She sat up in bed and realized she had not a trace of a hangover. Smiling, she threw back the covers, shrugged into one of Phelan’s oversized t-shirts, and carefully made her way down the loft ladder. Phelan was in the kitchen making breakfast, wearing an apron and a smile, but nothing else. She padded up to him and drew him down for a closed-mouth kiss, not wanting to expose him to her morning dragon breath. But when she tried to pull away, he held her close.
“You know that’s not a proper wolf greeting,” he drawled, his lips inches from her mouth.
She shrank away from him, covering her mouth. “Morning breath.”
He wouldn’t let go. His turquoise eyes sparkled with humor. He lowered his head and captured her lips, his tongue invading her mouth to stroke inside, probing the wet recesses of her mouth. He picked her up, triggering her legs to wrap around his waist as if it were a reflex. His tongue slid out again and he pressed their foreheads together.
“What am I feeling?” he asked her, his breath coming in shallow pants. His minty breath fanned her face, and it took a moment for her to understand he was asking her a question.
How did he feel?
Like she— Lola—was a warm breeze whirling around him, stroking his skin, stroking his heart, intoxicating him and bringing clarity at the same time. A sense of contentment and excitement, all rolled into one. He felt happy and safe, and she blinked when she realized this was how he was experiencing this moment with her, because of her.
“I’m not sure how to describe it.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “I think it’s how love feels with you. Warm. Safe.”
He chuckled a little to himself. “That’s exactly how it feels.” He rubbed their foreheads together. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun being mated to you.”
He leaned back to look at her face and set her on her feet again.
“Go get ready for the day. I’ll finish this up. We’ll eat, then figure out what we’re doing today.”
After she was cleaned up and dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of her newly made leggings, these covered in wiener dogs against a bubblegum pink background, Lola padded barefoot into the kitchen and found Phelan putting the finishing touches on breakfast. She gave him a smile and noted he still hadn’t dressed yet. She took the mug of coffee he offered her.
“Mmmmm...this is really good,” she said, sitting at the table, which had already been set with plates, small glasses of orange juice, and cloth napkins. Both plates had a small stack of pancakes and two strips of bacon.
"Well, this is fancy," she said, watching as Phelan approached the table with a skillet of scrambled eggs. He served her, then himself, and returned the skillet to the stove.
"Nothing but the best for my mate,” he told her as he sat and draped a napkin over his lap. He looked kind of ridiculous, sitting there naked wearing only an apron and a napkin. They ate in companionable silence. When she finished, she sat back in her chair and watched him.
"How exactly does all this nudity work?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I mean, not that I mind looking at your naked body, but is there any limit on such things? I worked in a brothel so I've seen plenty of naked bodies, but…"
He chuckled. "Baby, this is probably the first time I've heard anyone complain about our lack of clothing."
“Seriously?” She couldn’t believe the human residents of Perdition were okay with naked people randomly walking around town.
"You may decide to start walking around naked as well," he said, collecting the breakfast dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. The man pulled his weight around the house, and she liked that.
She rolled her eyes at him. "I really don't think that's a possibility."
"Actually, I had wanted to take a run this morning, so I didn't bother getting dressed." He rejoined her at the breakfast table and took her hands in his. "Later on, if you don’t mind, we can go into town and meet my parents for coffee at Shifting Grounds. Then come back here to kill some time before the dance."
He leered at her, and she blushed.
She feigned an innocent look. “Oh really? And what do you suppose we could do to kill some time?"
"Oh… I don't know. I suppose we can chop wood or something,” he said, shrugging.
"‘Chopping wood?’ Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
"Exactly," he smiled.
When Lola and Phelan walked through the door to Shifting Grounds, his parents were already there. His father stood as they approached and greeted Lola with a kiss on the cheek. Phelan ordered coffees for Lola and himself, and they sat down to chat.
"So, Lola, Mr. Richards only told us that Phelan was mated and engaged,” Bridget started. Lola sensed a question coming and braced herself. Both Phelan and Johan gave Bridget pointed stares. “He never told us when or where you met."
The woman was obviously fishing, and Lola wasn't sure how to answer her. She looked at Phelan for guidance.
“Mom, it's really simple,” Phelan explained. Lola leaned in to hear the story, curious about what Phelan would say. “Lola was headed home late one night after work, and she was mugged. I heard her screaming for help. I stepped in to save her.” He ended the highly edited tale with a self-satisfied smile, his eyes on Lola.
His mother cooed in delight, eyes shining. “Oh, that’s so romantic! She was a damsel in distress, and you saved her!”
Something about the retelling made Lola bristle. It wasn’t as if she was completely helpless, and in fact, she had been defending herself quite well. Her fingers gripped the sides of her coffee cup until her knuckles went white. It seemed that Phelan liked to play the hero at times, to the point that he forgot he didn’t single-handedly save the day. If they were going to have a successful partnership, then he needed to know how she felt about his attitude.
“Don’t forget the part about me stabbing you,” she added cheerfully.
Bridget frowned in confusion while Johan raised his eyebrows with amused interest. Phelan’s shoulders slumped and he affected an adorable man-pout.
The comment lay there like a lone slice of pizza. A silence followed for several awkward moments before Johan spoke up.
“Yes, son, tell us that part of the story,” he said, eagerly looking from Phelan to Lola.
Phelan looked at her blankly, so she decided to tell the tale.
“I usually work a shift that ends at midnight,” Lola continued with her version of events. “I was coming out of a Glide station when someone jumped me and I was mugged. Luckily, I was armed, and defended myself.”
She took another sip of her coffee.
Johan appeared amused by this twist, his dark eyes shining with mirth. “I take it you had a knife on you? How did you stab our boy?”
“It was an accident,” Phelan stepped into the re-telling.
“I didn’t know him from Adam,” Lola said in a glib tone. “For all I knew, he could have been another assailant. And he had shifted to wolf when he heard me screaming. By the time he got to me, I had stabbed the... guy a few times. Phelan shifted back to human, and was just… standing there. You know... naked.”
Her eyes widened as if reliving some horror.
“I mean, he did identify himself as an enforcer, but until he showed me his ID, I didn’t know if he was there to save me, or…” she let her voice trail off, and gave her beloved a smug smile.
“From the moment I first saw her, I knew we were fated.” Phelan gave Lola an indulgent smile.
“I still think it was so romantic,” Bridget enthused.
“Really, Mom?” Phelan didn’t seem to agree with his mother’s assessment.
“You know, son, not everyone hits it off right from the beginning,” Bridget nodded and picked up her cup of coffee, seeming to find the contents fascinating.
“Do tell?” Phelan seemed eager to get off the subject of how he and Lola had met.
“Your mother and I didn’t hit it off right away,” said Johan, eyeing Bridget.
“What do you mean?” Lola
focused intently on the older man.
“Bridget and I were both new to town when we met. Both of us were immigrants, and I didn’t have a pot to piss in.” Johan’s voice was amused.
Bridget blushed.
Glancing at Phelan, then Lola, Johan continued, “She was living with her relatives, and I was living with Bubba’s parents. Bubba’s father and I were close cousins, but in truth, we were more like brothers.”
Lola thought about seeing Bubba and Phelan together. They looked enough alike to be brothers, as well. The Cermak genes were clearly potent.
A shadow crossed Johan’s face, and Lola recalled Phelan mentioning that Bubba’s parents were killed in a car crash when he was young.
“Anyway, this one here,” he nodded his head in Bridget’s direction. “She wouldn’t talk to me. I worked for Bubba’s father in his general store. She would come in every once in a while. She worked at the Last Chance Diner, waiting tables. I did everything I could to get her attention, but the woman gave me no love.”
“What did you do?” Lola wanted to know. She was fascinated and couldn’t wait to hear more of the story.
Bridget was blushing like mad at that point, and had also gone absolutely quiet.
“I resorted to the time-honored traditions of the old country,” said Johan proudly.
Lola sensed Phelan’s confusion, and watched him carefully. If she wasn’t mistaken, he had never heard this story before.
“What did you do, dad?” said Phelan, confirming Lola’s suspicions.
“It’s called mating by capture.” Johan reached for Bridget’s hand across the table.
Phelan’s eyes went as wide as saucers. Lola noticed the reaction and couldn’t quite place the odd emotion Phelan was throwing off. It felt like... guilt?
Lola blinked in confusion from Phelan’s emotion, but Johan must have thought it was aimed at him.
Johan went on. “In the old country, you just took the woman you wanted. So, I grabbed her one day, took her to the hunting cabin, and kept her there for a while.”
Phelan spoke in a loud bark. “Dad, I don’t think Lola is interested in this story.”
Lola glared at Phelan, perplexed by his reaction. “What’s your damage?” she demanded. “I want to hear the story.”
“Please go on,” she said to Johan, casting Phelan a withering look.
The long and the short of it was that this all took place days before a freak snowstorm hit Perdition, and they were snowed in the cabin for several weeks. Bridget, a rare non-shifting wolf, couldn’t just pick up and leave with any expectation of getting to town before freezing to death.
“I really wanted him to go for help,” Bridget said. “But Johan refused to leave me alone in the cabin.”
“There was no upside to me going back to town,” he said, giving his wife a wistful smile. “I had her just where I wanted her. To me, that snowstorm was fate.”
“By the time we were able to go to town, I didn’t exactly want to leave,” Bridget admitted, this time blushing to the tips of her ears. She trained loving turquoise eyes on her husband.
“Well,” said Lola, “I wouldn’t want to get married that way, but it all seems to have worked out well for you.”
“Indeed,” said Phelan, scowling. He looked far more annoyed and distracted than Lola felt the circumstances warranted. And guilty, although she couldn’t imagine why.
The conversation moved on from there, and they talked about Bridget and Johan’s plans while they were stateside. The two were taking the Glide to Dallas that evening and would spend some time with Bubba’s sister who lived in Dallas with her two daughters. Since they were retired, they could play things by ear and didn’t need to have firm plans. They made tentative plans to spend the holidays in either Perdition or Dallas, depending on whichever location was the most convenient.
Despite the rocky start to their relationship, Lola liked Phelan’s parents. Johan was laid-back and easy to be around. Bridget was fine company, when she wasn’t trying to get Lola pregnant. They said their good-byes on the street, hugging with the warmth and ease of family.
As they turned away from his parents, Lola could feel Phelan’s emotional relief. The two of them walked along the street, going nowhere in particular. Autumn came to Texas only reluctantly, and while the nights were cool, the days were mostly warm. That afternoon, the sun shone brightly and the cloudless blue sky stretched across the wide horizon.
She felt unaccountably happy, relaxed, and it was easy to hold hands with Phelan and swing their linked hands between them. She was content as she hadn’t since she was a small child running the streets of the French Quarter with her pack of street urchins, stealing the arcade tokens that allowed her to hone her skee ball skills. Those skills eventually let her beat the crap out of this man she loved and earn cheap stuffed animals.
“What?” asked Phelan, looking bemused.
“Hmm? Oh nothing.”
Chapter 42
Everything was finally beginning to fall into place, Helen thought with satisfaction. As she gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised the walls of the corner office, she thought about how close she now was to achieving her dream.
Dolores Black would soon be flushed out of Perdition, and Helen would be able to acquire the enterprising little concubine. Earlier that morning, Helen had deployed another jar of dragonfly drones from her bathroom window. The drones would join the others that now hovered outside of the shifter town to surveil and track Dolores the moment she stepped outside of the treaty defined area that Pantheon was forbidden to cross. The changeling was on standby outside of Perdition, waiting for Helen's signal to act.
Chief Dennis proved to be a valuable asset for this operation. His obvious disdain for Phelan Cermak was to be a powerful motivator, even more so than the greenbacks Helen had promised the chief. Helen knew only the basics of pack life and the rules by which shifters governed themselves. However, one fact she was certain of was that as a result of his actions, Chief Dennis could be charged with treason against the pack and banished. According to her research, Chief Dennis had a grudge against the Cermaks that went back at least fifteen years.
When she delivered Dolores to the off-planet buyers, Helen’s agreement would be complete. Once she received payment, she planned to take the results of her pilot project to Vulcan. Her father may not be the most paternal, but he would surely be interested in her proposal to expand the program. Then Father would see how valuable Helen could be, to him and to Pantheon. She would at last have his love, the way he had once loved her mother.
Helen’s heart raced with excitement. She took a deep breath and warned herself not to get carried away, not to let her emotions get the better of her. Still, excitement bubbled as an overfull pot foams and pushes against its lid. She rose from her desk, paced and paused to look out at the gathering dusk and twinkling lights of the city.
She decided to distract herself with herself with some of the mundane matters that only she, senior vice president of human resources of Pantheon, could attend to. One of the gods — she had no idea which one yet — was ready to take a concubine. She had a woman to select for this purpose. Contracts to prepare. Meetings to schedule with the enforcer, social worker and the candidate. Before she got started, she’d need something to calm her nerves.
Helen left her office and took the elevator to the ground floor of the Pantheon building. The elevator doors opened with a quiet hiss and she strode across the lobby’s marble expanse to the small café. The establishment was empty with the exception of a solitary person huddled in the corner of the café. She craned her neck to see whether she could see the person’s face, but he or she wore a hoodie pulled low on the forehead.
Helen stepped to the counter and ordered chamomile tea with lemon and honey. The barista, a sleek and efficient service robot that kept the café up and running after hours, saw to her order with a metallic, “Thank you for your business, Ms. Castellano.”
Hel
en returned to her office, tea in hand, and settled in her office chair, gazing out the window, pondering the future.
There was nothing to do but let her plan unfold. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t nudge things along. With that in mind, Helen engaged her secure Omni.
It was time to give Dennis a bit more motivation.
Chapter 43
Phelan observed Lola as she smoothed her hand over the refashioned dress she had seen in the window of the Foundlings Thrift Store. After ripping it apart at the seams, she’d made it into a sexy strapless number that showed off inches of smooth mahogany skin, as well as the graceful hunter’s bow of her collarbone.
He had a hard time keeping his eyes off her. It didn’t help that she’d pulled her hair up off her neck into a tall poof that added inches to her height. Jasmine had called it a “beehive.” As she sat at the table next to Phelan and observed the other occupants of the room, he thought her outfit was the sexiest at the alumni homecoming party they were attending.
The theme of that year’s Perdition High School homecoming dance was “Bright Lights, Big City.” The students had decorated the school gymnasium with enormous cutouts of city buildings, statues and bridges, and twinkling fairy lights meant to simulate city lights.
As always, the alumni held a low-key get together, complete with adult beverages, across town in the function room of St. Ailbe’s Parish. It wasn’t a dance, per se, although there was a karaoke machine for entertainment. Lola glanced at Phelan, then at AJ and Jasmine, who were sharing their table. They all seemed to be enjoying the drunken performances on the small stage.
Phelan draped his arm across the back of Lola’s chair, the other one on her thigh. The casually possessive gestures probably weren’t needed, since he had claimed her in the back room of the diner the day before. He was sure by now the whole town knew about it. But he liked touching her. His body seemed to need the physical contact with hers. He had a sinking feeling the warm fuzzy emotions he and Lola shared right now would fade when he finally came clean about why he brought her to Perdition.
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