Whiskey Storm

by F. J. Blooding

  Wendy Green walked out of the high school as Paige wrangled Rai back into her seatbelt. Wendy waved, flagging Paige to wait.

  Paige gave her daughter a stern alpha warning. “Stay in human form until we get home.”

  Rai flapped her baby arms, slapping her hands against her bare thighs. Paige had barely gotten her into a diaper and a onesie before they’d left the house.

  Ember was still out cold. Paige reached over and put her hand on his chest to make sure he was breathing. He was. He was just a good sleeper.

  “Human,” Paige said, putting her finger on Rai’s little button nose and closing the door.

  Wendy had made it to her by that point. “Paige.” Her tone was pleasant, but her smile said she had something to say. “Can I have a word?”

  Paige really wanted to say no. She wanted to tell the tall, black woman that she didn’t have time. Not because she didn’t like Wendy. She really did. That woman had the ability to control raging teens, which, in Paige’s book, was a superpower. It was the fact that Wendy always brought problems Paige didn’t know how to solve.

  Respect won out. She pasted on a smile and leaned against the car. “What’s up?”

  Wendy bit the inside of her lip and leaned against the car as well. She pulled away quickly and glanced at Paige in askance.

  She shook her head and gestured to the car with a shrug. “I’m not going to yell.” Dexx might have if anyone opted to lean against his 1970 Dodge Challenger, but Paige’s car was just a sedan. Nothing special. It ran. It carted kids around. It took the bags to the airport. It got the groceries. It did its job.

  Wendy scratched her eyebrow and leaned back on the rear door, glancing inside. Her expression melted a little. “They’re adorable. They’re getting so big so fast.”

  She wasn’t lying. “They’re shifter witches.” Paige didn’t know what territory they were even in because this was new territory. “They can shift into anything and my theory is that’s the reason they’re growing so fast.”

  Wendy pulled the corners of her lips down as she nodded. “I need to talk to you about clothes.”

  Oh. Since Sven had basically blockaded Troutdale in his bid for control, humans and paranormals were now forced to coexist knowingly. And one of the things they’d done was to get the paranormals and humans together in the same schools.

  “Shifters lose their clothes when they shift, and they practice certain aspects of their shift at school.”

  Wendy raised her hand. “I get that. I do. But…”

  Paige knew exactly what the “but” was. “Look, it took me a long time to get used to it too. So, we have cabinets stationed around our house for shifters to grab robes when they find themselves arriving unexpectedly. Because, trust me, they can stand in front of you completely naked and carry on a full conversation like it’s nothing.”

  “But it is something.”

  Paige had been saying the same thing for about a year now, but hearing it come from Wendy made Paige realize that maybe the mundanes were wrong. “Maybe the issue isn’t the shifters.”

  Wendy rolled her eyes.

  “Listen to me.” Because this conversation along with all the other things going on in the political news with the #MeToo movement was striking a cord that needed to be addressed. “The issue is that we’ve sexualized the body to the extent that little girls have to be careful of what they wear to class.”

  “Not my classes.”

  And that was reason one hundred and eighty-three why Paige respected the hell out of Wendy. “We can’t teach our shifters that they need to be embarrassed with their bodies. That they need to be scared. What we’re telling them is that others have more powers and more rights to their bodies than they do.”

  Wendy thought about that for a minute. “I get where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t work that way in the real world.”

  “Only because there are fewer of us wanting to change the world than there are those willing to make it a better place.”

  Wendy bowed her head and then looked up at Paige briefly before pushing off the car and standing. She swung her arms a few times and then clapped her hands together. “Cabinets and robes.”

  Paige pushed off the car as well. “I see woodworking projects in class.”

  “Agreed. Okay. Have a good day.” She gave the twins a sweeter smile and waved as she disappeared back into the school.

  Well, at least this time was an easier issue.

  With the kids dropped off, she went to the grocery store—which was now more like a circus event than a chore—and then went home. She was exhausted. She’d had to alpha-will both kids so many times just between the produce and the meat departments. And everyone had cooed at her kids like they were some great, well-behaved humans when they were in fact the most outrageously difficult—

  She didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until she was awakened by a rather loud noise.

  Merry Eastwood stood beside her, a cool smile on her villainous face, her fingers resting on the rather large volume that was now resting on the side table beside Paige’s head. “Nice nap?”

  Paige wanted to throttle that woman until her dark hair turned grey. Two-hundred-year-old witches were a little hard to strangle though. They had a lot of tricks hidden up their sleeves. So, she grimaced and got up instead, looking for the twins. One day, she’d get Merry Eastwood back in paranormal prison where she belonged. But for now, she was a needed ally.

  The twins were in the dining room, tangling their tiny bodies around the feet of all the people who had invaded.

  She went to gather them, but Faith, their regional high female alpha, put her hand on Paige’s arm and steered her to the kitchen instead. “We’ve all raised young ones before. We won’t step on them.”

  Faith’s soft tone was at war with the harsh scar over her eye. Faith had seen more battle damage than Paige—

  Actually, by now, that probably wasn’t even the case. But Paige was able to hide her scars because hers rested in her bones.

  It was going to take Paige a long time to realize that she was an equal in this mix of high ranking, powerful people.

  She grabbed her coffee and went to the table. Their dining table was L-shaped and custom built. Families their size weren’t the norm. The Whiskey siblings, Leslie, Paige, and Nate, all lived in that house along with their significant others and their kids. And Dexx’s pack lived out back as well. They had a small community as a family.

  Paige banged an empty sippy cup on the table and took her seat.

  Eventually, everyone sat. There weren’t as many people in this gathering as there generally were for dinner. So, at least there was that.

  But it was time to get this party started. “Tell me you’ve all seen the news.”

  Elder Yad looked like that wizard from Legend of the Seeker. He kinda sounded like him, too. “We’ve been watching and the time to act is now.”

  “Great.” But Paige was tired of hearing words and sentiment, which is usually what people brought to her because she was the person of action. “I think it’s high time to hear what the Elder Council has in mind.”

  The Elder Council—for all that Paige had been able to gather—had been around since almost the time paranormals crossed over to the Americas. They “managed” the paranormals who swore fealty or whatever to them in Central and North America, but she was pretty certain their reach stopped there.

  In all this time, though, Paige never knew or understood what their intent was. It wasn’t to keep the paranormal secret. Or maybe it was. But that had been the job of the Shadow Sisterhood, who might work for them? She wasn’t even certain at this point. But the council liked to gather information. They didn’t’ typically share it.

  Yad rubbed his eye and nodded as if making a decision. “We need to gather our people and provide a united attack.”

  “On the government.” Paige hoped he meant something else. They couldn’t be talking ab
out a revolution. There had to be a peaceful resolution in there somewhere. “You want the paranormals to rise up against the U.S. Government.”

  “I do.”

  Whoa. That’d been sarcasm.

  Faith shifted in her chair, anxiety tinging her dark eyes. “Do you even know what this means?”

  Yad took in a deep breath and laid his heavily age-spotted hands in front of him. “The President started this. We are merely reacting to her actions.”

  Merry just rubbed her finger against her lips, deep in thought, her frown troubled. Leave it to the villain of the group to realize this was a bad idea.

  Everyone else looked like they were working their way into accepting it.

  “That’s not good enough,” Paige said because for fuck’s sake! Seriously. “This would be an act of…treason?” She didn’t even know. “It’d be civil war at the very least.” That was huge and, frankly, inconceivable. This shouldn’t be the first thought. It shouldn’t be an easy conclusion. They needed to exhaust their efforts. “Has anyone talked to Senators? Government representatives? Lawyers? People who understand this?”

  “Yes,” Elder Yad said, holding up his hand with a tired sigh. “But we’ve been informed that this isn’t their matter.”

  “Not their—” Paige wasn’t sure she could trust the elders. “Maybe someone else should try who actually wants a solution instead of war.”

  Yad shook his head like he was biting off a nasty comment. “We already know how this is going to play out.”

  But did they? This wasn’t history on replay. This was the twenty-first century. “We’re U.S. citizens.”

  “They’re not seeing it that way,” Yad said, his tone equal parts patient and cutting, “and we all know it.”

  Leslie pressed her fist to her forehead as if trying to push her frustration back inside her skull. “What do we think the President will do next?”

  No one answered.

  “Let’s look a’ wha’ was done in the bloody war, why don’ we?”

  Paige frowned at the red-headed man who looked like a really tall garden gnome. “Who are you?”

  “Duglas Maclellan,” he said in his—it could have been anything because Paige sucked at accents—accent.

  “Lead water elemental for the region,” Faith said softly to Paige.

  “Great. Thanks.” Knowing names and people was seriously going to have to become a superpower Paige honed. “Which war?”

  “The World War. Ya know the one. Where they killed off a bunch of people wha’ got in their way of a perfect world view.”

  World War II and the Jews. “The President isn’t a Nazi.” She’d better not be. Paige’d voted for her.

  “She isna?” Duglas clapped his lips into a thin line before speaking. “Ya really thin’ we’re not headed to that event? First, it’s her tellin’ the nation and the damned world that it’s ‘us against them,’ makin’ a right ruddy mess of it, too. Turnin’ neighbor against neighbor. Friend against friend. They’re already forcin’ us to register so they know who ta fear.”

  Paige frowned. The U.S. had racism. There was no hiding that fact. That didn’t mean they were being run by Nazi’s. It just meant they had a lot of really loud assholes.

  “Then, they’ll start tellin’ the humans tha’ we’re diseased. Start callin’ us animals.”

  Paige could easily imagine that.

  “After tha’, they’ll create special groups of people to ‘handle’ us lot.”

  They already had DoDO, an organization funded by the government to deal with the paranormals. Paige had already had run-ins with them that hadn’t gone well.

  “Then…” Duglas pointed to the living room where, presumably, the TV was. “They tell the other side to be afraid o’ us. They turn the mudanes again’ us.”

  Which was exactly what the President had just done.

  “Next step? Relocation, which your ruddy fuckin’ President just said she’d be doin’. Don’t think they’ll do it because they’re no’ bloody Nazi’s? Well, what about wha’ they did to the bloody natives? The Japs. Or the damned immigrants tryin’ to just get into this fuckin’ shit storm of an ass-swell country?”

  The man was making entirely too much sense and Paige didn’t like where it was leading.

  “Then, they’ll start stealin’ from us. Rapin’ us. Killin’ us. Mass massacre’s in the name of all that’s ‘safe.’”

  A cold chill swept down Paige’s spine. This was turning out to be a dark, dystopian novel. But this was her life. Their lives.

  This was real.

  “And then? What’s to stop them from outrigh’ killin’ the lot of us? Stop the fear then and there. Kill us all to protect the mudanes and meanwhile, they’ll tell the world they’re big bloody heroes doin’ only what needed to be done and that they did the best they bloody well could with the situation they’d been handed.”

  Paige couldn’t believe they’d ever go that far. They lived in the United State of fucking America for crying out loud. “We can’t act out of fear,” Paige said quietly. “We can’t escalate this too soon. What if they’re just scared? We could inform them who we are.”

  “The President already knows,” Yad said, his tone final.

  “But the American people don’t.” Paige wouldn’t entertain the idea of taking things this far this fast. “We teach them. We talk to them. Just look at Troutdale. Our kids are going to school with human kids. Right now.”

  Faith took in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she looked over the faces of the people gathering around the table. “We can start—”

  The front door banged open. “Paige!” Dexx came through the door, his eyes wide. “You weren’t picking up your phone.”

  “DND.” She always put her phone on do-not-disturb when she was in a meeting, especially now that she wasn’t a detective. “What’s wrong?”

  Dexx’s green eyes were wild. “DoDO has arrived and have put up roadblocks around the town.”

  They what?

  “They’re blockading us in.”

  Yad met Paige’s gaze. “It has begun.”

  3

  As much as Paige enjoyed the Mortal Kombat reference, she really didn’t appreciate just how appropriate that applied to the current situation.

  She needed to see just how bad this was.

  Paige grabbed her keys but then thought differently. She and Leslie could just shift into whatever shape they chose and get to the location quickly. That would leave Dexx in a tight spot as he would either have to shift and lose all of his clothes or drive. However, the man drove like a maniac, so she was fairly certain he would get there quickly one way or the other.

  Dexx seemed to have caught on to what she was thinking. He shook his head and gave her a look of warning. “Let’s not make a scene.”

  She had no idea what that even meant. She turned back to the council and realized that the people she needed to talk to about keeping her children safe weren’t even there. “We’ll assess the situation.” Then, she headed for the back door.

  She really didn’t have time to walk at a leisurely human pace, even if it was a quick human pace. So, she shifted into tiger form and ran.

  The Whiskey lands were rather large. They had twenty-four acres and growing. They were still in negotiation with one of the farmers to the east who was looking to sell. Dexx and Paige’s pack — really it was just Dexx’s pack — lived in the woods around the main house in tree houses. Though, they were rather elaborate tree houses, she still had a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that wolves preferred to live so high above the ground.

  There was a strategic advantage to this, of course. It was easier to hide from potential predators and they had the advantage. Even knowing all of that, Paige still struggled to see wanting to live up there.

  Her brother did. He and his boyfriend had created a treehouse and lived in it part-time. Though, they also had a house on the ground and liv
ed there just as often with their adopted elf child, Kate.

  Paige followed her sense of smell.

  She might state that the pack belonged mostly to Dexx. He certainly was the one who invested most of the time into their training and upkeep and welfare. But she was their alpha’s mate and an alpha in her own right.

  So, she felt each member in a way that was hard to explain. It was as if each one of them had somehow become a part of her. She could tell when they were in a bad mood or a good one. And sometimes, their emotions would affect her own. She could tell when they were in danger or when they needed assistance. And more than once, she had risen to the occasion and swooped in to save the day.

  She found Margo with relative ease. Ripley wasn’t far away either.

  Paige shifted as soon as she saw the two of them and walked up as a human. “Dexx and I have to leave to check out a situation.”

  Margo rose to her feet with incredible grace. She was a fierce warrior who preferred going barefoot and wore many scars over her body. “Where do you need us?”

  Ripley got to her feet with a little less grace and a lot more attitude. Her long dark hair cascaded over her shoulders as she pushed it back revealing a T-shirt with a slogan that would probably upset people if anyone chose to actually read it. Too often, however, they were mesmerized by her voluptuous boobs. “Let me guess. Babysitting duty.”

  Paige rather enjoyed the fact that Ripley was so perceptive. She also had another gift Paige needed to utilize. “Do you see anything?”

  Ripley paused for a moment and then shook her head, her dark eyes slanting with worry. “Is something coming?” Ripley was a death omen, so if she couldn’t see it looming on the horizon, they were safe.

  For the moment. “Potentially.” Paige turned around and prepared to shift and fly back to the man she loved. “Just be on the lookout for anything strange.”

  “What kind of strange?” Margo asked, her tone on edge. She had protected the Whiskey lands from a wide variety of infiltrators.