by Amira Rain
Thinking about Mark's strength, his hands, and his whole way of being, I began wondering how it might feel to be held against his chest. And not restrained held, but just held. Maybe with him quietly speaking near my ear, telling me in his deep, masculine voice that everything was going to be okay. Telling me that I had nothing to fear.
Suddenly, I didn't want to think about Mark or talk about him anymore. Maybe for the rest of the day. Maybe not ever again.
After pausing for several moments after saying how Mark liked to work with his hands, Christy now began to say something else; I cut her off first syllable, feeling incredibly rude but being unable to help myself, fearing that she was going to say something else about Mark.
"So, how far is it to the village?"
She answered without skipping a beat, not seeming phased by my interruption. "Oh, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump. Just down to the end of the lane, then we'll take a left. We could easily see all the houses from here, if all the trees weren't in the way. Just about a hundred more steps, and Nolan's and mine will come into view first."
Trotting down the lane, Rocky yipped just once, as if to say "Yup!" to what Christy had just said.
We'd walked just a short distance further when she suddenly came to a stop, pulling her phone from her jeans pocket near-simultaneously with its first ring. She'd also made the faintest little gasp, but now, looking at the screen, she let her breath out in a rush.
"Every single time. There's always a little part of me that thinks it's going to be...well, you get it. It's not Nolan, though. It's Mark. And since he's already talked to me this morning, I'm guessing he wants to talk to you."
CHAPTER TEN
Christy quickly answered the call and listened for a few seconds before responding. "Yup, she's right here. I'll put her on."
For some reason, Mark was the last person on earth I wanted to talk to, but I took the phone from Christy and said hello. Mark returned the greeting, then asked how everything was going, with his deep voice causing a little wave of butterflies in my stomach even just to hear it through the phone. Distracted by this sensation, I didn't answer right away, and Mark again asked me how everything was going.
"Are you and Christy out and about, or are you still at the house?"
While trying to find my voice, I watched a fiery red cardinal flit from branch to branch in a tree on one side of the lane. "We're walking to the village right now...and everything's going just fine."
"And all the guards are with you?"
They were just a short distance behind Rocky, Christy, and me, and I glanced back at them with my face warming for some reason. "Yes...all ten of them. Which seems...well, maybe just a bit excessive."
"Maybe, but I can't take any chances with you escaping, Paulina. Really, twenty guards probably wouldn't be excessive."
I didn't respond, distracted by the way Mark's voice was making my heart rate excessively fast.
After a few moments, Mark spoke again. "You still there? You're not plotting an escape right now, are you?"
"You're hilarious."
I was actually gazing at his truck and house in the distance, wondering just what exactly it was about him that was making my heartbeat thud in my ears. Wondering how a man's voice alone could make butterflies dance in my stomach, just like two bright orange monarchs that were now twirling above Rocky, making him leap.
"Are you going to be coming home today?"
I hadn't even meant to ask the question. I hadn't really even been conscious of thinking it when it had just kind of tumbled right out of my mouth.
Now, with my face flushing scarlet I was sure, I immediately tried to back-peddle. "I'm just asking because Rocky's acting like he misses you."
Just then, Rocky launched himself into the air, leaping toward the butterflies with a few loud, happy yips. When Mark spoke again, his deep voice held a trace of amusement.
"Is that him right now?"
While Rocky yipped happily yet again, I cringed inwardly. "Yes. I know he sounds happy enough right now, but...well, who knows how long it'll last."
A long moment went by, and I could almost feel Mark fighting a smile. He even sounded like he was fighting a smile when he next spoke.
"Is the possibility of Rocky missing me the only reason you asked if I'm coming home today?"
Thinking of Mark's sky blue eyes and incredibly handsome face while trying not to, I swallowed. "Pretty much. Mostly."
Mark didn't respond right away, then abruptly paused mid-word when he did. In the background, I thought I could hear some kind of vague commotion, maybe very distant roaring.
A second or two went by, and Mark spoke with a note of urgency in his voice. "I've got to go right now, Paulina, but I'll be home as soon as I can. Give Rocky some love for me in the meantime, and please, please don't try anything during your trip into the village today. That's the whole reason I called...to tell you to not even think about making any attempt to escape."
"Is that the only reason you called?"
One long second later, Mark responded. "I'll be home as soon as I can."
I said okay, and bye, and he said bye and hung up.
I gave Christy's phone back to her with my heart still galloping a bit. "Thanks. Now, what were you saying about all the houses in the village?"
She pocketed her phone, giving me a knowing little smile. "I don't think I was saying anything in particular about the houses in the village, but I get that maybe you don't want to be pressed about that conversation, which is perfectly fine. We'll just continue on down the lane now."
We did just that, setting off again in silence, with Rocky filling the void of sound with happy little yips and barks, straining against his leash. However, he soon paused, turned, and looked directly at all the lions trailing about twenty feet behind us, as if he wanted them to get a good look at him leading the "pack." His expression was even one that made it look like he might actually be smiling. A smile of triumph, maybe, with a proud little glint in his heart-melting brown eyes.
After a long moment or two, he abruptly turned and began tearing off down the lane, as if daring the lions to catch up with him. Secured in his harness, he didn't get very far, though, just pulled Christy along by his leash while she and I laughed at his antics.
A short while later, after we'd taken a left from the narrow dirt lane onto a much wider paved lane, at least a hundred houses came into view, most of them large and grand, sitting on wide lots. None of the homes were outright palatial, though, and even though they were all of different styles, the similarity in sizes made them all more or less fit as a grouping. Clusters of vibrant daffodils dotting some of the lawns gave the sprawling village a warm, cheery feel.
When we'd walked maybe a quarter-mile, Christy said that most everyone lived on North Haven Main, the street we were walking down, although there were a dozen or so houses in various parts around the outskirts of the village, inhabited by people like Mark, who liked a little more privacy and a lot more trees. "Most of us are happy being right smack in the village, though...a lot of people like being within a stone's throw of The Hub."
I asked what The Hub was, and Christy gestured to what appeared to be a large white pole barn in the distance, kind of out of place among all the houses nearby. "I'll show you in just a second. We're almost there."
We were delayed in getting there by Rocky nearly losing his mind over wanting to chase a car down the street, which Christy said connected with another street that led to the highway, and eventually to the small town of Temple. Possibly wanting to take a road trip, Rocky pulled and thrashed against his harness, barking, while the car cruised out of sight. The experience left him trembling and so comically indignant-looking that I was torn between wanting to giggle at him and wanting to pick him up to comfort him. I ended up pulling him up and into my arms, where he glanced over my shoulder at our lion guards, as if wanting to see if they'd noticed his wild lapse in self-control.
Once at the large white pole b
arn, I put him down and wrapped his leash around my wrist, surveying a wide, rust-red sign out front, which hung above a wood-planked porch and several wooden rocking chairs.
Golden lettering on the sign proclaimed this place to be The Hub, and painted golden lions and silver lightning bolts flanking the lettering made it clear that this was some kind of a hub of activity within a lion shifter and Gifted community.
Standing with one long, slender leg propped up on the porch steps, Christy made a sweeping gesture with her arm, encompassing the whole building. "Want a spray-tan? Or a can of peaches? Or a beer? You can get all those things right here, in our lovely, all-inclusive, six thousand square-foot community facility known as The Hub, also known as the North Haven spray-tanning-salon-slash-mini-grocery-store-slash-bar.
“Oh, and slash-coffee-shop, too. Alexa, Kim, and Dana, the owners of the whole operation, serve coffee and lattes and that kind of stuff at the bar until noon, then burgers, sandwiches, and drinks until midnight on weekdays, two in the morning on weekends.
“The spray-tanning salon is in a big room in the back, and the little grocery store is in another big room in the back. There, a lot of us get a few grocery items every now and then to tide us over between shopping trips to Temple. Also, the mini-grocery is a great place to just kind of wander around while waiting for your turn in the spray-tanner. I usually end up leaving the store with some essential I didn't even know I needed, like cookies or candy."
Looking at Christy, Rocky yipped once, as if he might not be opposed to some cookies and candy.
Smiling, Christy began heading around the porch, gesturing for me and Rocky to follow. "Come on. We'll start the tour from the back entrance. Oh, and I even forgot to tell you...there's a big playroom-type place around the back where a few Gifteds teach physical activity classes, tiny tot tumbling, and art classes for the fourteen little ones we have here in North Haven.
“In a year or so, when our oldest kids are about four, we'll build a big building elsewhere in the village for a preschool. Then we'll keep expanding it for a regular school. Nolan and I are really excited about the whole thing, because we hope to have lots of kids someday...we're thinking at least four."
While we'd been making our way down a flagstone path that led around the side of the building, Christy had looked over at me, smiling; but her smile had suddenly faded, as if the realization that her husband was missing had suddenly come rushing back to her. She quickly changed the subject, telling me how many Gifteds were currently pregnant, and how many children were expected to be among the population of North Haven by the end of the year.
After we'd entered the building from a wooden ramp entrance around back, Christy gave me a whirlwind tour of all the various businesses located within. The mini-grocery was actually larger than I thought it would be and carried a wider variety of goods, too, with everything from organic frozen vegetables to expensive sparkling wine from California to triple-milled artisan soap made by a local Gifted, with about a thousand items in between.
The "playroom," as Christy called it, was similarly surprising, with deep pits full of foam blocks and a long trampoline "tumble track" making the vast room appear more like a club team gymnastics facility than any playroom I'd ever seen.
A morning tiny tot tumbling class was going on when we poked our heads in, and when Rocky barked, making our presence known, a half-dozen two-and-three-year-olds flew over, squealing, from where they'd been stretching on a wide blue mat, trying to touch their toes from a sitting position, like their teacher.
Looking like he was in seventh heaven, Rocky reveled in at least a solid ten minutes of cuddling and petting from the kids before Christy and I moved along with him on our tour.
Next, we made a quick stop in the spray tanning salon next door, where we were greeted by a friendly redhead drinking coffee behind a fuchsia pink counter. With a sharp pang of guilt, I recognized her, recalling how I'd zapped her during the battle, when she'd gotten a bit too close to Dylan. And now, seeming not to hold any kind of a grudge, she was actually smiling at me. Making me feel even worse, she told me to come by for a free introductory spray tan anytime.
My ten stony-faced lion guards, who'd shifted into human form when we'd entered the building, now followed Christy, Rocky, and me down a long, brightly-lit corridor with their heavy work boots thudding on the hardwood flooring. At the end of the corridor, Christy opened a wooden door that bore a sign informing us that only persons eighteen years and older were allowed beyond this point after noon.
Like the playroom and the mini-grocery had, the bar surprised me by being somehow just simply more than I'd expected it would be. With wood-paneled walls, a gleaming polished wood bar, and wooden stools, chairs, and tables, the spacious room had somewhat of a rustic vibe, though numerous mirrors and sparkling brass wall sconces along the walls added a touch of sophistication to the place, as did soft jazz music coming from large speakers mounted high up in three corners of the room.
The bar was currently in morning coffeehouse mode, filled with the rich scents of coffee and vanilla, and three women holding tall foam cups were sitting at a table near the wide front windows. One of them waved at Christy and me and called out for us to grab some coffee and join the group, and Christy and I did, ordering vanilla lattes from the bar and receiving them on the house from one of the owners, a bubbly Gifted named Alexa, who assured me that having Rocky in the bar was just fine when I asked her.
She even made a trip to a small, open kitchen area adjacent to the bar, put a handful of plain shredded chicken breast on a plate, and served it to him, sending him into a wiggling paroxysm of joy.
Once Christy and I were finally able to haul him away from the kitchen area, where I was pretty sure he was hoping for seconds and probably even thirds, we joined the three women at the table. Deepening my guilt about zapping many of the North Haven Gifteds during the battle, the three women greeted us enthusiastically, introducing themselves to me with smiles.
Despite Christy's friendliness to me, I'd really expected most of the other Gifteds to be standoffish towards me at best, since Dylan had always told me that shifters and Gifteds hated anyone who fought alongside the Angels.
When we were all seated, one of the women, who had an athletic build and hair the same sandy blonde as my own, even kind of stuck up for me to the guards, who'd taken two tables right beside us.
Giving her head a little shake, she looked from one table to the other. "Really? You all have to be pretty much right on top of us? You think she's going to suddenly start zapping, and you won't be able to stop her from a distance any further away than four feet?"
The ten men didn't move, just exchanged glances, and the sandy-haired Gifted, whose name was Britt, looked at one of them in particular, a tall, stern-faced man with hair so dark it was nearly black.
"Honey, come on. I promise Commander Northrup won't accuse you of negligence if you and the others give us ladies just a little room to visit. And if he does, just tell him that your brand-new bride asked you all to move so sweetly that you were powerless to refuse."
Britt smiled at the man who was apparently her husband, and after a long moment, he got up from his chair with a sigh and began moving to a table a little further away. The rest of the guards soon followed him, allowing our table of five women to begin chatting without any stern-faced shifters within hearing distance.
To my great relief, none of my fellow Gifteds asked me anything about Dylan, the Angels, or my own experience as a Gifted. They didn't even ask me anything about my past, also to my great relief. They did ask me questions about myself, however, but just "safe" questions, such as how Rocky was behaving himself with me, if he was getting along with Mark's cats, and what I thought about the village so far. To that last question, I responded truthfully by saying that I thought it was absolutely lovely, especially with all the trees showing the first signs of spring.
In fact, though I didn't say this out loud, I'd become a bit disturbed by just
how lovely I thought the village was. I knew it was a place where I could possibly be quite happy living for an extended length of time, which I knew I could never allow myself to do.
Once I rejoined Dylan and he resurrected my family, I figured we'd all remain in Traverse City. Though Dylan and I had never spoken about it, I'd long suspected that the Angels he had permanently posted in the city had probably let my family home fall into disrepair, had maybe even destroyed it for some reason, but that didn't even matter.
No matter what state my family and I found our home in, I knew we could rebuild. We could rebuild the house, restore the orchard and vineyard, and maybe even open our family's bed-and-breakfast again. Knowing that there were still several thousand people living in the area, most of them enslaved by the Angels, I didn't think there would exactly be a market for the bed-and-breakfast, but maybe someday.