said into the top of my head, “I was certain you’d died. I couldn’t feel you. At all.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea my leaving would…” I let out a sob. Her pain hurt my heart. �
�You should’ve told me.”
“You needed to do this. It was important.”
“You’re important, too.”
“I’m okay. I survived.” She pulled in a shuddering breath, her body relaxed, her pulse fell into time with mine. I’d truly come home. Cora is mine in a way I’d never wanted, and yet I’d also learned I couldn’t pretend the connection didn’t exist. Cora is mine and I’m hers, and I’d hurt her by leaving.
“I think Nathan needs a hug, too.”
Nathan reached for me and Lauren, pulled us all together, and somehow managed to wrap his arms around all three of us.
“She’s here,” Nathan told Cora, “and she’s walking. I’m good.” He breathed in, and I felt his energy seeping into me on his outbreath, caressing me, soothing me, reclaiming me. “She has to take care of her people first, just as I do. I’d be disappointed if she did anything less.”
His spicy, hot, tingly, comforting energy reminded me I’m one of his people. Not one of his lions, but still considered his — and Cora and Lauren are mine, so he considers them his, too.
It was nearly eleven at night, but I wanted a salad so freaking bad. In China, if you can’t peel it or cook it, you don’t eat it. That meant absolutely no salads.
I’d searched ahead of time and found a restaurant with a salad bar — close to the airport and open until midnight. Nathan remembered, and said, “Let’s get your bags and get you to the nearest salad bar, shall we?”
Before leaving China, Lauren and I had carefully considered what to tell people. In a nutshell, she learned martial arts part of the time, and we were tourists the rest of the time. We had some funny stories of getting our nails done, and adventures on trains and buses. We could pull it off. Probably.
Over dinner, I realized we were never going to pull it off with Cora and Nathan, and we shouldn’t try. They needed to know the major points, at least. I finally told them, “Look, I’ll talk to ya’ll about our travels and adventures, but not now, okay?”
Nathan drove us home, Lauren sat up front, and Cora and I sat in the back. She needed touch, and I discovered I did, too. I’m pretty sure I was asleep in her arms before Nathan made it to the interstate.
Cora woke me when Nathan pulled into my neighborhood at a little after two in the morning.
“We’d have been fine flying into Chattanooga, but I’m glad ya’ll came to get us. Thank you.”
Nathan carried a sleeping Lauren into the house, but she woke when Smokey went crazy, so happy to see us he couldn’t contain himself. Our crazy dog spun in circles around us, too excited to stop long enough so I could actually pet him.
My sleepy girl sat on the floor and cried, and Smokey plopped down and rested his huge head — and eventually shoulders — in her lap. I joined them, though my eyes merely watered without tears soaking my cheeks.
“It’s good to be home, isn’t it?” I asked her.
“I’m about to leave again! I don’t want to leave!”
Now, my tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. “You have a few weeks at home, and Smokey’s going with us to get you settled in at Harvard.”
I was staying in a dog-friendly hotel while we got her settled into the dorm. Lauren and I were driving her Mustang, and Cora would drive an SUV I’d rent. We’d take turns driving the SUV on the way home, with Smokey in the back.
Nathan would’ve come with us if I’d asked, but he’s the Amakhosi, plus he helps Drake Security run smoothly. He can’t just take off to Massachusetts for a week or longer, with no for-sure end date.
“I need a shower,” I told Cora, looking up to her from my foyer floor, “and then I’ll come to bed. Until we get our energy figured back out, you should sleep with me.” Cora has her own room at my house, but she’s slept with me enough, it isn’t weird.
“I’m better — just having you back.”
“I can tell, but it’s going to take time.” I shook my head, angry with myself. “I’ve traveled before without this happening. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
I wanted to be angry with her for not telling me, but I understood why she hadn’t. Still, we’d have to come to an agreement so she’s obligated to let me know about this kind of thing in the future.
“It wasn’t too bad for most of your trip. I mean, I missed you, but Randall gave me a little extra, and I was okay.” She shrugged. “I thought you’d died, a few weeks after you left. Nathan let me know when you contacted him, and I let him know when you contacted me, and neither of us heard from you for a while. Your energy was just… gone.” The look in her eyes was haunted. “I was afraid for you.”
“I was in another realm. I guess that’s the difference? My energy isn’t available to you when I’m… elsewhere?”
“Maybe. It got really bad about two months ago. Ish. I can look at my calendar and tell you when, but after a few weeks, I thought I’d die.”
Her voice cracked on the last four words, and my heart broke. I’d failed her. I stood and pulled her back into my arms, because an apology wasn’t enough. Nothing I could say could excuse me hurting Cora. She’s mine. I’m responsible for her, and I’d let her down. I’d had no idea. She’d been fine when we talked. What must she have gone through, without my energy to balance her? I’d never meant to bind her to me, but I had, and it was a huge responsibility to my best friend.
“I was out of this realm a longer time starting about two months ago.” I held her tighter and covered her in my energy. Travel always depletes me, and I was exhausted, but I found enough. “If I’d known it was a problem the first time, I’d have known not to stay gone the second time. I could’ve come to get you and taken you there, since I wasn’t, ummm, technically in China, where someone could demand they see a passport.” If I could’ve obtained permission to bring her, though I was guessing Shīfù would’ve wanted to meet her enough he’d have given the okay — had he known about her.
“I packed Smokey up and took him to Randall’s with me,” she admitted. “I slept with Randall, and Smokey slept at Randall’s door, like he was guarding us. It was sweet.”
I chuckled. “I’m sure His Alphaness loved that.” I rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I don’t know how Nathan takes care of so many cats. I can’t even provide for my one wolf.
Nathan’s eyes met mine over Cora’s shoulder. “You’ll take care of her now, and next time you’ll know. I still feel bad for the mistakes I made when I first became Amakhosi. There’s a learning curve. Everyone makes them — just don’t keep making them.” He put his hand on Cora’s back. “You know you can come to me for help, too. I know Randall can help you more than me, but I could’ve helped, if you’d told me how bad it was.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but you’re a cat.”
He chuckled. “The man can help the woman. We are more than our animals.”
The sun was up when I awakened the next morning, and I was alone in bed. I looked at the clock and saw it was four in the afternoon. Damn — dealing with jetlag was going to be a bitch.
I hit the shower, washed my hair, and donned sweatpants and a t-shirt, with my hair in a towel. My electric toothbrush was on the charger, large tube of toothpaste in the drawer. Yay, I could manage the morning — afternoon — without opening my luggage yet.
Lauren was still asleep, and Cora was at the desk in the family room, her laptop open. “There’s breakfast casserole in the fridge, with your fake sausage stuff.”
“Have I mentioned lately it’s really too bad we aren’t into girls? I love you so hard right now.”
She laughed. “I love you, too. When do I get to hear the nitty-gritty details?”
“I left Lauren with my old Shīfù, and I went off on an adventure. Do you know anything about The Monkey King?”
She shook her head.
“He’s…. shit. I don’t think I can explain him in less than a few hours. There was a decent movie about him ten or fifteen years ago. We should watch it. Anyway, he was k
ind of assigned as my guide. He’s the Chinese equivalent of Coyote, only more juvenile and a whole lot more powerful.”
“Sounds like a dangerous combination.”
“You have no idea.”
“Who are you going to give the details to? Just me? Or others, too?”
I sank into the sofa. “You and probably Nathan. Aaron will need to know the highlights. No one else needs to know.”
“Unless there are details one of us will get that the other won’t, you should probably wait and tell us both later this evening, when Nathan comes over. Things have been relatively quiet here, but there’s still plenty of stuff for me to catch you up on.”
Cora joined me on the sofa, so we sat at opposite ends facing each other, our legs tangled together.
“I know Randall arranged for new management over the Ringgold Pack, and many of the North Georgia families have returned to it, leaving the Chattanooga Pack a little smaller. Also, that Patrick is apparently in love with a new wolf, and managing a new love life along with his new Pack.”
She nodded. “Eventually, Randall will have to send me away. I don’t want to try to take over the entire southeast, and if we’re in the same Pack, we run that risk. I’ll need my own, but I don’t want to move far away.” She met my gaze. “Randall’s vanilla when it comes to sex, but he’s our Alpha, and when we have sex with him, he…” She shrugged. “It sounds creepy, but it isn’t. It’s a reminder everything is as it should be. It’s like, when he’s about to come, or when things get really hot and heavy, he uses his ability to control our willpower to hold us still. It might only be twenty seconds, or it might be several minutes, but it’s once we’re both fully into it, there’s no way it’s rape in any way. We’ve already consented to sex, it’s just him using his power over us to hold us still.”
Edge of Humanity (Only Human Book 5) Page 12