by Dakota West
“He probably orchestrated the shooting just so he could rub his disgusting shifter genitals on you.”
Quinn’s mouth dropped open.
They’re insane, she thought.
“He was shielding me from bullets,” she said, trying to sound reasonable.
By now there was a small cluster of protesters crowded around them, all with their anti-shifter cardboard signs.
One of them, Vince, a forty-year-old man who was balding but still had a ponytail, spoke up.
“They’re sex maniacs,” he said authoritatively. “Even if he was shielding you, you’re lucky he didn’t just have his way with you right there on the courthouse steps.”
I bet you’d love to see that, Quinn thought. She’d never liked Vince. On forearm, he had a tattoo of America, but the three shifter states — Cascadia in the west, Meriweather in the middle and Cumberland in the east — were blacked out. The thing gave her the creeps.
“You know that they’re out of control perverts,” said her mother, casting Quinn a disapproving look.
Quinn pressed her lips together and said nothing, but felt uneasy.
On the one hand, she’d believed the same as her parents all her life: that shifters were more animal than human, and ought to be treated as such. After all, at twenty-five, she still lived at home and ran her parents’ website, ShifterSexManiacs.com, which did a decent business in anti-shifter t-shirts, coffee mugs, and beer cozies, as well as being a general hub of anti-shifter information.
On the other hand, the only person who’d been violent that day was a human.
“How are the people who were shot?” she asked, suddenly.
Vince shrugged. “They weren’t people,” he said. “They were shifters.”
Anger rose inside Quinn, and she opened her mouth to argue, but her father walked up to her again, an EMT right behind him.
“That lawyer sprained her wrist when he tackled her,” he declared, managing to sound weaselly and pompous all at once.
“Can I see your wrist, please?” the EMT said. She was tall, with long tawny hair and sharp cheekbones. For a moment, she locked eyes with Quinn, and Quinn’s heart beat a little faster in her chest.
The other woman’s eyes were light brown, nearly gold.
She’s a lion, Quinn thought, looking around at the other humans in her group.
They don’t know she’s a shifter, she thought. They haven’t been paying attention to anything besides themselves since they’ve been here.
Quinn held out her wrist and the other woman took it gently, poking and prodding.
“Does it hurt when you flex it?” she asked, softly.
“A little,” said Quinn.
“And when you bend it?”
“Kinda,” Quinn said.
The other woman nodded.
“You probably strained some of your tendons by landing on it wrong,” she said. “You can get it splinted if you want, but you’ll be fine in a few days.”
“Thanks,” said Quinn.
“No, it’s sprained,” interrupted her mother, bearing down on the EMT. “I used to be a nurse, I know what a sprained wrist looks like.”
The EMT raised her eyebrows, and Quinn saw her eyes flick around the crowd.
She probably has much better things to be doing, Quinn thought.
“You’re more than welcome to get a second opinion,” the EMT said.
Her mother’s scowl deepened, and Quinn wondered if she’d just realized that the EMT was a lion.
“We will,” she said. “That animal won’t get away with this.”
Quinn closed her eyes, wishing she could just disappear.
“Have a good day, ma’am,” the EMT said, picking up her kit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are people with real problems.”
She shot Quinn a deadly look and then walked off.
“Come on, Quinn,” her mother barked, ushering her toward the van.
Hours later, Quinn was back in her motel room. Even though her parents had basically required her to come along on the trip with them, since they needed all the people they could muster to protest triad marriage, they’d made her pay for her own motel room.
She didn’t really mind, though. For once she had some peace and quiet where she could sit and think without her parents constantly telling her what to do and how to feel.
She flopped on the queen bed and turned on the TV, where a woman with an enormous fake smile was selling jewelry. Quinn stretched, wriggling her fingers and toes, even the ones in the splint.
As the woman went on about 14 karat gold, Quinn looked at the splint on her arm. As soon as they’d left the protest, they’d found a doctor two hours away who refused to treat shifters and had taken her there.
The list of doctors who refused to treat shifters was on the website that she ran, of course, and as her parents had consulted it, Quinn had felt a little sick. She’d been the one to put that list together. When she’d done all that research, she’d thought she was just doing her job — it hadn’t really sunk in that these were doctors who only wanted to help a certain kind of sick person.
Now, the thought revolted her.
The doctor had recognized her parents right away and promptly declared her wrist badly sprained, even signing a statement to that effect for her father. Then he’d wrapped her up in a splint and sent her on her way.
Quinn tore the splint off in one quick motion, moving her wrist freely. There was no way it was sprained, and the knowledge of what her parents had done — and what they were going to do with that signed piece of paper — made her furious.
The saleswoman on TV droned on and on, and Quinn got up and started pacing. The discarded splint was in the middle of the floor, and she kicked it, making it bounce off the far wall.
Sure, shifters were different. And maybe her parents were right that shifters and humans should live in different places and not interact with each other too much.
They did turn into animals, after all, and the thought of a triad was pretty weird.
They were still people, though.
Hadn’t the lawyer proven that? He’d protected her when none of the humans she’d thought were her friends did.
Not to mention the way he kissed his mate made her feel funny inside. She didn’t know that she’d ever seen someone so desperately in love, to the point that it almost made her teeth hurt. Her own parents had barely glanced at each other before collecting their followers and heading out.
She sat on the bed.
I’ve got to get myself out of this mess, she thought. I can’t go on living and working for my parents.
Then, a thought came to her.
I could call George. I bet he’d help me.
She’d found her older brother’s information online a few weeks before. It hadn’t been hard, she’d just had to hide it from her parents. Quinn walked quickly to her backpack, pulled out a thick fantasy novel, and pulled her brother’s number from page 337.
Then she held it in her hand for a long time, just looking at the numbers.
They wouldn’t forgive me, she thought. They’d cut me off, just like they did to him. I’d be out in the streets.
She put the phone number back in the book and stashed it away again.
Chapter Three
Hudson
It was nearly ten at night when Hudson and Julius finally got home. They lived on a quiet back street in Granite Valley, a neighborhood full of old Victorian houses with yards.
Quaint was the word that Hudson found himself using to describe the neighborhood. He felt like he fit in about as well as an eagle in a flock of hummingbirds. It wasn’t a place he’d imagined living, but here he was. The only one on the block who still had the faint outlines of LOST SOULS tattooed on his back.
Some things just weren’t meant to fade. After five removal sessions, Hudson had given up getting the thing off completely.
He turned off his SUV and he and Julius sat there for a moment, in silence, lettin
g the moonlight filter through the sunroof.
“Why do people pull shit like this?” Julius finally asked. “Why the hell can’t we just live?”
It had been over twelve hours since the shooting, but Hudson could tell he was still furious. Utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally, but furious.
Hudson just shook his head. It was new to him as well. He’d seen people shot over drugs, jealousy, or just because someone with a gun was drunk and angry, but not because three people wanted to get married.
“I wish I knew,” he said, looking at the hedge that separated them from their next door neighbors.
“I wish Cascadia had the death penalty,” Julius said. Hudson looked over at his mate and could see his jaw working, the muscles clenched beneath his skin.
People tended to forget how huge and powerful Julius was. When humans saw Hudson, he knew that they looked at him twice: long hair, covered in tattoos, six and a half feet tall.
But when humans saw short-haired, clean-shaven Julius wearing a well-tailored suit, they forgot that he could probably tear them limb from limb without even shifting.
It was intentional on Julius’s part. He wanted people to find him non threatening.
“Maybe it will make sense in the morning,” Hudson said.
They walked into their dark house, and for the first time in years, Hudson couldn’t help but imagine people lurking in the shadows, waiting with guns to come after him and his mate. Both of them paused inside the front door, listening and smelling, before turning on the lights.
Nothing happened. No one jumped out.
Julius rubbed his temples and tossed his bloodstained suit jacket onto a side table.
“I’m jumping at shadows,” he said.
“Go get changed,” said Hudson. “I’ll get you something to fix you right up.”
Julius smiled, and for the first time all day, the expression reached his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said.
Hudson walked into the dark kitchen, flipping on lights as he went, and got down the good bourbon and the nice glasses. Two cubes of ice in each, then a good three fingers of whiskey.
He stopped, looked at the glasses, and considered. Then he poured them each another finger of bourbon before walking into the living room, turning on every light on the way.
Hudson knew he was being ridiculous, but they’d been shot at today. He was on edge that there could be someone in their house, just waiting, and if someone had to find a shooter, it should be him.
He, at least, had a halfway decent chance of taking someone down. He’d had plenty of experience. Julius, on the other hand, had had plenty of experience arguing cases in court.
Hudson sipped as he walked to the leather couch in front of the fireplace, and he flipped the flames on before sitting down.
For one moment he marveled, as he always did, that he’d managed to end up in a place like this. By rights he should have been in an early grave, but instead he’d met Julius, and the rest was history.
The bedroom door opened and Julius padded out, barefoot, wearing plaid pajama pants and a tight white undershirt. Despite the day, Hudson felt himself warm up, just a little, seeing Julius’s physique on display like that, every muscle visible beneath the thin white cotton.
“You made my favorite,” Julius said.
He smiled. It reached his eyes again, and he reached for the glass.
“I’m an expert bartender,” said Hudson, matching Julius’s smile with his own. “Step one: uncork bottle. Step two: pour.”
“I can’t argue with the results,” said Julius.
Both men stared at the fire for a little while, lost in their own thoughts.
“Her name is Quinn,” Hudson said, finally. Even though the day had been a flurry of ambulances, news cameras and hospitals, he’d thought of her every couple of moments. He’d only just seen her, but he’d found himself captivated, transported to a place where people weren’t screaming and he didn’t have a woman’s blood on his hands.
“Her name is Quinn Taylor,” Julius said, darkly.
Hudson raised his eyebrows, and Julius just nodded.
“She’s their daughter,” Julius said.
Hudson nodded. He understood what that meant. There was no way in hell that they were completing their triad with a member of the Taylor family. After all, they were the face of anti-shifter sentiment.
He wanted her. Julius wanted her. That much was obvious.
But sometimes, these things just didn’t work out, and this was one of those times.
“I’m sorry,” Julius said. He leaned forward, toward the fire, his deep brown eyes gleaming in its reflected light. “If I hadn’t pursued this triad marriage thing, maybe it could have gone differently for us.”
He meant children, Hudson knew. He could see the way his mate looked at all the cubs running around Granite Valley, and it was a look that made him feel oddly warm and squishy inside.
Hudson leaned over and took Julius’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together firmly.
“I’m not sorry about a damn thing,” he growled. “It’s a miracle I got you at all. We both know you saved me.”
Hudson kissed the back of Julius’s hand, and Julius smiled.
“Who saved who?” he said.
“They say that about adopted dogs, you know,” Hudson teased.
“You do turn into a bear sometimes,” Julius said.
“It’s very different.”
Julius drained his glass and stretched his feet out onto their antique coffee table, relaxing back onto the leather couch.
“I just want this trial over,” he said. “I just wanted people to get married the way they want.”
“They won’t stop,” Hudson said. “They’ll probably start coming and protesting maternity wards.” He swirled the last few sips of whiskey around his glass.
“I hope not,” said Julius.
The next morning, Julius was up first. Hudson wasn’t even sure if he’d slept. The other man had been in bed when he’d fallen asleep, but when he’d woken up at four in the morning, Julius had been staring out a window into the back yard.
“I made coffee,” Julius said. He pointed to their massive French press, still mostly full. “It’s only about twenty minutes old, so get it while it’s hot.”
Hudson recognized that coffee maker as the emergency coffee maker, for when Julius needed extra caffeine. The other man was already pacing around the kitchen, his hair still mussed from his pillow, as he talked to himself about what he needed to do that day.
“Okay,” he said, pouring himself another cup. “I need to draft a statement about yesterday. I need to go see Noah in the hospital, and I need to send him flowers, and I need to contact Judge Coso about delaying the trial—”
“No,” said Hudson. He put one hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You’re taking the morning off.”
Julius looked at him like he was insane.
“I’m dead serious,” Hudson went on. “You haven’t slept. You got shot at yesterday. You’re not going to make it much longer if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“But—”
“I’ll send Noah flowers. The rest can wait.”
Julius opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Go take a bath. We’ve got a fancy-ass bathtub that we never use.”
Julius took in a deep breath in, exhaled, and then leaned forward and kissed Hudson.
“Thank you,” he said, disappearing into the bedroom.
Hudson half-smiled, watching him go.
Give him fifteen minutes and then join him, he thought.
He knew exactly how to get the tension out of Julius.
As Hudson got out stuff for breakfast-in-bath, he smiled to himself, thinking of the delicious things he was about to do to his mate.
But then, just as the pan was heating on the stove, the doorbell rang.
Hudson rolled his eyes, turned the stove off, and went to go see what the UPS guy had brou
ght. Hopefully it was that new tailpipe for the Harley he was customizing for one of the lions.
Instead, he opened the door to a bored-looking young woman in a polo shirt and khakis.
“Are you Julius Bloom and or Hudson Trager?” she asked, reading from a form on a clipboard.
“I’m just Hudson Trager,” he said.
“Please sign here,” she went on in the same monotone. “You’ve been served. Have a nice day.”
She retreated back down the porch steps, then got into her car and drove away.
Hudson stared down at the envelope in his hands.
It was a fucking subpoena.
He stomped back into the house, all the thoughts of getting some alone time with Julius ruined. He tossed it angrily onto the kitchen counter, clutching the granite surface in both hands, trying to fight down his rage.
Why can’t people just leave us alone? he thought.
We should just move out into the woods, like Kade and Daniel. I bet they never deal with this bullshit.
The bedroom door swung open and Julius stood there, a towel around his waist, dripping onto the hardwood floor. His phone was in one hand.
I should have made him leave the damn thing with me, Hudson thought, looking at it.
“The Taylors are suing us,” he said, his voice tight with rage. He looked like he might snap the phone in half. “Me for spraining their daughter’s wrist, and both of us for the emotional damages from that bitch watching us kiss when I realized you weren’t dead.”
Everything in front of Hudson’s eyes went red in a flash and he squeezed the countertop even harder. He wanted to sweep everything off of the counter — plates, eggs, mugs — then take the pots off the stove and throw them around the kitchen until everything in the place was good and broken.
Ten years ago, that’s exactly what he would have done.
Instead, he took a deep breath and envisioned his lungs as a balloon, expanding and deflating as he breathed. It was a trick his therapist had taught him a long time ago, a trick that allowed him to live in polite society instead of as a nearly-feral shifter who’d get in a fight over any little thing.