“Lou,” Abby muttered under her breath, feeling herself start to smile. “If you had a body, I’d kiss you.”
I’m gonna remember that next time I run into you, babe. Just remember, I like a lot of tongue.
Noah turned and frowned at her. “What did you say?”
Abby wiped the grin off her face. “I said, I think the two of you are missing something here. Sure, I’m not as big and strong as my macho older brother, but I’m far from defenseless.”
He sighed. “Ab, a few rape prevention courses at the Y don’t qualify you for potential hand-to-hand combat.”
“Lou, help me out here,” she whispered. She had never had trouble using the fiend’s strength before when she needed it, but she figured that while they were on speaking terms, it would be polite to at least give him a heads-up. Then in her normal voice she said, “Maybe not. But this does.”
Before her brother could guess her intentions, she grabbed him by the arm, swept his feet out from under him, and tossed him over her shoulder like a feather pillow.
He landed like a ton of bricks.
“What the fuck?”
Relishing the gesture, Abby brushed her hands together and grinned smugly down at him. “Like I said, I’m not completely defenseless.”
Thunderclouds rolled in across Noah’s expression. Cursing a blue streak, he flipped himself to his feet and glowered down at her. “Mom and Dad should have beaten you regularly.”
“A little late for that now.”
“Oh, that was gorgeous,” Tess laughed, wiping the tears from her face. “I think I may have pulled a muscle. I don’t suppose you’d wait while I fetched the camcorder, then do it again, would you?”
“That proves nothing,” Rule growled. And he had the nerve to call her stubborn.
“It proves that while I’m possessed, I’m at least as strong as Noah and more than capable of defending myself if it comes down to it. More capable, probably. From what I hear, I could probably bench press a Buick, and I doubt my oh-so-tough brother could make that kind of claim.”
She saw Rule shaking his head, but she knew she’d found a chink in his logic.
“But if you can do that because you’re possessed, think about what I’d be able to do if the fiend were inside me?” Noah glared at her and dusted off his fatigues. “Possessed, you may be stronger than me, but if I were possessed, I’d be nearly as strong as Rule.”
“It’s not just about strength,” Rule chimed in. “Noah has had training. He has experience in combat situations—”
“And he’d be a nervous wreck when he saw me racing, alone and unpossessed, into the fray because you made the idiot decision to leave me behind while you two rode off into the enemy camp.”
Rafe put a hand on Rule’s shoulder and patted consolingly. “A true warrior,” the Felix observed, “knows when the time comes to surrender.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I really wish you’d let Tess grab a camera. I’d love to have a shot of the look on your brother’s face.”
Abby forced a smile she really didn’t feel as she paced her way across the floor of her bedroom. Samantha lounged on the bed like a boneless puppy, but Abby couldn’t make herself relax. She might have won the battle over participating in the plan to trap Uzkiel, but that didn’t mean Rule and Noah had been gracious about it. They had immediately convened some kind of testosterone-laden powwow to adjust the mission parameters. At least, that’s what they’d told her. She suspected they were drinking beer and playing pool and bitching about her stubbornness.
Samantha sighed. “Don’t worry, Abby. They’re not going to do this without you. You made them swear on their gonads. And anyway, Tess’s spies are everywhere. If they so much as look toward an exit, trust me, we’ll hear about it.”
“I know.” Abby halted near the foot of the bed and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself nervously. “I’m just . . . I guess I thought that once they announced the grand plan, we’d go ahead and actually do it. It’s this waiting-around part that’s going to give me a heart attack.”
You know, a nice, hot bubble bath might be real soothing. . . .
“Oh, shut up, you little lech!”
“Huh?” Samantha frowned.
“Not you.” Abby sighed. “What time is it?”
“About forty seconds later than when you last asked. You really have to relax, Abby. This isn’t healthy.”
“I know. I just want them to give me a time and a place and get moving already!”
“Okay, you know it’s not that easy.” Samantha spoke with the exaggerated patience you used on a three-year-old. Abby suspected that’s what she most resembled at the moment. “First, they have to totally revise the whole strip club thing. I don’t care if you were possessed by the spirit of Hugh Hefner, there’s no way you’d be caught dead in a place like that.”
“Hugh Hefner is still alive. He can’t possess anyone.”
“Propaganda,” the Lupine dismissed with a wave. “He was replaced by a battery-powered cyborg years ago. But anyway, they need to think of another way to bring you to Uzkiel’s attention without making it look like they’re dangling you under his nose like fresh meat.”
“Even if they are.”
“Right. And secondly, finding a place in this city that’s private, secure, and out of the way and that we don’t mind having blown to smithereens, if it comes to that, is something like finding the Fountain of Youth. It’s going to take a while.”
Abby grumbled and resumed pacing. “Your logic has no power over me.”
“Clearly. Come on, Ab, you’re making me dizzy. Give it a rest.”
“Shut your eyes.”
A brief knock sounded on the door, but Tess didn’t wait for an answer before she waltzed inside. “I come bearing popcorn and eye candy.” She waved a DVD case in one hand. The other cradled an enormous stainless-steel mixing bowl overflowing with buttered popcorn. “I thought we might be reaching that scary stage of impatience where we start snapping at our friends for no reason.”
Giving Abby a pointed look, Tess handed the popcorn to Samantha and opened the door on the wardrobe housing the TV. Tess popped the DVD in the player and dragged Abby back toward the bed.
“Pile in and get comfortable,” Tess instructed, putting her own words into action. She climbed over Samantha, who had stretched lengthwise on the end of the bed and claimed it as her own, and settled back against the headboard. “We’ve got two hours of nature’s glory just waiting to be drooled over.”
Her glare managed to coax Abby into submission. Settling down next to Tess, she dipped into the popcorn and pulled out a salty handful. She could smell the rich scent of butter before she even lifted it to her mouth.
“Cardiologists everywhere must be cursing your name,” she muttered.
“Without me, they’d be out of work. Now make yourself useful and go grab some drinks. There should be cans in the little fridge next to the closet.”
Abby laughed. “Of course. I forgot all about the minibar. You do realize that this place is eerily well equipped for unexpected visitors?”
“It’s a very exclusive club!” Tess called after her. “People come from all over to visit us. You expect Graham to send them to the Holiday Inn?”
Shaking her head, Abby grabbed three cans of soda from the miniature refrigerator and headed back into the bedroom. Samantha and Tess lounged on the bed, munching popcorn and commenting on the movie’s opening credit sequence, looking like perfectly normal friends settling in for a quiet evening in good company. Abby blinked and faltered, stopping suddenly in the archway between the short hall into the bathroom and the open space of the bedroom area.
These were her friends.
It struck her, really struck her, in an instant and made her catch her breath. Tess De Santos, witch and mate to the shape-shifting werejaguar who headed the Council of Others, and Samantha Cartwright, werewolf secretary to the Alpha Lupine of the Silverback Clan, had managed in th
e last confusing, infuriating, surreal week of Abby’s life to become two of the best friends she’d ever had. Her. Abby Baker, boring little girl next door. She’d gone from a perfectly ordinary, if unexciting, existence as an average human being to that of the kind of woman who had a witch and a werewolf as best friends and a demon as a lover.
She felt dizzy all of a sudden.
Tess looked away from the movie and frowned at her. “You okay, Ab?”
“Yeah,” she said, shaking off the dazed feeling. “Fine.”
Just having a little revelation over here, she thought. No big deal. I just suddenly realized that I kind of love you guys.
Why don’t you go give them a hug? And maybe a kiss. You know, I hear communal nudity can be a real bonding experience. . . .
Trust Lou to turn a moment of emotional revelation into the setup for a bad porn film.
Abby didn’t even bother to acknowledge it. “Did you know there’re no diet sodas in there?”
Samantha looked at her as if she’d asked if they were aware there were no pygmy aardvarks in the refrigerator and took the can of root beer. “Of course not. Who drinks that stuff?”
“I do.” Abby popped the tab on a ginger ale and sipped the sweet, spicy liquid. “It’s the price I pay for what my grandmother so kindly refers to as my ‘childbearing hips.’ ”
“I’m afraid Sam doesn’t see the problem with childbearing hips,” Tess said, explaining the confused look on the Lupine’s face. “You see, most shifters find physical attributes like wide hips and a curvy figure to be turn-ons. I think it has something to do with the preservation of those primitive, animalistic instincts. Believe me when I say, you’ll never meet a Lupine who’s on a diet.”
Abby blinked. “Are you serious?”
“Perfectly, but there’s no need to look surprised. I mean, you can’t tell me you’ve ever heard Rule objecting to your figure,” Samantha teased.
“Well, no, but I thought that was just more evidence that a man that perfect couldn’t possibly be human.”
Tess snickered. “In a way, I suppose it is. Like I said, the Others tend to have different ideas of beauty than the human advertising industry. Haven’t you taken a look around? I mean, Samantha has to be the skinniest woman you’ve met while you’ve been staying here. It’s not like I don’t have a curve or two.”
Abby looked from one woman to the other and frowned. “Neither one of you needs to lose weight. You both look terrific.”
“And so do you. If you don’t take our word for it, take Rule’s.” Tess’s expression turned wicked. “I’m sure if you’re still having doubts, he’d be happy to demonstrate his satisfaction with your physical appearance.”
Abby blushed. “I’m not having doubts that Rule finds me attractive.”
Samantha grinned. “Well, at least he’s doing something right.”
“He’s doing lots of things right, being thick-headed notwithstanding.” Abby fiddled with the tab on her soda can, spinning it in little circles until the metal gave out and snapped off into her hand. Bracing herself, she took a deep breath. “I think . . . I’m afraid I’m completely in love with him.”
Her declaration was met with utter silence.
Heart in her throat, she looked up and saw both women staring at her impassively. Neither said a word.
Abby started to squirm.
“And?” Samantha prompted.
“Were we supposed to respond to that?” Tess asked. “ ’Cause, I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but . . . DUH!”
Laughing, Abby let her head thump back against the headboard. “Well, it may sound stupid to you, but this is a big thing for me. (A) I’ve never been in love before, and (B) this is the first time I’ve dated anyone outside my own species. This is a stretch for me.”
Samantha patted Abby’s leg. “It doesn’t sound dumb that you’re in love with Rule. What sounded dumb was that you were expecting us not to have noticed.”
“Like I said, Ab, it’s a really good thing you don’t play poker.” Tess swigged her own cola. “I understand the species gap, though. Trust me, I had problems with it, too, and at least I grew up knowing that other species existed. You’ve only had two months to assimilate it.”
Abby sat forward and nodded. “Exactly! This is like a whole world shift for me. I mean, I’ve barely dated over the last couple of years, and now all of a sudden I’m falling in love with something that three months ago I would have said was an allegory for humanity’s taboo impulses.”
“Right. The thing you have to understand, though, and this is the most important part, so listen carefully,” Tess leaned forward and put her hand on top of Abby’s, “the thing to remember is . . . get over it.”
“What?”
Tess laughed, which Abby wasn’t entirely sure she appreciated. “Get over it. Listen, Ab, I love you. You’re a great girl, but you’re getting way too wrapped up inside your own head. Maybe it’s that convent school upbringing of yours, but whatever. You need to move past it. I get that the idea of interspecies dating can put a little hitch in a girl’s step, but you have to stop and realize that in the end, they’re all just guys.”
“Tess is right. Trust me, I’ve dated a lot of guys in my life,” Samantha said, “and not all of the ones who were dogs happened to be Lupine. Men are men. No matter what species they come from, they all have the same impulses and the same incomprehensible way of looking at things.”
“Take Rule and Rafe as an example.” Setting her soda down on the bedside table, Tess resettled herself. Abby had already noticed that the witch tended to talk with her hands. “Two totally different species raised on two totally different planes. One a Felix, the other a demon. Sound pretty different, don’t they?” She shook her head. “Uh-uh. The two of them took one look at each other, recognized themselves as long-lost blood brothers or something, and they’ve been thick as thieves ever since. I’m talking from day one. And it’s not because their backgrounds are so similar. They’re entirely different. But they’re both men, and more than that, they’re both Alpha men. Their main purpose in life is to claim and protect. It doesn’t matter what bubble they fill in under the species column on the next census.”
Samantha snorted. “And isn’t that going to make for some interesting national statistics?”
“You’ve had a lot longer to come to that conclusion than I’ve had,” Abby protested.
“Oh, screw that.” Tess held up a hand and laughed. “No, hear me out. Yeah, I knew going into this that shape-shifters existed. I’d even met one or two, but it’s not like I was pals with any of them. You wouldn’t know this, since you didn’t know about any of the Others up until the news broke, but until about five years ago the witches had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the Others community. We kept entirely separate, had our own little council, our own laws, everything. So trust me when I tell you that it was nearly as big a leap for me to end up mated to a werejaguar as it’s been for you to end up mated to a demon.”
Abby shook her head. “No one said anything about mates.”
“Right.” Samantha rolled her eyes. “Of course not. We’ll pretend that doesn’t exist just like the whole love thing, shall we?”
“I’m serious. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with sex and love. Leave me a little breathing room, would you?” She turned back to Tess. “So how did you deal with it?”
The blonde snorted. “As little as humanly possible. I ignored it for a good long time, then I bitched about it for a while. Actually, I spent a lot of time bitching to Missy and the girls.”
“The girls?”
“There’s a whole group of us. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Women with Idiot Men on Their Hands. We’ll discuss your induction later, when the others get back from their vacations. A lot of them managed to arrange to be out of town when the Unveiling broke.” Tess waved a hand. “But that’s not the point. In the end there was really only one thing that mattered. No matter how much the jerk go
t on my nerves or how many barriers stood between us, I was in love with him. Utterly and completely. And I still am. He’s my husband and my friend and the father of my son and the person I want to wake up next to every morning for the rest of my life. He’s my mate.” She paused to stare at Abby. “Any of this ringing any bells?”
Abby just closed her eyes on a sigh.
“Look, I know it’s inconvenient, Ab, but you’re going to have to face the fact that love is rarely anything else.”
She made a face. “That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
“Oh, Gods, no,” Tess said, sounding completely taken aback. “Yell and scream and rant and rave. Trust me, the practice will come in handy. But when the dust settles, take a good look at Rule and try to imagine what your life would be like if he weren’t in it anymore.” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that something you’re prepared to face?”
The movie, the popcorn, and the friends were long gone when Rule finally climbed into Abby’s bed that night. He moved silently, but she had begun to recognize the feel of him in the room, the way the air seemed to shift and tighten when he was near. She turned immediately into his arms and burrowed her head against his shoulder.
“Is everything okay?” she whispered, her voice thick and foggy with sleep.
“Fine,” he murmured, and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
Abby grinned into the darkness. “Make me.”
He hadn’t needed to be told a second time.
She had reveled in his touch, not just because it felt so good, an aching excitement she was afraid had already become addictive, but because she needed the reassurance after their earlier argument that anger hadn’t changed what was between them. By the time she had drifted, limp and boneless, into sleep, at least that worry had been thoroughly banished.
When she woke, though, a dozen others were clamoring to take its place.
Rule was gone, his side of the bed already cool to the touch. Abby hurried through a shower and yanked on the first clothes she found, surprised that she didn’t even have to fight with Lou that morning. Maybe that was a good sign.
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