by Jessica Sims
An arm snaked around my waist.
I panicked, momentarily, until a kiss was pressed to the side of my face and I smelled Hugh’s warm scent.
“I am here,” he murmured in my ear. “You sound troubled.”
“I’m just freaking out a little,” I told him, leaning into his embrace. “Everywhere I look, there are naked buns.”
“They are not the only ones unclothed,” Hugh said even as he pressed a kiss to my hair. “You are changing back.”
So I was. I groaned in dismay as my protective scales retreated and left me more naked than ever. It had felt like I’d been wearing something even when I’d been naked. Now they were going to see my very human, very naked, flesh.
Unless Hugh kept touching me, of course. And there was so much going on that it would be near impossible to ensure that.
I grabbed clothes, shooed the men out of my bathroom, and dressed. By the time I emerged, I was fully human again and Hugh had most of the men in the living room of my small apartment. I could hear him describing the “wondrous cave” that produced cold food. While he kept them busy, I needed to get organized.
First thing on the agenda—clothing. Hugh had half a dozen pairs of casual workout clothing, but it wouldn’t be enough for all the men currently filling my living room. I still grabbed all of his clothes and some of mine. Maybe they wouldn’t realize that my pink bathrobe or my yoga pants weren’t exactly “guy” clothes. I just needed something to cover their parts so I wouldn’t spend the next few hours blushing wildly.
Next, I pulled out my gear bag that I brought to every dating event. It had a clipboard that I could glance at easily, which I used for recording names. I also had name stickers. Both would come in handy.
Then I emerged from my room and set to work.
A few hours later, we’d ordered so many pizzas and sodas that we’d finally maxed out my last credit card. Everyone was dressed in either underwear, shorts, a bathrobe, or a towel. Everyone also wore a name sticker (some stuck on bare chests), which allowed me to carefully record them on my clipboard, along with their shifter type, just so I knew what I was dealing with.
Twenty-three men, not including Hugh. There was Artur, who, along with Hugh, seemed to take on a leadership role. He told me his shifter type, but I didn’t know what “horned armored beast” was, so I just wrote rhino. A lot of them seemed to be cats, bears, and wolves, based on their descriptions, though most didn’t match up with cats, wolves, and bears that I was familiar with. But if Hugh was a saber-toothed tiger, then it was possible that they were all some sort of Ice Age breeds.
They all politely ate the pizza, though it was clear that none of them were enjoying it particularly. Of course, pizza also led to different questions. Was this the food that made women so crazed with lust? What was it about this particular food that made them so wild? I tried to explain that it was simply a story line in an admittedly bad movie, but the mention of movies brought entirely new questions to the foray, so I gave Hugh the remote and let him explain to the rapt men crowding my small living room.
“Ryder,” he told me a moment later, frowning at the sitcom on TV. “Give me a kissing story, female. I wish to educate my men on how to please their mates.”
Oh, jeez. Blushing, I helped him pull up a pay-per-view and ran out of the room.
While the primordials were busy, I decided to call work. Bath would be there, and if there was anyone that was good at organizing unruly people, it was my boss. I pulled out my cell phone, intending to call her, only to find it was dead. A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach. How long had we been gone for? I plugged my phone into the charger and fired up my laptop, waiting for the date to pop up.
I gasped when the calendar popped up. Two weeks. We’d been gone two weeks. My birthday was tomorrow.
My boss was going to think I was dead.
I drummed my fingers as the men exclaimed in the next room over something on the TV, then checked my phone again. A sliver of a red bar. Close enough. I dialed work.
“Midnight Liaisons,” Bath answered.
“It’s me, Ryder,” I said. “I need to explain.”
“Ryder! Oh, my God. You’re all right!” Bath sounded like she was about to burst into tears. “We’ve all been so worried about you. No one’s been able to find you since the night of Marie’s party. You just vanished with that big bruiser guy. We wanted to call missing persons, but you know that’s a last resort, considering our business.” She bit her lip, clearly feeling awful about that. I knew what she meant, though. Supernaturals tried to stay out of the sight of the law, since the last thing they wanted was the police investigating a group of people who tended to make their own societal rules and grew furry from time to time. And since I worked with them, I was included in the “No police unless absolutely necessary” category. “I was going to call tomorrow if you didn’t show up, though.”
“I’m fine,” I soothed her. “Really. There’s just a lot going on that needs explaining. A lot.”
“I’d say there is.” She sounded a mite annoyed now that the initial relief was out of the way.
“And I totally want to explain everything,” I told her. “But I need your help.”
“Are you coming in to work?”
“Not unless you know where I can find a school bus,” I said, only half joking. “Can you come to my apartment and bring two dozen pairs of extremely large men’s clothing?”
Bathsheba was silent on the other end of the phone for so long that I wondered if she’d hung up.
“Hello?” I ventured.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m just . . . trying to imagine why you’d need a school bus and two dozen pairs of men’s clothing.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said.
“Try me.”
“I have two dozen overgrown Ice Age shifters sitting in my apartment because they’re trying to blackmail the fae into giving them women.”
She was silent for a moment. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“Figured.”
“I’ll be over there in an hour,” she said, sounding mystified.
“I’ll be here.”
There was a knock at my door precisely one hour later. With relief, I bounded for the door and got the attention of every single pair of eyes in the room.
Bathsheba Ward-Russell stood at the door, smiling, a big laundry basket in her arms full of neatly folded clothing. Behind her stood Beau and Savannah, curious looks on their faces. “We’re here,” Bath said, stepping forward as I opened the door wider. “Though you’re going to have to tell me what’s going . . . on . . .”
Her voice died as four men, clad only in Hugh’s borrowed tighty-whities, sprinted for the door.
“I saw her first,” one bellowed.
“I claim her for myself,” yelled another, pushing people aside to get to the door.
“Mine,” growled a third at the same time.
Bath’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped, just a little.
I stepped in front of Bathsheba, protecting her from the overzealous primordials. “No one is claiming anyone right now,” I said, my voice so shrill it was almost unrecognizable. “Go sit down!”
“I have pizza,” Cahal said, joining the crew of men surging toward poor Bathsheba.
There was an audible groan of dismay as the others realized they had been trumped. “Now she will go wild and offer him sex,” one muttered. “He has pizza to give her.”
“What . . .” Bathsheba said, baffled. She shrank back a step or two.
“Don’t ask,” I said. “And whatever you do, do not accept the pizza.”
“What’s going on?” Beau pushed forward, edging around Bath and her laundry basket and giving my widespread arms a curious look. “Someone’s trying to claim my mate?”
“They don’
t know any better,” I said, even as more mutterings began.
“Already claimed,” one said behind me. The name sticker on his bare chest said HI, MY NAME IS BEVAN. Bevan sounded incredibly disappointed.
Cahal lowered the slice of pizza in his hand. “Someone has already fed her pizza?”
“Back off,” I said. “She’s mated, and this is her mate.” I pulled Beau forward with an apologetic smile. “I am so, so sorry about all of this.”
“It’s okay,” Bath said, sidling a little closer to Beau. Her eyes were wide. “That stuff you said on the phone—”
“Not a joke,” I told her. “I have twenty-three primordial shifters who are staying here for a time. They will be going back to their world, or dimension, or whatever it is, once we force the fae to give back their women. Until then, they’re staying with me.” I took the basket from Bathsheba with a wry smile. “And we need clothes and food. And help.”
“You look incredibly stressed, Ryder,” Bath said sympathetically. “Is this where you’ve been for the last two weeks? Not that I’m not still furious about that, but I’m starting to understand.”
“Actually,” I said with a heavy sigh, “that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have a lot to tell you. Come in and we’ll see if we can find you a seat.”
I led Bath and Beau into my tiny, overcrowded apartment.
“Did you see the mark on her neck?” one primordial muttered to another. “He claimed her with a bite.”
“Barbaric,” agreed the other.
We managed to squeeze our way to my tiny kitchen. From there, we sat down with a pot of coffee—coffee, how I’d missed it!—and talked. Hugh sat at my side, his chair pulled close to mine and his big hand resting on my jeans-clad thigh, as if he was afraid they might somehow snatch me away from him.
I understood that worry. For some reason, I had the same dread in the back of my mind—that Finian would show up and somehow steal Hugh away from me as punishment. I didn’t know how the fae prince would react to what we’d done, but considering he gave no thought to destroying my life? It was a pretty safe bet that he wouldn’t just shrug his shoulders and walk away.
I wanted to hold Hugh’s hand, but I knew I couldn’t. Not right now. Not in front of the others.
Savannah, to my surprise, had quickly taken charge of the primordials. They sat in the living room, talking, and I could hear her laughingly, but politely, declining pizza. It was interesting, the way that the primordials treated Savannah in comparison to Bathsheba. Bath, they’d tried to claim.
Savannah, they were in awe of.
Her rounded belly and something in her scent told them that she was carrying a child, and they treated her with the utmost respect—to the point that Beau hadn’t felt alarmed at the thought of leaving his cousin in the other room with them as we talked. They fawned over her, insisting that she sit down in the best seat in my living room, and they hung on her every word as she softly chatted with them and passed out the clothing that they’d brought.
Thank goodness they were listening to someone. Even now, I heard Savannah’s amused voice gently explaining about why she was pregnant and yet had no mate mark.
“So you’re a changeling?” Bathsheba asked, interrupting my thoughts. “You’re sure?”
I frowned. “Pretty darn sure. Two thieving fae princes can’t be wrong.”
Hugh’s hand tightened on my thigh. “Do you accuse my mate of lying?”
“Hugh, sweetie,” I said. “It’s okay. Really.”
A flush rounded Bath’s pale cheeks. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to insult. It’s just that we don’t have anything like a changeling in our database, and I thought we’d run across everything at this point.”
“Can you . . . show us?” Beau asked, and I knew he’d phrased it as delicately as he could. He wanted to see for himself, though.
“I can.” I sucked in a breath, hating the anxious knot that formed in the pit of my stomach. Why was I so nervous? Beau and Bath were here, listening to me. They weren’t running away screaming. They weren’t even mad. They just wanted to understand. So why did it freak me out so much?
“I am here, Ryder,” Hugh said in a soft voice. “Do not be frightened. I will not let anything happen to you.”
I knew that, but hearing the words come out of his mouth made me feel better. I clasped his hand in mine, lacing our fingers tightly, making my decision.
He lifted our intertwined hands to his mouth and gave the back of my hand a kiss, and I felt the prickle of my transformation begin. Fangs popped out of my gums, and I felt my horns push through my forehead. Scales climbed up my arms, and I felt the press of my wings and tail as they struggled to get out of my restrictive clothing. I didn’t turn to look at Bath and Beau; my fingers woven with Hugh’s, I just waited for the transformation to finish. My nails grew, and the decorative spikes that lined the length of my arms made my sleeves tighten.
And then it was all done. I carefully pulled my hand from Hugh’s and rolled up my sleeve so they could see more of my scaled skin. “Here we go,” I said thickly, studying my scales. They were the same pale, pearly green as before, my nails the same mother-of-pearl shade.
“Wow,” breathed Bathsheba, her eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I said quietly, feeling sick with anxiousness. “I have wings and a tail, too, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like undressing to show you everything.”
“It’s all right,” Beau said easily.
“I don’t know why you’re so negative,” Bath said after a long moment of studying me. “You’re beautiful. I can see why the fae value changelings so highly.”
I looked up in surprise, feeling the tight, constricting bands of anxiety ease from my chest. “Thanks,” I mumbled around my fangs. I glanced down at my scales and guessed they were attractive. I was just used to seeing the hideous creature I’d been before I’d started changing. “I’m supposed to be prettier than this, actually, but, well . . .” I felt an embarrassed flush creep up my cheeks.
“She and I have mated,” Hugh said bluntly. “This halts her transformation. Finian will be most upset.”
“You should have said something earlier,” Bath told me. “We would have understood. We could have helped.”
I shook my head. “The fae have magic. If they can create a world for Hugh’s people to live in simply because they feel like it, who knows what they can do to shifters? Just because we can start a war doesn’t mean we should.”
“But—” Bath protested.
“She’s right,” Beau said, laying a hand on his wife’s arm to ease the sting of his disagreement. “We don’t know what kind of hornet’s nest this will stir up as is. Better to keep the Alliance out of it.”
Bath huffed and tossed her long, pale ponytail. “What happened to Mr. We’re All In This Together?”
A wry smile tugged at the corner of Beau’s mouth. “He just realized the fae have magic, and that changes the playing field.”
“It’s fine, really,” I said before they could continue arguing. “I don’t want anyone solving my battles and getting into danger for me. Hugh’s done enough, and we’ve now placed the lives of all of his men—and the women they want to save—in jeopardy. That’s enough for now.”
“Well,” Bath said briskly. “You can’t keep all of these men here. There’s not enough room, and I doubt you can keep enough food in the house. Plus, your neighbors are bound to complain about the noise. They’ll simply have to come with us.”
“Really?” I tried not to sound too excited about that, but I’d hoped for Bath to intervene and rescue us from the plague of shifters that had descended upon my condo. I looked at Beau, but he was only giving his wife a fond smile of approval. He didn’t mind that she’d just volunteered them for babysitting duty.
“Really. We’ll call Beau’s brothers and cousins and get them to swing by
with their vehicles, since no one has a school bus. The Russell house has plenty of room. And they seem to like Savannah, so she can help settle them in. Between the boys, myself, and enlisting Sara and Ramsey, I’m sure we can hold down the fort until things are decided.”
“Shouldn’t you ask them all first, love?” Beau said to Bath, amused. “You know Ellis is still busy trying to acclimate Lily, so he’s out of the question.”
She waved off his concerns. “Ellis and Lily can stay hidden. I know she’s sensitive around strangers. As for the others? They’ll pitch in to help. I think they’ll be more intrigued than anything. Most probably will be. And then if the primordials decide to stay, we can see about setting up permanent conditions to house them. They shouldn’t be forced to return to the fae. That’s no kind of life at all.”
“I agree,” Hugh said. His hand caressed my scaled one, and he gave me a look that melted my heart. “I want my brothers to have a chance to know the happiness that I know with Ryder.”
“Oh, Lord, you two are too cute.” Bathsheba brightened. “Can we say that you met through the dating agency? I can always use another success story.”
“I don’t see why not,” I told her. “That was where I first met Hugh.”
“The best day of my life was the day I agreed to ruin yours,” Hugh said.
I laughed, but I couldn’t shake off the vague feeling of unease. Finian was not going to take this turn of events well.
Hours later, my living room had been vacated of primordials. Every room in my tiny condo was a mess—I found pizza crusts in the bathroom, my fridge had been ransacked, and every towel I owned was dirty. They’d eaten all of my toothpaste and drunk my mouthwash and taken bites out of the lipsticks I’d tried to protect. I hoped they wouldn’t have to make a trip to the Alliance doc for some upset stomachs. I texted a note to Savannah, suggesting a conversation about which household goods were edible and which were not.