Charming (Exiled Book 3)

by Victoria Danann

  “No, sir,” Dread replied without missing a beat or taking offense to the question.

  Beech turned around. “Well, if it was, that would have beaten my own record for solving a crime.” He laughed. “I could speculate about motives, but it would be just that… speculation.”

  In the conference room reserved for the Chief of Police they had tea and reviewed every shred of evidence. But in the end, Beech wasn’t able to contribute anything they didn’t already know.

  “I’d better get back to City Hall. I’ll see you soon,” Charming told Dread.

  “Sure. Good to see ya,” said Dread.

  “Oh and congratulations on being teacher’s favorite.”

  Dread rolled his eyes. “It’s not a paid position you know.”

  Charming laughed. “Come see me when you graduate. Then we’ll talk paid position.”

  Charming had an appointment at one of the schools for purposes of demonstrating differences in strength between humans and hybrids. The schedule included all levels of education from preschool up. He told human students to exercise civility when interacting with hybrids, not to insult or provoke them because to do would be both foolhardy and extremely dangerous to the human.

  He knew the pleasure he took from scaring human kids was perverse, but he recognized that part of himself for what it was and embraced it. He saw nothing wrong with having pride in the unique attributes of his species so long as he kept it in perspective and never let it override his job, which was overseeing the permanent blending of humans and hybrids. But he did love hearing the gasps followed by stunned silence when hybrid kids demonstrated how quickly they could turn a graphite mannequin into tiny crushed pieces. Even the youngest children could make the leap of logic that mannequins were much more resistant to destruction than were their own very fragile, vulnerable bodies.

  Charming had come to look forward to seeing Ana at the pub in the evenings for a supper time break. At first sharing dinner was a means of keeping tabs on her as obliged by the favor he’d granted Rosie, but little by little he’d come to realize that the nightly meetings helped him relax.

  For some reason he felt like he could be himself with Ana. Maybe it was because she didn’t have any history with Exiled, no preconceived ideas about who or what he should be as compared to the way his father and oldest brother had been revered like legends.

  Lately, she’d been providing more than just a tension-free experience. She’d taken an interest in cooking with a vengeance and, because of that, had become interesting. Every day he began anticipating the excitement she would have over some new thing she’d learned or created. The latest was ‘juggernut cookies. He laughed to himself when he thought about her telling him how she’d come up with the name for the Far Scar exclusive.

  “Something funny?” the mayor asked.

  Charming hadn’t realized he’d vocalized his chuckle. He looked up to see the mayor leaning against the door frame of his office. “No, but I’m taking a dinner break. Whatever it is can wait until after.”

  It was a nice evening so he decided to walk to the pub. He’d only gone a few steps when he almost ran into Snow.

  “Charming!” She smiled.

  “Hey, Snow. How are you?”

  “Fair to medium. You look good.” Her eyes ran up and down his body. “Real good.”

  “Well, um, thanks. You, too.”

  She laughed. “I do, don’t I?”

  He smiled ingratiatingly. “I’m on my way out for a supper break.”

  “Oh? You want some company?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Look, you know I’m not a diplomat. So I’ll just tell you straight up. I’m in a little bit of a dry spell. How’d you like to share sex with me? Quick. Easy. No muss. No fuss. Like I said, you look good.”

  Charming’s smile grew into an ear to ear grin. “Same here. You’re a wish answered.”

  She stepped into Charming’s body and pressed so that her breasts flattened against his chest. His smile died and he closed his eyes when he groaned from the pleasant sensation. The problem was that, with his eyes closed, what he saw in his mind wasn’t Snow. It was Ana, which made him all the more sure that it was way past time to fuck that out of his system.

  He backed away, putting her at arm’s length. “Come on. I need to stop by Scar’s place and let somebody know to go ahead without me.”

  “Sure. Sounds good.”

  Ana had mentally catalogued Charming’s favorite foods. She would have had to have been trying to not notice which things elicited his yummy noises and which things he always ordered when available. With Abel’s and Moonlight’s help, she had perfected Shepherd’s Pie and oxnard greens so that she could treat him to a special homemade dinner.

  She didn’t know if there were traditions for romantic dinners in Farsuitwail, but she liked the usual props that went along with occasions in her world of origin. So she procured candles, flowers, and a thin red ale that could manage as a close-enough substitute for wine.

  She’d taken off early enough to get the cooking done, set the little table in the kitchen, and arranged fresh oatmeal raisin cookies under a glass dome.

  There was no question in her mind that Charming was into her as a woman. For weeks she’d been reading the signals, but he never made a move to take things to the next level. Not even when they found themselves trying to get through the same doorway at the same time.

  Coming to the conclusion that he must be shy sexually, or even inexperienced, she decided to take matters under her own control. She got out the red dress Rosie had bought her. The one she’d been sure she’d never wear. And just to demonstrate the depth of her commitment, she put on the red lipstick. When she looked in the mirror, she decided it was a good dress-up look and went with both her coloring and the dress.

  Glancing at the kitchen clock, she ran back to the bathroom to make sure that her hair and lipstick were in place. She felt a little foolish in the dress, like she was trying to impersonate a much more overtly feminine personality, but it was too late to second guess even if that was true.

  When Charming stepped up to the bar, Scar gave him a chin raise and said, “Snow. How are ya?” When she shrugged in reply, he turned to Charming. “Got a message for you from the little girl.”

  “Yeah? What is it?” Charming asked.

  “She says she has food for you upstairs tonight and for you to grab something up there.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Charming was surprised since they’d never talked about eating at his place, but he was sure Ana must have her reasons. So he took Snow’s hand and led her into the building lobby and onto the elevator.

  When he pushed the button for the top floor, she said, “My. The mighty are flying high, huh?”

  He couldn’t think of a single reply. He didn’t want to get to know Snow better. He just wanted to unload some semen and get back to work. He’d miss his nightly check-in with Ana, but in the long run, a little sexual release would be better for everybody concerned.

  When Ana heard the front door, she lit the candles quickly, but paused with a match in mid-air when she heard voices. Charming’s and someone else’s. Someone female.

  The first thing Charming noticed when he opened the door was the heavenly aroma of his favorite Shepherd’s Pie. He smiled and turned to Snow.

  “My roommate is a cook and, wow, smell that? She made Shepherd’s Pie.”

  He looked up to see Ana coming into the living room with a question on her face.

  “Hey, Ana.” He looked her up and down. “You look great. Going somewhere? That smell is killing me. It’s my favorite and nobody knows how to make it like Abel. Thanks for grabbing some for me before it was all gone.”

  “Well, I…” she stammered.

  “Oh,” he said, proceeding in blissful moronic oblivion, “this is Snow.”

  “Hello,” said the tall, pale hybrid next to Charming.

  “Hi,” Ana replied in a voice so small she didn’t recognize it as hers.


  “Excuse me a minute,” Charming said to Snow.

  He approached Ana, leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Hey. I need a little private time with Snow. Could you maybe give us the apartment for an hour or so? Were you going out? I’ll get somebody to drive you.”

  Ana backed away and said, “Going out? Oh yeah. A friend from the bakery is meeting me downstairs.”

  Charming didn’t know how to read the expression on her face. “Okay. Be careful. And thanks again for picking up the food.”

  Ana tried to make her mouth say, “Sure,” on the way out, but she couldn’t tell whether she made an actual sound or not. She closed the door behind her and saw the elevator go blurry behind tears. She hated crying with a passion. That’s why she had a strict personal policy against watering of eyes, but the harder she tried to pull herself together while stabbing at the down button, the more emotional control slipped away from her.

  When the apartment door closed behind Ana, Charming looked at Snow and said, “Come on. Let’s eat first.”

  When he stepped into the kitchen and saw the dim lights, the lit candles, the flowers, the table set with pretty things, and the pots and pans which meant that Abel had not been the one to do the cooking, he froze. Gestures of romance are recognized universally, including interdimensionally. When a woman cooks for a man, she’s sending a message. When she cooks for a man and makes everything, including herself, pretty, she’s sending a message that can’t be misinterpreted even by the dimmest of dunderheads.

  “Wow,” said Snow. “You fucked up.”

  “Snow…” Charming began without taking his eyes away from the table.

  “Never mind. I’m on the way out.”

  For a few seconds after Snow left, Charming stayed rooted in place. As soon as he’d walked into the kitchen, he’d realized what the look on Ana’s face had meant. Hurt. She’d gone to some trouble to make it plain that she had feelings for him and he’d rubbed her nose in it. That realization struck his heart like a lightning bolt. It clouded his vision and almost brought him to his knees.

  He knew he liked Ana. He knew he was attracted to her sexually in a perpetual blue balls sort of way. But until that moment, he hadn’t checked in with his feelings to recognize that he more than liked her. He’d known she was infatuated with him, but he hadn’t given it much thought because most of the human girls were.

  His body jerked when his lungs suddenly sucked in a big breath. He hadn’t known he was holding his breath, but the violence of it spurred him to action. He ran for the elevator, leaving the apartment door standing open. It seemed to take forever to get down to the street. When he rushed out onto the sidewalk, he looked both ways. Ana wasn’t in sight, but he did see Snow.

  “She went that way.” Snow pointed straight ahead.

  Charming nodded and crossed the street into the park just as he started to feel big rain drops, punctuated by the sound of their individual plopping on the cement. It was almost dark and the thick cloud cover was bringing on the night even faster, but when he scanned he found a slash of red that looked like a watercolor with the rain suddenly began coming down hard. He moved quickly, looking every bit the predator he was, but kept disguised most of the time.

  She was heading for the big pond in the middle of the park.

  He ran with one thing in mind, that Ana was hurting and he’d been the one to inflict the wound. His own chest hurt. He tried to dismiss the fact that he’d heard that mates feel each other’s pain, but the idea persisted. He’d also heard that males felt more relaxed when they were with their mates and that, when separated, their focus was often on when they would be reunited.

  He didn’t think he could be stupid enough to be sharing a home with the female whose chemistry aligned with his own so perfectly that they were a mated match and not know it, but stranger things had happened. His thoughts were so focused on not being involved with a human that he could have overlooked what was right in front of him and, apparently, that’s exactly what he’d done.

  Those were the thoughts that raced through his mind as he raced through the pouring rain. When he was close enough to be heard by a human, he shouted, “Ana!”

  She turned and, even at a distance he could tell she was shocked to see him chasing her. To his surprise, instead of changing course to move toward him, or waiting for him to catch up, she turned and ran. Of course that excited the predator in him all the more and, with a growl, he increased his speed.

  The last thing in the world Ana wanted, after the supreme humiliation that had been visited upon her ‘romantic evening’, was for Charming to know she was crying about it. If she didn’t have high coloring, she could claim her wet face and clothes were because of the rain. But the rain wouldn’t account for a red nose or puffy eyes. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know what she looked like. She’d known since she was a little girl that she was an ugly crier. It was another good reason to never do it.

  It made no sense to Charming that she’d tried to run. She had to know there was no chance of escaping him. He was hybrid, human probably mixed with puma and uncertain speculation as to what other enhancers were thrown into the stew.

  When he got close enough to reach out and touch her, his brain screamed. Mine.

  In one fluid motion he pulled her to a stop, spun her around, and pulled her into his embrace. She tried to fight him, partly because of anger and partly because of the shame of being caught crying over him. But the harder she fought, the tighter he held her and nothing in his life had ever felt so right as Ana in his arms.

  When he said, “Ana. I’m here,” she stilled. When she involuntarily hiccupped another sob, he repeated it, “I’m here.”

  Hearing it the second time, she slumped against him and let the last tears fall on his chest while he came to terms with the fact that he’d fallen. Hard. For a human.

  He felt her heart pounding against his body and knew that what he wanted more than anything in the world, even more than securing the future of his people, was to keep and protect the little human female in his arms.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. When she nodded against his chest, he leaned down. Putting one arm underneath her knees he lifted her up and started walking back the way they came.

  “You can’t carry me all the way there.”

  He chuckled. “You have a lot to learn about your mate, Ana. I could carry you all day without tiring.”

  “Mate?”

  He chuckled. “You remember the first day you made cookies. I tasted them and then asked you to marry me.”

  “I said yes. Then you brought another woman home to screw right in front of me.”

  “I was joking about marrying you then. I’m not joking anymore.”

  She was quiet for a long time, enveloped in the sound of the rain and Charming’s steady footsteps.

  He jiggled her a little. “You there?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” she answered just as quietly. “What changed?”

  “I guess I came to love you and was too dumb to know it happened. I suspected I needed you because I looked forward to seeing you at the pub every night.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. But I didn’t know what those feelings meant. Can we still have dinner together?”

  “We’re soaking wet. And I look like shit.”

  With her head resting in the crook of his neck between his head and his collarbone, she could feel it when he shook his head. “You don’t look like shit. You’re the most beautiful female in Farsuitwail.”

  “That’s ridiculous. First, I’ve seen the hybrid women. They’re all Amazon princesses. Second, you can’t see me right now. Not that that’s a bad thing. Believe me, I’m not complaining about that.”

  “First, I don’t know what Amazon princesses means. Second, I don’t have to see you to say you’re beautiful. It’s not all about how you look, you know. You’re beautiful because you just are.”

  “Stop it! You’re going to make me cry
again. And I just got it under control.”

  He chuckled. “You made me Shepherd’s Pie.”

  “I did,” she said.

  “Did you know it’s my favorite?”

  “Of course I knew.”

  “Because you’ve been paying attention to me. I’m a lousy lover. I couldn’t tell you what your favorite food is. I guess I’ve been paying attention to your eyes. And your mouth. And your tits. Especially your tits. Not your food.”

  “You are a lousy lover because you’ve never made love to me. You’ve never even kissed me.”

  Ana could see that they were almost back to their building.

  “We’re going to fix that, Ana. We’re going to go upstairs and take off these wet clothes. I’m going to dry you off with clean fluffy towels. All. Over.” She felt her thighs clench together.

  “Then what?” she asked, sounding more breathless than she intended.

  “Then we’re going to light your candles… or we would except that I may have left them burning. Then we’re going to feed each other Shepherd’s Pie. While you sit in my lap wearing nothing but a towel.”

  Her nipples hardened when she pictured that.

  “Then what?”

  “Then I’m going to take you to my bed and learn every inch of your body. And you’re going to be glad that I haven’t gotten laid since you arrived. Because I’m really, really, really focused.”

  It was her turn to chuckle. “Is that what you call it? Focused?”

  He set her down in front of the door because he couldn’t figure out how to open it any other way. “Yeah.” He leaned down so that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face.

  He went through the door in front of her then picked her up again as soon as they were on the other side. When they reached the elevator bank, he said, “You push the button.”

  When it opened, he stepped inside, still carrying her in his arms. A hybrid couple got on before the door closed.

  The big male smirked at Charming. “Evening, Leader.”