by Dakota West
Julius didn’t even answer. Hudson looked up at his mate, and could see the anger practically rolling off of him in waves, his body nearly shaking with the force of it. He dialed a number on his phone and held it up to his hear, then walked into the living room, talking to someone tensely.
They handled rage differently. At first, Hudson had wanted Julius to feel it the way he did — he hadn’t understood why the other man didn’t shout and throw things or shift and tear off into the woods.
But, after years together, he had to admit that Julius’s way was more effective. Throwing pans around the kitchen would only create a problem that he’d have to clean up later. On the other hand, Julius was calling someone right this minute who could help him with their problem.
Hudson expanded and deflated the balloon again. He still only felt half-civilized on his best days.
He was just lucky that it was enough, and he was lucky that Julius had seen fit to half-civilize him.
Finally, he felt under control enough to stalk into the bedroom and take a shower without punching the tiles. He had a bad feeling that he’d have to wear a suit before the day was over.
Chapter Four
Quinn
Quinn narrowed her eyes at her mother and father in disbelief.
“My wrist isn’t even sprained!” she said. With her left hand, she tore the splint from her right, the velcro making a tearing sound in the small motel room.
She flopped her wrist back and forth, her tendons barely even protesting.
“Look,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Her mother grabbed her hand and held her wrist straight.
“Don’t hurt yourself more, dear,” she said as her father retrieved the splint. Together, they put it back on her as Quinn watched.
“Besides, that nauseating display of affection will take you years of therapy to get over,” her father said.
Quinn thought of the display again. The two men, kneeling on the stone steps of the courthouse, utterly oblivious to the world beyond themselves.
Nauseating wasn’t the word she’d use.
“You don’t think this is a bit frivolous?” she said, doing her best to sound calm. “Didn’t the Nebraska State bar threaten to take away your law license if you keep doing this, dad?”
“Are we in Nebraska?” he asked, his jaw set. He yanked the velcro strap of her splint, pulling it too tight.
“No, father,” she said. Her mother scowled and nodded.
“Go get ready,” her father said. “The judge just called. She wants us in chambers at three on the dot.”
“Three today?” she asked.
“Yes, three today,” her mother said, sounding exasperated. “Who taught you to listen, girl?”
Quinn bit back a reply.
“Hurry up,” her father said. Then he turned toward the dresser in his motel room and began rooting through white button down shirt after white button down shirt.
Back in her own motel room — that she’d paid for herself — Quinn stared forlornly at the wall.
This can’t be happening, she thought. I thought I was going to show up at some protests and see part of the country I’d never been to before.
True, she didn’t like shifters and didn’t think they should be afforded the same rights as humans — let alone the right to marry two people at once.
Or, at least, she hadn’t liked shifters.
Quinn wasn’t sure what she thought any more. Growing up, her parents had seemed so certain of everything, all the time, and their overwhelming dedication to their values was hard to argue with, particularly as a kid.
She wasn’t a kid anymore, though. Granted, twenty-five was a little old to be finally forming her own ideas about things, but she’d never needed to before. She lived in their house, worked for their website, and subscribed wholeheartedly to their views.
They were wrong, though. Quinn wasn’t quite sure how wrong yet, but she knew that much.
Unbidden, she thought again of her brother George, his number hidden inside a book in her duffel bag.
Then it occurred to her: they had that huge fight after he went to Meriweather with them. Meriweather was another shifter state, north of Nevada.
I wonder if the same thing happened to him, she thought.
She walked to her bag and pulled out the thick novel, opening it to page 337.
Just as she took the slip of paper in her hands, there was a loud knock on the door.
“Ten minutes!” her father boomed.
Quinn fumbled the paper, dropping it onto the carpet. She dove after it, then shoved it back into the book, her hands shaking.
“Okay!” she called, jamming the book back into the bag, under a layer of dirty underwear.
Thankfully, she heard her father walking back to the room next door.
Quinn went lightheaded with relief.
At two fifty-five, she trailed her parents through the Granite County courthouse. The floors were made of the county’s namesake rock, but the rest of the building had a strangely airy, casual feel to it, a far cry from the brick-and-marble courthouses she was used to in Nebraska.
She followed them through a minor labyrinth of rooms and hallways, trying her best to pretend that she wasn’t there.
Just daydream for an hour or so, and you’ll be fine, she thought. Go to your happy place.
Instead, she thought about George.
It had been three and a half years since she’d last spoken to her brother, when he’d slammed the front door at midnight and then squealed away in his car.
Ever since, her parents had pretended that their son didn’t exist. Quinn had been twenty-two when it happened, and the day after he’d slammed that door, she’d been informed that she was now the webmaster for ShifterSexPerverts.com.
Usually, when her parents were angry with someone, they tried to sue them into oblivion, like they were doing to the shifter lawyer and his partner now. That’s how Quinn had known that what was happening with her older brother was bad — really, really bad. They didn’t try to make George’s life harder, they didn’t try to get money out of him — they just started acting like they’d never had a son.
It was much, much worse than spite.
When they walked into Judge Wood’s chambers, she was sitting behind a huge mahogany desk, half-moon glasses partway down her nose. She had a gray helmet of hair and a no-nonsense expression on her face.
Quinn’s stomach twisted. She had a feeling that she was about to get raked over the coals.
“You must be Barbara, Arthur, and Quinn,” she said. “Please have a seat.”
Her eyes went splint to the cast on Quinn’s wrist, and Quinn felt her face flush.
I wonder if she’s a shifter, Quinn thought. The older judge didn’t look like a shifter, but Quinn certainly wasn’t an expert. Some people you could tell, some you couldn’t, and there were more than enough kinds of shifter to keep it confusing: bears and wolves and lions, but there were also coyotes, hawks, bobcats, and probably plenty of other types she didn’t know anything about.
She could be an owl, Quinn thought. The judge had gone back to looking down at her papers, ignoring the Taylors as they sat, primly, in uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs. I could see her ripping the head off of something small and helpless.
Before Quinn could wonder any further, the door to the judge’s chambers swung open again and the lawyer and his partner walked in.
Quinn stared.
Julius had been wearing a suit yesterday, of course, but she was surprised all over again at how attractive he was. Yesterday she’d had a few other concerns, such as not getting shot, but right now, she was free to appreciate the men.
And they were appreciable. Julius looked a little more comfortable than Hudson in his dark blue suit, but even so, it was obvious that he wasn’t the kind of person who suits were made for. He was tall and wide, heavily muscled in a way that made her think more lumberjack and less lawyer, like his muscles came from hard work
instead of the gym.
Hudson, his partner, was a little shorter but even more jacked. As good as he looked in a dark gray suit, there was something about the way he stood that made Quinn think he’d rather be wearing jeans and a t-shirt, like he had been yesterday.
One more time, she replayed their kiss in her mind, and felt the blush creep up her face even further.
Stop it, she thought. They’re shifters. You know it’s wrong.
She turned her head away from them, but not before Hudson caught her eye for a split second.
Is it? she thought.
“Thanks for coming in,” Judge Wood said, indicating the two seats to the right. The men sat, Julius still looking more comfortable than Hudson.
The judge laced her fingers together on top of her desk. Then she removed her glasses and let them dangle from a chain around her neck as she looked back and forth from Quinn and her parents to the shifters.
“Mr. Taylor,” she began. “You’ve filed suit in Granite County court for damages resulting from your daughter’s being, it says here, ‘viciously attacked’ by Mr. Bloom, and also for emotional damage from ‘witnessing a sex act’ between Mr. Bloom and Mr. Trager.”
“Yes,” her father said. He stared straight at the judge, refusing to even glance in the direction of the two shifter men.
Quinn looked down at her hands in her lap, wishing that she was anywhere but there.
“Can I ask why you’re filing the suit, instead of Miss Taylor?”
“Since my daughter is still under my custodianship, I’m the one who paid for her medical expenses, including the extensive counseling she’ll need.”
Quinn shut her eyes.
This is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me, she thought.
How did I not know what my parents were really like until right now?
“Miss Taylor,” the judge said.
Quinn’s head snapped up. She could feel herself begin to sweat.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
It’s ‘Your Honor,’ she thought, but the judge seemed to let it slide.
“You received an injury as a result of Mr. Bloom’s actions yesterday?”
Quinn glanced down at her wrist.
“Yes.”
“Could you please describe the extent of your injuries?”
Quinn gulped. She could feel a single bead of sweat make its way down the back of her neck.
“My wrist is sprained, Your Honor,” she said.
“This was determined by a medical professional?”
Quinn paused. She hazarded a glance sideways, only to see both the shifters looking at her. Julius had a look of studied calm on his face, but Hudson’s jaw was working, his hands clenched in his lap.
“Sort of, Your Honor.”
“Please elaborate?”
“Well, it was looked at by an EMT at the scene who said it was fine, just a little bruised, and I’d be fine in a few days,” she said, stumbling over her words a little. All eyes in the room were on her, and besides the judge, she could tell that they were all angry: her parents because she was telling the truth, and the shifters because she’d dragged them into this. “Later we went to a doctor who said it was sprained and he put this splint on it.”
“I see,” said the judge. She made a few notes in her paperwork. “Has this affected your day-to-day life in any way? It’s my understanding that you’re the webmaster for—” she put her glasses back on and peered at the paper — “shifter sex maniacs dot com. Are you still able to do your job?”
Quinn wished that she was a shifter. Maybe a mouse shifter, so she could shift and run away, or a housefly shifter, or a mole shifter so she could dig her way to anywhere else.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The judge simply nodded and wrote something else down. Quinn couldn’t look to either side of her, so she stared at whatever the judge was writing, willing time to pass as quickly as possible.
“Now, could you tell us a little about the sex act you witnessed between the defendants?”
Just get it over with, she thought.
“I witnessed them kissing,” she said.
“Was there any sort of clothing removal?”
“No.”
“Any sort of extraneous touching during the kiss?”
Unbidden, the kiss she’d seen played through her mind yet again: Julius grabbing Hudson’s shoulder, his fingers digging in, Hudson’s big hand on the back of Julius’s head.
“I believe that Julius — sorry, Mr. Bloom — had his hand on, uh, Mr. Trager’s shoulder,” she said quickly, looking down.
“And do you feel that this public display of affection has caused you any sort of lasting mental trauma, Miss Taylor?”
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about it, Quinn thought. But not in a traumatic way.
“Not really, Your Honor.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Miss Taylor,” the judge said. “Now, Mr. Bloom, could you describe the circumstances under which you made bodily contact with Miss Taylor?”
“I heard gunshots, and attempted to move her to safety by getting her on the ground,” he said. “If I was rough, it was unintentional.”
“And the sex act?”
As Julius and Hudson answered the judge, the blood rushing through Quinn’s ears drowned them out.
They hate me, she thought. They must hate me, and everything I do, and my parents, and I don’t think I blame them.
Quinn wanted to cry. Four days ago, she wouldn’t have felt this bad. Four days ago, she’d been convinced that all shifters were perverts who did nothing but fuck and fight, and she’d also been convinced that they should all be fenced into their areas and left alone.
But then she’d come here, and it hadn’t been true at all. Not only had her parents lied to her, horribly, but they’d vilified a whole group of people while they were at it, and now they were trying to make these men’s lives miserable.
Sure, their relationships were weird. She did find something deeply unsettling about the thought of a triad, but she was less and less sure that it was any of her business.
We should just let people live, she thought.
“Thank you, Mr. Bloom and Mr. Trager,” the judge said. “After hearing from both sides, I’ve decided to dismiss the case.”
“Your Honor,” her father said, half-standing, but the judge held up a hand, and he sat back down.
“Miss Taylor’s wrist was slightly harmed, it’s true, but as the defendant was removing her from the line of fire, I cannot find him liable for damages,” she said. “As for the sex act, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, I must inform you that it is not illegal to kiss in public, whether or not you agree with someone’s lifestyle.”
Quinn exhaled and closed her eyes, feeling her whole body relax. Humiliated as she was, at least she’d be out of there soon, and then she’d never have to see Julius or Hudson again, or be on the receiving end of their glares.
The judge went through more legal talk, but Quinn wasn’t listening. She was too preoccupied with her relief to understand what was going on.
Finally, the two men rose and walked from the judges’ chambers. Quinn and her parents followed, her father beginning to rant loudly against shifters asking for special rights as they walked through the hall in the courthouse, his ugly voice echoing from the walls.
Julius and Hudson could hear him, she knew, until they turned down a different hallway, still looking perfectly composed.
Then, Quinn had a sudden impulse.
Do one decent thing today, she thought.
“Mom, Dad, I gotta go to the bathroom, I’ll meet you outside,” she said, and then darted down the hall behind Julius and Hudson. She could hear her parents shout something at her, but she ran around a corner before they could stop her.
Chapter Five
Julius
They walked quickly down the hallway. Julius felt like he was barely staying c
alm, even though it was over.
“She dismissed the case,” Hudson said, trying to reason with his mate. “And she heard the case in record time, too.” Their long legs strode over the granite.
“They still wasted my entire afternoon,” Julius said. “I could be doing something important right now, but instead, I’m listening to two assholes claim, in front of a judge, that I’m a pervert.”
Julius wanted to grab one of the marble busts that dotted the hall at intervals, lift it, and smash up, but he kept himself — and his bear — in check.
Don’t prove to them that you’re an animal, he thought.
“Wait!” came a voice from behind them, its sweet sound echoing from the walls.
Julius and Hudson both stopped mid-stride like they’d hit a wall, and they turned in unison.
There she was, rushing down the hallway, walking as fast as she could manage in heels and a skirt.
Deep inside, Julius felt his bear roar, and he grit his teeth, forcing himself to adjust his suit coat and stand, calmly, in the hall. He didn’t have to look to understand that Hudson was having the exact same struggle.
If Julius had thought that Quinn looked mouthwatering on the day she’d been protesting him, he thought she looked stunning now. The skirt hugged her cushioned hips, perfectly accentuating her curves and her smaller waist. She’d tucked a white button-down shirt into it, and as she walked just a little too fast, he could see the buttons around her generous bust start to strain the tiniest bit.
Ripping one of those buttons off would be the easiest thing in the world, he thought, struggling to control himself. I could do it with my teeth, and then watch it bounce off the wall as I buried my face in her—
Next to him, Hudson emitted a low, quiet growl, barely audible even to Julius standing right next to him.
“Hey,” said Quinn, catching up to them. Her face was a faint pink and she sounded just a tiny bit out of breath, her chest rising and falling quickly.