by Quinn Loftis
Sara was sitting on the couch reading a book when he entered and he told her they were invited to Lilly’s for pizza and games.
“Oh, that sounds great,” Sara said excitedly. “I'll make some brownies to take. Do you like brownies?”
“Yes, I do actually. I’m going to excuse myself and go call my parents to say hello, if that's okay,” Fane told her.
“Of course that’s fine. You don’t have to ask us, you are practically a grown man. As long as you aren’t selling drugs or going to all night raves and orgies, you do what you want. We trust you until you give us reason not to,” Sara said casually.
“Mulţumesc,” was all he said in response and then he turned to go upstairs to call his father and tell him what he had discovered today. He was also going to have to explain how he lost his temper and revealed his title, and gave the Grey his credit card with his Alpha’s name on it. Honestly, he’d been in Coldspring one day and he’d found his mate, met another Grey, found out about a pack that wasn’t supposed to even be here, and been threatened. Needless to say, it hadn’t been boring.
He dialed his father’s number for the second time that day. His father answered on the first ring,
“Colega ta este in pericol, (your mate is in danger),” were the first words Fane heard his father say.
Chapter 11
“You did what?” Jacque interrupted as Lilly Pierce was telling her and Sally that she had invited Fane and the Henrys over for pizza.
“Hi, Sally,” Jacque’s mother said, ignoring her outburst, “You’re staying for dinner, right?”
“If that’s okay with you.” Sally answered sweetly.
“The more the merrier. We’re going to play games, too. It’ll be fun! Jen is coming too, isn’t she?” Lilly asked.
“Yes, mother. Now could you please tell me why you are so interested in Fane?” Jacque asked.
“Could you tell me what you have against him? Why do you have such an aversion to getting to know him?” her mom responded.
Jacque just didn’t get it. Maybe her mom thought that because she and Trent had split up, pushing another guy on her would help her move on. Yes, it had been kind of hard on Jacque, they did date for almost two years. But hadn’t her mom noticed that she pretty much had moved on? It’d been like two months since she’d even seen Trent and she barely thought about him. In fact, in the past twenty four hours she hadn’t thought about him at all. She decided to let it slide for now, she knew a losing battle when she saw one.
Jacque looked at Sally and motioned for her to go upstairs, “We’ll be upstairs, mom. Jen probably won’t be here until later. She said she would have to eat with her parents, but hopefully she'll make if for the game portion of the evening,” Jacque said in mock excitement.
“Keep up the attitude, Jacquelyn, and see where it gets you,” Lilly said sternly.
Lilly very rarely got cross with Jacque so that was when she knew it was best to double-time it up the stairs before her big mouth got her working in the bookstore every Friday and Saturday night for her entire senior year.
Once in Jacque’s room, Sally sat cross-legged on the floor looking through Jacque’s CD collection. She picked out Jacque’s favorite Evanescence CD and put it in the stereo. Once the music was playing loud enough to keep prying ears ay bay, she looked at Jacque and said, “So, let’s hear it. What happened when Jen and I left today?”
Jacque thought about the moment that she'd realized the voice she was hearing was Fane. When he had spoken to her in Romanian she had no more doubt that it was indeed his beautiful voice in her mind.
“Well, after you guys left I laid down on my bed to just chill, ya know, catch my bearings. As I was laying there the voice in my head came back. He asked me if I was scared and told me that hadn’t been his intention,” Jacque explained.
“He?” Sally asked. “So it's Fane? The voice is Fane?”
Jacque nodded and added, “I finally confirmed it when he spoke to me in Romanian, and honestly, Sal, if you’re going to hear voices why on earth would you hear one that speaks in Romanian?”
“Well, duh, because you have a secret fantasy about running away with a gorgeous Romanian noble to his beautiful ice castle.” Sally said, a hint of wistfulness in her voice.
“Oh, of course. I completely overlooked that very plausible answer,” Jacque said, rolling her eyes.
“So how long did you guys ‘talk’?” Sally asked and when she said “talk” she put her hands up, making the sign for quotations.
“After he spoke to me in Romanian I asked if it was Fane, ya know, just for clarification purposes.”
“Definitely good to be clear on these matters,” Sally interrupted.
“Well, when he confirmed it I just kind of shut down. I didn’t want to ‘talk’ to him. I needed to do something, so I got up and picked up my room and dusted the living room,” Jacque explained.
“So all your mom needs to do to get you to clean is find some Romanian foreign exchange student to go all mystic mind-reading on your butt. Huh, who knew?” Sally said in amusement.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Then I decided to get some sun. So I lay out in the backyard. I don’t know how long I was out there before I heard his voice again. This time he was not mad, but sort of frustrated or something.” Jacque said, remembering how his voice had sounded in her mind.
“He had the nerve to point out how skimpy my bikini was by asking me if I knew they only sold me one quarter of my bathing suit!” Jacque told Sally in disbelief.
“Oh, Jen is going to love this – a Romanian hottie with a sense of humor. Brilliant and hot to boot!” Sally said, grinning to herself. Then she paused a minute in thought.
“Wait, so he was looking out his window at you?” she asked.
“Yep, so you know what I did?” Jacque asked.
“Please tell me you didn’t flip him off or moon him, or some other terribly twisted suggestion that Jen would have offered,” Sally said worriedly.
“No. Although, those all sound like great ideas. I simply stood up gave him a good ol', southern curtsey and marched myself to the house. After I graciously explained that I would have preferred the bathing suit to not cover so much,” Jacque said, laughing.
Sally rolled her eyes at her. “Remind me never to be in a lion's den now that I know you like to taunt them.”
“Oh come now, my dear Watson. Are you to tell me you are afraid of lions and tigers and bears,” Jacque started.
“Oh my,” Sally finished, putting her hands on either side of her face, pretending to look fretful.
Both girls laughed at the silly antics that seemed to keep them sane. Jacque pulled her hair up into a ponytail, not thinking about the shirt she was wearing, and as she turned to grab a hair band she heard Sally gasp. She looked at her friend and realized her eyes were on her neck and back. Jacque had forgotten that she had purposefully worn a shirt with a low back so she could show Jen and Sally the markings.
“Oh, did I forget to mention those?” she said nonchalantly.
“What the hell, Jac! When did you get that?” Sally asked in disbelief.
“Well, let's see. If I remember correctly, after ya’ll left I downed a bottle of Crown, ran to the nearest tattoo parlor, and had some dude with piercings in every visible body part named Snake give me this awesome ink. I just totally forgot to mention it,” Jacque said sarcastically and then added, suddenly sounding tired, “I don’t know where it came from. When I came up to take a shower after lying out in the hot sun it was just there. I kind of had a mini melt down. I screamed at Fane, but he never answered me, which tells me he is the guilty party involved.”
“So now he’s not only doing his mind voodoo, but body voodoo too,” Sally said, and then giggled as she realized how it sounded.
“You know what Jen would say,” Jacque started just as her bedroom door flew open and Jen walked in.
“Depends on what is called for, my dear. But do tell, what exactly smart-ass comment am I
supposed to be making?” Jen said dramatically.
“Fane has done body voodoo on Jacque,” Sally said in a tattle tale voice.
“Ooooh, was it good?” Jen asked huskily.
“Good freaking grief. She doesn’t mean like, physical voodoo, pervert.”
Jacque turned around to show her the markings on her back.
“I guess he decided to forgo the whole ‘hey, will you wear my class ring’ and straight into ‘let’s get body art together’,” Jen said, studying the markings.
“What, you think maybe he has some…” Jacque trailed off. Then she remembered when they were at the Henrys' she had noticed a tattoo that ran up the side of Fane’s neck. She had totally forgotten it because it just sort of went with the whole biker thing he had going on.
“Stink ya’ll. He did have a tattoo on his neck. I saw it when we were at the Henrys', but that doesn’t mean it matches this one,” Jacque told them, looking for reassurance.
“No, it most definitely does not mean they match,” Sally agreed, albeit not very convincingly.
Just then Jacque turned her head and cocked it to the side at Jen. “What are you doing here? I thought you said nine at the earliest.” Jacque asked her.
“Well, I just happened to mention that you were a little depressed about the whole Trent thing and really needed some girl support and yada yada yada. My mom totally swallowed it whole,” Jen confessed.
“That’s just great, Jen. Now your mom thinks I’m all torn up like a kicked pup about Trent and I’m not! I’m totally over him….aren’t I?” Jacque asked.
She started thinking back over the two years she and Trent had dated. Even though they had only been sophomores and juniors in high school, their relationship had been pretty intense. Then out of nowhere Trent had come over and told her they needed a “break.” Jacque politely told him not to treat her like an idiot and just call it what it was – it was over. It literally was out of nowhere. The day before they'd been hanging out on the couch and he had actually told her he thought he might be in love with her. When he left her house he told her he would call her that night and he never did. The next time she heard from him, he came over to call it off. Jacque hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
Thinking about him was really making her start to miss him. He really was a great guy and they had had a lot of fun together. He was tall, muscular from lifting weights, had messy wavy hair that he wore just long enough to be wild, and had unusual grey eyes. He liked to goof off, but he was always a gentleman and could be pretty intense sometimes. They dated for quite awhile before their relationship got physical and when she told him that sex wasn’t on the agenda he was completely okay with it.
“I don’t like where your thoughts are at the moment, Luna,” Jacque suddenly heard.
She had forgotten that Fane told her – when her emotions were strong he felt them even if she wasn’t broadcasting them to him.
“Well then, I guess you should knock before entering,” Jacque told him harshly.
“Who is this Trent? What does he mean to you? When and why was he kissing you?” Fane asked in quick succession.
“Ok, you listen up and you listen good, you little Romanian, voodoo-casting, mind reading, nosy -” Jacque stumbled for a minute, looking for a word and when she didn’t find one she lamely finished with, “person. I am NOT your loona or whatever you call me. You have no right knowing my business and I don’t owe you an explanation. So, so just…grrrrr!” She was so frustrated because she wanted to tell him to take a hike but a huge part of her rebelled against it because she wanted him with her. She was absolutely nuts.
Acting like he hadn’t heard a word she said, Fane asked again, “So who did you say Trent was?”
Jacque huffed in exasperation.
“Are you talking to the Romanian hottie?” Jen asked.
Jacque nodded. “He heard me thinking about Trent and wants to know who he is.”
“Why does he care…oooh,” Sally said with a thoughtful look. “He’s got the hots for you.”
“Aww, man. Why does Red always get the hotties?” Jen whined.
“Hold on girls, give me a sec,” Jacque said.
“Oh, by all means. Don’t mind us, the non-voodoo freaks. We’ll just hang out while ya’ll make out mentally,” Jen smarted off, and Sally burst out laughing.
“That’s a good one,” Sally told her as they bumped fists.
Jacque just rolled her eyes at them.
Turning her attention back to Fane, she had a feeling he wasn’t going to drop it so she just decided to tell him.
“Trent is the guy I dated for the past two years. We broke up two months ago.”
Fane was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I’m sorry for your pain because of that, but I will not deny my pleasure in knowing I will not have to convince him it was in his best interest to take his intentions elsewhere.”
Jacque was a little taken aback by his honest comment.
“And why exactly would you do that?”
“Because I intend to court you myself, and that would be most difficult if you had affections for another, don’t you think?” Fane asked her.
Jacque looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was five fifteen. The Henrys and Fane were supposed to be coming over in fifteen minutes.
“So, I guess you are going to be over in a few minutes,” she said more as a statement than a question.
“Yes, I am looking forward to seeing you again. Is that okay with you, Jacquelyn?” Fane asked.
Jacque thought about it for a minute and couldn’t deny the butterflies in her stomach at the anticipation of getting to see him again. She really needed to get some medication, she decided.
She heard Fane laugh and assumed he must be listening since she kept forgetting to try and put the wall up he had explained to her earlier.
“I actually have some questions I need to ask you, so yeah, it’s okay,” Jacque told him honestly.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes then, Meu inimă.” he told her.
Chapter 12
Fane had taken a shower after getting home from his motorcycle ride. He didn’t want to smell like the outdoors when he went to Jacque’s house. He found it amusing that he was so suddenly conscious of himself now that he’d met his mate. He so wanted her approval, as did his wolf.
He actually made an attempt to comb his hair out of his face, but it just fell right back in front of his left eye.
He had chosen a deep red, polo style shirt. It contrasted nicely with the markings on his neck, which at the moment he thought looked pretty cool. He grabbed his phone and wallet and put them in his back pockets and headed downstairs.
Sara and Brian were waiting in the living room. Sara had the brownie pan in her hands and Brian was carrying some games, one of which Fane recognized as Dominoes. This he was familiar with because his family liked to play.
He went over to Sara and took the brownie pan from her, simply saying, “I will take these for you.”
Sara smiled at him in appreciation.
“Ready?” Brian asked them.
Both Sara and Fane nodded yes.
Sara knocked on Lilly and Jacquelyn’s door, and he felt his neck markings sting just a little as he turned and saw a car driving slowly by. Fane let his wolf out just enough to see who was driving abnormally slow past his mate’s house. Fane was on edge. He now knew there were other Greys in the area and his father had informed him that Jacquelyn was in danger. He'd also received an anonymous phone call from a wolf claiming to be Alpha of the Coldspring pack, stating that Jacque had already been claimed by another wolf and that Fane was to leave immediately.
Jacque was the one who answered the door and Fane couldn’t help the smile that came across his face. She was, after all, his fiery miracle. He could have had to wait centuries before he found her and all it had taken was a mere seventeen years. How he was blessed.
“Come in, ya’ll,” she said politely.
Ob
ediently, they all filed into the entry way. She pointed them in the direction of the kitchen and Fane could smell the aroma of the already delivered pizza.
“Hi, you guys,” Lilly greeted them. “I’m so glad you could come over!” Lilly and Sara hugged. Jen and Sally were already filling their plates when Lilly looked at them, “What, ya’ll couldn’t wait on the guests?”
“Hey, we were doing you guys a favor,” Jen said.
“Oh, really,” Lilly said. “And just exactly what favor is that?”
“Ya know, testing out the product, making sure it’s safe. Would hate to unknowingly poison our Romanian guest, although it would make for a great headline,” Jen answered.
“Jen, do you always have to say what you are thinking? Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘Hey self, maybe I should keep my trap shut. Yeah, good idea self’?” Jacquelyn glared at her best friend.
“You’re just cranky because you’ve been thinking about Trent,” Jen stated, snotty-like.
Fane couldn’t help the low rumble in his chest that escaped at the name of Jacquelyn’s all too recent old flame.
Lilly’s head snapped around to look at him. Fane cocked his head to the side as his wolf perked up at her perceptive gaze. Interesting, Fane thought to himself, she knows something.
Jacquelyn caught that last thought.“She knows something about what?”
Fane looked away from Lilly and turned to look at his Luna’s confused face. He was going to have to tell her. If not tonight, then soon, and he was going to have to talk to Lilly. Something told him that she was not unaware of who and what he was.
“Fane, what are you thinking about?” Jacque asked again.
“We will need to talk later, Jacquelyn, and your mom needs to be present as well,” Fane told her.
“There are paper plates there on the counter,” Lilly pointed out. “And cups with ice in them. The drink choices are lined up for you. Dig in!”
Everyone formed a line and began to fill their plates. No one talked for a few minutes as they gathered their food and drinks. Finally they were all seated at the dining room table.
