by Lynn Red
He shrugged. “Big, I guess.”
“Isn’t that a little bit, I dunno, ancient Egyptian of you? A colossus of yourself in front of your palace?”
Jake smiled, a smug grin on his lips that made George laugh, but made pretty much everyone else in the world a little weak in the knees. “If it was good enough for Ramses, it’s good enough for me.”
“Good job, you watched a documentary. So you do remember that he was the God-King of an entire empire, right? And you’re just... a pack alpha?”
He scoffed. “I’ve got one thing going for me Ramses doesn’t.” He thought for a moment. “At least one.”
Tapping her fingers against her chin, “a chariot pulled by lions?”
Shaggy brown hair shook from side to side.
“You and your elite body guards destroyed an entire army by yourselves?”
“Close, but no.”
“Father to a hundred some odd children?”
He laughed. “I hope not, anyway.”
“Then I give up,” she said. “What is it?”
“I,” Jake announced dramatically, “am not dead.”
George stared at him for a moment before she began slow-clapping. “You are also a master at deflecting reality. So I’m to take it that your entire derail there was to hide that you are, in fact, upset about Dane?”
Jake was frowning deeply, but didn’t realize it until George made a remark about how he looked like he’d just eaten a lemon, rind and all. George laughed after her comment.
“So it is about Dane, huh?”
Jake grumbled a yes. George stared at him for a second, and he realized he wasn’t going to get away with being vague. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with him. Why am I even meeting him in the first place? He’s been gone... what, five years? Since he just up and left?”
She looked at her phone. “Yup. Well, five and a half. And to be honest with you, I don’t know why you’re meeting with him. Part of me being me, and keeping my job, is that I don’t mess with pack politics.”
Jake hunched his shoulders, squeezing his hands together so hard the knuckles cracked. “I mean, what could he possibly want?”
George had a look on her face that said she knew more than she was saying. “Well,” she said, “I don’t mess with pack politics, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any ideas.”
He leaned heavily on his desk, fists balled up and shoulders tense. “I’m all ears.”
“Well,” she began, “you remember why he left, right?”
“Sure, because pops named me the alpha.”
She nodded. “And do you think that might have something to do with this meeting?”
“How could it?” Jake shot at her. He was angry, though he didn’t mean to be – at least, not at George. “He’s the one who left. I didn’t have a single thing to do with that. And anyway, even if he is somehow still angry, what the hell good is it going to do?”
A silky voice wafted through the open door. “I’m going to challenge you to a mating. And if you don’t manage to succeed, the whole thing is mine.”
“Dane,” Jake hissed. He went to slam his hands on his desk like he’d practiced, but somehow, that didn’t properly express the venom he felt coursing through his veins. Instead, he just clenched his fists and glared. “How dare you come back here after abandoning the pack? Who the hell do you think you are?”
Dane, with his short-cropped brown hair, clean-shaven dimpled chin and startlingly blue eyes, just smiled. “I’m the real heir to our father’s fortune. You’re a pretender who decided to play funny business with the pack.”
The corner of Dane’s left eye twitched. Jake didn’t remember very much about his estranged brother, but he did recall that when Dane lied, his eye twitched. Of course, that didn’t seem to matter much.
“You gonna try me?” Jake snarled.
George started to feel a little flushed. Both wolves were hunched over, flexing their huge muscles and apparently about to rip one another’s throat out. She backed up to the single chair in the office, and tried to make herself as small as possible.
“It’s my right,” Dane said. “You find a mate first, or I do. Whichever of us does? He’s the rightful alpha.”
Between clenched teeth, Jake hissed, “What are the stakes?”
Dane swept his arms in a grandiose way. “Everything, brother,” he said with a smug, arrogant chuckle. “Everything.”
-4-
“I don’t know what to tell you. I just never liked Baywatch.”
-Delilah
“The thing is though, he wasn’t trying.” I said, placidly as I slapped a wad of clay on a model to figure out exactly how I was going to make a statue of him. The details didn’t matter, it was just the general size and shape I was aiming for. I had a pretty good memory, and anyway, him? I remembered every line and angle.
Jeannie and I had been talking about the growly guy – Jake – more or less since he’d walked out the door with that delicious swish in his step, and slid that beautiful ass across the motorcycle’s saddle. “If he was trying too hard,” I said, “he’d... I dunno, wear a bunch of cologne, or have a bunch of chest hair sticking out the top of his shirt. Maybe a big, gold pendant?”
Jeanette was shaking her head, smiling sadly. “Oh honey, men haven’t done all that at once since Studio 54 stopped being a thing.”
I picked up my chisel and took off a chunk of clay that had hardened wrong.
“David Hasselhoff?” I asked. “And he wears sunglasses all the time, too, even indoors. Triple threat.”
Jeannie looked at me for a long moment, considering what I’d said. “Okay, fine. I’ll grant you The Hasslehoff,” she pronounced his name like it was a title, “and I’ll raise you William Shatner.”
“Oh,” I said, drawing the word out into about twelve syllables. “She plays the Shatner card. And he even has that. Weird. Way. He. Speaks. Where. Every single. Word. Is. Incredibly. Important?”
Jeannie grabbed her coffee and took a long pull. I could smell the vanilla syrup all the way across the table that functioned as her desk. I have no idea how she drank those things – just the scent put my fingernails on edge. Then again, I put mayo on steak, so I probably don’t have much room to talk. For a few moments we just sat in silence as the plodding, lazy rainstorm that had been patting the windows with slow, fat drops since about eight that morning grew fiercer.
Just thinking that word – fierce – put a little twinge in my belly. As usual for the past several days, my thoughts went to Jake. I couldn’t stop myself from daydreaming about the heat in Jake’s fingertips and the goosebumps he raised and... Okay, yeah I’ll admit it, the tingling in my ladyparts; it was enough to distract me from what I was doing.
I bit my lip, sort of trying to concentrate, but I wasn’t thinking. For one damn second, my mind wandered – and that’s never a good thing when you’re hammering away at a statue that you’re going to be paid God knows how much money for. I thought about that, and then in the next second, my mind turned to that twenty five grand, and then...
It was like those stories you hear about someone’s heart stopping and their spirit flies up to the corner of the room and watches the doctors and everyone rushing around. Then, they blast them with a defibrillator, and the spirit’s vacuumed back up into the body. Except I wasn’t having a heart attack, I’d just screwed up like four days’ worth of work.
I watched my mallet swing.
The tip of the chisel slipped to exactly the one place where it could really do some damage – the delicate joint between the neck and the shoulder.
I bit my lip harder, for some reason completely incapable of stopping my hand as the mallet connected with the chisel, even though I saw the mistake I was making in a flash before I made it.
Thunk.
That ungodly, sickening, horrific sound reverberated through my entire body. I didn’t even hear it so much as I felt it.
The sound of a thousand nails on
a thousand wet chalkboards would not make my teeth hurt any worse. The awful cry of a dying rabbit, or a trapped piglet, had nothing on the sound I heard a split second later.
The crack opened in slow-motion, like when your toe catches in a crack, you fall and try desperately to catch yourself but end up face-planting on the sidewalk. I saw every single event in the chain, but couldn’t stop any of them.
I heard Jeannie say “oh no!” with exaggerated slowness. The first thing that sprang to mind was a scene in a Friday the 13th movie where Jason, that hockey-masked lunatic, swings an axe and the whole world slows. The hapless teenager he’s about to dismember raises her arms, screams in slow-mo, and then...
Thunk.
It wasn’t the sound of an axe hitting flesh, but at that very second, it was a million times worse. The entire arm, not just a chunk, not just a piece, the whole damn thing fell. I squealed, Jeannie shouted, and then the clay hit the concrete floor and exploded in a supernova of dust, fragments, and lost work.
When the world sped back up to normal, I looked over at Jeannie, who was gawking at the formerly beautiful biceps and forearm, which was now just a mess on the floor.
Her voice was as flat as my pulse as she announced, “His arm fell off.”
The plaster dust hit my nose, my eyes squinted up involuntarily and I unleashed the most savage sneeze of my life. It felt like my brain rattled in my skull. If getting a concussion from a sneeze was possible, I’d never be able to play football again after that sneeze.
“Uh,” Jeannie broke the silence, and with it, chipped away slightly at the tension in the air. “I guess you can make it a Venus de Milo?”
I snorted, thankful for the laugh, but still sick to my stomach. “Better get started on the seashell then.”
We looked at each other for a moment longer before another voice intruded, one that I hadn’t realized was there until the owner stepped out from the shadows at the front of my studio like some kind of weird vampire cliché. I looked at him for a second before I remembered that he was talking.
“Whatever he’s paying you,” this new guy said, “I’ll double it.”
“Huh?”
Jeannie and I exchanged a glance. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
The stranger tipped his head toward the busted statue. “Him. Whatever he’s paying you for that ridiculously gaudy piece of self-aggrandizement, I’ll pay you double to turn him down.”
I shook my head. “Why? Although actually we haven’t finalized the cost yet. Er, not like I would tell you anyway. Client confidentiality,” I added hastily. I’m not sure why I thought he might be some kind of lawyer, or some kind of test, but there it is. I can be a little paranoid from time to time.
“You’re not a doctor,” he said. His voice was smooth, even and slightly delicious. Jake’s had more of a gravelly touch to it, but this new guy – who was also really damn big, come to think of it – was sharper, more intense. This wasn’t the sort of person who makes jokes unless they’re really pointed ones.
“That’s true,” I said, not really sure what that was supposed to mean. “I’m... confused as all hell. Who are you and why do you care if I make a statue of someone? Seems kind of strange to get all worked up about someone else’s commission.”
The stranger, whose name I still didn’t know, narrowed his eyes in a vaguely threatening manner. “Who I am doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Just know that I’m dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Don’t make that statue, and if you know what’s good for you, forget about my brother, too. He’s trouble.”
When I get uncomfortable, I laugh. I started laughing. “Your brother? Is this some kind of joke?”
He’s not the kind to make jokes, I thought.
“I don’t joke,” he said. “Especially about serious matters. My brother isn’t worth your time. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“Well sure,” I said, “I can guess. I just don’t understand, if he’s your brother, then—”
With so much speed that I hardly saw him move, even though he crossed the entire studio, the stranger had one hand on the back of my neck and the other over my mouth. Heat emanated from him, just like it had from Jake. “No games,” he hissed, dangerously into my ear. It was a little excited, I’m ashamed to admit, but at that moment, all I wanted was for him to get the hell off me. I struggled a little, but he held me tight.
“When my brother comes back, you’ll tell him you changed your mind. Make something up. Tell him you don’t have time, or you have other things to do, or...” he closed his eyes. “I don’t care. Just make something up.”
I nodded, just to get him off me. That tinge of excitement had turned sour – really sour. I felt a gurgle in my stomach as the heat. “Okay,” I squeaked.
He let go and immediately I felt blood rush to my head. My thoughts swam around in my skull, confusion mixed with anger mixed with fear. “But why?” I finally gathered myself enough to ask. “Why does it matter? And if you’re going to come in here and manhandle me, you can at least tell me your name.”
“It matters,” he was still hissing, “because if you don’t do what I said, I’ll ruin you. Do I seem like I’m playing?”
“I... no,” I said, swallowing hard. “Not at all.”
“Good. Because I’m not. He can’t be allowed to do what he wants to do. I’m the rightful heir, and when I take you for mine, you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams. You’ll be pampered, cared for, but,” he turned his eyes back to me, narrowing them again. “If you cross me, you’ll wish you were dead.”
I couldn’t respond, even if I wanted. My nerves were all shot, my brain surged. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized what he had said. When reality struck, it sent a shiver crawling down my spine.
The front door slammed shut, metal rattling hard against metal. “Did he just say that he was going to take me and make me his?” I asked Jeannie, who had her mouth opened even wider than she did when I broke the statue.
She just nodded, and then clapped her mouth shut. “I think... uh,” she had started shaking her head. “I think I’m real glad I’m not you right now. But then again... damn girl,” she said in a distant voice. “You’re caught in a feud between the two hottest guys I’ve ever seen. Maybe it is worth it. I’m gonna... go do a crossword.”
Jeannie left without waiting for a response. I gulped again, and kicked at a hunk of plaster that was right beside my toe. On the one hand, I was terrified.
On the other?
Shit, she was kinda right.
-5-
“This is just all too much.”
-Delilah
Wednesday came and went without word one from Jake. As I was leaving my studio to head home, I had just gotten to my old Cadillac – which I absolutely do not drive for the prestige or the luxury as it was born before I was – and had to get the stupid thing going. For most cars, that would involve just putting a key in the ignition and turning it, right?
Oh but if you know anything about me, and I hope you do by now, you know that nothing in my life is ever as simple as it seems. Twenty-five thousand dollar doggie statues, being caught between growly, warring brothers; those are nothing compared to getting this eight ton wad of metal going when it’s cold.
Holy shit it’s cold, I kept thinking. I’m not built for this.
You’d think that with the extra padding I seemed to carry eternally on my ass, cold wouldn’t bother me quite as much as it does. As soon as the thermometer dips below, say, sixty-five? I’m an icicle. I shiver, I quake, and God help you if you’re sleeping with me, because my hands and feet are going to be in the warmest places on your body, sucking the heat out like a thermal vampire.
I’m relentless in my search for body heat, which is probably why the way Jake’s fingers, his lips on my wrist, fascinated me so much.
As I sat there in the non-running, black Cadillac, I imagined being wrapped up in a blanket with Jake, his naked body radiating heat through me, wa
rming me down to the bones. I shivered, but not from the chill. The last of the remaining warmth drained out of me and into the leather seat, which convinced me that it was probably about time to get up and start the arcane, extensive process of getting Bertha – that’s what I named her when I got her partway through college – running.
Oh, that’s the thing about Bertha – there is no ignition. I bought her for five hundred bucks in 1998. Yeah, she’s that kind of car. The third time I turned the old boat on, the key turned way too easy, the entire mechanism rotated and then promptly fell out. Ever since, I got to hot wire my own car. Still, she worked like a charm, more or less, once she got going, so I hadn’t worked up the gumption to replace her yet.
And anyway, who needs a car payment they don’t need? With the bills from the studio piling up, even with the twenty five grand, which put us back in the black for probably a month or two, dealing with more financial bullshit was approximately the last thing in the universe I needed to deal with. That’s not to say that I didn’t worry about it every single time I started the car though.
Worry. Yeah, that’s a good word for my personality orientation. Worried, anxious, panicky.
It wasn’t usually obvious, because I learned when I was a little girl to bottle all that up and never let the world see me be weak. It sounds very stiff-upper-lip, but for me it was survival more than anything. I didn’t have the option of trusting people very often. Hell, it took me like five years to tell Jeannie when my period was.
I opened the door and Bertha sighed in hopeless resignation. God that sounds dramatic, but hell, when I’m as old as she is, being able to sigh in resignation will be a blessing, like taking a shower without my back wrenching, or being able to – I dunno, touch my toes without hearing fourteen different body parts pop.
I sighed, but with irritation. The packed dirt parking lot was uncomfortable a I knelt on my spread out towel, but at least there was no gravel biting into my knees. I reached underneath the dash and found the wires. As my trembling fingers wrapped around the exposed ignition wires, I started thinking how nice it would be to have someone else do this for me.