by M. L. Briers
“We need to let him in, and he needs to know…”
“Noooo.”Tanya shook her head, still in hopeful denial that those twenty four tests were incorrect.
“Face it Tanya, you got screwed, and you are screwed.”Lacy offered from the floor.
Dee hissed towards her. “Way to go with the moral support. Remind me not to call you when someone dies.”Dee snapped at her, and she shrugged back her apathy.
“Look, all I’m saying is she needs to confront what’s happened.”Lacy offered, and the deep voice invaded their space again.
“I just want to talk to her…”He offered gently through the closed door. Tanya vigorously shook her head.
Dee bit down on her lower lip, and ran her hands through her hair, as she assessed the situation. Then she rushed to action, going over to Lacy, she grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her up off the floor. Shoving her towards Tanya, she hissed at them.
“Go into Lacy’s room and lock the door. I’ll talk to him.”Dee shoved the pair of them into Lacy’s room and saw the angst in Tanya’s eyes, just before she slammed the door shut.
Walking towards the front door, she undid each and every lock. All six of them in turn, like a little ritual that stupidly made her feel safer.
Dee pulled the front door open and winced at the sight of Tanya’s baby daddy, shuffling from one foot to the other, he looked a little insane. He certainly looked worse for wear, compared to when he was tying one on in the bar that night.
“Are you drunk?”Dee demanded, and he looked at her as if she’d just grow another head.
“No.”He hotly denied, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Well, you look like crap…”Dee assured him, and she heard the deep satin smooth tones of the other Lycan who was standing further back out of her eye line.
“That’s probably because he’s had to hunt down his mate for the last week…”His words made Dee’s jaw slowly fall open, until she caught herself and snapped her mouth closed. But his words still pinged around her brain like a rubber ball inside a glass jar.
“Mate?”She repeated, a little louder than she’d intended, and she heard Lacy balk from behind the bedroom door.
“Mate!”Lacy spat out.
“Mate!” Tanya shrilled a millisecond later, and Dee wanted to roll her eyes.
“Can I please talk to her?”Evan asked.
Dee nodded her head before she shook it. “Not a good idea right now…”She cautioned him, and saw his jaw clench with the tension that ran through him.
“Look, she’s bound to be a little irate at the moment…”He offered, and Dee almost choked on an ironic laugh.
“You have no idea.”Dee hissed out. But he took a small step forward, looking a little irate himself.
“Oh, trust me, I do…”He assured her.
Dee winced. She knew about the mating bond, and she knew that once he had mated with Tanya he was adrift until he saw her again. “Look…”Dee started, but Aidan took a step forward into her line of vision, just behind the crack of the doorway, and she frowned in her recognition of those deep, brown, chocolaty eyes from the bar.
Aidan had taken in her scent the moment she opened the door. In that one moment all of his prior anxieties from the last week had slipped away, and everything seemed to fall into place for him. She felt like the missing piece of his puzzle. She felt like home. And he knew that she was his mate. But his Beta’s need was far greater than his right now, and he needed to get her to let Evan see his mate, before the man started to climb the damn walls.
“What’s your name?”Aidan asked; it wasn’t just that he needed to know what to call her. He wanted her name on his tongue as well.
“Dee.”She offered, trying to dismiss those eyes and the man, and get back to putting off Tanya’s mate, now that she knew who he was.
“Dee, I know you know about these things…”He gave her a drop dead gorgeous smile that made her toes curl and a shiver run through the entire length of her body, and she sucked in a breath. “He just needs to see her to give him some clarity…”
“I get that. I do. But now is not a good time…”Dee tried to dismiss the both of them, but that seemed like impossibility. This Alpha was like eye candy that had her heart racing faster than those times when she’d polished off the sweet bowl after Halloween; because the neighbourhood kids were too lazy, or obese, or both, to walk up three flights of stairs and knock on her front door.
“It is for him.”Aidan begged her with his eyes, and she caved. Damn, but he was good, he had that pleading puppy look down, and she found herself pulling the door open and motioning for them to come in.
“Thank you.”Evan offered, as he stepped into the room. Scenting the air, he found his mate’s essence everywhere. His eyes fell to the floor of the bathroom and he balked, recognising what littered the tiles. “What the…”He sidestepped Dee and headed straight for them. Scenting his mate’s essence in the room, he dropped to his knees. His eyes took in every plus sign in turn.
He made a strange strangled sound in his throat, as he reached out and scooped them all towards him.
“They’re my other roommates…”Dee offered quickly, not even giving a thought to Tanya’s scent being all over them.
Evan’s head snapped around towards her. His eyes were accusing as he stared up at her. “She’s pregnant with my pup.”He growled out, and Dee heard Lacy curse on the other side of the door.
Dee took a long breath and went to deny it. But when she blew out the breath, she nodded. “Yep.”
“Christ.”Aidan rolled his eyes, and closed the front door behind him.
Evan pushed up from his knees, and looked down at Dee. “Was she going to tell me?”He growled down at her. Anger made his eye flash to black as he considered who to kill first.
CHAPTER THREE
Dee balked. Putting her hands on her hips, she tipped her head to one side, and scowled up at him. “Yes, she was going to tell you. What do you take her for?”The acidity in her tone seemed to be the least of his worries.
“She disappeared on me after we mated, after I marked her. She must have known what she was to me…”Evan accused, and Dee raised just one eyebrow at him.
“She’s not Lycan, she’s Fae. She’s been ratty and irritable, but then so have I. We just assumed it was some kind of after effect from the damn equinox. Now, if you’re done accusing your mate of being…”
“Hold on…”Aidan injected from beside her. He reached out and touched her arm. The warmth of his touch seemed to flow through her as naturally as the blood in her veins, and she shivered long and hard at the rush within her. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Will she speak with him?”
Dee lifted one arm and ran her hand through her hair. How did she get to be piggy in the middle? She hated this kind of thing, and this was at the most extreme end of dating woes that she’d encountered, but still.
“She’s…”Dee dropped her hand to her thigh with a heavy slap of frustration. “Upset. She just found out that she’s pregnant, and now, that she’s…” She motioned towards Evan. “Your mate.” Dee offered apologetically.
Evan knew exactly where she was. He’d followed her scent the moment he entered the apartment. He could hear the erratic thumping of her heart from behind the door, and he turned towards the closed door and put his palm against the wood.
“Tanya, please open the door.”He was doing everything but getting down on his knees and begging, and that would do him little good because she couldn’t see him.
Dee shot a look towards Aidan, and found that his eyes were already on her. He met her gaze and held it. And she hadn’t noticed before that moment that his hand was still on her arm. She had an overwhelming sense of peace, even considering the circumstances, and she wondered at it. Wasn’t it only vampires that could affect a person’s serenity?
Dee knew she should pull her arm away from his touch, but she found she didn’t want too. She kind of liked it, a lot… too much, and she suddenly fel
t the rush of knowing sweep through her body. Knew why he could affect her, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth, as she gasped in a breath of shock.
“Now calm down…”Aidan saw her eyes widen in realisation and he didn’t want to face the same situation as his Beta was in. Even though in reality he had been for the last week, but it hadn’t been as bad for him because they hadn’t met. They hadn’t mated.
It was like having an undeveloped photograph of her, a negative print that held such promise, but he couldn’t see it clearly yet. Now he could, and he wouldn’t risk that perfection slipping into obscurity.
“Calm down. Oh my god, are you crazy?”Dee spat out. And she snatched her arm from under his hand, and took a long step backwards. “This is so not happening right now. Don’t you think we have enough to deal with?”She gasped out. Aidan went to speak, but she held up her hand to silence him.
“Don’t, just don’t. Don’t say it, don’t think it. Don’t feel it. Don’t.”She was adamant, her head was nodding with each request that she spat out.
Evan turned towards them confused. “What the hell?”He barked out, but Aidan just waved his hand dismissively, as Dee dropped her eyes down to regard the floor, shifting back and forwards nervously on her feet. “Well, it’s something…”Evan snapped out, and Lacy’s voice drifted through the closed door.
“What’s going on?”She hissed, as if only Dee would be able to hear her, and Dee couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
“It’s…”She started, and Aidan shrugged.
“She’s my mate.”He offered. Dee’s head snapped around to look at him, her eyes accusing.
“Nothing.”She finished lamely, berating him with the tone of her voice, as well as her eyes. She heard two simultaneous squeals from the other side of the door. That was exactly the response that she’d hoped to avoid.
The lock snapped off and Evan turned to look as Lacy yanked the door open and rushed out towards Dee.
“Mate?”She stared up at her in disbelief, but Dee looked past her to where Evan was entering the bedroom.
“Tanya…”He offered gently.
Dee jumped as a cup whizzed past his head and shattered against the doorframe. Her eyes went wide in amused disbelief as she started towards the door, but Aidan’s arm wrapped around her waist, and he yanked her back against him.
“What are you…?”Dee tried to squirm away from him, as a pot of moisturiser hit the woodwork and bounced off.
“It’s not exactly safe…”Aidan offered against her ear, and she balked.
“Geez, don’t ever go to war…”She hissed out with all the sarcasm she could manage. She used both of her hands to push down on his arm and tried, and failed, to break free.
“Little word to the wise, Lycans are stronger than Fae…”Aidan offered beside her ear again, just as a can of deodorant slammed into the frame, and Evan’s hand shot out and caught it as it bounced off the woodwork.
“Hey, don’t throw anything expensive!” Lacy called out to her friend, and Dee half turned in Aidan’s arms to stare up at him.
“Little word to the uninitiated, Fae are devious, and we have magic that can shrivel your balls…”She spat out. Stomping her heel down onto his foot and making him yelp out in pain.
Aidan let go of her for an instant, and she raced towards the bedroom. Taking Evan by surprise, she elbowed him aside, and ducked under a flying hairbrush on a squeal. She slammed the door closed behind her and locked it.
“Hey!” Lacy shouted out again. As both Lycans turned towards her with dark, accusing gazes, and she swallowed down hard on a shrug.
“I had nothing to do with that.”She offered. Turning on her heels and walking away from them with a little more speed in her step than might have been necessary.
Tanya threw herself back onto the bed, and laid there looking up at the cracks in the ceiling, while Dee paced back and forth over the worn rug.
“Tell me again, how you’re going to be there for me…?”Tanya teased. She was suddenly feeling slightly better about all that she had heard when she knew that she wasn’t in this alone.
“At least I didn’t get knocked up…”Dee shot back over her shoulder, before she pivoted on her feet and came back towards Tanya with her constant pacing.
“At least my mates not an Alpha…”Tanya shot back.
“Ok, I have no come back for that one…”Dee bit out between clenched teeth. She stalked back away from Tanya again.”Wait, yes I do.” She held up her finger in a Eureka moment of clarity. “At least I haven’t already mated, and can deny my mate if I wanted too…”Dee pivoted and stalked back towards Tanya, who sat up on the bed.
“You know that’s not true…”Tanya gave her the look that said she was crazier than a pack of squirrels on a nut rush.
Dee stopped in her tracks and considered it. “Ok, sure…”Dee shrugged a shoulder. She half rolled her eyes in concession to Tanya’s point. “Fate’s a bitch.”Dee added on a sigh. Strolling towards the bed, she swatted Tanya’s feet, and her friend pulled them up and under her, allowing her the room to drop down onto the mattress. And that was what she did. Heavily, as though a couple of elephants had taken refuge on her shoulders and the weight was just too much to bear.
“So, you were the one with all the answers earlier. What do we do, Einstein?”Tanya turned and dropped back against the mattress again. Dee looked over her shoulder at her before she turned on the bed and lay down on her back next to her, both Fae staring up at the ceiling and cataloguing the cracks.
“I guess running away screaming is out of the question…?”Dee offered lightly, and Tanya chuckled.
“Tempting though…”
“Very.”
“But, impractical…”Tanya offered.
Dee frowned. “How so?” She asked as she turned to look at Tanya, who motioned around her.
“They tracked us down here, right? Where’s there to go?”Tanya watched Dee flip over towards her in the bed. The small smile that turned her lips up, as she lifted her hand and pointed at Tanya’s belly, made Tanya want to smack her one.
“Besides, you’re going to look like a beached whale soon enough, and…”That was as far as she got before Tanya nudged her off the bed in one quick movement.
Dee tried to reach for the covers to save her from falling, but it happened to quickly, and she squealed as the bed slipped away and the floor beckoned. The loud thud that sounded out into the room was accompanied by her groan of pain.
The bedroom door exploded inwards. The sound of wood splintering, as the lock was torn out of place, and the loud crash of the back of the door hitting the dressing table, sending perfume bottles and toiletries spilling from the wooden surface to the floor, combined to send both Tanya and Dee to upright positions, one on the floor, and the other on the bed, as both mates rushed inside.
“You’re so gonna pay for that, you jerk.”Lacy spat out into the silence from the other room. Dee turned towards a stunned Tanya, and both of them spat out a chuckle.
“Let me help you up.”Aidan was in front of Dee, offering one very large hand and his assistance in the time she took to turn back towards him again.
“I think I can get off the floor…”Dee scrambled to her feet, and rearranged her skewed clothing.
Evan took a slow walk towards Tanya on the bed. “Are you going to run from me?”Evan asked gently. He was worried more now than before that his mate would reject him, considering his pup was already in her belly.
Tanya tipped her head to the side, and regarded him with disbelief. “I didn’t run from you before…”
“You left. I woke up to find you gone…”Evan offered. Taking another step forwards, towards her.
“I thought we were done having fun…”She offered.
Lacy snorted from the other room. “Floozy.”
Tanya ignored her. “We were in your damn pickup, it was a little uncomfortable…”Tanya berated him, and heard Lacy chuckle.
“Harlot.”
Evan grow
led out his annoyance. Firstly for Lacy, but also for the lack of care he’d taken with his mate, not that he’d known she was his mate initially...
“I never meant…”Evan started to explain, but Tanya held up her hand to stop him.
“Our pup was conceived in the back of a damn truck…”Tanya shot back, wide eyed and contemptuous in her appraisal of her mate. And he growled again, dropping his eyes to the floor, and considering her words.
“Tart.”Lacy chimed up.
Evan threw up his hands in frustration. “Look, we might have got off to a bad start…”He offered and she snorted.
“Bad start?”Tanya spat out in disbelief.”What’s a good start with you guys?”Tanya scooted to the front of the bed, and pulled herself up to her full height, which was still a good foot shorter than he was, and she scowled up at him. “It’s all sex, sex, sex…”
“Well, I didn’t hear you complaining about that the other night…”Evan growled back at her, and she gasped in a breath as she scowled harder at him.
“Wow, did he really go there?”Lacy chuckled from the other room, and Evan ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Look, Tanya…”He started. Holding that same hand out between them, and she batted it away.
“Jerk.”She snapped. Sidestepping him and storming out of the room.
“What’d I say?”Evan asked pitifully. He turned towards his Alpha for support, but Aidan shrugged his broad shoulders, looking down at his own mate to see if she could offer any advice.
Dee opened her mouth to speak, and then shook her head in disbelief. “Lycans.” She hissed. Using her shoulder to nudge past her mate, she followed Tanya out of the room.
“Thanks for the help.”Evan growled at his brother, and Aidan shrugged.
“In case you haven’t noticed, they’re Fae, and females. How the hell am I supposed to know what’s going on in their minds? They aren’t exactly wired properly…”Aidan growled back.
“Heard that.”Lacy chuckled from the other room, and Evan growled again.
“She’s not one of our mates, which means we can kill her…”He offered with Beta logic to his Alpha, who shrugged his large shoulders.