Connor caught my hand where it pressed against his body and held it there. “You were touching him.”
Rolling my eyes, I tried unsuccessfully to jerk my hand back. “I caught him with my claws and there was blood but no injury. I thought we healed fast but their healing ability is astounding. I wanted a closer look out of curiosity. Let me go.”
He closed his eyes and then released my hand with a sigh. “I would rather you not touch him unless you’re inflicting pain.”
Ethan snorted with amusement. I frowned at both of them. Honestly, there was no way to have any privacy when surrounded by supernatural beings; they could all hear a pin drop from a mile away.
Spinning, I pointed a finger up at Ethan. “You behave yourself!” Then I turned back to where Connor stood smirking at Ethan. “If you could control yourself, he wouldn’t find it nearly as much fun to provoke you.”
Finished with men for the moment, I turned my back on both of them and called Tera as I stalked away.
I really wished my hearing weren’t so acute because I could have done without hearing Ethan whisper to Connor that he envied him before flying away, or whatever vampires do.
Tera wisely kept her own council and just walked silently alongside me.
Sebrina looked up at our approach from where she knelt in the flowerbed running along the west side of her cottage with a small shovel and smiled at us. “Tired of sparring already?”
“Interrupted by a jealous caveman,” I spat in irritation.
She looked at me seriously. “Don’t knock a little jealousy; at least you know where you stand with him.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Not really; jealousy over a possession doesn’t necessarily imply affection or love.”
“You are not just a possession to Connor,” Tera defended her leader hotly.
Crossing my arms with a frown, I looked at her. “I’m not exactly a person either. Before he can lay claim to any sort of intense feelings at all, he is going to have to take the time to get to know me.”
“When you find a mate, the caring is almost instinctive. The love is there and if you weren’t so stubborn you would realize that you love him too,” Tera insisted.
“Easy for someone without a mate to say, Miss Footloose and Fancy Free.”
“Not as free as you would think,” Tera said softly.
“Ladies, how about we agree to disagree?” Sebrina stepped in like the diplomat she was. “All of us are in different situations and therefore have very different perspectives, but that doesn’t invalidate the way we each feel individually.” Giving each of us an affectionate squeeze, she stepped away and asked us to follow her.
Tera and I shrugged at each other and followed her to the front garden; a carpet of large white blooms filling the entire yard with their rich fragrance surrounded the little birdbath.
“They remind me of soap,” Tera said as she sniffed the air appreciatively.
“They’re beautiful, Sebrina,” I said earnestly.
She beamed with pleasure. “They are the only flower I know of that blooms only at night. I love them.”
The trellis behind the little bench was also covered in smaller, more tubular versions of the white flowers, which Sebrina explained were moon flower vines. The white was such a bright shade, it reflected the light of the moon with an almost ethereal blue glow.
I sighed, grateful for the tranquility of Sebrina’s garden and the moment of peace it provided me as I sank down to sit on the bench surrounded by the fragrant moon flower blossoms.
After sitting with my eyes closed for a minute, I opened my eyes to look at Sebrina and Tera; they were both watching me curiously. “Thank you for sharing your garden with us, Sebrina. I needed to be reminded how much beauty there is still around me.”
A soft smile played about the edges of Sebrina’s mouth. “That’s why I grow them.”
Tera cocked her head at both of us and frowned. “I don’t understand, why do you both feel you need to be reminded of something so simple?”
“You were born into this world, Tera, we weren’t. It takes more than a little adjusting for those of us who come into the game a little late,” Sebrina said gently.
“I guess. It just seems like being human would be so mundane. I can’t imagine being anything but what I am,” Tera said simply.
Though I hadn’t been aware that Tera was born a werewolf, it definitely helped me understand her views a little better. “There are definitely a lot pluses to being a werewolf, but part of me misses being human. While in some ways life seems simpler now, it also comes with a host of new problems and things I don’t yet fully understand.”
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Tera assured me seriously.
I smiled. “Yes, I think I will. Sebrina, I think I will leave you to your gardening, I’m ready for dinner.”
“See you tomorrow night, babe.” Sebrina waved to me as I walked away from her cottage and toward my own. Tera trailed behind me at a slower pace. I wasn’t sure if she was giving me space or thinking about something entirely unrelated.
As I neared the door, I spotted my car again and remembered collecting my mail while I was at the apartment. I needed to go through it to make sure nothing needed my immediate attention.
It was still resting on the passenger seat of the car. I started thumbing through it as I picked it up and walked back to the house. Most of it appeared to be junk but one long business envelope captured my attention.
The return address read: Grady O’Shea, Attorney at Law. Frowning, I opened the letter and quickly scanned its contents.
“Crap! I’m being sued,” I said, sinking down onto the couch in shock.
“Sued? For what?” Tera asked, once again at my side.
I snorted. “For shoving my boss when he tried to molest me at the office. I resigned after the incident but he is now suing me for assault, and he wants damages. This is unbelievable.”
Tera picked up the phone. “I’m calling Connor.”
“Why?” I was a little irritated that she seemed to think Connor was the answer to all of my problems.
“You’ll need Ed; he’s the pack attorney and I don’t know how to reach him. Connor will take care of it,” she told me before turning her attention to the phone.
Connor must have answered because she went straight into explanations.
Once she’d told him the gist of the situation, Tera listened intently to whatever Connor had to say on the matter.
“Will do, boss,” she said smartly before hanging up and turning back to me. “The attorney will be here in the morning to consult with you about the case. Then you can decide how to proceed from there. I’m going to pop a frozen pizza in the oven. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure,” I said, distractedly chewing my lower lip as I worried about the prospect of being sued for assault. Would I be arrested? I was more than a little horrified by the thought of having a record.
Visions of myself behind bars and featured in one of those specials called Good Women Going Bad: Women in the Prison System made me shudder.
Then I remembered touring a prison once in high school and the tiny little metal toilet in the corner of the small cell. The total lack of privacy… I would never be able to go to the bathroom again if I went to jail.
Tera came back into the room and laughed at my serious expression. “You worry too much. Ed will handle everything, you’ll see.”
The front door opened and Epenie came in followed closely by a very irritated-looking Tuck. “You will not go to the vampire nest. I forbid it.”
E’s mouth opened and closed silently for a minute as she glared up at the intimidating man, then she found her voice. “Listen up, Sparky, there will be no forbidding here. If something bothers you and you wish to share your opinion, I promise to listen but that’s as far as it goes.”
She finished her little speech with several sharp pokes to the center of his massive chest, much to the surprise of Tuck.
“Woman, i
t is not safe,” he said sternly.
Epenie rolled her eyes. “They invited me. It will be fine.”
He growled in frustration. “I will go with you.”
“They invited you too?” she asked a little too sweetly.
“Where you are invited, I am invited also, it is understood.”
“Understood by whom?” Epenie asked loudly.
“By me and everyone else in this community,” Tuck replied as if the discussion were closed.
She glared up at him. “Don’t make me get my newspaper.”
He glared right back. “If you ever raise that newspaper to me again, I will use it on your bare backside.”
Epenie blinked up at him as if in shock. “I was joking. Trying to find some humor in this situation but now you’ve taken all the fun out of it.”
“One day we will tell the story of the newspaper to our grandchildren and we will both laugh,” Tuck said seriously.
“Really?” she asked softly.
“This I promise you, Epun-I,” he said, cupping her face gently in his hands and placing a soft kiss on her forehead before releasing her and going out the door.
I knew I should have left the room; to continue to watch as long as I had was serious voyeurism, but he’d used the Korean pronunciation of her name, which, E had told me before, translated simply to beautiful.
Epenie stood watching him out of the window silently before turning and going into her room without a word. I was sure she needed time to come to terms with everything that just happened.
“Wow, that was a hot moment,” Tera said with a grin.
I nodded my agreement. Tuck was obviously head over heels for E, and for such a quiet guy he didn’t seem to have any difficulty letting her know how deeply he felt for her.
“It almost makes me ready to accept my mate,” Tera said wistfully.
“I’m going to prison, so I guess I won’t have to worry about the whole mate thing,” I said morosely, the momentary fascination with E and Tuck’s battle forgotten as I remembered my woes.
“You are not going to prison,” Tera said with a laugh before going to get the pizza from the oven. “You have quite a flair for the dramatic.”
“We’ll see how much laughing there is when you have to visit me in Sing Sing,” I said as she handed me a plate piled high with pizza.
“Ed will handle everything, trust me,” Tera said as she bit into a piping hot piece of pepperoni pizza.
Chapter Twelve
In my honest opinion, Ed was the least intimidating man I’d ever seen, wolf or human. He stood about 5′7″ in his patent leather shoes; wildly curly long hair was haphazardly contained in a ponytail. I say haphazardly because the majority of it sprang out at different angles all over his head. His brown suit looked as if he’d slept in it and unless I was mistaken, he’d cut himself shaving because there was also a large bloodstain on the edge of his collar.
Ed’s sharp-edged lawyer look was finished off with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses riding low on his nose and small brown eyes that darted around the room nervously.
I stared at Tera and Connor in abject disbelief. This was the pack attorney that was going to face down John Drake’s legal eagles? The legal eagles I was pretty sure would be barracudas ready to wreak all sorts of carnage on myself and my erstwhile representation.
Prison bars were definitely in my future, that or debtor’s prison… did they still have debtor’s prison?
Maybe I could throw myself on John’s mercy.
“Alexandria?”
I jumped as Ed’s surprisingly deep baritone invaded my vision of groveling at John’s feet. “Yes?”
“I was asking you what precipitated your attack on your boss.”
“It wasn’t an attack, it was self-defense! The man was trying to molest me in his office,” I said in protest. “I guess I pushed him a little too hard, but I had no idea about the superhuman strength at that juncture.”
The twinkle that rose in Ed’s dark eyes made me suddenly revise my initial impressions; there was more going on inside his head than met the eye. He began rocking from his heels to his toes in glee, obviously relishing the coming battle.
“This was after you’d been bitten?”
“Yes.”
“Had your boss ever made any sort of advance on you previously?” he asked, a definite predatory gleam in his eye.
“No, never. I was always so fat; why would he?” I ignored Connor’s growl of outrage. After all, truth is truth.
Ed steepled his fingers across the bridge of his nose as he studied me thoughtfully; just as I was beginning to get nervous, he sat forward with a huge grin.
“We’ve got him!”
I blinked. “We do?”
Ed looked at Connor and Tera. “She’ll need a new outfit for the deposition. I’m thinking a snug leather skirt with a slit to mid-thigh, a cream-colored silk dress shirt open just enough to reveal the lacy camisole underneath, and pearls. Definitely pearls.”
“Done,” Connor said decisively.
“Huh?” I was worried about staying out of prison and they were talking wardrobe?
“I can call Mira to do her hair and makeup that morning,” Tera interjected.
“Perfect,” Ed said with a satisfied smile.
“I don’t understand. Y’all are acting like we’ve won and we haven’t discussed anything but clothes,” I said with no little irritation.
“Alexandria, you have nothing to worry about,” Ed assured me.
“I get that you all think that but I don’t get why,” I said in exasperation.
“Simple; your boss was enthralled by the she-wolf in you, he found you irresistible to the point that he lost his good sense. We are counting on him to do it again, only this time with witnesses. We will be countersuing for sexual harassment, and Mr. John Drake will prove our point to everyone involved,” Ed explained patiently.
I frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re so sure this will work.”
“Xandie, you’ve always been pretty and the morning that your boss hit on you, he sensed something different about you, but that’s nothing compared to how you look now,” Tera said with a grin.
“I’m surrounded by men all the time and none of them are jumping my bones,” I said with a shrug. I mean I knew I’d changed but I didn’t think I was exactly the sex on a stick they seemed to think I was.
“One, you’re surrounded by wolf and vampire males; while they think you’re attractive, the draw isn’t quite the same as it is to human males. Two, they all know you’re my mate and want to keep all their body parts,” Connor said succinctly.
I glared. “I thought we weren’t discussing the whole mate thing.”
“Not discussing it doesn’t make it any less real.”
I decided from that point on to ignore Connor and turned to Ed. “So you’re counting on John being unable to resist my new and improved charms?”
“Exactly,” Ed said with another grin.
“Hmmm, I may need to go see this whole pheromone thing in action,” I said thoughtfully.
Tera laughed when Connor growled again. “She’s just getting you back for talking about the mate thing again.”
He sighed and then said his goodbyes before leaving with Ed in tow. Apparently we were done for now and the only preparation I needed to do was to buy new clothes.
“The draw for humans is really that big?” I asked.
“It has to be. If you need a human mate, there has to be something worth dealing with your spouse occasionally becoming furry. It’s the only way our species survives.”
“But you were born a wolf, weren’t both your parents wolves?”
“Yes, I’m totally purebred. Although couples don’t have to be two wolves to produce a wolf, it’s just like any other genetic trait. A mixed couple might have one wolf and two humans but both the humans will have the recessive wolf gene, like you had. You can’t survive an attack to become a wolf unless you have the recessive gene.
Of course a mixed couple could also have all wolfs or all humans,” Tera explained.
“So do wolf couples always have wolf babies?”
“Usually, although in some instances a pure couple has bred a human. I think that’s more of the recessive gene stuff but it doesn’t happen often.”
I nodded. In a weird sort of way, it all made sense. The events of the morning gave me a lot to think about. I decided to eat a quick lunch and then rest for the majority of the afternoon since the vampires would be back to train as soon as the sun went down.
* * *
Nine o’clock found both Tera and me on the practice field stretching. It surprised me when Sebrina suddenly appeared next to me.
“Hi, babe,” she said with a distracted smile.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Ethan isn’t coming tonight. He’s sending Vera instead.”
“Vera?”
“She’s one of our greatest warriors, I’ve never met her before,” Sebrina said nervously.
“Is she scary?”
Sebrina snorted. “I’m sure she would be if you were enemies. She has special weapons made specifically for her. Vera is fast and furious, one of the oldest of our kind.”
Now I was getting a little nervous. “Why would she help us?”
“She has pledged allegiance to Ethan. So his cause is her cause,” Sebrina explained.
“If she’s so powerful, why does she bow to Ethan?”
A statuesque black woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “I bow to no one wolf but I do give allegiance out of respect and appreciation for respect given me.”
As I took in the new vampire, I was reminded of Pam Grier as Foxy Brown but with a serious update. She wore tight leather leggings that clung to her every curve, her top was a silver lamé halter that barely skimmed the top of her pants, and loosely connected drop sleeves flowed down to cover her wrists. I couldn’t believe how impossibly high her silver heels were, and the tip resting on the ground appeared to be so tiny that the woman defied gravity.
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