by Meg Ripley
Natalie was crying, and Charlie wrapped his arms around his wife as she sobbed into his chest. Leslie was staring at the body, unable to pull her eyes away from the darkening red pool around his frame. Her face was bone-white, and Thomas had a feeling she wouldn’t be volunteering for any more adventures for a while.
Susanna let out a strangled sob, and Thomas felt his heart wrench in his chest even as relief started to wash into his bloodstream. “It’s okay,” Thomas said, hurrying forward and stepping over Frank’s corpse. “It’s okay. We’re safe now. You saved us.”
“We’re safe?” Susanna asked. She turned her eyes toward him quizzically and drew in a deep, shuddering breath, apparently gathering her air to speak again.
Then, for the first time ever, she fainted before he got the chance to faint first.
****
They sat together in their wicker rocking chairs every day afterward, holding hands and sipping mixed drinks while they stared at the sunset. Susanna would sometimes go out before the sunset started and sit on the grass, ripping individual blades from the soil absentmindedly until Thomas joined her. After everything that had happened, it felt nice to be able to stare blankly ahead without anticipation of anything ruining their marvelous sunset. Evan would drop by on occasion, or Natalie, but for the most part, everyone’s lives returned to their normal swing. Only Susanna and Thomas seemed frozen for a while—trapped in place like ghostly images of their former selves.
“Anything today?” he would ask as he slipped his hand into hers.
“Just normal stuff,” she would say. Or, “Kylie is going to lose her keys down a storm drain tomorrow; it’ll tie up our pride’s schedule since we’ll be down one car for the caravan.” Then they would talk about television, or black holes; anything at all that wasn’t about Sierra Leandra. Thomas kept thinking about the vacation she’d mentioned, wondering if it was closer now, or further away.
Sometimes when he spoke she wouldn’t say anything, and he knew that she was thinking about seeing Frank’s body crumple to the ground, or how close Thomas had been to being shot to death. She wouldn’t move, and it seemed like she wasn’t even breathing, so he would put an arm around her shoulders as she let her feelings spread out and float away down the gentle slope of their back yard and out over the fields, toward the fertile farmland and the promise it held.
Then she started coming to him with predictions; just weather changes at first, and then a few basketball game scores a day or more in advance. It warmed his heart immeasurably to see the twinkle in her deep green eyes as she spoke about the flash of clairvoyance excitedly, stumbling over her words in trademark Susanna fashion. Slowly, the thin layer of ice that had surrounded her since they’d been targeted started to crack and fall away. She was laughing again, and singing. She stopped hiding when their friends came over, and they all visibly reacted to the change in her demeanor. On one particularly cool evening, he sat next to her in the grass, and she turned to him with a slow smile moving across her face.
“Guess what I saw today?” she asked.
“What?” he said, expecting to hear about new horse at the stables just outside of town, or the renewal of their favorite sitcom.
“The mountains,” she answered. “Covered in snow. Beautiful peaks dusted in fluffy white flakes, three or four feet of it falling at a time. A lodge, some rum, and a fire.”
Thomas blinked, not daring to believe what he was hearing. “Where might this ski lodge be?” he asked casually.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Aspen? Perhaps Vermont?” She closed her eyes thoughtfully. “I’m not quite sure, but I do know there was a hot tub on the patio, which was also covered.”
Thomas turned to his mate and kissed her on the lips. When he pulled back, she giggled, and the roughened chuckle was like music to his ears. “What was that for?”
“Just because,” he answered. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
Susanna pecked him on the cheek and gazed at him dreamily, the sunset painting her skin even brighter and warmer than usual. “It’s reason enough for me.”
THE END
Alpha's Howling Desire
Ariel lives the life of a typical twenty-something. Her world consists of school, an aspiring career, and a best friend who always seems to be teetering just on the edge of yet another crisis. In her fantasies, however, she disappears into her beloved books and dives into a world where a man shifts into a wolf to fight to protect his pack from vicious rivals who threaten their very existence.
Even more entrancing than the descriptions of this powerful Alpha shifter, however, is the sexy author who stares up at her from the glossy photo on the back of the book. She is drawn to him in an intense way that she can't fully grasp, and when the opportunity arises to meet him at a convention book signing, she can't keep her mind, or body, off of him.
In an instant, fantasy and reality crash together and she finds herself in the thrown into a world she has dreamed about a thousand times, but never in a lifetime thought she would actually experience. Her future dangles before her: she must decide whether she should reach forward to grasp the gorgeous man and wolf who claims to be her mate, or to play it safe and remain on the other side of the book cover.
"Son of a bitch!”
Forgetting that she was in public, Ariel quickly sank down in her seat, pulling the large book she held in front of her face, cringing. She heard giggling beside her and reached out to smack Daniel on the leg to stop him from laughing at her. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the library staring at her and she had the sudden fear that a skeletal librarian would come in and toss her out by the back of her shirt for defiling the sanctity of the public library reading room.
"Tell me again why I'm sitting here with you," she hissed toward Daniel, still holding the book up in front of her even though she had just finished reading it.
"I need moral support," Daniel replied.
"Moral support to get through your history final?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how much longer I'm going to need to be supportive because all of these people are still staring at me and I'm fairly certain that those ones over there in the corner are planning to kill me."
"We can go as long as you bring me back to your place and give me some of the good stuff."
Daniel lifted his eyebrows at her and Ariel smiled back, nodding as she helped him gather up his papers and books and carry them toward the circulation desk.
Twenty minutes later, Ariel walked into her living room carrying two bowls of ice cream. Daniel was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch and she placed one of the bowls in his lap. She settled onto the couch behind him and grabbed a jar she had tucked under her arm. Twisting off the metal top, she dipped a spoon down inside and reached around Daniel to drizzle a long golden stream of homemade caramel sauce over his ice cream.
"Oh, yeah. That's the stuff," he murmured.
"I know how you like it," she said, digging the spoon down into his ice cream so that his first bite would be mostly rich, buttery caramel.
"I'd totally marry you if we didn't have sex, I could see other people on the side, and you made me caramel every day."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Ariel curled into the corner of the couch and spooned some of the caramel over her own ice cream.
"So, do you want to tell me why you decided to shout obscenities in the presence of old ladies and innocent library books?"
Ariel dropped her head back against the couch with grunt of frustration. She swallowed her mouthful of ice cream as she reached for the book on the edge of the coffee table.
"The stupid cliffhanger at the end of this book," she said, holding the book so close in front of Daniel's face he had to lean back away from it.
"Don't all of those books end with a cliffhanger? I thought that was the whole point of having a series. You hang, then they scoop you back up, then you hang, then they scoop you back up," he turned his attention back to the bo
wl in his hands and took another bite of ice cream, "It's all really exhausting, honestly."
"You don't understand. This was like…" she groaned with exasperation, unable to come up with exactly the right words to explain why she was so angry at the book, "The books have been leading up to a war between the two rival tribes of wolves. There was a standoff with the Alphas of each of the packs and this book ended right as Lazar leapt into the air and shifted while the other was shooting a crossbow at him."
Daniel looked back at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
"Lazar?"
"Yes. He's the good Alpha who has been trying to get a bloodthirsty pack away from his pack's lands."
"Lazar?" Daniel repeated.
"Yes," Ariel said emphatically.
"And he's a wolf?"
"When he shifts, yes."
"So, he's Lazar…the wolf."
Ariel chose to ignore the comment and turned the book over in her hands, staring down at the picture of the author on the back of the cover as Daniel sang "To Life" under his breath.
"He's so beautiful," she murmured.
"The wolf?" Daniel asked after a resounding L'chaim to finish out his song.
"The author," she said, tilting the book to Daniel so that he could look at the black and white picture on the cover.
Ariel had stared at that picture more times than she could count. Max Grimsley's dark eyes burned into her from the covers of more than a dozen books tucked on the bookshelf in her bedroom, and, though she wouldn't admit it, she often turned whatever book she was currently reading over on her nightstand so that she could look at his picture before going to sleep.
"Well, pretty soon you will be able to look at the real thing," Daniel said, a hint of teasing in his voice.
Ariel sighed, part of her hating how it made her feel to have a moony-eyed crush at her age while the other part loved the tingle through her body each time she read his name or saw his picture.
"I know. I can't wait."
She indulged the moony-eyed side by letting out an excited squeal. It had seemed like the months leading up to the convention were multiplying and sliding by with all the vim and vigor of a pot of day-old grits, but it was finally only a few days away. Max Grimsley would be there, signing copies of his books and giving a panel on fiction writing.
"So, which are you more excited about, having him sign your book, or getting the opportunity to yell at him for dangling you so precariously over his literary cliff?"
She had told people she was going primarily for the workshops that she hoped would further her own burgeoning writing career, but she knew she was going for him. The ache inside her when she looked at his picture was intense and she couldn't wait to be near him, even if it was only long enough for him to scrawl his name across the cover page of her book and flash her an obligatory smile. Even that may satiate her.
"We'll have to see how I feel in the moment," she said, taking another bite of her ice cream and letting the slowly melting vanilla ice cream and rich caramel swirl across her tongue.
****
"Where are we?" Daniel asked, scanning the already bustling auditorium.
"It's general seating. We’ll sit wherever we can get a seat," Ariel told him, gripping the hem at the back of his shirt to make sure she didn't lose him in the relative chaos of the convention’s opening day.
"So, run like hell is what you're telling me?"
"Yes."
Daniel took off running down the aisle, shoving past other attendees, and Ariel scurried after him, still holding onto his hem and sending up a prayer that Max Grimsley was not in the room at the time to see her completely undignified display of seat snagging.
"That felt vaguely unethical," Daniel panted as he dropped into one of the two remaining seats in the front row.
"But we got amazing seats."
"You are such a nerd," he muttered.
"I don't want to hear it, medieval history major."
Ariel shifted impatiently in her seat for the next half an hour waiting while others filtered in and filled the rest of the seats around them. There was an excited, electrified buzz through the room as people whispered and flipped through the books, brochures, and other swag tucked in their welcome bags. Daniel stared directly ahead at the empty stage and Ariel felt a wave of thankfulness roll over her. He would not be one to identify as part of the fandom, but he had come along with her so she wouldn't have to attend alone.
Silence moved through the room like a wave, settling people from the back forward and Ariel turned to the stage to see a silver-haired man approach the podium. There were a few scattered applause and Ariel knew most of the people didn't know who this man was, but she recognized him as Max Grimsley's agent. He smiled out at the crowd, watching them silently as if reveling in their anticipation. Finally, he started speaking.
"It's good to see so many fans out here today," he said, scanning the full seats. There were a few more claps and he chuckled, obviously accustomed to being the lackluster lead-in that few had any excitement to see, "I guess it's still a little early in the morning for enthusiasm."
"It's 9:30," Daniel whispered and Ariel shushed him.
"He's trying to break the ice."
"Consider me still frozen."
Ariel shushed him again and Daniel complied, sitting back sullenly and looking up at the speaker with an expression on his face that dared him to become charming and entertaining.
"I know that all of you are excited to get the convention underway and we are all just as excited to introduce our keynote speaker, who is also one of the panelists and will be signing books at this evening's literacy gala." Out of the corner of her eye Ariel could see Daniel cover his face with his hands and shake his head, but her heart was beating too hard from the nervousness rolling through her to pay attention to him, "How many of you have read his most recent book?"
There were shouts and cheers from the crowd and the agent looked pleased to have finally gotten a bit of a rise out of them. He grinned wider.
"Excellent. Well, there isn't really anything else for me to say other than let's welcome Max Grimsley."
He stepped aside and held out a hand dramatically. The green velvet curtains fluttered and a darkly clad form strode out onto the stage. Max stepped behind the podium and looked out over the crowd. His eyes swept the rows and then fell on Ariel, meeting her gaze and holding it intensely. There was a moment of strange, suspended stillness. Though the audience around her erupted in screams and applause, it was as though Ariel couldn't register the sound.
She didn't know how long they had been staring at each other when Max broke the connection, leaving her feeling slightly breathless and gripping the arms of her seats so hard her knuckles hurt. Daniel squeezed her thigh and she looked over at him. He lifted his eyebrows and she nodded, trying to smile but so taken aback by Max that she couldn't seem to control her expressions.
Max spoke with the reserved confidence and calm she had expected from him, never glancing down at his notes. Instead, he looked out over the audience and spoke as if he was just having a conversation. Every few moments his eyes fell back to Ariel and held her. Each time, his voice dropped slightly and he seemed to lean subtly forward. It made her breath catch in her throat and she wondered if she was just imagining the connection, if every woman in the audience was envisioning the same looks and cues.
The picture that had fueled countless fantasies had in no way done him justice. She had avoided looking up other pictures of him, contented by the sexy black and white picture that graced every book, his website, and the advertisements for every appearance he made. Now as he looked at her, his lips soft and full as he spoke, she wished she had put forth a little more effort.
His hair looked thick and silky as it fell just to his collar and the eyes she had expected to be dark were actually the color of her caramel sauce. She licked her lips when he glanced away from her, feeling her body respond exactly how she had anticipated it would. It
was never a good idea to tempt a curvy girl with caramel.
****
"What exactly is a literary gala?" Daniel asked later as he walked beside Ariel down the distressingly cold hallway toward the elevator, pulling at his tie.
Ariel swatted his hands away from the knot and hooked her thumbs into the low bodice of her gown to adjust it.
"It's essentially a charity fundraiser to benefit literacy programs. We go, we eat, we buy books…"
"We seek out beautiful authors."
"Yes, and they donate the proceeds after the convention."
Daniel pressed the elevator button and sighed.
"It just seems strange to me that the same group of people who will happily parade around in loin cloths and steam punk alien saloon girl costumes during the day feel the need to put on formalwear at night to spend time with the exact same people."
"Steam punk alien saloon girls?" she asked incredulously.
"It's a thing. I saw it happen."
"It's not about the formalwear. It's about the money going toward literacy."
The elevator door opened and Ariel and Daniel stepped inside. When the door slid closed and she realized they were the only ones in the car, she turned her back to the small camera positioned judgmentally in the corner and reached down into her bodice to lift her breasts higher in the dress.
"That was classy," Daniel said when she turned back around.
"Thank you."
"Alright," Daniel said, stepping out of the elevator when the doors slid open and presenting his arm to her, "Let's do this."
Ariel took Daniel's arm and smiled at him as she let him guide her across the lobby toward the ballroom that had been set up for the gala. Music streamed from the open door and she could hear blended voices rising over the notes. As they stepped inside her eyes scanned across the room, taking in the elevated tables set up with appetizers around the perimeter, the bar on the far end, and the live band playing on the opposite side of the dancefloor.