by R. J. Blain
Desmond got to his feet and battled Amber for custody of my blanket. “Richard, make sure they know Amber wants hotpot. Amber, let go. You can take his blanket with you, but you need to get up and get dressed.”
It took several minutes of arguing, cajoling, and coaxing the woman to get off my rocking chair, but she staggered in the general direction of my bedroom with Nicolina trailing behind her. Five minutes later, Amber came out dressed in my pajamas, yawning every other breath. Richard, armed with the leftover rice and curry, intercepted the woman, guided her to my rocking chair, and made sure she ate while keeping a close eye on her.
To my amusement, she growled and slapped Richard’s hands when he tried to take the empty plate, refusing to let it go until she’d licked it clean.
“We’ll bring your wolf with us,” Desmond announced, and he picked up Petra’s leash from where it’d gotten tossed near the door. “Petra, heel.”
My wolf spent a long moment glaring at Desmond before she heaved a sigh, got up from her cozy spot near the fireplace, and sat at his side. He clipped the leash to her collar and praised her, giving her a brief scratch behind her ears.
“I’m not sure we should be treating a wild animal like a regular dog,” I admitted. “I mean, I’m being hypocritical because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, but I don’t know if we should all start doing it?”
Desmond shrugged. “She’s been with humans so long now she doesn’t really know how to be a wolf anymore. I wouldn’t trust her with Normals, but among Fenerec? I think she’ll be fine. She’ll figure out her place in the pack. There’s no reason she can’t hunt with us, too. If she works well with us, we can work with other wolf rescues, the ones that can’t be released directly into the wild. Or at least we can release them into our territory and make sure they’re fed and don’t wander.”
“Are you going to walk out under your own steam or am I carrying you?” Richard asked.
His question earned a growl from Amber, who lurched to her feet and headed for my door without any shoes on. I waited until she was about to step out onto my porch before hooking an arm under her knees, unbalancing her, and picking her up. “I don’t feel like picking gravel and rock shards out of your feet. Put some shoes on or be carried.”
Inside my cabin, Nicolina giggled, and she came out carrying Amber’s shoes, which she crammed onto the woman’s feet. “Just put her in your truck and call it a kidnapping. Amber would love to be kidnapped if you’re the one doing the kidnapping. Just promise her brownies once you’ve taken her to a secondary location.”
Amber sighed, lifting one of her feet to regard her shoe, which hadn’t been put on her foot properly. “It shames me to admit the promise of brownies gives me pause.”
“An entire batch, just for you,” I promised.
“But it’s not a kidnapping if I go with you willingly, and with an entire batch of brownies on the line, I’m a willing participant. Now I can’t mock Nicolina anymore over being seduced with cookies.” Amber shrugged and wiggled in an attempt to make herself more comfortable, and she still glared at her shoe. When Nicolina pretended not to notice, Amber relinquished her hold on my blanket, setting it in her lap before snapping her fingers. “I look like I snapped an ankle with my shoe like that. If you’re going to make me wear my shoes, at least put them on right.”
“He won’t set you down while you might snap an ankle because your shoe is like that. It’s part of my master plan.”
Amber raised a brow. “You have a plan?”
“How rude. I have a plan.” Nicolina grabbed Amber’s shoe, pulled it off her foot, and picked her way across the gravel in the direction of the vehicles parked behind my truck. “And now my plan involves you not having a shoe, so you’re just going to have to cope with being a damsel. I have the power now.”
“You have my shoe. That is not power. And I’m not a damsel!”
“She who has the shoes doesn’t need to be carried. She without shoes is a damsel.”
“Damsels get brownies,” I said, adjusting my hold on Amber and heading for my truck. “If she doesn’t give your shoe back, I’ll give you two batches of different types of brownies. Open the door so I don’t drop you.”
She did, and once certain I wouldn’t bang her into the door, I eased her inside, making sure my blanket didn’t fall to the ground.
Amber nodded. “I can accept this if I’m getting brownies. It’s not being a damsel. I’m not distressed. I’m being paid in brownies.”
“There you go. That’s looking on the bright side. Nicolina might have your shoe, but you get her brownies.”
“You bastard!” Nicolina flung Amber’s shoe in my direction, and I caught it, chuckled, and put it on the woman’s foot properly. “You weren’t supposed to catch it.”
I closed Amber’s door, shook my head at Nicolina’s antics, and turned to her father. “Do you want to take Petra with you? I don’t want to crowd Amber’s feet.”
“Yeah, I’ll take her. We’ll need to stop when we get reception. You don’t have a cell, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t have any tech right now.”
“We’re fixing that. Richard? Ask your friends to bring Declan back into the modern world.”
Richard poked his head out of my cabin. “Anything else while you’re demanding miracles? Declan, what do you want us to do about your dishes?”
“Leave them. I’ll deal with them after we’re back. You’ll wreck your suits if you try to do dishes right now.”
“We’ll deal with them, you mean. There’s no way you’re going to be slaving away cleaning the damned dishes.” Richard disappeared into the cabin, and a few moments later, everyone filed out.
It amazed me so many could fit in the space, which I’d viewed as somewhat cramped with one man and a wolf. Then again, I’d spent most of my life alone.
One extra pushed the limits of my comfort, yet I struggled with my awareness that I found the presence of so many to be comforting.
One day, my life might make sense. I got behind the wheel of my truck, shoved the key in the ignition, sent a prayer to the truck gods, and started the engine. While it protested, it started without much of a fuss.
“Are you emotionally attached to this truck?” Amber asked. “I’ve determined, over the course of my life, that men get unreasonably attached to their trucks.”
“Not really. Why?”
“I want to crush it with a tank.”
“Only if we take turns driving the tank,” I countered.
“I will pay the import fees on this piece of shit for those terms. Deal.”
“But Amber, why not just take a Russian tank on a joy ride? We can see which is tougher, their tank or my truck.”
“That’s the hottest thing anyone has said to me since I was last bribed with your brownies,” she announced. “While that was only a few minutes ago, it was worth stating.”
I laughed. “You like my brownies that much?”
“Had you tacked on that you make the world’s best brownies with your original marriage proposal, I would have hesitated long enough to demand a taste test, after which I would have committed myself to holy matrimony. I would have been laughed at until the end of my days. That’s what happened to Nicolina. Richard made her cookies, and that was that.”
“Cookies aside, aren’t they just a good match?”
“They really are, but we will forever rib her over having been seduced with his cookie-making ways.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that. She gets cookies.”
“That she does. Did they brief you on what we’re supposed to be doing with the Russians?”
“No. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m just driving the truck and following them, since they’re blocking me in.” I leaned over to get a better view at the chaos behind me in my side mirror. “And they’re fighting over who is going in which vehicle. How are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly good. I don’t feel like I have to swal
low every five seconds to keep from throwing up now. It’s going to take getting used to having a wolf in my head, though. But she’s pretty sleepy right now.”
“She’s been working hard to help you heal. I’m confident you can handle having her around. They’re worried she might be too gentle for your current lifestyle, though.” I frowned. “I’m not sure if I was supposed to say that.”
“It’s fine. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve seen this time and time again. The wolf isn’t necessarily what the new Fenerec wants, but at the end of the road, the wolf is what the new Fenerec needed. We’ll figure it out—and there’s something to be said for being able to walk away at long last. To me, she is hope.”
“They mentioned rescue ops.”
“Rescue ops are the best. They’re the kind of job I walk away from knowing I’ve done some actual good. I wouldn’t mind just doing those.”
“Or training?”
“Or training. In that, we’re the same. I value the skills more than having to use the skills, but I will use them because I must.” Amber glanced at the side mirror. “They really are waging a little war over who is going in which vehicle, aren’t they?”
Nicolina led the general charge, and I could make a guess as to what had riled the woman up. “I bet Nicolina is upset that pretty gown has no place in my truck, and you’re in my truck, so she wants to ride in my truck.”
“That woman will drive me insane one of these days.”
“She loves you.”
“That she does, but I can handle a single ride in a truck without her supervision.”
I chuckled at the thought of Nicolina trying to protect Amber from me of all people. “Don’t you know the big bad wolf might get you, Amber?”
“But will I get more brownies?”
“Brownies are a guarantee, but I will charge one square per batch, as I like my brownies, too.”
“That seems fair. I’m high maintenance, by the way. I need to go to the range often. If I don’t go to the range, my guns get lonely, and I develop this urge to remind people I’m a good shot by drawing pictures in the walls using rubber rounds. They’re more satisfying than blanks, and the rubber rounds can be lethal for humans, but won’t take out even a young Fenerec. They’re excellent for discipline. They hurt enough the Fenerec feel it, but not so hard it does lasting harm.”
“But what if you hit them in the eye?”
“They take longer to heal, but unlike Normals, a Fenerec can heal even their eyes.”
“That’s pretty impressive.”
“It really is. But becoming a Fenerec comes with a price, too.”
“Well, when you have someone else living in your head with you, you can’t really be quite as selfish as you might like. The wolf matters, too.” I still wondered how others handled their wolves. I enjoyed the general sense of harmony I shared with my wolf. “But I’ve figured out I’m more of an exception, aren’t I? That it’s not very likely I’ll be like that wolf killing people here.”
“That’s right. That’s part of what we’ll be negotiating with the Russians here. They have a serious problem, and they need to fix it before the entire supernatural community is exposed. Richard said it best on the way here. We’re standing on the edge of midnight, and when the clock ticks over, everything will change. All because of a single wild wolf—or so the locals claim. Frankly, I don’t know if a wild wolf is the real problem here.”
“Isn’t the solution to just take care of the wild wolf if the wild wolf is the problem?”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy. I think there are too many people here who know—and Richard’s been warned by China that the knowledge has also spread to Heihe, but the Chinese know better than to talk about it. But the Chinese are worried it’s a matter of time before the violence here spreads across the river, and if it does become commonplace in China, the world will know soon enough.”
“This is one big mess, isn’t it?”
“It really is. Don’t look so worried, Declan. It’ll be all right, no matter what happens. I don’t think it’s a bad thing we’ve come to this. We would be discovered eventually, and because we’re being forced to stand at the edge of midnight, we have a chance to reveal the truth on our terms, rather than someone else’s. We’ve been given a chance to prepare, and that’s a good thing.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Me, too.”
Chapter Ten
Richard led the general charge, driving an SUV over the rough road connecting my cabin to Blagoveshchensk. Twenty minutes outside of town, we pulled over, and Richard stepped out of his vehicle to place a call. Everyone else took that as their cue to get out and stretch their legs.
Amber cracked open an eye and yawned, and to my relief, she didn’t look like she was ready to throw out her guts again.
From what the others had said, I’d expected her to be sick for longer, but I figured Amber’s new wolf didn’t have that much to work with, so perhaps the transition was easier for the emaciated woman. “Enlighten me. Why did he get out if everyone else followed him? Wasn’t the purpose of getting out to have privacy?”
“According to him, the reception is better outside of the SUV. If he’s not even in the vehicle, there is no way for him to crash the vehicle while on the phone. Nicolina is a crash magnet, so he now takes every precaution under the sun to keep from becoming just like her.”
“She’s a crash magnet?”
“It’s hilarious. What can go wrong will go wrong with her. Accidents just happen around her. Sometimes, she’s the driver, though when she has an accident and she’s the driver, it’s usually because she’s in a high-stress, bad situation. Have her father tell you about the van she crashed sometime. Richard still gets upset, as some stupid, ignorant puppies kidnapped her, thinking she was her twin. In a way, because of that incident, Richard and Nicolina ultimately mated, but he doesn’t like remembering it, so ask her father. Her father’s just ridiculously proud of his daughter and will tell you all about her youthful exploits—especially now that he knows she’d been doing half of them to court Richard. Sometimes, the accidents are intentional. Sanders had a truck almost as bad as yours, and she charged a baseball bat with electricity and threw it at Richard, missing him and hitting the truck. She fried every component in the truck, thus forcing Sanders to get a new truck. She then tricked him and paid the truck off in full and invested the money he’d spent on the truck.”
“Friendship with Nicolina seems to be rather perilous.”
“But fun. Sanders loves his new truck. I expect Dante will take over being her witch, especially since he’s one of the few witches who can reliably handle Richard. Richard has some serious stability problems, although his submissive nature means he can run wild for a while and recover. He’d been forced into an Alpha role to protect his little brother when he was fairly young. It put him in a unique position, but he’s naturally submissive, and he’s happiest when he doesn’t have to pretend he’s an Alpha. The packs with Omegas have started making a point of inviting Richard for visits because it helps stabilize him. Richard is submissive enough he’s usually bottom rung, and an Omega is able to cater to those tendencies.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Omegas tend to be what everyone around them needs at any given point in time. So, when Sanders needs his ass kicked, his Omega mate kicks his ass. When Sanders needs someone who is purely submissive, she can be that, too. Omegas have a knack for reading the room, so to speak. You probably have that, because in the military, you were the glue that would keep teams working together. Alphas do that as well, but they do so in a different fashion.” Amber stretched. “I really thought the nausea would last longer.”
“You were excessively ill last night, and what you threw up was not at all pleasant or normal. Maybe your wolf wanted to get it over as quickly as possible? If she can do that?”
“We don’t know. It’s usually three days of misery, sometimes a little longer
. But my health has been so bad.”
“I’ve never experienced it, so I’m not sure. I will hope it’s over, or maybe your wolf understands you need to be able to function somewhat during the day?”
“I could live with really bad nights and tolerable days through the sickness period. We’ve had new Fenerec in Yellowknife who had really bad runs. But sometimes somebody gets off lightly. Maybe I just got lucky.”
“You could use a little luck. What do you think Richard’s talking to his Chinese contacts about?”
“He’ll try to get a representative from Heihe to come and join the party, possibly with a few other negotiators. The wild wolf situation will warrant it, and Moscow will back it. Moscow and Beijing share a lot of similarities in terms of how they handle the supernatural. While their Normal governments clash often enough, they will join forces on things like this. Richard and Desmond have strong relationships with Moscow and Beijing right now, too. But Richard? He has pretty strong relationships with just about everybody.”
“Is that because he’s submissive?”
“It is. As long as Richard keeps his negotiations on the right side of the line, his general nature makes people more likely to cooperate with him. Richard’s done a lot of general background work preventing conflicts between governments, too. He has to be exceptionally careful with his businesses because of it. He’s ethical, so he won’t invest in projects he found out about through his government connections; he does not want an insider trading accusation pointed his way. Richard ultimately works the hotel circuits because that’s a safe investment for him. He’s good at it, too. He loves the challenge of having the best hotels. He does it all, from luxury hotels to cheaper places. The problem he has? He can’t seem to figure out he doesn’t have to make every room a luxury room. But he wants to do chain hotels with reasonable rates. So, he bought out companies that make furniture and bathrooms, and he operates them to build his hotels, and he sells extra stock to help fund his hotel projects, so he opens luxury hotels at a fraction of the price. He’s pretty upset his tub business is becoming so popular he has more demand than he can supply.”
